Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 273: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

264 Elsa’s silence concerning the trag- edy of her life remained unbroken al- though more than a year had passed, and gradually Amy and I had made up. our minds that Percy’s offense was too grave, too enormous, to be put into words. When Elsa first entered upon her new life her vivacity, her constant ac- tivity, misled me, and I thought she was happy. She continually talked of her new found liberty. “Why, I am free, mother, free! Do you know what that is to me? None know what freedom is except those that have lost it.” She had a sufficiently ample fortune in her own right to make it possible to carry out her proud resolve to have none of Percy’s money; and it was in the same spirit that she dropped “ Armitage ” and resumed her maiden name. The wrong that he had done her must have been a most cruel one to have driven her to such a complete cutting away of every tie that could hold her to the past. She reopened her house and began life over again. When I reproached her for dropping her social interests and neglecting her friends, she said, “T will take them up again after a while. It is only common delicacy to let a year go by. Besides, Percy al- ways kept me 1n such a whirl that Iam glad to rest. Polly and I will have a good time together. I want to be very good friends with my baby—lI have never had time before. My life with Percy was one mad race from morning till night.” It was not long before Elsa came to me with a troubled look. “Mother, what did you do with me when I was Polly’s age? She is so hard to amuse. I would rather enter- tain a whole foreign legation than Polly. I cannot say that I enjoy sit- ting on the floor with her blocks and dolls and woolly dogs. I wonder if I should be thought an _ unnatural THE ARGOSY. mother if I should flatly declare that I hate blocks and dolls and woolly dogs. somehow Polly and I put each other out of temper and we are both glad to fall back upon Katrina. “It may be that I am destitute of the maternal instinct, but really I can- not see how any fully developed wo- man can find companionship in a three year old baby. If there is anything wrong in such an assertion you must put the blame on Percy, for he was always taking me away from Polly. I suppose all my life long I shall have to suffer for Percy’s mistakes.” This was the beginning of Elsa’s failures. She began to hate the big lonely house and spent most of her time in the shops or taking long soli- tary drives. She went to all the new plays; but they must have interested her little, for she never referred to them. The only object in her new life that seemed to hold her attention was Polly; and her mind continually turned back to her little girl as to an unsolved and tan- talizing problem. “ Polly talks such a mongrel lan- guage,” she said. “ I accused Katrina of corrupting her English, and told her that between the German accent which the child has lately acquired and her h’s, which she uses like a cockney, Polly was hardly intelligible. ‘“* The h’s, ma’am, Miss Polly haf got from the butler. He is English, ma’am,’ Katrina said, with an injured air. “ It would be very funny if it did not make me feel that there is something wrong. I am doing my very best tur Polly. Every morning I have her brought to my bedside, and while I am having my breakfast I teach her things. “IT try to teach her her prayers, too, but I do not think she can be a natur- ally religious child, for she will ask for a lump of sugar or a piece of toast in the midst of the ‘ Our Father.’ ” So Elsa stumbled along in the dark ECOMRRIC Oe CO aaa FL]