The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems Part 3

"I never thought of the subject at that time. He was always well dressed; a.s.sociated with men of business; seemed to have money; and I never doubted that such a man was able to do anything he proposed.

Women, you know, unconsciously attribute at least an earthly omnipotence to men. Afterwards, of course, I was disillusioned. But I must hasten, for it is growing late; and either the storm or these old memories shake my nerves.

"I had asked for a month's time to prepare my mind for my coming marriage. At the end of a week, however, Mr. Seabrook came to me and told me that imperative business called him away for an absence of several weeks, and that, in his judgment, the marriage ceremony should take place before he left. He should be away over the month I had stipulated for; and, in case of accident, I would have the protection of his name. My objections were soon overruled, and on the morning of his departure we were married--as I believed, legally and firmly bound--in the presence of my family of boarders, and two or three women, including Mrs. ----. He went away immediately, and I was left to my tumultuous thoughts."

"May I be permitted to know whether you loved him at all, at that time?

It seems to me that you must have sometimes yearned for the owners.h.i.+p of some heart, and the strong tenderness of man's firmer nature."

Mrs. Greyfield looked at me with a curiously mixed expression, half of sarcastic pity, half of amused contempt. But the thought, whatever it was, went unspoken. She reflected a moment silently before she answered.

"I have told you that my heart remained unweaned from the memory of my dead husband. I told Mr. Seabrook the same. But I admired, respected and believed in him; he was agreeable to me, and had my confidence. There can be no doubt, but if he had been all that he seemed, I should have ended by loving him in a quiet and constant way. As it was, the shock I felt at the discovery of his perfidy was terrible.

"My ears were yet tingling with my new name, when, everybody having gone, I sat down with Benton on my lap to have the pleasure of the few natural tears that women are bound to shed over their relinquished freedom. I was very soon aroused by a knock at the door, which opened to admit an old acquaintance, then residing in Vancouver, and a former suitor of mine. Almost the first thing he said was, 'I hear you have been getting married?' 'Yes,' I said, trying to laugh off my embarra.s.sment, 'I had to marry a man at last to get rid of them!'

"'You made a poor selection, then,' he returned, rather angrily.

"His anger roused mine, for his tone was, as I thought, insolent, 'Do you think I should have done better to have taken you?' I asked, scornfully.

"'You would at least have got a man that the law could give you,' he retorted, 'and not another woman's husband.'

"The charge seemed so enormous that I laughed in his face, attributing his conduct to jealous annoyance at my marriage. But something in his manner, in spite of our mutual excitement, unsettled my confidence. He was not inventing this story; he evidently believed it himself. 'For G.o.d's sake,' I entreated, 'if you have any proof of what you say, give it me at once!' And then he went on to tell me that on the occasion of Mr. Seabrook's late visit to Vancouver, he had been recognized by an emigrant out from Ohio, who met and talked with him at the Hudson's Bay store. That man had told him, my informant, that he was well acquainted with the family of Mr. Seabrook, and that his wife and several children were living when he left Ohio.

"'Can you bring this man to me?' I asked, trembling with horrible apprehensions.

"'I don't know as I could,' said he; 'for he went, I think, over to the Sound to look up a place. But I can give you the name of the town he came from, if that would be of any use.' I had him write the address for me, as I was powerless to do it for myself.

"'I am sorry for you,' he said, as he handed me the slip of paper; 'that is, if you care anything for the rascal.'

"'Thank you,' I returned, 'but this thing is not proven yet. If you really mean well by me, keep what you have told me to yourself.'

"'You mean to live with him?' he asked.

"'I don't know what I shall do; I must have time to think.'

"'Very well; it is no affair of mine. I don't want a bullet through my head for interfering; but I thought it was no more than fair to let you know.'

"'I am very grateful, of course;--I mean I am if there is any occasion; but this story is so strange, and has come upon me so suddenly that I cannot take it all in at once, with all its consequences.'

"'I know what you think,' he said finally: 'You suspect me of making up this thing to be revenged on you for preferring Seabrook to me. I'd be a d.a.m.ned mean cuss, to do such a turn by any woman, wouldn't I? As to consequences, if the story is true, and I believe it is, why your marriage amounts to nothing, and you are just as free as you were before!'

"I fancied his face brightened up with the idea of my freedom, and a doubt of his veracity intruded upon my growing conviction. Distracted, excited, pressed down with cares and fears, I still had to attend to my daily tasks. I begged him to go away, and not to say a word to any other mortal about what he had told me; and he gave me the promise I desired.

That was a fatal error, and fearfully was I punished."

"How an error? It seems to me quite remarkable prudence for one in your situation."

"So I thought then; but the event proved differently."

"Pray do tell me how you bore up under all this excitement, and the care and labor of a boarding-house? The more I know of your life, the more surprised I am at your endurance."

"It was the care and labor that saved me, perhaps. At all events, here I am, alive and well, to-night. I sometimes liken myself to a tree that I know of. It was a small fir tree in a friend's garden. For some reason, it began to pine and dwindle and turn red. My friend's husband insisted on cutting it down, as unsightly; but this she objected to, until all the leaves were dry and faded, and the tree apparently dead. Still she asked for it to be spared for another season; and, taking a stick, she beat the tree all over until not a leaf was left on a single bough; and there it stood, a mere frame of dry branches, until everybody wished it out of the way. But behold! at last it was covered with little green dots of leaves, that rapidly grew to the usual size, and now that tree is the thriftiest in my friend's garden, and a living evidence of the uses of adversity. But for the beating it got, it would now be a dead tree! I had my child to live and work for; and really, but for this last trouble, I should have thought myself doing well. I had found out how I could make and lay up money, and was gaining that sense of independence such knowledge gives. Besides, I was young, and in good physical health most of the time before this last and worst stroke of fortune. _That_ broke down my powers of resistance in some directions, I had so much to resist in others."

"Do you see what o'clock it is?" I asked.

"Yes; but if you do not mind the sitting up, let's make a night of it. I feel as if I could not sleep--as if something were going to happen."

Very cheerfully I consented to the proposed vigil. I wanted to hear the rest of the story; and I knew she had a sort of prophetic consciousness of coming events. If she said "something was going to happen," something surely did happen. So the fire was renewed, and we settled ourselves again for "a night of it.

"What did you do? and why do you say that you committed a fatal error by keeping silence?"

"By suffering the matter to rest, I unfortunately fixed myself in the situation I would have avoided. My object was what yours would have been, or any woman's--to save all scandal, until the facts were known to a certainty. I was so sensitive about being talked over; and besides felt that I had no right to expose Mr. Seabrook to a slanderous accusation. It was not possible for me to have foreseen what actually happened.

"I took one night to think the matter over. It was a longer night than this one will seem to you. My decision was to write to the postmaster of the town from which Mr. Seabrook was said to come. _Now_ that would be a simple affair enough; the telegraph would procure us the information wanted in a day. _Then_ a letter was five or six months going and coming. In the meantime I had resolved not to live with Mr. Seabrook as his wife; but you will see how I would, under the circ.u.mstances, be compelled to seem to do so. I did not think of that at first, however.

You know how you mentally go over impending scenes beforehand? I meant to surprise him into a confession, if he were guilty; and believed I should be able to judge of his innocence, if he should be wrongly accused. I wrote and dispatched my letter at once, and under an a.s.sumed name, to prevent its being stolen. When that was done I tried to rest unconcerned; but, of course, that was impossible. My mind ran on this subject day and night.

"The difficulties of my position could never be imagined; you would have to be in the same place to see them. Everybody now called me Mrs.

Seabrook, and I could not repudiate the name without sufficient cause. I was forced to appear to have confidence in the man I had married of my own free will. Besides, I really did not know, of a verity, that he was not worthy of confidence. It seemed quite as credible that another man should invent a lie, as that Mr. Seabrook should be guilty of an enormous crime.

"Naturally I had a buoyant temper; was inclined to see the amusing side of things; enjoyed frolicsome conversation; and in a general way was well fitted to bear up under worries, and recover quickly from depressed conditions. The gentlemen who boarded with me were a cheerful and intelligent set, whose conversation entertained me, as they met three times a day at table. They were all friends of Mr. Seabrook, which gave them the privilege of saying playful things to me about him daily. To these remarks I must make equally playful replies, or seem ungracious to them. You will see how every such circ.u.mstance complicated my difficulties afterwards.

"You know, too, how pliable we all are at twenty-three--how often our opinions waver and our emotions change. I was particularly mercurial in my temperament before the events I am relating hardened me. I often laid in a half-waking state almost all night, my imagination full of horrible images; and when breakfast-time came, and I listened to an hour of entertaining talk, with frequent respectful allusions to Mr. Seabrook, and kindly compliments to myself, these ugly visions took flight, while I persuaded myself that everything would come out right in the end.

"A little while ago you asked me if I did not love Mr. Seabrook at all?--did not long for tenderness from him? The question roused something of the wickedness in me that I confessed to you before; but I will answer the inquiry now, by asking _you_ if you think any woman in her twenties is quite reconciled to live unloved? I had not wished to marry again; yet undoubtedly there was a great blank in my life, which my peculiarly friendless condition made me very sensible of; and there _was_ a yearning desire in my heart to be petted and cared for, as in my brief married life I had been. But the coa.r.s.eness and intrusiveness I had experienced in my widowhood had made me as irritable as the 'fretful porcupine' towards that cla.s.s of men. The thought of Mr. Seabrook loving me had never taken root in my mind. Even when he proposed marriage, it had seemed much more a matter of expediency than of love. But when, after I had accepted him as an avowed lover, his conduct had continued to be unintrusive, and delicately flattering to my womanly pride, it was most natural that I should begin to congratulate myself on the prospect before me of life-long protection from such wounds as I had received, with the great satisfaction of increased dignity in point of social position; for then, much more than now, and in a new country more than in an old one, a woman's position depended on her relations.h.i.+p to men; the wife of the most worthless man being the superior of an unmarried woman. Accordingly I felt my promised importance, and began to exult in it."

"In short, you were preparing to become much more subject to the second love than the first; a not infrequent experience," I interrupted. "You certainly must have loved a handsome, agreeable, courteous, and manly man, who would have interposed between you and the rude shocks of the world; and you had begun to realize that you could, in spite of your first love?"

"And to have a feeling of disappointment when the possibility presented itself that after all these blessings might be wrested from me; of horror when I reflected that in that case my last estate would be inexpressibly worse than the first."

"There was a terrible temptation there!"

"No; that was the one thing I was perfectly clear about. Not to be dragged into crime or deserved disgrace, I was determined upon. How I should avoid it was where I was in doubt."

"I am very anxious to know how you met him on his return."

"There was no one in the house except myself, and Benton, who was now quite well again for the time. I was standing by the dining-room window, arranging some ferns in a hanging basket, and Benton was amusing himself with toys the boarders were always giving him. I heard a footstep, and turned my head slightly to see who it was. Mr. Seabrook stood in the door, regarding us with a pleased smile.

"'How is my wife and boy?' he said, cheerily, advancing towards me, and proffering a kiss of greeting.

"I put up my hand to ward him off, and my heart stood motionless. I seemed to be struck with a chill. My teeth chattered together, while the ends of my fingers turned cold at once.

"Naturally, he was surprised; but thinking perhaps that the suddenness of his return, under the circ.u.mstances, had overcome me, he quickly recovered his tenderness of manner.

"'Have I frightened you, my darling?' he asked, putting out his arms to fold me to his breast. Not being able to speak, I whirled round rapidly, and hastened to place the table between us. Of course, he could not comprehend such conduct, but thought it some nervous freak, probably.

"Turning to Benton, he took him up in his arms and kissed him, asking him some questions about himself and toys. 'Could you tell me what is the matter with your mamma, Bennie?' he asked, seeing that my manner remained inexplicable.

"'I tink see has a till,' answered Benton, who by this time knew the meaning of the word 'chill' by experience.

"'She has given _me_ one, I know,' said Mr. Seabrook, regarding me curiously. I began to feel faint, and sat down, leaning my head on my hand, my elbow on the table.

"'Anna,' said he, addressing me by my Christian name for the first time, and giving me a little shock in consequence--for I had almost forgotten I had ever been called 'Anna'--'if I am so disagreeable to you, I will go away again; though I certainly had reason to expect a different reception.'