Morning came--or rather the long night came to an end at last--and at
twenty minutes before six I opened the gate at the Sloman cottage.
It was so late in September that the morning was a little hazy and
uncertain. And yet the air was warm and soft--a perfect reflex, I
thought, of Bessie last night--an electric softness under a brooding
cloud.
The little house lay wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell:
no, it would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely
not make me wait. Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would
wait in the porch--she would certainly come down soon.
So I waited, whistling softly to myself as I pushed the withered
leaves about with my stick and drew strange patterns among them. Half
an hour passed.
"I will give her a gentle reminder;" so I gathered a spray from the
honeysuckle, a late bloom among the fast-falling leaves, and aimed
it right at the muslin curtain. The folds parted and it fell into the
room, but instead of the answering face that I looked to see, all was
still again.
"It's very strange," thought I. "Bessie's pique is not apt to last so
long. She must indeed be angry."
And I went over each detail of our last night's talk, from her first
burst of "Take me with you!" to my boggling answers, my fears, so
stupidly expressed, that it would be anything but a picturesque
bridal-trip, and the necessity that there was for rapid traveling and
much musty, old research.
"What a fool I was not to take her then and there! She _is_ myself:
why shouldn't I, then, be selfish? When I do what of all things I want
to, why can't I take it for granted that she will be happy too?" And
a hot flush of shame went over me to think that I had been about to
propose to her, to my own darling girl, that we should be married as
soon as possible _after_ I returned from Europe.
Her love, clearer-sighted, had striven to forestall our separation:
why should we be parted all those weary weeks? why put the sea between
us?
I had accepted all these obstacles as a dreary necessity, never
thinking for the moment that conventional objections might be
overcome, aunts and guardians talked over, and the whole matter
arranged by two people determined on their own sweet will.
What a lumbering, masculine plan was mine! _After I returned from
Europe!_ I grew red and bit my lips with vexation. And now my dear
girl was shy and hurt. How should I win back again that sweet impulse
of confidence?
Presently the household began to stir. I heard unbarring and
unbolting, and craftily retreated to the gate, that I might seem to be
just coming in, to the servant who should open the door.
It was opened by a housemaid--not the Mary of the night before--who
stared a moment at seeing me, but on my asking if Miss Bessie was
ready yet to walk, promised smilingly to go and see. She returned in
a moment, saying that Miss Bessie begged that I would wait: she was
hurrying to come down.
The child! She has slept too soundly. I shall tell her how insensate
she must have been, how serenely unconscious when the flower came in
at the window.
The clock on the mantel struck seven and the half hour before Bessie
appeared. She was very pale, and her eyes looked away at my greeting.
Passively she suffered herself to be placed in a chair, and then, with
something of her own manner, she said hurriedly, "Don't think I got
your note, Charlie, last night, or I wouldn't, indeed I wouldn't, have
kept you waiting so long this morning."
"Didn't Mary bring it to you?" I asked, surprised.
"Yes: that is, she brought it up to my room, but, Charlie dear, I
wasn't there: I wasn't there all night. I did shut my door, though I
heard you calling, and after a little while I crept out into the entry
and looked over the stairs, hoping you were there still, and that I
could come back to you. But you were not there, and everything was so
still that I was sure you had gone--gone without a word. I listened
and listened, but I was too proud to go down into the parlor and see.
And yet I could not go back to my room, next Aunt Sloman's. I went
right up stairs to the blue room, and stayed there. Mary must have put
your note on my table when she came up stairs. I found it there this
morning when I went down."
"Poor darling! And what did you do all night in the blue room? I am
afraid," looking at her downcast eyes, "that you did not sleep--that
you were angry at me."
"At you? No, at myself," she said very low.
"Bessie, you know that my first and only thought was of the hurry and
worry this journey would cost you. You know that to have you with me
was something that I had scarce dared to dream."
"And therefore," with a flash of blue eyes, "for me to dare to dream
it was--" and again she hid her face.
"But, my precious, don't you know that it was for _you_ to suggest
what I wanted all the time, but thought it would be too much to ask?"
For I had discovered, of course, in my morning's work among the dead
leaves on the porch, that I had desired it from the moment I had
known of my journey--desired it without acknowledging it to myself or
presuming to plan upon it.
At this juncture breakfast was announced, and the folding doors thrown
open that led into the breakfast-parlor, disclosing Mrs. Sloman seated
by the silver urn, and a neat little table spread for three, so quick
had been the housemaid's intuitions.
"Good-morning, Charles: come get some breakfast. You will hardly be in
time for your train," suggested Aunt Sloman in a voice that had in it
all the gloom of the morning. Indeed, the clouds had gathered heavily
during the parlor scene, and some large drops were rattling against
the window.
I looked at my watch. After eight! Pshaw! I will let this train go,
and will telegraph to the office. I can take the night train, and thus
lose only a few hours. So I stayed.
What rare power had Bessie in the very depths of her trouble, and with
her face pale and eyes so heavy with her last night's vigil--what gift
that helped her to be gay? Apparently not with an effort, not forced,
she was as joyous and frank as her sunniest self. No exaggeration of
laughter or fun, but the brightness of her every-day manner, teasing
and sparkling round Aunt Sloman, coquetting very naturally with me.
It was a swift change from the gloomy atmosphere we had left behind in
the parlor, and I basked in it delighted, and feeling, poor fool! that
the storm was cleared away, and that the time for the singing of birds
was come.
I was the more deceived. I did not know all of Bessie yet. Her horror
of a scene, of any suspicion that there was discord between us, and
her rare self-control, that for the moment put aside all trouble,
folded it out of sight and took up the serene old life again for a
little space.
"Aunt Maria," said Bessie, pushing aside her chair, "won't you take
care of Mr. Munro for a little while? I have a letter to write that I
want him to take to New York."
Aunt Maria would be happy to entertain me, or rather to have me
entertain her. If I would read to her, now, would I be so kind, while
she washed up her breakfast cups?
How people can do two things at once I am sure I cannot understand;
and while the maid brought in the large wooden bowl, the steam of
whose household incense rose high in the air, I watched impatient for
the signal to begin. When the tea-cups were all collected, and Aunt
Sloman held one by the handle daintily over the "boiling flood,"
"Now," she said with a serene inclination of her head, "if you
please."
And off I started at a foot-pace through the magazine that had been
put into my hands. Whether it was anything about the "Skelligs," or
"Miss Sedgwick's Letters," or "Stanley-Livingstone," I have not the
remotest idea. I was fascinated by the gentle dip of each tea-cup,
and watched from the corner of my eye the process of polishing each
glittering spoon on a comfortable crash towel.
Then my thoughts darted off to Bessie. Was she indeed writing to her
old trustee? Judge Hubbard was a friend of my father's, and would
approve of me, I thought, if he did not agree at once to the hurried
marriage and ocean journey.
"What an unconscionable time it takes her! Don't you think so, Mrs.
Sloman?" I said at last, after I had gone through three several papers
on subjects unknown.
I suppose it was scarcely a courteous speech. But Mrs. Sloman smiled a
white-lipped smile of sympathy, and said, "Yes; I will go and send her
to you."
"Oh, don't hurry her," I said falsely, hoping, however, that she
would.
Did I say before that Bessie was tall? Though so slight that you
always wanted to speak of her with some endearing diminutive, she
looked taller than ever that morning; and as she stood before me,
coming up to the fireplace where I was standing, her eyes looked
nearly level into mine. I did not understand their veiled expression,
and before I had time to study it she dropped them and said hastily,
"Young man, I am pining for a walk."
"In the rain?"
"Pshaw! This is nothing, after all, but a Scotch mist. See, I am
dressed for it;" and she threw a tartan cloak over her shoulder--a
blue-and-green tartan that I had never seen before.
"The very thing for shipboard," I whispered as I looked at her
admiringly.
Her face was flushed enough now, but she made no answer save to stoop
down and pat the silly little terrier that had come trotting into the
room with her.
"Fidget shall go--yes, he shall go walking;" and Fidget made a gray
ball of himself in his joy at the permission.
Up the hill again we walked, with the little Skye terrier cantering in
advance or madly chasing the chickens across the road.
"Did you finish your letter satisfactorily?" I asked, for I was
fretting with impatience to know its contents.
"Yes. I will give it to you when you leave to-night."
"Shall we say next Saturday, Bessie?" said I, resolving to plunge at
once into the sea of our late argument.
"For what? For you to come again? Don't you always come on Saturday?"
"Yes, but this time I mean to carry you away."
A dead pause, which I improved by drawing her hand under my arm and
imprisoning her little gray glove with my other hand. As she did not
speak, I went on fatuously: "You don't need any preparation of gowns
and shawls; you can buy your _trousseau_ in London, if need be; and
we'll settle on the ship, coming over, how and where we are to live in
New York."
"You think, then, that I am all ready to be married?"
"I think that my darling is superior to the nonsense of other
girls--that she will be herself always, and doesn't need any
masquerade of wedding finery."
"You think, then," coldly and drawing her hand away, "that I am
different from other girls?" and the scarlet deepened on her cheek.
"You think I say and do things other girls would not?"
"My darling, what nonsense! You say and do things that other girls
_cannot_, nor could if they tried a thousand years."
"Thanks for the compliment! It has at least the merit of dubiousness.
Now, Charlie, if you mention Europe once in this walk I shall be
seriously offended. Do let us have a little peace and a quiet talk."
"Why, what on earth can we talk about until this is settled? I can't
go back to New York, and engage our passage, and go to see Judge
Hubbard--I suppose you were writing to him this morning?"
She did not answer, but seemed bent on making the dainty print of her
foot in the moist earth of the road, taking each step carefully, as
though it were the one important and engrossing thing in life.
"--Unless," I went on, "you tell me you will be ready to go back with
me this day week. You see, Bessie dear, I _must_ sail on the fixed
day. And if we talk it over now and settle it all, it will save no end
of writing to and fro."
"Good-morning!" said a gay voice behind us--Fanny Meyrick's voice. She
was just coming out of one of the small houses on the roadside. "Don't
you want some company? I've been to call on my washerwoman, and I'm so
glad I've met you. Such an English morning! Shall I walk with you?"