The Swing of the Pendulum by Adriana Spadoni

"So you are going to marry him. " Martha picked up the toast that had burned while Jean talked and threw it on the fire.

In the bright sunshine she looked old. Her flesh was pale and flaccid, like the flesh of overworked people, or of the aged who have gone without sleep. Her hair was twisted in a tight knot, but stray, gray wisps escaped. Her throat was stringy and the chin muscles sagged.

Jean tried not to look at the discolored neck and the thin, worn hands. They stood for all that her mother had missed in life. It roused something in her sharper than pity, a kind of anger. With an effort she went round the table.

"Mummy, don't look like that. " Jean knelt and put her arms about the rigid figure.

Martha did not move. It had come so suddenly, before she had found strength to meet it. She had disliked Franklin Herrick on sight and even this morning, at early service, had knelt long after the close of mass and prayed that he might be taken out of Jean's life.

And now Jean was going to marry him. To take him for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death parted them. She heard herself saying the words that had bound her for life to Jean's father. She had tried to do her duty, but death had come as a great release. She had done her best and had had the sacraments of the Church and prayer to help her. Jean had nothing. She was plunging blindly into this state, the greatest personal martyrdom ordained by God. And with Franklin Herrick. Martha could see no plan, no purpose in this thing and battled to hold firm her faith.

"Mummy dear, don't. Please don't look like that, as if something terrible had happened."

"Something terrible has happened, Jean. You are going to yoke yourself for life, think of it, for all the years God may demand you live on this earth, with a man who has no higher conception of life than an animal."

Jean's arms dropped to her sides and she pressed her lips tightly together.

"And he will lead you farther and farther away, Jean. He has a power over you that I would never have believed, never. Ever since you have known him you have been different. You're ready at his beck and call. Have you ever refused to go anywhere when he has asked you? Long ago you gave up church, but, still, you spent the day with some kind of respect. But now, how do you spend the day that God Himself put aside for His worship?"

"In the hills that He made. " Jean almost prayed for strength to be patient.

"And your friends? Infidels and wasters and adulterers, by your own story. Oh, Jeany, Jeany, my baby."

Martha laid her head on the table and sobbed.

Jean rose. In spite of all her effort to do otherwise she could not help it. She felt a physical nausea at the sight of her mother's emotion. She tried to go nearer and could not. She could not comfort or touch that quivering figure.

"Let's not talk any more about it, mother. It will only make us both unhappy."

Martha struggled with her feeling as with an enemy and conquered. She rose, too, and for a moment they stood facing each other.

"There is some good purpose in it all, there must be and He will show me. Perhaps I have loved you too much and He has chosen this instead of death. You must have patience with me, Jean. He will show me. Till then I can only say blindly -- Thy will be done."

Before the tremendous egotism of her mother's humility, Jean went slowly back to the table and sat down.

"When are you going to be married? " Martha dried her eyes and, crossing to the stove, brought the hot coffee and filled both their cups.

"Very soon," Jean answered wearily. "There's no reason to wait, and Franklin wants to get settled at some work."