Chapter XII

The year following my great disappointment was one of even worse torture. I was again anxious to become pregnant and was met with an equal determination on the part of my husband that I should not be. After each session of the act which was so abhorrent to me, I was left in tears. I really did long for a child, in spite of all that I had gone through. I had, of course, no idea why things were so upset, or that I had any great responsibilities in the matter other than to have the baby and then take care of it. No pleas of mine had any effect. I felt that it was because of the great expense connected with my confinement that he objected to another trial. As I have said, I realize that I did not have the love for him that I should have had to marry him, but I married to obtain a father for my children. It was becoming harder and harder for me even to tolerate him. My young cousin, Gladys, was still very devoted to me, but we often wondered whether we had anything to do with the sad ending to my hopes.

It was thought best for me to be at the boarding house the following summer, as there would be more to occupy my mind, than to go to the place where my husband was to start a home. I was very glad of this arrangement, for when I was alone I was sad. My favorite sister, Peter’s wife, died soon after I was married, with a broken heart, I always thought, as I am sure she felt her husband was not true to her, though she never suspected the part I had had to play. She was sad to have me marry, as she wanted me to be always with her. We were very close in our understanding of each other, though little of an intimate character was ever said.

I was glad for the busy life during the summer at the farm. I did much of the entertaining of the guests, and entered into all of the gaieties with my usual vigor and enthusiasm. I made some very delightful acquaintances among them. They were of a class with whom I felt more at ease than with the simpler country folk, though I tried hard not to show it. I attended to the correspondence of the house. As a sequel to rather an extended correspondence with one lady, going into all details, it was arranged that she was to arrive on a certain date, with three small boys and a French maid.

I introduced myself on the stairs, as she was being shown to her rooms. We looked at each other hard, and I could detect a certain wonderment in her eyes, which, by the way, were beautiful indeed.

She afterwards told me she could not picture me in that atmosphere. Many times I wondered myself how I came to be there. But I was playing the game without flinching, and no one knew.

Mrs. Barr-Jones, as we will call her, well known in New York society and in musical and dramatic circles, and I became very good friends, as we realized there was a social bond at least and then, too, there seemed to be an immediate personal attraction.

Peter had returned East for the summer and was making a long visit at the home of my parents, a sad visit for all, it would seem. He came to see me often, but I was usually too busy for any extended visits and I managed that there should not be any. The old suggestions were made as to the resumption of former relations, but at last I was able to put him where he belonged, and in no gentle manner did I let him see how I despised him for the role to which he had subjected me. Gladys had no love for the activities of the house, so had much leisure on her hands, and was only too glad to go for walks and drives with Peter. I did warn her that he was an awful flirt and that she should be on her guard, but I could not go into details. She promptly fell in love with him, as so many poor females had before.

Mrs. Barr-Jones (the mother of three adorable boys, two still in dresses, and all of whom love me to this day) and I had much in common, in our love for music. While her voice was waning, she still sang with great charm. She was one of the first society girls in New York to make the startling plunge from a most exclusive set and land on the stage, under one of the leading managers of the city.

We immediately began planning a play, to be given in the great barn for some special occasion. When she found that I had had some experience in private theatricals, she at once insisted that I should take the male lead, opposite to her. I felt absolutely natural in that role and, even during rehearsals, I felt her yielding more and more to my advances. It became more natural as I, too, felt a great attraction for her.

We sent to the city for necessary wigs and costumes as there was not a single dress suit in the whole town. The final performance was given before a crowded barn, as all of the townspeople were invited, and we made a great hit. It was really a finished performance, as perhaps I shouldn’t say. My conquest of Mrs. B.-J. was complete. Without pressing my suit further she was quite willing—in fact, urged a bit of love making in our own roles.

There was a ball in the large parlors of the house after the play, and all the summer girls and the winter ones, too, begged me to keep on my costume of the play. I danced well and always loved to lead, so I was besieged by all the girls. I had a vivid exhibition of what I afterwards learned many an attractive fellow had to go through to defend himself against the onslaught of a bevy of amorous girls. They stopped at nothing and made confessions to me that night that amazed me.

I did not care to be wooed, still preferring to be one to do the capturing. Mrs. Barr-Jones was the favored one, yet I had to be ever on the alert that no one should suspect the attachment. We managed to have our little love times (and is there any one who cannot so manage?) when she would be entranced, and I would be left high and dry, as usual.

The summer passed and she left, after making me promise that I would visit her during the winter.

That was a mad summer, as I was just trying to hide my grief, for I did suffer the keenest sorrow away down inside of me. What I seemed obliged to face looked all so black. My pleadings with my husband still kept on, but with the same results. He had his satisfaction with painful regularity, however, as it “was necessary for a man to have such relief!” I turn to stone whenever I hear that inane remark, as I do so often! As though a man or a boy needed that outlet for their excessive or normal vitality any more than, or in some cases half as much as, a girl or a woman. Yet society decrees that so it is, and so it is accepted, whether by paying for it in the open mart before marriage or demanding it after marriage.

I am basing these opinions on the confessions of many women who have been through the same experience with their husbands as I had had.

I prevailed upon my husband to give his consent to my going to New York for the visit with Mrs. B.-J. He was so thrilled with my success as an actress, he said he was afraid Mrs. B.-J. would persuade me to go on the stage. I was not only glad to be with my lady again, but was especially happy to be free from all matrimonial ties. I was discouraged and reckless, and entered into the gay life of the opera, music, stage, and society with my old enthusiasm, regardless of what was going on in my inner consciousness. I had come to believe that nothing was ever going to make me like other women, and I did not care.

Flo, the Professor and the small son lived in Brooklyn and, as they knew I was in New York, I was invited to dine with them and it was arranged that the Professor would take me back to my friends, as I did not know much about the big city.

It had been many months since we had met, and of course the first thing to be done was to admire the bouncing baby boy. He was a fine chap with a wonderful head.

I believe all of our thoughts went back to the months before that boy was born, wondering whether there might develop some propensities resultant from those proceedings, but no reference was made to this subject. When dinner was announced the baby was given over to the nurse, having been kept up for my benefit. My thoughts centered on my own loss with renewed bitterness, but I was always able to keep my feelings under control. We dined and wined and talked of various things.

I recall some very fine sherry served with one of the courses and we all smiled when we remembered that Flo had once said that sherry stirred her sexually as no other wine did. I was gay and, at the same time, became more and more rebellious.... Both the Professor and I were in a dangerous mood when we left for New York, and I imagine the lady knew it and did not care.

It was suggested that we stop on the way home at a remote little hotel, which the Professor seemed to know quite well as being one where no questions would be asked. I think I rather demurred, but then it flashed across my mind that I would throw discretion to the winds and endure the moment in the hope that perhaps there might be a chance of becoming pregnant. We stopped, and my whole hope for the future lay in the next hours, as I thought.

* * * * *

I went home shortly and, in my pretended joy at being back again, I quite overcame my husband’s precaution and began joyously to predict that I knew the result of that one session would be the creation of the longed-for child. Much to his horror, it was so.

These disclosures are to show to what lengths one will go in the desire for a child, and to have a lasting excuse for marriage. It will be seen that the ideal was not reached but, to a mind ignorant on sex problems, it seemed the best way to force an issue.

I was far from well all through the period of pregnancy and my husband became more and more disgusted because I had arrived at that condition. I could see that we were growing farther and farther apart, but I did sincerely hope that, with the coming of this baby, I would be able to become a faithful and normal wife and mother.

I will always feel that it was through the bungling of a doctor, who became very drunk before the delivery of this child, that the little one was not living, after a long and terrible period of labor. Many will say that it was God’s will. Of course I now feel it was better that the result of my madness was as it was.

This time, however, my mind nearly went with the life of the child. If I ever had any love, as I pretended to have for my husband, I now knew it was over and that I could never take up that life again. It had all been an awful mess from the beginning. I simply refused to stay with the man who should have bought his pleasures and hired a housekeeper.

I stayed with my mother for a while under our doctor’s care. They both thought that I should go away for a while, so I went to Mrs. Barr-Jones, who was very sympathetic. Being with her little boys seemed to ease my aching heart. The doctors in the country decreed that I must never try to have another child and, as the thought of being a legitimatized prostitute the rest of my life did not appeal to me, I never went back to my husband.

I found I was in need of expert medical attention, as I was left in a deplorable condition by the bunglers in the country. There had been terrible lacerations after the first confinement and worse after the second, so I was under treatment all winter. Mrs. B.-J. was anxious to have me stay with her, so to ease my mind, she let me teach her little boys. When her friends saw the methods I was using with these boys, they wanted me to take their children, so I was soon conducting a real little private school along public school lines.

An account of this school appeared one day in the _Evening Sun_, written by a woman who had visited me and had seen the success of my original ideas.

Mrs. B.-J. and I enjoyed our life together, but I was still groping for the real soul mate who I always felt was waiting somewhere for me—some one with whom I could experience a oneness which had been my ideal.

The affair with the Professor, which I have described, did not further attract me. Beyond having accomplished the thing for which I lent myself so recklessly, contact with a man had nothing but repulsion for me.

I enjoyed much during these months with these friends. Theirs was another musical atmosphere, such as I had so enjoyed in our home during my childhood, only on a much more classical plane.

I was introduced to music of which I had never dreamed, and famous musicians would gather for the most wonderful evenings. Mr. Barr-Jones was a genius. He had a most finished gift at the piano. With little technique, he was always chosen to accompany the greatest artists. He simply lived the atmosphere of the singer and the song and a perfect harmony resulted.