Saxe Holm's Stories / First Series

by Helen Hunt Jackson

"My happiness is already in his keeping," said she in a steady voice, "and I believe his is in mine. He is to be my husband and not yours, dear; you do not know him as I do. You do not understand him."

But it is not to give an analysis of her character or of his, nor to give a narrative of their family history, that I write this tale. It is only one episode of their life that I shall try to reproduce here, and I do it because I believe that its lesson is of priceless worth to women.

Ellen had been married fourteen years, and was the mother of five children, when my story begins. The years had gone in the main peacefully and pleasantly. The children, three girls and two boys, were fair and strong. Their life had been a very quiet one, for our village was far removed from excitements of all kinds. It was one of the suburban villages of ----, and most of the families living there were the families of merchants or lawyers doing business in the town, going in early in the morning, and returning late at night. There is usually in such communities a strange lack of social intercourse; whether it be that the daily departure and return of the head of the family keeps up a perpetual succession of small crises of interest to the exclusion of others, or that the night finds all the fathers and brothers too tired to enjoy anything but slippers and cigars, I know not; but certain it is that all such suburban villages are unspeakably dull and lifeless. There is barely feeling enough of good neighborhood to keep up the ordinary interchange of the commonest civilities.

Except for long visits to the city in the winter, and long journeys in the summer, I myself should have found life insupportably tedious. But Ellen was absolutely content. Her days were unvaryingly alike, a simple routine of motherly duties and housekeeping cares. Her evenings were equally unvaried, being usually spent in sewing or reading, while her husband, in seven evenings out of ten, dozed, either on the sofa, or on one of the children's little beds in the nursery. His exquisite tenderness to the children, and his quiet delight in simply being where they were, were the brightest points in John Gray's character and life.

Such monotony was not good for either of them. He grew more and more dreamy and inert. She insensibly but continually narrowed and hardened, and, without dreaming of such a thing, really came to be less and less a part of her husband's inner life. Faithful, busy, absorbed herself in the cares of each day, she never observed that he was living more and more in his children and his reveries, and withdrawing more and more from her. She did not need constant play and interchange of sentiment as he did. Affectionate, loyal, devoted as she was, there was a side of husband's nature which she did not see nor satisfy, perhaps, never could. But neither of them knew it.

At this time Mr. Gray was offered a position of importance in the city, and it became necessary for them to move there to live. How I rejoiced in the change. How bitterly I regretted it before two years had passed.

Their city home was a beautiful one, and their connections and associations were such as to surround them at once with the most desirable companionships. At first it was hard for Ellen to readjust her system of living and to accustom herself to the demands of even a moderately social life. But she was by nature very fond of all such pleasures, and her house soon became one of the pleasantest centres, in a quiet way, of the comparatively quiet city. John Gray expanded and brightened in the new atmosphere; he had always been a man of influence among men. All his friends,--even his acquaintances,--loved him, and asked his advice. It was a strange thing that a man so inert and procrastinating in his own affairs, should be so shrewd and practical and influential in the affairs of others, or in public affairs. This, however, was no stranger than many other puzzling incongruities in John Gray's character. Since his college days he had never mingled at all in general society until this winter, after their removal to town; and it was with delight that I watched his enjoyment of people, and their evident liking and admiration for him. His manners were singularly simple and direct; his face, which was not wholly pleasing in repose, was superbly handsome when animated in conversation; its inscrutable reticence which baffled the keenest observation when he was silent, all disappeared and melted in the glow of cordial good-fellowship which lighted every feature when he talked. I grew very proud of my brother as I watched him in his new sphere and surroundings; and I also enjoyed most keenly seeing Ellen in a wider and more appreciative circle. I spent a large part of the first winter in their house, and shared all their social pleasures, and looked forward to ever increasing delight, as my nieces should grow old enough to enter into society.

Early in the spring I went to the West and passed the entire summer with relatives; I heard from my sister every week; her letters were always cheerful and natural, and I returned to her in the autumn, full of anticipations of another gay and pleasant winter.

They met me in New York, and I remembered afterwards, though in the excitement of the moment I gave it no second thought, that when John Gray's eyes first met mine, there was in them a singular and indefinable expression, which roused in me an instant sense of distrust and antagonism. He had never thoroughly liked me. He had always had an undercurrent of fear of me. He knew I thought him weak: he felt that I had never put full confidence in him. That I really and truly loved him was small offset for this. Would it not be so to all of us?

This part of my story is best told in few words. I had not been at home one week before I found that rumor had been for some months coupling John Gray's name with the name of Mrs. Emma Long, a widow who had but just returned to----, after twelve years of married life in Cuba. John had known her in her girlhood, but there had never been any intimacy or even friendship between them. My sister, however, had known her well, had corresponded with her during all her life at the South, and had invited her to her house immediately upon her return to----. Emma Long was a singularly fascinating woman. Plain and sharp and self-asserting at twenty-two, she had become at thirty-five magnetic and winning, full of tact, and almost beautiful. We see such surprising developments continually: it seems as if nature did her best to give every woman one period of triumph and conquest; perhaps only they know its full sweetness to whom it comes late. In early youth it is accepted unthinkingly, as is the sunshine,--enjoyed without deliberation, and only weighed at its fullness when it is over. But a woman who begins at thirty to feel for the first time what it is to have power over men, must be more or less than woman not to find the knowledge and the consciousness dangerously sweet.