Then it was only the housework, and caring for her mother as she grew older. The one pleasure of her own she ever had was in her flowers. She had transplanted wild ones, had now and then been given “a slip” by remote neighbors — in past years; and those carefully nurtured blossoms were all that brought color and sweetness into her gray life.
She did not complain. For a long time I could not get her to talk to me at all about herself, and when she did it was without hope or protest. She had practically no education — only a few years in a country school in childhood, and almost no reading, writing, conversation, any sort of knowledge of the life of the world about her.
And here she lived, meek, patient, helpless, with neither complaint nor desire, endlessly working to make comfortable the parents who must some day leave her alone — to what?
My thirty years in Tibet seemed all at once a holiday Compared to this thirty years on an upland farm in the Alleghanies of Carolina. My loss of life — what was it to this loss? I, at least, had never known it, not until I was found and brought back, and she had known it every day and night for thirty years. I had come back at fifty-five, regaining a new youth in a new world. She apparently had had no youth, and now was old — older at forty-five than women of fifty and sixty whom I had met and talked with recently.
I thought of them, those busy, vigorous, eager, active women, of whom no one would ever predicate either youth or age; they were just women, permanently, as men were men. I thought of their wide, free lives, their absorbing work and many minor interests, and the big, smooth, beautiful, moving world in which they lived, and my heart went out to Drusilla as to a baby in a well.
“Look here, Drusilla,” I said to her at last, “I want you to marry me. We’ll go away from here; you shall see something of life, my dear — there’s lot of time yet.”
She raised those quiet blue eyes and looked at me, a long, sweet, searching look, and then shook her head with gentle finality. “O, no,” she said. “Thank you,’ Cousin John, but I could not do that.”
And then, all at once I felt more lonely and out of life than when the first shock met me.
“O, Drusilla!” I begged; “Do-do! Don’t you see, if you won’t have me nobody ever will? I am all alone in the world, Drusilla; the world has all gone away from me! You are the only woman alive who would understand. Dear cousin — dear little girl — you’ll have to marry me — out of pity!” And she did.
Nobody would know Drusilla now. She grew young at a rate that seemed a heavenly miracle. To her the world was like heaven, and, being an angel was natural to her anyway.
I grew to find the world like heaven, too — if only for what it did to Drusilla.
MAG-MARJORIE
Mag-Marjorie was first appeared in The Forerunner in 1912. The work was later published as a book, but has remained one of her most obscure works. It has not garnered the same attention from critics as many of her other texts and is often considered to be one of her lesser novels. It is certainly not the author’s most inspiring work and it lacks the creativity of some of her other fiction, but it is an intriguing narrative about a young woman’s journey into adulthood. The novel focuses on Margaret, who at sixteen becomes pregnant by the gynaecologist Dr Armstrong, a man that swiftly abandons her. The destitute girl is rescued by an older woman called Miss Yale, who takes Margaret to Europe, educates her and encourages her to become a doctor. The young woman spends a decade in Europe, learning about medicine, while also acquiring other skills such as fencing.
When Margaret returns to New England as a renowned surgeon she re-encounters Dr. Armstrong. The gynaecologist no longer remembers Margaret, but quickly develops a romantic interest in her and proposes marriage. He is not only insistent that she should become his wife, but also that she should no longer continue in her profession. A battle of wills and a struggle for power ensues between the two as the doctor remains determined in his pursuit of Margaret. The novel explores interesting ideas about women, the importance of education and what it entails for a woman to be successful and respected in her professional life.
CONTENTS
1. Two Men and a Girl
2. A Man and Two Women
3. A Designing Woman
4. The Building Years
5. In a Doctor’s Office
6. Coming Home
7. An Unexpected Arrival
8. Meetings
9. Developments
10. Further Developments
11. Various Efforts
12. Questions
13. Answers
Margaret returns to New England to practice medicine
1. Two Men and a Girl
A lean, angular, freckled, red-haired woman in a stringy brown gingham dress and a brown sunbonnet rose to her feet from the clump of blueberry bushes she had been stripping, pushed back her sun-bonnet, and looked about her.
There was much to look at, both of beauty and grandeur — the cool blue background of far hills across the valley, and the warm foreground a vivid color, great moss-embroidered rocks, the loaded blueberry bushes, the balsam firs that shot up everywhere, the multicolored carpet of moss and grass and all manner of small underbrush — but she seemed wholly dissatisfied with the prospect.
“Mag! Mag!” she called, raising a harsh thin voice that made the sharp monosyllable an offense to the ear. “Where is that girl?”
She shaded her eyes from the afternoon sun, and turned slowly, looking everywhere. From this rocky ridge she could see far and near, down on both sides over the steep berry patches and wooded slopes, up to the higher ranges of dark fir, to the distant village in the eastern valley, easily down upon her own small farm.
But she did not see through the sheltering low-hung boughs of the big balsam fir, to the fragrant hollow between its spreading roots, in which one could cuddle so comfortably out of sight, and yet see out across the warm wide valley to the fir-fringed hills beyond.
A girl slipped from the nest, down to the westward behind the tree, and presently reappeared up the ridge swinging her pail. She, too, was lean, angular, freckled and red-haired; she, too, wore a stringy gingham dress and sunbonnet, but blue, as were her ribbons, that strong discordant blue which seems to be the judgment of heaven upon red hair.
“Where under the sun’ve you been?” demanded her aunt. “Here ’tis supper time already! Have you got any berries?”
“Got some,” said the girl, indifferently, swinging her pail forward.
“You are the laziest young one I ever saw!” was her aunt’s comment. “I could pick more’n that in half an hour. You come down and help me get supper this minute.” She did not speak angrily; it was her customary mode of speech.
“You don’t have to get supper tonight,” the girl answered. “They’re all off for a picnic, don’t you remember?”
“That’s so,” said the older woman, irresolutely, almost minded to sit down again, but thinking better of it. “There’s enough chores to do, anyhow,” she added sharply. “These berries’ll do. You come along.”
The girl swung her pail. “You go on,” she said. “I’ve got a big bush back here — and I want to finish it. I’ll come pretty soon.”
“Well, see’t you do!” said her aunt sharply. “I know you! You’ll loaf around here till sunset ‘n’ after — and then claim you spilled ‘em! I never saw a lazier girl in my life — if you are my own sister’s child! You don’t get it from the Binghams, that’s sure. But your father never was any account.”
The girl colored hotly under her freckles. She had never known her father, who died while she was yet a baby, but cherished a secret conviction that the Wentworths were far superior to the Binghams. It was a grief to her, a constant mortification, that she “took after” the Binghams in personal appearance, at least in coloring. Her features, the outline of her head, and some hint of further growth in her young spareness would have been counted on the Wentworth side by her father’s people, if they had known her.
“I guess
my father’s folks are as good as any of yours, Aunt Joelba,” she said sullenly.
“They ain’t good enough to look after their poor relations, I notice,” was the caustic response. “They was glad enough to drop your father when he didn’t please them. And as to your father’s orphan young one — they never picked you up, much less dropped you!” Regarding her niece critically, she nibbled a wintergreen leaf, her thin lips guiltless of berry stain. “And what’s going to become of you I don’t know — if you don’t quit your laziness. You’ve certainly got to work for a livin’. You can’t depend on your looks.”
The girl flushed again. “They say I’m all Bingham as to looks,” she replied, with some satisfaction. But her aunt accepted the rebuff coolly.
“Handsome is that handsome does,” she retorted. “We’re not good lookers, but we are good workers. You ain’t either.” She turned to go down, with two big pails of berries, adding in a kinder tone, “However — you’re young yet, Mag — you’ll do better by’n by, I don’t doubt.”
Her meager figure disappeared down the steep slope, and the girl stood watching her, calmly eating berries from her half-filled pail.
Aunt Joelba had been her domestic horizon from earliest childhood. She scarce remembered her mother, or the poor and transient homes in which she had lived before this somewhat grudging adoption.
From three years to twelve she had known only this New Hampshire farm, the rigors of the New England climate outside and the equal rigors of its chill dumb family life within. Even from affectionate parents there was little petting, little expression of love and cheer, and from an unaffectionate elderly aunt, “doing her duty” by a child whom nobody wanted, there was none at all.
Perhaps it was on the Wentworth side, possibly from a much discredited ancestress of European descent, that the child had inherited an appetite for petting, a fierce longing to be held close — close — and called tender names.
Only in storybooks had she known of any such behavior, reading of mothers who “drew the child to her side and kissed her tenderly” or who “clasped her to her heart in a passion of maternal love.”
Little Mag was drawn to no one’s side, never “kissed tenderly” in her life, and as to being clasped to anyone’s heart — New Hampshire as she knew it did no clasping.
In her brief years of schooling she had made no satisfying attachment. Her sturdy mates, with hard tight braids of hair and faces already stern from the discipline they were brought up on, had no delusion about “Miss Bingham’s sister’s girl” whom they had heard coldly discussed by their parents.
The teachers were objects of her respectful admiration, but there had not come to that district one of those born child-lovers whose influence can lighten and change the lives of unhappy little ones. School had been mostly work to her; she had not been a brilliant scholar, not particularly interested in the studies forced upon her, much preferring to read, and always short of material.
She had been glad when her aunt let her go to Millville to work, that hard year when there was so little to meet the mortgage; and in three seasons of shop and factory life, her views of life had hardened rather than widened.
Her keen young intelligence, so ill-supplied with the blessed truths of life, had formulated a narrow and bitter creed, and at sixteen she looked out on the world with a bravely bitter cynicism, considering herself quite “grown up” and independent. It is true that her aunt had demanded her help this summer with the boarders, but she had earned her living — and meant to again next winter. She did not mean ever to come back to Aunt Joelba. But during this last summer, something had happened, something of which she was thinking now, rather than of picking berries.
She heard a step on the crisp gray moss, and turned, an eager light in her eyes, a light that faded as she met those of a tall young man carrying a large basket. He saw the change but smiled serenely upon her.
“Good evening, Miss Wentworth,” he said. “Don’t go,” — for she was turning away— “stay and share our picnic, won’t you?”
“Good gracious!” she answered sharply. “You ain’t goin’ to have that picnic here, are you?” He sat back on his heels from where he was investigating the big basket, and regarded her with freshened interest.
“Why not, Miss Wentworth?”
“Why should you? It’s way up on top of all creation — an awful climb for the ladies — and all these things to lug! I can show you a lot prettier place — where it’s flat — and smooth — all pine needles, and real shady! Come on! I’ll take you there right now — and then you can bring them to it.”
“Sorry to disappoint your philanthropic intentions — but the ladies you refer to are very determined characters, at least two of them. Miss Yale, especially, gave me most explicit orders. I was to bring this; lay out the things, take back the basket, and ascend again with ice, rugs, a teakettle, and other objects.”
He talked on cheerfully but did not fail to note that she was annoyed.
“I’m sorry you don’t like it,” he pursued, “but it lets you out of waiting on table for once — and you’ll be very welcome to join us, Miss Wentworth.”
“What do you call me ‘Miss Wentworth’ for?” she demanded sullenly.
“You are, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not Miss Anything — I’m just Mag.”
“I like Miss Wentworth better,” he said. “It’s a fine old name. You ought to be proud of it.”
The girl giggled a little. “I’d look well, wouldn’t I,” she jeered, “being proud of anything?”
He opened his basket and began to take things out. She stood so on the edge of flight that he urged need of assistance, hoping to keep her.
“Help me spread this out, won’t you?” he said, and she came, with the feminine habit of service and took the cloth from him, remarking:
“Guess I can spread a tablecloth, without any help about it.” They had some difficulty choosing a place for it, one at least relatively flat and free from stones.
“What on earth you folks want to lug all those things up here for I can’t see,” she protested, “when you might sit at the table and be waited on.”
“Pure foolishness, Miss Wentworth,” he admitted. “Suppose we put the sugar over there.”
“Suppose you don’t,” she took him up. “Suppose you don’t take out anything at all till you’re ready to eat it. You’ll have ants all over ’em if you do.”
“You are right,” he agreed. “Perfectly right. They won’t be up for some time yet. I brought up this basket ahead — meaning to go back and get the other.”
“Well — why don’t you do it then,” she inquired, saucily, but he leaned back against a big boulder with a most contented expression and replied, “Because I’d rather talk with you.”
“I can’t talk,” she answered. She had taken off her blue sunbonnet and swung it by its limp string. Her red hair shone like a sunset. He regarded it admiringly. She saw him look, and put her bonnet on, flushing.
“Don’t,” he said, “please don’t! You have beautiful hair, don’t you know it?”
“I know better!” she said, “a lot better, and I won’t be made fun of, either.”
“I should never dream of making fun of you, Miss Wentworth,” he said, sincerely. “I respect you too much. Look here — I wish you’d tell me why you are so bitter. Has your life been all unpleasant so far?” She laughed, a hard, defiant little laugh. “Life!” she said, “I never had any!”
“Tell me about it,” said he. “I know you lost your father—”
“Yes — he died when I was two — and Mother when I was three — and Aunt Joelba brought me up — because somebody had to! They didn’t want me on the town, that’s why!”
“You poor little kid!” He regarded her with honest sympathetic eyes. “And you’ve had to work for her all the time?”
“Oh, I’ve been to school some — before I was twelve. And I’ve worked three winters over to Millville, once in a store an
d twice in a mill. I can work all right — if I have to—”
“But you don’t like to?”
“I’d like to do some things, of course; but — oh, what’s the use of talking? I’ve got to get more berries before sunset.”
“Sunset’s a long time off,” he said. “Please sit down. Here’s a nice moss cushion and a fine rock back. You don’t ever give me a chance to talk with you.”
“I’ve no time for talking,” she said, but seated herself nonetheless, not where he indicated, but on a rounded stone, still seeming ready for flight. Her eyes wandered down the long slope. She seemed to listen for something beyond his voice.
“I am most sincerely interested, Miss Wentworth. I am sure you have character and ability beyond what you think — and I want you to use it.”
She looked at him mischievously, her bright brown eyes twinkling under their light lashes.
“Me!” she said. “I’m skinny and freckled and redheaded and ignorant and — lazy!”
“You are not lazy! And you need not be ignorant. You can have a beautiful life, Maggie — if you don’t like Miss Wentworth. May I call you Maggie?”
She giggled appreciatively. “I should say you might. Ain’t I the waitress and chambermaid? Don’t everybody call me Maggie — or Mag?”
He regarded her seriously. He was an earnest young man, with grave eyes, and a mouth both humorous and determined.
“You don’t mean to be a chambermaid always, do you?” he persisted. “You know that you can learn to do better work; can grow into a bigger life than this. I wish you’d let me help you.”
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 51
