A FATAL ERROR
The next morning Arnold started out to visit the one rarely absent
from his thoughts. It was a lovely day in the latter part of June,
and his heart grew glad and hopeful in spite of the discouraging
conditions of his lot. All the world could not prevent his loving
Mildred, or destroy her faith, and at some time and in some way
they would attain their happiness. These hopes were like the bright
summer sun, and he walked with a firmer and more elastic tread than
he had ever known before.
When he reached the haggard old mansion his heart misgave him.
"Can it be reality," he asked himself, "that she has been living
in places like this?" and the half-defined fear entered his mind
that she might have changed somewhat with her fortunes, and might
no longer be in appearance the delicate, refined, beautiful girl
that he had left so long since. But his impatient heart gave him
no time for such imaginings, and he hastened to gratify his intense
desire to look upon her face.
In response to a low knock Mildred opened the door, and found
herself in the arms of her lover. Then he held her off and looked
at her earnestly. "Oh, Millie!" he exclaimed, "you have only grown
more beautiful, more womanly in these long, weary years. Your face
is the reflex of the letters on which I have lived, and which gave
me the power to live."
Then in the excess of his joy he sank into a chair, and, putting
his hand upon his heart, looked very pale. She sprang to his side
in alarm. "Don't worry, Millie," he said, taking her hand. "It's
passing. I don't have them very often now. I'm much better, thanks
to you. Happiness rarely kills."
It was well that Mrs. Wheaton and the children were out. This
scene would have been a great shock to the good woman, for she was
Roger's ally, heart and soul, and did not even know of Arnold's
existence. Since Arnold and Mildred were so fortunate as to be
alone, they talked frankly over their old happy days, and as far
as she could without breaking her promise to Roger, Mildred spoke
of the deep sorrows which had almost overwhelmed her during his
absence.
"How my heart aches for you!" Arnold said. "I never realized before
what sad experiences you have passed through. The part which I can't
endure is that I have been of no help to you. On the contrary, you
reached out this little hand and saved me. Everything has been
just the opposite of what it ought to have been, and even now in
these surroundings you are like a diamond in a dust-heap. Oh, how
different it would all be if I had my way!" and he in turn told
her quite frankly how he was situated.
"Vinton," she said earnestly, "you must do all in your power to
grow strong and make a place for yourself in the world. As you say,
I cannot punish you for the pride and hostility of your parents;
I don't think of them, and I could never take any favors at their
hands. As a man you have the right to choose for yourself, and
can do so while maintaining the utmost courtesy and respect toward
your family. I don't fear poverty--I'm used to it. The thing for
you to do is to find some honest work that won't tax you too greatly,
and gain strength in its performance."
"Oh, Millie, how strong and true you are! I will take your advice
in this as in all respects. But we shall have to wait a long time,
I fear. I have so little knowledge of business, and I think my
father, influenced by my mother, will thwart rather than help me."
"Very well, I can wait," she answered smilingly. "Indeed I'd rather
wait."
Now that her happiness seemed assured, however, she sighed over
Roger so often and remorsefully that at last Arnold said,
"You have some trouble on your mind, Millie?"
"You must not expect to find me a light-hearted girl any more,"
she replied evasively.
"Well," he said, as he clasped her closely in farewell, "my every
waking thought shall now be how best to banish sighs and bring
smiles."
That evening, while they were out for a walk, Mildred said to Roger,
with a little tremor in her voice, "He's come."
He gave her a swift look, and then he turned as quickly away, but
his arm grew rigid under her hand.
"Don't fail me, Roger," she pleaded.
"It's unexpected--I wasn't prepared," he said, in a low tone, and
then he was silent. He felt her hand trembling so greatly that he
soon mastered himself for her sake. "It's all right, Millie," he
said heartily. "Be just as happy as you can."
"How can I be truly happy when you are not?" she sighed.
"Bless your kind heart! do you think I am going to stand off and
lower at your happiness like a black cloud? Do you think I'm going
to droop, look forlorn and deserted, and heave great sighs in dark
corners? By all the powers! if I were capable of such meanness
toward you, I'd whip myself worse than I did that fellow Bissel."
"Do you think I'll feel for you any the less because you are so
good and brave about it?"
"Oh, confound it!" he said impatiently, "you must not feel too
much. Spoiling your happiness won't do me any good; it would just
make me savage."
She leaned her head for a second against his shoulder and said,
"I'm not a bit afraid of you, Roger."
"There, Millie," he said quietly, "you always get the better of
the old Satan in me, but I sometimes feel as if I could more easily
tame a whole menagerie than my own nature. Come to think of it,
it's all turning out for the best. To-morrow I go home on quite a
long vacation. Father isn't very well this summer, and I'm to take
charge of the harvest for him."
"Isn't this plan a little sudden?" she asked.
"Not more so than your news," he replied grimly.
"Are you not willing to meet him yet?"
"Not quite. After a few weeks in the fields I shall come back
with the stoicism and appearance of a wild Indian. Come, Millie, I
said I wouldn't fail you, nor shall I. Leave it all to me. I will
explain to Mrs. Wheaton to-night, and to our other friends when
the right time comes, and I will make it appear all right to them.
If I justify you, they should have nothing to say. And now you
have nothing to do but accept your happiness and make the most of
it. I still request that you do not speak of me to Arnold except
in a casual way. When we meet you can introduce me simply as a
friend who was kind during your troubles. I'll soon know after we
meet whether we can get on together, and if we can't it will save
complications for you as well as myself. You must let me serve you
in my own way, and I think my judgment will be better than yours
in this matter."
She was silent for a few moments, and by the light of a lamp he saw
that her eyes were full of tears. "Roger," she said softly after
a while, "I sometimes think that my affection for you is greater
than my love for Vinton, but it is so different. It seems almost
like my religion. You are a refuge for me, no matter what happens."
"Thank you, Millie, but I don't deserve such honor."
Mrs. Wheaton could not be brought to look at the situation as Roger
did, and she accepted the fact of Vinton Arnold with but a grim
acquiescence, which was not mollified by the young man's manner
toward her. While meaning to be very kind and polite, he was
unconsciously patronizing. She belonged to a class with which he
had never had much to do, and in his secret soul he chafed at her
presence and her relations to Mildred. While in the abstract he
might say that Mildred's associations made no difference to him, he
could not in fact overcome his lifelong prejudices, and Mildred's
surroundings were not at all to his taste. Luxury and the absence
of all that was rude and coarse had become essential to him, and
Mrs. Wheaton's cockney English and homely life often gave him cold
chills.
Mildred in one respect disappointed him also, for she would take
no aid from him, and would in no way deviate from her retired,
independent life. "Even if my feelings and principles were not
involved," she said, "good taste requires that I conform to my
circumstances."
She would take such quiet walks with him as his strength permitted,
but would visit no places of public resort. In view of his family's
hostility to his course, Arnold did not so much regret this, and
so it came about that they spent many of their evenings on the
platform over the roof, with the old German astronomer, star-gazing
and oblivious, not far away.
While Mildred maintained her loyalty to her old friends, and
her resolute plainness and simplicity of life, she considerately
recognized that it was all so foreign to her lover's previous experience
that she could not expect him to feel as she did. Moreover, his
presence renewed her old love for the refined and beautiful, and
her heart, that had been so sad and preoccupied, awoke at last to
the truth that she was out of her sphere--an exile far from the
world her nature craved. Arnold seemed an inseparable part of that
old world of beauty and elegance. His every act and word brought
it back, and it caused a deepening regret that he was compelled
to seek her in her present situation; therefore she also began to
share his ill-concealed wish that she might soon escape. Honestly
as she loved Mrs. Wheaton, and would love her for all her kindness,
the good woman's talk and ways often jarred discordantly on her
nerves. Arnold soon discovered this fact, and it made him very
impatient over the prospect of life long continued under its present
aspects. He was conscious of Mrs. Wheaton's latent hostility, and
he had not the tact to conciliate her nor indeed did he make very
great effort to do so. Mildred was very sorry for this, but did
not blame him greatly, for she knew her plain old friend could
never be to him what she was to those who had learned her goodness
and worth in emergencies that had levelled all external differences.
But in spite of the ingredients brought by these facts and the
memories of the past, Mildred found the cup of happiness which
Arnold pressed to her lips sweet indeed. She had been exceedingly
sorrowful for a long time, and it is contrary to nature that the
young should cling to sorrow, however true and constant they may
be. Her love was a part of her happy girlhood, and now it seemed to
have the power to bring back some of her former girlish lightness
of heart. The prospects offered by Arnold certainly had little to
do with the returning tide of gladness which seemed bearing her
from the dark, rugged shores on which she had been nearly wrecked.
It was a buoyancy inherent within the love she cherished, and her
joy was so sweet, so profound, that she shut her eyes to the future
and thought, "For a few days, for a few weeks, we'll just drink
deeply at this life-giving fountain. After our long separation it
will do us both more good than anything else."
She had said to Arnold that she was willing to wait, that she
would rather wait, but she soon began to feel differently. Arnold
infused into her nature some of his own dreamy, enervated spirit, and
sometimes he would describe to her an imaginary home so exactly to
her taste that she would sigh deeply; and one day she remonstrated,
"Don't tantalize me with any more such exquisite mirages. Let us
rather think of the best and quickest way to secure a real home, and
let us be content in it, however humble it must be." But Arnold was
far better able to construct an imaginary palace than an ordinary
cottage. Although he seemed gaining steadily under the impulse of
his happiness, she often trembled to see how frail he was in body
and how untrained and impracticable in mind. He was essentially the
product of wealth, luxury, and seclusion, and while his intentions
might be the best, she was sometimes compelled to doubt his ability
to make much headway in the practical, indifferent world. Instead
of being discouraged, she only thought, "No one can ever doubt the
genuineness of my love. Roger is rich already, and he is certain
to become eminent, and yet my love is more than all the world to
me, and I so long for a little nook of a home that I could call
all my own, that I would be willing to marry Vinton at once and
support him myself if his health required it. I don't think I can
be like other girls. I shall never get over my pride, but I haven't
a particle of ambition. The world at large is nothing to me, and
instead of wishing to shine in it, I am best pleased to escape its
notice altogether."
Arnold's family were as deeply perplexed as they were incensed at
his course. He would not leave the city for any fashionable resort,
and they well knew the reason. His father and mother hesitated
in their departure, not knowing what "folly," as they termed it,
he might be guilty of in their absence. They felt that they must
bring the matter to some issue, and yet how to do so puzzled them
greatly, for, as he had said, he had done nothing as yet to disgrace
them, and his bearing toward them was as irreproachable as it was
cold and dignified.
At last, unknown to them, an elder brother undertook to solve the
problem. He was a thorough man of the world, and his scrupulous
compliance with the requirements of fashionable society led his
mother to regard him as a model of propriety. In his private, hidden
life he was as unscrupulous as the ultra fashionable often are.
"Vinton," he said one day, "what a fool you are making of yourself
in this affair! You have been brought up like a girl, and you are
more simple and innocent than they average. I've seen your charmer,
and I admit that she is a fine creature. As far as looks go, you
show as much judgment as any man in town, but there your wits desert
you. Girls in her position are not nice as to terms when they can
greatly better themselves. You have money enough to lodge her like
a princess compared with her present condition. Verbum sat sapienti."
Vinton replied indignantly that he knew nothing about Mildred.
"Oh, I know all about women," was the confident reply; "have
forgotten more than you ever knew."
Nevertheless this thought, like an evil seed, sprang up into a speedy
but not rank growth. Arnold saw that his family would regard his
marriage as an outrage which they would resent in every possible way,
and that their hostility now was but an ill-concealed, smouldering
fire. The relation to him would not be what his brother suggested,
but as sacred and binding as marriage. His unhealthful reading, his
long years abroad, and the radical weakness of his nature prepared
him to accept this solution as the easiest and best that circumstances
permitted of. He justly doubted whether he would soon, if ever,
gain the power of being independent. He knew nothing of business,
and hated its turmoil and distractions, and while for Mildred's
sake he would attempt anything and suffer anything, he had all
the unconquerable shrinking from a manful push out into the world
which a timid man feels at the prospect of a battle. He had been
systematically trained into weakness, and he felt that men, when
he came to compete with them, would discover and take advantage of
his defects. His cold, haughty reticence was but disguised timidity.
In Mildred's presence he ever showed the best side of his nature,
and his lonely, repressed life had always touched the tenderest chords
of her heart. If their love had been smiled upon from the first,
how different would have been his fate! She would have tenderly
developed his dwarfed, crushed manhood, and the result would have
been happiness for them both.
"Millie," said Arnold, one starlight night, "do you care very much
for the world's opinions?" They were sitting on the platform above
the old mansion. The German astronomer, after grumbling awhile at
an obscuring haze, had gone downstairs in disgust, and left the
lovers to themselves.
"No, Vinton, I never cared much for the world at any time, and now
I have an almost morbid impulse to shrink from it altogether. I'm
like my dear mamma. Home was her world. Poor, dear mamma!" and she
buried her face on his shoulder and shed tears that his presence
robbed of much of their bitterness.
"I not only do not care for the world," he said impetuously, "but
I hate it. I've been dragged through it, and have ever found it a
desert, stony place. My heart just aches for the sweet quiet and
seclusion of such a home as you could make, Millie. As it is, I
have no home. A hollow iceberg could not be more cold and joyless
than my present abode. Neither have you a home. It is only in stolen
moments like these, liable to interruption, that we can speak of
what is in our hearts;" and then, prompted by his feelings, longings,
and the apparently friendless condition of the girl whose head
rested so trustingly on his breast, he broached the scheme of life
that had taken possession of his imagination.
At first, in her faith and innocence she scarcely understood him,
but suddenly she raised her head, and looked at him with startled
eyes. "What!" she said, in trembling alarm, "no marriage? Mr.
Wentworth and Roger Atwood not present?"
"No minister could make our union more sacred than it would be to
me," he faltered, "and as soon as my obdurate parents--"
She sprang to her feet, and exclaimed passionately, "I'd rather die
ten thousand deaths than bring a blush of shame to Roger Atwood's
face." Then she sank into her chair in an uncontrollable outburst
of grief. He pleaded with her, but she was deaf; he tried to caress
her, but although half unconscious from her agony, she repulsed
him. "Oh, oh," she moaned, "is this the sole reward of my fidelity?"
"Millie, Millie," he entreated, "you will kill me if you cannot
control yourself. I will do anything you say--submit to any terms.
Oh, pity me, or I shall die."
"Leave me," she said faintly.
"Never," he cried; "I'd sooner cast myself down from this height."
By visible and painful effort she at last grew calm enough to say
firmly:
"Mr. Arnold, I do pity you. Even at this moment I will try to do
you justice. My heart seems broken, and yet, I fear you will suffer
more than I. My own womanhood would make your words the sufficient
cause for our final separation, and had I not a friend in the world
we could never meet again. But I have a friend, a brother to whom
I owe more than life, and whom I love better than life. He would
have made me rich if I would have let him, but I loved you too
well. Not for my hope of heaven would I make him blush for me. I
would have married you and lived in a single room in a tenement. I
would have supported you with my own hands. The weaknesses for which
you were not to blame drew my heart toward you, but you have shown
a defect in your character to-night which creates an impassable gulf
between us. In view of the wrong done you by others I forgive you--I
shall pray God to forgive you--but we have fatally misunderstood
each other. If you have any manhood at all, if you have the ordinary
instincts of a gentleman, you will respect the commands of an orphan
girl, and leave me, never to approach me again."
Speechless, almost paralyzed in his despair, he tottered to the
steps and disappeared.