 | CHAPTER XIII.
UNE FEMME BLANCHE. Hedged in |  |
13. CHAPTER XIII.
UNE FEMME BLANCHE.
I am crowded for time, but I write to
tell you — for I would prefer that you should
hear it from me — that we have at length identified
and brought home Eunice's child.
This was done without much difficulty. The
boy remained at the Burley Street Nursery,
whither he had been sent by Mrs. Zerviah Myrtle;
it being, as you will remember, upon Mrs.
Zerviah Myrtle's steps that Nixy left the child, at
some period previous to her entrance into Mrs.
Myrtle's service.
Mrs. Myrtle, I fancy, has kept a kind of vague
patronage over the boy; sent him bibs and
Bibles, and patted him on the head on inspection-day.
He could, of course, have been easily traced,
had we not possessed the clew of his resemblance
have been sufficient to identify the little waif.
The little boy has a pleasant face, and Eunice's
eyes. If he had her mouth I should not object
in the least to him. I confess to some secret
anxiety on that point. A baby less than five
years old has no mouth whatever. I wonder if
the poor little fellow knows how unwelcome he
is! He looks amazingly uncomfortable, it strikes
me; but that may be because his mother put
him into white aprons, and parted his hair.
Whenever I think how the future happiness of
us all — for Eunice's future, as you understand,
is now definitely and intelligently my daughter's
and mine — is dependent upon that little neglected
graft of shame and sin, I am, I own, uncomfortable.
I do not regret the step, but it is a difficult
one for us all to take. Poor Eunice I suppose
was right; I could not gainsay her quiet “God
cares for the baby, if I don't”; and what we
have undertaken we shall thoroughly perform, —
but poor Eunice is in a very narrow place.
The child has been in the house now two
days. His mother is uneasy and pale; watches
very nervous and restless, evidently perfectly
prepared for whatever cloud we are drifting
to windward of.
By my advice she remains at her post as
grammar teacher. Whatever social degradation
is in waiting for her, she shall not assume that
she can be degraded. Christianity does not
patch up a sinner, it restores him. In Christian
theory Eunice's history is as if it had not been.
Christian practice may bind her budding youth
down, hands and feet, with it; but Christian practice
shall do it in teeth of the gospel stories, and
under the very astonished eyes of Christ.
I have not bounded into this feeling about
Eunice, — you know me, Jane, — but perhaps it
is the stronger because I acquired it by such a
vacillating, jerky process. Christina, whose arrowy
intuitions failed her once for a few of the
most miserable hours that have ever darkened
our home life, accepts my judgments in this matter,
with “improvements.” I am learning rather
to lean upon than to guide my maiden child in
unfurling sail for the outcast's frowning weather.
“Whatever happens, I believe we are ready for
lips. “It seems as if the Lord and you and I
might make a place for Eunice and the baby in
this world!”
The relations between Eunice and Christina
have grown of late singularly fitted, singularly
sweet. I take great comfort in them. Whatever
else may come, I shall rest, as I grow sick and
old, — perhaps I should say sicker and older, —
in seeing my two girls at peace together.
Eunice has crowned my life with a kind of
oriental opulence of blessing, — a gorgeous privilege.
So it seems to me in looking back. So it
grows upon me in looking on. The struggles
which she has cost me, the annoyances, doubts,
dreads, perplexities, pains, risks, were but the
ushers in the ante-room of a great, unworthy sense
of use and the highest joy in life, — the joy of
uses.
Of all the debt under which the outcast child
has laid me, the heaviest and the sweetest is her
influence over, and her affection for, Christina.
My daughter and I unite in the feeling that it
is the least which we can do for her, to take her
poor baby into our family, and help her — as
shall say, and all that.”
At this writing, as you see, her relations to
society are weighing in the balance. Fortunately,
— I say fortunately, for it will save the poor
girl some inevitable disquiet, — we, as a family,
go into what is called “company” very little;
Eunice, less.
I doubt if there are two cultivated Christian
families among our acquaintances who would invite
Eunice to their parlors, after she shall have
sat in my pew next Sunday with her little boy.
This may be natural, may be inevitable; it is
none the less uncomfortable.
I anticipate some assistance, much sympathy,
in what is before us all, from one Christian man
at least, — our physician, Dr. Burtis. I do not
see but that he treats Eunice with as much respect
since as before he walked in yesterday
morning and found her sitting with her child
upon her lap. Certain points in the doctor
please me, though his beard is as streaked as a
zebra. I have had flitting fancies — But nonsense!
There is the dinner-bell too.
More, on a later or less hungry occasion.
The storm for which, at the dating of this note,
the three women sat holding their breath in waiting,
broke quickly and naturally.
The little Burley Street baby had been, perhaps,
four days in Mrs. Purcell's family before
all Gower was agape; five, before Gower was
aghast; six, before Gower was aggrieved; seven,
before Gower's grammar-school committee called
upon Miss Trent.
Five respectable, virtuous, pious, “prominent”
men, — fathers of respectable, virtuous, pious,
prominent families, — “three selectmen and two
gold-headed canes!” whispered Christina, trying
to make Eunice laugh. But poor Eunice did not
even try to laugh.
“I would rather they were — women,” she
said, and stood and trembled.
“It is no business for you!” said Mrs. Purcell,
with her eyes very much lighted, and pushed her
aside.
The committee were both surprised and embarrassed,
either at the lady's unexpected entrance,
or by something in her appearance after
she was there. Mrs. Purcell begged their pardon
for her intrusion, and with much courtesy, but
name, pointedly inquiring, Could they transact
their business with her?
The spokesman coughed, deferred to a gold
cane, a cane consulted a selectman, a selectman
another selectman; the other selectman demurred,
deferred, consulted, coughed, and the
spokesman, having “swung around the circle”
(though he did not know it, it was so many years
ago), undertook the individual responsibility of
undertaking to make Mrs. Purcell undertake to
understand the peculiar delicacy — “pe-culiar
delicacy, my dear madam” — of the position in
which he, the spokesman, as spokesman, and
they, the selectmen and gold canes, as selectmen
and gold canes, were unavoidably and
most undesirably placed.
“The fact being, my dear madam, that the
guardianship of youth and the position of — of
— you might say, pickets, — pickets, madam, in
the great forces of youthful culture, are — in
fact are sacred trusts — sacred trusts!”
To this Mrs. Purcell cheerfully assented.
“And however unpleasant,” pursued the Committee,
“however unpleasant, as well as unfortunate
perform the duties attendant upon those trusts,
— yet the future of our youth —”
“Precisely, sir,” assisted Mrs. Purcell.
“Depends!” continued the Committee, reddening,
— “depends upon the faithfulness with
which such duties, however unfortunate, are
performed. And when reflections upon the
character of a hitherto much respected and
valued instructor of youth —”
The Committee paused.
“Go on, sir,” urged Mrs. Purcell.
(“Won't help me an inch, that 's clear,”
thought the Committee.)
“When such reflections as have been this
week cast upon the character of Miss Trent
are thrust upon our attention, madam,” broke
out the Committee, bluntly, “the matter must be
looked into, that 's all! And that — begging
your pardon — is what we are here for.”
“So I supposed.”
But Mrs. Purcell supposed nothing further,
and the business was fast becoming an awkward
one, when a gold cane knocked it slowly upon
its feet, by slowly and very solemnly inquiring, —
flections - cast - upon - the - char - acter - of - the -
young - lady - understood to be re - siding in her
fam - ily?
To this Mrs. Purcell replied quietly in the full
negative.
The five committee-men arched five pairs of
eyebrows, and paused again.
“Miss Trent's child, as undoubtedly you have
heard,” pursued Mrs. Purcell, in a very even
voice, “is at this time under my roof. Miss
Trent's past history has been, in some respects,
a very unfortunate one. Of Miss Trent's present
character and position in the confidence of
that society which is formed by character, there
cannot be found, in Gower, two opinions, I
think.”
“Perhaps not, madam, — perhaps not; undoubtedly
not. But our position as — as pickets
of educational interests, and the future of
our impressible youth, demand — as you must
own, madam — that something should be done
about this extra - ordinary case. Perhaps — considering
the sacred interests of youth, and the
— the blamed awkwardness of the affair!” exploded
energy, if loss of dignity, “Miss Trent might
feel inclined, for the sake of all parties, to —
that is, to resign, madam!”
The spokesman drew breath, and wiped his
forehead.
“Are you not satisfied,” queried Mrs. Purcell,
“with Miss Trent's intrinsic qualifications for
her present position?”
“Why — yes, madam, — yes — yes; on the
whole, yes. The young lady has indeed given
very particular satisfaction to the Board since
she has been at the post of duty in question, —
very particular satisfaction.”
“You have found her to be able, faithful, consistent,
an intelligent, active, pure-minded, pure-lived
lady, in all her connections with your
school?”
“Perfectly so, — perfectly; on the whole, all
that we could have desired for our purposes
in that department, which can but make the
present crisis, as you see, my dear madam, all
the more unfortunate, as the parents of several
of our youth, in demanding the young
lady's resignation from her post of responsibility
“Since this young lady has not as yet corrupted
beyond repair the impressible infant
minds of Gower —”
Mrs. Purcell checked herself, and in a different
tone and very earnestly said: —
“Gentlemen, I presume, as you say, that you
are in a very awkward position, but it seems to
me — for I never have been a picket in the forces
of youthful culture — a very simple position to
get out of. Look at the matter! This young
girl, by your own showing, has lived without
guile among you. I give you my testimony as a
Christian lady — whatever that is worth — to the
purity of her private character. It strikes me
that it would be good sense not to be over-hasty
in superseding a trusted veteran in Gower's educational
attacks on Gower's infant mind. It
strikes me that it would be good Christianity, —
I would beg your pardon for introducing Christianity
into business, if I were not talking, as I
believe I am, to Christian men, — it strikes me
that it would be good Christianity to heal rather
than to cripple a young life like Miss Trent's.”
The committee, somewhat ill at ease, implied
that Mrs. Purcell was well known to be an excellent
Christian woman, and quick in her Christian
sympathies, for which the committee highly
respected her; that Mrs. Purcell's remarks would
be — in, for instance, a church matter — very
much to the point of the subject, but that when it
came to the business of the week, — and the common
look of things, — and the guardianship of
the youthful mind, and responsibilities to the
State —
Mrs. Purcell interrupted here, by inquiring
concisely if she were to understand this as a
formal dismissal of Miss Trent from her position.
“Hardly that, my dear madam, — hardly that;
our chairman and one other member of the committee
being out of town, we have been as yet
unable to take formal decisive action upon the
matter, — indeed, were anxious to spare Miss
Trent as much as possible in that respect; but,
as the tide of public feeling is so strong, we
thought that perhaps a voluntary resignation —”
“You condemn your prisoner untried,” said
Mrs. Purcell, decidedly. “I should prefer, as so
`spared Miss Trent,' that there should be a
formal action taken on this business before we
hold any further conversation of this kind. I do
not hesitate to speak for Miss Trent without
consultation with her, since she has placed herself
entirely under my advice in a matter so
difficult and painful for a young girl to manage
personally. I should prefer that the matter be
put through whatever red-tape is necessary, and
that Miss Trent, if dismissed from her position,
be openly and formally dismissed.”
Within an hour after the departure of the
committee from Mrs. Purcell's parlor, the door-bell
pealed nervously through the house, and Mr.
Hobbs peremptorily summoned Eunice to the
door.
“Just in from the station,” panted Mr. Hobbs,
tipping his hat (poor Eunice noticed this) in
hurried respect, “and I find the whole world
upside-down! Called to tell you, young lady,
not to give it up! I can stand on my own feet
yet, and so can you. What 's the use of your
feet if you don't? Can you answer me that?
No! You shall hear from me again. Yes, yes,
'll be on hand before night. There 's canes
enough in that committee, but it 's poorly off for
understanding, the committee is. I give it up
if I can't stand out against the whole of 'em!”
I have always understood that Mr. Hobbs did.
The particulars of the affair I have forgotten, if
I ever knew. The result of several agitated
meetings of the school-committee, conveyed by
Dr. Burtis, through Mrs. Purcell, to Miss Trent,
was a formal request that the grammar teacher
would, for the present, retain the position which
she had — the chairman was instructed to add
— hitherto held to the entire satisfaction of the
Board.
The conditional nature of the proposition annoyed
Miss Trent. Perhaps, left to herself, she
would, in spite of Mr. Hobbs, have “given it up”;
but Margaret and the doctor overurged her, and
the young teacher did not at that time resign.
Indeed, what could she do? With the support
of her little boy just fallen upon her, to be
thrust disgraced from her desk at school was to
be thrust disgraced from every practicable means
of earning a livelihood. Who would have confidence
grammar-school committee had delighted to dishonor?
What chance was there for her in the
world, if she should step out into it with a child's
fingers dragging at her hands? The Scarlet Letter
was upon her. The little Burley Street Nursery
baby's eyes were a living advertisement of
her shame. Since she held up her brave young
head and bore it, — for Christ's sake, who had
forgiven her, — what could good men and women
do but throw their stones and pass her by? To
have concealed her story, to have cloaked her
sin, would have been quite another matter. Society
might have suspected, society might have
been assured of it, but as long as the poor girl
deserted her own, denied her flesh and blood,
society would have dealt — a little shyly with
her, perhaps, but society would not have refused
her bread and butter.
Now, less for the sin than for the acknowledgment
of sinning, — and for the sake of a single
sin, and the sin of a child, and the sin of a motherless
Thicket Street child, — the penitent, pure
woman was a branded, manacled thing.
Within a week after she brought the little boy
as she was for it, blindly prepared for anything,
when the tangible facts of the case faced
her she felt bewildered. She was so very young!
Years upon years stretched out before her — foredoomed.
Society had hedged her in on every
side.
“I am not bad!” she said, turning drearily to
Margaret, and holding up her hands as if to be
lifted. “They know I am not bad! It was so
long ago, — and I have been so sorry! And nobody
taught me, told me. Have n't I been a
good woman long enough to belong in a good
woman's place?”
“I have heard of a thing called living down,
or living out, the ghost of such a history as
yours,” said Margaret, firmly. “There are men
on that grammar-school committee who have
done it. I never knew a woman who did. If a
woman can, you shall!”
“If a woman can.” Can she? Since sin was
sin, and shame was shame, One only has made
this an easy, if indeed a possible, thing beneath
the sun. His theology preached it; his practice
pushed it. He risked his reputation for it.
notice. He left it graven with a pen of iron,
and with the point of a diamond, upon the record
of his life: This Man eateth with publicans
and sinners. To him first, last, and only in his
church the sin of a woman was not eternal.
Certain of his followers have groped after this
intricate charity, — but it is a subtile thing, and
high; who can attain unto it? What if, in
some distant unearthing of graces in the Christian
standards of thought and act, it shall be
said, This was the very stone which the builders
rejected?
Margaret felt very much as if she were making
an attack upon the whole superstructure of refined
Christian custom, when she sent her daughter
and Eunice's little boy to accompany Eunice
home from school one afternoon, when gossip
was at its busiest with the young teacher's
name; and when grave, decorous parents were
gravely, decorously, and daily removing their
children from Miss Trent's charge, — for this
thing was done to an alarming extent within
a fortnight from the period of the compromise
offered by the committee between the future of
good name.
“Three new vacancies to-day,” said Eunice,
sadly smiling, as she and Christina and the child
came down the school-house steps. “Are you
not ashamed to walk through the streets with
me? See, the sidewalk is full of people.”
“Do I look ashamed?”
Christina drew Eunice's trembling hand close
upon her arm, and there was something in the
firmness and tenderness of the touch which
gave Eunice a protected, comforted feeling, —
the stronger because of Christina's youth and
innocence.
All the streets of the little town were full, as
they went home together. People nodded and
passed; people stared and passed; people whispered
and passed. Certain of the school committee
touched their hats with ominous solemnity.
Sarah Jones and her father crossed the street
to avoid a meeting with the three. Little Beb
White's mother, Christina noticed, drew away her
dress where it touched in passing the poor little
fellow trudging along at Eunice's side. The
night fell fast, and the lights came out, and the
had netted her in before. She felt tangled, lost.
“Leave me to get out alone,” she said.
“You are nervous, Eunice. Do not try to
talk. Hush! Do I look as if I could leave you
to get out alone? Look again! There! Give
me the boy. You are too tired to lead him.”
Christina drew the little fellow to her side, and
led him gently all the way home. Her eyes were
bright, her cheeks flushed; she carried her head
with a certain pride which, to Eunice's excited
fancy, seemed for the moment rather to widen
than to bridge the gulf between them. She almost
wished that Christina were ashamed of her.
When Christina, thinking to say a pleasant
thing, said, —
“Never mind the people, Eunice. I do not
care. What harm can they do me?” — she remembered,
with a singularly keen sense of discomfort,
a thing which Monsieur Jacques in the
guitar-shop had said of Dahlia his wife: —
“She was une femme blanche. She could well
afford to cry over a little girl like you.”
She looked across her child into Christina's
confident young eyes, and thought, with exceeding
her reach was that whiteness which could
“afford” to put both shining hands into the
ditch and draw them forth unstained.
They passed some one in turning in at the
gate. Christina — her head lifted, and her arm
around Eunice's little boy — paused to see who
it was, but did not see, and hurried in.
“Did you not meet the doctor?” asked her
mother. “He has this minute left.”
It happened to Eunice on that same evening
to be called on some slight errand late to Christina's
door. Christina was up, and reading.
Eunice apologized for the disturbance.
“I believe I left the apron here that the child
must wear to-morrow”; his mother, it had been
noticed, always called him, somewhat drearily,
“the child”; shrank from naming him as
long as she could; seldom, if ever, made use of
the name which Mrs. Purcell finally fastened
upon the little fellow, — a name which meant
nothing to anybody, and nothing in itself, but all
the better for that, and at least sensible and
pleasant to the ear, — Kent.
“Come in,” said Christina, “I was only reading.”
Testament — as she spoke, and with unusual
gentleness held out her arms to Eunice. Eunice
came and stood beside her for a moment, with
the little apron across her arm, and Christina
noticed that she was very thoughtful, very still.
“What is it, dear?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me, Eunice.”
“It is you, then, Christina.”
“What have I done?”
“Made of an outcast woman — in the eyes of
all the world to-day — your personal friend. I
have been thinking it over since I have been in
my room, and the child has been asleep, — he
was so long going to sleep! Perhaps I got tired
and worried. I did not mean to hurt you, Christina.”
For Christina was uncommonly silent, — sitting
with her bright head dropped.
“What have you been `thinking over' in your
room, Eunice?”
“What a different thing it would have been if
you had — condescended, you know, dear, been
forgiving, kind, all that a noble, charitable lady
would all understand, admire you.”
“Do you mean that they will not understand,
admire me now?” Christina smiled.
“I do not know how to tell you” — Eunice
hesitated — “what I mean. It seems like supposing
that a breath could hurt you. And
yet —”
“`And yet,' Eunice?”
“After all,” said Eunice, slowly, “such a thing
as you are doing was never known of a lady
pure as you before.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps not, — very likely not.”
“You put me on your level; you made me
fine and good as you, when you walked with
such shining eyes home from school with me
to-day!”
“I hope I did.”
“But I could not bear it that a false word
should hit you,” said Eunice, with earnest,
troubled lips; “and how can people understand
that you may take me in this way — any other
way but this, — into your confidence and love?
How can they see me, with the child beside me,
all my life, and never say that you lost in fine
woman such as I to be your intimate, trusted
friend? And I wondered — do not blame me,
dear — if you had not better wait for heaven,
where things can be forgotten?”
Christina looked up; perhaps she had been
quicker than Eunice to think of this, — it was but
natural; her eyelashes were wet, though her
eyes were as still as a June morning. She lifted
her little Testament; it opened where she had
closed it, and she held it for a moment, with
some hesitation, in her hand.
“I was reading when you came in —”
Eunice looked over her shoulder and saw what
she had been reading; it was the story of Mary
of Bethany.
“I had forgotten,” said Christina, softly, “if I
ever knew, that it was she[1]
who loved much and
was forgiven, — the woman in the city which was
a sinner. And that she — I feel as if I must
beg your pardon, dear, for saying it, she was so
wicked! — she became what you call `the intimate,
trusted friend' of the Lord Jesus Christ;
trusted friend he had. He believed in her,
loved her, and all the world knew it! What do
you suppose He had of `fineness' to `lose'?
Eunice, I am not afraid!”
| CHAPTER XIII.
UNE FEMME BLANCHE. Hedged in | |