The very next evening Robert Lloyd went to call on Ellen. As he
started out he was conscious of a strange sensation of shock, as if
his feet had suddenly touched firm ground. All these months since
Ellen had been working in the factory he had been vacillating. He
was undoubtedly in love with her; he did not for a moment cheat
himself as to that. When he caught a glimpse of her fair head among
the other girls, he realized how unspeakably dear she was to him.
Ellen never entered nor left the factory that he did not know it.
Without actually seeing her, he was conscious of her presence
always. He acknowledged to himself that there was no one like her
for him, and never would be. He tried to interest himself in other
young women, but always there was Ellen, like the constant refrain
of a song. All other women meant to him not themselves, but Ellen.
Womanhood itself was Ellen for his manhood. He knew it, and yet that
strain of utterly impassionate judgment and worldly wisdom which was
born in him kept him from making any advances to her. Now, however,
the radicalism of Risley had acted like a spur to his own
inclination. His judgment was in abeyance. He said to himself that
he would give it up; he would go to see the girl--that he would win
her if he could. He said to himself that she had been wronged, that
Risley was right about her, that she was good and noble.
As the car drew near the Brewsters, his tenderness seemed to
outspeed the electricity. The girl's fair face was plain before his
eyes, as if she were actually there, and it was idealized and haloed
as with the light of gold and precious stones. All at once, since he
had given himself loose rein, he overtook, as it were, the true
meaning of her. "The dear child," he thought, with a rush of
tenderness like pain--"the dear child. There she gave up everything
and went to work, and let us blame her, rather than have her father
blamed. The dear, proud child. She did that rather than seem to beg
for more help."
When Robert got off the car he was ready to fall at her feet, to
push between her and the roughness of life, between her and the
whole world.
He went up the little walk between the dry shrubs and rang the bell.
There was no light in the front windows nor in the hall. Presently
he heard footsteps, and saw a glimmer of light advancing towards him
through the length of the hall. There were muslin-curtained
side-lights to the door. Then the door opened, and little Amabel
Tenny stood there holding a small kerosene lamp carefully in both
hands. She held it in such a manner that the light streamed up in
Robert's face and nearly blinded him. He was dimly conscious of a
little face full of a certain chary innocence and pathos regarding
him.
"Is Miss Ellen Brewster at home?" asked Robert, smiling down at the
little thing.
"Yes, sir," replied Amabel.
Then she remained perfectly still, holding the lamp, as if she had
been some little sculptured light-bearer. She did not return his
smile, and she did not ask him in. She simply regarded him with her
sharp, innocent, illuminated face. Robert felt ridiculously
nonplussed.
"Did you say she was in, my dear?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," replied Amabel, then relapsed into silence.
"Can I see her?" asked Robert, desperately.
"I don't know," replied Amabel. Then she stood still, as before,
holding the lamp.
Robert began to wonder what he was to do, when he heard a woman's
voice calling from the sitting-room at the end of the hall, the door
of which had been left ajar:
"Amabel Tenny, what are you doin'? You are coldin' the house all
off! Who is it?"
"It's a man, Aunt Fanny," called Amabel.
"Who is the man?" asked the voice. Then, much to Robert's relief,
Fanny herself appeared.
She colored a flaming red when she saw him. She looked at Amabel as
if she had an impulse to shake her.
"Why, Mr. Lloyd, is it you?" she cried.
"Good-evening, Mrs. Brewster; is--is your daughter at home?" asked
Robert. He felt inclined to roar with laughter, and yet a curious
dismay was beginning to take possession of him.
"Yes, Ellen is at home," replied Fanny, with alacrity. "Walk in, Mr.
Lloyd." She was blushing and smiling as if she had been her own
daughter. It was foolish, yet pathetic. Although Fanny asked the
young man to walk in, and snatched the lamp peremptorily from
Amabel's hand, she still hesitated. Robert began to wonder if he
should ever be admitted. He did not dream of the true reason for the
hesitation. There was no fire in the parlor, and in the sitting-room
were Andrew, John Sargent, and Mrs. Wetherhed. It seemed to her
highly important that Ellen should see her caller by herself, but
how to take him into that cold parlor?
Finally, however, she made up her mind to do so. She opened the
parlor door.
"Please walk in this way, Mr. Lloyd," said she, and Robert followed
her in.
It was a bitter night outside, and the temperature in the unused
room was freezing. The windows behind the cheap curtains were
thickly furred with frost.
"Please be seated," said Fanny.
She indicated the large easy-chair, and Robert seated himself
without removing his outer coat, yet the icy cold of the cushions
struck through him.
Fanny ignited a match to light the best lamp with its painted globe.
Her fingers trembled. She had to use three matches before she was
successful.
"Can't I assist you?" asked Robert.
"No, thank you," replied Fanny; "I guess the matches are damp. I've
got it now." Her voice shook. She turned to Robert when the lamp
was lighted, still holding the small one, which she had set for the
moment on the table. The strong double light revealed her face of
abashed delight, although the young man did not understand it. It
was the solicitude of the mother for the child which dignified all
coarseness and folly.
"I guess you had better keep on your overcoat a little while till I
get the fire built," said she. "This room ain't very warm."
Robert tried to say something polite about not feeling cold, but the
lie was too obvious. Instead, he remarked that his coat was very
warm, as it was, indeed, being lined with fur.
"I'll have the fire kindled in a minute," Fanny said.
"Now don't trouble yourself, Mrs. Brewster," said Robert. "I am
quite warm in this coat, unless," he added, lamely, "I could go out
where you were sitting."
"There's company out there," said Fanny, with embarrassed
significance. She blushed as she spoke, and Robert blushed also,
without knowing why.
"It's no trouble at all to start a fire," said Fanny; "this chimney
draws fine. I'll speak to Ellen."
Robert, left alone in the freezing room, felt his dismay deepen.
Barriers of tragedy are nothing to those of comedy. He began to
wonder if he were not, after all, doing a foolish thing. The hall
door had been left ajar, and he presently became aware of Amabel's
little face and luminous eyes set therein.
Robert smiled, and to his intense astonishment the child made a
little run to him and snuggled close to his side. He lifted her up
on his knee, and wrapped his fur coat around her. Amabel thrust out
one tiny hand and began to stroke the sable collar.
"It's fur," said she, with a bright, wise look into Robert's face.
"Yes, it's fur," said he. "Do you know what kind?"
She shook her head, with bright eyes still on his.
"It is sable," said Robert, "and it is the coat of a little animal
that lives very far north, where it is as cold and colder than this
all the time, and the ice and snow never melts."
Suddenly Amabel slipped off his knee, pushing aside his caressing
arm with a violent motion. Then she stood aloof, eying him with
unmistakable reproof and hostility. Robert laughed.
"What is the matter?" he said.
"What does he do without his coat if it is as cold as that where he
lives?" asked Amabel, severely. There was almost an accent of horror
in her childish voice.
"Why, my dear child," said Robert, "the little animal is dead. He
isn't running around without his coat. He was shot for his fur."
"To make you a coat?" Amabel's voice was full of judicial severity.
"Well, in one way," replied Robert, laughing. "It was shot to get
the fur to make somebody a coat, and I bought it. Come back here and
have it wrapped round you; you'll freeze if you don't."
Amabel came back and sat on his knee, and let him wrap the fur-lined
garment around her. A strange sensation of tenderness and protection
came over the young man as he felt the little, slender body of the
child nestle against his own. He had begun to surmise who she was.
However, Amabel herself told him in a moment.
"My mamma's sick, and they took her to an asylum. And my papa has
gone away," she said.
"You poor little soul," said Robert, tenderly. Amabel continued to
look at him with eyes of keenest intelligence, while one little
cheek was flattened against his breast.
"I live with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Fanny now," said she, "and I
sleep with Ellen."
"But you like living here, don't you, you dear?" asked Robert.
"Yes," said Amabel, "and I like to stay with Ellen, but--but--I want
to see my mamma and papa," she wailed, suddenly, in the lowest and
most pitiful wail imaginable.
"Poor little darling," said Robert, stroking her flaxen hair. Amabel
looked up at him with her little face all distorted with grief.
"If you had been my papa, would you have gone away and left Amabel?"
she asked, quiveringly. Robert gathered her to him in a strong clasp
of protection.
"No, you little darling, I never should," he cried, fervently.
At that moment he wished devoutly that he had the handling of the
man who had deserted this child.
"I like you most as well as my own papa," said Amabel. "You ain't so
big as my papa." She said that in a tone of evident disparagement.
Then the sitting-room door opened, and Fanny and Ellen and Andrew
appeared, the last with a great basket of wood and kindlings.
Robert set down Amabel, and sprang to his feet to greet Andrew and
Ellen. Andrew, after depositing his basket beside the stove, shook
hands with a sort of sad awkwardness. Robert saw that the man had
aged immeasurably since he had last seen him.
"It is a cold night, Mr. Brewster," he said, and knew the moment he
said it that it was not a happy remark.
"It is pretty cold," agreed Andrew, "and it's cold here in this
room."
"Oh, it'll be warm in a minute; this stove heats up quick," cried
Fanny, with agitated briskness. She began pulling the kindlings out
of the basket.
"Here, you let me do that," said Andrew, and was down on his knees
beside her. The two were cramming the fuel into the little,
air-tight stove, while Robert was greeting Ellen. The awkwardness of
the situation was evidently overcoming her. She was quite pale, and
her voice trembled as she returned his good-evening. Amabel left the
young man, and clung tightly to Ellen's hand, drawing her skirt
around her until only her little face was visible above the folds.
[Illustration: The awkwardness of the situation was evidently overcoming
her]
The fumes from a match filled the room, and the fire began to roar.
"It'll be warm in a minute," said Fanny, rising. "You leave the
register open till it's real good and hot, Ellen, and there's plenty
more wood in the basket. Here, Amabel, you come out in the other
room with Aunt Fanny."
But Amabel, instead of obeying, made a dart towards Robert, who
caught her up, laughing, and smuggled her into the depths of his
fur-lined coat.
"Come right along, Amabel," said Fanny.
But Amabel clung fast to Robert, with a mischievous roll of an eye
at her aunt.
"Amabel," said Fanny, authoritatively.
"Come, Amabel," said Andrew.
"Oh, let her stay," Robert said, laughing. "I'll keep her in my coat
until it is warm."
"I'm afraid she'll bother you," said Fanny.
"Not a bit," replied Robert.
"You are a naughty girl, Amabel," said Fanny; but she went out of
the room, with Andrew at her heels. She did not know what else to
do, since the young man had expressed a desire to keep the child.
She had thought he would have preferred a _tête-à-tête_ with Ellen.
Ellen sat down on the sofa covered with olive-green plush, beyond
the table, and the light of the hideous lamp fell full upon her
face. She was thin, and much of her lovely bloom was missing between
her agitation and the cold; but Robert, looking at her, realized how
dear she was to him. There was something about that small figure,
and that fair head held with such firmness of pride, and that soul
outlooking from steady blue eyes, which filled all his need of life.
His love for the pearl quite ignored its setting of the common and
the ridiculous. He looked at her and smiled. Ellen smiled back
tremulously, then she cast down her eyes. The fire was roaring, but
the room was freezing. The sitting-room door was opened a crack, and
remained so for a second, then it was widened, and Andrew peeped in.
Then he entered, tiptoeing gingerly, as if he were afraid of
disturbing a meeting. He brought a blue knitted shawl, which he put
over Ellen's shoulders.
"Mother thinks you had better keep this on till the room gets warm,"
he whispered. Then he withdrew, shutting the door softly.
Robert, left alone with Ellen in this solemnly important fashion,
felt utterly at a loss. He had never considered himself especially
shy, but an embarrassment which was almost ridiculous was over him.
Ellen sat with her eyes cast down. He felt that the child on his
knee was regarding them both curiously.
"If you have come to see Ellen, why don't you speak to her?"
demanded Amabel, suddenly. Then both Robert and Ellen laughed.
"This is your aunt's little girl, isn't she?" asked Robert.
Amabel answered before Ellen was able. "My mamma is sick, and they
carried her away to the asylum," she told Robert. "She--she tried to
hurt Amabel; she tried to"--Amabel made that hideous gesture with
her tiny forefinger across her throat. "Mamma was sick or she
wouldn't," she added, challengingly, to Robert.
"Of course she wouldn't, you poor little soul," said Robert.
Suddenly Amabel burst into tears, and began to wriggle herself free
from his arms. "Let me go," she demanded; "let me go. I want Ellen."
When Robert loosened his grasp she fled to Ellen, and was in her lap
with a bound.
"I want my mamma--I want my mamma," she moaned.
Ellen leaned her cheek against the poor little flaxen head. "There,
there, darling," she whispered, "don't. Mamma will come home as soon
as she gets better."
"How long will that be, Ellen?"
"Pretty soon, I hope, darling. Don't."
Poor Eva Tenny had been in the asylum some four months, and the
reports as to her condition were no more favorable. Ellen's voice,
in spite of herself, had a hopeless tone, which the child was quick
to detect.
"I want my mamma," she repeated. "I want her, Ellen. It has been
to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow after that, and the
to-morrows are yesterdays, and she hasn't come."
"She will come some time, darling."
Robert sat eying the two with intensest pity. "Do you like
chocolates, Amabel?" he asked.
The child repeated that she wanted her mother still, as with a sort
of mechanical regularity of grief, but she fastened her eyes on him.
"Because I am going to send you a big box of them to-morrow," said
Robert.
Amabel turned to Ellen. "Does he mean it?" she asked.
"I guess so," replied Ellen, laughing.
Amabel, looking from one to the other, also began to laugh
unwillingly.
Then the sitting-room door opened, and Fanny called sharply and
imperatively, "Amabel, Amabel; come!"
Amabel clung more tightly to Ellen, who began to gently loosen her
arms.
"Amabel Tenny, come this minute. It is your bed-time," said Fanny.
"I guess you had better go, darling," whispered Ellen.
"I don't want to go to bed till you do, Ellen," whispered the child.
Ellen gently but firmly unclasped the clinging arms. "Run along,
dear," she whispered.
"I will send those chocolates to-morrow," suggested Robert.
Amabel seemed to do everything by sudden and violent impulses. All
at once she ceased resisting. She slid down from Ellen's lap as
quickly as she had gotten into it. She clutched her neck with two
little wiry arms, kissed her hard on the mouth, darted across the
room to Robert, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, then
flew out of the room.
"She is an interesting child," said Robert, who felt, like most
people, the delicate flattery of a child's unsolicited caresses.
"I am very fond of her," replied Ellen.
Then the two were silent. Robert suddenly realized that there was
little to say unless he ventured on debatable ground. It would be
too absurd of him to commence making love at once, and as for asking
Ellen about her work, that seemed a subject better let alone.
Ellen herself opened the conversation by inquiring for his aunt.
"Aunt Cynthia is very well," replied Robert. "I was in there last
evening. You have not been to see her lately, Miss Brewster."
Robert realized as soon as he had said that that he had made a
mistake.
"No," replied Ellen. She obviously paled a little, and looked at him
wistfully. The young man could not stand it any longer, so straight
into the heart of the matter he lunged.
"Look here, Miss Brewster," he said, "why on earth didn't you tell
Aunt Cynthia?"
"Tell her?" repeated Ellen, vaguely.
"Yes; make a clean breast of it to her. Tell her just why you went
to work, and gave up college?"
Ellen colored, and looked at him half defiantly, half piteously. "I
told her all I ought to," she said.
"But you did not; pardon me," said Robert, "you did not tell her
half enough. You let her think that you actually of your own free
choice went to work in the factory rather than go to college."
"So I did," replied Ellen, looking at him proudly.
"Of course you did, in one sense, but in another you did not. You
deliberately chose to make a sacrifice; but it was a sacrifice. You
cannot deny that it was a sacrifice."
Ellen was silent.
"But you gave Aunt Cynthia the impression that it was not a
sacrifice," said Robert, almost severely.
Ellen's face quivered a little. "I saw no other way to do," she
said, faintly. The authoritative tone which this young man was
taking with her stirred her as nothing had ever stirred her in her
life before. She felt like a child before him.
"You have no right to give such a false impression of your own
character," said Robert.
"It was either that or a false impression of another," returned
Ellen, tremulously.
"You mean that she might have blamed your parents, and thought that
they were forcing you into this?"
Ellen nodded.
"And I suppose you thought, too, that maybe Aunt Cynthia would
suspect, if you told her all the difficulties, that you were hinting
for more assistance."
Ellen nodded, and her lip was quivering. Suddenly all her force of
character seemed to have deserted her, and she looked more like a
child than Amabel. She actually put both her little fists to her
eyes. After all, the girl was very young, a child forced by the
stress of circumstances to premature development, but she could
relapse before the insistence of another nature.
Robert looked at her, his own face working, then he could bear it no
longer. He was over on the sofa beside Ellen and had her in his
arms. "You poor little thing," he whispered. "Don't. I have loved
you ever since the first time I saw you. I ought to have told you so
before. Don't you love me a little, Ellen?"
But Ellen released herself with a motion of firm elusiveness and
looked at him. The tears still stood in her eyes, but her face was
steady. "I have been putting you out of my mind," said she.
"But could you?" whispered Robert, leaning over her.
Ellen did not reply, but looked down and trembled.
"Could you?" repeated Robert, and there was in his voice that
masculine insistence which is a true note of nature, and means the
subjugation of the feminine into harmony.
Ellen did not speak, but every line in her body betrayed helpless
yielding.
"You know you could not," said Robert with triumph, and took her in
his arms again.
But he reckoned without the girl, who was, after all, stronger than
her natural instincts, and able to rise above and subjugate them.
She freed herself from him resolutely, rose, and stood before him,
looking at him quite unfalteringly and accusingly.
"Why do you come now?" she asked. "You say you have loved me from
the first. You came to see me, you walked home with me, and said
things to me that made me think--" She stopped.
"Made you think what, dear?" asked Robert. He was pale and
indescribably anxious and appealing. It was suddenly revealed to him
that this plum was so firmly attached to its bough of individuality
that possibly love itself could not loosen it.
"You made me think that perhaps you did care a little," said Ellen,
in a low but unfaltering voice.
"You thought quite right, only not a little, but a great deal," said
Robert, firmly.
"Then," said Ellen, "the moment I gave up going to college and went
to work you never came to see me again; you never even spoke to me
in the shop; you went right past me without a look."
"Good God! child," Robert interposed, "don't you know why I did
that?"
Ellen looked at him bewildered, then a burning red overspread her
face. "Yes," she replied. "I didn't. But I do now. They would have
talked."
"I thought you would understand that," said Robert. "I had only the
best motives for that. I cannot speak to you in the factory any more
than I have done. I cannot expose you to remark; but as for my not
calling, I believed what you said to my aunt and to me. I thought
that you had deliberately preferred a lower life to a higher
one--that you preferred earning money to something better. I
thought--"
Robert fairly started as Ellen began talking with a fire which
seemed to make her scintillate before his eyes.
"You talk about a lower and a higher life," said she. "Is it true?
Is Vassar College any higher than a shoe-factory? Is any labor which
is honest, and done with the best strength of man, for the best
motives, to support the lives of those he loves, or to supply the
needs of his race, any higher than another? Where would even books
be without this very labor which you despise--the books which I
should have learned at college? Instead of being benefited by the
results of labor, I have become part of labor. Why is that lower?"
Robert stared at her.
"I have come to feel all this since I went to work," said Ellen,
speaking in a high, rapid voice. "When I went to work, it was, as
you thought, for my folks, to help them, for my father was out of
work, and there was no other way. But since I have been at work I
have realized what work really is. There is a glory over it, as
there is over anything which is done faithfully on this earth for
good motives, and I have seen the glory, and I am not ashamed of it;
and while it was a sacrifice at first, now, while I should like the
other better, I do not think it is. I am proud of my work."
The girl spoke with a sort of rapt enthusiasm. The young man stared,
bewildered.
Robert caught Ellen's little hands, which hung, tightly clinched, in
the folds of her dress, and drew her down to his side again. "See
here, dear," he said, "maybe you are right. I never looked at it in
this way before, but you do not understand. I love you; I want to
marry you. I want to make you my wife, and lift you out of this
forever."
Then again Ellen freed herself, and straightened her head and faced
him. "There is nothing for me to be lifted out of," said she. "You
speak as if I were in a pit. I am on a height."
"My God! child, how many others feel as you, do you think, out of
the whole lot?" cried Robert.
"I don't know," replied Ellen, "but it is true. What I feel is
true."
Robert caught up her little hand and kissed it. Then he looked at
its delicate outlines. "Well, it may be true," he said, "but look at
yourself. Can't you see that you are not fashioned for manual labor?
Look at this little hand."
"That little hand can do the work," Ellen replied, proudly.
"But, dear," said Robert, "admitting all this, admitting that you
are not in a position to be lifted--admitting everything--let us
come back to our original starting-point. Dear, I love you, and I
want you for my wife. Will you marry me?"
"No, I never can," replied Ellen, with a long, sobbing breath of
renunciation.
"Why not? Don't you love me?"
"Yes. I think it must be true that I do. I said I wouldn't; I have
tried not to, but I think it must be true that I do."
"Then why not marry me?"
"Because it will be impossible for my father and mother to get along
and support Amabel and Aunt Eva without my help," said Ellen,
directly.
"But I--" began Robert.
"Do you think I will burden you with the support of a whole family?"
said Ellen.
"Ellen, you don't know what I would be willing to do if I could have
you," cried the young man, fervently. And he was quite in earnest.
At that moment it seemed to him that he could even come and live
there in that house, with the hideous lamp, and the crushed-plush
furniture, and the eager mother; that he could go without anything
and everything to support them if only he could have this girl who
was fairly storming his heart.
"I wouldn't be willing to have you," said Ellen, firmly. "As things
are now I cannot marry you, Mr. Lloyd. Then, too," she added, "you
asked me just now how many people looked at all this labor as I do,
and I dare say not very many. I know not many of your kind of
people. I know how your uncle looks at it. It would hurt you
socially to marry a girl from a shoe-shop. Whether it is just or
not, it would hurt you. It cannot be, as matters are now, Mr.
Lloyd."
"But you love me?"
Ellen suddenly, as if pushed by some mighty force outside herself,
leaned towards him, and he caught her in his arms. He tipped back
her face and kissed her, and looked down at her masterfully.
"We will wait a little," he said. "I will never give you up as long
as I live if you love me, Ellen."