“Do you doubt, child?”
“I don’t know, but even if he did he was sick and so––so tired, and Larry always worried him. I know very surely that if my doctor were here, and knew everything, he’d say harder than ever: ‘Use your woman-mind.’ And I’m going to! Why, Aunt Polly, I haven’t driven Larry away from his home. I meant to make it a better place, once I set the wrong aside. But you see, he wanted it just his way and nothing else would do.”
The dear old face that had confronted life vicariously flushed gently; but the young face that had set itself to the stern facts of life showed neither weakness nor doubt.
“It has come to me, dear”––Mary-Clare now turned and came close to Aunt Polly, resting her folded arms on the thin little knees––“It has come to me, dear, that things are not fixed right and when they are not, it won’t do any good to keep on acting as if they were. Being married to 115 Larry could never make it right for me to do what seems to me wrong. And oh! Aunt Polly, I wish that I could make you understand. Do try to understand, dear, there is a sacred place in my soul, and I just do believe it is in all women’s souls if they dared to say so––that no one, not even a husband, has a right to claim. It is hers and––God’s. But men don’t know, and some don’t care––and they just rush along and take and take, never counting what it may cost––and they make laws to help them when they might fail without, and––well, Aunt Polly, it is hard to stand all alone in the world. I think the really happy women are those who don’t know what I mean, or those that have loved enough, loved a man true enough––to share that sacred place with him––the place he ought not ask for or have a law for. I know you do not understand, Aunt Polly. I did not myself until Peneluna told me.”
At this Aunt Polly braced against the pillows as if they were rocks.
“Peneluna!” she gasped.
“Let me tell you, Aunt Polly. It is such a wonderful thing.”
As she might have spoken to Noreen, so Mary-Clare spoke now to the woman who had only viewed life as Moses had the Promised Land, from her high mount.
“And so, can you not see, dear Aunt Polly, it isn’t a thing that laws can touch; it isn’t being good or bad––it is too big a Thing to call by name. Peneluna could starve and still keep it. She could be lonely and serve, but she knew. I don’t love Larry, I cannot help it. All my life I am going to keep all of the promise I can, Aunt Polly, but I’m going to––to keep myself, too! A woman can give a man a good deal––but she can’t give him some things if she tries to! Look at the women; some of them in the Forest. Aunt Polly, if marriage means what they look like–––” Mary-Clare shuddered.
Aunt Polly had suddenly grown tender and far-seeing. She let go the sounding words that Church and State had taught her.