with pink satin ribbon, and heavy gold bracelets on her arms, bare
to the elbow. The other brides wore walking suits and bonnets, with
the exception of one, whose gown was of rich brocade, and whose
supercilious face was set off by the most unapproachable coiffure
Amanda had ever seen.
She had quick perceptions, and was keenly alive to any defect in her
own appearance, and in ten minutes she suffered all the agony that
would be felt by a finished woman of the world who had inadvertently
worn full dress to a reception demanding bonnets. Yet, to the first
test her metal rang true. With heightened color she went through the
form of dining, and Vivian, whose sensibilities were as keen as hers
and whose self-love was greater, took note of certain differences
between his young wife and the other women, and felt himself aggrieved
by her lack of taste. It was too soon, and he was too tender toward her
for him to betray intentionally this slight annoyance. But an admitted
cause of irritation is like the first rip in one's apparel; every
movement that touches the rent extends it until the garment falls into
rags.
Vivian had permitted himself the latitude of secret fault-finding, and
from this to the next step it was easy.
Their first quarrel came within a week. The wonder is not that it came
so soon, but that it was deferred so long. Yet, the immediate cause
was absurdly trivial. They had arranged to drive to Clairmont and lunch
in company with some friends of Vivian. But when the morning came he
felt averse to carrying out the program. Perhaps his head ached, or he
had slept ill, or the discovery that his trunk key was missing annoyed
him unduly. But anyway he was out of tone.
One o'clock found him stretched out on the couch in their room yawning
discontentedly over the _Herald_. Amanda, flitting about, suddenly
became aware when her toilet was half made that he had not begun to get
ready.
"If you don't hurry up I'll go off and leave you--lazy fellow!" she
cried. "They talk about women being always the ones to keep people
waiting. I'm sure it's the other way. I'm always ready for everything
before you."
"I'm not going," said Vivian abruptly, directing a scowl toward the
wall paper.
They had now been married eight days. A certain French author, renowned
for his biting epigrams, remarks: "I do not believe there ever was a
marriage in the world, even the union of a tiger and a panther, which
would not pretend to perfect happiness for at least fifteen days after
the marriage ceremony."
In this case was neither tiger nor panther; only a young man who had
always lorded it prettily over the women in his family, and a girl
who had been brought up to expect much deference. Perhaps in France
it might have taken fifteen days for the glamour to wear off. But in
America emotions exhaust themselves rapidly. Amanda, standing with one
gloved hand stretched out before her, seemingly intent upon fastening
the buttons, had begun to reflect.
"You ain't well," she observed coldly. "Probably you ate too much pie
last night."
Now, among the trifles that grate upon the masculine mind, is having an
indisposition referred to gastronomic indulgence. At such times a man
is apt to consider that a wife but poorly replaces a mother.
"Amanda, I wish you would learn that all varieties of pastry don't
come under the head of 'pie.' And I wish you wouldn't say 'ain't.' It's
deucedly countrified."
"Oh," said Amanda. She deliberately took off her gloves and hat, and
sat down upon an ottoman near the couch. Her color had arisen, and
her black eyes had an ominous sparkle. "Is there anything else you
wish?" She asked this aggressively. Her tone suggested that she had
not forgotten that episode of the fight in the barn that lay a dozen
years back. She was quite as ready to stand upon the defensive now as
she had been then. But when women stand sentinel their guns go off
inadvertently.
"I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself, Vivian Thomas!" then
said Amanda. She felt that he ought to be ashamed; that his display
of petulance had occurred at least a fortnight too soon; that aside
from the general fact that she was in the right, as usual, he had put
himself in the exceptional attitude of ill-treating a bride and trying
to spoil her pleasure during the tour avowedly taken to give her
pleasure.
"What of?" asked Vivian, shutting his eyes.
"Of the way you're acting," promptly answered Amanda. "If you were a
little boy you'd deserve a whipping. As you're supposed to be a man----"
"Only supposed to be?" sarcastically put in the depreciated young
gentleman.
"Well, _act_ like a man, then!" said Amanda in a biting tone.
"You're acting like a shrew," he returned, not entirely without reason,
for the girl-wife had worked herself up to quite a pretty rage. Yet, as
is plain, the blame was his, and in his heart he knew it. But since he
had evoked a display of temper he had a mind to bring her to the stool
of repentance. As well now as later.
Amanda, upon her side was reminded that Vivian's mother had spoiled
him, and she fancied that the time had come for her to establish the
supremacy over him that was essential to the happiness of both. So
mixed are the motives that direct any one of our actions that it is
possible there lay side by side with this lofty determination of the
spirited young woman a wish to prove her husband; to find out if he had
strength of character sufficient to hold his own against her and bring
her to the point he evidently aimed toward, of coaxing him into good
humor. There was no suggestion of any such weakness in her next words.
"It's no use to talk sense to you," she remarked, as if considering
ways and means. "Because you haven't got common sense. Ma always said
that."
One can pardon reproaches provoked by the occasion, but a deliberate
accusation delivered at second hand has the weight of society behind
it. And the affront was the greater in this instance, in that Vivian
had considered "Aunt Nellie" his firm friend. He turned a trifle pale,
and rising to his feet began walking slowly up and down the floor.
After a few strides he paused in front of Amanda and said:
"I guess your mother was right--if she meant I hadn't good sense when I
wanted to marry you. I don't know as I've ever shown myself much of a
fool, otherwise."
And then--it was only eight days since the ceremony, and they were both
so young--somehow the quarrel died out, and they patched up a peace,
and went to Clairmont after all, in a great hurry, and with spirits
considerably ruffled. But neither of them enjoyed the day.
After that a great many things went wrong. There was money enough to
pay their expenses for a month or so, but none to waste; and they
wasted it. Accustomed to the use of carriages, as a matter of course
neither of them thought of economizing in this line, until confronted
with an appalling livery-bill. They did not know how to order a
dinner _à la carte_, until they learned by costly experience, and the
fees they bestowed upon the servants, although seemingly a trifle at
the time, were matters of grave moment when the sum total of their
expenditures for the month came under discussion.
It had been the plan to remain away six weeks, but upon the thirtieth
day Vivian came up to his wife, who was talking with some other
ladies upon the porch of the Grand Union Hotel--they were then at
Saratoga--and said abruptly:
"Dear, can I speak with you a minute?"
Rather alarmed, Amanda accompanied him to a retired spot, and put
herself in a listening attitude. It was an awkward minute for Vivian.
He was the soul of generosity, and nothing gratified him more than to
give to others pleasure, when it cost him no effort. Yet here he was
in a deuce of a hole, and under the necessity of making a humiliating
explanation to the person whom of all others he found it hard to
confess to.
"Well?" said Amanda, rather impatiently, as he fidgeted about without
saying anything.
"Well, my--dearest," said poor Vivian, with pathos, turning out an
empty pocket, "we are in a fix. We've spent money a little too fast,
and have only this left!" And he held up to view a five-dollar bill,
and two silver quarters.
Amanda gave a gasp, and then collected her mental forces. She had a
fund of practical common sense in her nature, and now when she summoned
it for the first time it responded to call. The first impression her
husband's confidence made upon her was to arouse a slight contempt, not
attended to at the instant, but unconsciously stored away to be used on
other occasions. When our friends gracefully ignore our blunders and
follies is it to be supposed that they have really been blind to what
they gave no evidence of perceiving? As well hope that the stone we
flung into the wayside stream was totally lost when the ripples ceased,
and that it found no home in the bed beneath.
"I have some money," said Amanda, hastily. "Do we owe for hotel bills?"
"No, I've just settled up everything. It was that opened my eyes. I had
no idea I was so nearly broke."
"Then we can get home--I reckon--if we start right off. I have fifty
dollars that mother gave me, the last thing. For 'extras,' she said.
Perhaps she meant this."
She could not help the little fling. It was too hard to use this money,
which she had reserved for a special purpose.
Vivian bit his lip and turned his back for a moment; but what was the
use of making a fuss now? He was thankful upon the whole to get out
of a bad scrape. It wouldn't be Amanda if she didn't say something
unpleasant.
Ah, Vivian, has it come to this already? It seems the scars of certain
little passages at arms have not faded away.
Upon a warm, sunshiny day in June they came home. Benvenew was in
order, owing to the efforts of the two mothers, and Mrs. Powell's
four-seated wagon was waiting at the little station, and her genial
face smiled a welcome from the back seat.
"Darling mother!" murmured Amanda, yielding to the clasp of her
mother's arms, and for one instant feeling as if the past month with
its bewildering experiences, was all a wild dream, and she a child
again, careless, irresponsible, and light hearted. The familiar sights,
of which she had been weary not long ago, were charming; the smiles
and nods from people they met warmed a heart that had been chilled and
affrighted many times since she had left her Virginia home. Here, in
her own clime, she was a princess, with friends to love her and listen
to her with respect and sympathy.
They forded a stream and came to the old mill, standing half-buried
in the marsh. Part of the roof was off and the rank, clambering vine
of the wild grape had reached up and hung over the sides in graceful
festoons. Their appearance started up a number of yellow butterflies
that had been fluttering over the stream, and now rose in the air like
a shower of golden sparks.
"How beautiful it all is," said Amanda. "I am glad to be home again.
But where is Alex taking us?"
"To Benvenew, of course," Mrs. Powell answered. "Why, Mandy, dear,
didn't you want to go right there, or would you ruther go home fur
to-night? We thought probably you'd both prefer--but the laws knows I'd
be glad to have you both come back with me."
"Why, ma, I forgot!" said Amanda. "And so I'm to begin my housekeeping
right off. I don't know enough about it to take care of that big place."
"You'll have Ellen Digby to cook," said Mrs. Powell anxiously, "and
little Admonia."
"Admonia!" exclaimed Vivian, looking around in some indignation from
the front seat. "I can't have that harum-scarum creature on the place."
"You know Ellen really is a good servant," Mrs. Powell explained,
apologetically. "And she won't come without the child. Admonia's twelve
now, and she's really not so bad. She can be trained. There wasn't
anybody else we could lay hands on."
"Never mind, ma, Admonia 'll do well enough," interposed Amanda. "She's
a funny little thing, and I rather like her."
"Ex--actly!" Vivian observed, with an accent lately acquired. "I
imagine Amanda training anybody."
We all have our secret pet vanities which undiscriminating persons,
seeing only our surface beauties, are perpetually wounding. Amanda's
vanity was a wish to be acknowledged sensible and practical. Beautiful,
she knew herself to be, and to hear of that was an old story; but her
executive ability was not yet proved, and she was very sensitive upon
this point. And herein Vivian blundered. It did not occur to him that
he hurt her feelings by depreciating her executive powers. He had been
used to regarding her as a pretty play-thing, something to be petted
and disciplined alternately. That she had an ambition to be something
more was what he had not yet discovered. Perhaps the idea was one
that he would have to blindly grope his way toward; for "we can only
comprehend that of which we have the beginnings in ourselves," and in
the handsome, suave, popular young Virginian the germ of common sense
and good judgment was small; so very much smaller than his little world
believed it to be.
"Mandy is a leetle apt to spoil the young niggers," said her
peace-making mother. "But then she wuz always so powerful fond o'
children."
Amanda patted her mother's shoulder, while a far-away look came into
her eyes as she fixed them on a distant hill, where the newly plowed
earth lay darkly red against the tender sky-tints, and the sun swept
down upon one spot, covered with young wheat, and spread over it like
the caressing touch of a golden hand.
She was passionately fond of children--this fiery, tender-hearted
woman, who showed so many prickles to the grown people who approached
her incautiously. And Vivian was not. So much the more diplomatic,
so much the more polished, so full of gentleness toward women and
forbearance toward their troublesome little ones--was it possible that
it was he who failed in patience and kindness, and the forward Amanda
who must be credited with the possession of both, when helpless hands
were stretched out toward her? Fauquier County would have shaken its
head over such a question. Fauquier County said that Vivian Thomas was
the mildest and best humored young man in the world except when things
happened that he had a right to be angry about; but that Amanda Powell
was rather too spunky and high-strung for any man except a saint to
get along with peaceably. For her mother's sake--and also, a little in
spite of its preternaturally wise judgment--for the sake of certain
winning ways of her own, the county people liked her; but Vivian, they
adored.
And so, overshadowed by this disadvantage, of which she was not quite
unconscious, the young wife descended from the wagon, helped out as
gracefully and tenderly as he had helped her out of another vehicle the
day we first saw her, by her courteous husband, and entered the door of
her new home.
The first person they laid eyes upon was the shock-headed, wild-eyed
little creature called Admonia, who dropped a flower-pot she was
carrying through the hall, and without stopping to pick up the pieces,
raced to the kitchen, shouting:
"Mis' Mandy and Mr. Vivian done come home, fur shore! Whoopy! Ain't I
glad! Now, we'uns gwine ter have times!"
Admonia was a prophet.
II.
"ADMONIA!" called a woman's voice, and in a twinkling the owner
followed and stopped in the last one of the long row of outbuildings
that spread beyond the dining-room of Benvenew.
It was a mere shed, enclosed on three sides and open at the end, the
sky showing through holes in the roof. The rough boarding that answered
for a floor was broken in many places, and dirt and confusion reigned
everywhere. Upon a stool sat a shock-headed, wild-eyed darkey girl
of twenty or so, plucking the feathers from a couple of fowls, and
throwing them upon the floor. Her heavy under-lip fell and her eyes
rolled as the imperative tones of her mistress smote upon her ear, and
she arose quickly, a cloud of feathers falling from her unspeakably
dirty dress, and stood dangling a half plucked fowl, her dark brown
face so immersed in gloom that all the features seemed to have run
together, the whites of her eyes and her broad yellow teeth giving her
the appearance of a bank of much soiled and partly melted snow.
"Admonia," said her mistress, pausing in the doorway, "where is Nellie?"
"Laws, Mis' Mandy, I dunno. I hain't saw de chile sence Mr. Thomas tuk
her."
"When was that?" Amanda's voice had a peculiar ring which the girl
recognized, and knew the cause of. Her dusky face softened into an
expression of sympathy, and with the fluency of her race she uttered
the first consoling thought that came into her head.
"Now, Mis' Mandy, honey, don' yo' tak' on--li'le Nellie she all safe
'nuff; her pa done tak' her wid him up ter he room on'y lettle bit ago.
She was pesterin' him ter show her de stuffed owl what he done brung
home frum Ryburg, an' he jes tuk her wid him ter show her. He--he all
right, Mis' Mandy."
The last sentence was spoken in a lower tone, and the harum-scarum
girl, whom everyone except her mother and her mistress considered
irreclaimably rough and wild, averted her eyes from Amanda's pale face,
and sitting down again began industriously plucking her fowls.
Without another word, but with one sharply indrawn breath that left her
lips white, Amanda entered the house and ascended the stairs. As she
drew near a rear room on the second floor sounds reached her ear that
brought a flaming color into her cheeks and made her hasten her steps.
The frightened, sobbing tones of a little child came from behind the
closed door of her husband's room, mingled with a half articulate but
apparently angry growl of a deep masculine voice.
Amanda turned the handle of the door with an expression that boded
ill for the person who had evoked it. The door resisted her pressure.
It was locked. Then, in a second, all the smouldering anxiety of the
mother's heart leaped into furious flame.
"Open this door!" she commanded. There was no answer. The sobbing
ceased.
"Mother!" called the child.
Amanda shook the door and pushed against it with all her strength.
"Open this door, or I'll break it down!" So her grandfather might have
thundered out an order to some refractory sailor on board his own good
ship. The only reply was an oath. The man in his sober senses addressed
by any one, especially a woman, in such a manner, must have been mild
indeed, had he refrained from swearing. But a mother, maddened by such
fears as lacerated this woman's heart, takes nothing into account
but her own feelings. With swift steps she turned into her own room,
brought thence a large and heavy hammer and gave the door the strongest
blow her arms were capable of throwing against it. Another--and
another. The lock yielded, and Amanda, holding the hammer under her
left arm, flew into the room.
Could anything excuse or justify such violence in a wife? Would not
the man who had met force with force and turning upon her, knocked
her down, have been not only cleared but applauded by any court in a
Christian country? And in Virginia, of all other places, the laws are
made for the protection of men; and public sentiment is in harmony with
the State's code.
Vivian Thomas must then either be despised by those of us who see him
leaning against the wardrobe in a passive attitude, while the woman
who had vowed to love, honor, and obey him, ten years before, effected
this headlong entrance into his own sacred stronghold, or he must be
considered a saint, enduring with superhuman patience the tantrums of
a domineering wife. The critic may take his choice of opinions; only,
let us note that the handsome man now averting his eyes from Amanda's
scorching glance is not exactly the frank, fresh-looking fellow who
brought his young bride to Benvenew. All the graceful bearing, the
nobility of outline, and that indescribable beauty Nature confers upon
her favorite sons, are still here. The silky brown mustache droops over
sensitive red lips with tender, downward curves; the white brow is
placid, and the nostrils delicate and fine. But the entire effect is
different. A slight alteration of a few details has changed everything.
The dark eyes have faded to a dull hazel, and the whites have taken on
a yellowish tinge. The cheeks have rather too much color, the flush
extending to the nose. In a word, Vivian's countenance, while retaining
the refinement that seems a part of the very flesh of some organisms
and independent of those shaping forces that ennoble or mar the faces
of most people, betrayed some deterioration of the whole man.
He seemed rather embarrassed than enraged as Amanda, panting from her
exertions and trembling from the terrible tension of her nerves, swept
past him and picked up a little girl cowering in the corner.
Without staying for another look or word she clasped the child in her
arms and left the room; the very atmosphere charged with the contempt
that emanated from her haughty spirit and which Vivian felt, even in
his dulled condition, to the core of his being.
She carried the little girl to her own room, and with hurried motions
bathed her face, changed her dress, and put on her hat and cloak, all
the while uttering low, endearing words, and pressing tender kisses on
the little upturned face which was lovely as an angel's, with great,
dark eyes looking out from a thicket of golden-brown curls.
"Are we going to grandma's, mother?" Nellie asked, as Amanda changed
her wrapper for a black silk dress and took up her bonnet and gloves.
Once before, about a year ago, after a scene between father and mother,
which had deeply impressed itself upon the child's memory, she had
been taken in the carriage to her grandmother's, and had remained
there a week, her mother with her. It had been a week of rare delight,
shadowed only by two things: her grandmother's remarkable gravity, and
the indisposition of her adored mother.
"Yes, darling," Amanda answered hastily, as she threw some things into
a satchel and arising from her kneeling posture before a chest of
drawers, left the room with her child, locking the door behind her.
They went straight to the barn, where Amanda hitched up old Queenie,
her own horse, to a rickety old phaeton, and drove out into the yard,
Admonia holding the gate open and sniffling audibly as she muttered:
"Goo'bye, Mis' Mandy; goo'bye, li'le Nellie. Wish't I wuz gwine wif ye,
so I does."
"Be a good girl, Admonia," said her mistress, bending down and giving
the black hand a cordial shake. "Look after things as well as you can.
You and your mother are all I have to depend on now, you know, since
Pete is gone."
"Good-bye, Admonia!" called Nellie's liquid tones. "Please take care of
my Bantam hen!"
With the blessed elasticity of childhood she had already partly
recovered from the distress of the morning, and was able to entertain
charming visions of the pleasure before her. But although there is in
a child a superficial light-heartedness, so that we are led to flatter
ourselves that its woes are soon over, it is certain that injuries
inflicted in the spirit of injustice, sink deeply into the soul, and
not through inability to forgive, but through inability to forget,
the young heart once wounded in the tender spot of confidence, never
again can put forth vigorous shoots of affection toward the person
who has affronted it. Strange as it seemed to the world that in after
years Vivian Thomas' fondness for his daughter never evoked in her any
corresponding demonstration, valid reason might have been found by one
acquainted with the experience of this and other mornings, why Nellie
always listened to the praises bestowed upon her popular parent with
a pensive smile, and why, in her dutiful attention to him, there was
a reserve and hesitancy widely different from the cordiality of a
relation free from doubt and fear.
Mrs. Powell met them on the front porch. She had on her sun-bonnet and
gardening-gloves, and behind her stalked Alex, armed with her rake
and hoe, his features expressing the contempt of his stronger nature
for the woman's tools he carried, tempered with a respectful sort of
indulgence toward the fancies of the best woman in the world.
Ten years had passed lightly over Mrs. Powell's fair countenance. At
sixty she was a handsome and vigorous old lady, the wear and tear of
life, felt only through sympathy with the troubles of others, showing
mainly in a thinning of the silver curls over her temples, and a few
lines about her true, mild, blue eyes.