There came a night when the
husband was alone in that street
waiting. He can do nothing for
you now, little nursery governess,
you must fight it out by yourself;
when there are great things to
do in the house the man must
leave. Oh, man, selfish, indelicate,
coarse-grained at the best, thy
woman's hour has come; get thee
gone.
He slouches from the house,
always her true lover I do believe,
chivalrous, brave, a boy until
to-night; but was he ever unkind
to her? It is the unpardonable
sin now; is there the memory
of an unkindness to stalk the
street with him to-night? And
if not an unkindness, still might
he not sometimes have been a
little kinder?
Shall we make a new rule of
life from tonight: always to
try to be a little kinder than
is necessary?
Poor youth, she would come
to the window if she were able,
I am sure, to sign that the one
little unkindness is long forgotten,
to send you a reassuring smile
till you and she meet again;
and, if you are not to meet again,
still to send you a reassuring,
trembling smile.
Ah, no, that was for yesterday;
it is too late now. He wanders
the streets thinking of her tonight,
but she has forgotten him. In
her great hour the man is nothing
to the woman; their love is trivial
now.
He and I were on opposite sides
of the street, now become familiar
ground to both of us, and divers
pictures rose before me in which
Mary A---- walked. Here was the
morning after my only entry into
her house. The agent had promised
me to have the obnoxious notice-board
removed, but I apprehended that
as soon as the letter announcing
his intention reached her she
would remove it herself, and
when I passed by in the morning
there she was on a chair and
a foot-stool pounding lustily
at it with a hammer. When it
fell she gave it such a vicious
little kick.
There were the nights when
her husband came out to watch
for the postman. I suppose he
was awaiting some letter big
with the fate of a picture. He
dogged the postman from door
to door like an assassin or a
guardian angel; never had he
the courage to ask if there was
a letter for him, but almost
as it fell into the box he had
it out and tore it open, and
then if the door closed despairingly
the woman who had been at the
window all this time pressed
her hand to her heart. But if
the news was good they might
emerge presently and strut off
arm in arm in the direction of
the pork emporium.
One last picture. On summer
evenings I had caught glimpses
of them through the open window,
when she sat at the piano singing
and playing to him. Or while
she played with one hand, she
flung out the other for him to
grasp. She was so joyously happy,
and she had such a romantic mind.
I conceived her so sympathetic
that she always laughed before
he came to the joke, and I am
sure she had filmy eyes from
the very start of a pathetic
story.
And so, laughing and crying,
and haunted by whispers, the
little nursery governess had
gradually become another woman,
glorified, mysterious. I suppose
a man soon becomes used to the
great change, and cannot recall
a time when there were no babes
sprawling in his Mary's face.
I am trying
to conceive what were the thoughts
of the young
husband on the other side of
the street. "If the barrier is
to be crossed to-night may I
not go with her? She is not so
brave as you think her. When
she talked so gaily a few hours
ago, O my God, did she deceive
even you?"
Plain questions
to-night. "Why
should it all fall on her? What
is the man that he should be
flung out into the street in
this terrible hour? You have
not been fair to the man."
Poor boy, his
wife has quite forgotten him
and his trumpery
love. If she lives she will come
back to him, but if she dies
she will die triumphant and serene.
Life and death, the child and
the mother, are ever meeting
as the one draws into harbour
and the other sets sail. They
exchange a bright "All's well" and
pass on.
But afterward?
The only ghosts,
I believe, who creep into this
world, are
dead young mothers, returned
to see how their children fare.
There is no other inducement
great enough to bring the departed
back. They glide into the acquainted
room when day and night, their
jailers, are in the grip, and
whisper, "How is it with you,
my child?" but always, lest a
strange face should frighten
him, they whisper it so low that
he may not hear. They bend over
him to see that he sleeps peacefully,
and replace his sweet arm beneath
the coverlet, and they open the
drawers to count how many little
vests he has. They love to do
these things.
What is saddest about ghosts
is that they may not know their
child. They expect him to be
just as he was when they left
him, and they are easily bewildered,
and search for him from room
to room, and hate the unknown
boy he has become. Poor, passionate
souls, they may even do him an
injury. These are the ghosts
that go wailing about old houses,
and foolish wild stories are
invented to explain what is all
so pathetic and simple. I know
of a man who, after wandering
far, returned to his early home
to pass the evening of his days
in it, and sometimes from his
chair by the fire he saw the
door open softly and a woman's
face appear. She always looked
at him very vindictively, and
then vanished. Strange things
happened in this house. Windows
were opened in the night. The
curtains of his bed were set
fire to. A step on the stair
was loosened. The covering of
an old well in a corridor where
he walked was cunningly removed.
And when he fell ill the wrong
potion was put in the glass by
his bedside, and he died. How
could the pretty young mother
know that this grizzled interloper
was the child of whom she was
in search?
All our notions about ghosts
are wrong. It is nothing so petty
as lost wills or deeds of violence
that brings them back, and we
are not nearly so afraid of them
as they are of us.
One by one the lights of the
street went out, but still a
lamp burned steadily in the little
window across the way. I know
not how it happened, whether
I had crossed first to him or
he to me, but, after being for
a long time as the echo of each
other's steps, we were together
now. I can have had no desire
to deceive him, but some reason
was needed to account for my
vigil, and I may have said something
that he misconstrued, for above
my words he was always listening
for other sounds. But however
it came about he had conceived
the idea that I was an outcast
for a reason similar to his own,
and I let his mistake pass, it
seemed to matter so little and
to draw us together so naturally.
We talked together of many things,
such as worldly ambition. For
long ambition has been like an
ancient memory to me, some glorious
day recalled from my springtime,
so much a thing of the past that
I must make a railway journey
to revisit it as to look upon
the pleasant fields in which
that scene was laid. But he had
been ambitious yesterday.
I mentioned
worldly ambition. "Good
God!" he said with a shudder.
There was a clock hard by that
struck the quarters, and one
o'clock passed and two. What
time is it now? Twenty past two.
And now? It is still twenty past
two.
I asked him
about his relatives, and neither
he nor she had any. "We
have a friend--" he began and
paused, and then rambled into
a not very understandable story
about a letter and a doll's house
and some unknown man who had
bought one of his pictures, or
was supposed to have done so,
in a curiously clandestine manner.
I could not quite follow the
story.
"It is she who insists that
it is always the same person," he
said. "She thinks he will make
himself known to me if anything
happens to her." His voice suddenly
went husky. "She told me," he
said, "if she died and I discovered
him, to give him her love."
At this we parted abruptly,
as we did at intervals throughout
the night, to drift together
again presently. He tried to
tell me of some things she had
asked him to do should she not
get over this, but what they
were I know not, for they engulfed
him at the first step. He would
draw back from them as ill-omened
things, and next moment he was
going over them to himself like
a child at lessons. A child!
In that short year she had made
him entirely dependent on her.
It is ever thus with women: their
first deliberate act is to make
their husband helpless. There
are few men happily married who
can knock in a nail.
But it was not of this that
I was thinking. I was wishing
I had not degenerated so much.
Well, as you know, the little
nursery governess did not die.
At eighteen minutes to four we
heard the rustle of David's wings.
He boasts about it to this day,
and has the hour to a syllable
as if the first thing he ever
did was to look at the clock.
An oldish gentleman had opened
the door and waved congratulations
to my companion, who immediately
butted at me, drove me against
a wall, hesitated for a second
with his head down as if in doubt
whether to toss me, and then
rushed away. I followed slowly.
I shook him by the hand, but
by this time he was haw-haw-hawing
so abominably that a disgust
of him swelled up within me,
and with it a passionate desire
to jeer once more at Mary A--
"It is little she will care
for you now," I said to the fellow; "I
know the sort of woman; her intellectuals
(which are all she has to distinguish
her from the brutes) are so imperfectly
developed that she will be a
crazy thing about that boy for
the next three years. She has
no longer occasion for you, my
dear sir; you are like a picture
painted out."
But I question whether he heard
me. I returned to my home. Home!
As if one alone can build a nest.
How often as I have ascended
the stairs that lead to my lonely,
sumptuous rooms, have I paused
to listen to the hilarity of
the servants below. That morning
I could not rest: I wandered
from chamber to chamber, followed
by my great dog, and all were
alike empty and desolate. I had
nearly finished a cigar when
I thought I heard a pebble strike
the window, and looking out I
saw David's father standing beneath.
I had told him that I lived in
this street, and I suppose my
lights had guided him to my window.
"I could not lie down," he
called up hoarsely, "until I
heard your news. Is it all right?"
For a moment
I failed to understand him.
Then I said sourly: "Yes,
all is right."
"Both doing well?" he
inquired.
"Both," I answered,
and all the time I was trying
to shut
the window. It was undoubtedly
a kindly impulse that had brought
him out, but I was nevertheless
in a passion with him.
"Boy or girl?" persisted
the dodderer with ungentlemanlike
curiosity.
"Boy," I said,
very furiously.
"Splendid," he
called out, and I think he
added something
else, but by that time I had
closed the window with a slam.
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