TWO days later Mrs. Allestree rang the bell at Margaret’s door with a
sudden sensation of panic. She had felt it her duty to go, in spite of
Robert’s protests, for the morning newspaper had printed a scarcely
veiled account of the scandal in the Cabinet. White, it appeared,
had openly quarrelled with his wife and abruptly left her the day
before, publishing his private affairs by going to a large hotel which
was crowded with fashionable guests. Society caught its breath and
waited--with the relish that it usually waits--for a _cause célèbre_.
“It’s a cowardly thing to do, Robert,” Mrs. Allestree declared hotly;
“no man should expose a woman to such a scandal. I shall go to see
Margaret to-day, it’s my duty!”
“Oh, Lord, mother!” groaned Allestree, “can’t you let it alone? What in
the world can you do?”
“Do? Robert!” the old lady’s bright eyes flashed, “I’m ashamed of you!
Do you think I’ll let people imagine that I believe my own nephew is a
scamp? Not a bit of it! And Margaret--the child’s heart-broken, that’s
all; I’ll never believe a word against her! Of course he’ll marry that
Osborne woman.”
“Mother, mother! You know what Gerty told us; Margaret herself is going
to get the divorce, she’s forced the situation.”
“Gerty’s a fool!” said his mother promptly and unreservedly.
Then she put on her bonnet and went, but as she approached the imposing
house with its great porte-cochère and its long row of fluted white
pillars, its upper balcony and its conservatory, its flagrant and
ostentatious wealth, her heart sank drearily. Experience had taught
her that the very wealthy have their own way; moreover, what could
she say? What had she a right to say? But she was a courageous old
woman and strong in her convictions; she rang the bell. A tardy
but irreproachable footman opened the door and regarded her with a
carefully impersonal stare.
“Wonders who the old party is in an 1830 bonnet!” thought Mrs.
Allestree amusedly, but she inquired for Margaret and was admitted
after an instant of hesitation which involved the inspection of her
card.
She waited a long while, it seemed to her, in the dim drawing-room, and
looked about her at its luxuries and the long vista of the ballroom
beyond with a new interest. She had never been a frequent visitor
at the house and its aspect was new and unnatural, its spacious and
imposing vacancy seemed to be accentuated by every touch of the golden
talisman; there was no atmosphere of home. “Splendid misery,” she
thought, and sighed; there was not much to bind the heart of a woman--a
natural woman--here! She listened, hoping to hear a child’s voice,
even the baby’s cry, but the stillness was perfect; it was evidently
a well ordered household even if Margaret held the reins with a lax
hand. Gerty must be a tolerably good manager, Mrs. Allestree thought
with a prick of conscience, remembering that Margaret put everything on
Gerty’s shoulders.
It was all dazzling enough, there were gold nuggets in the very
ceiling, fifteen carat, the old woman recollected with a secret smile,
and even the pictures suggested great wealth; on the wall opposite was
“The Angelus” and beyond a Reynolds which had cost White a fabulous
sum. He knew as little of art as he did of the kingdom of heaven,
but Margaret had married him for money, and she seemed to have been
inspired with a grim contempt for it afterwards and loved to scatter
his wealth to the four winds of heaven.
After awhile a French maid came down and asked Mrs. Allestree to come
up stairs. Margaret, it appeared, was only half recovered from her
attack at Mrs. O’Neal’s.
She was lying on a lounge by the open window of her bedroom when the
old woman entered, and she greeted her with a languid smile. Her white
morning gown made her look paler than usual, but she was the picture of
indifference and she had been viewing a new hat of a very pronounced
size and startling effect.
She held out a hand to Mrs. Allestree with an odd little laugh. “Oh,
how do you do?” she said calmly; “you know Wicklow has gone off and
left me! I’m ordering a new hat to keep up my spirits.”
Mrs. Allestree sat down weakly in the nearest chair. “Margaret!” she
protested faintly.
Margaret looked at her from under her drooping lashes. “Did you expect
to find me in tears?” she asked coolly.
Her visitor colored deeply; after all, Robert had been right, she had
no justification, her well meant sympathy was fruitless, her coming an
intrusion. “I suppose I shouldn’t have come here at all,” she admitted
reluctantly, her fine old hands trembling a little in her lap, “but I
came to tell you that I had always loved you, Margaret.”
The younger woman looked at her strangely, her face changing rapidly
from defiance to a shamed affection, the unlooked for tenderness
touched her sore heart; her stormy nature had been passing through
one of its eclipses, when the light itself seemed to go out and
leave her groping blindly for relief, for hope, for an escape from
the intolerable situation which her own folly and infatuation had
created, and which kept closing in upon her like the narrowing walls
of the inquisition dungeon. “I think it lovely of you to say it,” she
murmured, a little break in her voice, her lip quivering as she averted
her face.
Mrs. Allestree’s eyes softened; she gave a hasty glance about her,
partly to assure herself that they were alone and partly because she
was just realizing the fanciful splendor of Margaret’s surroundings.
The room was white and gold and every article on her toilet-table
was gold mounted, every detail suggesting the height of luxurious
sybaritism. “Margaret,” she began gently, “it is never too late, can’t
I do something to--to bridge it over?”
Margaret’s lips stiffened, her momentary emotion passing at the mere
suggestion of a continuance in the old intolerable relation. She shook
her head impatiently. “I wouldn’t bridge it over if I could!” she
exclaimed with passion.
But the old lady, foreseeing troubles which would involve those near
and dear to her, could not give up so easily. “My dear child, it’s
dreadful! The woman always suffers--and your husband’s high position,
the publicity of it!”
Margaret shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t help that!” she said
scornfully, “I’ve borne it long enough. Haven’t I a right to be happy?
A nursemaid might expect that, a cook! Why shouldn’t I have a little
happiness in my life?”
“You have so much!” Mrs. Allestree looked about her, “everything wealth
can purchase--and the children! God has been good to you; hasn’t He a
right to chasten you a little?”
Her glance at the material comforts of the room, her evident
consideration of the wealth, the worldly as well as the religious side
of the question, irritated Margaret anew, for she had no tolerance for
compromise, she had bought all these things at too dear a cost, and
knew it in the overwhelming bitterness of her soul.
“What in the world do I care for all this if I haven’t happiness?” she
demanded bitterly, “and I’ve never had it, never for a moment! Besides,
it’s all nonsense to argue about it; it’s over and done with, thank
God! We quarrelled irrevocably; Wicklow wouldn’t forgive me if I’d
forgive him--and I never will!”
“Oh, Margaret, Margaret!” Mrs. Allestree shook her head; “there are
your children, you must think of them, you’re bound to, my heart aches
for them!”
“Well, it needn’t! Mrs. White will bring them up beautifully; she
adores them, I don’t!” Margaret’s thin cheeks were burning and her eyes
glowed dangerously; the children had been held over her head too often,
she was in no mood to hear of them again.
“That’s the most wicked thing you’ve said!” exclaimed her visitor
with indignation; “you’ve lost your mind, Margaret; you can’t expect
happiness feeling as you do! There, I know you’ll despise me, but I’m
an old woman, and I had to speak my mind!”
Margaret raised herself on her elbow and pointed an accusing finger.
“Speak it,” she exclaimed with bitterness, “but--were you ever in my
place? Were you ever married to a man like my husband, a man who was
openly unfaithful to you--who was the talk and the jest of the town
because of another woman? Were you ever made to feel that you were
bought, a mere chattel?”
Mrs. Allestree looked at her in silence, her fine old face grew pale,
her lips trembled. Margaret sank down again, her hand on her heart.
“You never were!” she said scornfully.
Mrs. Allestree wiped away her tears. “I meant well,” she said, “but
despise me, Margaret, I deserve it!”
“I don’t despise you, I think you a dear,” Margaret retorted,
softening; “only you do not in the least understand. It’s all right for
you to be so good and so pious, but I can’t be!”
“You’ve made me a wretched old hypocrite!” said Mrs. Allestree; “oh,
Margaret, you can be just what you want to be, you are so clever, so
beautiful, so charming!”
Margaret shrugged her shoulders. “I’m a miserable sinner, dear heart,
it’s no use to try to reform me.”
“You are wilful! Oh, child, it’s for you I speak, you’ll regret it!”
She bent forward and patted the limp white hand that hung over the
side of the lounge. From the bottom of her heart she wished she knew
how to reach her, but she had been curiously defeated. “You’ll regret
it all your life; we women never can break the bonds. Marriage is an
incident in a man’s life; God didn’t mean that women should feel the
same about it.”
“A great many do break the bonds,” said Margaret eagerly, “and begin
all over again; why shouldn’t I?” she spoke with the force of longing;
hour after hour she had argued thus with herself, yet at a word her
soul leaped up unconvinced and the battle began all over again; that
inexorable law which binds a woman’s life and fixes it in the orbit of
eternity had laid hold upon her.
“A great many do?” Mrs. Allestree’s thin lips tightened and she looked
away. Then she rose and gathered up her gloves and her parasol and her
spectacles. “Too many, and what do people say of most of them?” she
added severely, regaining a hold upon her shaken convictions.
Margaret bit her lip, there was a little spot of color in each cheek,
her heavy eyes shone with feverish defiance. “I wish I were like you, I
wish I had lived your life, I should like to be good if I could!” she
said slowly, without mockery.
Mrs. Allestree turned red. “Don’t, Margaret! I’m really not the
Pharisee or the Levite, only I wanted to help you!”
“I meant just what I said,” Margaret retorted quietly; “but I can’t be
religious, I--I must be loved, I must be happy, I should die just being
good!”
The old lady stooped and kissed her impetuously. “You’re ill, child,
and weak; wouldn’t it do any good if I--I should go to see Mr. White?”
“And bring him back here?” Margaret shuddered. “My dear friend, I’m
going to get out of here to-morrow, I shall never come into this house
again!”
Mrs. Allestree stood up shocked, the force of Margaret’s hatred of
White bit through all reserves. The old woman felt her impotence, how
could she fight this will, this unscrupulous will to be happy, happy at
any price? “Where will you go?” she asked helplessly.
“To Omaha. Of course I could get a divorce anywhere, every one knows
that! Oh, you wouldn’t have borne all I’ve borne! But I shall go to
Omaha; I want to have it over soon and I can stay there until I get it.”
“And the children?”
“I sent them over to Wicklow’s mother this morning; she was nearly in
spasms for fear I’d want the custody!”
Mrs. Allestree stood looking at her a moment in speechless amazement;
then she surrendered. “Good-bye, Margaret,” she said quietly; “I’m a
useless old fogy and busybody, I see it, but I couldn’t help coming; I
remember you running about in short skirts with your hair in a pigtail.
Heaven knows I wish you were a child still and as happy as you were
then!”
Margaret sighed. “I wish I were!” she said.
Mrs. Allestree tightened her bonnet ribbons under her chin with shaking
fingers, her heart swelling with anger and disgust. A woman, the mother
of children, to behave like this! It was monstrous! Behave like it
herself? Never! Her stern lips parted once to utter a word of rebuke,
but her courage failed her; she remembered Robert’s remonstrances.
After all, what right had she to speak? “I wish you were, indeed!” she
repeated stiffly.
Her tone, something in her offended gesture, reached Margaret’s heart.
She rose, rose with a visible effort, and went to her with an unsteady
step, throwing her arms around her neck, disarranging the astonished
old woman’s bonnet as she did it. “Love me!” she sobbed, with the
abandon of a child who has been punished, “love me--I’m starving to
be loved, to be taken care of, oh, don’t you understand? I want to be
happy!”
There was a moment of suspended indignation, of doubt, then the old
arms clasped her; if she could but save this brand from the burning!
“Poor child!” she murmured, “you poor, unhappy, misguided child! Let me
be the peace-maker.”
It was a woeful mistake; Margaret raised her head with a wild little
laugh, pushing her away again almost with force. “Oh, you’ll never
understand me!” she cried, with a finality which was a sharp shock to
her listener, “never! You can never change me--I’d sell my soul to be
free!”