Out in the World CHAPTER 13.
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Mrs. Jansen had recovered from her fainting fit while Mr. Lawrence was in New York. In the excitement occasioned by the swoon, Mrs. Lawrence had urged her husband to go over to the city, and inform Mr. Jansen of his wife's presence in their house. "She is not in her right mind," was the appeal and argument. "I am sure that she has escaped from a sick room. Mr. Jansen must be in terrible suspense and alarm."
This did not seem altogether improbable, and so Mr. Lawrence went over to the city. His reception, we have seen. During his absence, Mrs. Jansen had recovered. The truth then came out, told with a mingling of sobs and tears — flashes of womanly anger and resolute words. Mrs. Lawrence listened in painful silence and with brimming eyes, not venturing in her friend's state of excitement, to offer counsel.
"I am a leaf, drifting away on a strange current, Jessie," said Madeline, in the calmness that followed, when she had told her story. "A tender thought of you, as one always loved, has borne me into the peaceful eddy of your home. Let me stay for just a little while — a very little while. I will then float off again into the current, to be carried, Heaven only knows where!"
"We will talk of this tomorrow, dear friend," was answered. "The Providence which led you hither — will guide you in the future. Tonight let thought rest, and all your hastily formed purposes recede, and be as if they had not been. Sleep gives a healthier tone to mind as well as body. You will be calmer and have clearer sight in the morning. I will leave you now." And Mrs. Lawrence kissed Madeline tenderly. Sleep came quickly. There was an opiate in the kiss which love had laid on lips and eyelids.
Madeline did not join the family at breakfast-time next morning. Mrs. Lawrence had gone into her room early, and found her waking and weeping.
"Do not rise yet," she had said. "We breakfast early, so that Mr. Lawrence may get off to business. I will come to you after he has gone."
"He is not pleased at my being here." Something in the voice of Mrs. Lawrence, as she mentioned her husband's name, betrayed to the quick ears of Madeline the truth. "I might have known this," she added, with a shadow of bitterness — "all men are against us. But I will not trouble him long!"
"Don't talk so, Maddy, dear; it does no good, and hurts your state of mind," returned Mrs. Lawrence, with increased affectionateness of manner. "Men do not always see as we see. How could they? They misunderstand us, and we, it is quite possible, as often misunderstand them. Let us be charitable — forbearing — not ready to think evil. We get down to the heart of a thing by a quicker way than it is given men to go, and should be patient with their slowness. If they are wrong-headed sometimes, we may often be perverse in feeling, and I have an impression that there is more hope of the wrong head than of the wrong heart. There! there!" And Mrs. Lawrence laid her finger on her friend's lips — "I did not mean to provoke a discussion — I was speaking only in apology for the other gender. Lie still for a little while longer. I will come to you in half an hour; then you shall rise and have breakfast; the day will be ours."
As Mr. Lawrence stood in the hall, with hat and gloves on ready to leave, he said to his wife —
"Now, understand me, Jessie, that woman is not to harbor here. I do not wish to find her in the house when I come home!"
"Don't give yourself unnecessary trouble," was answered by Mrs. Lawrence, her quietness of tone contrasting with her husband's ruffled manner — "Madeline will not intrude herself. I think you will not find her here when you come home; but, if she leaves today, it will be against my wishes. I would rather have her remain for a week. Don't frown, and look so angry and impatient! It is for us to do good, when God gives the opportunity. This opportunity He has now given. A woman, still pure and true to all high ends, as far as she can see them in the blindness of hurt feelings and under bad counsel — is cutting herself away from safe moorings. If she drifts off into the world without chart or compass, there is danger of wreck and loss of everything. Ours may be the high privilege of saving her."
"Thank you! Don't say ours!" gruffly — yet weakly responded Mr. Lawrence. "If I have any 'mission' in the world, which I doubt, it doesn't lie in that direction; and I tell you once for all, Jessie, that I don't mean to have you mixed up with any of these things. Let her drift off, if she wants to; what is it your business or mine? If you stop to draw back into harbor, every vagrant-souled woman that breaks from her moorings — you'll have enough work on hand for a legion of angels!"
"If I can do, in a single instance, the work in which angels delight, will you step in between me and that work?" Mrs. Lawrence's calm eyes rested upon her husband. Her voice, clear and firm — yet impressive, subdued the captious spirit that dwelt within him. She stood brave and strong before him, not in personal defiance — but in the strength of a right will, that illustrated her husband's thought in spite of his prejudice and passion.
"You'll have it your own way, I suppose," he answered, fretfully. Women always do, husbands are nothing now-a-days. Good for working and providing — that's about all. But it doesn't signify. I set my face as steel against you all. Harbor the woman, if you will — but understand that in doing so — you set your husband at defiance. You needn't expect me to play the smiling host. Keep her out of my way, if you don't want her insulted."
So, warning, as confused thought came into speech again, Mr. Lawrence talked after his irrational way when excited by opposing influences.
"My husband is too much of a gentleman," quietly answered Mrs. Lawrence, "to offer in his own house an insult to a suffering and helpless woman."
Mr. Lawrence, an impatient sentence on his lips that his wife could not make out, turned off abruptly, passing through the street door, which he shut with a jar that was felt over the house.
After Madeline had risen and taken some breakfast, the two friends retired to Mrs. Lawrence's chamber.
"You blame me, Jessie, I know," said Mrs. Jansen; "but you do not comprehend my case. As a wife and equal — I would cling to my husband through good and evil report — in sickness, poverty and disgrace — under any and all circumstances of outside wrong and oppression. His love would bind me by cords impossible to be broken. As a slave, in confessed inferiority — I cannot remain in his house. Better for us to live apart, than in strife. This issue I have made in going away. I left for him, written in plain, earnest tender words, a letter, clearly stating the case as it stands between us. If he answers that letter, and says return, I will go back, hoping and rejoicing. If he keeps silence — I shall nevercross his threshold again."
"Purposes that involve so much, ought never to be made under strong excitement," said Mrs. Lawrence. "A wife should bear and forbear a great deal, before taking the step which you have taken."
"I have borne until longer forbearance would be a crime against my gender," replied Mrs. Jansen, her eyes kindling.
"Concerning the crime against your gender, Madeline, I hardly think that to be an issue in this case with your husband. The trouble is between you and him, and should not be complicated with remote considerations. You cannot determine your course wisely, on general principles or results. Everything must be narrowed down to the relation existing between you and your husband."
"I am not so sure of that," said Mrs. Jansen. "No individual stands alone in the world; no act is without its good or bad influence on society. The rights and happiness of our gender should be dear to every woman. Too long have we disregarded them, leaving the weak without counsel or advocate. Now, the time has come when every true woman, if she does her duty, will see to it, that so far as her acts speak to the world, they speak against man's tyrannies. Mine shall — even though I be burned at the stake!"
"Madeline," answered Mrs. Lawrence, "nothing shows for good on society, like right individual action. Not heroic action before the world — but self-denying and loving deeds in the sphere of private life. This separation from your husband, if it should, unfortunately, continue, will do an amount of harm to our gender, impossible to estimate."
"Harm! I do not understand you."
"The deepest wrong a woman can receive — must always come from her own hand. Others cannot harm us vitally, if we are true to ourselves. They may assault and annoy us — may wrong us externally — keep back the rights and privileges to which we are entitled by nature — but cannot touch the inner life, if that is the dwelling-place of virtue, truth and purity. Your example in this act of separation, may lead others of our gender, not well based in principle, to follow in the same path, and so abandon their duty and harm their souls. The case must always be a hard one, which justifies the step you are taking. Harder, a great deal harder, Madeline, than I am satisfied yours has been. Carl may have narrow views of his marital rights, and he may be self-willed and persistent in his assertion of these rights; all of which must chafe a woman of your temperament. But, he is a virtuous and an honorable man; and that is a great deal. I know pure, sweet, loving women whose husbands are brutalized sensualists, or men without honor. Their lot is a terrible one compared with yours; but, they do not abandon their places nor relinquish their duties, because the men they married of free choice, have proved unworthy. The compact is until death do part them. Their feet walk in difficult places — they have sore tribulations — but they are growing, daily, unto the beauty of angels, fitter for Heaven. Every time I meet them, I perceive a fragrance of new blossoming flowers, the promise of immortal fruitage. They have not been hurt, interiorly, by their unhappy marriages, because they would not hurt themselves. Beware, then, my dear friend! If harm comes — the blow will be from your own hand."
"I am not able to see in the light of your views," answered Mrs. Jansen. "They involve the old notions men are so fond of preaching about. They may be, and do, what they please; but women must be saints and angels! Now, I am human, and do not pretend to be anything else. I have human needs, human rights, human passions; and recognize the human right of self-protection. If I am assailed, I will defend myself — if wronged, I will seek to right the wrong. The assailer and the wrong-doer shall not have immunity and encouragement through my tame submission. No, no, Jessie! I am not one of your meek women-angels."
Mrs. Lawrence sighed, dropped her eyes to the floor, and remained silent. To argue with Madeline, in her present temper, would, she saw, only lead her into stronger states ofself-justification. A few moments passed, when Mrs. Jansen continued —
"There have been martyrs for the right in all ages; and martyrdoms must continue so long as there is evil, and consequent wrong, in the world. People set tyrants at defiance, battle for freedom, and achieve independence. They would be slaves, and unworthy of freedom, if this were not so. And shall woman be the only coward in the world! The only slave!No. By all that is just, by all that is heroic, by all that is right, no!"
Still Mrs. Lawrence kept silent.
"You do not see as I do," said Madeline, her voice dropping down from its enthusiasm.
"No, you see from one stand-point, and I from another," was replied. "As to whether your view or mine is best, depends on the relation of the standpoint to the object. We should never forget, that unless we change our position several times, we cannot look upon all sides of a question. Where momentous results hang upon our right decision of such a question, we should determine with great caution, and only after many changes of our standpoint. I beg you, dear friend, to have deliberation. Take counsel of doubt, rather than of partially enlightened reason."
"What would you have me do, Jessie? Go back and ask my husband's pardon?"
"No. A word on this unhappy incident in your lives need not pass between you. You can return and be silent. The dangerous impediment, which now stands like a mountain crag between you, is pride. He will not concede anything — nor will you. Without doubt, he has repented sorely of his part in the strife; but pride, resting on his narrow views of marriage, will not let him acknowledge his error. If you quietly return, your presence in the old places will, I am sure, make his heart leap with joy. He may hide this pleasure; and doubtless will. But, in the future, he will be very careful how he pushes you to another extremity. All may yet be saved, dear Madeline! Oh, let me be your counselor in this thing. Good will come of it, I know. A step or two farther in the way you are advancing — and all may be lost! A few steps retraced — and a whole life of peace may be secured. Go back — go back dear Madeline! Anything less than this will be fatal to your happiness!"
"It has ceased to be a question of happiness," replied Madeline, her voice falling into a mournful undertone. "That is past. The question now is, Freedom — or Slavery? I must decide for myself which will be most endurable. And I have made the decision. If my husband writes to me, and says, simply, 'Come back,' I will accept it gladly, as an evidence, that I am to live with him as an equal. If he does not so ask my return — will not concede anything — then the dice is cast. We stand forever apart."
"I had hoped, dear friend," said Mrs. Lawrence, with a sadness of tone she made no effort to conceal, "that better thoughts would have ruled in your mind. That you would have seen the duty of yielding something — of going back a few steps in the wrong way so hastily taken."
"Not hastily, Jessie," answered Madeline. "Not in anger. For months I have looked to the issue that has come. I saw it approaching, and weighed and measured the consequencesinvolved, until I understood their magnitude. They are coming upon me, and I accept them as lesser evils. I bow my head and stoop my shoulders to the new burdens I am destined to bear. They will be lighter for my spirit than have been those I cast aside. As our day may demand — so shall our strength be. I have faith in my power of endurance. I shall be equal to the destiny that awaits me. In suffering, the heart grows strong. Heroism is born of trial and pain."
"It is not heroism that you want," said Mrs. Lawrence, in reply — "I speak plainly as your true friend — but self-denial. Pride has risen in your heart, and made you blind to duty. You are thinking more of freedom, as you call it — than of a useful life. Of what is due to yourself — more than of what is due to others. You say that you love your husband; now, love forgets itself in desire to bless its object. It does not tend to separation — but union. It will forgive much; it will endure much; it will suffer much. None are perfect here in this world. There is much is error and evil in every life. It is mine, it is yours, it is your husband's. We must expect inharmonious action in the contact of two lives — especially when the contact is so close as that between married partners. It is the offspring of our inherited defects. The worst remedy for this is antagonism, no matter from which side it may come. It is, in fact, no remedy at all; but a means of increasing the evil. If your husband has false views of marriage — love will enlighten him sooner than anger. If he vainly imagines that he is superior, let him discover how far above all self-assertion and pride of position — are self-control, and the patient endurance of a temporary invasion of rights, for the sake of an ultimate and higher good."
But Madeline shook her head in strong rejection of all this. It was in complete opposition to her state of feeling; and with her, feeling for the most part, held reason in control.
"Men," she answered, "are in the love of ruling over the weak. They domineer and demand whenever in liberty to do so. To yield to them — is to strengthen them. Submit to one set of their manacles — and they immediately go to work to forge new ones, until the poor slave is bound in every limb and entirely helpless. If there is not resolute opposition — everything is lost."
It was all in vain. Mrs. Lawrence could not influence her mistaken friend; who, in every argument strengthened herself in the position she had assumed. At last, with a troubled feeling, she gave up all attempts to influence her. Naturally came next the question as to Mrs. Jansen's future life.
"If your husband does not say 'Come back,' what then, Madeline?" was asked.
Mrs. Lawrence saw, by the falling of light out of Madeline's countenance, that this question touched her closely. A sigh, half checked, betrayed the concern it awakened. She did not answer.
"If your husband does not, of his own free will, make a financial settlement on you — I scarcely think the courts will compel him to do so. Sufficient legal cause for a separation could hardly be shown."
There was a flashing of Madeline's beautiful brown eyes.
"And you think so basely of me!" she said, half angrily, "Jessie! If I cannot be his wife and equal — I will not touch his money. No — no. I am not of the sordid quality you seem to imagine. I trust, that a high principle governs me in all that I am doing."
"You must live."
"He who feeds the young lions will not see me lack," was bravely answered. "The world is wide. I shall find my place."
"What are your immediate purposes? It is my deep concern for you that prompts this question. Where are you going?"
Again the light faded out of Mrs. Jansen's countenance.
"The heroic is all well enough, Madeline; but nature has physical needs that will not brook delay. You must eat and drink — you must have clothing, and a home. If you cast yourself loose from the strong arm that makes provision and gives protection — you must look to yourself."
"I know all that. I have counted the cost, Jessie."
"Not all the cost, I fear. In the very first step — you found pains and penalties not dreamed of."
"Why do you say that?" asked Madeline, in a tone of surprise. She had not spoken of her experience with Mrs. Windall.
"My husband saw you in the street yesterday. It was late. Your appearance was so singular, that it attracted attention."
"My appearance! What was singular about it?" asked Madeline, with a crimsoning face.
"Just how you looked, he did not say. But the impression made on him was strong. You were driving along, he said, like a crazy person. I was filled with painful anxiety on your account. If the first steps in this new way you have chosen, are so environed with difficulties — you may well tremble at what lies farther in advance. Where are you going? I ask that question again, for that is first to be considered. You left your husband's house yesterday morning, and at nine o'clock in the evening came here seeking shelter for the night. Don't be offended. I am coming down to the naked truth — calling things by their true names. It is best sometimes, and leaves no room for error. You know what befell during the unhappy intervening hours. I fear that you had much pain, much disappointment, much humiliation crowded into them. If it had not been so, you would scarcely have crossed the river, alone, at a late hour, and come to me. Oh, Madeline! By the memory of this first day's painful experience — stop where you are! This is only the beginning of sorrows!"
Madeline's lips quivered. Her eyes filled with tears. Her friend's reference to that one day's trials restored the memory of some things that gave pangs like dagger thrusts. Ah yes! There had been disappointments and humiliations that touched her to the very quick. Life had suddenly put on new aspects, fearful to contemplate.
"Dear friend!" she said weeping, "let me ask of you one favor. It shall not be very burdensome. I am in great extremity. One door is shut behind me, and another has not yet opened. Let me stay with you just one week. After that, I will go my way."
How eagerly would Mrs. Lawrence have given her consent, if she alone were to be considered. Mrs. Jansen saw the shadow that crept into her eyes, and noted the hesitationthat lingered over the sentence that was to constitute her friend's reply.
"O Madeline! Madeline!" So came the answer. "If you could look into my heart — if you could see how it yearns over you — if you could know all my love, all my great anxiety on your account! Dear friend! Let me again entreat you to go home. There is a mist before your eyes — you do not see clearly; you have lost your way, and every step in advance will carry you in the wrong direction. Get back, and quickly into the old, safe regions, where you know the landmarks; where your strong tower stands — where your walled gardens are safe from intruders; where enemies cannot find you!"
Mrs. Lawrence was affectionate in her manner — she spoke with loving ardor. But, she had not answered the plain request of Madeline — "Let me stay just one week."
The tears dried up in the eyes of Madeline. Her face grew pale. With a thick huskiness of voice, she said —
"I thank you for your interest, Jessie, and for your well-meant advice. But, it is useless to argue with, or persuade me. It is not with the past that I am struggling. The leaf that I have turned my hand, shall not put back again. It is with the present and the future that I have now to deal."
She said no more. How was Mrs. Lawrence to reply? If she alone were interested, door as well as heart would open to her friend. But, to grant the request of Madeline would give cause of anger to her husband. And she knew him well enough to be certain, that his treatment of Mrs. Jansen, under the circumstances, would involve so much that was offensive, that she would not endure it for a single day.
"If I alone were concerned," she said, "the case would be different." Then paused.
"Say no more," quickly answered Madeline, the fire coming back to eyes that were dull an instant before. "It is the old inadequacy — the will behind your will. Ah well! Don't look sad about it, Jessie. I understand it all."
Something in the manner of Mrs. Jansen, touched a sensitive place in the feelings of Mrs. Lawrence.
"Pardon me," she answered, assuming an air of dignity; "but you are treading on forbidden ground. Whatever is personal to myself, must be held sacred by my friends."
This rebuke partially offended Mrs. Jansen. She made a cold apology, and in words not well chosen. It was not her habit to think twice on a sentence before giving it to speech.
It was in vain that Mrs. Lawrence, soon losing all unpleasant feeling towards Madeline, sought to come near her. By tacit consent, the thoughts just in their minds, were left unspoken — so there was no point of free fellowship — and so, they stood apart. Mrs. Lawrence, knowing her husband's state of feeling, did not think it right to ask Madeline to stay for the period mentioned.
"You are not going," she said to her, as she came down, about midday, with her bonnet on.
"Yes. If Carl replies to my letter, I must get his answer."
"You will return, if the answer fails, or is unsatisfactory, and spend at least one more night with me."
"No, Jessie; it would not be agreeable to your husband, and might disturb pleasant relations."
This was unkindly said — nay, worse, in a tone meant to wound. It was a thrust.
But, Mrs. Lawrence did not feel the slightest pain. Her heart was too full of pity for her friend — too heavily burdened with anxiety on her account. She kissed her at the door, saying —
"If it does not go well with you today, Madeline, come back in the evening. You know my heart. May God teach you the right lesson of duty, and lead your feet in the right paths. Oh, Madeline! Ask Him to enlighten your eyes, and show you the way. Look to Him — and not to yourself."
Their hands were clasped for a moment, in a tight pressure — tightest on the part of Mrs. Lawrence — and then, not looking back, Madeline went out blindly and desperately, to go she knew not where.
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