I remember that it came upon me with a sort of surprise at the
moment that we had never thought or spoken much of Margaret Debree as
beautiful. We were so accustomed to her; we had known her so long, we
had known her always. We had never analyzed our admiration of her.
She had so many qualities that are better than beauty that we had not
credited her with the more obvious attraction. And perhaps she had just
become visibly beautiful. It may be that there is an instant in a girl's
life corresponding to what the Puritans called conversion in the soul,
when the physical qualities, long maturing, suddenly glow in an
effect which we call beauty. It cannot be that women do not have a
consciousness of it, perhaps of the instant of its advent. I remember
when I was a child that I used to think that a stick of peppermint candy
must burn with a consciousness of its own deliciousness.
Margaret was just turned twenty. As she paused there in the doorway her
physical perfection flashed upon me for the first time. Of course I do
not mean perfection, for perfection has no promise in it, rather the sad
note of limit, and presently recession. In the rounded, exquisite lines
of her figure there was the promise of that ineffable fullness and
delicacy of womanhood which all the world raves about and destroys and
mourns. It is not fulfilled always in the most beautiful, and perhaps
never except to the woman who loves passionately, and believes she is
loved with a devotion that exalts her body and soul above every other
human being.
It is certain that Margaret's beauty was not classic. Her features
were irregular even to piquancy. The chin had strength; the mouth was
sensitive and not too small; the shapely nose with thin nostrils had an
assertive quality that contradicted the impression of humility in the
eyes when downcast; the large gray eyes were uncommonly soft and clear,
an appearance of alternate tenderness and brilliancy as they were veiled
or uncovered by the long lashes. They were gently commanding eyes, and
no doubt her most effective point. Her abundant hair, brown with a touch
of red in it in some lights, fell over her broad forehead in the fashion
of the time. She had a way of carrying her head, of throwing it back at
times, that was not exactly imperious, and conveyed the impression
of spirit rather than of mere vivacity. These details seem to me all
inadequate and misleading, for the attraction of the face that made
it interesting is still undefined. I hesitate to say that there was a
dimple near the corner of her mouth that revealed itself when she smiled
lest this shall seem mere prettiness, but it may have been the keynote
of her face. I only knew there was something about it that won the
heart, as a too conscious or assertive beauty never does. She may have
been plain, and I may have seen the loveliness of her nature, which I
knew well, in features that gave less sign of it to strangers. Yet I
noticed that Mr. Lyon gave her a quick second glance, and his manner was
instantly that of deference, or at least attention, which he had shown
to no other lady in the room. And the whimsical idea came into my
mind--we are all so warped by international possibilities--to observe
whether she did not walk like a countess (that is, as a countess ought
to walk) as she advanced to shake hands with my wife. It is so easy to
turn life into a comedy!
Margaret's great-grandmother--no, it was her great-great-grandmother,
but we have kept the Revolutionary period so warm lately that it seems
near--was a Newport belle, who married an officer in the suite of
Rochambeau what time the French defenders of liberty conquered the women
of Rhode Island. After the war was over, our officer resigned his love
of glory for the heart of one of the loveliest women and the care of the
best plantation on the Island. I have seen a miniature of her, which
her lover wore at Yorktown, and which he always swore that Washington
coveted--a miniature painted by a wandering artist of the day, which
entirely justifies the French officer in his abandonment of the trade of
a soldier. Such is man in his best estate. A charming face can make him
campaign and fight and slay like a demon, can make a coward of him,
can fill him with ambition to win the world, and can tame him into the
domesticity of a drawing-room cat. There is this noble capacity in man
to respond to the divinest thing visible to him in this world. Etienne
Debree became, I believe, a very good citizen of the republic, and in
'93 used occasionally to shake his head with satisfaction to find that
it was still on his shoulders. I am not sure that he ever visited Mount
Vernon, but after Washington's death Debree's intimacy with our
first President became a more and more important part of his life and
conversation. There is a pleasant tradition that Lafayette, when he was
here in 1784, embraced the young bride in the French manner, and that
this salute was valued as a sort of heirloom in the family.
I always thought that Margaret inherited her New England conscience from
her great-great-grandmother, and a certain esprit or gayety--that is,
a sub-gayety which was never frivolity--from her French ancestor. Her
father and mother had died when she was ten years old, and she had
been reared by a maiden aunt, with whom she still lived. The combined
fortunes of both required economy, and after Margaret had passed her
school course she added to their resources by teaching in a public
school. I remember that she taught history, following, I suppose, the
American notion that any one can teach history who has a text-book, just
as he or she can teach literature with the same help. But it happened
that Margaret was a better teacher than many, because she had not
learned history in school, but in her father's well-selected library.
There was a little stir at Margaret's entrance; Mr. Lyon was introduced
to her, and my wife, with that subtle feeling for effect which women
have, slightly changed the lights. Perhaps Margaret's complexion or her
black dress made this readjustment necessary to the harmony of the room.
Perhaps she felt the presence of a different temperament in the little
circle.
I never can tell exactly what it is that guides her in regard to the
influence of light and color upon the intercourse of people, upon their
conversation, making it take one cast or another. Men are susceptible
to these influences, but it is women alone who understand how to produce
them. And a woman who has not this subtle feeling always lacks charm,
however intellectual she may be; I always think of her as sitting in the
glare of disenchanting sunlight as indifferent to the exposure as a man
would be. I know in a general way that a sunset light induces one kind
of talk and noonday light another, and I have learned that talk always
brightens up with the addition of a fresh crackling stick to the fire.
I shouldn't have known how to change the lights for Margaret, although I
think I had as distinct an impression of her personality as had my wife.
There was nothing disturbing in it; indeed, I never saw her otherwise
than serene, even when her voice betrayed strong emotion. The quality
that impressed me most, however, was her sincerity, coupled with
intellectual courage and clearness that had almost the effect of
brilliancy, though I never thought of her as a brilliant woman.
“What mischief have you been attempting, Mr. Morgan?” asked Margaret, as
she took a chair near him. “Were you trying to make Mr. Lyon comfortable
by dragging in Bunker Hill?”
“No; that was Mr. Fairchild, in his capacity as host.”
“Oh, I'm sure you needn't mind me,” said Mr. Lyon, good-humoredly. “I
landed in Boston, and the first thing I went to see was the Monument. It
struck me as so odd, you know, that the Americans should begin life by
celebrating their first defeat.”
“That is our way,” replied Margaret, quickly. “We have started on a new
basis over here; we win by losing. He who loses his life shall find
it. If the red slayer thinks he slays he is mistaken. You know the
Southerners say that they surrendered at last simply because they got
tired of beating the North.”
“How odd!”
“Miss Debree simply means,” I exclaimed, “that we have inherited from
the English an inability to know when we are whipped.”
“But we were not fighting the battle of Bunker Hill, or fighting about
it, which is more serious, Miss Debree. What I wanted to ask you was
whether you think the domestication of religion will affect its power in
the regulation of conduct.”
“Domestication? You are too deep for me, Mr. Morgan. I don't any
more understand you than I comprehend the writers who write about the
feminization of literature.”
“Well, taking the mystery out of it, the predominant element of worship,
making the churches sort of good-will charitable associations for the
spread of sociability and good-feeling.”
“You mean making Christianity practical?”
“Partially that. It is a part of the general problem of what women are
going to make of the world, now they have got hold of it, or are getting
hold of it, and are discontented with being women, or with being treated
as women, and are bringing their emotions into all the avocations of
life.”
“They cannot make it any worse than it has been.”
“I'm not sure of that. Robustness is needed in churches as much as in
government. I don't know how much the cause of religion is advanced
by these church clubs of Christian Endeavor if that is the name,
associations of young boys and girls who go about visiting other like
clubs in a sufficiently hilarious manner. I suppose it's the spirit of
the age. I'm just wondering whether the world is getting to think more
of having a good time than it is of salvation.”
“And you think woman's influence--for you cannot mean anything else--is
somehow taking the vigor out of affairs, making even the church a soft,
purring affair, reducing us all to what I suppose you would call a mush
of domesticity.”
“Or femininity.”
“Well, the world has been brutal enough; it had better try a little
femininity now.”
“I hope it will not be more cruel to women.”
“That is not an argument; that is a stab. I fancy you are altogether
skeptical about woman. Do you believe in her education?”
“Up to a certain point, or rather, I should say, after a certain point.”
“That's it,” spoke up my wife, shading her eyes from the fire with
a fan. “I begin to have my doubts about education as a panacea. I've
noticed that girls with only a smattering--and most of them in the
nature of things can go, no further--are more liable to temptations.”
“That is because 'education' is mistaken for the giving of information
without training, as we are finding out in England,” said Mr. Lyon.
“Or that it is dangerous to awaken the imagination without a heavy
ballast of principle,” said Mr. Morgan.
“That is a beautiful sentiment,” Margaret exclaimed, throwing back
her head, with a flash from her eyes. “That ought to shut out women
entirely. Only I cannot see how teaching women what men know is going to
give them any less principle than men have. It has seemed to me a long
while that the time has come for treating women like human beings, and
giving them the responsibility of their position.”
“And what do you want, Margaret?” I asked.
“I don't know exactly what I do want,” she answered, sinking back in her
chair, sincerity coming to modify her enthusiasm. “I don't want to go to
Congress, or be a sheriff, or a lawyer, or a locomotive engineer. I
want the freedom of my own being, to be interested in everything in the
world, to feel its life as men do. You don't know what it is to have an
inferior person condescend to you simply because he is a man.”
“Yet you wish to be treated as a woman?” queried Mr. Morgan.
“Of course. Do you think I want to banish romance out of the world?”
“You are right, my dear,” said my wife. “The only thing that makes
society any better than an industrial ant-hill is the love between women
and men, blind and destructive as it often is.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Morgan, rising to go, “having got back to first
principles--”
“You think it is best to take your husband home before he denies even
them,” Mr. Morgan added.
When the others had gone, Margaret sat by the fire, musing, as if no
one else were in the room. The Englishman, still alert and eager for
information, regarded her with growing interest. It came into my mind
as odd that, being such an uninteresting people as we are, the English
should be so curious about us. After an interval, Mr. Lyon said:
“I beg your pardon, Miss Debree, but would you mind telling me whether
the movement of Women's Rights is gaining in America?”
“I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Lyon,” Margaret replied, after a pause, with
a look of weariness. “I'm tired of all the talk about it. I wish men and
women, every soul of them, would try to make the most of themselves, and
see what would come of that.”
“But in some places they vote about schools, and you have conventions--”
“Did you ever attend any kind of convention yourself, Mr. Lyon?”
“I? No. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Neither did I. But you have a right to, you know. I should
like to ask you one question, Mr. Lyon,” the girl, continued, rising.
“Should be most obliged.”
“Why is it that so few English women marry Americans?”
“I--I never thought of that,” he stammered, reddening. “Perhaps--perhaps
it's because of American women.”
“Thank you,” said Margaret, with a little courtesy. “It's very nice of
you to say that. I can begin to see now why so many American women marry
Englishmen.”
The Englishman blushed still more, and Margaret said good-night.
It was quite evident the next day that Margaret had made an impression
on our visitor, and that he was struggling with some new idea.
“Did you say, Mrs. Fairchild,” he asked my wife, “that Miss Debree is a
teacher? It seems very odd.”
“No; I said she taught in one of our schools. I don't think she is
exactly a teacher.”
“Not intending always to teach?”
“I don't suppose she has any definite intentions, but I never think of
her as a teacher.”
“She's so bright, and--and interesting, don't you think? So American?”
“Yes; Miss Debree is one of the exceptions.”
“Oh, I didn't mean that all American women were as clever as Miss
Debree.”
“Thank you,” said my wife. And Mr. Lyon looked as if he couldn't see why
she should thank him.
The cottage in which Margaret lived with her aunt, Miss Forsythe,
was not far from our house. In summer it was very pretty, with its
vine-shaded veranda across the front; and even in winter, with the
inevitable raggedness of deciduous vines, it had an air of refinement,
a promise which the cheerful interior more than fulfilled. Margaret's
parting word to my wife the night before had been that she thought
her aunt would like to see the “chrysalis earl,” and as Mr. Lyon had
expressed a desire to see something more of what he called the “gentry”
of New England, my wife ended their afternoon walk at Miss Forsythe's.
It was one of the winter days which are rare in New England, but of
which there had been a succession all through the Christmas holidays.
Snow had not yet come, all the earth was brown and frozen, whichever
way you looked the interlacing branches and twigs of the trees made a
delicate lace-work, the sky was gray-blue, and the low-sailing sun had
just enough heat to evoke moisture from the frosty ground and suffuse
the atmosphere into softness, in which all the landscape became poetic.
The phenomenon known as “red sunsets” was faintly repeated in the
greenish crimson glow along the violet hills, in which Venus burned like
a jewel.
There was a fire smoldering on the hearth in the room they entered,
which seemed to be sitting-room, library, parlor, all in one; the
old table of oak, too substantial for ornament, was strewn with late
periodicals and pamphlets--English, American, and French--and with books
which lay unarranged as they were thrown down from recent reading. In
the centre was a bunch of red roses in a pale-blue Granada jug. Miss
Forsythe rose from a seat in the western window, with a book in her
hand, to greet her callers. She was slender, like Margaret, but taller,
with soft brown eyes and hair streaked with gray, which, sweeping
plainly aside from her forehead in a fashion then antiquated, contrasted
finely with the flush of pink in her cheeks. This flush did not suggest
youth, but rather ripeness, the tone that comes with the lines made in
the face by gentle acceptance of the inevitable in life. In her quiet
and self-possessed manner there was a little note of graceful timidity,
not perhaps noticeable in itself, but in contrast with that unmistakable
air of confidence which a woman married always has, and which in the
unrefined becomes assertive, an exaggerated notion of her importance, of
the value added to her opinions by the act of marriage. You can see it
in her air the moment she walks away from the altar, keeping step to
Mendelssohn's tune. Jack Sharpley says that she always seems to be
saying, “Well, I've done it once for all.” This assumption of the
married must be one of the hardest things for single women to bear in
their self-congratulating sisters.
I have no doubt that Georgiana Forsythe was a charming girl, spirited
and handsome; for the beauty of her years, almost pathetic in its
dignity and self-renunciation, could not have followed mere prettiness
or a commonplace experience. What that had been I never inquired, but it
had not soured her. She was not communicative nor confidential, I fancy,
with any one, but she was always friendly and sympathetic to the trouble
of others, and helpful in an undemonstrative way. If she herself had
a secret feeling that her life was a failure, it never impressed
her friends so, it was so even, and full of good offices and quiet
enjoyment. Heaven only knows, however, the pathos of this apparently
undisturbed life. For did a woman ever live who would not give all the
years of tasteless serenity, for one year, for one month, for one hour,
of the uncalculating delirium of love poured out upon a man who returned
it? It may be better for the world that there are these women to whom
life has still some mysteries, who are capable of illusions and the
sweet sentimentality that grows out of a romance unrealized.
Although the recent books were on Miss Forsythe's table, her tastes and
culture were of the past age. She admired Emerson and Tennyson. One may
keep current with the news of the world without changing his principles.
I imagine that Miss Forsythe read without injury to herself the
passionate and the pantheistic novels of the young women who have come
forward in these days of emancipation to teach their grandmothers a new
basis of morality, and to render meaningless all the consoling epitaphs
on the mossy New England gravestones. She read Emerson for his
sweet spirit, for his belief in love and friendship, her simple
Congregationalist faith remaining undisturbed by his philosophy, from
which she took only a habit of toleration.
“Miss Debree has gone to church,” she said, in answer to Mr. Lyon's
glance around the room.
“To vespers?”
“I believe they call it that. Our evening meetings, you know, only begin
at early candlelight.”
“And you do not belong to the Church?”
“Oh, yes, to the ancient aristocratic church of colonial times,” she
replied, with a little smile of amusement. “My niece has stepped off
Plymouth Rock.”
“And was your religion founded on Plymouth Rock?”
“My niece says so when I rally her deserting the faith of her fathers,”
replied Miss Forsythe, laughing at the working of the Episcopalian mind.
“I should like to understand about that; I mean about the position of
Dissenters in America.”
“I'm afraid I could not help you, Mr. Lyon. I fancy an Englishman would
have to be born again, as the phrase used to be, to comprehend that.”
While Mr. Lyon was still unsatisfied on this point, he found the
conversation shifted to the other side. Perhaps it was a new experience
to him that women should lead and not follow in conversation. At any
rate, it was an experience that put him at his ease. Miss Forsythe was a
great admirer of Gladstone and of General Gordon, and she expressed
her admiration with a knowledge that showed she had read the English
newspapers.
“Yet I confess I don't comprehend Gladstone's conduct with regard to
Egypt and Gordon's relief,” she said.
“Perhaps,” interposed my wife, “it would have been better for Gordon if
he had trusted Providence more and Gladstone less.”
“I suppose it was Gladstone's humanity that made him hesitate.”
“To bombard Alexandria?” asked Mr. Lyon, with a look of asperity.
“That was a mistake to be expected of a Tory, but not of Mr. Gladstone,
who seems always seeking the broadest principles of justice in his
statesmanship.”
“Yes, we regard Mr. Gladstone as a very great man, Miss Forsythe. He
is broad enough. You know we consider him a rhetorical phenomenon.
Unfortunately he always 'muffs' anything he touches.”
“I suspected,” Miss Forsythe replied, after a moment, “that party spirit
ran as high in England as it does with us, and is as personal.”
Mr. Lyon disclaimed any personal feeling, and the talk drifted into a
comparison of English and American politics, mainly with reference to
the social factor in English politics, which is so little an element
here.
In the midst of the talk Margaret came in. The brisk walk in the rosy
twilight had heightened her color, and given her a glowing expression
which her face had not the night before, and a tenderness and softness,
an unworldliness, brought from the quiet hour in the church.
“My lady comes at last,
Timid and stepping fast,
And hastening hither,
Her modest eyes downcast.”
She greeted the stranger with a Puritan undemonstrativeness, and as if
not exactly aware of his presence.
“I should like to have gone to vespers if I had known,” said Mr. Lyon,
after an embarrassing pause.
“Yes?” asked the girl, still abstractedly. “The world seems in a vesper
mood,” she added, looking out the west windows at the red sky and the
evening star.
In truth Nature herself at the moment suggested that talk was an
impertinence. The callers rose to go, with an exchange of neighborhood
friendliness and invitations.
“I had no idea,” said Mr. Lyon, as they walked homeward, “what the New
World was like.”