The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems Part 4

"'No,' I said, suddenly rousing up; 'you must not go until I have told you something; unless you go to stay--which would perhaps be best.'

"'To stay! go to stay? There seems great need of explanation here. Will you be good enough to tell me why I am to go away to stay?'

"'The reason is, Mr. Seabrook,' I answered, 'that your true wife, and your own children expect you at home, in Ohio.'

"I had worded my answer with the intention of shocking the truth out of him, if possible. If he should be innocent, I thought, he would forgive me. There was too much at stake to stand upon niceties of speech; and I watched him narrowly."

"How did he receive such a blow as that? I am curious to know how guilty people act, on being accused."

"You cannot tell an innocent from a guilty person," Mrs. Greyfield returned, with a touch of that asperity that was sometimes noticeable in her utterances. Then, more quietly: "Both are shocked alike at being accused; one because he is innocent; the other, because he is guilty.

How much a person is shocked depends upon temperament and circ.u.mstance.

The guilty person, always consciously in danger of being accused, is likely to be prepared and on the defensive, while the other is not.

"What Mr. Seabrook did, was to turn upon me a look of keen observation, not unmixed with surprise. It might mean one thing; it might mean another; how could I tell? He always impressed me so with his superiority that even in that moment, when my honor and life's happiness were at stake, I was conscious of a feeling of abas.e.m.e.nt and guiltiness that I dare accuse _him_ to his face. Perhaps, he saw that I was frightened at my own temerity; at all events he was not thrown off his guard.

"'Do I understand you to charge me with crime--a very ugly crime, indeed?' he asked pointedly.

"'You know,' I said, 'whether you are guilty. If you are, may G.o.d so deal with you as you have meant to deal with me.'

"I fancied that he winced slightly at this; but in my excitement could not have seen very clearly. He knitted his brows, and took several turns up and down the room.

"'If I knew who had put this monstrous idea into your mind,' he finally said with vehemence; 'I would send a bullet through his heart!'

"'In that case,' I replied: 'you could not expect me to tell you;' and I afterwards made that threat my excuse for concealing the name of my informant.

"Mr. Seabrook continued to pace the floor in an excited manner, stroking his long blonde beard rapidly and unconsciously. I still sat by the table, trying to appear the calm observer that I was not. He came and stood by me, saying: 'Do you believe this thing against me?'

"'I do not know what to believe, Mr. Seabrook,' I replied, 'but something will have to be done about this rumor.' I could not bear to go on; but he understood me. He leaned over my chair, and touched my cheek with his:

"'Are you my wife, or not?' he asked. I shuddered, and put my face down on my hands. He knelt by my side, and taking my hands in his, so that my face must be seen, asked me to look into his eyes and listen to him.

What he said, was this:

"'If I swear to you, by Almighty G.o.d, that you are my true and only wife, will you then believe me?'"

Mrs. Greyfield was becoming visibly agitated by these reminiscences, and paused to collect herself.

"You dared not say 'yes,'" I cried, carried away with sympathy, "and yet, you could not say 'no.' What did you do?"

"I burst into a pa.s.sion of tears, and cried convulsively. He would have caressed and consoled me, but I would have none of it.

"'Anna, what a strange home-coming for a bridegroom!' he said, reproachfully.

"'Go away, and leave me to myself,' I entreated; 'You must not stay here.'

"'What madness?' he exclaimed. 'Do you wish to set everybody to talking about us?' Ah! 'talking about us,' was the bugbear I most dreaded, and he knew it. But I wanted to seem brave; so I said that in private matters we were at liberty to do as we thought right and best.

"'And I think it right and best to stay where my wife is. Anna, what is to be the result of this strange suspicion of yours, but to make us both unhappy, and me desperate! Why, I shall be the laughing-stock of the town--and I confess it is more than I can bear without flinching, to have it circulated about, that Seabrook married a wife who cut him adrift the first thing she did. And then look at your position, too, which would be open to every unkind remark. You must not incur this almost certain ruin.'

"'Mr. Seabrook,' I said, more calmly than I had yet spoken; 'what you have said has suggested itself to me before. Stay here, then, if you must, until I can take measures to satisfy myself of the legality of our marriage. You can keep your own counsel, and I can keep mine. I have spoken to no one about this matter, nor will I for the present. There is your old room; your old place at the table. I will try to act as natural as possible; more than this you must not expect of me.' This business-like tone nettled him.

"'May I inquire, Mrs. Seabrook, how long a probation I may antic.i.p.ate, and what measures you intend taking to establish my good or bad character? A man may not be willing to wait always for a wife.'

"'Very well,' I replied to this covert threat; 'when you tire of waiting, you know what to do.' But my voice must have trembled, for he instantly changed his manner. There was more chance of winning me through my weakness than of intimidating me, coward though I was.

"'My dear Anna,' he said kindly, 'this is a most mortifying and trying predicament that I am in; and you must pardon me if I seem selfish. I do not know how I am to bear several months of this unnatural life you propose; and in thinking of myself I forget you. Yet your case, as _you_ see it, is harder than mine; and I ought to pity and comfort you. If my darling would only let me!' He stretched out his arms to me. It was all I could do to keep from rushing into them, and sobbing on his breast. I was so tempest-tossed and weary!--what would I not have given to lay down my burdens?"

"That is where the unrecognized heroism of women comes in. How few men would suffer in this way for the right! Had you chosen to ignore the tale that you had heard, and taken this man whom fortune had thrown with you upon this far-off coast, he might have been to you a kind friend and protector. Do you not think so?"

"Very likely. Plenty of bad men, when deferred to, have made good husbands, as men go. But I, by resisting the will of one bad man, made infinite trouble for myself. Are you becoming wearied?"

"No, no; go on."

"I must pa.s.s over a great deal; and, thank G.o.d! some things have been forgotten. Mr. Seabrook took his old room down stairs. As before, he sat at the foot of the table and carved, but now as master of the house.

Servants not being easily obtained, it was not remarked that my duties prevented my sitting down with my supposed husband at meals. He marketed for me, and received the money of my boarders when pay-day came; and at first he did--what he failed to do afterwards--pay the money over to me.

"You are curious to know how Mr. Seabrook conducted himself toward me personally, and in particular. For a few days, well; so that I began to feel confidence that so honorable a gentleman would be proved free from all stain. But he soon began to annoy me with the most persistent courtship, looking, as I could see, to breaking down my reserve, and subjecting me to the domination of a pa.s.sion for him. If I had ever really loved Mr. Seabrook, it would have been a love of the senses, of interest, of the understanding, and not of the imagination and heart. I was just on the eve of such a love when it was fortunately put in check by my suspicions. For him to endeavor to create a feeling now that might, nay, that was intended to subvert principle and virtue, appeared even to my small worldly sense, an insult and an outrage.

"When I talked in this way to him, he half laughingly and half in earnest always declared that I should get into the habit of forgetting our marriage before my 'proofs' came from Ohio, unless he every day put me in mind of it! and this willingness to refer to 'proofs' threw me off my guard a little. He designed very cunningly, but not quite cunningly enough. As time wore on and he feared the proofs might come before he had bent me to his will, his attempts lost even the semblance of love or decency. Many and many a night I feared to close my eyes in sleep, lest he should carry out his avowed purpose; for locks and bolts in a house in those days were considered unnecessary, and I improvised such defenses as I could. I used to threaten to call in my little German neighbor, to which he replied she would probably recognize a man's right to occupy the same apartment with his wife! Still, I think he was deterred somewhat by the fear of exposure from using violence."

The recital of such sufferings and anxieties as these; endured, too, by a young and lonely woman, affected me powerfully. My excited imagination was engaged in comparing the Mrs. Greyfield I saw before me, wearing her nearly fifty years with dignity and grace, full of a calm and ripe experience, still possessing a dark and striking beauty, with the picture she had given me of herself at twenty-three. What a wonder it was that with her lively temperament either for pain or pleasure; with her beauty and her helplessness, she had come out of the furnace unscathed, as she now appeared.

"How could you," I said, with a feeling of deep disgust, "how _could_ you allow such a man to remain in your house?"

"How could I get him out? We were legally married, so far as anybody in Oregon knew, except himself. Everybody presumed us to be living amicably together. He was careful to act the courteous gentleman to me in the presence of others. If we never went out together, it was easily explained by reference to my numerous household cares, and Benton's frequent illness. As I before said, no one could understand the position who had not been in it. I could not send him away from me; nor could I go away from him. He would have followed me, he said, to the 'ends of the earth.' Besides, where could I go? There was nothing for me but to endure until the answer to my letter came. Never was letter so anxiously desired as that one; for, of course, I fully expected that whatever news it contained, would bring relief in some way. But I had made up my mind to his guilt, rightly judging that, had he been innocent, he would either have found means to satisfy me, or have gone away and left me altogether.

"It had been six or seven months since my marriage. I had a large family of boarders to cook for, and Benton giving me a great deal of worry, fearing I should lose him. Working hard all day, and sleeping very little nights, with constant excitement and dread, had very much impaired my health. My boarders of ten said to me: 'Mrs. Seabrook, you are working too hard; you must make Mr. Seabrook get you a cook.' What could I say in return, except to force a smile, and turn the drift of the conversation? Once, carried away with indignation, I replied that 'Mr. Seabrook found it as much as _he_ could do to collect the money I earned!'"

"And you were set down at once as a vixen!" I said, smiling.

"Well, they were not expected to know how matters stood, when I had taken so much pain to conceal the truth. I was sorry I had not held my peace a little longer, or altogether. Men never can understand a woman's right to resent selfishness, however atrocious; even when they are knowing to it, which in this case they were not. I might as well have held my tongue, since every unguarded speech of mine militated against me afterwards."

"You allowed Mr. Seabrook to have all your earnings?"

"I could not prevent it; he was _my husband_. Sometimes I thought he meant to save up all he could, to take him out of the country, when the hoped-for proofs of his crime should arrive. And in that light I was inclined to rejoice in his avarice. I would have given all I had for that purpose. Oh, those dreadful, dreadful days! when I was so near insane with sleeplessness and anxiety, that I seemed to be walking on the air! Such, indeed, was my mental and physical condition, that everything seemed unreal, even myself; and it surprises me now that my reason did not give way."

"Did you never pray?"

"My training had been religious, and I had always prayed. This, I felt, ent.i.tled me to help; and yet help did not come. I felt forsaken of G.o.d, and sullenly shut my lips to prayer or complaint. All severely tried souls go through a similar experience. Christ himself cried out: 'My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why hast _forsaken_ me!'"

"No wonder you felt forsaken, indeed."

"You think I was as tried as I could be then, when I had a hope of escape; but worse came after that--worse, because more hopeless."

"You were really married to him then?" I cried in alarm: "I thought you told me in the beginning, that you were not."

"Neither was I; but that did not release me. When at last I received an answer to my inquiries, confirming the statement of the immigrant from Ohio, it was too late."

"You do not mean!"--I interrupted, in a frightened voice.