It was past eight o"clock when he entered his dwelling. A light was burning in one of the parlors, and he stepped into the room. After walking for two or three times the length of the apartment, Mr.
Emerson threw himself on a sofa, a deep sigh escaping his lips as he did so. At the same moment he heard a step in the pa.s.sage, and the rustling of a woman"s garments, which caused him to start again to his feet. In moving his eyes met the form of Irene, who advanced toward him, and throwing her arms around his neck, sobbed,
"Dear husband! can you, will you forgive my childish folly?"
His first impulse was to push her away, and he, even grasped her arms and attempted to draw them from his neck. She perceived this, and clung to him more eagerly.
"Dear Hartley!" she said, "will you not speak to me?"
"Irene!" His voice was cold and deep, and as he p.r.o.nounced her name he withdrew himself from her embrace. At this she grew calm and stepped a pace back from him.
"Irene, we are not children," he said, in the same cold, deep voice, the tones of which were even and measured. "That time is past. Nor foolish young lovers, who fall out and make up again twice or thrice in a fortnight; but man and wife, with the world and its sober realities before us."
"Oh, Hartley," exclaimed Irene, as he paused; "don"t talk to me in this way! Don"t look at me so! It will kill me. I have done wrong. I have acted like foolish child. But I am penitent. It was half in sport that I went away, and I was so sure of seeing you at Ivy Cliff yesterday that I told father you were coming."
"Irene, sit down." And Emerson took the hand of his wife and led her to a sofa. Then, after closing the parlor door, he drew a chair and seated himself directly in front of her. There was a coldness and self-possession about him, that chilled Irene.
"It is a serious thing," he said, looking steadily in her face, "for a wife to leave, in anger, her husband"s house for that of her father."
She tried to make some reply and moved her lips in attempted utterance, but the organs of speech refused to perform their office.
"You left me once before in anger, and I went after you. But it was clearly understood with myself then that if you repeated the act it would be final in all that appertained to me; that unless you returned, it would be a lifelong separation. You _have_ repeated the act; and, knowing your pride and tenacity of will, I did not antic.i.p.ate your return. And so I was looking the sad, stern future in the face as steadily as possible, and preparing to meet it as a man conscious of right should be prepared to meet whatever trouble lies in store for him. I went out this evening, after pa.s.sing the Christmas day alone, with the purpose of consulting an old and discreet friend as to the wisest course of action. But the thing was too painful to speak of yet. So I came back--and you are here!"
She looked at him steadily while he spoke, her face white as marble, and her colorless lips drawn back from her teeth.
"Irene," he continued, "it is folly for us to keep on in the way we have been going. I am wearied out, and you cannot be happy in a relation that is for ever reminding you that your own will and thought are no longer sole arbiters of action; that there is another will and another thought that must at times be consulted, and even obeyed. I am a man, and a husband; you a woman, and a wife,--we are equal as to rights and duties--equal in the eyes of G.o.d; but to the man and husband appertains a certain precedence in action; consent, co-operation and approval, if he be a thoughtful and judicious man, appertaining to the wife."
As Emerson spoke thus, he noticed a sign of returning warmth in her pale face, and a dim, distant flash in her eyes. Her proud spirit did not accept this view of their relation to each other. He went on:
"If a wife has no confidence in her husband"s manly judgment, if she cannot even respect him, then the case is altered. She must be understanding and will to herself; must lead both him and herself if he be weak enough to consent. But the relation is not a true one; and marriage, under this condition of things, is only a semblance."
"And that is your doctrine?" said Irene. There was a shade of surprise in her voice that lingered huskily in her throat.
"That is my doctrine," was Emerson"s firmly spoken answer.
Irene sighed heavily. Both were silent for some moments. At length Irene said, lifting her hands and bringing them down with an action of despair,
"In bonds! in bonds!"
"No, no!" Her husband replied quickly and earnestly. "Not in bonds, but in true freedom, if you will--the freedom of reciprocal action."
"Like bat and ball," she answered, with bitterness in her tones.
"No, like heart and lungs," he returned, calmly. "Irene! dear wife!
Why misunderstand me? I have no wish to rule, and you know I have never sought to place you in bonds. I have had only one desire, and that is to be your husband in the highest and truest sense. But, I am a man--you a woman. There are two wills and two understandings that must act in the same direction. Now, in the nature of things, the mind of one must, helped by the mind of the other to see right, take, as a general thing, the initiative where action is concerned.
Unless this be so, constant collisions will occur. And this takes us back to the question that lies at the basis of all order and happiness--which of the two minds shall lead?"
"A man and his wife are equal," said Irene, firmly. The strong individuality of her character was a.s.serting its claims even in this hour of severe mental pain.
"Equal in the eyes of G.o.d, as I have said before, but where action is concerned one must take precedence of the other, for, it cannot be, seeing that their office and duties are different, that their judgment in the general affairs of life can be equally clear. A man"s work takes him out into the world, and throws him into sharp collision with other men. He learns, as a consequence, to think carefully and with deliberation, and to decide with caution, knowing that action, based on erroneous conclusions, may ruin his prospects in an hour. Thus, like the oak, which, grows up exposed to all elemental changes, his judgment gains strength, while his perceptions, constantly trained, acquire clearness. But a woman"s duties lie almost wholly within this region of strife and action, and she remains, for the most part, in a tranquil atmosphere.
Allowing nothing for a radical difference in mental const.i.tution, this difference of training must give a difference of mental power.
The man"s judgment in affairs generally must be superior to the woman"s, and she must acquiesce in its decisions or there can be no right union in marriage."
"Must lose herself in him," said Irene, coldly. "Become a cypher, a slave. That will not suit me, Hartley!" And she looked at him with firmly compressed mouth and steady eyes.
It came to his lips to reply, "Then you had better return to your father," but he caught the words back ere they leaped forth into sound, and, rising, walked the floor for the s.p.a.ce of more than five minutes, Irene not stirring from the sofa. Pausing at length, he said in a voice which had lost its steadiness:
"You had better go up to your room, Irene. We are not in a condition to help each other now."
Mrs. Emerson did not answer, but, rising, left the parlor and went as her husband had suggested. He stood still, listening, until the sound of her steps and the rustle of her garments had died away into silence, when he commenced slowly walking the parlor floor with his head bent down, and continued thus, as if he had forgotten time and place, for over an hour. Then, awakened to consciousness by a sense of dizziness and exhaustion, he laid himself upon a sofa, and, shutting his eyes, tried to arrest the current of his troubled thoughts and sink into sleep and forgetfulness.
CHAPTER IX.
THE RECONCILIATION.
_FOR_ such a reception the young wife was wholly unprepared.
Suddenly her husband had put on a new character and a.s.sumed a right of control against which her sensitive pride and native love of freedom arose in strong rebellion. That she had done wrong in going away she acknowledged to herself, and had acknowledged to him. But he had met confession in a spirit so different from what was antic.i.p.ated, and showed an aspect so cold, stern, and exacting, that she was bewildered. She did not, however, mistake the meaning of his language. It was plain that she understood the man"s position to be one of dictation and control: we use the stronger aspect in which it was presented to her mind. As to submission, it was not in all her thoughts. Wrung to agony as her heart was, and appalled as she looked, trembling and shrinking into the future, she did not yield a moment to weakness.
Midnight found Irene alone in her chamber. She had flung herself upon a bed when she came up from the parlor, and fallen asleep after an hour of fruitless beating about in her mind. Awaking from a maze of troubled dreams, she started up and gazed, half fearfully, around the dimly-lighted room.
"Where am I?" she asked herself. Some moments elapsed before the painful events of the past few days began to reveal themselves to her consciousness.
"And where is Hartley?" This question followed as soon as all grew clear. Sleep had tranquilized her state, and restored a measure of just perception. Stepping from the bed, she went from the room and pa.s.sed silently down stairs. A light still burned in the parlor where she had left her husband some hours before, and streamed out through the partly opened door. She stood for some moments, listening, but there was no sound of life within. A sudden fear crept into her heart. Her hand shook as she laid it upon the door and pressed it open. Stepping within, she glanced around with a frightened air.
On the sofa lay Hartley, with his face toward the light. It was wan and troubled, and the brows were contracted as if from intense pain.
For some moments Irene stood looking at him; but his eyes were shut and he lay perfectly still. She drew nearer and bent down over him.
He was sleeping, but his breath came so faintly, and there was so little motion of his chest, that the thought flashed through her with an electric thrill that he might be dying! Only by a strong effort of self-control did she repress a cry of fear, or keep back her hands from clasping his neck. In what a strong tide did love rush back upon her soul! Her heart overflowed with tenderness, was oppressed with yearning.
"Oh, Hartley, my husband, my dear husband!" she cried out, love, fear, grief and anguish blending wildly in her voice, as she caught him in her arms and awoke him with a rain of tears and kisses.
"Irene! Love! Darling! What ails you? Where are we?" were the confusedly uttered sentences of Mr. Emerson, as he started from the sofa and, holding his young wife from him, looked into her weeping face.
"Call me again "love" and "darling," and I care not where we are!"
she answered, in tones of pa.s.sionate entreaty. "Oh, Hartley, my dear, dear husband! A desert island, with you, would be a paradise; a paradise, without you, a weary desert! Say the words again. Call me "darling!"" And she let her head fall upon his bosom.
"G.o.d bless you!" he said, laying his hand upon her head. He was awake and clearly conscious of place and position. His voice was distinct, but tremulous and solemn. "G.o.d bless you, Irene, my wife!"
"And make me worthy of your love," she responded faintly.
"Mutually worthy of each other," said he. "Wiser--better--more patient and forbearing. Oh, Irene," and his voice grew deep and tender, "why may we not be to each other all that our hearts desire?"
"We can--we must--we will!" she answered, lifting her hidden face from his bosom and turning it up fondly to his. "G.o.d helping me, I will be to you a better wife in the future."
"And I a more patient, loving, and forbearing husband," he replied.
"Oh that our hearts might beat together as one heart!"