The Crux: A Novel Read online

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  THE CRUX

  BOOKS BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

  Women and Economics $1.50 Concerning Children 1.25 In This Our World (verse) 1.25 The Yellow Wallpaper (story) 0.50 The Home 1.00 Human Work 1.00 What Diantha Did (novel) 1.00 The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture 1.00 Moving the Mountain 1.00 The Crux 1.00 Suffrage Songs 0.10

  THE CRUX

  A NOVEL BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

  CHARLTON COMPANY NEW YORK 1911

  Copyright, 1911 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  THE CO-OPERATIVE PRESS, 15 SPRUCE STREET, NEW YORK

  PREFACE

  This story is, first, for young women to read; second, for young mento read; after that, for anybody who wants to. Anyone who doubts itsfacts and figures is referred to "Social Diseases and Marriage," byDr. Prince Morrow, or to "Hygiene and Morality," by Miss Lavinia Dock,a trained nurse of long experience.

  Some will hold that the painful facts disclosed are unfit for younggirls to know. Young girls are precisely the ones who must know them,in order that they may protect themselves and their children to come.The time to know of danger is before it is too late to avoid it.

  If some say "Innocence is the greatest charm of young girls," theanswer is, "What good does it do them?"

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I. THE BACK WAY 9

  II. BAINVILLE EFFECTS 31

  III. THE OUTBREAK 60

  IV. TRANSPLANTED 81

  V. CONTRASTS 101

  VI. NEW FRIENDS AND OLD 126

  VII. SIDE LIGHTS 149

  VIII. A MIXTURE 174

  IX. CONSEQUENCES 204

  X. DETERMINATION 229

  XI. THEREAFTER 256

  XII. ACHIEVEMENTS 283

  _Who should know but the woman?--The young wife-to-be? Whose whole life hangs on the choice; To her the ruin, the misery; To her, the deciding voice._

  _Who should know but the woman?--The mother-to-be? Guardian, Giver, and Guide; If she may not foreknow, forejudge and foresee, What safety has childhood beside?_

  _Who should know but the woman?--The girl in her youth? The hour of the warning is then, That, strong in her knowledge and free in her truth, She may build a new race of new men._

  CHAPTER I

  THE BACK WAY

  Along the same old garden path, Sweet with the same old flowers; Under the lilacs, darkly dense, The easy gate in the backyard fence-- Those unforgotten hours!

  The "Foote Girls" were bustling along Margate Street with an air ofunited purpose that was unusual with them. Miss Rebecca wore her blacksilk cloak, by which it might be seen that "a call" was toward. MissJessie, the thin sister, and Miss Sallie, the fat one, were morehastily attired. They were persons of less impressiveness than MissRebecca, as was tacitly admitted by their more familiar nicknames, aconcession never made by the older sister.

  Even Miss Rebecca was hurrying a little, for her, but the others wereswifter and more impatient.

  "Do come on, Rebecca. Anybody'd think you were eighty instead offifty!" said Miss Sallie.

  "There's Mrs. Williams going in! I wonder if she's heard already. Dohurry!" urged Miss Josie.

  But Miss Rebecca, being concerned about her dignity, would not allowherself to be hustled, and the three proceeded in irregular orderunder the high-arched elms and fence-topping syringas of the small NewEngland town toward the austere home of Mr. Samuel Lane.

  It was a large, uncompromising, square, white house, planted starkly inthe close-cut grass. It had no porch for summer lounging, no front gatefor evening dalliance, no path-bordering beds of flowers from which topluck a hasty offering or more redundant tribute. The fragrance whichsurrounded it came from the back yard, or over the fences of neighbors;the trees which waved greenly about it were the trees of other people.Mr. Lane had but two trees, one on each side of the straight and narrowpath, evenly placed between house and sidewalk--evergreens.

  Mrs. Lane received them amiably; the minister's new wife, Mrs.Williams, was proving a little difficult to entertain. She was fromCambridge, Mass., and emanated a restrained consciousness of thatfact. Mr. Lane rose stiffly and greeted them. He did not like theFoote girls, not having the usual American's share of the sense ofhumor. He had no enjoyment of the town joke, as old as they were, that"the three of them made a full yard;" and had frowned down as aprofane impertinent the man--a little sore under some effect ofgossip--who had amended it with "make an 'ell, I say."

  Safely seated in their several rocking chairs, and severally rockingthem, the Misses Foote burst forth, as was their custom, insimultaneous, though by no means identical remarks.

  "I suppose you've heard about Morton Elder?"

  "What do you think Mort Elder's been doing now?"

  "We've got bad news for poor Miss Elder!"

  Mrs. Lane was intensely interested. Even Mr. Lane showed signs ofanimation.

  "I'm not surprised," he said.

  "He's done it now," opined Miss Josie with conviction. "I always saidRella Elder was spoiling that boy."

  "It's too bad--after all she's done for him! He always was a scamp!"Thus Miss Sallie.

  "I've been afraid of it all along," Miss Rebecca was saying, her voicebooming through the lighter tones of her sisters. "I always said he'dnever get through college."

  "But who is Morton Elder, and what has he done?" asked Mrs. Williamsas soon as she could be heard.

  This lady now proved a most valuable asset. She was so new to thetown, and had been so immersed in the suddenly widening range of herunsalaried duties as "minister's wife," that she had never even heardof Morton Elder.

  A new resident always fans the languishing flame of localconversation. The whole shopworn stock takes on a fresh lustre, topicslong trampled flat in much discussion lift their heads anew, opinionsone scarce dared to repeat again become almost authoritative, oldstories flourish freshly, acquiring new detail and more vivid color.

  Mrs. Lane, seizing her opportunity while the sisters gasped a momentaryamazement at anyone's not knowing the town scapegrace, and takingadvantage of her position as old friend and near neighbor of the familyunder discussion, swept into the field under such headway that even theFoote girls remained silent perforce; surcharged, however, and holdingtheir breaths in readiness to burst forth at the first opening.

  "He's the nephew--orphan nephew--of Miss Elder--who lives right backof us--our yards touch--we've always been friends--went to schooltogether, Rella's never married--she teaches, you know--and herbrother--he owned the home--it's all hers now, he died all of a suddenand left two children--Morton and Susie. Mort was about seven yearsold and Susie just a baby. He's been an awful cross--but she justidolizes him--she's spoiled him, I tell her."

  Mrs. Lane had to breathe, and even the briefest pause left her strandedto wait another chance. The three social benefactors proceeded todistribute their information in a clattering torrent. They sought toinform Mrs. W
illiams in especial, of numberless details of the earlylife and education of their subject, matters which would have beentreated more appreciatively if they had not been blessed with the laternews; and, at the same time, each was seeking for a more dramaticemphasis to give this last supply of incident with due effect.

  No regular record is possible where three persons pour forth statementand comment in a rapid, tumultuous stream, interrupted by crosscurrents of heated contradiction, and further varied by theexclamations and protests of three hearers, or at least, of two; forthe one man present soon relapsed into disgusted silence.

  Mrs. Williams, turning a perplexed face from one to the other, inwardlycondemning the darkening flood of talk, yet conscious of a sinfulpleasure in it, and anxious as a guest, _and_ a minister's wife, to bemost amiable, felt like one watching three kinetescopes at once. Shesaw, in confused pictures of blurred and varying outline, Orella Elder,the young New England girl, only eighteen, already a "school ma'am,"suddenly left with two children to bring up, and doing it, as best shecould. She saw the boy, momentarily changing, in his shuttlecock flightfrom mouth to mouth, through pale shades of open mischief to the blackand scarlet of hinted sin, the terror of the neighborhood, the darlingof his aunt, clever, audacious, scandalizing the quiet town.

  "Boys are apt to be mischievous, aren't they?" she suggested when itwas possible.

  "He's worse than mischievous," Mr. Lane assured her sourly. "There's amean streak in that family."

  "That's on his mother's side," Mrs. Lane hastened to add. "She was aqueer girl--came from New York."

  The Foote girls began again, with rich profusion of detail, theirvoices rising shrill, one above the other, and playing together attheir full height like emulous fountains.

  "We ought not to judge, you know;" urged Mrs. Williams. "What do yousay he's really done?"

  Being sifted, it appeared that this last and most terrible performancewas to go to "the city" with a group of "the worst boys of college,"to get undeniably drunk, to do some piece of mischief. (Here was greatlicence in opinion, and in contradiction.)

  "_Anyway_ he's to be suspended!" said Miss Rebecca with finality.

  "Suspended!" Miss Josie's voice rose in scorn. "_Expelled!_ They saidhe was expelled."

  "In disgrace!" added Miss Sallie.

  Vivian Lane sat in the back room at the window, studying in thelingering light of the long June evening. At least, she appeared to bestudying. Her tall figure was bent over her books, but the dark eyesblazed under their delicate level brows, and her face flushed andpaled with changing feelings.

  She had heard--who, in the same house, could escape hearing the MissesFoote?--and had followed the torrent of description, hearsay, surmiseand allegation with an interest that was painful in its intensity.

  "It's a _shame_!" she whispered under her breath. "A _shame_! Andnobody to stand up for him!"

  She half rose to her feet as if to do it herself, but sank backirresolutely.

  A fresh wave of talk rolled forth.

  "It'll half kill his aunt."

  "Poor Miss Elder! I don't know what she'll do!"

  "I don't know what _he'll_ do. He can't go back to college."

  "He'll have to go to work."

  "I'd like to know where--nobody'd hire him in this town."

  The girl could bear it no longer. She came to the door, and there, asthey paused to speak to her, her purpose ebbed again.

  "My daughter, Vivian, Mrs. Williams," said her mother; and the othercallers greeted her familiarly.

  "You'd better finish your lessons, Vivian," Mr. Lane suggested.

  "I have, father," said the girl, and took a chair by the minister'swife. She had a vague feeling that if she were there, they would nottalk so about Morton Elder.

  Mrs. Williams hailed the interruption gratefully. She liked theslender girl with the thoughtful eyes and pretty, rather patheticmouth, and sought to draw her out. But her questions soon led tounfortunate results.

  "You are going to college, I suppose?" she presently inquired; andVivian owned that it was the desire of her heart.

  "Nonsense!" said her father. "Stuff and nonsense, Vivian! You're notgoing to college."

  The Foote girls now burst forth in voluble agreement with Mr. Lane.His wife was evidently of the same mind; and Mrs. Williams plainlyregretted her question. But Vivian mustered courage enough to make astand, strengthened perhaps by the depth of the feeling which hadbrought her into the room.

  "I don't know why you're all so down on a girl's going to college. EveMarks has gone, and Mary Spring is going--and both the Austin girls.Everybody goes now."

  "I know one girl that won't," was her father's incisive comment, and hermother said quietly, "A girl's place is at home--'till she marries."

  "Suppose I don't want to marry?" said Vivian.

  "Don't talk nonsense," her father answered. "Marriage is a woman'sduty."

  "What do you want to do?" asked Miss Josie in the interests of furthercombat. "Do you want to be a doctor, like Jane Bellair?"

  "I should like to very much indeed," said the girl with quietintensity. "I'd like to be a doctor in a babies' hospital."

  "More nonsense," said Mr. Lane. "Don't talk to me about that woman!You attend to your studies, and then to your home duties, my dear."

  The talk rose anew, the three sisters contriving all to agree with Mr.Lane in his opinions about college, marriage and Dr. Bellair, yet todisagree violently among themselves.

  Mrs. Williams rose to go, and in the lull that followed the liquidnote of a whippoorwill met the girl's quick ear. She quietly slippedout, unnoticed.

  The Lane's home stood near the outer edge of the town, with an outlookacross wide meadows and soft wooded hills. Behind, their long gardenbacked on that of Miss Orella Elder, with a connecting gate in thegray board fence. Mrs. Lane had grown up here. The house belonged toher mother, Mrs. Servilla Pettigrew, though that able lady was seldomin it, preferring to make herself useful among two growing sets ofgrandchildren.

  Miss Elder was Vivian's favorite teacher. She was a careful andconscientious instructor, and the girl was a careful and conscientiousscholar; so they got on admirably together; indeed, there was a realaffection between them. And just as the young Laura Pettigrew hadplayed with the younger Orella Elder, so Vivian had played with littleSusie Elder, Miss Orella's orphan niece. Susie regarded the older girlwith worshipful affection, which was not at all unpleasant to anemotional young creature with unemotional parents, and no brothers orsisters of her own.

  Moreover, Susie was Morton's sister.

  The whippoorwill's cry sounded again through the soft June night.Vivian came quickly down the garden path between the bordering beds ofsweet alyssum and mignonette. A dew-wet rose brushed against her hand.She broke it off, pricking her fingers, and hastily fastened it in thebosom of her white frock.

  Large old lilac bushes hung over the dividing fence, a thick mass ofhoneysuckle climbed up by the gate and mingled with them, spreadingover to a pear tree on the Lane side. In this fragrant, hidden cornerwas a rough seat, and from it a boy's hand reached out and seized thegirl's, drawing her down beside him. She drew away from him as far asthe seat allowed.

  "Oh Morton!" she said. "What have you done?"

  Morton was sulky.

  "Now Vivian, are you down on me too? I thought I had one friend."

  "You ought to tell me," she said more gently. "How can I be your friendif I don't know the facts? They are saying perfectly awful things."

  "Who are?"

  "Why--the Foote girls--everybody."

  "Oh those old maids aren't everybody, I assure you. You see, Vivian,you live right here in this old oyster of a town--and you makemountains out of molehills like everybody else. A girl of yourintelligence ought to know better."

  She drew a great breath of relief. "Then you haven't--done it?"

  "Done what? What's all this mysterious talk anyhow? The prisoner has aright to know what he's charged with before he commits himself.
"

  The girl was silent, finding it difficult to begin.

  "Well, out with it. What do they say I did?" He picked up a long drytwig and broke it, gradually, into tiny, half-inch bits.

  "They say you--went to the city--with a lot of the worst boys incollege----"

  "Well? Many persons go to the city every day. That's no crime, surely.As for 'the worst boys in college,'"--he laughed scornfully--"Isuppose those old ladies think if a fellow smokes a cigarette or says'darn' he's a tough. They're mighty nice fellows, that bunch--most of'em. Got some ginger in 'em, that's all. What else?"

  "They say--you drank."

  "O ho! Said I got drunk, I warrant! Well--we did have a skate on thattime, I admit!" And he laughed as if this charge were but a familiarjoke.

  "Why Morton Elder! I think it is a--disgrace!"

  "Pshaw, Vivian!--You ought to have more sense. All the fellows get gayonce in a while. A college isn't a young ladies' seminary."

  He reached out and got hold of her hand again, but she drew it away.

  "There was something else," she said.

  "What was it?" he questioned sharply. "What did they say?"

  But she would not satisfy him--perhaps could not.

  "I should think you'd be ashamed, to make your aunt so much trouble.They said you were suspended--or--_expelled_!"

  He shrugged his big shoulders and threw away the handful of brokentwigs.

  "That's true enough--I might as well admit that."

  "Oh, _Morton_!--I didn't believe it. _Expelled!_"

  "Yes, expelled--turned down--thrown out--fired! And I'm glad of it." Heleaned back against the fence and whistled very softly through histeeth.

  "Sh! Sh!" she urged. "Please!"

  He was quiet.

  "But Morton--what are you going to do?--Won't it spoil your career?"

  "No, my dear little girl, it will not!" said he. "On the contrary, itwill be the making of me. I tell you, Vivian, I'm sick to death of thistown of maiden ladies--and 'good family men.' I'm sick of being fussedover for ever and ever, and having wristers and mufflers knitted forme--and being told to put on my rubbers! There's no fun in this oldclamshell--this kitchen-midden of a town--and I'm going to quit it."

  He stood up and stretched his long arms. "I'm going to quit it forgood and all."

  The girl sat still, her hands gripping the seat on either side.

  "Where are you going?" she asked in a low voice.

  "I'm going west--clear out west. I've been talking with Aunt Rellaabout it. Dr. Bellair'll help me to a job, she thinks. She's awful cutup, of course. I'm sorry she feels bad--but she needn't, I tell her. Ishall do better there than I ever should have here. I know a fellowthat left college--his father failed--and he went into business andmade two thousand dollars in a year. I always wanted to take upbusiness--you know that!"

  She knew it--he had talked of it freely before they had argued andpersuaded him into the college life. She knew, too, how his aunt's hopesall centered in him, and in his academic honors and future professionallife. "Business," to his aunt's mind, was a necessary evil, which couldat best be undertaken only after a "liberal education."

  "When are you going," she asked at length.

  "Right off--to-morrow."

  She gave a little gasp.

  "That's what I was whippoorwilling about--I knew I'd get no otherchance to talk to you--I wanted to say good-by, you know."

  The girl sat silent, struggling not to cry. He dropped beside her,stole an arm about her waist, and felt her tremble.

  "Now, Viva, don't you go and cry! I'm sorry--I really am sorry--tomake _you_ feel bad."

  This was too much for her, and she sobbed frankly.

  "Oh, Morton! How could you! How could you!--And now you've got to goaway!"

  "There now--don't cry--sh!--they'll hear you."

  She did hush at that.

  "And don't feel so bad--I'll come back some time--to see you."

  "No, you won't!" she answered with sudden fierceness. "You'll justgo--and stay--and I never shall see you again!"

  He drew her closer to him. "And do you care--so much--Viva?"

  "Of course, I care!" she said, "Haven't we always been friends, thebest of friends?"

  "Yes--you and Aunt Rella have been about all I had," he admitted witha cheerful laugh. "I hope I'll make more friends out yonder. ButViva,"--his hand pressed closer--"is it only--friends?"

  She took fright at once and drew away from him. "You mustn't do that,Morton!"

  "Do what?" A shaft of moonlight shone on his teasing face. "What am Idoing?" he said.

  It is difficult--it is well nigh impossible--for a girl to put a nameto certain small cuddlings not in themselves terrifying, nor evenunpleasant, but which she obscurely feels to be wrong.

  Viva flushed and was silent--he could see the rich color flood her face.

  "Come now--don't be hard on a fellow!" he urged. "I shan't see you againin ever so long. You'll forget all about me before a year's over."

  She shook her head, still silent.

  "Won't you speak to me--Viva?"

  "I wish----" She could not find the words she wanted. "Oh, I wishyou--wouldn't!"

  "Wouldn't what, Girlie? Wouldn't go away? Sorry to disoblige--but Ihave to. There's no place for me here."

  The girl felt the sad truth of that.

  "Aunt Rella will get used to it after a while. I'll write to her--I'llmake lots of money--and come back in a few years--astonish youall!--Meanwhile--kiss me good-by, Viva!"

  She drew back shyly. She had never kissed him. She had never in herlife kissed any man younger than an uncle.

  "No, Morton--you mustn't----" She shrank away into the shadow.

  But, there was no great distance to shrink to, and his strong armssoon drew her close again.

  "Suppose you never see me again," he said. "Then you'll wish youhadn't been so stiff about it."

  She thought of this dread possibility with a sudden chill of horror,and while she hesitated, he took her face between her hands and kissedher on the mouth.

  Steps were heard coming down the path.

  "They're on," he said with a little laugh. "Good-by, Viva!"

  He vaulted the fence and was gone.

  "What are you doing here, Vivian?" demanded her father.

  "I was saying good-by to Morton," she answered with a sob.

  "You ought to be ashamed of yourself--philandering out here in themiddle of the night with that scapegrace! Come in the house and go tobed at once--it's ten o'clock."

  Bowing to this confused but almost equally incriminating chronology,she followed him in, meekly enough as to her outward seeming, butinwardly in a state of stormy tumult.

  She had been kissed!

  Her father's stiff back before her could not blot out the radiant,melting moonlight, the rich sweetness of the flowers, the tender,soft, June night.

  "You go to bed," said he once more. "I'm ashamed of you."

  "Yes, father," she answered.

  Her little room, when at last she was safely in it and had shut thedoor and put a chair against it--she had no key--seemed somehow changed.

  She lit the lamp and stood looking at herself in the mirror. Her eyeswere star-bright. Her cheeks flamed softly. Her mouth looked guiltyand yet glad.

  She put the light out and went to the window, kneeling there, leaningout in the fragrant stillness, trying to arrange in her mind thismixture of grief, disapproval, shame and triumph.

  When the Episcopal church clock struck eleven, she went to bed inguilty haste, but not to sleep.

  For a long time she lay there watching the changing play of moonlighton the floor.

  She felt almost as if she were married.