The New Penelope, and Other Stories and Poems. Frances Fuller Victor
there not being a mouthful in the house to eat, I went out and bought a loaf of bread and some milk for Benton's breakfast; for I was careful not to risk the child's health as I risked my own. In the morning when I came down stairs the bread and milk were gone. Mr. Seabrook had breakfasted. 'Bennie' and I could go hungry. And that brings me back to what 'town talk' did for me.
"It soon became noised about that Mr. and Mrs. Seabrook, who had never got on well together, were now going on dreadfully, and that probably there would be a divorce. 'Divorce!' I said, when my new friend, the minister, mentioned it to me, 'divorce from what? How can there be a divorce where there is no marriage?' 'Nevertheless,' he replied, 'it is worth considering. If the society you live in insist that you are married, why not gratify this society, and ask its leave to be legally separated from your nominal husband?'
"At first I rebelled strongly against making this tacit admission of a relationship of that kind to Mr. Seabrook. It appeared to me to be a confession of falsehood to those few persons who were in my confidence, some of whom I felt had always half-doubted the full particulars, as being too ugly for belief. And what was quite as unpalatable as the other was that my enemy would rejoice that for once, at least, and in a public record, I should have to confess myself his wife. My friends argued that it could make little difference, as that was the popular understanding already, which nothing could alter; and that so far as Mr. Seabrook was concerned his triumph would be short-lived and valueless. They undertook to procure counsel, and stand by me through the trial."
"What complaint did you purpose making?" I interrupted.
"'Neglect of support, and cruel treatment;' the general charge that is made to cover so many abominable sins, because we women shrink from exposing the crimes we have been in a measure partners to. My attorney assured me that, under the circumstances, Mr. Seabrook would not make any opposition, fearing we might prove the whole, if he did so; but would let the case go by default. This was just what he did; and oh, you should have witnessed his abject humility when I at last had the acknowledged right to put him out of my house!
"Up to the time the divorce was obtained, he kept possession of the room he had first taken, on the lower floor, and which I hired an Indian woman to take care of as one of the chores assigned her about the house. For myself, I would not set my foot in it, except on the occasions referred to; but the rent, and the care of it, he had free. Such was the moral degradation of the man, through his own acts, that after all that had passed, he actually cried, and begged of me the privilege to remain in that room, and be taken care of, as he had been used to be."
"What did you answer him?"
"I told him never to darken my door—never to offend my sight again; that I should never be quite happy while his head was above the sod. O, I was very vindictive! And he was as mild as milk. He 'could not see why I should hate him so, who had always had so high a regard for me. He had never known a woman he admired and loved so much!' Even I was astonished at the man's abjectness."
"It is not uncommon in similar cases. Dependence makes any one more or less mean; but it is more noticeable in men, who by nature and by custom are made independent. And so you were free at last?"
"Free and happy. I felt as light as a bird, and wondered I couldn't fly! I was poor; but that was nothing. My business was broken up; but I felt confidence in myself to begin again. My health, however, was very much broken down, and my friends said I needed change. That, with the desire to quit a country where I had suffered so much, determined me to come to California. It was the land of promise to my husband—the El Dorado he was seeking when he died. I always felt that if I had come here in the first place, my life would have been very different. So, finally, with the help of my kind friends I came."
"I should have felt, with your experience, no courage to undertake life among strangers, and they mostly men."
"On the contrary, I felt armed in almost every point. The fact of being a divorced woman was my only annoyance; but I was resolved to suppress it so far as I was able, and to represent myself to be, as I was, the widow of Mr. Greyfield. I took letters from my friends, to use in case of need; and with nothing but my child, and money enough to take me comfortably to the mines on the American River, left Oregon forever."
"To behold you as you are now, in this delightful home, it seems impossible that you should have gone through what you describe; and yet there must have been much more before you achieved the success here indicated."
"It was nothing—nothing at all compared with the other. I proceeded direct to the most populous mining town, hired a house, bought furniture on credit, and took boarders again. I kept only first-class boarders, had high prices—and succeeded."
"Did you never have the mining-stock fever, and invest and lose?"
"Not to any dangerous extent. One or two parties, in whose judgment I knew I might confide, indicated to me where to invest, and I fortunately lost nothing, while I made a little. My best mining-stock was a present from a young man who was sick at my house for a long time, and to whom I was attentive. He was an excellent young fellow, and my sympathies were drawn out towards him; alone in a mining-camp, and sick, and, as I suspected, moneyless. When he was well enough to go away, he confessed his inability to pay up, and presented me with several shares in a mine then but little known; saying that it might not be worth the paper it was printed on, but that he hoped it might bring enough to reimburse my actual outlay on his account; 'the kindness he had received could not be repaid with filthy lucre.' A few months afterwards that stock was worth several thousand dollars. I made diligent inquiry for my young friend, but could get no news of him from that day to this. I have been fortunate in everything I have touched since I came to California. Benton grew well and strong; I recovered my health; Fortune's wheel for me seemed to remain in one happy position; and now there seems nothing for me to do but to move slowly and easily down the sunset slope of life to my final rest."
Mrs. Greyfield smiled and sighed, and remarked upon the fact that the hour-hand of the clock pointed to two in the morning. "It is really unkind of me to keep you out of bed until such an hour as this," she said, laughing a little, as if we had only been talking of ordinary things. "But I am in the mood, like the 'Ancient Mariner;' and you are as much forced to listen as the 'Wedding Guest.'"
"There is one thing yet I desire to be satisfied about," I replied. "As a woman, I cannot repress my curiosity to know whether, since all the troubles of your early life have been past, you have desired to marry again. Opportunities I know you must have had. What I want to be informed about is your feeling upon this subject, and whether any man has been able to fill your eye or stir your heart."
The first smile my question called up died away, and an introspective look came over Mrs. Greyfield's still handsome face. She sat silent for a little time, that seemed long to me, for I was truly interested in her reply.
"I think," she said at last, "that women who have had anything like my experience, are unfitted for married life. Either they are ruined morally and mentally, by the terrible pressure; or they become so sharp-sighted and critical that no ordinary man would be able to win their confidence. I believe in marriage; a single life has an incomplete, one-sided aspect, and is certainly lonely." Then rallying, with much of her usual brightness: "Undoubtedly I have had my times of doubt, when I found it hard to understand myself; and still, here I am! Nobody would have me; or I would not have anybody; or both."
"One more question, then, if it is a fair one: Could you love again the husband of your youth; or has your ideal changed?"
Mrs. Greyfield was evidently disturbed by the inquiry. Her countenance altered, and she hesitated to reply.
"I beg your pardon," I said; "I hope you will not answer me, if I have been impertinent."
"That is a question I never asked myself," she finally replied. "My husband was all in all to me during our brief married life. His death left me truly desolate, and his memory sacred. But we were both young, and probably he may have been unformed in character, to a great degree, as well as myself. How he would seem now, if he could be restored to me as he was then, I can only half imagine. What he would now be, if he had lived on, I cannot at all imagine. But let us now go take a wink of sleep. My eyelids at last begin to feel