Mary Louise Stands the Test

by Emma Speed Sampson

“No, baby, he jes’ bulged through the do’ inter the hall an’ I hearn him a goin’ licksplittin’ up the step inter you-all’s room an’ then, in ’bout ten minutes, I hearn the front do’ bang an’ that’s all ’cept’n that ol’ fool Eben said he seed him gittin’ on a down town cyar an’ he wa’ a carryin’ somethin’.”

Mary Louise closed her eyes for a moment and steadied herself against a hall chair, then trying to compose her trembling and convulsed countenance, she made her way slowly up stairs. She wanted to run but her feet seemed to have leaden weights on them and it was with difficulty that she advanced step by step clinging to the bannister as to a life rope.

Slowly she opened the door to her pretty room, the room that Grandpa Jim had taken such delight in having all freshly done over for her while she was on her wedding trip and to which she had come home so happily and joyously. It was a pink room, a soft shell-pink, and Mary Louise had said that she felt as though she were living in the heart of a rose. The woodwork and the furniture were old ivory. The pictures were all the daintiest imaginable water colors and pastels. The hangings were of cretonne with a design of roses in loose clusters. The floor was covered with quaint rag rugs woven of pastel shades. It was a charming room and seemed like a bit of fairy land where one might dream one’s life away.

The girl stood for a moment on the threshold gazing into the room. It looked strangely unfamiliar to her, as though it might have been the room of some other person. Perhaps it was Mary Louise’s room and she was not Mary Louise. She crossed to the dressing table. Such a lovely dressing table with dainty appurtenances that might have been fit for a princess had there been any princesses left to speak of at that time! She picked up the silver backed brush, Danny’s present to that person called Mary Louise, the gay, happy girl who used to occupy that room—used to look in that clear mirror and brush her hair, such pretty curly hair, every strand of which Danny said he loved.

She glanced at her image in the mirror and started back in terror. It wasn’t Mary Louise after all—not this person whose tragic red-rimmed eyes gazed into hers. Those blanched tear-stained cheeks could never have been the cheeks of Mary Louise. Her cheeks were soft and rosy. That trembling chin with its sagging, convulsed muscles could not be the round determined little chin that Danny used to stoop over and kiss while her hair was being brushed. Whose mouth was that, that pale gash in a paler face? Mary Louise’s mouth was a cupid’s bow and crimson and full of smiles with a row of pearly teeth. She widened her mouth in a piteous grin. The teeth were pearly but they too seemed to have lost their sparkle.

She picked up the folded piece of paper stuck on the plump pink pin-cushion with a long hat-pin. The pin had been thrust all the way through the cushion, the point sticking out on the other side.

“Josie would say that showed his state of mind,” flashed through Mary Louise’s thoughts. It seemed to her that the point that had so fiercely penetrated the fat little cushion had pierced her own heart.

She had known all the time she would find a note stuck on her pin-cushion, had known it from the moment Aunt Sally had told her Uncle Eben had seen Danny get on a trolley car and that he was carrying something. She knew that something was a suit-case. Uncle Eben knew it too and Aunt Sally knew it, but she wouldn’t tell her young mistress for fear of hurting her more.

The girl smoothed out the note which had been hastily folded. She had to wipe her eyes many times before she could decipher the penciled scrawl which gave evidence even more clearly than the hat-pin of Danny’s state of mind. It was a boyish little letter but with a tragic note running through it that almost broke Mary Louise’s heart. His great and abiding love for her was expressed in every word but, at the same time, his deep humiliation and anger at the treatment to which he had been forced to submit at the hands of Colonel Hathaway were evident. He told her he had been driven from the house by her grandfather and must, of course, leave. He did not know wherein he had sinned, but he felt sure he must have done something unpardonable, even if unwittingly, to make his dear wife complain of him as Colonel Hathaway had assured him had been the case. If any one else had told him such a thing, he would not have believed him but, in spite of Colonel Hathaway’s treatment of him, he could not doubt his word, knowing him to be honorable above everything and truthful—as truthful as his own Mary Louise to whom a lie was impossible. He was going away—it was best for all concerned—but it would not be so very long. Perhaps Colonel Hathaway would get over the rancor he now felt—perhaps it could be in some way explained to him that he had been mistaken. At any rate, he felt that Mary Louise’s grandfather had the prior claim on her and he would let the old gentleman’s declining years be as happy as possible. He could never enter the house again unless Colonel Hathaway apologized to him and offered some explanation of the astounding sins of which he had accused him. If she had not been so sure of her grandfather’s sanity, he would believe that Colonel Hathaway was not himself but, when he had suggested this to her, she had been so grieved, so sure it was not the case, he had felt she must know and he had given up that idea which might have explained everything. He only asked his dear little wife to trust him and love him, if only a little, and to let him know in what way he had sinned against her to cause her to complain of him. If she had only told him and not told some one else, even anyone as close and dear as her grandfather! He did not blame her though. He loved her so supremely and trusted her so implicitly that he knew she could do no wrong.

At this point in the letter Mary Louise felt she could bear life no longer.