East Angels: A Novel

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

"Just what I expected, men haven't a spark of gumption," said Celestine, indignantly. "He might have seen you weren't fit for talking; anybody could have seen. There, Miss Margaret, there; don't feel so bad, you'll soon be stronger now." And Celestine put one arm round her charge tenderly.

The touch made Margaret's tears flow faster; leaning her head against her faithful New England friend, she cried and cried as if her heart would break.

"You're clean tuckered out, I declare," said Celestine, half crying herself. "Everybody plagues you—I never see the beat! And they all seem to think they've got a right to. Just get real mad, now, Miss Margaret, for once; and stay so. My! wouldn't they be surprised?"

This was three months before. Margaret was now the owner of East Angels.

On the evening when she had returned from the landing with her ferns, and had found Dr. Kirby talking with Aunt Katrina, she went to her own room; here she threw off the long, closely fitting over-garment of dark silk, and gave it and the Gainsborough hat to her maid; she had a maid now.

"If you please, Mrs. Harold, there are five letters for you; they are on the dressing-table."

"Very well; you need not wait, Hester, I shall not need you at present."

The woman went out with noiseless step. Margaret turned over the letters, glancing at the superscriptions rather languidly. She did not care much for what the mails brought her at present, excepting Garda's short, rapturous notes with various foreign headings.

The last envelope of the pile—it is always the last letter that strikes the blow—was inscribed in a handwriting that made her heart stop beating. "Mrs. Lansing Harold" was scrawled there, in rather large, rough letters; and within, at the end of the second page—there were only two filled—the same name was signed without the "Mrs."

Lanse had come back to America. He was coming back to Florida. He was on his way at that moment to Fernandina, having selected that place because he had learned that she had "burned down the house on the point," which, he thought she would allow him to say, was inconsiderate. He had made up his mind not to take her by surprise, he would go to Fernandina, and wait there. He was a cripple indeed, this time. And forever. No hope of a cure, as there had been before. It wasn't paralysis, it was something with a long name, which apparently meant that he was to spend the rest of his days in bed, with the occasional variation of an arm-chair. This last journey of his abroad had been a huge mistake from beginning to end (the only one he had ever made—he must say that). But he didn't suppose she would care to hear the particulars; and he should much prefer that she should not hear them, it wasn't a subject for her. He had come home this time for good and all, it would never be possible for him to run away again, she might depend upon that. In such afflictions a man, of course, counted upon his wife; but he wished to be perfectly reasonable, and therefore he would live wherever she pleased—with his nurses, his water-pillows, and his back rest—yes, he had come to that! At present it wasn't clear to him what he was going to do to amuse himself. He could use his hands, and he had thought of learning to make fish-nets. But perhaps she could think of something better? And then, with a forcible allusion to the difficulties of his present progress southward, and a characteristic summing up of the merits of the hotel where he, with his two attendants, was resting for a day, the short two pages ended abruptly with his name.