A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES
Frederick Graves had just left Tess
at the shanty door. He had found it difficult
to explain away his conduct on the evening of the musicale
at Waldstricker’s.
“It were awful,” sobbed
Tess, after Frederick had mollified her anger somewhat.
“I wanted to die! Ye looked like some big
man I didn’t know ’t all.”
“Silly baby,” laughed
the student. “There were so many people
there who know my mother ” He paused
and kissed the upraised, tearful face passionately.
“I didn’t think you’d care.
I supposed of course you’d understand.
I’m awfully sorry you didn’t. You’ll
forgive me, darling, won’t you?”
Tess snuggled nearer him. She
wanted to forget how unhappy she’d been.
“Sure, I don’t care now, such
a awful lot,” she sighed.
Later in the evening, when he came
into the hall of his home in Ithaca, he was greeted
by his young sister, Babe.
“Fred,” she called softly,
“come on up, mother wants you.”
For some minutes after taking off
his hat, he remained in the lower hall considering
just what to say to his mother. Shaking his head
dismally, he mounted the stairs and went reluctantly
to the front room. He hated scenes with his mother.
He hated everything about the house, hated even the
thought of going back to school. He wanted to
take Tess away from the lake make a home
for her to be with her always. How
dear she had grown day by day since he’d married
her! His very being fired at the memory of her
clinging sweetness.
When he opened his mother’s
bedroom door and walked self-consciously forward to
turn up the light, a fretful voice from the bed halted
him.
“Fred, if you’re going
to make the room bright, please bring the screen forward.”
He dropped his hand from the gas jet.
“It doesn’t matter,”
said he, sulkily, and he moved to the foot of the
bed. “Let it stay as it is.... Babe
said you wanted me.”
Mrs. Graves settled her glasses on
the bridge of her nose and looked at him.
“Yes! I did tell her to
send you in. What’s the matter? Anything?”
“No.” The answer was brutal in its
curtness.
“You’ve been with that
Skinner girl again.” The woman sat up in
bed and exclaimed angrily. “I can tell
by the way you act.”
A sudden fury took possession of the student.
“Of course, I haven’t
been to Skinner’s,” he contradicted roughly.
“Didn’t I tell you I wouldn’t go
and see her any more? What do you want now?”
Relieved by his words in spite of
the ugly way in which they were uttered, Mrs. Graves
sank back on the pillows. “Sit down,”
she invited.
He was too nervous and angry willingly
to grant even so small a request just then.
“I can listen as well standing
here,” he answered crossly.
“But I can’t talk as well
when you stand,” insisted Mrs. Graves, peevishly.
“Frederick! What’s happened to you
since your father died? That squatter girl’s
turned your head. I know it. She’s
completely spoiled you.”
Tessibel and all her girlish sweetness
came vividly across the boy’s mind. It
was ridiculous to blame Tess. Ah, if he were as
good as Tess desired him to be, his life would be
the most exemplary.
“Please leave her name out of
it, will you?” he rasped rudely. “Even
if I can’t see her, I won’t hear anything
against her.”
Mrs. Graves sat up in bed, throwing
back wisps of gray hair, that persisted in falling
over her nose.
“Oh, you won’t, eh?”
she shrilled loudly. “Well, now, you listen
to me.... You’ll hear what I please to
say to you, young man. It’s a good thing
you don’t go to Skinner’s any more.
It’s time you were interested in a decent girl.
You’ve got to marry sometime. It’s
just as easy to love a rich girl as a poor one.
Why don’t you propose to Madelene Waldstricker?”
“Madelene’s all right,
I suppose,” the boy answered “but I don’t
want to marry her.”
“You better want to,”
his mother rejoined tartly. “You’ve
got to do just that very thing.”
“You’re crazy, Mother.
I won’t do it. What do you take me for,
anyhow? Get that idea out of your head and keep
it out.”
“If your father were here, you
wouldn’t dare to say such things to me....
I want you to sit down, do you hear?”
Frederick dropped into a chair wearily.
The time had come to tell his mother that Tessibel
Skinner was his wife. After that was done, there
could be no such arguments. He started to speak,
but his mother interrupted him.
“Madelene Waldstricker’s
wild over you,” she explained. “You
can’t deny you’ve shown her open attention,
at the same time you’ve been stealing down to
that Skinner girl’s hut.... Oh, don’t
deny it any more! But Madelene doesn’t
know very much about that, and she has lots of money.
It’s your duty to Babe and me.”
“I won’t marry her, or anyone else,”
Frederick repeated.
His voice was very low but every word was distinct.
Mrs. Graves lifted her pillow, turned
it over, patted, and sank back upon it.
“Why?” she demanded, searching
his face with accusing eyes. “Because of
that fisherman’s ”
Now he would tell her; now he would
explain! He coughed, took out his handkerchief
and wiped his lips.
“I shouldn’t think you’d
say anything against Tessibel Skinner,” was
what he said at last, “considering what she did
for us.”
Mrs. Graves uttered a scream, and
covered her face with her hands.
“Now throw that in my face,
will you?” she cried. “Can’t
you let me forget my shame and disgrace? Can’t
you see that girl coming into my life would bring
constantly before me my daughter’s downfall and
death?”
Her voice was tragic, and Frederick’s
heart always had been tender toward his mother.
He saw as vividly as if it had happened but yesterday
Teola dying in the church. It had been such a
dreadful experience for all of them. Frederick
had never doubted for one moment that that terrible
ordeal had been the cause of his father’s death.
He went quickly forward and slipped one arm about
her shoulders.
“I’m sorry, mater,”
he murmured. “There, forgive me! There! Don’t
cry!... Now don’t get nervous the
doctor said you mustn’t cry.”
Mrs. Graves shivered in the strong arms.
“I’ve reason enough to
cry,” she whimpered brokenly. “You
won’t do anything to help me, and you’re
the one who should.”
“I’ll go to work,”
he said eagerly. He sat down on the edge of the
bed. “I’m tired of college anyway!”
“Go to work!” echoed his
mother. “What could you do? You wouldn’t
get ten dollars a week. Nor anything like it.
You haven’t any profession, and what is there
in Ithaca to do anyway?... Oh, if your father’d
only lived!”
She broke into a fresh burst of tears.
“Hush, please, dear,”
said Frederick, smoothing back the grey hair.
“Go on and tell me what you want. There,
see, now, I’m listening.”
Mrs. Graves used her handkerchief vigorously.
“I said I wanted you to marry
Madelene Waldstricker,” she responded in ruffled
tones. “You’ve but to ask her, and
she’ll jump. Babe says she talks of you
all the time, and is frightfully jealous of you.”
A fair, lovely face, glorious glistening
brown eyes, and shrouding red curls passed between
Frederick’s vision and his mother’s face,
and he groaned.
“Don’t! I said not to talk of Tess.”
“But I can’t help it,”
snapped Mrs. Graves. “I’ve got to
tell you about Madelene, haven’t I? You
must ask her now.... She’s staying here
tonight.”
Frederick withdrew his arms from under
his mother and dropped his face hopelessly into his
hands.
“Oh, God, help me!” he
groaned between his fingers. “I can’t
do that, Mother! I can’t!”
A tender hand went out slowly and
touched him. He lifted his face with a sharp
gesture and grasped his mother’s fingers in his.
“Don’t ask me to do that,
oh, don’t, darling mater, don’t!”
he moaned. “Anything else I’d
do anything else.”
The feminine fingers closed over the masculine ones.
“I must ask you, my son,”
insisted Mrs. Graves, gently. “It’s
the only hope I have.... I’ve kept so many
things from you, but now I’ll tell you why.
The lake place is mortgaged to Ebenezer Waldstricker
for more than it’s worth, and I’ve borrowed
a lot of money from him and from Madelene.”
Frederick’s hands fell from his face.
“Good God! My God!”
he exclaimed hoarsely. “Why didn’t
you tell me before?”
“I couldn’t I
couldn’t, Fred, but now you see why you must
do this for all our sakes. I haven’t any
money at all only what they let me have. Babe
and I won’t have any place to go if you don’t
help. Oh, Fred, you will think of it, dear, you
will?”
The boy got up feeling as if something
worse than death had happened to him. He saw
no way out.
“Yes, I’ll think of it,” he temporized.
Mrs. Graves sank deeper into her pillow
and closed her eyes with a long sigh. Frederick
said no more, but turned quickly and went out of the
room.
He staggered downstairs like a drunken
man. He ought to have told his mother he was
married to Tessibel Skinner. He couldn’t
marry any other woman!... How could he, when
he was already married married to the sweetest
girl in the world? Oh, to get away somewhere to
think quietly! To get something to stop the throbbing
in his head! This new horror facing him was more
than he could bear. He’d go back now and
tell his mother he was married to Tess.... No,
he’d wait until morning! He opened the
library door and stepped in, crossed the room slowly
and drew down the curtain. Turning, he saw a
girl rise from the divan. Madelene Waldstricker
reached out two rounded arms with an impatient gesture.
“Ah, you’ve come,” she said, smiling
into his eyes.
Frederick gazed at the small girlish
figure curiously. The new interest in her awakened
by the talk he’d just had with his mother, contended
with the image of Tess in his mind radiant,
loving, splendid Tess.
He walked to the table and feigned interest in a book.
“I’ve been with my mother,” he said
hesitatingly.
“Yes, I know,” asserted
Madelene, coming to his side, “and she’s
awfully ill, isn’t she?”
“More nervous than anything,” replied
the boy, impatiently.
“The doctor told your sister
and me this afternoon she must have perfect rest if
she ever recovers,” explained Madelene.
“He says she ought to be in a good health resort....
I wish I could help her.”
“She tells me you have,” blurted Frederick.
“But not so much as I’d like to,”
Madelene assured him softly.
There was deep sympathy in her voice,
and Frederick looked at her critically. This
small brown girl had taken on new significance to him.
She had come into his life suddenly as a large part
of it, that deadening financial part that tied him
hand and foot and made him feel like a galley slave.
But he could never marry her, never! He belonged
to Tessibel Skinner by all the rights of Heaven and
earth. He studied the eager girl again for
so long a time that she dropped her lids, blushing.
Truly, Tess and Madelene formed a strange contrast his
bride with the red gold of her curls and eyes holding
him a willing captive, and this bright-eyed, brown-skinned,
little creature, before him with that eloquent, calling
appeal of money for his mother.
Never before had he thought any one
could for any reason whatever come between him and
Tessibel Skinner. He did not concede it now in
its fullness, but Madelene was looking pleadingly
into his face and had spoken of his mother with tender
sympathy. He suddenly reached out and took her
hand. He would tell her of his young wife.
He would take her into his confidence right then,
and all would be well for them both and
for Tess.
“Listen, Madelene,” the
boy said earnestly. “I have something to
say to you.”
At the touch of his fingers, Madelene
went white and swayed toward him. Her head fell
forward on his chest, and his arms closed around her,
as if to keep her from falling. Of a sudden,
a flushed face was lifted to his, and a smile flashed
around a rosy mouth.
“Oh, I’m so happy, oh, so happy!”
whispered pursed lips.
And Madelene sighed as she dropped
her head against him once more. For the moment
Frederick’s mind went blank, but the girl’s
voice drew him back.
“Oh, I was afraid you loved
that girl who sings in the church,” she was
saying. “I’ve heard so often you did.
I just couldn’t bear the thought of it, Frederick.
Your mother and Babe kept telling me you didn’t,
but I suppose I was a little jealous.”
She laughed and snuggled nearer him.
But a short hour before another girl, the girl he
adored, his wife, had been in the same tender position.
He was so dazed that for the moment he could not find
words for an answer. Then slowly he led her forward
to the divan.
“I want to talk to you,” he ventured hesitatingly.
“Oh, I love to hear you talk,” Madelene
babbled with joy.
Frederick flushed. He’d
have to tell her of his marriage with Tessibel before
she really admitted anything that would afterwards
make her sorry.
“What I’ve got to tell
you is very serious,” he said at length.
“You’ll listen to me, Madelene?”
Five small fingers touched his lips.
“Nothing is serious now,”
came the interruption, “not now that I know
you love me. It’s all I want in the world
to make me supremely happy,” and she sighed.
Frederick shuddered. Why, he
hadn’t told her he loved her! He was as
far from loving her at that moment as the very stranger
on the street.
“But it’s something you
must know,” he thrust in desperately.
“I know what it is,” averred
the girl smiling. “I know all about it....
It’s just money, that horrid old money your mother
borrowed of brother and me.... But what does
money matter? I’ve lots of it, bunches of
it, and more than enough for us all, and so has Ebenezer.”
Frederick shook himself impatiently.
She must listen while he explained the impossibility
of their ever being anything to each other.
“I couldn’t take ”
“I’m not asking you to
take anything but me,” laughed the girl.
“Just me, see? There, dearest! Now
don’t talk of anything disagreeable tonight.
I just want to be happy.”
And like a contented, purring kitten,
she once more settled herself against him. Somehow
Frederick couldn’t tell her of Tessibel just
then. The right moment had come and gone.
In the morning he would! By the light of the
day it would be easier. Then he would explain
everything to her and his mother.
“Put your arms around me,” whispered Madelene.
Thrusting Tessibel from his mind,
he drew the little figure close into his arms.
“Kiss me,” she breathed,
and two hours later, when Frederick Graves shut his
bedroom door, he had promised to marry Madelene Waldstricker.