Two weeks passed before the Doctor would allow Margaret to begin her
night without an opiate, which should numb her constant weariness into
some semblance of rest. During this time he himself did not leave East
Angels.
At the beginning of the third week the pale woman in the darkened room
began to recover some vitality; she spoke to them, she asked to have the
curtains drawn aside; she refused their opiates, even the mildest. The
Doctor, relieved, went up to Gracias to see his other patients.
That night, about one o'clock, Margaret spoke. "Celestine?"
A tall figure appeared from a dark corner.
"I told you not to sit up to-night; I feel perfectly well."
"There's a lounge here, Miss Margaret. I can lay down nice as can be."
"No, you are not to stay; I do not wish it."
Celestine demurred; but as Margaret held to her point, she yielded
finally, and went out. Some minutes after the door had closed, with a
slow effort Margaret raised herself. Then she sat resting for a while on
the edge of her bed. Her hair, braided by Celestine in two long plaits
whose soft ends curled, gave her the look of a school-girl; but the face
was very far from that of a school-girl, in the faint light of the
night-lamp the large sad eyes and parted lips were those of a woman. She
rose to her feet at last, feet fair on the dark carpet, her long white
draperies, bordered with lace, clung about her. With a step that still
betrayed her weakness, she crossed the room to a desk, unlocked it, and
took something out,--a little picture in a slender gilt frame. She stood
looking at this for a moment, then she sank down beside the lounge,
resting her arm and head upon it, and holding her poor treasure to her
heart. She held it closely, the sharp edge of the frame made a deep dent
there. She was glad that it hurt her, that it bruised the white flesh
and left a pain. At first her eyes remained dry. Then her wretchedness
overcame her, and she began to cry; being a woman, she must cry. Her
life stretched out before her,--if only she were old! But she might live
forty years more--forty years! "And I have sent him away from me. Oh,
how can I bear it!"--this was what she was saying to herself again and
again.
If the man whose picture she held upon her heart could have heard the
words she spoke to him that night--the unspeakable tenderness of her
love for him, the strength, the unconscious violence almost, of its
sweet overwhelming tide--no bolts, no bars, no promises even, could have
kept him from her.
But he could not hear. Only that Unseen Presence who knows all our
secrets, our pitiful, aching secrets--only this Counsellor heard
Margaret that night. This silent Friend of ours is always merciful, more
merciful than man would ever be; for the unhappy wife, now prone on the
couch, shaken with sobs; now lying for the moment forgetful of reality,
her eyes full of adoring dreams; now starting up with the flush of
exaltation, of self-sacrifice--only to fall back again in stubborn
despair--for all these changes the Presence had no rebuke; the torturing
longing love, the misery, the relapses into sullen rebellion, and then
the slow, slow return towards self-control again, all these it beheld
with pity the most tender. For it knew that this was a last struggle, it
knew that this woman, though torn and crushed, would in the end come out
on the side of right--that strange hard bitter right, which, were this
world all, would be plain wrong. And Margaret herself knew it also, yes
even now miserably knew (and rebelled against it), that she should come
out on that hard side; and from that side go forward. It would be
blindly, wretchedly; there could be for her no hope of happiness, no
hope even of resignation; she scorned pretenses and substitutes, and
lies were to her no better because they were pious lies. She could
endure, and she must endure; and that would be all. She could see no
farther before her now than the next step in her path, small and near
and dreary; thus it would always be; no wide outlook but a succession of
little steps, all near and all dreary. So it would continue, and with
always the same effort. And that would be her life.
She did not come fully to this now, her love still tortured her. And
then at last the merciful Presence touched her hot eyes and despairing
heart, and with the picture still held close, she sank into a dreamless
lethargy.
When Celestine ventured to steal softly in before dawn, she found her
charge like a figure of snow on the floor, the lamplight shining across
the white throat, the only place where its ray touched her.
The New England woman bent over her noiselessly. Then she lifted her. As
she did so the little picture dropped; she had no need to take it up to
know whose face was there. "Poor child?"--this was the gaunt old maid's,
mute cry. She had the pity of a woman for a woman.
She placed Margaret in bed; then lifting the picture with a delicate
modesty which there was no one there to see, she put it hurriedly back
in her hand without looking at it, and laid the hand where it had been,
across the fair breast. "When she comes to, first thing she'll remember
it and worry. And then she'll find it there, and think nobody knows.
She'll think she went back to bed herself." Thus she guarded her.
Grim old Celestine believed ardently, like the Doctor, in love. But like
the Doctor, too, she believed that marriage was indissoluble; the
Carolina High-Churchman and the Vermont Calvinist were agreed in this.
Mistakes were plenty, of course; but when once they had been made, there
was no remedy in this life; of this she was sure. But how if one
happened to be bound upon the rack meanwhile--a woman whom one loved?
The dress-maker, after looking at Margaret again, went off to a dark
corner to "offer prayer." But for the first time in her life she found
no words ready; what, indeed, should she pray for? That Margaret might
die? She was too fond of her for that. That Lanse might be taken? That
had a murderous sound, even if you called it "taken." That Margaret's
love might cease? But she knew very well that it would not. So all she
said was, "O Lord, _help_ her!" very fervently. Then she got up, and set
about applying restoratives.
A week later, when Margaret had left her room for the first time,
Celestine, at work there, restoring for her own satisfaction that
speckless order in which her soul delighted, found upon the hearth,
mixed with the ashes, some burned bent metal fragments that had once
been gilded--the top of a little frame; she knew then that the last
sacrifice had been accomplished. A small one, a detail; but to women the
details are hardest.
The Doctor had kept Winthrop strictly informed of Mrs. Harold's health.
At first the letters were all the same. But after a while he had written
that he was glad to say that she was better. For a long time to come,
however (he added), any over-pressure would be sure to exhaust her, and
then, in case of a second attack, he should not be able to answer for
the consequences. Later he wrote that Mrs. Harold's strength would not
now be taxed by any more "untoward interruptions;" she had made her
intended journey to Fernandina, he was glad to say, and had returned in
safety, Mr. Harold having returned with her. Everything was now
comfortably arranged at East Angels; Mr. Harold had the west rooms, and
the men he had brought with him--he had three at present--seemed to
understand their duties fairly well. Mr. Harold was carried every
evening into Mrs. Rutherford's sitting-room, which was an agreeable
change for all. Mrs. Rutherford herself had improved wonderfully since
her nephew's arrival.
Concerning these letters of his to Evert Winthrop the Doctor felt such a
deep sense of responsibility that, short as they were, he wrote them and
rewrote them, inspecting each phrase from every possible point of view
before his old-fashioned quill finally set it down.
This last result of his selection of the fittest, Winthrop received one
morning at breakfast. He read it; then started out and went through his
day as usual, having occupations and engagements to fill every hour. But
days end; always that last ten minutes at night will come, no matter how
one may put it off. Winthrop put off his until after midnight; but one
o'clock found him caught at last; he was alone before his fire, he could
no longer prevent himself from taking out that letter and brooding over
it.
He imagined East Angels, he imagined Lanse; he imagined him in Aunt
Katrina's pleasant room, with the bright little evening fire sparkling
on the hearth, with Aunt Katrina herself beaming and happy, and Margaret
near. Yes, Lanse had everything, he had always had everything. He had
never worked an hour in his life; he had pleased himself invariably; he
had given heed to no one and yielded to no one; and now when he was
forced at last by sheer physical disability to return home, all comfort,
all devotion awaited him there, bestowed, too, by the very persons he
had most neglected and wronged. "Unjust! unjust!"--this was his bitter
comment.
If it had not been for the fear that kept him fettered, he would have
thrown everything to the winds and started again for Florida that night,
he would have swept the woman he loved out of that house, and borne her
away somewhere--anywhere--and he should have felt that he was justified
in doing it. But Margaret--he had always to reckon with that
determination of hers to do right, even in the face of her own despair.
And as to what was right he had never been able in the least to confuse
her, to change her, as a man can often change the woman who loves him;
just the same she saw it now, and had seen it from the beginning, in
spite of all his arguments and pleadings, in spite of all her own.
She loved him. But she would not yield. And these two forces, both so
strong that they bent her and swayed her like torturers--if the strife
should begin again between them, as it must if he should go to her
entreating, was there not danger (as the Doctor, indeed, had written)
that her slender strength would give way entirely? He had never
forgotten the feeling in his arms of her inert form as he laid it down
that day. He should never be able to overpower--he felt that he should
not--that something, something stronger than herself, which he had seen
looking from her eyes that day in the orange grove; this would remain
unchanged, unconquered, though he should have carried her away from
everybody, to the ends of the earth, and though--she loved him.
He buried his face in his hands. No, first of all she must not die. For
there was always the chance that Lanse himself might die; this did not
seem to him a murderous thought, as it had seemed to Celestine. It came
across him suddenly that Lanse would probably be quite willing to
discuss it with him; he would say, "Well, you know, I perfectly
appreciate how convenient it would be." Lanse had no fear of death. He
called it "a natural change;" none but a fool, he said, could fear the
natural.
Winthrop got up at last and went to the window. The brilliantly lighted
street lay below him, but he was not thinking of New York. He was
thinking of that old gray-white house in the South, the house he had
been fond of, but whose door was now closed to him, perhaps forever.
For, unexplainably, though he hoped for Lanse's death, he had not the
slightest expectation of it in reality; both he and Margaret had the
sense of a long life before them. There would be no change, no relief;
only the slow flight of the long days and years, and that would be all.
He came back to his hearth; the fire had died; he sat down and stared at
the ashes.