Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 163, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1918 — The Empty House [ARTICLE]

The Empty House

By Fannie Barnett Linsky

(Copyright. IMB, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) The little brown car had swung with a soft humming sound down the smooth road, and its sole occupant was sitting with her hands in her lap, looking dreamily out at the landscape and the rows of houses that they passed. Many a one passing by on the sidewalk might have envied the lovely young woman who sat there, so slender and aristocratic, in the little brown car, but she herself was not even conscious of the looks, whether envious or admiring, that were cast in her direction. If, as the poets say, “the eyes are ■mirrors of the soul,” then it was very apparent that Elaine Hargrave was not happy, for the sad, far-away expression on her face told its own story. As the machine turned the corner of the street, however, she began .to take more interest in her surroundings, and she watched carefully the houses she passed. Suddenly she leaned forward and spoke to the chauffeur. “Stop, Jacques,” she commanded, sharply, “at the house “To Let.’ ” The brakes ground sharply, and Elaine stepped out at once. She looked again and drew in her breath quickly. A wave of crimson flooded her face. The chauffeur wondered at the sudden order, for they were already late for dinner, and he did not think that his mistress could possibly want to look at this empty house. The glory of a perfect spring day was over all the out-of-doors. It seemed a day to' tempt anyone to remain in the open, and drink in to the full the beauties of bountiful nature, but evidently this did not attract the girl, for she mounted the steps of the house it once. , She looked around at Jacques after 'She had rung the bell. “Walt till I come out,” she said. A slovenly-looking woman suddenly appeared in response to her ring. She was as dusty looking, somehow, as the house was, and quite as dejected looking; but Elaine scarcely saw her as she spoke: “I want to see the house,” said the girl. “I suppose I can go In?” “Well, it’s gettln’ pretty late, mum, and I don’t think as you’d be seein* much,” replied the old woman. “You can give me your candle,” said Elaine, quickly, as she slipped a coin into the not over clean hand, and with a little gasp, the woman yielded. The front door was opened and Elaine went through the passage and glided upstairs like a ghost, the woman promptly returning to the lower regions, whence she had come. Lighting the dirty candle from a gas jet burning in the passageway, Elaine went from one room to another with quick, , nervous haste. Her face was quite colorless, but her eyes burned with a feverish light that made her seem very different from the brilliant lady of fashion that most people knew as Elaine Hargrave. Here she was but a girl; and face to face with memory, a memory that was still alive after three years of bitter struggle—the struggle of trying to forget. For today was the third anniversary of what was to have been Elaine Hargrave’s wedding day, but that wedding never took place; and on the third anniversary of “what might have been,” as Elaine expressed it herself, and just home from travels that had taken her into the faraway corners of the world, the girl had become possessed with the desire to see the place that once she had expected to call “home.”

She stopped for a moment In her flitting from room to room and looked about her. Here, but three short years before, she had planned to come as a happy bride, and here she had left the man she loved after their bitter quarrel, called him “Puritan” and “Prude.” because he would not countenance the ways of her “set.” How empty and false were the ways of that very same set, she had come bitterly to realize, just as in her heart of hearts she had come to respect all the more the man who would not bow down to them. And how empty was her heart as well! She could see him plainly, if she bu*t shut her eyes for a moment, as he stood before her that day so long ago, so tall and proud and good to look at She had always taken such pride in his good looks, all the more so because he had not belonged to her “set," but had come to the city unknown, and had worked up to an enviable position. She could almost hear again his earnest voice as he remonstrated with her on that last fateful day in this house. *1 know that I do not belong to this ‘set’ that you seem to think so much of, dear,” h.e said, “and perhaps that is why I find it so hard to accustom myself to the things that they do, but I am certain that I have too much regard for the woman who Is to be my wife to want to see her follow In the footsteps of people whose chief alm Id life seems to be to attract the attention of others. You are made for better things than this, Elaine, dear. Won’t yon be guided by me in this thing and give these people up? Please, dear, for my sake?” She recalled now how she had flung away from him, although in her heart she had known even then that he was right, but some perverse spirit seemed to urge her not to give in; how she bad refused to do what be asked of

her, telling her “that, she would live her life without him, and that she realized now that it was a mistake to expect ap outsider —a plebeian—to understand the ways of her kind of people.” Even now, after three years, Elaine still winced aS she thought of those hasty words of hers. How she must have hutt him —and all the time she was hurting herself as well; and he had let her go on without a word of protest. In the end gravely agreeing with her, and saying that he would never ask her to come back again. And he hadn’t. And they never met nor wrote. Elaine’s eyes were opened now, but of course It was far too late to give In and acknowledge herself In the wrong. Three’ years of time had rolled between them, the bar of passionate words on either side keeping them apart. She started once more on her pilgrimage through the rooms. First the dining room, with the familiar paper, which she herself had selected. He had not been so well-off then, and had Insisted upon living In the style that his own earnings would entitle them to —but he had worked hard to give her as many as possible of the luxuries that she had been accustomed to. “So small a thing to mean so large a loss,” murmured the girl to herself. She had read those words somewhere, and now they canle into her mind. She stood for a time looking out through the clouded windows. Great tears welled up in her eyes and poured down over her sac if the barriers were suddenly let down to allow tides of memory to flow in and engulf her. She had never allowed herself to think in this way before, but the spirit of love seemed to have come back to the dusty little room from which he had flown three years before. For her time passed unheeded. Darkness fell. Outside, James felt very cross. The idea of anyone spending so much time looking at an empty house! He folded his arms and went half asleep. Down in .the basement, the care-taker, having finished her supper, came up, and, forgetting all about her visitor, or, thinking that she had surely gone away long ago, closed the door and went home. ~ And Elaine dreamed on—for how long, she knew not. But suddenly she awoke to reality with a start, to notice that it had grown very dark outside, and that there were footsteps coming through the hall. Then came the sound of a voice that seemed familiar. “Hold the light low there, please. I wish to see all the rooms. There, thank you; that’s better.” Elaine had crept to the door, and was listening with a white face. She had a glimpse of the two men as they passed the door one, evidently the night watchman, holding the lamp, and the other, the man she had sent away three years before. “So he, too, has not forgotten,” thought Elaine, bitterly. She wondered ts she should speak—make her presence known but each time she tried to her courage failed her. She looked again. Yes, there he was! Standing in front of the open fireplace. Once more she peered through the open door. “How changed he was,” she said to herself. “How much older and grayer.” Her face was still wet with the traces of her recent tears, but she did not even know it as she went up and tapped gently on the wall between the two rooms. He turned round suddenly with a great start. Then he came to the door and opened it wider. Elaine walked into the room. All the light from the lamp seemed to shine on the slender figure, standing there so erect and proud. The girl’s face was white and strained, but her blue eyes shone like twin stars. The man started back with a little cry of unutterable astonishment. “Elaine! Good God!”„ “Listen,” she said softly, her hands outstretched. “Let me humble myself while I can. I need you, Richard —I want you—you and the little house.” “Elaine—Elaine —” The man could but whisper her name, for the sudden sight of her seemed to have dazed him. “Elaine —why did you come?” Quite suddenly all the fear and pride seemed to die out of the girl’s heart, “because I loved you,” she whispered softly. “Because in the old empty house I came to understand that I could never be happy without you. When I stood in the little room that we had planned together”—her voice broke —“Richard, forgive me—” She was in his arms, sobbing out the words she could not speak, and his arms were around her as he murmured : "It’s for you to forgive me, dearest. My little girl! And I thought that you did not care!” She clung to him, even as he held her, as he kissed lip and brow and hair. He could not let her go. He would never let her go again. “My dearest,” he whispered, “not for long will it i>e the Empty House.”