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Show 291 Perhaps the sharpness which developed in Milford after his business losses was rooted in other, greater losses-the pedestals upon which his wives had placed him at an earlier time. Good women, all of them, not one would likely frame the words to tell him of their disappointment. Not Ellis with her love and unfailing loyalty, not Lizzie who was always optimistic and able to put a good face on things, and certainly not Mary with her patience and charity. Maggie, maybe-when she left him. And if not even she, then simply all the subtleties by which disappointment is communicated by one human being who sees in another somewhat less substance than expected. Since propriety, plus a due regard for the eternal nature of their relationship, would militate against an overt accommodation such as Maggie made in casting her lot with someone else, Ellis may have seen only one possible option: to transmute the passion of her early love for Milford into a unique relationship with her children. This would have been an easy transition since it seems to have begun in earlier years on occasions when Milford was absent for protracted periods or was harsh with her or with the children. In this transfer of passionate womanly devotion, there was probably some unrequited love, for she ultimately needed the children more than they needed her as they developed their own spousal relationships and reared their families. At any rate, the impression is very strong that these two people, Ellis and Milford, found themselves on the two widely |
