University of Virginia Library

36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
JOSIE SPEAKS OUT.

Weeks passed, and Josie still held on to
Mr. Hollowbread, though in a sort of arms-length
fashion, much as one might hold on
to a soiled but necessary walking-stick.

What did she want of him? Well, her
desires might be described as “human wa
rious,” or perhaps we ought to say, feminine
warious.

When she was in low spirits about her
claim, she feebly wanted to espouse him, to
spend his income briskly, and to inherit his
capital promptly. What else can a young
lassie want of an auld man who insists upon
being a lover?

In general, however, she merely wished
him to secure her money for her, and then
to take his dyed hair and corseted carcass
out of her sight forever. There were moments
when she looked forward to the possibility
of giving herself up to him with a
natural, plaintive, almost convulsive loathing,
which calls for one's instinctive if not
reasonable sympathy.

Meantime, she yearned after somebody
else with a constancy and a fervor which
were in themselves beautiful enough. Whenever
she let Hollowbread kiss her (which
blessing came his way not oftener than once
a week), she had an abstracted, tender,
dreamy look; she was thinking of Bradford.
Through many a nightly hour, also, after her
betrothed had taken his arctic shoes cautiously
down the ice of the Murray steps,
she lay awake to whisper the name of the
man whom she loved, and to indulge in reveries
about him which, could they have been
known to the man who loved her, would
have filled him with amazement and anguish.

Of course, Bradford seemed all the more
desirable to this born coquette because she
could not get him. What she was mainly
in love with was the actual business of
making love; and the more difficult any
special flirtation appeared, the more it fascinated
her. Had her longed-for Edgar
gone on his knees to her in the humble and
faithful style of that idolatrous old Hollowbread,
it is likely that her eyes would soon
have been wandering after other men, and
that her little bigamist of a heart would
have followed her glance.

But Bradford, though he sometimes came
to see her, did not do much in the way of
courtship. He was afraid of her; he dreaded
lest, if he fell in love with her, she should
make a lobbying member of him; and we
remember that he wanted, above all things,
to be an honorable man among men.

Is it not, by-the-way, very singular that
he should have feared her power, when he
was so well acquainted with her faults?
He had watched her ways so long, and studied
her character so carefully, that he knew her
perfectly, in theory. He knew what a born
and practiced flirt she was; he knew that
she was pushing her claim in spite of her
promises; he knew that she was ungrateful
to the Murrays; he knew that she told fibs;
he knew worse.

And yet she was so pretty, graceful,
sweet-mannered, sweet-tempered, alluring,

inflammatory, that he could not dislike her,
nor scarcely keep from loving her. It seemed
to him at times that the most delightful
thing in the world to do would be to shut
his eyes to her defects and to let her deceive
him into the belief that she was good, as she
had deceived her husband. Now and then,
also, there came up the old flattering delusion
that for his sake she might become
trustworthy and worshipful. Probably the
only thing which kept him at a safe distance
from her, spiritually, was her claim.

It is true that meanwhile he visited, admired,
and in a manner worshiped that upright
and candid soul which had its abode
in the handsome figure of Belle Warden.
But there also was a claim. Poor Mrs.
Warden was intriguing with committees as
scandalously as Mrs. Murray; and, moreover,
she was such a grinning, frisking,
flirting, worrying creature; such an unsuitable
mother-in-law for a fastidious man
and honorable legislator! In short, there
were so great objections to both Belle and
Josie, that Bradford could not for the present
make up his scrupulous mind to want
either of them.

The lovely Murray suffered from this state
of things, but she had too much vitality to
let it paralyze her. As Bradford did not
do any courtship which could inspire a comfortable
hope, she looked out a little, or,
rather, a good deal, for other admirers.

She made poor Hollowbread very jealous
by the way in which she flirted with Messrs.
Drummond, Beauman, Bray, Clavers, even
with the married Rigdon, and even with
Mrs. John Vane's senator, Ironman. The
audacity of her coquetries, indeed, was sufficient
to fill with affliction not only souls
which loved her, but also souls which merely
love wisdom in woman.

With the Apollonian Beauman, for instance,
she had an adventure in the cupola
of the Capitol, which a certain tattling janitor
narrated to Squire Nancy Appleyard,
and which that imbittered Bloomer reported
about Washington with outrageous exaggerations,
believing the while all her inventions
because they seemed to her probable.
What the janitor actually saw was a
masculine arm around a feminine waist;
and, of course, it might have been there for
the mere purposes of support and protection;
so many people are dizzy in the gallery
of the cupola!

But Josie, lady-like as she was in some
matters, had a certain deserved fame for
reckless sparkings, so that Miss Nancy's
suspicions were partly justifiable.

There is an excuse for these coquetries of
Josie's, quite aside from the fact that they
were born in her and must make issue under
temptation, like chickens pecking out of a
shell at the summons of heat. Her engagement
ofttimes weighed upon her like a witch
incubus, sucking the blood of gladness and
hope out of all her life, and causing it to
seem a flaccid failure. The past, with its
flighty, imprudent, and unlucky “poor Augustus,”
with its short, foolish dream of
splendor, and its awakening of impoverished
widowhood, had not surely been enough
of a success to suffice a handsome and clever
woman. And how could the future look
jocund, or satisfactory, or even tolerable to
her, when it advanced upon her in the ponderous
guise of Mr. Hollowbread?

Remember how the young, especially such
as have no urgent and continuous work to
do, are haunted by this consciousness or
suspicion of failure! They had expected—
these new-born and insatiable souls—that
Time would bring every hour a fresh joy,
and behold, he is often but a burden and a
bore! It seems to them as if life were like
one of those mocking goblets in which you
can see the wine, but can not taste it.

Thus did Josie often feel, even when she
forgot her sexagenarian betrothed; and
when she remembered him, her dejection
only changed in becoming a foreboding.
At times she rose, or appeared to herself to
rise, to the altitude of desperation. Were
there no “snips and snails, and puppy-dogs'
tails” of happiness to be picked up somehow?
If it was not to be had in solid, inexhaustible
veins, could she not snatch and
steal a little here and there? Any thing to
break the doleful spell of evasion and defeat.
Occasionally it seemed as if the scandal
of eloping with another woman's husband
would be a relief; and more than once
she caught herself wishing that some strong,
willful, passionate man would irresistibly
run away with her.

Such was her state of mind — a state
which we can all of us imagine — a state
through which some of us have passed, with
or without shipwreck. The usual remedies
for it in women are children and housekeeping;
the usual remedy for it in man is
steady, hard work to support the same.

But Josie Murray had no weapons whereby
to fight this nightmare, except society
and flirting. Hence the furore with which
she gave herself to coquetry when she found
herself alone with any one of the worldly
gentlemen who delighted in her company.

Of course a pure soul marvels that the
thought of the one man whom she loved, or
whom she believed that she loved, should
not restrain her.

Well, sometimes she said to herself, “It is
all his fault,” and therefore fell to trifling
with a sort of vindictiveness. At other
times the remembrance of him did act as a
hold-back; then she had a quiet, pensive,
ennobled demeanor, which seemed to put an
iron grate between her and Messrs. Drummond,
Bray, and Beauman; and then those
gentlemen had a turn of depression, and

wanted—so strange is the human heart—
wanted to marry her!

At last, feeling as she did about Bradford,
the time came when she let him know her
feelings. They were alone together, like
Francesca da Rimini and Paolo, and they
were reading one book, the book of human
nature.

Edgar's manner of reading was to sit close
by Josie, fix his meditative hazel eyes on her
handsome face, and gently hold one of her
hands in his, meanwhile talking Platonic
friendship and giving advice. Her method
was to return his gaze of benefaction with
glances of gratitude, and to be in every
other way as tenderly grateful as he was
tenderly magnanimous.

We must hasten to say, however, that they
did not look “spoony,” nor dribble sentimentalities.
They were both too worldly,
and they had too much cleverness and sense
of humor, to let themselves drift into the
ridiculous. Much of their dialogue was as
sensible as one is apt to hear in fashionable
society, even between people whose object it
is to make each other's time pass pleasantly.

“I hear that you have been driving out
with Ironman,” was one of Bradford's more
serious observations, uttered with the view
of introducing a lecture. “You have
smashed Mrs. John Vane in society, and now
you are attacking her stronghold. I suppose
you mean to make a full end of her.”

“Mrs. John Vane may be trusted to make
a full end of herself,” returned Josie, amicably,
though she disliked to be coupled with
that semi-vulgar lady, even as a victorious
rival. “I don't see how Washington can
put up with her long.”

“Then why not let her fall the length of
her own rope? Why trouble yourself to assist
in the hanging?”

“Because, if I don't, she may last my
time, and that would be just as bad for me
as if she held on like Methuselah. Do you
let General Bangs alone? You attack him
at least once a week. Well, Mrs. J. V. is my
General Bangs. She is a coarse corruptionist,
and I mean to expel her from my Congress.”

“I never believed in fighting fire with
fire.”

“I don't flirt with Mr. Ironman; I only
entertain him.”

“But people who entertain the senator get
a name for being too amusing.”

“You speak plainly enough. Well, I
won't drive with him again, if you don't
wish it.”

By way of reward for this promise he
pressed her hand slightly. He was always
trying to reform her risky ways, partly because
they had an unreasonable power for
making him jealous, and partly because he
really wanted to fit her for his right honorable
affection. Yes, he was tenderly anx
ious (at times) to get her good, and much
pleased when he seemed to make any headway
in his mission.

“Is the sermon over?” asked Josie.
“You might give out a hymn and pronounce
the benediction.”

“You must remember that I am six or
eight years older than you are. Age is a
natural priesthood. The first priest was the
senior member of the first family.”

“What an awful senior member you
would make! What an awful husband!
You would be a despot always on his throne.”

“I shall have to stop doing you good if
you poke fun at me.”

“I am not poking fun at you; I am really
in fear of you. It makes me tremble in
every limb to think what a husband you
have the making of. How you could reprimand
a wife!”

She smiled, but the smile was very submissive
and tender, suggesting that she would
bow humbly to his reproving, and would
love him for it. The word wife, too, uttered
in that shy, reverent murmur with which
she spoke it, was an exceedingly alluring,
though also a warning, monosyllable. He
looked at her yearningly, thinking what a
perfect wife she would be if she were only as
good as she was pretty, and longing to try the
adventurous experiment of proving how far
perfect she could be. Under his significant
glance Josie blushed, an unusual circumstance
with her, for her skin was dark and
her soul experienced.

He ought to have seen, and indeed he did
know perfectly, that he had too mighty an
influence over her to use it lightly, without
subjecting himself to the charge of egotism
and cruelty. But he remembered her sins
against other men, and accorded her no more
mercy than coquettes give.

It must be remembered that weeks before
this she had forbidden him to kiss her, and
it must be understood that up to this time
he had respected the injunction. Now,
however, tempted by that splendid color in
her face and by her air of inability to resist
him, he seized on the forbidden fruit. He
drew the hand which he held; he drew her
irresistibly against his shoulder; he kissed
every rose-leaf of the blush, and her very
lips.

Josie, throbbing and trembling from head
to foot, was in a tumult of happiness. She
scarcely struggled to get away from him;
there was too much expectation and hope
in her for movement; she waited for him to
speak.

“I am obliged to you, my dear friend,” was
Bradford's disappointing and most ungrateful
utterance. “We are on the good, sweet
old terms once more.”

With a violent start Josie broke away
from him, flung herself upon an isolated
chair, covered her face, and sobbed. Her

shame and distress ennobled her, and for the
moment she had the beautiful dignity of
great grief, the beauty which belongs to a
Niobe.

“I have offended you, Josie,” he said, not
a little impressed. “I beg your pardon.”

She dropped her hands, stared at him with
indignant, sparkling, wet eyes; and broke
out on him—as he deserved.

“You have degraded me!” she exclaimed.
“Why do you kiss me when you mean nothing?
Don't you know that a woman who
lets a man do that, lets him do it because
she—likes him?—because she hopes he will
not stop with a kiss? Is it generous of you
to take advantage of such feelings, such
hopes? Listen to me!” she commanded, imperiously,
while a tear of humiliation rolled
down her cheek. “I have something to
tell you. I am ashamed to say it. But it
is your fault. You drive me to it by your
treatment of me. Besides, we are old friends,
as you say; we can talk as men and women
can not generally talk to each other; we act
and hold hands and kiss like old friends,
don't we? Why not say what we think,
then? I think—I think—” And here she
faltered, her mouth twitching pitiably, and
her eyes avoiding him for an instant. “I
think that you treat me very badly,” she resumed,
with an effort which turned her pale.
“You treat me badly in kissing me when you
mean nothing by it. I let you do it, to be
sure. But why? It is because I hope that
each kiss will be followed by a word; because
I hope you are going to tell me that
you love me, and want me—want me to be
your wife. If I had thought you never
meant to tell me that, I never would have
let you touch your lips to me—never—never!”

She clean broke down here, and fell into a
violent burst of weeping, clenching her hands
over her face, and sobbing and shaking convulsively,
like any honest, little wretched
school-girl. She was full of shame, grief, anger,
love, too, agitations of all sorts, a tumult
of emotions. There was no sham about
it; she was not playing a part at all; that
we must understand distinctly. Indeed, her
power of flirtation arose largely from the fact
that she really had the susceptibilities which
some flirts only counterfeit, and that these
susceptibilities were easily moved. True,
they were transitory, if we do not misjudge
her; she was one of the shallow skillets
which quickly boil over and quickly cool;
but, all the same, she could keep herself and
her intimates in hot water. All the same,
too, she was very scalding and thawing when
she did undertake to gush over a man in
good earnest.

Meanwhile, what were Bradford's feelings
and opinions? Well, without trying to excuse
him in the least, and judging indeed
that he ought to have taken this victim of
his kissings, we must aridly state that he was
not moved so to do. He seemed to himself
to find out all at once that he did not love
her one bit; and he could not feel a desire,
nor even a willingness, to uplift her to his
heart, and ask her to be his wife. At the
same time he was painfully confounded and
humiliated; he would have been glad to
break through the floor and fall into the
cellar. So he did nothing but stare at her
bewilderedly, and mutter some inaudible,
unfinished excuses.

“There! you can make me cry like a
baby,” resumed Josie, brushing away the
tears with an angry dash of the hand. “Are
you contented? Have you degraded me
enough?”

“I have degraded myself enough,” answered
Bradford. “And you have pointed it out
to me plainly enough. You might have
spared me this. The better way would
have been to send me off long ago.”

“The better way!” she burst out. “Oh,
you mean man! You have the face to reproach
me now!”

“I do not,” he interrupted her. “I have
no right to reproach you. I reproach myself
only.”

Josie began to hope again. She waited
eagerly for his next word. She still kept
her hands pressed against her quivering face,
but they were all ready to dart out and
cling around him.

“It is your claim,” he said, at last. “You
promised to give that up, and you have not.”

“I have given it up,” she declared, in her
desperation, making an effort to meet his
gaze boldly, and failing. “I tell you I have.”

“You have not,” asserted Bradford, loud
and stern, because he was indignant at such
brazen falsifying.

“If they are prosecuting it, I did not
know it,” she whimpered.

“General Hornblower told me this morning
that you called on him about it yesterday,”
was the overwhelming answer.

She looked so crushed — so mean, as he
harshly put it to himself—that now he could
quit her. He picked up his hat, muttered
a “good-morning,” to which she did not respond,
and went off to call on Belle Warden.