and covered her face, and closed the shutter again. Then she went
about her household duties, wondering. She could not understand what
it all meant; but one thing she understood--that in some way this old
dead woman, Evelina Adams, had gotten immortal youth and beauty in
one human heart. "She looked to him just as she did when she was a
girl," Evelina kept thinking to herself with awe. She said nothing
about it to Mrs. Martha Loomis or her daughters. They had been in the
back part of the house, and had not heard old Thomas Merriam come in,
and they never knew about it.
Mrs. Loomis and the two girls stayed in the house day and night until
after the funeral. They confidently expected to live there in the
future. "It isn't likely that Evelina Adams thought a young woman no
older than Evelina Leonard could live here alone in this great house
with nobody but that old Sarah Judd. It would not be proper nor
becoming," said Martha Loomis to her two daughters; and they agreed,
and brought over many of their possessions under cover of night to
the Squire's house during the interval before the funeral.
But after the funeral and the reading of the will the Loomises made
sundry trips after dusk back to their old home, with their best
petticoats and cloaks over their arms, and their bonnets dangling by
their strings at their sides. For Evelina Adams's last will and
testament had been read, and therein provision was made for the
continuance of the annuity heretofore paid them for their support,
with the condition affixed that not one night should they spend after
the reading of the will in the house known as the Squire Adams house.
The annuity was an ample one, and would provide the widow Martha
Loomis and her daughters, as it had done before, with all the
needfuls of life; but upon hearing the will they stiffened their
double chins into their kerchiefs with indignation, for they had
looked for more.
Evelina Adams's will was a will of conditions, for unto it she had
affixed two more, and those affected her beloved cousin Evelina
Leonard. It was notable that "beloved" had not preceded her cousin
Martha Loomis's name in the will. No pretence of love, when she felt
none, had she ever made in her life. The entire property of Evelina
Adams, spinster, deceased, with the exception of Widow Martha
Loomis's provision, fell to this beloved young Evelina Leonard,
subject to two conditions--firstly, she was never to enter into
matrimony, with any person whomsoever, at any time whatsoever;
secondly, she was never to let the said spinster Evelina Adams's
garden, situated at the rear and southward of the house known as the
Squire Adams house, die through any neglect of hers. Due allowance
was to be made for the dispensations of Providence: for hail and
withering frost and long-continued drought, and for times wherein the
said Evelina Leonard might, by reason of being confined to the house
by sickness, be prevented from attending to the needs of the growing
plants, and the verdict in such cases was to rest with the minister
and the deacons of the church. But should this beloved Evelina love
and wed, or should she let, through any wilful neglect, that garden
perish in the season of flowers, all that goodly property would she
forfeit to a person unknown, whose name, enclosed in a sealed
envelope, was to be held meantime in the hands of the executor, who
had also drawn up the will, Lawyer Joshua Lang.
There was great excitement in the village over this strange and
unwonted will. Some were there who held that Evelina Adams had not
been of sound mind, and it should be contested. It was even rumored
that Widow Martha Loomis had visited Lawyer Joshua Lang and broached
the subject, but he had dismissed the matter peremptorily by telling
her that Evelina Adams, spinster, deceased, had been as much in her
right mind at the time of drawing the will as anybody of his
acquaintance.
"Not setting store by relations, and not wanting to have them under
your roof, doesn't go far in law nor common-sense to send folks to
the madhouse," old Lawyer Lang, who was famed for his sharp tongue,
was reported to have said. However, Mrs. Martha Loomis was somewhat
comforted by her firm belief that either her own name or that of one
of her daughters was in that sealed envelope kept by Lawyer Joshua
Lang in his strong-box, and by her firm purpose to watch carefully
lest Evelina prove derelict in fulfilling the two conditions whereby
she held the property.
Larger peep-holes were soon cut away mysteriously in the high
arbor-vitae hedge, and therein were often set for a few moments, when
they passed that way, the eager eyes of Mrs. Martha or her daughter
Flora or Fidelia Loomis. Frequent calls they also made upon Evelina,
living alone with the old woman Sarah Judd, who had been called in
during her cousin's illness, and they strolled into the garden,
spying anxiously for withered leaves or dry stalks. They at every
opportunity interviewed the old man who assisted Evelina in her care
of the garden concerning its welfare. But small progress they made
with him, standing digging at the earth with his spade while they
talked, as if in truth his wits had gone therein before his body and
he would uncover them.
Moreover, Mrs. Martha Loomis talked much slyly to mothers of young
men, and sometimes with bold insinuations to the young men
themselves, of the sad lot of poor young Evelina, condemned to a
solitary and loveless life, and of her sweetness and beauty and
desirability in herself, although she could not bring the old
Squire's money to her husband. And once, but no more than that, she
touched lightly upon the subject to the young minister, Thomas
Merriam, when he was making a pastoral call.
"My heart bleeds for the poor child living all alone in that great
house," said she. And she looked down mournfully, and did not see how
white the young minister's face turned. "It seems almost a pity,"
said she, furthermore--"Evelina is a good housekeeper, and has rare
qualities in herself, and so many get poor wives nowadays--that some
godly young man should not court her in spite of the will. I doubt,
too, if she would not have a happier lot than growing old over that
garden, as poor Cousin Evelina did before her, even if she has a fine
house to live in and a goodly sum in the bank. She looks pindling
enough lately. I'll warrant she has lost a good ten pound since poor
Evelina was laid away, and--"
But Thomas Merriam cut her short. "I see no profit in discussing
matters which do not concern us," said he, and only his ministerial
estate saved him from the charge of impertinence.
As it was, Martha Loomis colored high. "I'll warrant he'll look out
which side his bread is buttered on; ministers always do," she said
to her daughters after he had gone. She never dreamed how her talk
had cut him to the heart.
Had he not seen more plainly than any one else, Sunday after Sunday,
when he glanced down at her once or twice cautiously from his pulpit,
how weary-looking and thin she was growing? And her bright color was
wellnigh gone, and there were pitiful downward lines at the corners
of her sweet mouth. Poor young Evelina was fading like one of her own
flowers, as if some celestial gardener had failed in his care of her.
And Thomas saw it, and in his heart of hearts he knew the reason, and
yet he would not yield. Not once had he entered the old Squire's
house since he attended the dead Evelina's funeral, and stood praying
and eulogizing, with her coffin between him and the living Evelina,
with her pale face shrouded in black bombazine. He had never spoken
to her since, nor entered the house; but he had written her a letter,
in which all the fierce passion and anguish of his heart was cramped
and held down by formal words and phrases, and poor young Evelina did
not see beneath them. When her lover wrote her that he felt it
inconsistent with his Christian duty and the higher aims of his
existence to take any further steps towards a matrimonial alliance,
she felt merely that Thomas either cared no more for her, or had come
to consider, upon due reflection, that she was not fit to undertake
the responsible position of a minister's wife. "It may be that in
some way I failed in my attendance upon Cousin Evelina," thought poor
young Evelina, "or it may be that he thinks I have not enough dignity
of character to inspire respect among the older women in the church."
And sometimes, with a sharp thrust of misery that shook her out of
her enforced patience and meekness, she wondered if indeed her own
loving freedom with him had turned him against her, and led him in
his later and sober judgment to consider her too light-minded for a
minister's wife. "It may be that I was guilty of great indecorum, and
almost indeed forfeited my claim to respect for maidenly modesty,
inasmuch as I suffered him to give me kisses, and did almost bring
myself to return them in kind. But my heart did so entreat me, and in
truth it seemed almost like a lack of sincerity for me to wholly
withstand it," wrote poor young Evelina in her journal at that time;
and she further wrote: "It is indeed hard for one who has so little
knowledge to be fully certain of what is or is not becoming and a
Christian duty in matters of this kind; but if I have in any manner,
through my ignorance or unwarrantable affection, failed, and so lost
the love and respect of a good man, and the opportunity to become his
helpmeet during life, I pray that I may be forgiven--for I sinned not
wilfully--that the lesson may be sanctified unto me, and that I may
live as the Lord order, in Christian patience and meekness, and not
repining." It never occurred to young Evelina that possibly Thomas
Merriam's sense of duty might be strengthened by the loss of all her
cousin's property should she marry him, and neither did she dream
that he might hesitate to take her from affluence into poverty for
her own sake. For herself the property, as put in the balance beside
her love, was lighter than air itself. It was so light that it had no
place in her consciousness. She simply had thought, upon hearing the
will, of Martha Loomis and her daughters in possession of the
property, and herself with Thomas, with perfect acquiescence and
rapture.
Evelina Adams's disapprobation of her marriage, which was supposedly
expressed in the will, had indeed, without reference to the property,
somewhat troubled her tender heart, but she told herself that Cousin
Evelina had not known she had promised to marry Thomas; that she
would not wish her to break her solemn promise. And furthermore, it
seemed to her quite reasonable that the condition had been inserted
in the will mainly through concern for the beloved garden.
"Cousin Evelina might have thought perhaps I would let the flowers
die when I had a husband and children to take care of," said Evelina.
And so she had disposed of all the considerations which had disturbed
her, and had thought of no others.
She did not answer Thomas's letter. It was so worded that it seemed
to require no reply, and she felt that he must be sure of her
acquiescence in whatever he thought best. She laid the letter away in
a little rosewood box, in which she had always kept her dearest
treasures since her school-days. Sometimes she took it out and read
it, and it seemed to her that the pain in her heart would put an end
to her in spite of all her prayers for Christian fortitude; and yet
she could not help reading it again.
It was seldom that she stole a look at her old lover as he stood in
the pulpit in the meeting-house, but when she did she thought with an
anxious pang that he looked worn and ill, and that night she prayed
that the Lord would restore his health to him for the sake of his
people.
It was four months after Evelina Adams's death, and her garden was in
the full glory of midsummer, when one evening, towards dusk, young
Evelina went slowly down the street. She seldom walked abroad now,
but kept herself almost as secluded as her cousin had done before
her. But that night a great restlessness was upon her, and she put a
little black silk shawl over her shoulders and went out. It was quite
cool, although it was midsummer. The dusk was deepening fast; the
katydids called back and forth from the wayside bushes. Evelina met
nobody for some distance. Then she saw a man coming towards her, and
her heart stood still, and she was about to turn back, for she
thought for a minute it was the young minister. Then she saw it was
his father, and she went on slowly, with her eyes downcast. When she
met him she looked up and said good-evening, gravely, and would have
passed on, but he stood in her way.
"I've got a word to say to ye, if ye'll listen," he said.
Evelina looked at him tremblingly. There was something strained and
solemn in his manner. "I'll hear whatever you have to say, sir," she
said.
The old man leaned his pale face over her and raised a shaking
forefinger. "I've made up my mind to say something," said he. "I
don't know as I've got any right to, and maybe my son will blame me,
but I'm goin' to see that you have a chance. It's been borne in upon
me that women folks don't always have a fair chance. It's jest this
I'm goin' to say: I don't know whether you know how my son feels
about it or not. I don't know how open he's been with you. Do you
know jest why he quit you?"
Evelina shook her head. "No," she panted--"I don't--I never knew. He
said it was his duty."
"Duty can get to be an idol of wood and stone, an' I don't know but
Thomas's is," said the old man. "Well, I'll tell you. He don't think
it's right for him to marry you, and make you leave that big house,
and lose all that money. He don't care anything about it for himself,
but it's for you. Did you know that?"
Evelina grasped the old man's arm hard with her little fingers.
"You don't mean that--was why he did it!" she gasped.
"Yes, that was why."
Evelina drew away from him. She was ashamed to have Thomas's father
see the joy in her face. "Thank you, sir," she said. "I did not
understand. I--will write to him."
"Maybe my son will think I have done wrong coming betwixt him and his
idees of duty," said old Thomas Merriam, "but sometimes there's a
good deal lost for lack of a word, and I wanted you to have a fair
chance an' a fair say. It's been borne in upon me that women folks
don't always have it. Now you can do jest as you think best, but you
must remember one thing--riches ain't all. A little likin' for you
that's goin' to last, and keep honest and faithful to you as long as
you live, is worth more; an' it's worth more to women folks than 't
is to men, an' it's worth enough to them. My son's poorly. His mother
and I are worried about him. He don't eat nor sleep--walks his
chamber nights. His mother don't know what the matter is, but he let
on to me some time since."
"I'll write a letter to him," gasped Evelina again. "Good-night,
sir." She pulled her little black silk shawl over her head and
hastened home, and all night long her candle burned, while her weary
little fingers toiled over pages of foolscap-paper to convince Thomas
Merriam fully, and yet in terms not exceeding maidenly reserve, that
the love of his heart and the companionship of his life were worth
more to her than all the silver and gold in the world. Then the next
morning she despatched it, all neatly folded and sealed, and waited.
It was strange that a letter like that could not have moved Thomas
Merriam, when his heart too pleaded with him so hard to be moved. But
that might have been the very reason why he could withstand her, and
why the consciousness of his own weakness gave him strength. Thomas
Merriam was one, when he had once fairly laid hold of duty, to grasp
it hard, although it might be to his own pain and death, and maybe to
that of others. He wrote to poor young Evelina another letter, in
which he emphasized and repeated his strict adherence to what he
believed the line of duty in their separation, and ended it with a
prayer for her welfare and happiness, in which, indeed, for a second,
the passionate heart of the man showed forth. Then he locked himself
in his chamber, and nobody ever knew what he suffered there. But one
pang he did not suffer which Evelina would have suffered in his
place. He mourned not over nor realized the grief of her tender heart
when she should read his letter, otherwise he could not have sent it.
He writhed under his own pain alone, and his duty hugged him hard,
like the iron maiden of the old tortures, but he would not yield.
As for Evelina, when she got his letter, and had read it through, she
sat still and white for a long time, and did not seem to hear when
old Sarah Judd spoke to her. But at last she rose and went to her
chamber, and knelt down, and prayed for a long time; and then she
went out in the garden and cut all the most beautiful flowers, and
tied them in wreaths and bouquets, and carried them out to the north
side of the house, where her cousin Evelina was buried, and covered
her grave with them. And then she knelt down there, and hid her face
among them, and said, in a low voice, as if in a listening ear, "I
pray you, Cousin Evelina, forgive me for what I am about to do."
And then she returned to the house, and sat at her needlework as
usual; but the old woman kept looking at her, and asking if she were
sick, for there was a strange look in her face.
She and old Sarah Judd had always their tea at five o'clock, and put
the candles out at nine, and this night they did as they were wont.
But at one o'clock in the morning young Evelina stole softly down the
stairs with her lighted candle, and passed through into the kitchen;
and a half-hour after she came forth into the garden, which lay in
full moonlight, and she had in her hand a steaming teakettle, and she
passed around among the shrubs and watered them, and a white cloud of
steam rose around them. Back and forth she went to the kitchen; for
she had heated the great copper wash-kettle full of water; and she
watered all the shrubs in the garden, moving amid curling white
wreaths of steam, until the water was gone. And then she set to work
and tore up by the roots with her little hands and trampled with her
little feet all the beautiful tender flower-beds; all the time
weeping, and moaning softly: "Poor Cousin Evelina! poor Cousin
Evelina! Oh, forgive me, poor Cousin Evelina!"
And at dawn the garden lay in ruin, for all the tender plants she had
torn up by the roots and trampled down, and all the stronger-rooted
shrubs she had striven to kill with boiling water and salt.
Then Evelina went into the house, and made herself tidy as well as
she could when she trembled so, and put her little shawl over her
head, and went down the road to the Merriams' house. It was so early
the village was scarcely astir, but there was smoke coming out of the
kitchen chimney at the Merriams'; and when she knocked, Mrs. Merriam
opened the door at once, and stared at her.
"Is Sarah Judd dead?" she cried; for her first thought was that
something must have happened when she saw the girl standing there
with her wild pale face.
"I want to see the minister," said Evelina, faintly, and she looked
at Thomas's mother with piteous eyes.
"Be you sick?" asked Mrs. Merriam. She laid a hard hand on the girl's
arm, and led her into the sitting-room, and put her into the
rocking-chair with the feather cushion. "You look real poorly," said
she. "Sha'n't I get you a little of my elderberry wine?"
"I want to see him," said Evelina, and she almost sobbed.
"I'll go right and speak to him," said Mrs. Merriam. "He's up, I
guess. He gets up early to write. But hadn't I better get you
something to take first? You do look sick."
But Evelina only shook her head. She had her face covered with her
hands, and was weeping softly. Mrs. Merriam left the room, with a
long backward glance at her. Presently the door opened and Thomas
came in. Evelina stood up before him. Her pale face was all wet with
tears, but there was an air of strange triumph about her.
"The garden is dead," said she.
"What do you mean?" he cried out, staring at her, for indeed he
thought for a minute that her wits had left her.
"The garden is dead," said she. "Last night I watered the roses with
boiling water and salt, and I pulled the other flowers up by their
roots. The garden is dead, and I have lost all Cousin Evelina's
money, and it need not come between us any longer." She said that,
and looked up in his face with her blue eyes, through which the love
of the whole race of loving women from which she had sprung, as well
as her own, seemed to look, and held out her little hands; but even
then Thomas Merriam could not understand, and stood looking at her.
"Why--did you do it?" he stammered.
"Because you would have me no other way, and--I couldn't bear that
anything like that should come between us," she said, and her voice
shook like a harp-string, and her pale face went red, then pale
again.
But Thomas still stood staring at her. Then her heart failed her. She
thought that he did not care, and she had been mistaken. She felt as
if it were the hour of her death, and turned to go. And then he
caught her in his arms.
"Oh," he cried, with a great sob, "the Lord make me worthy of thee,
Evelina!"
There had never been so much excitement in the village as when the
fact of the ruined garden came to light. Flora Loomis, peeping
through the hedge on her way to the store, had spied it first. Then
she had run home for her mother, who had in turn sought Lawyer Lang,
panting bonnetless down the road. But before the lawyer had started
for the scene of disaster, the minister, Thomas Merriam, had
appeared, and asked for a word in private with him. Nobody ever
knew just what that word was, but the lawyer was singularly
uncommunicative and reticent as to the ruined garden.
"Do you think the young woman is out of her mind?" one of the deacons
asked him, in a whisper.
"I wish all the young women were as much in their minds; we'd have a
better world," said the lawyer, gruffly.
"When do you think we can begin to move in here?" asked Mrs. Martha
Loomis, her wide skirts sweeping a bed of uprooted verbenas.
"When your claim is established," returned the lawyer, shortly, and
turned on his heel and went away, his dry old face scanning the
ground like a dog on a scent. That afternoon he opened the sealed
document in the presence of witnesses, and the name of the heir to
whom the property fell was disclosed. It was "Thomas Merriam, the
beloved and esteemed minister of this parish," and young Evelina
would gain her wealth instead of losing it by her marriage. And
furthermore, after the declaration of the name of the heir was this
added: "This do I in the hope and belief that neither the greed of
riches nor the fear of them shall prevent that which is good and wise
in the sight of the Lord, and with the surety that a love which shall
triumph over so much in its way shall endure, and shall be a blessing
and not a curse to my beloved cousin, Evelina Leonard."
Thomas Merriam and Evelina were married before the leaves fell in
that same year, by the minister of the next village, who rode over in
his chaise, and brought his wife, who was also a bride, and wore her
wedding-dress of a pink and pearl shot silk. But young Evelina wore
the blue bridal array which had been worn by old Squire Adams's
bride, all remodelled daintily to suit the fashion of the times; and
as she moved, the fragrances of roses and lavender of the old summers
during which it had been laid away were evident, like sweet memories.