Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Early that evening, while the others rocked and chatted on the moonlit porch, she summoned Maggie to bring fresh water to her room.

  “Shut the door, Maggie,” she said. “Never mind if it is hot. Come and sit over here, not so near the window.” She spoke softly, and the girl felt a pleasant excitement in this atmosphere of conspiracy. “We mustn’t talk long,” pursued Miss Yale, quite as if she knew that detectives were all about the house. “But I have to arrange all the preliminaries tonight, for tomorrow I leave. I’m going to New York.”

  Maggie’s face fell. “Going?” she said; “I thought—”

  “Why, I can’t take you with me, child. It’s got to be all covered up, you know. I go off tomorrow, bag and baggage; then when you go, no one will associate it with me. This is very important. You must attend carefully, and do just exactly as I say. I’ll tell you enough to think about for a week. You see the moon is full just now. By next Thursday it will be dark early in the evening. You are to go out of the house, somehow — you might even get off in the afternoon and not come back to supper. What would your aunt do?”

  “Nothing but scold. I do stay out, sometimes.”

  “Then do that. Go off in the afternoon, and be seen if you can, over by Black Pond.”

  The girl’s sad eyes brightened. “So they’ll think I’m drowned,” she agreed almost eagerly. “Shall I leave my hat there?”

  Miss Yale smiled. “No, I guess not. We mustn’t be too melodramatic; but be sure nobody does see you later. You know that turn of the road, where the woods are so thick, over beyond Haskins’ and the big white rock, right on the edge of the road?”

  “Yes—”

  “You must hide in the woods up there, and when it’s quite dark, slip down softly near that rock. At ten o’clock precisely, an auto will stop there, just stop, not blow its horn, or anything, and you get in.”

  “And you’ll be in it?”

  “No. I can’t be in it; you know you and I are to meet as strangers, later. But a friend of mine will be in it.”

  “How will I know it’s the right one?”

  “I don’t believe many cars will be going through Haskins’ woods and stopping by that rock at night. You hop in and you’ll find a friend. Here’s a watch for you to wear, so you’ll be there in time, and not be discouraged with waiting. And here’s another little electric light. Don’t use it up. This one won’t last long, but you can hide it in your hand and look at the watch, this way.”

  The girl took the watch, and turned it over with admiration, yet reluctance.

  “I hate to have you getting all these things for me. I just hate it.”

  “That can’t be helped, Maggie. Hate it or not, you’ve got to put up with it, now. But I solemnly promise you that you can pay it all back when you are earning your living by and by — if you want to. You can earn more, then, if you let me take care of you now, lots more. Be a good child and take your medicine. Of course you have to have a watch; better keep it in your trunk till then, or your aunt may hear it.”

  The girl nodded. “Do I bring anything with me?”

  “Not a thing. Not one thing. That lends color to the drowning idea, you see. You’ll find what you need. I’ve brought this jersey, veil and raincoat; they’ll cover you for the ride.”

  “Can I know where I’m going?”

  “Yes, of course, I’m going to tell you all about it. We must be quick, too. My idea is this. I am going abroad this fall with friends. I’m going to find you in France, as an orphan, and adopt you over there.”

  “In France? I’m an orphan all right, but how’ll I pass for a French one?”

  “That’s what I’ve arranged. This friend of mine who is going to take you is French. You and she are going straight up to Canada. You are to spend a few days in Montreal, and buy what things you need, and then you sail from there. She takes you to this French town. And while you’re with her, you’ll learn a good deal of the language. But you see you were a Canadian orphan, half English. You’re not supposed to have a Parisian accent. Then I’m sorry to say, she deserts you, and I find you there.”

  “I won’t lie,” said Maggie, stoutly.

  Miss Yale was pleased. “You needn’t, my dear. You needn’t say a thing that is not true.”

  “Am I left alone over there?”

  “Only for a few days, and in a nice boarding house. I know the woman who keeps it. That will be all right. Now have you got all that straight?”

  Maggie solemnly repeated her instructions with evident understanding.

  “Yes, that’s right. Oh — and here are some books to last you till Thursday. Better take those and lose them somewhere — before you start. But I want you to read them if you can, for a special purpose. Now good-bye, child, for the present. I shan’t see you again for a month and more. But you will like Miss St. Clair. You can tell her anything you please. She’s safe. When I see you again, you’ll be six weeks older, nearly, and talking French.”

  She laughed, and gave the bewildered girl a friendly kiss. Then Maggie took her books and the seven little boxes which accompanied them, and stole away to her room, unobserved. Her heart was so full of mystery and excitement that she forgot her gratitude. She almost forgot, for the moment, her heavy, hopeless grief.

  In spite of Mrs. Briggs’s fervent protests that it was all nonsense, that she might just as well wait another week and go when they did, Miss Yale departed next day, and betook herself forthwith to New York, and to the Martha Washington. Here she was met next morning by a short dark woman in the dress of a nurse.

  “I’m so thankful you can do it, Genevieve,” said Miss Yale. “There’s nobody who could meet this situation as well as you can,” and she explained at length.

  Genevieve St. Clair was full of interest in the plan. “It is for me to be thankful,” she said. “An adorable journey in the machine and also an ocean voyage — how beautiful! And to see my country again! But then you are always doing such things! Tell me more about the girl.” Miss Yale smiled a little shamefacedly. “I don’t really know much about her myself,” she said. “She comes of good stock, and has a sense of independence — doesn’t want to be ‘beholden’ to anyone. I had to pull every string I knew to make her accept my proposition. Also she had spunk enough to be furiously angry at the man, instead of merely being brokenhearted. He offered her money, you see.” Miss St. Clair’s eyes glittered. “The villain,” she said, bitterly. “Oh, no, he’s not a villain,” Miss Yale corrected, dryly. “He’s only a young medico, enjoying himself. I think he really felt badly when it turned out this way. And Maggie’s no village lambkin, understand. She’s a sharp little thing. Thought she knew it all and could take care of herself. I tried my best to warn her, but bless me! what does a girl know, ever?”

  The other nodded, darkly. “And she is beautiful?”

  Miss Yale laughed again, “Why, no, Miss St. Clair. I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed in the romance. She’s a scrawny little piece, red-haired and freckled. But of course, any young girl has a certain attractiveness.”

  “She will become beautiful when she is older,” Miss St. Clair stoutly protested. “I have seen them like that.”

  “Well, have it your own way. I hope she will. But she’s a mighty interesting child, has a good deal of spirit, and what I care for, you know, is the principle of the thing. Here’s one summer’s foolishness, and her whole life gone to ruin — unless we can stop it.”

  “We can,” said the other. “You have planned it beautifully, you always do. I will do my part.”

  Henry Newcome stayed at Miss Bingham’s, finding much to occupy his thoughts. He studied Maggie, as far as opportunity allowed, and was puzzled. At the table he had no speech with her; she kicked the swing door open with her little rubber-soled shoe, set down the dishes with no regard for symmetry, and whisked out again. Also Mrs. Leicester-Briggs’s eye was upon her, disapprovingly. “That girl never will learn to wait on table,” she said.

  Here and there he
tried to snatch a word with the unhappy child, but she had little to say, and always hurried away from him.

  “I cannot make her out,” he thought, studying over the affair. “She doesn’t look real heartbroken, and yet I’m sure she cared for him. She has a kind of waked-up look. It’s peculiar. Maybe he writes to her.”

  He thought about it a good deal, trying in vain to get a chance at further talk, but Maggie avoided him easily enough; she was either working in the house or the garden near it, in plain sight, or she disappeared completely, going far afield after berries, which Miss Bingham was putting up for the winter. He deliberately lay in wait for her one afternoon, watching her with his field glass from the ridge, to see which way she went berrying.

  He saw the blue ginghamed little figure slip down behind the house, through the orchard, and off across the valley. She carried a big pail, carried it as if it was heavy, he noticed. If he was to catch her he must hurry.

  He noted her direction, judged she was headed for the pastures over the western ridge, and started directly across toward the top of it. Reaching a commanding position there he raised his glass again and scanned the farther slopes. Yes, there was the moving bit of blue. She must have run to get so far in that time. She had left the road again, and was making a short cut down the open hillside.

  “She’s passed the best berry patches, already; I wonder where she’s bound,” he asked himself, following her quick steps with the glass. Then there swept across that limited field of vision a blank gleaming space — Black Pond.

  The shadowy depths lay for the most part between steep banks, well-wooded. But at this end, a shallower bay ran out into the pasture. He saw her pushing through the bushes toward the deeper part. Suddenly a panic struck him, and he ran, leaping fences and stone walls, straight down the rugged hillside toward her. “Maggie,” he shouted, “Maggie,” long before he was near enough to be heard. At last he reached the place where he had seen her, and followed the shore, still calling. There was no answer, but beyond him, out of sight, he heard a heavy splash. He rushed forward, tearing through the underbrush. There was no Maggie anywhere in sight, but the smooth water was broken by concentric ripples, widening rapidly. He marked the center of their spreading, threw off coat and shoes and dived. The water was cold, and very deep, but he was a good swimmer, and again and again he went down, paddling about slowly underwater with open eyes, looking, looking. At last he saw something blue, darted to it and rose spluttering, with a bundle in his arms. For a time he sat on the bank, getting his breath, and trying to arrange his ideas. One of Maggie’s blue aprons, being undone, disclosed a number of wet novels, loose sheets of magazines and small tin boxes. He went home slowly under the strong impression that he had made a fool of himself.

  But Maggie had heard the anxiety in his voice as he shouted behind her. She had seen his instant pursuit into the dark water, seen him rise to breathe, and dive again and again. She saw him puzzle over the books, and finally tie them up as before and throw them in once more. It gave her something further to think about in the long hours of her hiding. She still thought about it, even after she was speeding through the dark toward Canada.

  4. The Building Years

  That midnight ride brought no peace to Maggie’s mind, so suddenly overcome by grief and shame, so torn with fierce anger, so confused by the sudden flood of hopes and interests supplied by her new friend.

  She had been a sturdy, self-contained child, with very definite economic ambitions, and less definite aspirations for better things. In her lonely, loveless life with her aunt, and the bare hardness of that hilly township, she had developed self-reliance, and added to it in her time as a mill and shop worker. These experiences had taught her a poor cynicism, learned of the girls who said, “Cheer up, you’ll soon be dead!” or “The worst is yet to come!” and a premature acquaintance with life’s worst, as known by working girls. She had seen more than one girl whose feet had slipped from the steep, narrow path of self-support, under the pressure of bitter necessity, or the attraction of pleasure, pleasure that was to their starved young hearts as water in the desert.

  Maggie had felt herself quite wise and strong, aware of danger, yet competent to frisk along its edge in safety.

  This danger, which she thought she knew so well, consisted mainly of cheap bribes or more costly ones, with presumptuous awkward liberties, and her New England temperament was easily able to refuse them. But the danger she had not learned to estimate lay in fun and kindness, in easy, lazy, friendly ways; in gentle approaches of small, safe tenderness; in sudden kisses that left her angry — yet not displeased. She knew nothing whatever of the ally within, which so traitorously helps the enemy without.

  But Richard Armstrong knew. He knew the mechanism of the human body and its imperious laws; he knew from small successes of his college days and the more serious adventures of later years, the best lines of approach — when to stop, when to advance, when to withdraw.

  He had found much to attract him in little Mag. She was not beautiful, but she was young, fresh and innocent, for all her absurd airs of worldly wisdom. It was fun to tease her, fun to frighten her a little, fun to allay her fears, flatter her conceit, let her believe that they both “knew life” and could “take care of themselves.”

  He had even grown rather fond of her after a while, but not enough to spoil his summer’s amusement. Possibly, he too had overestimated his own knowledge, for he had by no means intended what seemed to him so inconvenient a calamity. For all his experiences and his claim to “knowing women” he knew only one side to their natures; and the real character of this girl was quite beyond his researches. She had hardly known it herself.

  So far life had demanded of her but few qualities, and those not the best. Suppressed and neglected, lonely and ill-nourished in mind, she had slipped down this easy path and met her catastrophe so suddenly that even now she could hardly believe it was a fact. He was gone; Miss Yale had loomed up in the foreground of life like a fairy godmother, and the sudden diet of fascinating stories left her actually confused between her own adventures and those she had been reading about.

  Miss St. Clair, sturdy and silent, ran the car herself, and they made as much speed as mountain roads allowed, the fierce acetylene light flaming white before them. The girl sat huddled in the tonneau, holding on in unnecessary alarm as they plunged down the hills, feeling as if all life was flying by her with the shadowy, streaming trees. She was cold and stiff when they stopped for breakfast in a small town over the border. That night they spent in St. John, and slept long and late, reaching Montreal comfortably on the following day.

  They were fairly acquainted now, and Maggie had become reconciled to her new name — for her companion registered her in the hotel as Miss La Salle.

  “It is legal,” she said. “I have learned about that. Any person can take any name at pleasure. What would you have? You must be called something until you are adopted, and why not my cousin, Marguerite La Salle?”

  “All right,” said Maggie, but she felt like one walking in a dream.

  The purchases for the voyage would have pleased her, but for the dreadful fact that it was all “charity.”

  “I’ll pay her back!” she assured herself. “I’ll pay back every cent!” She tried to keep the wardrobe as cheap as possible; but Miss St. Clair had her orders, and the girl was outfitted with pretty and suitable clothes.

  They took quiet lodgings, and in the fortnight before they sailed the French lessons were well under way, in the easy and impressive methods of the illustrative school. There were well selected, easy books besides, and all the way across the ocean, after a few days of blank resting, the two read and talked together in easy French. The girl had nothing else to do, and gave herself to the new study with keen delight, both on the steamer and in the quiet pension in Marseilles.

  Presently Miss St. Clair departed, explaining to the sympathetic lady of the house that she would leave her cousin there for the present, and payi
ng her board for two weeks in advance. Then Maggie, left alone, found use both for the French she knew and the French she did not know, in parrying the too solicitous inquiries of the amiable Madame.

  She was bitterly lonely now, and afraid, miserably afraid that something might keep Miss Yale from coming to her. The French reading was still too difficult to distract her easily, and in the strangeness and double solitude of a foreign language and a foreign land, the danger and shame of her position would dominate her mind. Beneath its deep resentment, her girlish heart mourned for the tenderness she had lost, but she hated herself for this.

  With a sense of passionate relief she at last heard Miss Yale’s clear voice in the hall below, and was halfway down the stairs to meet her before she bethought herself, checked her mad rush, and slowly returned to her room.

  But the voluble hostess was not surprised to see her come.

  “Ah, the poor child!” she said to Miss Yale, as she ushered her to her room. “She thought you were her cousin! It is a little orphan from Canada — and she is left on my hands, I fear. You are so benevolent! You will be interested.” Miss Yale was interested, and when a few days passed and Madame Charbonnier continued to complain, she offered to take charge of the girl temporarily.

  “I will leave you my address,” she said. “If the cousin comes back you can refer her to me at once.”

  “And if she does not come back — ah, Mademoiselle Yale — I sympathize, but my hands are full.”

  “If she suits me, I may be able to find a home for her, Madame. Of course, at worst, you could turn her over to the authorities here. But she looks to be a nice child.”

  Then the worthy dame extolled the benevolence and discretion of Mademoiselle to the heavens, and called down a number of Catholic blessings on her Protestant head. She was assured that Mademoiselle would find the girl charming — so docile — so affectionate — so quiet.