Three Women Part 5

_Roger:_

No, that were a crime Against honor and friendship; girl, girl, have a care-- You are goading my poor, tortured heart to despair.

His last words were lost in the loud thunder's crash; The sea seemed ablaze with a sulphurous flash.

From the rocks just above them an evergreen tree Was torn up by the roots and flung into the sea.

The waves with rude arms hurled it back on the sh.o.r.e; The wind gained in fury. The glare and the roar Of the lightning and tempest paled Mabel Lee's cheek, Her pupils dilated; she sprang with a shriek Of a terrified child lost to all save alarm, And clasped Roger Montrose with both hands by the arm, While her cheek pressed his shoulder. An agony, sweet And unbearable, thrilled from his head to his feet, His veins were like rivers, with billows of fire: His will lost control; and long fettered desire Slipped its leash. He caught Mabel Lee to his breast, Drew her face up to his, on her frightened lips pressed Wild caresses of pa.s.sion that startled and shocked.

Like a madman he looked, like a madman he talked, Waiting not for reply, with no pause but a kiss, While his iron arms welded her bosom to his.

"Girl, girl, you demanded my secret," he cried; "Well, that bruise on your lips tells the story! I tried, Good G.o.d, how I tried! to be silent and go Without speaking one word, without letting you know That I loved you; yet how could you look in my eyes And not see love was there like the sun in the skies?

Ah, those hands on my arm--that dear head lightly pressed On my shoulder! G.o.d, woman, the heart in my breast Was dry powder, your touch was the spark; and the blame Must be yours if both lives are scorched black with the flame.

Do you hate me, despise me, for being so weak?

No, no! let me kiss you again ere you speak!

You are mine for the moment; and mine--mine alone Is the first taste of pa.s.sion your soft mouth has known.

Whoever forestalls me in winning your hand, Between you and him shall this mad moment stand-- You shall think of me, though you think only to hate.

There--speak to me--speak to me--tell me my fate; On your words, Mabel Lee, hangs my whole future life.

I covet you, covet you, sweet, for my wife; I want to stay here at your side. Since I first Saw your face I have felt an unquenchable thirst To be good--to look deep in your eyes and find G.o.d, And to leave in the past the dark paths I have trod In my search after pleasure. Ah, must I go back Into folly again, to retread the old track Which leads out into nothingness? Girl, answer me, As souls answer at Judgment."

The face of the sea Shone with sudden pink splendor. The riotous wind Swooned away with exhaustion. Each dark cloud seemed lined With vermilion. The tempest was over. A word Floated up like a feather; the silence was stirred By the soul of a sigh. The last remnant of gray In the skies turned to gold, as a voice whispered, "Stay."

_G.o.d grinds His poor people to powder All day and all night I can hear, Their cries growing louder and louder.

Oh, G.o.d, have You deadened Your ear?_

_The chimes in old Trinity steeple Ring in the sweet season of prayer, And still G.o.d is grinding His people, He is grinding them down to despair._

_Mind, body and muscle and marrow, He grinds them again and again.

Can He who takes heed of the sparrow Be blind to the tortures of men?_

V.

In a bare little room of a tenement row Of the city, Maurice sat alone. It was so (In this nearness to life's darkest phases of grief And despair) that his own bitter woe found relief.

Joy needs no companion; but sorrow and pain Long to comrade with sorrow. The flowery chain Flung by Pleasure about her gay votaries breaks With the least strain upon it. The chain sorrow makes Links heart unto heart. As a bullock will fly To far fields when an arrow has pierced him, to die, So Maurice had flown over far oceans to find No balm for his wounds, and no peace for his mind.

Cosmopolitan, always, is sorrow; at home In all countries and lands, thriving well while we roam In vain efforts to slay it. Toil only, brings peace To the tempest tossed heart. What in travel Maurice Failed to find--self-forgetfulness--came with his work For the suffering poor in the slums of New York.

He had wandered in strange heathen countries--had been Among barbarous hordes; but the greed and the sin Of his own native land seemed the shame of the hour.

In his gold there was balm, in his pen there was power To comfort the needy, to aid and defend The unfortunate. Close in their midst, as a friend And companion, for more than twelve months he had dwelt.

Like a ray of pure light in a cellar was felt This strong, wholesome presence. His little room bare Of all luxuries, taught the poor souls who flocked there For his counsel and aid, how by mere cleanliness The grim features of want lose some lines of distress.

The slips from the plants on his window ledge, given To beauty starved souls, spoke more clearly of heaven And G.o.d than did sermons or dry creedy tracts.

Maurice was no preacher; and yet his kind acts Of mercy and self-immolation sufficed To wake in dark minds a bright image of Christ-- The Christ often heard of, but doubted before.

Maurice spoke no word of religion. Of yore His heart had accepted the creeds of his youth Without pausing to cavil, or question their truth.

Faith seemed his inheritance. But, with the blow Which slew love and killed friendship, faith, too, seemed to go.

It is easy to be optimistic in pleasure, But when Pain stands us up by her portal to measure The actual height of our trust and belief, Ah! then is the time when our faith comes to grief.

The woes of our fellows, G.o.d sends them, 'tis plain; But the devil himself is the cause of _our_ pain.

We question the wisdom that rules o'er the world, And our minds into chaos and darkness are hurled.

The average scoffer at faith goes about Pouring into the ears of his fellows each doubt Which a.s.sails him. One truth he fails wholly to heed; That a doubt oft repeated may bore like a creed.

Maurice kept his thoughts to himself, but his pen Was dipped in the gall of his heart now and then, And his muse was the mouthpiece. The sin unforgiven I hold by the Cherubim chanting in heaven Is the sin of the poet who dares sing a strain Which adds to the world's awful chorus of pain And repinings. The souls whom the G.o.ds bless at birth With the great gift of song, have been sent to the earth To better and brighten it. Woe to the heart Which lets its own sorrow embitter its art.

Unto him shall more sorrow be given; and life After life filled with sorrow, till, spent with the strife, He shall cease from rebellion, and bow to the rod In submission, and own and acknowledge his G.o.d.

Maurice, with his unwilling muse in the gloom Of a mood pessimistic, was shut in his room.

A whistle, a step on the stairway, a knock, Then over the transom there fluttered a flock Of white letters. The Muse, with a sigh of content, Left the poet to read them, and hurriedly went Back to pleasanter regions. Maurice glanced them through: There were brief business epistles from two Daily papers, soliciting work from his pen; A woman begged money for Christ's sake; three men Asked employment; a mother wrote only to say How she blessed him and prayed G.o.d to bless him each day For his kindness to her and to hers; and the last Was a letter from Ruth. The pale ghost of the past Rose out of its poor shallow grave, with the scent And the mold of the clay clinging to it, and leant O'er Maurice as he read, while its breath fanned his cheek.

"Forgive me," wrote Ruth; "for at last I must speak Of the two whom you wish to forget. Well I know How you suffered, still suffer, from fate's sudden blow, Though I am a woman, and women must stay And fight out pain's battles where men run away.

But my strength has its limit, my courage its end, The time has now come when I, too, leave Bay Bend.

Maurice, let the bitterness housed in your heart For the man you long loved as a comrade, depart, And let pity replace it. Oh, weep for his sorrow-- From your fountain of grief, held in check, let me borrow; I have so overdrawn on the bank of my tears That my anguish is now refused payment. For years You loved Mabel Lee. Well, to some hearts love speaks His whole tale of pa.s.sion in brief little weeks.

As Minerva, full grown, from the great brow of Jove Sprang to life, so full blown from our b.r.e.a.s.t.s may spring Love.

Love hid like a bee in my heart's lily cup; I knew not he was there till his sting woke me up.

Maurice, oh Maurice! Can you fancy the woe Of seeing the prize which you coveted so Misused, or abused, by another? The wife Of the man whom I worshiped is spoiling the life That was wax in her hands, wax to shape as she chose.

You were blind to her faults, so was Roger Montrose.

Both saw but the saint; well, let saints keep their places, And not crowd the women in life's hurried races.

As saint, Mabel Lee might succeed; but, oh brother, She never was meant for a wife or a mother.

Her beautiful home has the desolate air Of a house that is ruled by its servants. The care-- The thought of the _woman_ (that sweet, subtle power Pervading some rooms like the scent of a flower), Which turns house into home--_that_ is lacking. She goes On her merciful rounds, does our Lady Montrose, Looking after the souls of the heathen, and leaving The poor hungry soul of her lord to its grieving.

He craves her companionship; wants her to be At his side, more his own, than the public's. But she Holds such love is but selfish; and thinks he should make Some sacrifice gladly for charity's sake.

Her schools, and her clubs, and her fairs fill her time; He wants her to travel; no, that were a crime To go seeking for pleasure, and leave duty here.

G.o.d had given her work and her labor lay near.

A month of the theater season in town?

No, the stage is an evil that needs putting down By good people. So, scheme as he will, the poor man Has to finally yield every project and plan To this sweet stubborn saint; for the husband, you see, Stands last in Her thoughts. He has come, after three Patient years, to that knowledge; his wishes, his needs Must always give way to her whims, or her creeds.

She knows not the primer of loving; her soul Is engrossed with the poor petty wish to _control_.

And she chafes at restriction. Love loves to be bound, And its sweetest of freedom in bondage is found.

She pulls at her fetters. One worshiping heart And its faithful devotion play but a small part In her life. She would rather be lauded and praised By a crowd of inferior followers, raised To the pitiful height of their leader, than be One man's G.o.ddess. There, now, is the true Mabel Lee!

Grieve not that you lost her, but grieve for the one Who with me stood last night by the corpse of his son, And with me stood alone. Ah! how wisely and well Could Mabel descant on Maternity! tell Other women the way to train children to be An honor and pride to their parents! Yet she, From the first, left her child to the nurses. She found 'Twas a tax on her nerves to have baby around When it worried and cried. The nurse knew what to do, And a block down the street lived Mama! 'twixt the two Little Roger would surely be cared for. She must Keep her strength and be worthy the love and the trust Of the poor, who were yearly increasing, and not Bestow on her own all the care and the thought-- That were selfishness, surely.

Well, the babe grew apace, But yesterday morning a flush on its face And a look in its eye worried Roger. The mother Was due at some sort of convention or other In Boston--I think 'twas a grand federation Of clubs formed by women to rescue the Nation From man's awful clutches; and Mabel was made The head delegate of the Bay Bend Brigade.

Once drop in a small, selfish nature the seed Of ambition for place, and it grows like a weed.

The fair village angel we called Mabel Lee, As Mrs. Montrose, has developed, you see, To a full fledged Reformer. It quite turned her head To be sent to the city of beans and brown bread As a delegate! (Delegate! magical word!

The heart of the queer modern woman is stirred Far more by its sound than by aught she may hear In the phrases poor Cupid pours into her ear.) Mabel chirped to the baby a dozen good-byes, And laughed at the trouble in Roger's grave eyes, As she leaned o'er the lace ruffled crib of her son And talked baby-talk: "Now be good, 'ittle one, While Mama is away, and don't draw a long breath, Unless 'oo would worry Papa half to death.

And don't cough, and, of all things, don't _sneeze_, 'ittle dear, Or Papa will be thrown into spasms of fear.

Now, good-bye, once again, 'ittle man; mother knows There is no other baby like Roger Montrose In the whole world to-day."

So she left him. That night The nurse sent a messenger speeding in fright For the Doctor; a second for Grandmama Lee And Roger despatched still another for me.

All in vain! through the gray chilly paths of the dawn The soul of the beautiful baby pa.s.sed on Into Mother-filled lands.

Ah! my G.o.d, the despair Of seeing that agonized sufferer there; To stand by his side, yet denied the relief Of sharing, as wife, and as mother, his grief.

Enough! I have borne all I can bear. The role Of friend to a lover pulls hard on the soul Of a sensitive woman. The three words in life Which have meaning to me are home, mother and wife-- Or, rather, wife, mother and home. Once I thought Men cared for the women who found home the spot Next to heaven for happiness; women who knew No ambition beyond being loyal and true, And who loved all the tasks of the housewife. I learn, Instead, that from women of that kind men turn, With a yawn, unto those who are useless; who live For the poor hollow world and for what it can give, And who make home the spot where, when other joys cease, One sleeps late when one wishes.

You left me Maurice Left the home I have kept since our dear Mother died, With such sisterly love and such housewifely pride, And you wandered afar, and for what cause, forsooth?

Oh! because a vain, self-loving woman, in truth, Had been faithless. The man whom I worshiped, ignored The love and the _comfort_ my woman's heart stored In its depths for his taking, and sought Mabel Lee.

Well, I'm done with the role of the housewife. I see There is nothing in being domestic. The part Is unpicturesque, and at war with all art.

The senile old Century leers with dim eyes At our s.e.x and demands that we shock or surprise His thin blood into motion. The home's not the place To bring a pleased smile to his wicked old face.