ONE WOMAN IN A THOUSAND
Mary Elton lay on the couch in her room, thinking of the last words the
doctor had said. He had been perfectly honest with her, partly because
she was morally strong and desired absolute frankness, partly because
there was no one else to whom he could speak, except her self-absorbed
uncle, and Mary had taken charge of her own case from the first, and
sworn the doctor to secrecy.
The next day she was to be taken to the hospital, and there an
operation was to be performed, which would be a matter of life or
death,--probably of death. It was her only chance of life, but it was
one chance out of a hundred. This she had made the doctor tell her,
and this was the thought she faced alone, lying in the winter twilight,
her mood well suited to the season and the hour that most suggest death.
Mary had prepared herself for the news that the chances were against
her,--had expected and had almost hoped for it. Without being morbid
in temperament, she had a deep strain of melancholy in her nature, and
though she possessed rather a spasmodic fund of animal spirits and
a keen power of enjoyment, she was no lover of life, in the deepest
sense. She feared what she herself might become, and dread of her
future too frequently poisoned her enjoyment of the present.
She lay silent in the dusk for an hour, thinking, thinking, screwing
her courage to the sticking-place in a decision she had just formed.
She rang the bell, which was close to the head of her couch, and, when
the maid came, Mary asked to have the curtains drawn and the gas
lighted. “And, Jennie,” she added, as the girl was about to leave the
room, “if Mr. Morley comes to inquire after me to-night, I wish to see
him. You may ask him to come up here.”
“Up to your room, Miss?” queried the girl, in dignified surprise.
“Yes,” responded Miss Elton, shortly, “and when my uncle comes in I
should like to speak to him.”
That afternoon the uncle and niece had a long talk together; and after
the interview was over, Mr. Elton’s voice was husky with unaccustomed
emotion. Not all the wool in the market could soften the blow that his
brother’s only child, and his own companion of so many years, might
leave him forever.
Mary had said as little as she could about the probable failure of the
operation, but a few plans had to be made, and her uncle had been
astonished at the coolness and self-control with which she had spoken
of her own death. He thought she seemed much older than twenty-five.
As Mr. Elton went out of the room, she called after him, “By the way,
if Philip Morley comes to ask after me to-night, I am going to see him;
so don’t be surprised if you find him making himself at home to the
extent of coming upstairs.”
“Very well, my dear; I know you and Philip are great friends. It is
quite natural that you should want to say good-by to him. I suppose you
may be away from us a fortnight or more.”
“Probably more, the doctor thinks,” Mary replied, laughing; “but I want
to see Philip in any case.”
That evening Mary looked more animated and stronger than she had for
days. A faint color had brightened her sallow cheeks, and excitement
burned in her eyes. When a knock came at her door, and Philip Morley
tiptoed in, he uttered an exclamation of pleasure at seeing her look so
well. He drew a chair up beside her sofa, and extended his long legs
with a sigh of comfort.
“We’ll be having you about again in a week,” he said, with his
sympathetic smile. “I’ve missed our friendly disputes awfully. Since
you’ve been ill, I can’t get any one else to fight with me, and it
kills all ambition when one isn’t opposed; so you must hurry and get
well.”
Mary pulled with nervous fingers at the fringe of the shawl that
covered her.
“Philip, it seems absurd, but I’m not going to get well. You’ll have to
find some one else to fight with you.”
The young man started, and looked at her quickly. “What do you mean,
Mary?” he cried. “Don’t joke about such things.”
“I’m not joking. I am going to the hospital to-morrow, where the
surgeons will do what they can to save my life; but they say there is
very little chance of my recovery. I _know_ that I shan’t live, and
that is why I wanted to see you to-night. _Don’t, don’t_ look like
that,--as if you cared,--or I shall cry; and I don’t want to be a baby.”
She looked at him piteously, but would not let him speak.
“There is something I want to tell you, Philip. No, I don’t _want_ to
tell it to you, but I want you to know it before I die. Doesn’t it seem
ridiculous for me to talk of dying! But I’m not going to try to harrow
your feelings like that horrid little May Queen, though I confess the
dramatic side of the situation does appeal to my imagination, and I am
secretly longing for a band to strike up some dirge outside.”
“Ah, you’re just trying to frighten me,” said Philip. “If you really
thought you were going to die, you wouldn’t joke about it like this.”
“Wouldn’t I? Well, I always said you didn’t know me. Never mind. It
certainly would be just like me to live, as an anticlimax, after
getting off my last speeches--but for once, I really think I shall do
the right thing.”
“It wouldn’t be the right thing, Mary; don’t talk so. I _hate_ to hear
you.”
“Yes, it is the right thing, Philip, I’m perfectly sure of it. Now
don’t keep interrupting me. I want to talk, as usual, and you are just
here as audience. Now listen. I am perfectly serious when I say that
the best thing I can do is to die. If I lived, I should become more and
more hard and snappish and unreconciled to my lot every year. Handsome
people say it is easy for ugly ones to be good because they have no
temptations, but I know that it is a thousand times harder to keep
your temper sweet, and your spirit unruffled, with eyes and nose and
mouth like mine, than--like yours, for instance. There is the first
compliment I’ve ever paid you.”
Philip made a futile attempt to interrupt her flow of words, but she
frowned him into silence and continued, “The trouble is, I am not good
enough to be ugly. If I lived, I should have to turn into a woman
with a mission,--a temperance lecturer or an anti-vivisectionist or
something; and though I should look the part, I couldn’t act it. But if
I die comparatively young, my bad qualities won’t have time to mature
(or rather to decay), and perhaps half a dozen people will be able to
squeeze out a few perfunctory tears at my funeral.”
Through the veil of her levity, Philip could detect grim Truth looking
him in the face, and his eyes fell before hers.
“You’re only joking, of course,” he maintained insincerely.
“No, no. I am altogether serious now, Philip. I can’t joke about it any
more. Promise to feel badly about me for a little while,” Mary cried,
with sudden wistfulness.
“It wouldn’t be for a little while only, Mary,” the young man said,
laying his hand on hers. “It would make a difference to me all through
my life. But, Mary, this won’t happen. You’re morbid and unnatural
to-night. You have the making of one of the finest women in the world.
You know I’ve always said so, and you must live to acknowledge that I
was right. Besides, I can’t possibly get on without you.”
“Oh yes, you can; yes, you can!” she moaned, dropping the mock-heroic
tone she had assumed at first. “Listen, Philip, I am going to tell you
something which proves me to be unfeminine, unwomanly, and altogether
shameless, but when I’m dead perhaps you’ll be glad to remember. Now
don’t look at me, Philip, or I can’t say what I want to. Let me look at
your nice straight profile, and then perhaps I can talk.”
She laughed in her old way, and made him turn his face toward the fire.
“Now don’t move, don’t speak,” she said, “till I have finished, and
then I can tell whether you think me altogether contemptible. Philip,”
she continued, with a queer catch in her voice, “I have loved you for
two years! There, I’ve said it, I’ve said it,” she exclaimed, wildly.
“No, don’t try to speak, don’t look at me. Now you know whether I
am going to die or not. Do you think wild horses would drag such a
confession from me if I didn’t _know_ I was speaking from the edge of
the grave?”
Philip had instinctively turned to look at her with bewilderment in
his eyes, but if he felt doubts of her seriousness or of her sanity,
they were driven away by the sight of her earnest and intense face. He
gave a short, sudden groan, and dropped his forehead into his hand.
“You mustn’t feel too badly about this,” she went on with calmness. “I
know that you are as much in love with Edith Dudley as you can be with
any one. It is because I know of your love for her, that I am able to
talk to you like this. She may have refused you once; I suspect that
she has, but that’s only because that wretched Dr. Fell came along and
hypnotized her. If you love her enough, she will care for you in time,
and you will be happy, but--oh, Philip, she will not love you as _I_
have loved you; she will not make you happier than _I_ could have made
you, if I had been beautiful and graceful and gentle and sweet as she
is!”
There was a ring of something that had never been heard in Mary’s voice
before, as she gave herself up to the bitterness of longing and regret
that filled her heart.
“People talk of the power of affection to work changes in character,”
she continued more quietly, “and that is another reason why I have
chosen to tell you of my love. Philip, I don’t know whether I love
you because I believe in you, or believe in you because I love you.
My love and my belief are all tangled up together, so that I can’t
tell which is cause and which is effect. You could be anything you
want to be,--but I am so afraid you won’t want! Oh, I do wish that my
love could be some little incentive to make you do and be all that
you might if you only would! It seems as if it ought to be of _some_
value,--a love like mine. There ought to be _some_ result from such a
strong emotion. It would be so ridiculously easy for me to die, or
live, or anything, if only your happiness, and success in the highest
sense, could result from it! Of course it isn’t easy for me to say all
this, though I seem to have got wound up to it somehow. I suppose I am
fearfully lacking in a proper modesty of sex,--but this is my death-bed
(figuratively speaking), and after all we are just two human souls,
aren’t we?”
“You are the sincerest, truest woman in the world!” cried Philip,
turning towards her and seizing both her hands. “What does the purely
conventional modesty you feel you have offended against matter, in
comparison with a courage like yours?”
“Oh, dear! If only my friends could have heard me making an unprovoked
declaration of love!” cried Mary, laughing, with a sudden instinct of
incongruous amusement. “They all think I’m a perfect old cynic, with
no germ of romance or sentiment about me. Well, that’s what I should
have grown to be, if I had lived. You see I already speak of myself in
the past tense. Be thankful, Philip, that I have escaped the fate of
becoming an unloved, unloving old woman, with bitterness and regret in
her heart. You have shown me what life must be to people who have love.
It’s the only permanent possession. But if I had to choose between the
two, I would rather feel love than inspire it,--and this isn’t sour
grapes either. Of course the perfect thing has to be reciprocal. And
now about you, Philip. I am sure that Edith will come to care about you
some day; but when you’re happy and prosperous, don’t forget that you
must be something more, that you are worth something better, that you
owe it to yourself, and to Edith,--and to me. And now there is just
one more thing that I want to say. If I _should_ live,--I _can’t_ and
I _shan’t_, but if I _should_,--you must let the memory of all that I
have said be absolutely blotted out. I shall have killed our friendship
to-night. However, all this is nothing, because I know that I shan’t
live, and on the whole I’m not sorry. Please tell me honestly whether
you despise me for my weakness, or whether”--
“Despise you, Mary!” cried Philip. “I can’t possibly tell you what your
brave, true words have meant to me.” His voice was choked with mingled
emotion and embarrassment. “What you have said has meant more to me
than anything else ever can. I feel somehow full of humility, and yet
full of pride. What have I been or done, to win the love of a woman
like you? Where have my senses been, not to give you some better return
than my best friendship for a love like yours!”
“Ah, my dear Philip,” said Mary, half laughing and half crying, “you
_couldn’t_ have loved me, no matter how hard you tried. No man could.
You see I am so dreadfully ugly. I should hate myself if I were a
man,--in fact, I do as it is.”
“You’re perfectly absurd about your looks, Mary. Why do you persist in
exaggerating the importance of beauty? You have been a constant delight
and refreshment to every one you know. As for me, I don’t believe I
amount to much anyway; but if I ever turn out anything at all, it will
be because of what you have been brave and honest enough to tell me
to-night.”
“Oh, no, it won’t,” said Mary, smiling and shaking her head. “If you
do turn out to be anything more than a successful business man (which
I sometimes doubt), it will be because of the love of a much sweeter
and better woman than I. You see this humility on my part is really my
most alarming symptom, and must mean approaching death.”
She was her old self again for the moment, half mocking and half sad.
“Mary,” said Philip suddenly, “I don’t believe I shall ever _like_ any
one half so much as I do you. Love is different; it is outside our
control, I suppose, but liking is somehow founded on fact,--it’s more
deliberate.”
“Are you trying to make out that friendship is more flattering than
love?” Mary interrupted. “Perhaps you’re right. I dare say it’s more
natural that you should like me than that I should love you,--however,
go on.”
“It isn’t altogether easy to go on, in the midst of your
interruptions,” said Philip, laughing nervously, “and everything I
say sounds artificial, when I only mean to be straightforward. What I
want you to understand is that whether you die or whether you live,
or whatever happens to either of us, our friendship is something
permanent. Even if we have to meet as strangers after to-night, the
real You and the real I will be friends just the same. I wish I could
make you realize all that it means to me to be told what you have told
me to-night. It will give me new courage and new self-respect, and I
thank you with all my heart.”
In answer to the look in his face, Mary’s eyes filled with sudden tears.
“Now don’t let’s be theatrical, Philip,” Mary laughed in order not to
cry. “I’m afraid I’ve made things horrid for you. It’s my fault. I
ought to have been contented with playing the rôle I am suited for. The
trouble is I have been cast for low comedy, and I insist on playing
high tragedy. With my make-up I ought to be content with playing the
fool, yet here I am striving to blend pathos and tragedy behind the
mask of Harlequin. Now Edith Dudley can play _any_ part well. Her life
is a series of wonderful impersonations, and her face adapts itself to
the part she plays. Don’t make the mistake, Philip, of thinking you
can walk through your part of innocuous-young-man-about-town without
exerting yourself to _act_. I am enough of a fatalist to believe that
we can’t alter the text of the drama of life; but I do believe that the
seriousness of our impersonation is as important in result as the words
we are set down to speak, and our acting is within our own control,
even if our actions are not.”
“If life is a play it’s a mighty badly written one, and I’ve made an
awful botch of my part. I don’t know the text, Mary, and I need your
promptings.” Philip looked at her with the look she used to call his
“dumb animal expression.”
“Life is just a tragi-comedy, that’s all. When we’re not shrieking
with pain, we’re shrieking with laughter. Now go, dear,” she said
brokenly. “I don’t think I can stand it another minute. This has not
been easy for either of us. I won’t try to say anything else except
good-by. Don’t ever forget that I am thankful to have known and to have
loved you.”
“Oh, Mary, Mary!” he cried, impotently. Then, realizing the futility
of language to express all that he felt, he quietly stooped and kissed
her. “Good-by,” he said very softly. Then he went out and closed the
door. She held her breath till the sound of his footsteps had died
away; then she burst into hysterical sobs.
* * * * *
A week later Edith Dudley was admitted to a room in the hospital, where
a white form lay in a white bed. She went softly up to the figure, and
kissed its pale face.
“Dear Mary! So the operation was a success,” she whispered.
“No!” replied the figure, opening its eyes with sudden energy. “It was
a failure. I am going to get well.”