The Helpmate

by May Sinclair

She had failed in spirituality. She had fixed the spiritual life away from earth, beyond the ramparts. She saw that the spiritual life is here.

And more than this, she saw that in her husband's nature hidden deep down under the perversities that bewildered and estranged her, there was a sense of these things, of the sanctity of their life. She saw what they might have made of it together; what she had actually made of it, and of herself and him. She thought of his patience, his chivalry and forbearance, and of his deep and tender love for her and for their child.

God had given him to her to love; and she had not loved him. God had given her to him for his help and his protection; and she had not helped, she had not protected him.

God had dealt justly with her. She had loved God; but God had rejected a love that was owing to her husband. Looking back, she saw that she had been nearest to God in the days when she had been nearest to her husband. The days of her separation had been the days of her separation from God. And she had not seen it.

All the love that was in her she had given to her child. Her child had been born that she might see that the love which was given to her was holy; and she had not seen it. So God had taken her child from her that she might see.

And seeing that, she saw herself aright. That passion of motherhood was not all the love that was in her. The love that was in her had sprung up, full-grown, in a single night. And it had grown to the stature of the diviner love she saw. And as she felt that great springing up of love, with all its strong endurances and charities, she saw herself redeemed by her husband's sin.

There she paused, trembling. It was a great and terrible mystery, that the sin of his body should be the saving of her soul. And as she thought of the price paid for her, she humbled herself once more in her shame.

She was no longer afraid that he would die. Something told her that he would live, that he would be given back to her. She dared not think how. He might be given back paralysed, helpless, and with a ruined mind. Her punishment might be the continual reproach of his presence, her only consolation the tending of the body she had tortured, humiliated, and destroyed. She prayed God to be merciful and spare her that.

And on the morning of the fifth day Majendie woke from his terrible sleep. He could see light. Towards evening his breathing softened and grew soundless. And on the dawn of the sixth day he called her name, "Nancy."

Then she knew that for a little time he would be given back to her. And, as she nursed him, love in her moved with a new ardour and a new surrender. For more than seven years her pulses had been proof against his passion and his strength. Now, at the touch of his helpless body, they stirred with a strange, adoring tenderness. But as yet she went humbly, in her fear of the punishment that might be measured to her. She told herself it was enough that he was aware of her, of her touch, of her voice, of her face as it bent over him. She hushed the new-born hope in her heart, lest its cry should wake the angel of the divine retribution.