Hilda's Home: A Story of Woman's Emancipation

by Rosa Graul

She spoke the words in a tragic manner. She had worked herself into a frenzy, and Herbert felt it was dangerous to longer trifle with her—that she was capable of executing her threat. So he submitted to the inevitable. With a sigh he donned his coat and hat and hailing a hack they were quickly driven to the nearest minister’s whose son and daughter witnessed the ceremony.

Through it all Nellie’s cheeks were the color of blood; her eyes gleamed like living coals. When all was over, her overwrought nerves gave way. Breaking into a fit of hysterical weeping, she sank at her unwilling bridegroom’s feet. Frightened and shamed he gathered her in his arms, carried more than led her from the bewildered minister’s presence into the waiting hack.

He was at a loss where to take her. He could not take her to his bachelor apartments. He feared to take her to her mother in the condition she was in, knowing only too well that the ignorant woman would not hesitate to heap abuse upon her daughter’s head when she knew all. So, after a few moment’s consideration, he named some distant hotel to the waiting hack driver, where, upon their arrival, he procured rooms and saw that she was properly cared for.

It was long ere she became quiet. The unhappy girl walked the room, backward and forward, while a storm of sobs shook her form. For a time Ellwood feared insanity would claim her. He was not at heart a bad man, and such an ending to this day’s work would have been most unwelcome to him. He had been living merely to enjoy himself, as a certain class of young men are in the habit of doing, though it be at the expense of some other member of the human family, probably not stopping to think, not realizing, what the cost may be to that other. He had fallen desperately in love with Nellie’s fair face and, had she loved him “more wisely,” as the saying is, it is likely he himself would have proposed marriage. But his fever having cooled somewhat he recognized only too well the fact that they two were not mated; that true happiness could never spring from such an union.

But—well, things had taken a different course. Full well he knew that he had wronged the beautiful but uncultured girl. He was now called upon to make reparation, and marriage had set its seal with its “until death do us part,” upon them.

As remarked before, he was not a villain. Now that the deed was done it took him but a short time to make up his mind to abide the consequences, be they what they might. He knew they were unsuited to each other; that they had very little in common, but he knew that she was beautiful. He would never need to be ashamed of her appearance. He had had the benefit of a splendid education. He had a lucrative position, and by casting overboard many of his old habits and associates he thought they might be able to get along. Then, too, she was used to work. She knew and understood the value of money; surely with her experience in life she would be able to manage—would understand the art of housewifery.

Alas, he did not know, did not understand how this having been used to work all her life caused her to hate work. As he had been lavish with her—spending his money freely when in her society, the idea had taken deep root in her brain that he was wealthy; whereas he had only that which his position—bookkeeper, secured him. She had denied and stinted herself so long that now she meant to enjoy.

It was not an easy matter for the young man to be true to his resolves and do what he considered his duty by her. If, in those first hours when her grief had been at its greatest, he had folded her to his heart with real affection, instead of forcing himself to every caress—to hide the deep disappointment in his inmost heart—may be he might yet have reawakened the love that through deceit had turned to Dead Sea fruit upon her lips. Or, if she with womanly tenderness had coaxed his ebbing love into new life, things might have been different. But, as it was, the hour wherein she had found herself compelled to force him to comply with her demands and make her his wife, in that hour her love for him had died—died for all time.

Had she been a woman cultured and refined she would have scorned him; that lacking, she was simply indifferent. She no longer cared for that which once had constituted her heaven, but, on the contrary, was inclined now to a desire to get even with him, as the saying is. It was not a great soul that Nellie was the possessor of. A poor but pretty—nay, a beautiful girl, born under circumstances such as children of her are usually born under, surrounded and reared in the same manner, what could you expect?

And Herbert Ellwood? Ah! he felt more keenly. The sowing of the wild oats that young men are unhappily supposed to have a right to sow, and even ought to sow, according to the views of some—had only for a time threatened to stifle that which was good and true in his nature; and bitterly in his after-life did he rue the sowing.