Stepping Heavenward [47]
All the time we were talking I heard the greatest racket overhead, but he did not seem to notice it. I found, this morning, that Martha, or her father, or both together, had changed the positions of article of furniture in the room making it look a fright.
Chapter 11
XI.
MARCH 10.
THINGS are even worse than I expected. Ernest evidently looked at me with his father's eyes (and this father has got the jaundice, or something), and certainly is cooler towards me than he was before he went home. Martha still declines eating more than enough to keep body and soul together, and sits at the table with the air of a martyr. Her father lives on crackers and stewed prunes, and when he has eaten them, fixes his melancholy eyes on me, watching every mouthful with an air of plaintive regret that I will consume so much unwholesome food.
Then Ernest positively spends less time with me than ever, and sits in his office reading and writing nearly every evening.
Yesterday I came home from an exhilarating walk, and a charming call at Aunty's, and at the dinner-table gave a lively account of some of the children's exploits. Nobody laughed, and nobody made any response, and after dinner Ernest took me aside, and said, kindly enough, but still said it,
"My little wife must be careful how she runs on in my father's presence. He has a great deal of every thing that might be thought levity."
Then all the vials of my wrath exploded and went off.
"Yes, I see how it is," I cried, passionately. "You and your father and your sister have got a box about a foot square that you want to squeeze me into. I have seen it ever since they came. And I can tell you it will take more than three of you to do it. There was no harm in what I said-none, whatever. If you only married me for the sake of screwing me down and freezing me up, why didn't you tell me so before it was too late?"
Ernest stood looking at me like one staring at a problem he had got to solve, and didn't know where to begin.
"I am very sorry," he said. "I thought you would be glad to have me give you this little hint. Of course I want you to appear your very best before my father and sister."
"My very best is my real self," I cried. "To talk like a woman of forty is unnatural to a girl of my age. If your father doesn't like me I wish he would go away, and not come here putting notions into your head, and making you as cold and hard as a stone. Mother liked to have me 'run on,' as you call it, and I wish I had stayed with her all my life."
"Do you mean," he asked, very gravely," that you really wish that?"
"No," I said, "I don't mean it," for his husky, troubled voice brought me to my senses. "All I mean is, that I love you so dearly, and you keep my heart feeling so hungry and restless; and then you went and brought your father and sister here and never asked me if I should like it; and you crowded mother out, and she lives all alone, and it isn't right! I always said that whoever married me had got to marry mother, and I never dreamed that you would disappoint me so!"
"Will you stop crying, and listen to me?" he said.
But I could not stop. The floods of the great deep were broken up at last, and I had to cry. If I could have told my troubles to some one I could thus have found vent for them, but there was no one to whom I had a right to speak of my husband.
Ernest walked up and down in silence. Oh, if I could have cried on his breast, and felt that he loved and pitied me!
At last, as I grew quieter, he came and sat by me.
"This has come upon me like a thunderclap," he said. "I did not know I kept your heart hungry. I did not know you wished your mother to live with us. And I took it for granted that my wife, with her high-toned, heroic character, would sustain me in every duty, and welcome my father and sister to our home. I do not know what I can do now. Shall I send them away?"
No, no!" I cried. "Only be good to me, Ernest, only love me, only look at me with your own eyes, and not with other people's. You knew I had faults when you
Chapter 11
XI.
MARCH 10.
THINGS are even worse than I expected. Ernest evidently looked at me with his father's eyes (and this father has got the jaundice, or something), and certainly is cooler towards me than he was before he went home. Martha still declines eating more than enough to keep body and soul together, and sits at the table with the air of a martyr. Her father lives on crackers and stewed prunes, and when he has eaten them, fixes his melancholy eyes on me, watching every mouthful with an air of plaintive regret that I will consume so much unwholesome food.
Then Ernest positively spends less time with me than ever, and sits in his office reading and writing nearly every evening.
Yesterday I came home from an exhilarating walk, and a charming call at Aunty's, and at the dinner-table gave a lively account of some of the children's exploits. Nobody laughed, and nobody made any response, and after dinner Ernest took me aside, and said, kindly enough, but still said it,
"My little wife must be careful how she runs on in my father's presence. He has a great deal of every thing that might be thought levity."
Then all the vials of my wrath exploded and went off.
"Yes, I see how it is," I cried, passionately. "You and your father and your sister have got a box about a foot square that you want to squeeze me into. I have seen it ever since they came. And I can tell you it will take more than three of you to do it. There was no harm in what I said-none, whatever. If you only married me for the sake of screwing me down and freezing me up, why didn't you tell me so before it was too late?"
Ernest stood looking at me like one staring at a problem he had got to solve, and didn't know where to begin.
"I am very sorry," he said. "I thought you would be glad to have me give you this little hint. Of course I want you to appear your very best before my father and sister."
"My very best is my real self," I cried. "To talk like a woman of forty is unnatural to a girl of my age. If your father doesn't like me I wish he would go away, and not come here putting notions into your head, and making you as cold and hard as a stone. Mother liked to have me 'run on,' as you call it, and I wish I had stayed with her all my life."
"Do you mean," he asked, very gravely," that you really wish that?"
"No," I said, "I don't mean it," for his husky, troubled voice brought me to my senses. "All I mean is, that I love you so dearly, and you keep my heart feeling so hungry and restless; and then you went and brought your father and sister here and never asked me if I should like it; and you crowded mother out, and she lives all alone, and it isn't right! I always said that whoever married me had got to marry mother, and I never dreamed that you would disappoint me so!"
"Will you stop crying, and listen to me?" he said.
But I could not stop. The floods of the great deep were broken up at last, and I had to cry. If I could have told my troubles to some one I could thus have found vent for them, but there was no one to whom I had a right to speak of my husband.
Ernest walked up and down in silence. Oh, if I could have cried on his breast, and felt that he loved and pitied me!
At last, as I grew quieter, he came and sat by me.
"This has come upon me like a thunderclap," he said. "I did not know I kept your heart hungry. I did not know you wished your mother to live with us. And I took it for granted that my wife, with her high-toned, heroic character, would sustain me in every duty, and welcome my father and sister to our home. I do not know what I can do now. Shall I send them away?"
No, no!" I cried. "Only be good to me, Ernest, only love me, only look at me with your own eyes, and not with other people's. You knew I had faults when you