Mrs. Hallam's companion; and The Spring Farm, and other tales

by Mary Jane Holmes

The Mrs. Thurston alluded to was Bertha’s cousin Louie, from the South, who, four years before had spent part of a summer at the Homestead. She had then gone to Newport, where she captured Fred Thurston, a Boston millionaire, who made love to her hotly for one month, married her the next, swore at her the next, and in a quiet but decided manner had tyrannized over and bullied her ever since. But he gave her all the money she wanted, and, as that was the principal thing for which she married him, she bore her lot bravely, became in time a butterfly of fashion, and laughed and danced and dressed, and went to lunches and teas and receptions and dinners and balls, taking stimulants to keep her up before she went, and bromide, or chloral, or sulfonal, to make her sleep when she came home. But all this told upon her at last, and after four years of it she began to droop, with a consciousness that something was sapping her strength and stealing all her vitality. “Nervous prostration,” the physician called it, recommending a change of air and scene, and, as a trip to Europe had long been contemplated by Mr. Thurston, he had finally decided upon a summer in Switzerland, and was to sail some time in July. Mrs. Thurston was very fond of her relatives at the Homestead, and especially of Bertha, who when she was first married was a pupil in Charlestown Seminary and spent nearly every Sunday with her. After a while, however, and for no reason whatever except that on one or two occasions he had shown his frightful temper before her, Mr. Thurston conceived a dislike for Bertha and forbade Louie’s inviting her so often to his house, saying he did not marry her poor relations. This put an end to any close intimacy between the cousins, and although Bertha called occasionally she seldom met Louie’s husband, who, after she entered the employment of Swartz & Co., rarely recognized her in the street. Bread-winners were far beneath his notice, and Bertha was a sore point between him and his wife, who loved her cousin with the devotion of a sister and often wrote, begging her to come, if only for an hour.

But Bertha was too proud to trespass where the master did not want her, and it was many weeks since they had met. She must go now and say good-bye. And after Mr. Sinclair left her she walked along Commonwealth Avenue to her cousin’s elegant house, which stood side by side with one equally handsome, of which she had just refused to be mistress. But she scarcely glanced at it, or, if she did, it was with no feeling of regret as she ran up the steps and rang the bell.

Mrs. Thurston was at home and alone, the servant said, and Bertha, who went up unannounced, found her in her pleasant morning room, lying on a couch in the midst of a pile of cushions, with a very tired look upon her lovely face.

“Oh, Bertha,” she exclaimed, springing up with outstretched hands, as her cousin came in, “I am so glad to see you! Where have you kept yourself so long? And when are you coming to be my neighbor? I saw Mr. Sinclair last week, and he still had hopes.”

Bertha replied by telling what the reader already, knows, and adding that she had come to say good-bye, as she was to sail in two weeks.

“Oh, how could you refuse him, and he so kind and good, and so fond of you?” Louie said.

Bertha, between whom and her cousin there were no domestic secrets, replied:

“Because I do not love him, and never can, good and kind as I know him to be. With your experience, would you advise me to marry for money?”

Instantly a shadow came over Louie’s face, and she hesitated a little before she answered:

“Yes, and no; all depends upon the man, and whether you loved some one else. If you knew he would swear at you, and call you names, and storm before the servants, and throw things,—not at you, perhaps, but at the side of the house,—I should say no, decidedly; but if he were kind, and good, and generous, like Charlie Sinclair, I should say yes. I did so want you for my neighbor. Can’t you reconsider? Who is Mrs. Hallam, I wonder? I know some Hallams, or a Hallam,—Reginald. He lives in New York, and it seems to me his aunt’s name is Mrs. Carter Hallam. Let me tell you about him. I feel like talking of the old life in Florida, which seems so long ago.”