Just at dusk, that evening, I had gone upstairs and put on my
muslin gown. I had been busy all day attending to the strawberry
preserving--for Mary Sloane could not be trusted with that--and I
was a little tired, and thought it was hardly worth while to
change my dress, especially since there was nobody to see or
care, since Hester was gone. Mary Sloane did not count.
But I did it because Hester would have cared if she had been
here. She always liked to see me neat and dainty. So, although
I was tired and sick at heart, I put on my pale blue muslin and
dressed my hair.
At first I did my hair up in a way I had always liked; but had
seldom worn, because Hester had disapproved of it. It became me;
but I suddenly felt as if it were disloyal to her, so I took the
puffs down again and arranged my hair in the plain, old-fashioned
way she had liked. My hair, though it had a good many gray
threads in it, was thick and long and brown still; but that did
not matter--nothing mattered since Hester was dead and I had sent
Hugh Blair away for the second time.
The Newbridge people all wondered why I had not put on mourning
for Hester. I did not tell them it was because Hester had asked
me not to. Hester had never approved of mourning; she said that
if the heart did not mourn crape would not mend matters; and if
it did there was no need of the external trappings of woe. She
told me calmly, the night before she died, to go on wearing my
pretty dresses just as I had always worn them, and to make no
difference in my outward life because of her going.
"I know there will be a difference in your inward life," she said
wistfully.
And oh, there was! But sometimes I wondered uneasily, feeling
almost conscience-stricken, whether it were wholly because Hester
had left me--whether it were not partly because, for a second
time, I had shut the door of my heart in the face of love at her
bidding.
When I had dressed I went downstairs to the front door, and sat
on the sandstone steps under the arch of the Virginia creeper. I
was all alone, for Mary Sloane had gone to Avonlea.
It was a beautiful night; the full moon was just rising over the
wooded hills, and her light fell through the poplars into the
garden before me. Through an open corner on the western side I
saw the sky all silvery blue in the afterlight. The garden was
very beautiful just then, for it was the time of the roses, and
ours were all out--so many of them--great pink, and red, and
white, and yellow roses.
Hester had loved roses and could never have enough of them. Her
favorite bush was growing by the steps, all gloried over with
blossoms--white, with pale pink hearts. I gathered a cluster and
pinned it loosely on my breast. But my eyes filled as I did
so--I felt so very, very desolate.
I was all alone, and it was bitter. The roses, much as I loved
them, could not give me sufficient companionship. I wanted the
clasp of a human hand, and the love-light in human eyes. And
then I fell to thinking of Hugh, though I tried not to.
I had always lived alone with Hester. I did not remember our
parents, who had died in my babyhood. Hester was fifteen years
older than I, and she had always seemed more like a mother than a
sister. She had been very good to me and had never denied me
anything I wanted, save the one thing that mattered.
I was twenty-five before I ever had a lover. This was not, I
think, because I was more unattractive than other women. The
Merediths had always been the "big" family of Newbridge. The
rest of the people looked up to us, because we were the
granddaughters of old Squire Meredith. The Newbridge young men
would have thought it no use to try to woo a Meredith.
I had not a great deal of family pride, as perhaps I should be
ashamed to confess. I found our exalted position very lonely,
and cared more for the simple joys of friendship and
companionship which other girls had. But Hester possessed it in
a double measure; she never allowed me to associate on a level of
equality with the young people of Newbridge. We must be very
nice and kind and affable to them--_noblesse oblige_, as it
were--but we must never forget that we were Merediths.
When I was twenty-five, Hugh Blair came to Newbridge, having
bought a farm near the village. He was a stranger, from Lower
Carmody, and so was not imbued with any preconceptions of
Meredith superiority. In his eyes I was just a girl like
others--a girl to be wooed and won by any man of clean life and
honest heart. I met him at a little Sunday-School picnic over at
Avonlea, which I attended because of my class. I thought him
very handsome and manly. He talked to me a great deal, and at
last he drove me home. The next Sunday evening he walked up from
church with me.
Hester was away, or, of course, this would never have happened.
She had gone for a month's visit to distant friends.
In that month I lived a lifetime. Hugh Blair courted me as the
other girls in Newbridge were courted. He took me out driving
and came to see me in the evenings, which we spent for the most
part in the garden. I did not like the stately gloom and
formality of our old Meredith parlor, and Hugh never seemed to
feel at ease there. His broad shoulders and hearty laughter were
oddly out of place among our faded, old-maidish furnishings.
Mary Sloane was very much pleased at Hugh's visit. She had
always resented the fact that I had never had a "beau," seeming
to think it reflected some slight or disparagement upon me. She
did all she could to encourage him.
But when Hester returned and found out about Hugh she was very
angry--and grieved, which hurt me far more. She told me that I
had forgotten myself and that Hugh's visits must cease.
I had never been afraid of Hester before, but I was afraid of her
then. I yielded. Perhaps it was very weak of me, but then I was
always weak. I think that was why Hugh's strength had appealed
so to me. I needed love and protection. Hester, strong and
self-sufficient, had never felt such a need. She could not
understand. Oh, how contemptuous she was.
I told Hugh timidly that Hester did not approve of our friendship
and that it must end. He took it quietly enough, and went away.
I thought he did not care much, and the thought selfishly made my
own heartache worse. I was very unhappy for a long time, but I
tried not to let Hester see it, and I don't think she did. She
was not very discerning in some things.
After a time I got over it; that is, the heartache ceased to ache
all the time. But things were never quite the same again. Life
always seemed rather dreary and empty, in spite of Hester and my
roses and my Sunday-School.
I supposed that Hugh Blair would find him a wife elsewhere, but
he did not. The years went by and we never met, although I saw
him often at church. At such times Hester always watched me very
closely, but there was no need of her to do so. Hugh made no
attempt to meet me, or speak with me, and I would not have
permitted it if he had. But my heart always yearned after him.
I was selfishly glad he had not married, because if he had I
could not have thought and dreamed of him--it would have been
wrong. Perhaps, as it was, it was foolish; but it seemed to me
that I must have something, if only foolish dreams, to fill my
life.
At first there was only pain in the thought of him, but
afterwards a faint, misty little pleasure crept in, like a mirage
from a land of lost delight.
Ten years slipped away thus. And then Hester died. Her illness
was sudden and short; but, before she died, she asked me to
promise that I would never marry Hugh Blair.
She had not mentioned his name for years. I thought she had
forgotten all about him.
"Oh, dear sister, is there any need of such a promise?" I asked,
weeping. "Hugh Blair does not want to marry me now. He never
will again."
"He has never married--he has not forgotten you," she said
fiercely. "I could not rest in my grave if I thought you would
disgrace your family by marrying beneath you. Promise me,
Margaret."
I promised. I would have promised anything in my power to make
her dying pillow easier. Besides, what did it matter? I was
sure that Hugh would never think of me again.
She smiled when she heard me, and pressed my hand.
"Good little sister--that is right. You were always a good girl,
Margaret--good and obedient, though a little sentimental and
foolish in some ways. You are like our mother--she was always
weak and loving. I took after the Merediths."
She did, indeed. Even in her coffin her dark, handsome features
preserved their expression of pride and determination. Somehow,
that last look of her dead face remained in my memory, blotting
out the real affection and gentleness which her living face had
almost always shown me. This distressed me, but I could not help
it. I wished to think of her as kind and loving, but I could
remember only the pride and coldness with which she had crushed
out my new-born happiness. Yet I felt no anger or resentment
towards her for what she had done. I knew she had meant it for
the best--my best. It was only that she was mistaken.
And then, a month after she had died, Hugh Blair came to me and
asked me to be his wife. He said he had always loved me, and
could never love any other woman.
All my old love for him reawakened. I wanted to say yes--to feel
his strong arms about me, and the warmth of his love enfolding
and guarding me. In my weakness I yearned for his strength.
But there was my promise to Hester--that promise give by her
deathbed. I could not break it, and I told him so. It was the
hardest thing I had ever done.
He did not go away quietly this time. He pleaded and reasoned
and reproached. Every word of his hurt me like a knife-thrust.
But I could not break my promise to the dead. If Hester had been
living I would have braved her wrath and her estrangement and
gone to him. But she was dead and I could not do it.
Finally he went away in grief and anger. That was three weeks
ago--and now I sat alone in the moonlit rose-garden and wept for
him. But after a time my tears dried and a very strange feeling
came over me. I felt calm and happy, as if some wonderful love
and tenderness were very near me.
And now comes the strange part of my story--the part which will
not, I suppose, be believed. If it were not for one thing I
think I should hardly believe it myself. I should feel tempted
to think I had dreamed it. But because of that one thing I know
it was real. The night was very calm and still. Not a breath of
wind stirred. The moonshine was the brightest I had ever seen.
In the middle of the garden, where the shadow of the poplars did
not fall, it was almost as bright as day. One could have read
fine print. There was still a little rose glow in the west, and
over the airy boughs of the tall poplars one or two large, bright
stars were shining. The air was sweet with a hush of dreams, and
the world was so lovely that I held my breath over its beauty.
Then, all at once, down at the far end of the garden, I saw a
woman walking. I thought at first that it must be Mary Sloane;
but, as she crossed a moonlit path, I saw it was not our old
servant's stout, homely figure. This woman was tall and erect.
Although no suspicion of the truth came to me, something about
her reminded me of Hester. Even so had Hester liked to wander
about the garden in the twilight. I had seen her thus a thousand
times.
I wondered who the woman could be. Some neighbor, of course.
But what a strange way for her to come! She walked up the garden
slowly in the poplar shade. Now and then she stooped, as if to
caress a flower, but she plucked none. Half way up she out in to
the moonlight and walked across the plot of grass in the center
of the garden. My heart gave a great throb and I stood up. She
was quite near to me now--and I saw that it was Hester.
I can hardly say just what my feelings were at this moment. I
know that I was not surprised. I was frightened and yet I was
not frightened. Something in me shrank back in a sickening
terror; but _I_, the real I, was not frightened. I knew that
this was my sister, and that there could be no reason why I
should be frightened of her, because she loved me still, as she
had always done. Further than this I was not conscious of any
coherent thought, either of wonder or attempt at reasoning.
Hester paused when she came to within a few steps of me. In the
moonlight I saw her face quite plainly. It wore an expression I
had never before seen on it--a humble, wistful, tender look.
Often in life Hester had looked lovingly, even tenderly, upon me;
but always, as it were, through a mask of pride and sternness.
This was gone now, and I felt nearer to her than ever before. I
knew suddenly that she understood me. And then the
half-conscious awe and terror some part of me had felt vanished,
and I only realized that Hester was here, and that there was no
terrible gulf of change between us.
Hester beckoned to me and said,
"Come."
I stood up and followed her out of the garden. We walked side by
side down our lane, under the willows and out to the road, which
lay long and still in that bright, calm moonshine. I felt as if
I were in a dream, moving at the bidding of a will not my own,
which I could not have disputed even if I had wished to do so.
But I did not wish it; I had only the feeling of a strange,
boundless content.
We went down the road between the growths of young fir that
bordered it. I smelled their balsam as we passed, and noticed
how clearly and darkly their pointed tops came out against the
sky. I heard the tread of my own feet on little twigs and plants
in our way, and the trail of my dress over the grass; but Hester
moved noiselessly.
Then we went through the Avenue--that stretch of road under the
apple trees that Anne Shirley, over at Avonlea, calls "The White
Way of Delight." It was almost dark here; and yet I could see
Hester's face just as plainly as if the moon were shining on it;
and whenever I looked at her she was always looking at me with
that strangely gentle smile on her lips.
Just as we passed out of the Avenue, James Trent overtook us,
driving. It seems to me that our feelings at a given moment are
seldom what we would expect them to be. I simply felt annoyed
that James Trent, the most notorious gossip in Newbridge, should
have seen me walking with Hester. In a flash I anticipated all
the annoyance of it; he would talk of the matter far and wide.
But James Trent merely nodded and called out,
"Howdy, Miss Margaret. Taking a moonlight stroll by yourself?
Lovely night, ain't it?"
Just then his horse suddenly swerved, as if startled, and broke
into a gallop. They whirled around the curve of the road in an
instant. I felt relieved, but puzzled. JAMES TRENT HAD NOT SEEN
HESTER.
Down over the hill was Hugh Blair's place. When we came to it,
Hester turned in at the gate. Then, for the first time, I
understood why she had come back, and a blinding flash of joy
broke over my soul. I stopped and looked at her. Her deep eyes
gazed into mine, but she did not speak.
We went on. Hugh's house lay before us in the moonlight, grown
over by a tangle of vines. His garden was on our right, a quaint
spot, full of old-fashioned flowers growing in a sort of
disorderly sweetness. I trod on a bed of mint, and the spice of
it floated up to me like the incense of some strange, sacred,
solemn ceremonial. I felt unspeakably happy and blessed.
When we came to the door Hester said,
"Knock, Margaret."
I rapped gently. In a moment, Hugh opened it. Then that
happened by which, in after days, I was to know that this strange
thing was no dream or fancy of mine. Hugh looked not at me, but
past me.
"Hester!" he exclaimed, with human fear and horror in his voice.
He leaned against the door-post, the big, strong fellow,
trembling from head to foot.
"I have learned," said Hester, "that nothing matters in all God's
universe, except love. There is no pride where I have been, and
no false ideals."
Hugh and I looked into each other's eyes, wondering, and then we
knew that we were alone.