THE TIME BETWEEN.
I now felt quite able to confess to my uncle both what I had thought and
what I had done. True, I had much more to confess than when my trouble
first awoke; but the growth in the matter of the confession had been such
a growth in definiteness as well, as to make its utterance, though more
weighty, yet much easier. If I might be in doubt about revealing my
thoughts, I could be in none about revealing my actions; and I found it
was much less appalling to make known my feelings, when I had the words
of John Day to confess as well.
I may here be allowed to remark, how much easier an action is when
demanded, than it seems while in the contingent future--how much
easier when the thing is before you in its reality, and not as a mere
thought-spectre. The thing itself, and the idea of it, are two such
different grounds upon which to come either to a decision or to action!
One thing more: when a woman wants to do the right--I do not mean, wants
to coax the right to side with her--she will, somehow, be led up to it.
My uncle was very feverish and troubled the first night, and had a good
deal of delirium, during which his care and anxiety seemed all about me.
Martha had to assure him every other moment that I was well, and in no
danger of any sort: he would be silent for a time, and then again show
himself tormented with forebodings about me. In the morning, however, he
was better; only he looked sadder than usual. She thought he was, for
some cause or other, in reality anxious about me. So much I gathered from
Martha's letter, by no means scholarly, but graphic enough.
It gave me much pain. My uncle was miserable about me: he had plainly
seen, he knew and felt that something had come between us! Alas, it was
no fancy of his brain-troubled soul! Whether I was in fault or not, there
was that something! It troubled the unity that had hitherto seemed a
thing essential and indivisible!
Dared I go to him without a summons? I knew Martha would call me the
moment the doctor allowed her: it would not be right to go without that
call. What I had to tell might justify far more anxiety than the sight of
me would counteract. If I said nothing, the keen eye of his love would
assure itself of the something hid in my silence, and he would not see
that I was but waiting his improvement to tell him everything. I resolved
therefore to remain where I was.
The next two days were perhaps the most uncomfortable ever I spent. A
secret one desires to turn out of doors at the first opportunity, is not
a pleasant companion. I do not say I was unhappy, still less that once I
wished I had not seen John Day, but oh, how I longed to love him openly!
how I longed for my uncle's sanction, without which our love could not be
perfected! Then John's mother was by no means a gladsome thought--except
that he must be a good man indeed, who was good in spite of being unable
to love, respect, or trust his mother! The true notion of heaven, is to
be with everybody one loves: to him the presence of his mother--such as
she was, that is--would destroy any heaven! What a painful but salutary
shock it will be to those whose existence is such a glorifying of
themselves that they imagine their presence necessary to all about them,
when they learn that their disappearance from the world sent a thrill of
relief through the hearts of those nearest them! To learn how little
they were prized, will one day prove a strong medicine for souls
self-absorbed.
“There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed.”