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

I should bear your name. You might be

sorry, indeed.”

 

“Alida,” said Holcroft gravely, “I’ve not forgotten your story, and you

shouldn’t forget mine. Be sensible now. Don’t I look old enough to know what

I’m about?”

 

“Oh, oh, oh!” she cried impetuously, “if I were only sure it was right! It

may be business to you, but it seems like life or death to me. It’s more than

death—I don’t fear that—but I do fear life, I do fear the desperate struggle

just to maintain a bare, dreary existence. I do dread going out among

strangers and seeing their cold curiosity and their scorn. You can’t

understand a woman’s heart. It isn’t right for me to die till God takes me,

but life has seemed so horrible, meeting suspicion on one side and cruel,

significant looks of knowledge on the other. I’ve been tortured even here by

these wretched hags, and I’ve envied even them, so near to death, yet not

ashamed like me. I know, and you should know, that my heart is broken,

crushed, trampled into the mire. I had felt that for me even the thought of

marriage again would be a mockery, a wicked thing, which I would never have a

right to entertain.—I never dreamt that anyone would think of such a thing,

knowing what you know. Oh, oh! Why have you tempted me so if it is not

right? I must do right. The feeling that I’ve not meant to do wrong is all

that has kept me from despair. But can it be right to let you take me from

the street, the poorhouse, with nothing to give but a blighted name, a broken

heart and feeble hands! See, I am but the shadow of what I was, and a dark

shadow at that. I could be only a dismal shadow at any man’s hearth. Oh, oh!

I’ve thought and suffered until my reason seemed going. You don’t realize,

you don’t know the depths into which I’ve fallen. It can’t be right.”

 

Holcroft was almost appalled at this passionate outburst in one who thus far

had been sad, indeed, yet self-controlled. He looked at her in mingled pity

and consternation. His own troubles had seemed heavy enough, but he now

caught glimpses of something far beyond trouble—of agony, of mortal dread

that bordered on despair. He could scarcely comprehend how terrible to a

woman like Alida were the recent events of her life, and how circumstances,

with illness, had all tended to create a morbid horror of her situation. Like

himself she was naturally reticent in regard to her deeper feelings, patient

and undemonstrative. Had not his words evoked this outburst she might have

suffered and died in silence, but in this final conflict between conscience

and hope, the hot lava of her heart had broken forth. So little was he then

able to understand her, that suspicions crossed his mind. Perhaps his friend

Watterly had not heard the true story or else not the whole story. But his

straightforward simplicity stood him in good stead, and he said gently,

“Alida, you say I don’t know, I don’t realize. I believe you will tell me the

truth. You went to a minister and were married to a man that you thought you

had a right to marry—”

 

“You shall know it all from my own lips,” she said, interrupting him; “you

have a right to know; and then you will see that it cannot be,” and with bowed

head, and low, rapid, passionate utterance, she poured out her story. “That

woman, his wife,” she concluded, “made me feel that I was of the scum and

offscouring of the earth, and they’ve made me feel so here, too—even these

wretched paupers. So the world will look on me till God takes me to my

mother. O, thank God! She don’t know. Don’ you see, now?” she asked, raising

her despairing eyes from which agony had dried all tears.

 

“Yes, I see you do,” she added desperately, “for even you have turned from

me.”

 

“Confound it!” cried Holcroft, standing up and searching his pockets for a

handkerchief. “I—I—I’d like—like to choke that fellow. If I could get my

hands on him, there’d be trouble. Turn away from you, you poor wronged

creature! Don’t you see I’m so sorry for you that I’m making a fool of

myself? I, who couldn’t shed a tear over my own troubles—there, there,—come

now, let us be sensible. Let’s get back to business, for I can’t stand this

kind of thing at all. I’m so confused betwixt rage at him and pity for

you—Let me see; this is where we were: I want someone to take care of my

home, and you want a home. That’s all there is about it now. If you say so,

I’ll make you Mrs. Holcroft in an hour.”

 

“I did not mean to work upon your sympathies, only to tell you the truth. God

bless you! That the impulses of your heart are so kind and merciful. But let

me be true to you as well as to myself. Go away and think it all over calmly

and quietly. Even for the sake of being rescued from a life that I dread far

more than death, I cannot let you do that which you may regret unspeakably.

Do not think I misunderstand your offer. It’s the only one I could think of,

and I would not have thought of it if you had not spoke. I have no heart to

give. I could be a wife only in name, but I could work like a slave for

protection from a cruel, jeering world; I could hope for something like peace

and respite from suffering if I only had a safe refuge. But I must not have

these if it is not right and best. Good to me must not come through wrong to

you.”

 

“Tush, tush! You mustn’t talk so. I can’t stand it at all. I’ve heard your

story. It’s just as I supposed at first, only a great deal more so. Why, of

course it’s all right. It makes me believe in Providence, it all turns out so

entirely for our mutual good. I can do as much to help you as you to help me.

Now let’s get back on the sensible, solid ground from which we started. The

idea of my wanting you to work like a slave! Like enough some people would,

and then you’d soon break down and be brought back here again. No, no; I’ve

explained just what I wish and just what I mean. You must get over the notion

that I’m a sentimental fool, carried away by my feelings. How Tom Watterly

would laugh at the idea! My mind is made up now just as much as it would be a

week hence. This is no place for you, and I don’t like to think of your being

here. My spring work is pressing, too. Don’t you see that by doing what I

ask you can set me right on my feet and start me uphill again after a year of

miserable downhill work? You have only to agree to what I’ve said, and you

will be at home tonight and I’ll be quietly at my work tomorrow. Mr. Watterly

will go with us to the justice, who has known me all my life. Then, if anyone

ever says a word against you, he’ll have me to settle with. Come, Alida!

Here’s a strong hand that’s able to take care of you.”

 

She hesitated a moment, then clasped it like one who is sinking, and before he

divined her purpose, she kissed and bedewed it with tears.

 

Chapter XIX. A Business Marriage

 

While Holcroft’s sympathies had been deeply touched by the intense emotion of

gratitude which had overpowered Alida, he had also been disturbed and rendered

somewhat anxious. He was actually troubled lest the woman he was about to

marry should speedily begin to love him, and develop a tendency to manifest

her affection in a manner that would seem to him extravagant and certainly

disagreeable. Accustomed all his life to repress his feelings, he wondered at

himself and could not understand how he had given way so unexpectedly. He was

not sufficiently versed in human nature to know that the depth of Alida’s

distress was the adequate cause. If there had been a false or an affected

word, he would have remained cool enough. In his inability to gauge his own

nature as well as hers, he feared lest this businesslike marriage was verging

toward sentiment on her part. He did not like her kissing his hand. He was

profoundly sorry for her, but so he would have been for any other woman

suffering under the burden of a great wrong. He felt that it would be

embarrassing if she entertained sentiments toward him which he could not

reciprocate, and open manifestations of regard would remind him of that horror

of his life, Mrs. Mumpson. He was not incapable of quick, strong sympathy in

any instance of genuine trouble, but he was one of those men who would shrink

in natural recoil from any marked evidence of a woman’s preference unless the

counterpart of her regard existed in his own breast.

 

To a woman of Alida’s intuition the way in which he withdrew his hand and the

expression of his face had a world of meaning. She would not need a second

hint. Yet she did not misjudge him; she knew that he meant what he had said

and had said all that he meant. She was also aware that he had not and never

could understand the depths of fear and suffering from which his hand was

lifting her. Her gratitude was akin to that of a lost soul saved, and that

was all she had involuntarily expressed. She sat down again and quietly dried

her eyes, while in her heart she purposed to show her gratitude by patient

assiduity in learning to do what he required.

 

Holcroft was now bent upon carrying out his plan as quickly as possible and

returning home. He therefore asked, “Can you go with me at once, Alida?”

 

She simply bowed her acquiescence.

 

“That’s sensible. Perhaps you had better get your things ready while I and

Mr. Watterly go and arrange with Justice Harkins.”

 

Alida averted her face with a sort of shame which a woman feels who admits

such a truth. “I haven’t anything, sir, but a hat and cloak to put on. I came

away and left everything.”

 

“And I’m glad of it,” said Holcroft heartily. “I wouldn’t want you to bring

anything which that scoundrel gave you.” He paced the room thoughtfully a

moment or two and then he called Watterly in. “It’s settled, Tom. Alida will

be Mrs. Holcroft as soon as we can see the justice. Do you think we could

persuade him to come here?”

 

“One thing at a time. Mrs. Holcroft,—I may as well call you so, for when my

friend says he’ll do a thing he does it,—I congratulate you. I think you are

well out of your troubles. Since you are to marry my old friend, we must be

friends, too,” and he shook her heartily by the hand.

 

His words and manner were another ray of light—a welcome rift in the black

pall that had gathered round her.

 

“You were the first friend I found, sir, after—what happened,” she said

gratefully.

 

“Well, you’ve found another and a better one; and he’ll always be just the

same. Any woman might be glad—”

 

“Come, Tom, no more of that. I’m a plain old farmer that does what he agrees,

and that’s all there is about it. I’ve told Alida just what I wished and

could do—”