Books: The Fallen Leaves

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"Aha!" said Mr. Hethcote, "we are coming to the difficulties of the
Community at last!"

"Are we also coming to Miss Mellicent, sir?" Rufus inquired. "As a
citizen of a free country in which I can love in one State, marry in
another, and be divorced in a third, I am not interested in your
Rules--I am interested in your Lady."

"The two are inseparable in this case," Amelius answered gravely. "If I
am to speak of Miss Mellicent, I must speak of the Rules; you will soon
see why. Our Community becomes a despotism, gentlemen, in dealing with
love and marriage. For example, it positively prohibits any member
afflicted with hereditary disease from marrying at all; and it reserves
to itself, in the case of every proposed marriage among us, the right
of permitting or forbidding it, in council. We can't even fall in love
with each other, without being bound, under penalties, to report it to
the Elder Brother; who, in his turn, communicates it to the monthly
council; who, in their turn, decide whether the courtship may go on or
not. That's not the worst of it, even yet! In some cases--where we
haven't the slightest intention of falling in love with each other--the
governing body takes the initiative. 'You two will do well to marry; we
see it, if you don't. Just think of it, will you?' You may laugh; some
of our happiest marriages have been made in that way. Our governors in
council act on an established principle: here it is in a nutshell. The
results of experience in the matter of marriage, all over the world,
show that a really wise choice of a husband or a wife is an exception
to the rule; and that husbands and wives in general would be happier
together if their marriages were managed for them by competent advisers
on either side. Laws laid down on such lines as these, and others
equally strict, which I have not mentioned yet, were not put in force,
Mr. Hethcote, as you suppose, without serious difficulties--
difficulties which threatened the very existence of the Community. But
that was before my time. When I grew up, I found the husbands and wives
about me content to acknowledge that the Rules fulfilled the purpose
with which they had been made--the greatest happiness of the greatest
number. It all looks very absurd, I dare say, from your point of view.
But these queer regulations of ours answer the Christian test--by their
fruits ye shall know them. Our married people don't live on separate
sides of the house; our children are all healthy; wife-beating is
unknown among us; and the practice in our divorce court wouldn't keep
the most moderate lawyer on bread and cheese. Can you say as much for
the success of the marriage laws in Europe? I leave you, gentlemen, to
form your own opinions."

Mr. Hethcote declined to express an opinion. Rufus declined to resign
his interest in the lady. "And what did Miss Mellicent say to it?" he
inquired.

"She said something that startled us all," Amelius replied. "When the
Elder Brother began to read the first words relating to love and
marriage in the Book of Rules, she turned deadly pale; and rose up in
her place with a sudden burst of courage or desperation--I don't know
which. 'Must you read that to me?' she asked. 'I have nothing to do
with love or marriage.' The Elder Brother laid aside his Book of Rules.
'If you are afflicted with an hereditary malady,' he said, 'the doctor
from the town will examine you, and report to us.' She answered, 'I
have no hereditary malady.' The Elder Brother took up his book again.
'In due course of time, my dear, the Council will decide for you
whether you are to love and marry or not.' And he read the Rules. She
sat down again, and hid her face in her hands, and never moved or spoke
until he had done. The regular questions followed. Had she anything to
say, in the way of objection? Nothing! In that case, would she sign the
Rules? Yes! When the time came for supper, she excused herself, just
like a child. 'I feel very tired; may I go to bed?' The unmarried women
in the same dormitory with her anticipated some romantic confession
when she grew used to her new friends. They proved to be wrong. 'My
life has been one long disappointment,' was all she said. 'You will do
me a kindness if you will take me as I am, and not ask me to talk about
myself.' There was nothing sulky or ungracious in the expression of her
wish to keep her own secret. A kinder and sweeter woman--never thinking
of herself, always considerate of others--never lived. An accidental
discovery made me her chief friend, among the men: it turned out that
her childhood had been passed, where my childhood had been passed, at
Shedfield Heath, in Buckinghamshire. She was never weary of consulting
my boyish recollections, and comparing them with her own. 'I love the
place,' she used to say; 'the only happy time of my life was the time
passed there.' On my sacred word of honour, this was the sort of talk
that passed between us, for week after week. What other talk could pass
between a man whose one and twentieth birthday was then near at hand,
and a woman who was close on forty? What could I do, when the poor,
broken, disappointed creature met me on the hill or by the river, and
said, 'You are going out for a walk; may I come with you?' I never
attempted to intrude myself into her confidence; I never even asked her
why she had joined the Community. You see what is coming, don't you?
_I_ never saw it. I didn't know what it meant, when some of the younger
women, meeting us together, looked at me (not at her), and smiled
maliciously. My stupid eyes were opened at last by the woman who slept
in the next bed to her in the dormitory--a woman old enough to be my
mother, who took care of me when I was a child at Tadmor. She stopped
me one morning, on my way to fish in the river. 'Amelius,' she said,
'don't go to the fishing-house; Mellicent is waiting for you.' I stared
at her in astonishment. She held up her finger at me: 'Take care, you
foolish boy! You are drifting into a false position as fast as you can.
Have you no suspicion of what is going on?' I looked all round me, in
search of what was going on. Nothing out of the common was to be seen
anywhere. 'What can you possibly mean?' I asked. 'You will only laugh
at me, if I tell you,' she said. I promised not to laugh. She too
looked all round her, as if she was afraid of somebody being near
enough to hear us; and then she let out the secret. 'Amelius, ask for a
holiday--and leave us for a while. Mellicent is in love with you.'"

CHAPTER 4

Amelius looked at his companions, in some doubt whether they would
preserve their gravity at this critical point in his story. They both
showed him that his apprehensions were well founded. He was a little
hurt, and he instantly revealed it. "I own to my shame that I burst out
laughing myself," he said. "But you two gentlemen are older and wiser
than I am. I didn't expect to find you just as ready to laugh at poor
Miss Mellicent as I was."

Mr. Hethcote declined to be reminded of his duties as a middle-aged
gentleman in this backhanded manner. "Gently, Amelius! You can't expect
to persuade us that a laughable thing is not a thing to be laughed at.
A woman close on forty who falls in love with a young fellow of
twenty-one--"

"Is a laughable circumstance," Rufus interposed. "Whereas a man of
forty who fancies a young woman of twenty-one is all in the order of
Nature. The men have settled it so. But why the women are to give up so
much sooner than the men is a question, sir, on which I have long
wished to hear the sentiments of the women themselves."

Mr. Hethcote dismissed the sentiments of the women with a wave of his
hand. "Let us hear the rest of it, Amelius. Of course you went on to
the fishing-house? And of course you found Miss Mellicent there?"

"She came to the door to meet me, much as usual," Amelius resumed, "and
suddenly checked herself in the act of shaking hands with me. I can
only suppose she saw something in my face that startled her. How it
happened, I can't say; but I felt my good spirits forsake me the moment
I found myself in her presence. I doubt if she had ever seen me so
serious before. 'Have I offended you?' she asked. Of course, I denied
it; but I failed to satisfy her. She began to tremble. 'Has somebody
said something against me? Are you weary of my company?' Those were the
next questions. It was useless to say No. Some perverse distrust of me,
or some despair of herself, overpowered her on a sudden. She sank down
on the floor of the fishing-house, and began to cry--not a good hearty
burst of tears; a silent, miserable, resigned sort of crying, as if she
had lost all claim to be pitied, and all right to feel wounded or hurt.
I was so distressed, that I thought of nothing but consoling her. I
meant well, and I acted like a fool. A sensible man would have lifted
her up, I suppose, and left her to herself. I lifted her up, and put my
arm round her waist. She looked at me as I did it. For just a moment, I
declare she became twenty years younger! She blushed as I have never
seen a woman blush before or since--the colour flowed all over her neck
as well as her face. Before I could say a word, she caught hold of my
hand, and (of all the confusing things in the world!) kissed it. 'No!'
she cried, 'don't despise me! don't laugh at me! Wait, and hear what my
life has been, and then you will understand why a little kindness
overpowers me.' She looked round the corner of the fishing-house
suspiciously. 'I don't want anybody else to hear us,' she said, 'all
the pride isn't beaten out of me yet. Come to the lake, and row me
about in the boat.' I took her out in the boat. Nobody could hear us
certainly; but she forgot, and I forgot, that anybody might see us, and
that appearances on the lake might lead to false conclusions on shore."

Mr. Hethcote and Rufus exchanged significant looks. They had not
forgotten the Rules of the Community, when two of its members showed a
preference for each other's society.

Amelius proceeded. "Well, there we were on the lake. I paddled with the
oars, and she opened her whole heart to me. Her troubles had begun, in
a very common way, with her mother's death and her father's second
marriage. She had a brother and a sister--the sister married a German
merchant, settled in New York; the brother comfortably established as a
sheep-farmer in Australia. So, you see, she was alone at home, at the
mercy of the step-mother. I don't understand these cases myself, but
people who do, tell me that there are generally faults on both sides.
To make matters worse, they were a poor family; the one rich relative
being a sister of the first wife, who disapproved of the widower
marrying again, and never entered the house afterwards. Well, the
step-mother had a sharp tongue, and Mellicent was the first person to
feel the sting of it. She was reproached with being an encumbrance on
her father, when she ought to be doing something for herself. There was
no need to repeat those harsh words. The next day she answered an
advertisement. Before the week was over, she was earning her bread as a
daily governess."

Here Rufus stopped the narrative, having an interesting question to
put. "Might I inquire, sir, what her salary was?"

"Thirty pounds a year," Amelius replied. "She was out teaching from
nine o'clock to two--and then went home again."

"There seems to be nothing to complain of in that, as salaries go," Mr.
Hethcote remarked.

"She made no complaint," Amelius rejoined. "She was satisfied with her
salary; but she wasn't satisfied with her life. The meek little woman
grew downright angry when she spoke of it. 'I had no reason to complain
of my employers,' she said. 'I was civilly treated and punctually paid;
but I never made friends of them. I tried to make friends of the
children; and sometimes I thought I had succeeded--but, oh dear, when
they were idle, and I was obliged to keep them to their lessons, I soon
found how little hold I had on the love that I wanted them to give me.
We see children in books who are perfect little angels; never envious
or greedy or sulky or deceitful; always the same sweet, pious, tender,
grateful, innocent creatures--and it has been my misfortune never to
meet with them, go where I might! It is a hard world, Amelius, the
world that I have lived in. I don't think there are such miserable
lives anywhere as the lives led by the poor middle classes in England.
From year's end to year's end, the one dreadful struggle to keep up
appearances, and the heart-breaking monotony of an existence without
change. We lived in the back street of a cheap suburb. I declare to you
we had but one amusement in the whole long weary year--the annual
concert the clergyman got up, in aid of his schools. The rest of the
year it was all teaching for the first half of the day, and needlework
for the young family for the other half. My father had religious
scruples; he prohibited theatres, he prohibited dancing and light
reading; he even prohibited looking in at the shop-windows, because we
had no money to spare and they tempted us to buy. He went to business
in the morning, and came back at night, and fell asleep after dinner,
and woke up and read prayers--and next day to business and back, and
sleeping and waking and reading prayers--and no break in it, week after
week, month after month, except on Sunday, which was always the same
Sunday; the same church, the same service, the same dinner, the same
book of sermons in the evening. Even when we had a fortnight once a
year at the seaside, we always went to the same place and lodged in the
same cheap house. The few friends we had led just the same lives, and
were beaten down flat by just the same monotony. All the women seemed
to submit to it contentedly except my miserable self. I wanted so
little! Only a change now and then; only a little sympathy when I was
weary and sick at heart; only somebody whom I could love and serve, and
be rewarded with a smile and a kind word in return. Mothers shook their
heads, and daughters laughed at me. Have we time to be sentimental?
Haven't we enough to do, darning and mending, and turning our dresses,
and making the joint last as long as possible, and keeping the children
clean, and doing the washing at home--and tea and sugar rising, and my
husband grumbling every week when I have to ask him for the
house-money. Oh, no more of it! no more of it! People meant for better
things all ground down to the same sordid and selfish level--is that a
pleasant sight to contemplate? I shudder when I think of the last
twenty years of my life!' That's what she complained of, Mr. Hethcote,
in the solitary middle of the lake, with nobody but me to hear her."

"In my country, sir," Rufus remarked, "the Lecture Bureau would have
provided for her amusement, on economical terms. And I reckon, if a
married life would fix her, she might have tried it among Us by way of
a change."

"That's the saddest part of the story," said Amelius. "There came a
time, only two years ago, when her prospects changed for the better.
Her rich aunt (her mother's sister) died; and--what do you think?--left
her a legacy of six thousand pounds. There was a gleam of sunshine in
her life! The poor teacher was an heiress in a small way, with her
fortune at her own disposal. They had something like a festival at
home, for the first time; presents to everybody, and kissings and
congratulations, and new dresses at last. And, more than that, another
wonderful event happened before long. A gentleman made his appearance
in the family circle, with an interesting object in view--a gentleman,
who had called at the house in which she happened to be employed as
teacher at the time, and had seen her occupied with her pupils. He had
kept it to himself to be sure, but he had secretly admired her from
that moment--and now it had come out! She had never had a lover before;
mind that. And he was a remarkably handsome man: dressed beautifully,
and sang and played, and was so humble and devoted with it all. Do you
think it wonderful that she said Yes, when he proposed to marry her? I
don't think it wonderful at all. For the first few weeks of the
courtship, the sunshine was brighter than ever. Then the clouds began
to rise. Anonymous letters came, describing the handsome gentleman
(seen under his fair surface) as nothing less than a scoundrel. She
tore up the letters indignantly--she was too delicate even to show them
to him. Signed letters came next, addressed to her father by an uncle
and an aunt, both containing one and the same warning: 'If your
daughter insists on having him, tell her to take care of her money.' A
few days later, a visitor arrived--a brother, who spoke out more
plainly still. As an honourable man, he could not hear of what was
going on, without making the painful confession that his brother was
forbidden to enter his house. That said, he washed his hands of all
further responsibility. You two know the world, you will guess how it
ended. Quarrels in the household; the poor middle-aged woman, living in
her fool's paradise, blindly true to her lover; convinced that he was
foully wronged; frantic when he declared that he would not connect
himself with a family which suspected him. Ah, I have no patience when
I think of it, and I almost wish I had never begun to tell the story!
Do you know what he did? She was free of course, at her age, to decide
for herself; there was no controlling her. The wedding day was fixed.
Her father had declared he would not sanction it; and her step-mother
kept him to his word. She went alone to the church, to meet her
promised husband. He never appeared; he deserted her, mercilessly
deserted her--after she had sacrificed her own relations to him--on her
wedding-day. She was taken home insensible, and had a brain fever. The
doctors declined to answer for her life. Her father thought it time to
look to her banker's pass-book. Out of her six thousand pounds she had
privately given no less than four thousand to the scoundrel who had
deceived and forsaken her! Not a month afterwards he married a young
girl--with a fortune of course. We read of such things in newspapers
and books. But to have them brought home to one, after living one's own
life among honest people--I tell you it stupefied me!"

He said no more. Below them in the cabin, voices were laughing and
talking, to a cheerful accompaniment of clattering knives and forks.
Around them spread the exultant glory of sea and sky. All that they
heard, all that they saw, was cruelty out of harmony with the miserable
story which had just reached its end. With one accord the three men
rose and paced the deck, feeling physically the same need of some
movement to lighten their spirits. With one accord they waited a
little, before the narrative was resumed.

CHAPTER 5

Mr. Hethcote was the first to speak again.

"I can understand the poor creature's motive in joining your
Community," he said. "To a person of any sensibility her position,
among such relatives as you describe, must have been simply unendurable
after what had happened. How did she hear of Tadmor and the
Socialists?"

"She had read one of our books," Amelius answered; "and she had her
married sister at New York to go to. There were moments, after her
recovery (she confessed it to me frankly), when the thought of suicide
was in her mind. Her religious scruples saved her. She was kindly
received by her sister and her sister's husband. They proposed to keep
her with them to teach their children. No! the new life offered to her
was too like the old life--she was broken in body and mind; she had no
courage to face it. We have a resident agent in New York; and he
arranged for her journey to Tadmor. There is a gleam of brightness, at
any rate, in this part of her story. She blessed the day, poor soul,
when she joined us. Never before had she found herself among such
kind-hearted, unselfish, simple people. Never before--" he abruptly
checked himself, and looked a little confused.

Obliging Rufus finished the sentence for him. "Never before had she
known a young man with such natural gifts of fascination as C.A.G.
Don't you be too modest, sir; it doesn't pay, I assure you, in the
nineteenth century."

Amelius was not as ready with his laugh as usual. "I wish I could drop
it at the point we have reached now," he said. "But she has left
Tadmor; and, in justice to her (after the scandals in the newspaper), I
must tell you how she left it, and why. The mischief began when I was
helping her out of the boat. Two of our young women met us on the bank
of the lake, and asked me how I got on with my fishing. They didn't
mean any harm--they were only in their customary good spirits. Still,
there was no mistaking their looks and tones when they put the
question. Miss Mellicent, in her confusion, made matters worse. She
coloured up, and snatched her hand out of mine, and ran back to the
house by herself. The girls, enjoying their own foolish joke,
congratulated me on my prospects. I must have been out of sorts in some
way--upset, perhaps, by what I had heard in the boat. Anyhow, I lost my
temper, and _I_ made matters worse, next. I said some angry words, and
left them. The same evening I found a letter in my room. 'For your
sake, I must not be seen alone with you again. It is hard to lose the
comfort of your sympathy, but I must submit. Think of me as kindly as I
think of you. It has done me good to open my heart to you.' Only those
lines, signed by Mellicent's initials. I was rash enough to keep the
letter, instead of destroying it. All might have ended well,
nevertheless, if she had only held to her resolution. But, unluckily,
my twenty-first birthday was close at hand; and there was talk of
keeping it as a festival in the Community. I was up with sunrise when
the day came; having some farming work to look after, and wanting to
get it over in good time. My shortest way back to breakfast was through
a wood. In the wood I met her."

"Alone?" Mr. Hethcote asked.

Rufus expressed his opinion of the wisdom of putting this question with
his customary plainness of language. "When there's a rash thing to be
done by a man and a woman together, sir, philosophers have remarked
that it's always the woman who leads the way. Of course she was alone."

"She had a little present for me on my birthday," Amelius explained--"a
purse of her own making. And she was afraid of the ridicule of the
young women, if she gave it to me openly. 'You have my heart's dearest
wishes for your happiness; think of me sometimes, Amelius, when you
open your purse.' If you had been in my place, could you have told her
to go away, when she said that, and put her gift into your hand? Not if
she had been looking at you at the moment--I'll swear you couldn't have
done it!"

The lean yellow face of Rufus Dingwell relaxed for the first time into
a broad grin. "There are further particulars, sir, stated in the
newspaper," he said slily.

"Damn the newspaper!" Amelius answered.

Rufus bowed, serenely courteous, with the air of a man who accepted a
British oath as an unwilling compliment paid by the old country to the
American press. "The newspaper report states, sir, that she kissed
you."

"It's a lie!" Amelius shouted.

"Perhaps it's an error of the press," Rufus persisted. "Perhaps, _you_
kissed _her?"_

"Never mind what I did," said Amelius savagely.

Mr. Hethcote felt it necessary to interfere. He addressed Rufus in his
most magnificent manner. "In England, Mr. Dingwell, a gentleman is not
in the habit of disclosing these--er--these--er, er--"

"These kissings in a wood?" suggested Rufus. "In my country, sir, we do
not regard kissing, in or out of a wood, in the light of a shameful
proceeding. Quite the contrary, I do assure you."

Amelius recovered his temper. The discussion was becoming too
ridiculous to be endured by the unfortunate person who was the object
of it.

"Don't let us make mountains out of molehills," he said. "I did kiss
her--there! A woman pressing the prettiest little purse you ever saw
into your hand, and wishing you many happy returns of the day with the
tears in her eyes; I should like to know what else was to be done but
to kiss her. Ah, yes, smooth out your newspaper report, and have
another look at it! She _did_ rest her head on my shoulder, poor soul,
and she _did_ say, 'Oh, Amelius, I thought my heart was turned to
stone; feel how you have made it beat!' When I remembered what she had
told me in the boat, I declare to God I almost burst out crying
myself--it was so innocent and so pitiful."

Rufus held out his hand with true American cordiality. "I do assure
you, sir, I meant no harm," he said. "The right grit is in you, and no
mistake--and there goes the newspaper!" He rolled up the slip, and
flung it overboard.

Mr. Hethcote nodded his entire approval of this proceeding. Amelius
went on with his story.

"I'm near the end now," he said. "If I had known it would have taken so
long to tell--never mind! We got out of the wood at last, Mr. Rufus;
and left it without a suspicion that we had been watched. I was prudent
enough (when it was too late, you will say) to suggest to her that we
had better be careful for the future. Instead of taking it seriously,
she laughed. 'Have you altered your mind, since you wrote to me?' I
asked. 'To be sure I have,' she said. 'When I wrote to you I forgot the
difference between your age and mine. Nothing that _we_ do will be
taken seriously. I am afraid of their laughing at me, Amelius; but I am
afraid of nothing else.' I did my best to undeceive her. I told her
plainly that people unequally matched in years--women older than men,
as well as men older than women--were not uncommonly married among us.
The council only looked to their being well suited in other ways, and
declined to trouble itself about the question of age. I don't think I
produced much effect; she seemed, for once in her life, poor thing, to
be too happy to look beyond the passing moment. Besides, there was the
birthday festival to keep her mind from dwelling on doubts and fears
that were not agreeable to her. And the next day there was another
event to occupy our attention--the arrival of the lawyer's letter from
London, with the announcement of my inheritance on coming of age. It
was settled, as you know, that I was to go out into the world, and to
judge for myself; but the date of my departure was not fixed. Two days
later, the storm that had been gathering for weeks past burst on us--we
were cited to appear before the council to answer for an infraction of
the Rules. Everything that I have confessed to you, and some things
besides that I have kept to myself, lay formally inscribed on a sheet
of paper placed on the council table--and pinned to the sheet of paper
was Mellicent's letter to me, found in my room. I took the whole blame
on myself, and insisted on being confronted with the unknown person who
had informed against us. The council met this by a question:--'Is the
information, in any particular, false?' Neither of us could deny that
it was, in every particular, true. Hearing this, the council decided
that there was no need, on our own showing, to confront us with the
informer. From that day to this, I have never known who the spy was.
Neither Mellicent nor I had an enemy in the Community. The girls who
had seen us on the lake, and some other members who had met us
together, only gave their evidence on compulsion--and even then they
prevaricated, they were so fond of us and so sorry for us. After
waiting a day, the governing body pronounced their judgment. Their duty
was prescribed to them by the Rules. We were sentenced to six months'
absence from the Community; to return or not as we pleased. A hard
sentence, gentlemen--whatever _we_ may think of it--to homeless and
friendless people, to the Fallen Leaves that had drifted to Tadmor. In
my case it had been already arranged that I was to leave. After what
had happened, my departure was made compulsory in four-and-twenty
hours; and I was forbidden to return, until the date of my sentence had
expired. In Mellicent's case they were still more strict. They would
not trust her to travel by herself. A female member of the Community
was appointed to accompany her to the house of her married sister at
New York: she was ordered to be ready for the journey by sunrise the
next morning. We both understood, of course, that the object of this
was to prevent our travelling together. They might have saved
themselves the trouble of putting obstacles in our way."

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