"I have something to tell you;" and without an instant's pause I went
on: "Mr. D---- has business in England which cannot be attended to
by letter. One of us must go, and they send me. I must sail in two
weeks."
It was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and Bessie gave a little gasp
of surprise: "So soon! Oh, Charlie, take me with you!" Realizing in
the next instant the purport of the suggestion, she flung away from my
hands and rushed into the parlor, where a dim, soft lamp was burning
on the table. She sat down on a low chair beside it and hid her face
on the table in her hands.
Like a flash of lightning all the possibilities of our marriage before
many days--arranging it with Mrs. Sloman, and satisfying my partners,
who would expect me to travel fast and work hard in the short time
they had allotted for the journey,--all came surging and throbbing
through my brain, while my first answer was not given in words.
When I had persuaded Bessie to look at me and to answer me in turn,
I hoped we should be able to talk about it with the calm judgment it
needed.
"To leave my wife--my wife!"--how I lingered on the word!--"in some
poky lodgings in London, while I am spending my day among dusty boxes
and files of deeds in a dark old office, isn't just my ideal of our
wedding-journey; but, Bessie, if _you_ wish it so--"
What was there in my tone that jarred her? I had meant to be
magnanimous, to think of her comfort alone, of the hurry and business
of such a journey--tried to shut myself out and think only of her in
the picture. But I failed, of course, and went on stupidly, answering
the quick look of question in her eyes: "If you prefer it--that is,
you know, I must think of you and not of myself."
Still the keen questioning glance. What new look was this in her eyes,
what dawning thought?
"No," she answered after a pause, slowly withdrawing her hand from
mine, "think of yourself."
I had expected that she would overwhelm me in her girlish way with
saucy protestations that she would be happy even in the dull London
lodgings, and that she would defy the law-files to keep me long from
her. This sudden change of manner chilled me with a nameless fear.
"If _I_ prefer it! If _I_ wish it! I see that I should be quite in
your way, an encumbrance. Don't talk about it any more."
She was very near crying, and I wish to heaven she had cried. But she
conquered herself resolutely, and held herself cold and musing before
me. I might take her hand, might kiss her unresisting cheek, but she
seemed frozen into sudden thoughtfulness that it was impossible to
meet or to dispel.
"Bessie, you know you are a little goose! What could I wish for in
life but to carry you off this minute to New York? Come, get your hat
and let's walk over to the parsonage now. We'll get Doctor Wilder to
marry us, and astonish your aunt in the morning."
"Nonsense!" said Bessie with a slight quiver of her pretty, pouting
mouth. "Do be rational, Charlie!"
I believe I was rational in my own fashion for a little while, but
when I ventured to say in a very unnecessary whisper, "Then you will
go abroad with me?" Bessie flushed to her temples and rose from the
sofa. She had a way, when she was very much in earnest, or very much
stirred with some passionate thought, of pacing the parlor with her
hands clasped tightly before her, and her arms tense and straining at
the clasping hands. With her head bent slightly forward, and her brown
hair hanging in one long tress over her shoulder, she went swiftly
up and down, while I lay back on the sofa and watched her. She would
speak it out presently, the thought that was hurting her. So I felt
secure and waited, following every movement with a lover's eye. But
I ought not to have waited. I should have drawn her to me and shared
that rapid, nervous walk--should have compelled her with sweet force
to render an account of that emotion. But I was so secure, so entirely
one with her in thought, that I could conceive of nothing but a
passing tempest at my blundering, stupid thoughtfulness for her.
Suddenly at the door she stopped, and with her hand upon it said,
"Good-night, Charlie;" and was out of the room in a twinkling.
I sprang from the sofa and to the foot of the stairs, but I saw only a
glimpse of her vanishing dress; and though I called after her in
low, beseeching tones, "Bessie! Bessie!" a door shut in the distant
corridor for only answer.
What to do? In that decorous mansion I could not follow her; and my
impulse to dash after her and knock at her door till she answered me,
I was forced to put aside after a moment's consideration.
I stood there in the quiet hall, the old clock ticking away a solemn
"I-told-you-so!" in the corner. I made one step toward the kitchen
to send a message by one of the maids, but recoiled at the suggestion
that this would publish a lovers' quarrel. So I retreated along the
hall, my footsteps making no noise on the India matting, and entered
the parlor again like a thief. I sat down by the table: "Bessie will
certainly come back: she will get over her little petulance, and know
I am here waiting."
All about the parlor were the traces of my darling. A soft little coil
of rose-colored Berlin wool, with its ivory needle sheathed among the
stitches, lay in a tiny basket. I lifted it up: the basket was made
of scented grass, and there was a delicious sweet and pure fragrance
about the knitting-work. I took possession of it and thrust it into my
breast-pocket. A magazine she had been reading, with the palest slip
of a paper-knife--a bit of delicate Swiss wood--in it, next came in my
way. I tried to settle down and read where she had left off, but the
words danced before my eyes, and a strange tune was repeating in my
ears, "Good-night, Charlie--good-night and good-bye!"
One mad impulse seized me to go out under her window and call to her,
asking her to come down. But Lenox nights were very still, and the
near neighbors on either side doubtless wide awake to all that was
going on around the Sloman cottage.
So I sat still like an idiot, and counted the clock-strokes, and
nervously calculated the possibility of her reappearance, until I
heard, at last, footsteps coming along the hall in rapid tread. I
darted up: "Oh, Bessie, I knew you would come back!" as through the
open door walked in--Mary, Mrs. Sloman's maid!
She started at seeing me: "Excuse me, sir. The parlor was so--I
thought there was no one here."
"What is it, Mary?" I asked with assumed indifference. "Do you want
Miss Bessie? She went up stairs a few moments ago."
"No, sir. I thought--that is--" glancing down in awkward confusion at
the key she held in her hand. She was retiring again softly when I saw
in the key the reason of her discomposure.
"Did you come in to lock up, Mary?" I asked with a laugh.
"Yes, sir. But it is of no consequence. I thought you had gone, sir."
"Time I was, I suppose. Well, Mary, you shall lock me out, and then
carry this note to Miss Bessie. It is so late that I will not wait for
her. Perhaps she is busy with Mrs. Sloman."
Something in Mary's face made me suspect that she knew Mrs. Sloman
to be sound asleep at this moment; but she said nothing, and waited
respectfully until I had scribbled a hasty note, rifling Bessie's
writing-desk for the envelope in which to put my card. Dear child!
there lay my photograph, the first thing I saw as I raised the dainty
lid.
"Bessie," I wrote, "I have waited until Mary has come in with her
keys, and I suppose I must go. My train starts at nine to-morrow
morning, but you will be ready--will you not?--at six to take a
morning walk with me. I will be here at that hour. You don't know how
disturbed and anxious I shall be till then."