She was standing one afternoon on the broad piazza, leaning against the
railing, with color enough in her usually colorless cheeks as she
watched the tall figure passing through the low gateway; he turned
towards the watching eyes, smiled, and touched his hat.
"You will be in again this week," she said coaxingly, "you can give me
ten minutes out of your busy-ness."
"Twice ten, perhaps."
The light that flashed into her eyes was her only reply; she stood
leaning forward, playing with the oleander blossoms under her hand until
he had seated himself in his carriage and driven away; not until the
brown head and straw hat had disappeared behind the clump of willows at
the corner did she stir or move her eyes, then the happy feet in the
bronze slippers tripped up-stairs to her own chamber. Dinah had left her
slate on a chair, and dropped her algebra on the carpet, at the sound of
Norah's voice below the window.
Tessa was glad to be alone; she was always glad to be alone after Ralph
Towne had left her, to think over all that he had said, and to feel
again the warm shining of his brown eyes; to thank God with a few, low,
joyful exclamations that He had brought this friend into her life; and
then, as foolish women will, she must look into her own face and try to
see it as he saw it,--cheeks aglow, tremulous lips, and such a light in
the blue eyes!
She did not know that her eyes could look like that. She had thought
them pale, cold, meaningless, and now they were like no eyes that she
had ever looked into; a dancing, tender, blue delight.
Had he read her secret in them?
Her enthusiasm with its newness, sweetness, and freshness,--for it was as
fresh as her heart was pure,--was moulding all her thoughts,
strengthening her desire to become in all things true and womanly, and
making her as blithe all day long as the birds that twittered in the
apple-tree near her chamber window.
It mattered not how her hands were busied so long as her heart could be
full of him. And he, Ralph Towne, blind and obtuse as any man would be
who lived among books and not in the world at all, and more than a
trifle selfish, as men sometimes find themselves to be, little thinking
of the effect of his chance visits and fitful attentions, had in the
last two months come to a knowledge that grieved him; for he was an
honorable man, he loved God and reverenced womankind. He had not time
now to think of any thing but the book for which he was collecting
material. It was something in the natural history line, he had once told
her, but he never cared to speak of it; indeed Ralph Towne cared to talk
but of few things; but she loved to talk and he loved to listen. He
loved to listen to her, but he did not love her (so he assured himself),
he only loved her presence, as he loved the sunshine, and he did not
love the sunshine well enough to fret when the day was gloomy; in these
days he did not love any body or any thing but himself, his books, and
his mother.
Dunellen said that he was proud of his money and proud of a
great-great-grandmother who had been cousin to one of the president's
wives; but Tessa knew that he was not proud of any thing but his
beautiful white-haired mother.
Not understanding the signs of love, how could he know that Tessa
Wadsworth was growing to love _him_; he had never thought of himself as
particularly worth loving. Surely she knew a dozen men who were
handsomer (if that were what she cared for), and another dozen who could
talk and tell stories and say pretty things to women (if _that_ were
what attracted her); still he knew to-day that his presence and light
talk (he did not remember that he had said any thing to be treasured)
had moved her beyond her wont. She was usually only self-contained and
dignified; but to-day there must have been some adequate cause for her
changing color, for the lighting and deepening of her eyes as they met
his so frankly; he was sure to-day of what he had only surmised
before,--that this sensitive, high-spirited, pure-hearted woman loved him
as it had never entered his preoccupied mind or selfish heart to love
her or indeed any human being.
"I have been a fool!" he ejaculated. "Well, it is done, and, with a
woman like her, it can not be undone! Miserable bungler that I am, I
have been trying to make matters better, and I have made them a thousand
times worse! Why did I promise to call again this week? Why did I give
her a right to ask me? I wish that I had _never_ seen her! God
knows,"--she would never have forgotten his eyes could she have seen them
at this instant, penitent and self-reproachful,--"that I did not _mean_
to trifle with her."
Meanwhile, resting in Dinah's chair, with the algebra and slate at her
feet, she was thinking over and over the words he had spoken that
afternoon; very few they were, but simple and sincere; at least so they
sounded to her. She smiled as "I _do_ care very much" repeated itself to
her, with the tone and the raising of the eyes.
"Very much!" as much as she did? It was about a trifle, some little
thing that she had put into rhyme for him; how many rhymes she had
written for him this summer! He so often said, "Write this up for me,"
and she had so intensely enjoyed the doing it, and so intensely enjoyed
his appreciation--his over-appreciation, she always thought.
O, Tessa, Tessa, pick up that algebra, and go to work with it. Life's
problems are too complex for your unworldliness.
She stooped to pick up Dinah's slate, and, instead of finishing the work
upon it, she wrote out rapidly a thought that had tinged her cheeks
while Ralph Towne had been with her. _The silent side_ she called it.
Was it the silent side? If it were, how was it that he understood? She
_knew_ that he understood; she knew that he had understood when he
answered, "Twice ten, perhaps."
Her mother's voice below broke in upon her reverie; fancy, sentiment, or
delicate feeling of any kind died a hard and sudden death under Mrs.
Wadsworth's influence, yet she read more novels than did either of her
daughters, and would cry her lovely eyes red and swollen over a story
that Tessa would not deign to skip through. It was one of her mother's
plaints that Tessa had no feeling.
Ralph Towne did not give the promised "twice ten" minutes that week, nor
for weeks afterward; she met him several times driving with his mother,
or with his mother and Sue Greyson: her glad, quick look of recognition
was acknowledged by a lifting of the hat and a "good afternoon, Miss
Tessa." Once she met him alone with Sue Greyson. Sue's saucy,
self-congratulatory toss of the head stung her so that she could have
cried out. "I am ashamed"--no, I am not ashamed to tell you that she
cried herself to sleep that night, as she asked God to bless Ralph Towne
and make him happy and good. She could not have loved Ralph Towne if she
might not have prayed for him. Her mother would have been inexpressibly
shocked at such a mixture of "love and religion."
"How long have you loved Christ?" asked the minister, when Tessa was
"examined" for admission to the church.
"Ever since I have known Him," was the timid reply.
And Ralph Towne, in these miserable days, for he _was_ miserable, as
miserable in his fashion as she was in hers, was blaming her and
excusing himself. What _had_ he ever said to her? Was every one of a
man's words to be counted? There was Sue Greyson, why didn't she turn
sentimental about him? True, he had said one day when they were talking
about friendship--what had he said that day? Was she remembering that? If
she had studied his words--but of course, she had forgotten! What had
possessed him to say such things? But how could he look at her and not
feel impelled to say something warm? It could not be his fault; it must
be hers, for leading him on and for remembering every trivial word. And
of that she was equally sure, for how could he do any man or any woman
wrong, this sincere and honorable Christian gentleman?
In her imagination there was no one in a book or out of a book like
Ralph Towne. Gus Hammerton was a scholar and a gentleman, but she had
known him all her life; Felix Harrison was gracious and good, but he was
not like Ralph Towne. Ralph Towne was not her ideal, he was something
infinitely better than she could think; how beautiful it was to find
some one nobler and grander than her ideal! Far away in some wonderful,
unknown region he had grown up and had been made ready for her, and now
he had come to meet her; bewildered and grateful, she had loved him and
believed in him--almost as if that unknown region were heaven.
It was her wildest dream come true; that is, it had come true, until
lately. Some strange thing was happening; it was happening and almost
breaking her heart.
"Tessa, you look horrid nowadays," exclaimed Dinah, one afternoon, as
Tessa came up on the piazza, returning from her usual walk. "You are
white, and purple, and all colors, and you never sing about the house or
talk to me or to any body. You actually ran away while Mrs. Bird was
over here yesterday, and you don't even go to see Miss Jewett! She asked
me yesterday if you had gone away. When Laura was talking to you
yesterday, you looked as if you did not hear one word she said."
"I was listening."
"And you used to have such fun talking to Gus; I believe that you went
up-stairs while he was here last night."
"I had a headache; I excused myself."
"You always go down the road. Why don't you go through Dunellen?"
"I want to get into the country; I never walk through a street simply
for the pleasure of it. I like to be alone."
"Do you ever walk as far as Old Place?"
"That isn't far, only three miles; sometimes I go to Mayfield, that is a
mile beyond Old Place."
"Isn't Old Place splendid? Next to Mr. Gesner's it is the handsomest
place around."
"It is more home-like than Mr. Gesner's."
"Sue likes Mr. Gesner's better. I told her that I would take Old Place
and she could have Mr. Gesner's. Mr. Gesner's is stone; Old Place is all
wood. Do you ever see any of the Townes?"
"There are not many to be seen."
"Counting Sue, there are three. Sue thinks that she is stylish, driving
around with Mrs. Towne. She stayed a week with Miss Gesner once, too.
Why don't you and I get invited around to such places? Mrs. Towne ought
to invite you. Mr. Towne used to come here often enough."
"Used to come!" Tessa shivered standing in the sunlight. "Yes, it was
'used to come,'" she was thinking. "I have been dreaming, now I am
awake. I wish that I had died while I was dreaming."
"Now you look pale again! I guess you are growing up," laughed
unconscious Dinah; "it's hateful and horrid to grow up; I never shall.
Remember that I am always to be fifteen."
"I hope that you never will grow up," said Tessa, earnestly, "every
thing is just as bad as you can dream."
"Mr. Towne has given Sue coral ear-rings," Dinah ran on. Tessa had gone
down to her flower-bed to pull a few weeds that had pushed themselves in
among her pansies. "He gave his mother several groups in stone for the
dining-room; they are all funny, Sue says. In one, some children are
playing doctor; in another, they are playing school. He gave his cousin
a silk dress, and he bought himself a set of books for his birthday; he
was thirty-two. Did you think he was so old?"
"Yes."
"I say, Tessa, Sue thinks that she is going to marry him."
"Does she?" The voice was away down in the flowers.
"You are always among those flowers. Don't you wish that we had a
conservatory? They have a grand one at Old Place. I wonder why they have
so little company."
"Mrs. Towne is feeble; she likes a quiet house."
"Yes, Sue says that. But Grace Geer, his cousin, is there! Mrs. Towne is
to give Old Place and all its treasures to Mr. Towne upon his
wedding-day; she wants a daughter more than any thing, Sue says. I wish
she would take me. Sue thinks that she will take _her_. Every other word
that she speaks is 'Mr. Ralph.' She talks about him everywhere. Do _you_
believe it?"
"Believe what?"
Tessa had returned to the piazza with a bunch of pansies.
"Believe that she will marry him! She has real pretty manners when she
is with them, and really tries not to talk slang. But I don't believe
it. He treats her as he would treat any one else; I have seen them
together."
"Perhaps she will. People say so," said Tessa.
Poor motherless, sisterless Sue! Was she making a disappointment for
herself out of nothing? Or was it out of a something like hers?
It was certainly true that Sue Greyson had taken a summer tour with Mrs.
Towne and Mr. Ralph Towne, and that she had spent more of her time
during the last year at Old Place than in her own small, unlovely home.
She loved her father "well enough," she would have told you; but after
the months at Old Place, she found the cottage in Dunellen a stale and
prosaic affair; her father had old Aunt Jane to keep house for him, why
did he need her? He would have to do without her some day. Doctor Lake
was great fun, why could he not be interested in him?
"He is a stranger, not my only daughter," her father had once replied.
"Your father will be glad enough and proud enough that he let you come
to Old Place," comforted Grace Geer, when Sue told her that he missed
her at home. "Ralph Towne's wife will be a happy woman for more reasons
than one; and he is interested in you, as one can see at a glance. He
told his mother to-day that he should always be glad that they had come
to Old Place."