Eunice

by Margaret M. Robertson

No one needed to say to Eunice that she could not leave her grandmother to be cared for by others while she went away to find her own happiness. She never even paused to consider the matter. It was impossible. Her lover thought quite otherwise, and pleaded with her with words which made her glad, and which hurt her sorely, but which did not move her from her purpose. Over one thing only she hesitated. Should she give him back his word before he went away?

“No,” said Dr Everett; “you are both young. Wait.”

And so she waited, and was not unhappy. No woman can be unhappy whose life is lived not to herself but to others. Her service was truly willing service, and was its own reward. She had cares many and heavy, weary nights and anxious days, but she had kind friends who took care for her and helped her; and her cares, and labours, and daily self-denials, and the hourly sight of her grandmother’s faith and patience, and of her joyful release at last, did for heart and soul more than many prosperous years of untroubled happiness could have done.

The long suffering came to an end at last. Her grandmother died, and Eunice was left so spent with doing and watching, and so glad for the blessed release of her whom she loved so well, that she hardly seemed to feel the pain of the bitter blow that smote her afterwards—at least that was what her friends whispered among themselves. Even Dr Everett took comfort in the thought that she might have outgrown her girlish fancy during these long years that had changed her into a woman. But Dr Everett did not know then that the news of his brother’s engagement and approaching marriage had come to her two days before it had reached him, and that during these two days no one but her paralytic grandfather had seen her face and heard her voice. Even the child Fidelia had been sent away “for a change,” as she had more than once been sent away during the last months of the grandmother’s life; and Eunice’s battle with herself—if there was a battle—had been fought alone.

But, whichever way it was, it was not a matter about which many words could be spoken. She made no moan and she claimed no sympathy. She was “just as usual,” as far as he could tell, Dr Everett said, in answer to his wife’s questions when he returned from his first visit to the house after the news had been received. Even to her old friend she had made neither complaint nor confession; but he knew that she suffered, though she kept silence.

“It will make it easier for Eunice in one way,” the neighbours said to one another. “Eunice could hardly have gone away while her grandfather lived, and this has made the path of duty plain before her.”

But whether “the path of duty” was rough or smooth to the weary feet of Eunice no one ever knew from her lips. She was not unhappy, that was certain. She had the daily and hourly care of her grandfather to fill her thoughts and occupy her hands, and when he died she had an easier time and could rest. And she had Fidelia.

She had an easier life; but she could not sit idle at home, or go elsewhere for change or pleasure, as others might who had not their daily bread to earn. The means which her grandparents had provided for their old age had been nearly spent during their long illness. There was the house and garden and a field or two, and that was almost all; and Eunice chose to stay at home and make the best of them, rather than do any of the things which her friends were so ready to advise, and which she might have done. She might have nursed the sick, or taught a school, or worked with her capable hands or her clear head in one of the many ways open to New England girls; but she would not be separated from her sister, and she chose to stay at home.

“I will stay for awhile at least,” she said to Dr Everett when he spoke to her about her plans, and hinted that a change might be desirable for various reasons. “There is no hurry about it, I think; and just for the present I would rather stay at home.”

And the time had never come for her to go elsewhere, or to change her manner of life in any way, and it had lately been gradually revealing itself to her that the time could never come. She was beginning to say to herself: “That which I greatly feared has come upon me.”