He would make sure that it was given up.
Then this unwomanly ability at whist or chess, with racket or gun — whatever she undertook she seemed to give her mind to “like a man,” and to succeed in it. Yet in the very face of his criticism she was so utterly a woman, so much more a woman than the devitalized, ultrafeminine invalids and half-invalids with whom he was perforce so frequently associated. More of a woman, too, than the carefully dressed and elaborately charming ladies of whom he knew so much, or the poorer and more frankly solicitous class with which he had also wide acquaintance.
The most striking impression Margaret gave to him was at least of womanliness. It was not only beauty, but that underlying sense of giving power, of rest, comfort, care, which means motherhood. Just to see her with little Dorothy would have convinced any man that she was first of all a woman — he said to himself. Also he wished to see her less with little Dorothy — the child was always in the way, always coming between them.
So he had planned a sort of coup, this crossing of swords in earnest, which would show her she had found her master. Instead of which, his foil had been whipped from his hand — by a woman — before spectators.
He had left the place as promptly as timetables would allow, and back to Boston with every intention of driving this infatuation from his mind. This he undertook to do by means well known to him and used before with success. He worked hard, he turned to his men friends with hearty appreciation, and to “lady friends” as well. Within limits he thought safe, he drank.
It did not work.
As the flamboyant word-painters of the early nineteenth century put it, concerning the perfidious Alonzo, “Not the most licentious scenes of folly, nor the vain splendors of pomp and parade could possibly dissipate the gloom which enveloped his thoughts.” Whenever he was alone and awake and not under artificial stimulus he was back under the windy shade, his foot on rough turf, that light, masked figure before him, and his sword ringing to the ground.
Back of that tense movement was a shifting field of faces — always Margaret’s: Margaret’s laughing — she had a pleasant, honest, musical laugh; Margaret’s smiling — she had a wide variety of smiles, each seeming lovelier than the last; Margaret with Dorothy — which touched all that was best in him, and, in a vague way, angered him as well. He wanted her love for himself; this fellow waif had no right to it. Margaret doing a thousand things, and doing them all well. Margaret ahead, overcoming — he felt again the surge of furious desire to have her somehow weaken, that he might be strong and lift her up. She must look up to him.
Presently the “lady friends” became unendurable, then the men friends as well.
There was still time for some shooting. At risk of professional loss he took himself off again. “A little run to the Maine woods,” he said, and tried what solitude and pleasurable bloodshed would do.
They did not do much either. He was back in Boston before the end of November, and calling on Miss Yale and Dr. Yale as if nothing had happened. And neither of them seemed to think anything had.
Miss Yale had selected her house with the utmost care, studying localities, consulting friends, asking advice from professionals. The same motives which had decided Dr. Newcome’s choice governed theirs, with perhaps one more.
“You are sure you don’t mind having another shingle set up so near you?” Margaret asked him, when he promptly called, almost before they were settled.
“On the contrary,” he assured her, “it is an advantage. Don’t you know the ‘dry goods district’ is improved by each new store?”
He was unaffectedly glad to have them there, and was of good service owing to his knowledge of the whole region. In advising them about milkmen and marketmen, grocers and plumbers, he betrayed so wide and intimate a knowledge that Miss Yale nodded her fine head in strong approval. She liked the man heartily, and it had never yet been necessary for her to conceal her likes or dislikes.
But he was not their only friend by any means. The Briggses’ home was not far off; the neighborhood abounded with old acquaintances, and greater Boston soon furnished many new ones.
“I wouldn’t have believed, Margaret, that I should like it so much,” said Miss Yale. “The house is really too big, but that’s a good fault. Dear me! I’ve jogged about the world so long that I’d entirely forgotten how good it feels to be at home.”
It was a little surprising. She was only about fifty, and had always expressed a determination to continue on the wing till at least seventy-five.
“I think it must be Dolly,” she added, as if some excuse were needed. “Where there’s a child there must be a home. Also it’s you, best daughter. A professional person has to have a home, too.”
Margaret went over and administered several well-placed kisses and an undiscriminating hug.
“It’s just you, you lump of goodness!” she said. “But as you will mix up your goodness with elaborate reasons and concealed obstinacy, I shan’t argue with you.”
Miss Dorothy accepted the new conditions with calm appreciation. When she was shown her room — her own room — the first of her lifetime (and a child’s life is a lifetime long and full of incident), she turned to Miss Yale with such heartfelt gratitude in her eyes that the good lady stooped and took her in her arms.
“Thank you, Aunt Mary — oh, thank you!” was all the child said, but her joy in the place was better thanks than all her small vocabulary could convey. She put on pretty airs of proprietorship, that child proprietorship which says “my home” long before it owns a cent.
Her school delighted her. There seemed to be some blended strain of old Bostonianism which came to the surface now, and made her feel happily at ease among the clean, safe streets, the highly modern schoolrooms, and the prim, neatly ribboned damsels with whom she associated. Her “dearest friend” chanced to be a Wentworth, and Margaret, watching tenderly, wondered if the child might not perhaps be a cousin. The more she saw of Dolly’s satisfaction in her surroundings, her good health, steady growth and easy progress in her studies, the surer she felt that Miss Yale was right, quite right, in her handling of the situation and that her own mad impulse of maternal love and maternal jealousy was only selfishness. She must be content to win and hold the love of a sister; she must not ask, perhaps might never know, a daughter’s love.
One early evening she came upon the child in the front parlor, quietly busy at something on the center table. Very pretty and sweet she looked in her white frock and the soft ribbons Margaret herself had tied for her before dinner, over the vigorous dark hair.
A big square box was before her, done up in a magnificent amount of white tissue paper, and tied with a particularly splendid string of gold and red. The child was printing on a large card, in big clear letters, very black: “Sister Margaret, from Dolly, with Love.” This card she affixed prominently on the box.
Margaret stood quite still, and then turned, not to surprise the secret, but the child heard her and ran forward eagerly.
“Oh, sister dear!” she cried happily. “I’ve got a present for you!”
“Thank you, darling,” said Margaret, stooping to kiss her. “I shall love it.”
Dolly pulled her toward the table. “I made it!” she said proudly. “Every bit of it — all myself!”
“I shall love it all the more,” Margaret assured her with another kiss.
“Now you sit here!” The child drew her to a big easy chair. “And I’ll sit in your lap, and you can open it.”
She brought the big box in her arms, and planted herself in Margaret’s lap with that firm proprietary wriggle which was always a pleasure to her mother. She read the card aloud, impressively, and held the child very close indeed.
“Do you really love me, Dolly?”
Dolly returned the hug with enthusiasm. She had quite surrendered to this wonderful wooer.
“Of course I do! You are the nicest big sister that ever was. You’re most as nice as a real mother.”
The fa
ce above her turned a bit white, but the eyes were steady.
“Would you rather have a real mother — than Aunt Mary — and Sister Margaret?”
“Why, of course!” answered the child frankly. “A real mother is better than anything — isn’t she?”
“I suppose she is,” Margaret agreed. “I never had one — to remember — or a father, either. Any more than you — poor childy. Tell me, Dolly — if you did have a father, what kind of a father would you like?”
“‘Gzactly like Dr. Newcome!” was the prompt reply.
“Why not like Dr. Armstrong?” asked her mother, and held her breath to listen.
“Because I don’t like him.”
“But why don’t you like him? And why do you like Dr. Newcome?”
“I like Dr. Newcome,” said Miss Dorothy, in her most judicial manner, “because he’s polite to me. And — well — he’s nice. I like him ever so much.”
“Isn’t Dr. Armstrong polite?”
“No, ma’am. I think he’s horrid!”
Margaret was startled, half-shocked, and yet half-pleased. She did not question herself as to this, only urged the child: “But why?”
Dolly seemed a little at a loss for words, and swung her slippered feet. “He’s always taking hold of me,” she said at length. “And he kisses me when I don’t want him to. And once he kicked my kitty! My little, soft kitty — I saw him! I just hate him!”
Margaret caught her closer with a little cry.
“Too bad! Too bad! Oh, my poor baby! My little orphan baby!”
Dorothy put up a loving hand to pet her.
“Poor Sister Margaret, too. We’re both orphans, aren’t we? But we’ll be good to each other!”
“We will — oh, we will!” answered Margaret, holding her tight.
“That’s why I made you the present, all myself,” continued the child. “‘Cause I love you.”
“The dear present!” said her mother, and opened the box. There lay a cushion of balsam fir, and as its distinctive fragrance rose about her, she sat silent, staring at it.
Dorothy was triumphant. “It’s balsam fir!” she cried. “Don’t you love it? I do. I picked it all myself last summer up in the woods, and dried it, and broke it up so small. And I hid it away ‘cause I had to work the cover. That took ever so long! I can keep a secret. I didn’t even tell Aunt Mary!”
She chattered on, and her mother sat staring at the cushion, the past rising about her with its odor.
“Don’t you love it?” urged Dolly, and lifted it to her face.
Margaret rose hastily and put the child down, the cushion falling to the floor as she moved away.
“What’s the matter?” asked Dolly, astonished. “Why, you’ve dropped it!” Her voice was grieved.
Margaret turned hastily, knelt and took the child in her arms, with tender kisses. “I had a pain, dear — forgive me!” She took up the cushion and patted it admiringly. “What lovely work — how well you’ve done it!”
Dolly nodded complacently.
“And such a pretty color,” continued Margaret. “It’s a charming cushion, darling. I thank you so much for your dear love.”
Still Dolly was not quite content. To her mind a major virtue had been overlooked. Again she held up the cushion, urging: “But don’t you like the smell?”
And Margaret smiled that wry little smile of hers, that could see humor in a death warrant, if it was there. “It is very fragrant, dear. I never heard of anybody who didn’t like it, did you?”
At which point Miss Yale entered the room. She stood for a moment, watching with intense satisfaction the pretty tableau before her — the eager child, offering her precious gift, the older woman, stooping lovingly to receive it.
“Dollykins — it’s eight o’clock.”
“Yes, Aunt Mary, I’m coming. See the present I made for sister.”
“How pretty that is. You are getting to be a very good needlewoman, little girl. And sister was pleased, I know.” Then she caught the look on Margaret’s face, and the odor of balsam fir. Fond as she was of it, she had never had such a cushion with her when she was with Margaret. If the child had not been so triumphant in keeping her secret she could somehow have saved this — but it was a small matter at best, and it was done, anyhow. “You’re a dear child, Dolly,” she continued smoothly. “I’m proud of you. Now see if you can’t break the record getting into bed.”
“Yes, Auntie — good night. Good night, sister dear.” She kissed them both, and skipped happily off.
Margaret sat limp and exhausted, with piteous eyes on Miss Yale, who came to her side at once.
“That’s pretty hard, isn’t it?” she said understandingly. “I know just how you feel, dear. It’s so exquisitely painful that it’s almost funny.”
For once Margaret failed to see the humor. “She made it herself — for me — because she loved me!”
“Yes, I know, I know. And you hate that smell more than anything on earth — for reasons good. Funny — how smells and memories stick together!” She laid the offending cushion back in the box, covered it, and set it away from them, opening both windows for a sweep of fresh wintry air to take away the cruel odor. “We’ll arrange to lose it somehow, my dear, without hurting that dear child’s feelings.”
Margaret shook her head silently. She laid both arms on the table, put her head down on them, and cried. Miss Yale closed the windows again and came back to her.
“Now my dear child!” She laid a loving hand on the bowed shoulder, tenderly stroking the proud young head. “My dear, you mustn’t! After all this time!”
Margaret lifted a despairing face to her. “A lifetime won’t end it!” she said.
“You’re not well, child. You’re doing too much. This summer was a terrible strain — and you’re feeling it now. And all the effort of starting your practice here.”
“I’m well enough,” said the girl with the same quiet despair.
“Oh come, Margaret, cheer up! Think how well everything’s going. You are only twenty-seven — you’ve made your splendid position in the world — and nothing can shake it now. Last summer proved that. You are established, my dear. You’ve done it — all that you undertook to do.”
The bowed head did not lift.
“Margaret, dear — think! You can earn a very handsome living and serve humanity in a way it most needs. You can help women who need it. You have youth and health and beauty. You have the dear child with you, and she’s given you her heart — and — you have me.”
Margaret lifted her head at that. She turned and held the older woman close, crying: “I am an ungrateful brute, dear. I know it. You have made life all over for me; you have saved me from ruin — shame — death — and what’s more you’ve saved her! Please don’t think me heartless. I know all that you’ve done — and I love you almost as well as you deserve. You’ve saved me from all the usual consequences of — what I did. But you can’t stop my — Punishment!”
She slipped down on the floor now, on her friend’s knee, and sobbed passionately. Miss Yale looked down on her and patted the firm white hand that clutched her own so tightly with all a mother’s tenderness. She guessed the reason for this new stir of grief and wild remorse. Years of wide living had taught her much. Perhaps her own life held more knowledge and experience than her friends imagined. She had watched Armstrong’s eager advances, divided between a fierce wish to have him disappointed and the irresistible conclusion that in his present infatuation lay the way out of all Margaret’s difficulties. Here would be reinstatement beyond the world’s cavil. Married to Armstrong, Margaret could place herself and her child in safety. But she had also watched the steady growth of friendship between this daughter of her heart and Henry Newcome. He wore no airs of the suitor, brought no gifts, paid no “attentions,” but he had been useful to them both in a hundred ways; he came often and spent long cheerful evenings with the two of them or took them both to the theater. If he “made love” it was to Dolly.
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And here was Margaret, sobbing uncontrollably, and talking about “punishment.” She knew.
“I wish I could bear it for you, blessed girl,” she said.
Margaret sat up and wiped her eyes. “I know you do — you heart of gold! You’ve done more than anybody did before to save a woman from ruin. But you can’t save her from her own heart. What do you think that dear child said to me just now?” She faced Miss Yale squarely, but her lips quivered so that she could hardly force out the words. “She said — that I was almost as good as a real mother! A real mother is better than anything, she said! Oh, my baby! No real mother! No real father! No real home! And all my fault! My fault!”
She tried hard not to break down again, sitting very straight and rigid, but the tears ran down. Miss Yale started to her feet stormily, and paced the floor. “It’s not!” she said. “This is nonsense, Margaret! It’s about one-tenth your fault, I should say — and nine-tenths his!”
The girl could not surrender her burden so easily. “It is the mother’s duty to foresee — to protect her child—” she began, but her friend took her up sharply.
“Now look here, Margaret, I thought you had that all threshed out and off your mind long since. It wasn’t a fair game at all, and you know it. It’s all very well to talk about ‘the mother’s duty,’ but what did that empty-headed child that was you — then — know about motherhood? You can’t blame yourself for your ignorance. It was not your fault. You were foolish, and rash, and too sure of yourself — child’s faults, all of them. He was ten years older, and a doctor already — he knew! And it didn’t cost him anything. That’s what makes me so furious — all the pleasure and none of the risk. I tell you, the fault is his — almost all of it!”
Margaret strove to recover her self-control. “Yes,” she said, “you are right. As a matter of fact, I suppose it is. We owe this to him — Dolly and I! But while I can see that the fault was mainly his — the fault I suffer for is mine.”
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 66
