While Miss Lucretia was standing, unwillingly enough, listening to
the speeches that were poured into her ear by various members of the
audience, receiving the incense and myrrh to which so great a celebrity
was entitled, the old soldier hobbled away to his little house as
fast as his three legs would carry him. Only one event in his life had
eclipsed this in happiness--the interview in front of the White House.
He rapped on the window with his stick, thereby frightening Cynthia half
out of her wits as she sat musing sorrowfully by the fire.
“Cousin Ephraim,” she said, taking off his corded hat, “what in the
world's the matter with you?”
“You're a schoolmarm again, Cynthy.”
“Do you mean to say?”
“Miss Lucretia Penniman done it.”
“Miss Lucretia Penniman!” Cynthia began to think his rheumatism was
driving him out of his mind.
“You bet. 'Long toward the openin' of the engagement there wahn't
scarcely anybody thar but me, and they was a-goin'. But they come fast
enough when they l'arned she was in town, and she blew 'em up higher'n
the Petersburg crater. Great Tecumseh, there's a woman! Next to General
Grant, I'd sooner shake her hand than anybody's livin'.”
“Do you mean to say that Miss Lucretia is in Brampton and spoke at the
mass meeting?”
“Spoke!” exclaimed Ephraim, “callate she did--some. Tore 'em all up.
They'd a hung Isaac D. Worthington or Levi Dodd if they'd a had 'em
thar.”
Cynthia, striving to be calm herself, got him into a chair and took his
stick and straightened out his leg, and then Ephraim told her the story,
and it lost no dramatic effect in his telling. He would have talked
all night. But at length the sound of wheels was heard in the street,
Cynthia flew to the door, and a familiar voice came out of the darkness.
“You need not wait, Gamaliel. No, thank you, I think I will stay at the
hotel.”
Gamaliel was still protesting when Miss Lucretia came in and seized
Cynthia in her arms, and the door was closed behind her.
“Oh, Miss Lucretia, why did you come?” said Cynthia, “if I had known you
would do such a thing, I should never have written that letter. I have
been sorry to-day that I did write it, and now I'm sorrier than ever.”
“Aren't you glad to see me?” demanded Miss Lucretia.
“Miss Lucretia!”
“What are friends for?” asked Miss Lucretia, patting her hand. “If you
had known how I wished to see you, Cynthia, and I thought a little trip
would be good for such a provincial Bostonian as I am. Dear, dear, I
remember this house. It used to belong to Gabriel Post in my time, and
right across from it was the Social Library, where I have spent so many
pleasant hours with your mother. And this is Ephraim Prescott. I thought
it was, when I saw him sitting in the front row, and I think he must
have been very lonesome there at one time.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Ephraim, giving her his gnarled fingers; “I was just
sayin' to Cynthy that I'd ruther shake your hand than anybody's livin'
exceptin' General Grant.”
“And I'd rather shake yours than the General's,” said Miss Lucretia,
for the Woman's Hour had taken the opposition side in a certain recent
public question concerning women.
“If you'd a fit with him, you wouldn't say that, Miss Lucrety.”
“I haven't a word to say against his fighting qualities,” she replied.
“Guess the General might say the same of you,” said Ephraim. “If you'd a
b'en a man, I callate you'd a come out of the war with two stars on your
shoulder. Godfrey, Miss Lucrety, you'd ought to've b'en a man.”
“A man!” cried Miss Lucretia, “and 'stars on my shoulder'! I think this
kind of talk has gone far enough, Ephraim Prescott.”
“Cousin Eph,” said Cynthia, laughing, “you're no match for Miss
Lucretia, and it's long past your bedtime.”
“A man!” repeated Miss Lucretia, after he had retired, and after Cynthia
had tried to express her gratitude and had been silenced. They sat
side by side in front of the chimney. “I suppose he meant that as a
compliment. I never yet saw the man I couldn't back down, and I haven't
any patience with a woman who gives in to them.” Miss Lucretia poked
vigorously a log which had fallen down, as though that were a man, too,
and she was putting him back in his proper place.
Cynthia, strange to say, did not reply to this remark.
“Cynthia,” said Miss Lucretia, abruptly, “you don't mean to say that you
are in love!”
Cynthia drew a long breath, and grew as red as the embers.
“Miss Lucretia!” she exclaimed, in astonishment and dismay.
“Well,” Miss Lucretia said, “I should have thought you could have gotten
along, for a while at least, without anything of that kind. My dear,”
she said leaning toward Cynthia, “who is he?”
Cynthia turned away. She found it very hard to speak of her troubles,
even to Miss Lucretia, and she would have kept this secret even from
Jethro, had it been possible.
“You must let him know his place,” said Miss Lucretia, “and I hope he is
in some degree worthy of you.”
“I do not intend to marry him,” said Cynthia, with head still turned
away.
It was now Miss Lucretia who was silent.
“I came near getting married once,” she said presently, with
characteristic abruptness.
“You!” cried Cynthia, looking around in amazement.
“You see, I am franker than you, my dear--though I never told any one
else. I believe you can keep a secret.”
“Of course I can. Who--was it anyone in Brampton, Miss Lucretia?” The
question was out before Cynthia realized its import. She was turning the
tables with a vengeance.
“It was Ezra Graves,” said Miss Lucretia.
“Ezra Graves!” And then Cynthia pressed Miss Lucretia's hand in silence,
thinking how strange it was that both of them should have been her
champions that evening.
Miss Lucretia poked the fire again.
“It was shortly after that, when I went to Boston, that I wrote the
'Hymn to Coniston.' I suppose we must all be fools once or twice, or we
should not be human.”
“And--weren't you ever--sorry?” asked Cynthia.
Again there was a silence.
“I could not have done the work I have had to do in the world if I
had married. But I have often wondered whether that work was worth the
while. Such a feeling must come over all workers, occasionally. Yes,”
said Miss Lucretia, “there have been times when I have been sorry, my
dear, though I have never confessed it to another soul. I am telling you
this for your own good--not mine. If you have the love of a good man,
Cynthia, be careful what you do with it.”
The tears had come into Cynthia's eyes.
“I should have told you, Miss Lucretia,” she faltered. “If I could have
married him, it would have been easier.”
“Why can't you marry him?” demanded Miss Lucretia, sharply--to hide her
own emotion.
“His name,” said Cynthia, “is Bob Worthington:”
“Isaac Worthington's son?”
“Yes.”
Another silence, Miss Lucretia being utterly unable to say anything for
a space.
“Is he a good man?”
Cynthia was on the point of indignant-protest, but she stopped herself
in time.
“I will tell you what he has done,” she answered, “and then you shall
judge for yourself.”
And she told Miss Lucretia, simply, all that Bob had done, and all that
she herself had done.
“He is like his mother, Sarah Hollingsworth; I knew her well,” said
Miss Lucretia. “If Isaac Worthington were a man, he would be down on his
knees begging you to marry his son. He tried hard enough to marry your
own mother.”
“My mother!” exclaimed Cynthia, who had never believed that rumor.
“Yes,” said Miss Lucretia, “and you may thank your stars he didn't
succeed. I mistrusted him when he was a young man, and now I know that
he hasn't changed. He is a coward and a hypocrite.”
Cynthia could not deny this.
“And yet,” she said, after a moment's silence, “I am sure you will say
that I have been right. My own conscience tells me that it is wrong to
deprive Bob of his inheritance, and to separate him from his father,
whatever his father--may be.”
“We shall see what happens in five years,” said Miss Lucretia.
“Five years!” said Cynthia, in spite of herself.
“Jacob served seven for Rachel,” answered Miss Lucretia; “that period is
scarcely too short to test a man, and you are both young.”
“No,” said Cynthia, “I cannot marry him, Miss Lucretia. The world would
accuse me of design, and I feel that I should not be happy. I am sure
that he would never reproach me, even if things went wrong, but--the day
might come when--when he would wish that it had been otherwise.”
Miss Lucretia kissed her.
“You are very young, my dear,” she repeated, “and none of us may say
what changes time may bring forth. And now I must go.”
Cynthia insisted upon walking with her friend down the street to the
hotel--an undertaking that was without danger in Brampton. And it was
only a step, after all. A late moon floated in the sky, throwing in
relief the shadow of the Worthington mansion against the white patches
of snow. A light was still burning in the library.
The next morning after breakfast Miss Lucretia appeared at the little
house, and informed Cynthia that she would walk to school with her.
“But I have not yet been notified by the Committee,” said Cynthia. There
was a knock at the door, and in walked Judge Ezra Graves. Miss Lucretia
may have blushed, but it is certain that Cynthia did. Never had she seen
the judge so spick and span, and he wore the broadcloth coat he usually
reserved for Sundays. He paused at the threshold, with his hand on his
Adam's apple.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said, and looked shyly at Miss Lucretia and
cleared his throat, and spoke with the elaborate decorum he used on
occasions, “Miss Penniman, I wish to thank you again for your noble
action of last evening.”
“Don't 'Miss Penniman' me, Ezra Graves,” retorted Miss Lucretia; “the
only noble action I know of was poor Jonathan Hill's--unless it was
paying for the gas.”
This was the way in which Miss Lucretia treated her lover after thirty
years! Cynthia thought of what the lady had said to her a few hours
since, by this very fire, and began to believe she must have dreamed it.
Fires look very differently at night--and sometimes burn brighter then.
The judge parted his coat tails, and seated himself on the wooden edge
of a cane-bottomed chair.
“Lucretia,” he said, “you haven't changed.”
“You have, Ezra,” she replied, looking at the Adam's apple.
“I'm an old man,” said Ezra Graves.
Cynthia could not help thinking that he was a very different man,
in Miss Lucretia's presence, than when at the head of the prudential
committee.
“Ezra,” said Miss Lucretia, “for a man you do very well.”
The judge smiled.
“Thank you, Lucretia,” said he. He seemed to appreciate the full extent
of the compliment.
“Judge Graves,” said Cynthia, “I can tell you how good you are, at
least, and thank you for your great kindness to me, which I shall never
forget.”
She took his withered hands from his knees and pressed them. He returned
the pressure, and then searched his coat tails, found a handkerchief,
and blew his nose violently.
“I merely did my duty, Miss Wetherell,” he said. “I would not wilfully
submit to a wrong.”
“You called me Cynthia yesterday.”
“So I did,” he answered, “so I did.” Then he looked at Miss Lucretia.
“Ezra,” said that lady, smiling a little, “I don't believe you have
changed, after all.”
What she meant by that nobody knows.
“I had thought, Cynthia,” said the judge, “that it might be more
comfortable for you to have me go to the school with you. That is the
reason for my early call.”
“Judge Graves, I do appreciate your kindness,” said Cynthia; “I hope you
won't think I'm rude if I say I'd rather go alone.”
“On the contrary, my dear,” replied the judge, “I think I can understand
and esteem your feeling in the matter, and it shall be as you wish.”
“Then I think I had better be going,” said Cynthia. The judge rose in
alarm at the words, but she put her hand on his shoulder. “Won't you sit
down and stay,” she begged, “you haven't seen Miss Lucretia for how many
years,--thirty, isn't it?”
Again he glanced at Miss Lucretia, uncertainly. “Sit down, Ezra,” she
commanded, “and for goodness' sake don't be afraid of the cane bottom.
You won't go through it. I should like to talk to you, and most of the
gossips of our day are dead. I shall stay in Brampton to-day, Cynthia,
and eat supper with you here this evening.”
Cynthia, as she went out of the door, wondered what they would talk
about. Then she turned toward the school. It was not the March wind that
burned her cheeks; as she thought of the mass meeting the night before,
which was all about her, she wished she might go to school that morning
through the woods and pasture lots rather than down Brampton Street.
What--what would Bob say when he heard of the meeting? Would he come
again to Brampton? If he did, she would run away to Boston with Miss
Lucretia. Every day it had been a trial to pass the Worthington house,
but she could not cross the wide street to avoid it. She hurried
a little, unconsciously, when she came to it, for there was Mr.
Worthington on the steps talking to Mr. Flint. How he must hate her now,
Cynthia reflected! He did not so much as look up when she passed.
The other citizens whom she met made up for Mr. Worthington's coldness,
and gave her a hearty greeting, and some stopped to offer their
congratulations. Cynthia did not pause to philosophize: she was learning
to accept the world as it was, and hurried swiftly on to the little
schoolhouse. The children saw her coming, and ran to meet her and
escorted her triumphantly in at the door. Of their welcome she could be
sure. Thus she became again teacher of the lower school.
How the judge and Miss Lucretia got along that morning, Cynthia never
knew. Miss Lucretia spent the day in her old home, submitting to
hero-worship, and attended an evening party in her honor at Mr. Gamaliel
Ives's house--a mansion not so large as the first citizen's, though
it had two bay-windows and was not altogether unimposing. The first
citizen, needless to say, was not there, but the rest of the elite
attended. Mr. Ives will tell you all about the entertainment if you go
to Brampton, but the real reason Miss Lucretia consented to go was to
please Lucy Baird, who was Gamaliel's wife, and to chat with certain old
friends whom she had not seen. The next morning she called at the school
to bid Cynthia good-by, and to whisper something in her ear which made
her very red before all the scholars. She shook her head when Miss
Lucretia said it, for it had to do with an incident in the 29th chapter
of Genesis.
While Jonathan Hill was being made a hero of in the little two-by-four
office of the feed store the morning after the mass meeting (though
nobody offered to take over his mortgage), Mr. Dodd was complaining to
his wife of shooting pains, and “callated” he would stay at home that
day.
“Shootin' fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Dodd. “Get along down to the store
and face the music, Levi Dodd. You'd have had shootin' pains if you'd a
went to the meetin'.”
“I might stop by at Mr. Worthington's house and explain how powerless I
was--”
“For goodness' sake git out, Levi. I guess he knows how powerless
you are with your shootin' pains. If you only could forget Isaac D.
Worthington for three minutes, you wouldn't have 'em.”
Mr. Dodd's two clerks saw him enter the store by the back door and
he was very much interested in the new ploughs which were piled up in
crates outside of it. Then he disappeared into his office and shut the
door, and supposedly became very much absorbed in book-keeping. If any
one called, he was out--any one. Plenty of people did call, but he was
not disturbed--until ten o'clock. Mr. Dodd had a very sensitive ear, and
he could often recognize a man by his step, and this man he recognized.
“Where's Mr. Dodd?” demanded the owner of the step, indignantly.
“He's out, Mr. Worthington. Anything I can do for you, Mr. Worthington?”
“You can tell him to come up to my house the moment he comes in.”
Unfortunately Mr. Dodd in the office had got into a strained position.
He found it necessary to move a little; the day-book fell heavily to the
floor, and the perspiration popped out all over his forehead. Come out,
Levi Dodd. The Bastille is taken, but there are other fortresses still
in the royal hands where you may be confined.
“Who's in the office?”
“I don't know, sir,” answered the clerk, winking at his companion, who
was sorting nails.
In three strides the great man had his hand on the office door and had
flung it open, disclosing the culprit cowering over the day-book on the
floor.
“Mr. Dodd,” cried the first citizen, “what do you mean by--?”
Some natures, when terrified, are struck dumb. Mr. Dodd's was the kind
which bursts into speech.
“I couldn't help it, Mr. Worthington,” he cried, “they would have it. I
don't know what got into 'em. They lost their senses, Mr. Worthington,
plumb lost their senses. If you'd a b'en there, you might have brought
'em to. I tried to git the floor, but Ezry Graves--”
“Confound Ezra Graves, and wait till I have done, can't you,”
interrupted the first citizen, angrily. “What do you mean by putting a
bath-tub into my house with the tin loose, so that I cut my leg on it?”
Mr. Dodd nearly fainted from sheer relief.
“I'll put a new one in to-day, right now,” he gasped.
“See that you do,” said the first citizen, “and if I lose my leg, I'll
sue you for a hundred thousand dollars.”
“I was a-goin' to explain about them losin' their heads at the mass
meetin'--”
“Damn their heads!” said the first citizen. “And yours, too,” he may
have added under his breath as he stalked out. It was not worth a swing
of the executioner's axe in these times of war. News had arrived from
the state capital that morning of which Mr. Dodd knew nothing.
Certain feudal chiefs from the North Country, of whose allegiance
Mr. Worthington had felt sure, had obeyed the summons of their old
sovereign, Jethro Bass, and had come South to hold a conclave under
him at the Pelican. Those chiefs of the North Country, with their
clans behind them as one man, what a power they were in the state! What
magnificent qualities they had, in battle or strategy, and how cunning
and shrewd was their generalship! Year after year they came down from
their mountains and fought shoulder to shoulder, and year after year
they carried back the lion's share of the spoils between them. The great
South, as a whole, was powerless to resist them, for there could be no
lasting alliance between Harwich and Brampton and Newcastle and Gosport.
Now their king had come back, and the North Country men were rallying
again to his standard. No wonder that Levi Dodd's head, poor thing that
it was, was safe for a while.
“Organize what you have left, and be quick about it,” said Mr. Flint,
when the news had come, and they sat in the library planning a new
campaign in the face of this evident defection. There was no time to cry
over spilt milk or reinstated school-teachers. The messages flew far and
wide to the manufacturing towns to range their guilds into line for the
railroads. The seneschal wrote the messages, and sent the summons to the
sleek men of the cities, and let it be known that the coffers were full
and not too tightly sealed, that the faithful should not lack for the
sinews of war. Mr. Flint found time, too, to write some carefully worded
but nevertheless convincing articles for the Newcastle Guardian, very
damaging to certain commanders who had proved unfaithful.
“Flint,” said Mr. Worthington, when they had worked far into the night,
“if Bass beats us, I'm a crippled man.”
“And if you postpone the fight now that you have begun it? What then?”
The answer, Mr. Worthington knew, was the same either way. He did not
repeat it. He went to his bed, but not to sleep for many hours, and when
he came down to his breakfast in the morning, he was in no mood to read
the letter from Cambridge which Mrs. Holden had put on his plate. But he
did read it, with what anger and bitterness may be imagined. There was
the ultimatum,--respectful, even affectionate, but firm. “I know that
you will, in all probability, disinherit me as you say, and I tell you
honestly that I regret the necessity of quarrelling with you more than
I do the money. I do not pretend to say that I despise money, and I like
the things that it buys, but the woman I love is more to me than all
that you have.”
Mr. Worthington laid the letter down, and there came irresistibly to his
mind something that his wife had said to him before she died, shortly
after they had moved into the mansion. “Dudley, how happy we used to be
together before we were rich!” Money had not been everything to Sarah
Worthington, either. But now no tender wave of feeling swept over him
as he recalled those words. He was thinking of what weapon he had to
prevent the marriage beyond that which was now useless--disinheritance.
He would disinherit Bob, and that very day. He would punish his son
to the utmost of his power for marrying the ward of Jethro Bass. He
wondered bitterly, in case a certain event occurred, whether he would
have much to alienate.
When Mr. Flint arrived, fresh as usual in spite of the work he had
accomplished and the cigars he had smoked the night before, Mr.
Worthington still had the letter in his hand, and was pacing his library
floor, and broke into a tirade against his son.
“After all I have done for him, building up for him a position and a
fortune that is only surpassed by young Duncan's, to treat me in this
way, to drag down the name of Worthington in the mire. I'll never
forgive him. I'll send for Dixon and leave the money for a hospital in
Brampton. Can't you suggest any way out of this, Flint?”
“No,” said Flint, “not now. The only chance you have is to ignore the
thing from now on. He may get tired of her--I've known such things to
happen.”
“When she hears that I've disinherited him, she will get tired of him,”
declared Mr. Worthington.
“Try it and see, if you like,” said Flint.
“Look here, Flint, if the woman has a spark of decent feeling, as you
seem to think, I'll send for her and tell her that she will ruin
Robert if she marries him.” Mr. Worthington always spoke of his son as
“Robert.”
“You ought to have thought of that before the mass meeting. Perhaps it
would have done some good then.”
“Because this Penniman woman has stirred people up--is that what you
mean? I don't care anything about that. Money counts in the long run.”
“If money counted with this school-teacher, it would be a simple matter.
I think you'll find it doesn't.”
“I've known you to make some serious mistakes,” snapped Mr. Worthington.
“Then why do you ask for my advice?”
“I'll send for her, and appeal to her better nature,” said Mr.
Worthington, with an unconscious and sublime irony.
Flint gave no sign that he heard. Mr. Worthington seated himself at
his desk, and after some thought wrote on a piece of note-paper the
following lines: “My dear Miss Wetherell, I should be greatly obliged if
you would find it convenient to call at my house at eight o'clock this
evening,” and signed them, “Sincerely Yours.” He sealed them up in an
envelope and addressed it to Miss Wetherell, at the schoolhouse; and
handed it to Mr. Flint. That gentleman got as far as the door, and then
he hesitated and turned.
“There is just one way out of this for you, that I can see, Mr.
Worthington,” he said. “It's a desperate measure, but it's worth
thinking about.”
“What's that?”
It took some courage for Mr. Flint, to make the suggestion. “The girl's
a good girl, well educated, and by no means bad looking. Bob might do a
thousand times worse. Give your consent to the marriage, and Jethro Bass
will go back to Coniston.”
It was wisdom such as few lords get from their seneschals, but Isaac D.
Worthington did not so recognize it. His anger rose and took away his
breath as he listened to it.
“I will never give my consent to it, never--do you hear?--never. Send
that note!” he cried.
Mr. Flint walked out, sent the note, and returned and took his place
silently at his own table. He was a man of concentration, and he put his
mind on the arguments he was composing to certain political leaders. Mr.
Worthington merely pretended to work as he waited for the answer to come
back. And presently, when it did come back, he tore it open and read
it with an expression not often on his lips. He flung the paper at Mr.
Flint.
“Read that,” he said.
This is what Mr. Flint read: “Miss Wetherell begs to inform Mr. Isaac D.
Worthington that she can have no communication or intercourse with him
whatsoever.”
Mr. Flint handed it back without a word. His opinion of the
school-teacher had risen mightily, but he did not say so. Mr.
Worthington took the note, too, without a word. Speech was beyond him,
and he crushed the paper as fiercely as he would have liked to have
crushed Cynthia, had she been in his hands.
One accomplishment which Cynthia had learned at Miss Sadler's school was
to write a letter in the third person, Miss Sadler holding that there
were occasions when it was beneath a lady's dignity to write a direct
note. And Cynthia, sitting at her little desk in the schoolhouse during
her recess, had deemed this one of the occasions. She could not bring
herself to write, “My dear Mr. Worthington.” Her anger, when the note
had been handed to her, was for the moment so great that she could not
go on with her classes; but she had controlled it, and compelled Silas
to stand in the entry until recess, when she sat with her pen in her
hand until that happy notion of the third person occurred to her.
And after Silas had gone she sat still; though trembling a little at
intervals, picturing with some satisfaction Mr. Worthington's appearance
when he received her answer. Her instinct told her that he had received
his son's letter, and that he had sent for her to insult her. By sending
for her, indeed, he had insulted her irrevocably, and that is why she
trembled.
Poor Cynthia! her troubles came thick and fast upon her in those days.
When she reached home, there was the letter which Ephraim had left
on the table addressed in the familiar, upright handwriting, and when
Cynthia saw it, she caught her hand sharply at her breast, as if the
pain there had stopped the beating of her heart. Well it was for Bob's
peace of mind that he could not see her as she read it, and before she
had come to the end there were drops on the sheets where the purple ink
had run. How precious would have been those drops to him! He would
never give her up. No mandate or decree could separate them--nothing
but death. And he was happier now so he told her--than he had been for
months: happy in the thought that he was going out into the world to win
bread for her, as became a man. Even if he had not her to strive for, he
saw now that such was the only course for him. He could not conform.
It was a manly letter,--how manly Bob himself never knew. But Cynthia
knew, and she wept over it and even pressed it to her lips--for there
was no one to see. Yes, she loved him as she would not have believed it
possible to love, and she sat through the afternoon reading his words
and repeating them until it seemed that he were there by her side,
speaking them. They came, untrammelled and undefiled, from his heart
into hers.
And now that he had quarrelled with his father for her sake, and was
bent with all the determination of his character upon making his own way
in the world, what was she to do? What was her duty? Not one letter
of the twoscore she had received (so she kept their count from day to
day)--not one had she answered. His faith had indeed been great. But
she must answer this: must write, too, on that subject of her dismissal,
lest it should be wrongly told him. He was rash in his anger, and
fearless; this she knew, and loved him for such qualities as he had.
She must stay in Brampton and do her work,--so much was clearly her
duty, although she longed to flee from it. And at last she sat down and
wrote to him. Some things are too sacred to be set forth on a printed
page, and this letter is one of those things. Try as she would, she
could not find it in her heart at such a time to destroy his hope,--or
her own. The hope which she would not acknowledge, and the love which
she strove to conceal from him seeped up between the words of her letter
like water through grains of sand. Words, indeed, are but as grains of
sand to conceal strong feelings, and as Cynthia read the letter over she
felt that every line betrayed her, and knew that she could compose no
lines which would not.
She said nothing of the summons which she had received that morning,
or of her answer; and her account of the matter of the dismissal and
reinstatement was brief and dignified, and contained no mention of Mr.
Worthington's name or agency. It was her duty, too, to rebuke Bob for
the quarrel with his father, to point out the folly of it, and the
wrong, and to urge him as strongly as she could to retract, though she
felt that all this was useless. And then--then came the betrayal of
hope. She could not ask him never to see her again, but she did beseech
him for her sake, and for the sake of that love which he had declared,
not to attempt to see her: not for a year, she wrote, though the word
looked to her like eternity. Her reasons, aside from her own scruples,
were so obvious, while she taught in Brampton, that she felt that he
would consent to banishment--until the summer holidays in July, at
least: and then she would be in Coniston,--and would have had time to
decide upon future steps. A reprieve was all she craved,--a reprieve
in which to reflect, for she was in no condition to reflect now. Of one
thing she was sure, that it would not be right at this time to encourage
him although she had a guilty feeling that the letter had given him
encouragement in spite of all the prohibitions it contained. “If, in the
future years,” thought Cynthia, as she sealed the envelope, “he persists
in his determination, what then?” You, Miss Lucretia, of all people in
the world, have planted the seeds with your talk about Genesis!
The letter was signed “One who will always remain your friend, Cynthia
Wetherell.” And she posted it herself.
When Ephraim came home to supper that evening, he brought the Brampton
Clarion, just out, and in it was an account of Miss Lucretia Penniman's
speech at the mass meeting, and of her visit, and of her career. It was
written in Mr. Page's best vein, and so laudatory was it that we shall
have to spare Miss Lucretia in not repeating it here: yes, and omit
the encomiums, too, on the teacher of the Brampton lower school. Mr.
Worthington was not mentioned, and for this, at least, Cynthia drew
along breath of relief, though Ephraim was of the opinion that the
first citizen should have been scored as he deserved, and held up to the
contempt of his fellow-townsmen. The dismissal of the teacher, indeed,
was put down to a regrettable misconception on the part of “one of the
prudential committee,” who had confessed his mistake in “a manly and
altogether praiseworthy speech.” The article was as near the truth,
perhaps, as the Clarions may come on such matters--which is not very
near. Cynthia would have been better pleased if Mr. Page had spared
his readers the recital of her qualities, and she did not in the least
recognize the paragon whom Miss Lucretia had befriended and defended.
She was thankful that Mr. Page did pot state that the celebrity had come
up from Boston on her account. Miss Penniman had been “actuated by a
sudden desire to see once more the beauties of her old home, to look
into the faces of the old friends who had followed her career with such
pardonable pride.” The speech of the president of the literary club,
you may be sure, was printed in full, for Mr. Ives himself had taken the
trouble to write it out for the editor--by request, of course.
Cynthia turned over the sheet, and read many interesting items: one
concerning the beauty and fashion and intellect which attended the party
at Mr. Gamaliel Ives's; in the Clovelly notes she saw that Miss Judy
Hatch, of Coniston, was visiting relatives there; she learned the output
of the Worthington Mills for the past week. Cynthia was about to fold up
the paper and send it to Miss Lucretia, whom she thought it would amuse,
when her eyes were arrested by the sight of a familiar name.
“Jethro Bass come to life again.
From the State Tribune.”
That was the heading. “One of the greatest political surprises in many
years was the arrival in the capital on Wednesday of Judge Bass, whom
it was thought, had permanently retired from politics. This, at least,
seems to have been the confident belief of a faction in the state who
have at heart the consolidation of certain lines of railroads. Judge
Bass was found by a Tribune reporter in the familiar Throne Room at the
Pelican, but, as usual, he could not be induced to talk for publication.
He was in conference throughout the afternoon with several well-known
leaders from the North Country. The return of Jethro Bass to activity
seriously complicates the railroad situation, and many prominent
politicians are freely predicting to-night that, in spite of the
town-meeting returns, the proposed bill for consolidation will not go
through. Judge Bass is a man of such remarkable personality that he has
regained at a stroke much of the influence that he lost by the sudden
and unaccountable retirement which electrified the state some months
since. His reappearance, the news of which was the one topic in all
political centres yesterday, is equally unaccountable. It is hinted that
some action on the part of Isaac D. Worthington has brought Jethro Bass
to life. They are known to be bitter enemies, and it is said that
Jethro Bass has but one object in returning to the field--to crush the
president of the Truro Railroad. Another theory is that the railroads
and interests opposed to the consolidation have induced Judge Bass
to take charge of their fight for them. All indications point to the
fiercest struggle the state has ever seen in June, when the Legislature
meets. The Tribune, whose sentiments are well known to be opposed to
the iniquity of consolidation, extends a hearty welcome to the judge. No
state, we believe, can claim a party leader of a higher order of ability
than Jethro Bass.”
Cynthia dropped the paper in her lap, and sat very still. This, then,
was what happened when Jethro had heard of her dismissal--he had left
Coniston without writing her a word and passed through Brampton without
seeing her. He had gone back to that life which he had abandoned for her
sake; the temptation had been too strong, the desire for vengeance too
great. He had not dared to see her. And yet the love for her which had
been strong enough to make him renounce the homage of men, and even
incur their ridicule, had incited him to this very act of vengeance.
What should she do now, indeed? Had those peaceful and happy Saturdays
and Sundays in Coniston passed away forever? Should she follow him to
the capital and appeal to him? Ah no, she felt that were a useless pain
to them both. She believed, now, that he had gone away from her for all
time, that the veil of limitless space was set between, them. Silently
she arose,--so silently that Ephraim, dozing by the fire, did not awake.
She went into her own room and wept, and after many hours fell into a
dreamless sleep of sheer exhaustion.
The days passed, and the weeks; the snow ran from the brown fields, and
melted at length even in the moist crotches under the hemlocks of the
northern slopes; the robin and bluebird came, the hillsides were mottled
with exquisite shades of green, and the scent of fruit blossom and balm
of Gilead was in the air. June came as a maiden and grew into womanhood.
But Jethro Bass did not return to Coniston.