The unhappy girl lifted her head and looked at her in startled wonder.
“I’m forty-five, Maggie, and I never had one! Think of the happiness!”
“Happiness!” The girl’s voice was that of one for whom life held nothing.
“Yes, Happiness, Joy and Pride!”
All the girl’s New England upbringing revolted against this strange suggestion.
“Why, it’s — Shame!” she answered, protestingly.
“Yes,” said Miss Yale, slowly, “yes, more’s the pity! But that can be lived down.”
“And it’s — Sin!” said the girl, in a dull, relentless voice.
“Yes, it’s sin; you have done wrong. You’ve made an awful misplay, Maggie, and you’ll have to suffer for it. But it is sin for two! You haven’t sinned any more than he has — not as much, for he was playing this thing for his own pleasure and you took all the risks. He’s not going to be ruined by this summer’s sins — why should you?”
Maggie gazed down at her hands, lacing and interlacing the slender fingers.
“I can’t talk like you do, Miss Yale. You’re very kind, you always were; but it isn’t any good — now!” Then she broke down in wild distress again, sobbing, “Oh, I want to die! I want to die!”
Miss Yale watched her for a moment in sympathetic silence. Then she said, firmly, “I’m ashamed of you, Maggie!” The poor child stiffened at this and sullenly wiped her eyes. “For the way you’re taking it,” her friend went on. “The time is past for foolishness, my dear. You have been fooled into becoming a woman before you were hardly a girl — now you’ve got to live up to it. Let’s talk sense.” She rose and walked, hands in her coat pockets. “Here you are — and the thing’s done. Off goes the gentleman responsible, and you are left with a big undertaking before you. It is lucky you are strong and brave.”
Maggie’s face was turned away, but she was listening. “This dying and going to the devil is all nonsense. You’ve been to the devil — now we’ll go somewhere else.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Maggie, after a pause.
“I want you to live,” said Miss Yale, slowly, “and work — and succeed. You can study, take a profession, be a doctor, if you like, be a better one than he is! Get ahead of him in his own line, wouldn’t you like that?” Maggie nodded slowly, her lips tightening. “Besides,” her friend pursued, “I want you to be an example. You needn’t look so incredulous. I mean it — an example to all the others. Maggie, my dear, you are not the only poor girl who is left crying tonight. Come, show what a brave woman can do!”
A flicker of purpose rose in the girl’s eyes, but it faded.
“It’s no use talking,” she said. “I’ve got no education.”
“Plenty of time for that yet, you are only sixteen, you know. And you’ve got a good head. I’ll see to the education, Maggie.”
But Maggie Wentworth lifted her head proudly. “I won’t be beholden to anybody, Miss Yale.”
“Oh, yes, you will. You have more than one to think of, remember. And it’s only a loan. I invest in you as I would in a prospective gold mine. You shall pay it all back in cold cash if you like — every cent of it. Listen, child. We’ll step right out from under. I’ll send someone for you, so that no one will know, to take you away from here. We’ll arrange you shall go abroad with me. I’ll give you my name. I’ll take care of you — and yours! You shall start clear in another country — and make good!”
Maggie regarded her with wondering eyes, hopeful, fearing, uncertain.
“What makes you want to do — so much for me?” she asked.
“It’s a hobby of mine, Maggie,” Miss Yale replied. “I don’t believe in this ruining. You’ve done wrong — and you’ll have to suffer on the best of terms. But that’s no reason you should be hanged, drawn and quartered!” She walked about, her hands behind her. “Make up your mind that you’ve got some fifty or sixty years to live — to work — to accomplish something — to prove that there’s something more to a woman than this one performance!”
Then she stood still before the girl and held out her hand.
“Come — will you do it?”
Maggie took the offered hand, and answered solemnly, “I will!”
3. A Designing Woman
“It’s a large order,” said Mary Yale solemnly to her looking glass. “It’s a very large order. It’s the largest order I’ve ever undertaken.”
She sat long that night with her chin on her palms, her elbows wide on the dressing table, seeming to derive all the comforts of conversation from the kind, strong face opposite her.
“The plotting and planning are easy enough,” she continued slowly, “as easy as a dime novel — but there are the three ‘ologies to consider. The physiology can be handled all right, and the sociology, I think; but the psychology of the case is the hard part.... I’ve got to refill that child’s mind!”
As she said, the plotting and planning were not difficult. With genuine pleasure she devoted herself to this task, using her busy fountain pen in strange diagrammatic arrangements, and destroying each piece of discarded paper as carefully as if anyone but herself could imagine the meaning of those cabalistic figures.
She was a woman of wide and varied experience in mending broken lives, from the placing of hoary inebriates in asylums to the rescue of starved babies from incompetent parents; and besides experience, she had friends similarly interested in more than one country.
Carefully she arranged her plans with the ultimate purpose always clear in her mind, and before midnight she had come to certain definite conclusions.
She returned to her room next morning while Maggie, red-eyed and silent, was making the bed. Dr. Armstrong had gone by the nine o’clock stage, and she could not even say good-bye to him — if she had wished to. She told herself that she did not wish to; that she wished never to see him again.
“Did you sleep any, child?” asked Miss Yale softly. Maggie shook her head. Her face was blank and hopeless, but she cast piteous, trustful glances at her friend, like a dog with a hurt paw which you are trying to bandage.
“Can you go for berries again this afternoon, Maggie?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Well, can you meet me about three o’clock on Breen’s pasture — up there where there’s a big oak all alone, you know?”
“And lots of blackberries just below in the holler?”
“Yes, I have ever so many things to talk to you about — you’ll be surprised. And look here — did you ever read this?”
This was a story from some magazine, cut out and pinned together.
Maggie had not read it, and looked at the vivid pictures with a shade of interest. Miss Yale folded it up small. “I want you to read it if you will,” she said. “There’s something I want to ask you about — later.”
“All right,” said Maggie dully, rather suspecting a moral lesson.
When her bedroom work was done she ran to the end of the orchard and lay down a little breathless, under a grove of locust trees by the brook. She meant to cry, and reaching for her handkerchief, found the story. The pictures were interesting, anyway. She began to read suspiciously, looking for the moral, for some allusion to a misfortune like her own; but soon forgot that purpose in the gripping interest of the tale. It was funny, too, in one place, so that she gave a little chuckle in spite of herself. “Served him dead right,” she thought, with decision, and in her emotional condition she found tears of sympathy and tears of joy at the ending.
“Mag! Mag! Wherever has that girl gone to?” Her aunt stood screaming for her at the barnyard gate, and she went back to end the noise. “You haven’t even picked the corn yet — and here it’s ‘most dinnertime — and me with the bakin’. Do get busy now, for goodness sake.”
So Mag got busy among the long rustling streamers of the sweet corn, the grief and terror in her mind lifted a little by a sense of hope, and stirred still more by curiosity as to what Miss Yale was going to do, w
hile again and again, across her own real troubles, flashed the picture of that troubled tale, and the intense gratification she had felt in the result.
Miss Yale was sorting stories on her bed. She had not many with her, only this summer’s extracts, but they were all good ones.
“Not love stories,” she was saying to herself. “That cuts out a lot. And not baby stories, but children ones do no harm.” She made little piles separately. “Adventure — funny ones — and, yes, I guess ghost stories; that’s a different note, anyway.... And it’s only for a day or two now.” She selected three that pleased her, and put the rest away.
Maggie with her pails, and Miss Yale with her bag, met under the shade of the big oak that afternoon. It was a fine place for two conspirators, for the open pasture fell away on all sides, odorous of bay-berry and sweet fern, and very bright in spots with that amazing fruit which is black, and yet red when it’s green.
“Here I am,” said Maggie, and sat herself down, her filled pail carefully established on a level space. Her manner was as of one with an incurable disorder, willing to be experimented upon, but utterly incredulous of help. She fingered the straps of Miss Yale’s denim bag, and suddenly shrank from its odor as if stung.
“Too bad — I shouldn’t have brought it”; and Miss Yale stood up and tossed her fragrant burden some way down the hill. “There — now we can talk. You see you are a grown person, and a free agent, and what I want to do requires your cooperation. I’ve got to tell you about my plans. I cannot do it unless you are willing to help.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the girl.
“I’ll lay the outlines before you — it’s a big game, and a long one. And will take some playing. There are several important points that we must be sure of. In the first place — no one here dreams of this, do they?”
Maggie shook her head. “I didn’t myself, till now,” she said. “And I wasn’t likely to tell Aunt Joelba.”
Miss Yale smiled appreciatively.
“Well, hardly,” she agreed, thinking that Maggie’s sense of humor would be a great help to her. “Our first play is to get you out of here without anyone’s knowing it. Let them think what they please. You are to disappear.”
A spark of interest stirred in the girl’s eye.
“The next thing is to get you adopted without anyone’s knowing it’s you — ever. That is harder, but I’ve arranged it. The next thing is to keep you in health and peace of mind until the baby comes.”
Maggie winced and flushed.
“Don’t feel that way, my dear. You know we have to face this thing—”
“And live it down,” murmured the girl.
“And live up to it! It isn’t anything to be afraid of, not at all. Then — where are we? The fourth thing is to educate you. Let me see — you’re just sixteen, aren’t you?”
“Sixteen last June.”
“Well, you’ll only be about seventeen then. Seventeen — and with a good mind of your own — not overfilled. After that it is education — growth — building.”
“It’ll take forever, won’t it? Beginning so late?”
“Not a bit of it, child. You don’t have to go through all the motions. You’re going to be really educated. And you’ll enjoy it.”
“And what — what’ll become of — It?”
“I’ll adopt it, too — temporarily. I think that would be best — at first. Then you will stand clear till you have chosen your work, made your place in the world. When you are ready to claim her, she is yours.”
Maggie’s face was turned away. She was looking further into the future, more definitely into the future, than she ever had before.
“Perhaps,” she said, and paused, the warm pink rising to the warmer red of her hair; “perhaps — it’ll be a boy.”
“Perhaps. A son. Son or daughter, Maggie, it’s coming. It has only you to look to — it is all yours. You will have to be very brave and strong and patient and hardworking — to make a place in the world for your child.
“Have you any place in your room where you can hide things?” she suddenly asked.
The girl’s eyes came back from that far prospect, and turned on Miss Yale with a puzzled expression.
“Why, yes,” she said. “I’ve a trunk that locks. Had it when I was to Millville.”
“All right,” was Miss Yale’s reply.
“What am I going to hide?” asked Maggie, with natural interest. “They haven’t come yet. The important things. All I have for you now are these stories. How fast do you read?”
“I don’t know — I read that other one in about an hour, I guess. It was real interesting. What was you goin’ to ask me about it?”
“That comes later,” said Miss Yale. “Do you think you could read all these tonight — before you go to sleep?”
“I guess so.”
“Of course, if you get real sleepy, you needn’t, but if you can, read them all in this order. I’ve marked them, you see — one, two and three.”
“Do I have to take notice of anything?”
“No, not particularly. Just read them easily. One thing I want to know is this.” Miss Yale looked very solemn, and added slowly, “I want to know which one interests you the most.”
“All right. I’ll read ’em — and tell you. But Aunt Joelba’ll see my light, and if she don’t do that, she’ll see the lamp’s empty.”
Miss Yale smiled broadly.
“I thought of that, too.” Then from the hidden depths of her garments, she produced an electric pocket lamp. “That’s newly charged,” she said. “It’ll last you, I think. I always have one in the country — they don’t smell. So you can read in bed and screen the light altogether.”
From another pocket came a small box, tightly covered with pink paper.
“This is part of the prescription,” she added seriously. “You are to divide these in three equal parts, and eat them with each story. Don’t open it till you begin.”
Maggie had some difficulty in concealing all these objects about her angular young frame; but though her aunt sharply demanded to know “what made her walk that way?” she got safely to her little room and after that had no more to carry than a trunk key on a string. The box puzzled her more than the stories; it persisted in popping into her mind across the dark curtain of her grief, even before the lifted curtain of wide, new hope. When she did get to bed, with her small, clear light well-hidden, the mystery was revealed. It proved to be nothing more than caramels — caramels superior to any that Maggie had ever tasted.
“Isn’t she just lovely!” thought the poor child, and religiously devoted herself to the task of spending a very pleasant evening, going to sleep at last, with her mind swinging widely about between the concerns of several sets of most interesting persons as well as her own. Even if she wakened to loneliness and grief, these new ideas persisted in sharing her attention.
Her aunt kept her so busy next day that she had small time to think of anything beyond brooms and dust cloths; and since Miss Yale had taken Daisy Briggs and Mr. Battlesmith on an automobile trip, and Dr. Newcome, deprived of his usual companionship, had lured Mr. Briggs from his book to a morning’s fishing, Mrs. Briggs found opportunity to oversee the cleaning of her room and at the same time bestow good advice upon the cleaner.
“How old are you, Maggie?” she began, in a voice at once friendly and firm.
“Sixteen, ma’am, goin’ on seventeen.”
“You should be at school yet, or learning a trade. Here — don’t raise such a dust! Have you no tea leaves?”
“Tea leaves, ma’am? What for?”
“To lay the dust, of course. You should save your tea leaves and scatter them on the carpet, then sweep lightly, with a short stroke — here, let me show you.”
Mrs. Briggs always maintained that a lady should know how to do whatever she required done for her, and then she would be well served. This applied, of course, only to the work of the household. She did not insist on a lady’s knowing how to r
un locomotives, ships or shoe factories, or even that a gentleman should understand these arts. But then one cannot think of everything. She gave Maggie a lesson in sweeping that was really of value, yet the obstinate girl fulfilled her directions under protest, inwardly vowing that she never would sweep that way — never.
Added to these instructions the good lady gave advice as to the proper conduct of young girls in regard to gentlemen.
“You are only a child,” she said, “but you are quite old enough to get yourself talked about. It does not look well for a young girl in your position to be seen about with gentlemen.”
To these remarks Maggie made no reply whatever. Her mouth was shut tight, and the muscles of the jaw made a firm angle in her soft cheek. She flushed, too, more from anger than mortification, and was half minded to “answer back” in such wise that Mrs. Briggs would remember it; but the thought of that large new future before her gave her sufficient strength to finish her task and leave the room with no more reply than a most decided closing of the door.
“Impertinent child!” thought Mrs. Briggs. “They never do know enough to appreciate their friends.”
Miss Yale had gone to the largest town within easy reach, and there promptly disposed of her young companions, leaving them at the mercy of one of those beguiling establishments, something between a shop and an arbor, planned to satisfy the summer boarder’s thirst for buying things.
Then did Miss Daisy’s youthful enthusiasm strive against her better judgment in the matter of various preferred confections; and Mr. Battlesmith’s better judgment also strove with his youthful enthusiasm in the matter of pleasing Cousin Daisy. But when two youthful enthusiasms unite upon the same box of candy, it would take a dozen better judgments to prevent them from buying it.
Miss Yale, meanwhile, went to the best bookstore, such as it was, to the jeweler’s and the dry goods establishment, and spent some time in the telegraph office. She also purchased the best New Hampshire road maps to be found, and added judiciously to her own store of sweetmeats, none of which purchases was revealed to her young friends.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 54
