CHAPTER XXIII.
CHIEFLY SOCIAL—MRS. FRAMLEY’S OPINIONS.
Molly during the month had become acquainted with all Mr. and Mrs. Winfield’s friends; they had gone to the “readings” each week, and, not being hypocritical young people, but very ready to be amused, had enjoyed themselves much. The “readings,” she found, were really modified theatricals; and as happily no great tragedies or legitimate dramas were attempted, but bright comedies or farces, they were usually well done; and where they were not the fun was greater.
Molly was glad they had found so many pleasant people in Greenfield; it made the ordeal of a winter in the country for Harry far less trying. She was expressing an idea of this sort to Mrs. Framley, who said:—
“But you don’t seem to think the ordeal is as great for you, who are in the country all day. I’m afraid you spoil Mr. Bishop.”
“Oh dear, no,” laughed Molly; “but I do think it right to make life just as pleasant to him as I can.”
“My dear, don’t you think women do too much of that? Isn’t it just as much a man’s business to see that his wife enjoys herself as hers to cater to his amusement? You told me the other day you don’t care for chess; yet you make a point of playing it. Why shouldn’t Mr. Bishop make a point of doing something you like?”
“I don’t know; but I don’t believe he would think of it; if he did, no doubt he would try to amuse me.”
“That’s just it! You are so self-effacing that it doesn’t occur to him. I am no woman’s rights woman; I don’t want to vote; but I do not believe in catering to a husband’s taste any more than he caters to mine.”
“I haven’t thought much about it,” said Molly slowly. “It just comes natural to me to do what I can to please Harry, but I don’t know that it is any credit to me, for I enjoy it just as much as he does; perhaps if I didn’t I might not do it.”
“Well, you are newly married, but later you will find you have made him thoroughly selfish; at least, he is a remarkable young man if he doesn’t get so. Look at Jane Carlyle!”
Molly laughed. “I love Mrs. Carlyle, and I am always surprised at the tone of commiseration adopted toward her. I think she thoroughly enjoyed ministering to her husband—why shouldn’t she? She loved and admired him, and it was her life work; and I think I understand such a woman well enough to feel sure she was happier drudging for him than she would have been with some smaller man drudging for her. All her letters, for the first twenty-five years of her married life, show that she rather gloried in overcoming her difficulties. I dare say she would have pitied some other woman doing the same things; but we all leave out, in thinking of others, the personal affection which makes the things we do and suffer for those we love a pleasure.”
“My dear Mrs. Bishop,” cried Mrs. Framley, laughing, “I had no idea you could be so eloquent. I think, at one of our meetings, instead of a reading, we will have a lecture from Mrs. Bishop, entitled The labor that we love physics pain. You haven’t convinced me, though, because my opinions are founded on principle, and the conviction that women ought, out of self-respect and for the sake of other women, to expect that a husband should sacrifice his tastes and pleasure, and consider it his duty to amuse and entertain his wife as much as she does him, and not consider his duty done if he provides for her and treats her as well as he would a favorite horse.”
“I can understand if people, man and wife, or brother and sister, begin to draw the line as to what is to be conceded and what expected, and what they do for those they love becomes a conscious self-abnegation,—that life under such circumstances may be looked upon as one of self-denial; but I fancy few really are denying themselves while pleasing a loved one.”
Mrs. Framley smiled. “You are the last person I should have thought romantic, but I see you are; talk to me ten years from now, my dear, and I’ll listen respectfully.”
Molly thought the matter over when she was alone. Was she really in danger of spoiling Harry? She certainly had known husbands who took all the comfort of their homes just as their right, and never seemed to think they need do anything toward the family pleasure beyond paying the bills. Molly was devoted to her husband; but she was not so blinded by her love as not to see that Harry was in no way a perfect man. He was pleasure-loving only in the sense of seizing life’s enjoyments,—even his generous impulses were part of them,—and he was too fastidious for a poor man; and Molly could quite realize that he might not be a loving husband to some women just as good as she was, and yet she knew his faults were faults of temperament. How could he help it, if he liked brightness and gaiety and rather shirked the dreary side of life? She sympathized so much with him that she had no dread of the future; she had no wish to make him over to her standard. (Herein lies the secret of half the “incompatibility” in marriage, if Molly had but known it; but she was not, consciously, a social philosopher.)
“Well, I can’t help it; I don’t believe Harry will be more spoiled by being made happy in his own way than if I try to make him make me happy in mine; and if he does I can’t help it. It all depends, I suppose, whether one loves a man well enough to enjoy his pleasure and find one’s own in it; and I can’t help thinking Mrs. Carlyle was just as happy as those who pity her, until she got ill and morbid; the sacrifices she seemed to make of her own comfort were not so, for her pleasure was in promoting that of her great husband.”
On the whole, Mrs. Framley’s warning had done no good or harm. While boarding, although Molly had been as reserved as politeness permitted, and limited her intercourse with the ladies to formal acquaintance, it had been impossible for her to escape many such warnings, uttered good-naturedly, often by the way of joking a young wife; but she knew then, as now, she could lay no deliberate plans to secure her husband’s love and attention; if she gave more than she received, she could not help it—she loved to give. “If it is really necessary to measure one’s devotion in order to secure happy married life, then those women who love least have most chance of happiness; but it cannot be.”