Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance

“It is a beautiful letter. I spent two hours over it.”

“Tear it into fifty pieces.”

“But Dick can call at your house, and I will just ‘happen in.’ There is no harm in that. You can be present all the time, if you wish.”

“I will ask father. Of course, I must tell him the circumstances.”

“And of course, he will go into a passion about his honor, and his honor to Mr. Filmer, and all the other moralities. You are real mean, Yanna.”

“I am real kind, Rose. Please give me the letter. You know that you are going to do a wicked and foolish thing. Rose, I have always thought you a very angel of purity and propriety. I cannot imagine a man like this touching the hem of your garment. 33 Give me the letter, Rose. Positively, it must not go to him.”

“I want to do right, Yanna.”

“I know you do.”

“But Dick is suffering; and I am sorry for him.”

“We have no right to be sorry for the wicked. The wicked ought to suffer; sympathy for them, or with them, is not blessed. I am so glad to see you crying, Rose. If you sent that letter, it would trouble your soul, as a mote in your eye would torture your sight. In both cases, the trouble would be to wash out with tears. Give me the letter, and I will destroy it.”

Then Rose laid it upon the table, and buried her face in her pillow, sobbing bitterly, “I do like Dick! Right or wrong, I want to see him.”

“I may tear up the letter, Rose? It must be done. Shall I do it?”

“Could you not let Dick call at your house once? Only once?”

“It is not my house. I should have to ask father.”

“Only once, Yanna!”

“Things that are permissible ‘only once’ ought never to be done at all. Do you remember how often Miss Mitchell told us that?”

“Miss Mitchell never had a lover in her life. People always do see lovers ‘once more.’”

“Then ask Mrs. Filmer if you cannot do so.”

“Certainly, she could not be more cruel than you are. Oh, Yanna! I am so disappointed in you!”

Then Yanna began to cry, and the girls mingled their tears; and when they had swept away their disappointment in each other, the letter was torn into little shreds as a peace offering; and they bathed their faces, and lay down for an hour. Yanna was sure she 34 had conquered; but it was but a temporary victory; for as soon as she was alone, Rose began to blame herself.

“I always was under that girl,” she thought, “and I quite forgot about her father being only a stone mason. Poor Dick! I must send him half-a-dozen lines; and suppose I tell him that I walk in the mornings, by the little lake in the woods called ‘Laurel Water’? If he finds me out there, he will deserve to see me; and if not – there is no harm done.”

Yet this second letter, though written and sent, was not conceived with any satisfaction. Rose was conscience-hurt all the time she penned it; and very restless and unhappy after it had passed beyond her control. For she was in general obedient to the voice within her; expediency and propriety had both told her at the first, “You had better not write,” and she had not heeded them in the least; but she did find it very difficult to silence the imperative, “Thou shalt not!” of conscience. Still, it was done. Then she reflected that Dick would get her letter on Saturday morning, and might possibly come to Woodsome on Sunday. It would, therefore, be expedient to let Yanna return to her own home the next day; and also to find some excuse for remaining from church on Sabbath morning.

“One little fault breeds another little fault,” she thought, “but it is only for once.” And she did not perceive that she had called disobedience to parents, and premeditated absence from the service of God, “a little fault”; far less did she calculate what great faults might obtain tolerance if measured from such a false standard.

However, the hours went by, as apparently happy and innocent as if there were no contemplated sin 35 beneath them; conversation and music made interchanging melodies; and again the beautiful moonshine brought silence, and beaming eyes, and all the sweet and indefinable interpreters of love. And this night Harry, also, felt some of that strange sadness which is far more enthralling than laughter, song and dance, to those who can understand its speech. Rose did not. “How stupid we all are!” she exclaimed; and Harry glanced down into Yanna’s eyes, and pressed her arm closer to his side, and knew that words were unnecessary.

In the morning, Mr. Filmer came from town. He was a small, slender man, with an imperturbable manner, and that mystical type of face often seen in old portraits: a man whom Adriana rightly judged to be made up of opposite qualities, his most obvious side being that of suave, indifferent complaisance. He was exceedingly kind to Adriana, and spoke with real warmth of feeling about her father. “I count it a good thing to have come in contact with him,” he said, “for I think better of all men for his sake. It is his religion,” he added. “What a Calvinist he is! We had some talks I never shall forget.”

He appeared to take no interest in the household affairs, and Mrs. Filmer did not trouble him about its details. He was, in fact, bookishly selfish; his only enquiry being one concerning the library and some boxes of books which he had sent. If the garden, the stables, the horses or servants were alluded to, he was miles away; for he had long ago explained to Mrs. Filmer that these things were not necessary to his happiness; and that, therefore, if she insisted upon being troubled with them, she must bear the worries and annoyances they were sure to bring.

He really lost little by this arrangement; for Mr. Filmer’s cleverness and deep learning was the family superstition. Rose said she “felt as if a clergyman were present all the time papa was at home,” and Mrs. Filmer and Harry spoke with mysterious respect of the great work which occupied Mr. Filmer’s thoughts and time. Harry told Adriana that “it was a ‘History of Civilization’ rather on Mr. Buckle’s lines, but much more philosophical.” And it was evident Harry firmly believed in his father; which might not have been the case if the two men had been busy together, looking after other people’s money, or telling smart, scandalous stories in the club windows.

In fact, if Mr. Filmer had deliberately selected a rôle which would bring him the least trouble and the most honor, he could not have done better unto himself. As it was, whenever he came out of his retirement, and condescendingly put himself on a level with the family dinner-table, he was the guest of honor; for usually his little delicacies were carried with elaborate nicety into the small private room adjoining the library. Every one tried to make him understand how great was the favor of his presence; and Adriana, though she knew nothing of his peculiarities, was able to perceive even in the passing conversation of the hour, a different influence. Harry generally set the key at that light tone which touches society in those moods when it chases gaiety till out of breath. There was always a deeper meaning in his father’s opinions and reflections; and the family were apt to look admiringly at one another when their profundity was greater than usual.

In the middle of the meal, there fell upon the company one of those infectious silences which the “folk” 37 explain by saying “an angel passes”; but which Harry broke by a question:

“Why this silence?” he asked.

“Why this recollection?” Mr. Filmer immediately substituted. “What are you all remembering? Speak, my dear,” he said to Mrs. Filmer.

“I was recalling the fact that I had not written a line in my diary for a month.”

“I congratulate you, Emma! People who are happy do not write down their happiness. And you, Miss Van Hoosen?”

“I was remembering some boys that Mr. Filmer and I met in the wood this morning. They were rifling a thrush’s nest. I begged them not to do it; but then, boys will be boys.”

“That is the trouble. If they could only be dogs, or any other reasonable, useful, or inoffensive creature! But alas! a good boy is an unnatural boy. Now, Rose, where did your memory stray?”

“To Letitia Landon’s wedding. She married Mr. Landon because he was rich, and I was remembering her old lover, Horace Key, standing in the aisle, watching the wedding. There were three at that wedding, I think.”

“And in such cases, two is matrimony, and three divorce. As to your memories, Harry? Are they repeatable?”

“I was thinking of the insane pace and frivolities of the past season; and if I had not spoken, I should have got as far as a reflection on the bliss of a quiet country life, like the present.”

“You must remember, Harry, that the ‘frivolity’ of the multitude is never frivolous – it portends too much.”

“And pray, sir, in what direction went your memory?”

“No further than the ferry boat. It gave me, this morning, an opportunity of studying human nature, in its betting aspect.”

“What did you think of it, sir?”

“I thought instantly of Disraeli’s definition of the Turf: – ‘this institution for national demoralization.’”

“Is it worse than politics?”

“Yes. Loyalty to one’s country is fed upon sentiment, or self-interest. Americans are a sentimental race – whether they know it or not – and Americans do not, as a general rule, want their country to pay them for loving her. Do you, Harry?”

“No, indeed, sir!”

“There are tens of thousands just as loyal as you are.”

“When women get the suffrage,” said Rose, “politics will be better and purer.”

“Oh, Rosie! are there not politicians enough in America, without women increasing the awful sum?”

“We feel compelled to increase it, papa. Noblesse oblige, if you will read sex for rank. I intend to be a Socialist.”