Chapter XXI

Our summers spent on the farm were ideal. Our friends and relatives came often to visit us, much at times to the depletion of our bank account, but we could not refuse them as they enjoyed us and the farm so thoroughly. We were sufficient unto ourselves, however, and were never so happy as when alone, but we were both unselfish and were glad to give pleasure to others.

We had one amusing problem to meet during the first few weeks that nearly proved the downfall of our life in the country.

The near neighbors were the ordinary, good-hearted Connecticut farmers whose lives had been very restricted. The old man was a “leetle deef.” He had for many years listened patiently to a wife whose voice had grown sharp and shrill, added to the proverbial Yankee twang, commensurate with his increasing deafness.

We were obliged to go to this man for help and advice in matters agricultural. He was glad for the extra money which this work brought him. The wife probably classed us with a professor from Yale University who once stopped with them for two days in order to study either some flowers or rocks in that area. When she told us about him she added: “But say! Him a college professor? And him the ignorantest man I ever see!”

This dame took it upon herself to visit us each and every evening after our dinner. She had “washed up the supper dishes,” put on a clean apron, and came over to our house to talk! If she thought us ignorant she certainly used an unlimited amount of lung power to educate us! For hours she would just talk, and talk, and talk, in that unbearable voice and never by any chance did she ever say one thing. At first it rather amused us, as she was a real Mary Wilkins character, but it went beyond endurance and we were terribly bored and almost distracted.

After one extra long session when she had gone home, Juno burst into tears. Her nerves had given way completely. “Is this what we’ve got to face by living in the country?” she sobbed. I tried to quiet her and said I would put a stop to it at once. I was always the one to handle anything disagreeable which came up in our lives.

The next day I told the garrulous neighbor that we had come into the country to rest and to do a lot of reading and I would have to ask her to visit us only when we should find that her visits would not interfere with our plans, and then I would ask her to come. She was quite shocked, I think, that we did not feel that her conversation was a liberal education, but she seemed quite content with an occasional chat (she doing the chat) over the garden fence in the future.

Then did our glorious hours together begin. We re-read much of Thackeray aloud and lots of other worth-while things. We took an occasional run down to the city for a good play, music, or the opera, and incidentally to see Juno’s brothers and sister.

After two or three years on the farm Juno began to find the winters a bit tiresome, as we were many times snowed in and our friends did not care to come at that season. So we pulled up stakes and moved to the village in a dear little cottage near the young couple who were instrumental in having us go to that place.

At that time, too, Lizzie and the baby had to go to take care of her father, who was ill. We felt it would be lonely without the baby, of whom we had grown very fond. So it seemed just the time to make a change.

Everyone in town, especially in the Episcopal Church, was excited at that time about the opening of a church school for boys, to be in charge of a very popular and beloved young divine.

We joined in all the activities relative to the opening. This was to be a semi-charitable school, catering mainly to the sons of clergymen who were too poor to send their boys to the higher schools.

All set! The school opened and we were all on hand to welcome and entertain the new masters when they arrived. One of these men, the teacher of French, was the most popular. He seemed to choose our house as his refuge and us as his friends above all others. This was rather disconcerting to our young married friend—the one who asked us to come up there. She had a perfectly good husband, yet she made a dead set for the head master. Not the young divine who was establishing the school—he belonged to some church brotherhood and had renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil. He wore, by the way a most fascinating pure white flannel and silk robe when he appeared in public, and black at the school.

The young French master, whom we will call Jack, proved a very interesting pal. He was bright and entertaining, played the piano well, liked the same books that we did, played bridge, and adored afternoon tea. He was much younger than we—in fact, twelve years younger than Juno, who was two years younger than I.

This friendship grew more and more intimate. Jack dined with us at least three times a week. In fact, he was with us all of his free time. One day he became very confidential and told us that he had a lover in New York and that it was to _him_ he went every other week! So he, too, was of the condemned type. Poor fellow! Well, we could not blame him for that. Although we made no confessions ourselves, we felt that he knew and understood our relations with each other.

Nothing occurred to mar our happiness, and we went on for a year or two in this way. New Year’s Eve had always meant much to Juno and me. We pledged our troth anew each time the clock struck the beginning of a new and glorious year. I believe it was in the second or third year of the school that Jack had gone to his home for the holidays. We gave a New Year’s party and had a lot of the young people at our home to see the old year out. On this evening, as we raised our glasses for the usual toast, Juno added, “And to the absent one.” I thought I discovered a new light in her eyes. As I went to give her our kiss of love I said, “Is there someone else in your mind?” Her answer was in a way evasive. However, the pledge was renewed and nothing more was said.

In a few days Jack came back. I was quite ill with a severe attack of acute bronchitis and was in bed. While Jack was there one day Juno came into my room, and without a word of warning, told me that she and Jack were engaged to be married!

How hard I have tried these years and years to forget the terror those words brought into my heart and soul! I was weak from my illness and had no control or sense with which to meet this blow.

I was very hoarse from my bronchitis, and the strain I gave my voice in my entreaties and arguments for her to consider how she was throwing her life and our happiness away, as it seemed to me, has had its effect on my throat ever since.

Whether I would have done the sensible thing at this time had I been well physically or not, I do not know. My life was crushed! My wonderful girl had broken her vows to me again! She changed all at once from the dearest nurse and most considerate friend, at times when I would be laid low for some illness, to the most cruel of women.

The strain to which I was subjected counteracted all the ministrations of the doctor in his efforts to get me well. Juno utterly disregarded his instructions as to my being kept quiet, and I nearly went insane.

When I got hold of myself in spite of the terrible handicap of this courtship going on under my very eyes, I wrote to Phil, who was then in England, and asked advice to make me more reasonable. The incongruity of the match was, I believe, my greatest grief. The male invert is known to be of a much weaker caliber than the so-called normal, and all who knew this fellow, without knowing just where he belonged in the catalogue of humans, dubbed him a “sissy,” but very attractive as a little girl friend.

One and all who were in our set were thoroughly disgusted with them both, but more so with my glorious girl, who was twelve years older than he. In height he did not come to her shoulder.

It was all an awful nightmare, but on I struggled until at last the answer came from the Philosopher. She asked me to join her and a friend who had taken a cottage in the south of England for a year. We could divide the expenses by three and live very cheaply. This was long before the war. She said it would be the best thing in the world for me to get right away from it all and the only way to be cured.

I was wild to start right away, and Juno was glad to help me finance the trip. Most of my capital had been used in entertaining her family, chiefly because we were never able to keep expenses down and still keep open house.

Juno seemed heartbroken at the parting and swore that her love for me was just the same, but this did not register with me. I set sail. When I went on board, I thought the chances were as great that I might jump overboard as that I would land in England.

Courage failed me when I saw the big ocean with no land in sight, so I held on to life. I grew interested in the things so new to me on the voyage and was better of my cough when I landed. Phil met me at Tilbury and after a day and night in London we went down to Hampshire, where her friend was waiting.

The coming together of this old, old friend and of Phil would make a romance worth reading, but it does not concern this tale in that detail. The friend was an artist of note well known on both continents and a most charming and cultivated woman. She was on a rest year and having a year of love with Phil. Her idea of curing broken hearts was with alcohol. I was suffering keenly all the time, and Phil realized how I had cared for Juno and did still. I had for many years enjoyed a cocktail before dinner and wine with the meal, but for drink as drink I did not care at all.

The friend evidently did, and with my sorrow as an excuse she insisted on beginning early in the day imbibing absinthe or gin. The former was a new drink to me and while I did not care at first for the taste, the effect seemed to be what was desired, so I held my own with her. I simply did not care what happened to make me forget even for a moment at a time.

I could see that Phil was not at all happy in this procedure, but the friend dominated us both. Phil, however, kept her head clear, as she never touched a drop of anything in the way of alcohol. Tea was her passion. She wanted to talk with me and to reason me out of my grief, but the friend was ever on the alert that such a thing must not happen. She tried hard to interest me in herself, but I did not fall.

We were in a lovely spot, and the spring flowers were filling the copse where our cottage was located. What is more beautiful than spring in England! But these beauties gave me only momentary thrills, as I could not seem to rise above my grief. Besides, the physical effect of so much alcohol was showing upon my health and even depressed me more.

Letters from Juno, so full of love that I could have no faith in, added to my suffering. Even when she told me that she and Jack had decided that it was physical contact they desired, that they found themselves happy in that relationship and that they had given up the thought of marrying, I was not in the least consoled. In fact, I was more disgusted than ever. As the rich relative had said that his contribution would cease when Juno was married, I knew that the desire to marry her would not be long-lived, as I had seen Jack’s face pale when that news came before I left.

About June I realized that my life with the two who were trying to cure me was fast sending me to a breakdown. So I decided to move on and see how I could manage things myself.

When established near Bournemouth I went to work with my pen, as my finances were getting low. I was relieved when a cabled check for several hundred dollars arrived from New York from a magazine to which I had submitted an article.

Directly following this came a letter from Juno saying that she and Jack had decided they were not fond enough to continue their life together and that she found that she could not bear life alone and wanted to come to me, but that she had no funds.

I made it possible for her to come, fool that I was, all will say and so say I now, but never was a lover so happy in the thought that again I would have her as of old, my companion, friend, baby, and lover. She had ample funds to clear up all her obligations, renew her wardrobe a little, and have her passage and a substantial sum left when she arrived.

I found an adorable furnished stone cottage a short distance from Bournemouth. The lovely garden had a high stone wall all around it. I rearranged things to make it look like “us.” All sorrow was wiped away, and my heart was beating with renewed faith.

I went to Southampton to meet Juno. It was necessary for us to spend the night before going to our little home. I arranged beautiful flowers in the room at the hotel where I had engaged a suite and went to the pier hours before the scheduled time for the arrival of the steamer.

My plan was to stay in the dear little stone cottage long enough for us to see all in that locality and to let funds accumulate, as I had other articles to be written, and then to move on to other parts of England and the Continent, staying long enough in each place to absorb its real atmosphere. At that time this could be done very reasonably and would be quite within our means.

At last the boat was sighted and I went down the wharf to meet my dear one and clasp her to my heart of hearts. I felt no sexual emotion. It was not her body for which I longed, but my other self, my true mate. Then I saw her only about ten feet away from my arms yet two far for me to jump. We must wait for the slow boat to reach the allotted place. She was one of the first to step on land and to me. The joy of that first real kiss since before Jack had come into our lives lingers with me yet as one of the high spots in my memory!

Before we had got half way up the pier she turned to me and said, “Jack and I are engaged again.”

Even now I can feel the physical pain in my heart as I heard those words! My first wild impulse was to jump into the bay, but I had sense enough to know that I would be fished out, so I said not a word. All seemed to go black, yet I was able to attend to all the details of the customs for her, and we went in silence to the hotel where the flowers stood as a mockery of our love. She tried to assume some pretense of joy at being with me and in the flowers, but I had nothing to say. I spent a sad and wakeful night. She said she and Jack had spent all the money she had left of what she had received through my ministrations and that she had not a cent. I could not turn her loose, so we took our train for the stone cottage, I with a battered heart,—and she? How could she be happy? Yet so she seemed. Nothing appealed to her in the place I had prepared for her coming. Her whole thought was to get to France where she could be learning to speak French, as Jack was a French teacher, having been educated at Grenoble. She insisted that I must go with her, as she would be utterly at a loss in trying to find her way alone. I had always taken all responsibility in our business affairs and I knew she really needed me if she were to go on her way.

I was outraged by her bringing to me again what I had gone so far away from, yet the mother heart could not refuse her.

There was no joy in physical contact with her. Even her forced kisses nearly choked me. Companionship was gone, as all her thoughts were on the future with that poor fellow who had come under her spell. There was only that need of protection which led me on. A paid courier would have done as well and would have been better for me, but funds would not permit of that luxury. I did try to have her go back to America and leave me in peace, but this she refused to do, as Jack was coming over the next summer and they were to be married.

There we were, and I tried so hard to play the game until I could get away. No need to go through the painful days, weeks and months, first a short time in London, then on to Brussels to study French, and finally to Paris! To what?

At times I was reasonable and did all I could to ease the way, but there were days of rebellion when we had very trying scenes.

The disappointment of having to see all the wonders of that, to me, new world through tears seemed more than I could bear. I could not go home, as she had rented our house for a year. So on I stayed and tried my best to get something out of it all.

In all these intervening years I have been able to eliminate the sorrow and to think of and speak about things as giving me joy in my two years in Europe. But in this rehearsal I find my indignation at myself and with her rising again almost to the breaking point.