Ellen wiped the memory of their misunderstanding completely from her
mind. If she had cared for Roger before, now she burned her bridges
behind her; she swamped herself in her devotion to him. He stayed in
our town until late fall, and during these months he seemed to want no
other thing than the companionship of Ellen. The hours that he spent
in work every day were their tragedy. In her journal Ellen prattled of
a time "when they should be married and she could be with him even
when he was working."
"The world is full now," she complained, "of closed doors and
good-nights and good-byes."
All the diverse and many-sided problems of marriage resolved
themselves, in her simple mind, into one single meaning, and that was
the continual presence of Roger. She passed the hours away from him
drowned in the thought of him. Though at that time she wrote very
little in her journal,--she was happy,--she did write a series of
little, good-night letters that were like so many kisses, fond and
extravagant, the happy babblings of a perfectly happy heart. Meantime
Roger was studying. It was the first time he had applied himself to
work and found the power of his mind. In the quiet of this town he got
into a tremendous stride of work and ate up books before him as fire
licks up brushwood. They spent a great deal of their time together,
planning his future and talking how great a man he was going to be. He
had a gift of natural eloquence and loved an audience at any time. In
that New England fall, when the crisp air is like wine and the hills
are a miracle of color, Roger brooded over the picture of his own
future, sketching outlines which he afterwards filled out. By letter
he made friends again with his father.
Their engagement had been announced and Ellen was given the
consideration which a good marriage brings one in a little village, a
consideration which she didn't even notice. Mildred Dilloway, in the
mean time, had been--in the homely New England phrase--"keeping
company" with Edward Graham, and no one was surprised when it became
known that they were to be married. Ellen writes in connection with
this:--
"When I think of what a little fool I was at that time, I could
beat my head against the door. If I could have but looked ahead
a little, I would have had a little more sense. I needn't have
listened at all to Edward's blitherings and been saved two years
of discomfort. Edward himself told me about it. 'Do not think,
Ellen,' he said, 'that I'm unfaithful to the thought of you.'
'You couldn't be,' said I. 'You'll always be poetry to me,
remember that,' he told me. 'I shall try to forget it,' said I.
I have never before wished to throw something at any one as I
did then. It was easy to see that he was a little disappointed
in himself that he could care for any one else after having made
so great a fuss and mourned around so. I wish he would go away,
because I hate to be forever reminded of the me that used to be.
What if one should turn back into the person that one was once?
I wonder who the person is that I'm going to be. It will be a
happy person or else I shan't be alive; because if I have Roger
I shall be happy, and if anything happens to him it will happen
to me, too."
At that moment in her life she could not imagine any other separation
from him than that caused by some disaster. She hadn't even faced the
necessity of his leaving her when winter came. She knew he was going
away, but she didn't realize it. They drifted along, making more of a
drama all the time of the inevitable good-nights and the inevitable
separations. As Ellen wrote: "People who are in love should be
endowed; there isn't time for anything else."
During this little perfect time life held its breath until Roger went
away. The end came quite suddenly, with a peremptory letter from his
father, who had a chance for him to enter a very well-known law
office, under advantageous circumstances. While the shadow of
separation was over them, it was like a cloud that passes near by and
only bade the sunshine in which they stood more bright. She knew Roger
was going, but she didn't really believe it. She wrote:--
"I lived through months of learning to realize he was gone
between the time he left and dinner. Mr. Sylvester was there,
and for a time I had to put aside the selfishness of my own
grief and I was glad to forget it in talking of one little thing
after another, the way one does to stifle down the pain of the
heart. I wanted to run after Roger and look at his face once
more. I wanted to run after him and foolishly throw myself in
front of the horse and say, 'You can't go.' The part of me that
talks was gay, because deeper than anything else was the wish in
me to speed him joyfully and to have his last memory of me a gay
and triumphant one. Time is a strange thing; all day it's walked
along like a funeral procession, and before this it has been
going so fast that there has hardly been a chance to get a word
in edgewise between the striking of the hours; and since Roger
went it's taken an eternity for it to strike the next quarter.
I've tried to comfort myself by going up to Oscar's Leap, but my
heart was so heavy that I could hardly walk all of the
beautiful, weary way. I don't like myself for writing like this,
for I have him and he really loves me. The more I see people and
listen to the things they say, the more I am sure that very few
people really love any one, and those who do love are seldom
loved in return. It must be a terrible thing to love and feel
one's self unloved. Now I'm going to get ready for my mother's
wedding and then get ready for mine, and while my mind tells me
I must be good, my heart cries out, 'Oh! Why can't I trade off
the useless weeks at the other end of my life for the weeks that
would mean so much now!' As he went away from me, I felt as
though I were never going to see him again, and, indeed, this
Roger and this Ellen will never see each other again. It seems
to me that before he comes again I shall be made old by waiting,
the days crawl past so slow and leaden-footed. I've said
good-bye to this most beautiful time when I've said good-bye to
Roger."
At first he wrote her very often, but briefly. She wrote to him, in
the intimacy of the letters she did not intend to send:--
"Your dear letters mean, 'I love you, Ellen; I think of you; my
heart goes out to you.' Once in a while they say, 'I thirst for
you,' but they tell me nothing of all the many things that I
hunger so to know. I'd like to be able to see your life and know
what time you wake up, what time you go to your office, and how
your office looks, and which way it is set toward the sun so I
could imagine you moving around, and you don't even answer my
little, discreet questions. I would like to know the faces of
all the people you meet often and how you amuse yourself. I
wonder have you lost Ellen in your big and fearsome city. Roger,
I have times when I'm _afraid_, and I don't know of what--just
fear, as though the inner heart of me rang, 'Something's wrong,
something's wrong, something's wrong,' where my mind has nothing
to go on. Roger, I _wait_ for each one of your letters as if I
was afraid it wouldn't come, and as if it were to be the last.
I'm afraid. I don't trust life as I did, and when I don't trust
life, I can't find you; when I trust life, it's as if when I
shut my eyes I can put out my hand and touch you. But lately it
is as though I wander around in the dark looking for you. I tell
myself it's foolish, but my heart won't listen to the voice of
reason. It is as though my confidence had been taken away from
me, as though it had been a gift no one could touch with hands.
My mother's wedding doesn't mean to me any more her happiness,
but the day that you shall come back to me and give me back my
confidence in life, and when I look on you again I shall know
that everything is well in the world. I know that nothing has
happened and that nothing can happen, but my heart knows
differently."