The New Penelope, and Other Stories and Poems

by Frances Fuller Victor

"During my first year of widowhood my feelings were several times outraged in this way; and at first I was so humiliated, and had such a sense of guilt, that it made me sick and unfit for my work. The guilty feeling came, I now know, from the consciousness I had of the popular opinion I have referred to, that there must be something wrong in my deportment. But by calling to mind all the circumstances connected with these incidents, and studying my own behavior and the feelings that impelled me, I taught myself at last not to care so very much about it, after the first emotions of anger had passed away. Still I thought I could perceive that I was not quite the same person: you understand?—the 'bloom' was being brushed away."

"What an outrage! What a shame, that a woman in your situation could not be left to be herself, with her own pure thoughts and tender sorrows! Was there no one to whom you could go for advice and sympathy?—none among all those who came to the country with you who could have helped you?"

"The people who came out with me were mostly scattered through the farming country; and would have been of very little use to me if they had not been. In fact, they would, probably, have been first to condemn me, being chiefly of an uneducated class, and governed more by traditions than by the wisdom of experience. There were two or three families whose acquaintance I had made after arriving in Portland, who were kindly disposed towards me, and treated me with great neighborliness; especially the family that was in the same tenement with me. To them I sometimes mentioned my troubles; but while they were willing to do anything for me in the way of a common friendly service, like the loaning of an article of household convenience, or sitting with me when Benton was sick—as he very often was—they could not understand other needs, or minister to the sickness of the mind. If I received any counsel, it was to the effect that a woman was in every way better off to be married. I used to wonder why God had not made us married—why he had given us our individual natures, since there was forever this necessity of being paired!"

"Yet you had loved your husband?"

"I had never ceased to love him!—and that was just what these people could not understand. Death cut them loose from everything, and they were left with only strong desires, and no sentiment to sanctify them. That I should love a dead husband, and turn with disgust from a living one, was inexplicable to them."

"My dear, I think I see the rock on which you wrecked your happiness." For the moment I had forgotten what she had told me in the beginning, that Seabrook had married her illegally; and was imagining her married to a living husband, and loving only the memory of one dead. She saw my error, and informed me by a look. Pushing away the intervening table with its diminished contents, and renewing the fire, Mrs. Greyfield proceeded:

"It would take too long to go over the feelings of those times, and assign their causes. You are a woman that can put yourself in my place, to a great extent, though not wholly; for there are some things that cannot be imagined, and only come by experience."

"Benton was two years and a half old; a very delicate child, suffering nearly all the time with chills and fever. I had occasional attacks of illness from the malaria, always to be met with on the clearing up of low-lands near a river. Still I was able to sew enough to keep a shelter over our heads, and bread in our mouths, until I had been a year in Portland. But I could not get ahead in the least, and was often very low spirited. About this time I made the acquaintance of Mr. Seabrook. He was introduced to me by a mutual acquaintance, and having a little knowledge of medicine, gave me both advice and remedies for Benton. He used to come in quite often, and look after the child, and praise my housekeeping, which probably was somewhat better than that of the average pioneer of those days. He never paid me any silly compliments, or disturbed my tranquillity with love-making of any sort. Just for that reason I began to like him. He was twelve or fifteen years older than myself; and more than ordinarily fine-looking and intelligent. You have no idea, because you have never been so placed, what a comfort it was to me to have such a friend."

"Yes, I think I know."

"One day he said to me, 'Mrs. Greyfield, this sitting and sewing all day is bad for your health. Now, I should think, being so good a housekeeper, you might do very well by taking a few boarders; and I believe you could stand that kind of labor better than sewing.' We had a little talk about it, and he proposed trying to find me a house suited to the purpose; to which I very readily consented; for, though I was wholly inexperienced in any business, I thought it better to venture the experiment than to keep on as I was doing."