_LOVE'S TUTORSHIP_
But those were happy days, as I have said already. Neither of us knew,
I fancy, whence came the silent music that was slowly gathering in our
hearts. But it was there, even though it came in secret strains,
neither recognizing, neither declaring. Of course, I was an engaged
girl--and I was trying to live up to it. I flaunted Charlie's ring,
sometimes; and I often wrote to him, sitting in the very same room with
Mr. Laird the while, at my own little desk in the corner. This itself
had been one of Charlie's Christmas presents. And I kept Charlie's
letters in the tiny drawer in the top, but I had so often been careless
about it that mother saw to it herself that it was kept securely
locked; I knew where the key was secreted--on the ledge above the
library door. Mother said I really ought to carry it on a little gold
chain around my neck; but I had no chain--and I never could bear to
have things concealed about my person. Mother never glanced at his
letters, of course--but I sometimes used to show her bits of mine after
I had written them, and mother would suggest a word here and there, a
little tenderer than the original, and I would stick them in like plums
in a pudding. Indeed--I may as well tell it--mother rewrote a part of
the one in which I kind of finally renounced any immediate prospect of
Europe and the yacht. She said no member of our family had ever been
so gifted with the pen as I--but that I was a little astray on the
facts. So she fixed my letter in a way to prevent it being very
final--for she said if it was ordained that I should go even yet, it
would be wrong to make it impossible. I fancied at the time that this
was a little like lending omnipotence a hand--but mother was an
old-time Calvinist, especially on the subject of me and Charlie, so I
presumed it must be all right to have it as she said.
I don't think any of them, and mother least of all, ever fancied that
Mr. Laird had the remotest connection with my engagement to Charlie.
For he was a minister--and that itself would be supposed to settle it
as far as I was concerned. Besides, he was a minister without a
church, a kind of free lance on a holiday. Then, too, we knew he was
poor; he never said so, but there are always certain signs; and he took
great care of his clothes, and seemed very cautious about money, except
when he came across some one who was very poor. And I'm sure we all
remembered, though we almost never spoke of it, that he had been a
shepherd, and that his father was still keeping sheep on the hills of
Scotland--it never seemed to embarrass him a bit to refer to this,
which we all thought very strange.
Then, on the other hand, we hadn't the slightest reason--for a long
time at least--to think he cared a single thing for me. Indeed, I was
just a little piqued about this; one evening I took some fresh flowers
to his room in the attic, and his diary was lying open on the table. I
don't know why--I have no excuses to make at all--but my eye fell on
the entry for the first day or two he had been with us. I only glanced
at it--any girl would, I think--to see what he said about us. And I
found references to uncle, and my mother, and Aunt Agnes--even to Lyn
and Moses more than once--but not a single word about me. I didn't
care a straw--only I had a good mind to take the violets down-stairs
with me again. But I didn't.
I have always fancied I would have been a good deal more interested if
I had thought he was engaged. But I soon made up my mind he wasn't,
although I had declared so stoutly to the contrary. For he never
seemed to want to be alone, especially in the twilight--and that's a
sure sign; and he left all his letters lying around after he had
written them; and when he sang, which he did very nicely, he preferred
"Scots Wha' Ha'e" to "Annie Laurie"; and he was never melancholy, and
never sighed--and he never asked the price of things you need for
house-keeping. So all these signs convinced me thoroughly.
I have already said he didn't seem to care a thing for me. And
yet--and yet! For one thing, he loved to hear me sing--and he taught
me two or three of the old psalms that were in a leather-bound book he
brought down-stairs one day. Then he seemed so happy when I said I
thought them beautiful. And he talked with me so gently and reasonably
about the darkey question that I finally came to admit he did right in
preaching in that coloured church. And I wondered why he cared for
what I thought at all. Besides all this, he tried to get my promise
that I would take a class in the Sunday-school after he was gone--and I
remember the gray kind of feeling I had inside of me when he spoke of
going away. I wouldn't promise, for I was about as fit to teach a
class as I was to be President of the United States--but I promised to
help in the library.
By and by, though I can't tell how, we even came to speaking about
Charlie. And he praised him, said he was such a clever business man,
and handsome. I didn't think much of that; but one evening, when we
were sitting on the shore all alone, he said he thought an engagement
was such a sacred thing--and he urged me, in a veiled kind of way,
always to be true to Charlie. And it was then I began to know--any
true girl would know there was something, when he talked like that.
And it was through that--that kind of conversation, I mean--that it all
came about. Because, by and by, I actually told him all about my
misgivings and my fears. Of course I did it all loyally enough--I
always praised Charlie, and always said I knew we'd likely be so happy
because he was, already--and I would try to be. And I told him one day
how Charlie was still urging me to consent that it should be soon,
right away soon--and any one would have thought, if they watched his
expression, that he was very concerned for Charlie's interests. For a
strange paleness came upon his face when he broke a silence that seemed
rather long, I fancy, to both of us.
"I think you should," he said, but his voice was so strange that I
wondered where all his strength had gone to.
"What makes you say that?" I replied, and I don't believe my own voice
was quite natural.
"Because I think you'd be happier," he answered--"and I want you to be
happy." Then, for the first time, he looked at me, and his wonderful
eyes were filled with a kind of yearning such as I never saw before.
So different, indeed, from the look in Charlie's eyes, though nobody
surely ever yearned more earnestly than Charlie.
"I'm about as happy now," I answered, "as any girl could hope to be."
He looked at me enquiringly, and I thought the paleness was deeper than
before.
"Just like I am, I mean," I hastened to enlarge, "with a lovely house,
and having a lovely time--and uncle and aunt and mother all so good to
me."
"It isn't the same," he said.
"The same as what?" I pressed, knowing I should not. But I remember
yet the thrill of peril and pain and joy that accompanied the words.
"The same as love--real love," he answered slowly. "It isn't the same
at all--the other is a new life altogether. That's what makes life
holy--and beautiful," he said, his voice so low I could scarcely hear.
"That's the whole of life--every bit of it," he added softly.
I answered never a word. And in a moment he went on. "Yes, that's my
highest wish for you, Miss Helen--that you may find a sphere worthy of
you. For you'll forgive me, won't you, when I say you haven't found it
yet? You've got a wonderful nature," he suddenly startled me with,
"and you've got gifts and qualities that can be so useful, so
wonderfully useful--and they can give you such deep happiness too," he
went earnestly on, "if they only get a chance--if you only give them a
chance; if they're developed, I mean. And nothing will ever ripen them
but--but that."
"But what?" murmured I, who knew right well.
"But love," he answered gently. "No woman's life ever really ripens
except through love. And--forgive me again, but I must say it--you're
not getting the most out of life, living as you are now, Miss Helen."
I looked at him searchingly. "As I am now?" I echoed. "Why, what kind
of life do you think I'm living?" But even as I spoke the words my own
poor heart provided all the answer. I felt rising up within me a
conception, not adequate or full, but quite sufficient at the time, of
the hollowness and barrenness of the poor frivolous life I was living.
And I knew, oh, so well, how far from the well-spring of real joy and
peace were the glittering streams at which I had sipped so long.
"What do you mean?" I urged, for he had not spoken.
"Oh," he began slowly, "I guess you know. Nobody can have a nature
like yours without knowing when it's not being satisfied. You have no
work--no calling, I mean. And you don't have any recreation, except
only pleasure--a little party here, and a picnic there, a card party
yonder, and an afternoon tea somewhere else. You know what I mean--all
those things--and a nature like yours can't live on confections," he
added, smiling. "That's why I'll be glad--when the other happens."
"What other?" repeated I, who knew right well again.
"You know," he said; and the great eyes looked solemnly and wistfully
into-mine.
"Do you mean when I marry Mr. Giddens?" said I, dwelling on the words,
my eyes never taken from his face.
"Yes," he said; "that's what I mean." And his own eyes never flinched,
although I could see the pallor deepen on his face. And I rejoiced,
though I honestly believe I scarce knew why.
"What difference would--would that make?" I asked, looking away.
"It would fill your life," he answered quietly, "fill your life to
overflowing."
"But I wouldn't give up those things even then--card-playing and
dancing and everything like that. I've always done those things--and I
love them, Mr. Laird. You don't understand me, I'm afraid. You see,
your life has been a very different one from mine, hasn't it?"
"Wide as the poles asunder," he answered without looking at me. "I
never knew any of those things. Yes, very different," he repeated.
And he smiled.
"Your parents are very religious people, I suppose?" I ventured.
"My mother's not living," he said in a hushed voice. "She died when I
was ten."
"And your father?" I asked in a burst of boldness.
"Yes," he said. We were sitting by the river at the time, and the sun
was setting, and its last rays bathed the trees with amber light. His
head was lying on the ground; and the dying sun shed its beauty on the
wavy hair and the wonderfully modulated face. Modulated is the fitting
word, for various voices spoke through the different features, yet the
master note was tenderness, always so lovable in a man when it is
joined to strength.
"I'd love to be religious," I said suddenly. "I believe I would have
been, too, if I'd been a man."
He smiled. "Why would you like to be religious?" he said, picking up a
pebble and throwing it far out into the river. "You've just said you
love those other things so much."
"Oh, yes, I know I did. But I mean what I say, just the same. I
admire that sort of people," I went on enthusiastically; "religious
people, you know. Really good people--like you," I broke out
recklessly. "I knew an awfully religious girl in Richmond once. She
was naturally good, no struggle for her at all. Well, she married a
minister,"--I laughed as I said it--"and nearly all her friends pity
her so. She and her husband live in the country, and he takes care of
his own horse--he has three stations. But I never pitied her," I
declared earnestly; "I think it must be a perfectly lovely life--when
your heart's in it. She loves him to distraction--and his work too;
and she visits the people, and she teaches in the Sunday-school.
Besides, she has two children--and I think he preaches all his sermons
at her on Saturday nights and she fixes them up. But then, of course,
she's fitted for that sort of thing--she can pray out loud," I
concluded, nodding my head towards Mr. Laird as though this were the
acme of all eulogy.
"There are better kinds of prayer than that," he answered, smiling
again; "and I'm so glad you don't pity her," he added, turning his
earnest eyes on me again.
"Why?" I could not help enquiring.
"Because I was afraid you would," he said meaningly--"and she doesn't
need it. Where two hearts are in love with each other and their
work--I wouldn't ask any higher heaven than that." Then he sighed;
although, as I have said, he wasn't much given to sighing.
Then came my question. For days I had been burning to ask it; yet I
marvel that I was ever bold enough to form the words.
"You talk like a specialist on that subject. Were you ever in love,
Mr. Laird?" I shot the words out quickly; otherwise they never would
have come.
He turned with swift movement and looked at me. It seemed to me he
looked me over from head to foot, though I knew he wouldn't do anything
so rude. The paleness was all gone now, I noticed, and I thought his
lip trembled a little. It was a moment before he spoke.
"You've been very kind in giving me your confidence, haven't you, Miss
Helen?" he asked, very gravely and slowly.
I stammered out my answer. "Forgive me, Mr. Laird," I began
penitently; "I had no right to say what I did. And if I've told you
anything about--about me and Charlie--it was only because it seemed
easy to do it--because I wanted to. Because I trusted you," I added,
wishing some one would suddenly appear.
But no one did, and Mr. Laird seemed so dreadfully calm. I was
waiting, intending to say something more, when he went serenely on.
"Well, I can trust you, too," he said; "and it seems easy to tell you.
And, anyhow, I don't know why I shouldn't. Yes, I was in love once,
long ago. And I was engaged to be married," he continued, in that same
tone of reverence with which he always spoke of matters such as this.
"But it's long ago now--it was while I was in my second year in the
university. And I had to give her up"--he smiled as he turned his eyes
on mine--"had to give her up for another man. Her father, like mine,
was a shepherd, and she was bright as a sunbeam and as pure as the
dewdrop in the dell--that's a line from an old Scotch song," he
interjected, smiling rather more broadly than I thought he should have
done in mid-narrative of a tragedy like that. "But a fellow came home
from across the sea--from Australia--and he was very rich."
"Did she give you up for him?" I asked, indignation in my voice.
"Not exactly," he answered; "but it amounted to that. She wrote and
asked me to release her; said she had found she loved him best."
"And you gave her up?"
"Certainly," he said, and I thought what a magnificent man he was;
"yes, what else could I do? Or what else could she do?"
"Didn't you hate her?"
"No, of course not--I think she did perfectly right. Anything else
would have been false to both of us. And they got married very soon
after--they have three bairns now," and I wondered how he could smile
such a happy kind of smile.
"And do you think," I said, "do you think any girl would be justified
in changing--if she found--if she found she loved somebody else?"
"Yes," he answered slowly. "Yes, I think she would. But she has no
right to find out anything of the sort--I would never find it out," he
concluded firmly.
"You wouldn't?--why wouldn't you?"
"Because I shouldn't," he said; "that's why I wouldn't--if I loved, I'd
love always."
"Would you have loved _her_ always?" I asked, wondering at my rashness.
"Yes," he said after a pause; "yes, if she had let me. Do you know, I
believe it's getting chilly--shall we go home?"
To which proposal I gave swift assent--outwardly, at least. And as we
walked along I marvelled at the restraint of the strong man beside me.
I knew, or felt, rather, that his heart was a molten mass of fire--I
couldn't have told why, but its burning heat was just as real to me as
anything could be. I knew it was aflame; but he was as reserved, and
cold, and strong, and silent as though we had been talking of something
that had nothing to do with human hearts at all. I hated myself for
the weakness I could not conceal. And I fairly loathed that Scotch
girl who married the rich Australian--and I hoped all her children had
flaming red hair, like I felt sure she had.
That same night I was chatting a while with uncle before he went to bed.
"And what is your majesty going to decide about Savannah--and the royal
yacht--and Europe?" he suddenly enquired, after our talk had run a
little on a kindred vein.
"I'm not going," I declared vehemently; "at least, not for a long
time--I simply can't."
"I wouldn't either," he said meaningly, "if I were you--you'll be a
fool if you do."
"Why?" demanded I.
"I reckon you know," said uncle; "if you don't, I won't tell you. And
I don't blame you, honey. I think he's a true blue sort of chap--but
he'll have to revise his views about the niggers."
Well, the result of the whole thing was this, that I spent a good half
hour posting my diary that night. I too had begun a diary by this
time--and I, too, took good care whose name shouldn't go into it. And
the outcome of my half hour's pondering was this brief entry: "Have
made up my mind that I can't marry Charlie--and I shall never, never
marry the Reverend Gordon Laird."
X
_THE RIVER LEADING TO THE SEA_
If there is one thing a girl loves more than another, it's being a
martyr. If there is any such thing as sweet sorrow, that's where it
may be found. And of all kinds of martyrdom the love kind is the
sweetest. Now in all this a woman is so different from a man. A man
enjoys the suffering that comes with love--if some one else does the
suffering; but a woman glories in it--if some one else does the loving.
And that was pretty much my case.
For I was having lots of love--from Charlie. This was all very well so
far as it went; nor can it be denied that it went a considerable way.
For every girl prizes a strong man's love, though she return it never
so faintly. Like some preachers, she highly esteems a call--even if
she has little or no thought of accepting it. But there is nothing,
nothing in all the world, so troublesome as love; unless it utterly
swamps you--then is the solution simple. But to have just enough to
marry on, with no surplus for the years--that's dreadful. That is like
launching some mighty ship when the tide is out--and it must be awful
to hear the keel grating on the sand.
Yes, that's where the martydom comes in, to recall the noble word with
which I began the chapter. And when the Judgment Day shall
dawn--concerning which I have no doubt, but much misgiving--the most
oft-repeated charge against our poor weak womanhood will be that we
sold ourselves for nought. Some of our loveliest will be the first to
learn, in that great day, how deadly was the barter of their
bodies--and of so much more. I have often heard uncle say that when a
horse is sold its halter always goes along--but no one ever told me
that when a girl sells her body, that sale includes the soul.
Reluctant, protesting, even horrified, it yet must cleave to its
tenement of clay and meet the tenant's doom. And what a doom! if it be
fitting destiny for those who have bartered the sanctity of life, some
for bread, some for home, some for gold, some for fame, some for
earthly station; and some, nobler these, for very hungriness of heart,
crying out for the nameless something that shall satisfy the soul.
I hardly know just how or when I resigned myself to such a martyrdom.
But I did. I decided to marry Charlie, right soon too--despite the
defiant vow I had registered in my diary that night. One thing I'm
sure of--and that is, that Europe and the yacht had mighty little to do
with it. But whether it was because I feared Charlie might throw
himself from the deck of the aforesaid yacht if I didn't marry him; or
whether I felt it was a matter of honour; or whether I knew it would
throw mother's life into eclipse; or whether I agreed with that
semi-intelligent philosopher who once said that all life was a gamble
in probabilities, or something of that sort, I cannot say. But anyhow,
one midnight hour, I drew my pen through the first half of that diary
vow, the part which declared I could never marry Charlie, and I left
uninjured the savage promise to myself that I would never, never marry
the Reverend Gordon Laird.
Besides, he had been horrid. Not in any positive sense, of course, for
Mr. Laird was such a perfect gentleman. And yet he was a gentleman
after a fashion I had never seen before. He was not in the least like
our Southern gallants; he couldn't bow like them, nor make pretty
speeches--and he wouldn't jump across the floor to pick up my
handkerchief, though I once saw him give Dinah a hand up the back steps
with a heavy block of ice that had slipped from her grasp and fallen to
the bottom. And he never brought me flowers, or candies, except some
wild violets he might sometimes pluck--and once he did give me some
molasses taffy, of which his reverence himself partook with almost
juvenile enthusiasm.
But he was scrupulously polite, and that's so hard for a girl to stand
if she's interested in a man at all. And he seemed so strong, and
self-possessed, that he was distant without meaning to be--the distance
of a sort of superiority, all the worse because you knew he wasn't
trying to make you realize it at all; and I had the intolerable feeling
that his world was an altogether different one from mine, and that he
was interested in things I didn't know about, yet which I felt might be
just as much mine as his if I only had a chance. As it was, however, I
was a good deal like a child standing knee high to some man whose face
was half hidden by the telescope to his eye; if he knew you were there
at all, you felt the very most he'd do would be to pat your head and
ask you if you'd lost your ball.
I don't know what finally decided me. But anyhow I wrote Charlie a
letter, and told him Yes. "Yes, right away," was the burden of what I
said, "as soon as I can get ready." I thought at the time what a cruel
term that was, "getting ready"--as if the milliner and dressmaker had
any part to play in that. All the world I would have given to have
known how to really "get ready" in my inmost heart and life. But I
wrote the letter, and sealed it, and kissed it on the outside--which I
felt was the proper thing to do--and then I placed it in the Bible on
my dressing-table, taking quite a pious satisfaction in the fancy.
Then I sat down and cried till my eyes were sore and the Bible all
stained with bitter tears. Later on, I told my mother; her joy was
quite enough for two, quite too much for me.
And I told Mr. Laird too. Some will ask why, and perhaps make merry
over that delicate reserve which Southern women pride themselves upon.
But let them ask, and let them make merry as they will. Besides, I had
already told Mr. Laird so much that it was surely natural enough for me
to tell him this. Moreover, was he not a minister--and what are they
for if not to be confided in?
So I told him I was going to post a letter. It was the gathering dusk,
for such a letter should never sure be launched in the garish light of
day. Then I told him what was in it, or, at least, told him enough to
let him know; for he was remarkably "quick in the uptake," to adopt a
phrase of his own countrymen; I think I referred, too, to his own
counsel in the matter.
He didn't speak for a little, nor could I see his face. But when he
did break the silence, it was to say he'd walk to the post-office with
me; he added that the exercise would do him good, since he hadn't had
much of an appetite for supper--which was, I thought, one of the
shabbiest speeches he could have framed. But I let him come.
"Why not row down?" he suddenly suggested as we came to the bend in the
road beside the river. Our boat-house, its door wide open, was at the
water's edge. "We can land within a square of the office," he enlarged.
I should have refused, I know; for the letter to Charlie was in my
hand. But I didn't. And I remember yet the sense of sweet
helplessness I felt as he turned and led the way to the boat-house. It
all comes back to me again. I stand once more alone, outside, while
the tall form disappeared within the low-roofed house. The sound of
pushing and rolling I hear again as the boat emerged slowly from its
home. The rattle of oars comes back, idly rolling to and fro in the
rocking skiff; the metallic chink as they were being adjusted in the
iron sockets; and the lapping waves, and the soft breath of evening,
and the distant noises of the drowsy town. I remember, too, that there
was neither moon nor star, the sky all veiled with the gentle haze that
often marks our Southern spring. He rowed; and I sat in the armchair
in the stern.
"You're going too far out," I said suddenly, for we were near the
middle of the river.
"I want to get a last look at the place," he said, "and one can see
better from out here. Doesn't the town look lovely in the dusk?--see
all those twinkling lights."
"Yes," I agreed, "it's beautiful. Why do you say that?" I asked,
trying to conceal the tremor in my voice.
"Say what?"
"What you said a moment ago--about a last look--why the last?"
"Because it is," he answered slowly, the oars hardly moving now. "I'm
going away."