Fate Dominant

IT may be remembered by those who have read my experiences in endeavoring to assist my fate ¹ that on the 14th of September of a certain year, a day on which I had come firmly to believe that she who was to be my wife should enter into my life, a girl baby had been born, whom I had accepted as my destined matrimonial partner. In my attempt to give personal aid to what I had supposed to be my destiny, I had failed. Miss Kitty Watridge, the young lady whom I had hoped to receive as the gift of Fate, had been relegated to her lover, Harvey Glade; and the babe, of whom I have spoken, had come to me. The fact that on the day indicated in my diary this young creature not only came into my life, but into her own, greatly satisfied and encouraged me. I would begin at the beginning. Within the sphere of my immediate cognizance would grow and develop the infant, the child, the girl, the woman, and, finally, the wife. What influence might I not have upon this development? The parents were my friends; the child was my selected bride. The possibilities of advantageous guidance, unseen perhaps, but potent to a degree unattainable by a mere parent or guardian, were, to my thinking, boundless.

I was now more content than I had been in the case of the young lady whom I had supposed had been given me by Fate, but who, it now appeared very fortunately, had been snatched away before my irrevocable mistake had been made. I was very grateful for this : I was grateful to Fate; I was grateful to Mr. Glade, the successful lover ; I was even grateful to Kitty for not having allowed herself to be influenced by anything she may have seen in me during our short acquaintance. Of the past of Kitty I knew little, as was well demonstrated by the appearance of Harvey Glade. My present fiancée had no past. With her and with me it was all future, which would gently crystallize, minute by minute and day by day, into a present which would be mutually our own.

Of course I said nothing of all this to any one. The knowledge of our destiny was locked up in the desk which held my diary and in my own heart. When the proper time came, she, first, should know. I am an honorable man, and as such felt fully qualified to be the custodian of what was, in fact, her secret as well as mine.

I took an early opportunity to become acquainted with the one who was to be the future partner of my life. It was towards the end of October, I think, that I paid a visit to Dr. Tom Wiltby and his wife Jane, my predestined parents-in-law. Had they known the position they occupied towards me, they would have been a very much surprised couple. The interest I exhibited in their first-born did, as I thought, surprise them a little, but it only increased the warmth of the welcome they gave me, and drew me closer to their hearts. The emotions which possessed me when, in the preceding summer, I had stood awaiting the moment when Kitty Watridge should enter the room and first present herself to my sight were nothing to those which quickened the action of my heart as a nurse brought into the Wiltby parlor a carefully disposed bundle of drapery, in the midst of which reposed my future wife.

I approached, and looked at her. Her face was displayed to view, but her form was undistinguishable. For an instant our eyes met; but, so far as I could judge, no spark of reciprocal sympathy seemed to shine from hers. In fact, they rolled about in an irrelevant manner which betokened a preoccupation so intense that even the advent of a husband could have no effect upon it. But whatever the child had on its mind — or stomach — gave a volcanic mobility to its countenance, which caused me much to wonder. The eyes then closed, and appeared to be writhing and swelling beneath their lids; the mouth was alternately convoluted and unrolled towards nose, cheeks, and chin ; while the rest of the face, which had been of an Indian reddish hue, now darkened, and from the puffy jaws to the top of the bald head seemed moved by a spasm, but whether of premonition or despair I could not tell.

I withdrew my gaze. It might be well that I should wait for a time before allowing my eyes to feed upon this countenance.

I went away a little disappointed. The chaoticness of initiatory existence had never before been so forcibly impressed on my mind.

During the following winter and spring I built up an ideal, or rather a series of ideals. They were little children, they were girls, they were women. At about nineteen years of age the individual existence of each ended, and became merged into the oneness of my matrimonial life. Sometimes my ideal was a blonde, sometimes a brunette. From the cursory glance I had had of the one to whom all these fancies referred, I could not judge whether she would be dark or fair. She had no hair, and all that I could remember of her eyes was that they had no soul light. Her father was dark, her mother fair: she might be either.

Of all the legendary heroines of love, none ever so impressed me as that Francesca whose strong love not only braved every prejudice and barrier of earth, but, according to eye-witnesses of the fact, floated with her indefinitely through hell. In verse and picture, and upon the stage, I knew Francesca well, — better, perhaps, than any other woman. But to such an one I would not be merely a Paolo, but the elder brother also. I would have no proxy, no secret love, no unfaithfulness. There should be all the impetuosity, all the spirit of Self-immolation, without any necessity for it. She who was to be mine had become in my thoughts a Francesca, and she grew before my mind to ripened loveliness. Her eyes sparkled with rapture when, as through the gates of old Ravenna, the fair Ghibelline first saw the brave rider that she thought to wed, so this one would see through the gates of womanly consciousness, not a mere envoy, but both Malatesta brothers in one, — lover and husband, — me. With such an imaginary one I read legends of old loves ; with such an one I sat in shaded bowers, her young face upturned to mine, and the red light from the wings touching with color the passionate picture. But no jester watched with sneering gibes, no husband fought afar on battle-field; Paolo and Lanciotto in one looked into the uplifted eyes.

It was in the early summer that my two sisters and myself were invited to the Wiltby mansion for a visit, which our kindly hosts hoped would be somewhat protracted. Among other things that were to be done the baby was to be baptized, and Grace Anna, for whom she was named, was to act as godmother. I was very glad to make this visit. Quite a long time had now elapsed since my first interview with Francesca, as I always intended to call her, notwithstanding the name that might be bestowed upon her by the church ; and she must have now begun to foreshadow, in a measure, that which she was to be.

When I saw her I found that there was not quite so much foreshadowing as I had expected; but, in spite of that, she was a little creature whom, without doing violence to any æsthetic instinct, I could take to my heart. She was a pudgy infant, with blue eyes, a blankety head, and a mouth that was generally ready to break into a smile if you tickled the corners of it. Instead of the long and flowing draperies in which I first beheld her, she now wore short dresses, and that she possessed remarkably fat legs and blue woolen socks was a fact which Francesca never failed to endeavor to impress upon my observation. I excited a great deal of surprise, with some admiration on the part of the mother and occasional jocular remarks from Bertha, my younger sister, by showing, at the very beginning of our visit, a strong preference for the society of the baby. I asked to be allowed to take her into my arms, and walk with her into the garden ; and although this privilege was at first denied me, unless some lady should accompany me, I being considered quite inexperienced in the care of an infant, I at last gained my point, and frequently had the pleasure of a tête-à-tête stroll with Francesca. With my future bride in my arms, slowly walking in the shaded avenues of the garden, I gave my imagination full play. I enlarged her eyes, and gave them a steadiness of upturn which they did not now possess ; the white fuzz upon her head grew into rich masses of goldbrown hair; the nose was lengthened and refined ; her lips were less protruded, and made more continuously dry; while a good deal of fatty deposit was removed from the cheeks and the second chin. As I walked thus tenderly gazing down upon her, and often removing her little fist from her mouth, I pictured in her lineaments the budding womanhood for which I waited. I would talk softly to her, and although she seldom answered but in a gurgling monotone I saw in our intercourse the dawning of a unity to be.

After we had been a few days at the Wiltby house Miss Kitty Watridge came there, also on a visit. Her engagement to Mr. Glade had not produced much effect upon her personal appearance, although I thought her something quieter, and with a little sedateness which I had not observed in her before. Her advent at this time was not to my liking. As an object of my regard, she had, in becoming engaged to another, ceased to exist; she had passed out of my sphere of consideration, and the fact that she had once acted a prominent part within it made it appear to me that propriety demanded that she should not only go out of it, but stay out of it. Her influence upon my intercourse with Francesca was, from the first, objectionable. My sisters had always been accustomed to regard my wishes with a gratifying respect, and Mrs. Wiltby seemed anxious to imitate them in this laudable action. But Miss Watridge had apparently no such ideas, and she showed this most objectionably by imagining that she had as much right to the baby as I had. Of course she could not understand how matters stood, — nobody but myself could understand that; but she had not the native delicacy of perception of my sisters and Jane Wiltby. She could not know in how many ways she interfered with my desires and purposes. My morning walks were, in a manner, broken up ; for sometimes the new-comer actually insisted upon carrying the baby herself, in which case I retired, and sought some other promenade. But after a few days I found that the indulgence of any resentment of this sort not only made me the object of remark, but promised to entirely break up my plans in regard to Francesca. I wished to create in my mind while here such an image of her, matured and perfected according to my own ideas, that I could live and commune with her during the absences, more or less protracted, which must intervene before the day when I should take her wholly to myself. As I could not expect to stay here very much longer, I must not lose what opportunities I had, and so concluded to resume my walks with Francesca, even if Miss Watridge should sometimes intrude herself upon us.

I must admit, however, that this she did not do, considering the matter with strict regard to fact. She generally possessed herself of the baby, and if I wished its company I was obliged to intrude myself upon her. The plan I now adopted was, I think, somewhat ingenious. As is my wont, I endeavored to shape to my advantage this obstacle which I now found in my way. My intercourse with Francesca had not been altogether satisfactory. For one thing, there had been too much unity about it. A certain degree of this was, indeed, desirable, but I was obliged to be, at once, not only husband and lover, but lady also; for Francesca gave me no help in this regard, except, perchance, an occasional look of entreaty, which might as well mean that she would like a bottle of milk as that she yearned for fond communion of the soul. When I addressed her as my developed ideal I imagined her answers, and so continued the gentle conversation; but, although she always spoke as I would wish, there were absent from our converse certain desirable elements which might have been looked for from the presence of a second intellect. Another source of dissatisfaction was that in many of our interviews Francesca acted in a manner which was not only disturbing, but indecorous. Frequently, when I was speaking with her on such subjects as foreign travel, when we two would wander amid the misty purples of Caprian sunsets, or stand together in vast palaces of hoarded art, she would struggle so convulsively, and throw upward with such violence her small blue socks, that, for the time, I wished she was swaddled and bound in the manner of the Della Robbia babies on the front of the Foundling Asylum in Florence.

A plan of relieving myself from the obvious disadvantages of my present method of intercourse with an intellect, a soul,and a person, which to be suitable for my companionship must necessarily be projected into the future, now suggested itself to me. If Miss Watridge persisted in forcing herself upon Francesca, she might at least make herself useful by taking the place of that young person so far as regarded a part in the conversation. Her entity occupied a position in respect to growth and development which was about the same as that to which I was in the habit of projecting Francesca. Her answers to my remarks would be analogous, if not similar, to those which might be expected from the baby when she arrived at maturity. Thus, in a manner, I could talk to Francesca, and receive her answers from the lips of Miss Kitty. This would be as truly love-making by proxy as when the too believing Lanciotto sent from Rimini his younger brother to bear to him Ravenna’s pearl. But here was no guile, no dishonesty ; the messenger, the vehicle, the interpreter, in this case, knew nothing of the feelings now in action, or to be set in action, of the principals in the affair. She did not know, indeed, that there were two principals. As far as she herself was concerned, she had, and could have, no interest in the matter. She was engaged to be married to Mr. Glade, which, in my eyes, was the same thing as being already married to him ; and any thoughts or mental emotions that she might have relating to affectionate interest in one of the opposite sex would of course be centred in Mr. Glade. With Francesca and myself she would have nothing to do but unconsciously to assist in the transmission of sentiment. Had Paolo been engaged to marry a suitable young person before he started for Ravenna, it is probable that the limited partnership which Dante noticed in the Inferno would never have been formed.

It was by slow degrees, and with a good deal of caution, that I began my new course of action. Taking the child in my arms, I invited Miss Watridge to accompany us in our walk. Thus, together, we slowly strolled along the garden avenue, shaded by the fresh greenness of June foliage, and flecked here and there by patches of sunlight, which moved upon the gravel in unison with the gentle breeze. Our conversation, at first relating to simple and every-day matters, was soon directed by me into a channel in which I could perceive whether or not I should succeed in this project of representative rejoinder. It was not long before I was pleased to discover that the mind of the young lady was of as good natural quality and as well cultivated as I had formerly supposed it to be ; having then little upon which to base my judgment, except the general impression which her personality had made upon me. That impression having been entirely effaced, I was enabled with clearer vision and sounder judgment to determine the value of her mental exhibit. I found that she had read with some discrimination, and with a tendency to independent thought she united a becoming respect for the opinions of those who, by reason of superior years, experience, and sex, might be supposed to move on a psychological plane somewhat higher than her own. These were dispositions the development of which I hoped to assist in the young Francesca, and it may be imagined that I was much gratified to find my model so closely resembling that personality which I wished, in a manner, to create.

Thus, up and down, daily, would we stroll and talk. With the real Francesca on my arm, sometimes sleeping, and sometimes indulging in disturbing muscular exercises, which I gently endeavored to restrain, I addressed myself to my ideal Francesca, an aerial maiden, garbed in simple robes of white touched by a soft suggestion of Italian glow, and ever with tender eyes upturned to mine; while from her proxy, walking by my side, came to me the thoughts and sentiments of her fresh young heart.

It was quite natural that I should be more interested in a conversation of this kind than in one in which I was obliged to supply the remarks on either side. To be sure, in the latter case, there was a unison of thought between myself and the ideal Francesca that was very satisfactory, but which lacked the piquancy given by unexpectedness of reply and the interest consequent upon gentle argument.

It so happened that the morning occupations of Mrs. Wiltby and my sisters were those in which Miss Watridge did not care to join, and thus she was commonly left free to make one of the company of four which took its morning walks upon the garden avenue. I imagine that she supposed it was generally thought that she was taking care of the baby and affording it advantages of out-door air, in the performance of which pleasing duty my presence was so unnecessary that the probability of it was not even considered. Thus it was that upon every fair day — and all those days were fair — our morning strolls were prolonged for an hour or more, generally terminated only by the culminating resolve of Francesca to attract to herself so much attention that a return to the house was necessary. It may be supposed that it would have been better to have eliminated the element of the actual being from the female side of our little company. But that side, several as it was in its component personages, represented to me the one Francesca ; and had I not held and felt the presence of the actual living creature, who was to be and to say all that my mind saw and my ear heard, I could not have spoken as I wished to speak to the ideality who was to be my wife when it became a reality. The conjunction seemed to me a perfect one, and under the circumstances I could wish for nothing better.

As our acquaintance ripened and mellowed in the pleasant summer days, I was enabled to see more clearly into the soul and heart of the Francesca that was to be, looking at them through the transparent mind of Miss Kitty Watridge. According to the pursuance of my plan, I gradually, and as far as possible imperceptibly, changed the nature of our converse. From talking of the material world, and those objects in it which had pleased our vision or excited reflection, we passed to the consideration, very cursory at first, of those sentiments which appear to emanate from ourselves without the aid of extraneous agency. Then, by slow degrees, the extraneous agency was allowed to enter upon the scene, coming in so quietly that at first it was scarcely noticeable. The dependence of man upon man was discussed, not only for material good, but for intellectual support and comfort. Then, following a course not exactly in accordance with that of nature, but which suited my purposes, we spoke of social ties, — of the friendships which spring up here and there from these ; of the natural affections of the family; and, finally, the subject arising in consistent sequence, of that congruent intermental action of the intellect of two persons, generally male and female, who frequently, without family ties of any kind and but little previous acquaintanceship, find, each in the other, an adaptiveness of entity which is mutually satisfactory.

The vicarious replies of Francesca were, in almost every instance, all that I could have wished. Sometimes there were symptoms of hesitancy or reluctance in the enunciation of what was, obviously, the suitable reply to some of my remarks in regard to the deeper sentiments ; but, on the whole, had the ideal lady of my love spoken to me, her words could not have better aroused my every sentiment of warm regard.

Sometimes I wondered, as thus we walked and talked, what Mr. Glade would think about it if he could see us so much together, and listen to our converse. But this thought I put aside as unworthy of me. It was an insult to myself as an honorable man ; it was an uncalled-for aspersion on Miss Watridge, and a stain upon my idealistic intercourse with Francesca. If Mr. Glade was coarse and vulgar enough to interject his personality into this perfectly working system of intellectual action, from which the individuality of Miss Watridge was entirely eliminated, her part in it being merely to represent another, I could not help it. It was this consciousness of rectitude, this probity of purpose, which raised our little drama so far above the level of the old story of the wedded Guelph and Ghibelline.

With my mind satisfied on this subject, I did not hesitate, when the proper time seemed to have arrived, to allow myself to imagine Francesca at the age of nineteen. I could not much longer remain in this place, as we had now overstayed the original limit of our visit ; and there was danger, too, that Miss Watridge might be called away. I wished, while the opportunity continued, to develop the imaginary life of Francesca into perfect womanhood, so that I could carry away with me an image of my future wife, which I could set upon the throne of my affection, there to be revered, cherished, and guarded, until the time came when the real Francesca should claim the seat. Of course, under these circumstances, a certain fervor of thought and expression was not only necessary, but excusable, and I did not scruple to allow it to myself. Always with the real Francesca in my arms, in order that even my own superconscientiousness might not take me to task, I delivered my sentiments without drawing the veil of precautionary expression over their amatory significance. It was at this stage of our intercourse that I asked Miss Watridge to allow me to call her Francesca; for it was only by so doing that I could fully identify her voice with that of the visionary creature who was now exciting the stirring impulses of my heart. When she asked me why I wished to call her by this name, I could only tell her that it was for ideal purposes ; and without making further inquiries, she consented that I should use it — for the present. As it was only for the present that I thought of so doing, this much of acquiescence was sufficient, and I called her by the name I loved.

The softly-spoken, well-considered replies, the gentle ejaculations, and the demure but earnest attention which my speech elicited well befitted the fairest vision of pure young womanhood that my soul could call before me. But, notwithstanding this, there was something wanting. I longed for the upturned eyes, ever fixed upon my own, of the Francesca of the stage. I longed for the fair white hands clasped and trembling as I spoke. I longed for that intensity of soul-merge in which the loved one breathes and lives only that she may hear the words I speak, and watch the thoughts that fashion in my face. Without all this I could never take away with me the image of the true Francesca. Without this there would be wanting, in the fair conception, that artistic roundness, that completeness of outline and purpose, which would satisfy the exigencies of my nature. I could not consent to carry with me for years an ideal existence, incomplete, irnperfected, — a statue devoid of those last touches of the master which make it seem to live.

Therefore I sought, with much earnestness and fixity of intention, to call up the last element needed to complete that lovely creation which was to be my companion through the years of waiting for the real Francesca. It was a great comfort and support to me to reflect that I could do this with such safety, with such unusual advantages. I addressed myself to no being in existence. Even the little creature on my arm, who had fallen into a habit of dozing when not noticed, and to whom belonged, in fact, my every gift and legacy of love, was not of age to come into her fortune, nor could her infantile mind be injured by its contemplation. And as for Miss Watridge, she, as I continually repeated to myself, was acting simply as the representative of another, and her real self was not concerned in the little drama, in which she did not even take a part; merely assuming, as in a rehearsal, a character which another actor, not able then to be present, would play in the actual performance.

It was on the loveliest morning of all the summer that I made my supreme effort. At the very bottom of the garden was a little arbor of honeysuckles. No crimson stage-light shone in upon it, but the sunbeams pushed their way here and there through the screen of leaves, and brightened the interior with points of light. It was a secluded spot, to which I had never yet led my companions, for the period had not before arrived for such sequesterment. But now we sat down here upon a little bench : I at one end, the young Francesca on my knee, and Miss Watridge at my left. In the place where this lady sat also sat the ideal Francesca, occupying the same space, and endowed, for the time, with the same form and features. It was to this being that I now addressed my fervid words; low-burning, it is true, but alive with all the heat and glow that precedes blaze. I told a tale ; not reading from pages of mediæval script the legend of the love of Launcelot and Queen Guinevere, as does Paolo in the play, but relating a story which was a true one, for it was my own. I spoke as I expected to speak some day to the little creature on my knee. Taking with my disengaged hand that of the lady by my side, I said that which raised a lovely countenance to mine, that showed me the beauty of her upturned eyes ; and as I looked and spoke I felt that the very pulses of her soul were throbbing in accord with mine. Here was enacting in very truth the scene I had viewed upon the stage, and which so often since had risen before my fancy. Possessed by the spirit of this scene, carried onward by that same tide of passional emotion the gradual rise of which it had portrayed, I gave myself up to its influences, and acted it out unto its very culmination. I stooped, and, in the words of the Arthurian legend, “ I kissed her full upon the mouth.”

Swift as the sudden fall of summer rain, I felt the wild abandonment of clinging arms about my neck, of tears upon my face that were not mine, of words of love that I spoke not; and it came to me like a flash that she who clung to me, and around whom my arm was passed, was Kitty Watridge, and not a visionary Ghibelline.

In the midst of my varying emotions I clasped closer to me the real Francesca, who thereupon gave vent to her feelings by parting wide her toothless gums, and filling the summer air with a long yell. At this rude interruption, the arms fell from my neck, and the face was quickly withdrawn from mine.

Now came hurrying steps upon the gravel walk, and my sister Bertha ran in upon us. “ What on earth are you doing to that baby ? ” she cried. She snatched the child from me, and then stood astonished, gazing first at me and then at Kitty, who had started to her feet, with sparkling tears still in her eyes and a sunset glow upon her face. Without a word, the wicked Bertha laughed a little laugh, and, folding the child within her arms, she ran away.

I sat speechless for a moment, and then I turned to Kitty ; but she, too, had gone, having fled in another direction. I was left alone : gone was the real Francesca; gone was the fair ideal ; gone was Kitty. I stood bewildered, and, in a manner, dazed. I felt as if I had fallen from the fourteenth century into the nineteenth, and that the shock had hurt me. I felt, too, a sense of culpability, as if I had been somewhere where I had no right to be ; as if I had been a trespasser, a poacher, an intruder upon the times or on the rights of others. The fact that I was a strictly honorable man, scorning perfidy in its every form, made my feelings the more poignant. A little reflection helped me to understand it all. I had carried out my plan so carefully, with such regard to its gradual development, that by degrees Miss Watridge had grown into the ideal Francesca, and had to all intents and purposes gone back with me into the Middle Ages, in order to better portray my perfected ideal. The baby sitting on my right knee, while a future stage of her life was being personated by the lady at my side, might belong to any age ; there was nothing incongruous in her presence on the scene. It was the entrance of my sister Bertha that broke the spell, that shattered the whole fabric I had so elaborately built. She was of the present, of to-day, of the exact second, in which she helped anything to happen. An impersonation of the Now, her coming banished every idea of the Past or Future.

Like an actor in a play, on whom his every-day clothes and the broad light of day have suddenly fallen, I walked slowly to the house. Meeting my older sister, Grace Anna, near the door, I took her aside, and said to her, “ When is Mr. Glade expected here ? ”

“ What for ? ” she asked, with eyes dilated.

“ To marry Kitty Watridge,” said I.

“ What do you mean ? ” exclaimed my sister. “ That match was broken off last winter.”

It may well be supposed that, remembering what Bertha had seen, and doubtless imagined; that remembering what Kitty had done and said ; and recalling, too, how I felt when she did it and said it, I resolved, instead of waiting eighteen long years for another, to accept as the Francesca of my dreams, and as the veritable wife of my actual existence, this dear girl, who was able to represent at this very present the every attribute and quality of my ideal woman.

In the autumn we were married. Thus my Fate, disclaiming my efforts to assist it, no matter in what direction, rose dominant, and, attending to my affairs in its own way, gave me Kitty at last.

But I shall always feel sorry for the baby.

Frank R. Stockton.