ALTHEA’S GUARDIANS

The little Althea then, who is our heroine, when we shall come to her, had been entrusted, somewhat unwillingly, to her aunt, Juliet St. Leger Temple; Juliet never wrote her name only in full, as above. She was proud of her maiden name. St. Leger was romantic, high-sounding, aristocratic. Temple well, Temple had been well enough in the early days of her courtship. She thought she loved John Temple so very profoundly that she would have married him even if he went by Smith or Jones. She had read Charlotte Temple, and she knew people by that name of great respectability; but since her marriage, she had discovered, on the same street with her, a family of Temples who were snobbish and vulgar. This put her out of conceit with her husband’s name. John Temple! so almost the same as James Temple, only a few squares below. Who was to distinguish her, Mrs. Juliet St. Leger Temple, from the fat, dowdyish, over-dressed, gaudy Mrs. Temple, who wore a wig, and whose eyes squinted? Who, she questioned, when both went by the name of Mrs. J. Temple, of M street? Her early married life was clouded by this one grievance. She had still another; her husband was a Roman Catholic, and would not go with her to St. Mark’s Church. True, she had known him to be a Catholic when she married him; but she had not known or dreamed that these Catholics were so set and obstinate in their religion. He had been so reticent upon the subject that she had supposed him quite indifferent. Once married, she could convert him; O, that would be a very easy matter. He need go to St. Mark’s but once to be so delighted that he would wish to go there ever after. She had consented to be married first by the priest in order that John Temple might see the delightful difference between being married by Father Duffy at low Mass in the early morning, while fashionables were still folding their hands in slumber, and being married five hours after by the elegant Dr. Browne, assisted by the Rev. Drs. Knickerbocker and Breck with a brilliant group of bridesmaids and groomsmen, and only the very elite of fashion, full-dressed and perfumed, in attendance.

“I hope he will be captivated now; and that here will ooze out the last gasp of his love for the religion of St. Patrick,” the young bride had said mentally.

But neither Dr. Browne, nor his beaming assistants, nor all the splendor of St. Mark’s made upon John Temple the least apparent impression.

The Sunday following the marriage witnessed quite a contention.

“And you say this positively, John, that you will not go with me to St. Mark’s, and on the very first Sunday, too?” cried Juliet, incredulous. “I have told you all along that I would not go to your church,” replied John.

“But what possible harm could there be in your going just this once? Any other man in the world would be proud to go with me in all my beautiful bridal array. I assure you there is not another wardrobe in the city so recherche as mine. You yourself said you never saw such a love of a hat, and my point-lace might be the pride of a princess. But, John, if you would only go, I would be more proud of you than even anything and all of my elegant dress. Now, John, dear, please say yes,” and she laid her hand on his arm, and looked up, as she vainly hoped, irresistibly in his face.

But John shook off her hand impatiently, not deigning even to respond to her look.

“Silence gives consent, and you will go,” she said.

“Have I not told you once, twice, and thrice that I cannot go with you?”

“O, John, but I did not think you in such terrible earnest, and you are not, I am sure. I thought you loved me so well you would do anything to please me. Come now, just this once, this first Sunday after our marriage. Think how it will look, and what will people say to see me walk into church all alone and our pew is far up in front?”

“Is it for the looks of the thing and for what people will say that you go to church?” asked the husband, gravely.

“No, of course not; but then we must have some regard for the speech of people, and how it will look for you to go off to one church and your wife to another.”

“Would you care to go with me, Juliet?”

“With you? To St. Patrick’s? With all the Bridgets and Pats and Mikes of the city? Do you think I could stoop so low? O, John Temple, you insult me!” and the young wife burst into indignant tears.

John hurried to her with his handkerchief to wipe her eyes. She thrust it away, declaring there was something about a gentleman’s handkerchief that made it abominable.

“Well, don’t cry, dear,” urged John, soothingly.

“It’s all the comfort left me,” sobbed Juliet.

“I simply followed your example,” continued the husband. “You invited me to your church, and I invited you to mine, that, as you said, we might go together. I had no idea of urging you to go if it would be disagreeable to you.”

“There’s a vast difference. If you go to St. Mark’s you are among elegant people. Every one’s dress is in the height of fashion. You see nothing low or vulgar. There is nothing to offend the senses. The very thought of my going to St. Patrick’s!” and the lady cast up her eyes as if she were about to faint or to implore Heaven to save her from such a horror.

“But you associate in society with the McCaffreys, the Dempseys, and the Blakes, and many others of the congregation of St. Patrick.”

“O, well, they probably started up from nothing, and are used to it; they don’t know any difference. But for me a St. Leger! O, John, if you love me, don’t ever mention such a thing again; and if you love me, John, a half or quarter as I love you, you will go with me to St. Mark’s. I will not go without you, and I shall cry myself into a dreadful headache, and you can refuse me and see me suffer so when we’ve been married but five days! O dear, dear, I thought I was going to marry a man who would love me so well he would do everything in the world to please me, and now here it is!” and Juliet fairly shook with sobs.

John Temple was a very matter-of-fact man; quite the reverse of his wife in every respect. The wonder is how such opposites became attracted. He understood very little of women’s ways, and became fearful that his young bride was on the borders of distraction. He felt himself justified in remaining absent from Mass, and as he persevered in his resolution of not accompanying Juliet to St. Mark’s, both remained at home, where more of clouds than sunshine reigned.

More than once during this scene John Temple was on the point of yielding. Where was the harm after all? and it would be a pleasure to gratify Juliet. But he remembered the promise he had made to himself and his God, that, in marrying a Protestant wife, he would still keep aloof from the Protestant Church. This promise kept him true. If once would have answered, he might have gone once; but after that the battle would have to be fought over again; the victory might be made complete in the beginning.

The next day, while Mr. Temple was at his place of business, Juliet, feeling herself very much injured, visited her rector, Dr. Browne. She told him the whole story in her tragic way, including the insulting proposal for her to go to St. Patrick’s. She wished Dr. Browne would contrive some way by which her her husband might be brought to terms.

Dr. Browne smiled.

“You will remember, Mrs. Temple,” he said, “that your friends all warned you in this matter of your marriage. It is so impossible for a Catholic to become anything else, that it has become an adage, ’Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.’ Do not expect your husband to change; the leopard might as well be expected to change his spots. Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone. Let him go to his church, and you to yours. It is not pleasant, but must be accepted as one of the conditions of your marriage. Neither let it create trouble between you. Avoid religious subjects. But as he will undoubtedly cling to his Church, so must you to yours. Do not be prevailed upon to go with him; remain upon that point firm as himself.”

Thereafter Juliet concluded she had better make the best of it, and by-and-bye it had ceased to become the “skeleton in the house,” as at first.

Had Juliet been less exacting and less demonstrative in her affection, she would have made her husband a happier man. Coming home one day he found her crying, as if her heart would break. To his eager inquiries as to the cause, she replied, hysterically:

“You don’t love me, John, and I am the most unhappy woman in the world.”

“Don’t love you! What has put such a notion as that in your head?”

“You know you don’t, John; that is enough.”

“But if I tell you I do?”

“That is just what you never do tell me; that is what makes me so miserable.”

“Am I unkind to you? What have I done that you complain of?”

“You don’t tell me every day that you love me.”

“Bless me! You are not expecting me to repeat that over every day? Is not once enough for all? Did I not prove it beyond all words by marrying you?”

“I never expected our honeymoon to wane. If you calculated to settle down at once into sober old married people, I did not, nor will I. I wish we had never got married, and always stayed lovers; that was ever so much nicer. Don’t you say your Ave Maria every day?”

“I do,” answered John, “or rather I used to,” failing to perceive what connection this question could have with the subject.

“Well, then, why do you do that? Why don’t you say it once for all and have done with it, as you say of your love for me? But no, all your devotion must be given to a woman that lived thousands of years ago! You think more of her picture than of your own wife! This is what one gets by marrying a Catholic!”

Juliet’s temper was fast overcoming her grief.

John Temple was agitated by a variety of emotions. He looked at his wife, who had re-buried her face in the sofa cushions, and thus addressed her, inaudibly:

“You foolish, little simpleton! you ignorant little heretic! destitute both of religion and common sense. Good Heavens, what a wife! Jealous of Mary, our Mother in Heaven! O, Holy Mary in Heaven, pray for her.”

The dinner-bell rang.

“Come, Juliet,” said her husband, kindly, “let us go to dinner; I am hungry as a bear.”

“You can go; I have no appetite, I never care to eat again as long as I live,” came out dismally from the depths of the pillows.

John ate a hearty dinner, when, failing to conciliate his wife, he went to his office. No sooner had the hall-door closed on him than Juliet arose out of her sackcloth and ashes, bathed her face, arranged her hair, and proceeding to the dining-room, so far forgot her intention of never eating again as to surprise the cook by her greediness. She then dressed, ordered her carriage, and was driven to her mother’s.

To this mother, who was a confirmed invalid, and confined to the house, Juliet poured out the exaggerated tale of her grievances. It was not enough that her husband was a Catholic; he was also heartless, stoical, unsympathizing, and unloving.

Mrs. St. Leger listened silently to the end. At the conclusion she flew into a rage.

“You shall go back to him no more,” she exclaimed. “You see now the folly of your persisting in marrying him. He was beneath you in every respect. But you shall not live with him. My daughter shall not be treated disdainfully by John Temple, an Irishman and a Catholic. I will send for my lawyer and have divorce papers drawn at once. Ring for Richard.”

“But, mamma I I I never thought of getting a divorce. I love my husband. It is because I love him so well that I feel so bad if if

“Juliet, you are a goose,” interrupted the irritated parent; “if you are so fond of your husband, what are you here for with your complaints? If you are bound to live with him, why, live with him, and hold your tongue. When it comes that you are willing to separate and get a divorce, then come to me, but not till then.”

Juliet returned to her home a wiser woman. The very thought of separation from her husband was distracting. What was mother or sister compared to him? She had really no doubt of his affection, and it suddenly flashed upon her mind that such scenes as she had just gotten up, if frequently repeated, might have a tendency to alienate him. She would make it all up; she would tell him how sorry she was; she would be so glad to see him; he should love her, even though he did not tell her so.

John came home that night wondering if he should find his wife’s face still hidden in the cushions, her hair standing out in a thousand dishevelled threads. It was not a pleasant picture. Yet it was a pleasant picture that met him at the door. Juliet was all smiles, blooms and roses. There was joy in her eyes, and gladness in her tones. Never had she looked quite so beautiful to John Temple even when first her beauty won him. It was such a surprise! What wonder he committed the folly but no matter. Juliet learned a lesson to her advantage. Tears and upbraidings had failed to move him. A happy face, smiles, charming toilettes, joy at his coming had brought out those expressions which demands had failed to elicit.

Juliet was not satisfied yet. She had to tell him how shocked she had been at the mere thought of losing him. John opened his eyes, and felt considerably hurt as she detailed the visit to her mother, and that mother’s proposition for a divorce. For Juliet touched very lightly upon her own fault of having made outrageous complaints against him. Nevertheless he felt convinced of the facts, knowing Juliet had gone there with unkindness in her heart. By his repeated questionings she admitted all, but he fully forgave her, considering the good results of her thoughtless action.

On the day following this domestic breeze and subsequent calm, Philip St. Leger had arrived from the Orient. Two months previously they had been apprised of his coming. A family conclave had been held, at which it had been decided that to Juliet should Philip’s child be consigned; for reasons already explained by Philip to Duncan Lisle.

Juliet had now been married six months. She was twenty-five years of age; old enough to have exhibited more sense and discretion than we have seen her to do. She was, however, one of those who will be childish as long as they live. Her faults and delinquencies were due more to improper training than to natural defects. With such characters is hope of reformation.

Juliet was delighted with the child, which was just commencing to walk, and could say a few words. She had the dark eyes and hair, and creamy complexion of the St. Legers.

Juliet had been, even among girls, distinguished for her love of dolls. To make dresses and hats for her troop of a dozen had formed one of the chief pleasures of her childhood, continued far up into youth.

In Althea she saw the quintessence of all dolls. For her she could embroider, ruffle, and tuck; search the city over for the daintiest of baby shoes and the showiest of infant hats. Althea should have a nurse, and a carriage, and a poodle dog. Santa Claus should not only give her his choicest gifts at Christmas but should shower down toys every day in the year. After a little, in another year, she would take her with her to St. Mark’s, where she should attract all eyes by her dress and beauty.

That Althea had a soul to be trained, carefully guided and directed to God, entered not into the calculations of this giddy, superficial woman.