Mam'selle JoComstock, Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa)
General
Mam'selle Jo
Comstock, Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa)
Saint Lawrence River Valley -- Fiction; Self-sacrifice -- Fiction; Single women -- Fiction
When I came to, I found myself on the way to Egypt. It was too late to
turn back, Jim, or I would have done so and got you to come with me, I
can bear folks now. If you think well of it, come along anyway. And,
by the way, in the general jamboree do you know I completely forgot the
little girl of Alice Lindsay’s, fiddling away up in Canada. I do not
usually forget such things, and I’m deeply ashamed. If you don’t come
to Egypt, perhaps you would not mind looking her up and explaining.
I’ll be back in a year or so.
Norval smiled. It was his first smile in many a day. It was mid
September then and, though he did not realize it, he was edging toward
home. Home! After all, it was good for a man and woman to know the
meaning of home. Of course you had to pay for it, and he was ready to
pay. It’s rather shocking to drift about and have no place to anchor
in. That side of the matter had been uppermost in Norval’s mind for
weeks. He meant to make all this very clear to Katherine; he wondered
if she, too, were edging across the continent. There must be hours in
the studio, of course. He and Katherine had enough to live on, but a
man ought to have something definite in the way of work. Painting was
more than play to Norval, it was a profession, a job! If he made
Katherine look at it as a job, everything would smooth out. Then, too,
he meant to focus on her newly discovered talent. Perhaps she was
gifted and he had been brutally blind. No wonder she had resented it.
And, thank God, he was not one of the men who wanted the world for
themselves. It would really be quite jolly to have Katherine write
about Awakened Souls and things of that sort while he painted. Then,
after business hours, they would have a common life interest, maybe they
could adopt children. Norval adored children. Yes, it was as he had
hoped; a summer apart had brought them together!
And just then Katherine’s letter came.
It ran:
JIM, I am not coming back. Here in my little bungalow I have found
myself and I mean to keep myself!
I feel very kindly. All the hurt is gone now or I would not write. I
see your genius, I really do, and I also see that it would be impossible
for me to help you. I tried and failed horribly. Had you married a
woman, the waiting, thankful sort, the kind of woman who would always be
there when you came back, always glad to have you making your brilliant
way and basking in your light, all would have been well. But, Jim, I
want something of my own out of life, and I wasn’t getting it. I was
starving. I feared I would starve here, but I haven’t and—— Well, Jim,
I don’t know how divorces are managed when people are as respectable as
we, but unless you want to leave things as they are, do try to help me
out. After all, you must be just enough to admit that there is
something to be said for me?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account