THE FIRST LETTER.
Bertha Canfield seemed to bring the glow and business of a bright
outside world into the room where her mother was sitting when she came
home. You never would have believed that slender, sad and delicate woman
the mother of a being so full of grace and bloom as the girl who stooped
down lovingly to kiss her before taking off her hat or gloves. The elder
lady smiled upon the girl; but never, in this world, was a smile so
infinite in its tenderness, yet without a gleam of sunshine in it.
Bertha was used to the touching sadness of this smile; but a stranger,
on first observing it, would have felt a mist of tears creeping to his
eyes, if they were such eyes as get their dew from a compassionate
heart.
“Why, child, you look so bright! After parting with Mary, too. I did not
expect it.”
“Do I, mother, dear? Well, yes, I do not look even decorously sorry,”
answered the girl, taking off her bonnet before the glass, where a
beautiful face looked smilingly into hers. “But I was dreadfully sorry
to part with her, only something happened to make me ashamed of crying
so, with people looking on. Why is it, mother, that the very best
feelings we can have are those we are ashamed of?”
“Because our best feelings are those we give to God, and thus hold
sacred from human intrusion,” said the elder lady, in her usual slow,
gentle voice.
“I think it was not exactly so with me; but it really did seem as if my
heart would break when the boat swept off with my friend, and I gave way
so completely that a gentleman I never saw before came up and spoke to
me.”
“Indeed?” answered the mother; and a quick, startled look changed her
face completely.
“No wonder you are surprised. It really was not just the proper thing;
but he was so kind, and, in a certain way, respectful. Mother, in my
whole life I never saw a face like his. It almost drove Mary out of my
mind. Don’t look reproachful—not out of my heart. That, no man on earth
can ever do!”
Mrs. Canfield still looked anxious and a little wild. She evidently
thought this encounter on the wharf of more importance than it appeared
to her daughter.
“Mother, he was so unlike any man I ever saw!”
“Hush, child! He must have been a bold man—and you are so young. What
did he say to you?”
“Nothing, much; but I will tell you every word. Then say if I have done
wrong.”
The elder lady listened with anxious attention for the few words that
had in reality passed between her daughter and the man whom she had
already begun to regard with terror. Her face cleared up a little when
she learned how harmless and simple the interview had been; still it
troubled her. The warm, peach-like bloom on her daughter’s cheek, and a
certain strange light in her eyes, made the mother’s heart grow faint in
her bosom.
Bertha saw this, and crowded herself into the little sofa on which her
mother was sitting. Then she drew the gentle woman down, and laid the
pale cheek against her own.
“Have I troubled you, mother? Have I done wrong?”
“No, no—only I am so much alone that trifles seem important to me.”
“Perhaps I should not have told you. After all, it was nothing.”
Mrs. Canfield did not hear this. She was thinking of something else.
Bertha felt the faint shudder that crept over that delicate frame, and
it filled her with self-reproach.
“She is so nervous,” the girl thought, “and I have made her worse.” Then
she began to talk of other things.
“Some day we will go down to Virginia, and see what Mary means when she
talks about her hundred slaves, and plantation life in the Old
Dominion—won’t we, mother? She made me promise that I would never let
you rest till I got consent. She thinks it would make you strong. Shall
we go some day?”
“If you would like it, Bertha. The pleasantest place for me will always
be where you are.”
“Dear, dear mother!”
“In all the wide world I have nothing else!” continued the mother, with
pathetic sadness.
“And I? What have I but you, mother?”
Mrs. Canfield lifted her mournful eyes. They were large and dark gray,
like her daughter’s; but all the fire had been quenched in them years
ago, when love was crucified in a heart warm and ardent as that which
swelled in the young bosom against which her head rested.
“Some day, my child—and it may not be long—there will be only a second
place for me here!”
“This is a cruel thought—an impossible thing—believe it, mother! Oh, do
believe it! How can such fancies creep into your mind?”
“We will not talk of them—at any rate, as yet, my child.”
“Nor think of them, mother. There! sit down among your cushions, and I
will sing for you.”
Bertha arranged the cushions, put her mother’s workbasket in tempting
proximity with the hand she dropped, and opened the piano. She was, in
fact, so restless that nothing but action of some kind seemed possible
to her. Mrs. Canfield took up her work, but scarcely drew a thread in
the delicate embroidery; not that she listened to the rich burst of
music that swelled through the house—her soul was too far away for that.
But Bertha carried herself out of all sad thoughts by the glory of her
own voice, and left her instrument only when the sunset flung a shower
of gold upon her through the open windows.
Just then the door-bell rang, and she stood up, with her hand on the
keys, holding her breath. It was a wild idea, but she had a presentiment
that something unusual was going to happen. She looked around for her
mother; she had left the room. That moment the old Quakeress came in
with a letter in her hand.
“For me?” said Bertha, blushing crimson, and reaching forth her hand.
“For thee!” said the old lady.
Bertha looked at the address. A clear, bold hand had impressed the
creamy white of the envelope, but she had never seen it before. She
broke open the envelope and went to her room. It was the first letter
that Fletcher had ever written her—a noble, grand letter; but that
moment her heart was full of other subjects, and she fell to dreaming
while it was in her bosom.