Woman's Trials; Or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us

CHAPTER V

ABOUT this time a lady and gentleman, named Marion, called and engaged boarding for themselves and three children. In Mrs. Marion there was something that won the heart at first sight, and her children were as lovely and attractive as herself; but towards her husband there was a feeling of instant repulsion. Not that he was coarse or rude in his exterior—that was polished; but there were a sensualism and want of principle about him that could be felt.

They had been in the house only a week or two, when their oldest child, a beautiful boy, was taken ill. He had fever, and complained of distress in his back and pain in his head. The mother appeared anxious, but the father treated the matter lightly, and said he would be well again in a few hours.

"I think you'd better call in a doctor," Mrs. Darlington heard the mother say, as her husband stood at the chamber door ready to go away.

"Nonsense, Jane," he replied. "You are easily frightened. There's nothing serious the matter."

"I'm afraid of scarlet fever, Henry," was answered to this.

"Fiddlesticks! You're always afraid of something," was lightly and unkindly returned.

Mrs. Marion said no more, and her husband went away. About half an hour afterwards, as Mrs. Darlington sat in her room, there was a light tap at her door, which was immediately opened, and Mrs. Marion stepped in. Her face was pale, and it was some moments before her quivering lips could articulate.

"Won't you come up and look at my Willy?" she at length said, in a tremulous voice.

"Certainly, ma'am," replied Mrs. Darlington, rising immediately. "What do you think ails your little boy?"

"I don't know, ma'am; but I'm afraid of scarlet fever—that dreadful disease."

Mrs. Darlington went up to the chamber of Mrs. Marion. On the bed lay Willy, his face flushed with fever, and his eyes wearing a glassy lustre.

"Do you feel sick, my dear?" asked Mrs. Darlington, as she laid her hand on his burning forehead.

"Yes, ma'am," replied the child.

"There are you sick?"

"My head aches."

"Is your throat sore?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very sore?"

"It hurts me so that I can hardly swallow."

"What do you think ails him?" asked the mother, in anxious tones.

"It's hard to say, Mrs. Marion; but, if it were my case, I would send for a doctor. Who is your physician?"

"Dr. M–."

"If you would like to have him called in, I will send the waiter to his office."

Mrs. Marion looked troubled and alarmed.

"My husband doesn't think it any thing serious," said she. "I wanted him to go for the doctor."

"Take my advice, and send for a physician," replied Mrs. Darlington.

"If you will send for Dr. M–, I will feel greatly obliged," said Mrs. Marion.

The doctor was sent for immediately. He did not come for two hours, in which time Willy had grown much worse. He looked serious, and answered all questions evasively. After writing a prescription, he gave a few directions, and said he would call again in the evening. At his second visit, he found his patient much worse; and, on the following morning, pronounced it a case of scarlatina.

Already, Willy had made a friend in every member of Mrs. Darlington's family, and the announcement of his dangerous illness was received with acute pain. Miriam took her place beside Mrs. Marion in the sick chamber, all her sympathies alive, and all her fears awakened; and Edith and her mother gave every attention that their other duties in the household would permit.

Rapidly did the disease, which had fixed itself upon the delicate frame of the child, run its fatal course. On the fourth day he died in the arms of his almost frantic mother.

Though Mrs. Marion had been only a short time in the house, yet she had already deeply interested the feelings of Mrs. Darlington and her two eldest daughters, who suffered with her in the affliction almost as severely as if they had themselves experienced a bereavement; and this added to the weight, already painfully oppressive, that rested upon them.

The nearer contact into which the family of Mrs. Darlington and the bereaved mother were brought by this affliction, discovered to the former many things that strengthened the repugnance first felt towards Mr. Marion, and awakened still livelier sympathies for his suffering wife.

One evening, a week after the body of the child was borne out by the mourners and laid to moulder in its kindred dust, the voice of Mr. Marion was heard in loud, angry tones. He was alone with his wife in their chamber. This chamber was next to hat of Edith and Miriam, where they, at the time, happened to be. What he said they could not make out; but they distinctly heard the voice of Mrs. Marion, and the words—

"Oh, Henry! don't! don't!" uttered in tones the most agonizing. They also heard the words, "For the sake of our dear, dear Willy!" used in some appeal.

Both Edith and Miriam were terribly frightened, and sat panting and looking at each other with pale faces.

All now became silent. Not a sound could be heard in the chamber save an occasional low sob. For half an hour this silence continued. Then the door of the chamber was opened, and Marion went down stairs. The closing of the front door announced his departure from the house. Edith and her sister sat listening for some minutes after Marion had left, but not a movement could they perceive in the adjoining chamber.

"Strange! What can it mean?" at length said Miriam, in a husky whisper. Edith breathed heavily to relieve the pressure on her bosom, but made no answer.

"He didn't strike her?" said Miriam, her face growing paler as she made this suggestion.

The moment this was uttered, Edith arose quickly and moved towards the door.

"Where are you going?" asked her sister.

"Into Mrs. Marion's room."

"Oh no, don't!" returned Miriam, speaking from some vague fear that made her heart shrink.

But Edith did not heed the words. Her light tap at Mrs. Marion's door was not answered. Opening it softly, she stepped within the chamber. On the bed, where she had evidently thrown herself, lay Mrs. Marion; and, on approaching and bending over her, Edith discovered that she was sleeping. On perceiving this, she retired as noiselessly as she had entered.

Ten, eleven, twelve o'clock came; and yet Mr. Marion had not returned. An hour later than this, Edith and her sister lay awake, but up to that time he was still away. On the next morning, when the bell rang for breakfast, and the family assembled at the table, the places of Mr. and Mrs. Marion were vacant. From their nurse it was ascertained that Mr. Marion had not come home since he went out on the evening before, and that his wife had not yet arisen. Between nine and ten o'clock, Mrs. Darlington sent up to know if Mrs. Marion wished any thing, but was answered in the negative. At dinner time Mr. Marion did not make his appearance, and his wife remained in her chamber. Food was sent to her, but it was returned untasted.

During the afternoon, Mrs. Darlington knocked at her door, but the nurse said that Mrs. Marion asked to be excused from seeing her. At supper time food was sent again to her room; but, save part of a cup of tea, nothing was tasted. After tea, Mrs. Darlington called again at her room, but the desire to be excused from seeing her was repeated. Marion did not return that night.

Nearly a week passed, the husband still remaining away, and not once during that time had Mrs. Marion been seen by any member of the family. At the end of this period, she sent word to Mrs. Darlington that she would be glad to see her.

When the latter entered her room, she found her lying upon the bed, with a face so pale and grief-stricken, that she could not help an exclamation of painful surprise.

"My dear madam, what has happened?" said she, as she took her hand.

Mrs. Marion was too much overcome by emotion to be able to speak for some moments. Acquiring self-possession at length, she said, in a low, sad voice—

"My heart is almost broken, Mrs. Darlington. I feel crushed to the very ground. How shall I speak of what I am suffering?"

Her voice quivered and failed. But in a few moments she recovered herself again, and said, more calmly—

"I need not tell you that my husband has been absent for a week; he went away in a moment of anger, vowing that he would never return. Hourly have I waited since, in the hope that he would come back; but, alas! I have thus far received from him neither word nor sign."

Mrs. Marion here gave way to her feelings, and wept bitterly.

"Did he ever leave you before?" asked Mrs. Darlington, as soon as she had grown calm.

"Once."

"How long did he remain away?"

"More than a year."

"Have you friends?"

"I have no relative but an aunt, who is very poor."

Mrs. Darlington sighed involuntarily. On that very day she had been seriously examining into her affairs, and the result was a conviction that, under her present range of expenses, she must go behind-hand with great rapidity. Mr. and Mrs. Marion were to pay fourteen dollars a weeks Thus far, nothing had been received from them; and now the husband had gone off and left his family on her hands. She could not turn them off, yet how could she bear up under this additional burden!

All this passed through her mind in a moment, and produced the sigh which distracted her bosom.

"Do you not know where he has gone?" she asked, seeking to throw as much sympathy and interest in her voice as possible, and thus to conceal the pressure upon her own feelings which the intelligence had occasioned.

Mrs. Marion shook her head. She knew that, in the effort to speak, her voice would fail her.

For nearly the space of a minute there was silence. This was broken, at length, by Mrs. Marion, who again wept violently. As soon as the passionate burst of feeling was over, Mrs. Darlington said to her in a kind and sympathizing voice—

"Do not grieve so deeply. You are not friendless altogether. Though you have been with us only a short time, we feel an interest in you, and will not"—

The sentence remained unfinished. There was an impulse in Mrs. Darlington's mind to proffer the unhappy woman a home for herself and children; but a sudden recollection of the embarrassing nature of her own circumstances checked the words on her tongue.

"I cannot remain a burden upon you," quickly answered Mrs. Marion. "But where can I go? What shall I do?"

The last few words were spoken half to herself, in a low tone of distressing despondency.

"For the present," said Mrs. Darlington, anxious to mitigate, even in a small degree, the anguish of the unhappy woman's mind, "let this give you no trouble. Doubtless the way will open before you. After the darkest hour the morning breaks."

Yet, even while Mrs. Darlington sought thus to give comfort, her own heart felt the weight upon it growing heavier. Scarcely able to stand up in her difficulties alone, here was a new burden laid upon her.

None could have sympathized more deeply with the afflicted mother and deserted wife than did Mrs. Darlington and her family; and none could have extended more willingly a helping hand in time of need. But, in sustaining the burden of her support, they felt that the additional weight was bearing them under.

CHAPTER VI

THREE months more elapsed. Mrs. Marion was still an inmate of the family. Up to this time, not a word had come from her husband, and she had not been able to pay Mrs. Darlington a single dollar.

Painfully did she feel her dependent situation, although she was treated with the utmost delicacy and consideration. But all the widow's means were now exhausted in the payment of the second quarter's rent, and she found her weekly income reduced to thirty-five dollars, scarcely sufficient to meet the weekly expense for supplying the table, paying the servants, etc., leaving nothing for future rent bills, the cost of clothing, and education for the younger children. With all this, Mrs. Darlington's duties had been growing daily more and more severe. Nothing could be trusted to servants that was not, in some way, defectively done, causing repeated complaints from the boarders. What proved most annoying was the bad cooking, to remedy which Mrs. Darlington strove in vain. One day the coffee was not fit to drink, and on the next day the steak would be burnt or broiled as dry as a chip, or the sirloin roasted until every particle of juice had evaporated. If hot cakes were ordered for breakfast, ten chances to one that they were not sour; or, if rolls were baked, they would, most likely, be as heavy as lead.

Such mishaps were so frequent, that the guests of Mrs. Darlington became impatient, and Mr. Scragg, in particular, never let an occasion for grumbling or insolence pass without fully improving it.

"Is your coal out?" said he, one morning, about this time, as he sat at the breakfast table.

Mrs. Darlington understood, by the man's tone and manner, that he meant to be rude, though she did not comprehend the meaning of the question.

"No, sir," she replied, with some dignity of manner. "Why do you ask?"

"It struck me," he answered, "that such might be the case. But, perhaps, cook is too lazy to bring it out of the cellar. If she'll send for me to-morrow morning, I'll bring her up an extra scuttleful, as I particularly like a good cup of hot coffee."

His meaning was now plain. Quick as thought, the blood rushed to the face of Mrs. Darlington.

She had borne so much from this man, and felt towards him such utter disgust, that she could forbear no longer.

"Mr. Scragg," said she, with marked indignation, "when a gentleman has any complaint to make, he does it as a gentleman."

"Madam!" exclaimed Scragg, with a threat in his voice, while his coarse face became red with anger.

"When a gentleman has any complaint to make, he does it as a gentleman," repeated Mrs. Darlington, with a more particular emphasis than at first.

"I'd thank you to explain yourself," said Scragg, dropping his hands from the table, and elevating his person.

"My words convey my meaning plainly enough. But, if you cannot understand, I will try to make them clearer. Your conduct is not that of a gentleman."

Of course, Mr. Scragg asked for no further explanation. Starting from the table, he said, looking at Mrs. Scragg—

"Come!"

And Mrs. Scragg arose and followed her indignant spouse.

"Served him right," remarked Burton, in a low voice, bending a little towards Miriam, who sat near him. "I hope we shall now be rid of the low-bred fellow."

Miriam was too much disturbed to make a reply. All at the table felt more or less uncomfortable, and soon retired. Ere dinner time, Mr. and Mrs. Scragg, with their whole brood, had left the house, thus reducing the income of Mrs. Darlington from thirty-five to twenty-three dollars a week.

At dinner time, Mrs. Darlington was in bed. The reaction which followed the excitement of the morning, accompanied as it was with the conviction that, in parting with the Scraggs, insufferable as they were, she had parted with the very means of sustaining herself, completely prostrated her. During the afternoon, she was better, and was able to confer with Edith on the desperate nature of their affairs.

"What are we to do?" said she to her daughter, breaking thus abruptly a silence which had continued for many minutes. "We have an income of only twenty-three dollars a week, and that will scarcely supply the table."

Edith sighed, but did not answer.

"Twenty-three dollars a week," repeated Mrs. Darlington. "What are we to do?"

"Our rooms will not remain vacant long, I hope," said Edith.

"There is little prospect of filling them that I can see," murmured Mrs. Darlington. "If all our rooms were taken, we might get along."

"I don't know," returned Edith to this, speaking thoughtfully. "I sometimes think that our expenses are too great for us to make any thing, even if our rooms were filled. Six hundred dollars is a large rent for us to pay."

"We've sunk three hundred dollars in six months. That is certain," said Mrs. Darlington.

"And our furniture has suffered to an extent almost equivalent," added her daughter.

"Oh, do not speak of that! The thought makes me sick. Our handsome French china dinner set, which cost us a hundred and fifty dollars, is completely ruined. Half of the plates are broken, and there is scarcely a piece of it not injured or defaced. My heart aches to see the destruction going on around us."

"I was in Mr. Scragg's room to-day," said Edith.

"Well, what of it?" asked her mother.

"It would make you sick in earnest to look in there. You know the beautiful bowl and pitcher that were in her chamber?"

"Yes."

"Both handle and spout are off of the pitcher."

"Edith!"

"And the bowl is cracked from the rim to the centre. Then the elegant rosewood washstand is completely ruined. Two knobs are off of the dressing-bureau, the veneering stripped from the edge of one of the drawers, and the whole surface marked over in a thousand lines. It looks as if the children had amused themselves by the hour in scratching it with pins. Three chairs are broken. And the new carpet we put on the floor looks as if it had been used for ten years. Moreover, every thing is in a most filthy condition. It is shocking."

Mrs. Darlington fairly groaned at this intelligence.

"But where is it all to lead, Edith?" she asked, arousing herself from a kind of stupor into which her mind had fallen. "We cannot go on as we are now going."

"We must reduce our expenses, if possible."

"But how are we to reduce them? We cannot send away the cook."

"No. Of course not."

"Nor our chambermaid."

"No. But cannot we dispense with the waiter?"

"Who will attend the table, go to market, and do the dozen other things now required of him?"

"We can get our marketing sent home."

"But the waiting oh the table. Who will do that?"

"Half a dollar a week extra to the chambermaid will secure that service from her."

"But she has enough to do besides waiting on the table," objected Mrs. Darlington.

"Miriam and I will help more through the house than we have yet done. Three dollars a week and the waiter's board will be saving a good deal."

Mrs. Darlington sighed heavily, and then said—

"To think what I have borne from that Scragg and his family, ignorant, low-bred, vulgar people, with whom we have no social affinity whatever, who occupy a level far below us, and who yet put on airs and treat us as if we were only their servants! I could bear his insolence no longer. Ah, to what mortifications are we not subjected in our present position! How little dreamed I of all this, when I decided to open a boarding-house! But, Edith, to come back to what we were conversing about, it would be something to save the expense of our waiter; but what are three or four dollars a week, when we are going behind hand at the rate of twenty?"

"If Mrs. Marion"—

Edith checked herself, and did not say what was in her mind. Mrs. Darlington was silent, sighed again heavily, and then said—

"Yes; if it wasn't for the expense of keeping Mrs. Marion. And she has no claim upon us."

"None but the claim of humanity," said Edith.

"If we were able to pay that claim," remarked Mrs. Darlington.

"True."

"But we are not. Such being the case, are we justified in any longer offering her a home?"

"Where will she go? What will she do?" said Edith.

"Where will we go? What will we do, unless there is a change in our favour?" asked Mrs. Darlington.

"Alas, I cannot tell! When we are weak, small things are felt as a burden. The expense of keeping Mrs. Marion and her two children is not very great. Still, it is an expense that we are unable to meet. But how can we tell her to go?"

"I cannot take my children's bread and distribute it to others," replied Mrs. Darlington, with much feeling. "My first duty is to them."

"Poor woman! My heart aches for her," said Edith. "She looks so pale and heart-broken, feels so keenly her state of dependence, and tries so in every possible way to make the pressure of her presence in our family as light as possible, that the very thought of turning her from our door seems to involve cruelty."

"All that, Edith, I feel most sensibly. Ah me! into what a strait are we driven!"

"How many times have I wished that we had never commenced this business!" said Edith. "It has brought us nothing but trouble from the beginning; and, unless my fears are idle, some worse troubles are yet before us."

"Of what kind?"

"Henry did not come home until after two o'clock this morning."

"What!" exclaimed the mother in painful surprise.

"I sat up for him. Knowing that he had gone out with Mr. Barling, and, finding that he had not returned by eleven o'clock, I could not go to bed. I said nothing to Miriam, but sat up alone. It was nearly half past two when he came home in company with Barling. Both, I am sorry to say, were so much intoxicated, that they could scarcely make their way up stairs."

"Oh, Edith!" exclaimed the stricken mother, hiding her face in her hands, and weeping aloud.

Miriam entered the room at this moment, and, seeing her mother in tears, and Edith looking the very image of distress, begged to know the cause of their trouble. Little was said to her then; but Edith, when she was alone with her soon after, fully explained the desperate condition of their affairs. Hitherto they had, out of regard for Miriam, concealed from her the nature of the difficulties that were closing around them.

"I dreamed not of this," said Miriam, in a voice of anguish. "My poor mother! What pain she must suffer! No wonder that her countenance is so often sad. But, Edith, cannot we do something?"

Ever thus, to the mind of the sweet girl, when the troubles of others were mentioned to her, came, first, the desire to afford relief.

"We can do nothing," replied Edith, "at present, unless it be to assist through the house, so that the chambermaid can attend the door, wait on the table, and do other things now required of the waiter."

"And let him go?"

"Yes."

"I am willing to do all in my power, Edith," said Miriam. "But, if mother has lost so much already, will she not lose still more if she continue to go on as she is now going?"

"She hopes to fill all her rooms; then she thinks that she will be able to make something."

"This has been her hope from the first," replied Miriam.

"Yes; and thus far it has been a vain hope."

"Three hundred dollars lost already," sighed Miriam, "our beautiful furniture ruined, and all domestic happiness destroyed! Ah me! Where is all going to end? Uncle Hiram was right when he objected to mother's taking boarders, and said that it was the worst thing she could attempt to do. I wish we had taken his advice. Willingly would I give music lessons or work with my hands for an income, to save mother from the suffering and labour she has now to bear."

"The worst is," said Edith, following out her own thoughts rather than replying to her sister, "now that all our money is gone, debt will follow. How is the next quarter's rent to be paid?"

"A hundred aid fifty dollars?"

"Yes. How can we pay that?"

"Oh dear!" sighed Miriam. "What are we to do? How dark all looks!"

"If there is not some change," said Edith, "by the close of another six months, every thing we have will be sold for debt."

"Dreadful!" ejaculated Miriam, "dreadful!"

For a long time the sisters conferred together, but no gleam of light arose in their minds. All the future remained shrouded in darkness.