‘Yes, she gives music lessons, just as she used to. She loves it, you know. You must have noticed how happy and well she is now — haven’t you? And so am I. And so is Albert. You can’t feel very badly about a thing that makes us all happy, can you?’
Just then Julia came in, radiant from a brisk walk, fresh and cheery, a big bunch of violets at her breast.
‘Oh, Mother,’ she cried, ‘I’ve got tickets and we’ll all go to hear Melba — if we can get Celia to come in for the evening.’
She saw her husband, and a guilty flush rose to her brow as she met his reproachful eyes.
‘Oh, Frank!’ she begged, her arms around his neck. ‘Please don’t mind! Please get used to it! Please be proud of us! Just think, we’re all so happy, and we earn about a hundred dollars a week — all of us together. You see I have Mother’s ten to add to the house money, and twenty or more of my own!’
They had a long talk together that evening, just the two of them. She told him, at last, what a danger had hung over them — how near it came.
‘And Mother showed me the way out, Frank. The way to have my mind again — and not lose you! She is a different woman herself now that she has her heart and hands full of babies. Albert does enjoy it so! And you’ve enjoyed it — till you found it out!
‘And dear — my own love — I don’t mind it now at all! I love my home, I love my work, I love my mother, I love you. And as to children — I wish I had six!’
He looked at her flushed, eager, lovely face, and drew her close to him.
‘If it makes all of you as happy as that,’ he said, ‘I guess I can stand it.’
And in after years he was heard to remark, ‘This being married and bringing up children is as easy as can be — when you learn how!’
MRS ELDER’S IDEA
DID you ever repeat a word or phrase so often that it lost all meaning to you?
Did you ever eat at the same table, of the same diet, till the food had no taste to you?
Did you ever feel a sudden over-mastering wave of revolt against the ceaseless monotony of your surroundings till you longed to escape anywhere at any cost?
That was the way Mrs Elder felt on this gray, muggy morning, toward the familiar objects about her dining room, the familiar dishes on the table, even, for the moment, at the familiar figure at the other end of it.
It was Mr Elder’s idea of a pleasant breakfast to set up his preferred newspaper against the water pitcher, and read it as long as he could continue eating and drinking. Other people were welcome to do the same, he argued; he had no objection. It is true that there was but one newspaper.
Mrs Elder was a woman naturally chatty, but skilled in silence. One cannot long converse with an absorbed opposing countenance which meets one’s choicest anecdote, some minutes after the event, with a testy ‘What’s that?’
She sat still, stirring her cool coffee, waiting to ring for it, hot, when he wanted more, and studying his familiar outlines with a dull fascination. She knew every line and tint, every curve and angle, every wrinkle in the loosefitting coat, every moderate change in expression. They were only moderate, nowadays. Never any more did she see the looks she remembered so well, over twenty years ago; looks of admiration, of approval, of interest, of desire to please; looks with a deep kindling fire in them —
‘I would thou wert either cold or hot,’ she was half consciously repeating to herself.
O yes, he was kind to her in most things; he was fond of her, even, she could admit that. He missed her, when she was not there, or would miss her — she seldom had a chance to test it.
They had no quarrel, no complaint against each other; only a long, slow cooling, as of lava beds; the gradual evaporation of a fine fervor; that process of torpid, tepid, mutual accommodation which is complacently referred to by the wordly wise as ‘settling down.’
‘Had she no children?’ will demand those whose psychological medicine closets hold but a few labels.
‘For a Woman: A Husband, Home and Children. Good for whatever ails her.’
‘For a Man: Success, Money, A Good Wife.’
‘For a Child: Proper Care, Education, A Good Bringing Up.’
There are no other persons to be doctored, and no other remedies.
Now Mrs Elder had had children, four, fulfilling the formula announced by Mr Grant Allen, some years since, that each couple must have four children, merely to preserve the balance of the population; two to replace their parents, and two to die. Two of hers had accordingly; died; and two, living, were now ready to replace their parents; that is they were grown up.
Theodore was of age, and had gone into business already, at a distance. Alice was of age, too; the lesser age allowed the weaker vessel, and also away from home. She was staying with an aunt in Boston, a wealthy aunt who insisted in maintaining her in luxury; but the girl insisted equally upon studying at the Institute of Technology, and threatened an early departure into the proud freedom of self support.
Mrs Elder was fond of children, but these young persons were not children any more. She would have been glad to continue her ministrations; but however motherhood may seek to prolong its period of usefulness, childhood is evanescent; and youth, modem youth, serenely rebellious. The cycle which is supposed to so perfectly round out a woman’s life, was closed for the present.
Mr Elder projected a cup, without looking at it, or her; and Mrs Elder rang, poured his coffee, modified it to his liking, and handed it back to him. She even took a fresh cup for herself, but found she did not want it.
There was a heavier shadow than usual between them this morning. As a general thing there was not a real cloud, only the bluish mist of distance in thick air; but now they had had a ‘difference,’ a decided difference.
Mr Elder’s concerns in life had never been similar to his wife’s. She had tried, as is held to be the duty of wives, to interest herself in his, but with only a measurable success. Her own preferences had never amounted to more than topics of conversation, to him, and distasteful topics, at that. What was the use of continually talking about things, if you could not have them and ought not to want to?
She loved the city, thick and bustling, the glitter and surge of the big shops with their kaleidoscope exhibition of color and style, that changed even as you looked.
Her fondness for shopping was almost a passion; to her an unending delight; to him, a silly vice.
This attitude was reversed in the matter of tobacco; to him, an unending delight; to her, a silly vice.
They had had arguments upon these lines, but that was years ago.
One of the reasons for Mrs Elder’s hard-bitten silence was Mr Elder’s extreme dislike of argument. Why argue, when you could not help yourself? that was his position; and not to be able to help herself was hers. How could she shop, to any advantage, when they lived an hour from town, and she had to ask for money to go with, or at least for money to shop with.
Just once in her life had Mrs Elder had an orgy of shopping. A widowed aunt of Mr Elder, who had just paid them a not too agreeable visit, surprised her beyond words with a Christmas present of a hundred dollars. ‘It is conditional,’ she said grimly, holding the amazing yellow-backed treasure in her bony and somewhat purple hand. ‘You’re not to tell Herbert a word about it till it’s spent. You’re to go in town, early in January, some day when the sales are on, and spend it all. And half of it you’re to spend on yourself. Promise, now.’
Mrs Elder had promised, but the last condition was a little stretched. She swore she had wanted the movable electric drop light and the little music machine, but Herbert and the children seemed to use them more than she did. Anyhow she had a day’s shopping, which was the solace of barren years.
She liked the theatre, too, but that had been so wholly out of the question for so long that it did not trouble her, much.
As for Mr Elder, he had to work in the city to maintain his family, but what he liked above everything else was the country; the real, wild,
open country, where you could count your visible neighbors on your fingers, and leave them, visible, but not audible. They had compromised for twenty-two years, by living in Highvale, which was enough like a city to annoy him, and enough like the country to annoy her. She hated the country, it ‘got on her nerves.’
Which brings us to the present difference between them.
Theodore being grown up and earning his living; Alice being well on the way to it, and a small expense at present; Mr Elder had concluded that his financial resources would allow of the realization of his fondest hope — retirement. A real retirement, not only officially, from business, and its hated environment; but physically, into the remote and lonely situation which his soul loved. So he had sold his business and bought a farm.
They had talked about it all last evening; at least she had. Mr Elder, as has been stated, was not much of a talker. He had seemed rather more preoccupied than usual during dinner; possibly he did realize in a dim way that the change would be extremely unwelcome to his wife. Then as they settled down to their usual quiet evening, wherein he was supremely comfortable in house-coat; slippers, cigars of the right sort, the books he loved, and a good light at the left back corner of his leather-cushioned chair; and wherein she read as long as she could stand it, sewed as long as she could stand it, and talked as long as he could stand it.
This time, he had, after strengthening himself with a preliminary cigar, heaved a sigh, and faced the inevitable.
‘Oh, Grace,’ he said, laying down his book, as if this was a minor incident which had just occurred to him, ‘I’ve sold out the business.’
She dropped her work, and looked at him, startled. He went on, wishing to make all clear at once — he did hate discussion.
‘Given up for good. It don’t cost us much to live, now the children are practically off our hands. You know I’ve always hated office work; it’s a great relief to be done with it, I assure you.... And I’ve bought that farm on Warren Hill.... We’ll move out by October. I’d have left it till Spring — but I had a splendid chance to sell — and then I didn’t dare wait lest I lose the farm.... No use keeping up two places.... Our lease is out in October, you know.’
He had left little gaps of silence between these blows, not longer than those required to heave up the axe for its full swing; and when he finished Mrs Elder felt as if her head verily rolled in the basket. She moistened her lips, and looked at him rather piteously, saying nothing at first. She could not say anything.
He arose from the easy depth of the chair, and came round the table, giving her a cursory kiss, and a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
‘I know you won’t like it at first, Grace, but it will do you good — good for your nerves — open air — rest — and a garden. You can have a lovely garden — and’ (this was a carefully thought out boon, really involving some intent of sacrifice) ‘and company, in summer. Have your friends come out!’
He sat down again feeling that the subject had been fully, fairly and finally discussed. She thought differently. There arose in her a slow, boiling flood of long-suppressed rebellion. He could speak like this — he could do a thing like that — and she was expected to say ‘Yes, Herbert’ to what amounted to penal servitude for life — to her.
But the habit of a score of years is strong, to say nothing of the habit of several scores of centuries, and out of that surging sea of resistance came only fatuous protests, and inefficacious pleas.
Mr Elder had been making up his mind to take this step for many years, and it was now a fact accomplished. He had decided that it would be good for his wife even it she did not like it; and that conviction gave him added strength.
Against this formidable front of fact and theory she had nothing to advance save a pathetic array of likes and dislikes; feeble neglected things, weak from disuse. But he had generously determined to ‘let her talk it out’ for that one evening; so she had talked from hour to hour — till she had at last realized that all this talk reached nowhere — the thing was done.
A dull cloud oppressed her dreams; she woke with a sense of impending calamity, and as the remembrance grew, into awakening pain. There was constraint between them at the breakfast table; a cold response from her when he went, with a fine effect of being cheerful and affectionate; and then Mrs Elder was left alone to consider her future.
She was a woman of forty-two, in excellent health, and would have been extremely good-looking if she could have ‘dressed the part.’ Some women look best in evening dress, some in house gowns, some in street suits; the last was her kind.
She gave her orders for the day listlessly, noting with weary patience the inefficiency of the suburban maid, and then suddenly thinking of how much worse the servant question would become on Warren Hill.
‘Perhaps he expects me to do the housework,’ she grimly remarked to herself. ‘And have company. Company!’
As a matter of fact, Mrs Elder did not enjoy household visitors. They were to her a care, an added strain upon her housekeeping skill. Her idea of company was ‘seeing people’; the chance meeting in the street, the friendly face in a theatre crowd, the brisk easily-ended chatter of a ‘call,’ and now and then a real party — where one could dance. Should she ever dance again?
Mrs Elder always considered it a special providence that brought Mrs Gaylord, a neighbor, in to see her that day; and with her a visiting friend, Mrs MacAvelly, rather a silent person, but sympathetic and suggestive. Mrs Gaylord was profusely interested and even angry at Mr Elder’s heartlessness, as she called it; but Mrs MacAvelly had merely assisted in the conversation, by gentle references to this and that story, book and play. Had she seen this? Had she read that? Did she think so and so was right to do what she did?
After they left, Mrs Elder went down town, and bought a magazine or two which had been mentioned, and got a book from the little library.
She read, she was amazed, shocked, fascinated; she read more, and after a week of this inoculation, a strange light dawned upon her mind, quite suddenly and clearly.
‘Why not?’ she said to herself. And again, ‘Why not?’ Even in the night she woke and lay smiling, while heavy breathing told of sleep beside her; saying inwardly, ‘Why not?’
It was only the end of August; there was a month yet.
She made plans, rapidly but quietly; consulting at length with several of her friends in Highvale, women with large establishments, large purses, and profoundly domestic tastes.
Mrs Gaylord was rapturously interested, introducing her to other friends, and Mrs MacAvelly wrote a little note from the city, mentioning several more; from more than one of these came large encouragement.
She wrote to her daughter also, and her son, whose business brought him to Boston that season. They had a talk in the soft-colored little parlor; Mrs Elder smiling, flushed, eager and excited as a girl, as she announced her plans, under pledge of strictest secrecy.
‘I don’t care whether you agree or not!’ she stoutly proclaimed. ‘But I’m going to do it. And you mustn’t say one word. He never said a word till it was all done.’
None the less she looked a little anxiously at Theodore. He soon reassured her. ‘Bully for you, Mama,’ he said. ‘You look about sixteen! Go ahead — I’ll back you up.’
Alice was profoundly pleased.
‘How perfectly splendid, Mama! I’m so proud of you! What glorious times we’ll have, won’t we just?’ And they discussed her plans with enthusiasm and glee.
Toward the middle of September Mr Elder, immersed though he was in frequent visits to that idol of his heart, the farm, began to notice the excitement in his wife’s manner. ‘I hope you’re not tiring yourself too much, packing,’ he said, and added, quite affectionately, ‘You won’t hate it so much after a while, my dear.’
‘No, I won’t,’ she admitted, with an ambiguous smile. ‘I think I might even like it, a little while, in Summer.’
About the twentieth of the month she made up her mind to tell him, findin
g it harder than she had anticipated in the first proud moments of determination.
It was evening again, and he had settled luxuriously into his big chair, surrounded by The Country Gentleman, The Fruit-Grower, and The Breeder and Sportsman. She let him have one cigar, and then— ‘Herbert.’
He was a moment or two in answering — coming up from the depths of his studies in ‘The Profits of Making Honey’ with appropriate slowness. ‘Yes, Grace, what is it?’
‘I am not going with you to the farm.’
He smiled a little wearily. ‘Oh, yes you are, my dear; don’t make a fuss about the inevitable.’
She flushed at that and gathered courage. ‘I have made other arrangements,’ she said calmly. ‘I am going to board in Boston. I’ve rented a furnished floor. Theodore is going to hire one room, and Alice one. And we take our meals out. She is to have a position this year. They both approve—’ She hesitated a moment, and added breathlessly, ‘I’m to be a professional shopper! I’ve got a lot of orders ahead. I can see my way half through the season already!’
She paused. So did he. He was not good at talking. ‘You seem to have it all arranged,’ he said drily.
‘I have,’ she eagerly agreed. ‘It’s all planned out.’
‘Where do I come in?’ he asked, after a little.
She took him seriously. ‘There is plenty of room for you, dear, and you’ll always be welcome. You might like it awhile — in Winter.’
This time it was Mr Elder who spent some hours in stating his likes and dislikes, but she explained how easily he could hire some one to pack and move for him — and how much happier he would be, when once well settled on the farm.
‘You can get a nice housekeeper you see — for I shan’t be costing you anything now!’
‘I’m going to town next week,’ she added, ‘and we hope to see you by Christmas, at latest.’
They did.
They had an unusually happy Christmas, and an unusually happy Summer following. From sullen rage, Mr Elder, in serene rural solitude, simmered down to a grieved state of mind. When he did come to town, he found an eagerly delighted family; and a wife so roguishly young, so attractively dressed, so vivacious and happy and amusing, that the warmth of a sudden Indian Summer fell upon his heart.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 156
