There is an old copy of the Shannon _Sentinel_, dated October 17, 1902,
which contains an account of the Adams-Cutter marriage. It lies folded
in the trunk with Helen’s last girlhood hat, and a few other things of
that tearful nature. I do not know why women keep these little yellowed
and faded tokens of past hopes, unless it is for the same reason they
devote themselves cheerfully and industriously to the cultivation of
flower gardens on their cemetery lots where their dead lie so deeply
buried.
The dim type still tells how the altar in this church was decorated
with flowers and ferns, who played the wedding march and who performed
the ceremony. The bride was the beautiful and accomplished daughter of
the late Sam Adams and Mrs. Mary Adams.
“Late” is the adjective you get, instead of the plain civilian title
of “Mister” you had while you were in the flesh. It depends whether
this exchange implies demotion or immortal inflation. But there can be
no doubt about the significance of “Sam” in this connection. Mr. Adams
was a carpenter, and a good one, but he never received credit in this
present world for the concluding, dignifying syllables of his Christian
name.
In this same paragraph it tells how the bride was dressed, who her
attendants were and what they wore. And simmers down in the last
sentence to a description of the gowns worn by the respective mothers
of the bride and groom. The word “exeunt” does not occur, of course;
but that lick-and-a-promise praise of their toilettes really implies
that this is the last prominent appearance of these worthy women.
The concluding paragraph is devoted to the groom. And it is evident
that the writer saved his most obsequious words for this final flare of
flattery. The groom was the son of “our distinguished fellow townsman,
Mr. George William Cutter”--a “university man”; some reference was
made to his “sterling qualities” and bright future. He had recently
“accepted” a position in the First National Bank where he had already
“made an enviable record”--cordial finger pointing to “bright future.”
“The young couple left on the noon train for a wedding tour in the
East. Upon their return they will take up their residence in their new
home on Wiggs Street.”
You and I may both believe that either one of us could have written a
better account of this wedding, imparted more dignity to the occasion,
as undoubtedly a real artist might paint a more pleasing portrait of
you or me. But for a naively truthful likeness, we both know that
a country-town photographer surpasses the artist when it comes to
portraying the warped noses of our countenances, the worried eye and
the mouths we really have. This is why we avoid his brutal veracity
when we can afford the expense. Neither one of us cares to leave the
very scriptures of our faces to appall posterity.
In the same manner, I contend there is always an artless charm, a sweet
and scandalous candor in what appears in a country newspaper, which is
more refreshing and informing than the elegance of our best writers
in the use of words. For example, does not the _Sentinel’s_ account
furnish a clearer picture and even a more intimate interpretation of
this bride and groom and the whole scene, than you could possibly
receive of a fashionable wedding from the social columns of a big
city paper? Personally, I have frequently been offended by the cool,
bragging insolence of these announcements of city weddings, as if
all we were entitled to know is that they can afford the pomp and
circumstance; nothing about their “bright future,” or the bride’s
“accomplishments,” or the groom’s “sterling qualities” to bid for our
interest and good will. Why swagger in print about being married? It is
not a thing to boast about, but to be humble about, and to entreat the
prayers of all Christian people, that they may behave themselves, keep
their vows and do the square thing by each other and society.
George and Helen returned to Shannon and their new home on Wiggs Street
the last of October.
Helen was far more beautiful than she had ever been, with that sedate
air young wives acquire before they are becalmed by the stupefying
monotony of love, peace and duty. The lines in George’s handsome young
face were firmer. He had that look of resolution men of his type show,
before it is confirmed into the next look of arrogance and success.
When Helen and George became engaged in August the Carrol house was
simply an old gray farmhouse, overtaken years ago by the spreading
skirts of Shannon, but never assimilated. This was due to the fact that
when Wiggs Street was lengthened, it must be made straight whatever
happened. The old house was left far to one side on a wide lawn. No one
lived in it. Altheas and roses bloomed among the weeds, like gentle
folk who have lost their station in life and make common lot with the
mean and the poor. Grass grew between the bricks of the walk which
led to the front door. There was a hedge of bulbous-bodied boxwood on
either side of this walk. The windows of the old house looked out on
this green and growing desolation with the vacant stare they always
have in an empty house.
But since the end of August carpenters, plasterers and painters had
swarmed over it and through it. Laborers had cleaned and cleared and
pruned. At last came van loads of carpets, furniture and draperies.
These had been smoothed, placed and hung inside. Now it looked like
the same old house that had suddenly come into a modest fortune, gone
to town and bought itself a lot of nice things to wear. Not a gable
had been changed, but the new roof had been painted green. The walls
were so white that they glistened. The windows were so clean that they
looked like the bright eyes of a lady with her veil lifted.
On the evening of her first day in this house, Helen stood on the
veranda waiting for George, watching the elm leaves sweeping past, a
golden shower in the November wind. She had been very busy all day,
not that there was anything to do, because everything had been done.
But she had been going over her possessions, feeling the fullness
and vastness of her estate. She had silver, yes, and fine linen. Her
furniture was good, golden oak, every piece. Her rugs were florescent,
very cheerful.
She needed more furniture; the rooms looked sparsely settled,
especially the parlor. A bookcase would help, and a few pictures on the
walls, but all in good time. She would be contented, ask for nothing
else. She meant to be a thrifty, helpful wife, do her own work, take
care of George. She was simply speechlessly happy. So it was just as
well she had no one to talk to. She wished to be alone except for
George, to concentrate upon all this joy. It seemed too good to be
true. She had this house, to be sweetened into a home, and all these
things; above and transcending everything, she had George. She was
absolutely sure of him. Is there anything more certain than sunshine
when the sun shines?
This day was a criterion of all her days. She was very busy. She
expected to find time for her music, and to read a little. She must
keep up with what was going on for George’s sake, so that she would
be an intelligent companion for him. But she never found time;
besides, George cared less than she had supposed for music, and he
was strangely indifferent to intelligent conversation, seeing what an
intelligent man he was.
Sometimes she returned a few calls, merely from a sense of duty. She
was never lonely. Sometimes her mother came to lunch and spent the
afternoon. On Sundays they went to church and had dinner with George’s
father and mother. As the months passed, Mrs. Cutter frequently asked
her how she “felt.” She always felt well and told her so. She did not
notice that Mrs. Cutter took little pleasure in her abounding health.
The spring and summer passed. She was very busy in her garden among the
flowers.
One day Mrs. Adams warned her against taking so much violent exercise.
“But why?” Helen asked, standing up with a trowel in her hand,
radiantly flushed.
Mrs. Adams said nothing. She merely measured her daughter this way and
that with a sort of tape-line gaze.
“I like working out here, and I am perfectly well,” Helen insisted.
“A married woman never knows when she is perfectly well. It is your
duty to be careful,” was the reply.
Helen flushed and remained silent. She felt that her mother was
staring at her inquisitively through this silence as she had sometimes
seen her peep through the drawn curtains before a window to satisfy her
curiosity or her anxiety.
When at last Mrs. Adams took her departure, Helen went in, closed the
door of her room and sat down on the side of her bed.
I do not know how it is with men, but there are thoughts a woman
cannot think if the door is open, even if there is not another soul
in the house. Helen was now engaged in this sort of secret-prayer
contemplation of herself, a slim, pretty figure, sitting with her knees
crossed, hands folded, lips parted, eyes fixed in a long blue gaze upon
the clean white walls of this room.
So that was it! She was the object of--anticipation which had not
been--rewarded. The color in her cheeks deepened. She recalled this
question, that remark, made by George’s mother. She understood the
curious look of suspense with which Mrs. Cutter frequently regarded
her. She wished to remind her of a duty she owed the Cutter family.
The meaning of it all was perfectly clear to her now. As if it was
anybody’s business! She was indignant by this time. She began to
shake one foot. Her eyes flew this way and that, like the wings of a
distracted bird. She was really arguing fiercely with George’s mother,
saying the things which we never dare to say in fact. She flounced,
bobbing up and down on the springs beneath her, set her impatient foot
down, closed her lips firmly and looked really fierce. Evidently she
was getting the better of this argument, chiefly, no doubt, because
Mrs. Cutter was not there.
Suddenly she lifted her left hand, counted the fingers and in turn used
up all the fingers of her right hand in this triumphant enumeration.
Yes, she had been married exactly ten months. Not a year yet. Why was
everybody in such a hurry, even her mother?
Then something happened. She became very still, as you do sometimes
when the future, which always keeps its bright back to you, suddenly
turns around and permits you to behold the face of the years to come.
The color faded from her cheeks; her eyes widened into a look of
terror. She gave a gasp and buried her face in the pillow.
Oh, God, oh, her Father in heaven, suppose it should always be like
this! Suppose she lived to be an old woman and never had a child. Doing
just the same things over, alone in the house. Nothing to look forward
to all day except George’s return at the end of it. And nothing for
him to expect except herself coming from the kitchen to welcome him
and hurrying back again, lest something burned or boiled over if she
delayed a moment. What would she be in her husband’s house if she did
not become a mother to his children?
She sprang to her feet and tore off the pink apron she was wearing over
her summer frock. “I shall be a servant, nothing else,” she cried,
tidying her hair before the mirror. “I shall grow old and gray; my skin
will be yellow and, if I don’t--if we do not have children, I shall
begin presently to look like a good servant, the kind that never gives
notice, but just stays on and dies in the family. Oh!”
She flew back to the bed, cast herself upon it and wept aloud to the
ceiling.
An audience makes hypocrites of us all. The very mirror in your room
will do it. The best acting is always done in secret. If you could see
that little mouse of a woman whom you never suspect of having more than
the timid sniff of an emotion, charging up and down the room in her
nightdress, tearing her hair and raving with her eyes, making no sound
lest you should hear her, you would be astonished. And she might be
no less amazed if she could see you carrying on like a proud female
Cicero, delivering the mere gestures of an eloquent oration. No acting
we ever see on the stage equals the histrionic ability of the least
talented woman when it comes to these bed-chamber theatricals of her
secret emotions.
Helen was calmer when George returned from the bank an hour later. She
met him as usual. But the sight of him unnerved her. She flung herself
upon his breast and clung to him, as if a strong wind was blowing which
might sweep her away from him forever.
“Helen! My heart, what is the matter?” he exclaimed.
She sobbed.
“Are you ill?” he said, turning her face so that it lay upon his
breast, chin quivering, eyes closed.
No, she was not ill, she said. The white lids lifted. She regarded
him sorrowfully. “Only I want to ask you something. I must know,” she
whispered.
“Ask anything; only don’t cry. I can’t stand it,” kissing her.
“George,” she began after a pause.
“Yes, my life,” in grave suspense.
“Am I a good wife?”
Good heaven! What a question. Of course she was, the best and
loveliest wife a man ever had.
“But aren’t you--have you been disappointed in me?”
“You surpass my happiest dreams of happiness,” he assured her hastily.
Now was everything all right?
Apparently not. She had gone off into another paroxysm of sobs. He
stood with this storm of loveliness clasped to his breast amazed and
horrified. What was the matter with Helen? He had left her calm and
happy at noon. He found her now in torrential tears. She must be ill.
He lifted her tenderly in his arms, strode down the hall to their room
and deposited her on the bed.
“You will always love me, whatever happens?” she insisted, clinging to
his hand.
He sat down beside her. He filled his lungs; he expanded himself. He
must meet this emergency. “Helen, I could not live without loving you,”
he exclaimed in a deep and powerful voice.
“But if nothing happens, if nothing ever happens?” she wailed.
He was speechless. When you are caught up without a moment’s notice and
made to swear to every article of undying love, what else can you do?
But she lay wilted, deadly pale, her eyes fixed upon him dolorously, as
if he might be going to slay her with the next word. Therefore--
He did not finish thinking what he was about to think. A sort of shock
passed through him, he caught his breath, looked off, the faintest
shade of embarrassment in this look addressed to the ceiling, but
not painful. On the contrary you might have inferred that this was a
pleasurable confusion. He was instantly calmed, no longer disturbed
about Helen. He stared at her politely as at an unknown but highly
satisfactory phenomenon. He had no experience in a case like this,
but he had instincts. Every young husband is a father, at least by
anticipation. His impression was that she must be soothed, kept quiet.
He bent and kissed her gravely, as you kiss the Bible when you take an
oath. “Don’t worry, my sweet; you will come around all right,” he told
her.
She turned her face away, closed her eyes in tearful despair. He had
not answered her question. He had evaded with soft words. This would
never do. She was beginning to weep again. He said he would go to the
phone and call her mother.
“Don’t call mother. She has been here all afternoon,” she cried.
So, then Mrs. Adams knew. Well, he didn’t care if the whole world knew.
“Helen, you must not let go like this. You will hurt yourself,” he said
with a note of authority.
Her ears heard him; her eyes caught him. For one moment she lay still
and sobless. Then she sat up, hair streaming over her shoulders, cheeks
reddening. “You too!” she cried. “Oh, you have all had the same thought
in your minds. And it isn’t so,” she informed him.
“Well, if nothing is the matter, what is the matter?” he demanded after
a pause in the voice of a man sliding from the top of a climax.
“That is,” covering her face with her hands. “Your mother, my mother,
you, too, all of you have been expecting something that may never
happen. And I did not know, did not realize until this day the meaning
of these hints, these questions, this solicitude. It was not for me. I
do not deserve it, you understand. I am not that way.” Oh! her Heavenly
Father, she knew what was before her now if she never had a child. She
would not be the same to him!
“Of course you will, you silly darling,” he laughed, gathering her in
his arms. “The fact is, I am immensely relieved.”
In this wise they took a new lease on their happiness. Helen’s skies
cleared. It was good to be free and well and just a girl “a while
longer,” as George put it. Still this was a form of probation. That
phrase, “a while longer,” was the involuntary admission he made of his
ultimate expectations. For his own part, he declared it was much better
for him to make some headway in the bank before they could really
afford the expensive luxury of having children. Still he felt a bit let
down at the contemplation for the first time of the bare possibility of
his wife not bearing these children for him.
Thus the first year of their married life ended and the next one began.
In the main you can see that every sign for the future was propitious.
These two young people had the right mind toward each other; no modern
decadence, no desire to sidestep Nature or fail in their duty. Their
instincts were normal, their hopes honorable.
How is it then that, with all good intentions, they both missed their
cue? It is not for me to say. My task is to tell this story and leave
each reader to judge for himself where the blame lay. No doubt there
will be many decisions. I have often wondered if even three judges who
passed on the same case without knowing each other’s decision, would
not each of them render a different judgment. But in regard to this
matter, I may be permitted to remark in passing that most of us miss
our cue in the business of living, whether we are escorted by the best
intentions or a few valorous vices. And my theory is that if we live
long enough, we shall hear the Prompter in time to make a good ending.
If we do not, there is a considerable stretch of eternity before us
where no doubt adjustments may be made with a wider mind.