The Home Mission Part 4

"Pah! I'd as lief drink so much mola.s.ses. But here's the sugar bowl.

Sweeten it to your taste."

Canning helped himself to more sugar. As he did so his wife noticed that his hand slightly trembled, and also that his brow was drawn down, and his lips more arched than usual.

"It's a little matter to get angry about," she thought to herself.

"Things are coming to a pretty pa.s.s, if I'm not to be allowed to speak."

The meal was finished in silence. Margaret felt in no humour to break the oppressive reserve, although she would have been glad, indeed, to have heard a pleasant word from the lips of her husband.

As for Canning, he permitted himself to brood over the words and manner of his wife, until he became exceedingly fretted. They were so unkind and so uncalled for. The evening pa.s.sed unsocially. But morning found them both in a better state of mind. Sleep has a wonderful power in restoring to the mind its lost balance, and in calming down our blinding pa.s.sions. During the day, our thoughts and feelings, according with our natural state, are more or less marked by the disturbances that selfish purposes ever bring; but in sleep, while the mind rests and our governing ends lie dormant, we come into purer spiritual a.s.sociations, and the soul, as well as the body, receives a healthier tone.

The morning, therefore, found Canning and his wife in better states of mind. They were as kind and as affectionate as usual in their words and conduct, although, when they sat down to the breakfast table, they each experienced a slight feeling of coldness on being reminded, too sensibly, of the unpleasant occurrence of the previous evening. Margaret thought she would be sure to please her husband in his coffee, and therefore put into his cup an extra quant.i.ty of sugar, making it so very sweet that he could with difficulty swallow it. But a too vivid recollection of what had taken place on the night before, caused him to be silent about it. The second cup was still sweeter. Canning managed to sip about one-third of this, but his stomach refused to take any more. Noticing that her husband's coffee, an article of which he was very fond, stood, nearly cup-full, beside his plate, after he had finished his breakfast, Margaret said--

"Didn't your coffee suit you?"

"It was very good; only a little too sweet."

"Then why didn't you say so?" she returned, in a tone that showed her to be hurt at this reaction upon what she had said on the previous evening. "Give me your cup, and let me pour you out some more."

"No, I thank you, Margaret, I don't care about any more."

"Yes, you do. Come, give me your cup. I shall be hurt if you don't.

I'm sure there is no necessity for drinking the coffee, if not to your taste. I don't know what's come over you, James."

"And I'm sure I don't know what's come over you," Canning thought, but did not say. He handed up his cup, as his wife desired. After filling it with coffee, she handed it back, and then reached him the sugar and cream.

"Sweeten it to your own taste," she said, a little fretfully; "I'm sure I tried to make it right."

Canning did as he was desired, and then drank the coffee, but it was with the utmost difficulty that he could do so.

This was the first little cloud that darkened the sky of their wedded life; And it did not fairly pa.s.s away for nearly a week. Nor then did the days seem as bright as before. The cause was slight--very slight--but how small a thing will sometimes make the heart unhappy. How trifling are the occurrences upon which we often lay, as upon a foundation, a superstructure of misery! Had the earnestly urged precept of Aunt Hannah been regarded,--had the lesson--"Bear and Forbear," been well learned and understood by Margaret, this cloud had never dimmed the sun of their early love. A pleasant word, in answer to her husband's momentary impatience, would have made him sensible that he had not spoken with propriety, and caused him to be more careful in future. As it was, both were more circ.u.mspect, but it was from pride instead of love,--and more to protect self than from a tender regard for each other.

Only a month or two pa.s.sed before there was another slight collision. It made them both more unhappy than they were before. But the breach was quickly healed. Still scars remained, and there were times when the blood flowed into these cicatrices so feverishly as to cause pain. Alas! wounds of the spirit do not close any more perfectly than do wounds of the body--the scars remain forever.

And thus the weeks and months went by. Neither of the married partners had learned the true secret of happiness in their holy relation,--neither of them felt the absolute necessity of bearing and forbearing. Little inequalities of character, instead of being smoothed off by gentle contact, were suffered to strike against each other, and produce, sometimes, deep and painful wounds--healing, too often, imperfectly; and too often remaining as festering sores.

And yet Canning and his wife loved each other tenderly, and felt, most of their time, that they were very happy. There were little things in each that each wished the other would correct, but neither felt the necessity of self-correction.

The birth of a child drew them together at a time when there was some danger of a serious rupture. Dear little Lilian, or "Lilly," as she was called, was a chord of love to bind them in a closer union.

"I love you more than ever, Maggy," Canning could not help saying to his wife, as he kissed first her lips and then the soft cheek of his child, a month after the babe was born.

"And I am sure I love you better than I did, if that were possible,"

returned Margaret, looking into her husband's face with a glance of deep affection.

As the babe grew older the parent's love for it continued to increase, and, with this increase, their happiness. The chord which had several times jarred harshly between them, slept in profound peace.

But, after this sweet calm, the surface of their feelings became again ruffled. One little incongruity of character after another showed itself in both, and there was no genuine spirit of forbearance in either of them to meet and neutralize any sudden effervescence of the mind. Lilly was not a year old, before they had a serious misunderstanding that made them both unhappy for weeks. It had its origin in a mere trifle, as such things usually have. They had been taking tea and spending an evening with a friend, a widow lady, for whom Mrs. Canning had a particular friends.h.i.+p. As there was no gentleman present during the evening, the time pa.s.sed rather heavily to Canning, who could not get interested in the conversation of the two ladies. Toward nine o'clock he began to feel restless and impatient, and to wonder if his wife would not soon be thinking about going home. But the time pa.s.sed wearily until ten o'clock, and still the conversation between the two ladies was continued with undiminished interest, and, to all appearance, was likely to continue until midnight.

Canning at length became so restless and wearied that he said, thinking that his wife did not probably know how late it was,--

"Come, Margaret, isn't it 'most time to go home?"

Mrs. Canning merely looked into her husband's face, but made no answer.

More earnestly than ever the ladies now appeared to enter upon the various themes for conversation that presented themselves, all of which were very frivolous to the mind of Canning, who was exceedingly chafed by his wife's indifference to his suggestion about going home. He determined, however, to say no more if she sat all night. Toward eleven o'clock she made a movement to depart, and after lingering in the parlor before she went up stairs to put on her things, and in the chamber after her things were on, and on the stairs, in the pa.s.sage, and at the door, she finally took the arm of her husband and started for home. Not a word was uttered by either until they had walked the distance of two squares, when Margaret, unable to keep back what she wanted to say any longer, spoke thus,--

"James, I will thank you, another time, when we are spending an evening out, not to suggest as publicly as you did to-night that it is time to go home. It's very bad manners, let me tell you, in the first place; and in the second place, I don't like it at all. I do not wish people to think that I have to come and go just at your beck or nod. I was about starting when you spoke to me, but sat an hour longer just on purpose."

The mind of Canning, already fretted, was set on fire by this.

"You did?" he said.

"Yes, I did. And I can tell you, once for all, that I wish this to be the last time you speak to me as you did to-night."

It was as much as the impatient spirit of Canning could do to keep from replying--

"It's the last time I will ever speak to you at all," and then leaving her in the street, with the intention of never seeing her again. But suddenly he thought of Lilly, and the presence of the child in his mind kept back the mad words from his lips. Not one syllable did he utter during their walk home, although his wife said much to irritate rather than soothe him. Nor did a sentence pa.s.s his lips that night.

At the breakfast table on the next morning, the husband and wife were coldly polite to each other. When the meal was completed, Canning retired to his office, and his wife sought her chamber to weep. The latter half repented of what she had done, but her contrition was not hearty enough to prompt to a confession of her fault. The fact that she considered her husband to blame, stood in the way of this.

Reserve and coldness marked the intercourse of the unhappy couple for several weeks; and then the clouds began to break, and there were occasional glimpses of suns.h.i.+ne.

But, before there was a clear sky, some trifling occurrence put them again at variance. From this time, unhappily, one circ.u.mstance after another transpired to fret them with each other, and to separate, rather than unite them. Daily, Canning grew more cold and reserved, and his wife met him in a like uncompromising spirit. Even their lovely child--their darling blue-eyed Lilly--with her sweet little voice and smiling face, could not soften their hearts toward each other.

To add fuel to this rapidly enkindling fire of discord, was the fact that Mrs. Canning was on particularly intimate terms with the wife of a man toward whom her husband entertained a settled and well-grounded dislike, and visited her more frequently than she did any one of her friends. He did not interfere with her in the matter, but it annoyed him to hear her speak, occasionally, of meeting Mr.

Richards at his house, and repeating the polite language he used to her, when he detested the character of Richards, and had not spoken to him for more than a year.

One day Mrs. Canning expressed a wish to go in the evening to a party.

"It will be impossible for me to go to-night, or, indeed, this week," Canning said. "I am engaged in a very important case, which will come up for trial on Friday, and it will take all my time properly to prepare for it. I shall be engaged every evening, and perhaps late every night."

Mrs. Canning looked disappointed, and said she thought he might spare her one evening.

"You know I would do so, Margaret, with pleasure," he replied, "but the case is one involving too much to be endangered by any consideration. Next week we will go to a party."

When Canning came home to tea, he found his wife dressed to go out.

"I'm going to the party, for all you can't go with me," said she.

"Indeed! With whom are you going?"

"Mrs. Richards came in to see me after dinner, when I told her how much disappointed I was about not being able to go to the party to-night. She said that she and her husband were going, and that it would give them great pleasure to call for me. Am I not fortunate?"

"But you are not going with Mr. and Mrs. Richards?"

"Indeed I am! Why not?"

"Margaret! You must not go."