freely in making experiments and investigations that can hardly fail to
benefit mankind. Few men who are equipped for such studies can spare
time for them from the breadwinning. Then again when great epidemics
occur anywhere, and multitudes need me, I am free to go and serve them.
I have no family, no wife, no children, nobody dependent upon me, in
short no obligations of any kind to restrain me from such service. Such
at least was my situation before my Uncle Robert died. His death imposed
upon me the duty of caring for all these black people. My first thought
was of how I might most quickly free myself of this restraining
obligation. Had the estate consisted only of houses and lands and other
inanimate property I should have made short work of the business. I
should have sold the whole of it for whatever men might be willing to
give me for it; I should have devoted the proceeds to some humane
purpose, and then, being free again I should have returned to my work.
Unfortunately, however, in succeeding to my uncle’s estate I succeeded
also to his obligations. I planned to fulfil them once for all by
selling the plantation and using the proceeds in carrying the negroes to
the west and establishing them upon farms of their own. I still cherish
that purpose, but I am delayed in carrying it out by the fact that other
obligations must first be discharged. There are debts--the hereditary
curse of us Virginians--and I find that the value of the plantation,
without the negroes, would not suffice to discharge them and leave
enough to give the negroes the little farms that I must provide for them
if I take the responsibility of setting them free. Still I see ways in
which I think I can overcome that difficulty within two or three years,
by selling crops that Virginians never think of selling and devoting
their proceeds to the discharge of debts. But now comes this new and
burdensome duty of caring for Dorothy’s estate. She is now sixteen years
of age, so that this new burden must rest upon my shoulders for five
full years to come.”
“I quite understand,” Edmonia slowly replied, “and in great part I
sympathize with you. But not altogether. For one thing I do not share
your belief in freedom for the negroes. I am sure they are unfit for it,
and it would be scarcely less than cruelty to take them out of the
happy life to which they were born, exile them to a strange land, and
condemn them to a lifelong struggle with conditions to which they are
wholly unused, with poverty for their certain lot and starvation perhaps
for their fate. They are happy now. Why should you condemn them to
unhappy lives? They are secure now in the fact that, sick or well, in
age and decrepitude as well as in lusty health, they will be abundantly
fed and clothed and well housed. Why should you condemn them to an
incalculably harder lot?”
“So far as the negroes are concerned, you may be right. Yet I cannot
help thinking that if I make them the owners of fertile little farms in
that rapidly growing western country, without a dollar of debt, they
will find it easy enough to put food into their mouths and clothes on
their backs and keep a comfortable roof over their heads. However that
is a large question and perhaps a difficult one. If it could have been
kept out of politics Virginia at least would long ago have found means
to free herself of the incubus. But it is not of the negroes chiefly
that I am thinking. I am trying to set Arthur Brent free while taking
care not to do them any unavoidable harm in the process. I want to
return to my work, and I am sufficiently an egotist to believe that my
freedom to do that is of some importance to the world.”
“Doubtless it is,” answered the young woman, hesitatingly, “but there
are other ways of looking at it, Arthur. I have read somewhere that the
secret of happiness is to reconcile oneself with one’s environment.”
“Yes, I know. That is an abominable thought, a paralyzing philosophy. In
another form the privileged classes have written it into catechisms,
teaching their less fortunate fellow beings that it is their duty to ‘be
content in that state of existence to which it hath pleased God’ to call
them. As a buttress to caste and class privilege and despotism of every
kind, that doctrine is admirable, but otherwise it is the most damnable
teaching imaginable. It is not the duty of men to rest content with
things as they are. It is their duty to be always discontented, always
striving to make conditions better. ‘Divine discontent’ is the very
mainspring of human progress. The contented peoples are the backward
peoples. The Italian lazzaroni are the most contented people in the
world, and the most worthless, the most hopeless. No, no, no! No man who
has brains should ever reconcile himself to his environment. He should
continually struggle to get out of it and into a better. We have liberty
simply because our oppressed ancestors refused to do as the prayer book
told them they must. Men would never have learned to build houses or
cook their food if they had been content to live in caves or bush
shelters and eat the raw flesh of beasts. We owe every desirable thing
we have--intellectual, moral and physical--to the fact that men are by
nature discontented. Contentment is a blight.”
Edmonia thought for a while before answering. Then she said:
“I suppose you are right, Arthur. I never thought of the matter in that
way. I have always been taught that discontent was wicked--a rebellion
against the decrees of Providence.”
“You remember the old story of the miller who left to Providence the
things he ought to have done for himself, and how he was reminded at
last that ‘ungreased wheels will not go?’”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, in my view the most imperative decree of Providence is that we
shall use the faculties it has bestowed upon us in an earnest and
ceaseless endeavor to better conditions, for ourselves and for others.”
“But may it not sometimes be well to accept conditions as a guide--to
let them determine in what direction we shall struggle?”
“Certainly, and that is precisely my case. When I consider the peculiar
conditions that specially fit me to do my proper work in the world it is
my duty, without doubt, to fight against every opposing influence. I
feel that I must get rid of the conditions that are now restraining me,
in order that I may fulfil the destiny marked out for me by those higher
conditions.”
“Perhaps. But who knows? It may be that some higher work awaits you,
here, some nobler use of your faculties, to which the apparently adverse
conditions that now surround you, are leading, guiding, compelling you.
It may be that in the end your unwilling detention here will open to you
some opportunity of service to humanity, of which you do not now dream.”
“Of course that is possible,” Arthur answered doubtfully, “but I see no
such prospect. I see only danger in my present situation, danger of
falling into the lassitude and inertia of contentment. I saw that
danger from the first, especially when I first knew you. I felt myself
in very serious danger of falling in love with you like the rest. In
that case I might possibly have won you, as none of the rest had done.
Then I should joyfully, and almost without a thought of other things,
have settled into the contented life of a well to do planter, leaving
all my duties undone.”
Edmonia flushed crimson as he so calmly said all this, but he, looking
off into the nothingness of space, failed to see it, and a few seconds
later she had recovered her self-control. Presently he added, still
unheeding the possible effect of his words:
“You saved me from that danger. You put me under bonds not to fall in
love with you, and you have helped me to keep the pact. That danger is
past, but I begin to fear another, and my only safety would be to go
back to my work if that were possible.”
For a long time Edmonia did not speak. Perhaps she did not trust herself
to do so. Finally, in a low, soft voice, she asked:
“Would you mind telling me what it is you fear? We are sworn friends and
comrades, you know.”
“It is Dorothy,” he answered. “From the first I have been fond of the
child, but now, to my consternation, I find myself thinking of her no
longer as a child. The woman in her is dawning rapidly, especially since
she has been called upon to do a woman’s part in this crisis. She still
retains her childlike simplicity of mind, her extraordinary candor, her
trusting truthfulness. She will always retain those qualities. They lie
at the roots of her character. But she has become a woman, nevertheless,
a woman at sixteen. You must have observed that.”
“I have,” the young woman answered in a voice that she seemed to be
managing with difficulty. “And with her womanhood her beauty has come
also. You must have seen how beautiful she has become.”
“Oh, yes,” he answered; “no one possessed of a pair of eyes could fail
to observe that. Now that we are talking so frankly and in the sympathy
of close friendship, let me tell you all that I fear. I foresee that if
I remain here, as apparently I must, I shall presently learn to love
Dorothy madly. If that were all I might brave it. But in an intercourse
so close and continual as ours must be, there is danger that her
devoted, childlike affection for me, may presently ripen into something
more serious. In that case I could not stifle her love as I might my
own. I could not sacrifice her to my work as I am ready to sacrifice
myself. I almost wish you had let me fall in love with you as the others
did.”
Again Edmonia paused long before answering. When she spoke at last, it
was to say:
“It is too late now, Arthur.”
“Oh, I know that. The status of things between you and me is too firmly
fixed now--”
“I did not mean that,” she answered, “though that is a matter of course.
I was thinking of the other case.”
“What?”
“Why, Dorothy. It is too late to prevent her from loving you. She has
fully learned that lesson already though she does not know the fact. And
it is too late for you also, though you, too, do not know it--or did not
till I told you.”
It was now Arthur’s turn to pause and think before replying. Presently,
in a voice that was unsteady in spite of himself, he asked:
“Why do you think these dreadful things, Edmonia?”
“I do not think them. I know. A woman’s instinct is never at fault in
such a case--at least when she feels a deep affection for both the
parties concerned. And there is nothing dreadful about it. On the
contrary it offers the happiest possible solution of Dorothy’s
misfortune, and it assures you of something far better worth your while
to live for than the objects you have heretofore contemplated. I must go
now. Of course you will say nothing of this to Dorothy for the present.
That must wait for a year or two. In the meantime in all you do toward
directing Dorothy’s education, you must remember that you are educating
your future wife. Help me into my carriage, please. I will not wait for
my maid. Dick can bring her over later, can’t he?”
“But tell me, please,” Arthur eagerly asked as the young woman seated
herself alone in the carriage, “what is this ‘misfortune’ of Dorothy’s,
this mystery that is so closely kept from me, while it darkly intervenes
in everything done or suggested with regard to her.”
“I cannot--not now at least.” Then after a moment’s meditation she
added:
“And yet you are entitled to know it--now. You are her guardian in a
double sense. Whenever you can find time to come over to Branton, I’ll
tell you. Good-bye!”
As the carriage was starting Edmonia caught sight of Dick and called him
to her.
“Have you any kittens at Wyanoke, Dick?” she asked.
“Yes, Miss Mony, lots uv ’em.”
“Will you pick out a nice soft one, Dick, and bring it to me at Branton?
Every old maid keeps a cat, you know, Dick, and so I want one.”
All that was chivalric in Dick’s soul responded.
“I’ll put a Voodoo[A] on anybody I ever heahs a callin’ you a ole maid,
Miss Mony, but I’ll git you de cat.”
As she sank back among the cushions the girl relaxed the rein she had so
tightly held upon herself, and the tears slipped softly and silently
from her eyes. For the first time in her life this brave woman was sorry
for herself.
XVIII
ALONE IN THE CARRIAGE
_A_fter the blind and blundering fashion of a man, Arthur Brent was
utterly unconscious of the blow he had dealt to this woman who had given
him the only love of her life. For other men she had felt friendship,
and to a few she had willingly given that affection which serves as a
practical substitute for love in nine marriages out of ten, and which
women themselves so often mistake for love. But to this woman love in
its divinest form had come, the love that endureth all things and
surpasseth all things, the love that knows no ceasing while life lasts,
the love that makes itself a willing sacrifice. Until that day she had
not herself known the state of her own soul. She had not understood how
completely this man had become master of her life, how utterly she had
given herself to him. And in the very moment that revealed the truth to
her the man she loved had, with unmeant cruelty, opened her eyes also to
that other truth that her love for him was futile and must ever remain
hopeless.
She bade her driver go slowly, that she might think the matter out
alone, and she thought it out. She was too proud a woman to pity herself
for long. She knew and felt that Arthur had never dreamed of the change
which had so unconsciously come upon her. She knew that had he so much
as entertained a hope of her love a little while ago, he would have bent
all the energies of his soul to the winning of her. She knew in brief
that this man to whom she had unconsciously given the one love of her
life, would have loved her in like manner, if she had permitted that.
She knew too that it was now too late.
As the carriage slowly toiled along the sandy road, she meditated,
sometimes even uttering her thought in low tones.
“There is no fault in him,” she reflected. “It is not that he is blind,
but that I have hoodwinked him. In deceiving myself, I have deceived
him.”
Then came the pleasanter thought:
“At any rate in ruining my own life, I have not ruined his, but
glorified it. Had he loved and married me he would have been happy, but
it would have been in a commonplace way. His ambitions would have died
slowly but surely. That discontent, which he has taught me to understand
as the mainspring of all that is highest and noblest in human endeavor,
would have given place to a blighting contentment in such a life as that
which he and I would have led together. It will be quite different when
he marries Dorothy. She too has the ‘divine discontent’ that does
things. She will be a help immeasurably more meet for him than I could
ever have hoped to be. She will share his enthusiasms, and strengthen
them. And it is his enthusiasm that makes him worthy of a woman’s love.
It is that which takes him out of the commonplace. It is that which sets
him apart from other men. It is that which makes him Arthur Brent.”
Then her thought reverted for a moment to her own pitiful case.
“What am I to do?” she asked herself. “What use can I make of my life
that shall make it worthy of him? First of all I must be strong. He must
never so much as suspect the truth, and of course nobody else must be
permitted even to guess it. I must be a help to him, and not a
hindrance. He must feel that my friendship, on which he places so high
an estimate, is a friendship to be trusted and leant upon. I must more
and more make myself his counsellor, a stimulating helpful influence in
his life. His purposes are mainly right, and I must encourage him to
seek their fulfilment. Such a man as he should not be wasted upon a
woman like me, or led by such into a life of inglorious ease and inert
content. After all perhaps I may help him as his friend, where, as his
wife, my influence over his life and character would have been
paralyzing. If I can help, him, my life will not be lost or ruined. It
need not even be unhappy. If my love for him is such as he deserves, it
will meet disappointment bravely. It will discipline itself to service.
It will scorn the selfishness of idle bemoaning. The sacrifice that is
burnt upon the altar is not in vain if the odors of it placate the gods.
Better helpful sacrifice than idle lamentation.”
Then after a little her mind busied itself with thoughts less subjective
and more practical.
“How shall I best help?” she asked herself. “First of all I must utterly
crush selfishness in my heart. I must be a cheerful, gladsome influence
and not a depressing one. From this hour there are no more tears for me,
but only gladdening laughter. I must help toward that end which I see to
be inevitable. I must do all that is possible to make it altogether
good. I must help to prepare Dorothy to be the wife he needs. She has
not been educated for so glorious a future. She has been carefully
trained, on the contrary, for a humdrum life for which nature never
intended her, the life of submissive wifehood to a man she could never
love, a man whom she could not even respect when once her eyes were
opened to better things in manhood. I must have her much with me. I must
undo what has been done amiss in her education. I must help to fit her
for a high ministry to the unselfish ambitions of the one man who is
worthy of such a ministry. I must see to it that she is taught the very
things that she has been jealously forbidden to learn. I must introduce
her to that larger life from which she has been so watchfully secluded.
So shall I make of my own life a thing worth while. So shall my love
find a mission worthy of its object. So shall it be glorified.”
XIX
DOROTHY’S MASTER
_W_hen Edmonia drove away, leaving Arthur alone, he bade Dick bring his
horse, and, mounting, he set off at a gallop toward the most distant
part of the plantation. He was dazed by the revelation that Edmonia’s
words had made to him as to the state of his own mind, and almost
frightened by what she had declared with respect to Dorothy’s feeling.
He wanted to be alone in order that he might think the matter out.
It seemed to him absurd that he should really be in love with the mere
child whom he had never thought of as other than that. And yet--yes, he
must admit that of late he had half unconsciously come to think of the
womanhood of her oftener than of the childhood. He saw clearly, when he
thought of it, that his fear that he might come to love the girl had
been born of a subconsciousness that he had come to love her already.
It was a strange condition of mind in which he found himself. His
strongest impulse was to run away and thus save the girl from himself
and his love. But would that save her? She was not the kind of woman--he
caught himself thinking of her now as a woman and not as a child--she
was not the kind of woman to love lightly or to lay a love aside as one
might do with a misfit garment. What if it should be true, as Edmonia
had declared, that Dorothy had already given him her heart? What would
happen to her in that case, should he go away and leave her? “But,
psha!” he thought; “that cannot be true. The child does not know what
love is. And yet, and yet. Why did she choose me to be her guardian, and
why, when I expressed regret that she had done so, did she look at me
so, out of those great, solemn, sad eyes of hers, and ask me, with so
much intensity if I did not _want_ to be her guardian? Was it not that
she instinctively, and in obedience to her love, longed to place her
life in my keeping? After all she is not a child. It is only habit that
makes me think of her in that way--habit and her strangely childlike
confidence in me. But is that confidence childlike, after all? Do not
women feel in that way toward the men they love? Dorothy is fully grown
and sixteen years of age. Many a woman is married at sixteen.”
Of his own condition of mind Arthur had now no doubt. The thought had
come to him that should he go away she would forget him, and he had
angrily rejected it as a lie. He knew she would never forget. The
further thought had come to him that in such case she would marry some
other man, and it stung him like a whip lash to think of that. In brief
he knew now, though until a few hours ago he had not so much as
suspected it, that he loved Dorothy as he had never dreamed of loving
any woman while he lived. He remembered how thoughts of her had colored
all his thinking for a month agone and had shaped every plan he had
formed.
But what was he now to do? “My life--the life I have marked out for
myself,” he reflected, “would not be a suitable one for her.” He had not
fully formulated the thought before he knew it to be a falsehood. “She
would be supremely happy in such a life. It would give zest and interest
to her being. She would rejoice in its sacrifices and share mightily in
its toil and its triumphs. She cares nothing for the life of humdrum
ease and luxury that has been marked out for her to live. She would
care intensely for a life of high endeavor. And yet I must save her from
the sacrifice if I can. I must save her from myself and from my love if
it be not indeed too late.”
His horse had long ago slowed down to a walk, and was pursuing a course
of its own selection. It brought him now to the hickory plantation near
the outer gate of the Wyanoke property. Awakening to consciousness of
his whereabouts, Arthur drew rein.
“It was here that I first met Dorothy”--he liked now the sound of her
name in his ears--“on that glorious June morning when the hickory leaves
that now strew the ground were in the full vigor of their first
maturity. How confidently she whistled to her hounds, and how promptly
they obeyed her call! What a queen she seemed as she disciplined them,
and with what stately grace she passed me by without recognition save
that implied in a sweeping inclination of her person! That was a bare
five months ago! It seems five years, or fifty! How much I have lived
since then! And how large a part of my living Dorothy has been!”
Presently he turned and set off at a gallop on his return to the fever
camp, his mien that of a strong man who has made up his mind. His plan
of action was formed, and he was hastening to carry it out.
It was growing dark when he arrived at the camp, and Dorothy met him
with her report as to the condition of the sick. She took his hand as he
dismounted, and held it between her own, as was her custom, quite
unconscious of the nature of her own impulses.
“I’m very tired, Cousin Arthur,” she said after her report was made.
“The journey to Court and all the rest of it have wearied me; and I sat
up with Sally last night. You’re glad she’s better, aren’t you?”
“I certainly am,” he replied. “I feared yesterday for her life, but your
nursing has saved her, just as it has saved so many others. Sally has
passed the crisis now, and has nothing to do but obey you and get well.”
He said this in a tone of perplexity and sadness, which Dorothy’s ears
were quick to catch.
“You’re tired too, Cousin Arthur?” she half said, half asked.
“Oh, no. I’m never tired. I--”
“Then you are troubled. You are unhappy, and you must never be that. You
never deserve it. Tell me what it is! I won’t have you troubled or
unhappy.”
“I’m troubled about you, Dorothy. You’ve been over-straining your
strength. There are dark shadows under your eyes, and your cheeks are
wan and pale. You must rest and make up your lost sleep. Here, Dick! Go
over to the great house and bring Chestnut for your Miss Dorothy, do you
hear?”
“No, no, no!” Dorothy answered quickly. “Don’t go, Dick. I do not want
the mare. No, Cousin Arthur, I’m not going to quit my post. I only want
to sleep now for an hour or two,--just to rest a little. The sick people
can’t spare me now.”
“But they must, Dorothy. I will not have you make yourself ill. You must
go back to the great house tonight and get a good night’s rest. I’ll
look after your sick people.”
Dorothy loosened her hold of his hand, and retreated a step, looking
reproachfully at him as she said:
“Don’t you want me here, Cousin Arthur? Don’t you care?”
“I do care, Dorothy, dear! I care a great deal more than I can ever tell
you. That is why I want you to go home for a rest tonight. I am
seriously anxious about you. Let me explain to you. When one is well and
strong and gets plenty of sleep, there is not much danger of infection.
But when one is worn out with anxiety and loss of sleep as you are, the
danger is very great. You are not afraid of taking the fever. I don’t
believe you are afraid of anything, and I am proud of you for that. But
I am afraid for you. Think how terrible it would be for me, Dorothy, if
you should come down with this malady. Will you not go home for my sake,
and for my sake get a good night’s sleep, so that you may come back
fresh and well and cheery in the morning? You do not know, you can’t
imagine how much I depend upon you for my own strength and courage.
Several things trouble me just now, and I have a real need to see you
bright and well and strong in the morning. Won’t you try to be so for my
sake, Dorothy? Won’t you do as I bid you, just once?”
“Just once?” she responded, with a rising inflection. “Just _always_,
you ought to say. As long as I live I’ll do whatever you tell me to
do--at least when you tell me the truth as you are doing now. You see I
always know when you are telling the truth. With other people it is
different. Sometimes I can’t tell how much or how little they mean. But
I know you so well! And besides you’re always clumsy at fibbing, even
when you do it for a good purpose. That’s why I like you so much--or,”
pausing,--“that’s one of the reasons. Has Dick gone for Chestnut?”
“Yes, Dick always obeys me.”
“Oh, but that’s quite different. You are Dick’s master you know--” Then
she hesitated again, presently adding, “of course you are my master
too--only in a different way. Oh, I see now; you’re my guardian. Of
course I must obey my guardian, and I’ll show him a bright, fresh face
in the morning. Here comes Dick with Chestnut. Good night--Master!”
From that hour Dorothy thought of Arthur always by that title of
“master,” though in the presence of others she never so addressed him.