Separation

“Where are you going, Cynthia?”

“I told you.” To the child at the door, the query tugged at a rope that held her. She pulled away, hotly. “You said I might go this afternoon!”

“Are you going over to that Mrs. Moore’s again?”

“I’ve finished practising. And I haven’t been there for a long time. You said——” Her voice quivered. She knew that such words served only to tighten the rope.

“She’s a stranger here in town. I don’t approve of her encouraging you—putting silly notions in your head. It isn’t a good thing. And what does she want with you, a little girl?”

Cynthia held her breath; if she said a word she would, she knew, sound “impertinent.”

“What do you do there? You can’t sit down at home with your mother, like a nice girl, but you must go tearing over there. She has made you sulky and secretive, too.”

“I’ll be home early.” Tears under Cynthia’s lashes now.

“Oh, well, go on.” She looked up from her sewing. “But I hope this will be the last time!”

Cynthia pushed open the door and went down the steps into the sunlight, her mother’s words following her like an assured little threat. Perhaps they were just a final tug at the rope, to be sure it still held. Cynthia thought, miserably, of her resolve, only last night, to “be good,” as her mother put it. Here she was, all awry again! Then warm exultation dried her tears. She had, after all, won out again. The rope was frayed; some day she might break it. She did not think of it as a rope; she felt it as something binding her, holding her back in childhood, tying her away from a strange new self which struggled uncouthly within her.

The cool spring sun threw slanting shadows on the grass and muddy road. Cynthia, hesitating at the corner, had a vague discontent with the street. It looked unkempt, shabby, as though the pricking of green along the edges of the trees, the clear blue of the sky, put to shame the bits of stick and dead leaves in the gutter, the gray poultry yards and sheds behind the houses, the houses themselves, veined with gaunt brown vines. She wondered whether there were violets yet in the woods across the meadow. If she looked, she would be late. But she saw herself, her hands full of violets, climbing the steps of Mrs. Moore’s house, and suddenly she was off.

* * *

The little side street stopped at the pasture. Cynthia ran across the soft ground, thrilling at the points of fresh green which pushed up through the dead grass. Perhaps it was too early for violets; she couldn’t remember when she had found them last year. She crawled between rusty wires of the fence around the wood, and peered about, breathing quickly. Gray-brown leaves thick under her feet, wet black trunks of trees; a faint prickling smell of spring through the old odors of winter. She moved slowly forward, listening to the sound of the leaves under her feet, and then the sound of running water. It was too early; her eagerness sagged. Perhaps, if she could find that brook——Down a little hill she came upon it, a small brook running over dead leaves and stones, yellowed spume marking its spent violence. Suddenly from its edge a bit of purple sang out to her, and Cynthia dropped to her knees beside it. A purple star, poised on its soft stem, with small heavy buds pushing up beside it from a patina of brown-purple leaves. Not a violet, but lovelier!

Cynthia laid a finger on the cool small petals. Then, as she knelt, her face near the ground, she saw not far away the dead matted leaves pried apart, and rising, the buds still curved from their thrust, another hepatica; beyond that another, and then another. If she watched, she might see the whole slope moving, torn apart, by the tender, quiet pressure of the buds. She felt that pressure, as though the buds thrust themselves, blue and purple tipped, up through her body, and she was leaf-mould and hepaticas; no, it was the slope itself that ached and tingled with slow, exquisite pain.

The shriek of a crow swinging over the wood broke the moment, and Cynthia glanced behind her, her face hot. How silly she must look, on her knees in the woods! Suppose Mrs. Moore should see her there—what would she think? She could almost believe she saw her friend, coming down the slope, hear her soft voice, “Why, Cynthia, child! You, here?” Then she could show her the hepaticas—Cynthia’s eyes were misty-bright. The crow cawed again, and Cynthia hated him for laughing at her. But she knew Mrs. Moore wouldn’t come to the woods. It was too muddy. She pushed the leaves away from the one plant which had blossomed, and digging with her fingers into the soft mould, loosened it, slipped her hand under it, and scrambled up the little hill, back to the street.

The walk through the town was many things. Outwardly it was the progress of a girl, gawky of elbows and legs, with thin, ungraceful figure, light hair blowing about her face, the black ribbon which tied it flopping at her neck, her head thrust forward, her blue eyes intent. Inwardly, it was a thing of beauty and wonder. A priestess swift of foot climbing the approach to the temple of the goddess she served. A lover, eager to meet his mistress. A brilliant spectacle of shifting scenes, brilliant and yet vague, as though a curtain hung between them and the child, a fear that she might find them suddenly too ridiculous. She threw herself into the path of plunging horses, to rescue this friend; then, dying, she whispered, “It was nothing——” Some tremendous test of love, such as the old knights had endured—“I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more!” Cynthia, not Elaine the Lily Maid, on her barge, with the world wondering at the great love of which she had died. Then she had reached the street, had passed the corner, could see the house. None of those things would happen, she knew. She would sit opposite Mrs. Moore, trying clumsily to answer her questions about school, about the people in the town. Perhaps Mrs. Moore would say again that she was glad to see Cynthia, that she was lonely.

* * *

Her heart began to beat so quickly that her face felt red to the tip of her nose. She saw with dismay the gray mud caked on her shoes, the black line on her fingers where she had dug into the mould. Slowly she climbed the steps and rang the bell. At its sound, faint within the house, the centre of her body contracted—almost, she thought, as if she were very hungry. But she couldn’t run; someone was crossing the hall. She saw, back of the ornate “M” of the lace curtain at the door, a dark head. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Moore was saying, “Oh, it’s you, Cynthia!” Her large, prominent eyes seemed blacker, more glittering than usual. “Come in.”

Cynthia followed her; she tried to remember the beautiful speech she had made up that morning. It was gone, along with the bright wonder of her walk, and she said, shyly:

“You—you aren’t busy—or anything?”

“Just sewing.” Mrs. Moore sat down in her wicker rocker by the window. “I’m glad you came in. I was going to send for you.”

Cynthia extended her hand, the hepatica drooping in her palm.

“I found it in the woods,” she said. “I thought there would be violets, perhaps. But this was out.”

“Oh, yes. A pretty little flower.” Mrs. Moore squinted at it over the needle she was threading. “Just put it on that paper, Cynthia, so the mud won’t get on the table.”

Cynthia laid it down. Why had it seemed so lovely in the woods! Awkwardly she seated herself, trying to tuck her muddy shoes under the chair. Her anticipation curled at the edges, like the blossom. Something had happened. Mrs. Moore didn’t want to see her. Always, during the first minutes, Cynthia felt stiff, but today there was something different, an acid tang of hostility. She watched Mrs. Moore’s small white hands stabbing at the embroidery. A fat red petal on a rose took shape. Suddenly Mrs. Moore laid her embroidery on her knee and looked at Cynthia, her small mouth hard.

“I don’t know what you’ve been saying to your mother about me, Cynthia, but I am surprised that you could give her such a false idea! I’ve told you how lonesome I was in this town, and then instead of helping me make friends, you make your mother think—why, dreadful things!”

The words shouted incredibly about Cynthia, their impact blocking, for the moment, all sensation.

“I’ve been very nice to you, I’m sure, and then——” From the work-basket beside her, Mrs. Moore drew a letter. Cynthia saw the small, regular writing of her mother, pages of it! “Why, she accuses me of trying to draw you away from her, your own mother! I thought you were a nice, sensible girl.” The letter rustled under Mrs. Moore’s fingers. “Whatever have you said about me?”

“I haven’t said anything——” Cynthia had to drive the words out.

“She says”—Mrs. Moore turned the letter—“that she’s seen the silliest letters and notes—that I must be unscrupulous to allow a young girl to say such things to me. Now you can just tell your mother the truth. I haven’t seen any silly letters! You haven’t said anything to me!”

Cynthia crouched in her chair. She couldn’t see Mrs. Moore plainly. She seemed to be growing larger, larger, covering the window, the world, while Cynthia shrank into a pin point of consciousness. Then the point exploded into waves of shame, hot, suffocating, blinding. Silly letters! Her mother had found those letters she had written—had read them——

“Cynthia! Don’t sit there staring at me with your mouth open!” There were glints in the woman’s eyes like the points of the scissors in her lap. “Did you hear what I said?” Her voice brought her back to normal size, and Cynthia could see her clearly again. “I want you to tell your mother exactly what we have talked about here. I won’t have her suspecting me of—of all sorts of things! You should have told me she didn’t like you to come. It’s difficult enough in a strange town to get in with people without having a silly child hurting my reputation by pretending that I—well!” Mrs. Moore stopped, her eyelids twitching. “When I have just been so lonesome I was glad to have anybody to talk to, even a child!”

Cynthia stumbled up to her feet.

“I haven’t pretended anything——” she began. She stopped because her throat ached.

“Of course I’ll answer this letter. I’d like to talk with your mother, but since she wrote instead of dropping in——” Mrs. Moore pursed her lips into a tiny red dash.

Cynthia pressed her hands against her breast, a gesture instinct with protest against the stripping of herself. Her letters! All her dreams set down and hidden away——

“But I think it is only fair that you should tell her, too, that I haven’t known anything about any unwholesome ideas you had!”

Then a strange thing happened to Cynthia, as though Mrs. Moore’s words were knives cutting away the mystery and fragile dream-fabric the child had hung about the woman. She looked at Mrs. Moore and saw her as a woman old as her mother, a kind of starved suspiciousness in the large dark eyes, a cruel hungry little mouth, with a faint line of dark hair above the thin upper lip.

“I’m sorry mother wrote to you,” she said. She was trembling under a pelting of rage. “She made a mistake. The letters weren’t for you. I don’t know—what you think I’ve pretended—why, it’s too dreadful——”

“Of course you’re too young to understand how serious it might look.” Mrs. Moore’s voice dropped from its rasp of accusation into mild complaint. “But in this town—when you know how I’ve wanted to make friends——”

Cynthia stood for a moment, while her rage moved within her in a convulsive tightening of her muscles. She thought: “It’s you that’s pretended—to like me—and all the time——” Then, with a little “Oh-h,” between a sob and a laugh, she ran out of the room, through the hall, away from the terrible house.

Around the corner she stopped her mad run; someone was coming toward her. She couldn’t breathe very well, but she pressed her lips against the sobs, and walked at the edge of the sidewalk, her head averted. She wanted to hide. Perhaps a broken heart showed! The boy passed her, whistling, and she was alone again, moving slowly past the small drab houses with their hostile, curtained windows.

A tiny wild thing, with bright eyes and hot breath, turning, twisting, to escape from the pit into which it had been thrust; twisting until it dropped, confused and dizzy. No way out. Curious adult eyes staring into the pit. Her mother, reading the letters. Mrs. Moore, pursing her lips. “I thought you were a nice girl!” She couldn’t go home. Her mother would ask her questions. But she had no other place to go.

Suppose she died. She would grow paler and paler, until finally the doctors said, despairing, “She cannot live.” Then her mother would weep and beg her forgiveness, and Mrs. Moore would come to kneel beside her——No, she wouldn’t! Mrs. Moore didn’t care. That was the astounding discovery. She had just pretended. The consoling vision fell away from her, and she was back on the street with the staring windows. She hated these grown-ups, with their power and their airs of wisdom! Her hands clutched at the pockets of her coat, and hot tears splashed down her cheeks. At any rate, she had told Mrs. Moore the letters weren’t for her. Had she lied? Had her mother written much about them? They weren’t to Mrs. Moore! Mrs. Moore was a woman with hard, shiny eyes and cruel voice, a woman who said queer things about her reputation. The letters were written to——Cynthia stopped, brushing the tears away from her face with impatient, grimy fingers. She felt cold, as though she had come, suddenly, into a strange, barren land, a country stripped of the bright wonder of her dreams. For she knew, reluctantly, that she had written those letters to no one outside herself, that she had had no friend.

Shivering, tense, she came to the door of her home. Her fingers turned the knob silently, and she stepped into the hall. She heard her mother in the parlor, talking, in the deliberate, formal tone which meant a caller. She climbed the stairs, her feet silent on the carpeted steps.

She left her door ajar; then she could hear if someone came upstairs. The small white bed, the white dresser and little rocker, the pictures tacked on the blue walls, surrounded her with a curious, stupid familiarity. She knelt by the dresser and tugged at the bottom drawer. Under the piles of clothes and stockings she fumbled. Her fingers touched something smooth, drew back, and then dragged out a small cardboard box tied with a blue ribbon. Its edges grew prismatic through quick tears of self-pity. She had thought them beautiful, these letters. Into them she had written all the strange feelings of the past months, the things she could never have said aloud, the lines of poetry she had liked. Desecrated now. Silly, silly! The word screamed around her.

She listened a moment at the head of the stairs. Her mother’s voice came at intervals, a polite, suave tone. Silently Cynthia crept down the rear stairs into the kitchen. With infinite caution against noise, she lifted a lid of the range, crammed the box into the red coals, and waiting until it blackened, curled, flamed up, replaced the lid.

She stood trying to hear the faint crackle of the paper when her mother appeared at the door.

“Oh, you’re home, Cynthy.” She hesitated. “You didn’t stay long.”

Then the little trapped wild thing in Cynthia saw a crack of escape, darted for it. Her mother wanted to know what had happened! She needn’t tell her. She would never tell her!

“No, not so very,” she said. Her eyes, bright with defiance, met her mother’s inquiring gaze.

“Well, did Mrs. Moore say anything?” Impatience, embarrassment in her mother’s face.

“Oh, we talked,” said Cynthia. She trembled with her new triumph. Her mother couldn’t ask her, plainly, what had happened there! She would never tell her. Mrs. Moore could write her, if she wanted to.

* * *

Cynthia had, during the last few years, been rebellious often enough, but always when her passion had ebbed she had waited, with a hot, dry sensation in her mouth, and a heavy, wretched lump somewhere inside her, until her mother had forgiven her, soberly, and she had promised to be good again. This was different. Her excitement had no fear in it. She had made herself an impregnable retreat. For the first time she was sharply a person, thrilling with the bitter taste of separation from other people. The frayed ropes which had bound her had broken at last. Something in her no one could touch, could demand—not even her mother.

“Some day, Cynthia”—Cynthia knew the futility under the sharp words—“you will realize that your mother is your best friend. If you wish to be secretive and stubborn——”

A demon of glee danced about Cynthia. Her mother wanted to know what had happened! She couldn’t ask outright, because she couldn’t say, “I read your silly letters, and I want to know what that woman said!” Again the gleeful, bitter taste of separate identity. For the first time she had something which no one could enter, could wrest from her. She kept her refuge of silence. Her mother, with a grave, disapproving look, came past her into the kitchen. Cynthia’s heart gave a frantic leap; would she open the range, and see the charred papers? But she went on to the table under the window.

After a moment Cynthia went slowly through the dining room. When she had hung away her hat and coat in the hall closet, she stood at the window. The spring dusk blurred the ugly yards and muddy road into gray mystery. Cynthia felt cold and empty. “Elaine the fair, Elaine the beautiful”—dying of unrequited love—that wasn’t real. She had been playing. She had done with that game, now, just as she had put away her dolls—when was it, a year ago? And in its place she had—she pressed her arms fiercely about her body—she had herself, Cynthia, separate, apart—growing up!