She turned her eyes to him slowly. They looked like black hollows in her face. Speak to you? she thought with passionate contempt. Of what? What could I ever say to you? You haven’t any human feelings. Only Ralph—I could speak to Ralph.
Tears rushed into her eyes. John saw them, and he was torn apart. He would have gone to her then, but the sternness on her face repulsed him. He went out, leaving Linda alone with her sister.
“Linda,” said Margaret, and burst into sobs. Linda stood stiff and unbending in the middle of the room. In the girl’s mind was an undying accusation; devoid of reason, she believed that in some way Margaret was responsible for all this. Ma had said over and over, with prophesying venom, “That fine lady will suffer for the way she’s treated her folks some day. Yes, she’ll suffer. And it’ll be too late. Then she’ll cry and try to pretend she don’t know nothin’ ’bout it. Just let her go on, playin’ the grand lady, but someday she’ll suffer for all this.”
“Johnny came this mornin’ and said I was to live with you folks,” said Linda surlily. She twisted her thin fingers together and would not look at her sister.
“That’s so nice, Linda. And you’ll go to school and learn things, and have pretty dresses and good books—”
Linda made a contemptuous sound. “I don’t want no school. It’s all plumb foolishness. Ma said so. Pa said so.”
Margaret frowned. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” she said sharply. “What do you want to do, anyway?”
For the first time a little eagerness came into the girl’s face. “Mis’ King asked me yisterday to come to work for her. Her hired girl’s quittin’. She’ll give me three dollars a month. I want to go.”
Margaret roused herself angrily. “I don’t want to hear anything about that, Linda! What would John say? No, you’ll go to school and learn something. Don’t you want to learn anything?
“What for?”
“Well, what else would you want?”
Linda looked awkwardly but reverently about the comfort of the big bedroom. “I’d like to live in a place like this, my own place.”
Margaret smiled. “That’s simple, then. You must go to school, and perhaps, afterward, you could go to school in Whitmore, or even Williamsburg. Then you would meet young men who could give you a nice home.”
Linda shot her a glance of cunning. “You didn’t go to school in them places, Maggie, and you got a nice home.”
Margaret was silent for a moment. Then she began to speak gently, “Linda, this is a very wonderful world. But you can’t realize that unless you learn something about it. When you learn other languages, it helps you understand the people who speak those languages, what they think, what they hope to be. When you learn mathematics, you bring the stars closer to you; you bring the world closer to you. If you are ignorant, you will always remain a child. You can’t be a woman without knowledge.”
Linda made no comment, but stared through the window. “What do you want me to do here?” she asked abruptly, at last, dismissing Margaret’s eager words.
Margaret’s lips tightened. She was disappointed but not discouraged.
“You might wash yourself a little” she said. “And you might change that dirty dress. Then go downstairs and Mabel will show you how to set the table.”
She turned away from the girl, picked up a book from the bedside table and began to read. But when Linda had left the room, her shoulders lifted contemptuously, Margaret gazed blankly before her. She had to talk to someone about this; she wished Miss Betsy would come over. But she did not. Still, she had to talk, and later, when John tiptoed into the room with exaggerated caution, she felt a warm welcome for him.
“Don’t whisper, John,” she said and smiled. “I’m not an invalid. Sit down, I want to talk to you.”
John sat down. “But listen, Mag, I want to say somethin’ to you, first. I know how you feel about ole Margot’s graves, and the others. So, know what I did today? I sold your land to the railroad, but I made a bargain. They’ll run the rails right close to the graves, but not over them! How do you like that?”
The old controversy no longer seemed important to Margaret. She smiled a vague appreciation. She was concerned only with the living.
“Thank you, John. Now, please listen. I talked to Linda today. I tried to interest her in school. It was like talking to a blank wall. And then she actually said that she wanted to hire herself out, doing housework and farm work!”
John considered this for a few moments. Then he began to speak, hesitatingly. “Well, why not, Maggie? Why not let the girl do what she wants to do, eh? I don’t hold with this stuff of tryin’ to force people to see things the way we do. Maybe you’re right; maybe Linda’s right. I don’t know. But what’s right for you may not be right for Linda. You can’t set folks’ feet on a hill too high for ’em. Seems to me that you can’t learn nothin’ you ain’t got the ability to know. You could fill Linda chock full of learnin’ by memory, but she wouldn’t understand what she was spoutin’. It wouldn’t be of no use to her. It’s the things she wants to learn that’ll be useful to her. Nothin’ else.”
“You’re trying to say my sister is a fool, and hasn’t the brains to learn anything, John Hobart! You don’t care a rap about her, that’s all!”
“Now, now, Maggie, don’t get on your high horse. Jest because you like books and things like that don’t mean that Linda ought to. I ain’t sayin’ I want her to hire herself out workin’ for someone else, but you ought to realize that she ain’t fit for the high places.” He stood up, frowning. “Seems like I’m bein’ pretty good ’bout this, Maggie. I’m willin’ the girl should stay here and learn somethin’, long’s it’ll make you feel better. I’m willin’ to buy her clothes and give her a roof over her head, and good food, and livin’ like a civilized young un, even if she’s plain ornery. But, I’m not goin’ to have rows around here about her goin’ to school, and you frettin’ over her and tryin’ to make a lady of her. Let the girl be. I think I’m bein’ pretty good about this.”
You mean you don’t care and don’t understand, thought Margaret bitterly. You’ll stand against me with Linda because you don’t want to do anything for her, couldn’t understand anything fine that I would want to do for her. You like your ignorance and stupidity; this gives you a chance to be proud of them and think they’re better than intelligence.
She made up her mind that Linda would go to the district school in the fall, and in the meantime she let the matter rest.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Three days before her child was born, Margaret walked slowly over the nearer fields. The warm June sun lay on the earth, and on the rich young crops. In Miss Betsy’s garden stood the intensely blue spears of delphinium; the rose bushes were a blaze of scarlet. Margaret regretted that she had no garden of her own.
Oh! she thought passionately. There must be something beyond common sense and reason! Granny didn’t know everything. I betrayed myself into this because of her, when I might have been happy! I shouldn’t have listened. Reason isn’t everything. There are other things, that you can only see with your mind. Things that I saw, and Ralph saw.
The thought of Ralph was like a blow. If she could only see him once more, ask him for forgiveness, speak to him and know that he understood. If she could only die, if she would die when the child was born!
The gate clicked, and she started. Miss Betsy was coming into her garden. She glanced at Margaret, but said nothing. She began to cut some roses. Margaret walked over to her heavily, forcing a smile.
“I was just looking at your garden. It’s so pretty, Aunt Betsy. I wish I had one.”
Miss Betsy clipped another rose. “You could have had one,” she said coldly. “But you didn’t seem to take any interest.”
“Well. Everything happened so quickly, Aunt Betsy. All my folks dying.”
Miss Betsy said nothing.
Margaret tried again. “You haven’t been over to see me, Aunt Betsy, for a long time.”
The older woman did not look at her as she said, “Why should I? We wouldn’t have anything to say to each other.”
Her words were like a slap in Margaret’s face. “Oh, but we would, Aunt Betsy! You are the only one around here who would understand—”
Miss Betsy looked at her with contempt. “Understand! You’re always looking for understanding! Why don’t you try understanding someone else besides yourself, Margaret Hamilton? Maybe you would learn something.”
Stupefied, Margaret watched her as she went on picking her roses. Her face was warm and resentful, and she felt a trifle ashamed without knowing why.
Miss Betsy did not look at her again, but after a moment she went on. “No, we haven’t anything to say to each other—yet. But someday, perhaps we will. Someday. But not now.”
She turned away with her stiff stride and went toward the gate. Then she said, without turning to Margaret, “Take some flowers, if you want them.”
She went into her house through the kitchen door, slamming it behind her. Margaret remained in the garden for a long time. All her pleasure in it had gone. She was sick with her misery, with her abandonment. She pulled a rose to pieces in her shaking fingers. Then she went home.
Three days later her son was born. She endured the agonies and writhings dumbly, hoping each moment to sink into a pit and be lost in it forever. Dr. Webster praised her fortitude; she did not hear him. Throughout the whole travail she thought of nothing but Ralph; he was like a fixed star in cloudy pain.
During most of her labor John was beside her. She scarcely saw him. Her wet hand slipped repeatedly out of his. John thought, somehow, she don’t seem to know or care I’m here. Don’t seem to see me. Seems like she’s shut me out. Why? And he suffered because of this.
The news had traveled. Mesdames Holbrooks, MacKensie, King, and Brownlow sat below in the parlors, whispering, feeling themselves unwelcome. Miss Betsy, managing everything, did nothing to allay their suspicions. She did not speak to them. She spoke in a hard curt voice to the hired girls, and walked about rapidly.
She had taken an amazing liking to Linda. They understood each other, though few words passed between them. She liked the girl’s sulky docility; she taught her much. Linda was quick, sure, direct. There’s a girl who knows what she wants, and will have it, in spite of her silly sister, Miss Betsy thought.
It was evening before the child was born, a fine and healthy baby. For a while, in his delight, John forgot his wife. The boy, he announced, would be called Richard, after his grandfather. Margaret, sunken into a stupor, did not care. But that night Miss Betsy laid the child on her arm, and she roused. It seemed as though a thread of fire traveled through her exhausted body, and her arms closed convulsively about the child.
When John came in, she was crying. He was touched; he swallowed, but he could not speak.
She was saying to the child, silently, fiercely, I’ll protect you, my darling! I’ll save you from common sense and reason and reality. They are all lies. Nothing but the things you think are real! Not hard cash, not hard sense.
Dick, the baby, was a sunny-tempered child, sensitive and somewhat frail after his babyhood. John accused Margaret of “pampering” him. Between husband and wife had risen a sullen dark barrier which neither passed. Or, rather, John could not pass it; Margaret would not. The quarrel over the child was heavily overladen with their private and secret quarrel.
Susan Blodgett had received a large sun for her farm from the railroad and had married Silas Rowe, her hired man. They had bought a large and prosperous farm some ten miles away with the money. This was a hard blow to Margaret, who had employed her aunt as an information post about Ralph. Susan had not used the entire sum from the sale of her old farm to buy the new one. She had sent nearly a thousand dollars to Ralph, who was enabled to buy a share in his employer’s paper. This raised his prestige, his salary, and his position. Susan had informed Margaret that Lydia Holbrooks had taken a great interest in Ralph.
Six months after the departure of Susan Blodgett, Margaret received a letter from her, with the triumphant announcement that Ralph had married Lydia, and that they had gone to New York. Lydia’s father had died recently, and Lydia had inherited his considerable fortune. Ralph had become a partner in a publishing concern in New York.
For some weeks after receiving this news, Margaret walked about in a stunned state, unbelieving. When she finally realized what had happened, it prostrated her. She saw that, unknown to herself all these years, she had kept a small door open through which Ralph might enter at any time. Now the door was slammed eternally in her face. She became ill. Little was thought of this, because she was again pregnant.
Her old zest in life was eclipsed. She was obsessed by one thought: Did Ralph think of her? Had he forgiven her? Had he forgotten her? She thought of Lydia, thought bitterly that she, Margaret, should be at Ralph’s side now, living in a hazy, wonderful world of soft conversation, where words counted, not mortgages. She was drowned in her sick and aching fantasies. Only when she took young Dick upon her knee and allowed him to pull her long hair did those eyes began to glow again with smiling light.
It was a dreary household, enlivened only by John’s good-natured bantering of the sulky Linda, the cries and laughter of the baby, and the quarrels of the hired girls. But when Margaret appeared, uneasy silence fell upon everyone.
The railroad had penetrated through the hill that had divided the farms of Susan Blodgett and Peter Hamilton, and was now running through the latter farm. But the graves had been enclosed in a neat and narrow rectangle of white picket fence. No one tended them; the long grass waved over them.
One day, walking heavily because of her new pregnancy, Margaret went there. Only one grave was marked, that one old Margot’s, with a white pine board standing upright. She put her hand on the board, tried to raise before her the face of ole Margot. She finally succeeded, dimly. She was amazed at the hatred that rioted through her, sending wild echoes through her held silence. She left, her knees shaking.
A month before her second son, Gregory, was born, she received a small slim packet from Susan Blodgett, with a triumphant note that informed her that this was a book of poems written by Ralph.
For two days Margaret hid it before daring to open it. A sort of fever fell upon her. Then, alone in her room one hot evening, she read the book.
She was too unsophisticated to notice that the book had been published by the house in which he was a partner. The miracle remained that at last he had had his poems published, that he had stepped into fame.
She began to read. An hour passed; another hour. Then she stared fixedly at one page and did not read on.
Her ear, trained to true beauty in Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, soon discerned that here was no splendor. Pale, exquisite poems, yes, but lifeless. Delicate forms that were incomprehensible. Nowhere could she find maturity, the splendor of wise simplicity.
The book slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. She stared through the window. After a moment she rose abruptly, as though wishing to put an end to thoughts that threatened to destroy her life. She went to the window, pushed back the handsome lace curtains, and looked over the stretch of meadow that it revealed. After that sickly poetry the exuberance of the countryside was like a cold wind in her face. Old Margot had once said: “Here is reality. Here is life.”
She turned from the window, weeping. To deprive herself of suffering was to deprive herself of her perverse and secret pleasure. She would not have it. Within an hour she had persuaded herself that she alone was to blame because she could find nothing in Ralph’s poems. His subtle words, his measured gestures, were too fine for her grossness.
The old enchantment came back. She wrapped it about her like a shawl. Without it, she would be cold and naked. There would be no reason in the life she had led, in the hatred she had nurtured.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Margaret had forced Linda to go school, but the girl, after one year, had reb
elled, and nothing Margaret could do could persuade her to return. John stood with Linda against Margaret. Though the girl hated him as much as she hated Margaret, she had respect for him. Moreover, she was cunning.
Without guessing the reason, she had sensed the estrangement between husband and wife. Soon she was playing up to it. In all her gestures to him, he felt her partisanship and in gratitude, he sided with the girl at every opportunity. Margaret’s efforts at discipline, guidance, were scouted by him. Linda was always right; it was Margaret who was the fool. He began to like the girl; he was unusually generous to her. She accepted everything with her smug and pretty smile; it would have amazed him had he guessed how she hated him.
She was nearly eighteen now, and her blonde loveliness seemed to outshine Margaret’s darker beauty. She was tall and slender, soft roses and gold. She dressed with conscious effect; she planned her gestures.
Despite all this, she had few admirers among the eligible young men in the county. She suspected that it was because of Margaret, though she did not know why. But she saw that Margaret did not encourage visitors, that she had no friends. She told herself that it was “because folks see into her.”
Ezra King and his wife had two daughters and a son. Parsimonious as they were, they were reluctant to employ a hired girl, and so the daughters did all the house and farm work. Quiet, drab girls, one was never conscious of them in a room. But the son, young Bill, was handsome, arrogant, lazy, the pride of his mother. He had been educated, according to the standard of the country, and gave copious advice about new agricultural methods. Ezra King, after reluctantly testing them, was forced to admit their value, and he developed a profound admiration for his son.
The farm was prosperous though small. John held a heavy mortgage upon it. It might have been paid off, but young Bill liked to travel about the county and to Williamsburg during the winter; he also had his own smart buggy and horse. John had great contempt for the youth, but he seemed pleased when Bill, having noticed Linda for the first time at a church supper, called her. Linda was overwhelmed. She went riding with Bill, and soon it was accepted in the county that she was his girl. Mrs. King at first objected to his courting the sister of Maggie Hamilton, but when John hinted that he might do something for the young couple her objections were silenced. Eventually, she began to make much of Linda.