Perhaps the majesty of Death is better understood when some little soul
is swallowed up in the great Mystery than when one is taken on whom Life
has laid her bright touch, and made famous and necessary.
Even in quiet Ashurst, Mr. Denner was, as he himself would have, said, of
no consequence, and his living was not felt in any way; yet when he was
gone, a sudden knowledge came of how much he was to them, and how great a
blank he left. So Death creates greatness.
It was well for Lois Howe, in those first sad days, that her cousin was
with her, or the reaction from the excitement of anxiety into hopeless
grief might have been even more prostrating than it was. All the comfort
and tenderness Helen could give her in her helpless self-reproach were
hers, though she as well as Gifford never sought to make the sorrow less
by evading the truth. But Helen was troubled about her, and said to Dr.
Howe, "Lois must come to see me for a while; she does need a change very
much. I'm afraid she won't be able to go with me next week, but can't she
come as soon as she is strong enough to travel?"
And so it was decided that she should come with Gifford, who would go
back to Lockhaven in about a fortnight. Business, which never reached Mr.
Denner in Mercer, had been offered the young lawyer, and he had been
willing to stay in Ashurst a little longer, though he had told himself he
was a fool.
Lois looked forward to the visit with feverish anxiety. Mr. Forsythe,
perhaps to please his mother, but certainly with rather an ill grace, had
lingered in Ashurst. But he had not been very much at the rectory;
perhaps because it was not a time to make visits, or be careless and
light-hearted, while little Mr. Denner was fading out of life, and his
mother felt herself trembling on the edge of the grave. This, at least,
was what Mrs. Forsythe said to Lois more than once, with an anxious,
troubled look, which perhaps explained more than her words did.
She had accepted very complacently Lois's protestations of joy and
gratitude that she was no longer, as she expressed it, in immediate
danger, but she did not apparently feel that that altered at all the
conditions of the promise Lois had given her, which was evidently a very
precious thing. Nor did Lois remonstrate against being held by it. She
felt she deserved any grief that came to her, and it would have been
cowardly, she thought, to shrink from what she had undertaken merely
because she had been so far mercifully spared the grief of Mrs.
Forsythe's death. And who could tell that she would live, even yet?
Certainly Mrs. Forsythe herself seemed to consider her recovery a matter
of grave doubt, and Lois's anxieties were quick to agree with her.
So she went about with a white face and eyes from which all the careless
gayety had gone, simply bearing her life with a dull pain and in constant
fear. Gifford saw it, and misunderstood it; he thought, in view of what
Miss Deborah had told him and what he knew of Mr. Forsythe's plans, that
it was natural for Lois to look unhappy. Anxieties are very misleading;
the simple explanation of remorse for her carelessness did not come into
Gifford's mind at all.
One afternoon,--it was the day following Mr. Denner's funeral,--Gifford
thought this all over, and tried to see what his life offered him for the
future, now that the last faint hope of winning Lois's love had died. Mr.
Denner's will had been read that morning in his dining-room, with only
Dr. Howe and Mary and Willie present, while the rain beat persistently
against the windows, and made the room so dark that Gifford had to call
for a candle, and hold the paper close to his eyes to see to read. Willie
had shivered, and looked steadfastly under the table, thinking, while his
little heart beat suffocatingly, that he was glad there were no prayers
after a will. When that was over, and Dr. Howe had carried Willie back
with him to be cheered and comforted at the rectory, Gifford had devoted
himself to disposing of such small effects as Mr. Denner had left as
personal bequests.
They were not very many. A certain bamboo rod with silver mountings and a
tarnished silver reel, were for Dr. Howe; and there were a few books to
be sent to Mr. Dale, and six bottles of Tokay, '52, for Colonel Drayton.
There was a mourning-ring, which had been Mr. Denner's father's, for a
distant cousin, who was further comforted by a few hundred dollars, but
all the rest was for Willie.
Gifford had felt, as he sat at Mr. Denner's writing-desk and touched some
small possessions, all the pathetic powerlessness of the dead. How Mr.
Denner had treasured his little valueless belongings! There was a pair of
silver shoe-buckles, wrapped in chamois skin, which the little gentleman
had faithfully kept bright and shining; they had belonged to his
grandfather, and Mr. Denner could remember when they had been worn, and
the knee-breeches, and the great bunch of seals at the fob. Perhaps, when
his little twinkling brown eyes looked at them, he felt again the thrill
of love and fear for the stately gentleman who had awed his boyhood.
There was a lock of faded gray hair in a yellow old envelope, on which
was written, in the lawyer's precise hand, "My mother's hair," and a date
which seemed to Gifford very far back. There were one or two relics of
the little sister: a small green morocco shoe, which had buttoned about
her ankle, and a pair of gold shoulder-straps, and a narrow pink ribbon
sash that had grown yellow on the outside fold.
There was a pile of neatly kept diaries, with faithful accounts of the
weather, and his fishing excursions, and the whist parties; scarcely more
than this, except a brief mention of a marriage or a death. Of course
there were letters; not very many, but all neatly labeled with the
writer's name and the date of their arrival. These Gifford burned, and
the blackened ashes were in the wide fireplace, behind a jug of flowers,
on which he could hear, down the chimney, the occasional splash of a
raindrop. There was one package of letters where the name was "Gertrude;"
there were but few of these, and, had Gifford looked, he would have seen
that the last one, blistered with tears, said that her father had
forbidden further correspondence, and bade him, with the old epistolary
formality from which not even love could escape, "an eternal farewell."
But the tear-stains told more than the words, at least of Mr. Denner's
heart, if not of pretty sixteen-year-old Gertrude's. These were among the
first to be burned; yet how Mr. Denner had loved them, even though
Gertrude, running away with her dancing-master, and becoming the mother
of a family of boys, had been dead these twenty years, and the proverb
had pointed to Miss Deborah Woodhouse!
Some papers had to be sealed, and the few pieces of silver packed, ready
to be sent to the bank in Mercer, and then Gifford had done.
He was in the library, from which the bed had been moved, and which was
in trim and dreary order. The rain still beat fitfully upon the windows,
and the room was quite dark. Gifford had pushed the writing-desk up to
the window for the last ray of light, and now he sat there, the papers
all arranged and nothing more to do, yet a vague, tender loyalty to the
little dead gentleman keeping him. And sitting, leaning his elbows on the
almost unspotted sheet of blue blotting-paper which covered the open flap
of the desk, he fell into troubled thinking.
"Of course," he said to himself, "she's awfully distressed about Mr.
Denner, but there's something more than that. She seems to be watching
for something all the time; expecting that fellow, beyond a doubt. And
why he is not there oftener Heaven only knows! And to think of his going
off on his confounded business at such a time, when she is in such
trouble! If only for a week, he has no right to go and leave her. His
business is to stay and comfort her. Then, when he is at the rectory,
what makes him pay her so little attention? If he wasn't a born cad,
somebody ought to thrash him for his rudeness. If Lois had a
brother!--But I suppose he does not know any better, and then Lois
loves him. Where's Helen's theory now, I wonder? Oh, I suppose she thinks
he is all right. I'd like to ask her, if I hadn't promised aunt Deborah."
Just here, Gifford heard the garden gate close with a bang, and some one
came down the path, holding an umbrella against the pelting rain, so that
his face was hidden. But Gifford knew who it was, even before Mary,
shuffling asthmatically through the hall, opened the door to say, "Mr.
Forsythe's here to see you."
"Ask him to come in," he said, pushing his chair back from the secretary,
and lifting the flap to lock it as he spoke.
Dick Forsythe came in, shaking his dripping umbrella, and saying with a
good-natured laugh, "Jove! what a wet day! You need a boat to get through
the garden. Your aunt--the old one, I think it was--asked me, if I was
passing, to bring you these overshoes. She was afraid you had none, and
would take cold."
He laughed again, as though he knew how amusing such nonsense was, and
then had a gleam of surprise at Gifford's gravity.
"I'd gone to her house with a message from my mother," he continued; "you
know we get off to-morrow. Mother's decided to go, too, so of course
there are a good many things to do, and the old lady is so strict about
Ashurst customs I've had to go round and 'return thanks' to everybody."
Gifford had taken the parcel from Dick's hand, and thanked him briefly.
The young man, however, seemed in no haste to go.
"I don't know which is damper, this room or out-of-doors," he said,
seating himself in Mr. Denner's big chair,--though Gifford was
standing--and looking about in an interested way; "must have been a
gloomy house to live in. Wonder he never got married. Perhaps he couldn't
find anybody willing to stay in such a hole,--it's so confoundedly damp.
He died in here, didn't he?" This was in a lower voice.
"Yes," Gifford answered.
"Shouldn't think you'd stay alone," Dick went on; "it is awfully dismal.
I see he cheered himself once in a while." He pointed to a tray, which
held a varied collection of pipes and a dingy tobacco pouch of buckskin
with a border of colored porcupine quills.
"Yes, Mr. Denner smoked," Gifford was constrained to say.
"I think," said Dick, clapping his hand upon his breast-pocket, "I'll
have a cigar myself. It braces one up this weather." He struck a match on
the sole of his boot, forgetting it was wet, and vowing good-naturedly
that he was an ass. "No objection, I suppose?" he added, carefully biting
off the end of his cigar.
"I should prefer," Gifford replied slowly, "that you did not smoke. There
is an impropriety about it, which surely you must appreciate."
Dick looked at him, with the lighted match flaring bluely between his
fingers. "Lord!" he said, "how many things are improper in Ashurst! But
just as you say, of course." He put his cigar back in an elaborate case,
and blew out the match, throwing it into the fireplace, among the
flowers. "The old gentleman smoked himself, though."
Gifford's face flushed slowly, and he spoke with even more deliberation
than usual. "Since you have decided not to smoke, you must not let me
detain you. I am very much obliged for the package."
"You're welcome, I'm sure," Dick said. "Yes, I suppose I'd better be
getting along. Well, I'll say good-by, Mr. Woodhouse. I suppose I sha'n't
see you before I go? And Heaven knows when I'll be in Ashurst again!"
Gifford started. "Sit down a moment," he said, waving aside Dick's hand.
"Surely you are not leaving Ashurst for any length of time?"
"Length of time?" answered the other, laughing. "Well, I rather think so.
I expect to go abroad next month."
A curious desire came into Gifford Woodhouse's strong hands to take this
boy by the throat, and shake him until his ceaseless smile was torn to
pieces. Instead of that, however, he folded his arms, and stood looking
down at his companion in silence.
Dick had seated himself again, and was twirling his wet umbrella round
and round by the shiny end of one of the ribs. "Yes," he said, "this is a
long good-by to Ashurst."
"Mr. Forsythe," said Gifford, with an edge of anger in his voice which
could not have escaped even a more indifferent ear than Dick's, "may I
ask if Dr. Howe knows of your plans?"
Dick looked up, with a sudden ugly shadow coming across the sunny
brightness of his face. "I don't know what I've done to deserve this
concern on your part, Mr. Woodhouse; but, since you ask, I have no
objection to saying that Dr. Howe does not particularly interest himself
in my affairs. I don't know whether he's aware of my plans, and I care
less."
He rose, and stood grasping his wet umbrella mid-ways, looking defiantly
into Gifford's face. It was singular how instantly, in some wordless way,
he appreciated that he had been blamed.
Gifford began to speak in the slow, measured tone which showed how he was
guarding his words. "You may not care for his interest," he said, "but
you can scarcely expect that he would not notice your absence."
"I cannot see that my movements are of so much importance to Dr. Howe,"
Dick answered, "and he certainly has never taken it upon himself to
meddle in my affairs to the extent of asking me about them."
"Nevertheless," said Gifford, with ominous gentleness, "he must
feel--surprise at your departure. That your business should take you away
at this time, Mr. Forsythe, is unfortunate."
"I know my business, at least," cried the other loudly, his voice
trembling with anger, "and I'm capable of attending to it without
suggestions from you! I'll trouble you to speak plainly, instead of
hinting. What right have you to question my leaving Ashurst?"
"No right," Gifford said calmly.
"Why don't you speak out like a man?" Forsythe demanded with a burst of
rage, striking the table with his fist. "What do you mean by your damned
impudence? So you dare to question my conduct to Lois Howe, do you?--you
confounded prig!"
"Be silent!" Gifford said between his teeth. "Gentlemen do not introduce
the name of a woman into their discussions. You forgot yourself. It is
unnecessary to pursue this subject. I have nothing more to say."
"But I have more to say. Who gave you the right to speak to me? The lady
herself? She must be indeed distressed to choose you for a messenger."
Gifford did not answer; for a moment the dark room was very still, except
for the beating rain and the tapping of the ivy at the south window.
"Or perhaps," he went on, a sneer curling his handsome mouth, "you will
comfort her yourself, instead? Well, you're welcome."
Gifford's hands clenched on the back of the chair in front of him. "Sir,"
he said, "this place protects you, and you know it."
But Dick Forsythe was beside himself with anger. He laughed insultingly.
"I'll not detain you any longer. Doubtless you will wish to go to the
rectory to-night. But I'm afraid, even though I'm obliging enough to
leave Ashurst, you will have no"--He did not finish his sentence. Gifford
Woodhouse's hand closed like a vise upon his collar. There were no words.
Dick's struggles were as useless as beating against a rock; his maddest
efforts could not shake off that relentless hand. Gifford half pushed,
half carried, him to the door, and in another moment Dick Forsythe found
himself flung like a snapping cur in the mud and rain of Mr. Denner's
garden.
He gathered himself up, and saw Gifford standing in the doorway, as
though to offer him a chance of revenge.
"Damn you!" he screamed, furious with passion. "I'll pay you for this!
I--I"--He choked with rage, and shook his fist at the motionless figure
on the steps. Then, trembling with impotent fury, oaths stumbling upon
his lips, he turned and rushed into the gathering darkness.
Gifford watched him, and then the door swung shut, and he went back
to Mr. Denner's library. His breath was short, and he was tingling
with passion, but he had no glow of triumph. "I've been a fool," he
said,--"I've been a fool! I've made it worse for her. The hound!"
But in spite of his genuine contrition, there was a subtile joy. "He does
not love her," he thought, "and she will forget him."
Yet, as he sat there in Mr. Denner's dark library, filled with remorse
and unabated rage as well, he began to realize that he had been
meddlesome; and he was stung with a sudden sense that it was not
honorable to have pushed his questions upon Forsythe. Gifford's
relentless justice overtook him. Had he not given Forsythe the right to
insult him? Would not he have protected himself against any man's prying?
Gifford blushed hotly in the darkness. "But not to use Lois's name,--not
that! Nothing could justify the insult to her!"
Mary came in to lock up, and started with fright at the sight of the
dark, still figure. "Lord! it's a ghost!" she cried shrilly.
"I am here, Mary," he said wearily. "I'm going home now."
And so he did, walking doggedly through the storm, with his head bent and
his hands in his pockets, forgetful of Miss Deborah's thoughtfulness in
the way of rubbers, and only anxious to avoid any kindly interruption
from his aunts, which their anxiety concerning damp clothes might
occasion. But he could not escape them. Miss Deborah met him at the door
with a worried face. "My dear boy!" she said, "no umbrella? Pray go to
bed directly, and let me bring you a hot drink. You will surely have a
cough to-morrow." But the little lady came back to the parlor with an
aggrieved face, for he had answered her with quiet determination not to
be fussed over. The sisters heard him walk quickly up-stairs and lock his
door. They looked at each other in astonishment.
"He feels it very much," said Miss Ruth.
"Yes," returned Miss Deborah; "he has been sorting the papers all the
afternoon. I must go and see Willie to-morrow."
"Oh, I'll do that," Miss Ruth answered. "I cannot help feeling that it
is--my place."
"Not at all," replied Miss Deborah firmly; "the miniature shows plainly
his sentiments towards me. I know he would wish me to look after Willie.
Indeed, I feel it a sacred duty."
Miss Deborah moved her hands nervously. Mr. Denner's death was too recent
for it to be possible to speak of him without agitation.
"Well," said Miss Ruth, "perhaps, after all, you are right, in a way. The
miniature is childish. Of course a portrait of himself has a far deeper
meaning."
"Ruth Woodhouse," cried the other, "I'm ashamed of you! Didn't you tell
me yourself he said it was of no value? And you know how much he thought
of the little sister!"
"But that was his modesty," said Miss Ruth eagerly. However, both ladies
parted for the night with unaltered convictions, and the younger sister,
opening the daguerreotype for one last look by her bedroom candle,
murmured to herself, "I wonder what Deborah would think if she knew he
said 'Ruth'?"
The Forsythes went away the next morning. Perhaps it was the early start
which prevented Dick from seeing Gifford again, and finishing the so
summarily ended quarrel, or possibly it was recollection of the weight of
Gifford Woodhouse's hand. Yet he thought he had found a means of revenge.
In spite of the rain, he had gone to the rectory. Helen was writing to
her husband, and Dr. Howe was reading. "You'll have to see him in the
parlor, Lois," her father said, looking at her over his paper, as Sally
announced Mr. Forsythe.
"Oh, father!" she said.
"Nonsense," replied the rector impatiently, "you know him well enough to
receive him alone. I can't be interrupted. Run along, child."
"Will you come in, Helen, dear?" she pleaded.
"Yes," Helen said, glancing at her with absent eyes; it was hard to leave
the intricacies of a theological argument to think of a girl's lover.
"I'll come soon."
But in a letter to John she forgot every one else, and when Lois went
tremblingly out of the room both the rector and his niece lost themselves
in their own interests.
"Good-evening, Miss Lois," Dick said, coming towards her with extended
hand.
She could hardly hear her answer for her beating heart.
"I came to say good-by," he went on, his bright blue eyes fastened
angrily upon her; but she did not see him.
"You go to-morrow?" she faltered.
"Yes," he answered; "but I could not leave Ashurst without--one more look
at the rectory."
Lois did not speak. Oh, why did not Helen come?
"A different scene this from that night after the dinner party," Dick
thought, looking at her downcast eyes and trembling hands with cruel
exultation in his face, "If I cared!"
"How I have adored Ashurst!" he said slowly, wondering how far it would
be safe to go. "I have been very happy here. I hope I shall be still
happier, Lois?"
Still she did not answer, but she pressed her hands hard together. Dick
looked at her critically.
"When I come again,--oh, when I come again,--then, if you have not
forgotten me--Tell me you will not forget me, until I come again?"
Lois shook her head. Dick had drawn her to a seat, and his eager face was
close to hers.
"I said good-by to the rector this afternoon," he said, "but I felt I
must see you again, alone."
Lois was silent.
"I wonder if you know," he went on, "how often I shall think of Ashurst,
and of you?"
He had possessed himself of her hand, which was cold and rigid, but lay
passively in his. She had turned her face away from him, and in a
stunned, helpless way was waiting for the question which seemed on his
lips. "And you know what my thoughts will be," he said meaningly. "You
make Ashurst beautiful."
He saw the color, which had rushed to her face when he had begun to talk,
fade slowly; even her lips were white. But she never looked at him.
"You were not always kind to me," he continued, "but when I come back"--
She turned with a sudden impulse toward him, her breath quick and her
lips unsteady. "Mr. Forsythe," she said, "I"--
But he had risen. "I suppose I must go," he said in his natural voice,
from which sentiment had fled, and left even a suggestion of alarm.
"It is late, and mother may need something,--you know she's always
needing something. We never can forget your kindness, Miss Lois.
Good-by,--good-by!"
Though he lingered on that last word and pressed her hand, he had gone in
another moment. Lois stood breathless. She put her hands up to her head,
as though to quiet the confusion of her thoughts. What did it mean? Was
it only to let her see that he still loved her? Was he coming again?
When Helen, remembering her duties, came into the parlor, it was
deserted, and Lois was facing her misery and fright in her own room,
while Dick Forsythe, raging homeward through the rain, was saying to
himself, "I've put an end to your prospects! She'll wait for me, if it is
six years. It is just as well she doesn't know I'm going abroad. I'll
tell mother not to mention it. Mother was right when she said I could
have her for the asking!"