The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems Part 5

"No, no! I only mean that I had committed a great error, in keeping silence on the subject at the first. You can imagine one of your acquaintances who had been several months peaceably living with a man of good appearance and repute, to whom you had seen her married, suddenly declaring her husband a bigamist and refusing to live with him; and on no other evidence than a letter obtained, n.o.body knew how. To _me_ the proof was conclusive; and it made me frantic to find that it was not so received by others."

"What did he say, when you told him that you had this evidence? How did he act?"

"He swore it was a conspiracy; and declared that now he had borne enough of such contumelious conduct; he should soon bring me into subjection.

He represented himself to me, as an injured and long-suffering man; and me, to myself, as an unkind, undutiful, and most unwomanly woman. He told me, what was true, that I need not expect people to believe such a 'c.o.c.k and bull story;' and used every possible means of intimidation, except actual corporeal punishment. _That_ he threatened long after; and I told him if he ever laid a finger on me, I should certainly shoot him dead. But we had not come to that yet."

"Long after!" I repeated. "You do not, you cannot mean that this wretch continued to live under the same roof with you, long after he knew that you would never acknowledge him as your husband?"

"Yes, for years! For years after he knew that I knew he was _what he was_, he lived in my house and took my earnings; yes, and ordered me about and insulted me as much as he liked."

"But," I said, "I cannot understand such a condition of things. Was there no law in the land? no succor in the society about you? How could other women hold still, and know that a young creature like you was being tortured in that way?"

"The inertia of women in each other's defense is immense," returned Mrs.

Greyfield, in her most incisive tone. "You must not forget that Portland was then almost a wilderness, and families were few, and often 'far between.' Among the few, my acquaintances were still fewer; for I had come among them poor and alone, and with all I could do to support myself, without time or disposition to visit. The peculiar circ.u.mstances I have related to you broke my spirit and inclined me to seclusion.

However, I did carry my evidence, and my story together, to two or three women that I knew, and what do you suppose they said? That I 'should have thought of all that before I married!' They treated it exactly as if, having gone through the marriage ceremony, I was bound, no matter how many wives Mr. Seabrook had back in Ohio."

"They could not have believed your story," I said; not being able to take in such inferior morality.

"What they believed I do not know: what they said I have told you. I incline to the opinion that they thought I might be a little daft--I am sure I must have looked so at times, from sheer sleeplessness and exhaustion. Or they thought I had no chance of establis.h.i.+ng the truth, and would be better off to submit quietly. At all events, not one encouraged me to resist Mr. Seabrook; and to overflow my cup of misery, he contrived to find the important letter, which I had hidden, and destroy it."

"Did you never go to men about your case, and ask for a.s.sistance?"

"At first I was afraid to appeal to them, having had so many unpleasant experiences; and when I at last was driven to seek counsel, I was too late, as I before explained."

"Too late?"

"Yes; I mean that the idea of my being Mr. Seabrook's wife was so firmly seated in their minds that they could not see it in any other light. The fact of my having written and received a letter did not impress them as of any consequence. You will find this to be a truth among men; they respect the sense of owners.h.i.+p in women, entertained by each other; and they respect it so much that they would as soon be caught stealing, as seeming in any way to interfere with it. That is the reason that, although there is nothing in the wording of the marriage contract converting the woman into a bond-slave or a chattel, the man who practices any outrage or wrong on his wife is so seldom called to account. In the eyes of these men, having entered into marriage with Mr.

Seabrook, I belonged to him, and there was no help for me. For life and until death, I was his, to do what he pleased with, so long as he did not bruise my flesh nor break my bones. Is not that an awful power to be lodged with any human being?"

"But," I said, "if they were told the whole truth, that the marriage had never been consummated, and why, would they not have been moved by a feeling of chivalry to interfere? Your view of their sentiments pre-supposes the non-existence of what I should call chivalry."

"There may be in men such a sentiment as you would call chivalry; but I never yet have seen the occasion where they were pleased to exercise it.

I would not advise any other young woman to tell one of them that she had lived alone in the same house with a man reputed to be her husband, for seven months, without the marriage having been consummated. She would find, as I did, that his chivalry would be exhibited by an ineffectual effort to suppress a smile of incredulity."

"Can it be possible," I was forced to exclaim, "that there was no help for you?"

"You see how it was. I have outlined the bare facts to you. n.o.body wanted to be mixed up in my troubles, and the worst of it was that Mr.

Seabrook got more sympathy than I did, as the unfortunate husband of a terrible termagant, who made his life a burden to him. He could talk in a certain way around among men, and put on an aggrieved air at home before the boarders, and what was the use of my saying anything. If it had not been for my little German neighbor, I should have felt utterly forsaken by all the world. But she, whatever she thought of my domestic affairs, was sorry for me. 'What for you cry so much all de time?' she said to me one day. 'You makes yourself sick all de time mit cryin'; an'

your face be gettin' wite as my hankers.h.i.+f. De leedle boy, too, he sees you, an' he gets all so wite as you are, all de same. Dat is not goot.

You gomes to see me, an' brings de boy to see my Hans. You get sheered up den.' And I took her advice for Benton's sake."

"What object had Mr. Seabrook in remaining where he was so unwelcome? He certainly entertained no hope that you would finally yield; and his position could not have been an agreeable one, from any point of view; for whether he was regarded as the monster he was, or only as a sadly beshrewed husband, he must have felt himself the subject of unpleasant remark."

"He could afford to be remarked upon when he was a free pensioner upon a woman's bounty, and in receipt of a fine income which I earned for him by ceaseless toil. I can see him now sitting at the bottom of the table, my table, flouris.h.i.+ng his white hands, and stroking his flowing blonde beard occasionally as something very gratifying to his vanity was said; talking and laughing with perfect unconcern, while he fattened himself at my expense; while I, who earned and prepared his dinner for him, gasped half fainting in the heat of a kitchen, sick in heart and body.

Do you wonder that I hated him?"

"I wonder more that you did not kill him," I said; feeling that this would have been a case of 'justifiable homicide.'

"The impulse certainly came to me at times to kill him; or if not exactly that, to wish him dead. Yet when the opportunity came to be revenged upon him by fate itself, I interfered to save him. That was strange, was it not? To be suffering as I suffered at this man's hands, and yet when he was in peril to have compa.s.sion upon him?"

"You could not alter your nature," I said, "which is, as I told you before, thoroughly sound and sweet. It goes against us to suffer wrong; but it goes still harder with us to do wrong. Besides, you had your religious training to help you."

"I had the temptation, all the same. It happened in this way: One night I was lying awake, as I usually did, until I heard Mr. Seabrook come in and go to his room. He came in rather later than usual, and I listened until all was still in the house, that I might sleep the more safely and soundly afterwards. I had, however, become so nervously wakeful by this time that the much needed and coveted sleep refused to visit me, and I laid tossing feverishly upon my bed when I became aware that there was a smell of fire in the air. Rapidly dressing, I took Benton in my arms and hastened down stairs, to have him where I could save him, should the house be in danger. There was a still stronger odor of burning cloth and wood in the lower rooms, but very little smoke to be detected. After looking into the kitchen and finding all right there, I feared the fire might be in the other part of the house, and was about to give the alarm, when it occurred to me that the trouble might be in Mr.

Seabrook's room.

"Leaving Benton asleep on the dining-room table, I ran to his door and knocked. No answer came; but I could smell the smoke within. Pus.h.i.+ng open the door I discovered him lying in a perfectly unconscious state, and half undressed, on the bed, sleeping off the effects of a wine supper. A candle which he had lighted, and left burning, had consumed itself down to the socket, and by some chance had ignited a few loose papers on the table beside the bed; the fire had communicated to the bedding on one side, and to some of his wearing apparel on the other.

All was just ready to burst into a blaze with the admission of fresh air, which I had the presence of mind to prevent, by closing the door behind me.

"There I was, in the presence of my enemy, and he in the clutches of death. I shudder when I think of the feelings of that moment! An evil spirit plainly said to me, 'Now you shall have rest. Let him alone; he is dying by his own hand, not yours--why do you interfere with the decree of fate?' An exulting yet consciously guilty joy agitated my heart, which was beating violently. 'Let him die!' I said to myself, 'let him die!'

"Very rapidly such thoughts whirl through the brain under great excitement. The instant that I hesitated seemed an age of cool deliberation to me. Then the wickedness of my self-gratulation rushed into my mind, making me feel like a murderer. 'O, G.o.d,' I cried in anguish of spirit, 'why have I been put to this test?' The next instant I was working with might and main to extinguish the fire, which with the aid of blankets and a pitcher of water was soon suppressed.

"Through it all he slept on, breathing heavily, an object of disgust to my senses and my feelings. When all was safe I returned to my room, thankful that I had been able on the spot to expiate my murderous impulses. The next day he took occasion to say to me, 'I shouldn't have expected a visit of mercy from you, Mrs. Seabrook. If I had known you were coming, I should have tried to keep awake!' 'If ever you refer to such a subject again,' I replied, 'I will set fire to you myself, and let you burn;' and either the threat deterred him, or some spark of generosity in his nature was struck by the benefit received, but he never afterwards offered me any annoyance of that kind."

"How did Mr. Seabrook usually treat your son? Was he kind to him?"

"He was not unkind. Perhaps you cannot understand such a character; but he was one who would be kind to man, woman, or child who would be governed by him; yet resistance to his will, however just, roused a tyranny that sought for opportunities to exhibit itself. Such a one pa.s.ses in general society for a 'good fellow,' because 'the iron hand in the velvet glove' is scarcely perceptible there, while its ungloved force is felt most heavily in the relations of private life. If I had been in a position to flatter Mr. Seabrook, undoubtedly he would have shown me a corresponding consideration, notwithstanding his selfishness.

It would have been one way of gratifying his own vanity, by putting me in a humor to pander to it. But knowing how I hated and despised him, he felt toward me all the rancor of his vain and tyrannical nature. It is always more dangerous to hate justly than unjustly, and that is the reason why domestic differences are so bitter. Somebody has always done wrong and knows it, and cannot bear to suffer the natural consequences--the disapprobation of the injured party, in addition to the stings of conscience."

"I suppose, then," I said, "it has been the perception of this truth that has caused the sweetest and purest women in all time to ignore the baser sins of man, while calling their own s.e.x to strict account. And yet I cannot think but that this degree of mercy is injurious to their own purity and derogatory to their dignity. I remember being excessively shocked several years ago by having this trait of _forgiveness_ in woman placed in its true light by an accidental publication in a New York paper, which was intended to have just the opposite effect. It was headed 'A Model Woman,' and appeared in the _Evening Post_--Bryant's paper. With a curious desire to know the poet's model for a woman--though the article may have never come under his eye--I commenced reading it.

It ran to this effect: A certain man in New York had a good wife and two interesting little children. But he met and fell in love with a handsome, das.h.i.+ng, and rather coa.r.s.e girl; and the affair had gone so far as to lead to serious expostulation on the part of the wife. The writer did not relate whether or not the girl knew the man to be married; but only that the two were infatuated with each other.

"As the story ran, the wife expostulated, and the husband was firm in his determination to possess the girl at all hazards, concluding his declaration with this business-like statement: 'I shall take the girl, and go to California. If you keep quiet about it, I will leave a provision for you and the children; if you do not, I shall go just the same, but without leaving you anything.' _The wife acquiesced in the terms._ Her husband went to California with his paramour, and tired of her (it was in old steamer times), about as soon as he got there. Very soon he deserted her and returned to New York _a la prodigal_, and was received back to the arms of his forgiving wife. The girl followed her faithless lover to New York, and failing to win a kind word from him by the most piteous appeals, finally committed suicide at her hotel in that city. The wife continued to live with the author of this misery upon the most affectionate terms.

"That was the whole story. Is it possible, I asked myself, that the writer of that article, whoever he may be, could have meant its t.i.tle in anything but irony? Yet, there it stood on the front page of a most respectable journal, indorsed by an editor of the highest reputation. To my way of thinking, the wife was accessory to the crime; had no womanly self-respect, no delicacy, no Christian feeling for her husband's victim; was, in short, morally, as guilty as he was; and yet a newspaper of high standing made her out to be a model for wives. For what? Plainly for consenting to, or for forgiving three of the most heinous crimes in the decalogue, because committed _by her husband_. I confess that since that day I have been p.r.o.ne to examine into the claims of men to be forgiven, or the moral right of women to forgive them certain offenses."

"When you examine into the motives of women," said Mrs. Greyfield, "I think you will find there is a large measure of sordid self-interest in their mercy, as in the case you have just quoted. While some women are so weak, and so foolishly fond of the men to whom they became early attached, as to be willing to overlook everything rather than part with them; a far greater number yield an unwilling submission to wrongs imposed upon them, simply because they do not know how to do without the pecuniary support afforded them by their husbands. The bread-and-b.u.t.ter question is demoralizing to women as well as to men, the difference being that men have a wider field to be demoralized in; and that the demoralization of women is greatly consequent upon their circ.u.mscribed field of action."

"Do you think that the enlargement of woman's sphere of work would have a tendency to elevate her moral influence?"

"The way the subject presents itself to me is, that it is degrading to have s.e.x determine everything for us: our employments, our position in society, the obedience we owe to others, the influence we are permitted to exercise, all and everything to be dependent upon the delicate matter of a merely physical function. It affects me so unpleasantly to hear such frequent reference to a physiological fact, that I have often wished the word _female_ stricken from our literature. And when you reflect, that we are born and bred to this narrow view of ourselves, as altogether the creatures of s.e.x, you cannot but recognize its belittleing, not to say depraving effect, or fail to see the temptation; we have to seize any base advantage it may give us."

When we had canva.s.sed this, to us interesting, topic a little further, I begged Mrs. Greyfield to go on with the relation of her history.

"I find I must be less particular," she said, "to give so many and frequent explanations of my feelings. By this time you can pretty well imagine them, and my story is likely to be too long, unless I abbreviate.

"I had been living in the way I have described, for two years, and had learned to do a good many things in my own defence, very disagreeable to me, but nevertheless very useful. I had gotten a little money together by asking some of my boarders for pay before pay-day came, or by making such remarks as prompted them to hand the money to me instead of Mr.

Seabrook. It was my intention to save enough in such ways to take me to California, where I felt confident, with the experience I had gained, I should be able to make myself a competence. This plan I had nourished in secret for more than a year, when I was tempted to do a very unwise thing.

"I ought to say, perhaps, that with every year that had pa.s.sed since my arrival in Portland, the population had increased, and with this increase there was a proportionate rise in the value of property.

Hearing business topics discussed almost every day at table, I could not help being more or less infected with the spirit of speculation; and it often almost drove me wild to think how profitably I might have invested my earnings could I have gained possession of them for myself.

"Having an opportunity one day to speak on the subject to a gentleman in whose honor I placed great confidence, I mentioned that I was tempted to buy some property, but that my means were so limited I feared I could not do so. He immediately said that he would sell me a certain very good piece of land in the best business locality, on the installment plan, and at a bargain, so that when it was paid up I could immediately sell again at an advance. Thinking this would accelerate the carrying out of my scheme of fleeing from my master, to a land of freedom, I eagerly accepted the proposition, and paid down all the money I had, taking a bond for a deed. The transaction was to be kept a secret between us, and he was to a.s.sist me in selling when it came the proper time, by deeding direct to my purchaser. I felt almost light-hearted in view of the fact that I should be able, after all, to achieve a kind of independence in the course of time."

"It seems to me," I said, "that I should have grown reckless before this, and have done something of a desperate nature--committed suicide, for instance. Did the thought never occur to you to end your bondage in that way?"

"My desperation never took that form, because I had my child to take care of. If I killed myself, I should have to kill him, too. But many and many a night I have felt it so impossible to be alive in the morning, and go right on in my miserable round of life, worn out in mind and body, with Benton always ailing--often very ill, that I have prepared both myself and him for burial, and laid down praying G.o.d to take us both before another day. But Death is like our other friends--he is not at hand to do us a service when most desired.