It was a week before Lizzie heard from Mrs. Ford. The letter, when it
came, was very brief. Jack still lived. The wounds were three in number,
and very serious; he was unconscious; he had not recognized her; but
still the chances either way were thought equal. They would be much
greater for his recovery nearer home; but it was impossible to move him.
"I write from the midst of horrible scenes," said the poor lady.
Subjoined was a list of necessary medicines, comforts, and delicacies,
to be boxed up and sent.
For a while Lizzie found occupation in writing a letter to Jack, to be
read in his first lucid moment, as she told Mrs. Ford. This lady's
man-of-business came up from the village to superintend the packing of
the boxes. Her directions were strictly followed; and in no point were
they found wanting. Mr. Mackenzie bespoke Lizzie's admiration for their
friend's wonderful clearness of memory and judgment. "I wish we had that
woman at the head of affairs," said he. "'Gad, I'd apply for a
Brigadier-Generalship."--"I'd apply to be sent South," thought Lizzie.
When the boxes and letter were despatched, she sat down to await more
news. Sat down, say I? Sat down, and rose, and wondered, and sat down
again. These were lonely, weary days. Very different are the idleness of
love and the idleness of grief. Very different is it to be alone with
your hope and alone with your despair. Lizzie failed to rally her
musings. I do not mean to say that her sorrow was very poignant,
although she fancied it was. Habit was a great force in her simple
nature; and her chief trouble now was that habit refused to work. Lizzie
had to grapple with the stern tribulation of a decision to make, a
problem to solve. She felt that there was some spiritual barrier between
herself and repose. So she began in her usual fashion to build up a
false repose on the hither side of belief. She might as well have tried
to float on the Dead Sea. Peace eluding her, she tried to resign herself
to tumult. She drank deep at the well of self-pity, but found its waters
brackish. People are apt to think that they may temper the penalties of
misconduct by self-commiseration, just as they season the long
aftertaste of beneficence by a little spice of self-applause. But the
Power of Good is a more grateful master than the Devil. What bliss to
gaze into the smooth gurgling wake of a good deed, while the comely bark
sails on with floating pennon! What horror to look into the muddy
sediment which floats round the piratic keel! Go, sinner, and dissolve
it with your tears! And you, scoffing friend, there is the way out! Or
would you prefer the window? I'm an honest man forevermore.
One night Lizzie had a dream, a rather disagreeable one,--which haunted
her during many waking hours. It seemed to her that she was walking in a
lonely place, with a tall, dark-eyed man who called her wife. Suddenly,
in the shadow of a tree, they came upon an unburied corpse. Lizzie
proposed to dig him a grave. They dug a great hole and took hold of the
corpse to lift him in; when suddenly he opened his eyes. Then they saw
that he was covered with wounds. He looked at them intently for some
time, turning his eyes from one to the other. At last he solemnly said,
"Amen!" and closed his eyes. Then she and her companion placed him in
the grave, and shovelled the earth over him, and stamped it down with
their feet.
He of the dark eyes and he of the wounds were the two constantly
recurring figures of Lizzie's reveries. She could never think of John
without thinking of the courteous Leatherborough gentleman, too. These
were the _data_ of her problem. These two figures stood like opposing
knights, (the black and the white,) foremost on the great chess-board of
fate. Lizzie was the wearied, puzzled player. She would idly finger the
other pieces, and shift them carelessly hither and thither; but it was
of no avail: the game lay between the two knights. She would shut her
eyes and long for some kind hand to come and tamper with the board; she
would open them and see the two knights standing immovable, face to
face. It was nothing new. A fancy had come in and offered defiance to a
fact; they must fight it out. Lizzie generously inclined to the fancy,
the unknown champion, with a reputation to make. Call her _blasée_ if you
like, this little girl, whose record told of a couple of dances and a
single lover, heartless, old before her time. Perhaps she deserves your
scorn. I confess she thought herself ill-used. By whom? by what?
wherein? These were questions Miss Crowe was not prepared to answer. Her
intellect was unequal to the stern logic of human events. She expected
two and two to make five: as why should they not for the nonce? She was
like an actor who finds himself on the stage with a half-learned part
and without sufficient wit to extemporize. Pray, where is the prompter?
Alas, Elizabeth, that you had no mother! Young girls are prone to fancy
that when once they have a lover, they have everything they need: a
conclusion inconsistent with the belief entertained by many persons,
that life begins with love. Lizzie's fortunes became old stories to her
before she had half read them through. Jack's wounds and danger were an
old story. Do not suppose that she had exhausted the lessons,
the suggestions of these awful events, their inspirations,
exhortations,--that she had wept as became the horror of the tragedy.
No: the curtain had not yet fallen, yet our young lady had begun to
yawn. To yawn? Ay, and to long for the afterpiece. Since the tragedy
dragged, might she not divert herself with that well-bred man beside
her?
Elizabeth was far from owning to herself that she had fallen away from
her love. For my own part, I need no better proof of the fact than the
dull persistency with which she denied it. What accusing voice broke out
of the stillness? Jack's nobleness and magnanimity were the hourly theme
of her clogged fancy. Again and again she declared to herself that she
was unworthy of them, but that, if he would only recover and come home,
she would be his eternal bond-slave. So she passed a very miserable
month. Let us hope that her childish spirit was being tempered to some
useful purpose. Let us hope so.
She roamed about the empty house with her footsteps tracked by an unlaid
ghost. She cried aloud and said that she was very unhappy; she groaned
and called herself wicked. Then, sometimes, appalled at her moral
perplexities, she declared that she was neither wicked nor unhappy; she
was contented, patient, and wise. Other girls had lost their lovers: it
was the present way of life. Was she weaker than most women? Nay, but
Jack was the best of men. If he would only come back directly, without
delay, as he was, senseless, dying even, that she might look at him,
touch him, speak to him! Then she would say that she could no longer
answer for herself, and wonder (or pretend to wonder) whether she were
not going mad. Suppose Mrs. Ford should come back and find her in an
unswept room, pallid and insane? or suppose she should die of her
troubles? What if she should kill herself?--dismiss the servants, and
close the house, and lock herself up with a knife? Then she would cut
her arm to escape from dismay at what she had already done; and then her
courage would ebb away with her blood, and, having so far pledged
herself to despair, her life would ebb away with her courage; and then,
alone, in darkness, with none to help her, she would vainly scream, and
thrust the knife into her temple, and swoon to death. And Jack would
come back, and burst into the house, and wander through the empty rooms,
calling her name, and for all answer get a death-scent! These imaginings
were the more creditable or discreditable to Lizzie, that she had never
read "Romeo and Juliet." At any rate, they served to dissipate
time,--heavy, weary time,--the more heavy and weary as it bore dark
foreshadowings of some momentous event. If that event would only come,
whatever it was, and sever this Gordian knot of doubt!
The days passed slowly: the leaden sands dropped one by one. The roads
were too bad for walking; so Lizzie was obliged to confine her
restlessness to the narrow bounds of the empty house, or to an
occasional journey to the village, where people sickened her by their
dull indifference to her spiritual agony. Still they could not fail to
remark how poorly Miss Crowe was looking. This was true, and Lizzie knew
it. I think she even took a certain comfort in her pallor and in her
failing interest in her dress. There was some satisfaction in displaying
her white roses amid the apple-cheeked prosperity of Main Street. At
last Miss Cooper, the Doctor's sister, spoke to her:--
"How is it, Elizabeth, you look so pale, and thin, and worn out? What
you been doing with yourself? Falling in love, eh? It isn't right to be
so much alone. Come down and stay with us awhile,--till Mrs. Ford and
John come back," added Miss Cooper, who wished to put a cheerful face on
the matter.
For Miss Cooper, indeed, any other face would have been difficult.
Lizzie agreed to come. Her hostess was a busy, unbeautiful old maid,
sister and housekeeper of the village physician. Her occupation here
below was to perform the forgotten tasks of her fellow-men,--to pick up
their dropped stitches, as she herself declared. She was never idle, for
her general cleverness was commensurate with mortal needs. Her own story
was, that she kept moving, so that folks couldn't see how ugly she was.
And, in fact, her existence was manifest through her long train of good
deeds,--just as the presence of a comet is shown by its tail. It was
doubtless on the above principle that her visage was agitated by a
perpetual laugh.
Meanwhile more news had been coming from Virginia. "What an absurdly
long letter you sent John," wrote Mrs. Ford, in acknowledging the
receipt of the boxes. "His first lucid moment would be very short, if he
were to take upon himself to read your effusions. Pray keep your long
stories till he gets well." For a fortnight the young soldier remained
the same,--feverish, conscious only at intervals. Then came a change for
the worse, which, for many weary days, however, resulted in nothing
decisive. "If he could only be moved to Glenham, home, and old sights,"
said his mother, "I should have hope. But think of the journey!" By this
time Lizzie had stayed out ten days of her visit.
One day Miss Cooper came in from a walk, radiant with tidings. Her face,
as I have observed, wore a continual smile, being dimpled and punctured
all over with merriment,--so that, when an unusual cheerfulness was
super-diffused, it resembled a tempestuous little pool into which a
great stone has been cast.
"Guess who's come," said she, going up to the piano, which Lizzie was
carelessly fingering, and putting her hands on the young girl's
shoulders. "Just guess!"
Lizzie looked up.
"Jack," she half gasped.
"Oh, dear, no, not that! How stupid of me! I mean Mr. Bruce, your
Leatherborough admirer."
"Mr. Bruce! Mr. Bruce!" said Lizzie. "Really?"
"True as I live. He's come to bring his sister to the Water-Cure. I met
them at the post-office."
Lizzie felt a strange sensation of good news. Her finger-tips were on
fire. She was deaf to her companion's rattling chronicle. She broke into
the midst of it with a fragment of some triumphant, jubilant melody. The
keys rang beneath her flashing hands. And then she suddenly stopped, and
Miss Cooper, who was taking off her bonnet at the mirror, saw that her
face was covered with a burning flush.
That evening, Mr. Bruce presented himself at Doctor Cooper's, with whom
he had a slight acquaintance. To Lizzie he was infinitely courteous and
tender. He assured her, in very pretty terms, of his profound sympathy
with her in her cousin's danger,--her cousin he still called him,--and
it seemed to Lizzie that until that moment no one had begun to be kind.
And then he began to rebuke her, playfully and in excellent taste, for
her pale cheeks.
"Isn't it dreadful?" said Miss Cooper. "She looks like a ghost. I guess
she's in love."
"He must be a good-for-nothing lover to make his mistress look so sad.
If I were you, I'd give him up, Miss Crowe."
"I didn't know I looked sad," said Lizzie.
"You don't now," said Miss Cooper. "You're smiling and blushing. A'n't
she blushing, Mr. Bruce?"
"I think Miss Crowe has no more than her natural color," said Bruce,
dropping his eye-glass. "What have you been doing all this while since
we parted?"
"All this while? it's only six weeks. I don't know. Nothing. What have
you?"
"I've been doing nothing, too. It's hard work."
"Have you been to any more parties?"
"Not one."
"Any more sleigh-rides?"
"Yes. I took one more dreary drive all alone,--over that same road, you
know. And I stopped at the farm-house again, and saw the old woman we
had the talk with. She remembered us, and asked me what had become of
the young lady who was with me before. I told her you were gone home,
but that I hoped soon to go and see you. So she sent you her love"----
"Oh, how nice!" exclaimed Lizzie.
"Wasn't it? And then she made a certain little speech; I won't repeat
it, or we shall have Miss Cooper talking about your blushes again."
"I know," cried the lady in question: "she said she was very"----
"Very what?" said Lizzie.
"Very h-a-n-d----what every one says."
"Very handy?" asked Lizzie. "I'm sure no one ever said that."
"Of course," said Bruce; "and I answered what every one answers."
"Have you seen Mrs. Littlefield lately?"
"Several times. I called on her the day before I left town, to see if
she had any messages for you."
"Oh, thank you! I hope she's well."
"Oh, she's as jolly as ever. She sent you her love, and hoped you would
come back to Leatherborough very soon again. I told her, that, however
it might be with the first message, the second should be a joint one
from both of us."
"You're very kind. I should like very much to go again.--Do you like
Mrs. Littlefield?"
"Like her? Yes. Don't you? She's thought a very pleasing woman."
"Oh, she's very nice.--I don't think she has much conversation."
"Ah, I'm afraid you mean she doesn't backbite. We've always found plenty
to talk about."
"That's a very significant tone. What, for instance?"
"Well, we _have_ talked about Miss Crowe."
"Oh, you have? Do you call that having plenty to talk about?"
"We _have_ talked about Mr. Bruce,--haven't we, Elizabeth?" said Miss
Cooper, who had her own notion of being agreeable.
It was not an altogether bad notion, perhaps; but Bruce found her
interruptions rather annoying, and insensibly allowed them to shorten
his visit. Yet, as it was, he sat till eleven o'clock,--a stay quite
unprecedented at Glenham.
When he left the house, he went splashing down the road with a very
elastic tread, springing over the starlit puddles, and trolling out some
sentimental ditty. He reached the inn, and went up to his sister's
sitting-room.
"Why, Robert, where have you been all this while?" said Miss Bruce.
"At Dr. Cooper's."
"Dr. Cooper's? I should think you had! Who's Dr. Cooper?"
"Where Miss Crowe's staying."
"Miss Crowe? Ah, Mrs. Littlefield's friend! Is she as pretty as ever?"
"Prettier,--prettier,--prettier. _Tara-ta! tara-ta!_"
"Oh, Robert, do stop that singing! You'll rouse the whole house."