“She’ll take care of me,” said Louise. “Of course, it’ll be hard on her to live with such a great invalid as I am, but it can only be for such a little while, I’m sure she won’t mind.”
Iris was a nice girl. She had been brought up with the knowledge that her mother’s health was precarious. As a child she had never been allowed to make a noise. She had always realized that her mother must on no account be upset. And though Louise told her now that she would not hear of her sacrificing herself for a tiresome old woman the girl simply would not listen. It wasn’t a question of sacrificing herself, it was a happiness to do what she could for her poor dear mother. With a sigh her mother let her do a great deal.
“It pleases the child to think she’s making herself useful,” she said.
“Don’t you think she ought to go out and about more?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m always telling her. I can’t get her to enjoy herself. Heaven knows, I never want anyone to put themselves out on my account.”
And Iris, when I remonstrated with her, said: “Poor dear mother, she wants me to go and stay with friends and go to parties, but the moment I start off anywhere she has one of her heart attacks, so I much prefer to stay at home.”
But presently she fell in love. A young friend of mine, a very good lad, asked her to marry him and she consented. I liked the child and was glad that she was to be given at last the chance to lead a life of her own. She had never seemed to suspect that such a thing was possible. But one day the young man came to me in great distress and told me that his marriage was indefinitely postponed. Iris felt that she could not desert her mother. Of course it was really no business of mine, but I made the opportunity to go and see Louise. She was always glad to receive her friends at tea-time and now that she was older she cultivated the society of painters and writers.
“Well, I hear that Iris isn’t going to be married,” I said after a little.
“I don’t know about that. She’s not going to be married quite as soon as I could have wished. I’ve begged her on my bended knees not to consider me, but she absolutely refuses to leave me.”
“Don’t you think it’s rather hard on her?”
“Dreadfully. Of course it can only be for a few months, but I hate the thought of anyone sacrificing themselves for me.”
“My dear Louise, you’ve buried two husbands, I can’t see the least reason why you shouldn’t bury at least two more.”
“Do you think that’s funny?” she asked me in a tone that she made as offensive as she could.
“I suppose it’s never struck you as strange that you’re always strong enough to do anything you want to and that your weak heart only prevents you from doing things that bore you?”
“Oh, I know, I know what you’ve always thought of me. You’ve never believed that I had anything the matter with me, have you?”
I looked at her full and square.
“Never. I think you’ve carried out for twenty-five years a stupendous bluff. I think you’re the most selfish and monstrous woman I have ever known. You ruined the lives of those two wretched men you married and now you’re going to ruin the life of your daughter.”
I should not have been surprised if Louise had had a heart attack then. I fully expected her to fly into a passion. She merely gave me a gentle smile.
“My poor friend, one of these days you’ll be so dreadfully sorry you said this to me.”
“Have you quite determined that Iris shall not marry this boy?”
“I’ve begged her to marry him. I know it’ll kill me, but I don’t mind. Nobody cares for me. I’m just a burden to everybody.”
“Did you tell her it would kill you?”
“She made me.”
“As if anyone ever made you do anything that you were not yourself quite determined to do.”
“She can marry her young man tomorrow if she likes. If it kills me, it kills me.”
“Well, let’s risk it, shall we?”
“Haven’t you got any compassion for me?”
“One can’t pity anyone who amuses one as much as you amuse me,” I answered.
A faint spot of colour appeared on Louise’s pale cheeks and though she smiled still her eyes were hard and angry.
“Iris shall marry in a month’s time,” she said, “and if anything happens to me I hope you and she will be able to forgive yourselves.”
Louise was as good as her word. A date was fixed, a trousseau of great magnificence was ordered, and invitations were issued. Iris and the very good lad were radiant. On the wedding-day, at ten o’clock in the morning, Louise, that devilish woman, had one of her heart attacks-and died. She died gently forgiving Iris for having killed her.
The Closed Shop
NOTHING WOULD INDUCE ME to tell the name of the happy country in which the incidents occurred that I am constrained to relate; but I see no harm in admitting that it is a free and independent state on the continent of America. This is vague enough in all conscience and can give rise to no diplomatic incident. Now the president of this free and independent state had an eye to a pretty woman and there came to his capital, a wide and sunny town with a plaza, a cathedral that was not without dignity, and a few old Spanish houses, a young person from Michigan of such a pleasing aspect that his heart went out to her. He lost no time in declaring his passion and was gratified to learn that it was returned, but he was mortified to discover that the young person regarded his possession of a wife and her possession of a husband as a bar to their union. She had a feminine weakness for marriage. Though it seemed unreasonable to the president, he was not the man to refuse a pretty woman the gratification of her whim and promised to make such arrangements as would enable him to offer her wedlock. He called his attorneys together and put the matter before them. He had long thought, he said, that for a progressive country their marriage laws were remarkably out of date and he proposed therefore radically to amend them. The attorneys retired and after a brief interval devised a divorce law that was satisfactory to the president. But the state of which I write was always careful to do things in a constitutional way, for it was a highly civilized, democratic, and reputable country. A president who respects himself and his oath of office cannot promulgate a law, even if it is to his own interest, without adhering to certain forms, and these things take time; the president had barely signed the decree that made the new divorce law valid when a revolution broke out and he was very unfortunately hanged on a lamp-post in the plaza in front of the cathedral that was not without dignity.
The young person of pleasing aspect left town in a hurry, but the law remained. Its terms were simple. On the payment of one hundred dollars gold and after a residence of thirty days a man could divorce his wife or a wife her husband without even apprising the other party of the intended step. Your wife might tell you that she was going to spend a month with her aged mother and one morning at breakfast when you looked through your mail you might receive a letter from her informing you that she had divorced you and was already married to another.
Now it was not long before the happy news spread here and there that at a reasonable distance from New York was a country, the capital of which had an equable climate and tolerable accommodation, where a woman could release herself, expeditiously and with economy, from the irksome bonds of matrimony. The fact that the operation could be performed without the husband’s knowledge saved her from those preliminary and acrimonious discussions that are so wearing to the nerves. Every woman knows that however much a man may argue about a proposition he will generally accept a fact with resignation. Tell him you want a Rolls-Royce and he will say he can’t afford it, but buy it and he will sign his cheque like a lamb. So in a very short time beautiful women in considerable numbers began to come down to the pleasant, sunny town; tired business women and women of fashion, women of pleasure and women of leisure; they came from New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, they came from Georgia and they came from Dakota, they came from all the states in the Union. The passenger accommodation on the ships of the United Fruit Line was only just adequate to the demand, and if you wanted a stateroom to yourself you had to engage it six months in advance. Prosperity descended upon the capital of this enterprising state and in a very little while there was not a lawyer in it who did not own a Ford car. Don Agosto, the proprietor of the Grand Hotel, went to the expense of building several bathrooms, but he did not grudge it; he was making a fortune, and he never passed the lamp-post on which the outgoing president had been hanged without giving it a jaunty wave of his hand.