This was not very orthodox, perhaps, but a good heart will get the better of orthodoxy now and then. It has set me to thinking about Tom and his wife in a way which had not occurred to me. I wonder if it is true that he did not mean to live with her. I remember now that he said he would never see Julia again, but at the time this meant nothing to me. If he had thought of making a home, he would naturally expect to have his child, but after all I doubt if at that time he considered anything except the good of baby. He did not love her; he had not even looked at her; but he tried to do her right as far as he could. He could give her an honest name in the eyes of the world, but he must have known that he could not make a home with Julia where the surroundings would be good for a child. This must have been what he considered for the moment.
Yet Tom is one who thinks out things, and he may have thought out the future of the mother too.
When I look back I wonder how it was I consented so quickly to take Tomine. I wanted to help Tom, and I wanted him to be able to decide without being forced by any consideration of baby. I do not know whether he ought to have married Julia for her own sake. If she had lived, I am afraid I should have been tempted to think he had better not have bound himself to her; and yet I realize that I should have been disappointed in him if he had decided not to do it. I doubt if I could have got rid entirely of the feeling that somehow he would have been cowardly. I wonder if he had any notion of my feeling? He came out of the trial n.o.bly, at least, and I honor him with all my heart for that.
June 5. Aunt Naomi has now a theme exactly to her taste in the growing extravagance of George"s wife. Mrs. Weston has certainly elaborated her style of dress a good deal, a thing which is the more noticeable from the fact that in Tuskamuck we are on the whole so little given to gorgeous raiment. I remember that when I called I thought her rather overdressed. To-day Aunt Naomi talked for half an hour with the greatest apparent enjoyment about the fine gowns and expensive jewelry with which the bride is astonishing the town. I am afraid it does not take much to set us talking. I tried half a dozen times to-day to change the subject, but my efforts were wasted. Aunt Naomi was not to be diverted from a theme so congenial. I reminded her that any bride was expected to display her finery--this is part of the established formality with which marriage is attended.
"That"s all very well," she retorted with a sniff; "folks want to see the wedding outfit. This is finery George Weston has had to pay for himself."
"I don"t see how anybody can know that," I told her; and I added that it did not seem to me to be the town"s business if it were true.
"She tells everybody he gave her the jewelry," Aunt Naomi responded; "and the dresses she"s had made since she was married. She hadn"t anything herself. The Watsons say she was real poor."
"The marriage was so sudden," I said, "that very likely she hadn"t time to get her wedding outfit. At any rate, Aunt Naomi, I don"t see what you and I have to do with her clothes."
The dear old gossip went on wagging her foot and smiling with evident delight.
"It"s the business of the neighbors that she"s sure to ruin her husband if she keeps on with her extravagance, isn"t it? Besides, she wears her clothes to have them talked about. She talks about them herself."
"A few dresses won"t ruin her husband," I protested.
"She has one hired girl now, and she"s talking of a second," Aunt Naomi went on, unshaken. "Did you ever hear of such foolishness?"
I reminded her that I had two maids myself.
"Oh, you," she returned; "that"s different. I hope you don"t put her on a level with real folks, do you?"
I tried to treat the whole matter as if it were of no consequence, and I did stop the talk here; but secretly I am troubled. George has very little aside from what he earns in his profession, and he might easily run behind if his wife is really extravagant. He needs a woman to help him save.
June 6. Tomine delighted the family to-day by her wonderful precocity in following with her eyes the flight of a blue-bottle fly that buzzed about the nursery. Such intelligence in one so young is held by us women to betoken the most extraordinary promise. I communicated the important event to Mr. Saychase, who came to call, and he could neither take it gravely nor laugh at the absurdity of our noticing so slight a thing. He seemed to be trying to find out how I wished him to look at it; and as I was divided between laughter and secret pride in baby he could not get a sure clue. How dull the man is; but no doubt he is good. When piety and stupidity are united, it is unfortunate that they should be made prominent by being set high in spiritual places.
June 9. I have a good deal of sympathy with Cain"s question when he asked the Lord if he were his brother"s keeper. Of course his crime turned the question in his case into a mere pitiful excuse, but Cain was at least clever enough to take advantage of a principle which must appeal to everybody. We cannot be responsible for others when we have neither authority nor control over them. It is one of the hardest forms of duty, it seems to me, when we feel that we ought to do our best, yet are practically sure that in the end we can effect little or nothing.
What can I do to influence George"s wife? Somehow we seem to have no common ground to meet on. Father used to say that people who do not speak the same ethical language cannot communicate moral ideas to each other. This is rather a high-sounding way of saying that Mrs. Weston and I cannot understand each other when anything of real importance comes up. It is of course as much my fault as hers, but I really do not know how to help or change it. I suppose there is a certain arrogance and self-righteousness in my feeling that I could direct her, but I am certainly older and I believe I am wiser. Yet I am not her keeper, and if to feel that I am not involves me in the cowardice of Cain, I cannot help it. I am ready to do anything I can do, but what is there?
June 11. Still it is George"s wife. I dare say a good deal of talk has been circulating, and I have not heard it. I have been so occupied with graver matters ever since George was married that I have seen few people, and have paid little heed to the village talk. To-day old lady Andrews said her say. She began by reminding me of the conversation we had had in regard to calling on the bride.
"I am glad we did it, Ruth," she went on. "It puts us in the right whatever happens; but she will not do. I shall never ask her to my house."
I could say nothing. I knew she was right, but I was so sorry for George.
"She is vulgar, Ruth," the sweet old voice went on. "She called a second time on me yesterday, and I"ve been only once to see her. She said a good deal about it"s being the duty of us--she said "us," my dear,--to wake up this sleepy old place. I told her that, personally, since she was good enough to include me with herself, I preferred the town as it had been."
I fairly laughed out at the idea of old lady Andrews" delivering this with well-bred sweetness, and I wondered how far Mrs. Weston perceived the sarcasm.
"Did she understand?" I asked.
"About half, I think, my dear. She saw she had made a mistake, but I doubt if she quite knew what it was. She was uneasy, and said she thought those who had a chance ought to make things more lively."
I asked if Mrs. Weston gave any definite idea how this liveliness was to be secured.
"Not very clearly," was the answer. "She said something about hoping soon to have a larger house so she could entertain properly. Her dress was dreadfully showy, according to my old-fashioned notions. I am afraid we are too slow for her, my dear. She will have to make a more modern society for herself."
And so the social doom of George"s wife is written, as far as I can see.
I can if I choose ask people to meet her, but that will do her little good when they have looked her over and given her up. They will come to my house to meet anybody I select, but they will not invite her in their turn. It is a pity social distinctions should count for so much; but in Tuskamuck they certainly do.
June 12. Mr. Saychase called again this afternoon. He is so thin and so pale that it is always my inclination to have Hannah bring him something to eat at once. To-day he had an especially nervous air, and I tried in vain to set him at his ease. I fear he may have taken it into his head to try to bring me into the church. He did not, it is true, say anything directly about religion, but he had an air of having something very important in reserve which he was not yet ready to speak of. He talked about the church work as if he expected me to be interested. He would not have come so soon again if he did not have some particular object.
It is a pity anything so n.o.ble as religion should so often have weak men to represent it. What is good in religion they do not fairly stand for, and what is undesirable they somehow make more evident. If superst.i.tion is to be a help, it must appeal to the best feelings, and a weak priest touches only the weaker side of character. One is not able to receive him on his merits as a man, but has to excuse him in the name of his devotion to religion.
Still, Mr. Saychase is a good man, and he means well with whatever strength of mind nature endowed him.
June 13. Tom came to-day to see baby,--not that he paid much attention to her when he saw her. It amuses me to find how jealous I am getting for Tomine, and anxious she shall be treated with deference. I see myself rapidly growing into a hen-with-one-chicken att.i.tude of mind, but I do not know how it is to be helped. I exhibited baby this afternoon with as much pride and as much desire that she should be admired as if she had been my veriest own, so it was no wonder that Tom laughed at me.
He was very grave when he came, but little by little the fun-loving sparkle came into his eyes and a smile grew on his face.
"You"d make a first rate saleswoman, Ruth," he said, "if you could show off goods as well as you do babies."
I suppose I can never meet Tom again with the easy freedom we used to feel, especially with baby to remind us; but we have been good friends so long that it is a great comfort to feel something of the old comradeship to be still possible.
Tom was so awkward about baby, so unwilling to touch her, that I offered to put her into his arms. Then he suddenly grew brave.
"Don"t, Ruth," he said. "It hurts you that I can"t care for the baby, but I can"t. Perhaps I shall sometime."
I took Thomasine away without a word, and gave her to Rosa in the nursery. When I came back to the parlor Tom was in his favorite position before the window. He wheeled round suddenly when he heard me.
"You are not angry, Ruth?" he asked.
"No, Tom," I answered; "only sorry."
I sat down and took up my sewing, while he walked about the room. He stopped in front of me after a moment.
"I wanted to tell you, Ruth," he said, "that I am not going back to New York."
I looked at him questioningly, and waited.
"I had really a good opening there," he went on; "but I thought I ought not to take it."
I asked him why.
"I"ll be hanged if I quite know," he responded explosively. "I suppose it"s part obstinacy that makes me too stubborn to run away from disgrace, and partly it"s father. This thing has broken him terribly.
I"m going to stay and help him out."
I know how Tom hates farming, and I held out my hand to him and said so.