CLOUDS AND DARKNESS.
"At least, Miss Amy--at least, we shall be friends."
Amy Waring sat in her chamber on the evening of the day that Lawrence
Newt had said these words. Her long rich brown hair clustered upon her
shoulders, and the womanly brown eyes were fixed upon a handful of
withered flowers. They were the blossoms she had laid away at various
times--gifts of Lawrence Newt, or consecrated by his touch.
She sat musing for a long time. The womanly brown eyes were soft with
a look of aching regret rather than of sharp disappointment. Then she
rose--still holding the withered remains--and paced thoughtfully up and
down the room. The night hours passed, and still she softly paced, or
tranquilly seated herself, without the falling of a tear, and only
now and then a long deep breath rather than a sigh.
At last she took all the flowers--dry, yellow, lustreless--and opened a
sheet of white paper. She laid them in it, and the brown womanly eyes
looked at them with yearning fondness. She sat motionless, as if she
could not prevail upon herself to fold the paper. But at length she sank
gradually to her knees--a sinless Magdalen; her brown hair fell about her
bending face, and she said, although her lips did not move, "To each, in
his degree, the cup is given. Oh, Father! strengthen each to drain it and
believe!"
She rose quietly and folded the paper, with the loving care and lingering
delay with which a mother smooths the shroud that wraps her baby. She
tied it with a pure white ribbon, so that it looked not unlike a bridal
gift; and pressing her lips to it long and silently, she laid it in the
old drawer. There it still remained. The paper was as white, the ribbon
was as pure as ever. Only the flowers were withered. But her heart was
not a flower.
"Well, Aunt Martha," said she, several months after the death of old
Christopher Burt, "I really think you are coming back to this world
again."
The young woman smiled, while the older one busily drove her needle.
"Why," continued Amy, "here is a white collar; and you have actually
smiled at least six times in as many months!"
The older woman still said nothing. The old sadness was in her eyes, but
it certainly had become more natural--more human, as it were--and the
melodramatic gloom in which she had hitherto appeared was certainly less
obvious.
"Amy," she said at length, "God leads his erring children through the
dark valley, but he does lead them--he does not leave them. I did not
know how deeply I had sinned until I heard the young man Summerfield,
who came to see me even in this room."
She looked up and about, as if to catch some lingering light upon the
wall.
"And it was Lawrence Newt's preacher who made me feel that there was hope
even for me."
She sewed on quietly.
"I thank God for those two men; and for one other," she added, after a
little pause.
Amy only looked, she did not ask who.
"Lawrence Newt," said Aunt Martha, calmly looking at Amy--"Lawrence Newt,
who came to me as a brother comes to a sister, and said, 'Be of good
cheer!' Amy, what is the matter with you and Lawrence Newt?"
"How, aunty?"
"How many months since you met here?"
"It was several months ago, aunty."
Aunt Martha sat quietly sewing, and after some time said,
"He is no longer a young man."
"But, Aunt Martha, he is not old."
Still sewing, the grave woman looked at the burning cheeks of her younger
companion. Amy did not speak.
The older woman continued: "When you and he went from this room months
ago I supposed you would be his wife before now."
Still Amy did not speak. It was not because she was unwilling to confide
entirely in Aunt Martha, but there was something she did not wish to
say to herself. Yet suddenly, as if lifted upon a calm, irresistible
purpose--as a leaf is lifted upon the long swell of the sea--she said,
with her heart as quiet as her eyes,
"I do not think Lawrence Newt loves me."
The next moment the poor leaf is lost in the trough of the sea. The next
moment Amy Waring's heart beat tumultuously; she felt as if she should
fall from her seat. Her eyes were blind with hot tears. Aunt Martha did
not look up--did not start or exclaim--but deliberately threaded her
needle carefully, and creased her work with her thumb-nail. After a
little while, during which the sea was calming itself, she said, slowly,
repeating Amy's words syllable by syllable,
"You do not believe Lawrence Newt loves you?"
"No," was the low, firm whisper of reply.
"Whom do you think he loves?"
There was an instant of almost deathly stillness in that turbulent heart.
For a moment the very sea of feeling seemed to be frozen.
Then, and very slowly, a terrible doubt arose in Amy Waring's mind.
Before this conversation every perplexity had resolved itself in the
consciousness that somehow it must all come right by-and-by. It had never
occurred to her to ask, Does he love any one else? But she saw now at
once that if he did, then the meaning of his words was plain enough;
and so, of course, he did.
Who was it?
Amy knew there was but one person in the world whose name could possibly
answer that question.
But had Lawrence not watched with her--and with delight--the progress of
Arthur Merlin's feeling for that other?
Yes; but if, as he watched so closely, he saw and felt how lovely that
other was, was it so wonderful that he should love her?
These things flashed through her mind as she sat motionless by Aunt
Martha; and she said, with profound tranquillity,
"Very possibly, Hope Wayne."
Aunt Martha did not look up. She seemed to feel that she should see
something too sad if she did so; but she asked,
"Is she worthy of him?"
"Perfectly!" answered Amy, promptly.
At this word Aunt Martha did look up, and her eyes met Amy's. Amy Waring
burst into tears. Her aunt laid aside her work, and gently put her arms
about her niece. She waited until the first gush of feeling had passed,
and then said, tenderly,
"Amy, it is by the heart that God leads us women to himself. Through love
I fell; but through love, in another way, I hope to be restored. Do you
really believe he loves Hope Wayne?"
"I don't know," was the low reply.
"I know, Amy."
The two women had risen, and were walking, with their arms clasped around
each other, up and down the room. They stopped at the window and looked
out. As they did so, their eyes fell simultaneously upon the man of whom
they were speaking, who was standing at the back of his lofts, looking up
at the window, which was a shrine to him.
"There she stood and smiled at me," he said to himself whenever he looked
at it.
As their eyes met, he smiled and waved his hand. With his eyes and head
he asked, as when he had first seen her there,
"May I come up?" and he waved his handkerchief.
The two women looked at him. As Amy did so, she felt as if there had been
a long and gloomy war; and now, in his eager eyes and waving hand, she
saw the illumination and waving flags of victory and peace.
She smiled as she looked, and nodded No to him with her head.
But Aunt Martha nodded Yes so vehemently that Lawrence Newt immediately
disappeared from his window.
Alarmed at his coming, doubtful of Aunt Martha's intention, Amy Waring
suddenly cried, "Oh! Aunt Martha!" and was gone in a moment. Lawrence
Newt dashed round, and knocked at the door.
"Come in!"
He rushed into the room. Some sweet suspicion had winged his feet and
lightened his heart; but he was not quick enough. He looked eagerly
about him.
"She is gone!" said Aunt Martha.
His eager eyes drooped, as if light had gone out of his life also.
"Mr. Newt," said Aunt Martha, "sit down. You have been of the greatest
service to me. How can I repay you?"
Lawrence Newt, who had felt during the moment in which he saw Amy at the
window, and the other in which he had been hastening to her, that the
cloud was about rolling from his life, was confounded by finding that it
was an account between Aunt Martha, instead of Amy, and himself that was
to be settled.
He bowed in some confusion, but recovering in a moment, he said,
courteously,
"I am aware of nothing that you owe me in any way."
"Lawrence Newt," returned the other, solemnly, "you have known my story;
you knew the man to whom I supposed myself married; you have known of my
child; you have known how long I have been dead to the world and to all
my family and friends, and when, by chance, you discovered me, you became
as my brother. How many an hour we have sat talking in this room, and how
constantly your sympathy has been my support and your wisdom my guide!"
Lawrence Newt, whose face had grown very grave, waved his hand
deprecatingly.
"I know, I know," she continued. "Let that remain unsaid. It can not be
unforgotten. But I know your secrets too."
They looked at each other.
"You love Amy Waring."
His face became inscrutable, and his eyes were fixed quietly upon hers.
She betrayed no embarrassment, but continued,
"Amy Waring loves you."
A sudden light shot into that inscrutable face. The clear eyes were
veiled for an instant by an exquisite emotion.
"What separates you?"
There was an authority in the tone of the question which Lawrence Newt
found hard to resist. It was an authority natural to such intimate
knowledge of the relation of the two persons. But he was so entirely
unaccustomed to confide in any body, or to speak of his feelings, that he
could not utter a word. He merely looked at Aunt Martha as if he expected
her to answer all her own questions, and solve every difficulty and
doubt.
Meanwhile she had resumed her sewing, and was rocking quietly in her
chair. Lawrence Newt arose and found his tongue. He bowed in that quaint
way which seemed to involve him more closely in himself, and to warn off
every body else.
"I prefer to hear that a woman loves me from her own lips."
The tone was perfectly kind and respectful; but Aunt Martha felt that she
had been struck dumb.
"I thank you from my heart," Lawrence Newt said to her. And taking her
hand, he bent over it and kissed it. She sat looking at him, and at
length said,
"Mayn't I do any thing to show my gratitude?"
"You have already done more than I deserve," replied Lawrence Newt. "I
must go now. Good-by! God bless you!"
She heard his quick footfalls as he descended the stairs. For a long time
the sombre woman sat rocking idly to and fro, holding her work in her
hand, and with her eyes fixed upon the floor. She did not seem to see
clearly, whatever it might be she was looking at. She shook out her work
and straightened it, and folded it regularly, and looked at it as if the
secret would pop out of the proper angle if she could only find it.
Then she creased it and crimped it--still she could not see. Then she
took a few stitches slowly, regarding fixedly a corner of the room as if
the thought she was in search of was a mouse, and might at any moment run
out of his hole and over the floor.
And after all the looking, she shook her head intelligently and fell
quietly to work, as if the mystery were plain enough, saying to herself,
"Why didn't I trust a girl's instinct who loves as Amy does? Of course
she is right. Dear! dear! Of course he loves Hope Wayne."