He Fell In Love With His Wife, Edward Payson Roe [children's books read aloud .TXT] 📗
- Author: Edward Payson Roe
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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—”
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