Marcia

“ Marcia caught it with deft careful hands and an exclamation of delight. He watched her anxiously. It had all the requisite number of materials,—one, two, three, four,—like the despised bonnet he threw on the floor—straw, silk, lace and flowers. Would she like it? Her face showed that she did. Her cheeks flushed with pleasure, and her eyes danced with joy. Marcia’s face always showed it when she liked anything. ”

“ Marcia was exhausted with fatigue and terror, and rested her head upon his shoulder. Unconsciously, he used the cheering, caressing tones which the circumstances naturally prompted. It was an occasion to draw out what was most manly, most tender, most chivalric in him. The pride of the woman was gone, her artifices forgotten. In that hour she had looked beyond the factitious distinctions of society; she had found herself face to face with her companion without disguise, as spirit looks upon spirit, and she felt herself drawn to him by the loyalty which a superior nature inevitably inspires. ”

“ It’s the great tragedy of life; and it comes to all, Miss Marcia—to you as well as to the poorest peasant girl in Castel Vivalanti. Life, after all, contains some justice.’
Marcia turned her back to the shining villa and looked down over the great Campagna stretching away darkly under the stars, with here and there the gleam of a shepherd’s fire, built to ward off the poison in the air. ”

“ After all he had given the kiss to the right one. It was Marcia to whom his soul bowed in the homage that a man may give to a woman. Did his good angel guide him to her that night? And how was it he had not seen the sweetness of Marcia sooner? How had he lived with her nearly a year, and watched her dainty ways, and loving ministry and not known that his heart was hers? How was it he had grieved so long over Kate, and now since he had seen her once more, not a regret was in his heart that she was not his; but a beautiful revelation of his own love to Marcia had been wrought in him? ”

“ Marcia, I care for you now, as I did before, more than for any woman in the world.”
She dropped her eyes and began to finger the embroidery of her chair.
“I go through strange tides, Marcia. I cannot help that. Most men have hypocrisy to hide these ebbs. Most women have passiveness. I have neither. So I suffer.... Marcia,” he went on, “I do not want to lose you. But also I do not want to hurt you. Can’t I have you, without hurting you, Marcia! It was because I had not answered that question, that I forced myself away, forced myself cool.”
“What do you mean, Tom?” ”

“ Marcia, thinking it wisdom to keep herself invisible, maintains a strict seclusion. The hour of her triumph approaches; she hardly dares let others see the irrepressible exultation that her own heart knows. ”

“ I cannot alter my life, Marcia. I live to a certain extent by tradition, and by habits which have become too strong to break. There is a great difference in our years and in our outlook upon life. There is much before you, flowers which you may pick and heights which you may climb, which can have no message for me. ”

“ She glanced around her, and seeing no one, she slowly walked to the back of the store. Everywhere it was stamped with what Marcia in her soul denominated “skimpiness.” Even the hats that had been conceived in beauty, fell short of culmination because of cheap material, too frugal use of trimming. Pausing near the door that opened into the back room, Marcia looked ahead, and there she saw the form of a small woman, sitting beside a table piled with a disorderly array of wire forms and linings, ribbon and velvet, and glaring autumnal flowers. ”

“ Yet, were I to question this faithful lover upon the same subject, I fear me that I should receive a widely different answer."
"I hope not, dear," says Marcia, gently, speaking in her usual soft, low tone. Yet a small cold finger has been laid upon her heart. A dim foreboding crushes her. Only a little pallor, so slight as to be imperceptible to her tormentor, falls across the upper part of her face and tells how blood has been drawn. Yet it is hardly the mere piercing of the skin that hurts us most; it is in the dark night hours when the wound rankles that our agony comes home to us. ”

“ Marcia knew, now, that he was speaking the truth; that he would indeed stop at nothing; and, with the certainty, there came to her a strange mingling of exultation, terror, and calm. She saw this man, powerful with the power of the conqueror, learned with the learning of the student and of the ascetic, grovelling here at her feet—slave to a force against which no power, no philosophy could avail. ”

“ Marcia is supremely happy encircled by these strong arms. Before her closed eyes floats in magic letters her new name. She will not be the old maid of the family after all. If she did not know the world so well, she would be moved to show her gratitude, but it is much wiser to show her love. ”

“ Many years have passed since Marcia dreamt of the Gods and of their Parnassus conclave. Tonight she sits in the same spacious drawing-room, but she is not alone. Gone is the old spirit of unrest, for beside her is one whose name is luminous with celebrity: the young poet of poets at whose feet sits all the world. ”

“ I am a human being, and I tell you, Marcia, that every man needs something in his life to lift him just a little, to live up to, not down to. There is only one person in the world can take that place for me. I'm a clear charge upon your hands. You know that I love you, that you've driven all thoughts of other women out of my head, that you keep me beating against the walls of my impotence every time we meet and part. I am perfectly certain, if you don't come down to the world of common sense, I shall sink into the world of melodrama and go and tackle your Marquis myself. ”

“ Marcia stayed only till she could put the house in order after they had laid her mother to rest among the early reddening sumacs under the hot glare of the August sun; and when she came away, she brought her father with her to Boston, where he spent his days as he might, taking long and aimless walks, devouring heaps of newspapers, rusting in idleness, and aging fast, as men do in the irksomeness of disuse. ”

“ Marcia stood swaying with the need of burning. Would he not help? Then she would help herself. Delicious fool that he was!
He was perfume and flame: each pore of her was big with him.
Tom watched the firm, still whiteness of her self emerge from the lie of her clothes. No woman. She was a god. She was a pillar of purity and strength. No lascivious rondures and flauntings of flesh, no softnesses. A human form stripped to essential grace. An instrument of living, spare and direct like a command, flaying like a rod, swift like his passion. ”

“ Despair follows closely upon night. Hope comes in the train of day. And Marcia, standing erect before her glass, with her beautiful figure drawn to its full height and her handsome head erect, gazes long and earnestly at the reflection therein. At last the deep flush of satisfaction dyes her cheeks; all her natural self-reliance and determination return to her; with a little laugh at her own image (on which she builds her hopes) , she defies fate, and, running down the staircase with winged feet, finds herself on the last step, almost in Philip's arms. ”

“ But to the peacocks alone is the excuse made known, as Marcia has disappeared.
Close to a fire, although the day is oppressively warm, and wrapped in a flannel dressing-gown, sits an old man,—old, and full of the snarling captiousness that makes some white hairs hideous. ”

“ Why, Marcia, when you saw him while yet young displaying the wisdom of age, with a mind that could rise superior to all sensual enjoyments, faultless and without a blemish, able to win riches without greediness, public office without ambition, pleasure without extravagance, did you suppose it would long be your lot to keep him safe by your side? Whatever has arrived at perfection, is ripe for dissolution. Consummate virtue flees away and betakes itself out of our sight, and those things which come to maturity in the first stage of their being do not wait for the last. ”

“ I was but a young man then, you know, and it was my first wedding in my new church, so you see I could not forget it. Your mother was a beautiful woman, Marcia, and you are like her both in face and life.”
The tears came into Marcia’s eyes and her lips trembled.
“Are you sure, child,” went on the gentle voice of the old man, “that you understand what a solemn thing you are doing? It is not a light thing to give yourself in marriage to any man. You are so young yet! Are you doing this thing quite willingly, little girl? ”

“ Perhaps Marcia is old-fashioned. Perhaps I am. In the villages where we have been brought up, we do not go in for the new standards sponsored by more up-to-date communities. We believe in marriage as a sacred, enduring sacrament—not a bond to be lightly broken. When you offered Marcia less than that—"
"I never offered Marcia any such shameful position, Sylvia," cried Stanley Heath. ”

“ Muttering and whining, the disconsolate Biddy crept up to the attic for her scanty wardrobe.
"Here, fellow!" said Marcia to Number Two, whose foolish smiles at any other time would have been ludicrous,—"go into the kitchen and get sober."
He obeyed like a spaniel.
"Now, Henry," said Marcia, rather more composed, "let us do something at once. It's plain that we can't live here for the house will be stripped; and in our circumstances we would not stay, if we could. That fellow is so far stupefied that we can save what we can carry away. ”

“ But, on the other hand, Marcia, suppose that you have sustained a greater loss than ever mother did before you: see, I am not soothing you or making light of your misfortune: if fate can be overcome by tears, let us bring tears to bear upon it: let every day be passed in mourning, every night be spent in sorrow instead of sleep: let your breast be torn by your own hands, your very face attacked by them, and every kind of cruelty be practised by your grief, if it will profit you. ”

“ She did not stare as her young sisters would have done, for she knew that Mrs Aldworth hated being stared at. She only glanced now and then, and her look was full of sympathy, and there was not a trace of anger on her face.
“You really are very nice, Marcia; there’s no denying it. I do wish that in some ways—not perhaps in looks, but in some ways, that my girls were more like you. But, dear, this is it—are you not a little hard on them? They’re so young.”
“So young?” said Marcia. “Molly is eighteen. She is only two years younger than I am.” ”

“ Marcia has many years to live. There is something grown up within her which you have nothing to do with—a little flame of genius which burns there all the time, which at this very moment would be a furnace but for the fact of the unnatural life she is forced to lead as your—companion. ”

“ But, to show you how mercenary I am, let me assure you that the woman to whom my word is pledged, and to whom I must return, is without any property or expectations."
"Very well, Sir," said Marcia, rubbing her hands, in the endeavor to conceal her agitation; "we need not waste words. After what you have told me, I could only despise such a whiffler,—a scrap of refuse iron at the mercy of any magnet,—a miller dashing into every fight. A lover so helpless must needs have some new passional attraction—that is the phrase, I believe—with every changing moon. ”

“ The whole school was thrown into a ferment of excitement over the discovery of Marcia's disappearance. No one exactly told anyone, but the news flew from lip to lip with the speed of that little bird so famous for its gossiping tendency. The school buildings were searched again, with no result. No one had seen Marcia go out; yet she was certainly not in the school. Miss Harland telephoned to all her friends in the town with whom Marcia might be supposed to be staying, but no one had seen her or heard from her. ”

“ Down through the village they passed, in front of the store and post-office where Marcia had bought her frock but three days before, and they turned up the road she had come with Mary Ann. How long ago that seemed! How light her heart was then, and how young! All life was before her with its delightful possibilities. ”

“ Marcia paused. "Miss what or Mrs. what?" her manner asked.
"Miss Vincent? Oh yes, I know that. Well, why shouldn't he?" asked Noel Forrester. "Come, Mrs. Nettleton, let bygones be bygones. We must forgive and forget. The past is irrevocable; the future is our own. Let's say no more about it, and let the young people be happy!"
Marcia regarded him with a bewilderment that conquered auger. ”

“ Marcia answered.
“By Jupiter, there’s not much that they do approve of!” he retorted. “I begin to weary of your Christians. I begin to think Nero was right, and my father, too! There was wisdom in treating Christians as vermin! It might not be a bad thing, Marcia, to warn your Christians to procure themselves a charm or two against my weariness of their perpetual efforts to govern me! The Christians, I suppose, have been telling you to keep me out of the arena? Hence this living statuary in the corridor, and all this talk about the dignity of Rome! ”

“ Even as a stranger is grateful to one who shows him the way about an unknown city, so is a searcher after the causes of what he sees in the heavens to one of his own family who can explain them to him. He will delight in gazing deep down upon the earth, for it is a delight to look from aloft at what one has left below. Bear yourself, therefore, Marcia, as though you were placed before the eyes of your father and your son, yet not such as you knew them, but far loftier beings, placed in a higher sphere. ”