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

and the girl will be clearing off the table in the next room here.”

 

Puzzled and trembling, Alida entered the apartment where Holcroft was seated.

She was so embarrassed that she could not lift her eyes to him.

 

“Please sit down,” he said gravely, “and don’t be troubled, much less

frightened. You are just as free to act as ever you were in your life.”

 

She sat down near the door and compelled herself to look at him, for she felt

instinctively that she might gather more from the expression of his face than

from his words.

 

“Alida Armstrong is your name, Mr. Watterly tells me?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Well, Alida, I want to have a plain business talk with you. That’s nothing

to be nervous and worried about, you know. As I told you, I’ve heard your

story. It has made me sorry for you instead of setting me against you. It

has made me respect you as a right-minded woman, and I shall give you good

proof that my words are true. At the same time, I shan’t make any false

pretenses to what isn’t true and couldn’t be true. Since I’ve heard your

story, it’s only fair you should hear mine, and I ought to tell it first.”

 

He went over the past very briefly until he came to the death of his wife.

There was simple and homely pathos in the few sentences with which he referred

to this event. Then more fully he enlarged upon his efforts and failure to

keep house with hired help. Unconsciously, he had taken the best method to

enlist her sympathy. The secluded cottage and hillside farm became realities

to her fancy. She saw how the man’s heart clung to his home, and his effort

to keep it touched her deeply.

 

“Oh!” she thought, “I do wish there was some way for me to go there. The

loneliness of the place which drove others away is the chief attraction for

me. Then it would be pleasant to work for such a man and make his home

comfortable for him. It’s plain from his words and looks that he’s as honest

and straightforward as the day is long. He only wants to keep his home and

make his living in peace.”

 

As he had talked her nervous embarrassment passed away, and the deep sense of

her own need was pressing upon her again. She saw that he also was in great

need. His business talk was revealing deep trouble and perplexity. With the

quick intuitions of a woman, her mind went far beyond his brief sentences and

saw all the difficulties of his lot. His feeling reference to the loss of his

wife proved that he was not a coarse-natured man. As he spoke so plainly of

his life during the past year, her mind was insensibly abstracted from

everything but his want and hers, and she thought his farmhouse afforded just

the secluded refuge she craved. As he drew near the end of his story and

hesitated in visible embarrassment, she mustered courage to say timidly,

“Would you permit a suggestion from me?”

 

“Why, certainly.”

 

“You have said, sir, that your business and means would not allow you to keep

two in help, and as you have been speaking I have tried to think of some way.

The fact that your house is so lonely is just the reason why I should like to

work in it. As you can understand, I have no wish to meet strangers. Now,

sir, I am willing to work for very little; I should be glad to find such a

quiet refuge for simply my board and clothes, and I would do my very best and

try to learn what I did not know. It seems to me that if I worked for so

little you might think you could afford to hire some elderly woman also?” and

she looked at him in the eager hope that he would accept her proposition.

 

He shook his head as he replied, “I don’t know of any such person. I took the

best one in this house, and you know how she turned out.”

 

“Perhaps Mr. Watterly may know of someone else,” she faltered. She was now

deeply troubled and perplexed again, supposing that he was about to renew his

first proposition that she should be his only help.

 

“If Mr. Watterly did know of anyone I would make the trial, but he does not.

Your offer is very considerate and reasonable, but—” and he hesitated again,

scarcely knowing how to go on.

 

“I am sorry, sir,” she said, rising, as if to end the interview.

 

“Stay,” he said, “you do not understand me yet. Of course I should not make

you the same offer that I did at first, after seeing your feeling about it,

and I respect you all the more because you so respect yourself. What I had in

mind was to give you my name, and it’s an honest name. If we were married it

would be perfectly proper for you to go with me, and no one could say a word

against either of us.”

 

“Oh!” she gasped, in strong agitation and surprise.

 

“Now don’t be so taken aback. It’s just as easy for you to refuse as it is to

speak, but listen first. What seems strange and unexpected may be the most

sensible thing for us both. You have your side of the case to think of just

as truly as I have mine; and I’m not forgetting, and I don’t ask you to

forget, that I’m still talking business. You and I have both been through too

much trouble and loss to say any silly nonsense to each other. You’ve heard

my story, yet I’m almost a stranger to you as you are to me. We’d both have

to take considerable on trust. Yet I know I’m honest and well-meaning, and I

believe you are. Now look at it. Here we are, both much alone in the

world—both wishing to live a retired, quiet life. I don’t care a rap for

what people say as long as I’m doing right, and in this case they’d have

nothing to say. It’s our own business. I don’t see as people will ever do

much for you, and a good many would impose on you and expect you to work

beyond your strength. They might not be very kind or considerate, either. I

suppose you’ve thought of this?”

 

“Yes,” she replied with bowed head. “I should meet coldness, probably

harshness and scorn.”

 

“Well, you’d never meet anything of the kind in my house. I would treat you

with respect and kindness. At the same time, I’m not going to mislead you by

a word. You shall have a chance to decide in view of the whole truth. My

friend, Mr. Watterly, has asked me more’n once, ‘Why don’t you marry again?’

I told him I had been married once, and that I couldn’t go before a minister

and promise the same things over again when they wasn’t true. I can’t make to

you any promises or say any words that are not true, and I don’t ask or expect

you to do what I can’t do. But it has seemed to me that our condition was out

of the common lot—that we could take each other for just what we might be to

each other and no more. You would be my wife in name, and I do not ask you to

be my wife in more than name. You would thus secure a good home and the care

and protection of one who would be kind to you, and I would secure a

housekeeper—one that would stay with me and make my interests hers. It would

be a fair, square arrangement between ourselves, and nobody else’s business.

By taking this course, we don’t do any wrong to our feelings or have to say or

promise anything that isn’t true.”

 

“Yet I can’t help saying, sir,” she replied, in strong, yet repressed

agitation, “that your words sound very strange; and it seems stranger still

that you can offer marriage of any kind to a woman situated as I am. You know

my story, sir,” she added, crimsoning, “and all may soon know it. You would

suffer wrong and injury.”

 

“I offer you open and honorable marriage before the world, and no other kind.

Mr. Watterly and others—as many as you pleased—would witness it, and I’d

have you given a certificate at once. As for your story, it has only awakened

my sympathy. You have not meant to do any wrong. Your troubles are only

another reason in my mind for not taking any advantage of you or deceiving you

in the least. Look the truth squarely in the face. I’m bent on keeping my

house and getting my living as I have done, and I need a housekeeper that will

be true to all my interests. Think how I’ve been robbed and wronged, and what

a dog’s life I’ve lived in my own home. You need a home, a support, and a

protector. I couldn’t come to you or go to any other woman and say honestly

more than this. Isn’t it better for people to be united on the ground of

truth than to begin by telling a pack of lies?”

 

“But—but can people be married with such an understanding by a minister?

Wouldn’t it be deceiving him?”

 

“I shall not ask you to deceive anyone. Any marriage that either you or I

could now make would be practically a business marriage. I should therefore

take you, if you were willing, to a justice and have a legal or civil marriage

performed, and this would be just as binding as any other in the eye of the

law. It is often done. This would be much better to my mind than if people,

situated as we are, went to a church or a minister.”

 

“Yes, yes, I couldn’t do that.”

 

“Well, now, Alida,” he said, with a smile that wonderfully softened his rugged

features, “you are free to decide. It may seem to you a strange sort of

courtship, but we are both too old for much foolishness. I never was

sentimental, and it would be ridiculous to begin now. I’m full of trouble and

perplexity, and so are you. Are you willing to be my wife so far as an honest

name goes, and help me make a living for us both? That’s all I ask. I, in my

turn, would promise to treat you with kindness and respect, and give you a

home as long as I lived and to leave you all I have in the world if I died.

That’s all I could promise. I’m a lonely, quiet man, and like to be by

myself. I wouldn’t be much society for you. I’ve said more today than I

might in a month, for I felt that it was due to you to know just what you were

doing.”

 

“Oh, sir,” said Alida, trembling, and with tears in her eyes, “you do not ask

much and you offer a great deal. If you, a strong man, dread to leave your

home and go out into the world you know not where, think how terrible it is

for a weak, friendless woman to be worse than homeless. I have lost

everything, even my good name.”

 

“No, no! Not in my eyes.”

 

“Oh, I know, I know!” she cried, wringing her hands. “Even these miserable

paupers like myself have made me feel it. They have burned the truth into my

brain and heart. Indeed, sir, you do not realize what you are doing or

asking. It is not fit or meet that