A DOMESTIC JAR
Mrs. Wylie went back to her home in a very dissatisfied frame of mind.
She mentally scourged herself for having been instrumental in bringing
Mrs. Lucien under Dr. Lyman’s influence. The whole subject was
distasteful to her and she resolved to keep away from Mrs. Lucien as
much as possible in the future. She could not rest, however, until she
had unburdened herself to her husband.
“Horace, I am very sorry we ever met Mrs. Lucien,” she said that evening
as they sat in the quiet of their parlor at the hotel.
“Regret meeting Mrs. Lucien?” Mr. Wylie raised his eyebrows quizzically.
“And why, may I ask? Am I to infer that you do me the honor to be—”
“No, no, of course not. But—I feel that we have done her harm—an
incalculable amount of harm.”
“We do her harm? Will you be so kind as to explain your anomalous words?
I am not accustomed to think of myself as a dangerous character, either
specially or as regards the body-politic,” he replied, frowning.
“I mean that, by our aid, she went to hear Dr. Lyman, and I am afraid
his pernicious theories will ruin her,” faltered Mrs. Wylie, as she
detected her husband’s disapproval.
“My dear, I would have you choose your adjectives more carefully.
Pernicious is an offensive word to use in connection with a subject of
which you know so little. Oblige me by deferring your judgment until you
are better acquainted with the subject. Your blind prejudice is making
you censorious.” Mr. Wylie employed his most lofty tone and manner.
“I never want to know more of the subject, and I shall always regret
that I ever went or took Mrs. Lucien to hear that man!” Mrs. Wylie’s
blue eyes filled with tears.
“Why, see here, Puss, you seem more out of humor than usual. What has
happened to Mrs. Lucien?”
“Matter enough! She is entirely carried away with that—that Dr. Lyman’s
creed,” she stammered.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me where she has gone,” he suggested
with serio-comic gravity.
Mrs. Wylie smiled through her tears.
“O, she is here yet, at least in body, but her mind is up in the clouds
roving around after familiar spirits. She was in some kind of a trance
when I went there to-day, and wrote me a letter purporting to come from
some mystical source.”
“Ah?” Mr. Wylie became interested.
“It didn’t amount to anything. The whole thing was dreadful.”
“Why dreadful? Did you keep the letter?”
“Yes, here it is upon my shopping-tablet.” She detached the ivory
ornament and handed it to him. He studied it carefully, then said:
“And she was unconscious when she wrote this, you say?”
“Yes, apparently.”
“Strange, strange. It is as I thought. Mrs. Lucien will develop into a
writing medium. It is such ethereal natures as hers that are chosen.”
“But, Horace, I cannot endure the thought of such a thing.”
“And why not, pray?” Again his eyebrows were exasperatingly elevated.
“Because there is no good in it. Because it will ruin her, body and
soul. Whoever goes into that belief does so at his peril. He either
becomes insane or helplessly demoralized before many months or years.”
“Where have you learned so much, Mrs. Wylie? It appears to me I have
never seen you so much excited over anything before. Who has been
talking to you?”
“I heard Mr. Smalley’s address at church last Sunday evening, which you
would not go to hear. He said it was a most pernicious and dangerous
theory to follow. That it led to—”
“O, I know. It is the wholesale condemnation of heterodoxy by orthodoxy.
It is believe what I believe or be damned. All else is of the Devil. It
has been the habit of most people since the world began to denounce as
heresy, or ridicule as madness, things too high for their sight or too
deep for their comprehension. But the day has gone by for this sort of
thing. It is merely a confession of ignorance, now-a-days, to assert a
total disbelief in psychic and supernatural phenomena.”
“But, Horace, there is much fraud and trickery connected with it. Think
of that exposé last winter of that Mrs. Brunner.”
“O, that is liable to happen in any creed or theology. There are always
some who make pretensions from merely selfish motives.”
“But, Horace, this is no theology. That is what I think so dreadful
about it. If people would only not make a religion of it and accept the
utterance of the so-called spirits for their guide in spiritual maters.”
“It seems to me spirits should be good guides in spiritual matters,”
said Mr. Wylie, smiling.
“Horace, Mr. Smalley said that, as a rule, false religions always led to
sexual immorality; that we would find the history of spiritism
associated with divorces and worse. Husbands separating from their
wives, wives from their husbands, minds becoming unbalanced, business
neglected, and a general lowering of the whole social fabric, mentally
and morally. You know, Horace, many spiritists are free-lovers.”
“I am surprised that my wife has permitted herself to listen to such
utterances. Hereafter, I prefer you do not go to hear Rev. Mr. Smalley.
I will take you with me.”
“And I will _not_ go with you to any more of those horrid seances!” said
Mrs. Wylie.
“Very well. I shall not compel you to do so. But this childish anger and
lack of self-control is very distasteful to me. I hope I may not have a
repetition of it.” Mr. Wylie arose and left the room, while his wife
threw herself upon a sofa and shed tears of anger and grief over this
experience of marital infelicity.
A small wedge may divide in halves a tree, but when divided no power on
earth can unite them as closely as before; and little cracks in the soil
of home life may form a place for germ deposits in which dissensions,
strife, and all manner of unpleasantness are bred.
Mrs. Wylie would not have confessed to her dearest friends that her life
the succeeding winter was less happy than before, but it was true she
felt a growing estrangement between herself and husband.
He was, possibly, as kind and indulgent as ever, treating her as a fond
parent might treat a wayward child, but she missed the old-time
confidences and evening talks.
Probably there had never been that true unity of soul with soul that
should constitute the real marriage, but Elinor Wylie’s husband had
always seemed so proud of her, and fond, that until this winter she had
felt no lack in his affection. But, alas, so small a thing will turn and
divide a shallow stream, and when turned, how far apart the separate
branches may run. And the ideal marriage of true unity of thought and
purpose is so rarely consummated. Hence the world of divided lives.
Mrs. Wylie felt that they were drifting away from each other, and every
wife knows what that may be. To feel the division growing wider and
wider, deeper and more impassable, and be impotent to stop it.
The little coolnesses and differences which are at first made up with
kisses of cementing power grow more frequent and bitter. The endearing
word is less frequently given. By and by the good-by kiss is forgotten
when he leaves her, the salute of greeting omitted when he returns, and
each heart grows harder and harder, bitterer and bitterer, until at last
he thinks of her but to censure and condemn, she of him but to dislike
and fear. And finally, as Byron writes, “Hating one another, wishing one
another dead, they live respectably as man and wife.”
Only the first act of this drama of life had as yet come to Mrs. Wylie,
but the little imp of unrest had crept into her breast, and the quiet
happiness of other days was no more. Horace Wylie spent less time at
home than formerly, and when there buried himself in books and papers,
and thus the little woman was left much to herself to seek pleasure and
excitement where she could.
The one thing which caused Mrs. Wylie more heart-ache than any other was
her husband’s growing interest and adherence to the creed of Dr. Lyman.
Although that subject was tabooed between them, she knew he regularly
attended seances during the winter and no longer even asked her to
accompany him.
Mrs. Wylie was grievously disappointed in Mrs. Lucien and went less
frequently to see her, for she knew her friend had been led into giving
public seances, and as a writing medium and psychometrist was being much
talked of in the city and sought after by a certain set, many of whom
Mrs. Wylie felt she would not care to acknowledge as acquaintances,
although they belonged to a psychical society or club of which Mr. Wylie
was a member. This club had made much of Mrs. Lucien and brought her
before the public.
Hence, Mrs. Wylie, being left to her own resources, went more in
society, was gayer, more extravagant and fashionable than ever, and
little Robert was left more and more to the care of the remarkable
Tibby.
Tibby grew and waxed beautiful, and became more and more a fact and
factor in Mr. Wylie’s household. She was no longer only nurse to the
child, but companion and friend to Mrs. Wylie. It was Tibby’s fingers
that brushed away the headache brought on by social dissipation. It was
Tibby’s sympathy and advice that soothed away the little vexations that
sometimes distressed her mistress. Mrs. Wylie would as soon have thought
of giving up little Robert as this Tibby who had grown into her heart
and love. Even Mr. Wylie was not insensible to the charm of her
presence. He began to treat her more as a daughter of the house and
indulge her in any whim or fanciful taste she might entertain.
Truly, Tibby was in a fair way to become spoiled, according to his
earlier theories; but Mr. Wylie seemed to have forgotten those early
fears, and now helped in the spoiling.
And thus, when Mr. Wylie’s business required his removal to the Pacific
slope, Tibby went with this family of her adoption, secure in her
present and future needs.
And there, among strangers and strange scenes she was known as the
adopted daughter of the wealthy Mr. Wylie. Teachers were procured for
her, and a broader culture and further accomplishments were added to the
native graces of our little country girl.
Tom and Bess became pleasant memories of that past which now seemed to
Tibby so far away, and though she laughed and shed tears occasionally
over their misspelled and somewhat illegible letters, she no longer
pined for the companions of her childhood.