After all, I suspect that it"s just that Jerry still loves the ice-cream and the sunsets, and I don"t. That"s all. To me there"s something more to life than that--something higher, deeper, more worth while. We haven"t a taste in common, a thought in unison, an aspiration in harmony. I suspect--in fact I _know_--that I get on his nerves just as raspingly as he does on mine. For that reason I"m sure he"ll be glad--when he gets my letter.
But, some way, I dread to tell Mother.
Well, it"s finished. I"ve been about four days bringing this autobiography of Mary Marie"s to an end. I"ve enjoyed doing it, in a way, though I"ll have to admit I can"t see as it"s made things any clearer. But, then, it was clear before. There isn"t any other way.
I"ve got to write that letter. As I said before, I regret that it must be so sorry an ending.
I suppose to-morrow I"ll have to tell Mother. I want to tell her, of course, before I write the letter to Jerry.
It"ll grieve Mother. I know it will. And I"m sorry. Poor Mother!
Already she"s had so much unhappiness in her life. But she"s happy now. She and Father are wonderful together--wonderful. Father is still President of the college. He got out a wonderful book on the "Eclipses of the Moon" two years ago, and he"s publishing another one about the "Eclipses of the Sun" this year. Mother"s correcting proof for him.
Bless her heart. She loves it. She told me so.
Well, I shall have to tell her to-morrow, of course.
_To-morrow_--_which has become to-day._
I wonder if Mother _knew_ what I had come into her little sitting-room this morning to say. It seems as if she must have known. And yet--I had wondered how I was going to begin, but, before I knew it, I was right in the middle of it--the subject, I mean. That"s why I thought perhaps that Mother--
But I"m getting as bad as little Mary Marie of the long ago. I"ll try now to tell what did happen.
I was wetting my lips, and swallowing, and wondering how I was going to begin to tell her that I was planning not to go back to Jerry, when all of a sudden I found myself saying something about little Eunice.
And then Mother said:
"Yes, my dear; and that"s what comforts me most of anything--because you _are_ so devoted to Eunice. You see, I have feared sometimes--for you and Jerry; that you might separate. But I know, on account of Eunice, that you never will."
"But, Mother, that"s the very reason--I mean, it would be the reason,"
I stammered. Then I stopped. My tongue just wouldn"t move, my throat and lips were so dry.
To think that Mother suspected--_knew already_--about Jerry and me; and yet to say that _on account_ of Eunice I would not do it. Why, it was _for_ Eunice, largely, that I was _going_ to do it. To let that child grow up thinking that dancing and motoring was all of life, and--
But Mother was speaking again.
"Eunice--yes. You mean that you never would make her go through what you went through when you were her age."
"Why, Mother, I--I--" And then I stopped again. And I was so angry and indignant with myself because I had to stop, when there were so many, many things that I wanted to say, if only my dry lips could articulate the words.
Mother drew her breath in with a little catch. She had grown rather white.
"I wonder if you remember--if you ever think of--your childhood," she said.
"Why, yes, of--of course--sometimes." It was my turn to stammer. I was thinking of that diary that I had just read--and added to.
Mother drew in her breath again, this time with a catch that was almost a sob. And then she began to talk--at first haltingly, with half-finished sentences; then hurriedly, with a rush of words that seemed not able to utter themselves fast enough to keep up with the thoughts behind them.
She told of her youth and marriage, and of my coming. She told of her life with Father, and of the mistakes she made. She told much, of course, that was in Mary Marie"s diary; but she told, too, oh, so much more, until like a panorama the whole thing lay before me.
Then she spoke of me, and of my childhood, and her voice began to quiver. She told of the Mary and the Marie, and of the dual nature within me. (As if I didn"t know about that!) But she told me much that I did not know, and she made things much clearer to me, until I saw--
You can see things so much more clearly when you stand off at a distance like this, you know, than you can when you are close to them!
She broke down and cried when she spoke of the divorce, and of the influence it had upon me, and of the false idea of marriage it gave me. She said it was the worst kind of thing for me--the sort of life I had to live. She said I grew pert and precocious and worldly-wise, and full of servants" talk and ideas. She even spoke of that night at the little cafe table when I gloried in the sparkle and spangles and told her that now we were seeing life--real life. And of how shocked she was, and of how she saw then what this thing was doing to me. But it was too late.
She told more, much more, about the later years, and the reconciliation; then, some way, she brought things around to Jerry and me. Her face flushed up then, and she didn"t meet my eyes. She looked down at her sewing. She was very busy turning a hem _just so_.
She said there had been a time, once, when she had worried a little about Jerry and me, for fear we would--separate. She said that she believed that, for her, that would have been the very blackest moment of her life; for it would be her fault, all her fault.
I tried to break in here, and say, "No, no," and that it wasn"t her fault; but she shook her head and wouldn"t listen, and she lifted her hand, and I had to keep still and let her go on talking. She was looking straight into my eyes then, and there was such a deep, deep hurt in them that I just had to listen.
She said again that it would be her fault; that if I had done that she would have known that it was all because of the example she herself had set me of childish willfulness and selfish seeking of personal happiness at the expense of everything and everybody else. And she said that that would have been the last straw to break her heart.
But she declared that she was sure now that she need not worry. Such a thing would never be.
I guess I gasped a little at this. Anyhow, I know I tried to break in and tell her that we _were_ going to separate, and that that was exactly what I had come into the room in the first place to say.
But again she kept right on talking, and I was silenced before I had even begun.
She said how she knew it could never be--on account of Eunice. That I would never subject my little girl to the sort of wretchedly divided life that I had had to live when I was a child.
(As she spoke I was suddenly back in the cobwebby attic with little Mary Marie"s diary, and I thought--what if it _were_ Eunice--writing that!)
She said I was the most devoted mother she had ever known; that I was _too_ devoted, she feared sometimes, for I made Eunice _all_ my world, to the exclusion of Jerry and everything and everybody else. But that she was very sure, because I _was_ so devoted, and loved Eunice so dearly, that I would never deprive her of a father"s love and care.
I shivered a little, and looked quickly into Mother"s face. But she was not looking at me. I was thinking of how Jerry had kissed and kissed Eunice a month ago, when we came away, as if he just couldn"t let her go. Jerry _is_ fond of Eunice, now that she"s old enough to know something, and Eunice adores her father. I knew that part was going to be hard. And now to have Mother put it like that--
I began to talk then of Jerry. I just felt that I"d got to say something. That Mother must listen. That she didn"t understand. I told her how Jerry loved lights and music and dancing, and crowds bowing down and worshiping him all the time. And she said yes, she remembered; that _he"d been that way when I married him_.
She spoke so sort of queerly that again I glanced at her; but she still was looking down at the hem she was turning.
I went on then to explain that _I_ didn"t like such things; that _I_ believed that there were deeper and higher things, and things more worth while. And she said yes, she was glad, and that that was going to be my saving grace; for, of course, I realized that there couldn"t be anything deeper or higher or more worth while than keeping the home together, and putting up with annoyances, for the ultimate good of all, especially of Eunice.
She went right on then quickly, before I could say anything. She said that, of course, I understood that I was still Mary and Marie, even if Jerry did call me Mollie; and that if Marie had married a man that wasn"t always congenial with Mary, she was very sure Mary had enough stamina and good sense to make the best of it; and she was very sure, also, that if Mary would only make a little effort to be once in a while the Marie he had married, things might be a lot easier--for Mary.
Of course, I laughed at that. I had to. And Mother laughed, too. But we understood. We both understood. I had never thought of it before, but I _had_ been Marie when I married Jerry. _I_ loved lights and music and dancing and gay crowds just exactly as well as he did. And it wasn"t his fault that I suddenly turned into Mary when the baby came, and wanted him to stay at home before the fire every evening with his dressing-gown and slippers. No wonder he was surprised. He hadn"t married Mary--he never knew Mary at all. But, do you know? I"d never thought of that before--until Mother said what she did. Why, probably Jerry was just as much disappointed to find his Marie turned into a Mary as I--
But Mother was talking again.
She said that she thought Jerry was a wonderful man, in some ways; that she never saw a man with such charm and magnetism, or one who could so readily adapt himself to different persons and circ.u.mstances.
And she said she was very sure if Mary could only show a little more interest in pictures (especially portraits), and learn to discuss lights and shadows and perspectives, that nothing would be lost, and that something might be gained; that there was nothing, anyway, like a community of interest or of hobbies to bring two people together; and that it was safer, to say the least, when it was the wife that shared the community of interest than when it was some other woman, though, of course, she knew as well as I knew that Jerry never would--She didn"t finish her sentence, and because she didn"t finish it, it made me think all the more. And I wondered if she left it unfinished--on purpose.
Then, in a minute, she was talking again.
She was speaking of Eunice. She said once more that because of her, she knew that she need never fear any serious trouble between Jerry and me, for, after all, it"s the child that always pays for the mother"s mistakes and short-sightedness, just as it is the soldier that pays for his commanding officer"s blunders. That"s why she felt that I had had to pay for her mistakes, and why she knew that I"d never compel my little girl to pay for mine. She said that the mother lives in the heart of the child long after the mother is gone, and that was why the mother always had to be--so careful.
Then, before I knew it, she was talking briskly and brightly about something entirely different; and two minutes later I found myself alone outside of her room. And I hadn"t told her.