TRIED AS BY FIRE
It was long months before Margaret De Jarnette looked into her husband's
face. Before that time Washington's squares and circles and
triangles--those blessed breathing spots--had blossomed out from
hyacinths to flaunting salvias,--a stately, gorgeous, lengthening
procession proclaiming to those who understand the language or who care
to hear, "He hath made all things beautiful in its time."
Gradually the soft spring air had yielded to the power that always wins,
and a blistering heat had fallen on the city, the fierce rays beating
down upon the asphalt streets which threw them back defiantly until the
very air palpitated with the conflict. Then even the asphalt gave it up,
and lay a sodden mass--no longer master of its fate, but meekly yielding
to the impress of every grinding heel. The leaves hung motionless, the
air was dead, and one remembered, apprehensively, that some day the
earth would melt with fervent heat, and wondered, gasping, if that time
were now.
Then having proved his power, old Sol relaxed his grasp, and turned away
his face, and men began to hope again, and to remind one another, as the
breeze sprang up, of the promise given with the bow that "While the
earth remaineth ... cold and heat, and summer and winter ... shall not
cease." Then autumn flung her gorgeous banners to the breeze, and the
Indians kindled their campfires in the West, and shouting children
ploughed the streets where
"The yellow poplar leaves came down
And like a carpet lay."
Thus passed Nature's shifting panorama which waits no man's pleasure,
stops for none, but brings all to an end at last.
To Margaret they had been months of sore trial,--of hope deferred and
the suspense that kills,--the rising up each day to meet the mute
sympathy of real friends, and the thin-veiled curiosity of those called
friends by courtesy, who made her rage within herself and left her
powerless to resent. Then there was that other sort who came to her,
prating of sympathy, but telling her always of what others said. The
words of a talebearer are as wounds; these went down into the innermost
parts of Margaret's soul.
But through it all she carried herself with a dignity and poise that
enforced respect and in time silenced even gossip. To all these
invitations to confidence she made no response. She could not stop
people's tongues, but she would give them no occasion to wag, by any
word of hers. This thing had been between her and her husband; there it
should remain. So when Marie Van Dorn came, saying effusively, "You poor
child, I have heard, and came to you as soon as the nurse would let me.
You can trust me, my dear!" Margaret had replied, quietly:
"Thank you. You are very kind to come to see me. I shall be a good deal
housed for a while, and rather lonely in Mr. De Jarnette's absence. What
do you hear from your aunt?" And Marie had made but a short call.
To Judge Kirtley, who had come as soon as she could see him, she had
said, her eyes heavy with unshed tears,
"I would trust you beyond any living soul. But this is not a thing about
which even you could help me. I need not tell you there is something
wrong--you know that. It may come right--I can not tell. If it does, I
should be sorry I had talked. If it does not, the case would not be
helped by words. I cannot take the world into my confidence. Do you
blame me?"
"No, dear child," he said, with an aching of his great heart, "I honor
you. If more women took this stand there would be fewer cases of
domestic trouble in the courts. Keep your own counsel. But when you need
me, speak."
To his wife that night he said, "Margaret is a rare woman. Not one in a
hundred at her age would see this as she does, and have the strength of
character to lock everything in her own breast."
"Well, for my part," replied Mrs. Kirtley, who felt aggrieved at
Margaret's want of confidence, "I think she is too close-mouthed. It
would relieve her mind to talk to some safe confidant."
"It would relieve the mind of the safe confidant more," her husband
replied, astutely. "Margaret is all right! You know what Seneca says:
'If you wish another to keep your secret, first keep it yourself.'"
"I wish you wouldn't always be quoting those old heathen philosophers to
me," said Mrs. Kirtley, with growing irritation. She had fully expected
to hear the whole story when her husband came home. She was not quite
sure now that he had told all he knew.
The Judge chuckled. "My dear, if I had said Solomon instead of Seneca, I
have no doubt you would have thought that you could find that in the
Book of Proverbs. It is sage enough to be there. Another proverb is
doubtless in Margaret's mind--the substance of it, at any rate, and I
will relieve your perturbation by saying that this is accredited to the
Talmud, and may have more weight with you than that of my good pagan.
This certainly is worthy of the Wise Man:
'Thy friend hath a friend, and thy friend's friend hath a friend; so
be discreet!'"
"Margaret certainly knows that she can trust us," returned his wife,
indignantly.
"'_Could_'," my dear, is the better word. _Can_ implies a possibility of
her trying, and that, I suspect, she is not going to do for the present.
Let her alone. She is all right."
But under his light words he had a sore heart. The girl was very dear to
him. She was in trouble, and he could not help her. He contented himself
with looking closely after her business interests--his friendship being
of the rare kind which is willing to give much, looking not for a
return--and with dropping in often to see her and the baby.
"I am going to call him Philip Varnum," she said to him on one of these
occasions. "You must help me to make him worthy of the name." It was all
she said, but he understood without anything more that she expected to
rear the child without the help of his father.
Of Richard De Jarnette Margaret saw less and less as time went on. There
was a feeling of constraint between them, natural enough, perhaps, under
the circumstances, and for some reason growing. During those first weeks
after her illness he had come often to the house,--had shown her
unobtrusive kindnesses and done thoughtful things that added to her
comfort, always in a self-effacing way, evading thanks whenever
possible. Sometimes she only heard of them through Mammy Cely. At rare
intervals he even held the boy when the old nurse, who stood in awe of
no man and least of all of this one who had been her foster child, had
put it into his arms. He did it very awkwardly, 'tis true, and in a
fashion that gave Margaret nervous chills of fright lest he should drop
him, or do some other dreadful thing, but manfully, as one who has a
duty to perform and does it--with set teeth.
One day when Mammy Cely had taken the child away he asked, abruptly,
"You find her useful to you?"
"Useful? Mammy Cely!" she said, "Oh, I think I could not live without
her. I know so little about children." Then, in sudden alarm she
faltered, "Were you thinking of taking her? I--I had almost forgotten
you sent her to me." She looked so distressed that he hastened to assure
her that the woman should stay as long as she was needed. He could get
somebody else for Elmhurst.
She felt so profoundly grateful that she sung the praises of the colored
woman--how she could trust her as she could not trust herself, because
Mammy Cely knew so much more, and how she was sure she loved baby Philip
as if he were her own, these, and other words of confidence which
afterwards, strangely enough, recoiled on her head.
To all of which he had listened, bowing gravely, and looking at her with
that close attention which always made her forget what it was that she
had meant to say. Somehow he had a deadening effect upon her speech. She
could not help feeling deep down in her heart, that he believed her
responsible for his brother's defection. It was natural enough that he
should try to excuse him; he had always done that, Mammy Cely said, even
when he was a boy, and had often taken the punishment that belonged to
Victor rather than tell. He had been very, very fond of Victor, she
said.
Yes, it was natural enough, Margaret thought, but still it did not
conduce to conversation, and she was glad that day when he went away.
Then she had gone to the nursery, another person, and taken little
Philip and clucked to him, and touched his cheeks to make him smile and
told him what she thought of his Uncle Richard--how cold he was, how
silent, how he scared her, how he palsied her tongue or else made her
say things she did not mean to say, how--greatest indignity of all--he
had even looked askance at _him_, her "pe'cious lamb," and almost turned
him upside down! but how he had left them Mammy Cely, and so they would
forgive him, if only he would never come again.
And Baby Philip smiled a smile cherubic and murmured "Goo-o! ah-goo-o!
for the first time, and Margaret almost smothered him with kisses, and
was sure that never did mother have a comforter so sweet, a confidant so
safe and yet so sympathetic.
Where does a baby get its balm? In that Gilead whence it came? From the
skilful physician who knows all needs and uses tiniest instruments
sometimes to reach hidden wounds? Who knows? At any rate into Margaret's
sore heart was coming day by day the healing that proceeds only from
time and the touch of little hands. More and more, by her own volition,
her world was coming to be bounded by the walls of her baby's room. Here
at least she was safe from the thrusts of meddlesome gossip and the pin
pricks of Gossip's handmaid--Curiosity. Here she could live the simple
satisfying life that "maketh rich," and "addeth no sorrow" that she was
not willing to bear.