It was certainly affinity that led Miss Lucretia to choose the rosewood
sofa of a bygone age, which was covered with horsehair. Miss Lucretia's
features seemed to be constructed on a larger and more generous principle
than those of women are nowadays. Her face was longer. With her curls and
her bonnet and her bombazine,--which she wore in all seasons,--she was in
complete harmony with the sofa. She had thrown aside the storm cloak
which had become so familiar to pedestrians in certain parts of Boston.
"My dear Miss Penniman," said Mrs. Merrill, "I am delighted and honored.
I scarcely hoped for such a pleasure. I have so long admired you and your
work, and I have heard Cynthia speak of you so kindly."
"It is very good of you to say so, Mrs. Merrill" answered Miss Lucretia,
in her full, deep voice. It was by no means an unpleasant voice. She
settled herself, though she sat quite upright, in the geometrical centre
of the horsehair sofa, and cleared her throat. "To be quite honest with
you, Mrs. Merrill," she continued, "I came upon particular errand, though
I believe it would not be a perversion of the truth if I were to add that
I have had for a month past every intention of paying you a friendly
call."
Good Mrs. Merrill's breath was a little taken away by this extremely
scrupulous speech. She also began to feel a misgiving about the cause of
the visit, but she managed to say something polite in reply.
"I have come about Cynthia," announced Miss Lucretia, without further
preliminaries.
"About Cynthia?" faltered Mrs. Merrill.
Miss Lucretia opened a reticule at her waist and drew forth a newspaper
clipping, which she unfolded and handed to Mrs. Merrill.
"Have you seen this?" she demanded.
Mrs. Merrill took it, although she guessed very well what it was, glanced
at it with a shudder, and handed it back.
"Yes, I have read it," she said.
"I have come to ask you, Mrs. Merrill" said Miss Lucretia, "if it is
true."
Here was a question, indeed, for the poor lady to answer! But Mrs.
Merrill was no coward.
"It is partly true, I believe."
"Partly?" said Miss Lucretia, sharply.
"Yes, partly," said Mrs. Merrill, rousing herself for the trial; "I have
never yet seen a newspaper article which was wholly true."
"That is because newspapers are not edited by women," observed Miss
Lucretia. "What I wish you to tell me, Mrs. Merrill, is this: how much of
that article is true, and how much of it is false?"
"Really, Miss Penniman," replied Mrs. Merrill, with spirit, "I don't see
why you should expect me to know."
"A woman should take an intelligent interest in her husband's affairs,
Mrs. Merrill. I have long advocated it as an entering wedge."
"An entering wedge!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, who had never read a page of
the Woman's Hour.
"Yes. Your husband is the president of a railroad, I believe, which is
largely in that state. I should like to ask him whether these statements
are true in the main. Whether this Jethro Bass is the kind of man they
declare him to be."
Mrs. Merrill was in a worse quandary than ever. Her own spirits were none
too good, and Miss Lucretia's eye, in its search for truth, seemed to
pierce into her very soul. There was no evading that eye. But Mrs.
Merrill did what few people would have had the courage or good sense to
do.
"That is a political article, Miss Penniman," she said, "inspired by a
bitter enemy of Jethro Bass, Mr, Worthington, who has bought the
newspaper from which it was copied. For that reason, I was right in
saying that it is partly true. You nor I, Miss Penniman, must not be the
judges of any man or woman, for we know nothing of their problems or
temptations. God will judge them. We can only say that they have acted
rightly or wrongly according to the light that is in us. You will find it
difficult to get a judgment of Jethro Bass that is not a partisan
judgment, and yet I believe that that article is in the main a history of
the life of Jethro Bass. A partisan history, but still a history. He has
unquestionably committed many of the acts of which he is accused."
Here was talk to make the author of the "Hymn to Coniston" sit up, if she
hadn't been sitting up already.
"And don't you condemn him for those acts?" she gasped.
"Ah," said Mrs. Merrill, thinking of her own husband. Yesterday she would
certainly have condemned. Jethro Bass. But now! "I do not condemn
anybody, Miss Penniman."
Miss Lucretia thought this extraordinary, to say the least.
"I will put the question in another way, Mrs. Merrill," said she. "Do you
think this Jethro Bass a proper guardian for Cynthia Wetherell?"
To her amazement Mrs. Merrill did not give her an instantaneous answer to
this question. Mrs. Merrill was thinking of Jethro's love for the girl,
manifold evidences of which she had seen, and her heart was filled with a
melting pity. It was such a love, Mrs. Merrill knew, as is not given to
many here below. And there was Cynthia's love for him. Mrs. Merrill had
suffered that morning thinking of this tragedy also.
"I do not think he is a proper guardian for her, Miss Penniman."
It was then that the tears came to Mrs. Merrill's eyes for there is a
limit to all human endurance. The sight of these caused a remarkable
change in Miss Lucretia, and she leaned forward and seized Mrs. Merrill's
arm.
"My dear," she cried, "my dear, what are we to do? Cynthia can't go back
to that man. She loves him, I know, she loves him as few girls are
capable of loving. But when she, finds out what he is! When she finds out
how he got the money to support her father!" Miss Lucretia fumbled in her
reticule and drew forth a handkerchief and brushed her own eyes--eyes
which a moment ago were so piercing. "I have seen many young women," she
continued; "but I have known very few who were made of as fine a fibre
and who have such principles as Cynthia Wetherell."
"That is very true," assented Mrs. Merrill too much cast down to be
amazed by this revelation of Miss Lucretia's weakness.
"But what are we to do?" insisted that lady; "who is to tell her what he
is? How is it to be kept from her, indeed?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Merrill, "there will be more, articles. Mr. Merrill says
so. It seems there is to be a great political struggle in that state."
"Precisely," said Miss Lucretia, sadly. "And whoever tells the girl will
forfeit her friendship. I--I am very fond of her," and here she applied
again to the reticule.
"Whom would she believe?" asked Mrs. Merrill, whose estimation of Miss
Lucretia was increasing by leaps and bounds.
"Precisely," agreed Miss Lucretia. "But she must hear about it sometime."
"Wouldn't it be better to let her hear?" suggested Mrs. Merrill; "we
cannot very well soften that shock: I talked the matter over a little
with Mr. Merrill, and he thinks that we must take time over it, Miss
Penniman. Whatever we do, we must not act hastily."
"Well," said Miss Lucretia, "as I said, I am very fond of the girl, and I
am willing to do my duty, whatever it may be. And I also wished to say,
Mrs. Merrill, that I have thought about another matter very carefully. I
am willing to provide for the girl. I am getting too old to live alone. I
am getting too old, indeed, to do my work properly, as I used to do it. I
should like to have her to live with me."
"She has become as one of my own daughters," said Mrs. Merrill. Yet she
knew that this offer of Miss Lucretia's was not one to be lightly set
aside, and that it might eventually be the best solution of the problem.
After some further earnest discussion it was agreed between them that the
matter was, if possible, to be kept from Cynthia for the present, and
when Miss Lucretia departed Mrs. Merrill promised her an early return of
her call.
Mrs. Merrill had another talk with her husband, which lasted far into the
night. This talk was about Cynthia alone, and the sorrow which threatened
her. These good people knew that it would be no light thing to break the
faith of such as she, and they made her troubles their own.
Cynthia little guessed as she exchanged raillery with Mr. Merrill the
next morning that he had risen fifteen minutes earlier than usual to
search his newspaper through. He would read no more at breakfast, so he
declared in answer to his daughters' comments; it was a bad habit which
did not agree with his digestion. It was something new for Mr. Merrill to
have trouble with his digestion.
There was another and scarcely less serious phase of the situation which
Mr. and Mrs. Merrill had yet to discuss between them--a phase of which
Miss Lucretia Penniman knew nothing.
The day before Miss Sadler's school was to reopen nearly a week before
the Harvard term was to commence--a raging, wet snowstorm came charging
in from the Atlantic. Snow had no terrors for a Coniston person, and
Cynthia had been for her walk. Returning about five o'clock, she was
surprised to have the door opened for her by Susan herself.
"What a picture you are in those furs!" she cried, with an intention
which for the moment was lost upon Cynthia. "I thought you would never
come. You must have walked to Dedham this time. Who do you think is here?
Mr. Worthington."
"Mr. Worthington!"
"I have been trying to entertain him, but I am afraid I have been a very
poor substitute. However, I have persuaded him to stay for supper."
"It needed but little persuasion," said Bob, appearing in the doorway.
All the snowstorms of the wide Atlantic could not have brought such color
to her cheeks. Cynthia, for all her confusion at the meeting, had not
lost her faculty of observation. He seemed to have changed again, even
during the brief time he had been absent. His tone was grave.
"He needs to be cheered up, Cynthia," Susan went on, as though reading
her thoughts. "I have done my best, without success. He won't confess to
me that he has come back to make up some of his courses. I don't mind
owning that I've got to finish a theme to be handed in tomorrow."
With these words Susan departed, and left them standing in the hall
together. Bob took hold of Cynthia's jacket and helped her off with it.
He could read neither pleasure nor displeasure in her face, though he
searched it anxiously enough. It was she who led the way into the parlor
and seated herself, as before, on one of the uncompromising,
straight-backed chairs. Whatever inward tremors the surprise of this
visit had given her, she looked at him clearly and steadily, completely
mistress of herself, as ever.
"I thought your holidays did not end until next week," she said.
"They do not."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because I could not stay away, Cynthia," he answered. It was not the
manner in which he would have said it a month ago. There was a note of
intense earnestness in his voice--now, and to it she could make no light
reply. Confronted again with an unexpected situation, she could not
decide at once upon a line of action.
"When did you leave Brampton?" she asked, to gain time. But with the
words her thoughts flew to the hill country.
"This morning," he said, "on the early train. They have three feet of
snow up there." He, too, seemed glad of a respite from something.
"They're having a great fuss in Brampton about a new teacher for the
village school. Miss Goddard has got married. Did you know Miss Goddard,
the lanky one with the glasses?"
"Yes," said Cynthia, beginning to be amused at the turn the conversation
was taking.
"Well, they can't find anybody smart enough to replace Miss Goddard. Old
Ezra Graves, who's on the prudential committee, told Ephraim they ought
to get you. I was in the post-office when they were talking about it.
Just see what a reputation for learning you have in Brampton!"
Cynthia was plainly pleased by the compliment.
"How is Cousin Eph?" she asked.
"Happy as a lark," said Bob, "the greatest living authority in New
England on the Civil War. He's made the post-office the most popular
social club I ever saw. If anybody's missing in Brampton, you can nearly
always find them in the post-office. But I smiled at the notion of your
being a school ma'am."
"I don't see anything so funny about it," replied Cynthia, smiling too.
"Why shouldn't I be? I should like it."
"You were made for something different," he answered quietly.
It was a subject she did not choose to discuss with him, and dropped her
lashes before the plainly spoken admiration in his eyes. So a silence
fell between them, broken only by the ticking of the agate clock on the
mantel and the music of sleigh-bells in a distant street. Presently the
sleigh-bells died away, and it seemed to Cynthia that the sound of her
own heartbeats must be louder than the ticking of the clock. Her tact had
suddenly deserted her; without reason, and she did not dare to glance
again at Bob as he sat under the lamp. That minute--for it was a full
minute--was charged with a presage which she could not grasp. Cynthia's
instincts were very keen. She understood, of course, that he had cut
short his holiday to come to see her, and she might have dealt with him
had that been all. But--through that sixth sense with which some women
are endowed--she knew that something troubled him. He, too, had never yet
been at a loss for words.
The silence forced him to speak first, and he tried to restore the light
tone to the conversation.
"Cousin Ephraim gave me a piece of news," he said. "Ezra Graves got it,
too. He told us you were down in Boston at a fashionable school. Cousin
Ephraim knows a thing or two. He says he always callated you were cut out
for a fine lady."
"Bob," said Cynthia, nerving herself for the ordeal, "did you tell Cousin
Ephraim you had seen me?"
"I told him and Ezra that I had been a constant and welcome visitor at
this house."
"Did, you tell your father that you had seen me?"
This was too serious a question to avoid.
"No, I did not. There was no reason why I should have."
"There was every reason," said Cynthia, "and you know it. Did you tell
him why you came to Boston to-day?"
"No."
"Why does he think you came?"
"He doesn't think anything about it," said Bob. "He went off to Chicago
yesterday to attend a meeting of the board of directors of a western
railroad."
"And so," she said reproachfully, "you slipped off as soon as his back
was turned. I would not have believed that of you, Bob. Do you think that
was fair to him or me?"
Bob Worthington sprang to his feet and stood over her. She had spoken to
a boy, but she had aroused a man, and she felt an amazing thrill at the
result. The muscles in his face tightened, and deepened the lines about
his mouth, and a fire was lighted about his eyes.
"Cynthia," he said slowly, "even you shall not speak to me like that. If
I had believed it were right, if I had believed that it would have done
any good to you or me, I should have told my father the moment I got to
Brampton. In affairs of this kind--in a matter of so much importance in
my life," he continued, choosing his words carefully, "I am likely to
know whether I am doing right or wrong. If my mother were alive, I am
sure that she would approve of this--this friendship."
Having got so far, he paused. Cynthia felt that she was trembling, as
though the force and feeling that was in him had charged her also.
"I did not intend to come so soon," he went on, "but--I had a reason for
coming. I knew that you did not want me."
"You know that that is not true, Bob," she faltered. His next words
brought her to her feet.
"Cynthia," he said, in a voice shaken by the intensity of his passion, "I
came because I love you better than all the world--because I always will
love you so. I came to protect you, and care for you whatever happens. I
did not mean to tell you so, now. But it cannot matter, Cynthia!"
He seized her, roughly indeed, in his arms, but his very roughness was a
proof of the intensity of his love. For an instant she lay palpitating
against him, and as long as he lives he will remember the first exquisite
touch of her firm but supple figure and the marvellous communion of her
lips. A current from the great store that was in her, pent up and all
unknown, ran through him, and then she had struggled out of his arms and
fled, leaving him standing alone in the parlor.
It is true that such things happen, and no man or woman may foretell the
day or the hour thereof. Cynthia fled up the stairs, miraculously
arriving unnoticed at her own room, and locked the door and flung herself
on the bed.
Tears came--tears of shame, of joy, of sorrow, of rejoicing, of regret;
tears that burned, and yet relieved her, tears that pained while they
comforted. Had she sinned beyond the pardon of heaven, or had she
committed a supreme act of right? One moment she gloried in it, and the
next upbraided herself bitterly. Her heart beat with tumult, and again
seemed to stop. Such, though the words but faintly describe them, were
her feelings, for thoughts were still to emerge out of chaos. Love comes
like a flame to few women, but so it came to Cynthia Wetherell, and
burned out for a while all reason.
Only for a while. Generations which had practised self-restraint were
strong in her--generations accustomed, too, to thinking out, so far as in
them lay, the logical consequences of their acts; generations ashamed of
these very instants when nature has chosen to take command. After a time
had passed, during which the world might have shuffled from its course,
Cynthia sat up in the darkness. How was she ever to face the light again?
Reason had returned.
So she sat for another space, and thought of what she had done--thought
with a surprising calmness now which astonished her. Then she thought of
what she would do, for there was an ordeal still to be gone through.
Although she shrank from it, she no longer lacked the courage to endure
it. Certain facts began to stand out clearly from the confusion. The
least important and most immediate of these was that she would have to
face him, and incidentally face the world in the shape of the Merrill
family, at supper. She rose mechanically and lighted the gas and bathed
her face and changed her gown. Then she heard Susan's voice at the door.
"Cynthia, what in the world are you doing?"
Cynthia opened the door and the sisters entered. Was it possible that
they did not read her terrible secret in her face? Apparently not. Susan
was busy commenting on the qualities and peculiarities of Mr. Robert
Worthington, and showering upon Cynthia a hundred questions which she
answered she knew not how; but neither Susan nor Jane, wonderful as it
may seem, betrayed any suspicion. Did he send the flowers? Cynthia had
not asked him. Did he want to know whether she read the newspapers? He
had asked Susan that, before Cynthia came. Susan was ready to repeat the
whole of her conversation with him. Why did he seem so particular about
newspapers? Had he notions that girls ought not to read them?
The significance of Bob's remarks about newspapers was lost upon Cynthia
then. Not till afterward did she think of them, or connect them with his
unexpected visit. Then the supper bell rang, and they went downstairs.
The reader will be spared Mr. Worthington's feelings after Cynthia left
him, although they were intense enough, and absorbing and far-reaching
enough. He sat down on a chair and buried his head in his hands. His
impulse had been to leave the house and return again on the morrow, but
he remembered that he had been asked to stay for supper, and that such a
proceeding would cause comment. At length he got up and stood before the
fire, his thoughts still above the clouds, and it was thus that Mr.
Merrill found him when he entered.
"Good evening," said that gentleman, genially, not knowing in the least
who Bob was, but prepossessed in his favor by the way he came forward and
shook his hand and looked him clearly in the eye.
"I'm Robert Worthington, Mr. Merrill" said he.
"Eh!" Mr. Merrill gasped, "eh! Oh, certainly, how do you do, Mr.
Worthington?" Mr. Merrill would have been polite to a tax collector or a
sheriff. He separated the office from the man, which ought not always to
be done. "I'm glad to see you, Mr. Worthington. Well, well, bad storm,
isn't it? I had an idea the college didn't open until next week."
"Mr. Worthington's going to stay for supper, Papa," said Susan, entering.
"Good!" cried Mr. Merrill. "Capital! You won't miss the old folks after
supper, will you, girls? Your mother wants me to go to a whist party."
"It can't be helped, Carry," said Mr. Merrill to his wife, as they walked
up the hill to a neighbor's that evening.
"He's in love with Cynthia," said Mrs. Merrill, somewhat sadly; "it's as
plain as the nose on your face, Stephen."
"That isn't very plain. Suppose he is! You can dam a mountain stream, but
you can't prevent it reaching the sea, as we used to say when I was a boy
in Edmundton. I like Bob," said Mr. Merrill, with his usual weakness for
Christian names, "and he isn't any more like Dudley Worthington than I
am. If you were to ask me, I'd say he couldn't do a better thing than
marry Cynthia."
"Stephen!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill. But in her heart she thought so, too.
"What will Mr. Worthington say when he hears the young man has been
coming to our house to see her?"
Mr. Merrill had been thinking of that very thing, but with more amusement
than concern.
To return to Mr. Merrill's house, the three girls and the one young man
were seated around the fire, and their talk, Merrill as it had begun, was
becoming minute by minute more stilted. This was largely the fault of
Susan, who would not be happy until she had taken Jane upstairs and left
Mr. Worthington and Cynthia together. This matter had been arranged
between the sisters before supper. Susan found her opening at last, and
upbraided Jane for her unfinished theme; Jane, having learned her lesson
well, accused Susan. But Cynthia, who saw through the ruse, declared that
both themes were finished. Susan, naturally indignant at such
ingratitude, denied this. The manoeuvre, in short, was executed very
clumsily and very obviously, but executed nevertheless--the sisters
marching out of the room under a fire of protests. The reader, too, will
no doubt think it a very obvious manoeuvre, but some things are managed
badly in life as well as in books.
Cynthia and Bob were left alone: left, moreover, in mortal terror of each
other. It is comparatively easy to open the door of a room and rush into
a lady's arms if the lady be willing and alone. But to be abandoned, as
Susan had abandoned them, and with such obvious intent, creates quite a
different atmosphere. Bob had dared to hope for such an opportunity: had
made up his mind during supper, while striving to be agreeable, just what
he would do if the opportunity came. Instead, all he could do was to sit
foolishly in his chair and look at the coals, not so much as venturing to
turn his head until the sound of footsteps had died away on the upper
floors. It was Cynthia who broke the silence and took command--a very
different Cynthia from the girl who had thrown herself on the bed not
three hours before. She did not look at him, but stared with
determination into the fire.
"Bob, you must go," she said.
"Go!" he cried. Her voice loosed the fetters of his passion, and he dared
to seize the band that lay on the arm of her chair. She did not resist
this.
"Yes, you must go. You should not have stayed for supper."
"Cynthia," he said, "how can I leave you? I will not leave you."
"But you can and must," she replied.
"Why?" he asked, looking at her in dismay.
"You know the reason," she answered.
"Know it?" he cried. "I know why I should stay. I know that I love you
with my whole heart and soul. I know that I love you as few men have ever
loved--and that you are the one woman among millions who can inspire such
a love."
"No, Bob, no," she said, striving hard to keep her head, withdrawing her
hand that it might not betray the treason of her lips. Aware, strange as
it may seem, of the absurdity of the source of what she was to say, for a
trace of a smile was about her mouth as she gazed at the coals. "You will
get over this. You are not yet out of college, and many such fancies
happen there."
For the moment he was incapable of speaking, incapable of finding an
answer sufficiently emphatic. How was he to tell her of the rocks upon
which his love was built?
How was he to declare that the very perils which threatened her had made
a man of him, with all of a man's yearning to share these perils and
shield her from them? How was he to speak at all of those perils? He did
not declaim, yet when he spoke, an enduring sincerity which she could not
deny was in his voice.
"You know in your heart that what you say is not true, Cynthia. Whatever
happens, I shall always love you."
Whatever happens: She shuddered at the words, reminding her as they did
of all her vague misgivings and fears.
"Whatever happens!" she found herself repeating them involuntarily.
"Yes, whatever happens I will love you truly and faithfully. I will never
desert you, never deny you, as long as I live. And you love me, Cynthia,"
he cried, "you love me, I know it."
"No, no," she answered, her breath coming fast. He was on his feet now,
dangerously near her, and she rose swiftly to avoid him.
She turned her head, that he might not read the denial in her eyes; and
yet had to look at him again, for he was coming toward her quickly.
"Don't touch me," she said, "don't touch me."
He stopped, and looked at her so pitifully that she could scarce keep
back her tears.
"You do love me," he repeated.
So they stood for a moment, while Cynthia made a supreme effort to speak
calmly.
"Listen, Bob," she said at last, "if you ever wish to see me again, you
must do as I say. You must write to your father, and tell him what you
have done and--and what you wish to do. You may come to me and tell me
his answer, but you must not come to me before." She would have said
more, but her strength was almost gone. Yes, and more would have implied
a promise or a concession. She would not bind herself even by a hint. But
of this she was sure: that she would not be the means of wrecking his
opportunities. "And now--you must go."
He stayed where he was, though his blood leaped within him, his
admiration and respect for the girl outran his passion. Robert
Worthington was a gentleman.
"I will do as you say, Cynthia," he answered, "but I am doing it for you.
Whatever my father's reply may be will not change my love or my
intentions. For I am determined that you shall be my wife."
With these words, and one long, lingering look, he turned and left her.
He had lacked the courage to speak of his father's bitterness and
animosity. Who will blame him? Cynthia thought none the less of him for
not telling her. There was, indeed, no need now to describe Dudley
Worthington's feelings.
When the door had closed she stoke to the window, and listened to his
footfalls in the snow until she heard them no more.
End of Project Gutenberg's Coniston, Book III., by Winston Churchill