The Breaking Point Read online

  III

  The Wheeler house was good, modern and commonplace. Walter Wheeler andhis wife were like the house. Just as here and there among the furniturethere was a fine thing, an antique highboy, a Sheraton sideboard orsome old cut glass, so they had, with a certain mediocrity their ownoutstanding virtues. They liked music, believed in the home as the unitof the nation, put happiness before undue ambition, and had devotedtheir lives to their children.

  For many years their lives had centered about the children. For yearsthey had held anxious conclave about whooping cough, about small earlydisobediences, later about Sunday tennis. They stood united to protectthe children against disease, trouble and eternity.

  Now that the children were no longer children, they were sometimeslonely and still apprehensive. They feared motor car accidents, andWalter Wheeler had withstood the appeals of Jim for a half dozen years.They feared trains for them, and journeys, and unhappy marriages, andhid their fears from each other. Their nightly prayers were "to keepthem safe and happy."

  But they saw life reaching out and taking them, one by one. They sawthem still as children, but as children determined to bear their ownburdens. Jim stayed out late sometimes, and considered his manhood inquestion if interrogated. Nina was married and out of the home, butthere loomed before them the possibility of maternity and its dangersfor her. There remained only Elizabeth, and on her they lavished thecare formerly divided among the three.

  It was their intention and determination that she should never knowtrouble. She was tenderer than the others, more docile and gentle. Theysaw her, not as a healthy, normal girl, but as something fragile andvery precious.

  Nina was different. They had always worried a little about Nina,although they had never put their anxiety to each other. Nina had alwaysoverrun her dress allowance, although she had never failed to be sweetlypenitent about it, and Nina had always placed an undue emphasis onthings. Her bedroom before her marriage was cluttered with odds andends, cotillion favors and photographs, college pennants and smallunwise purchases--trophies of the gayety and conquest which were herlife.

  And Nina had "come out." It had cost a great deal, and it was not somuch to introduce her to society as to put a family recognition on afact already accomplished, for Nina had brought herself out unofficiallyat sixteen. There had been the club ballroom, and a great many flowerswhich withered before they could be got to the hospital; and newclothing for all the family, and a caterer and orchestra. After that,for a cold and tumultuous winter Mrs. Wheeler had sat up with thedowagers night after night until all hours, and the next morning hadlet Nina sleep, while she went about her household duties. She had aged,rather, and her determined smile had grown a little fixed.

  She was a good woman, and she wanted her children's happiness more thananything in the world, but she had a faint and sternly repressedfeeling of relief when Nina announced her engagement. Nina did it withcharacteristic sangfroid, at dinner one night.

  "Don't ring for Annie for a minute, mother," she said. "I want to tellyou all something. I'm going to marry Leslie Ward."

  There had been a momentary pause. Then her father said:

  "Just a minute. Is that Will Ward's boy?"

  "Yes. He's not a boy."

  "Well, he'll come around to see me before there's any engagement. Hasthat occurred to either of you?"

  "Oh, he'll be around. He'd have come to-night, but Howard Moore ishaving his bachelor dinner. I hope he doesn't look shot to piecesto-morrow. These bachelor things--! We'd better have a dinner orsomething, mother, and announce it."

  There had been the dinner, with a silver loving cup bought for theoccasion, and thereafter to sit out its useless days on the Sheratonsideboard. And there had been a trousseau and a wedding so expensivethat a small frown of anxiety had developed between Walter Wheeler'seyebrows and stayed there.

  For Nina's passion for things was inherent, persisting after hermarriage. She discounted her birthday and Christmases in advance, comingaround to his office a couple of months before the winter holidays andneeding something badly.

  "It's like this, daddy," she would say. "You're going to give me a checkfor Christmas anyhow, aren't you? And it would do me more good now. Isimply can't go to another ball."

  "Where's your trousseau?"

  "It's worn out-danced to rags. And out of date, too."

  "I don't understand it, Nina. You and Leslie have a good income. Yourmother and I--"

  "You didn't have any social demands. And wedding presents! If one morefriend of mine is married--"

  He would get out his checkbook and write a check slowly andthoughtfully. And tearing it off would say:

  "Now remember, Nina, this is for Christmas. Don't feel aggrieved whenthe time comes and you have no gift from us."

  But he knew that when the time came Margaret, his wife, would hold outalmost to the end, and then slip into a jeweler's and buy Nina somethingshe simply couldn't do without.

  It wasn't quite fair, he felt. It wasn't fair to Jim or to Elizabeth.Particularly to Elizabeth.

  Sometimes he looked at Elizabeth with a little prayer in his heart,never articulate, that life would be good to her; that she might keepher illusions and her dreams; that the soundness and wholesomeness ofher might keep her from unhappiness. Sometimes, as she sat reading orsewing, with the light behind her shining through her soft hair, he sawin her a purity that was almost radiant.

  He was in arms at once a night or two before Dick had invited Elizabethto go to the theater when Margaret Wheeler said:

  "The house was gayer when Nina was at home."

  "Yes. And you were pretty sick of it. Full of roistering young idiots.Piano and phonograph going at once, pairs of gigglers in the pantryat the refrigerator, pairs on the stairs and on the verandah,cigar-ashes--my cigars--and cigarettes over everything, and moreinfernal spooning going on than I've ever seen in my life."

  He had resumed his newspaper, to put it down almost at once.

  "What's that Sayre boy hanging around for?"

  "I think he's in love with her, Walter."

  "Love? Any of the Sayre tribe? Jim Sayre drank himself to death, andthis boy is like him. And Jim Sayre wasn't faithful to his wife. Thisboy is--well, he's an heir. That's why he was begotten."

  Margaret Wheeler stared at him.

  "Why, Walter!" she said. "He's a nice boy, and he's a gentleman."

  "Why? Because he gets up when you come into the room? Why inheaven's name don't you encourage real men to come here? There's DickLivingstone. He's a man."

  Margaret hesitated.

  "Walter, have you ever thought there was anything queer about DickLivingstone's coming here?"

  "Darned good for the town that he did come."

  "But--nobody ever dreamed that David and Lucy had a nephew. Then heturns up, and they send him to medical college, and all that."

  "I've got some relations I haven't notified the town I possess," he saidgrimly.

  "Well, there's something odd. I don't believe Henry Livingstone, theWyoming brother, ever had a son."

  "What possible foundation have you for a statement like that?"

  "Mrs. Cook Morgan's sister-in-law has been visiting her lately. She saysshe knew Henry Livingstone well years ago in the West, and she neverheard he was married. She says positively he was not married."

  "And trust the Morgan woman to spread the good news," he said with angrysarcasm. "Well, suppose that's true? Suppose Dick is an illegitimatechild? That's the worst that's implied, I daresay. That's nothingagainst Dick himself. I'll tell the world there's good blood on theLivingstone side, anyhow."

  "You were very particular about Wallie Sayre's heredity, Walter."

  "That's different," he retorted, and retired into gloomy silence behindhis newspaper. Drat these women anyhow. It was like some fool female tocome there and rake up some old and defunct scandal. He'd stand up forDick, if it ever came to a show-down. He liked Dick. What the devil didhis mother matter, anyhow? If this town hadn't had en
ough evidence ofDick Livingstone's quality the last few years he'd better go elsewhere.He--

  He got up and whistled for the dog.

  "I'm going to take a walk," he said briefly, and went out. He alwaystook a walk when things disturbed him.

  On the Sunday afternoon after Dick had gone Elizabeth was alone in herroom upstairs. On the bed lay the sort of gown Nina would have calleda dinner dress, and to which Elizabeth referred as her dark blue. Seenthus, in the room which was her own expression, there was a certainnobility about her very simplicity, a steadiness about her eyes that wasalmost disconcerting.

  "She's the saintly-looking sort that would go on the rocks for someman," Nina had said once, rather flippantly, "and never know she wasshipwrecked. No man in the world could do that to me."

  But just then Elizabeth looked totally unlike shipwreck. Nothing seemedmore like a safe harbor than the Wheeler house that afternoon, orall the afternoons. Life went on, the comfortable life of an uppermiddle-class household. Candles and flowers on the table and a neatwaitress to serve; little carefully planned shopping expeditions; finehand-sewing on dainty undergarments for rainy days; small tributes ofbooks and candy; invitations and consultations as to what to wear; choirpractice, a class in the Sunday school, a little work among the poor;the volcano which had been Nina overflowing elsewhere in a smart littlehouse with a butler out on the Ridgely Road.

  She looked what she was, faithful and quietly loyal, steady--and serene;not asking greatly but hoping much; full of small unvisualized dreamsand little inarticulate prayers; waiting, without knowing that she waswaiting.

  Sometimes she worried. She thought she ought to "do something." A goodmany of the girls she knew wanted to do something, but they were vagueas to what. She felt at those times that she was not being very useful,and she had gone so far as to lay the matter before her father a coupleof years before, when she was just eighteen.

  "Just what do you think of doing?" he had inquired.

  "That's it," she had said despondently. "I don't know. I haven't anyparticular talent, you know. But I don't think I ought to go on havingyou support me in idleness all my life."

  "Well, I don't think it likely that I'll have to," he had observed,dryly. "But here's the point, and I think it's important. I don't intendto work without some compensation, and my family is my compensation.You just hang around and make me happy, as you do, and you're fulfillingyour economic place in the nation. Don't you forget it, either."

  That had comforted her. She had determined then never to marry but tohang around, as he suggested, for the rest of her life. She was quiteearnest about it, and resolved.

  She picked up the blue dress and standing before her mirror, held it upbefore her. It looked rather shabby, she thought, but the theater wasnot like a dance, and anyhow it would look better at night. She had beenthinking about next Wednesday evening ever since Dick Livingstonehad gone. It seemed, better somehow, frightfully important. It wasfrightfully important. For the first time she acknowledged to herselfthat she had been fond of him, as she put it, for a long time. She hadan odd sense, too, of being young and immature, and as though he hadstooped to her from some height: such as thirty-two years and being inthe war, and having to decide about life and death, and so on.

  She hoped he did not think she was only a child.

  She heard Nina coming up the stairs. At the click of her high heels onthe hard wood she placed the dress on the bed again, and went to thewindow. Her father was on the path below, clearly headed for a walk. Sheknew then that Nina had been asking for something.

  Nina came in and closed the door. She was smaller than Elizabeth andvery pretty. Her eyebrows had been drawn to a tidy line, and from thetop of her shining head to her brown suede pumps she was exquisite withthe hours of careful tending and careful dressing she gave her youngbody. Exquisitely pretty, too.

  She sat down on Elizabeth's bed with a sigh.

  "I really don't know what to do with father," she said. "He flies offat a tangent over the smallest things. Elizabeth dear, can you lend metwenty dollars? I'll get my allowance on Tuesday."

  "I can give you ten."

  "Well, ask mother for the rest, won't you? You needn't say it's for me.I'll give it to you Tuesday."

  "I'm not going to mother, Nina. She has had a lot of expenses thismonth."

  "Then I'll borrow it from Wallie Sayre," Nina said, accepting her defeatcheerfully. "If it was an ordinary bill it could wait, but I lost it atbridge last night and it's got to be paid."

  "You oughtn't to play bridge for money," Elizabeth said, a bit primly."And if Leslie knew you borrowed from Wallace Sayre--"

  "I forgot! Wallie's downstairs, Elizabeth. Really, if he wasn't sofunny, he'd be tragic."

  "Why tragic? He has everything in the world."

  "If you use a little bit of sense, you can have it too."

  "I don't want

  "Pooh! That's what you think now. Wallie's a nice person. Lots of girlsare mad about him. And he has about all the money there is." Gettingno response from Elizabeth, she went on: "I was thinking it over lastnight. You'll have to marry sometime, and it isn't as though Wallie wasdissipated, or anything like that. I suppose he knows his way about, butthen they all do."

  She got up.

  "Be nice to him, anyhow," she said. "He's crazy about you, and when Ithink of you in that house! It's a wonderful house, Elizabeth. She's gota suite waiting for Wallie to be married before she furnishes it."

  Elizabeth looked around her virginal little room, with its painteddressing table, its chintz, and its white bed with the blue dress on it.

  "I'm very well satisfied as I am," she said.

  While she smoothed her hair before the mirror Nina surveyed the room andher eyes lighted on the frock.

  "Are you still wearing that shabby old thing?" she demanded. "I do wishyou'd get some proper clothes. Are you going somewhere?"

  "I'm going to the theater on Wednesday night."

  "Who with?" Nina in her family was highly colloquial.

  "With Doctor Livingstone."

  "Are you joking?" Nina demanded.

  "Joking? Of course not."

  Nina sat down again on the bed, her eyes on her sister, curious and nota little apprehensive.

  "It's the first time it's ever happened, to my knowledge," she declared."I know he's avoided me like poison. I thought he hated women. You knowClare Rossiter is--"

  Elizabeth turned suddenly.

  "Clare is ridiculous," she said. "She hasn't any reserve, or dignity,or anything else. And I don't see what my going to the theater with DickLivingstone has to do with her anyhow."

  Nina raised her carefully plucked eyebrows.

  "Really!" she said. "You needn't jump down my throat, you know." Sheconsidered, her eyes on her sister. "Don't go and throw yourself away onDick Livingstone, Sis. You're too good-looking, and he hasn't a cent. Asuburban practice, out all night, that tumble-down old house and twoold people hung around your necks, for Doctor David is letting go prettyfast. It just won't do. Besides, there's a story going the rounds abouthim, that--"

  "I don't want to hear it, if you don't mind."

  She went to the door and opened it.

  "I've hardly spoken a dozen words to him in my life. But just rememberthis. When I do find the man I want to marry, I shall make up my ownmind. As you did," she added as a parting shot.

  She was rather sorry as she went down the stairs. She had begun tosuspect what the family had never guessed, that Nina was not very happy.More and more she saw in Nina's passion for clothes and gaiety, forsmall possessions, an attempt to substitute them for real things. Sheeven suspected that sometimes Nina was a little lonely.

  Wallie Sayre rose from a deep chair as she entered the living-room.

  "Hello," he said, "I was on the point of asking Central to give me thisnumber so I could get you on the upstairs telephone."

  "Nina and I were talking. I'm sorry."

  Wallie, in spite of Walter Wheeler's opinion
of him, was an engagingyouth with a wide smile, an air of careless well-being, and an obstinatejaw. What he wanted he went after and generally secured, and Elizabeth,enlightened by Nina, began to have a small anxious feeling thatafternoon that what he wanted just now happened to be herself.

  "Nina coming down?" he asked.

  "I suppose so. Why?"

  "You couldn't pass the word along that you are going to be engaged forthe next half hour?"

  "I might, but I certainly don't intend to."

  "You are as hard to isolate as a--as a germ," he complained. "I gaveup a perfectly good golf game to see you, and as your father generallycalls the dog the moment I appear and goes for a walk, I thought I mightsee you alone."

  "You're seeing me alone now, you know."

  Suddenly he leaned over and catching up her hand, kissed it.

  "You're so cool and sweet," he said. "I--I wish you liked me a little."He smiled up at her, rather wistfully. "I never knew any one quite likeyou."

  She drew her hand away. Something Nina had said, that he knew his wayabout, came into her mind, and made her uncomfortable. Back of him,suddenly, was that strange and mysterious region where men of his sortlived their furtive man-life, where they knew their way about. She hadno curiosity and no interest, but the mere fact of its existence asrevealed by Nina repelled her.

  "There are plenty like me," she said. "Don't be silly, Wallie. I hatehaving my hand kissed."

  "I wonder," he observed shrewdly, "whether that's really true, orwhether you just hate having me do it?"

  When Nina came in he was drawing a rough sketch of his new power boat,being built in Florida.

  Nina's delay was explained by the appearance, a few minutes later, ofa rather sullen Annie with a tea tray. Afternoon tea was not a Wheelerinstitution, but was notoriously a Sayre one. And Nina believed inputting one's best foot foremost, even when that resulted in a state ofunstable domestic equilibrium.

  "Put in a word for me, Nina," Wallie begged. "I intend to ask Elizabethto go to the theater this week, and I think she is going to refuse."

  "What's the play?" Nina inquired negligently. She was privatelydetermining that her mother needed a tea cart and a new tea service.There were some in old Georgian silver--

  "'The Valley.' Not that the play matters. It's Beverly Carlysle."

  "I thought she was dead, or something."

  "Or something is right. She retired years ago, at the top of hersuccess. She was a howling beauty, I'm told. I never saw her. There wassome queer story. I've forgotten it. I was a kid then. How about it,Elizabeth?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm going Wednesday night."

  He looked downcast over that, and he was curious, too. But he made nocomment save:

  "Well, better luck next time."

  "Just imagine," said Nina. "She's going with Dick Livingstone. Can youimagine it?"

  But Wallace Sayre could and did. He had rather a stricken moment, too.Of course, there might be nothing to it; but on the other hand, therevery well might. And Livingstone was the sort to attract the femininewoman; he had gravity and responsibility. He was older too, and thatflattered a girl.

  "He's not a bit attractive," Nina was saying. "Quiet, and--well, I don'tsuppose he knows what he's got on."

  Wallie was watching Elizabeth.

  "Oh, I don't know," he said, with masculine fairness. "He's a good sort,and he's pretty much of a man."

  He was quite sure that the look Elizabeth gave him was grateful.

  He went soon after that, keeping up an appearance of gaiety to the end,and very careful to hope that Elizabeth would enjoy the play.

  "She's a wonder, they say," he said from the doorway. "Take two hankiesalong, for it's got more tears than 'East Lynne' and 'The Old Homestead'put together."

  He went out, holding himself very erect and looking very cheerful untilhe reached the corner. There however he slumped, and it was a ratherdespondent young man who stood sometime later, on the center of thedeserted bridge over the small river, and surveyed the water with moodyeyes.

  In the dusky living-room Nina was speaking her mind.

  "You treat him like a dog," she said. "Oh, I know you're civil to him,but if any man looked at me the way Wallie looks at you--I don't know,though," she added, thoughtfully. "It may be that that is why he is sokeen. It may be good tactics. Most girls fall for him with a crash."

  But when she glanced at Elizabeth she saw that she had not heard. Hereyes were fixed on something on the street beyond the window. Ninalooked out. With a considerable rattle of loose joints and fourextraordinarily worn tires the Livingstone car was going by.