_WAS IT HAPPINESS?_
_June 11th, Wednesday._
THE tide has at last thoroughly turned, and Mother is better—still very
weak, but improving steadily.
I write to Ernest constantly, and he to me; at least, he writes almost
every day, which is as often as I do. His letters are all just exactly
what they should be. Yet sometimes I seem to miss something in them—I
cannot tell what. I read them over and over, looking for the something
which I miss, and trying to discover what it is. And I look and try in
vain.
Of Millicent I see very little. She is still all night with Mother,
and still has to rest in the day. When we are together, it always
happens that some one else is also present. Strangely enough, since I
came home, I have never once been alone with Mother, never once alone
with Millicent. And scarcely a word has as yet been spoken about my
engagement. At first I thought nothing of this. Whilst Mother was
so ill, nobody could think or talk of anything else—I least of all,
perhaps. But now that she is so much better, out of danger, and only
needing great care, I seem to want a little interest and sympathy in
what concerns me so very closely.
Is this selfishness? I hope not. Isn't it natural? And does nobody care
that I am going to be so happy? Yes, in spite of any small doubts or
misgivings, so very very happy!
Mother cares. I see it in her dear face every time she looks at me.
By-and-by she will say something.
Millicent has not once asked after Ernest. She has not congratulated
me. She has not alluded in any way to the engagement. Is this
intentional silence on her part? Is she simply preoccupied and not
interested? But that would not be like Millicent. I hardly know what to
think.
_June 20th, Friday._
To-day, for the first time, I have been alone with Mother. Millicent
seems to be over done. She turned faint yesterday evening and had to go
to bed, and she is not up yet. Juliet was with Mother all night, lying
down, but not sleeping much. This afternoon Juliet went to her room to
rest, and I was left in charge alone.
"Mind," Juliet said, "nothing to excite or worry the Mother, dear!" She
spoke kindly, but very decidedly.
I felt terribly afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing. I knew how I
should be blamed if anything went wrong—worse still, how I should blame
myself.
It did not seem that there was much to do. Mother had been allowed to
sit up for a short time in the morning; and she was drowsy and tired.
I sat watching the dear face, feeling so unutterably thankful to know
that she was given back to us again. And presently her hand stole into
mine, her eyes opening slowly.
"Rhoda,—and nobody else here!"
I bent over to kiss her.
"I have been wanting to speak to you," she said, "about—"
"Yes, Mother."
"If things are all right, and for your happiness, I am glad—if all is
as it should be."
"Why not, Mother dear?"
"Somehow, I did not quite expect—" and her eyes looked wistfully into
mine. "I have not seen you alone—not once yet. They said I must keep
quiet—not talk of things; and I have tried. But now perhaps I have
waited long enough."
"Mother, you are glad for me?" I whispered. "You know Ernest a little;
I mean, you know about him. And you will like him very very much. I
know you will."
"He is nice, I believe, in many ways. I have heard so. But—," and a
pause, "it troubles me to think—"
I asked what it was that troubled her. She said, after another break,
"Millicent!"
"Did you think he cared for her?" My heart was beating fast; but I had
to keep calm for her sake.
"Yes," was her instant answer. "He used to care."
"So long ago!" was all I could say. Am I never to have any peace
because of Millicent?
Mother looked earnestly at me; and there was a slight negative movement
of her head.
"So very long ago!" I repeated. "And he loves me now."
"You are sure!"
"Mother! How can I doubt it?"
"You are sure that it is all right?"
"Why, it can't be anything else! How can it be? He has asked me to
marry him. He has told me himself that he loves me. What more can one
want? Why should he ever have said a single word to me, if he cared for
Millicent?"
I spoke fast and warmly, forgetting in my excitement the need to be
quiet. She did not yet look satisfied, and I went on with increasing
energy:—"It isn't as if I had not seen a great deal of him, a great
deal! All these weeks he has been in and out. He knows me, and I know
him. He has not seen Millicent for years and years." But as I spoke the
words a cold doubt swept across me, and my mother said,—
"Yes. He saw her in London the other day."
Every pulse in me gave a throb. "Where?"
"She was staying there for three or four days, just before I was taken
ill. She came and told me about it."
"Did she think he cared for her still?" My whole face was burning.
Mother did not at once answer. She lay thinking, with a troubled look
in her eyes.
"I cannot fully remember what passed. I have had so many fancies
since—in my illness. But the impression comes back to me of her face
that evening, so young and bright, like the Millicent of childish days,
unlike what she has been for years. And she said—"
"Yes." I hardly knew how to wait. "Tell me all. I have a right to know."
"Not if it were merely a matter of Millicent's own feelings."
"Tell me!" I urged.
"It may be a fancy of mine. I cannot be sure. I have had so much
confusion. Looking back, I cannot always distinguish between dreams and
realities. But I thought—certainly I thought she told me something. If
I could only recall exactly what it was! She said that she had seen him
more than once, and that he was not changed. Yes, she said he was not
changed. I remember her smile when she said those words. And she told
me he was the same towards her that he had always been—always in the
past she meant. The same towards her, Rhoda dear! And then the next
thing was to hear of your engagement."
"Mother, you must be mistaken," I said, as quietly as I could. "It
could not have been as you think. If she had said that, you would have
told me when you wrote." But even as I spoke, the doubting tone of her
first letter came back to me, and my heart sank.
"Hardly in writing, darling—should I? I hoped to see you very soon, you
know. And I was feeling ill even then, though nobody knew. But it made
me very unhappy."
"Only, if it is all a mistake! You are not sure of what Millicent did
really say."
"Not quite. The impression is strong, but I cannot be sure whether she
actually said the words to me, or whether I saw them in her face. I do
not think it can be altogether a mistake."
I knew I ought to stop this talk. It was bad for my mother. But how
could I wait?
"It does not seem to me kind even to suppose that Millicent cares for
him still, now he is engaged to me."
"It is not so much that, Rhoda—not so much whether she cares for
him, but whether he cares for her—whether, as she said, he is still
unchanged towards her."
"She could not have said it. It is not true. That must have been a
dream of yours," I urged, out of a sore and doubting heart. "How
could he have told her that he cared for her, just before he came and
proposed to me? The thing isn't possible. It is out of the question."
I was trying to persuade myself, at least as much as to persuade my
mother. She sighed and closed her eyes. "I think I am tired," she said
faintly. "Never mind; things will come right in time—by-and-by."
Would they? I dared not say another word, she looked so worn-out. But
a tumult raged within, which is not yet quieted. Was the thing so
impossible? Is it so impossible? Do I really and truly know Ernest?
There is one little mystery. What if the clue lies here?
Mother seemed to drop asleep, and I sat motionless. But presently, she
opened her eyes, and gazed full at me.
"It was—'not' a dream," she said distinctly.
Before I could resolve what to answer, she was sleeping again, and I
could not disturb her. As it is, she is the worse for our talk, more
feverish than for a long while, and Juliet seems anxious. Yet how could
I have managed differently, except by refusing to go into the subject
at all? And that did seem to me impossible. Ought it to have been?
The pain of this uncertainty, this not knowing what it all means, and
whom I may trust. When will things become clear?
_June 22nd, Sunday._
Millicent went home yesterday. She has done too much, and the doctor
orders rest. Amy has managed well at the Vicarage while Millicent has
been with us. Things are very different now from what they were a few
years ago.
I begged Juliet to let me take Millicent's place in the nursing; and
she has given way, on condition that I will strictly avoid all subjects
that could excite or distress my mother.
"Not a word about Mr. Derwentwater at present!" she said. It is almost
the first time that she has alluded to him beyond a rather formal
remark when I first came home.
I have promised to be very careful, and Mother shows no inclination to
bring the matter up again. Either she has said all that she wishes to
say, or else it was a passing fancy, which has since faded.
_June 23rd, Monday._
To-day it came to me as something of a shock, that Millicent actually
knows nothing of our engagement. Addie told me. She says nobody has
heard of it, except just ourselves and aunt Marian. None of the Farrars
family.
Then my notion that Millicent looked at me reproachfully, when first I
came home, was pure imagination. She did not know. She does not know.
It seems strange that the fact should not have leaked out before this.
But we have all been so busy nursing, and so busy thinking about
Mother's state, as to have seen few outside people. There has been
no time for talk, and no inclination. I have wondered sometimes in a
passing way that nobody has said anything more to me about Ernest, but
I have had no wish to bring the matter forward myself. My dread has
been of the time when I should have to speak to Millicent. And now I
know the reason,—I mean the reason why so little has been said. Even
uncle Basil has not heard that I am engaged. If he had, he would not
have been so long without speaking.
"Mother told me, because she and I were alone when the news came,"
Addie observed. "And I could not think what made her cry. She told me,
and she said I must not let it out to anybody, because she did not know
yet whether it could ever come to anything. I did not even say one word
to Emmie, till mother said I might—I mean when we came together again.
And I know that when Mother told aunt Marian it was only on condition
that uncle should not hear, because he never can keep things long to
himself. Will it ever come to anything, Rhoda? What made Mother say
that? And was she really sorry? What made her cry?"
I hardly know what I said in answer. I silenced Addie as soon as I
could. "Of course it will—of course!" I remember saying to myself.
_June 25th, Wednesday._
To-day I had to go to the Vicarage. A question had to be asked of
Millicent, something about my mother's state at night, which could not
well be explained in writing, and there was nobody except me to do it.
Juliet could not be spared. So I had no choice in the matter.
I was shown into the dining-room, where Millicent sat in an easy-chair,
working. She looked thin and rather worn; but her smile was the same
as usual—not a particularly bright smile, only quiet and kind and
contented. There is never anything brilliant about Millicent, but she
is always the same. One never needs to feel doubtful what her next mood
may be.
I asked the question which had to be put, and Millicent explained
exactly what Juliet wanted to know. Then we both were still for two or
three seconds. I did not like to get up and go away immediately, and
a vague idea was taking shape in my mind. Should I tell her there and
then how things were, and see for myself how she would take the news?
I had been dreading all along having to speak to her about Ernest,
because of my own uneasy feelings, yet now it seemed to me that nothing
could well be worse than the state of uncertainty in which I had been
so long. To speak out to Millicent might clear away mysteries. I was
half resolved to try the plan.
"It is vexatious that I cannot go on with the nursing," Millicent
observed, breaking the silence.
"You have done so much already. It has knocked you up."
"Juliet warned me that I was keeping on too long with the night-work;
and if I had been sensible, I should have changed about with her for
a time. But I liked it; and she could not persuade me. So I am just
paying for my own imprudence. That is all, and I shall be all right in
a few days."
"They tell me you were in Town lately."
"For part of the inside of a week."
"And you enjoyed it?"
"Very much."
"I suppose you saw a great many old friends?" I was feeling my way, not
sure yet of my own intentions.
"A few; not a great many." Then a pause, and I felt her eyes studying
me. "I saw something of one very old friend—Ernest Derwentwater."
I tried to meet her look, but my gaze went down before hers. In a
moment, the past came before me with a flash: how I had meant to use
my time in London for Millicent, how I had purposed to recall her to
Ernest's mind, and how I had failed.
Yet, if I had not failed, Ernest's love would not now be mine. That
thought came next, and with it a wonder,—could I truly feel regret for
what had ended so happily?
If it is happily! Who can tell?
Besides, one may not judge by consequences. Whatever the results
may be, I was wrong, I did wrongly. Why, beforehand in my journal I
condemned in plain words the very line of action which I have since
followed. Nothing can undo or excuse that.
Millicent spoke the words quite quietly, quite naturally, with no
change of colour. But my whole face became crimson, and she saw it. She
could not help doing so.
"He told me he had been seeing something of you at your cousin's
house," she observed, and she said it as if it were the most simple
thing in the world—as if it meant just nothing at all.
"Something of me!" The words burst out in scorn. At the moment, I could
not have told whether it were scorn of Ernest or scorn of myself.
"That was what he said." She spoke in a curiously deliberate thoughtful
way, as if weighing some question in her own mind, and only half
attending to me. Her eyes had a far-away look in them.
"And you saw 'something' of him too, I suppose?"
"In those two or three days, yes."
"And you found him—" I meant to end with "the same as ever," but the
words refused to be spoken. Strange to say, Millicent's answer was as
if she had heard them.
"I found him very much the same as he always was, much more so than I
should have expected, after so many years of absence—the old smile and
manner, hardly altered. As I told your mother the evening after I came
back, he was just his old self towards me." I noticed, or thought I
noticed, the least possible break or falter in her voice, but almost
immediately she went on in the same placid tone as before:—"He was
quite one of us, you know, in the old days; and I could feel at once
that he is one of us still, like an elder brother. It was pleasant to
find no alteration."
A sense of dizzy bewilderment crept over me. Was this all? Had I been
verily making a mountain of so utter a molehill? Then came a buck-wave
of passionate distrust—distrust of myself, of Ernest, of Millicent. Was
she trying to hoodwink me?
"And I suppose—" the words broke from me almost without intention on my
part—"I suppose he never took the trouble to tell you that he was just
on the verge of asking me to marry him!"
Millicent did not speak at once. I saw still no change of colour, no
sign of distress. She wore only a very serious and a very thoughtful
expression. She seemed to be trying to read my face, perhaps also to
be making up her mind to some course of action. That at least was my
after-idea. At the moment, I was not composed enough to have any clear
impressions.
"No, he did not tell me so."
"He 'might' have done so! He asked me the very next time we met—the
next time he came to the house. But perhaps he wasn't sure; perhaps
he had not made up his mind. If he only said to you that he had seen
'something' of me!"
She was silent again; thinking earnestly, it seemed to me. I did not
know how to stand her quiet manner, in its contrast with my own inner
tumult.
"At all events, whatever he meant or did not mean, he did speak, and he
and I are engaged."
There was one quick glance up. "Are you, really?"
"Why not? Is it so impossible? Why should nobody ever care for me?" I
demanded, speaking vehemently.
"I did not mean that, dear. Oh, no. Only, I did not quite expect—I
did not fancy it was already settled." She said the words softly and
clearly, with a smile; not a forced smile, but a free affectionate
lighting up of her whole face. "And you have been all this time at home
and have never once thought of telling me! Was that kind? If it is for
his happiness—and for yours—don't you 'know' how glad I shall be? More
than glad. Happy and thankful. Could you not be sure, Rhoda?"
I do not know what it was in her look that stirred me. I had never seen
her wear so sweet a look before,—a kind of almost heavenly sweetness.
When I look back now, I see it as the look of a victor in the fight.
But at the moment, I could not grasp or measure its meaning; I only
felt vaguely the contrast between her and myself. Perhaps it was partly
reaction from what I had gone through; but all at once my heart was
beating to suffocation, and tears were blinding my eyes, and I had no
power to say a word. I saw dimly her kind concerned face; and then I
started up to hurry away.
But she would not let me go; and the touch of her hands, and the sound
of her soft "Poor Rhoda!" broke me down completely. I cried, oh, how I
cried, with her arms round me, and her face against mine. And I could
not have told her half the reasons why, if indeed I knew them myself.
It was such a jumble of bewilderment and pain, of remorse for the past
and of fear for the future.
As she held me, and as I sobbed, one gleam came of what had to be done;
and I heard my own voice gasping out, "Forgive me."
"What, for, my dear?"
I could not attempt to explain. I could only repeat, "Forgive me."
"If there is anything at all to forgive, I do forgive—entirely. So now
you will feel happy, will you not?"
The goodness and sweetness that she showed! I never could have imagined
anything like it.
"And now you will feel better altogether," she went on. "A good cry
clears the air sometimes. You have been under a great strain of anxiety
lately; and that tells upon one. Don't you think you will be wanted
perhaps at home by this time? It will not do for me to keep you too
long. But another day you must come again, and tell me all about it.
All about Ernest and yourself, I mean—" and she smiled, and spoke
without the least falter. "I shall feel such an interest in the story.
You must tell me the whole, from beginning to end."
I wanted to say more then, but she would not let me. "Not to-day," she
said decisively. "Another day, dear. I have things to attend to now,
and you have your home duties. But I want to hear it all soon. I shall
feel such an interest in everything to do with you both."
Did she ever really care for him? And was she afraid to let me stay,
for fear I should say something that I might be sorry for afterwards.
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