A Modern Madonna. Caroline Abbot Stanley
be happier. It almost frightens me sometimes to think how happy. You see, my husband—" she said it in the pretty, hesitating way that young girls use who have not yet got accustomed to the word—"my husband is so good to me. It seems so blessed to have somebody's tender care around me all the time. I think that is what makes a woman love a man, don't you? … And then I am so glad to have a home. I have never had a home since father died. I don't mean to say that they were not everything to me at Judge Kirtley's that friends could be—you understand that—but they were not my very own, nor I theirs. And I had mourned for father so—had missed him so desperately. I thought of that time when you were speaking of a capacity for suffering. But after a while—well, you know how those things go. While I did not forget him, after a while the world did not seem quite so black, and gradually—"
"Yes, child, I know.
'Joy comes, grief goes—we know not how.'"
"That is just it exactly. That is Lowell, isn't it? Then when Victor came into my life—Mrs. Pennybacker, do you know I think Victor is going to be so much like father in his home."
"I hope so," returned Mrs. Pennybacker, but the face of the bridegroom at St. John's rose before her mental vision, and her hope was without the element of faith.
"Mrs. Pennybacker, do you suppose father knows? I hope he does. I am almost ashamed to tell you this for fear you will think me silly, but sometimes when Victor has just gone—has told me good-bye for the day, and that he will hurry back as soon as he can, and all that, you know—and it rushes over me so—the blessedness of having a love like his, and a dear home that is to be ours forever—I am—my heart is so overflowing with joy that I go to my room and drop down by the couch and whisper softly, 'Father! I am so happy! Can you hear me, dearest?'"
She dashed the tears from her eyes and smiled through wet lashes. "I know it is foolish, Mrs. Pennybacker, and I can't see how I came to be telling it all to you—but I feel as if I want father to know. Do you think he does?"
"I am not much of a Spiritualist, Margaret," returned Mrs. Pennybacker, guardedly. "The dye from which my religious faith took its color was very blue—but certainly if there is such a thing as communion between the living and the dead—or rather the living here and the living there—it would come in answer to a whisper like that."
There were tears in the eyes of both. The elder woman was thinking, "Oh, I hope it will last!"
But she only said, "You did not take a wedding journey?"
"No. Victor wanted me to go abroad, but I could not bear the thought of going anywhere just at first. I was so eager to get things arranged in our home. We had so many pretty bridal gifts that I was just crazy to see how they would look. I felt that I would rather fix up this home than do anything in the world. Then, too, I hated to go away at this time of the year. Of course we will go later, but May is so beautiful in Washington."
"Yes," Mrs. Pennybacker said, softly—with all her practicality and candid speech there was an unworked vein of sentiment about her, "yes, May is beautiful everywhere—even in Life's calendar."
It did seem that in that home there was not one thing lacking; everything was there that heart could desire, taste suggest, or money secure; and the mistress's pride and joy in it all were so spontaneous, so exuberant, her realization of the blessedness of her new life so vivid, that only a croaker or a keen student of human life would have had a thought of the transitory nature of all things.
And yet—
By an impulse for which she herself could not account, Mrs. Pennybacker turned again to the girl to whom she had said good-by and took both her hands.
"My dear," she said, "my home is in an obscure spot. One can hardly find it on the map. But for you its doors are always open. If you ever need a friend, come to me."
"How queer!" mused Margaret when she was gone. "I wonder how she came to say that. Well, with all her oddity, I like her."
CHAPTER IV
THE THORN ROAD
Certainly there was nothing on Margaret De Jarnette's horizon at present that was a forecast of falling weather. The skies were blue, the air clear, and over all the life-giving sunshine of love and trust which was starting every plant in her home garden to budding. The program agreed upon in those ante-nuptial days was carried out, and while friends were wondering where the two had gone for their wedding journey, they were quietly settling themselves in their new home and into each other's lives.
To Margaret the place on Massachusetts Avenue was the House Beautiful. The home-building instinct was strong within her, and she took a bird's delight in fashioning her nest. If Victor's pleasure in it all did not seem so keen as hers, she did not perceive it. When he came at night she flitted from one room to another, convoying him along to show him how this straw had been changed and this wisp of hay added, and as he looked and listened she did not doubt that it was together they were building their nest.
The evenings of that matchless May and June were full of peaceful joy—long drives through Rock Creek Park or the beautiful winding ways of the Soldiers' Home, with now and then a row upon the river past old Georgetown, with its windows blinking at the setting sun, and back again when it lay steeped in moonlight, and they floated lazily down toward the Monument which dominated the landscape whichever way they turned—heeding not time nor aught else so that only they were together and away from all the world. Ah! it was idyllic while it lasted, but it palled at last, the least bit, upon Victor, and then they sought the seashore, Margaret saying to herself that it was her choice to go.
At the seashore, as it chanced, there was a gay crowd from Baltimore that Victor knew, and things gave promise of being very pleasant, but unfortunately Margaret was not well when they first reached the place, nor for some time afterwards—not ill enough to hinder Victor's going, as she insisted earnestly, but in a way that kept her quiet upon the hotel piazza. She was not strong enough to take the jaunts the others enjoyed. Victor demurred at first, saying he would not think of leaving her, but it was a very pleasant party, and men are always in demand at seaside resorts. So in the end he went.
The Baltimore party was not going to remain long and they made hay with a zest that was fatiguing to one not quite robust.
One morning, as Margaret sat on the piazza watching the waves roll in and back, in and back, with a ceaseless energy that somehow seemed so futile, always trying to do something, but never accomplishing it, Victor came out from the smoking-room and threw himself at her feet on the steps.
"How are you feeling by this time, sweetheart?" he asked, with a tenderness that somehow seemed to belong to Washington and the Maytime rather than this crowded summer hotel. It brought quick tears to her eyes. The girl was very weak.
"Rather better, thank you," she said, smiling down at him in a languid way that belied her words.
"It is deucedly unfortunate about your having this little attack just now," he said, fanning himself with his hat and frowning a little. He was very young. "You are losing so many good times."
"I am living on the memory of our good times in Washington," Margaret said. Which was truer than she knew.
"Oh! They were all right, weren't they? We did have a good time. It's a pity that kind of thing can't last. But you see if you felt equal to it you could have some good times now of a different sort. Dillingham wants us to go on a yachting trip."
"When?" Margaret asked it rather listlessly.
"To-morrow. It's going to be an awfully jolly party. They are going for an all-day's trip—luncheon on the yacht and all that. How do you feel about it?"
"Victor, I could not possibly go. I am not well enough."
He bit his lip and looked annoyed.
"But I should not want to interfere with your going," she said, quickly, noticing the look. "There is no reason why it should."