CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE WIDOW AND MRS. LEE.
I was greatly exhausted. The walk from my room to the tower, and that
brief interview with Mrs. Lee, had proved more than I could bear. So I
lay helplessly on the bed, watching the scene in the inner room like one
in a dream. How softly that woman moved about the chamber--how low and
sweet were the tones of her voice! No wonder the invalid grew calm and
cheerful under such ministration; it soothed even me.
Our invalid had left her sofa, and sat in the easy-chair. The widow
arranged her footstool, and settled down upon it, covering those small
feet with a cloud of muslin, while her beautiful face was uplifted, and
her neck curved back with the fascinating grace of a serpent. Mrs. Lee's
dark eyes were bent upon her, so full of affection that the look made my
heart ache. In the stillness, I could hear every word that passed
between them. I was too much exhausted for thought; but even in another
state my position would have been the same, knowing what I knew, and
suspecting what I did, no refinement of honor would have driven me from
my post.
"Then I am beginning to be a little comfort to you, dear lady," said the
haughty woman, looking sweetly in that gentle face, with her eyes full
of solicitude, as if the great hope of her life lay in the idea of being
useful.
"Oh, a great comfort. If Jessie now were--"
The sensitive heart checked her speech, and she broke off with a sigh.
Mrs. Dennison drooped her eyes in delicate sympathy, and, taking a fold
of the muslin dress, which fell like billows of snow over the carpet,
began to plait it thoughtfully between her fingers.
"You must not think that Jessie neglects you," she said. "The
confinements of a sick-room are so irksome to youth. I am sure she loves
you."
"But she used to spend half her time with me. In the morning, she would
bring her work or her drawing, and we had such pleasant hours in my
chamber."
"Yes, but it was before she came into society; that is sure to distract
the attention. Still, the dear girl must be unaware of the higher and
purer happiness she sacrifices."
Mrs. Lee's face clouded, and she said, with a sad smile,--
"Well, you have not permitted me to feel this. By-and-by Jessie will get
some of your thoughtfulness."
"You must not think of this, my dear friend," said the widow,
caressingly. "Only remember how well you are getting. I say nothing of
my own poor efforts; but surely Mr. Lee makes up for all deficiencies in
our sweet Jessie."
Mrs. Lee's face brightened beautifully. "Oh, yes," she said, "he is with
me so much now; you charm him this way, I think."
"Me? Oh! nothing like it. This change in yourself, dear friend,
constitutes the charm. You were dropping into such dreary ways, and
looked so ill in that eternal white dress; but now that you have
consented to brighten it up with ribbons, and pretty French caps, the
change is marvellous."
"You think so," was the sweet reply. "I dare say it is true; but Jessie
always liked my dress, and she has fine taste."
"But he likes something fresher and more worldly; and one dresses for a
husband."
"Yes, yes; and these things do give something bright to the toilet,
though Lottie scouts them."
"Well, never mind, so long as _he_ is pleased. We need not trouble
ourselves about the opinion of a wild, crazy girl like her, or of that
prudish thing, Miss Hyde."
Mrs. Lee drew her hand from the widow's caressing clasp, and sat upright
in her chair.
"Oh! don't say a word against Miss Hyde," she protested, with unusual
resolution. "She is the dearest, best creature."
"I know, I know," persisted the widow, drawing a quick breath. "She is
everything that is good, if she only had the power to make her
amiability a little more interesting, and, I may add, useful; but when
any person comes into a family to attach herself particularly to one
member of it, there is a possibility of her gaining too much influence.
I know Miss Hyde is very deserving, but has it never struck you that
your daughter's heart lies a little too exclusively with her friend?"
"No; I had not thought of that," answered Mrs. Lee.
"It was not my business, and, I dare say, there is impertinence in the
observation, but when Miss Hyde was sick, your daughter scarcely left
her room. I never witnessed such devoted attention."
The widow sat playing with the knots of lilac ribbon that fastened Mrs.
Lee's dress, as she made the observation. I saw the poor lady's face
cloud, and her lips began to quiver. She was evidently drawing the
contrast between Jessie's devotion to me, and the almost total desertion
of her own room. Dear lady! she had no means of knowing that the eternal
presence of that woman in her chamber had drawn the most devoted
daughter that ever lived from her bedside.
Mrs. Dennison went on with her crafty work, still playing with the knots
of ribbon, and pausing now and then to blow them about, till they
fluttered like butterflies under her concentrated breath.
"If we only had sweet Jessie entirely to ourselves now to join our
pleasant morning readings, wouldn't it be charming? But that is
hopeless, so long as she gives herself entirely to one person, you
know."
Mrs. Lee lifted her slender hand, passing it with troubled haste
repeatedly across her forehead.
"But Miss Hyde has been such a true friend, so faithful, so every way
worthy and agreeable, it seems as if Jessie could not love her too much.
Then she is such a favorite with Mr. Lee."
"Is she?" was the dry question which followed these remarks.
"Oh, yes! Besides, I never can forget her kindness to myself when Mr.
Lee was absent. You know that my husband has a great many duties, and it
is only of late that it has been in his power to stay with me so much."
"But his heart--his heart is always with you, dear friend; I noticed
that from the first day of my entrance to your house. In conversation,
your name is always on his lips, and it is easy to see that you are
never for a moment out of his thoughts."
Mrs. Lee leaned back in her chair, and her fine eyes filled with the
brightest drops that ever sprung from a loving heart.
"I ought to be more grateful," she murmured, sweetly; "the blessed Lord
has been so good to me. Oh! if all this should lead me to think less of
Him, and more--sinfully more of my--my family."
"But this will never be; your nature is too well regulated."
"Ah! but Mrs. Dennison, you cannot imagine--you can form no idea how I
have worshipped--how I do worship my husband. From the first hour I saw
him to this, when we have sunk into mid-life together, it has been one
struggle to keep him from overshadowing the love of God in this heart."
A heavenly expression came over that pale face, as the noble woman spoke
words that the reticence of her nature had kept back even from me, her
tried friend up to that hour; and now they were poured forth to the
greedy ear of that woman like an overflow of wine upon the sandvile
sand, which a thousand repulsive things had trodden over.
I could scarcely keep from crying out under the pressure of disgust that
seized upon me when the creature lifted her eyes to the heaven of that
face. In my whole life I had never seen an expression like that--so
quick, so unutterably vicious. That instant some evil idea was born in
the woman's brain; I saw it clearly, as if the map of her bad heart had
been laid out before me. This idea, gendered from the loving goodness of
Mrs. Lee's speech, broke into her eyes as the serpent bursts the
mother-egg when hot sunshine is upon it.
This expression revelled in her eyes a moment, and then crept away as if
a reptile had left her eyes and coiled itself in the depths of her soul.
I could detect a tone of exultation in her voice when she spoke again;
but it was low still, and vibrated with strange fascination on the ear.
"And you love him so much?"
"I thought in my youth that it was impossible to love him better--that
it was wrong to love any human being so much. Night and morning I prayed
God to keep me clear of man-worship; but how can one pray against love
to a God who is love itself? When I saw how completely my whole being
gave itself to my husband, how impossible it was to weaken one throb of
the joy which filled me at his approach, I gave up the struggle, and
soon rendered double gratitude to the Divine Being for giving him to me.
It was all I could do."
"And did he love you so much?"
With what insidious craft the question was put! How quietly the new-born
serpent coiled itself in her eyes as the lashes drooped over them!
"So much? That is impossible! No man--no woman ever gave so great
worship to a fellow-being! He was not even aware of it, I think; for
this love was a treasure that I kept closely locked. It must have been
tender questioning, indeed, that could have drawn such feelings into
expression."
"But still he loved you?"
"Loved me? Oh, yes; I never doubted it, even then; but after I became so
helpless, so dependent on him for my very life--for if he had failed me
I must have died--the beautiful affection of his nature manifested
itself. He became my support, my very being. Oh! God has been
exceedingly good to me!"
"And in all this devotion, this excess of love--for so I must think
it--has no distrust ever arisen between you?"
"Distrust? Who could distrust him?"
Mrs. Dennison did not seem to hear--she was musing, with her eyes on the
floor. At last she murmured, vaguely,
"But jealousy is the natural growth of inordinate affection. I wonder it
never sprung up between you. What if he had loved another person?"
"Loved another person, and I know it? That would have been death!"
Again the woman's eyes gleamed so brightly that I could see the flash
through her thick lashes. She arose and walked hurriedly up and down the
room.
Mrs. Lee looked at her wonderingly.
"You think it wrong--you condemn me, as I have condemned myself a
thousand times," she said, with meek pathos.
The woman returned to her seat, smiling.
"No, no. How can one woman condemn another for a fault so angelic? I
only envied you the delicacy that could deem it wrong to give one's
whole being up to the first element of a woman's nature--entire love."
Mrs. Lee drew a heavy breath and lay back in her chair, smiling.
"You have seen him," she said, at last. "How grand, how magnanimous he
is, never forgetting me, never feeling the solitude of this room
irksome, but loving it more and more; giving me hours out of each day
till, of late, he almost lives in my apartment and never finds it
tiresome!"
A strange smile stole over Mrs. Dennison's lips; but she did not look
up, and it passed unnoticed by its object.
As the two ladies sat together, Jessie came into the room. Mrs. Dennison
did not move, but, on the contrary, leaned nearer to Mrs. Lee. Jessie
paused by the door and seemed about to retire; but Mrs. Lee spoke to
her, holding out a hand.
The daughter saw this and came close to her mother's chair, leaning over
it; while the widow kept her place, so that every word which passed
between the mother and child was subject to her vigilance. Thus the
conversation was constrained, and Jessie went away with a sad look,
which went to my heart.
Then Mr. Lee came into the chamber, and all was bright as sunshine
again. Mrs. Dennison kept her position, and Mr. Lee bent over his wife's
chair. It was a beautiful group--I have never seen three more
distinguished-looking people in one tableau.
They fell into conversation, in which Mrs. Lee took her gentle part. I
listened, with a strange feeling of pain, to the graceful dialogue, and
ceased to wonder that the invalid had grown more cheerful under the
influence of scenes like this. Perhaps my jealous thoughts invested all
they said with unreal attractiveness; for jealousy, like love, creates
qualities which do not exist, and I acknowledged now that the feeling
which burned at my heart had many a jealous pang in it. How could this
be otherwise? For years I had been the closest friend that lady
possessed; and, within the hour, had I not heard a woman, who should
have been a stranger, decrying me to her as if I had been a servant she
wished to see discharged?
In this way I excused the bitterness that filled my heart as the cruel
scene passed before me. It was hard to bear when that woman's sweet
laugh came ringing through the chamber after some witty saying which
brought a thousand animated expressions into the faces of the two
persons I prized above all others, but from whom she had separated me.
All the morning they spent in Mrs. Lee's room. Lottie informed me
afterward that this had been their habit during my sickness. Why, she
could not tell, unless it was that Babylon was hoping to find another
chance to finish her work.
I could not sleep that night, and for many a long night after that. The
fever had left me very low and nervous; I could not bear to meet the
annoyances which were sure to beset me if I went into the family, and
seldom left my room. I think Mrs. Lee hardly missed me. Indeed, it is
doubtful if my absence was a matter of regret to any one; for Jessie
came to my room as a sort of shelter from the scenes that I had
witnessed, and thus our family became more and more a divided one.