Lydia’s reclining chair had been rolled close to the window and
Margaret sat beside her, contemplating a melancholy drizzle, mingled
with sweeping gusts of rain. The chickens stood in huddled groups
under the garden shrubs, and the white and yellow chrysanthemums, from
their long, bordering beds, shook out their frowsy petals and drank
rejoicingly. Margaret loved to watch the splash of the shower upon the
fallen leaves. Her nature reflected no neutral tints; rain and gray
weather to her had never been coupled with sadness.
The emaciated hands by her side moved restlessly in the afghan. “What
a bad day for Mell,” she said. “He is fond of the saddle, and now he
will come home wet and cold, before his ride is half finished.”
Margaret looked at her curiously. She recalled Sempire’s stone-bruise
and Creed’s version of it. Melwin she had left only a few minutes
before, sitting statue-like in the library, with his chin upon his
hands. She felt with a smarting of her eyelids that the pathetic
deception was but a part of the consideration, the tender, watching
guard with which he surrounded the invalid’s every thoughtfulness of
him.
“Margaret!” Lydia spoke almost appealingly, laying a hand upon her
arm, “do you think Mell seemed happy to-day? You remember him when we
were married? I’ve seen him toss you many a time, as a little girl, on
his shoulder. Don’t you remember how he used to laugh when he would
pretend to let you fall over backward? Does he seem to you to be any
different now? Not older--I don’t mean that (of course he is some
older)--but soberer. He used to have friends out from the city, and
be always bird-hunting or playing polo. I could go with him then; he
liked to have me. He used to say he wanted to show me off. He seems to
be so much more alone now, and to care less for such things. At first
it made me happy to think that he couldn’t enjoy them any longer when
I couldn’t share them with him. That was very selfish, I know, and now
his not taking pleasure in them is a pain to me. I want him to. He is
so good to me! It seems sometimes as if I were a reproach to him. I am
so helpless, useless--such a hindering burden. I can’t do anything but
go on loving him. If I could only help him! If I could dust his desk,
or fill his pipe, or tend the primroses he loves, or put the buttons in
his shirts for him, or do any one of the thousand little foolish things
that a woman loves to do for her husband!”
Reaching over, Margaret patted her hand gently. The patient eyes looked
up at her hungrily.
“Oh, Margaret, if I could only know that he was happy! If I could only
fill his life wholly, completely, to the brim! I feel so bodiless lying
here. Other women must mean so much more to their husbands. I used to
pray to die--to be taken away from him. I thought that he would love me
better dead. Love doesn’t die that way--it’s living that kills love.
And I couldn’t bear to think that I might live to see it die slowly,
horribly, little by little; and I watched, oh, so jealously! for the
first sign. It’s a dreadful thing to be jealous of life! I have thought
that if it could be right for him to marry another woman while I was
still his wife--one who could give him all I lack--that I would even be
content, if he were only happy! There is just my mind left now for him
to love, and the mind, so denied, rusts away.”
“But your _soul_ is alive,” said Margaret softly, “and that is what
we love and love with. It seems to me that the most beautiful thing in
the world is a love like Melwin’s for you--one that is all spirit. It
is like the love of a child for a white star, that is not old and dusty
like the earth, but pure and shining and very, very far above its head.
When I was little I used to have one particular star that I called my
own. I wouldn’t have been happier to have touched it or to have had it
any nearer. I was contented just to look up to it and love it.”
“You’re a genuine comforter!” said Lydia, a smile of something more
nearly approaching joy than Margaret had yet seen there playing upon
her lips. “I am ungrateful. It is wicked of me to repine as I do! God
has given me Mell’s love, and every day it winds closer around me. And
he loves my soul. I ought to think how much more blest I am than other
women whose husbands do not care for them! I ought to spend my time
thinking of him and not of myself! Perhaps I could plan more little
pleasures for him. We used to make so many pretty surprises for each
other, and we got so much happiness out of them. It is the small things
in life that please us most. When we were first married, I studied all
the little ways. I wore the colors he was fond of, and did my hair as
he thought was most becoming. Why, I wouldn’t have put on a ribbon or
a flower that I thought he did not like! He set so much store by those
things. Do you see that big closet on the other side of the room? Open
the door. There are all the dresses that Mell liked me in when we were
married. Do you see that pearl liberty silk with the valenciennes? I
had that on the last night we ever danced together--the night before I
was hurt. He liked me best of all in that.”
She passed her hand caressingly over the shimmering lengths which
Margaret had spread out across her knees. “You would look well in such
a gown,” she said. “Your hair is like mine was, only a shade darker.
Put the skirt on. There! It fits you, too!”
A stir of anticipation, of excitement, overspread her languor. “I want
you to do me a favor; I don’t believe you’ll mind! Take dinner to-night
with Melwin downstairs. I am tired to-day and I shall go to sleep
early. Wear the dress; maybe it will remind him of the way I looked
then, when I had the same roses in my cheeks. He called them holly
berries. Will you wear it?”
Margaret turned away under pretense of examining the yellow lace. “Oh,
yes,” she said, “and I have a cameo pin that will just suit to clasp it
at the throat.”
“No, no!” Lydia had half raised herself on her elbow. “In my box on the
dresser is a string of pearls. Mell gave me them to go with it.”
She took the ornament and, with an exclamation of delight, unfastened
the neck of her nightgown and clasped it around her throat. Dropping
her chin to see how the lustreless spheres drooped across the pitiful
hollows of her neck, she gave them back with a sigh that was sadder
than any words and turned her head wearily on the pillow.
Margaret gathered up the garments tenderly, and bent over and left a
light kiss on the faded cheek as she went from the room.