March 11. Mother was buried to-day. I have taken out this book to try to
set down--to set down what? Not what I have felt since the end came.
That is not possible, and if it were, I have not the courage. I suppose
the mournful truth is that in the dreadful loneliness which death has
left in the house, I got out my diary as a companion. One's own thoughts
are forlorn company when they are so sad, but if they are written out
they may come to have more reality, and the journal to seem more like
another personality. How strange and shameful the weakness is which
makes it hard for us to be alone; the feeling that we cannot endure the
brooding universe about us unless we have hold of some human hand! Yet
we are so small,--the poor, naked, timorous soul, a single fleck of
thistle-down tossed about by all the winds which fill the immensities of
an infinite universe. Why should we not be afraid? Father would say,
"Why should we?" He believed that the universe took care of everything
in it, because everything is part of itself. "You've only to think of
our own human instinct of self-preservation on a scale as great as you
can conceive," he told me the day before he died, "and you get some idea
of the way in which the universal must protect the particular." I am
afraid that I am not able to grasp the idea as he did. I have thought of
it many times, and of how calm and dignified he was in those last days.
I am a woman, and the universe is so great that it turns me cold to
think of it. I am able to get comfort out of Father's idea only by
remembering how sure he was of it, and how completely real it was to
him. Yet Mother was as sure as he. She told me once that not to be
entirely at ease would be to dishonor Father's belief, and she was no
less serene in the face of death than he was. Yes; it would be to
dishonor them both to doubt, and I do not in my heart of hearts; but it
is lonely, lonely.
March 12. It is touching to see how human kindness, the great sympathy
with what is real and lasting in the human heart, overcomes the
narrowness of creeds in the face of the great tragedy of death. Hannah
would be horrified at any hint that she wavered in her belief, yet she
said to me to-day:--
"Don't you worry about your mother, Miss Ruth. She was a good woman, if
her eyes were not opened to the truth as it is in Jesus. Her Heavenly
Father'll look after her. I guess she sees things some different now
she's face to face with Him; and I believe she had the root of the
matter in her somehow, though she hadn't grace given her to let her
light shine among men."
Dear old Hannah! She is too loving in her heart not to be obliged to
widen her theology when she is brought to the actual application of the
awful belief she professes, and she is too human not to feel that a life
so patient and so upright as Mother's must lead to eternal peace, no
matter what the creed teaches.
March 13. The gray kitten is chasing its tail before the fire, and I
have been looking at it and the blazing wood through my tears until I
could bear it no longer. The moonlight is on the snow in the graveyard,
and must show that great black patch where the grave is. She cannot be
there; she cannot be conscious of the bleak chill of the earth; and the
question whether she is anywhere and is conscious at all is in my mind
constantly. She must be; she cannot have gone out like a candle-flame.
She said to Mr. Saychase, that day Hannah brought him and Mother was too
gentle to refuse to see him, that she had always believed God must have
far too much self-respect not to take care of creatures He had made, and
that she was not in the least troubled, because she did not feel any
responsibility about what was to happen after death. She was right, of
course; but he was horrified. He began to stammer out something, but
Mother stopped him.
"I didn't mean to shock you," she said gently; "but don't you think, Mr.
Saychase, I am near enough to the end to have the privilege of saying
what I really believe?"
He wouldn't have been human if he could have resisted the voice that
said it or the smile that enforced the words. Now she knows. She has
found the heart of truth somewhere out there in the sky, which to us
looks so wide, so thick with stars which might be abiding-places. She
may have met Father. How much he, at least, must have to tell her!
Whether he would know about us or not, I cannot decide. In any case I
think he would like her to tell him. She is learning wonderful things.
Yes; she knows, and I am sure she is glad.
March 14. George has been to see me. In the absorption and grief of the
last fortnight I have hardly remembered him, and he has brought his
wife home without my giving the matter a thought. It is wonderful that
anything could so hold me that I have not been moved, but they came back
the day after the funeral, and I did not hear of it until a couple of
days later. It gave me a great shock when I saw him coming up the walk,
but by the time he was in the house, I had collected myself, and I had,
I think, my usual manner.
He was most kind and sympathetic, and yet he could not help showing how
ill at ease he was. Perhaps he could not help reflecting that my duty to
Mother had been the thing which kept us apart, and that it was strange
for this to end just as there was no longer the possibility of our
coming together.
I do not remember what George and I said to each other to-night, any
more than I can recall what we said on that last time when he was here.
I might bring back that other talk out of the dull blur of pain, but
where would be the good? Nothing could come of it but new suffering. We
were both outwardly calm and self-possessed, I know, and talked less
like lovers than like men of business. So a merchant might sell the
remnants of a bankrupt fortune, I fancy; and when he was gone I went to
prepare Mother's night drink as calmly as if nothing had happened. I did
not dare not to be calm.
To-night we met like the friends we promised to be. He was uncomfortable
at first, but I managed to make him seem at ease, or at least not show
that he felt strange. He looked at me rather curiously now and then. I
think he was astonished that I showed no more feeling about our past. I
cannot have him unhappy through me, and he must feel that at least I
accept my fate serenely, or he will be troubled. I must not give myself
the gratification of proving that I am constant. He may believe I am
cold and perhaps heartless, but that is better than for him to feel
responsible for my being miserable.
What did he tell me that night? It was in effect--though I think he
hardly realized what he said or implied--how our long engagement had
worn out the passion of a lover, and he felt only the friendship of a
brother; the coming of a new, real love had shown him the difference.
Does this mean that married love goes through such a change? Will he by
and by have lived through his first love for his wife, and if so what
will be left? That is not my concern; but would this same thing have
come if I had been his wife, and should I now find myself, if we had
been married when we hoped to be, only a friend who could not so fill
his heart as to shut out a new love? Better a hundredfold that it should
be as it is. At least he was not tied to me when the discovery came. But
it is not always so. Certainly Father and Mother loved each other more
after long years of living together.--But this is not a train of thought
which it is well to follow. What is must be met and lived with; but I
will not weaken my heart by dwelling on what might have been.
George was most kind to come, and it must have been hard for him; but I
am afraid it was not a happy half-hour for either of us. I suppose that
any woman brought face to face with a man she still loves when he has
done with loving her must feel as if she were shamed. That is nonsense,
however, and I fought against the feeling. Now I am happy in the thought
that at least I have done one thing. I have made it possible for George
to come to me if hereafter he need me. If he were in trouble and I could
help, I know he would appeal to me as simply as ever. If I can help him,
I am yet free to do it. I thank God for this!
March 16. I have asked Charlotte Kendall to stay with me for a while.
Dear old Miss Charlotte, she is so poor and so proud and so plucky! I
know that she is half starving in that great, gaunt Kendall house, that
looms up so among its Balm of Gilead trees, as if it were an asylum for
the ghosts of all the bygone generations of the family. Somehow it seems
to me that in America the "decayed gentlewomen," as they are
unpleasantly called in England, have a harder time than anywhere else in
the world. Miss Charlotte has to live up to her instincts and her
traditions or be bitterly humiliated and miserable. People generally
assume that the family pride behind this is weak if it is not wicked;
but surely the ideal of an honorable race, cultivated and right-minded
for generations, is a thing to be cherished. The growth of civilization
must depend a good deal upon having these ideas of family preserved
somehow. Father used to say the great weakness of modern times is that
nowadays the best of the race, instead of saying to those below, "Climb
up to us," say, "We will come down to you." I suppose this is hardly a
fair summing up of modern views of social conditions, though of course I
know very little about them; but I am sure that the way in which class
distinctions are laughed at is a mistake. I hope I hate false pride as
much as anybody could; yet dear Miss Charlotte, trying hard not to
disgrace her ancestors, and being true to her idea of what a
gentlewoman should do, is to me pathetic and fine. She cares more for
the traditions of her race than she does for her own situation; and
anybody who did not admire this strong and unselfish spirit must look at
life from a point of view that I cannot understand. I can have her here
now on an excuse that she will not suspect, and she shall be fed and
rested as she has not been for years.
March 17. I forgot Miss Charlotte's plants when I asked her to come
here. I went over this morning to invite her, and I found her trimming
her great oleander tree with tender little snips and with loving glances
which were like those a mother gives her pet child in dressing it for a
party. The sun came in at the bay window, and the geraniums which are
the pride of Miss Charlotte's heart were coming finely into blossom. If
the poor old soul is ever really happy it is in the midst of her plants,
and things grow for her as for nobody else.
"Do look, Ruth," she said with the greatest eagerness; "that slip of
heather that came from the wreath is really sprouting. I do think it
will live."
She brought me a vial full of greenish water into which was stuck a bit
of heather from the wreath that Cousin Mehitable sent for Mother. Miss
Charlotte had asked me if she might go to the graveyard for the slip.
She was so pathetic when she spoke of it!
"It isn't just to have a new plant," she said. "It is partly that it
would always remind me of your mother, and I should love it for that."
To-day she was wonderful. Her eyes shone as she looked at the twig, and
showed me the tiny white point, like a little mouse's tooth, that had
begun to come through the bark under the green water. It was as if she
had herself somehow accomplished the miracle of creation. I could have
taken her into my arms and cried over her as she stood there so happy
with just this slip and her plants for family and riches.
I told her my errand, and she began to look troubled. Unconsciously, I
am sure, she glanced around at the flowers, and in an instant I
understood.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," I said before she had time to speak, "I forgot
that you cannot leave the plants."
"I was thinking how I could manage," she answered, evidently troubled
between the wish to oblige me and the thought that her precious plants
could not be left.
"You need not manage," I said. "I was foolish enough not to think of
them. Of course you can't leave them."
"I might come over in the daytime," she proposed hesitatingly. "I could
make up the fire in the morning, and at this time of the year the room
would be warm enough for them till I came back at night. I know you must
be most lonely at night, and I would stay as late as I could."
"You are a dear thing," I said, and her tone brought tears to my eyes.
"If you will come over after breakfast and stay until after supper that
will do nicely,--if you think you can spare the time."
"There's nothing I can spare better," she said, laughing. "I'm like the
man that was on his way to jail and was met by a beggar. 'I've nothing
to give you but time,' he said, 'and that his Honor just gave me, so I
don't like to give it away.' That's one of your father's stories,
Ruth."
I stayed talking with her for an hour, and it was touching to see how
she was trying to be entertaining and to make me cheerful. I did come
away with my thoughts entirely taken off of myself and my affairs, and
that is something.
March 20. It has done me good to have Miss Charlotte here. She makes her
forlorn little jests and tells her stories in her big voice, and somehow
all the time is thinking, I can see, of brightening the days for me.
Peter was completely scornful for two days, but now he passes most of
his time in her lap, condescending, of course, but gracious.
Miss Charlotte has been as dear and kindly as possible, and to-night in
the twilight she told me the romance of her life. I do not know how it
came about. I suppose that she was thinking of Mother and wanted me to
know what Mother had been to her. Perhaps, too, she may have had a
feeling that it would comfort me to know that she understood out of her
own suffering the pain that had come to me through George's marriage.
I do not remember her father and mother. They both died when I was very
young. I have heard that Mr. Kendall was a very handsome man, who
scandalized the village greatly by his love of horses and wine, but
Father used to tell me he was a scholar and a cultivated man. I am
afraid he did not care very much for the comfort of others; and Aunt
Naomi always speaks of him as a rake who broke his wife's heart.
Charlotte took care of him after Mrs. Kendall died, and was devoted to
him, they say. She was a middle-aged woman before she was left alone
with that big house, and she sold the Kendall silver to pay his debts.
To-night she spoke of him with a sort of pitiful pride, yet with an air
as if she had to defend him, perhaps even to herself.
"I'm an old woman, Ruth," she said, "and my own life seems to me like an
old book that I read so long ago that I only half remember it. It is
forty years since I was engaged."
It is strange I had never known of this before; but I suppose it passed
out of people's minds before I was old enough to notice.
"I never knew you had been engaged, Miss Charlotte," I said.
"Then your mother never told you what she did for me," she answered,
looking into the fire. "That was like her. She was more than a mother to
me at the time"--She broke off, and then repeated, "It was like her not
to speak of it. There are few women like your mother, Ruth."
We were both silent for a time, and I had to struggle not to break down.
Miss Charlotte sat looking into the fire with the tears running
unchecked down her wrinkled cheeks. She did not seem conscious of them,
and the thought came to me that there had been so much sadness in her
life that she was too accustomed to tears to notice them.
"It is forty years," she said again. "I was called a beauty then, though
you'd find that hard to believe now, Ruth, when I'm like an old
scarecrow in a cornfield. I suppose no young person ever really believes
that an old woman can have been beautiful unless there's a picture to
prove it. I'll show you a daguerreotype some time; though, after all,
what difference does it make? At least he thought"--
Another silence came here. The embers in the fire dropped softly, and
the dull March twilight gathered more and more thickly. I felt as if I
were being led into some sacred room, closed many years, but where the
dead had once lain. Perhaps it was fanciful, but it seemed almost as if
I were seeing the place where poor Miss Charlotte's youth had died.
"It wasn't proper that I should marry him, Ruth. I know now father was
right, only sometimes--For myself I suppose I hadn't proper pride, and I
shouldn't have minded; but father was right. A Kendall couldn't marry a
Sprague, of course. I knew it all along; and I vowed to myself over and
over that I wouldn't care for him. When a girl tells herself that she
won't love a man, Ruth," she broke in with a bitter laugh, "the thing's
done already. It was so with me. I needn't have promised not to love him
if I hadn't given him my whole heart already,--what a girl calls her
heart. I wouldn't own it; and over and over I told him that I didn't
care for him; and then at last"--
It was terrible to hear the voice in which she spoke. She seemed to be
choking, and it was all that I could do to keep control of myself. I
could not have spoken, even if there had been anything to say. I wanted
to take her in my arms and get her pitiful, tear-stained face hidden;
but I only sat quiet.
"Well, we were engaged at last, and I knew father would never consent;
but I hoped something would happen. When we are young enough we all hope
the wildest things will happen and we shall get what we want. Then
father found out; and then--and then--I don't blame father, Ruth. He was
right. I see now that he was right. Of course it wouldn't have done; but
then it almost killed me. If it hadn't been for your mother, dear, I
think I should have died. I wanted to die; but I had to take care of
father."
I put out my hand and got hold of hers, but I could not speak. The tears
dropped down so that they sparkled in the firelight, but she did not
wipe them away. I was crying myself, for her old sorrow and mine seemed
all part of the one great pain of the race, somehow. I felt as if to be
a woman meant something so sad that I dared not think of it.
"And the hardest was that he thought I was wrong to give him up. He
could not see it as I did, Ruth; and of course it was natural that he
couldn't understand how father would feel about the family. I could
never explain it to him, and I couldn't have borne to hurt his feelings
by telling him."
"Is he"--
"He is dead, my dear. He married over at Fremont, and I hope he was
happy. I think probably he was. Men are happy sometimes when a woman
wouldn't be. I hope he was happy."
That was the whole of it. We sat there silent until Rosa came to call us
to supper. When we stood up I put my arms about her, and kissed her.
Then she made a joke, and wiped her eyes, and through supper she was so
gay that I could hardly keep back the tears. Poor, poor, lonely, brave
Miss Charlotte!
March 21. Cousin Mehitable arrived yesterday according to her usual
fashion, preceded by a telegram. I tell her that if she followed her
real inclinations, she would dispatch her telegram from the station, and
then race the messenger; but she is constrained by her breeding to be a
little more deliberate, so I have the few hours of her journey in which
to expect her. It is all part of her brisk way. She can never move fast
enough, talk quickly enough, get through whatever she is doing with
rapidity enough. I remember Father's telling her once that she would
never have patience to lie and wait for the Day of Judgment, but would
get up every century or two to hurry things along. It always seems as if
she would wear herself to shreds in a week; yet here she is, more lively
at sixty than I am at less than half that age.
She was very kind, and softened wonderfully when she spoke of Mother. I
think that she loved her more than she does any creature now alive.
"Aunt Martha," she said last night, "wasn't human. She was far too
angelic for that. But she was too sweet and human for an angel. For my
part I think she was something far better than either, and far more
sensible."
This was a speech so characteristic that it brought me to tears and
smiles together.
To-night Cousin Mehitable came to the point of her errand with customary
directness.
"I came down," she said, "to see how soon you expect to arrange to live
with me."
"I hadn't expected anything about it," I returned.
"Of course you would keep the house," she went on, entirely disregarding
my feeble protest. "You might want to come back summers sometimes. This
summer I'm going to take you to Europe."
I am too much accustomed to her habit of planning things to be taken
entirely by surprise; but it did rather take my breath away to find my
future so completely disposed of. I felt almost as if I were not even to
have a chance to protest.
"But I never thought of giving up the house," I managed to say.
"Of course not; why should you?" she returned briskly. "You have money
enough to keep up the place and live where you please. Don't I know that
for this ten years you and Aunt Martha haven't spent half your income?
Keep it, of course; for, as I say, sometimes you may like to come back
for old times' sake."