We are back in Brampton, owning, as we do, an annual pass over the Truro
Railroad. Cynthia has been there all the summer, and as it is now the
first of September, her school has begun again. I do not by any means
intend to imply that Brampton is not a pleasant place to spend the
summer: the number of its annual visitors is a refutation of that; but to
Cynthia the season had been one of great unhappiness. Several times Lem
Hallowell had stopped the stage in front of Ephraim's house to beg her to
go to Coniston, and Mr. Satterlee had come himself; but she could not
have borne to be there without Jethro. Nor would she go to Boston, though
urged by Miss Lucretia; and Mrs. Merrill and the girls had implored her
to join them at a seaside place on the Cape.
Cynthia had made a little garden behind Ephraim's house, and she spent
the summer there with her flowers and her books, many of which Lem had
fetched from Coniston. Ephraim loved to sit there of an evening and smoke
his pipe and chat with Ezra Graves and the neighbors who dropped in.
Among these were Mr. Gamaliel Ives, who talked literature with Cynthia;
and Lucy Baird, his wife, who had taken Cynthia under her wing. I wish I
had time to write about Lucy Baird. And Mr. Jonathan Hill came--his
mortgage not having been foreclosed, after all. When Cynthia was alone
with Ephraim she often read to him,--generally from books of a martial
flavor,--and listened with an admirable hypocrisy to certain narratives
which he was in the habit of telling.
They never spoke of Jethro. Ephraim was not a casuist, and his sense of
right and wrong came largely through his affections. It is safe to say
that he never made an analysis of the sorrow which he knew was afflicting
the girl, but he had had a general and most sympathetic understanding of
it ever since the time when Jethro had gone back to the capital; and
Ephraim never brought home his Guardian or his Clarion now, but read them
at the office, that their contents might not disturb her.
No wonder that Cynthia was unhappy. The letters came, almost every day,
with the postmark of the town in New Jersey where Mr. Broke's locomotive
works were; and she answered them now (but oh, how scrupulously!), though
not every day. If the waters of love rose up through the grains of sand,
it was, at least, not Cynthia's fault. Hers were the letters of a friend.
She was reading such and such a book--had he read it? And he must not
work too hard. How could her letters be otherwise when Jethro Bass, her
benefactor, was at the capital working to defeat and perhaps to ruin
Bob's father? when Bob's father had insulted and persecuted her? She
ought not to have written at all; but the lapses of such a heroine are
very rare, and very dear.
Yes, Cynthia's life was very bitter that summer, with but little hope on
the horizon of it. Her thoughts were divided between Bob and Jethro. Many
a night she lay awake resolving to write to Jethro, even to go to him,
but when morning came she could not bring herself to do so. I do not
think it was because she feared that he might believe her appeal would be
made in behalf of Bob's father. Knowing Jethro as she did, she felt that
it would be useless, and she could not bear to make it in vain; if the
memory of that evening in the tannery shed would not serve, nothing would
serve. And again--he had gone to avenge her.
It was inevitable that she should hear tidings from the capital. Isaac
Worthington's own town was ringing with it. And as week after week of
that interminable session went by, the conviction slowly grew upon
Brampton that its first citizen had been beaten by Jethro Bass. Something
of Mr. Worthington's affairs was known: the mills, for instance, were not
being run to their full capacity. And then had come the definite news
that Mr. Worthington was beaten, a local representative having arrived
straight from the rotunda. Cynthia overheard Lem Hallowell telling it to
Ephraim, and she could not for the life of her help rejoicing, though she
despised herself for it. Isaac Worthington was humbled now, and Jethro
had humbled him to avenge her. Despite her grief over his return to that
life, there was something to compel her awe and admiration in the way he
had risen and done this thing after men had fallen from him. Her mother
had had something of these same feelings, without knowing why.
People who had nothing but praise for him before were saying hard things
about Isaac Worthington that night. When the baron is defeated, the serfs
come out of their holes in the castle rock and fling their curses across
the moat. Cynthia slept but little, and was glad when the day came to
take her to her scholars, to ease her mind of the thoughts which tortured
it.
And then, when she stopped at the post-office to speak to Ephraim on her
way homeward in the afternoon, she heard men talking behind the
partition, and she stood, as one stricken, listening beside the window.
Other tidings had come in the shape of a telegram. The first rumor had
been false. Brampton had not yet received the details, but the
Consolidation Bill had gone into the House that morning, and would be a
law before the week was out. A part of it was incomprehensible to
Cynthia, but so much she had understood. She did not wait to speak to
Ephraim, and she was going out again when a man rushed past her and
through the partition door. Cynthia paused instinctively, for she
recognized him as one of the frequenters of the station and a bearer of
news.
"Jethro's come home, boys," he shouted; "come in on the four o'clock, and
went right off to Coniston. Guess he's done for, this time, for certain.
Looks it. By Godfrey, he looks eighty! Callate his day's over, from the
way the boys talked on the train."
Cynthia lingered to hear no more, and went out, dazed, into the September
sunshine: Jethro beaten, and broken, and gone to Coniston. Resolution
came to her as she walked. Arriving home, she wrote a little note and
left it on the table for Ephraim; and going out again, ran by the back
lane to Mr. Sherman's livery stable behind the Brampton House, and in
half an hour was driving along that familiar road to Coniston, alone; for
she had often driven Jethro's horses, and knew every turn of the way. And
as she gazed at the purple mountain through the haze and drank in the
sweet scents of the year's fulness, she was strangely happy. There was
the village green in the cool evening light, and the flagstaff with its
tip silvered by the departing sun. She waved to Rias and Lem and Moses at
the store, but she drove on to the tannery house, and hitched the horse
at the rough granite post, and went in, and through the house, softly, to
the kitchen.
Jethro was standing in the doorway, and did not turn. He may have thought
she was Millicent Skinner. Cynthia could see his face. It was older,
indeed, and lined and worn, but that fearful look of desolation which she
had once surprised upon it, and which she in that instant feared to see,
was not there. Jethro's soul was at peace, though Cynthia could not
understand why it was so. She stole to him and flung her arms about his
neck, and with a cry he seized her and held her against him for I know
not how long. Had it been possible to have held her there always, he
would never have let her go. At last he looked down into her tear-wet
face, into her eyes that were shining with tears.
"D-done wrong, Cynthy."
Cynthia did not answer that, for she remembered how she, too, had exulted
when she had believed him to have accomplished Isaac Worthington's
downfall. Now that he had failed, and she was in his arms, it was not for
her to judge--only to rejoice.
"Didn't look for you to come back--didn't expect it."
"Uncle Jethro!" she faltered. Love for her had made him go, and she would
not say that, either.
"D-don't hate me, Cynthy--don't hate me?"
She shook her head.
"Love me--a little?"
She reached up her hands and brushed back his hair, tenderly, from his
forehead. Such--a loving gesture was her answer.
"You are going to stay here always, now," she said, in a low voice, "you
are never going away again."
"G-goin' to stay always," he answered. Perhaps he was thinking of the
hillside clearing in the forest--who knows! "You'll come-sometime,
Cynthy--sometime?"
"I'll come every Saturday and Sunday, Uncle Jethro," she said, smiling up
at him. "Saturday is only two days away, now. I can hardly wait."
"Y-you'll come sometime?"
"Uncle Jethro, do you think I'll be away from you, except--except when I
have to?"
"C-come and read to me--won't you--come and read?"
"Of course I will!"
"C-call to mind the first book you read to me, Cynthy?"
"It was 'Robinson Crusoe,'" she said.
"'R-Robinson Crusoe.' Often thought of that book. Know some of it by
heart. R-read it again, sometime, Cynthy?"
She looked up at him a little anxiously. His eyes were on the great hill
opposite, across Coniston Water.
"I will, indeed, Uncle Jethro, if we can find it," she answered.
"Guess I can find it," said Jethro. "R-remember when you saw him makin' a
ship?"
"Yes," said Cynthia, "and I had my feet in the pool."
The book had made a profound impression upon Jethro, partly because
Cynthia had first read it to him, and partly for another reason. The
isolation of Crusoe; depicted by Defoe's genius, had been comparable to
his own isolation, and he had pondered upon it much of late. Yes, and
upon a certain part of another book which he had read earlier in life:
Napoleon had ended his days on St. Helena.
They walked out under the trees to the brook-side and stood listening to
the tinkling of the cowbells in the wood lot beyond. The light faded
early on these September evenings, and the smoky mist had begun to rise
from the water when they turned back again. The kitchen windows were
already growing yellow, and through them the faithful Millicent could be
seen bustling about in her preparations for supper. But Cynthia, having
accomplished her errand, would not go in. She could not have borne to
have any one drive back with her to Brampton then, and she must not be
late upon the road.
"I will come Friday evening, Uncle Jethro," she said, as she kissed him
and gave one last, lingering look at his face. Had it been possible, she
would not have left him, and on her way to Brampton through the gathering
darkness she mused anxiously upon that strange calmness he had shown
after defeat.
She drove her horse on to the floor of Mr. Sherman's stable, that
gentleman himself gallantly assisting her to alight, and walked homeward
through the lane. Ephraim had not yet returned from the postoffice, which
did not close until eight, and Cynthia smiled when she saw the utensils
of his cooking-kit strewn on the hearth. In her absence he invariably
unpacked and used it, and of course Cynthia at once set herself to
cleaning and packing it again. After that she got her own supper--a very
simple affair--and was putting the sitting room to rights when Ephraim
came thumping in.
"Well, I swan!" he exclaimed when he saw her. "I didn't look for you to
come back so soon, Cynthy. Put up the kit--hev you?" He stood in front of
the fireplace staring with apparent interest at the place where the kit
had been, and added in a voice which he strove to make quite casual, "How
be Jethro?"
"He looks older, Cousin Eph," she answered, after a pause, "and I think
he is very tired. But he seems he seems more tranquil and contented than
I hoped to find him."
"I want to know," said Ephraim. "I am glad to hear it. Glad you went up,
Cynthy--you done right to go.
"I'd have gone with you, if you'd only told me. I'll git a chance to go
up Sunday."
There was an air of repressed excitement about the veteran which did not
escape Cynthia. He held two letters in his hand, and, being a postmaster,
he knew the handwriting on both. One had come from that place in New
Jersey, and drew no comment. But the other! That one had been postmarked
at the capital, and as he had sat at his counter at the post-office
waiting for closing time he bad turned it over and over with many
ejaculations and futile guesses. Past master of dissimulation that he
was, he had made up his mind--if he should find Cynthia at home--to lay
the letters indifferently on the table and walk into his bedroom. This
campaign he now proceeded to carry out.
Cynthia smiled again when he was gone, and shook her head and picked up
the letters: Bob's was uppermost and she read that first, without a
thought of the other one. And she smiled as she read for Bob had had a
promotion. He was not yet at the head of the locomotive works, he
hastened to add, for fear that Cynthia might think that Mr. Broke had
resigned the presidency in his favor; and Cynthia never failed to laugh
at these little facetious asides. He was now earning the princely sum of
ninety dollars a month--not enough to marry on, alas! On Saturday nights
he and Percy Broke scrubbed as much as possible of the grime from their
hands and faces and went to spend Sunday at Elberon, the Broke place on
the Hudson; from whence Miss Sally Broke, if she happened to be at home,
always sent Cynthia her love. As Cynthia is still a heroine, I shall not
describe how she felt about Sally Broke's love. There was plenty of Bob's
own in the letter. Cynthia would got have blamed him if he bad fallen in
love with Miss Broke. It seemed to her little short of miraculous that,
amidst such surroundings, he could be true to her.
After a period which was no briefer than that usually occupied by Bob's
letters, Cynthia took the other one from her lap, and stared at it in
much perplexity before she tore it open. We have seen its contents over
Mr. Worthington's shoulder, and our hearts will not stop beating--as
Cynthia's did. She read it twice before the full meaning of it came to
her, and after that she could not well mistake it,--the language being so
admirable in every way. She sat very still for a long while, and
presently she heard Ephraim go out. But Cynthia did not move. Mr.
Worthington relented and Bob recalled! The vista of happiness suddenly
opened up, widened and widened until it was too bright for Cynthia's
vision, and she would compel her mind to dwell on another prospect,--that
of the father and son reconciled. Although her temples throbbed, she
tried to analyze the letter. It implied that Mr. Worthington had allowed
Bob to remain away on a sort of probation; it implied that it had been
dictated by a strong paternal love mingled with a strong paternal
justice. And then there was the appeal to her: "You will look with
indulgence upon any acts of mine which sprang from a natural solicitation
for the welfare and happiness of my only child." A terrible insight is
theirs to whom it is given to love as Cynthia loved.
Suddenly there came a knock which frightened her, for her mind was
running on swiftly from point to point: had, indeed, flown as far as
Coniston by now, and she was thinking of that strange look of peace on
Jethro's face which had troubled her. One letter she thrust into her
dress, but the other she laid aside, and her knees trembled under her as
she rose and went into the entry and raised the latch and opened the
door. There was a moon, and the figure in the frock coat and the silk hat
was the one which she expected to see. The silk hat came off very
promptly.
"I hope I am not disturbing you, Miss Wetherell," said the owner of it.
"No," answered Cynthia, faintly.
"May I come in?"
Cynthia held open the door a little wider, and Mr. Worthington walked in.
He seemed very majestic and out of place in the little house which
Gabriel Post had built, and he carried into it some of the atmosphere of
the walnut and high ceilings of his own mansion. His manner of laying his
hat, bottom up, on the table, and of unbuttoning his coat, subtly
indicated the honor which he was conferring upon the place. And he eyed
Cynthia, standing before him in the lamplight, with a modification of the
hawk-like look which was meant to be at once condescending and
conciliatory. He did not imprint a kiss upon her brow, as some
prospective fathers-in-law would have done. But his eyes, perhaps
involuntarily, paid a tribute to her personal appearance which heightened
her color. She might not, after all, be such a discredit to the
Worthington family.
"Won't you sit down?" she asked.
"Thank you, Cynthia," he said; "I hope I may now be allowed to call you
Cynthia?"
She did not answer him, but sat down herself, and he followed her
example; with his eyes still upon her.
"You have doubtless received my letter," began Mr. Worthington. "I only
arrived in Brampton an hour ago, but I thought it best to come to you at
once, under the circumstances."
"Yes," replied Cynthia, "I received the letter."
"I am glad," said Mr. Worthington. He was beginning to be a little taken
aback by her calmness and her apparent absence of joy. It was scarcely
the way in which a school-teacher should receive the advances of the
first citizen, come to give a gracious consent to her marriage with his
son. Had he known it, Cynthia was anything but calm. "I am glad," he
said, "because I took pains to explain the exact situation in that
letter, and to set forth my own sentiments. I hope you understood them."
"Yes, I understood them," said Cynthia, in a low tone.
This was enigmatical, to say the least. But Mr. Worthington had come with
such praiseworthy intentions that he was disposed to believe that the
girl was overwhelmed by the good fortune which had suddenly overtaken
her. He was therefore disposed to be a little conciliatory.
"My conduct may have appeared harsh to you," he continued. "I will not
deny that I opposed the matter at first. Robert was still in college, and
he has a generous, impressionable nature which he inherits from his poor
mother--the kind of nature likely to commit a rash act which would ruin
his career. I have since become convinced that he has--ahem--inherited
likewise a determination of purpose and an ability to get on in the world
which I confess I had underestimated. My friend, Mr. Broke, has written
me a letter about him, and tells me that he has already promoted him."
"Yes," said Cynthia.
"You hear from him?" inquired Mr. Worthington, giving her a quick glance.
"Yes," said Cynthia, her color rising a little.
"And yet," said Mr. Worthington, slowly, "I have been under the
impression that you have persistently refused to marry him."
"That is true," she answered.
"I cannot refrain from complimenting you, Cynthia, upon such rare
conduct," said he. "You will be glad to know that it has contributed more
than anything else toward my estimation of your character, and has
strengthened me in my resolution that I am now doing right. It may be
difficult for you to understand a father's feelings. The complete
separation from my only son was telling on me severely, and I could not
forget that you were the cause of that separation. I knew nothing about
you, except--" He hesitated, for she had turned to him.
"Except what?" she asked.
Mr. Worthington coughed. Mr. Flint had told him, that very morning, of
her separation from Jethro, and of the reasons which people believed had
caused it. Unfortunately, we have not time to go into that conversation
with Mr. Flint, who had given a very good account of Cynthia indeed.
After all (Mr. Worthington reflected), he had consented to the marriage,
and there was no use in bringing Jethro's name into the conversation.
Jethro would be forgotten soon.
"I will not deny to You that I had other plans for my son," he said. "I
had hoped that he would marry a daughter of a friend of mine. You must be
a little indulgent with parents, Cynthia," he added with a little smile,
"we have our castles in the air, too. Sometimes, as in this case, by a
wise provision of providence they go astray. I suppose you have heard of
Miss Duncan's marriage."
"No," said Cynthia.
"She ran off with a worthless Italian nobleman. I believe, on the whole,"
he said, with what was an extreme complaisance for the first citizen,
"that I have reason to congratulate myself upon Robert's choice. I have
made inquiries about you, and I find that I have had the pleasure of
knowing your mother, whom I respected very much. And your father, I
understand, came of very good people, and was forced by circumstances to
adopt the means of livelihood he did. My attention has been called to the
letters he wrote to the Guardian, which I hear have been highly praised
by competent critics, and I have ordered a set of them for the files of
the library. You yourself, I find, are highly thought of in Brampton" (a,
not unimportant factor, by the way); "you have been splendidly educated,
and are a lady. In short, Cynthia, I have come to give my formal consent
to your engagement to my son Robert."
"But I am not engaged to him," said Cynthia.
"He will be here shortly, I imagine," said Mr. Worthington.
Cynthia was trembling more than ever by this time. She was very angry,
and she had found it very difficult to repress the things which she had
been impelled to speak. She did not hate Isaac Worthington now--she
despised him. He had not dared to mention Jethro, who had been her
benefactor, though he had done his best to have her removed from the
school because of her connection with Jethro.
"Mr. Worthington," she said, "I have not yet made up my mind whether I
shall marry your son."
To say that Mr. Worthington's breath was taken away when he heard these
words would be to use a mild expression. He doubted his senses.
"What?" he exclaimed, starting forward, "what do you mean?"
Cynthia hesitated a moment. She was not frightened, but she was trying to
choose her words without passion.
"I refused to marry him," she said, "because you withheld your consent,
and I did not wish to be the cause of a quarrel between you. It was not
difficult to guess your feelings toward me, even before certain things
occurred of which I will not speak. I did my best, from the very first,
to make Bob give up the thought of marrying me, although I loved and
honored him. Loving him as I do, I do not want to be the cause of
separating him from his father, and of depriving him of that which is
rightfully his. But something was due to myself. If I should ever make up
my mind to marry him," continued Cynthia, looking at Mr. Worthington
steadfastly, "it will not be because your consent is given or withheld."
"Do you tell me this to my face?" exclaimed Mr. Worthington, now in a
rage himself at such unheard-of presumption.
"To your face," said Cynthia, who got more self-controlled as he grew
angry. "I believe that that consent, which you say you have given freely,
was wrung from you."
It was unfortunate that the first citizen might not always have Mr. Flint
by him to restrain and caution him. But Mr. Flint could have no command
over his master's sensations, and anger and apprehension goaded Mr.
Worthington to indiscretion.
"Jethro Bass told you this!" he cried out.
"No," Cynthia answered, not in the least surprised by the admission, "he
did not tell me--but he will if I ask him. I guessed it from your letter.
I heard that he had come back to-day, and I went to Coniston to see him,
and he told me--he had been defeated."
Tears came into her eyes at the remembrance of the scene in the tannery
house that afternoon, and she knew now why Jethro's face had worn that
look of peace. He had made his supreme sacrifice--for her. No, he had
told her nothing, and she might never have known. She sat thinking of the
magnitude of this thing Jethro had done, and she ceased to speak, and the
tears coursed down her cheeks unheeded.
Isaac Worthington had a habit of clutching things when he was in a rage,
and now he clutched the arms of the chair. He had grown white. He was
furious with her, furious with himself for having spoken that which might
be construed into a confession. He had not finished writing the letters
before he had stood self-justified, and he had been self-justified ever
since. Where now were these arguments so wonderfully plausible? Where
were the refutations which he had made ready in case of a barely possible
need? He had gone into the Pelican House intending to tell Jethro of his
determination to agree to the marriage. That was one. He had done
so--that was another--and he had written the letters that Jethro might be
convinced of his good will. There were still more, involving Jethro's
character for veracity and other things. Summoning these, he waited for
Cynthia to have done speaking, but when she had finished--he said
nothing. He looked a her, and saw the tears on her face, and he saw that
she had completely forgotten his presence.
For the life of him, Isaac Worthington could not utter a word. He was a
man, as we know, who did not talk idly, and he knew that Cynthia would
not hear what he said; and arguments and denunciations lose their effect
when repeated. Again, he knew that she would not believe him. Never in
his life had Isaac Worthington been so ignored, so put to shame, as by
this school-teacher of Brampton. Before, self-esteem and sophistry had
always carried him off between them; sometimes, in truth, with a
wound--the wound had always healed. But he had a feeling, to-night, that
this woman had glanced into his soul, and had turned away from it. As he
looked at her the texture of his anger changed; he forgot for the first
time that which he had been pleased to think of as her position in life,
and he feared her. He had matched his spirit against hers.
Before long the situation became intolerable to him, for Cynthia still
sat silent. She was thinking of how she had blamed Jethro for going back
to that life, even though his love for her had made him do it. But Isaac
Worthington did not know of what she was thinking--he thought only of
himself and his predicament. He could not remain, and yet he could not
go--with dignity. He who had come to bestow could not depart like a
whipped dog.
Suddenly a fear transfixed him: suppose that this woman, from whom he
could not hide the truth, should tell his son what he had done. Bob would
believe her. Could he, Isaac Worthington, humble his pride and ask her to
keep her suspicions to herself? He would then be acknowledging that they
were more than suspicions. If he did so, he would have to appear to
forgive her in spite of what she had said to him. And Bob was coming
home. Could he tell Bob that he had changed his mind and withdrawn his
consent to the marriage? There world be the reason, and again Bob would
believe her. And again, if he withdrew his consent, there was Jethro to
reckon with. Jethro must have a weapon still, Mr. Worthington thought,
although he could not imagine what it might be. As Isaac Worthington sat
there, thinking, it grew clear, to him at last that there was but one
exit out of a, very desperate situation.
He glanced at Cynthia again, this time appraisingly. She had dried her
eyes, but she made no effort to speak. After all, she would make such a
wife for his son as few men possessed. He thought of Sarah Hollingsworth.
She had been a good woman, but there had been many times when he had
deplored--especially in his travels the lack of other qualities in his
wife. Cynthia, he thought, had these qualities,--so necessary for the
wife of one who would succeed to power--though whence she had got them
Isaac Worthington could not imagine. She would become a personage; she
was a woman of whom they had no need to be ashamed at home or abroad.
Having completed these reflections, he broke the silence.
"I am sorry that you should have been misled into thinking such a thing
as you have expressed, Cynthia," he said, "but I believe that I can
understand something of the feelings which prompted you. It is natural
that you should have a resentment against me after everything that has
happened. It is perhaps natural, too, that I should lose my temper under
the circumstances. Let us forget it. And I trust that in the future we
shall grow into the mutual respect and affection which our nearer
relationship will demand."
He rose, and took up his hat, and Cynthia rose too. There was something
very fine, he thought, about her carriage and expression as she stood in
front of him.
"There is my hand," he said,--"will you take it?"
"I will take it," Cynthia answered, "because you are Bob's father."
And then Mr. Worthington went away.