_AFTER THE STORM._
THE painful and unfortunate crises of life often arise and darken
like a thunder-storm, and seem for the moment perfectly terrific and
overwhelming; but wait a little, and the cloud sweeps by, and the
earth, which seemed about to be torn to pieces and destroyed, comes
out as good as new. Not a bird is dead; not a flower killed: and the
sun shines just as he did before. So it was with John’s financial
trouble. When it came to be investigated and looked into, it proved
much less terrible than had been feared. It was not utter ruin. The
high character which John bore for honor and probity, the general
respect which was felt for him by all to whom he stood indebted, led to
an arrangement by which the whole business was put into his hands, and
time given him to work it through. His brother-in-law came to his aid,
advancing money, and entering into the business with him. Our friend
Harry Endicott was only too happy to prove his devotion to Rose by
offers of financial assistance.
In short, there seemed every reason to hope that, after a period of
somewhat close sailing, the property might be brought into clear water
again, and go on even better than before.
To say the truth, too, John was really relieved by that terrible burst
of confidence in his sister. It is a curious fact, that giving full
expression to bitterness of feeling or indignation against one we
love seems to be such a relief, that it always brings a revulsion of
kindliness. John never loved his sister so much as when he heard her
plead his wife’s cause with him; for, though in some bitter, impatient
hour a man may feel, which John did, as if he would be glad to sunder
all ties, and tear himself away from an uncongenial wife, yet a good
man never can forget the woman that once he loved, and who is the
mother of his children. Those sweet, sacred visions and illusions of
first love will return again and again, even after disenchantment; and
the better and the purer the man is, the more sacred is the appeal to
him of woman’s weakness. Because he is strong, and she is weak, he
feels that it would be unmanly to desert her; and, if there ever was
any thing for which John thanked his sister, it was when she went over
and spent hours with his wife, patiently listening to her complainings,
and soothing her as if she had been a petted child. All the circle of
friends, in a like manner, bore with her for his sake.
Thanks to the intervention of Grace’s husband and of Harry, John was
not put to the trial and humiliation of being obliged to sell the
family place, although constrained to live in it under a system of more
rigid economy. Lillie’s mother, although quite a commonplace woman as
a companion, had been an economist in her day; she had known how to
make the most of straitened circumstances, and, being put to it, could
do it again.
To be sure, there was an end of Newport gayeties; for Lillie vowed
and declared that she would not go to Newport and take cheap board,
and live without a carriage. She didn’t want the Follingsbees and the
Tompkinses and the Simpkinses talking about her, and saying that they
had failed. Her mother worked like a servant for her in smartening her
up, and tidying her old dresses, of which one would think that she had
a stock to last for many years. And thus, with everybody sympathizing
with her, and everybody helping her, Lillie subsided into enacting the
part of a patient, persecuted saint. She was touchingly resigned, and
wore an air of pleasing melancholy. John had asked her pardon for all
the hasty words he said to her in the terrible interview; and she had
forgiven him with edifying meekness. “Of course,” she remarked to her
mother, “she knew he would be sorry for the way he had spoken to her;
and she was very glad that he had the grace to confess it.”
So life went on and on with John. He never forgot his sister’s words,
but received them into his heart as a message from his mother in
heaven. From that time, no one could have judged by any word, look, or
action of his that his wife was not what she had always been to him.
Meanwhile Rose was happily married, and settled down in the Ferguson
place; where her husband and she formed one family with her parents. It
was a pleasant, cosey, social, friendly neighborhood. After all, John
found that his cross was not so very heavy to carry, when once he had
made up his mind that it must be borne. By never expecting much, he
was never disappointed. Having made up his mind that he was to serve
and to give without receiving, he did it, and began to find pleasure
in it. By and by, the little Lillie, growing up by her mother’s side,
began to be a compensation for all he had suffered. The little creature
inherited her mother’s beauty, the dazzling delicacy of her complexion,
the abundance of her golden hair; but there had been given to her also
her father’s magnanimous and generous nature. Lillie was a selfish,
exacting mother; and such women often succeed in teaching to their
children patience and self-denial. As soon as the little creature could
walk, she was her father’s constant play-fellow and companion. He took
her with him everywhere. He was never weary of talking with her and
playing with her; and gradually he relieved the mother of all care of
her early training. When, in time, two others were added to the nursery
troop, Lillie became a perfect model of a gracious, motherly, little
older sister.
Did all this patience and devotion of the husband at last awaken any
thing like love in the wife? Lillie was not naturally rich in emotion.
Under the best education and development, she would have been rather
wanting in the loving power; and the whole course of her education had
been directed to suppress what little she had, and to concentrate all
her feelings upon herself.
The factitious and unnatural life she had lived so many years had
seriously undermined the stamina of her constitution; and, after
the birth of her third child, her health failed altogether. Lillie
thus became in time a chronic invalid, exacting, querulous, full of
troubles and wants which tasked the patience of all around her. During
all these trying years, her husband’s faithfulness never faltered.
As he gradually retrieved his circumstances, she was first in every
calculation. Because he knew that here lay his greatest temptation,
here he most rigidly performed his duty. Nothing that money could give
to soften the weariness of sickness was withheld; and John was for
hours and hours, whenever he could spare the time, himself a personal,
assiduous, unwearied attendant in the sick-room.