_Grace_.

And fortunate to have an advocate

Across whose memory convenient clouds

Come floating at convenient intervals.

The harvest fields that man has honored most

Are those where human life is reaped like grain.

There never rose a mart, nor shone a sail,

Nor sprang a great invention into birth,

By other motive than man's love of gold.

It is for wrong that he is eloquent;

For lust that he indites his sweetest songs.

Christ was betrayed by treason of a man,

And scourged and hung upon a tree by men;

And the sad women who were at his cross,

And sought him early at the sepulcher,

And since that day, in gentle multitudes

Have loved and followed him, have been man's slaves,--

The victims of his power and his desire.

_Mary_.

And you, a wedded wife-well wedded, too,

Can say all this, and say it bitterly!

_Grace_.

Perhaps because a wife; perhaps because--

_Mary_.

Hush, Grace! No more! I beg you, say no more.

Nay! I will leave you at another word;

For I could listen to a blasphemy,

Falling from bestial lips, with lighter chill

Than to the mad complainings of a soul

Which God has favored as he favors few.

I dare not listen when a woman's voice,

Which blessings strive to smother, flings them off

In mad contempt. I dare not hear the words

Whose utterance all the gentle loves dissuade

By kisses which are reasons, while a throng

Of friendships, comforts, and sweet charities--

The almoners of the All-Bountiful--

With folded wings stand sadly looking on.

Believe me, Grace, the pioneer of judgment--

Ordained, commissioned--is Ingratitude;

For where it moves, good withers; blessings die;

Till a clean path is left for Providence,

Who never sows a good the second time

Till the torn bosom of the graceless soil

Is ready for the seed.

_Grace_.

Oh, could you know

The anguish of my heart, you would not chide!

If I repine, it is because my lot

Is not the blessed thing it seems to you.

O Mary! Could you know! Could you but know!

_Mary_.

Then why not tell me all? You know me, love.

And know that secrets make their graves with me.

So, tell me all; for I do promise you

Such sympathy as God through suffering

Has given me power to grant to such as you.

I bought it dearly, and its largess waits

The opening of your heart.

_Grace_.

I am ashamed,--

In truth I am ashamed--to tell you all.

You will not laugh at me?

_Mary_.

I laugh at you?

_Grace_.

Forgive me, Mary, for my heart is weak;

Distrustful of itself and all the world.

Ah, well! To what strange issues leads our life!

It seems but yesterday that you were brought

To this old house, an orphaned little girl,

Whose large shy eyes, pale cheeks, and shrinking ways

Filled all our hearts with wonder, as we stood

And stared at you, until your heart o'erfilled

With the oppressive strangeness, and you wept.

Yes, I remember how I pitied you--

I who had never wept, nor even sighed,

Save on the bosom of my gentle mother;

For my quick heart caught all your history

When with a hurried step you sought the sun,

And pressed your eyes against the windowpane

That God's sweet light might dry them. Well I knew

Though all untaught, that you were motherless.

And I remember how I followed you,--

Embraced and kissed you--kissed your tears away--

Tears that came faster, till they bathed the lips

That would have sealed their flooded fountain-heads;

And then we wound our arms around each other,

And passed out-out under the pleasant sky,

And stood among the lilies at the door.

I gave no formal comfort; you, no thanks;

For tears had been your language, kisses mine,

And we were friends. We talked about our dolls,

And all the pretty playthings we possessed.

Then we revealed, with childish vanity,

Our little stores of knowledge. I was full

Of a sweet marvel when you pointed out

The yellow thighs of bees that, half asleep,

Plundered the secrets of the lily-bells,

And called the golden pigment honeycomb.

And your black eyes were opened very wide

When I related how, one sunny day,

I found a well, half covered, down the lane,

That was so deep and clear that I could see

Straight through the world, into another sky!

_Mary_.

Do you remember how the Guinea hens

Set up a scream upon the garden wall,

That frightened me to running, when you screamed

With laughter quite as loud?

_Grace_.

Aye, very well;

But better still the scene that followed all.

Oh, that has lingered in my memory

Like that divinest dream of Raphael--

The Dresden virgin prisoned in a print--

That watched with me in sickness through long weeks,

And from its frame upon the chamber-wall

Breathed constant benedictions, till I learned

To love the presence like a Roman saint.

My mother called us in; and at her knee,

Embracing still, we stood, and felt her smile

Shine on our upturned faces like the light

Of the soft summer moon. And then she stooped;

And when she kissed us, I could see the tears

Brimming her eyes. O sweet experiment!

To try if love of Jesus and of me

Could make our kisses equal to her lips!

Then straight my prescient heart set up a song,

And fluttered in my bosom like a bird.

I knew a blessing was about to fall,

As robins know the coming of the rain,

And bruit the joyous secret, ere its steps

Are heard upon the mountain tops. I knew

You were to be my sister; and my heart

Was almost bursting with its love and pride.

I could not wait to hear the kindly words

Our mother spoke--her counsels and commands--

For you were mine--my sister! So I tore

Your clinging hand from hers with rude constraint,

And took you to my chamber, where I played

With you, in selfish sense of property,

The whole bright afternoon.

And here again,

Within this same old chamber we are met.

We told our secrets to each other then;

Thus let us tell them now; and you shall be

To my grief-burdened soul what you have said,

So many times that I have been to yours.

_Mary_.

Alas! I never meant to tell my tale

To other ear than God's; but you have claims

Upon my confidence,--claims just rehearsed,

And other claims which you have never known.

_Grace_.

And other claims which I have never known!

You speak in riddles, love. I only know

You grew to womanhood, were beautiful,

Were loved and wooed, were married and were blest;--

That after passage of mysterious years

We heard sad stories of your misery,

And rumors of desertion; but your pen

Revealed no secrets of your altered life.

Enough for me that you are here to-night,

And have an ear for sorrow, and a heart

Which disappointment has inhabited.

My history you know. A twelvemonth since

This fearful, festive night, and in this house,

I gave my hand to one whom I believed

To be the noblest man God ever made;--

A man who seemed to my infatuate heart

Heaven's chosen genius, through whose tuneful soul

The choicest harmonies of life should flow,

Growing articulate upon his lips

In numbers to enchant a willing world.

I cannot tell you of the pride that filled

My bosom, as I marked his manly form,

And read his soul through his effulgent eyes,

And heard the wondrous music of his voice,

That swept the chords of feeling in all hearts

With such a divine persuasion as might grow

Under the transit of an angel's hand.

And, then, to think that I, a farmer's child,

Should be the woman culled from all the world

To be that man's companion,--to abide

The nearest soul to such a soul--to sit

Close by the fountain of his peerless life--

The welling center of his loving thoughts--

And drink, myself, the sweetest and the best,--

To lay my head upon his breast, and feel

That of all precious burdens it had borne

That was most precious--Oh! my heart was wild

With the delirium of happiness--

But, Mary, you are weeping!

_Mary_.

Mark it not.

Your words wake memories which you may guess,

And thoughts which you may sometime know--not now.

_Grace_.

Well, we were married, as I said; and I

Was not unthankful utterly, I think;

Though, if the awful question had come then,

And stood before me with a brow severe

And steady finger, bidding me decide

Which of the two I loved the more, the God

Who gave my husband to me, or his gift,

I know I should have groaned, and shut my eyes.

We passed a honeymoon whose atmosphere,

Flooded with inspiration, and embraced

By a wide sky set full of starry thoughts,

And constellated visions of delight,

Still wraps me in my dreams--itself a dream.

The full moon waned at last, and in my sky,

With horn inverted, gave its sign of tears;

And then, when wasted to a skeleton,

It sank into a heaving sea of tears

That caught its tumult from my sighing soul.

My husband, who had spent whole months with me,

Till he was wedded to my every thought,

Left me through dreary hours,--nay, days,--alone!

He pleaded business--business day and night;

Leaving me with a formal kiss at morn,

And meeting me with strange reserve at eve;

And I could mark the sea of tenderness

Upon whose beach I had sat down for life,

Hoping to feel for ever, as at first,

The love-breeze from its billows, and to clasp

With open arms the silver surf that ran

To wreck itself upon my bosom, ebb,

Day after day receding, till the sand

Grew dry and hot, and the old hulls appeared

Of hopes sent out upon that faithless main

Since woman loved, and he she loved was false.

Night after night I sat the evening out,

And heard the clock tick on the mantel-tree

Till it grew irksome to me, and I grudged

The careless pleasures of the kitchen maids

Whose distant laughter shocked the lapsing hours.

_Mary_.

But did your husband never tell the cause

Of this neglect?

_Grace_.

Never an honest word.

He told me he was writing; and, at home,

Sat down with heart absorbed and absent look.

I was offended, and upbraided him.

I knew he had a secret, and that from

The center of its closely coiling folds

A cunning serpent's head, with forked tongue,

Swayed with a double story--one for me,

And one for whom I knew not--whom he knew.

His words, which wandered first as carelessly

As the free footsteps of a boy, were trained

To the stern paces of a sentinel

Guarding a prison door, and never tripped

With a suggestion.

I despaired at last

Of winning what I sought by wiles and prayers;

So, through long nights of sleeplessness I lay,

And held my ear beside his silent lips--

An eager cup--ready to catch the gush

Of the pent waters, if a dream-swung rod

Should smite his bosom. It was all in vain.

And thus months passed away, and all the while

Another heart was beating under mine.

May Heaven forgive me! but I grieved the charms

The unborn thing was stealing, for I felt

That in my insufficiency of power

I had no charm to lose.

_Mary_.

And he did not,

In this most tender trial of your heart,

Turn in relenting?--give you sympathy?

_Grace_.

No--yes! Perhaps he pitied me, and that

Indeed was very pitiful; for what

Has love to do with pity? When a wife

Has sunk so hopelessly in the regard

Of him she loves that he can pity her,--

Has sunk so low that she may only share

The tribute which a mute humanity

Bestows on those whom Providence has struck

With helpless poverty, or foul disease;

She may he pitied, both by earth and heaven,

Because he pities her. A pitied child

That begs its bread from door to door is blest;

A wife who begs for love and confidence,

And gets but alms from pity, is accurst.

Well, time passed on; and rumor came at last

To tell the story of my husband's shame

And my dishonor. He was seen at night,

Walking in lonely streets with one whose eyes

Were blacker than the night,--whose little hand

Was clinging to his arm. Both were absorbed

In the half-whispered converse of the time;

And both, as if accustomed to the path,

Turned down an alley, climbed a flight of steps,

Entered a door, and closed it after them--

A door of adamant 'twixt hope and me.

I had my secret; and I kept it, too.

I knew his haunt, and it was watched for me,

Till doubt and prayers for doubt,--pale flowers

I nourished with my tears--were crushed

By the relentless hand of Certainty.

Oh, Mary! Mary! Those were fearful days.

My wrongs and all their shameful history

Were opened to me daily, leaf by leaf,

Though he had only shown their title-page:

That page was his; the rest were in my heart.

I knew that he had left my home for hers;

I knew his nightly labor was to feed

Other than me;--that he was loaded down

With cares that were the price of sinful love.

_Mary_.

Grace, in your heart do you believe all this?

I fear--I know--you do your husband wrong.

He is not competent for treachery.

He is too good, too noble, to desert

The woman whom he only loves too well.

You love him not!

_Grace_.

I love him not? Alas!

I am more angry with myself than him

That, spite his falsehood to his marriage vows,

And spite my hate, I love the traitor still.

I love him not? Why am I here to-night--

Here where my girlhood's withered hopes are strewn

Through every room for him to trample on--

But in my pride to show him to you all,

With the dear child that publishes a love

That blessed me once, e'en if it curse me now?

You know I do my husband wrong! You think,

Because he can talk smoothly, and befool

A simple ear with pious sophistries,

He must be e'en the saintly man he seems.

We heard him talk to-night; it was done well.

I saw the triumph of his argument,

And I was proud, though full of spite the while.

His stuff was meant for me; and, with intent

For selfish purpose, or in irony,

He tossed me bitterness, and called it sweet.

My heart rebelled, and now you know the cause

Of my harsh words to him.

_Mary_.

'Tis very sad!

Oh very--very sad! Pray you go on!

Who is this woman?

_Grace_.

I have never learned.

I only know she stole my husband's heart,

And made me very wretched. I suppose

That at the time my little babe was born,

She went away; for David was at home

For many days. That pain was bliss to me--

I need no argument to teach me that--

Which caused neglect of her, and gave offense.

Since then, he has not where to go from me;

And, loving well his child, he stays at home.

So he lugs round his secret, and I mine.

I call him husband; and he calls me wife;

And I, who once was like an April day,

That finds quick tears in every cloud, have steeled

My heart against my fate, and now am calm.

I will live on; and though these simple folk

Who call me sister understand me not,

It matters little. There is one who does;

And he shall have no liberty of love

By any word of mine. 'Tis woman's lot,

And man's most weak and wicked wantonness.

Mine is like other husbands, I suppose;

No worse--no better.

_Mary_.

Ask you sympathy

Of such as I? I cannot give it you,

For you have shut me from the privilege.

_Grace_.

I asked it once; you gave me unbelief.

I had no choice but to grow hard again.

'Tis my misfortune and my misery

That every hand whose friendly ministry

My poor heart craves, is held--withheld--by him;

And I must freeze that I may stand alone.

_Mary_.

And so, because one man is false, or you

Imagine him to be, all men are false;

Do I speak rightly?

_Grace_.

Have it your own way.

Men fit to love, and fitted to be loved,

Are prone to falsehood. I will not gainsay

The common virtue of the common herd.

I prize it as I do the goodish men

Who hold the goodish stuff, and know it not.

These serve to fill an easy-going world,

And that to clothe it with complacency.

_Mary_.

I had not thought misanthropy like this

Could lodge with you; so I must e'en confess

A tale which never passed my lips before,

Nor sent its flush to any cheek but mine.

In this, I'll prove my friendship, if I lose

The friendship which demands the sacrifice.

I have come back, a worse than widowed wife;

Yet I went out with dream as bright as yours,--

Nay, brighter,--for the birds were singing then,

And apple-blossoms drifted on the ground

Where snow-flakes fell and flew when you were wed.

The skies were soft; the roses budded full;

The meads and swelling uplands fresh and green;--

The very atmosphere was full of love.

It was no girlish carelessness of heart

That kept my eyes from tears, as I went forth

From this dear shelter of the orphan child.

I felt that God was smiling on my lot,

And made the airs his angels to convey

To every sense and sensibility

The message of his favor. Every sound

Was music to me; every sight was peace;

And breathing was the drinking of perfume.

I said, content, and full of gratitude,

"This is as God would have it; and he speaks

These pleasant languages to tell me so."

But I had no such honeymoon as yours.

A few brief days of happiness, and then

The dream was over. I had married one

Who was the sport of vagrant impulses.

We had not been a fortnight wed, when he

Came home to me with brandy in his brain--

A maudlin fool--for love like mine to hide

As if he were an unclean beast. O Grace!

I cannot paint the horrors of that night.

My heart, till then serene, and safely kept

In Trust's strong citadel, quaked all night long,

As tower and bastion fell before the rush

Of fierce convictions; and the tumbling walls

Boomed with dull throbs of ruin through my brain.

And there were palaces that leaned on this--

Castles of air, in long and glittering lines,

Which melted into air, and pierced the blue

That marks the star-strewn vault of heaven;--all fell,

With a faint crash like that which scares the soul

When dissolution shivers through a dream

Smitten by nightmare,--fell and faded all

To utter nothingness; and when the morn

Flamed up the East, and with its crimson wings

Brushed out the paling stars that all the night

In silent, slow procession, one by one,

Had gazed upon me through the open sash,

And passed along, it found me desolate.

The stupid dreamer at my side awoke,

And with such helpless anguish as they feel

Who know that they are weak as well as vile.

I saw, through all his forward promises,

Excuses, prayers, and pledges that were oaths

(What he, poor boaster, thought I could not see),

That he was shorn of will, and that his heart

Was as defenseless as a little child's;--

That underneath his fair good fellowship

He was debauched, and dead in love with sin;--

That love of me had made him what I loved,--

That I could only hold him till the wave

Of some overwhelming impulse should sweep in,

To lift his feet and bear him from my arms.

I felt that morn, when he went trembling forth,

With bloodshot eyes and forehead hot with woe,

That henceforth strife would be 'twixt Hell and me--

The odds against me--for my husband's soul.

_Grace_.

Poor dove! Poor Mary! Have you suffered thus?

You had not even pride to keep you up.

Were he my husband, I had left him then--

The ingrate!

_Mary_.

Not if you had loved as I;

Yet what you know is but a bitter drop

Of the full cup of gall that I have drained.

Had he left me unstained,--had I rebelled

Against the influence by which he sought

To bring me to a compromise with him,--

To make my shrinking soul meet his half way,

It had been better; but he had an art,

When appetite or passion moved in him,

That clothed his sins with fair apologies,

And smoothed the wrinkles of a haggard guilt

With the good-natured hand of charity.

He knew he was a fool, he said, and said again;

But human nature would be what it was,

And life had never zest enough to bear

Too much dilution; those who work like slaves

Must have their days of frolic and of fun.

He doubted whether God would punish sin;

God was, in fact, too good to punish sin;

For sin itself was a compounded thing,

With weakness for its prime ingredient.

And thus he fooled a heart that loved him well;

And it went toward his heart by slow degrees,

Till Virtue seemed a frigid anchorite,

And Vice, a jolly fellow--bad enough,

But not so bad as Christian people think.

This was the cunning work of months--nay, years;

And, meantime, Edward sank from bad to worse.

But he had conquered. Wine was on his board,

Without my protest--with a glass for me!

His boon companions came and went, and made

My home their rendezvous with my consent.

The doughty oath that shocked my ears at first,

The doubtful jest that meant, or might not mean,

That which should set a woman's brow aflame,

Became at last (oh, shame of womanhood!)

A thing to frown at with a covert smile;

Anything to smile at with a decent frown;

A thing to steal a grace from, as I feigned

The innocence of deaf unconsciousness.

And I became a jester. I could jest

In a wild way on sacred things and themes;

And I have thought that in his better moods

My husband shrank with horror from the work

Which he had wrought in me.

I do not know

If, during all these downward-tending years,

Edward kept well his faith with me. I know

He used to tell me, in his boastful way,

How he had broke the hearts of pretty maids.

And that if he were single--well-a-day!

The time was past for thinking upon that!

And I had heart to toss the badinage

Back in his teeth, with pay of kindred coin;

And tell him lies to stir his bestial mirth;

And make my boast of conquests; and pretend

That the true heart I had bestowed on him

Had flown, and left him but an empty hand.

I had some days of pain and penitence.

I saw where all must end. I saw, too well,

Edward was growing idle,--that his form

Was gathering disgustful corpulence,--

That he was going down, and dragging me

To shame and ruin, beggary and death.

But judgment came, and overshadowed us;

And one quick bolt shot from the awful cloud

Severed the tie that bound two worthless lives.

What God hath joined together, God may part:--

Grace, have you thought of that?

_Grace_.

You scare me, Mary!

Nay! Do not turn on me with such a look!

Its dread suggestion gives my heart a pang

That stops its painful beating.

_Mary_.

Let it pass!

One morn we woke with the first flush of light,

Our windows jarring with the cannonade

That ushered in the nation's festal day.

The village streets were full of men and boys,

And resonant with rattling mimicry

Of the black-throated monsters on the hill,--

A crashing, crepitating war of fire,--

And as we listened to the fitful feud,

Dull detonations came from far away,

Pulsing along the fretted atmosphere,

To tell that in the ruder villages

The day had noisy greeting, as in ours.

I know not why it was, but then, and there,

I felt a sinking sadness, passing tears--

A dark foreboding I could not dissolve,

Nor drive away. But when, next morn, I woke

In the sweet stillness of the Sabbath day,

And found myself alone, I knew that hearts

Which once have been God's temple, and in which

Something divine still lingers, feel the throb

Along the lines that bind them to the Throne

When judgment issues; and, though dumb and blind,

Shudder and faint with prophecies of ill.

How--by what cause--calamity should come,

I could not guess; that it was imminent

Seemed just as certain as the morning's dawn.

We were to have a gala day, indeed.

There were to be processions and parades;

A great oration in a mammoth tent,

With dinner following, and toast and speech

By all the wordy magnates of the town;

A grand balloon ascension afterwards;

And, in the evening, fireworks on the hill.

I knew that drink would flow from morn till night

In a wild maelstrom, circling slow around

The village rim, in bright careering waves,

But growing turbulent, and changed to ink

Around the village center, till, at last,

The whirling, gurgling vortex would engulf

A maddened multitude in drunkenness.

And this was in my thought (the while my heart

Was palpitating with its nameless fear),

As, wrapped in vaguest dreams, and purposeless,

I laced my shoe and gazed upon the sky.

Then strange determination stirred in me;

And, turning sharply on my chair, I said,

"Edward, where'er you go to-day, I go!"

If I had smitten him upon the face,

It had not tingled with a hotter flame.

He turned upon me with a look of hate--

A something worse than anger--and, with oaths,

Raved like a fiend, and cursed me for a fool.

But I was firm; he could not shake my will;

So, through the morning, until afternoon,

He stayed at home, and drank and drank again,

Watching the clock, and pacing up and down,

Until, at length, he came and sat by me,

To try his hackneyed tricks of blandishment.

He had not meant, he said, to give offense;

But women in a crowd were out of place.

He wished to see the aeronauts embark,

And meet some friends; but there would be a throng

Of boys and drunken boors around the car,

And I should not enjoy it; more than this,

The rise would be a finer spectacle

At home than on the ground. I gave assent,

And he went out. Of course, I followed him;

For I had learned to read him, and I knew

There was some precious scheme of sin on foot.