Part 2 (1/2)

”Oh, thank you, Bronson Sturgis Herrick! I a.s.sure you I would cheerfully drown myself if I thought you were right about that,” I exclaimed mentally.

He repeated over and over that she was ”so sympathetic.” He meant, of course, that she had wept over him. Flossy's tears flow like rain if you crook your finger at her, and tears wring the heart of a man like Bronson.

To think he was going to marry her! I just looked at him, I remember, as he stood so straight and tall before me, and said to myself, ”Well, you dear, honest, loyal, clever man! You are just the kind of a man that women fool most unmercifully. But it's nature, and you can't help it. Go and marry this Flossy girl, and commit mental suicide if you must.”

”Sympathetic!”

So he married her five years ago, and became her man-servant.

When they had been married about a year, people said that Bronson was working himself to death. I, being an Old Maid, and liking to meddle with other people's business, told him that I thought he ought to take a vacation. He said he couldn't afford it. I was honestly surprised at that, because, while he was not rich, he was extremely well-to-do, with a rapidly increasing law practice. And then Flossy's father had been very generous when she married him. He was considerate enough to reply to my look.

”You know I married a rich girl. Flossy's money is her own. She has saved it--I wished her to save it, I _wished_ it--and I am doing my level best to support her as nearly as possible in the way in which she has been accustomed to live. She ought to have an easier time, poor child.”

So he did not take a vacation, and the summer was very hot, and when Flossy came home from Rye she found him wretchedly ill, and discovered that he had had a trained nurse for two weeks before he let her know anything about it. Then people pitied Flossy for having her summer interrupted, and Flossy felt that it was a shame; but she very willingly sat and fanned Bronson for as much as an hour every day and answered questions languidly and was pale, and people sent her flowers and were extremely sorry for her.

When Bronson became well enough to go away, as his doctors ordered, for a complete rest, Rachel English happened to go on the same train with them, and the next day I received a letter, or rather an envelope, from her, with this single sentence enclosed: ”And if she didn't make him hold her in his arms in broad daylight every step of the way, because the train jarred her back!”

(Tabby, there is no use in talking. I must stop and pull your ears. Come here and let Missis be really rough with you for a minute.)

There are some women who prefer a valet to a husband; who think that the more menial are his services in public, the more apparent is his devotion.

It is a Roman-chariot-wheel idea, which degrades both the man and the woman in the eyes of the spectators. I wrote to Rachel, and said in the letter, ”One horse in the span always does most of the pulling, you know, especially uphill.” And Rachel wrote back, ”Wouldn't I just like to drive this pair, though!”

Bronson had his ideals before he was married, as most men have, concerning the kind of a home he hoped for. He always said that it was not so much what your home was, as how it was. He believed that a home consisted more in the feelings and aims of its inmates than in rugs and jardinieres. He said to me once, ”The oneness of two people could make a home in Sahara.”

He was ambitious, too, feeling within himself that power which makes orators and statesmen, but needing the approval and encouragement of some one who also realized his capabilities, to enable him to do his best. He himself was the one who was sympathetic, if he had only known it. His nature responded with the utmost readiness to whatever appealed to him from the side of right or justice.

He had n.o.ble hopes in many directions, hopes which inspired me to believe in his truth and goodness, aside from his capabilities for achieving greatness. His eagle sight, which read through other men's shams and pretences; his moral sense, which bade him shun even the appearance of evil, not only permitted, but urged him, seemingly, into this marriage with Flossy, by which he effectually cut himself off from his dearest aspirations. One by one I have seen him relinquish them, holding to them lovingly to the last. The hours at home, which he intended to give to study and research, have been sacrificed to the petting and nursing of a perfectly well woman, who demanded it of him. His home life, where he had dreamed of a congenial atmosphere, where the centripetal force should be the love of wife and children, merged into frequent journeys for Flossy--who would have been happy if she never had been obliged to stay in one place over a week--and a s.h.i.+fting of their one child Rachel into the care of nurses, because Flossy fretted at the care of her and demanded all of Bronson's time for herself.

Thus was Bronson's life being twisted and bent from its natural course.

Was it a weakness in him? To be sure he might have shown his strength by breaking loose from family ties, and, hardening his heart to his wife's plaints, have carried out his ambitions with some degree of success. He did attempt this, nor did he fail in his career. He was called a fairly successful man. I dare say the majority of people never knew that he was created for grander things. But something was sapping his energy at the fountain-head. Was he realizing that he had helped to shatter his ideals with his own hand?

I never am so well satisfied with my lot of single-blessedness as when I contemplate the sort of wife Flossy makes. That may sound arrogant, but this is a secret session of human nature, when arrogance and all native-born sins are permissible.

Flossy is perfectly unconscious of the spectacle she presents to the world. Ah, me! I know it is said, ”Judge not, that ye be not judged.” I might have made him just such a wife, I suppose. O heavens! no, I shouldn't. Tabby, that is making humility go a little too far.

IV

WOMEN AS LOVERS

”In every clime and country There lives a Man of Pain, Whose nerves, like chords of lightning, Bring fire into his brain: To him a whisper is a wound, A look or sneer, a blow; More pangs he feels in years or months Than dunce-throng'd ages know.”

I have had such a curious experience. I have been confided in, twice in one day. Two more bits out of other lives have been given to me, and it is astonis.h.i.+ng to see how well they piece into mine.

To begin with, Rachel English came in early. There is something particularly auspicious about Rachel. She fits me like a glove. She never jars nor grates. When she is here, I am comfortable; when she is gone, I miss something. If I see a fine painting, or hear magnificent music, I think of Rachel before any other thought comes into my mind. One involuntarily a.s.sociates her with anything wonderfully fine in art or literature, with the perfect a.s.surance that she will be sympathetic and appreciative. She understands the deep, inarticulate emotions in the kindred way you have a right to expect of your lover, and which you are oftenest disappointed in, if you do expect it of him. If I were a man, I should be in love with Rachel.

Her sensitiveness through every available channel makes her of no use to general society. Blundering people tread on her; malicious ones tear her to pieces. Rachel ought to be caged, and only approached by clever people who have brains enough to appreciate her. I should like to be her keeper.

But her organization is too closely allied to that of genius to be happy, unless with certain environments which it is too good to believe will ever surround her. She is so clever that she is perfectly helpless. If you knew her, this would not be a paradox. Possibly it isn't anyway.

I do not say that Rachel is perfect. She would be desperately uncomfortable as a friend if she were. Her failings are those belonging to a frank, impulsive, generous nature, which I myself find it easy to forgive. Her gravest fault is a witty tongue. That which many people would give years of their lives to possess is what she has shed the most tears over and which she most liberally detests in herself. She calls it her private demon, and says she knows that one of the devils, in the woman who was possessed of seven, was the devil of wit.