Out in the World CHAPTER 24.
Back to Out in the World
Ten years of such a life, separating itself daily more and more from all true sources of enjoyment — from all the satisfactions and delights after which the soul thirsts — wrought severely upon the bodily and mental health of Carl Jansen. A too intense absorption of his thoughts in business, was added to the undermining forces. At thirty-six, he found himself failing; at forty, he was an invalid — broken in spirit as well as broken in health.
Now it was that his heart began to yearn intensely for that care and tender consideration which was denied. The strong, exacting, self-willed man — felt himself growing weaker daily, and less and less able to compel the service which love failed to give. Hearty, coarse and strong, Mrs. Jansen had a kind of animal contempt for the weakness of her husband. Physical superiority gave her a sense of mental and moral superiority. Daily, he seemed dwarfing at her side; and she soon came to regard him as of little more consequence than a sickly boy, full of whims, wants, and petty exactions, which were to be treated more by the rule of denial, than favor.
At this period of his life, when its bitterness was fresh to his revolting taste, Jansen often dreamed of Madeline. She came to him, in vision, always as his wife — young, beautiful, and lovingly ministrant. Her hand smoothed and softened his pillow, and held refreshing draughts to his thirsty lips. She comforted him in weakness and pain, with tender words and heart-warm kisses. What sad, hopeless, self-accusing awakenings followed these sweet dreams, which so mocked the painful reality!
Steadily disease kept on, sapping the foundations of life. Physicians enjoined entire withdrawal from business, and change of air. During the milder seasons, travel was recommended as of more avail than medicine. So trade was relinquished, and Mr. Jansen devoted himself to the work of acquiring health. In this, partial success would have been gained, if Mrs. Jansen had given to her husband's case, the just consideration it demanded. But, he was not first in her thoughts. A lover of self and a lover of the world — she had gained the position and the wealth for which she had married him; and, as a natural result, the man through whom these most desirable things were reached, fell into the background as of minor consideration.
Mrs. Jansen was pleased with the idea of traveling about and seeing the world. She had always expressed a desire to visit Europe — to see Paris — "Dear, delightful Paris!" as she said. But, in giving way to professional advice, and closing up his business, Jansen had not contemplated the excitement and fatigue of a tour in Europe. A quiet residence of weeks by the seashore, alternating with weeks among the mountains — rest of body and mind — these were, in his thought, the limitations of at least the first season of leisure. The sole end in view with him was health. But Mrs. Jansen scarcely thought of this. Her husband's failing health brought the opportunity she had long desired, and she was eager to embrace it.
There are occasions when the will of the weakest stands as a wall of iron against all opposition, and cannot be borne down. It was so with Mr. Jansen in this case — at least during the first year or two after giving up business. His wife was resolved on a trip across the Atlantic, and he was just as resolute in his purpose not to go. The power was in his hands, and he maintained it, in spite of the bitterest and most persevering assaults. But, the contest robbed him of that mental repose so essential to his bodily condition. The days were all either stormy or cloudy. No tranquility — no sunshine.
If the selfish, willful wife could not have her way — she could at least have her revenge, and there was no intermission of her evil work, for there was no softness nor pity in her heart towards any who crossed her purposes. There are a thousand ways in which an unfeeling wife may torture a husband whose strength of mind and body is waning. Mrs. Jansen never failed in this cruel work. To neglect and indifference, she added the chafings of bad temper, and a systematic opposition to whatever he might desire or suggest.
Their children were growing up undisciplined, self-willed, and spoiled by indulgence; yet, in every attempt at correction, he was baffled by his wife, and his authority set at naught through her persistent interference. She was perpetually degrading him in their eyes; and they were daily learning to regard him with indifference, if not contempt. A part of this result was due to his own peevish and fretful states. If he had been a strong man interiorly, there would have been, in reserve, powers of mind ready to adapt themselves to this new condition of things. An unselfish love for his children would have manifested itself in forms that were attractive instead of repellant. He would have gained a power over them for good, which must have largely counterbalanced their mother's evil influence. But, he had not gained that moral wisdom which is born of self-denial. He had not the sweetnessof ripened fruit. If you tasted him — it was to find him yet bitter and sour.
Mr. Jansen wished to spend the first summer after his emancipation from business, in Minnesota and the northwest. His physician strongly recommended the pure, invigorating air of the Upper Mississippi. But, Mrs. Jansen would hear to no such thing.
"If you go," she said, positively, "you go alone." Going alone did not suit Mr. Jansen — he was weak and depressed in spirits. Two or three slight hemorrhages from the lungs, had not only alarmed him — but made him unwilling to leave home unaccompanied by his wife. Saratoga and Newport, if not the Continent — Mrs. Jansen would hear to nothing else. Mr. Jansen pleaded for a quiet seashore season at a less fashionable watering place than Newport — but his wife was immovable.
To Saratoga, accompanied by their two oldest children, coarse, boisterous girls of fourteen and sixteen, they went and passed a few weeks. Then they migrated to Newport, where Mrs. Jansen displaying herself in rich attire and flashing jewels, excited contempt and criticism, which she imagined to be envy and admiration. Poor Jansen was treated with the most shameless neglect and indifference by his wife. Saratoga water and sea-bathing had not helped in any way. Their hygienic virtues were not strong enough to overcome the depressing effects of fatigue, excitement, and the perpetual exasperation of mind consequent on the behavior of his wife and daughters in public. They were all the while shocking his more delicate sense of proprieties. The red spots that stained his cheeks were as much symptomatic of mental as physical irritation.
One day, Mr. Jansen was sitting alone on the porch of the hotel — he was alone for most of his time, neither wife nor daughters finding in his society the companionship that pleased them — when he was seized with a more than usually violent fit of coughing which continued for a considerable time in spite of all his efforts to control it. A tough mucus plug had collected on the lining membrane along the bronchial tubes, that he found it difficult to dislodge; and as he was feeling unusually weak, this cough seriously exhausted him. He was near a window that opened into one of the parlors, and, before this paroxysm, had been listening to the prattle of a child within; unseen because the blind was down. In the pauses of his cough, he noticed that the sweet young voice which had fallen so pleasantly on his ears, was silent. He had been coughing for several minutes, when a beautiful little girl, not more than two years old, came timidly upon the porch, holding a small box in her hand, which, with that artless — yet shrinking grace so lovely in children, she held out for his reception. The instant he took the box, she turned and flew back with the swiftness of a bird, vanishing through the door by which she had come upon the porch.
Glancing down at the small, round paper box left in his hand, Mr. Jansen saw, by the label, that it contained cough lozenges. Surprise mingled with a feeling of pleasure at this delicately offered relief. He placed one of the lozenges in his mouth, and in a little while the irritating mucus was dissolved, and the cough abated. When Mr. Jansen went into the parlor soon afterwards, the child and her attendant — mother or nurse — were gone. A gentleman with whom he had some acquaintance was there, with three or four other guests. Taking a seat beside this person, Mr. Jansen said —
"Did you notice a beautiful child here a few minutes ago?"
"Yes," was answered.
"Who was with her?"
"No one but her nurse."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
Mr. Jansen felt disappointed, he hardly knew why. It was on his lips to ask if the incident of sending out the box of lozenges had been observed; but on second thought, he remained silent on that head.
"Whose child was it?" he inquired, after a pause.
"I do not know."
No farther questions were asked by Mr. Jansen. An hour afterwards, as he sat in one of the piazzas, gazing out upon the sea, a sudden burst of musical child-laughter near at hand, caused him to look round quickly. Only a few paces from him was the sweet little fairy, whose image had not yet faded from his mind. She was struggling, merrily, with her nurse, a slender girl or woman, from whom she had escaped. The face of the nurse being turned away from Mr. Jansen, he could not see her features. She caught up the child in her arms, and ran back through the door from which it had come, disappearing from sight.
The scene passed in a moment. Soon after, a lady of refined and graceful appearance came out, leading the child, who walked quietly at her side. They moved down the piazza, through its whole length of two hundred feet, and then back again, passing Mr. Jansen — but not seeming to observe him. The lady then withdrew into the house.
On the evening of the same day, near sundown, Mrs. Jansen took a walk accompanied by her husband. She was dressed out in an abundance of finery, which acted as a foil to her coarse face and vulgar figure. As she moved amid the promenaders, she talked loudly, attracting a kind of notice that was mortifying to her husband. Many turned and looked after her, smiling at her vanity, or sneering at her vulgarity. If Mr. Jansen did not see this, he knew, from perception and his knowledge of human nature, that it was so.
"The air feels chilly this evening. Let us go back," said Mr. Jansen, after walking for half an hour. He paused as he spoke. Mrs. Jansen replied, speaking in the elevated tone of voice common to people of small refinement —
"Indeed, and I'm not going back! You're as afraid of pure air as if it were poison. Come along, Mr. Jansen!"
She spoke the last sentence quite imperatively.
The child, from whose hand Mr. Jansen had received the lozenges, ran, at this instant, frolicking against him. He stooped and caught her in his arms to prevent her from falling. Then he stood face to face with her nurse; a pale, slender woman, of not less than thirty-five. She had clear, brown eyes; exquisitely cut features; and a mouth full of tender sadness. Reaching out her arms for the child, she gazed steadily — but only for an instant, into the face of Mr. Jansen; then vanished in the crowd. It was Madeline! The recognition had been mutual.
Back to Out in the World