February 1. I wonder sometimes if human pride is not stronger than human
affection. Certainly it seems sometimes that we feel the wound to vanity
more than the blow to love. I suppose that the truth is that the little
prick stings where the blow numbs. For the moment it seemed to me
to-night as if I felt more the sudden knowledge that the village knows
of my broken engagement than I did the suffering of the fact; but I
shall have forgotten this to-morrow, and the real grief will be left.
Miss Charlotte, tall and gaunt, came in just at twilight. She brought a
lovely moss-rose bud.
"Why, Miss Charlotte," I said, "you have never cut the one bud off your
moss-rose! I thought that was as dear to you as the apple of your eye."
"It was," she answered with her gayest air. "That's why I brought it."
"Mother will be delighted," I said; "that is, if she can forgive you for
picking it."
"It isn't for your mother," Miss Charlotte said, with a sudden softening
of her voice; "it is for you. I'm an old woman, you know, and I've
whims. It's my whim for you to have the bud because I've watched it
growing, and loved it almost as if it were my own baby."
Then I knew that she had heard of the broken engagement. The sense of
the village gossip, the idea of being talked over at the sewing-circle,
came to me so vividly and so dreadfully that for a moment I could hardly
get my breath. Then I remembered the sweetness of Miss Charlotte's act,
and I went to her and kissed her. The poor old dear had tears in her
eyes, but she said nothing. She understood, I am sure, that I could not
talk, but that I had seen what she meant me to see, her sympathy and her
love. We sat down before the fire in the gathering dusk, and talked of
indifferent things. She praised Peter's beauty, although the ungrateful
Peter refused to stay in her lap, and would not be gracious under her
caresses. She did not remain long, and she was gay after her fashion.
Miss Charlotte is apt to cover real feeling with a decent veil of
facetiousness.
"Now I must go home and get my party ready," she said, rising with
characteristic suddenness.
"Are you going to have a party?" I asked in some surprise.
"I have one every night, my dear," she returned, with her explosive
laugh. "All the Kendall ghosts come. It isn't very gay, but it's very
select."
She hurried away, and left me more touched than I should have wished her
to see.
February 2. It was well for me that Miss Charlotte's visit prepared me
last night, for to-day Kathie broke in upon me with the most childish
frankness.
"Miss Ruth," she burst out, "ain't you going to marry George Weston?"
"No, my dear," I answered; "but you mustn't say 'ain't.'"
"'Aren't,' then. But I thought you promised years and years ago."
"Kathie, dear," said I, "this isn't a thing that you may talk about. You
are too young to understand, and it is vulgar to talk to people about
their private affairs unless they begin."
"But it's no wronger than"--
"There's no such word as 'wronger,' Kathie."
"No worse than to break one's word, is it?"
"When two persons make an agreement they have a right to unmake it if
they change their minds; and that is not breaking their word. How do the
skates work?"
"All right," Kathie answered; "but father said that you and George
Weston"--
"Kathie," I said as firmly as I could, "I have told you before that you
must not repeat what your father says."
"It isn't wrong," she returned rather defiantly.
I was surprised at her manner, but I suppose that she is always fighting
with her conscience about right and wrong, so the mere idea makes her
aggressive.
"I am not so sure," I told her, trying to turn the whole matter off with
a laugh. "I don't think it's very moral to be ill bred. Do you?"
"Why, Father says manners don't matter if the heart is right."
"This is only another way of saying that if the heart is right the
manners will be right. If you in your heart consider whether your father
would wish you to tell me what he did not say for my ears, you will not
be likely to say it."
That sounds rather priggish now it is written down, but I had to stop
the child, and I could not be harsh with her. She evidently wanted much
to go on with the subject, but I would not hear another word. How the
town must be discussing my affairs!
February 5. Mother is certainly growing weaker, and although Dr.
Wentworth will not admit to me that she is failing, I am convinced that
he thinks so. She has been telling me this afternoon of things which she
wishes given to this and that relative or friend.
"It will not make me any more likely to die, Ruth," she said, "and I
shall feel more comfortable if I have these things off my mind. I've
thought them out, and if you'll put them on paper, then I shall feel
perfectly at liberty to forget them if I find it too much trouble to
remember."
I put down the things which she told me, trying hard not to let her see
how the tears hindered my writing. When I had finished she lay quiet for
some time, and then she said,--
"May I say one thing, Ruth, about George?"
She has said nothing to me before except comforting words to show me
that she felt for me, and that she knew I could not bear to talk about
it.
"You know you may," I told her, though I confess I shrank at the
thought.
"I know how it hurts you now," she said, "and for that I am grieved to
the heart; but Ruth, dear, I can't help feeling that it is best after
all. You are too much his superior to be happy with him. You would try
to make him what you think he ought to be, and you couldn't do it. The
stuff isn't in him. He'd get tired of trying, and you would be so
humiliated for him that in the end I'm afraid neither of you would be
happy."
She stopped, and rested a little, and then went on.
"I am afraid I don't comfort you much," she said, with a sigh. "I
suppose that that must be left to time. But I want you to remember it is
much less hard for me to leave you alone than it would have been to go
with the feeling that you were to make a mistake that would hamper and
sadden your whole life."
The tears came into her eyes, and she put out her dear, shadowy hand so
feebly that I could not bear it. I dropped on my knees by the bed, and
fell to sobbing in the most childish way. Mother patted my head as if I
were the baby I was acting.
"There, there, Ruth," she said; "the Privets, as your father would have
said, do not cry over misfortunes; they live them down."
She is right; and I must not break down again.
February 7. There are times when I seem like a stranger visiting myself,
and I most inhospitably wish that this guest would go. I must determine
not to think about my feelings; or, rather, without bothering to make
resolutions, I must stop thinking about myself. The way to do it, I
suppose, is to think about others; and that would be all very well if it
were not that the others I inevitably think about are George and Miss
West. I cannot help knowing that he is with her a great deal. Somehow it
is in the air, and comes to me against my will. If I go out, I cannot
avoid seeing them walking or driving together. I am afraid that George's
law business must suffer. I should never have let him neglect it so for
me. Perhaps I am cold-blooded.
What Mother said to me the other day has been much in my thoughts. I
wonder how it was ever possible for me to be engaged to a man of whom
neither Father nor Mother entirely approved. To care for him was
something I could not help; I am sure of that. But the engagement is
another matter. It came about very naturally after his being here so
much in Father's last illness. George was so kind and helpful about the
business that we were all full of gratitude, and in my blindness I did
not perceive how Mother really felt. I realize now it was his kindness
to Father, and the relief his help brought to Mother, which made it hard
for her to say then that she did not approve of the engagement; and so
soon after she became a helpless invalid that things went on naturally
in their own course.
I am sure that if Mother could have known George as I have known him,
she would have cared for him. She has hardly seen him in all these
years. She hopes that I will forget, but I should be poorer if I could.
One does not leave off loving just because circumstances alter. He is
free to go his way, but that does not make me any the less his if there
is any virtue in my being so.
February 8. I met Mrs. Webbe in the street to-day, her black eyes
brighter, more piercing, more snapping than ever. She came up to me in
her quick, jerky way, stopped suddenly, tall and strong, and looked at
me as if she were trying to read some profound secret, hid in the very
bottom of my soul. I could never by any possibility be half so
mysterious as Mrs. Webbe's looks seemed to make me.
"Do you write to Tom?" she demanded.
"I don't even know where he is," I answered.
"Then you don't write to him?"
"No."
"That's a pity," Mrs. Webbe went on, her eyes piercing me so that they
almost gave me a sensation of physical discomfort. "He ought to know."
I looked at her a moment in silence, thinking she might explain her
enigmatic words.
"To know what?" I asked at length.
"About you and George Weston," she responded, nodding her head
emphatically; "but if you don't know where he is, that's the whole of
it. Good-day."
She was gone before I could gather my wits to tell her that the news
could make no difference to Tom. In discussing my separation from George
I suppose the village gossips--But I will not be unkind because I am
unhappy. I know, and know with sincere pain, that Deacon and Mrs. Webbe
believe that I could have saved Tom if I had been willing to marry him.
I have cared for Tom from girlhood, and I am fond of him now, in spite
of all that has happened to show how weak he is; but it would be wicked
for him to be allowed to suppose the breaking of my engagement makes any
difference in our relations. He cannot be written to, however, so I need
not trouble.
February 10. Miss West has gone back to Franklin, but I do not see that
this makes any especial difference to me. Aunt Naomi told me this
afternoon, evidently thinking that I should wish to hear it, and
evidently, too, trying not to let me see that she regarded it as more
than an ordinary bit of news. I only wonder how long it will be before
George will follow her. Oh, I do hope she will make him happy!
February 12. The consequence of my being of no religion seems to be
that I am regarded as a sort of neutral ground by persons of all
religions, where they may air their theological troubles. Now it is a
Catholic who asks advice. Perhaps I had better set up as a consulting
something or other. Mediums are the only sort of female consulting
things that I think of, and they are so far from respectable that I
could not be a medium; but I shall have to invent a name to call myself
by, if this goes much further.
This time it is Rosa. Rosa is as devout a little superstitious body as I
ever saw. She firmly believes all that her church teaches her, and she
believes all sorts of queer things besides. I wonder sometimes that her
small mind, which never can remember to lay the table properly, can hold
in remembrance all the droll superstitions she shiveringly accepts.
Perhaps the reason why she is so inefficient a servant, and is so
constantly under the severe blight of Hannah's awful disapproval, is
that her mental faculties are exhausted in remembering signs and omens.
I've no right to make fun of her, however, for I don't like to spill
salt myself!
The conundrum which Rosa brings to me is not one which it is easy to
handle. She believes that her church has the power of eternal life and
death over her, and she wishes, in defiance of her church's prohibition,
to marry a divorced man. She declares that unless she can marry Ran
Gargan her heart will be broken into the most numerous fragments, and
she implores me to devise a method by which she can accomplish the
difficult feat of getting the better of the church.
"Sure, Miss Privet," she said in the most naïve way in the world,
"you're that clever that ye could invint a way what would get round
Father O'Rafferty; he's no that quick at seein' things."
I suspect, from something the child let fall, that Hannah, with genuine
righteous hatred of the Scarlet Woman, had urged Rosa to fly in the face
of her church, and marry Ran. Hannah would regard it as a signal triumph
of grace if Rosa could be so far persuaded to disobey the tenets of
Catholicism. I can understand perfectly Hannah's way of looking at the
matter; but I have no more against Rosa's church than I have against
Hannah's, so this view does not appeal to me.
"Rosa," I said, "don't you believe in your church?"
She broke into voluble protestations of her entire faithfulness, and
seemed inclined to feel that harm might come to her from some unseen
malevolence if such charges were made so as to be heard by spying
spirits.
"Then I don't see why you come to me," I said. "If you are a good
Catholic, I should think that that settled the matter."
"But I thought you'd think of some way of gettin' round it," she
responded, beginning to cry. "Me heart is broke for Ran, an' it is
himsilf that'll go to the bad if I don't have him."
Poor little ignorant soul! How could one reason with her, or what was
there to say? I could only try to show her that she could not be happy
if she did the thing that she knew to be wrong.
"But what for is ye tellin' me that, when ye don't belave it's wrong?"
she demanded, evidently aggrieved.
"I do think it is wrong to act against a church in which you believe," I
said.
I am afraid I did not in the least comfort her, for she went away with
an air in which indignation was mingled with disappointment.
February 15. Rosa is all right. She told me to-day, fingering her apron
and blushing very prettily, that she saw Dennis Maloney last night, and
was engaged to him already. He has, it seems, personal attractions
superior to those of Ran, and Rosa added that on the whole she prefers a
first-hand husband.
"So I'm obliged to ye for yer advisin' me to give Ran the go-by," she
concluded. "I thought yer would."
I do not know whether the swiftness of the change of sweethearts or the
amazing conclusion of her remarks moved me more.
February 16. Father used to say that Peggy Cole was the proudest thing
on the face of the earth, and he would certainly be amused if he could
know how her pride has increased. I could not leave Mother this
afternoon, and so I sent Rosa down with a pail of soup to the poor old
goody. Peggy refused to have it because I did not bring it myself. She
wasn't a pauper to have me send her soup, she informed Rosa. I am afraid
that Rosa was indiscreet enough to make some remark upon the fact that I
carry her food pretty often, for old Peggy said,--I can see her wrinkled
old nose turned up in supreme scorn as she brought it out,--"That's
different. When Miss Ruth brings me a little thing now and then,--and it
ain't often she'll take that trouble, either!--that's just a friend
dropping in with something to make her sure of her welcome!" I shall
have to leave everything to-morrow to go and make my peace with Peggy,
for the old goose would starve to death before she would take anything
from the Overseers of the Poor, and I do not see how she keeps alive,
anyway.
February 17. I had a note from George this morning about the Burgess
mortgage, and in it he said that he is to be away for a week or two.
That means--
But I have no longer any right to speculate about him. It is not my
business what it means. Henceforth he must come and go, and I must not
even wonder about it.
February 19. I must face the fact that Mother will not be with me much
longer. I can see how she grows weaker, and I can only be thankful that
she does not suffer. She speaks of death now and then as calmly as if it
were a matter of every-day routine.
"Mrs. Privet," Dr. Wentworth said this morning, "you seem to be no more
afraid of death than you are of a sunrise."
"I'm not orthodox enough to be afraid," she answered, with her little
quizzical smile.
Dear little Mother, she is so serene, so sweet, so quiet; nothing could
be more dignified, and yet nothing more entirely simple. She is dying
like a gentlewoman. She lies there as gracious as if she had invited
death as a dear friend, and awaited him with the kindliest welcome. The
naturalness of it all is what impresses me most. When I am with her it
is impossible for me to feel that anything terrible is at hand. She
might be going away to pass a pleasant summer visit somewhere; but there
is no suspicion of anything dreadful or painful.
It is not that she is indifferent, either,--she has always found life a
thing to be glad of.
"I should have liked well enough to stay a while longer to bother you,
Ruth," she said, after Dr. Wentworth had gone, "but we must take things
as they come. It's better, perhaps; you need a rest."
Dear Mother! She is always so lovely and so wonderful!
February 21. Mother has been brighter to-day, and really seems better.
If it will only last! I asked her last night if she expected to see
Father. She lay quiet a moment, and then she turned her face to smile on
me before she answered.
"I don't know, Ruth," she said. "I have wondered about that a good deal,
and I cannot be sure. If he is alive and knows, then I shall see him. I
am sure of that. It is only life that has been keeping us apart. If he
is not any more, why, then I shall not be either, and so of course I
can't be unhappy. I feel just as he used to when he had you read that
translation from something to him the week before he died; the thing
that said death could not be an evil, for if we kept on existing we
would be no longer bothered by the body, and that if we didn't, it was
no matter, for we shouldn't know."
She was still a moment, looking into some great distance with her
patient, sunken eyes. Then she smiled again, and said as if to herself,
"But I think I shall see him."
February 25. George is married. Aunt Naomi has been in to tell me. She
mentioned it as if it were a thing in which I should have no more
interest than in any bit of village news. She did not watch me, I
remember now, or ask my opinion as she generally does. She was
wonderfully tactful and kind; only I can see she thought I ought to know
about it, and that the best way was to put the matter bluntly and
simply, as if it had no possible sentiment connected with it. When she
had done her errand, she went on to make remarks about Deacon Richards
and the vestry fires; just what, I do not know, for I could not listen.
Then she mercifully went away.
I did not expect it so soon! I knew that it must come, but I was not
prepared for this suddenness. I supposed that I should hear of the
engagement, and get used to it; and then come to know the wedding was to
be, and so come gradually to the thing itself that shuts George forever
out of my life. It is better, it is a thousand times better to have it
all over at once. I might have brooded morbidly through the days as they
brought nearer and nearer the time when George was to be her husband
instead of mine. Now it is done without my knowing. For three days he
has been married; and I have only to think of him as the husband of
another woman, and try to take it as a matter of course. Whether George
has done this because he cares so much for her or not, he has done what
is kindest for me. It is like waking from the ether to find that the
tooth is out. We may be sick and sore, but the worst is past, and we may
begin, slowly perhaps, but really, to recover.
Yet it is so soon! How completely he must be carried away to be so
forgetful of all that is past! We were engaged six years; and he marries
Miss West after an acquaintance of hardly as many weeks. I wonder if
all men are like this. It seems sometimes as if they were not capable of
the long, brooding devotion of women. But it is better so, and I would
not have him thinking about me. He must be wrapped up in her. I do care
most for his happiness, and his happiness now lies in his thinking of
her and forgetting all the six years when he was--when I thought he was
mine.
I will not moon, and I will not fret. That George has changed does not,
of course, alter my feeling. I am sore and hurt; I see life now
restricted in its uses. He has cut me off from the happiness of serving
him and helping him as a wife; but as a friend there is still much that
I may do. Very likely I can help his wife,--she seems so far short of
what his wife should be. For service in all loyalty I belong to him
still; and that is the thought which must help me.
February 28. I have already had a chance to do something for George. I
hope that I have not been unfair to my friends; but I do not see how I
could decide any other way.
Old lady Andrews came in this afternoon, with her snowy curls and cheeks
pink from the wind. Almost as soon as she was seated she began with
characteristic directness.
"I know you won't mind my coming straight to the point, my dear," she
said. "I came to ask you about George Weston's new wife. Do you think we
had better call on her?"
The question had come to me before, but I confess I had selfishly
thought of it only as a personal matter.
"Mr. Weston's people were hardly of our sort, you know," she continued
in her gentle voice, "though of course after your father took him into
his office as a student we all felt like receiving him. I never knew him
until after that."
"I have seen a good deal of him," I said, wondering if my voice sounded
queer; "you know he helped settle the estate."
"It did seem providential," Mrs. Andrews went on, "that his mother did
not live, for of course we could hardly have known her. She was a Hardy,
you know, from Canton. But I have always found Mr. Weston a very
presentable young man, especially for one of his class. He is really
very intelligent."
"As we have received him," I said, "I don't see how we can refuse to
receive his wife."
"That's the way I thought you would feel about it," old lady Andrews
answered; "but I wished to be sure. As he has been received entirely on
account of his connection with your family, I told Aunt Naomi that it
ought to be for you to say whether the favor should be extended to his
wife. I am informed that she is very pretty, but she is not, I believe,
exactly one of our sort."
"She is exceedingly pretty," I assured her. "I have seen her. She is
not--Well, I am afraid that she is rather Western, but I shall call."
"Then that settles it. Of course we shall do whatever you decide. I
suppose he will bring her to our church. I say 'our,' Ruth, because you
really belong to it. You are just a lamb that has found a place with a
picket off, and got outside the fold. We shall have you back some time."
"I am afraid," I said laughing, "that I should only disgrace you and
injure the fold by pulling a fresh picket off somewhere to get out
again."
She laughed in turn, and fluttered her small hands in her delightful,
birdlike way.
"I am not afraid of that," she responded. "When the Lord leads you in,
He is able to make you want to stay. I hope your mother is comfortable."
So that is settled, and Miss West--Why am I such a coward about writing
it?--Mrs. Weston is to be one of us. George will be glad that she is not
left out of society.