He Fell In Love With His Wife - Edward Payson Roe (the speed reading book .txt) 📗

much more to answer for than

Bessie; he accused himself of having been a rather coarse, vulgar boy; he had

made fun of sacred things in that very meeting house more times than he liked

to think of, and now for some reason could think of nothing else.

 

He could not shed tears or get up much emotion; neither could he rid himself

of the dull weight at heart. The minister, the brethren and sisters, prayed

for him and over him, but nothing removed his terrible inertia. He became a

familiar form on the anxious seat for there was a dogged persistence in his

nature which prevented him from giving up; but at the close of each meeting he

went home in a state of deeper dejection. Sometimes, in returning, he was

Bessie Jones’ escort, and her happiness added to his gall and bitterness. One

moonlight night they stopped under the shadow of a pine near her father’s

door, and talked over the matter a few moments before parting. Bessie was

full of sympathy which she hardly knew how to express. Unconsciously, in her

earnestness—how well he remembered the act!—she laid her hand on his arm as

she said, “James, I guess I know what’s the matter with you. In all your

seeking you are thinking only of yourself—how bad you’ve been and all that.

I wouldn’t think of myself and what I was any more, if I was you. You aint so

awful bad, James, that I’d turn a cold shoulder to you; but you might think I

was doing just that if ye stayed away from me and kept saying to yourself, ‘I

aint fit to speak to Bessie Jones.’”

 

Her face had looked sweet and compassionate, and her touch upon his arm had

conveyed the subtle magic of sympathy. Under her homely logic, the truth had

burst upon him like sunshine. In brief, he had turned from his own shadow and

was in the light. He remembered how in his deep feeling he had bowed his head

on her shoulder and murmured, “Oh, Bessie, Heaven bless you! I see it all.”

 

He no longer went to the anxious seat. With this young girl, and many others,

he was taken into the church on probation. Thereafter, his fancy never

wandered again, and there was no other girl in Oakville for him but Bessie.

In due time, he had gone with her to yonder meeting house to be married. It

had all seemed to come about as a matter of course. He scarcely knew when he

became formally engaged. They “kept company” together steadfastly for a

suitable period, and that seemed to settle it in their own and everybody

else’s mind.

 

There had been no change in Bessie’s quiet, constant soul. After her words

under the shadow of the pine tree she seemed to find it difficult to speak of

religious subjects, even to her husband; but her simple faith had been

unwavering, and she had entered into rest without fear or misgiving.

 

Not so her husband. He had his spiritual ups and downs, but, like herself,

was reticent. While she lived, only a heavy storm kept them from “going to

meeting,” but with Holcroft worship was often little more than a form, his

mind being on the farm and its interests. Parents and relatives had died, and

the habit of seclusion from neighborhood and church life had grown upon them

gradually and almost unconsciously.

 

For a long time after his wife’s death Holcroft had felt that he did not wish

to see anyone who would make references to his loss.

 

He shrank from formal condolences as he would from the touch of a diseased

nerve. When the minister called, he listened politely but silently to a

general exhortation; then muttered, when left alone, “It’s all as he says, I

suppose; but somehow his words are like the medicines Bessie took—they don’t

do any good.”

 

He kept up the form of his faith and a certain vague hope until the night on

which he drove forth the Irish revelers from his home. In remembrance of his

rage and profanity on that occasion, he silently and in dreary misgiving

concluded that he should not, even to himself, keep up the pretense of

religion any longer. “I’ve fallen from grace—that is, if I ever had any”—was

a thought which did much to rob him of courage to meet his other trials.

Whenever he dwelt on these subjects, doubts, perplexities, and resentment at

his misfortunes so thronged his mind that he was appalled; so he strove to

occupy himself with the immediate present.

 

Today, however, in recalling the past, his thoughts would question the future

and the outcome of his experiences. In accordance with his simple, downright

nature, he muttered, “I might as well face the truth and have done with it. I

don’t know whether I’ll ever see my wife again or not; I don’t know whether

God is for me or against me. Sometimes, I half think there isn’t any God. I

don’t know what will become of me when I die. I’m sure of only one

thing—while I do live I could take comfort in working the old place.”

 

In brief, without ever having heard of the term, he was an agnostic, but not

one of the self-complacent, superior type who fancy that they have developed

themselves beyond the trammels of faith and are ever ready to make the world

aware of their progress.

 

At last he recognized that his long reverie was leading to despondency and

weakness; he rose, shook himself half angrily, and strode toward the house.

“I’m here, and here I’m going to stay,” he growled. “As long as I’m on my own

land, it’s nobody’s business what I am or how I feel. If I can’t get decent,

sensible women help, I’ll close up my dairy and live here alone. I certainly

can make enough to support myself.”

 

Jane met him with a summons to dinner, looking apprehensively at his stern,

gloomy face. Mrs. Mumpson did not appear. “Call her,” he said curtly.

 

The literal Jane returned from the parlor and said unsympathetically, “She’s

got a hank’chif to her eyes and says she don’t want no dinner.”

 

“Very well,” he replied, much relieved.

 

Apparently he did not want much dinner, either, for he soon started out again.

Mrs. Wiggins was not utterly wanting in the intuitions of her sex, and said

nothing to break in upon her master’s abstraction.

 

In the afternoon Holcroft visited every nook and corner of his farm, laying

out, he hoped, so much occupation for both hands and thoughts as to render him

proof against domestic tribulations.

 

He had not been gone long before Mrs. Mumpson called in a plaintive voice,

“Jane!”

 

The child entered the parlor warily, keeping open a line of retreat to the

door. “You need not fear me,” said her mother, rocking pathetically. “My

feelings are so hurt and crushed that I can only bemoan the wrongs from which

I suffer. You little know, Jane, you little know a mother’s heart.”

 

“No,” assented Jane. “I dunno nothin’ about it.”

 

“What wonder, then that I weep, when even my child is so unnatural!”

 

“I dunno how to be anything else but what I be,” replied the girl in

self-defense.

 

“If you would only yield more to my guidance and influence, Jane, the future

might be brighter for us both. If you had but stored up the Fifth Commandment

in memory—but I forbear. You cannot so far forget your duty as not to tell

me how HE behaved at dinner.”

 

“He looked awful glum, and hardly said a word.”

 

“Ah-h!” exclaimed the widow, “the spell is working.”

 

“If you aint a-workin’ tomorrow, there’ll be a worse spell,” the girl

remarked.

 

“That will do, Jane, that will do. You little understand—how should you?

Please keep an eye on him, and let me know how he looks and what he is doing,

and whether his face still wears a gloomy or a penitent aspect. Do as I bid

you, Jane, and you may unconsciously secure your own well-being by obedience.”

 

Watching anyone was a far more congenial task to the child than learning the

Commandments, and she hastened to comply. Moreover, she had the strongest

curiosity in regard to Holcroft herself. She felt that he was the arbiter of

her fate. So untaught was she that delicacy and tact were unknown qualities.

Her one hope of pleasing was in work. She had no power of guessing that sly

espionage would counterbalance such service. Another round of visiting was

dreaded above all things; she was, therefore, exceedingly anxious about the

future. “Mother may be right,” she thought. “P’raps she can make him marry

her, so we needn’t go away any more. P’raps she’s taken the right way to

bring a man around and get him hooked, as Cousin Lemuel said. If I was goin’

to hook a man though, I’d try another plan than mother’s. I’d keep my mouth

shut and my eyes open. I’d see what he wanted and do it, even ‘fore he spoke.

‘Fi’s big anuf I bet I could hook a man quicker’n she can by usin’ her tongue

‘stead of her hands.”

 

Jane’s scheme was not so bad a one but that it might be tried to advantage by

those so disposed. Her matrimonial prospects, however, being still far in the

future, it behooved her to make her present existence as tolerable as

possible. She knew how much depended on Holcroft, and was unaware of any

other method of learning his purposes except that of watching him. Both

fearing and fascinated, she dogged his steps most of the afternoon, but saw

nothing to confirm her mother’s view that any spell was working. She scarcely

understood why he looked so long at field, thicket, and woods, as if he saw

something invisible to her.

 

In planning future work and improvements, the farmer had attained a quieter

and more genial frame of mind. “When, therefore, he sat down and in glancing

about saw Jane crouching behind a low hemlock, he was more amused than

irritated. He had dwelt on his own interests so long that he was ready to

consider even Jane’s for a while. “Poor child!” he thought, “she doesn’t know

any better and perhaps has even been taught to do such things. I think I’ll

surprise her and draw her out a little. Jane, come here,” he called.

 

The girl sprang to her feet, and hesitated whether to fly or obey. “Don’t be

afraid,” added Holcroft. “I won’t scold you. Come!”

 

She stole toward him like some small, wild, fearful animal in doubt of its

reception. “Sit down there on that rock,” he said.

 

She obeyed with a sly, sidelong look, and he saw that she kept her feet

gathered under her so as to spring away if he made the slightest hostile

movement.

 

“Jane, do you think it’s right to watch people so?” he asked gravely.

 

“She told me to.”

 

“Your mother?”

 

The girl nodded.

 

“But do you think it’s right yourself?”

 

“Dunno. ‘Taint best if you get caught.”

 

“Well, Jane,” said Holcroft, with something like a smile lurking in his

deep-set eyes. “I don’t think it’s right at all. I don’t want you to watch me

any more, no matter who tells you to. Will you promise not to?”

 

The child nodded. She seemed averse to speaking when a sign would answer.

 

“Can I go now?” she asked after a moment.

 

“Not yet. I want to ask you some questions. Was anyone ever kind to you?”

 

“I dunno. I suppose so.”

 

“What would you call being kind to you?”

 

“Not