East Angels: A Novel

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

"She has gone to her room," he said; "we have persuaded her to go and lie down for a while, as she has done nothing but cry since first seeing the Moores.—I am afraid it will be even worse when she sees you," he added, as they went up the path.

Crossing the veranda, he stopped with his hand on the door, looking at his companion for a moment before entering.

There was no one in the world whom the Doctor now admired so much as he admired Margaret Harold; for the past two years he had secretly given her his unswerving help and support. He thought hers, among women, the most courageous and noble nature he had ever known. And the sweetest, also—ah, yes, in its hidden depths, overwhelmingly, enchantingly sweet! The delicacy of her physical constitution, too (and she did not grow stronger), her nearness to breaking down at times—these things had endeared her to the Doctor greatly; for it touched him to see, month after month, her fair youthfulness growing a little less youthful, her sweet face more faint in color, while at the same time, hour by hour, he saw her perform her full task so completely, in all its details as well as its broader outlines. He knew that she constantly suffered, and that it must be so. With his own eyes he saw how she endured. As a physician, if nothing else, he was aware how infrequent is quiet effort, maintained evenly, day after day, in a sex which can upon occasion perform single actions that rise to the height of the superhuman, and are far beyond the endeavors of any man. But here was a woman capable of the steady effort; it was not merely that she had remained with her husband, had allowed him to take possession again of her life and her home; she had made this home as pleasant to him and to Aunt Katrina as so quiet a place could be made to two such persons. She never secluded herself, she was always ready to talk, she brought others to amuse them; she read aloud, she played backgammon and checkers, she tied the ends of the fish nets and kept an account of them. She accepted and acted upon all Lanse's suggestions regarding her dress; she smiled frankly over his succinct stories, which, as has already been mentioned, were invariably good—Aunt Katrina generally managing to comprehend them by about the next day; in addition she directed the complicated household so that no jars made themselves felt; and during all this time, these long two years, no one had heard a syllable from her lips that was sharp in sound; nay, more, that was not sweet.

There are women who are capable of sacrificing themselves, with the noblest unselfishness in great causes, who yet, as regards the small matters of every-day life, are rather uncomfortable to live with; so much so, indeed, that those who are under the same roof with them are driven to reflect now and then upon the merits of the ancient hermitages and caves to which in former ages such characters were accustomed to retire. These being out of fashion, however, the relatives can only wish (with a certain desperation of fancy) that their dear self-sacrificing companions might imbibe from somewhere, anywhere, such a dose of selfishness as should render their own lives more comfortable; and, as a sequence, that of the household, as well.

The Doctor had had these saints as his patients more than once, he knew them perfectly. But here was a woman who had sacrificed her whole life to duty, who felt constantly the dreary ache of deprivation; but who yet did not think in the least, apparently, that these things freed her from the kindly efforts, the patience, the small sweet friendly attempts which made home comfortable.

The Doctor had been witness to all this, as he had been witness also that day in the orange grove, when Evert Winthrop lifted this same woman in his arms, where she lay speechless, tortured by the pain of parting with him.

Her pain was the same now—he knew that; but she had learned to bear it. Unspeakably he honored her.

And now this woman had come to see Garda in her trouble, Garda who was so infinitely dear to him, though in another way. He felt, as he stood there with his hand upon the door-knob, that he must for once—for once—acknowledge the difference between these two natures; he could not be content with himself without it. "I know you will be very good to her," he said—"our poor Garda, our dear little girl; she is suffering greatly, and we must tide her over it as well as we can. Yes, tide her over it; for you and I know, Mrs. Harold, that deep as her sorrow is—undoubtedly is, poor child!—it will pass."

He opened the door, and Margaret entered. Then he closed it from the outside, and made his escape. He felt like a traitor; yet he had had to say it—he had had to say it!

But the next moment he was taking himself to task as he walked violently homeward across the plaza. "Don't you want it to pass, you great idiot, that sorrow of hers? How much good can a woman do sitting all her life upon a tomb? she can't even be ornamental there, in my humble opinion. No; it's a thorough waste, a thorough waste!" He entered his old house, still revolving these reflections; he came bursting in upon Ma.