Do you suppose that Henderson had never spoken impatiently and sharply
to his wife before, that Margaret had never resented it and replied
with spirit, and been hurt and grieved, and that there had never been
reconciliations? In writing any biography there are some things that are
taken for granted with an intelligent public. Are men always gentle and
considerate, and women always even-tempered and consistent, simply by
virtue of a few words said to the priest?
But this was a more serious affair. Margaret waited in a tumult of
emotion. She felt that she would die if she did not see him soon, and
she dreaded his coming. A horrible suspicion had entered her mind that
respect for her husband, confidence in him, might be lowered, and a more
horrible doubt that she might lose his love. That she could not bear.
And was Henderson unconscious of all this? I dare say that in the
perplexing excitement of the day he did recall for a moment with a
keen thrust of regret the scene of the morning-his wife standing there
flushed, wounded, indignant. “I might have turned back, and taken her
in my arms, and told her it was all right,” he thought. He wished he had
done so. But what nonsense it was to think that she could be seriously
troubled! Besides, he couldn't have women interfering with him every
moment.
How inconsiderate men are! They drop a word or a phrase--they do not
know how cruel it is--or give a look--they do not know how cold it
is--and are gone without a second thought about it; but it sinks into
the woman's heart and rankles there. For the instant it is like a mortal
blow, it hurts so, and in the brooding spirit it is exaggerated into a
hopeless disaster. The wound will heal with a kind word, with kisses.
Yes, but never, never without a little scar. But woe to the woman's love
when she becomes insensible to these little stabs!
Henderson hurried home, then, more eagerly than usual, with reparation
in his heart, but still with no conception of the seriousness of the
breach. Margaret heard the key in the door, heard his hasty step in the
hall, heard him call, as he always did on entering, “Margaret! where
is Margaret?” and she, sitting there in the deep window looking on the
square, longed to run to him, as usual also, and be lifted up in his
strong arms; but she could not stir. Only when he found her did she
rise up with a wistful look and a faint smile. “Have you had a good day,
child?” And he kissed her. But her kiss was on her lips only, for her
heart was heavy.
“Dinner will be served as soon as you dress,” she said. What a greeting
was this! Who says that a woman cannot be as cruel as a man? The dinner
was not very cheerful, though Margaret did her best not to appear
constrained, and Henderson rattled on about the events of the day. It
had been a deuce of a day, but it was coming right; he felt sure that
the upper court would dissolve the injunction; the best counsel said
so; and the criminal proceedings--“Had there been criminal proceedings?”
asked Margaret, with a stricture at her heart--had broken down
completely, hadn't a leg to stand on, never had, were only begun to
bluff the company. It was a purely malicious prosecution. And Henderson
did not think it necessary to tell Margaret that only Uncle Jerry's
dexterity had spared both of them the experience of a night in the
Ludlow Street jail.
“Come,” said Henderson--“come into the library. I have something to tell
you.” He put his arm round her as they walked, and seating himself in
his chair by his desk in front of the fire, he tried to draw Margaret to
sit on his knee.
“No; I'll sit here, so that I can see you,” she said, composed and
unyielding.
He took out his pocket-book, selected a slip of paper, and laid it on
the table before him. “There, that is a check for seven hundred dollars.
I looked in the books. That is the interest for a year on the Fletcher
bonds. Might as well make it an even year; it will be that soon.”
“Do you mean to say--” asked Margaret, leaning forward.
“Yes; to brighten up the Christmas up there a little.”
“--that you are going to send that to Mrs. Fletcher?” Margaret had
risen.
“Oh, no; that wouldn't do. I cannot send it, nor know anything about
it. It would raise the--well, it would--if the other bondholders knew
anything about it. But you can change that for your check, and nobody
the wiser.”
“Oh, Rodney!” She was on his knee now. He was good, after all. Her head
was on his shoulder, and she was crying a little. “I've been so unhappy,
so unhappy, all day! And I can send that?” She sprang up. “I'll do it
this minute--I'll run and get my check-book!” But before she reached the
door she turned back, and came and stood by him and kissed him again and
again, and tumbled up his hair, and looked at him. There is, after all,
nothing in the world like a woman.
“Time enough in the morning,” said Henderson, detaining her. “I want to
tell you all about it.”
What he told her was, in fact, the case as it had been presented by his
lawyers, and it seemed a very large, a constitutional, kind of case. “Of
course,” he said, “in the rivalry and competition of business
somebody must go to the wall, and in a great scheme of development and
reorganization of the transportation of a region as big as an empire
some individual interests will suffer. You can't help these changes. I'm
sorry for some of them--very sorry; but nothing would ever be done if
we waited to consider every little interest. And that the men who create
these great works, and organize these schemes for the benefit of the
whole public, shouldn't make anything by their superior enterprise and
courage is all nonsense. The world is not made that way.”
The explanation, I am bound to say, was one that half the world
considers valid; it was one that squeezed through the courts. And when
it was done, and the whole thing had blown over, who cared? There were
some bondholders who said that it was rascally, that they had been
boldly swindled. In the clubs, long after, you would hear it said that
Hollowell and Henderson were awfully sharp, and hard to beat. It is a
very bad business, said the Brandon parliament, and it just shows that
the whole country is losing its moral sense, its capacity to judge what
is right and what is wrong.
I do not say that this explanation, the nature of which I have only
indicated, would have satisfied the clear mind of Margaret a year or two
before. But it was made by the man she loved, the man who had brought
her out into a world that was full of sunlight and prosperity and
satisfied desire; and more and more, day by day, she saw the world
through his eyes, and accepted his estimate of the motives of
people--and a low estimate I fear it was. Who would not be rich if he
could? Do you mean to tell me that a man who is getting fat dividends
out of a stock does not regard more leniently the manner in which that
stock is manipulated than one who does not own any of it? I dare say,
if Carmen had heard that explanation, and seen Margaret's tearful, happy
acceptance of it, she would have shaken her pretty head and said, “They
are getting too worldly for me.”
In the morning the letter was despatched to Miss Forsythe, enclosing the
check for Mrs. Fletcher--a joyful note, full of affection. “We cannot
come,” Margaret wrote. “My husband cannot leave, and he does not want to
spare me”--the little hypocrite! he had told her that she could easily
go for a day “but we shall think of you dear ones all day, and I do hope
that now there will not be the least cloud on your Christmas.”
It seems a great pity, in view of the scientific organization of
society, that there are so many sensibilities unclassified and
unprovided for in the otherwise perfect machinery. Why should the beggar
to whom you toss a silver dollar from your carriage feel a little grudge
against you? Perhaps he wouldn't like to earn the dollar, but if it had
been accompanied by a word of sympathy, his sensibility might have been
soothed by your recognition of human partnership in the goods of this
world. People not paupers are all eager to take what is theirs of right;
but anything in the semblance of charity is a bitter pill to swallow
until self-respect is a little broken down. Probably the resentment lies
in the recognition of the truth that it is much easier to be charitable
than to be just. If Margaret had seen the effect produced by her
letter she might have thought of this; she might have gone further,
and reflected upon what would have been her own state of mind two years
earlier if she had received such a letter. Miss Forsythe read it with a
very heavy heart. She hesitated about showing it to Mrs. Fletcher, and
when she did, and gave her the check, it was with a sense of shame.
“The insolence of the thing!” cried Mrs. Fletcher, as soon as she
comprehended it.
“Not insolence,” pleaded Miss Forsythe, softly; “it is out of the
kindness of her heart. She would be dreadfully wounded to know that you
took it so.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Fletcher, hotly, “I like that kind of sensibility.
Does she think I have no feeling? Does she think I would take from her
as a charity what her husband knows is mine by right?”
“Perhaps her husband--”
“No,” Mrs. Fletcher interrupted. “Why didn't he send it, then? why
didn't the company send it? They owe it. I'm not a pauper. And all the
other bondholders who need the money as much as I do! I'm not saying
that if the company sent it I should refuse it because the others had
been treated unjustly; but to take it as a favor, like a beggar!”
“Of course you cannot take it from Margaret,” said Miss Forsythe sadly.
“How dreadful it is!”
Mrs. Fletcher would have shared her last crust with Miss Forsythe,
and if her own fortune were absolutely lost, she would not hesitate to
accept the shelter of her present home, using her energies to add to
their limited income, serving and being served in all love and trust.
But this is different from taking a bounty from the rich.
The check had to go back. Even my wife, who saw no insolence in
Margaret's attempt, applauded Mrs. Fletcher's spirit. She told Miss
Forsythe that if things did not mend they might get a few little pupils
for Mrs. Fletcher from the neighborhood, and Miss Forsythe knew that
she was thinking that her own boy might have been one of them if he had
lived. Mr. Morgan was a little satirical, as usual. He thought it would
be a pity to check Margaret's growing notion that there was no wrong
that money could not heal a remark that my wife thought unjust to the
girl. Mrs. Fletcher was for re-enclosing the check without a word of
comment, but that Miss Forsythe would not do.
“My dearest Margaret,” she wrote, “I know the kindness of heart that
moved you to do this, and I love you more than ever, and am crying as
I think of it. But you must see yourself, when you reflect, that Mrs.
Fletcher could not take this from you. Her self-respect would not permit
it. Somebody has done a great wrong, and only those who have done it
can undo it. I don't know much about such things, my dear, and I don't
believe all that the newspapers have been saying, but there would be no
need for charity if there had not been dishonesty somewhere. I cannot
help thinking that. We do not blame you. And you must not take it to
heart that I am compelled to send this back. I understand why you sent
it, and you must try to understand why it cannot be kept.”
There was more of this sort in the letter. It was full of a kind of
sorrowful yearning, as if there was fear that Margaret's love were
slipping away and all the old relations were being broken up, but yet
it had in it a certain moral condemnation that the New England spinster
could not conceal. Softened as it was by affectionate words, and all
the loving messages of the season, it was like a slap in the face to
Margaret. She read it in the first place with intense mortification, and
then with indignation. This was the way her loving spirit was flung back
upon her! They did not blame her! They blamed her husband, then. They
condemned him. It was his generosity that was spurned.
Is there a particular moment when we choose our path in life, when we
take the right or the left? At this instant, when Margaret arose with
the crumpled letter in her hand, and marched towards her husband's
library, did she choose, or had she been choosing for the two years
past, and was this only a publication of her election? Why had she
secretly been a little relieved from restraint when her Brandon visit
ended in the spring? They were against her husband; they disapproved of
him, that was clear. Was it not a wife's duty to stand by her husband?
She was indignant with the Brandon scrupulousness; it chafed her.. Was
this simply because she loved her husband, or was this indignation a
little due also to her liking for the world which so fell in with her
inclinations? The motives in life are so mixed that it seems impossible
wholly to condemn or wholly to approve. If Margaret's destiny had
been united with such a man as John Lyon, what would have been her
discernment in such a case as this? It is such a pity that for most
people there is only one chance in life.
She laid the letter and the check upon her husband's desk. He read it
with a slight frown, which changed to a smile of amusement as he looked
up and saw Margaret's excitement.
“Well, it was a miss-go. Those folks up there are too good for this
world. You'd better send it to the hospital.”
“But you see that they say they do not blame me,” Margaret said, with
warmth.
“Oh, I can stand it. People usually don't try to hurt my feelings that
way. Don't mind it, child. They will come to their senses, and see what
nonsense it all is.”
Yes, it was nonsense. And how generous and kind at heart her husband
was! In his skillful making little of it she was very much comforted,
and at the same time drawn into more perfect sympathy with him. She was
glad she was not going to Brandon for Christmas; she would not submit
herself to its censorship. The note of acknowledgment she wrote to her
aunt was short and almost formal. She was very sorry they looked at
the matter in that way. She thought she was doing right, and they might
blame her or not, but her aunt would see that she could not permit any
distinction to be set up between her and her husband, etc.
Was this little note a severance of her present from her old life? I do
not suppose she regarded it so. If she had fully realized that it was a
step in that direction, would she have penned it with so little regret
as she felt? Or did she think that circumstances and not her own choice
were responsible for her state of feeling? She was mortified, as has
been said, but she wrote with more indignation than pain.
A year ago Carmen would have been the last person to whom Margaret would
have spoken about a family affair of this kind. Nor would she have done
so now, notwithstanding the intimacy established at Newport, if Carmen
had not happened in that day, when Margaret was still hurt and excited,
and skillfully and most sympathetically extracted from her the cause
of the mood she found her in. But even with all these allowances, that
Margaret should confide such a matter to Carmen was the most startling
sign of the change that had taken place in her.
“Well,” said this wise person, after she had wormed out the whole story,
and expressed her profound sympathy, and then fallen into an attitude of
deep reflection--“well, I wish I could cast my bread upon the waters in
that way. What are you going to do with the money?”
“I've sent it to the hospital.”
“What extravagance! And did you tell your aunt that?”
“Of course not.”
“Why not? I couldn't have resisted such a righteous chance of making her
feel bad.”
“But I don't want to make her feel bad.”
“Just a little? You will never convince people that you are unworldly
this way. Even Uncle Jerry wouldn't do that.”
“You and Uncle Jerry are very much alike,” cried Margaret, laughing in
spite of herself--“both of you as bad as you can be.”
“But, dear, we don't pretend, do we?” asked Carmen, innocently.
To some of us at Brandon, Margaret's letter was scarcely a surprise,
though it emphasized a divergence we had been conscious of. But with
Miss Forsythe it was far otherwise. The coolness of Margaret's tone
filled her with alarm; it was the premonition of a future which she did
not dare to face.
There was a passage in the letter which she did not show; not that it
was unfeeling, she told my wife afterwards, but that it exhibited a
worldly-mindedness that she could not have conceived of in Margaret.
She could bear separation from the girl on whom she had bestowed her
tenderest affection, that she had schooled herself to expect upon
her marriage--that, indeed, was only a part of her life of willing
self-sacrifice--their paths must lie apart, and she could hope to see
little of her. But what she could not bear was the separation in spirit,
the wrenching apart of sympathy, the loss of her heart, and the thought
of her going farther and farther away into that world whose cynical
and materialistic view of life made her shudder. I think there are few
tragedies in life comparable to this to a sensitive, trusting soul--not
death itself, with its gracious healing and oblivion and pathos. Family
quarrels have something sustaining in them, something of a sense of
wrong and even indignation to keep up the spirits. There was no family
quarrel here, no indignation, just simple, helpless grief and sense of
loss. In one sense it seemed to the gentle spinster that her own life
was ended, she had lived so in this girl--ever since she came to her
a child, in long curls and short frocks, the sweetest, most trustful,
mischievous, affectionate thing. These two then never had had any
secrets, never any pleasure, never any griefs they did not share. She
had seen the child's mind unfold, the girl's grace and intelligence, the
woman's character. Oh, Margaret, she cried, to herself, if you only knew
what you are to me!
Margaret's little chamber in the cottage was always kept ready for her,
much in the condition she had left it. She might come back at any
time, and be a girl again. Here were many of the things which she had
cherished; indeed everything in the room spoke of the simple days of
her maidenhood. It was here that Miss Forsythe sat in her loneliness
the morning after she received the letter, by the window with the muslin
curtain, looking out through the shrubbery to the blue hills. She must
be here; she could stay nowhere else in the house, for here the little
Margaret came back to her. Ah, and when she turned, would she hear the
quick steps and see the smiling face, and would she put back the tangled
hair and lift her up and kiss her? There in that closet still hung
articles of her clothing-dresses that had been laid aside when she
became a woman--kept with the sacred sentiment of New England thrift.
How each one, as Miss Forsythe took them down, recalled the girl! In the
inner closet was a pile of paper boxes. I do not know what impulse it
was that led the heavy-hearted woman to take them down one by one, and
indulge her grief in the memories enshrined in them. In one was a little
bonnet, a spring bonnet; Margaret had worn it on the Easter Sunday when
she took her first communion. The little thing was out of fashion now;
the ribbons were all faded, but the spray of moss rose-buds on the side
was almost as fresh as ever. How well she remembered it, and the girl's
delight in the nodding roses!
When Mrs. Fletcher had called again and again, with no response, and
finally opened the door and peeped in, there the spinster sat by the
window, the pitiful little bonnet in her hand, and the tears rolling
down her cheeks. God help her!