But Angela, deep in her great business in the world, once again failed
to hear the alarmed low summons. Now sweet nearer speech filled her
woman's ear. For Mr. Manford, it is welcome to record, did not run, as
the cads run, from that artless challenge: he met it ready, like a
soldier and a gentleman. That touch of lips softer than a flower had
taught this young man, once and for all, what it was he wanted; huskily
his voice came from a swelling chest. "I love you!" said Miss Carson's
anointed, unmistakably. And then, indeed, the maiden, unaware of all
else, let her conquered cheek rest upon her victor's breast: still and
awed with the discovery that she loved, and in the same breath thrilled
with the knowledge that she was a Successful Girl.
For our ruling passions are strong in death: more particularly, of
course, when the death in question is not our own....
Yet her moment of exquisite peace was brief enough, poor child. Scarcely
had the dearest words been spoken, scarcely had she known her awe and
her thrill, when all was snatched from her. That other voice outside,
more insistent, struck suddenly in to her unsteadied mind; too quickly,
the surrendered cheek lifted. There was a swift upstarting, the abrupt
parting of lovers: and after that fear descending, precipitate and dark
as a cloud, over the new great joy.
The course of the succeeding hours was never clear in Angela's memory.
There was a rush of unfamiliar and frightening activity. Donald was gone
at a run for Dr. Blakie. She herself fled for Mrs. Doremus, on whose
judgment her mother much relied. Mysteriously, Mrs. Finchman and poor
Jennie appeared, tipping up the steps. Then Mr. Garrott stood suddenly
in the hall, with Cousin Mary and Mrs. Wing, all very grave and
breathless, they had come so fast. Mr. Garrott must have left very soon;
there was nothing for him to do; but Cousin Mary, who had once meant to
be a doctor, took charge of everything from the start, and was very
helpful. She slept that night in Wallie's room.
At ten o'clock, Donald left her to take Mrs. Wing home; but he, her new
comforter, returned directly, in the sweetest way, to say good-night.
Earlier in the evening Donald had dispatched a telegram to Mrs. Kingsley
at Hatton, in which he said: "Serious illness in my family prevents
coming." The due excuse was strong enough, in all conscience. But the
matter had gone beyond illness now.
* * * * *
Thus it was that the strange day, already memorable to Charles Garrott,
memorable, too, to Mary Wing, turned past all counting into the
unforgettable day of Angela's life. Thus, into the little house in
Center Street, life and death came stepping side by side.
After this day, there came another, and another and another: and still
it seemed that death overshadowed life, and joy was overwhelmed in
grief. The shadow of this first final parting seemed to close down on
the young girl's happiness like a cover, and for a space her engagement
was less real to her than the shut office downstairs, the empty seat at
the table.
But youth, after all, is made for life, and thereby equipped with a
merciful resilience. The passage of time, mere use, worked wonders. And
Angela's blessing it was, no doubt, that from the beginning she had
others than herself to think about, and the need for much activity.
First and foremost, there was Donald, who was with her morning, noon,
and night, whose first sight of her in a black dress had moved him
almost to tears. It was not fair to the man who had won her that she
should give way to a limitless melancholy. Beyond that, loomed the
sudden colossal fact of the wedding, which would have to take place
almost immediately; for her duty now was to her future husband, and the
demands of his work must overcome her girlish shrinkings from such
unwonted haste. And a wedding must mean clothes, at all times, and
clothes, even at the plainest and simplest, must mean some thought and
some diversion.
Insensibly, death turned back to life again. The great confused day of
Angela's life was a week old; it was two weeks old; it was three. And
winter now was fading from the softening air...
They were the quietest weeks imaginable. Except her mother and her
_fiancé_, Angela saw no one for days together, not even Mary Wing. For
Mary, as it happened, was sick at this time--her first illness in five
years, so Mrs. Wing said. She had caught cold, it seemed, in the wet at
the funeral, and the cold had developed into quite a serious attack of
bronchitis, which kept her in bed two weeks or more. Thus the young
couple, in their mourning, were left completely to themselves. In their
isolation, in the still little parlor, they were planning at great
length about their future, going over and over their new common problems
from every possible angle. And the more Angela's fatherlessness was
accepted as a permanent fact in the order of the future, the clearer it
became that this fact must color and affect everything else.
In chief, this question of the girl's came more and more to the front
of the loverly discussions: How could she go off to wild remote Wyoming,
now that her mother was a widow?