"Yes," he said, as slowly and as sorrowfully, "I will."
He was very sorry for this woman who had been so foolish as to think
that his words had meant so much.
She had closed the street door and was on the first step of the stairs
when her mother called to her from the sitting-room.
"What did Sir Dignified Undemonstrative have to say for himself?"
"He does not talk about himself."
"It is your turn to get tea! It is Bridget's afternoon out."
Mrs. Wadsworth was a little lady something less than five feet in
height, as slight as a girl of twelve, and prettier than either of her
daughters; with brown hair, brown eyes, and the sprightliest manner
possible.
"Young enough to be Tessa's sister," Dunellen declared.
But she was neither sister nor mother as her elder daughter defined the
words.
"If you get him, Tessa, you'll get a catch," remarked Mrs. Wadsworth
watching the effect of her words.
The first sound of her mother's voice had brought her to herself, her
self-contained, cautious and, oftentimes, sarcastic self.
"Have you any order about tea?"
Her studied respect toward her mother, was pitiful sometimes. It was
hard that she could not attain somewhat of her ideal of daughterhood.
"No, but I want you to do an errand for me after tea. I forgot to ask
Dine to do it on her way from school."
"Very well," she assented obediently.
She stumbled on the basement stairs, and found the kitchen so dark that
she groped her way to a chair and sank into it, dropping her head on the
table. She could hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing--the whole earth
was empty!
Where was God? Had He gone, too?
Through the open windows floated the sound of girls' voices, as Norah
and Dinah chatted and laughed in the garden. But the sound was far off;
the engine whistled and screamed, but the sound was not in her world;
carriages rolled past, the front gate swung to, her father's step was on
the piazza over her head, and he was calling, her dear old father,
"Where are you all, my three girls?"
His fulfilled hope was bitterer than all her disappointments ever could
be.
"I don't wonder," she said with a sob in her throat, as she arose and
pushed her hair back, "I don't wonder that he can not love me; but oh, I
wish that he had not told me a lie!"
October passed; the days hurried into November; there was no more
leaf-hunting for her, no more long walks down the beautiful country
road, no more tripping up and down stairs with a song or a hymn on her
lips, no more of life, she would have said, for every thing seemed like
death. She did not die with shame, as at first she was sure that she
would do; she could not run away to the far end of the earth where she
would never again see his face; where every face would be a new face,
where no voice would speak his name; she could not dig a hole in the
earth and creep into it; she could not lie down at night and shut her
tired eyes, with both hands under her cheek, as she always fell asleep,
and never awake again, as she would love best of all to do; she could
cry out, but she could not hear the answer, "Oh, please tell me when I
_meant_ to be so good, why it had to be so hard."
No; she had to live in a world where people would laugh at her if they
only knew; how she would shiver and freeze if her mother should once
begin to harp upon the sudden break. She could not bemoan herself all
the time; she was compelled to live because she had been born, and she
was compelled to thrive and grow cheery; there were even moments when
she forgot to be ashamed, for her mother's winter cough set in with the
cold winds, and beside being nurse, she was in reality the head of the
small household. Dinah was preparing to be graduated in the summer and
was no help at all; instead, an hour or two every evening Tessa was
asked to study with her, for she did not love study and was not quick
like her sister.
And then she had her own special work to do, for she was a scribbler in
prose and rhyme; the half dozen weeklies that came to the house
contained more than once or twice during the year sprightly or pathetic
articles under the initials T. L. W.
But few knew of this her "literary streak," as her mother styled it, for
she dreaded any publicity.
Miss Jewett, her father, and Mr. Hammerton were her sole encouragers and
advisers; Mr. Towne was not aware that she dipped her pen in ink for any
one's pleasure but his own. Beside this work there were friends to
entertain, half the girldom in Dunellen were her friends or had been at
some time.
Ralph Towne often wondered how she was "taking" it; he could have found
no sign of it in her face or in her life. Her father feared that she was
being overworked. Mr. Hammerton's short-sighted eyes noticed a shadow
flit across her eyes, sometimes, when she was talking to him, and said
to himself, "I see her often; I see a change that is not a change; there
is something happening that no one knows."