HER STORY AND FATE.
“Who reads the riddle right?
And who can answer why
These clouds sweep over our mental life?
Not you, brave priest, nor I.”
“Instead of being tenderly cared for, as you imagine,” said Miss Hill,
“I had a loveless childhood, though above all things I wanted to be
loved and to be told that I was loved. I could have been an angel of
goodness had I had even a little love; but next to none was given me.
If parents only knew that by showing love for their children they made
for them a foundation of happiness which no after experiences could
knock from under their feet, perhaps they would be kinder than some of
them are. But why speak of ifs at all? If we knew at the beginning of
life what we know at the end of it, perhaps we should never have to
make the journey. I have thought often that I could bear my trouble
courageously if I had sweet memories of childhood; but I have only
bitter ones. Sometimes I have been unhappy since I have been earning
my own bread among people unknown to me before, but never, never for a
moment so miserable as I was always in the home into which I was born.
“I understand the reason of it all better now and blame nobody. The
law was simply working itself out into its natural results. If I
suffered--well, who doesn’t suffer as the mills of the gods grind,
set in operation as they usually are by ignorant hands? My father and
mother were natural enemies, who should have lived as far asunder as
the poles, instead of enacting a hideous, lifelong tragedy in the name
of marriage. I am quite sure they hated each other energetically most
of the time and bitterly the rest of it, yet they stuck together and
brought seven children into the world to suffer in a thousand ways
from their incompatible union, and considered themselves virtuous in
so doing. Yet, that is the kind of thing that passes for morality.
Long ago I saw that it was a foul lie, and the direst foe to morality.
When my eldest sister was married, and I heard the words ‘What God has
joined together let no man put asunder,’ clinching the curse, as it
were, it set me to thinking and asking questions. Somebody explained to
me that all husbands and wives were joined together by God, and could
not possibly be separated without going violently against His will,
except by death, and that, of course, was in accordance with His will.
I pondered over this with a heavy heart. Then God had united my father
and mother. This dreadful work had been done by His hand, and I was
wroth against Him, for every day I felt and saw the evil effects of it.
“Is it strange that ours was a loveless family? With no love between
husband and wife, could they be expected to love their children? Can a
mother be expected to love the child who comes unwelcome to her arms?
Can a father love children in whom he sees the features and traits of
the woman to whom he is hopelessly bound and yet hates? We were all
victims of violated law, so who was to blame? Ignorance! Ignorance,
which is responsible for all the evil and all the suffering under the
sun. In fact ignorance is evil, and evil is ignorance, nothing more nor
less. You know Shakspeare says there is no darkness but ignorance.
“We frequently have well-meaning persons say that ill-mated married
folk should stick together ‘for the sake of the children.’ Yet for
that very reason they should separate. Their children and children’s
children pay the penalty of their violation of the laws of harmony,
and still farther down the line of the future goes the misery that had
its origin in a hateful marriage. Pray tell me how is morality served
thereby?
“In addition to the discord that made our lives wretched my parents
were victims of the desperate struggle for existence, in which the
finer qualities were squeezed out. This so absorbed them that the true
meaning of home and family escaped them, and the material side of the
situation alone received attention. We were all wretched. It was a
horrible experience. There we were, not of our own choice, wedged into
an unwelcome place and unable to extricate ourselves. We were plainly
told that whatever was done for us was to help make us able to take
care of ourselves. We were urged to be industrious at school, because
learning would enable us to be self-supporting. I never heard any
other reason put forth in defence of education. This was dinned into
our ears until life had but one meaning,--that of getting on in the
world. The problem ended there. The result, I need hardly say, was to
make us selfish. Instead of loving one another and sharing each others’
burdens, each thought only of his or her individual success, and the
cherished dream of all was to get away--to go forth where there was
opportunity.
“I was next to the youngest, a sister, an extraordinary little being,
who had brought with her traces of a wisdom not of the earth, and a
recollection of conditions and surroundings more to her taste than
our jarring household. She talked much of a home that she had had
somewhere, and often wept to go back to it, nor could she ever be
persuaded to call the place in which she found herself home. God knows
how alien and comfortless it must have seemed to her delicate spirit.
When three years old she left us, such was her good fortune. At
least it seemed good to me even then, and when they told me the usual
fanciful tales of wings and a shining heaven, I envied her.
“One by one my sisters and brothers made haste to leave. So eager
were they to get away that some took the first matrimonial boat on
which they could secure passage, and thereby made sad shipwreck of
their lives. How I longed to be loved. When I saw other children
petted and caressed my heart swelled almost to bursting. The result
of my unsatisfied longing was that I took refuge in my imagination
and there lived a life as congenial and blissful as my outside life
was distasteful and miserable. I surrounded myself with imaginary
friends whom I loved and who loved me--charming, agreeable, superior
people--men and women, not children. The misery that prevailed in
our home had taken my childhood from me before I knew I possessed
it. I early learned the solemn truth that ‘each soul in what is most
itself, in what is deepest and nearest, lives alone, and that there
is more loneliness in life than there is communion.’ I, too, like my
little sister, suffered from a strange homesickness of the spirit, a
longing for sympathetic association, for companionship, in short. I
wanted congenial air, ‘that air which may be found everywhere, if we
can find sympathetic souls to breathe it with us, and which is to be
found nowhere without them,--the air of the land of our dreams, of the
country of the ideal.’ Plotinus says ‘Our true country is that from
whence we came.’ It has always seemed to me that far back in the past
I lived somewhere and was happy. Now I am ever searching for the souls
who are in sympathy with me, as in that far-off time. They are my own
people, rather than those to whom I am related by consanguine ties.
They or their counterparts exist somewhere on the earth, I believe, and
the real business of my life is to find them.
“One’s own people! Think of what it would be to dwell among them, where
sympathy met one in every glance, and love made itself felt in every
tone of the voice.
“I was fond of study, was quick to learn, and when only seventeen was
so far advanced that I felt ready to begin life on my own account.
Like the others, I was restless to leave a home which had never been
more than a shelter to me. I had no dreams of marrying, and walking in
the same treadmill in which so many millions of women have worn out
their souls as well as their bodies. I could never see why all women
should spend their lives in cooking and nursing children any more than
why all men should till the soil, which was civilized man’s primal
occupation. I saw, too, very clearly, that women could never be more
than half-fledged mentally, or have any real influence in the world
of affairs so long as they were dependents financially. They must
achieve pecuniary independence before they could hope for wider orbits,
as it were. To get an opportunity to carve my own way in life was my
unceasing wish. So unceasing and earnest was it that it created its
own fulfilment. You may put it down as a great truth, that a desire
held with earnestness, faith and persistence, will bring to the one
who holds it its object. ‘Ask and ye shall receive’ is a law that is
operative everywhere.
“I held myself ready to do whatever I could find that needed doing, but
always in the day-dreams of my future I saw myself a successful painter
and author, because hundreds of beautiful pictures danced before my
mind and begged to be put on canvas, and thousands of thoughts and
fancies flitted through my brain that I longed to share with all who
would hear me.
“I had a gift for drawing, but had advanced as far as I could go
without better instructors than were attainable where I lived. One
thing, however, I had, which was a blessing to my artistic sense and a
solace to my spirit. That was a beautiful landscape to look upon. As
the mental atmosphere of home was always inharmonious I lived outdoors
as much as possible, and from the fine view the location commanded I
extracted much profound pleasure.
“One day I saw an advertisement in a newspaper to the effect that a
lithographer in a little city fifty miles away wanted an assistant whom
he could train to suit his needs. The next day found me face to face
with the advertiser, talking myself up unblushingly. He was surprised,
of course, that a girl whose frocks as yet came no lower than her
ankles, should want to learn an art presumably sacred to men; but after
some hesitation he engaged me, and I found myself launched in life as
an independent, self-supporting factor. It was a proud day for me, I
assure you. To the hardships of the situation I never gave a thought.
The chance to work was the wedge that was to split up the tree of my
future, so I set myself to hammering upon it with might and main.
My pecuniary recompense was microscopical, but even that gave me no
distress. Such as it was I managed to live within it, and look forward
to something better.
“The lithographer’s establishment proved to be very interesting to
me. Some excellent work was done there, and some odd jobs of various
kinds--even the engraving of spoons sometimes--all of which I learned
to do. In fact I learned to do anything and everything there as well
as anybody, and before long received a larger salary, though never
anything very imposing. I considered the time well spent, however, for
I was perfecting myself in drawing, and when out of office studied
languages and read much. I was happy--happier than I had ever been in
my life, for I was out of the wretchedness that prevailed at home, and
was treated with politeness and respect by everybody.
“Among the patrons of our establishment with whom I came in contact was
Mr. Doring. He made no particular impression on me, until an epidemic
came and his three children fell victims to it and died. Then as I
heard considerable talk about his sorrow in the office, I tried to
express my sympathy when next I saw him.
“Nearly a year passed when the community was startled by the
announcement that his wife had died suddenly and suspiciously, and
he had been arrested as her murderer. As in all such cases, some
considered the accusation preposterous, and others believed in it with
vindictive energy, and clamored for his punishment. I was indignant
at their gross cruelty and expressed my opinion freely--too freely, I
was told. He was tried and acquitted, but his acquittal did not set
him right in the eyes of many of his townspeople. They talked over the
circumstances, magnifying all the suspicious indications and inventing
new ones, and they treated him to cuts, contemptuous looks and other
expressions of malevolence, until they almost broke him down. You know
there are human beings who bitterly resent it when a sensation doesn’t
develop into the last phase of the horrible, and of such that town was
largely composed.
“A few days after his acquittal Doring came into our office and thanked
me warmly for my kind expressions of faith in his innocence, of which
it seems he had been told. He looked haggard and ill, and at sight of
him I felt renewed indignation at the cruelty of man to man, and I said
so as earnestly as I could.
“About that time I began to notice something queer in the faces
of people when they talked about Doring to me. I could not read
it clearly, but that it was inimical to me I soon discovered. It
was something they pretended to conceal, yet really wanted to make
conspicuously noticeable. It was a suspicion of a low order, but what?
The man was nothing to me more than any other victim of injustice. What
had I to do with him and his sorrowful affairs?
“I am intuitive and sensitive. As soon as I began to notice this
unspoken suspicion, I began to look guilty. My face flamed red at the
mention of his name or any allusion to the case. You can understand
that, but minds of a lower grade could not. They construed it as a sign
of guilt, yet it was but the knowledge of their offensive thoughts
that embarrassed and unsettled me. To know that I was suspected made
me look confused and guilty. It was always so even when I was a child
at school. If a culprit were sought, I looked like one. You know,
however, that most people are mere surface readers of others, and
nothing in the world is so little understood as a delicate, sensitive,
high spirit. I who was far removed in thought from that of which I was
suspected, crimsoned with horror when I encountered this base suspicion
in the faces of those who harbored it, and it made me self-conscious
and shy when I spoke with Doring himself. In short, it ate into me and
destroyed my peace.
“In a little while the air grew black with it. All pretence of
concealment was abandoned, and significant looks blossomed into speech.
They said Doring and I were infatuated with each other, and that he had
killed his wife in order to be able to marry me, and that I had put him
up to it. The vilest and falsest tales were circulated about us. The
miserable local newspapers printed thinly-veiled insinuations, and fool
friends came and poured abhorrent stories into my ears.
“The brutal malevolence of their lies amazed as well as horrified me.
I could not see what I had done to bring such an avalanche of malice
upon me. You may imagine what I suffered. Alone, and with a heart that
had in it originally nothing but good will for everybody, this cruel
experience almost withered me for life.
“I longed to leave the accursed place which now seemed peopled with
devils. Driven almost to desperation, at last I went forth to find a
spot untainted by the hatred that there had destroyed my peace. I came
here to Gougal’s great engraving house, and with nothing in the way of
help or influence from anybody, asked for employment and got it.--‘Ask
and ye shall receive’ being a true law. Here I have been ever since,
almost happy--at least not miserable.
“But this is not all my story. The difficult part is to come. A few
days before I left Mr. Doring came into the office where I was at work
and told me that he loved me. I was surprised and startled, and yet I
listened gladly, and the story sounded sweet to me. It seemed to me
that I had always loved him, though I don’t know why, for I am sure
I had not thought of it before. We were both victims of unjust and
malicious public opinion, so perhaps it was natural that we turned to
each other for consolation, though I have often wondered since what
it was that suddenly filled my mind with love for a man who, until
that moment was no more to me than any other. Are the words ‘I love
you’ so potent that they can create responsive love? In no sense is
he my ideal, but the feeling that came into life when he spoke those
words to me has dominated me from that hour, though I have never
seen him since that day. I have wondered if he loved me before that
scandal came upon him, and if, in some mysterious way, people found
it out and constructed their tales according to their light on such
situations? Or whether their stories put it into his head, and if so,
through what occult channels was it communicated to me? I am almost
persuaded that it was brought about somehow by the accusations of
the community in which we lived. Somebody put out the suggestion, it
reached his mind and there sprouted, took root and grew until it was
strong enough to transplant a counterpart of itself to mine, for ideas
are transmissible, you know. Ah! if we but knew the mystery of mind we
should know all there is to know, perhaps.
“After I came away, Doring left too. He writes me constantly, and is
now urging me strongly to marry him. I believe that I love him, and
the knowledge that he loves me sustains me. Merely thinking about it
keeps me from being lonely. ’Tis said that love is life; that even the
love of a bird or a dog will keep a human being alive. You and others
have wondered why I am apparently so contented and cheerful and want no
lovers, only good comrades. It is because my heart is anchored.
“And yet I shrink from marrying Doring. It would mean the stirring up
of all the now stagnant pools of scandals. I am content to go on as I
am, for a time at least, finding my joy in the thoughts of being loved;
but he is not willing. He says he has waited long enough--that the
matter must be decided one way or the other very soon. When I think of
giving him up, of putting it all out of my life and plodding on with
nothing to sustain me, I feel that I can’t do it. Unhappily, I am one
of those miserable beings who are loyal by nature and cannot help it
if they would. An affection becomes a part of me, and can’t be put off
without disaster to the whole structure.
“This love has absorbed me to the extent of destroying my ambition to
achieve something excellent with pen or pencil. What dreams have I not
woven around this central idea--dreams impossible of fulfilment, yet
nearly as blissful as reality.
“In a few days Mr. Doring will be here. He has written me that he
intends to come to talk over our future. So you shall see him.”
* * * * *
One evening soon after as Westfield was returning to the house he met
Miss Hill accompanied by a stranger. “It is Doring,” he said, and
his heart sank. Intuitive moments come to all of us, when the hidden
is revealed, when souls stand naked before our eyes, stripped of the
cloaks and without the props which make them fair and imposing to
ordinary perception. Such a moment came to Westfield, and he saw Louis
Doring with an inner sight to which everything was made plain, and as
he looked his face grew white to the lips and his eyes became fixed
and glassy like those of the dead.
“God help her,” he groaned inwardly, as he passed on. “The man is a
fool--a stupid, brainless, flabby character--a dull dolt with regular
features and a straight figure made imposing by the tailor’s skill,
and a selfish heart. Exactly the kind of beast that can dazzle women
as brainless as himself. But how has he bewitched _her_? Why do I ask,
when I know that the destinies of the grandest and sweetest souls, a
grim and perverse fate often rules? The ‘highest suffer most,’ the
‘strongest wander farthest and most hopelessly are lost.’
“How can I bear it? It crucifies me to know that that wax-faced,
tailor-made biped has been carried in her mind as a hero and
worshipped. And now after years of deception he will destroy her whole
life.
“I see how it came about. The scandal invented by the community
suggested it to him--sowed the seeds in both their heads. We live under
the influence of suggestion of one kind or another all the time. What
is the force of public opinion but this on a gigantic scale? The wretch
has sighed and maundered and posed before her about his sufferings
until he awoke her sympathy, and he will hang on to her and will not
give her up because he is attracted by the magnetism of her strength
of character. And she, deluded soul, idealizes him, endows him with
splendid qualities--in short, sees in him that which is in herself.
She will go straight to her destruction, and I can’t save her. Until
I saw him I believed the best of him; but now I _know_ what is before
her if she should marry him. It will be like awaking from a blissful
trance--it will be just that. O my heart of light! O, my tall young
pine! The tragedy of your life is more than I can bear.”
Going hastily to his room he made ready and tore away to the country
for a few days. “I could not endure to see the creature again,” he
said, as his train pulled out of the station.
When he returned everything was going on as usual at the house, yet
nothing was the same to him, nor could it ever be again. He did not
speak of Doring to Miss Hill, but she herself went back to the subject,
chiding him for going away.
“I saw Mr. Doring,” he answered, curtly, “and didn’t like him. You may
think my opinion of him is colored by jealousy, but I am sure it is
not. I hope you will never marry him.”
“Well, I have not yet decided to marry him,” she said.
“If you have not given him up entirely it will end that way at last.
You are merely temporizing with the situation, and it will master you.”
“Probably,” she said, wearily, and then they spoke of it no more.
* * * * *
Not long after, Westfield went away. When he was gone she felt a sense
of desolation new in her experience. He was so good a comrade. Why
had he been so foolish as to leave? Could men and women never be good
comrades--only lovers, or nothing?
* * * * *
The days went on apparently as though there had never been a Westfield,
though the other members of the household thought Miss Hill was not
quite like herself, that perhaps she was fonder of Westfield than she
had believed herself to be, and regretted him. Brooks was strongly
inclined to this opinion, though when he talked with his wife about it
he drubbed Westfield soundly. “Blast the fool,” he said, “what could
she do but let him go, even if she were fond of him? What woman not
an idiot would think of marrying Westfield, who is simply a charming
failure, a penniless, indifferent, intellectual tramp?”
In truth they were half right in their surmises. The old content had
vanished. She missed the intellectual sympathy of Westfield, and Doring
kept her restless with his importunings. She read his letters by the
light of her own integrity, and therefore saw not the rank selfishness
of the writer, who was vain and dull, but persistent to a degree that
made him formidable as a wooer. He had recourse to all the selfish
arguments of little souls. He said he was so perturbed in mind that he
could not get on in anything, consequently in danger of financial ruin,
and hinted darkly at suicide. A crisis had come to her. Forces within
and without were wrestling over her destiny. Unseen hands were pushing
her. At times she determined to marry Doring at all risks, and thus
settle the problem, but the decision did not bring peace, as decisions
should. A sickening sense of imminent disaster followed, and she was at
sea again.
Weeks rolled into months, and the chaotic misery of her mind was making
her look worn and ill. A day came at last in which the genius of her
fate cast the die.
“The pursuit of happiness is a constitutional privilege, even for
women. At least one has the right to choose the particular form of
misery one prefers. Now Fate,” she said, “I am tired. Take you the
reins and guide. What I am to meet, I must meet, and no shrinking or
hesitating will avail against the inevitable.”
And so she too, went away, never to return.