[From Helen's Diary.]
_In the mountains near Mauch Chunk, August, 18--._ This is the first
time for months I have felt like writing. We have been here since June.
After my illness I had a great longing to get away, away, away; anywhere
out of the excitement, away from the furniture, the servants, the
surroundings that seemed to have become so hateful to me that if I
looked upon them I must shriek. It seemed as though I should never be
strong enough to go.
Edgar was as anxious to get away with me as I was to go. A great change
has taken place in him. He has ever been good and thoughtful, but it is
impossible to describe the lengths to which his affection drives him
now. If his business has been pressing, these last months must have been
disastrous to him, for he has hardly left my side for an hour. There is
a new expression in his eyes when he looks at me. He seems to feel as if
he were guilty of some terrible crime against me, and to be ever trying
to expiate it. Sometimes this amuses me a little, but his earnestness
makes me almost feel unhappy at times.
Once in a while, if we have been sitting quietly alone, he will look at
me silently for a time, and then say with almost a groan:
"Oh, if you only knew, Helen! If you only knew all that I suffered in
those weeks!"
I was very ill for a long time. He seems hardly to realize that I am
again well and safe. I would never dare let him know the agony of mind
as well as body, that I endured so long.
I feel differently, too, about some things. I think that whatever regret
Edgar felt at first, and before my confinement, he suffered a keen
disappointment and unhappiness at the loss of the child. He has made but
one allusion to it, but he betrayed his deep feeling then,
unconsciously.
It is strange; but after all my longing for the child, before it became
a longing likely to be gratified, the relief that I experienced when I
knew that I had none is indescribable.
At first I would burst out sobbing for very joy and relief. I cannot
understand my feeling. I sometimes think if circumstances had been
different, and Edgar had had the same emotions in regard to it that he
has now, perhaps I should have felt differently. I am impressed, for
some reason, that this aversion I have is abnormal. But it is so strong
that it has decided one thing: I have had my last child. Nothing on
earth can ever bring back the old feeling. That is something for which
women in my position have no time. The horrible feeling of lost time and
opportunity that I experienced in those months will never be forgotten.
I will never live through it again. If I ever find it likely to become a
necessity, I will kill myself at the outset, without a moment's
hesitation. So this is settled for ever and ever.
I intimated as much to Edgar, involuntarily, the other night, and I
think he felt a little hurt. I regretted that I had betrayed the feeling
when I saw that it made him unhappy. I thought he would feel as I did
about it. I presume he does, in some degree. I made some remark to the
effect that people in our position could not afford to lose time in that
way, and he said:
"But, dear, what would become of the people if all thought so?"
I told him that there were plenty whose talents lay principally in that
direction, and that that part of life's work should be apportioned to
them, and strictly confined to the lesser people.
He began a little argument, but saw that it did not please me, and
changed the subject. But he said something that impressed me with its
truth, for all that.
He said something to the effect that the "industry" was already confined
too strictly to "lesser people;" that what the country needed to save it
was high-bred, fine and _greater_ fathers and mothers, instead of
_lesser_; that if there was ever an "industry" that _should_ be confined
to the superior of the land, it was child-rearing. Perhaps this is so--I
felt so too, once, and determined to do a duty in this direction that
would be a loved duty. It is different now. It will never happen
again--and I live through it. The suffering is not what I flinch from.
I'm not cowardly. It is not that. But _it will never happen again_, if
there is a means on earth to prevent it, even though the means be
suicide.
I wonder if my character is degenerating? Am I as good a woman as I was
when I married Edgar? I do not know. I only know how I feel now, and it
is not so comfortable to feel in that way as to feel in the old way. Am
I deteriorating? If so, what is the cause?