Life and Gabriella: The Story of a Woman's CourageGlasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson
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Life and Gabriella: The Story of a Woman's Courage
Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson
Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Virginia -- Fiction
She was a neat, red-faced woman, in rusty mourning for a child she had
lost in the early summer, and while she talked, Gabriella felt an
irresistible impulse to question her about O'Hara. "She has known him
for thirty years, and I can find out more from her than I could discover
for myself in six months," she thought; but she only said indifferently:
"You've worked at this house a long time, haven't you?"
"For thirty years--ever since I came here at eighteen as housemaid to
Mr. McGoldrick. My husband was coachman for Mr. McGoldrick, you know--he
drove the prettiest pair of bays in New York--and that was how I met
him. When we married, Mr. McGoldrick set us up, and John drove his
carriage for him as long as he lived. I often wonder what the old
gentleman would think of everybody having automobiles. They were just
beginning to come into fashion when he died."
"You knew Mr. O'Hara then?"
"Oh, yes, he was a great deal with Mr. McGoldrick. After he went West we
didn't see much of him for a time--that was while he was making his
money. Then he came back and brought his wife to a place here to be
treated--"
"His wife?"
"Didn't you know? She died a few years ago, but before that he used to
keep her with some doctor over on Long Island, and he went regularly to
see her every Sunday afternoon as long as she lived."
"What was the matter?"
"Drugs. Drugs and drink, too, they said, though I never knew for certain
about that. But they couldn't do anything with her. They tried all the
cures anybody ever heard of, and she went back every time. No sooner
would one thing fail, however, than Mr. O'Hara would hear of something
or other over in Europe, and make them begin trying it. Finally for the
last ten or twelve years she was quite out of her mind--clean crazy they
said, and didn't know anybody. But he still went to see her every Sunday
when he was staying in town, and he still made the doctors go on trying
new things. He never gave up till the very last. Mr. McGoldrick used to
say of him that he was the sort that would go on hoping in hell."
"Who was she? Where did he meet her?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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