BETTY BALLARD'S AWAKENING
Mary and Bertrand always went early to church, for Bertrand led the
choir, and it was often necessary for him to gather the singers
together and try over the anthem before the service. Sometimes the
rector would change the hymns, and then the choir must have one little
rehearsal of them. Martha and Mr. Thurbyfil accompanied them this
morning, and Betty and the boys were to walk, for four grown-ups with
little Janey sandwiched in between more than filled the carryall.
In these days Betty no longer had to wash and dress her brothers, but
there were numerous attentions required of her, such as only growing
boys can originate, and "sister" was as kind and gay in helping them
over their difficulties as of old. So, now, as she stepped out of her
room all dressed for church in her white muslin with green rose sprigs
over it, with her green parasol, and her prayer book in her hand,
Bobby called her.
"Oh, Sis! I've broken my shoe string and it's time to start."
"I have a new one in my everyday shoes, Bobby, dear; run upstairs and
take it out. They're just inside the closet door. Wait a minute,
Jamie; that lock stands straight up on the back of your head. Can't
you make it lie down? Bring me the brush. You look splendid in your
new trousers. Now, you hurry on ahead and leave this at the Deans'.
It's Clara's sash bow. I found it in the wagon after they left last
night. Run, she may want to wear it to church.--Yes, Bobby, dear, I
sent him on, but you can catch up. Have you a handkerchief? Yes, I'll
follow in a minute."
And the boys rushed off, looking very clean in their Sunday clothing,
and very old and mannish in their long trousers and stiff hats. Betty
looked after them with pride, then she bethought her that the cat had
not had her saucer of milk, and ran down to the spring to get it,
leaving the doors wide open behind her. The day was quite warm enough
for her to wear the summer gown, and she was very winsome and pretty
in her starched muslin, with the delicate green buds sprayed over it.
She wore a green belt, too, and the parasol she was very proud of, for
she had bought it with her own chicken money. It was her heart's
delight. Betty's skirt reached nearly to the ground, for she was quite
in long dresses, and two little ruffles rippled about her feet as she
ran down the path to the spring. But, alas! As she turned away after
carefully fastening the spring-house door, the cat darted under her
feet; and Betty stumbled and the milk streamed down the front of her
dress and spattered her shoes--and if there was anything Betty liked,
it was to have her shoes very neat.
"Oh, Kitty! I hate your running under my feet that way all the time."
Betty was almost in tears. She set the saucer down and tried to wipe
off the milk, while the cat crouched before the dish and began
drinking eagerly and unthankfully, after the manner of cats.
Some one stood silently watching her from the kitchen steps as she
walked slowly up the path, gazing down on the ruin of the pretty
starched ruffles.
"Why, Richard!" was all she said, for something came up in her throat
and choked her. She waited where she stood, and in his eyes, her
aspect seemed that of despair. Was it all for the spilled milk?
"Why, Betty dear!" He caught her and kissed her and laughed at her and
comforted her all at once. "Not tears, dear? Tears to greet me? You
didn't half greet me last evening, and I came only to see you. Now you
will, where there's no one to see and no one to hear? Yes. Never mind
the spilled milk, you know better than that." But Betty lay in his
arms, a little crumpled wisp of sorrow, white and still.
"Away off there in Cheyenne I got to thinking of you, and I went to
headquarters and asked to be sent on this commission just to get the
chance to run up here and tell you I have been waiting all these years
for you to grow up. You have haunted me ever since I left Leauvite.
You darling, your laughing face was always with me, on the march--in
prison--and wherever I've been since. I've been trying to keep myself
right--for you--so I might dare some day to take you in my arms like
this and tell you--so I need not be ashamed before your--"
"Oh, Richard, wait!" wailed Betty, but he would not wait.
"I've waited long enough. I see you are grown up before I even dreamed
you could be. Thank heaven I came now! You are so sweet some one would
surely have won you away from me--but no one can now--no one."
"Richard, why didn't you tell me this when you first came home from
the war--before you went to Scotland? I would--"
"Not then, sweetheart; I couldn't. I didn't even know then I would
ever be worth the love of any woman; and--you were such a child
then--I couldn't intrude my weariness--my worn-out self on you. I was
sick at heart when I got out of that terrible prison; but now it is
all changed. I am my own man now, dependent on no one, and able to
marry you out of hand, Betty, dear. After you've told me something,
I'll do whatever you say, wait as long as you say. No, no! Listen!
Don't break away from me. You don't hate me as you do the cat. I
haven't been running under your feet all the time, have I, dear?
Listen. See here, my arms are strong now. They can hold you forever,
just like this. I've been thinking of you and dreaming of you and
loving you through these years. You have never been out of my mind nor
out of my heart. I've kept the little housewife you made me and bound
with your cherry-colored hair ribbon until it is in rags, but I love
it still. I love it. They took everything I had about me at the
prison; but this--they gave back to me. It was the only thing I begged
them to leave me."
Poor little Betty! She tried to speak and tried again, but she could
not utter a word. Her mouth grew dry and her knees would not support
her. Richard was so big and strong he did not feel her weight, and
only delighted in the thought that she resigned herself to him.
"Darling little Betty! Darling little Betty! You do understand, don't
you? Won't you tell me you do?"
But she only closed her eyes and lay quite still. She longed to lift
her arms and put them about his neck, and the effort not to do so
only crushed her spirit the more. Now she knew she was bad, and
unworthy such a great love as this. She had let Peter Junior kiss her,
and she had told him she loved him--and it was nothing to this. She
was not good; she was unworthy, and all the angels in heaven could
never bring her comfort any more. She was so still he put his cheek to
hers, and it seemed as if she moaned, and that without a sound.
"Have I hurt you, Betty, dear?"
"Oh, no, Richard, no."
"Do you love me, sweet?"
"Yes, Richard, yes. I love you so I could die of loving you, and I
can't help it. Oh, Richard, I can't help it."
"It's asking too much that you should love me so, and yet that's what
my selfish, hungry heart wants and came here for."
"Take your face away, Richard; stop. I must talk if it kills me. I
have been so bad and wicked. Oh, Richard, I can't tell you how wicked.
Let me stand by myself now. I can." She fought back the tears and
turned her face away from him, but when he let go of her, in her
weakness she swayed, and he caught her to him again, with many
repeated words of tenderness.
"If you will take me to the steps, Richard, and bring me a glass of
water, I think I can talk to you then. You remember where things are
in this house?"
Did he remember? Was there anything he had forgotten about this
beloved place? He brought her the water and she made him sit beside
her, but not near, only that she need not look in his eyes.
"Richard, I thought something was love--that was not--I didn't know.
It was only liking--and--and now I--I've been so wrong--and I want to
die--Oh, I want to die! No, don't. Do you want to make me sin again?
Oh, Richard, Richard! If you had only come before! Now it is too
late." She began sobbing bitterly, and her small frame shook with her
grief.
He seized her wrists and his hand trembled. She tried to cover her
face with her hands, but he took them down and held them.
"Betty, what have you done? Tell me--tell me quick."
Then she turned her face toward him, wet with tears. "Have pity on me,
Richard. Have pity on me, Richard, for my heart is broken, and the
thing that hurts me most is that it will hurt you."
"But it wasn't yesterday when I came to you out there in the woods. I
heard you laughing, and you ran to meet me as happy as ever--"
"You did not hear me laugh once again after you came and looked in my
eyes there in the grove. It was in that instant that my heart began to
break, and now I know why. Go back to Cheyenne. Go far away and never
think of me any more. I am not worthy of you, anyway. I have let you
hold me in your arms and kiss me when I ought not. Oh, I have been so
bad--so bad! Let me hide my face. I can't look in your eyes any
more."
But he was cruel. He made her look in his eyes and tell him all the
sorrowful truth. Then at last he grew pitiful again and tried brokenly
to comfort her, to make her feel that something would intervene to
help them, but in his heart he knew that his cause was lost, and his
hopes burned within him, a heap of smoldering coals dying in their own
ashes.
He had always loved Peter Junior too well to blame him especially as
Peter could not have known what havoc he was making of his cousin's
hopes. It had all been a terrible mischance, and now they must make
the best of it and be brave. Yet a feeling of resentment would creep
into his heart in spite of his manful resolve to be fair to his
cousin, and let nothing interfere with their lifelong friendship. In
vain he told himself that Peter had the same right as he to seek
Betty's love. Why not? Why should he think himself the only one to be
considered? But there was Betty! And when he thought of her, his soul
seemed to go out of him. Too late! Too late! And so he rose and walked
sorrowfully away.
When Mary Ballard came home from church, she found her little daughter
up in her room on her knees beside her bed, her arms stretched out
over the white counterpane, asleep. She had suffered until nature had
taken her into her own soothing arms and put her to sleep through
sheer weakness. Her cheeks were still burning and her eyelids red from
weeping. Mary thought her in a fever, and gently helped her to remove
the pretty muslin dress and got her to bed.
Betty drew a long sigh as her head sank back into the pillow. "My head
aches; don't worry, mother, dear." She thought her heart was closed
forever on her terrible secret.
"Mother'll bring you something for it, dear. You must have eaten
something at the picnic that didn't agree with you." She kissed
Betty's cheek, and at the door paused to look back on her, and a
strange misgiving smote her.
"I can't think what ails her," she said to Martha. "She seems to be
in a high fever. Did she sleep well last night?"
"Perfectly, but we talked a good while before we went to sleep.
Perhaps she got too tired yesterday. I thought she seemed excited,
too. Mrs. Walters always makes her coffee so strong."
Peter Junior came in to dinner, buoyant and happy. He was disappointed
not to see Betty, and frankly avowed it. He followed Mary into the
kitchen and begged to be allowed to go up and speak to Betty for only
a minute, but Mary thought sleep would be the best remedy and he would
better leave her alone. He had been to church with his father, and all
through the morning service as he sat at his father's side he had
meditated how he could persuade the Elder to look on his plans with
some degree of favor--enough at least to warrant him in going on with
them and trust to his father's coming around in time.
Neither he nor Richard were at the Elder's at dinner, and the meal
passed in silence, except for a word now and then in regard to the
sermon. Hester thought continually of her son and his hopes, but as
she glanced from time to time in her husband's face she realized that
silence on her part was still best. Whenever the Elder cleared his
throat and looked off out of the window, as was his wont when about to
speak of any matter of importance, her heart leaped and her eyes gazed
intently at her plate, to hide the emotion she could not restrain. Her
hands grew cold and her lips tremulous, but still she waited.
It was the Elder's custom to sleep after the Sunday's dinner, which
was always a hearty one, lying down on the sofa in the large parlor,
where the closed blinds made a pleasant somberness. Hester passed the
door and looked in on him, as he lay apparently asleep, his long, bony
frame stretched out and the muscles of his strong face relaxing to a
softness they sometimes assumed when sleeping. Her heart went out to
him. Oh, if he only knew! If she only dared! His boy ought to love
him, and understand him. If they would only understand!
Then she went up into Peter Junior's room and sat there where she
had sat seven years before--where she had often sat since--gazing
across at the red-coated old ancestor, her hands in her lap, her
thoughts busy with her son's future even as then. If all the others
had lived, would the quandary and the struggle between opposing
wills have been as great for each one as for this sole survivor?
Where were those little ones now? Playing in happy fields and
waiting for her and the stern old man who also suffered, but knew not
how to reveal his heart? Again and again the words repeated
themselves in her heart mechanically: "Wait on the Lord--Wait on the
Lord," and then, again, "Oh, Lord, how long?"
Peter Junior returned early from the Ballards', since he could not see
Betty, leaving the field open for Martha and her guest, much to the
guest's satisfaction. He went straight to the room occupied by Richard
whenever he was with them, but no Richard was there. His valise was
all packed ready for his start on the morrow, but there was no line
pinned to the frame of the mirror telling Peter Junior where to find
him, as was Richard's way in the past. With a fleeting glance around
to see if any bit of paper had been blown away, he went to his own
room and there he found his mother, waiting. In an instant that long
ago morning came to his mind, and as then he went swiftly to her,
and, kneeling, clasped her in his arms.
"Are you worried, mother mine? It's all right. I will be careful and
restrained. Don't be troubled."
Hester clasped her boy's head to her bosom and rested her face against
his soft hair. For a while the silence was deep and the moments burned
themselves into the young man's soul with a purifying fire never to be
forgotten. Presently she began speaking to him in low, murmuring
tones: "Your father is getting to be an old man, Peter, dear, and I--I
am no longer young. Our boy is dear to us--the dearest. In our
different ways we long only for what is best for you. If only it might
be revealed to you and us alike! Many paths are good paths to walk in,
and the way may be happy in any one of them, for happiness is of the
spirit. It is in you--not made for you by circumstances. We have been
so happy here, since you came home wounded, and to be wounded is not a
happy thing, as you well know; but it seemed to bring you and me
happiness, nevertheless. Did it not, dear?"
"Indeed yes, mother. Yes. It gave me a chance to have you to myself a
lot, and that ought to make any man happy, with a mother like you. And
now--a new happiness came to me, the other day, that I meant to speak
of yesterday and couldn't after getting so angry with father. It
seemed like sacrilege to speak of it then, and, besides, there was
another feeling that made me hesitate."
"So you are in love with some one, Peter?"
"Yes, mother. How did you guess it?"
"Because only love is a feeling that would make you say you could not
speak of it when your heart is full of anger. Is it Betty, dear?"
"Yes, mother. You are uncanny to read me so."
She laughed softly and held him closer. "I love Betty, too, Peter. You
will always be gentle and kind? You will never be hard and stern with
her?"
"Mother! Have I ever been so? Can't you tell by the way I have always
acted toward you that I would be tender and kind? She will be
myself--my very own. How could I be otherwise?"
Again Hester smiled her slow, wise smile. "You have always been
tender, Peter, but you have always gone right along and done your own
way, absolutely. The only reason there has not been more friction
between you and your father has been that you have been tactful; also
you have never seemed to desire unworthy things. You have been a good
son, dear: I am not complaining. And the only reason why I have
never--or seldom--felt hurt by your taking your own way has been that
my likings have usually responded to yours, and the thing I most
desired was that you should be allowed to take your own way. It is
good for a man to be decided and to have a way of his own: I have
liked it in you. But the matter still stands that it has always been
your way and never any one's else that you have taken. I can see you
being stern even with a wife you thought you wholly loved if her will
once crossed yours."
Peter Junior was silent and a little hurt. He rose and paced the room.
"I can't think I could ever cross Betty, or be unkind. It seems
preposterous," he said at last.
"Perhaps it might never seem to you necessary. Peter, boy, listen. You
say: 'She will be myself--my very own.' Now what does that mean? Does
it mean that when you are married, her personality will be merged in
yours, and so you two will be one? If so, you will not be completed
and rounded out, and she will be lost in you. A man does not reach his
full manhood to completion until he has loved greatly and truly, and
has found the one who is to complete him. At best, by ourselves, we
are never wholly man or wholly woman until this great soul completion
has taken place in us. Then children come to us, and our very souls
are knit in one, and still the mystery goes on and on; never are we
completed by being lost--either one--in the will or nature of the
other; but to make the whole and perfect creature, each must retain
the individuality belonging to himself or herself, each to each the
perfect and equal other half."
Peter Junior paused in his walk and stood for a moment looking
down on his mother, awed by what she revealed to him of her inner
nature. "I believe you have done this, mother. You have kept your
own individuality complete, and father doesn't know it."
"Not yet, but my hand will always be in his, and some day he will
know. You are very like him, and yet you understand me as he never
has, so you see how our oneness is wrought out in you. That which you
have in you of your father is good and strong: never lose it. The day
may come when you will be glad to have had such a father. Out in the
world men need such traits; but you must not forget that sometimes it
takes more strength to yield than to hold your own way. Yes, it takes
strength and courage sometimes to give up--and tremendous faith in
God. There! I hear him walking about. Go down and have your talk with
him. Remember what I say, dear, and don't get angry with your father.
He loves you, too."
"Have you said anything to him yet about--me--mother?"
"No. I have decided that it will be better for you to deal with him
yourself--courageously. You'll remember?"
Peter Junior took her again in his arms as she rose and stood beside
him, and kissed her tenderly. "Yes, mother. Dear, good, wise mother!
I'll try to remember all. It would have been easier for you, maybe, if
ever father's mother had said to him the things you have just said to
me."
"Life teaches us these things. If we keep an open mind, so God fills
it."
She stood still in the middle of the room, listening to his rapid
steps in the direction of the parlor. Then Hester did a thing very
unusual for her to do of a Sunday. She put on her shawl and bonnet and
walked out to see Mary Ballard.
No one ever knew what passed between Peter Junior and his father in
that parlor. The Elder did not open his lips about it either at home
or at the bank.
That Sunday evening some one saw Peter Junior and his cousin walking
together up the bluff where the old camp had stood, toward the sunset.
The path had many windings, and the bluff was dark and brown, and the
two figures stood out clear and strong against the sky of gold. That
was the last seen of either of the young men in the village. The one
who saw them told later that he knew they were "the twins" because one
of them walked with a stick and limped a little, and that the other
was talking as if he were very much in earnest about something, for he
was moving his arm up and down and gesticulating.