Margaret Danversstepped aboard the southern-bound sleeper at Chicago one stormy March evening, and as she walked composedly to her berth in the middle of the car, the eyes of every person present were riveted upon her. She wore a closely fitting garment of Russian sable, which enveloped her completely, and a large beaver hat with drooping plumes, and from the single fine diamond flashing at her throat to the tips of her dainty Suéde boots she looked the model of a fashionable beauty. She was the only woman on the car, and before she had fairly settled herself comfortably, all the men had mentally pronounced their opinion of her looks and style, and hazarded a conjecture as to her age. Her attendant, a florid man of middle age, received the slight degree of attention
justified by his seeming only an adjunct of the moment. As he left her, he put into her hands a bunch of costly roses, which she received with a smile and laid upon the opposite seat the instant he was gone.
Of the score of passengers, two or three knew her by sight, for she was, in a way, a public character, but, as it happened, none were really acquainted with her, and before long even those most deeply interested in her appearance yielded to the apathy peculiar to sleeping-cars, and subsided into their newspapers or their rugs, preparing to wear out the evening until bedtime.
Margaret amused herself in watching the flying snow and in reverie. Too used to traveling to even care to look about her, she yielded to the prevailing somnambulistic influence just enough to dream without sleeping. At first there was in her mind a confusion of events past, present, and to come. Incidents of no importance mingled with greater ones, and her reflections became mixed with little fanciful suggestionsof things long since forgotten, or, rather, voluntarily put out of mind. She tried to think of her career, to recall her triumphs, and to dwell upon the possibilities of the future. She told herself that music was her life, that all she had to do with was the beautiful and the divine in art, and that the everyday existence she had struggled to rise above was henceforth nothing more than an unpleasant memory.
At twenty-eight she was her own mistress, earning an independent income through the use of her beautiful voice. The teaching days and the drudgery of the class-room had passed, and as a concert singer she was favorably known in more than one western city noted for its critical taste. After a successful winter in Milwaukee and Chicago, she was now upon her way to fulfil an engagement in Baltimore, which promised more than anything in which she had yet engaged. She was in the heyday of her powers, admired, in radiant health, conscious of her beauty and talent, and entirely satisfied with life. What did it mean that, as she lookedfrom the window with a proud smile upon her lips, some tantalizing thoughts should intrude themselves, and the mind so entirely self-poised should feel, for the first time in years, the weakening influence of some emotional fancies? It was her boast that she was never lonely, never sad, that her whole heart was in the work.
The conductor passed through taking tickets, and brought her back to the present. And after this came the little stir of the porter making up the berths, and she moved to the end of the car. In front two men were talking.
"Never saw a promise of a worse storm," said one. "Shouldn't wonder if the tracks were blocked a little ahead."
"Comes from the southwest," suggested the other. "If necessary, they'll put on another locomotive. We're bound to get through at any rate on this train; that's one comfort."
By nine o'clock Margaret, enveloped in a downy wrapper of dark red, lay courting sleep in her section. Over her was spread the furulster, none too warm above the blankets, even for her warm blood. The thermometer outside would have registered zero, and whiffs of icy air found their way every now and then into the car. Everything was quiet save her thoughts, which began to utter themselves with loud, importunate voices, as if answering some call without, independent of her control. "I have happily been able to say all my life that I didn't know what nerves were," said Margaret to herself, "but I begin to think that from some inexplicable cause I am nervous."
"Richard Allen!" She started as if the words had been spoken in her ear. Swiftly memory flew back ten years, and she saw herself standing bareheaded at the gate of her father's house in dear old Leesburg, Virginia, where her childhood had been passed; and beside her, bending tenderly to catch her lightest word, the form of her first lover, then a poor, obscure young lieutenant in the army. With an indifference scarce tinged with pity, since it hardly occurred to her in those days that mencould really feel, she had met his pleading affection with an enthusiastic outburst of her ambition to lead the artist's life, to spend her energies in self-development, and show what a woman wholly devoted to an intellectual and artistic career might become. They had sung in the choir together, had mingled their voices in moments when, inspired by devotional ecstasy, it seemed that the two spirits united into one, in that mysterious fellowship which belongs alike to religion and to love. And yet she had no feeling for him above regard: no feeling for any one, for anything, but art.
"You must not think I am deficient in womanly sensibility," she had said to him, with one of those soft glances of the meaning and effect of which she was entirely careless and unconscious. "But some women must remain spinsters, you know, and I think I am meant to be one of the sisterhood."
"You do not know yourself. The day will come when ambition will seem nothing to you; when the homely things, the real things, willtake on their true value to your eyes, and a 'career' will seem a mere artificiality that has nothing to do with what is best and sweetest in life."
The words had passed her by as an idle phrase, evoked from disappointment. And she and Richard Allen had parted, he going to his post on the line in Arizona, and she to Italy to study. And yet nothing passes from us entirely. Here, without warning, without her intention, the little scene came up before her eyes; and she saw again the apple-orchard in blossom, the red brick chimney of the school-house across the way looming up in the moonlight, the hills in the distance, the strong, proudly-carried figure at her side. And then scene after scene came up before her, always with the two figures present: the manly, devoted lover, the self-absorbed girl.
Yet she had lived for ambition, and the world had been kind to her, after she had proven her mettle. She had not lacked lovers, but she had never loved. Her strong will, which had determinedlymapped out an existence entirely free from sentiment, had carried her through every affair triumphantly and untouched. Four or five hours ago she had entered that car as "free from the trammels of passion" as a vestal virgin. What was in the air, what was in the night, that hurried her on into imaginative flights? Constantly, like two stars, two meaning eyes seemed to gleam upon her, and kindle a world of emotion latent and unsuspected in her nature! She tried to be cynical, to laugh, to think of something else; she tried her best to get to sleep, but only her will could sleep, and fancy still rioted. Richard Allen had had the making of a fine man in him: what had become of him,—why had nothing been heard of him? The woman whose religion was success had little patience with patience; it seemed to her that all virtue was embodied in some sort of action. A man who at forty—he must be forty—was still obscure, was not worth a thought. And yet he had possessed a certain sort of strength. She had been forced to admire,in old times, a suggested moral superiority, a higher point of view than she considered practical. If he had brought himself to live up to his own standard, he must have been unable to make necessary concessions. And then, as Margaret recalled some "concessions" she had herself made to success, she felt her cheeks burn in the darkness. How often she had traded upon her own attractions, how often made use of the influence of her personality to bring about certain ends! If she had not lied in words, she had in act. Her present status had not been attained without some sacrifice of scruples.
The woman turned restlessly in her berth, wondering why such ideas should come to her now to interfere with her peace. She was good; she was ashamed of nothing in her past; she was living a high, free, independent life, the life for a woman of intellect and energy to lead. Thank heaven, she was not an emotional creature! Sentiment had been trained out of her. Long after midnight she lost consciousness,and passed a few hours in fitful slumber. It was cruel that she should have to dream of Richard Allen; dream that they were together in an open boat, drifting out to sea, and that his arms were around her, his eyes looking into hers. And she cared for nothing, thought of nothing but that he held her close—how strangely sweet it was!—
A jar, a shock, a sudden stop, as if the train had run against a wall of rock, and Margaret started up and drew the curtain aside instinctively. A fall through space—what was it, oh, where was she! Had the train fallen down an embankment?
After a minute she realized that she had been thrown from her berth across the car, that other persons lay about, some groaning, some hastily picking themselves up. She shut her eyes: there was a sharp pain in her left arm, and a weight upon her side. A falling lamp had struck her, and from some cause she could not rise; her leg must be broken. There was a terrible confusion, much talking, and half-a-dozenpeople bending over her pityingly and asking her questions.
"What has happened? Is anybody killed?" she asked.
Several persons answered at once. They had run into a freight. The engineer on their own train was killed; no one else. Many were hurt. Could she bear to be moved?
"I must," she returned, setting her lips, for agonizing pains began to shoot through her foot, and the thought of being touched was suffering.
"Fortunately we are just on the outskirts of Frithville—there are houses near." It was the conductor who spoke now, and he at once took charge. She was lifted carefully, wrapped in blankets and carried out. Their car had sustained less damage than any other, being in the rear, and there was no difficulty in getting out.
"If she could stand it to be taken over yonder," said some one, pointing to a house some distance away, "she'd be more comfortable, I reckon."
"Where are we?" asked Margaret, bravely suppressing her pain.
"Somewhere in southern Indiana—a little town called Frithville," a man answered her.
"If she could stand it to be taken over to the doctor's house—" said the persistent first speaker.
"I can stand it," she interposed; "take me there quickly."
They improvised a sort of rough litter of mattresses, and carried her across a field in the open country. The dawn was just breaking, and the pale moon was slowly fading out of view before the great coming light. The air was clear, cold, crisp; and, though there had evidently been a heavy storm during the night, it had cleared completely, and the first ray of sunlight glittered upon banks of frozen snow. The house before which they stopped was a plain, two-storied wooden structure, which seemed at first sight peculiarly barren-looking. Clean white curtains hung in straight, scant folds at the windows. The door had beendrab in color, but the paint had been so assiduously scrubbed that one now took its presence on trust. There was a brass knocker and a rush door-mat, on which lay a large black cat with bristling white whiskers.
The door was opened by a severe Swedish girl, whose starched cap and apron suggested careful housekeeping, as her suspicious countenance suggested inhospitality. She made no objections to admitting them, however, and Margaret was carefully deposited upon a couch in the sitting-room to wait the coming of the doctor, who, the maid said, had just left the house to go to the scene of the wreck.
"We'll send him back to you, ma'am, right off," one of the men assured her. "You ought to be 'tended to first."
"Not if others are suffering and need him more," said Margaret faintly.
The ungenial looking Swede proved herself to be not deficient in skill, even though sympathy was in a measure lacking. She made her guest as comfortable as she could. Theshoe was cut from the swollen ankle, which was bathed and bandaged, and the hurts upon the shoulder and side were pronounced to be only bruises which "Herr doctor would make-right." And then Margaret was left to herself while the girl went to make the inevitable "cup of tea," which was to set everything straight.
At first she lay perfectly still, seeing nothing, and caring for nothing, her mind full of vexation and impatience over an accident which must delay the fulfilment of her engagement. It did not occur to her that it might have been worse; anything was bad enough.
After awhile her eyes began to wander idly around the room. It seemed half parlor, half study. Folding doors divided it from the office at the back. There was a book-case, well filled; some good engravings on the walls; a few easy-chairs covered with raw silk of a dull hue, much worn; and a writing-table between the windows, half covered with books and magazines. There was something agreeable toher taste in the air of the room. She could imagine it the abode of a man whose very poverty could never become squalid. The great open Franklin stove shone brightly, and the hearth was scrupulously clean. Upon the mantel were a bronze clock and a pair of fine vases, dainty in tone and finish; they were the sole womanly touches about the place. Noting these details half indifferently, she lay back again and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, they happened to glance directly over to a corner of the room which had before been dim, but was now illuminated by a shaft of sunlight. A carved bracket hung there, and on the shelf lay a singular looking little instrument, shaped like a dagger, of Moorish device, the handle inlaid with gold, left rough and unpolished. When Margaret saw this small object, she gave a little cry and tried to rise, but finding that impossible, she dropped back upon her pillows as if she had been shot, her eyes fixed upon the little instrument with a look of recognition thatwas half pleasure, half alarm. What strange trick was fate about to play her? How could this thing be possible?
There was a noise: the front door opened, and some one came along the hall with a firm, measured step. Margaret's heart, that well-regulated organ, beat to suffocation. She hardly dared listen or look. She threw her arm up over her forehead, nearly concealing her face. Some one entered the room and paused beside her. A well-remembered voice, graver, deeper than of yore, yet with a cheery ring in it, said, "Let me see what I can do to help you, madam." A chair was drawn up to the side of the couch, a gentle hand took her own. Her pulse was beating furiously; the hand was held rather long, as if something perplexed him. She felt searching eyes bent upon her face, and suddenly threw down her arm. The doctor drew back, his face paling, and the two looked at each other for a minute in silence. She spoke first, putting out her hand timidly.
"Richard, don't you remember me?"
"Remember you? As if I were likely ever to forget you."
She softly touched his empty left sleeve, pinned over his breast, two tears standing in her eyes.
"At Black Gulch," he said. "I have got over minding it. Don't grieve."
"You left the army?"
"Yes, four years ago. My health gave way. I studied medicine in Indianapolis, was invited here by an old friend to become his assistant, and shortly afterward he died. That is all."
"You never—never——"
"Yes; I married."
The words were an unexpected stab. Margaret gasped, amazed that she should care. Her face suddenly became suffused with color, and she turned it away.
"She only lived a year—Margaret," said the doctor, bending down to study the fair, flushed face, suddenly pain-smitten.
"My ankle!" said Margaret faintly, drawing his attention to the lesser hurt.
He was the doctor again at once, and, for the next half hour all professional gravity, and as impersonal as the sphinx; yet the woman felt through every nerve, like a musical vibration, the thrill of his firm, warm fingers, the scrutiny of his eyes. He was changed, worn through suffering rather than years, his face lined, his hair grown gray; with nothing young about him but his eyes, which sparkled with a cheer and brightness no grief could dim, for they mirrored a mind above all personal considerations, concerned with those large, loving interests belonging to humanity.
The woman felt the presence of this spirit, as if something beautiful and good had settled softly down beside her, and mutely besought her attention from herself and her narrow world. She struggled against it, yet it was like a shaft of genial sun heat, entering suddenly some frozen glen; she felt, in a heart purposely hardened against such influences, a stir, a thaw; ice was breaking, and the long-stilled waters of human affection began to flow in gentle currents,inspiring a sensation of delight that astonished and abashed her.
The doctor came and went quietly, her eyes following him. When he intercepted the look, she blushed like a schoolgirl. Too busy all that day to give her more than necessary attention, he yet lost nothing that passed and she had a sense which was oddly pleasant that he understood something of what was passing in her mind. It was terrible, too. There were moments when she wished herself miles away. Besides all the physical pain which she endured that long day, Margaret's soul was the battle-ground of a struggle far more exhausting. Ambition, pride, and love of the world fought hard against a tender, newly-born impulse, which it seemed that a single breath of reason ought to chill to death.
The coals burned red in the open stove; a little tea-table was set in the middle of the room, and in the easiest chair in the house, piled with all the available cushions, the doctor placed Margaret, taking his position oppositeher. The solemn Swedish girl brought in supper, which was well cooked and served with a scrupulous cleanliness that almost atoned for the absence of a more dainty service.
The doctor's face shone with satisfaction, but his manner, although genial, was ceremonious. Margaret felt that, in the few feet intervening between them, there lay years of care and grief and disappointment. She felt a yearning to bridge the chasm, to draw nearer to him, even though she herself had to take the hard steps toward understanding.
Thought the woman: "Does he love me still?" And thought the man: "Is she tired of the world, and could she learn to love me now?"
But they spoke of music; of camp-life on the western frontier; of what they had seen, what they had read. Not a word of what they felt. A few hours later the doctor stood in his bare little soldier's bedroom, and looked in his glass. For five minutes he studied himself, and then he turned away, resolved to let no newhope spring up in his heart. But Margaret slept to dream of him, woke through the night thinking of him, as she could not have thought in the old days, when he wooed her in the confidence of his fresh, hopeful youth.
There was no hotel in the village, and the few scattered houses were crowded with the wounded passengers, lying over till well enough to proceed with their journey. Margaret was not sorry that there was no other place for her than the refuge she had been taken to. "I am thinking that I am singularly fortunate in being in the doctor's house, where I get special attention," she said to him, with a little fluttering smile.
In time these shy looks wrought upon the doctor, and his stern resolution wavered. He found himself sounding her preferences and attachments, with the unconfessed design of extracting some unguarded word that might indicate a change in her old convictions. Carrying on together these two processes—determination to refrain and resolution to pursue,which often accompanies some course of action embraced in accordance with a natural, unworldly judgment, he managed to betray to the eager girl all he wished to conceal and she wished to know. She had telegraphed to Baltimore that she would be there in ten days. Four of them had passed, and she was free from pain and able to put her foot to the ground. The doctor persisted in helping her from her couch to the chair and back again.
"But I can walk alone now," she objected.
"We must be careful. Not until to-morrow." She protested with greater earnestness. "True—I have but one arm," he said, with the first accent of bitterness she had heard from him. Her lips parted to give utterance to a sudden rush of words, but she only looked at him, with eyes so eloquent that he answered the look.
"Margaret, do you care? Dear, I have always loved you, I love you now,—can you care?"
She drooped her head on his shoulder, but said nothing. The doctor held her close for aminute, and then, leaving her, began to walk up and down the room.
"It is impossible!"
"It may be impossible," murmured Margaret with a little blush, "but—it is true."
"It is cruel of me to ask it, dear. You are young, beautiful, brilliant—with success at your feet, and I——"
She put up her hand imploringly. It was caught and held. "And I am poor, obscure and—old," he finished, his eyes upon her face.
"I have come to you, Richard. It seemed strange to me. I cannot explain it, but it seems as if everything the world has to offer me is nothing beside——"
"Beside my love?" he bent on one knee beside her chair and put her hand to his lips.
"I want to share your life," she said, and a new expression grew upon her face, a high, devoted look which was half heroic, all womanly. "I want to learn something of the great things, the true things."
"You have had greater things than I can give you. Think of all you are leaving!"
She made a gesture of renunciation. "It does not seem much to leave—for you."
"Ah, my darling, I am afraid you will regret it. The work-a-day world will be a trial to you. And mine is a veritable work-a-day world."
He kept his eyes on her face, half dreading to see her shrink away. But what woman is not won by an appearance of self-renunciation? Richard could not have let her go now; at the last instant he would have snatched her to his breast, had she drawn away. But the misgiving that rushed over him so fiercely was a real one, a sensible one; he felt it profoundly, and tried to read in her eyes a shadow of this coming regret. But her eyes were clear, loving, radiant. She pressed herself against his breast, and gave him the great gift of her life and her future. Would the shadow ever come?
The moon looked softly in, an hour later, andfinding the lovers in that delicious dream which once in a lifetime comes to most men and women, drew over her face a gray cloud-veil and left them to dream on.
Onebright day in early spring, when the children had begun to hunt in the woods for trailing arbutus, and the Shenandoah River reflected in its clear depths the outlines of the overlooking mountains, a small, straight figure, sensibly habited in a short gray gown, made its way along the single paved street of Bloomdale to the principal store.
Young Heaton Smith, the handsome, blue-eyed son of the proprietor, came forward with a smiling welcome. After a few minutes' preliminary talk, Miss Phillida confessed that she had some notion of buying a dress.
He placed a stool in front of the counter extending along that side of the store which was devoted to dry goods, and, with the air of one
who affords a pleasant surprise, laid before her several rolls of sheer, silky stuff in dainty colorings; the most conspicuous being that which bore bunches of deep pink rosebuds on a light brown ground.
"Beautiful!" murmured Miss Phillida, taking hold of the edge with a delicate, blue-veined hand covered with a network of fine wrinkles. "How Sister Emma would love this pattern!"
"Here's a blue," said Heaton, laying another before her. "Handsome, aren't they? They come ten yards to a piece; just enough for a dress. We only got 'em in yesterday."
"I am mightily taken with this pink, Heaton. But I reckon it's too young-looking for me."
"You don't think yourself old, ma'am? Mother was saying, only the other day, that none of the girls could beat you for complexion."
"Just hear the boy! If it was Sister Emma, you might talk so. I do agree with anybody that calls her a beauty. But I reckon youdon't recollect Sister Emma, Heaton? You was a child when she went away."
"I recollect her, though. It's about ten years now, ain't it? I was twelve then. I know I haven't forgot that big wedding-cake with the twelve dozen eggs in it."
"Really, Heaton?" said Miss Phillida, coloring with pleasure. "I was rather proud of that cake. Emma could make nice cake herself. I suppose she's had a chance to forget it. Her time's taken up other ways. Denver's quite a gay place, she says; and of course her husband's position requires her to go out a great deal."
This was uttered in a tone of proud satisfaction. Everybody in Bloomdale knew what a comfort it was to the solitary woman to talk about her sister. The Virginia beauty had married a western millionaire, and when at the monthly sewing society Miss Phillida read aloud her last Denver letter, these staid, but pleasure-loving Virginia matrons listened eagerly.
Young Heaton leaned back against theshelves in an easy, conversational attitude, and looked politely interested.
"Of course you know she's coming home to make a visit, Heaton?" The little lady's joy and yearning brimmed over her mild blue eyes, and she lowered her head, pretending to examine the goods.
"So I heard," said Heaton cordially. "We'll all enjoy seeing her, I'm shore."
"I expect her to-morrow," Miss Phillida cried excitedly. "By the morning train."
A vehicle drew up before the long porch, and the little woman endeavored to seem occupied with her purchase.
"I reckon this black and white'd be more appropriate to my years," she said in a critical tone. "But somehow I'm awfully in the notion of taking that pink."
"Take the pink, Miss Phillidy; and if you change your mind, we'll take it back and give you another in the place of it."
Miss Phillida cast another glance at the black and white, then turned again to the pink.
"I'll take it then, Heaton. I feel somehow as if it'd please Emma to have me get a gown that looked cheerful. And I must be getting young again, for I haven't been so in the notion of dressing up for ages. But, dear me! if I haven't forgot to ask the price! Maybe it's beyond my reach."
"No, indeed, Miss Phillidy, it's a bargain. Five dollars for any pattern. A chance we mayn't be able to offer our customers again."
It was a considerable sum for Miss Phillida to give for a spring dress. She was deep in calculations when a handsome ruddy man of about forty-five entered the store, and greeted her with delightful heartiness.
He called her "Cousin Phillidy," and the cousinship, although very distant, enabled him to do the little woman many a good turn. In his heart, Mr. Ned Miller always looked upon her as the woman who might, but for a chance, have been his sister-in-law. The chance had been Emma Wood's marriage with another man. But that was not his fault. Bloomdalesaid that Ned Miller was of too affectionate a nature to stay a widower.
As she reflected his sunshiny smile and answered his gay badinage, a strange idea suddenly entered Miss Phillida's head. It made her get up in great haste.
"I—I'll take the pink, Heaton," she said quickly. "I'll carry it right with me."
"My horses air at the door, cousin. Let me drive you up the street."
"It's but a step; I'm obliged to you, Cousin Ned. And it's such a sweet day, I like to walk."
"Well, I'll see you at preaching Sunday, cousin. And your sister, too, I hope. But if I'm in town before, I'll just call in—to see if I can be of any service."
"Thank you," murmured Miss Phillida. "Give my love to all at Maplegrove," and she hastened homeward, amazed at herself, and inclined to believe that the Father of Evil had put that startling notion into her head.
She stopped at the gate of a low, brownhouse opposite the Methodist Church, and, going through a garden crowded with sweet, old-fashioned flowers, opened the side door into a little entry about six feet square, from which one door on the left led to the sitting-room, and another on the right into a spare bedroom. The kitchen lay beyond the sitting room, and thither Miss Phillida directed her steps. A cup of tea, taken upon the spotless pine table, brought her back to herself. She had spread out the dress pattern over the back of the settee, to look at while she ate her dinner; and after washing up the dishes, she opened a door leading into a chilly bedroom, all dark, rich old mahogany and white draperies, and carefully laid it away in the lower drawer of a capacious bureau.
"I reckon it was extravagant of me," she soliloquized. "But I couldn't shame Emma by appearing out in company with her in old duds."
Emma arrived the next morning. Bloomdale was looking for her when the trainstopped at the dilapidated old shed called a "deep-ho." At first Bloomdale thought itself disappointed. It had expected a brilliant young lady accompanied by a quantity of baggage, exhibiting, perhaps, some of the haughtiness of a person used to the homage paid to rank and wealth. Instead, there was left upon the platform, besides a small, plain trunk, a tall woman dressed all in black, her face covered with a heavy veil. She advanced hesitatingly. Miss Phillida, straining her eyes to see through that veil, suddenly pressed forward and fell into her arms.
"It's you, sister! I know you by your walk. Come and get into the carryall, there's room for the trunk at the back."
Bewildered, but energetic, she steered her sister past the little crowd and landed her safely in the old carryall, upon the back of which a strapping negro was already adjusting the trunk. Miss Phillida recognized him as the coachman of Mr. Ned Miller, and the tears came to her eyes as he handed her the reins.To her excited sense, it seemed significant that the first person to show kindness to Emma on her home-coming should be some one belonging to her old lover.
She talked without knowing what she said. So far, Emma had not spoken, after the first low murmur of greeting. Emma!—the gay, sparkling girl whose high spirits and talent for conversation had made her a favorite in county society. For whom could she be in mourning? Miss Phillida racked her brain with conjectures.
When they were inside the house Emma lifted her veil, gazing around like one who had just returned to life from a long trance. Her face, whose beauty was of a grand type, softened and brightened from its look of stern repose, as one by one she recognized objects once loved and familiar.
"Everything is just the same," she said in a low voice, vibrant with feeling. "Grandfather's and father's swords there on the wall, the fox-skin rugs, the horse-hair armchairs, and the dear old brass andirons!—How good of you to havea fire, Phillida, dear! It looks so cheerful. I haven't seen a wood fire on the hearth since I left home."
"You mean home in Denver?" palpitated Miss Phillida, feeling strangely awed by this sister with grave manner and pale face.
"No!" The denial was quick and passionate, more like the fervor of the old Emma. She threw off her bonnet and cloak with rapid movements, and held out her arms to little Miss Phillida. In a moment all constraint had melted away between the long-severed sisters. The tongue of the elder was loosened, and she asked question after question, which, however, Emma parried.
"I have a long story to tell you, dear; but let us wait till evening. When the curtains are drawn and the lamps lit, I shall feel better able to talk. Let me just enjoy being at home, for a little while."
She followed Miss Phillida out to the kitchen and, sitting on a low chair with the big black cat purring in her lap, watched her fry thechicken and bake the corn cakes for dinner, talking meanwhile, fluently and entertainingly, of life in the West, and of the different cities she had visited. But not a word of herself.
When dinner was over, she insisted upon wiping the dishes; and it was then that Miss Phillida scrutinized her dress, and saw that it was rusty, and not of fine material.
"Oh, just a traveling dress," thought the elder sister, who experienced an odd fluttering of the heart.
The afternoon was consumed in examining the house and garden. Miss Phillida raised her own vegetables, and kept a few chickens, which latter amused themselves by scratching up her seeds and pecking her choicest tomatoes as they ripened. A creek watered the lower end of the garden, and here a half-dozen ducks disported lazily. Under a spreading apple tree was a bench covered with an old buffalo robe, upon which she sat with her sewing on summer afternoons. Surrounded thus by comfort and peace, the gentle spinster had lived her harmless existence,conscious of but one ungratified wish: the longing for her sister. And now that wish was accomplished. With tremors of delight she displayed everything, confiding all her little plans to affectionate, sympathetic ears. Each homely detail gave Emma fresh pleasure. She seemed to desire to penetrate to the heart of this simple home life; to attach herself to it, like one who thirsted for an intimacy with something genuine and natural.
Miss Phillida saw with pleasure that clouds were gathering, and that darkness would come on earlier than usual. Emma became grave again after supper; and when she seated herself in the big rocking-chair before the hearth in the sitting-room, the firelight played over features that wore an expression of noble sadness.
"It is three years since I left Denver," she said, turning her luminous gray eyes upon her sister's bewildered countenance. "I sent my letters to a friend there who mailed them to you. It was not necessary for you to beharassed by a knowledge of my sufferings. You fancied I was living a happy, care-free life with a rich and generous husband. Heavens!—How unsophisticated we are, we country folks in Virginia!
"I can't make it all plain to you, Phillida, for you wouldn't understand without having gone through it, how, little by little, I learned the ways of society, and on what a base foundation the wealth we enjoyed was built. Robert was a speculator, and a reckless, unscrupulous one. And besides this he was not honest in small things. The husband I had imagined a fairy prince, full of noble qualities, was not only false but mean. He gave me whatever was necessary to make a show; nothing for my pleasure. Poor little sister! Don't you suppose I wanted to send you presents? I never had a dollar of my own all those seven years. But finally the end came. Robert failed—and it was a dishonorable failure. He went away in the night, leaving me to bear the brunt of everything."
"Oh, oh!" breathed Miss Phillida. "And didn't he come back?"
"He wrote me a letter from Canada, telling me to come over to him, for he was sick. Well, I went! I nursed him, and worked for him,—and I put up for two years with a life that was Purgatory. You mustn't expect me to be very sorry he died then, Phillida. You wouldn't if you knew all. I did hate to come back to you,—such a failure! But it was a miserable existence all alone there, in Quebec, and—I knew you would be glad to see me, dear!"
For a few moments the sisters wept together. Then Emma raised her head.
"I thought that perhaps I might get a school. Of course I intend to do something."
"No, no!" cried Miss Phillida, wiping her eyes and taking her sister's hand. "You needn't do that, dearest. With the garden and the cow and chickens, there is plenty. And then, you know, the hundred a year that comes from the railroad shares is as much yours as mine. Everything is yours, and, thank heaven,you're at home now, where everybody'll be good to you!"
"The same generous, self-sacrificing little soul! But, dear Phillida, I must work, if only to keep myself happy. I should soon be miserable and restless with nothing to do. Come, make up your mind to let me be a help instead of a burden. I have set my heart upon the school. Tell me, who are the trustees now?"
"Cousin Ned Miller's a trustee," replied Miss Phillida, who had grown thoughtful. "Perhaps you're right, Emma. Maybe you'll be happier with the children to think about. And he'll get you a school, I'm quite sure."
Emma rocked softly back and forth, looking into the fire. Perhaps she saw visions there of a new and happier life, for her face took on an expression of content.
But some little personal worry preyed upon Miss Phillida's mind. She said nothing about it, but one morning when Emma had gone for a drive with one of the neighbors, she took from the bureau drawer the precious parcel reposingthere, and with an air of guilt made her way to the store.
"I've brought back this dress," she said confidentially to Heaton. "And if you'll be so kind as to change it, I'll take the black and white piece. I feel it's more suitable, somehow."
He readily obliged her, and the new pattern was deposited in the deep drawer, after which the little woman wore an air of chastened cheerfulness.
Cousin Ned Miller justified Miss Phillida's confidence. He not only promised Emma the school, but offered to get a class in French for her; and he spent time running about, waiting on her, and cheering her in every way that could suggest itself to his kind heart. His handsome team stood almost every day before the little brown house, while he loitered on the honeysuckle scented porch with the sisters. There was always some plausible excuse for his coming, and the true meaning of his visits did not dawn upon Miss Phillida's mind until one afternoon when she suddenly entered thesitting-room and saw them on the sofa together.
The little woman's face was aflame with joyous excitement, as she ran into the kitchen and began moving things about, without knowing or caring what she did. The happiest outcome!—the most natural, the most comfortable, and most reasonable arrangement that could happen! Emma and Cousin Ned! They were made for each other.
"I really can't keep still," thought Miss Phillida. "I must go somewhere."
As she put on her old gray gown, a thought suddenly flashed into her mind. "Maybe it'll look curious," she reflected. "But I declare if I won't."
Once more she entered the store with a parcel under her cape. Fortunately the accommodating clerk was the only one around.
Miss Phillida blushed as she laid the black and white dress pattern on the counter.
"I'm ashamed to be so changeable, Heaton, indeed I am; but things have altered lately, and—mymind's more given to bright colors, somehow. So, if it won't inconvenience you any, and if you'd really just as lief—I think I'll change back to the pink."
WhenLaura McHenry quietly turned her back upon the wealthy and desirable suitor her family had decided she should marry, and gave her hand to William May, a middle-aged lawyer of no particular standing or prospects, everybody decided that she had thrown herself away.
Mr. May began his married life upon a wind-fall of fifteen hundred dollars, his largest fee in a dozen years. A pretty house in Richmond was leased for a year, and the delightful experience of buying new furniture and disposing it to the best advantage gave the young wife such happy occupation for the first two months that she was always in a sunny humor, full of brightness and variability, and that kind of independent submissiveness which charms a man who likes
to see a woman much occupied with household affairs, and with himself, as the center of the household. Her pretty show of activity amused him. He said she made occupation for herself in moving the furniture from one place to another and then back again. One of his jokes was to ask her where he should find the bed when he came home. And upon this she would pretend to pout, and then they would kiss each other without the least awkwardness or shame-facedness, and he would go off to his work with a pleasant sense of security in the devotion of his lovely wife, while she would carry in her mind all day long the picture of his smiling face, and love him for every pretty speech and admiring look.
They were really happy. And it lasted quite six months, till all the fifteen hundred dollars had been drawn out of the bank, except the bare moiety necessary to keep the account.
When Dinah's wages were a month over-due, her substantial presence disappeared out of the kitchen, and Laura's dainty white handsmade acquaintance with dish-mops, stove-lifters and brooms. Such an ignoramus as she found herself! And with what zeal she bent her mind to the study of cookery books and the household corners of the newspapers. And brains told. She left the flour out of her first cake, but her second one was a triumph of art, and muffins, veal cutlets and custards came out from under her clever fingers with a delicacy and deftness that surprised herself and gratified May immensely. Although he was sorry to have her work in the kitchen, and sorry to find her now too tired to sing to him in the evenings with the same spirit and freshness that used to breathe through her songs. But the worst thing was that fatigue and unending attention to details, united to those perpetual interruptions from the door-bell which drive busy women almost distracted, had their effect upon Laura's delicate frame. She grew "nervous," which is often a misnomer for combined worry and distasteful labors. It will seem to the inexperienced that the housekeepingfor two people, in a convenient little house, should have been a mere bagatelle to a clever woman. Perhaps it would have been if Laura had not had her profession to learn as well as practise. She had not been brought up to housework, but to sing. Music had always been so much a part of her life that she no more thought of giving up her daily study hours than she would have thought of giving up her William. It was not that she chose to work at her piano three or four hours a day after her morning housework was done, but that it simply did not occur to her to do otherwise. She usually forgot or neglected to take any lunch, and by dinner time had no appetite, which had its conveniences, for it was rapidly coming to pass that the dinners she could compass upon the scanty and irregular supplies of money she received were scarcely sufficient for more than one person, and she contrived that her husband should be that person.
She had a thousand devices for inducing himto eat the bit of steak, the single cup-custard, or the slice of fish. He was far from realizing that his delicately fair wife, with her dainty tastes, was illy nourished upon the tea and toast to which she often confined herself. Nor did Laura realize it.
But after all, it was not the housework, the scanty food, nor even the lack of variety and refreshment in her life that was beginning to tell heavily upon her health, that was spoiling her beautiful disposition and making her apprehensive and irritable. It was something more terrible to a loving woman, honoring and admiring her husband with all her soul, than all these things combined.
The third anniversary of their wedding-day came. Laura remembered what day it was as she opened her eyes in the early dawn. A sigh escaped her before she knew it. The tendency to meditate, as Nathaniel Hawthorne observed, makes a woman sad. Laura had always been thoughtful; lately—being much alone and having some matters to think aboutnot tending to raise her spirits, she had insensibly become sober.
She put her feet out of bed into a pair of worn slippers, and shaking down a heavy mass of dark brown hair that matched her eyes in color, made her toilet without waking her husband, who slumbered serenely till within ten minutes of the breakfast hour, when she called him, meeting with a not overgracious response.
The little dining-room had a pleasant and comfortable air this chilly September morning. The little round table bore a glass containing a sprig or two of red geranium from the pot in the window, and the coffee-urn of nickel was polished till it shone like silver.
Mr. May came in after keeping her waiting fifteen minutes, and after helping her and himself to oatmeal, began to read the newspaper that lay at his plate in apparent forgetfulness of everything else. He was a stout, rather short man, with large, luminous brown eyes that never seemed to be looking at anything in particular. A full beard and mustache sprinkledwith gray hid a mouth that in his youth had made the lower part of his face strongly resemble that of Peter the Great. There was some quality about him that caused one to dread arousing his anger; a strong sense of his own importance, perhaps. Some persons have the gift of reflecting their own egotism into the minds of others, rendering themselves formidable entirely through an appeal to the imagination.
Laura was a tall, gracefully-formed woman, with a presence that promised to become majestic with increasing years. Yet at heart she was timid and sensitive as a delicate child, needing affection and encouragement in the same measure; the last woman in the world for a man who lived entirely within himself, and to whom a wife was an adjunct, to be put on and off at his pleasure. Yet May had in regard to her—and in regard to all other things—a conscience void of offense. He took credit to himself for having given her her heart's desire in his love.
The door-bell jangled sharply. May looked up.
"If that is the landlord," he said impressively, "I don't want to see him."
"What shall I tell him?" asked Laura.
"Tell him anything you please!" The tone was sternly impatient this time.
She went slowly into the narrow hall, and after a momentary parley with some one who spoke in a high, angry voice, returned with a bill which she laid before him without a word.
"Tell him I will—attend to it."
"He says——" she murmured deprecatingly, but got no further; the lowering expression that came over his face was too lacerating to her feelings. She preferred confronting the irate butcher again.
But there was a lump in her throat as she quietly resumed her seat. One of her ideas of the "protection" promised by the marriage ceremony had been a shielding from the roughness of persons of this sort. Why did he ask her to stand between him and the landlord, thecoal man and the butcher? Why, oh, why, was there any necessity for these evasions and subterfuges? She looked at her husband as he arose at last, after a leisurely breakfast hour, and stood by the window finishing a paragraph in his paper. He was a strong, robust man in the prime of life, with a profession and hosts of acquaintances to help on his interests. Why could he not at least make the small income necessary to keep their very modest establishment going?
The explanation lay in a single fact. May was a man of visionary schemes, always chasing some will-o'-the-wisp which promised fortune and distinction, finding his pleasure in holding honorary posts at his political club, which gave him a chance to talk and repaid him in a cheaply gained reputation for ability.
Little by little Laura's idealized vision of her husband had faded before the pressure of facts. But she clung to the shreds of her faith as women do hold to their illusions; as they must if the world is to go on and homes continueto exist. There was something still for her to learn, however, and not the easiest lesson that had been set for her.
She set rather indifferently about her practising that afternoon. It seemed to be no matter whether Chopin or Mendelssohn spoke to her soul; both were alike rendered with a cold brilliancy very far removed from her usual sympathetic interpretation. Her thoughts were far away, wandering amid scenes of her girlhood; a happy time, full of social enjoyment, of affectionate family intercourse, of freedom from care, from make-shifts, from the dishonor of debt; a dishonor that bore lightly upon May, with his belief in the future, but that was crushing to her sensitive nature. Idly her fingers wandered, swifter her thoughts flew, till all at once a sentence of homely wisdom from a modern novelist came into her mind: "Many women are struggling under the burden of money-saving when they had far rather spend their energies in money-getting."
She arose impetuously, her eyes suddenlyfull of light. What had she been thinking of? There was a fund of unused wealth in her fine musical education, in her beautiful voice, a little impaired by hardships, but magnificent still. Here was the way out of all this mirage of poverty; with what she could earn by taking a class in Madame Cable's school combined with her husband's earnings, they could live with comparative ease and comfort. Oh, happiness, oh, relief! Laura's hat and cape were on in ten minutes and a car was taking her down-town to the dwelling of her old teacher, sure of a welcome and of aid. Madame had offered her this position five years ago, just after her graduation, but her mother would not hear of it. Now her mother was two thousand miles away, on a frontier post with Major McHenry, entirely ignorant of the state of affairs in her daughter's household.
What a curiously elusive thing courage is! By the time Laura's finger was on the bell at Madame's door, her breath was coming in gasps, and while she waited in the lofty andhandsomely furnished parlor for the coming of her old teacher, all the strength went out of her knees, so that she found it difficult to rise when that stately, self-possessed woman came in with a little silken rustle of skirts and extended hand.
It is so hard to say outright to a friend, "Help me!" And yet, is not the opportunity of giving help and comfort one of the rewards of a successful life? Why do we distrust human goodness? It was the pride in Laura's nature that made her talk of everything else rather than the object of her call, that made her tongue falter and her cheek grow paler, when at length she brought herself to her task.
But fate was not ill-disposed. It happened that Madame needed her services. She had come at an opportune moment, and in a few minutes the business was satisfactorily settled.
"At the same time, my dear," said Madame, folding her soft, fat hands and shaking her head till the emerald drops in her ears emitted flashes of green fire, "I must say that I neverlike to see a married woman set out to earn money. It is apt to spoil her husband. A man should support his wife. It is his duty and it ought to be his pleasure. And another side of the matter is that women to whom the extra income they can gain by their talents means luxury and possibly extravagance, forget that such competition makes it harder for their needy sisters. Money-making is not such a gracious task. It should be left to those who really need the money."
"I am not going to tell you I need it," thought Laura. Aloud, she said with much indifference:
"Madame, have you any one in your mind you would rather get to take your classes—any one you think would do the work better?"
"No," the teacher acknowledged that she knew no other superior to her old pupil. "To tell you the truth, if I did I should feel it a duty to engage the better worker. The principal of a school like this cannot let her feelings guide her, you know."
"Then as the advantage is mutual," said Laura, a smile breaking over her serious face, "my conscience is at rest. It is a matter of the success of the fittest. My needier sister is not so well prepared for the post as I, and so I get it."
"Really, you are right," murmured Madame, with her head on one side. "But," she added as her visitor rose, "take my advice about one thing: keep your earnings for yourself; they belong to you. Don't let your husband find out that there is a—another capable bread-winner in the house."
Madame had not the highest opinion in the world of Mr. William May. But who lays to heart words of selfish caution? Not the wife who in the glow of comfort and peace arising from the prospect of an income of her own, feels all the old confidence and affection return as she explains matters to her husband with a careful avoidance of any wound to his self-love, and a blissful dwelling upon the pleasure and advantage that is to come to herselfin the healthful exercise of her accomplishments.
May was a little afraid their social standing would suffer. He certainly did not like the idea of his wife teaching in a school. It was contrary to all his preconceptions of her domestic, home-loving disposition.
"It is a reflection upon me," he said moodily, adding with a little passionate movement that brought her within his arm, her cheek close to his lips: "I didn't marry you to let you work, my darling!"
She might have answered that he had let her work at harder things, but she did not. She dwelt upon the idea of the comfort a regular occupation was to be to her during the long winter days. She would be much happier and less lonely with something to do. Very little said she of the salary that was an item of so much importance in her mind.
But after he had gone out to his club she got out a little blank book and figured it all away for six months to come. She resolvedto leave out of consideration the house-rent and the table. Naturally, William would continue to bear the burden of these responsibilities. Her design was to fill in the vacancies which he was indifferent to. So much for the gas bill, so much for laundry, so much for the seats in church. And something over for the indispensable winter clothing and for the joy of giving. She looked forward to the happiness of hanging a new hat upon the rack in place of dear Will's shabby one, and of supplying a pair of slippers. Bliss and comfort of a little control over circumstances, instead of being compelled to stand helpless and anxious waiting upon the good fortune of another! Could a man have any idea of what this feeling is to a woman? Mr. May could not have had, or he would never have done what he did.
All that first month Laura was buoyed up by the anticipation of that comfortable check she was soon to finger. Cool autumn breezes were beginning to blow, but when first one woman, then another, put on wraps, until herplain undraped gown appeared odd, she merely smiled indifferently and warmed herself with the thought of pay-day. When the farina kettle sprang a leak she laughingly declared it was old enough to be superannuated. A dollar seemed such a trifle to worry over now.
At last it was in her hands. The first earning of her life. With a child's glee she hurried home and displayed it to her husband, enjoying his teasing comments on her sudden accession to wealth. But the dinner had to be cooked, and recalling herself to this duty, she ran into the kitchen, leaving the check behind her on the desk.
"It is all right," said Mr. May, when she looked for it later in the evening. "I put it in my private drawer."
"Oh, yes, it is safer there," she returned easily, and got out her mending basket, humming a gay tune, more light of heart than she had been in many a day.
The next day was Saturday, and she hadmore morning work to do than usual, but she hurried through it, and by half-past ten she had her hat and gloves on and was rummaging the desk for her check. It was nowhere to be found.
"Impossible that it could have been stolen," she exclaimed. "Impossible! It was not indorsed. No one could use it, even if a thief had made his way in, and that is absurd to think of. Itmustbe here."
Only when every paper had been taken out and scrutinized did she desist from her search, and almost crying with vexation, resigned herself to await her husband's return and ask his advice.
"My check!" she cried breathlessly, almost before he was fairly inside the door. "It is gone!"
He turned with a somewhat puzzled expression at her excited manner.
"The check? Oh, why, that is all right. I put it in the bank this morning."
"You put it in the bank?" repeated Lauraslowly. "But how could you? It was not indorsed."
"I indorsed it," he answered rather shortly, annoyed at all this explanation about a mere matter of course. Were not he and his wife one, and was not everything in common between them? It had not entered his head for a single instant that there was anything amiss about a procedure that was to Laura a veritable thunderbolt.
She stood for a moment with her eyes lowered, ashamed for him who thought of nothing less than of being ashamed for himself. It was impossible to reproach him; he was a man whom a breath of censure hardened into rock. While the sunshine of applause and sympathy shone upon him he was debonair and charming, but the first chilling breath of blame brought all the ice in his nature to the surface. She had experienced the change; she dared not encounter it. Besides, it was not in this first instant of a new revelation of his creed that she was to feel all the sense of his moral flexibility.That was reserved for later, when her keen instinct of justice and of individual rights had been outraged again and again. She loved him. To win a smile and a kind word from him what would she not have sacrificed? The mere trifle of money was nothing. It was the feeling of having been unfairly treated, of having been not considered at all where she had every right to consideration. And yet the want of that trifle of money was to make her miserable for a long time to come.
It was hard to be sweet and loving all day Sunday, with a weight of suppressed thought upon her mind, but forbearance nourishes affection, and by Monday she was her own tender, submissive self again. Besides, it had occurred to her that the money was not quite out of her reach; William would give her a check if she asked him for it.
When she made the suggestion he readily assented, and made out one to her for five dollars before he left Monday morning. When she timidly broached the subject again helooked annoyed, and said curtly that the landlord had the money.
"But——" began Laura, flushing hotly, then closed her lips and went quietly about her work. What was there to say? The landlord had to be paid, of course. Only somehow, she had thought that her husband would do that, as he had always managed it before.
But the following month brought Mr. May increasing ill-luck. He would have been a generous and kindly man if he had prospered, and with nothing to bring it to the surface he might have gone through life, his lack of sterling principle unsuspected. He could be generous but not just; he could recognize the rights of others—the right of tradesmen to be paid, the rights of his political comrades to a fulfilment of his promises to them—ifeverything went well with himself. But to tell the truth in the teeth of disaster, to face an irate creditor, to climb down from his height of vain ambition and lay to heart that vow of duty his childish lips had uttered at his mother's knee—"Tolabor truly to get my own living, and do my duty in that state of life to which it shall please God to call me"—this was what William May had not it in him to perform. And his wife, with her clear moral sense, her unbending Puritan conscience, was doomed to see him fail.
It was not the loss of her money that pained her so much when on the next pay-day she handed him her check in very pity and sorrow for his "bad luck." It was the feeling that do what she would, work as she might, they would never be any better off. And the still more dreary revelation that as her energy was more feverishly applied his diminished. The more earnest and eager she grew to pay off their increasing debts and establish system in their ways, the more careless he became.
She furbished up her wedding gown and made engagements to sing at parlor entertainments. She gave private lessons. And she made money. Some of it she handled herself, but most of it was "put in the bank,"and drawn out for a strange purpose: one she disapproved and disbelieved in utterly, but could not positively oppose.
He was so boyishly eager about it, so confident of his success. Through activity unprecedented and maneuverings he did not care to remember, Mr. May had been put up for State senator from his district, and in all the bustle of officering small meetings and petty "bossing," his spirits were so high, and he was so good-humored and affectionate that his wife had not the heart to tell him that this was the worst waste of time in which he had yet engaged. For to her sane, cautious mind it was apparent from the first that he had not the shadow of a chance of being elected.
It happened that on the very eve of the election she was engaged to sing at Carnegie Hall. He could not possibly spare time to take her, and she went down alone, in a car. Her eyes were very bright and a spot of color burned in each cheek. She was beautiful, with the beauty of spirit that has triumphed overflesh. But a physician in the audience whispered to his wife that that lovely woman was far along in consumption. "And she will go quick, too, poor thing!"
The troublesome cough which she had neglected all winter annoyed her more than usual going home, but she was rather shocked than grieved when in the middle of the night a hemorrhage came on. Life was growing hard and duty perplexing. But sheer force of will and affection made her seem better next day, and she would not hear of her husband staying with her. He was pledged to appear elsewhere and she made him go. He did not come in till after midnight, and then—she sat up in sudden terror, listening to that stumbling step, those mumbling speeches! It was not only his election that May had lost that night; his manhood had followed.
Laura turned her face to the wall. Was life to hold this new horror? Ah, that she might escape the next day, with its shame, its sorrow and its pitiful regrets. But what she expecteddid not come. May was constitutionally incapable of confessing himself at fault. He slept off his intoxication and did not get up until he was quite himself again, cool and non-committal.