REVELATION
It was a perfect evening. The water lay like rosy glass under the
sinking sun. Not a breath of air was stirring, and even on the beach
the ripple did not break, merely whispered itself away in foam. The
canoe moved easily, when it did move, under a practised stroke, but
much of the time it lay at ease, rocking a little now and then as a
swell rose and melted under it. Vesta lay among her pillows at one end,
and Geoffrey faced her. Her face was turned toward the west, and he
wondered whether it was only the sunset glow that touched it, or
whether the faint rosy flush belonged there. Certainly the waxen hue
was gone; certainly the girl was wonderfully better. But he did not
look at her much, because it got into his breathing somehow. He had not
been paddling for a year, and he was "soft," of course; nothing
surprising in that.
He was telling her about some of his patients. The thing that did
surprise him was the interest she seemed to take; active, intelligent
interest. Being sick herself, perhaps, gave her a natural sympathy; and
she certainly had extraordinary intelligence, even insight. Singular
thing for a girl to have!
"But what became of the poor little fellow? did he live? better not, I
am sure. I hope he did not."
"Yes; almost a pity, but he did live. Got well, too, after a fashion,
but he'll never be able to do anything."
The girl was silent. Presently--"I wonder whether it is worth while to
get well after a fashion!" she said. "I wonder if it's worth while to
go on living and never be able to do anything. I suppose I shall find
out."
"You!" said the young doctor. "You will be entirely well in a year,
Miss Blyth; I'd be willing to wager it."
Vesta shook her head.
"No!" she said. "The spring is broken. There is nothing _real_ the
matter with me, I know that well enough. It's nothing but nerves--and
heart, and mind; nothing but the whole of my life broken and thrown
aside."
She spoke bitterly, and Geoffrey felt a pang of compassion. She was so
young, and so pretty--beautiful was the word, rather. It seemed too
cruel. If only she would not say anything more about it! How _could_
she? was it because he was a physician? He would go and be a
costermonger if that--
"You see," she went on, slowly; "I cared so tremendously. I had thought
of nothing else for years, dreamed of nothing else. All there was of me
went into it. And then, then--when this came; when he told me--I--it
was pretty hard."
The quiver in her voice was controlled instantly, but it was almost
worse than the sobs. Geoffrey broke out, fiercely:
"I don't know whether this man is more a beast or a devil; but I know
that he is not fit to live, and I wish I--"
Vesta looked up at him in surprise. His face was crimson; his angry
eyes looked beyond her, above her, anywhere except at her.
"I don't know what you mean!" she said. "He was neither. He was kind,
oh, very kind. He did it as tenderly as possible. I shall always be
grateful--" the quiver came again, and she stopped.
"Oh!" cried Geoffrey. He drove his paddle savagely into the water, and
the canoe leaped forward. What were women made of? why, _why_ must he
be subjected to this?
The silence that followed was almost worse than the speech. Finally he
stole a glance at his companion, and saw her face still faintly
rosy--it must be mostly the light--and set in a sadness that had no
touch of resentment in it.
"Perhaps you don't like my talking about it," she said, after awhile.
Geoffrey uttered an inarticulate murmur, but found no words.
"The aunties don't. Aunt Phoebe gets angry, and Aunt Vesta tearful and
embarrassed. But--well, I could not stay at home. Everything there
reminded me--I thought if I came here, where no such ideas ever
entered, I might begin--not to forget, but to resign myself a little,
after a time. But--I found you here. No, let me speak!" She raised her
hand, as Geoffrey tried to interrupt.
"I have to make you understand--if I can--why I was rude and odious and
ungrateful when I first came, for I was all those things, and I am not
naturally so, I truly don't think I am. But, don't you see?--to come
right upon some one who was having all that I had lost, enjoying all I
had hoped to enjoy, and caring--well, perhaps as much as I cared, but
still in a different way, a man's way, taking it all as a matter of
course, where I would have taken it on my knees--"
"You must let me speak now, Miss Blyth," said Geoffrey Strong. He spoke
loud and quickly, to drown the noise in his ears.
"I cannot let you--go on--under such a total misapprehension. I could
not in a lifetime say how sorry I am for your cruel trouble. It makes
me rage; I'd like to--never mind that now! but you are wholly mistaken
in thinking that anything of the kind has ever come into my own life. I
don't know how you received the impression, but you must believe me
when I say I have never had any--any such affair, nor the shadow of
one. It isn't my line. I not only never have had, but probably never
shall have--" he was hurrying out word upon word, hoping to get it over
and done with once and for ever. But letting his eyes drop for an
instant to the girl's face, he saw on it a look of such unutterable
amazement that he stopped short in his headlong speech.
They gazed at each other from alien worlds. At length--"Doctor Strong,"
said Vesta, and the words dropped slowly, one by one, "what do you
mean?"
Geoffrey was silent. If she did not know what he meant, he certainly
did not.
"What do you mean?" she repeated. "I do not understand one word of what
you are saying."
Geoffrey tried hard to keep his temper. "You were speaking of
your--disappointment," he said, stiffly. "You seemed to take it for
granted that I--was engaged in some affair of a similar nature, and I
felt bound to undeceive you. I have never been what is called in love
in my life."
The bewilderment lingered in Vesta's eyes for an instant; then a light
came into them. The sunset rushed in one crimson wave over face and
neck and brow; she fell back on her pillows, quivering from head to
foot. Was she going to cry again?
She was laughing! silently at first, trying hard to control herself;
but now her laughter broke forth in spite of her, and peal after peal
rang out, wild and sweet, helpless in its intensity.
Geoffrey sat paralysed a moment; then the professional instinct awoke.
"Hysteria! another manifestation, that is all. I must stop it."
He leaned forward.
"Miss Blyth!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the girl. "Oh, dear, oh, dear! what shall I do?
ha, ha, ha, ha! oh, what shall I do?"
"Stop!" said Geoffrey Strong. "Do you hear me? stop!"
"Oh, yes, I hear you--but--it is so funny! oh, it _is_ so funny! ha,
ha, ha! what shall I do?"
"What shall _I_ do?" said Geoffrey to himself. "She'll have the canoe
over in another minute." He crept toward the girl, and seized her
wrists in a firm grip.
"Be still!" he said. "I shall hold you until you are quiet. Be--still!
no more! be still!"
"You--hurt me!" whispered the girl. The wild laughter had died away,
but she was still shaking, and the tears were running down her cheeks.
"I mean to hurt you. I shall hurt you more, if you are not quiet. As
soon as you are quiet I will let you go. Be--still--still--there!"
He loosed her hands, and took up the paddle again. This kind of thing
was very exhausting; he was quivering himself, quite perceptibly. Now
why? nerves of sympathy?
He paddled on in silence; the sun went down, and the afterglow spread
and brightened along the sky. He hardly thought of his companion, his
whole mind bent on suppressing the turmoil that was going on in himself.
He started at the sound of her voice; it was faint, but perfectly
controlled.
"Doctor Strong!"
"Miss Blyth!"
"You--thought--I had had a disappointment in love?"
"I did!"
"You are mistaken. You misunderstood my aunt, or me, or both. I have
never, any more than you--"
Her voice grew stronger, and she sat upright.
"It was so _very_ funny--no, I am not going off again--but I think
there was some excuse for me this time. You certainly are having every
opportunity of studying my case, Doctor Strong. The truth is--oh, I
supposed it had been made clear to you; how could I suppose anything
else? It was my career, my life, that I had to give up, not--not a man.
You say you have never been what is called in love; Doctor Strong, no
more have I!"
There was silence, and now it was in Geoffrey's face that the tide
rose. Such a burning tide it was, he fancied he heard the blood hiss as
it curled round the roots of his hair. He noted this as curious, and
remembered that in hanging or drowning it was the trifles that stamped
themselves upon the mind. Also, it appeared that he was hollow, with
nothing but emptiness where should have been his vital parts.
"Shall I say anything?" he asked, presently. "There isn't anything to
say, is there, except to beg your pardon? would you like to hear that I
am a fool? But you know that already. Your aunt--things were said that
were curiously misleading--not that that is any excuse--Do you want me
to go into detail, or may I drown myself quietly?"
"Oh! don't," said Vesta, smiling. "I could not possibly paddle myself
home, and I should infallibly upset the canoe in trying to rescue you."
"You would not try!" said Geoffrey, gloomily. "It would not be human if
you tried."
"It would be professional," said Vesta. "Come, Doctor Strong, you see I
can laugh about it, and you must laugh, too. Let us shake hands, and
agree to forget all about it."
Geoffrey shook hands, and said she was very magnanimous; but he still
felt hollow. The only further remark that his seething brain presented
was a scrap of ancient doggerel:
"I wish I was dead,
Or down at Owl's Head,
Or anywhere else but here!"
This was manifestly inappropriate, so he kept silence, and paddled on
doggedly.
"And aren't you going to ask what my disappointment really was?"
inquired Vesta, presently. "But perhaps you have guessed?"
No, Geoffrey had not guessed.
"Don't you want to know? I should really--it would be a comfort to me
to talk it over with you, if you don't mind."
Geoffrey would be delighted to hear anything that she chose to tell him.
"Yes, you seem delighted. Well--you see, you have not understood, not
understood in the very least; and now in a moment you are going to know
all about it." She paused for a moment, and there was an appeal in her
clear, direct gaze; but Geoffrey did not want to be appealed to.
"I was at Johns Hopkins," said Vesta. "It was the beginning of my
second year; I broke down, and had to give it up. I was studying
medicine myself, Doctor Strong."
"Oh!" cried Geoffrey Strong.
The exclamation was a singular one; a long cry of amazement and
reprobation. Every fibre of the man stiffened, and he sat rigid, a
statue of Disapproval.
"I beg your pardon!" he said, after a moment. "I said it before, but I
don't know that there is anything else to say. No doubt I was very
stupid, yet I hardly know how I could have supposed just this to be the
truth. I--no! I beg your pardon. That is all."
The girl looked keenly at him. "You are not sorry for me any more, are
you?" she said.
Geoffrey was silent.
"You were sorry, very sorry!" she went on. "So long as you thought I
had lost that precious possession, a lover; had lost the divine
privilege of--what is the kind of thing they say? merging my life in
another's, becoming the meek and gentle helpmeet of my God-given lord
and master--you were very sorry. I could not make it out; it was so
unlike what I expected from you. It was so human, so kind, so--yes, so
womanlike. But the moment you find it is not a man, but only the
aspiration of a lifetime, the same aspiration that in you is right and
fitting and beautiful--you--you sit there like a--lamp-post--and
disapprove of me."
"I am sorry!" said Geoffrey. He was trying hard to be reasonable, and
said to himself that he would not be irritated, come what might. "I
cannot approve of women studying medicine, but I am sorry for you, Miss
Blyth."
Her face, which had been bitter enough in its set and scornful beauty,
suddenly melted into a bewildering softness of light and laughter. She
leaned forward. "But it was funny!" she said. "It was very, very funny,
Doctor Strong, you must admit that. You were so compassionate, so kind,
thinking me--"
"Do you think perhaps--but never mind! you certainly have the right to
say whatever you choose," said Geoffrey, holding himself carefully.
"And all the time," she went on, "I utterly unconscious, and only
fretting because I could not have my own life, my own will, my own way!"
"By Jove!" said Geoffrey, starting. "That--that's what I say myself!"
"Really!" said Vesta, dryly. "You see I also am human, after all"
"Do you see little Vesta anywhere, sister?" asked Miss Phoebe Blyth.
Miss Vesta had just lighted her lamp, and was standing with folded
hands, in her usual peaceful attitude of content, gazing out upon the
sunset sea. A black line lay out there on the rosy gold of the water;
she had been watching it, watching the rhythmic flash of the paddle,
and thinking happy, gentle thoughts, such as old ladies of tender heart
often think. Miss Phoebe had no part in these thoughts, and Miss Vesta
looked hurriedly round at the sound of her crisp utterance. Her breath
fluttered a little, but she did not speak. Miss Phoebe came up behind
her and peered out of the window. "I don't see where the child can be,"
she said, rather querulously. "I thought she was in the garden, but I
don't--do you see her anywhere, Vesta?"
Miss Vesta had never read the "Pickwick Papers;" she considered Dickens
vulgar; but her conduct at this moment resembled that of Samuel Weller
on a certain noted occasion. Raising her eyes to the twilight sky, Miss
Vesta said, gently, "No, Sister Phoebe, I do not!"