Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

In her own house, and a widow just bereaved, she had not at first seemed just as she did in Lovering with the old familiar objects around her and her head in Annie’s lap. She was a grander, more dignified lady, as befitted her surroundings, and Annie had noticed it and thought it quite appropriate. But at the mention of Jack she was Fanny again, and springing up exclaimed, “Jack came with you! How kind in him. Where is he? Why didn’t he come here at once?”

Annie explained that he only came because she was timid and foolish,—that he was going back that night, and had sent his kind regards to Fanny and said he was sorry for her.

“He is not going back to-night if there is time to reach him. I want to see him. It is perfectly proper for him to come here,—the only male friend I have in the world, and just like a brother,” Fanny said, her hands shaking with excitement as she touched the bell and summoned her maid, Marie.

Adam was ordered to return to the station as fast as possible,—find the gentleman who came with Miss Hathern and bring him to the house.

Meanwhile, Annie had removed her hat and cloak and drawn up to the fire in the grate.

“You are cold,” Fanny said, “and hungry, too. Dinner will be served as soon as Jack gets here, and I shall be so glad to have some one at the table with me. I have scarcely eaten since—George—died.” She hesitated a little and then went on steadily, “It was very sudden at the last and I was sorry when I saw him dead and knew how he wanted to live.” Annie looked at her quickly, and she continued, “I know you think me hard, but there is no need for me to pretend to be heartbroken with you, who know everything. There was no real affection between George and me, although we were getting on better of late, and since my visit to Lovering we have been very friendly and familiar, kissing each other every morning and every night. He was glad to see me when I came home, and only said one mean thing. Jack called,—perhaps you know,—and left his card. George showed it to me and said, ‘I dare say you’d rather have missed your visit home than him.’ I replied, ‘A great deal rather.’ He didn’t swear at me, but he did at his foot and went on to say, ‘You may have a chance soon to get your old lover back, if the doctor is right in his diagnosis. He says there is danger of this confounded rheumatism attacking my heart if I allow myself to get excited as I do at times. I was swearing pretty loud at Clary and my face was purple, I suppose. So the easiest way to get rid of me is to worry and annoy me and rouse me up.’

“I was very angry, but did not say a word. There was something in his face I had not seen there before. A change for the worse and it deepened every day as the disease crept up to the region of his heart. I was as kind to him as I could be, and he wanted me with him all the time. Once after I had read to him an hour and brushed his hair, he put both his poor swollen hands up to my face and said, ‘You are very good to me, Fanny, and I have cared more for you than you thought. I have been hard and mean, but when I get well we will begin again.’

“That touched me more than anything he had ever done, and I said I had been mean, too, and kissed him, and I am so glad to remember it now he is dead. It was awfully sudden at the last. He seemed better and wanted to go down to dinner with me, and asked me to put on one of my pretty dresses from Worth’s and let him see me in it. I did so and walked back and forth in his room, while he commented and admired. Then I went to dinner and was nearly through when Marie came running in and told me he was dying. I reached him in time for just one look from his eyes, and such a look, as if he wanted to tell me something. Then he was gone. I wish it had been different with us and that I could feel as a widow ought to feel. But I can’t. There is a lump in my throat when I think of George, and I have been in and looked at his dead face many times, and staid there once half an hour trying to get up a widow’s feeling. I am sorry that I did not make him happier, but I can’t cry, and don’t want to. I shall enact all the proprieties,—wind myself in crape and wear a widow’s cap, which will be horridly unbecoming, and shall hanker after all my new Paris gowns I was to wear this winter, and which are of no use to me now. Hark! Isn’t that the carriage I heard? I wonder if Jack came.”

She ran to the window to look out. Jack did not come. Adam had reached the station just as the train for Richmond had gone, and, greatly disappointed, Fanny went with Annie to dinner, which was served as Annie had never seen a dinner served before, for Fanny exacted her pound of flesh and never omitted any ceremony, although she dined alone. She had married for money and position and style, and she made the most of them, finding in them some compensation for the emptiness of her domestic life. For the dead man in his costly casket she had no love. He had thwarted her at every point and kept her down, and now that the iron hand was withdrawn she could not help a feeling of relief, although sorry for all that had been unpleasant between them as man and wife. He had been far more in fault than she, but now that he was gone she could recall many a time when she might have done differently and provoked him less. But he was dead, and she was not going to wear her life out with regrets for what could not be helped, she said to Annie, when, after dinner was served, she sat again in her room and talked first of George and then of Jack, and quite as much of the latter as of the former. Twice Annie opened her lips to tell her of her engagement, but each time something Fanny said checked her. “I’ll wait,” she thought, with an uneasy feeling that such news might affect Fanny more than the death of her husband.

The funeral was private, and Fanny, wound in crape, as she said she should be, looked the embodiment of grief, and felt a sharp pang of pain and remorse when her husband was carried from the house he would never enter again. It was hers now with everything pertaining to it, for she was sole heir to all his large fortune. The family lawyer told her this and read her the will when all the paraphernalia of death were removed, the blinds opened, and the wintry sun was shining brightly into the handsome rooms. The will was made while Fanny was in Lovering, and when she heard it and knew that everything was hers unconditionally she covered her face with her hands and cried.