“No, yours is not that by any means. I think you should be quite satisfied with your person.”
Albert looked from one woman to the other. He knew Clara was several years younger than Ella, and yet she looked older—an effect heightened by her dress, a plain light gray with plain cuffs, and collar fastened by a bow of rich black ribbon. Albert wondered why she would wear black, when she knew he hated it. Clearly she did not study to please him, as Ella did. He did not reflect, possibly he did not know, that Clara’s little dower from her father had been exhausted, though managed with the greatest care, and that it would scarcely have permitted her to dress like Ella for a single year. Clara had never yet asked Albert for any of the money that he spent freely upon his own dress, on his friends in wines and cigars, at his club, and in many ways; and as he had several times expressed surprise at the extent of the household expenses, she had endeavored, in ways he never suspected, to reduce them. She may be blamed, but she simply could not bring herself to ask him for any money for herself. The old, perfect, childlike confidence was gone. She thought, moreover, that a husband’s duty was to set aside for the mistress of the house, a certain generous allowance for her personal and household expenses; and not dole money out week by week, to meet current expenses. It seemed to her very undignified, to say the least, and not what her father would have done, as he had proved ever since the growth of Oakdale and the increase of his practice enabled him to count on a steady income. She did not, however, attribute Albert’s course to penuriousness or selfishness, but simply to ignorance of the ideas of a wife on this subject. Time would harmonize all this, she thought, if ever the old Eden came back, with that divine mutual confidence that makes it wise to express every thought freely and frankly. So she went on from day to day managing Albert’s house with a rare skill, improved by constant experience and a quick practical intelligence, receiving his friends, gracing his table and his drawing-rooms with her sweet presence, and in return receiving such attentions from him as his nature suggested, when not absorbed by Ella’s charms, or by the claims of other friends. She learned to be a hypocrite, as many a wife has done. If she expressed the grief that was in her heart, even by a tone, a word, Albert’s pleasure was affected by it. To be sure, his course was much like that of a person holding your head under water, and then feeling injured because you are so inconsiderate as to look strangled! At times Clara felt as if she could go mad at Albert’s persistence in declaring that his love had in no way changed. A thousand words and acts and movements, proved his protestations utterly false; and between her struggle to please him by liking Ella, whom any other woman of spirit would have felt justified in hating, to attend to all the household responsibilities, to show a smiling face when her heart was breaking, to do strict justice to Albert and Ella in all her thoughts—between all these trials, no wonder she looked old beside the rosy freshness of triumphant love, that shone unclouded in Ella’s pretty face. No wonder she desired to go home to her father—to one who never misunderstood her, who never required her to conceal any thought or emotion—one whom she could please wholly, by being herself in all things. Sometimes it seemed that she could not wait one moment; that she must fly to him, whatever the result. But when she mentioned this desire on the morning in question, Albert was astounded. His gesture and words made her indignant. She compared him mentally to her father. The expression of a strong desire for anything, created in Dr. Forest an instinctive impulse to help gratify it.
“I wish much to go,” she said simply, as if that alone should be enough.
“But at this time, my dear.”
“I will return in less than a week.”
“Indeed! You would go alone! Do you suppose I can permit my wife to go home for the first visit after our marriage, without her husband? I shall go with you, of course.”
Ella winced. Here was an evidence of the husband’s pride in his position. Why, he was not fully hers, after all; and for the first time she felt jealous of the wife. Very soon after she left the room.
Later, in Clara’s room, Albert came to her, evidently to talk over the matter. She put her arms about him, and tried the little coquettish arts that used to charm him, only to find for the twentieth time, with secret mortification, that they had lost their power. Ella had the monopoly of all pretty arts now. Clara knew it, and despised herself for the foolish persistency of hoping against hope, lowering her dignity by seeking to regain anything that such a kitten as Ella Wills could win; but it would be worse than useless to show her feelings. Unhappiness was a crime in Albert’s eyes, and he had not seen a tear in hers for many a month. In answer to his question, what had given her such a sudden desire to go home, she answered, “It is not sudden. I have been thinking of it a very long time. I don’t think I am over well, and I so wish to see papa. I cannot tell you how strong the desire is.”
“You have not mentioned being ill, Clara;” and with the fatality of many people who wish to avoid a scene, he took the surest means to produce one, for he added, “but you have no faith in me as a physician.”
“That is very unjust, Albert.”