TESSIBEL'S SECRET
Tessibel Skinner had been married to Frederick Graves for six long
weeks: She had become somewhat accustomed to the deception practiced on
Daddy Skinner, and Frederick was constantly allaying her fears and
misgivings by telling her that she belonged to him now; that she was his
darling, his joy, the better part of his life. Many times he assured her
between kisses that it wouldn't be necessary to keep the marriage secret
long. Each day, each hour, each minute, the girl-wife basked in the
thought of her young husband's love. She unfolded the hidden beauties of
her nature to him as spontaneously as the opening flower responds to the
genial warmth of the rising sun.
Early one morning Tessibel arose, a new light shining in her eyes.
Because Daddy Skinner was still abed, she started to the shore for
water. It was a glad, shining, diamond-studded earth that greeted the
view of the expectant girl; there was wonderful stillness everywhere,
and for some minutes she stood contemplating the scene before her. South
from the Hog Hole to the northern curve at Lansing, the lake was
dappled, its surface broken here and there by little capfuls of breeze,
which dimpled in the light, while the smooth spots reflected the blazing
glory of the morning sun. The leaves of the weeping willow tree swept
the rapt, upraised face, and Tess drew down about her head and shoulders
one of the thickest branches. These century-old trees were really a
vital part of her life--old loves to Tessibel, loves that had kept watch
over her since the day of her birth in the shanty.
[Illustration: "I WAS WONDERIN', LITTLE ONE, WHEN YOU SAY YOUR PRAYERS,
IF YOU'D PIPE ONE FOR ME"]
A brilliant flame flooded her face.... Frederick stood with her in
spirit nearness. What she would tell him that evening would be whispered
so low that not even the nesting birds could hear. She imagined the
tenderness with which he'd clasp her in his arms, and thrilled,
visualizing the darkening of his eyes. Tessibel was painting
pictures--her exalted soul running the gamut of joy.
What a wonder-world it was! What a glad, peaceful, new day, her first
real day of living--the beginning of life itself; Frederick's life and
her life! Now, of course, he would tell his mother they were
married--would take her to Daddy Skinner, and--and--She could plan no
farther just then. Her whole being was God-lifted. Even the waves
lapping at her feet seemed to speak the language of a world to come.
She dipped the pail into the lake slowly, filling it with water. Then
with a last sweeping glance over the golden-tinted waves, she returned
to the shanty. Daddy Skinner by this time was seated in his chair, his
grey face wearing an expression of misery.
"Ye air sicker this morning, honey, huh?" asked Tess anxiously, lifting
the pail to the table.
"Yep, brat, awful sick, but mebbe I'll feel better after a while."
"Yer coffee'll be ready quicker'n scat, dear," said the girl. "Flop on
my bed an' stretch out a minute. Tessibel'll get her daddy's breakfast."
Five minutes later she had fried the fish and made the coffee.
"I air goin' to give Daddy his eatin's first, Andy," she called up
through the hole in the ceiling.
"All right; sure, do, kid," assented the dwarf.
* * * * *
Daddy Skinner gradually felt better, and during the morning Tessibel's
youthful spirits rose by leaps and bounds. All through the day she
warbled out her happiness, lovingly bantering the two crippled men. Thus
the minutes crept on to eventide, to that hour on the ragged rocks with
Frederick.
She left the shanty early, that she might commune undisturbed for a time
with her dear wild world. Through the gloaming the dull sound of the cow
bells came distinctly from Kennedy's farm. The roosters were crowing a
last good-night to the sun. The monstrous shadows of the great forest
trees were going to sleep in the earth for another night. While the
daylight was fading, the girl sat relaxed against the rocks, her
unfathomable eyes contemplating the purple-spanned lake. She had drifted
into a reverie ... blissfully dreaming, with Frederick the foremost
figure of her dreams. The solemn descent of night ever signified the
mystery of his love to her. Now, from the fullness of her unalloyed joy,
she glanced up at the sky and blessed the whole world. In imagination
she deciphered the words the stars were forming. Stretched from pole to
pole, they lettered the heavens with the wonders of infinitude. In a
diadem of gold, "God is love" was written; from the unsearchable north
to the south where in their turn the slender rimming clouds sent it on
to the world beyond. "God is love," whispered the swaying trees, and
"God is love" came softly to the ear of the sensitive girl, as an echo
is flung back from the rocks and is sent home to its maker.
And even as Tess dreamed, the passion stars in their invisible courses
bent toward her. Impulsively she lifted her arms upward toward those
twinkling participants of her secret, emblems of the immeasurable glory
of her love for Frederick. By a simple turn, she could see the tree of
her old-time fancies, the familiar figure in the tall pine, with
swaying, majestic head and beckoning arms.
At that moment, she perceived Frederick making his way along the ragged
rocks. She could hear her heart's blood pulsing madly, striking at her
wrists, throbbing at her temples, making a race the length of her
quivering body. Now, she could see him plainly in the dim light, and a
smile deepened the dimple at each corner of her mouth. An indefinable
shyness kept her from running to him to tell her glad tidings. But what
made him walk so slowly and with hanging head? It wasn't like Frederick.
Something unusual had happened or he would not lag so in coming to her.
She was even more mystified at the peculiarity of his greeting. With
nerves as tautly drawn as fiddle strings, she remained very still. In
his own time he would tell her all about it. She lifted her arms, but
Frederick, unheeding, sank to the rocks beside her. She laid her hand
on his, expressing her love to him by the simple contact.
"Don't!" he said shortly. He drew away from the caressing fingers
impatiently. "I've come to tell you something."
"Well, here I air," answered Tess, quietly.
There was an exquisite tenderness in the young voice. In the white light
of the early evening Tessibel could see Frederick's brows fiercely drawn
together. Probably his mother was worse and that accounted for the
change in him. She became instantly all devotion.
"Air ye goin' to tell me about it, honey?" she entreated softly. "It'll
make ye feel better.... Tell Tessibel."
He turned away, and moved nervously until his shoulders were fitted into
a rock cavity; then, he dropped his head back with a prolonged sigh. It
was even more difficult than he had imagined.
"Of course I needn't tell you ... that I love you, need I, Tess?" he
stammered, after a while.
He could not assure her too many times of his affection. She leaned
against him, adoring, wrapped in the delight of his love as a water lily
is wrapped in its green sepals.
"I know it, dearest!" she murmured, much moved. "Ye tell me that every
day. But what else air ye--"
"You'll forgive me, and not be ... too unhappy?" Frederick interrupted
her anxiously.
Unhappy, while her whole being was transfused with ecstasy! Unhappy,
when his life and hers intermingled in one glad, glorious song of
inseparable unity! There never could be a diminution of her joy.
Frederick loved her! That was enough.
"There ain't nothin' I wouldn't forgive," she vowed, misty-eyed.
"But, Tess, I feel as though you won't forgive me this," sighed
Frederick. "But if you'll promise me--"
"I do--I will," she interjected, sitting up. "Why, of course, I'd
forgive ye anything."
Frederick dared not look at her. Even in the twilight he could feel her
eyes searching his face for an explanation.
"I need you to help me, Tessibel," he said at length.
Help him! Hadn't she ever been ready to help him? He had but to ask her.
She dropped her head against his arm again.
"Tell Tessibel," she urged, smiling.
One slender, girlish arm slipped lovingly about him. A set of small
fingers took his cold hand in a firm grasp.
"Tess loves ye, dear," came soothingly. "Now tell 'er, an' then ye'll be
happier."
Shame rose rampant in the boy's breast.
"I can't do it," he muttered under his breath.
But he knew all the time he would. The events of yesterday, culminating
with Waldstricker's brilliant offer, closed every other path. He
groaned, catching his lips tensely between his teeth. Some one had to
suffer, but the sacrifice must not touch his mother nor estrange the
Waldstrickers. That Madelene would be wronged by his action gave him
little concern. But at that moment to hurt the girl at his side; oh, how
he hated the bitter necessity! Conscious of the despicable part he was
playing, but having really decided, he drew himself from the girl's
arms. To gain a little more time, he thrust his fingers several times
through his damp hair.
"Tess," he hesitated, "you've promised you'd never tell about our being
married."
An encouraging touch turned the boy's twitching face to hers.
"An' I ain't never goin' to till ye let me," she asserted soothingly.
"Ye ain't lettin' that worry ye, darlin', eh?"
She encouraged him to answer by the tender cadence on the end of her
question.
"No, no, Tess!" Then desperately, "Oh, in God's name, how am I ever
going to get it out?"
Tessibel became suddenly terror-stricken. It must be something very
serious to force from him such language in such heart-rending tones. She
shivered nervously.
"You mustn't think for a moment, Tess," the boy burst forth, with
renewed courage, "that I don't love you! I shall love you always,
always."
"Always," echoed Tess, reassured. If Frederick loved her, nothing else
mattered. Perhaps his mother was--Her thought snapped in two at an
ejaculation from Frederick.
"And what I do is because--well, because--I must," he stammered. "You
understand that, don't you, sweetheart?"
"Sure," agreed Tess, puzzled.
"And nothing will ever be changed between you and me--"
"Nothin' can ever hurt us, Frederick," she interrupted quickly.
And Tess believed this to be the eternal truth. Faith the size of a
grain of mustard seed had piloted her through severe storms. Since Daddy
Skinner had been restored to her, that faith had grown to the size of
the mountain itself.
"I won't let it," went on the student, swiftly. "Neither must you. You
must trust me--you must believe! No, don't put your arms around my neck
till I've finished!... And then, oh, my little girl, I shan't let you
out of my arms, ever! ever!"
Greatly moved, he suddenly reached forth and drew her unresistingly to
him, smothering her hair, her eyes with kisses, clinging to her, as if
he would never, never let her go.
Her heart beat wildly against his.... And she loved him more than all
the world, and loved God more because of him.
But he released her almost immediately, and Tessibel sank back, sighing.
She was no longer nervously eager to divulge her secret. She waited
almost mechanically, as one waits for an advancing joy--as a hungry man
watches abundant preparation for the appeasing of his hunger. Hearing
him groan, she turned troubled eyes up to his.
"Daddy always says for to tell bad things quick!"
But this only served to call forth another deep breath of misery. After
a lapse of what seemed ages to the waiting girl, Frederick gathered
courage, and began,
"Tess, I've told you how very ill my mother is, haven't I?"
"Yes, an' I air awful sorry, dearie," she murmured.
The compassion he aroused subdued her voice to a whisper.
"And she's asked me to do something for her and I've--got to do it,
Tessibel," faltered Frederick.
"Sure ye have," Tess agreed.
"I didn't decide to do it, honey,"--Frederick was avoiding the vital
part--"until I saw how I could not let it make any difference to us. It
won't make any difference, dear heart!"
And Tess, already living in some distant day with full heart and full
arms, breathed.
"No, darlin', no difference to us.... 'Course not!"
"Oh, I'm glad, so glad to hear you say that!" said Frederick, relief in
his voice. "It won't be so dreadful, my sweet, if you trust me. And it
won't be long--perhaps a year, perhaps two years--"
Tessibel's muscles grew suddenly rigid.
"Years, ye say?" she repeated, stupefied. "What years? Why years?"
The resigned and submissive Tess changed instantly to an intense,
resolute woman, with compelling, fear-clouded eyes. Frederick, alarmed,
hastened to explain.
"You remember Madelene Waldstricker, don't you?"
Did she remember Madelene Waldstricker? Would she ever forget that one
night when he had treated her, his own wife, as though she were a
stranger?
"Sure, I remember 'er," she admitted, flushing. "What about 'er?"
Before replying, Frederick snatched her hand and kissed it.
"My mother.... Oh, Tessibel, it'll be all right--" He paused, then
finished despairingly, "My mother wants me to marry her!"
Tess caught the picture his words suggested; then recoiled as if death
in monstrous guise had appeared before her, open-armed. Incredulous
horror leapt alive in her eyes. He had said, "My mother wants me to
marry Madelene Waldstricker." But even though his mother had demanded
it, he couldn't! He wouldn't.... But he'd said he must!
Tess clenched her hands until the nails pressed into the flesh of her
palms. Her throat refused to yield a speaking voice, but something
screamed aloud within her as if a giant hand had clutched and torn her
soul.
"But ye air married to me," she got out at last, piteously.
Frederick put his arms about her.
"I know it, girlie dear!... I'm not denying that, but no one knows it
but us, just you and me, and I'm afraid ... I've got to do ... this ...
Mother ..."
"Oh, God, no!" shuddered Tess.
Oh, he couldn't mean to desert her now when she needed him so--needed
him more than she had even in those days when the shadow of the hateful
rope hung over her beloved father; even when Teola's child had been
thrust upon her, and Ben Letts had daily menaced her desolate life.
She was still for so long a time Frederick feared she'd fainted.
"Tess!" he spoke sharply.
"What?"
But it didn't sound like Tessibel's voice answering.
"Will you hear me out, dearest?" he pleaded. "Oh, won't you listen to
me?"
Surely she was listening intently. He had never spoken when she had not
given loving heed, if she were within the sound of his voice. Frederick
attempted to raise her face to his, but with a pathetic little word of
protest, she slipped from his arms, and fell face downward to the rocks.
The tortured boy would rather have had her scream, strike at him,
anything, than sink into that accusing, forlorn prostration!
"Tessibel! Tess!" he cried. "Whatever I do can't separate you and me. It
can't! I swear not to let it!"
He stooped and drew her gently to a sitting posture.
"No, I won't let it!" he reiterated excitedly. "I won't! No other woman
_could_ ever take your place. Can't you see, Tessibel? Can't you
understand what I'm telling you?"
"Nope," whispered Tess. "I ain't able to understand. Oh--" She lifted a
white, twitching face. "Oh, don't go 'way an' leave me! Not now--not
just yet!"
"But you said," he entreated, "you've always said, honey, you'd stand by
me, and you will, won't you? This is the only way you can help. You
will, dear, please!"
"I 'spose I air got to," she stammered, shivering. "Course I do
everything ye want me to. But--but--tell me ... why."
"It's just like this," Frederick explained reluctantly. "My mother
needs--money. She's got to have it. She's already borrowed a lot of
Waldstricker and ... even our lake place is mortgaged to him. His sister
loves me--"
The speaker felt the slender body recoil as from a blow.
"Tess!" he cried, "I don't love her. Oh, can't I get you to understand
anything? If you tremble that way, you'll drive me mad. I'm only going
to marry her.... Well, to pay the money, that's all."
He cut and clipped the words as though he hated them, yet finished his
explanation determinedly. As keenly as a darting flame, it burned into
Tessibel's soul.
"Tell me ... more," she breathed dizzily.
"It'll only mean you and I will be apart for a little while, Tess,"
stated Frederick. "When I get back home, I'm coming straight to you,
and--"
"She air lovin' ye, ye said?" interrupted Tess, huskily.
"But I don't love _her_, Tess!... I love only you!... You know that,
sweetheart!... You hear me, darling?"
"Yep, I hear," whispered the girl.
Frederick settled back against the rocks, drawing her into his arms.
"My father," he proceeded more calmly, "left us without any money. I
suppose I didn't realize how hard it's been for mother. She's only just
told me she'd mortgaged the lake place to Waldstricker and had borrowed
money from him. In a way I've been awfully selfish.... I've only thought
of you, dear."
Of course, now she couldn't tell him that intimate secret! If he knew,
he couldn't, he just couldn't do the thing his mother demanded; and she
had promised to help him. He had said it was the only way she could be
of any service, and her great love rose up and demanded the sacrifice.
Tess scarcely recognized her own voice when she next spoke.
"Did ye tell Madelene--I mean Miss Waldstricker--ye'd marry her?" she
asked.
"Well ... yes," stammered Frederick.
"And ye--ye--ye kissed 'er?... Oh, say ye didn't kiss 'er!... Ye didn't,
did ye?"
It was a plea to which Frederick would have given worlds to truthfuly
answer, "No." But his conscience, evidently sensitive in small matters,
compelled an almost inaudible, "Yes."
Raging jealousy, unendurable pain, arose within her.
"But ye couldn't--be married--to 'er, Frederick. It ain't possible, it
ain't!"
"I know I'm married to you," the boy assured her, swiftly. "I'd only be
married to her in the eyes of the world!"
The eyes of the world, the world through which she had so far walked
with proudly lifted head! Her dearly cherished love seemed to be
tumbling in ignominious ruins, and that very love had left her
defenseless. No one would ever know he belonged to her; that she
belonged to him. She would have to creep with bowed head in assumed
shame and disgrace even among the squatters.
"I'll die," she shivered, thinking of the coming spring.
His burning kisses stung her lips, through which his words tumbled one
over the other.
"You can't!... You shan't die!... Tess, you shan't! I'm only going away
for a little while.... You're mine, Tess, do you hear?... You've got to
live and love me always! You're mine! Oh, my love! Don't cry like
that!..."
The crushing strength of his arms hurt her. Suddenly another picture
shot across her brain, like a searing rocket. She clung to his arm as if
she feared that minute would snatch him from her. Then suppliantly she
lifted not only her face, but also her hands.
"Oh, she won't be like I air been to ye--like--like--"
Frederick heard the anguish in the agonized, girlish voice.
"Not like--not like I air been to ye, darlin'. Oh, God, not that!" she
cried again.
She waited in panting suspense for a fierce denial. Then she struggled
frantically in his embrace. All that was alive within her--all the
super-vitalized part of her soul--seemed scorched by the picture his
significant silence had painted.
"Let me go!" she demanded.
Frederick tightened his arms about her.
"Not yet, not yet! Stay here, rest here, my sweet."
But again seeing that image of the small woman in her place, Tess
struggled and freed herself.
"I air goin' to Daddy now," she whispered. "An' you can go home too,
please."
But he caught her again to his breast.
"You belong to me!" he cried intensely. "I won't go!--I'm going to stay,
Tessibel! I will--I will stay!"
Tess wrenched herself free.
"Ye c'n come again," she promised. "Some other time afore--"
Frederick caught her broken sentence and finished it.
"Yes, yes, Tessibel," he exclaimed. "I'll come back soon, very soon!"
"Sure, soon," quivered Tess, swaying, "go on, please!"
She flung up her hands, crying low in suppressed agony, as Frederick
whirled from her and walked rapidly away. He had not taken ten steps
before he was moved to go back, to take her again in his arms, but
thinking over all that had happened, of how hard it had been to flounder
through his explanation, he shut his teeth and went on.
With super-hearing, Tess listened until the sound of his footsteps died
in the lane.
He had gone--Frederick--her husband! Gone to another woman! No, that
couldn't be! He was hers always and forever. She sank down on the
rocks--on the dear, ragged rocks, where she had watched for him and
prayed for him, where life had been at its highest and best.
She tried to recall all he had said. Oh, yes, he was coming back. What
did he mean by coming back? When? She dully wondered if it would be
tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. Three days, perhaps,
three long, interminable days to think of him and to long for him. Could
she live three days? She sprang to her feet. She must see him
again--now--this minute; hear him unsay that awful thing. Why, he
couldn't belong to Madelene Waldstricker! Like a deer, Tess sped along
the rocks in the direction of the lane. A night bird brushed a slender
wing against her curls as he shot by her. To him she paid no heed save
to swerve a little.
Wildly, twice, three times she cried, "Frederick!"
An owl hooted a mocking response from the willow tree nearby.
"Frederick! Frederick!" rang through the night, out over the lake,
unanswered. He was gone! The realization of this brought the girl
crouching, shivering to the shore, where her feet were lapped by the
incoming waves. And there she lay, until as in a dream, a bewildered
dream, she heard Daddy Skinner's voice calling her. By a supreme effort
she gathered her senses together.
"I air comin', Daddy."
She stumbled through the night back to the shanty, her secret locked in
her breast.