The Genius (20 page)

Eugene rarely entered on anything half heartedly. If interested
at all he was greatly interested. He could so yield himself to the
glamour of a situation as to come finally to believe that he was
something which he was not. Thus, now he was beginning to accept
this situation as Angela and Marietta wished he should, and to see
her in somewhat the old light. He overlooked things which in his
New York studio, surrounded by the influences which there modified
his judgment, he would have seen. Angela was not young enough for
him. She was not liberal in her views. She was charming, no doubt
of that, but he could not bring her to an understanding of his
casual acceptance of life. She knew nothing of his real disposition
and he did not tell her. He played the part of a seemingly
single-minded Romeo, and as such he was from a woman's point of
view beautiful to contemplate. In his own mind he was coming to see
that he was fickle but he still did not want to admit it to
himself.

There was a night of stars after an evening of June perfection.
At five old Jotham came in from the fields, as dignified and
patriarchal as ever. He greeted Eugene with a hearty handshake, for
he admired him. "I see some of your work now and then," he said,
"in these monthly magazines. It's fine. There's a young minister
down here near the lake that's very anxious to meet you. He likes
to get hold of anything you do, and I always send the books down as
soon as Angela gets through with them."

He used the words books and magazines interchangeably, and spoke
as though they were not much more important to him than the leaves
of the trees, as indeed, they were not. To a mind used to
contemplating the succession of crops and seasons, all life with
its multitudinous interplay of shapes and forms seemed passing
shadows. Even men were like leaves that fall.

Eugene was drawn to old Jotham as a filing to a magnet. His was
just the type of mind that appealed to him, and Angela gained by
the radiated glory of her father. If he was so wonderful she must
be something above the average of womanhood. Such a man could not
help but produce exceptional children.

Left alone together it was hardly possible for Angela and Eugene
not to renew the old relationship on the old basis. Having gone as
far as he had the first time it was natural that he should wish to
go as far again and further. After dinner, when she turned to him
from her room, arrayed in a soft evening dress of clinging
texture—somewhat low in the neck by request of Marietta, who had
helped her to dress—Eugene was conscious of her emotional
perturbation. He himself was distraught, for he did not know what
he would do—how far he would dare to trust himself. He was always
troubled when dealing with his physical passion, for it was a
raging lion at times. It seemed to overcome him quite as a drug
might or a soporific fume. He would mentally resolve to control
himself, but unless he instantly fled there was no hope, and he did
not seem able to run away. He would linger and parley, and in a few
moments it was master and he was following its behest blindly,
desperately, to the point almost of exposure and destruction.

Tonight when Angela came back he was cogitating, wondering what
it might mean. Should he? Would he marry her? Could he escape? They
sat down to talk, but presently he drew her to him. It was the old
story—moment after moment of increasing feeling. Presently she,
from the excess of longing and waiting was lost to all sense of
consideration. And he—

"I shall have to go away, Eugene," she pleaded, when he carried
her recklessly into his room, "if anything happens. I cannot stay
here."

"Don't talk," he said. "You can come to me."

"You mean it, Eugene, surely?" she begged.

"As sure as I'm holding you here," he replied.

At midnight Angela lifted frightened, wondering, doubting eyes,
feeling herself the most depraved creature. Two pictures were in
her mind alternately and with pendulum-like reiteration. One was a
composite of a marriage altar and a charming New York studio with
friends coming in to see them much as he had often described to
her. The other was of the still blue waters of Okoonee with herself
lying there pale and still. Yes, she would die if he did not marry
her now. Life would not be worth while. She would not force him.
She would slip out some night when it was too late and all hope had
been abandoned—when exposure was near—and the next day they would
find her.

Little Marietta how she would cry. And old Jotham—she could see
him, but he would never be really sure of the truth. And her
mother. "Oh God in heaven," she thought, "how hard life is! How
terrible it can be."

The atmosphere of the house after this night seemed charged with
reproach to Eugene, although it took on no semblance of reality in
either look or word. When he awoke in the morning and looked
through the half closed shutters to the green world outside he felt
a sense of freshness and of shame. It was cruel to come into such a
home as this and do a thing as mean as he had done. After all,
philosophy or no philosophy, didn't a fine old citizen like Jotham,
honest, upright, genuine in his moral point of view and his
observance of the golden rule, didn't he deserve better from a man
whom he so sincerely admired? Jotham had been so nice to him. Their
conversations together were so kindly and sympathetic. Eugene felt
that Jotham believed him to be an honest man. He knew he had that
appearance. He was frank, genial, considerate, not willing to
condemn anyone—but this sex question—that was where he was weak.
And was not the whole world keyed to that? Did not the decencies
and the sanities of life depend on right moral conduct? Was not the
world dependent on how the homes were run? How could anyone be good
if his mother and father had not been good before him? How could
the children of the world expect to be anything if people rushed
here and there holding illicit relations? Take his sister Myrtle,
now—would he have wanted her rifled in this manner? In the face of
this question he was not ready to say exactly what he wanted or was
willing to countenance. Myrtle was a free agent, as was every other
girl. She could do as she pleased. It might not please him exactly
but—he went round and round from one problem to another, trying to
untie this Gordian knot. One thing, this home had appeared sweet
and clean when he came into it; now it was just a little tarnished,
and by him! Or was it? His mind was always asking this question.
There was nothing that he was actually accepting as true any more.
He was going round in a ring asking questions of this proposition
and that. Are you true? And are you true? And are you true? And all
the while he was apparently not getting anywhere. It puzzled him,
this life. Sometimes it shamed him. This deed shamed him. And he
asked himself whether he was wrong to be ashamed or not. Perhaps he
was just foolish. Was not life made for living, not worrying? He
had not created his passions and desires.

He threw open the shutters and there was the bright day.
Everything was so green outside, the flowers in bloom, the trees
casting a cool, lovely shade, the birds twittering. Bees were
humming. He could smell the lilacs. "Dear God," he exclaimed,
throwing his arms above his head, "How lovely life is! How
beautiful! Oh!" He drew in a deep breath of the flower and privet
laden air. If only he could live always like this—for ever and
ever.

When he had sponged himself with cold water and dressed, putting
on a soft negligée shirt with turn-down collar and dark flowing
tie, he issued forth clean and fresh. Angela was there to greet
him. Her face was pale but she looked intensely sweet because of
her sadness.

"There, there," he said, touching her chin, "less of that
now!"

"I told them that I had a headache," she said. "So I have. Do
you understand?"

"I understand your headache," he laughed. "But everything is all
right—very much all right. Isn't this a lovely day!"

"Beautiful," replied Angela sadly.

"Cheer up," he insisted. "Don't worry. Everything is coming out
fine." He walked to the window and stared out.

"I'll have your breakfast ready in a minute," she said, and,
pressing his hand, left him.

Eugene went out to the hammock. He was so deliciously contented
and joyous now that he saw the green world about him, that he felt
that everything was all right again. The vigorous blooming forces
of nature everywhere present belied the sense of evil and decay to
which mortality is so readily subject. He felt that everything was
justified in youth and love, particularly where mutual affection
reigned. Why should he not take Angela? Why should they not be
together? He went in to breakfast at her call, eating comfortably
of the things she provided. He felt the easy familiarity and
graciousness of the conqueror. Angela on her part felt the fear and
uncertainty of one who has embarked upon a dangerous voyage. She
had set sail—whither? At what port would she land? Was it the lake
or his studio? Would she live and be happy or would she die to face
a black uncertainty? Was there a hell as some preachers insisted?
Was there a gloomy place of lost souls such as the poets described?
She looked into the face of this same world which Eugene found so
beautiful and its very beauty trembled with forebodings of
danger.

And there were days and days yet to be lived of this. For all
her fear, once having tasted of the forbidden fruit, it was sweet
and inviting. She could not go near Eugene, nor he near her but
this flush of emotion would return.

In the daylight she was too fearful, but when the night came
with its stars, its fresh winds, its urge to desire, her fears
could not stand in their way. Eugene was insatiable and she was
yearning. The slightest touch was as fire to tow. She yielded
saying she would not yield.

The Blue family were of course blissfully ignorant of what was
happening. It seemed so astonishing to Angela at first that the
very air did not register her actions in some visible way. That
they should be able thus to be alone was not so remarkable, seeing
that Eugene's courtship was being aided and abetted, for her sake,
but that her lapse should not be exposed by some sinister influence
seemed strange—accidental and subtly ominous. Something would
happen—that was her fear. She had not the courage of her desire or
need.

By the end of the week, though Eugene was less ardent and more
or less oppressed by the seeming completeness with which he had
conquered, he was not ready to leave. He was sorry to go, for it
ended a honeymoon of sweetness and beauty—all the more wonderful
and enchanting because so clandestine—yet he was beginning to be
aware that he had bound himself in chains of duty and
responsibility. Angela had thrown herself on his mercy and his
sense of honor to begin with. She had exacted a promise of
marriage—not urgently, and as one who sought to entrap him, but
with the explanation that otherwise life must end in disaster for
her. Eugene could look in her face and see that it would. And now
that he had had his way and plumbed the depths of her emotions and
desires he had a higher estimate of her personality. Despite the
fact that she was older than he, there was a breath of youth and
beauty here that held him. Her body was exquisite. Her feeling
about life and love was tender and beautiful. He wished he could
make true her dreams of bliss without injury to himself.

It so turned out that as his visit was drawing to a close Angela
decided that she ought to go to Chicago, for there were purchases
which must be made. Her mother wanted her to go and she decided
that she would go with Eugene. This made the separation easier,
gave them more time to talk. Her usual plan was to stay with her
aunt and she was going there now.

On the way she asked over and over what he would think of her in
the future; whether what had passed would not lower her in his
eyes. He did not feel that it would. Once she said to him
sadly—"only death or marriage can help me now."

"What do you mean?" he asked, her yellow head pillowed on his
shoulder, her dark blue eyes looking sadly into his.

"That if you don't marry me I'll have to kill myself. I can't
stay at home."

He thought of her with her beautiful body, her mass of soft hair
all tarnished in death.

"You wouldn't do that?" he asked unbelievingly.

"Yes, I would," she said sadly. "I must, I will."

"Hush, Angel Face," he pleaded. "You won't do anything like
that. You won't have to. I'll marry you—How would you do it?"

"Oh, I've thought it all out," she continued gloomily. "You know
that little lake. I'd drown myself."

"Don't, sweetheart," he pleaded. "Don't talk that way. It's
terrible. You won't have to do anything like that."

To think of her under the waters of little Okoonee, with its
green banks, and yellow sandy shores. All her love come to this!
All her passion! Her death would be upon his head and he could not
stand the thought of that. It frightened him. Such tragedies
occasionally appeared in the papers with all the pathetic details
convincingly set forth, but this should not enter his life. He
would marry her. She was lovely after all. He would have to. He
might as well make up his mind to that now. He began to speculate
how soon it might be. For the sake of her family she wanted no
secret marriage but one which, if they could not be present at it,
they could at least know was taking place. She was willing to come
East—that could be arranged. But they must be married. Eugene
realized the depth of her conventional feeling so keenly that it
never occurred to him to suggest an alternative. She would not
consent, would scorn him for it. The only alternative, she appeared
to believe, was death.

One evening—the last—when it was necessary for her to return to
Blackwood, and he had seen her off on the train, her face a study
in sadness, he rode out gloomily to Jackson Park where he had once
seen a beautiful lake in the moonlight. When he reached there the
waters of the lake were still suffused and tinged with lovely
suggestions of lavender, pink and silver, for this was near the
twenty-first of June. The trees to the east and west were dark. The
sky showed a last blush of orange. Odours were about—warm June
fragrance. He thought now, as he walked about the quiet paths where
the sand and pebbles crunched lightly beneath his feet, of all the
glory of this wonderful week. How dramatic was life; how full of
romance. This love of Angela's, how beautiful. Youth was with
him—love. Would he go on to greater days of beauty or would he
stumble, idling his time, wasting his substance in riotous living?
Was this riotous living? Would there be evil fruition of his deeds?
Would he really love Angela after he married her? Would they be
happy?

Thus he stood by the bank of this still lake, studying the
water, marvelling at the subtleties of reflected radiance, feeling
the artist's joy in perfect natural beauty, twining and
intertwining it all with love, death, failure, fame. It was
romantic to think that in such a lake, if he were unkind, would
Angela be found. By such a dark as was now descending would all her
bright dreams be submerged. It would be beautiful as romance. He
could imagine a great artist like Daudet or Balzac making a great
story out of it. It was even a subject for some form of romantic
expression in art. Poor Angela! If he were a great portrait painter
he would paint her. He thought of some treatment of her in the nude
with that mass of hair of hers falling about her neck and breasts.
It would be beautiful. Should he marry her? Yes, though he was not
sure of the outcome, he must. It might be a mistake but—

He stared at the fading surface of the lake, silver, lavender,
leaden gray. Overhead a vivid star was already shining. How would
it be with her if she were really below those still waters? How
would it be with him? It would be too desperate, too regretful. No,
he must marry her. It was in this mood that he returned to the
city, the ache of life in his heart. It was in this mood that he
secured his grip from the hotel and sought the midnight train for
New York. For once Ruby, Miriam, Christina, were forgotten. He was
involved in a love drama which meant life or death to Angela, peace
or reproach of conscience to himself in the future. He could not
guess what the outcome would be, but he felt that he must marry
her—how soon he could not say. Circumstances would dictate that.
From present appearances it must be immediately. He must see about
a studio, announce the news of his departure to Smite and MacHugh;
make a special effort to further his art ambitions so that he and
Angela would have enough to live on. He had talked so glowingly of
his art life that now, when the necessity for demonstrating it was
at hand, he was troubled as to what the showing might be. The
studio had to be attractive. He would need to introduce his
friends. All the way back to New York he turned this over in his
mind—Smite, MacHugh, Miriam, Norma, Wheeler, Christina—what would
Christina think if she ever returned to New York and found him
married? There was no question but that there was a difference
between Angela and these. It was something—a matter of courage—more
soul, more daring, more awareness, perhaps—something. When they saw
her would they think he had made a mistake, would they put him down
as a fool? MacHugh was going with a girl, but she was a different
type—intellectual, smart. He thought and thought, but he came back
to the same conclusion always. He would have to marry her. There
was no way out. He would have to.