Book 1. The Emancipation - Chapter 7

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_ BOOK I. THE EMANCIPATION
CHAPTER VII

Babcock returned to his home twenty-four hours later like a whipped cur. He was disgusted with himself. It seemed to him incredible that he should have fallen so low. He had sinned against his wife and his own self-respect without excuse; for it was no excuse that he had let himself be led to drink too much. His heart ached and his cheek burned at the recollection of his two days of debauchery. What was to be done? If only he were able to cut this ugly sore in his soul out with a knife and have done with it forever! But that was impossible. It stared him in the face, a haunting reality. In his distress he asked himself whether he would not go to Mr. Glynn and make a clean breast of it; but his practical instincts answered him that he would none the less have made a beast of himself. He held his head between his hands, and stared dejectedly at his desk. Some relief came to him at last only from the reflection that it was a single fault, and that it need never--it should never be repeated. Selma need not know, and he would henceforth avoid all such temptations. Terrible as it was, it was a slip, not a deliberate fault, and his love for his wife was not in question.

Thus reasoning, he managed by the third day after his return to reach a less despondent frame of mind. While busy writing in his office a lady was announced, and looking up he encountered the meretricious smile of the courtesan with whom he had forgotten himself. She had taken a fancy to her victim, and having learned that he was well to do, she had come in order to establish, if possible, on a more permanent basis, her relations with him. She was a young woman, who had been drifting from place to place, and whose professional inclination for a protector was heightened by the liking which she had conceived for him. Babcock recalled in her smile merely his shame, and regarded her reappearance as effrontery. He was blind to her prettiness and her sentimental mood. He asked her roughly what she wanted, and rising from his chair, he bade her be gone before she had time to answer. Nine out of ten women of her class would have taken their dismissal lightly. Some might have answered back in tones loud enough to enlighten the clerks, and thus have accomplished a pretty revenge in the course of retreat. This particular Lesbian was in no humor to be harshly treated. She was a little desperate and Babcock had pleased her. It piqued her to be treated in such a fashion; accordingly, she held her ground and sat down. She tried upon him, alternately, irony and pathos. He was angry but confused under the first, he became savage and merciless under the second, throwing back in her teeth the suggestion of her fondness, and stigmatizing her coarsely. Then she became angry in her turn--angry as a woman whose proffered love is spurned. The method for revenge was obvious, and she told him plainly what she intended. His wife should know at once how her husband passed his time during her absence. She had posted herself, and she saw that her shaft hurt. Babcock winced, but mad and incredulous, he threatened her with arrest and drove her from the room. She went out smiling, but with an ominous look in her eyes, the remembrance of which made him ask himself now and again if she could be vicious enough, or fool enough, to keep her promise. He dismissed the idea as improbable; still the bare chance worried him. Selma was to arrive early the next morning, and he had reconciled himself to the conclusion that she need never know, and that he would henceforth be a faithful husband. Had he not given an earnest of his good faith in his reception of his visitor? Surely, no such untoward and unnatural accident would dash the cup of returning happiness from his lips. A more clever man would have gone straight to police headquarters, instead of trusting to chance.

A night's rest reassured him as to the idleness of the threat, so that he was able to welcome Selma at the railroad station with a comparatively light heart. She was in high spirits over the success of her expedition, and yet graciously ready to admit that she was glad to return home--meaning thereby, to her own bed and bathing facilities; but the general term seemed to poor Lewis a declaration of wifely devotion. He went to his business with the mien of a man who had passed through an ordeal and is beginning life again; but when he returned at night, as soon as he beheld Selma, he suspected what had happened.

She was awaiting him in the parlor. Though he saw at a glance that she looked grave, he went forward to kiss her, but she rose and, stepping behind the table, put out her hand forbiddingly.

"What is the matter?" he faltered.

"That woman has been here," was her slow, scornful response.

"Selma, I--" A confusing sense of hopelessness as to what to say choked Babcock's attempt to articulate. There was a brief silence, while he looked at her imploringly and miserably.

"Is it true what she says? Have you been false to your marriage vows? Have you committed adultery?"

"My God! Selma, you don't understand."

"It is an easy question to answer, yes or no?"

"I forgot myself, Selma. I was drunk and crazy. I ask your pardon."

She shook her head coldly. "I shall have nothing more to do with you. I cannot live with you any longer."

"Not live with me?"

"Would you live with me if it were I who had forgotten myself?"

"I think I would, Selma. You don't understand. I was a brute. I have been wretched ever since. But it was a slip--an accident. I drank too much, and it happened. I love you, Selma, with all my heart. I have never been false to you in my affection."

"It is a strange time to talk of affection. I went away for a week, and in my absence you insulted me by debauchery with a creature like that. Love? You have no conception of the meaning of the word. Oh no, I shall never live with you again."

Babcock clinched his palms in his distress and walked up and down. She stood pale and determined looking into space. Presently he turned to her and asked with quiet but intense solicitude, "You don't mean that you're going to leave me for one fault, we being husband and wife and the little girl in her grave? I said you don't understand and you don't. A man's a man, and there are times when he's been drinking when he's liable to yield to temptation, and that though he's so fond of his wife that life without her would be misery. This sounds strange to a woman, and it's a poor excuse. But it ought to count, Selma, when it comes to a question of our separating. There would be happy years before us yet if you give me another chance."

"Not happy years for me," she replied concisely. "The American woman does not choose to live with the sort of man you describe. She demands from her husband what he demands from her, faithfulness to the marriage tie. We could never be happy again. Our ideal of life is different. I have made excuses for you in other things, but my soul revolts at this."

Babcock looked at her for a moment in silence, then he said, a little sternly, "You shouldn't have gone away and left me. I'm not blaming you, but you shouldn't have gone." He walked to the window but he saw nothing. His heart was racked. He had been eager to humiliate himself before her to prove his deep contrition, but he had come to the end of his resources, and yet she was adamant. Her charge that she had been making excuses for him hitherto reminded him that they had not been really sympathetic for some time past. With his back turned to her he heard her answer:

"It was understood before I agreed to marry you that I was to be free to follow my tastes and interests. It is a paltry excuse that, because I left you alone for a week in pursuit of them, I am accessory to your sin."

Babcock faced her sadly. "The sin's all mine," he said. "I can't deny that. But, Selma, I guess I've been pretty lonely ever since the baby died."

"Lonely?" she echoed. "Then my leaving you will not matter so much. Here," she said, slipping off her wedding-ring, "this belongs to you." She remembered Mrs. Earle's proceeding, and though she had not yet decided what course to pursue in order to maintain her liberty, she regarded this as the significant and definite act. She held out the ring, but Babcock shook his head.

"The law doesn't work as quick as that, nor the church either. You can get a divorce if you're set on it, Selma. But we're husband and wife yet."

"Only the husk of our marriage is left. The spirit is dead," she said sententiously. "I am going away. I cannot pass another night in this house. If you will not take this ring, I shall leave it here."

Babcock turned to hide the tears which blinded his eyes. Selma regarded him a moment gravely, then she laid her wedding-ring on the table and went from the room.

She put her immediate belongings into a bag and left the house. She had decided to go to Mrs. Earle's lodgings where she would be certain to find shelter and sympathy. Were she to go to her aunt's she would be exposed to importunity on her husband's behalf from Mrs. Farley, who was partial to Lewis. Her mind was entirely made up that there could be no question of reconciliation. Her duty was plain; and she would be doing herself an injustice were she to continue to live with one so weak and regardless of the honor which she had a right to demand of the man to whom she had given her society and her body. His gross conduct had entitled her to her liberty, and to neglect to seize it would be to condemn herself to continuous unhappiness, for this overt act of his was merely a definite proof of the lack of sympathy between them, of which she had for some time been well aware at heart. As she walked along the street she was conscious that it was a relief to her to be sloughing off the garment of an uncongenial relationship and to be starting life afresh. There was nothing in her immediate surroundings from which she was not glad to escape. Their house was full of blemishes from the stand-point of her later knowledge, and she yearned to dissociate herself, once and for all, from the trammels of her pitiful mistake. She barely entertained the thought that she was without means. She would have to support herself, of course, but it never occurred to her to doubt her ability to do so, and the necessity added a zest to her decision. It would be plain sailing, for Mrs. Earle had more than once invited her to send copy to the _Benham Sentinel_, and there was no form of occupation which would be more to her liking than newspaper work. It was almost with the mien of a prisoner escaped from jail that she walked in upon her friend and said:

"I have left my husband. He has been unfaithful to me."

In Mrs. Earle, conventional feminine instincts were apt, before she had time to think, to get the upper hand of her set theories. "You, poor, poor child," she cried extending her arms.

Selma had not intended to weep. Still the opportunity was convenient, and her nerves were on edge. She found herself sobbing with her head on Mrs. Earle's, bosom, and telling her sad story.

"He was never good enough for you. I have always said so," Mrs. Earle murmured stroking her hair.

"I ought to have known from the first that it was impossible for us to be happy. Why did I ever marry him? He said he loved me, and I let myself be badgered into it," Selma answered through her tears. "Well, it's all over now," she added, sitting up and drying her eyes. "He has given me back my liberty. I am a free woman."

"Yes, dear, if you are perfectly sure of yourself, there is only one course to pursue. Only you should consider the matter solemnly. Perhaps in a few days, after he has apologized and shown proper contrition, you might feel willing to give him another chance."

Selma was unprepared for Mrs. Earle's sentimentality. "Surely," she exclaimed with tragic earnestness, "you wouldn't have me live with him after what occurred? Contrition? He said everything he could think of to get me to stay, but I made my decision then and there."

Mrs. Earle put her own handkerchief to her eyes. "Women have forgiven such things; but I respect you all the more for not being weak. I know how you feel. It is hard to do, but if I had it to do over again, I would act just the same--just the same. It's a serious responsibility to encourage any one to desert a home, but under the circumstances I would not live with him another minute, my child--not another minute." Thereupon Mrs. Earle protruded her bosom to celebrate the triumph of justice in her own mental processes over conventional and maudlin scruples. "You will apply for a divorce, I suppose?"

"I have not considered that. All I care for is never to see him again."

"Oh yes, you must get a divorce. It is much better, you know. In my case I couldn't, for he did nothing public. A divorce settles matters, and puts you back where you were before. You might wish some day to marry again."

"I have had enough of marriage."

"It isn't any harm to be a free woman--free in the eye of the law as well as of conscience. I know an excellent lawyer--a Mr. Lyons, a sympathetic and able man. Besides your husband is bound to support you. You must get alimony."

"I wouldn't touch a dollar of his money," Selma answered with scorn. "I intend to support myself. I shall write--work."

"Of course you will, dear; and it will be a boon and a blessing to me to have you in our ranks--one of the new army of self-supporting, self-respecting women. I suppose you are right. I have never had a sixpence. But your husband deserves to be punished. Perhaps it is punishment enough to lose you."

"He will get over that. It is enough for me," she exclaimed, ardently, after a dreamy pause, "that I am separated from him forever--that I am free--free--free."

A night's sleep served to intensify Selma's determination, and she awoke clearly of the opinion that a divorce was desirable. Why remain fettered by a bare legal tie to one who was a husband only in name? Accordingly, in company with Mrs. Earle, she visited the office of James O. Lyons, and took the initiatory steps to dissolve the marriage.

Mr. Lyons was a large, full-bodied man of thirty-five, with a fat, cleanly-shaven, cherubic countenance, an aspect of candor, and keen, solemn eyes. His manner was impressive and slightly pontificial; his voice resonant and engaging. He knew when to joke and when to be grave as an owl. He wore in every-day life a shiny, black frock-coat, a standing collar, which yawned at the throat, and a narrow, black tie. His general effect was that of a cross between a parson and a shrewd Yankee--a happy suggestion of righteous, plain, serious-mindedness, protected against the wiles of human society--and able to protect others--by a canny intelligence. For a young man he had already a considerable clientage. A certain class of people, notably the hard-headed, God-fearing, felt themselves safe in his hands. His magnetic yet grave manner of conducting business pleased Benham, attracting also both the distressed and the bilious portions of the community, and the farmers from the surrounding country. As Mrs. Earle informed Selma, he was in sympathy with all progressive and stimulating ideas, and he already figured in the newspapers politically, and before the courts as a friend of the masses, and a fluent advocate of social reforms. His method of handling Selma's case was smooth. To begin with, he was sympathetic within proper limits, giving her tacitly to understand that, though as a man and brother, he deplored the necessity of extreme measures, he recognized that she had made up her mind, and that compromise was out of the question. To put it concisely, his manner was grieved, but practical. He told her that he would represent to Babcock the futility of contesting a cause, which, on the evidence, must be hopeless, and that, in all probability, the matter could be disposed of easily and without publicity. He seemed to Selma a very sensible and capable man, and it was agreeable to her to feel that he appreciated that, though divorce in the abstract was deplorable, her experience justified and called for the protection of the law.

In the meantime Babcock was very unhappy, and was casting about for a method to induce his wife to return. He wrote to her a pitiful letter, setting forth once more the sorry facts in the best light which he could bring to bear on them, and implored her forgiveness. He applied to her aunt, Mrs. Farley, and got her to supplement his plea with her good-natured intervention. "There are lots of men like that," she confided to Selma, "and he's a kind, devoted creature." When this failed, he sought Rev. Mr. Glynn as a last resort, and, after he had listened to a stern and fervid rating from the clergyman on the lust of the flesh, he found his pastor on his side. Mr. Glynn was opposed to divorce on general ecclesiastical principles; moreover, he had been educated under the law of England, by which a woman cannot obtain a divorce from her husband for the cause of adultery unless it be coupled with cruelty--a clever distinction between the sexes, which was doubtless intended as a cloak for occasional lapses on the part of man. It was plain to him, as a Christian and as a hearty soul, that there had been an untoward accident--a bestial fault, a soul-debasing carnal sin, but still an accident, and hence to be forgiven by God and woman. It was his duty to interfere; and so, having disciplined the husband, he essayed the more delicate matter of propitiating the wife. And he essayed it without a thought of failure.

"I'm afraid she's determined to leave me, and that there's not much hope," said Babcock, despondently, as he gripped the clergyman's hand in token of his gratitude.

"Nonsense, my man," asserted Mr. Glynn briskly. "All she needs is an exhortation from me, and she will take you back."

Selma was opposed to divorce in theory. That is, she had accepted on trust the traditional prejudice against it as she had accepted Shakespeare and Boston. But theory stood for nothing in her regard before the crying needs of her own experience. She had not the least intention of living with her husband again. No one could oblige her to do that. In addition, the law offered her a formal escape from his control and name. Why not avail herself of it? She recollected, besides, that her husband's church recognized infidelity as a lawful ground of release from the so-called sacrament of marriage. This had come into her mind as an additional sanction to her own decision. But it had not contributed to that decision. Consequently, when she was confronted in Mrs. Earle's lodgings by the errand of Mr. Glynn, she felt that his coming was superfluous. Still, she was glad of the opportunity to measure ideas with him in a thorough interview free from interruption.

Mr. Glynn's confidence was based on his intention to appeal to the ever womanly quality of pity. He expected to encounter some resistance, for indisputably here was a woman whose sensibilities had been justly and severely shocked--a woman of finer tissue than her husband, as he had noted in other American couples. She was entitled to her day in court--to a stubborn, righteous respite of indignation. But he expected to carry the day in the end, amid a rush of tears, with which his own might be mingled. He trusted to what he regarded as the innate reluctance of the wife to abandon the man she loved, and to the leaven of feminine Christian charity.

As a conscientious hater of sin, he did not attempt to minimize Babcock's act or the insult put upon her. That done, he was free to intercede fervently for him and to extol the virtue and the advisability of forgiveness. This plea, however cogent, was narrow, and once stated admitted merely of duplication in the same form. It was indeed no argument, merely an appeal, and, in proportion as it failed to move the listener, became feeble. Selma listened to him with a tense face, her hands clasped before her in the guise of an interested and self-scrutinizing spirit. But she betrayed no sign of yielding, or symptom of doubt. She shook her head once or twice as he proceeded, and, when he paused, asked why she should return to a man who had broken faith with her; asked it in such a genuine tone of conviction that Dr. Glynn realized the weakness of his own case, and became slightly nettled at the same time.

"True," he said, rather sternly, "your husband has committed a hideous, carnal sin, but he is genuinely repentant. Do you wish to ruin his life forever?"

"His life?" said Selma. "It would ruin my life to return to him. I have other plans--plans which will bring me happiness. I could never be happy with him."

The clergyman was baffled. Other plans! The words offended him, and yet he could not dispute her right to do as she chose. Still he saw fit to murmur: "He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

Selma flushed. To be accused of acting contrary to Christian precepts was painful and surprising to her. "Mr. Glynn," she said, "I see you don't understand. My husband and I ought never to have married. It has all been a dreadful mistake. We have not the same tastes and interests. I am sorry for him, but I can never consent to return to him. To do so would condemn us both to a life of unhappiness. We were not intended for husband and wife, and it is best--yes, more Christian--for us to separate. We American women do not feel justified in letting a mistake ruin our lives when there is a chance to escape."

Mr. Glynn regarded her in silence for a moment. He was accustomed to convince, and he had not succeeded, which to a clergyman is more annoying than to most men. Still what she said made his plea seem doubtful wisdom.

"Then you do not love your husband?" he said.

"No," said Selma quietly, "I do not love him. It is best to be frank with one's self--with you, in such a matter, isn't it? So you see that what you ask is out of the question."

Mr. Glynn rose. Clearly his mission had failed, and there was nothing more to be said. Being a just man, he hesitated to pass an unkind judgment on this bright-faced, pensive woman. She was within her moral rights, and he must be careful to keep within his. But he went away bewildered and discomfited. Selma would have liked to dismiss the subject and keep him longer. She would have been glad to branch off on to other ethical topics and discuss them. She was satisfied with the result of the interview, for she had vindicated her position and spiked Lewis's last gun.

So, indeed, it proved. Mr. Glynn sent for Babcock and told him the naked truth, that his wife's love for him was dead and reconciliation impossible. He properly refrained from expressing the doubt lurking in his own mind as to whether Selma had ever loved her husband. Thus convinced of the hopelessness of his predicament, Babcock agreed to Mr. Lyons's suggestion not to contest the legal proceedings. The lawyer had been diligent, and the necessary evidence--the testimony of the woman--was secure. She was ready to carry her revenge to the end, hoping, perhaps, that the victim of it would return to her when he had lost his wife. Accordingly, a few weeks later, Selma was granted a divorce nisi and the right to resume her maiden name. She had decided, however, to retain the badge of marriage as a decorous social prefix, and to call herself Mrs. Selma White. _

Read next: Book 1. The Emancipation: Chapter 8

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