|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 23
"O, I can't!" she cried at night. So other mornings came, and other
nights.
I am quite aware that, according to all romantic precedents, this
conduct was preposterous in Asenath, Floracita, in the novel, never so
far forgets the whole duty of a heroine as to struggle, waver, doubt,
delay. It is proud and proper to free the young fellow; proudly and
properly she frees him; "suffers in silence"--till she marries another
man; and (having had a convenient opportunity to refuse the original
lover) overwhelms the reflective reader with a sense of poetic justice
and the eternal fitness of things.
But I am not writing a novel, and, as the biographer of this simple
factory girl, am offered few advantages.
Asenath was no heroine, you see. Such heroic elements as were in
her--none could tell exactly what they were, or whether there were any:
she was one of those people in whom it is easy to be quite
mistaken;--her life had not been one to develop. She might have a
certain pride of her own, under given circumstances; but plants grown in
a cellar will turn to the sun at any cost; how could she go back into
her dark?
As for the other man to marry, he was out of the question. Then, none
love with the tenacity of the unhappy; no life is so lavish of itself as
the denied life: to him that hath not shall be given,--and Asenath loved
this Richard Cross.
It might be altogether the grand and suitable thing to say to him, "I
will not be your wife." It might be that she would thus regain a strong
shade of lost self-respect. It might be that she would make him happy,
and give pleasure to Del. It might be that the two young people would be
her "friends," and love her in a way.
But all this meant that Dick must go out of her life. Practically, she
must make up her mind to build the fires, and pump the water, and mend
the windows alone. In dreary fact, he would not listen when she sung;
would not say, "You are tired, Sene"; would never kiss away an undried
tear. There would be nobody to notice the crimson cape, nobody to make
blue neck-ties for; none for whom to save the Bonnes de Jersey, or to
take sweet, tired steps, or make dear, dreamy plans. To be sure, there
was her father; but fathers do not count for much in a time like this on
which Sene had fallen.
That Del Ivy was--Del Ivory, added intricacies to the question. It was a
very unpoetic but undoubted fact that Asenath could in no way so insure
Dick's unhappiness as to pave the way to his marriage with the woman
whom he loved. There would be a few merry months, then slow worry and
disappointment; pretty Del accepted at last, not as the crown of his
young life, but as its silent burden and misery. Poor Dick! good Dick!
Who deserved more wealth of wifely sacrifice? Asenath, thinking this,
crimsoned with pain and shame. A streak of good common sense in the girl
told her--though she half scorned herself for the conviction--that even
a crippled woman who should bear all things and hope all things for his
sake might blot out the memory of this rounded Del; that, no matter what
the motive with which he married her, he would end by loving his wife
like other people.
She watched him sometimes in the evenings, as he turned his kind eyes
after her over the library book which he was reading.
"I know I could make him happy! I _know_ I could!" she muttered fiercely
to herself.
November blew into December, December congealed into January, while she
kept her silence. Dick, in his honorable heart, seeing that she
suffered, wearied himself with plans to make her eyes shine; brought her
two pails of water instead of one, never forgot the fire, helped her
home from the mill. She saw him meet Del Ivory once upon Essex Street
with a grave and silent bow; he never spoke with her now. He meant to
pay the debt he owed her down to the uttermost farthing; that grew
plain. Did she try to speak her wretched secret, he suffocated her with
kindness, struck her dumb with tender words.
She used to analyze her life in those days, considering what it would be
without him. To be up by half past five o'clock in the chill of all the
winter mornings, to build the fire and cook the breakfast and sweep the
floor, to hurry away, faint and weak, over the raw, slippery streets, to
climb at half past six the endless stairs and stand at the endless loom,
and hear the endless wheels go buzzing round, to sicken in the oily
smells, and deafen at the remorseless noise, and weary of the rough girl
swearing at the other end of the pass; to eat her cold dinner from a
little cold tin pail out on the stairs in the three-quarters-of-an-hour
recess; to come exhausted home at half past six at night, and get the
supper, and brush up about the shoemaker's bench, and be too weak to
eat; to sit with aching shoulders and make the button-holes of her best
dress, or darn her father's stockings, till nine o'clock; to hear no
bounding step or cheery whistle about the house; to creep into bed and
lie there trying not to think, and wishing that so she might creep into
her grave,--this not for one winter, but for all the winters,--how
should _you_ like it, you young girls, with whom time runs like a story?
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|