"I've loved you ever since I was old enough to love anything. I've told
you that often enough, and I don't think you doubt it. I had you as my
ambition all the time I was growing up. I came home from college, and
you were engaged, and all the good was taken out of life for me. I've
never cared much since what happened. But if I've asked you to love me,
Ruth, I never gave you the right to think I'd be base enough to be
willing you should marry me without loving me."
Again I tried to speak, though I cannot tell what I wished to say. I
only choked and could not get out a word.
"Don't talk about it. I can't stand it," he broke in, his voice husky.
"You needn't marry me to make George Weston come up to the mark. I'll
take care of that."
I suppose I looked up with a dread of what might happen if he saw
George, and of course Tom could not understand that my concern was for
him and not for George. He smiled a bitter sort of smile.
"You needn't be afraid," he said. "I'll treat him tenderly for your
sake."
I was too confused to speak, and I could only sit there dazed and silent
while he went away. It was not what he was saying that filled me with a
tumult till my thoughts seemed beating in my head like wild birds in a
net. Suddenly while he was speaking, while his dear, honest eyes full of
pain were looking into mine, the still, small voice had spoken, and I
knew that I cared for Tom as he cared for me.
November 8. I realize now that from the morning when Tom and I first
stood with baby in my arms between us I have felt differently toward
him. It was at the moment almost as if I were his wife, and though I
never owned it to myself, even in my most secret thought, I have somehow
belonged to him ever since. I see now that something very deep within
has known and has from time to time tried to tell me; but I put my hands
to the ears of my mind. Miss Fleming used to try to teach us things at
school about the difference between the consciousness and the will, and
other dark mysteries which to me were, and are, and always will be
utterly incomprehensible, and I suppose some kind of a consciousness
knew what the will wouldn't recognize. That sounds like nonsense now it
is on paper, but it seemed extremely wise when I began to write it. No
matter; the facts I know well enough. It is wonderful how a woman will
hide a thing from herself, a thing she knows really, but keeps from
being conscious she knows by refusing to let her thoughts put it into
words.
To myself I seem shamefully fickle,--and yet it seems also as if I had
never changed at all, but that it was always Tom I have been fond of,
even when I fully believed it was George. Of course this is only a weak
excuse; but at least I have been fond of Tom as a friend from my
childhood. He has always commanded me, too, in a way. He has done what I
wished and what I thought best; but I have always known he could be
influenced only so far, and that if I wanted what he did not believe in
he could be as stubborn as a rock. The hardness of his mother shows
itself in him as the stanch foundation for the gentleness he gets from
his father.
Miss Charlotte came in for a moment to-day, and by instinct she knew
that something had made me happy. She was full of sympathy for a moment,
and then, I think, some suspicion came into her dear old head which she
would not have there.
"Ruth, my dear," she said in her rough way, "you look too cheerful for
the head of a foundling asylum and a house of refuge. I hope you've made
George Weston promise to marry his own wife,--though if I made the laws
it wouldn't be necessary for a man to marry a woman more than once. I've
no idea of weddings that have to come round once in so often like
house-cleaning."
She was watching me so keenly as she spoke that I smiled in spite of
myself.
"No," I told her, "I haven't been able to make him; but Tom Webbe has
undertaken to bring him round, so I believe it will be all right."
Whether she understood or not I cannot tell, but from the loving way in
which she leaned over and kissed me I suspect she had some inkling of
it.
November 9. They are married. Just after dusk to-night I heard the
doorbell, and Rosa came in with a queer look on her face to say that Mr.
Saychase and Mr. Weston were in the hall. I went out to them at once,
and tried to act as if everything had been arranged between us. George
was pale and stern. He would not look at me, and I did not exchange a
word directly with him while he was in the house, except to say
good-evening and good-by. I kept them waiting just a moment or two while
I prepared Gertrude, and then I called them upstairs. She behaved very
well, acting as if she were a little frightened, but accepting
everything without a word. I suspect she is too ill really to care for
anything very much. The ceremony was over quickly, and then George went
away without noticing his wife further except to say good-night.
Tom came in for a moment, later, to see that everything was well, and of
course I asked him how he had brought George to consent. He smiled
rather grimly.
"I did it simply enough," he said. "I tried easy words first, and
appealed to him as a gentleman,--though of course I knew it was no use.
If such a plea would have done any good, I shouldn't have been there.
Then I said he wouldn't be tolerated in Tuskamuck if he didn't make it
right for his wife. He said he guessed he could fix that, and if other
people would mind their own business he could attend to his. Then I
opened the door and called in Cy Turner. I had him waiting outside
because I knew Weston would understand he meant business. I asked him to
say what we'd agreed; and he told Weston that if he didn't marry the
woman before midnight we'd have him ridden out of town on a rail. He
weakened at that. He knew we'd do it."
I could not say anything to this. It was a man's way of treating the
situation, and it accomplished its end; but it did affect me a good
deal. I shivered at the very idea of a mob, and of what might have
happened if George had not yielded. Tom saw how I felt, I suppose.
"You think I'm a brute, Ruth," he said, "but I knew he'd give in. He
isn't very plucky. I always knew that."
He hurried away to go to the reading-room, where he had to see to
something or other, and we said nothing about our personal relations. I
wonder if I fancied that he watched me very closely to see how I took
his account, or if he really thought I might resent his having
browbeaten George. He need not have feared. I was troubled by the idea
of the mob, but I was proud of Tom, and I could not help contrasting his
clear, straightforward look with the way George avoided my eyes.
November 12. Now there are two babies in the house, and Cousin Mehitable
might think her prediction that I would set up an orphan asylum was
coming true in earnest. In spite of Mrs. Weston's exposure everything is
going well, and we hope for the best. I sent George a note last night to
tell him, and he came over for a minute. He behaved very well. He had
none of the bravado which has made him so different and so dreadful, and
he was more like his old self. He was let into his wife's chamber just
long enough to kiss her, but that was all. I suppose to be the father of
a son must sober any man.
November 20. Tom never comes any more to see me or baby. When I
discovered I cared for him I felt that of course everything was at last
straightened out; and here is Tom, who only knows that he cares for me,
so the case is about as it was before except that now he will never
speak. I must do something; but what can I do? When I thought only of
getting out of the way of George's marriage it was bad enough to speak
to Tom, and now it seems impossible. I can't, I can't, I can't speak to
him again!
November 23. Cousin Mehitable and her telegram arrived this time
together, for the boy who drove her from the station brought the
message, and gave it to her to bring into the house. She was full of
indignation and amazement at what she found, and insisted upon going
back to Boston by the afternoon train.
"I never know what you will do, Ruth," she said, "so of course I ought
not to be surprised; but of all the wild notions you could take into
your head, I must say to have Mrs. Weston come here to have her baby is
the most incredible."
"You advised me to have more babies, as long as I had one," I
interposed.
"I've a great mind to shake you," was her response. "This is a pretty
reception when I haven't seen you since I came home. To think I should
be cousin to a foundling hospital, and that all the family I have left!"
I suggested that if I really did set up a foundling hospital, she would
soon have as large a family as anybody could want, and she briskly
retorted that she had more than she wanted now. She had come down to
persuade me to go to Boston for the winter, to make up, she said, for
my not going abroad with her, and she brought me a wonderful piece of
embroidered crêpe for a party dress. She was as breezy and emphatic as
ever, and she denounced me and my doings in good round terms.
"I suppose if you did come to Boston," she said, "you'd be mixed up in
all the dreadful charities there, and I should never see you."
"But you know, Cousin Mehitable," I protested, "you belong to two or
three charitable societies yourself."
"But those are parish societies," was her reply. "That is quite
different. Of course I do my part in whatever the church is concerned
in; but you just do things on your own hook, and without even believing
anything. I think it's wicked myself."
I could only laugh at her, and it was easy to see that her indignation
was not with any charitable work I did, but only with the fact I would
not promise to leave everything and go home with her.
Before she went home I told her I had a confession to make. She
commented, not very encouragingly, that she supposed it was something
worse than anything had come yet, but that as she was prepared for
anything I might as well get it out.
"If you've decided to be some sort of a Mormon wife to that horrid Mr.
Weston," she added, "I shouldn't be in the least surprised. Perhaps
you'll take him in with the rest of his family."