A Good Woman (Bromfield)/Part 2/Chapter 11
Meanwhile Emma, walking briskly along beneath the maples of Park Avenue, found her mind all aglitter with interesting projects. She often said that she always felt on the crest of the wave, but to-day it was even better than that; she felt almost girlish. Something had happened to her, while she sat with Moses Slade, consoling him and accepting his consolations. He had noticed her. She marked the look in his eye and noticed the fingers that drummed impatiently the fine edge of his black serge mourning trousers. A man behaved like that only when a woman made him nervous and uneasy. And as she walked, there kept coming back to her in a series of pictures all the adventures of a far distant youth, memories of sleighrides and church suppers, of games of Truth and Forfeits. There was a whole gallery of young men concerned in the flow of memories—young men, tragically enough, whom she might have married. They were middle-aged or oldish now, most of them as rich and distinguished as Moses Slade himself. Somehow she had picked the poorest of the lot, and so missed all the security that came of a sound husband like Slade.
Well (she thought), she wasn't sorry in a way, for she had been happy, and it wasn't too late even now to have the other thing—wealth, security. She'd made a success of her business, and could quit it now with the honest satisfaction of knowing it hadn't defeated her—quit it, or, better still, pass it on to Philip and Naomi, if he were still sure that he wouldn't go back to Megambo. Perhaps that was the way out—to let him take it off her shoulders, and so bring him out of those filthy mills where he was disgracing them all. But then (she thought), what would she do with no work, nothing on which to center her life? It wasn't as if she were tired: she'd never felt as well in her lis as in this moment moving along under the slightly sooty maples. No, she couldn't settle down to doing nothing, sitting at home rocking like Naomi and Mabelle. (She fairly snorted at the thought of Mabelle.) Of course, if she married again, married some one like Moses Slade—not Moses Slade, of course (she scarcely knew him), but some one like him. Such a thing wasn't impossible, and with a husband of his age marriage couldn't be very unpleasant. She could go to Washington and do much good for such causes as temperance and woman suffrage.
And then, abruptly, her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of some one speaking to her.
"How do you do, Mrs. Downes?" Looking up, she saw it was Mary Watts . . . now Mary Conyngham . . . looking pale and rather handsome in her widow's clothes.
"Why, Mary Watts, I haven't seen you in ever so long."
There was a certain gush in Emma's manner that was too violent. The cordiality of Mary Watts had, too, the note of one who disliked the object of her politeness. (Emma thought, "She usually pretends not to see me. She's only stopped me because she wants to ask about Philip.")
"I've been away," said Mary; "I had the children in the South. That's why you haven't seen me."
"Yes, now that you speak of it, I do remember reading it in the paper."
And Mary, who never possessed any subtlety, went straight to the point. "I hear," she said, "that Philip has come home."
"Yes, he's been home for some time."
"Is it true that he's working in the Mills . . . as a day laborer?"
("What business is it of yours?" thought Emma.)
"Yes, it's a notion he had. I think he wants to find out what it's like. He thinks a missionary ought to know about such things."
"I suppose he'll be going back to Africa soon?"
"Oh, yes. I think he's impatient to be back."
"His wife's here, too?"
"Yes, she's here."
"I've never met her. Perhaps I'd better call."
"Yes, she's always there. She doesn't go out much."
There was an awkward pause and Mary, looking away suddenly, said, "Well, good-by, Mrs. Downes. Remember me to Philip."
"Of course," said Emma. "Good-by."
Once after they had parted, Emma looked back to watch Mary. She looked handsome (Emma thought), but sad and tired. Perhaps it was the trouble she had had with Conyngham and Mamie Rhodes . . . carrying on so. Still, she didn't feel sorry for Mary: you couldn't feel sorry for a girl who had such superior airs. She was always stuck-up—Mary Watts; and she'd better not try any of her tricks on Philip.
Her thoughts flew back to Philip. Something had to be done about him. He'd been home for nine months now, and people were beginning to talk; they were even beginning to find out about the Mills. (Why, Mary Watts knew it already.) Being so busy with the new addition to the restaurant and the church and the Union affairs, she hadn't done her best by him these last few weeks; she'd been neglecting her duty in a way. It wasn't too late for him to go back to Megambo—why, he might still become Bishop of East Africa. If he didn't, it would go to that numbskull, Swanson, as first in the field.
And instead of that, he was working like a common Dago in the Mills.
And Naomi, she wasn't any help at all. Funny, too, when she'd always thought Naomi could look out for herself and manage Philip. Instead, she seemed to grow more spineless every day—almost as if she were siding with Philip. She was getting just like Mabelle, sitting around all day in a trance, rocking. Something had to be done.
Then, for no reason at all, unless it happened through that train of memories fired by the behavior of Moses Slade, which led back to her youth, she thought of Naomi's preciously guarded virginity.
Perhaps (she thought) if they had a child, if Philip and Naomi lived together as man and wife, they would all have a greater hold upon him. A man with a real wife and children wasn't as free as a man like Philip, who had no responsibilities (now that he'd become so strange), save those imposed by the law. Perhaps he would come to love Naomi and do things to please her. He'd come in time to want things from her. A thing like that did give you a hold over a man: it was a precarious hold, and you had to be very clever about it, but it was something, after all. If there was a child, she (Emma) could take charge of it when Philip and Naomi went back to the place God had ordained for them.
As she walked, the idea grew and grew. Why (she wondered) hadn't it occurred to her before, as the one chance left? Naomi would hate it, and probably refuse at first, but she must be made to understand that it was her duty, not only as a wife (there were plenty of passages in the Bible to prove it), but as an agent of God. Why, it was almost another case of Esther and Ahasuerus, or even Judith and Holofernes. Look what they had done for God!
Yes, there was a chance of managing Philip, after all. If they fixed on him such new responsibilities, it might bring him to his senses.
Suddenly, in the midst of these torrential thoughts, she found herself at the very door of her own house, and, entering, she called out, "Naomi! Naomi!" in her loud, booming voice.
From her rocking-chair by the window, Naomi rose and answered her. She had been crying, perhaps all the afternoon, and her pale eyes were swollen and rimmed with red.
"Naomi," she said, flinging aside her hat and jacket, "I've had a new idea about Philip. I think we've been wrong in our way of managing him."