Papa's own girl: A novel

by Marie Stevens Howland

In his frame of mind, Dan looked upon all women as his enemies, and especially Susie, but for whom he might have won the queenly Miss Marston. But for the recentness of his rebuff, he would have spoken kindly enough to Susie, for he was capable of pity, and he had considerable affection in his nature, though it was of the bearish kind, wholly divested of that sensitive, tender element which, when a woman has once known it, makes valueless all other love of men. It is not found in common men, however, who are mostly capable of violent demonstration, without any of that high sentiment which seeks only to learn the real desire of the loved one, and then studies to gratify it, finding keen delight in that, and that alone. It is true, also, that few women are capable of inspiring such a sentiment, and so the world knows little of the highest phase of the passion of love. Susie had never known any love but Dan’s, and though it had occurred to her that there might be kisses, for example, not so much like the pounce of a hawk upon a pigeon, as his were, still she had loved him with all her heart, and it was terrible, even when she knew he had ceased to love her, to think that he could pass her in the street without a sign of recognition. But Susie had outlived that experience, and with the certainty that he was lost to her forever, and with time and the accession of new thoughts and cares, and especially with the interest Clara had succeeded in awakening in regular daily study, her grief lessened. There were, first hours, and then whole days, when there were no heart-aches on his account. Over the thought of this she would invariably rejoice, as over a great triumph, until some treacherous retrospection of happier days quickened the old tenderness into life—renewed agonies that she thought were quieted forever, and revealed her situation as dreadful beyond mortal endurance.

After Miss Marston left Oakdale, Dan went home once or twice, but it was like a strange place to him. His father, to be sure, treated him much the same, and never alluded to Susie by any accident. Mrs. Forest pitied him more than ever, and Clara was at least polite to him on all occasions. He could see and feel, however, that his conduct was detestable in her eyes, and as for Leila and Linnie, he considered them of slight importance. One day he discovered that Clara knew of his offering himself to Miss Marston, and of the galling manner with which he had been refused, and this made him furious. Miss Marston, then, had despised him too much to keep his humiliation a secret, as any honorable woman would do under ordinary circumstances.

Miss Marston would indeed have been the last person to reveal such a thing, but the day before her departure, in a long talk with Clara, she expressed the desire that Clara would make it certain to Susie that Dan was nothing to her. “You know,” she said, “how a person in her abandoned condition would naturally feel toward one she supposed the cause of her being abandoned. Do convince her that there has never been the slightest encouragement on my part—no intimacy whatever between me and your brother, no thought of correspondence, or anything of the kind;” and then she told Clara of the last meeting with Dan, and expressed unqualified disapproval of him altogether; at the same time sending kind messages to Susie, and a present of a microscope for her botanical studies.

“There is one thing I have wished to ask you, Miss Marston,” said Clara, “but I have never dared to. Will you tell me just your true impressions of Albert?” Miss Marston did not reply satisfactorily, and Clara, putting her arm around her rather timidly, for the teacher that expressed itself in every word and manner, still continued to awe Clara, as it had done in Stonybrook, urged a reply. She had often noticed Miss Marston studying Albert. The two were very polite to each other, but it was easy to see that there was little true sympathy between them. Thus urged, Miss Marston answered: “I have studied him carefully, because he has your happiness in his hands. I confess I fear greatly that you are not just the kind of wife he should select.” Clara was grieved, not understanding Miss Marston, and she said quickly, “I have often wondered that he should think so highly of me.”

“No, no. It is not a question of your worthiness. You are worthy, I think, of any one—certainly of Dr. Delano; but there is a self-sufficiency, well concealed by his culture, that will some time be very apt to run counter to your ideas of justice and devotion. I only say I fear, understand. I may be wrong; but I would urge you to avoid the first misunderstanding. It would be hard, I think, for him to examine himself with merciless justice. You have that power, which I see you inherit from your father, who is a wonderfully superior man.”

“Liberally translated,” said Clara, smiling, “you think Albert a tyrant. You do not understand him fully, I think, but I am glad of your frank opinion. I shall be careful to be good and just to him, and I think I shall never have cause to admire him less than I do now;” and Clara went on revealing, little by little, to Miss Marston a sentiment so near adoration that it almost appalled her, and convinced her still further that such an exalted passion could never find full response, nor be even comprehended by Albert Delano; but she said no more. The next day she left Oakdale. Her trunk had been sent to the station, which was but a short distance, and she and Clara were to walk. They passed Mrs. Buzzell’s cottage, and Miss Marston gratified Clara greatly by calling on Susie, and being really kind and friendly to her, a proceeding that quite astonished Mrs. Forest when she heard of it.

As the weeks passed Mrs. Buzzell bravely stemmed the current of popular disapprobation at her act of “countenancing vice;” for the consciousness of doing right was enhanced by the good qualities she was constantly discovering in Susie. Mrs. Buzzell’s temper, never very sweet, had not improved by years of loneliness, and when criticised by her female friends, she gave them back “as good as they sent,” to use her own words; and so it came to pass that the piously-disposed ladies of the congregation to which Mrs. Buzzell belonged, and which had barely escaped receiving Susie as a member, had not the opportunity to patronize Susie, and to extend charity to her in that condescending way too well known to many an unfortunate. The continuance of such patronage depends upon the utter humility of the recipient. She must confess herself a vile sinner, be willing to take thankfully the position of the lowest scrub, and express in every act that her patronizers are above her as the stars above the earth. Let the victim dare to show any ambition to regain her self-respect, any dissatisfaction because the daughters of her patronizers treat her with contempt, while they smile graciously upon the author of her degradation, and the patronage ceases at once.

“This is the way society protects itself,” said Mrs. Buzzell to Mrs. Kendrick, the banker’s wife, one of the would-be patronizers; “but is there not something wrong in the system that blasts and destroys the woman, while it winks at the sin of the man? I have come to see that in most cases, as in this, for example, her fault is much less than his. Man is taught self-dependence from the cradle; woman to depend upon man; and when she does so to the utmost limit, trusting every hope of happiness in his honor, this is a common result. We have called the doctor a radical, and graciously excused his eccentricities because he is so good a physician and so kind a man; but face to face with such facts, I see he is nearer right than we are.”

“Your judgment is misled by your sympathies, Mrs. Buzzell,” said the banker’s lady. “Do you not see that if unmarried mothers and their children are to be respected, there is no safety for legal wives and legitimate children? If society comes to recognize the position of mistress as respectable, to be a wife will be a very questionable honor.”

“Well, I sometimes think it is,” said Mrs. Buzzell, turning over in her mind this new and practical view of the case, and forgetting, in a kind of dreamy retrospection, that a moment before she had intended to smite Mrs. Kendrick “hip and thigh.”