Three Women Part 9

The search for your husband is finished. Oh, pray Tear all love and all hope from your heart ere I say What I must say. The man has insulted your trust; He has dragged the most sacred of ties in the dust, And ruined the fame of a woman who wore, Until now, a good name. He has gone. Close the door Of your heart in his face if he seeks to come back.

The sleuth hounds of justice were put on his track, And his life since he left you lies bare to my gaze.

He sailed yesterday on the "Paris." For days Preceding the journey he lived as the guest Of one Mrs. Zoe Travers, who comes from the West!

A widow, young, fair, well-connected. I hear He followed her back to New York from the Pier, And now he has taken the woman abroad.

My letter sounds brutal and harsh. Would to G.o.d I might soften the facts in some measure; but no, In matters like this the one thing is to know The whole truth, and at once. Though the pain be intense It pulls less on the soul than the pangs of suspense.

Like a surgeon of fate, with my pen for a knife, I cut out false hopes which endanger your life.

Let the law, like a nurse, cleanse the wound--there is shame And disgrace for you now in the man's very name.

Though justice is blindfolded, yet she can hear When the c.h.i.n.k of gold dollars sounds close in her ear.

One needs but to give her this musical hint To save you the sight of your sorrows in print.

Closed doors, private hearing; a sentence or two In the journals; then dignified freedom for you.

When love, truth and loyalty vanish, the tie Which binds man to woman is only a lie.

Undo it! remember at all times I stand As a friend to rely on--a serf to command.

Some women there are who would willingly barter A queen's diadem for the crown of a martyr.

They want to be pitied, not envied. To know That the world feels compa.s.sion makes joy of their woe; And the keenest delight in their misery lies, If only their friends will look on with wet eyes.

In fact, 'tis the prevalent weakness, I find, Of the s.e.x. As a ma.s.s, women seem disinclined To be thought of as happy; they like you to feel That their bright smiling faces are masks which conceal A dead hope in their hearts. The strange fancy clings To the mind of the world that the rarest of things-- Contentment--is commonplace; and, that to s.h.i.+ne As something superior, one must repine, Or seem to be hiding an ache in the breast.

Yet the commonest thing in the world is unrest, If you want to be really unique, go along And act as if Fate had not done you a wrong, And declare you have had your deserts in this life.

The part of the patient, neglected young wife Contained its attractions for Mabel Montrose.

She was one of the women who live but to pose In the eyes of their friends; and she so loved her art That she really believed she was living the part.

The suffering martyr who makes no complaint Was a role more important, by far, than the saint Or reformer. As first leading lady in grief, Her pride in herself found a certain relief.

The ardent and love-selfish husband had not Been so dear to her heart, or so close to her thought, As this weak, reckless sinner, who woke in her soul Its dominant wish--to reform and control.

(How often, alas, the reformers of earth, If they studied their purpose, would find it had birth In this thirst to control; in the poor human pa.s.sion The minds and the manners of others to fas.h.i.+on!

We sigh o'er the heathen, we weep o'er his woes, While forcing him into our creeds and our clothes.

If he adds our diseases and vices as well, Still, at least we have guided him into _our_ h.e.l.l And away from his own heathen hades. The pleasure Derived from that thought but reformers can measure.)

The thing Mabel Montrose loved best on this earth Was a sinner, and Roger but doubled his worth In her eyes when he wrote her that letter. And still When the last message came from Maurice Somerville And the bald, ugly facts, unsuspected, unguessed, Lay before her, the _woman_ awoke in her breast, And the patient reformer gave way to the wife, Who was torn with resentment and jealousy's strife.

Ah, jealousy! vain is the effort to prove Your right in the world as the offspring of love; For oftener far, you are sp.a.w.ned by a heart Where Cupid has never implanted a dart.

Love knows you, indeed, for you serve in his train, But crowned like a monarch you royally reign Over souls wherein love is a stranger.

No thought Came to Mabel Montrose that her own life was not Free from blame. (How few women, indeed, think of this When they grieve o'er the ruin of marital bliss!) She was shocked and indignant. Pain gave her a new Role to play without study; she missed in her cue And played badly at first, was resentful and cried Against Fate for the blow it had dealt to her pride (Though she called it her love), and declared her life blighted.

It is one thing, of course, for a wife to be slighted For the average folly the world calls a sin, Such as races, clubs, games; when a woman steps in The matter a.s.sumes a new color, and Mabel, Who dearly loved sinners, at first seemed unable To pardon, or ask G.o.d to pardon, the crime Of her husband; an angry disgust for a time Drove all charity out of her heart. For a thief, For a forger, a murderer, even, her grief Had been mingled with pity and pardon; the one Thing she could not forgive was the thing he had done.

It was wicked, indecent, and so unrefined.

To the lure of the senses her nature was blind, And her mantle of charity never had been Wide enough to quite cover that one vulgar sin.

In the letter she sent to Maurice, though she said Little more than her thanks for his kindness, he read All her tense nervous feelings between its few lines.

Though we study our words, the keen reader divines What we _thought_ while we penned them; thought odors reveal What words not infrequently seek to conceal.

Maurice read the grief, the resentment, the shame Which Mabel's heart held; to his own bosom came Stealing back, masked demurely as friendly regard, The hope of a lover--that hope long debarred.

His letters grew frequent; their tone, dignified, Unselfish, and manly, appealed to her pride.

Sweet sympathy mingled with praise in each line (As a gentle narcotic is stirred into wine), Soothed pain, stimulated self love, and restored her The pleasure of knowing the man still adored her.

Understand, Mabel Montrose was not a coquette, She lacked all the arts of the temptress; and yet She was young, she was feminine; love to her mind Was extreme admiration; it pleased her to find She was still, to Maurice, an ideal. A woman Must be quite unselfish, almost superhuman, And full of strong sympathy, who, in her soul, Feels no wrench when she knows she has lost all control O'er the heart of a man who once loved her.

Months pa.s.sed, And Mabel accepted her burden at last And went back to her world and its duties. Her eyes, Seemed to say when she looked at you, "please sympathize, On the slight graceful form or the beautiful face.

Twas a sorrow of mind, not a sorrow of heart, And the two play a wholly dissimilar part In the life of a woman.

Maurice Somerville Kept his place as good friend through sheer force of his will But his heart was in tumult; he longed for the time When, free once again from the legalized crime Of her ties, she might listen to all he would say.

There was anguish, and doubt, and suspense in delay, Yet Mabel spoke never of freedom. At length He wrote her, "My will has exhausted its strength.

Read the song I enclose; though my lips must be mute, The muse may at least improvise to her lute."

_Song._

There was a bird as blithe as free, (Summer and sun and song) She sang by the sh.o.r.es of a laughing sea, And oh, but the world seemed fair to me, And the days were sweet and long.

There was a hunter, a hunter bold, (Autumn and storm and sea) And he prisoned the bird in a cage of gold, And oh, but the world grew dark and cold, And the days were sad to me.

The hunter has gone; ah, what cares he?

(Winter and wind and rain) And the caged bird pines for the air and the sea, And I long for the right to set her free To sing in the sun again.

The hunter has gone with a sneer at fate, (Spring and the sea and the sun) Let the bird fly free to find her mate, Ere the year of love grow sere and late.

Sweet ladye, my song is done.

_Mabel's Letter to Maurice._

To the song of your muse I have listened. Oh, cease To think of me but as a friend, dear Maurice.

Once a wife, a wife alway. I vowed from my heart, "For better, for worse, until death do us part."

No mention was made in the service that day Of breaking my fetters if joy flew away.

"For better, for worse," a vow lightly spoken, When Fate brings the "worse," how lightly 'tis broken!

The "worse," in my case, is the worst fate can give.

Tho' I shrank from the blow, I must bear it and live, Not for self, but for duty; nor strive to evade Fulfilling the promise I willingly made.

While Roger has sinned, and his sinning would be, In the eyes of the law, proof to render me free, It was G.o.d heard my vows and the Church sealed the bond.

Until one of us pa.s.ses to death's dim beyond, Though seas and though sins may divide us for life, We are bound to each other as husband and wife.

In G.o.d's Court of Justice divorce is a word Which falls without import or meaning when heard; And the women who cast off old fetters that way, To give place to the new, on the great Judgment Day Must find, in the last summing up, that they stand Side by side, in G.o.d's eyes, with the Magdalene band.

Dear Maurice, be my brother, my counselor, friend.

We are lonely without you and Ruth, at Bay Bend.

Come sometimes and brighten our lives; put away The thoughts which are making you restless to-day And give me your strong n.o.ble friends.h.i.+p; indeed 'Tis a friend that I crave, not a lover I need.

_Maurice to Mabel._

You write like a woman, and one, it is plain, Whose sentiment hangs like a cloud o'er her brain.

You gaze through a sort of traditional mist, And behold a mirage of G.o.d's laws which exist But in fancy. G.o.d made but one law--it is love.

A law for the earth, and the kingdoms above, A law for the woman, a law for the man, The base and the spire of His intricate plan Of existence. All evils the world ever saw Had birth in man's breaking away from this law.

G.o.d cancels a marriage when love flies away.

"Till death do us part" should be altered to say, "Till disgust or indifference part us." I know You never loved Roger, my heart tells me so.

He won you, I claim, through a mesmeric spell; You dreamed of an Eden, and wakened in h.e.l.l.

You pitied his weakness, you struggled to save him, He paid with a crime the devotion you gave him.

And the blackest of insults relentlessly hurled At your poor patient heart in the gaze of the world.

In G.o.d's mighty ledger the stroke of a pen Has been drawn through your record of marriage. Though men Call you wedded I hold you are widowed. Why cling To the poor, empty, meaningless form of a thing-- To the letter, devoid of all spirit? G.o.d never Intended a woman to hopelessly sever Herself from all possible joy, or to make True faithfulness suffer for faithlessness' sake.

When I think of your wrongs, when I think of my woes, That black word divorce like a bright planet glows In the skies of the future. Oh, Mabel, be fair To yourself and to me. For the years of despair I have suffered you owe me some recompense, surely.