Mary Stewart Cutting

“ The opera—had they ever gone to any opera before? How inconceivably beautiful and brilliant the house, the lights, the gay assemblage to the erstwhile dwellers of the suburbs! Together they scanned the emblazoned women in the boxes, and pointed out to each other those whom they recognized. And when Gounod’s delicious music stole into their hearts, and Mrs. Waring sat with her bride roses in one hand, and the other tucked secretly into Henry’s, under cover of her wrap, was ever any woman happier? Had ever any girl a lover more devoted or more bubbling over with fun? ”

“ As far as the eye could see there was no other human being anywhere. At eleven o’clock in a New England village, after the marketing is seen to and mail time over, all self-respecting persons are at home behind the bowed green blinds of the white houses by the roadside, or at work farther off in the fields. For Milly and Norton to be out in the garden now was to be quite alone, and when he put his arm around her and drew her down beside him on the stone wall among the roses, she only smiled confidingly up into his face, and flushed sweetly as he kissed her. ”

“ He went upstairs with a firm and even step, treading more lightly as he passed the nursery door where the baby was going to sleep under the charge of Katy, the nurse-maid, and entered the room where his wife lay on the lounge in a crimson dressing-gown, a flowered coverlet thrown over her feet, her dark hair lying in rings on the white pillow, and her large, dark eyes turned expectantly toward him. The comfort of the pretty, luxurious room, which gave no hint of this new poverty in its fittings, was eclipsed by the icy chill that was like an opaque atmosphere. ”

“ IT was only a few weeks after their betrothal that Norton sailed for Australia on that long journey from which he did not return for three years. The trip was to make his fortune, and fortune meant a home and Milly for his own; so neither rebelled, and, indeed, it was only intended at first that he should stay away a year. In the first ardor of romance parting seemed but a little thing—two hearts like theirs could beat as one with a continent between them. And love shows sweetly in different lights; the purple shadows of impending separation gave it a deeper, richer glow. ”

“ His attitude toward Loulou was a continual reproach to him. He knew, as his wife often reminded him, that Loulou had been his pet when she was a baby; he knew that he really loved her, and that if she were ill his fatherly affection would assert itself in the utmost care for her; but now her presence in rude and awkward health annoyed and irritated him beyond expression.
“If Quintilia dies, I’ll be the baby!”
“For shame, Loulou!” said the eldest girl, Christine, who had her mother’s own gentle manner. “You mustn’t talk like that. Ethel and Edith, don’t make so much noise. ”

“ He gazed past her solemnly and then taking off his hat to her, went on his way, leaving Milly overpowered with bewilderment.
What did it all mean? Who was right, and who was wrong? How did people drift apart after they were married? A new idea of the complexity of life came to her, the strange way in which human beings acted on each other, drawn, as by magnets, with the differing forces. Marriage to her had always presented a picture of growth in happiness, growth in goodness, a path upward together for lover and beloved. ”

“ Can any human soul thrive in an atmosphere of doubt?
It was when this knowledge of further separation lay heaviest upon her, that word came to Milly one morning in the bright sunlight that Norton had been arrested for embezzlement and was in jail. Her heart stood still. This, then, was what she had been foreboding all along; the instantaneous conviction of his guilt was the cruel blow. Oh, the awful, awful wrench of the heart, when disgrace lays its hand on one we love! Death seems an honest, joyful thing in comparison. ”

“ She hastened into the kitchen, to be confronted by a scene of spotless order, a brilliant fire in the range shedding a red glow over the hearth, and the white-aproned cook sitting in front of it with her hands folded and a stony glare in her eyes.
“How is the dinner getting on?” asked Mrs. Callender nervously.
“There ain’t no dinner,” said the cook.
“No dinner! What do you mean, Catherine?”
“Not the sign of a thing has come this whole blessed day, ma’am; and me a-waitin’ here with my ironin’ half done, in the middle of the week. Not an egg nor a potato is there in the house, even.” ”

“ Oh, you know, Herbert, it’s a very serious thing for a girl. She says she knows her whole life is at stake; she thinks about it all the time.”
“How about his?”
“Well, that’s what I said,” admitted Mrs. Belmore. “She says that she feels that he is so rational and self-poised that she makes little difference in his life either way—it has come to her all at once. She says his looking at everything in a matter-of-fact way just chills her; she longs for a whole-souled enthusiasm that can sweep everything before it. ”

“ Why, when we’re quite old people it will be just the same as it is now. Love can never grow old—not ours, anyway. Can it, Milly!”
She gave him a smile for answer and he gazed down at her admiringly, taking note anew of the deep blue of her eyes, the little veins on her forehead, where the soft brown hair was drawn smoothly back from it, and the pure curve of her throat and chin—a face of the highest New England type, fine and beautiful. He himself was the product of a different civilization, and cast in a rougher mold. ”

“ One of the dearest pleasures of married life is the going home together after the outside pleasuring is over.
As they all trooped into the dining-room for the crabs and salad Mrs. Callender told of as in the ice-box, the figure of Elizabeth in her pink kimono seemed to weave in and out among the others, but in another moment he was laughing and talking uproariously with the men, while the women, on Mrs. Callender’s assertion that the servants were in bed, tucked up their gowns and descended the cellar stairs for the provisions, refusing all masculine assistance. ”

“ Although the April sun was bright, there was still a chill in the air.
She looked in upon him, gowned and bonneted for church, sweet and placid of mien, followed by two little girls, brave in their Sunday best, all big hats and ribboned hair, and little starchy ruffles showing below their brown coats. Mrs. Belmore stooped over her husband’s chair to kiss him good-by.
“You won’t have to talk to Edith and Alan at all,” she said as if continuing the conversation from where they had left off. “All we have to do is to let them have the parlor or the library. They’ll entertain each other.” ”

“ She was sitting up for him, as he knew by the light in the parlor window. He could see her through the half-closed blinds as she sat by the table, a magazine in her lap, her attitude, unknown to herself, betraying a listless depression. After all, is a woman glad to have all her aspirations and desires confined within four walls? She may love her cramped quarters, to be sure, but can she always forget that they are cramped? To what does a wife descend after the bright dreams of her girlhood! ”

“ Then the supper afterward with the gay throng at the Waldorf—the reckless disregard of the midnight train—could there be dizzier heights of revelry?
It was when they stood outside on the ferry-boat coming home that Mrs. Waring spoke at last the thought that had lain nearest her heart all the evening. They were out alone in front, the cold night wind blew refreshingly, the dark water plashed around them, and across its black expanse the colored lights gleamed faintly from the New Jersey shore. ”

“ I want you to tell everyone—all who have done the least thing for my little child’s sake, yes, or who have wanted to do anything, that never while my life lasts—I hope it won’t be long—but never while it lasts will I forget them, never will I cease to ask God to bless them, ‘to reward them sevenfold into their bosom.’ I have been praying to-day, when I could pray, that He would teach me how to help others, that the world might be better because my little child had lived in it, and I had had such joy. ”

“ What I was going to tell you was that Mary Barbour said she believed that sweet little Silvy was taken because his mother made an idol of him; that you shouldn’t love anybody so much—that it was wrong. I don’t believe it, sister! I don’t believe it; you can’t love anyone too much! People forget what love means, and it seems unnatural to them when we love as much as we can. ”

“ But on a night in January, with the thermometer five degrees above zero, and a fierce wind blowing out of illimitable blackness, life in the suburbs demanded strenuous will-power. Men put their heads down and ran in silence, with overcoats tightly buttoned, and hands beating together, their footsteps sounding heavily on the frozen earth.
The wind cut John Atterbury’s strong lungs like a knife, and his feet seemed to stumble against the cold as if it had been a visible barrier. ”

“ To-night he went up and looked at the baby on his return; she was asleep, with cheeks flushed to a beautiful rose. She was breathing very hard, but still she slept, with her head thrown back, and the soft rings of hair spread out over the pillow; the curves of the little round body were carved out in the white bedclothes. The light in the room was shaded, and the nurse sat by the table under it, writing out her official report with a gold pencil held in her taper fingers; but his wife sat and watched the child. A sudden ache invaded the man’s heart. ”

“ In the little rounds of a suburban town any incident is an event. Mrs. Callender felt that the day had become one of real importance. She let her fancy play around the two Englishmen and her good dinner and her own toilet until she was in a very pleasurable state of excitement. And to be going out to luncheon besides! The latter, however, was not a real function, but only the usual concomitant of a French reading which she held every week with a friend—still, it was quite like having two invitations in one day. ”

“ I know she is with us a good deal, but I do want to give her a chance.”
“A chance of what?”
“A chance to enjoy herself, and to see people, and to feel that she’s young, and—oh, a chance to get married, if you will have me say it.”
“I thought so,” said Dick. “You may as well let her go back to private life, Bertha; she’ll never be a success on any stage of that kind. I don’t believe any man ever wanted to marry her, or ever will.” ”

“ There are times in all lives that are safely passed through, but take something out of one which no after-delight can put back again; some of those delicate sinews are broken which make the unthinking strength of youth. In his sickness of soul Mr. Nichols sought mechanically for some bright ray in the gray around him—something to bring back his accustomed pleasure in living. ”

“ I often think how lonely you must be, knowing so few people. A man so seldom realizes what a woman’s life is! He goes off into the busy world every morning, little thinking of all she must endure throughout the day. I often watch you look after your husband when he has left you in the morning; you look so longingly, dear. I said to Mr. Morris just the other day, ‘I do wish Mr. Waring would look back just once at that sweet young wife of his.’ Mr. Morris always turns at the corner and waves his hand to me ”

“ You gave me the points, and I used them; any man would.”
“You miserable—sneaking—liar!” said Atterbury very slowly. He rose, and brought both hands down on the table with a gesture that did not lose in power because it made no sound. “No man that lives shall cheat me with impunity. I’ll brand you for what you are!”
“You can’t,” said Harrington insolently.
Atterbury smiled with the scorn which disdained reply, and turned on his heel. He did not see the startled glance of Nichols and Callender as he went over to a place beside them. ”

“ Who was it told you, Henry?”
“Well, Ethel, if you must know, Nan was in the office to-day to say they couldn’t come, and she—”
“Nan—your sister Nan!”
Like a flash Mrs. Waring saw it all. She knew Nan’s impetuous, whole-souled way; but—One of Henry’s family! Life could have no further joy for her. ”

“ The doctor came out in the hall and said, “She will live!” A door opened farther down—one flashed to another, “She will live!” The message flew from lip to lip, from heart to heart. The returning breath of the little ruler of the house revivified all within it. The awakened children ran out for a moment to whisper the gladness, the servants stole down the back stairs to clatter in the kitchen and make preparations for an early breakfast, one could hear the cocks crowing, and the sunshine grew strong and gathered into a long bar of light. Quintilia would live. ”

“ It is only that I am so busy, there are so many things that crowd upon me that I don’t get a chance to tell you. I gave a thousand dollars to the Children’s Hospital to-day for little Silvy’s sake—and our child’s. Why, Helen, Helen, Helen! Poor girl, poor girl, I’ll have to look after you more, I shall not allow you to go again to-night.”
“But it has done me more good than anything else in this world,” said his wife. “I’ve been one of the dead souls in prison. It’s not for sorrow that I’m crying, Orrin, not for sorrow alone—oh, for so much else, dear! ”

“ But it is torture not to be able to look up! The sense of superiority is only a sting.
Milly took life with intense earnestness. She could not understand Norton’s light, jocular way of looking at things; he cared for nothing “improving,” he simply wanted recreation. He loved her—yes, as much, she thought, sadly, as he could have loved any woman, but not, oh, not as she loved! ”