Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter?. Gardener Helen Hamilton
that revelation in Mulberry Street was a horrible shock to me," she said, looking at him for the first time since they had entered the carriage; "but, do you know, I think there are more shocking things than even that done in the name of love every day – things as heartless and offensively uncomprehending of what is fine and true in life as that wretched woman's conduct with the lifeless form of her baby."
He recognized a hard ring in her voice, but her eyes looked kind and gentle.
"How do you mean?" he asked, touching her hand as it lay on her empty purse in her lap.
"I don't believe I could ever make you understand what I mean, we are so hopelessly far apart," she said, a little sadly. "That an explanation is necessary – that is the hopeless part. That that poor woman did not comprehend that her conduct and callousness were shocking —that was the hopeless part. To make you understand what I mean would be like making her understand all the hundreds of awful things that her conduct meant to us. If it is not in one's nature to comprehend without words, then words are useless."
His vehement protests stirred her sympathy again.
"You say that love brings people near together. Do you know I am beginning to think that nothing could be a greater calamity than that? Drawn together by a love that rests on a physical basis for those who refuse to allow it root in a common sympathy and a community of thought it must fail sooner or later. A humbled acceptance of the crumbs of her husband's life, or a resentful endurance of it, may result from the accursed faithfulness or the pitiful dependence of wives, but surely – surely no greater calamity could befall her and no worse fate lie in wait for him."
Her lover stared at her, pained and puzzled. When they reached her door he grasped her hand.
"I thought you loved me last night, and I went away in an ecstasy of hope. Today – "
"Perhaps I do love you," she said; "but I do not respect you, because you do not respect me." He made a quick sound of dissent, but she checked him. "You do not respect womanhood; you only patronize women – you only patronize me. I could not give you a right to do that for life. Good-bye. Don't come in this time. Wait. Let us both think."
"Let us both think," he repeated, as he started down the street. "Think! Think what? I had no idea that Gertrude would be so utterly unreasonable. It is a girl's whim. She'll get over it, but it is deucedly uncomfortable while it lasts."
"Mamma," said Gertrude, when she reached her mother's pretty room on the third floor. "Mamma, do you suppose if a girl really and truly loved a man that she would stop to think whether he had a high or a low estimate of womanhood?"
The girl's mother looked up startled. She was quite familiar with what she had always termed the "superhumanly aged remarks" of her daughter, but the new turn they had taken surprised her.
"I don't believe she would, Gertrude. Why? Are you imagining yourself in love with some man who is not chivalrous toward women?" Mrs. Foster smiled at the mere idea of her daughter caring much for any man. She thought she had observed her too closely to make a mistake in the matter.
Gertrude evaded the first question.
"I once heard a very brilliant man say – what I did not then understand – that chivalry was always the prelude to imposition. I believe I don't care very especially for chivalry. Fair play is better, don't you think so?" She did not pause for a reply, but began taking off her long gloves.
"Which would you like best from papa, flattery or square-toed, honest truth?"
Her mother laughed.
"Gertrude, you are perfectly ridiculous. The institution of marriage, as now established, wouldn't hang together ten minutes if your square-toed, honest truth, as you call it, were to be tried between husbands and wives. Most wives are frightened nearly to death for fear they will become acquainted with the truth some day. They don't want it. They were not – built for it." Gertrude began to move about the room impatiently. Her mother smiled at her and went on: "Don't you look at it that way? No? Well, you are young yet. Wait until you've been married three years – "
The girl turned upon her with an indignant face. Then suddenly she threw her arms about her mother's neck.
"Poor mamma, poor mamma," she said. "Didn't you find out for three years after? How did you bear it? I should have committed suicide. I – "
"Oh, no you wouldn't!" said her mother, with a bitter little inflection. "They all talk that way. Girls all feel so, if they know enough to feel at all – to think at all. They rage and wear out their nerves – as you are doing now, heaven knows why – and the beloved husband calls a doctor and buys sweets and travels with the precious invalid, and never once suspects that he is at the bottom of the whole trouble. It never dawns upon him that what she is dying for is a real and loyal companionship, such as she had fondly dreamed of, and not at all for sea air. It doesn't enter his mind that she feels humiliated because she knows that a great part of his life is a sealed book to her, and that he wishes to keep it so."
She paused, and her daughter stroked her cheek. This was indeed a revelation to the girl. She had been wholly deceived by her mother's gay manner all these years. She was taking herself sharply to task now.
"But by and by when she succeeds in killing all her self-respect; when she makes up her mind that the case is hopeless, and that she must expect absolutely no frankness in life beyond the limits of conventional usage prescribed for purblind babies; after she arrives at the point where she discovers that her happiness is a pretty fiction built on air foundation – well, daughter, after that she – she strives to murder all that is in her beyond and above the petty simpleton she passes for – and she succeeds fairly well, doesn't she?"
There was a cynical smile on her lips, and she made an elaborate bow to her daughter.
"Oh, mamma, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed the girl, almost frightened. "I truly beg your pardon! If – you – I – "
Her mother looked steadily out of the window. Then she said, slowly, "How did you come to find all this out before you were married, child? Have I not done a mother's duty by you in keeping you in ignorance, so far as I could, of all the struggles and facts of life – of – "
The bitter tone was in her voice again. Gertrude was hurt by it, it was so full of self-reproach mingled with self-contempt. She slipped her arm about her mother's waist.
"Don't, mamma," she said. "Don't blame yourself like that. I'm sure you have always done the best possible – the – "
Her mother laughed, but the note was not pleasant.
"Yes, I always did the lady-like thing, – nothing. I floated with the tide. Take my advice, daughter, – float. If you don't, you'll only tire yourself trying to swim against a tide that is too strong for you and – and nothing will come of it. Nothing at all." The girl began to protest with the self-confidence of youth, but her mother went on. She had taken the bit in her teeth to-day and meant to run the whole race.
"Do you suppose I did not know about the Spillini family? About the thousands of Spillini families? Do you suppose I did not know that the rent of ten such families – their whole earnings for a year – would be spent on – on a pretty inlaid prayer-book like this?" She tapped the jeweled cross and turned it over on her lap. The girl's eyes were wide and almost fear-filled as she studied her handsome care-free mother in her new mood.
"Did you really suppose I did not know that this gem on the top of the cross is dyed with the life-blood of some poor wretch, and that this one represents the price of the honor of a starving girl?" She shivered, and the girl drew back. "Did you fancy me as ignorant and as – happy – as I have talked? Don't you know that it is the sole duty of a well-bred woman to be ignorant – and happy? Otherwise she is morbid!" She pronounced the word affectedly, and then laughed a bitter little laugh.
"Don't, mamma," said the girl, again. "I quite understand now, quite – " She laid her head on her mother's bosom and was silent. Presently she felt a tear drop on her hair. She put her hand up to her mother's cheek and stroked it.
"The game went against you, didn't it, mamma?" she said softly. "And you were not to blame." She felt a little shiver