ELWOOD'S EVENING, AND JOSEPH'S.
For half a mile Elwood Withers followed the carriage containing Anna
Warriner and her friend; then, at the curve of the valley, their roads
parted, and Lucy and he were alone. The soft light of the delicious
summer evening was around them; the air, cooled by the stream which
broadened and bickered beside their way, was full of all healthy meadow
odors, and every farm in the branching dells they passed was a picture
of tranquil happiness. Yet Lucy had sighed before she was aware of it,—a
very faint, tremulous breath, but it reached Elwood's sensitive ear.
"You don't seem quite well, Lucy," he said.
"Because I have talked so little?" she asked.
"Not just that, but—but I was almost afraid my coming for you was not
welcome. I don't mean—" But here he grew confused, and did not finish
the sentence.
"Indeed, it was very kind of you," said she. This was not an answer to
his remark, and both felt that it was not.
Elwood struck the horse with his whip, then as suddenly drew the reins
on the startled animal. "Pshaw!" he exclaimed, in a tone that was almost
fierce, "what's the use o' my beating about the bush in this way?"
Lucy caught her breath, and clenched her hands under her shawl for one
instant. Then she became calm, and waited for him to say more.
"Lucy!" he continued, turning towards her, "you have a right to think me
a fool. I can talk to anybody else more freely than to you, and the
reason is, I want to say more to you than to any other woman! There's no
use in my being a coward any longer; it's a desperate venture I'm
making, but it must be made. Have you never guessed how I feel towards
you?"
"Yes," she answered, very quietly.
"Well, what do you say to it?" He tried to speak calmly, but his breath
came thick and hard, and the words sounded hoarsely.
"I will say this, Elwood," said she, "that because I saw your heart, I
have watched your ways and studied your character. I find you honest and
manly in everything, and so tender and faithful that I wish I could
return your affection in the same measure."
A gleam, as of lightning, passed over his face.
"O, don't misunderstand me!" she cried, her calmness forsaking her, "I
esteem, I honor you, and that makes it harder for me to seem ungrateful,
unfeeling,—as I must. Elwood, if I could, I would answer you as you
wish, but I cannot."
"If I wait?" he whispered.
"And lose your best years in a vain hope! No, Elwood, my friend,—let me
always call you so,—I have been cowardly also. I knew an explanation
must come, and I shrank from the pain I should feel in giving you pain.
It is hard; and better for both of us that it should not be repeated!"
"There's something wrong in this world!" he exclaimed, after a long
pause. "I suppose you could no more force yourself to love me than I
could force myself to love Anna Warriner or that Miss Blessing. Then
what put it into my heart to love you? Was it God or the Devil!"
"Elwood!"
"How can I help myself? Can I help drawing my breath? Did I set about it
of my own will? Here I see a life that belongs to my own life,—as much a
part of it as my head or heart; but I can't reach it,—it draws away from
me, and maybe joins itself to some one else forever! O my God!"
Lucy burst into such a violent passion of weeping, that Elwood forgot
himself in his trouble for her. He had never witnessed such grief, as it
seemed to him, and his honest heart was filled with self-reproach at
having caused it.
"Forgive me, Lucy!" he said, very tenderly encircling her with his arm,
and drawing her head upon his shoulder; "I spoke rashly and wickedly, in
my disappointment. I thought only of myself, and forgot that I might
hurt you by my words. I'm not the only man who has this kind of trouble
to bear; and perhaps if I could see clearer—but I don't know; I can only
see one thing."
She grew calmer as he spoke. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she
took his hand, and said: "You are a true and a noble man, Elwood. It is
only a grief to me that I cannot love you as a wife should love her
husband. But my will is as powerless as yours."
"I believe you, Lucy," he answered, sadly. "It's not your fault,—but,
then, it isn't mine, either. You make me feel that the same rule fits
both of us, leastways so far as helping the matter is concerned. You
needn't tell me I may find another woman to love; the very thought of it
makes me sick at heart. I'm rougher than you are, and awkward in my
ways—"
"It is not that! O, believe me, it is not that!" cried Lucy,
interrupting him. "Have you ever sought for reasons to account for your
feeling toward me? Is it not something that does not seem to depend upon
what I am,—upon any qualities that distinguish me from other women?"
"How do you know so much?" Elwood asked. "Have you—" He commenced, but
did not finish the question. He leaned silently forward, urged on the
horse, and Lucy could see that his face was very stern.
"They say," she began, on finding that he was not inclined to
speak,—"they say that women have a natural instinct which helps them to
understand many things; and I think it must be true. Why can you not
spare me the demand for reasons which I have not? If I were to take
time, and consider it, and try to explain, it would be of no help to
you: it would not change the fact. I suppose a man feels humiliated when
this trouble comes upon him. He shows his heart, and there seems to be a
claim upon the woman of his choice to show hers in return. The sense of
injustice is worse than humiliation, Elwood. Though I cannot, cannot do
otherwise, I shall always have the feeling that I have wronged you."
"O Lucy," he murmured, in a very sad, but not reproachful voice, "every
word you say, in showing me that I must give you up, only makes it more
impossible to me. And it is just impossible,—that's the end of the
matter! I know how people talk about trials being sent us for our good,
and its being the will of God, and all that. It's a trial, that's true:
whether it's for my good or not, I shall learn after a while; but I can
find out God's will only by trying the strength of my own. Don't be
afeared, Lucy! I've no notion of saying or doing anything from this time
on to disturb you, but _here_ you are" (striking his breast with his
clenched hand), "and here you will be when the day comes, as I feel that
it must and _shall_ come, to bring us together!"
She could see the glow of his face in the gathering dusk, as he turned
towards her and offered his hand. How could she help taking it? If some
pulse in her own betrayed the thrill of admiring recognition of the
man's powerful and tender nature, which suddenly warmed her oppressed
blood, she did not fear that he would draw courage from the token. She
wished to speak, but found no words which, coming after his, would not
have seemed either cold and unsympathetic, or too near the verge of the
hope which she would gladly have crushed.
Elwood was silent for a while, and hardly appeared to be awaiting an
answer. Meanwhile the road left the valley, climbing the shoulders of
its enclosing hills, where the moist meadow fragrance was left behind,
and dry, warm breezes, filled with the peculiar smell of the
wheat-fields, blew over them. It was but a mile farther to the Corner,
near which Lucy's parents resided.
"How came you three to go to Joseph's place this afternoon?" he asked.
"Wasn't it a dodge of Miss Blessing's?"
"She proposed it,—partly in play, I think; and when she afterwards
insisted on our going, there seemed to be no good reason for refusing."
"O, of course not," said Elwood; "but tell me now, honestly, Lucy, what
do you make out of her?"
Lucy hesitated a moment. "She is a little wilful in her ways, perhaps,
but we mustn't judge too hastily. We have known her such a short time.
Her manner is very amiable."
"I don't know about that," Elwood remarked. "It reminds me of one of her
dresses,—so ruffled, and puckered, and stuck over with ribbons and
things, that you can't rightly tell what the stuff is. I'd like to be
sure whether she has an eye to Joseph."
"To _him_!" Lucy exclaimed.
"Him first and foremost! He's as innocent as a year-old baby. There
isn't a better fellow living than Joseph Asten, but his bringing up has
been fitter for a girl than a boy. He hasn't had his eye-teeth cut yet,
and it's my opinion that _she_ has."
"What do you mean by that?"
"No harm. Used to the world, as much as anything else. He don't know how
to take people; he thinks th' outside color runs down to the core. So it
does with him; but _I_ can't see what that girl is, under her pleasant
ways, and he won't guess that there's anything else of her. Between
ourselves, Lucy,—you don't like her. I saw that when you came away,
though you were kissing each other at the time."
"What a hypocrite I must be!" cried Lucy, rather fiercely.
"Not a bit of it. Women kiss as men shake hands. You don't go around,
saying, 'Julia dear!' like Anna Warriner."
Lucy could not help laughing. "There," she said, "that's enough, Elwood!
I'd rather you would think yourself in the right than to say anything
more about her this evening."
She sighed wearily, not attempting to conceal her fatigue and
depression.
"Well, well!" he replied; "I'll pester you no more with disagreeable
subjects. There's the house, now, and you'll soon be rid of me. I won't
tell you, Lucy, that if you ever want for friendly service, you must
look to me,—because I'm afeared you won't feel free to do it; but you'll
take all I can find to do without your asking."
Without waiting for an answer he drew up his horse at the gate of her
home, handed her out, said "Good night!" and drove away.
Such a singular restlessness took possession of Joseph, after the
departure of his guests, that the evening quiet of the farm became
intolerable. He saddled his horse and set out for the village, readily
inventing an errand which explained the ride to himself as well as to
his aunt.
The regular movements of the animal did not banish the unquiet motions
of his mind, but it relieved him by giving them a wider sweep and a more
definite form. The man who walks is subject to the power of his Antæus
of a body, moving forwards only by means of the weight which holds it to
the earth. There is a clog upon all his thoughts, an ever-present sense
of restriction and impotence. But when he is lifted above the soil, with
the air under his foot-soles, swiftly moving without effort, his mind, a
poising Mercury, mounts on winged heels. He feels the liberation of new
and nimble powers; wider horizons stretch around his inward vision;
obstacles are measured or overlooked; the brute strength under him
charges his whole nature with a more vigorous electricity.
The fresh, warm, healthy vital force which filled Joseph's body to the
last embranchment of every nerve and vein—the hum of those multitudinous
spirits of life, which, while building their glorious abode, march as if
in triumphant procession through its secret passages, and summon all the
fairest phantoms of sense to their completed chambers—constituted, far
more than he suspected, an element of his disturbance. This was the
strong pinion on which his mind and soul hung balanced, above the close
atmosphere which he seemed to ride away from, as he rode. The great joy
of human life filled and thrilled him; all possibilities of action and
pleasure and emotion swam before his sight; all he had read or heard of
individual careers in all ages, climates, and conditions of the
race—dazzling pictures of the myriad-sided earth, to be won by whosoever
dared arbitrarily to seize the freedom waiting for his grasp—floated
through his brain.
Hitherto a conscience not born of his own nature,—a very fair and
saintly-visaged jailer of thought, but a jailer none the less,—had kept
strict guard over every outward movement of his mind, gently touching
hope and desire and conjecture when they reached a certain line, and
saying, "No; no farther: it is prohibited." But now, with one strong,
involuntary throb, he found himself beyond the line, with all the ranges
ever trodden by man stretching forward to a limitless horizon. He rose
in his stirrups, threw out his arms, lifted his face towards the sky,
and cried, "God! I see what I am!"
It was only a glimpse,—like that of a landscape struck in golden fire by
lightning, from the darkness. "What is it," he mused, "that stands
between me and this vision of life? Who built a wall of imaginary law
around these needs, which are in themselves inexorable laws? The World,
the Flesh, and the Devil, they say in warning. Bright, boundless world,
my home, my play-ground, my battle-field, my kingdom to be conquered!
And this body they tell me to despise,—this perishing house of clay,
which is so intimately myself that its comfort and delight cheer me to
the inmost soul: it is a dwelling fit for an angel to inhabit! Shall not
its hungering senses all be fed? Who shall decide for me—if not
myself—on their claims?—who can judge for me what strength requires to
be exercised, what pleasure to be enjoyed, what growth to be forwarded?
All around me, everywhere, are the means of gratification,—I have but to
reach forth my hand and grasp; but a narrow cell, built ages ago,
encloses me wherever I go!"
Such was the vague substance of his thoughts. It was the old struggle
between life—primitive, untamed life, as the first man may have felt
it—and its many masters: assertion, and resistance, all the more fierce
because so many influences laid their hands upon its forces. As he came
back to his usual self, refreshed by this temporary escape, Joseph
wondered whether other men shared the same longing and impatience; and
this turned his musings into another channel. "Why do men so carefully
conceal what is deepest and strongest in their natures? Why is so little
of spiritual struggle and experience ever imparted? The convert publicly
admits his sinful experience, and tries to explain the entrance of grace
into his regenerated nature; the reformed drunkard seems to take a
positive delight in making his former condition degraded and loathsome;
but the opening of the individual life to the knowledge of power and
passion and all the possibilities of the world is kept more secret than
sin. Love is hidden as if it were a reproach; friendship watched, lest
it express its warmth too frankly; joy and grief and doubt and anxiety
repressed as much as possible. A great lid is shut down upon the human
race. They must painfully stoop and creep, instead of standing erect
with only God's heaven over their heads. I am lonely, but I know not how
to cry for companionship; my words would not be understood, or, if they
were, would not be answered. Only one gate is free to me,—that leading
to the love of woman. There, at least, must be such an intense, intimate
sympathy as shall make the reciprocal revelation of the lives possible!"
Full of this single certainty, which, the more he pondered upon it,
seemed to be his nearest chance of help, Joseph rode slowly homewards.
Rachel Miller, who had impatiently awaited his coming, remarked the
abstraction of his face, and attributed it to a very different cause.
She was thereby wonderfully strengthened to make her communication in
regard to the evening company; nevertheless, the subject was so slowly
approached and so ambiguously alluded to, that Joseph could not
immediately understand it.
"That is something! That is a step!" he said to himself; then turning
towards her with a genuine satisfaction in his face, added: "Aunt, do
you know that I have never really felt until now that I am the owner of
this property? It will be more of a home to me after I have received the
neighborhood as my guests. It has always controlled me, but now it must
serve me."
He laughed in great good-humor, and Rachel Miller, in her heart, thanked
Miss Julia Blessing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------