BEING A WIDOW
Many times during the ensuing months Milly had occasion to recall the remark of a clever woman she had once heard. "There's no place in modern society for the widow." She came to believe that the Suttee custom was a frank and on the whole a merciful recognition of the situation. Every one was kind to her,—unexpectedly, almost embarrassingly kind, as is the way with humanity. But Milly knew well enough that no one can live for any considerable period on sympathy and the kindness of friends. The provoking cause for any emotion must be renewed constantly.
It would have been much easier, of course, if her husband had left her and his child "comfortably off," or even with a tiny income. Instead, there were the bills, which seemed to shower down like autumn leaves from every quarter. The kindly brother-in-law, who undertook to straighten out affairs, became impatient, then severe towards the end. What had they done with their money? For Bragdon until the last weeks had been earning a very fair income. Nothing seemed paid. On the apartment only the first thousand dollars had been paid, and all the rest was mortgage and loan from him. Even the housekeeping bills for the year before had not been fully settled. (It seemed that one had merely to live with a false appearance of prosperity to secure easy credit, in a social system that compels only the very poor to pay on the nail.)
Milly could not explain the condition of their affairs. She had no idea they were "so far behind." She was sure that she had given Jack most of the bills and supposed that he had taken care of them. She protested that she had always been economical, and she thought she had been, because there were so many more things she wanted,—things that all their friends seemed to have. When confronted by the figures showing that they had spent seven, nine, eleven thousand dollars a year,—and yet had many unpaid bills,—she could not believe them and stammered,—"I know I'm not a good manager—not really. But all that! You must be mistaken." Then the business man showed his irritation. Figures did not lie: he wished every woman could be taught that axiom at her mother's knee....
"We lived so simply," Milly protested. "Just two maids most of the time,—three this winter, but," etc. In the end the brother-in-law gathered up all the unsettled bills and promised to pay them. He would not have his brother's name tarnished. And he arranged for an advantageous lease of the apartment from the first of the next month, so that after paying charges and interest there would be a little income left over for Milly. Here he stopped and made it clear to Milly that although he should do what he could for his brother's child, she must see what she could do for herself, and what her own people offered her. Big Business had been disturbed of late. He was obliged to cut his own expenses. First and last he had done a good deal for Jack. His wife called Milly "extravagant"—Milly had never found her congenial. In the end Milly felt that her brother-in-law was "hard," and she resolved that neither she nor her child should ever trouble him again.
She had already written her father of her bereavement, and received promptly from Horatio a long, rambling letter, full of warm sympathy and consolation of the religious sort. "We must remember, dear daughter, that these earthly losses in our affections are laid upon us for our spiritual good," etc. Milly smiled at the thoroughness with which her volatile father had absorbed the style of the Reverend Herman Bowler of the Second Presbyterian. To Milly's surprise, there was not a word of practical help, beyond a vague invitation,—"I hope we shall see you some day in our simple home in Elm Park. Josephine, I'm sure, will welcome you and my granddaughter."
Milly very much doubted whether the hard-featured Josephine would welcome her husband's widowed daughter. In fact she saw the fear of Josephine in her father's restrained letter. She contemplated a return to Chicago as a last resort, but it was sad to feel that she wasn't wanted....
At this point Milly began to reproach her husband for failing to leave her and his child with resources. "He ought to have made some sort of provision for his family—every man should," she said to herself. There was manifest injustice in this "man-made world," where a good wife could be left penniless with a child to care for.
Milly always thought of herself as "a good wife," by which she meant specifically that she had been a chaste and faithful wife. That was what the phrase in its popular use meant, just as "a good woman" meant merely "a pure woman." If any one had questioned Milly's virtue as a wife, she would have felt outraged. If any one had said that she was a bad wife, or at least an indifferent wife, she would have felt insulted. A girl who gave herself to a man, lived with him for eight of her best years, bore him a child and had been faithful to him in body, must be "a good wife," and as such deserved a better fate of society than to be left penniless. All her friends said it was a very hard situation.