Married and Single CHAPTER 5.
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Milford Lane continued firm in his resolution. Soon after the marriage of his friend, he found it necessary to be less frequent in his visits, and less marked in his attentions to Dora Enfield. It would not be good, he saw, for either her or himself. He loved her society, and was never so really happy as when with her. The necessity for withdrawing himself from it, he felt to be a very painful necessity; but, in his view, this was a lesser evil than marriage, and so he bore it as well as he could. The solitude to which he was frequently self-doomed — for, in giving up the society of Dora, he had no relish for other society — chafed him a good deal, and soured him with life, which was, at best, he would sometimes say, a delusive, troubled dream.
In this way passed a whole year, the most unhappy year the young man had ever spent. On Dora it wrought a serious change. Through Edith she had learned the views of marriage that were entertained by Lane. They differed so from her own, and involved, as she could clearly see, so much of a selfish spirit, that she strove to dismiss from her mind all hope of ever becoming his wife. But this was not a thing to be easily done. It cost her many a long and painful struggle. Clearly seeing the cause of his manner towards her, and understanding fully how much it involved, she did not wish to become his wife while his present views remained. But she had heard of this declaration that he had made, "If ever a man loved a woman — I love Dora Enfield. If I were ever to marry — it would be her," and this awakened a hope that he might think differently. Were such to be the case, the indication of which would be the offer of his hand, she felt that she could not say no.
Instead of this fond hope being realized, Lane gradually withdrew from her the attentions he had at first bestowed. When with her, he was not so free and cheerful as formerly. He frequently visited Trueman and his wife, and saw that they were happy in each other. Sometimes his friend would allude playfully to the fact.
"Oh yes," he would reply, "it is all springtime yet. But the scorching heats of summer are yet to come — and the dreariness and desolation of winter."
"True. But do you not know that there will be in this summer-time, the shadow of a great rock in our weary land? Do you not know that we shall have in the winter season a warm fireside around which to gather? You think only of the scorching heat, the desolating blasts, and the icy coldness — you forget that there are cool places, and coverts from the storm. Do not these more than compensate for all the discomforts the change of seasons brings? Would you give up the blessings of harvest — the year's fruit-time — in order to have only the bright skies, green fields, and buds and blossoms of spring? These will all fail to bless the soul. But in the ripe fruits of autumn are contained the year's best gifts. All else are as nothing compared to these."
"Very pretty and very poetic. But I think a bird in the hand, is worth two in the bush. I know the good I have. I can calculate the sum of life's blessings as a bachelor. But if I once launch my bark in the stream of matrimony — there is no telling where its troubled waters will carry me! There will be scorching heats enough, and storms enough — but I cannot be so sure of the great rock, and the covert. The winter will come as certain as fate. But whether there will be heat enough in the house to warm the cold air that rushes in through many a chink in the walls, is not so certain."
"I have never yet seen in the house of those who have married from true affection, anything approaching a preponderance of evil over good, but always the reverse."
"I have, then, often and often."
"We see with different eyes, friend Lane."
"So I would think, if we see such different things in the same place."
"You see appearances — and I realities."
"No, the fact is just the reverse."
"No doubt you think so."
"I am sure of it. But time will prove which is right. You are married, and can't help yourself. I am still single, thank Heaven! and intend remaining so. A few years will test the question."
"I have no fears in regard to the solution of that question," Edith said, looking into her husband's face with love-beaming eyes, after Lane had departed.
"You need have none," returned the husband. "Every condition of life has its trials — and marriage those peculiar to itself. But, in all orderly conditions, the trials are only for the development of good. They prepare the way for more inner delights to come forth into activity. But in disorderly states, such as celibacy, especially where it is voluntary andselfish — pain is usually the result of the effort of inner things to find an ultimate place of action; but no such place being found in the life, they never come forth to bless, but remain struggling in perpetual imprisonment, and wounding, like fluttering birds, their wings against the iron bars that restrain them."
When Lane returned home, he sighed involuntarily as he sat down in his silent, lonely chamber. He had not failed to see that between Trueman and his wife, existed a communion of thought and feeling, just such as his heart longed to have with one of the gentler gender — with, in fact, one towards whom his thoughts often turned — Dora Enfield. "If life would remain ever in its spring-time — if cares would not thicken as years went by, the married life would be full of blessedness," he said, half aloud. "Yes, yes, you have, doubtless, the advantage of me now. But wait a few years, and then see. The change will come — it must come. Grief, pain, care, sorrow, disappointment, bereavement — yes, these, all these, accompany such as enter this toilsome road. Ill-favored crew! I cannot make you fellow-passengers."
Not long after. Edith gave to her husband, a babe. Before, they had been happy, up, it seemed to them, to their capacity for enjoying happiness. Now a warmer ray of light streamed into their dwelling.
"Come and see me, Lane; I want to show you my boy," said the delighted father, a few weeks after he had received the precious gift of a child.
"He is something wonderful, no doubt," returned Lane, smiling to see the earnestness with which Trueman spoke.
"He is the dearest little fellow I ever saw!"
"No doubt of it."
"You must come and see us."
"See your boy, you mean."
"Yes, see him, if you will have it so. I'm sure you never saw a sweeter babe."
"They're all alike to me, Trueman; and, as to their being so very interesting, I have not yet been able to see in what it lies."
"So most of you unmarried men say. But come and see my boy, and I'll show you something that will interest even you."
"Very well, I'll come. But you mustn't be disappointed if I shouldn't happen to perceive all the attractions that are so plain to your eyes. Every crow loves its own!"
"Oh yes, I understand. But I do not see why, if a canary bird thinks her young ones beautiful, that should make them crows — do you?"
"But the crow thinks her young most beautiful of any. It is not the parents' biased estimation which gives loveliness to offspring. It is all right, no doubt, that parents should love their own children best; but they must not expect everybody else to see all the beauties that are exhibited before their partial eyes."
"No, of course not," returned Trueman, his words half choking him.
"Mr. Lane will be here tonight," Henry said, as he sat at the tea-table with his wife, about ten days after this little interview. "I saw him this after noon, and he says he will make us a call."
"He has never seen the baby yet."
"No."
"I hope the little dear will be good."
"He is always good."
"Yes, when he is well. But today he has not seemed quite well. He has fretted a good deal. He cried for nearly an hour before you came in."
"What can be the matter with him?" This was asked with a look of concern.
"I do not know. But he seems better now, and is sleeping sounder than he has slept all day."
"Dear little thing! I hope it's nothing serious."
"I hope not."
At that moment the babe cried out as if in pain, and Edith instantly arose, and lifting him from his cradle, drew him tenderly to her bosom. The soothing murmur of her voice soon hushed him again into repose. Although Henry had not eaten more than half what was usually taken by him at the evening meal, he felt no farther inclination for food. He had arisen at the same time with Edith, and stood beside her when she lifted the babe from his cradle. He now drew a chair close to where she was sitting, and bent over, and looked fondly down into the face of the child, as it lay nestling upon its mother's bosom.
"You haven't finished your supper yet," Edith said, after a little while, turning her eyes from her babe to her husband's face.
"Me? Oh yes! I hadn't much appetite. You don't think anything serious ails him?"
"No, dear. He may have taken a little cold; but he will be well enough by tomorrow, I hope."
Henry laid his hand upon the child's head, but removed it quickly, with a look of alarm.
"Just feel, Edith, how hot it is! And his hand too — he has a high fever!"
"It doesn't feel very hot to me," Edith said, after placing her hand upon his head. "Feel my hand — is it hot."
"Yes, almost as hot as the baby's."
"I don't think I have any fever. I have felt as well as usual all day. Your skin is cold, and that's the reason why both mine and little Henry's feel so hot."
"Perhaps so," returned Trueman, in a less anxious voice.
In about half an hour, Mr. Lane called in, according to promise, to spend the evening. He was not seated long before the little stranger, who had been disturbed from his quiet repose on his mother's bosom, that he might be exhibited to the visitor, who did not care a fig about seeing him, began to fret and cry.
"Poor little thing! he is not at all well," Henry said. "I am really afraid something serious is the matter with him."
"I hope not," returned the mother, holding the child close to her bosom, and endeavoring to soothe it with a low, murmuring sound. But it cried out continually, and seemed to be in much pain.
"What can be the matter with him, Edith?" Henry said, his anxiety causing him almost to forget the presence of his friend.
"Nothing of consequence, I hope," was the wife's reply, who seemed least anxious of the two.
"Thank Heaven!" was Lane's silent ejaculation, "I have nothing like that to worry my mind."
The babe continued fretful. Very soon after Lane came in, Edith took it out of the sitting-room, and left her husband and their visitor alone. But Henry entertained his friend badly. He could think of little else, and, therefore, talked of little else, besides his child.
"I never could bear in the world," he remarked during the evening, "to lose that child. I believe it would put me, for a time, beside myself."
"I don't think there is anything like danger to be apprehended," Lane replied. "All children are sick more or less. You will have to get used to these things."
"But that child is very ill, I am sure. His skin is hot; fevers are always dangerous, and, in children, apt to go to the head."
Thus an hour was passed, when Lane, who saw that his friend was anxious to be with his child, and who felt desirous of getting away from such uncongenial company, retired.
"There comes trouble," he said to himself, as he walked thoughtfully homeward. "Poor Trueman! I pity him. He loves that child with his whole heart. He can think of little else, and talk of little else. It is sick — suppose it should die? It will almost kill him. No, no, you don't catch me in that hard spot! A wise man foresees the evil and hides himself — but the simple pass on and are punished."
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