SPRING-TIME PASSION
But little chance had Amy to talk with Webb for the next few days. He had
seen the cloud on Burt's brow, and had observed that he was suspicious,
unhappy, and irritable; that reason and good sense were not in the
ascendant; and he understood his brother sufficiently well to believe
that his attack must run its natural course, as like fevers had done
before. From what he had seen he also thought that Amy could deal with
Burt better than any one else, for although high-strung, he was also
manly and generous when once he got his bearings. In his present mood he
would bitterly resent interference from any one, but would be bound to
obey Amy and to respect her wishes. Therefore he took especial pains to
be most kindly, but also to appear busy and pre-occupied.
It must not be thought that Burt was offensive or even openly obtrusive
in his attentions. He was far too well-bred for that. There was nothing
for which even his mother could reprove him, or of which Amy herself
could complain. It was the suit itself from which she shrank, or rather
which she would put off indefinitely. But Burt was not disposed to put
anything that he craved into the distance. Spring-tide impulses were in
his veins, and his heart was so overcharged that it must find expression.
His opportunity came unexpectedly. A long, exquisite day had merged into
a moonlight evening. The apple-blossoms were in all their white-and-pink
glory, and filled the summer-like air with a fragrance as delicate as
that of the arbutus. The petals of the cherry were floating down like
snow in every passing breeze, glimmering momentarily in the pale
radiance. The night was growing so beautiful that Amy was tempted to
stroll out in the grounds, and soon she yielded to a fancy to see the
effect of moonlight through an apple-tree that towered like a mound of
snow at some little distance from the house. She would not have been
human had the witchery of the May evening been without its influence. If
Burt could have understood her, this was his opportunity. If he had come
with step and tone that accorded with the quiet evening, and simply said,
"Amy, you know--you have seen that I love you; what hope can you give
me?" she in her present mood would have answered him as gently and
frankly as a child. She might have laughingly pointed him to the tree,
and said: "See, it is in blossom now. It will be a long time before you
pick the apples. You must wait. If you will be sensible, and treat me as
you would Johnnie, were she older, I will ride and walk with you, and be
as nice to you as I can."
But this Burt could not do and still remain Burt. He was like an
overcharged cloud, and when he spoke at last his words seemed to the
sensitive girl to have the vividness and abruptness of the lightning. It
was her custom to make a special toilet for the evening, and when she had
come down to supper with a rose in her hair, and dressed in some light
clinging fabric, she had proved so attractive to the young fellow that he
felt that the limit of his restraint was reached. He would appeal to her
so earnestly, so passionately, as to kindle her cold nature. In his lack
of appreciation of Amy he had come to deem this his true course, and she
unconsciously enabled him to carry out the rash plan. He had seen her
stroll away, and had followed her until she should be so far from the
house that she must listen. As she emerged from under the apple-tree,
through which as a white cloud she had been looking at the moon, he
appeared so suddenly as to startle her, and without any gentle reassurance
he seized her hand, and poured out his feelings in a way that at first
wounded and frightened her.
"Burt," she cried, "why do you speak to me so? Can't you see that I do
not feel as you do? I've given you no reason to say such words to me."
"Have you no heart, Amy? Are you as cold and elusive as this moonlight? I
have waited patiently, and now I must and will speak. Every man has a
right to speak and a right to an answer."
"Well then," she replied, her spirit rising; "if you will insist on my
being a woman instead of a young girl just coming from the shadow of a
great sorrow, I also have my rights. I've tried to show you gently and
with all the tact I possessed that I did not want to think about such
things. I'm just at the beginning of my girlhood and I want to be a young
girl as long as I can and not an engaged young woman. No matter who spoke
the words you have said, they would pain me. Why couldn't you see this
from my manner and save both yourself and me from this scene? I'll gladly
be your loving sister, but you must not speak to me in this way again."
"You refuse me then," he said, throwing back his head haughtily.
"Refuse you? No. I simply tell you that I won't listen to such words from
any one. Why can't you be sensible and understand me? I no more wish to
talk about such things than do Alf and Johnnie."
"I do understand you," he exclaimed, passionately, "and better perhaps
than you understand yourself. You are not a child. You are a woman, but
you seem to lack a woman's heart, as far as I am concerned;" and with a
gesture that was very tragic and despairing he strode away.
She was deeply troubled and incensed also, and she returned to the house
with drooping head and fast-falling tears.
"Why, Amy, what is the matter?" Looking up, she saw Webb coming down the
piazza steps. Yielding to her impulse, she sprang forward and took his
arm, as she said:
"Webb, you have always acted toward me like a brother. Tell me true: am I
cold? am I heartless? is it unnatural in me that I do not wish to hear
such words as Burt would speak to-night? All I ask is that he will let me
stay a happy young girl till I am ready for something else. This is no
way for a flower to bloom"--she snatched the rose from her hair, and
pushed open the red petals--"and yet Burt expects me to respond at once
to feelings that I do not even understand. If it's best in the future--but
surely I've a right to my freedom for a long time yet. Tell me, do you
think I'm unnatural?"
"No, Amy," he answered, gently. "It is because you are so perfectly
natural, so true to your girlhood, that you feel as you do. In that
little parable of the rose you explain yourself fully. You have no cause
for self-reproach, nor has Burt for complaint. Will you do what I ask?"
"Yes, Webb. You say you do not understand me, and yet always prove that
you do. If Burt would only treat me as you do, I should be perfectly
happy."
"Well, Burt's good-hearted, but sometimes he mislays his judgment," said
Webb, laughing. "Come, cheer up. There is no occasion for any high
tragedy on his part or for grieving on yours. You go and tell mother all
about it, and just how you feel. She is the right one to manage this
affair, and her influence over Burt is almost unbounded. Do this, and,
take my word for it, all will soon be serene."
And so it proved. Amy felt that night what it is to have a mother's
boundless love and sympathy, and she went to her rest comforted, soothed,
and more assured as to the future than she had been for a long time. "How
quiet and sensible Webb was about it all!" was her last smiling thought
before she slept. His thought as he strolled away in the moonlight after
she left him was, "It is just as if I half believed. She has the mind of
a woman, but the heart of a child. How apt was her use of that rose! It
told all."
Burt did not stroll; he strode mile after mile, and the uncomfortable
feeling that he had been very unwise, to say the least, and perhaps very
unjust, was growing upon him. When at last he returned, his mother called
to him through the open door. Sooner or later, Mrs. Clifford always
obtained the confidence of her children, and they ever found that it was
sacred. All that can be said, therefore, was, that he came from her
presence penitent, ashamed, and hopeful. His mood may best be explained,
perhaps, by a note written before he retired. "My dear sister Amy," it
ran, "I wish to ask your pardon. I have been unjust and ungenerous. I was
so blinded and engrossed by my own feelings that I did not understand
you. I have proved myself unworthy of even a sister's love; but I will
try to make amends. Do not judge me harshly because I was so headlong.
There is no use in trying to disguise the truth. What I have said so
unwisely and prematurely I cannot unsay, and I shall always be true to my
words. But I will wait patiently as long as you please; and if you find,
in future years, that you cannot feel as I do, I will not complain or
blame you, however sad the truth may be to me. In the meantime, let there
be no constraint between us. Let me become once more your trusted brother
Burt." This note he pushed under her door, and then slept too soundly for
the blighted youth he had a few hours before deemed himself.
He felt a little embarrassed at the prospect of meeting her the next
morning, but she broke the ice at once by coming to him on the piazza and
extending her hand in smiling frankness as she said: "You are neither
unjust nor ungenerous, Burt, or you would not have written me such a
note. I take you at your word. As you said the first evening I came, we
shall have jolly times together."
The young fellow was immensely relieved and grateful, and he showed it.
Soon afterward he went about the affairs of the day happier than he had
been for a long time. Indeed, it soon became evident that his explosion
on the previous evening had cleared the air generally. Amy felt that the
one threatening cloud had sunk below the horizon. As the days passed, and
Burt proved that he could keep his promise, her thoughts grew as serene
as those of Johnnie. Her household duties were not very many, and yet she
did certain things regularly. The old people found that she rarely forgot
them, and she had the grace to see when she could help and cheer.
Attentions that must be constantly asked for have little charm. A day
rarely passed that did she not give one or more of its best hours to her
music and drawing; for, while she never expected to excel in these arts,
she had already learned that they would enable her to give much pleasure
to others. Her pencil, also, was of great assistance in her study of
out-door life, for the fixed attention which it required to draw a plant,
tree, or bit of scenery revealed its characteristics. She had been even
more interested in the unfolding of the leaf-buds than in the flowering
of the trees, and the gradual advance of the foliage, like a tinted
cloud, up the mountain-slopes, was something she never tired of watching.
When she spoke of this one day to Webb, he replied:
"I have often wondered that more is not said and written about our spring
foliage, before it passes into its general hue of green. To me it has a
more delicate beauty and charm than anything seen in October. Different
trees have their distinct coloring now as then, but it is evanescent, and
the shades usually are less clearly marked. This very fact, however,
teaches the eye to have a nicety of distinction that is pleasing."
The busy days passed quickly on. The blossoms faded from the trees, and
the miniature fruit was soon apparent. The strawberry rows, that had been
like lines of snow, were now full of little promising cones. The grass
grew so lusty and strong that the dandelions were hidden except as the
breeze caught up the winged seeds that the tuneful yellow-birds often
seized in the air. The rye had almost reached its height, and Johnnie
said it was "as good as going to the ocean to see it wave." At last the
swelling buds on the rose-bushes proclaimed the advent of June.