The Red Book Magazine/Volume 40/Number 3/Golden Silence

""

By

WO of the three important things in life had already happened to Jerome Kenyon. He had been born, and he had just been married. Aside from these vital episodes, nothing noteworthy had occurred until he was leaving the church with his bride. Not many minutes later his bride left him with the passionate declaration that she hoped never to look upon his face again!

This happened in front of the Grand Central Station. The quarrel, flaring up like the result of a lighted match tossed on a heap of unconfined explosive, left Jerome no choice but to withdraw hastily from the danger-zone. He was fully convinced that the conflagration would be short-lived and that on his return from checking the luggage he would find his bride amenable to argument. But in this he was mistaken, for he did not find her at all.

It was not the first of such quarrels. There had been others, less incandescent perhaps, but leaving their embers to smoulder awhile. The cause had always been the same. Some would have called it Alison's temperamental nature; others might have called it merely Alison's bad temper and readiness to leap at wrong conclusions and voice them with unreasoning reproach.

Like many optimistic lovers, Jerome felt great confidence in the power of the marital state to correct these passionate indulgences. He argued to himself that the conditions of engagement were in themselves most trying to a volatile temperament. They seemed to contain incomplete combustions which fell short of the reaction necessary to produce a new and stable compound. He and Alison had previously kissed and made up, but such kissings did not contain enough of the reagent to produce a satisfying affinity.

Now, in a singular state of daze, Jerome went back to the baggage-room, barely in time to save his luggage and Alison's from being put aboard the train. He muttered some explanation of a change of plans, then sent Alison's effects to her father's house in Gramercy Park and had his own put in a taxi.

Turning the ridiculous situation in his mind, Jerome was astonished to discover a curious sense of relief. There had been too many such quarrels, each abstracting its tribute of tenderness from an emotion which had been cooling through some weeks. Jerome did not know just what the solution might be for such a situation, but he had a vague idea that when a marriage slipped up between the cup and the lip, as one might say, there was a legal remedy known as an annulment which bore about the same relation to divorce as did a betrothal to a wedding. He stepped into the taxi and told the driver to go to the McAlpin.

As the vehicle became a part of the Fifth Avenue procession, Jerome leaned back and tried to compose his mind. But at this moment he caught sight of a young woman who less than an hour  before had offered him subdued congratulations at the church.

It had been a quiet noon wedding, and this young lady was no doubt walking home for luncheon.

“Stop a moment,” said Jerome to the driver, and as the taxi drew up to the curb, he stepped out.

“Don't faint, Sylvia,” said he. “Get in and ride downtown with me.”

“But—but—”

“Butt into the taxi,” said Jerome. “There has been the most awful mess—”

Sylvia obeyed in a state of trance, then turned and looked at him in dismay.

“Oh, dear!” said she. “I did hope you two could manage to get away without a fight.”

“We haven't, though,” said Jerome. “I suppose that at this moment Alison is on her way to apply for an annulment.”

“What happened?”

“Listen and be my judge,” said Jerome. “As we were about to start away from the church, a messenger-boy stepped up to the car and handed me a note. I excused myself to Alison and opened it. There were a few brief lines and a telegram. I glanced at both and shoved them into my pocket.”

“Without showing them to Alison?”

“Yes.”

“She asked to see it?”

“No. She demanded to see it. I told her that it was a business communication which I would rather not discuss at the moment.”

“What a beautiful start!” murmured Sylvia. “Knowing Alison, I can reconstruct the rest. Did you end by showing her the note?”

“No. If I had, I would not be here at this moment. Moreover I am not at all sure but what I would rather be here in this taxi with you.”

“I think you had better let me out,” said Sylvia. “An annulment is better than a divorce with alimony and a former sweetheart named as co-respondent. You could not afford the alimony and I could not afford the scandal. But first tell me what was in the note?”

“Not until you tell me your decision. What would you have done?”

Sylvia pondered for a moment. Jerome watched her anxiously. He had once got nearly as far with Sylvia as he had with Alison, but circumstances had interfered. Looking now at her pretty profile and thoughtful gray eyes with their long black lashes, he wondered that he had let them interfere. Poverty and a social position which each felt under obligation to maintain had been the principal factor. Then came the geographical separation of the Atlantic Ocean and then—Alison.

Sylvia's bosom rose as she took a deep breath. “Well,” she answered slowly, “if I'd gone as far as Alison, I'd have seen it through. I'd have carried on if it had been bigamy.”

“Why?”

The color flooded her face. “Oh—for a lot of reasons. But I don't think I'd have stopped to weigh them just at that particular moment. What Alison did is rather like playing a roulette bet, then snatching it away after the croupier has said “Rien ne va plus.”

Jerome gave a sigh of relief. “Precisely my idea.” said he, “the parson being the croupier in this case.”

“Just what did you say?” Sylvia asked.

“I said that I would show her the note and telegram when the proper time came.”

“Was that the end of it?”

“That was the end of everything. She implied that I was holding something back until it would be too late for her to retrieve her mistake. Her final words on reaching the station were that she wished she might never see my face again.”

Sylvia moved uneasily. She was in every respect precisely the opposite to Alison, who was tall and slender and dark, with rather high aristocratic features. Sylvia was fair, with a rich coloring and a face which was usually smiling and provocative.

“Well, Jerry,” she said, “now that I've given my decision, show me the note and let me out. Can't you realize what will happen to me if some mutual friend discovers us riding down Fifth Avenue together at this particular moment in a taxi heaped with luggage?”

“All right,” said Jerome. “I'll show you the note as soon as you answer one more question! Will you marry me as soon as Alison gets the marriage annulled?”

Sylvia crowded back even farther her corner.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I never loved anybody but you, Jerry.”

Jerome bent toward her. “What if this telegram warns me to leave the country, and quick? What if it tells you that I'm the bigamist you just suggested. Remember that I've been four years abroad.”

Sylvia looked at him with dancing eyes and a smile on her red lips, which were rather full and wide and set slightly at a slant.

“Well, Jerry, if you've got two already, one more wife won't make the sentence any heavier. Besides, there's luck in odd numbers.”

“There's luck in you!” said Jerome, and picked up the speaking-tube. “Go to Hoboken,” he ordered. The driver nodded.

Sylvia looked surprised.

“Why Hoboken?” she asked.

“Just to go across the ferry,” said Jerome. “I want room to kiss you, and if I don't get room to kiss you, and if I don't get it pretty quick, I'll burst.”

“You must have been awfully in love with Alison, Jerry.”

“Well, I'm not now. Lord, what a close escape! What a time we would have had! And I've got a hunch it would inevitably have come to this in the end.” He took Sylvia's hand and raised it to his lips. Then suddenly his face whitened. “What if she shouldn't annul the marriage!” he exclaimed.

Sylvia gave him a steady look. “Then you'll be the one that would have to carry on, Jerry, and all of this will have to be scrapped with the rest of the might-have-beens.”

Jerome's face darkened. He picked up the tube again. “Draw up to the curb,” he said.

“You're right, Sylvia. I'll set you down here. But remember, I've your promise.”

“I'm not apt to forget it, Jerry; but it doesn't matter. You're not going to escape as easily as that. Alison has had a change of heart by this time, and her father will take a hand.”

The taxi slowed and stopped on a side-street where the side walk was littered with bales and boxes. Jerome opened the door.

“How about the note?” he asked.

Sylvia stepped out, then turned and looked at him with a smile on her quivering lips, and eyes which sparkled through a sudden gush of tears.

“You can show me that the day after we're married—if that day ever comes,” said she; whereupon she turned, stumbled over a crate, recovered herself and moved away.

EROME hung up the receiver of the telephone and stood for a moment in thought. He was displeased at the nature of the message just received: “Mr. Arnold would like to see Mr. Kenyon at his office between ten and eleven.”

Jerome had telephoned his father-in-law that he would be at the McAlpin for the next two days, and the message just received was the answer to this information.

An hour later Jerome presented himself at the law offices of Arnold, Thoron & Maltby, where, to his further annoyance, he was requested to wait for nearly three-quarters of an hour in the reception-room. Then a rather supercilious young person with a knowing smile on her pert face ushered him into Mr. Arnold's private office. The lawyer, a big man with a rather pompous and at this moment aggressive manner, looked up with a frown as Jerome was ushered in. Jerome bowed slightly and stood at attention.

“Well, young man,” said he in a heavy bass, “what is your version of this silly business?”

“I haven't any, sir.”

“Then what is your excuse?”

“I have no excuse, sir.”

Mr. Arnold's frown deepened. “Then I understand that I am to form my opinion entirely from what my daughter tells me?”

“Why not?” asked Jerome. “You surely don't suspect her of not having told the truth?”

“Oh, come, Jerome,” said Mr. Arnold, abandoning his magisterial air. “I know of course that Alison is quick-tempered and impulsive, but you could scarcely expect any woman not to insist on learning the contents of a message handed to her husband as she was leaving the church just after the ceremony.

“I told her she might see it a little later,” Jerome answered. “I said that it was a business matter which I would explain at the proper time. She was not satisfied with this and intimated that it might be something to interfere with our new relations, and she insisted on knowing what it was before it became, as she expressed it, 'too late.'”

“In which I think she was quite within her right,” said Mr. Arnold.

“Very well, sir,” Jerome answered. “In that case there seems nothing more to be said.”

The blood surged into the lawyer's face. “There is a great deal more to be said, young man. You persuade my daughter to marry you, which she does—not, I may say, entirely with my approval. While your connections may be good, we know actually very little about you beyond the fact that you are said to be an architect of some promise and have a good record. Your earnings are small, while the expectations of my daughter are considerable. Believing the attachment between you to be sincere, I have been willing to waive other considerations. And then just as you are leaving the church, you receive a mysterious communication the nature of which you refuse to divulge until, to use my daughter's own expression, which I find explicit, 'it may be too late.'”

“Quite so, sir,” Jerome answered. “But there is one point which you appear to overlook. Your daughter told me that she hoped never to see my face again.”

Mr. Arnold made a gesture of impatience. “An exasperated woman is apt to say anything,” he stated; and for the first time during the interview unconsciously scored. “I suppose that the average wife says that to her husband at least three times a year. If you had not taken her so literally, she would have returned to you, and you would have gone aboard the train and presently made up the quarrel, and all of the unpleasantness been avoided.”

EROME could not help but feel that there was a good deal of truth in this. He had promised to take Alison for better or for worse, then at the first disagreement had left her without the least attempt to smooth the difficulty.

Mr. Arnold saw his hesitation and was quick to take advantage of it. The lawyer was astute, or he would not have occupied his prominent position. His own will had clashed frequently with that of Alison, whose hasty and intemperate conclusions had up to this time interfered seriously with other desirable prospects of marriage. He believed her to have been in the wrong, and he felt not the slightest doubt but that if Jerome had received any news which might have proved detrimental to his newly wedded wife, he would have told her immediately of its character.

“Come, now, my boy,” said he, with a sudden change of tone and manner, “don't you think yourself that you might have been a little more forbearing?”

Jerome felt his resolution giving way. He had counted on the lawyer's anger, but now suddenly he saw his own position in a different light. The thought of Sylvia struck him with a frightful pang, but it was a pang of renunciation.

He moistened his dry lips. “How does Alison feel about it now, sir?” he asked.

“She regrets it,” answered Mr. Arnold. “She has authorized me to say that she is sorry for her hastiness, and would prefer that the whole incident be stricken out.”

Jerome's heart sank. “Then am I to understand, sir,” he asked in a strained voice, “that she wishes to go ahead as if nothing had occurred to interfere with our plans.”

“Such is her desire,” said Mr. Arnold.

“And she does not insist on knowing the contents of the message I received?”

“No. But I think unless there's some particular reason for your not doing so, it would be much better to clear up the cause of the misunderstanding.”

“And you don't insist on knowing it yourself?” Jerome demanded, a good deal as one sinking into a quicksand might try to extricate himself by shifting his weight to the other foot.

Mr. Arnold observed the pallor which spread over the features of the younger man.

“If this message is purely of a business character,” said he, “I really think that you owe it to me to be guided by my greater experience. But if it is a personal matter which may have to do with a previous love-affair, I am quite content to leave it to your own judgment and sense of honor.”

“I told Alison, just as I told you a few moments ago, that it was a business matter,” said Jerome wearily. “I find my future prospects to be much altered within the last forty-eight hours. I knew nothing about this until after the wedding ceremony.”

R. ARNOLD did some swift thinking. This statement surprised him considerably, because Jerome had told him frankly on asking Alison's hand in marriage that aside from a few thousand dollars which he had saved, and a small legacy which he might expect to inherit some day from an uncle, he had nothing to offer but his profession and his small but sufficient earnings as the junior partner in a firm of rising architects. It therefore appeared to Mr. Arnold that either some unfortunate investment must have swept away his savings, or that for some reason he might have forfeited his position with the firm.

But he was now given no time to weigh the problem, for Jerome turned to him and asked with a certain grimness:

“Then Alison wishes to consider the incident as closed, sir?”

“Yes,” answered the lawyer. “She is waiting to learn the result of my interview with you; so if you feel justified, you have only to call for her with your luggage and carry out your original plans. I can send a clerk to secure the reservations and meet you at the station with the tickets.”

“Very well, sir,” said Jerome. “No doubt we have both been too hasty. If you will kindly telephone to Alison, I shall call for her within the hour.”

Mr. Arnold, with an appearance of greater relief than he actually felt, offered his hand, which Jerome took in a perfunctory and slightly absent-minded way. “Let us hope,” said Mr. Arnold, “that matrimony may permanently remove these temperamental infelicities.”

Jerome went out with a heart like lead and returned immediately to the hotel, where his first act was to call up Sylvia.

“It's Jerry,” said he unsteadily. “Forgive me, Sylvia. I have just had a talk with Mr. Arnold. Alison retracts her statement of yesterday, and there seems no way out of it.”

There was a moment's silence; then a steady voice answered:

“We've both been very silly, Jerry. Carry on. God bless you! Good-by.”

Jerry summoned the porter, sent down his luggage, paid his bill, and stepping into a hotel taxi, directed the driver to the Arnolds' old city home in Gramercy Park. On entering the house, he was met by Alison, whose face was slightly pale and showed the traces of tears. She offered him her lips.

“We've both been very silly, Jerry,” said she. “I was nervous and upset.”

“Let's forget it, dear,” said Jerome in a strained voice. “You're all ready?”

“Yes.” She touched the bell, and the butler came from the rear of the house. “Put my things in the taxi, Higgs,” said Alison.

They got into the vehicle and were about to move away when a messenger-boy crossed the sidewalk to the door of the house.

“Wait a minute,” said Alison, and called to the butler: “Is that for me, Higgs?”

“Yes, Miss—I mean, Mrs. Kenyon.”

Alison took the dispatch, and leaning back in the cab, tore open the envelope with a word of apology to Jerome. Glancing at her face, he saw it whiten suddenly, while her large eyes darkened from the dilatation of her pupils. Then she looked at him with an indescribable expression, excitement being the predominant note, mingled with an accent of triumph which was almost cruel. Then, to Jerome's astonishment, she beckoned to the butler, who was standing on the steps waiting respectfully but with a bit of curiosity to see them drive away.

“Higgs!”

“Yes—Mrs. Kenyon.”

“Take my things back into the house.”

The astonished butler obeyed. Alison turned to Jerome, and her thin carmine lips were wreathed in a feline smile. She offered him her hand.

“Good-by, Jerry,” said she. “We've had an awfully close shave from ruining our lives.”

Jerome felt his head whirling. “I believe you're right, Alison.”

“You don't ask to see my dispatch?”

“Why should I, when I refused to show you mine?”

“Well, you might as well know what it says. I'm apt to need your help. An annulment is not like a divorce. Collusion doesn't matter. It's like the canceling of any civil contract by mutual agreement of the parties of the first and second parts. It can be done immediately, and at no great cost.”

She handed him the slip of yellow paper. It was dated the morning of the previous day from Capetown, South Africa, and it read as follows:

“Just seen old copy of Times, announcing your engagement. Implore you to wait my arrival. Leaving by Saturday's ship, Liverpool and New York. Letter should reach you in few days telling of my big strike in newly opened fields. Millions in sight. Wild with anxiety. Cable Consulate, Capetown, that I am not too late. All my love. Dick.”

For the severalth time in the last twenty-four hours Jerome's heart went through some violent gymnastics, while his mouth was subject to that sudden dryness which comes with powerful emotion. But he was getting inured to this, and so managed to croak, awkwardly albeit with sincerity: “My warmest congratulations, Alison. Who is Dick?”

“Richard Crandall. We were engaged two years ago, but he hadn't a cent. Then there was a silly fight, and he slammed off in a rage.”

Jerome reflected that this appeared to be a habit of Alison's fiancés, but it did not seem quite the moment to remark on it. He felt as if suddenly attached to a very large balloon.

“Dick was really the one love of my life, Jerry. I've been bitter ever since. You're not too cut up about it, are you?”

“I shall try to weather it,” said Jerome dryly. “How long did you say it takes to get an annulment?”

“Oh, Father can manage that quickly, with his influence.”

“We might go up and break the glad news to him,” Jerome suggested. “I'd rather like to have his official acquittal.”

Alison laughed. “That's a happy thought. You are a good sport, Jerry.”

EROME told the driver to go to the Metropolitan Building. As the taxi moved away, Alison, seized with a sudden contrition, laid her hand upon his arm.

“You really are a dear, Jerry. I've been a cat. But honestly, don't you think that this marriage of ours was foredoomed to failure?”

“I'm afraid so, Alison. Even without Dick, I doubt that it would have been a brilliant success.”

“You don't blame me, do you, Jerry?”

“I do not,” said Jerome with emphasis. “You have shown a lot more sense than I did.”

“But I mean about getting engaged to you in the first place. You see, Jerry, I might as well confess there were other reasons besides my fondness for you. I found out by accident that Father was planning to marry again—a woman I can't stand.”

Jerry understood suddenly what had puzzled him considerably—to wit, Mr. Arnold's ready acquiescence in his daughter's marriage to a man who, though of good social position, had so little to offer in a material way.

“Do you think me very cold-blooded, Jerry?” Alison asked, then added quickly: “No, I'll withdraw that question. You're such an honest old dear, and I want that we should part friends.”

“A girl has got to consider her future in these uncertain days,” said Jerome oracularly, “especially a girl de luxe like you.”

“I'm afraid I am extravagant, my dear,” Alison admitted cheerfully; “and as my prospective stepmother is even worse, I could scarcely have expected much from Father.”

“Mr. Arnold has some good news in store for him.”

“Of course,” Alison agreed naïvely, then laughed. “Oh, dear! I'm so excited I scarcely know what I'm saying. You must think me a horridly mercenary wretch. But now that it's all arranged, do tell me, Jerry, what was in that nasty note.”

EROME, a bit rattled himself, was about to obey a sudden impulse, but as he glanced at Alison's finely chiseled and beautiful profile, he strangled it.

It held an expression that he had seen there many times before, but which now for the first time he was able accurately to interpret. It told of an intense covetousness not alone for money nor for the man, but toward the combination of the two. In fairness to Alison it may be said that money alone had failed to bind her, and Jerome's own case was the nearest in which she had ever come to surrendering herself to the man alone.

He had evidence enough that as a male individual he pleased her infinitely, but looking at her now, he shuddered to think what must inevitably have happened when this attraction failed to satisfy. So at her request to see the note, he shook his head.

“What good could that do you now?” he asked.

“Oh, very well!” she answered irritably. “But if it's what I think, it might help in the annulment of the marriage.”

“On the contrary,” said Jerome, “it strikes me that my stubborn refusal to show it either to yourself or to your father should count for more in getting you clear of me. Leave well enough alone, my dear girl. If I hadn't refused in the first place, just think what you might have missed.”

Alison nodded. “I fancy you're right, Jerry, but I hope this is not going to make a woman-hater of you.”

“Oh, no. I realize that our recent disagreement must have left a spot which is still sore, while yours and Dick's has had time to cicatricize, so to speak. Besides, fresh kale is a splendid surgical dressing.”

Alison shot him a suspicious look. “You are bitter, Jerry,” said she.

“I'll get over it.… Well, here we are. Your father has a pleasant surprise in store for him.”

Mr. Arnold was in his office, and they were ushered in immediately. His face was rather dark as they entered.

“Well,” he snapped, “what's the matter now?”

“We have come to sign an armistice which we hope may be followed by a lasting peace.” said Alison.

“And the formation of a new alliance,” said Jerome.

“I don't get you,” growled the lawyer. “There was nothing the matter with the ceremony, was there?”

“Only that it took place,” said Jerome. “Show your father the telegram, Alison.”

She did so, and it was wonderful to Jerome to observe the dissipation of the storm-clouds on the face of the lawyer. He glanced sharply at his daughter.

“I never had much confidence in young Crandall,” said he, “but it's for you to decide.”

“I've done so, Papa,” said Alison. “Jerry and I agree that our marriage was a great mistake. We've never been compatible temperamentally, and I must admit I don't think a girl brought up as I have been, ought ever to marry a poor man, especially”—she looked with meaning at her father, who flushed beneath her knowing gaze—“when her male parent is still young and handsome and a widower.”

“Come, come, daughter,” Mr. Arnold interrupted gruffly. “You need not go into personalities. Since you are both of the same mind in this matter, there can be but one course for us to pursue, and we shall get about it with as little discussion and delay as possible.”

HE hour-hand of the big clock on the Metropolitan Building's tower had traveled about a quarter of a mile around the dial before Jerome received official announcement that his contract of holy matrimony with Alison was null and void. To the orthodox religious mind, it is a little difficult to think of any holy covenant becoming ever null and void; but aware that legal findings must sometimes clash with sacred ones, Jerome did not permit himself to worry over this detail. He sped with all dispatch to Sylvia, who received him with a pale but radiant face.

“Oh, Jerry!” she whispered. “Are you really free?”

“No,” he answered. “I am engaged—to you. I expect to remain in that stage for not more than about two hours. The marriage-license is in my pocket in a long envelope with the annulment papers, and I hope very shortly to have a third document to add to the collection. I stopped at the Little Church Around the Corner, and the course is being cleared for the third event.”

There was no hitch to this program, which was carried out before a small but carefully selected audience. As they rolled away Sylvia nestled close to her husband. He looked at her with sparkling eyes. “I think it's time I showed you that scrap of paper which ruptured relations between Alison and me.”

He reached into his pocket and produced the yellow envelope, which he kissed, and handed to his bride. “Read it aloud, sweetheart. I love to hear it.”

Sylvia read. “'Shreveport, Louisiana, June 1, 1922. Over the top of the derrick, twenty thousand barrels, strong. Standing off the rush for leases. Your share worth a million. Better bring your bride here for honeymoon. Have got Niagara swamped for gush. Hearty congratulations. Love to—'”

Jerome snatched the paper from the trembling hands of his bride, whipped out his pencil, drew a line through the last word of the dispatch and wrote above it: “Sylvia.”