Martie, the Unconquered

by Kathleen Thompson Norris

"You plan to take your child, and reenter—"

"I think I would leave Teddy, Pa, for a while at least." They had all left the table now, and gone into the parlour, and Martie, sinking into a chair, rested her chin on her hand, and looked bravely yet a trifle uncomfortably at her interlocutors. Teddy had dashed out into the yard.

"Now, I think we have heard about enough of this nonsense, Martie," said her father, in a changed and hostile tone. Lydia gave a satisfied nod; Pa was taking a stand at last. "You didn't have to say that you would marry Clifford," he went on sternly. "You did so as a responsible woman, of your own accord! Now you propose to make him and your family ridiculous, just for a whim. I sent you money to come on here, after your husband's death, and all your life I have tried to be a good father to you. What is my reward? You run away and marry the first irresponsible scamp that asks you; you show no sign of repentance or feeling until you are in trouble; you come back, at my invitation, and are made as welcome here as if you had been the most dutiful daughter in the world, and then—THEN—you propose to bring fresh sorrow and disgrace upon the parent who lifted you out of your misery, and offered you a home, and forgot and forgave the past! I am not a rich man, but what I have has been freely yours, your child has been promised a home for my lifetime. What more can you ask? But no," said Malcolm, pacing the floor, "you turn against me; yours is the hand that strikes me down in my age! Now I tell you, Martie, that things have gone far enough. If you follow your own course in this affair, you do so at your own risk. The day you break your engagement, you are no longer my daughter. The day you let it be known that you are acting in this flighty and irresponsible way, that DAY your welcome here is withdrawn! I will not be made the laughing-stock of this town!"

Lydia was in tears; Martie pale. But the younger woman did not speak. She had been watching her father with slightly dilated eyes and a rising breast, while he spoke.

"Cliff generous?" Malcolm went on. "Of course he's generous! He probably doesn't know what to make of it; responsible people don't blow hot and cold like this! The idea of your going in to him with any such cock-and-bull story as this! You'll break your engagement, eh?—and go on to New York for a while, eh?—and then come smiling back, I suppose, and marry him when it suits your own sweet will? Well, now, I'll tell you something, young lady," he added, with a sort of confident menace, "you'll do nothing of the kind! You sit down now and write Clifford a note, and tell him you were a fool. And don't let me ever hear another word of this New York nonsense! Upon my word, I don't know how I ever came to have such children! Other people's children seem to have some sense, and act like reasonable human beings, but mine—however, you know what I feel now, Martie. Going into the Bank indeed, and telling the man you're going to marry that you are 'afraid' this and you 'fancy' that! I'll not have it, I tell you!"

"I told him that I knew I was acting badly," Martie said, "I said that I felt terribly about it. I even cried—I'm not proud of myself, Pa! And he asked me to think it over, and not to worry about postponing the wedding, and—I think he was tremendously surprised, but he didn't say one unkind word!"

"Well, he should have, then," Malcolm said harshly. "And you are a fortunate woman if, when it suits your high-and-mightiness to come to your senses, he doesn't take his turn to jilt YOU! On my word, I never heard anything like it! What possesses you is more than I can understand. You deliberately bring unhappiness down on your family, and act as if you were proud of yourself! I don't pretend to be perfect, but all my life I have given my children generously—"

"Pa," Martie said suddenly, "I wonder if you believe that!" She stood up now, facing him, her breath coming quickly. It seemed to Martie that she had been waiting all her life to say this: hoping for the opportunity, years ago, dreading the necessity now. "I wonder if you believe," she said, trembling a little, "that you—and half the other fathers and mothers in the world—are really in the right! I didn't ask to be born; Sally didn't ask to be born. We didn't choose our sex. We came and we grew up, and went to school, and we had clothing and food enough. But then—THEN!—when we must really begin to live, you suddenly failed us. Oh, you aren't different from other fathers, Pa. It's just that you don't understand! What help had we then in forming human relationships? When did you ever tell us why this young man was a possible husband, and that one was not? I wanted to work, I wanted to be a nurse, or a bookkeeper—you laughed at me! I had a bitter experience—an experience that you could have spared me, and Lydia before me, if you had cared!—and I had a girl's hell to bear; I had to go about among my friends ASHAMED! You didn't comfort me; you didn't tell me that if I learned a little French, and brushed up my hair, and bought white shoes, the NEXT young man wouldn't throw me over for a prettier and more accomplished woman! You were ashamed of me! Sally, just as ignorant as Teddy is this minute, dashed into marriage; she was afraid, as I was, of being a dependent old maid! She married a good man—but that wasn't your doing! I married a bad man, a man whose selfishness and cruelty ruined all my young days, crushed the youth right out of me, and he might be living yet, and Teddy and I tied to him yet but for a chance! I suffered dependence and hunger—yes, and death, too," said Martie, crying now, "just because you didn't give me a livelihood, just because you didn't make me, and Sally, and Lydia, too, useful citizens! You did Len; why didn't you give us the same chance you gave Len? Len had college; he not only was encouraged to choose a profession, but he was MADE to! Our profession was marriage, and we weren't even prepared for that! I didn't know anything when I married. I didn't know whether Wallace was fit to be a husband or a father! I didn't know how motherhood came—all those first months were full of misgivings and doubts! I knew I was giving him all I had, and that financially I was just where I had been—worse off than ever, in fact, for there were the children to think of! Why didn't I have some work to do, so that I could have stepped into it, when bitter need came, and my children and I were almost starving? What has Len cost you, five thousand dollars, ten thousand? What did that statue to Grandfather Monroe cost you? Sally and I have never cost you anything but what we ate and wore!"

Malcolm had risen, too, and they were glaring at each other. The old man's putty-coloured face was pale, and his eyes glittered with fury.

"You were always a headstrong, wicked girl!" he said now, in a toneless dry voice, hardly above a whisper. "And heartless and wicked you will be to the end, I suppose! How dare you criticise your father, and your sainted mother? You choose your own life; you throw in your fortune with a ne'er-do-well, and then you come and reproach me! Don't—don't touch me!" he added, in a sort of furious crow, and as Martie laid a placating hand on his arm: "Don't come near me!"