The blossom storm came and blew away the apple blossoms, the heavy
fragrance of the lilacs died, and the shrubbery became again only a mass
of green leaves and ugly, crooked stems; but amid this, something
happened to Tessa; something that was worth as much to her as any
happenings that came before it; something that had its beginning when
she was a little school-girl running along the planks and teasing Felix
Harrison. How much certain jarring words spoken that day and how much a
certain bit of news influenced this happening, she, in her rigid
self-analysis, could not determine!
She arose from the breakfast table at the same instant with her father,
saying: "Father, I will walk to the corner with you."
"We were two souls with one thought," he replied. "I intended to ask you
for a few minutes."
They crossed the street to the planks. She slipped her arm through his,
and as he took the fingers on his arm with a warm grasp, she said; "I
never want any lover but you, my dear old father."
"Nonsense, child! Only girls who have had a heart-break say such things
to their old fathers, and your heart is as good as new, I am sure.
Tessa, I want to see you married before I die."
"May you live till you see me married," she answered merrily. "What an
old mummy you will be!"
"I have been thinking of something that I want to say to you. I am an
old man and I am not young for my age--"
"Now, father."
"I may live a hundred years, of course, and grow heartier each year, and
like the 'frisky old girl,' die at the age of one hundred and ten, and
'die by a fall from a cherry-tree then,' but, still there's a chance
that I may not. And now, Daughter Tessa"--his voice became as grave as
her eyes, "I want you to promise me that you will always take care of
your poor little mother; poor little mother! You are never sharp to her
like saucy Dine, and she rests in you like an acorn in an acorn cup,
although she would be the last to confess it."
"I promise to do my best," Tessa said very earnestly.
"But that is only a part of it. Promise me that if she wishes to marry
again, and her choice be one that _you_ approve--"
"Approve!"
"Approve," he repeated, "that you will not hinder but rather further it,
and keep Dine from making her unhappy about it."
"I will not promise. You shall not die," she cried passionately. "How
can you talk so and break my heart?"
"Dr. Watts says that we all begin to die as soon as we are born, so I
have had to do it pretty thoroughly; but he was a theologian and not a
medical man. Have you promised?"
"Yes, sir," speaking very quietly, "I have promised."
With her hand upon his arm, they kept even step for ten silent minutes.
"Are you writing again?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then you must walk every day."
"Oh, I do, rain or shine. I am going down the road this afternoon to
look at the wheat fields and the oat fields and to see the boys and
girls dropping corn!"
"And to wish that you were a little girl dropping corn?"
"No, indeed," she said earnestly and solemnly. "I like my own life
better than any life I ever knew in a book or out of a book."
"When I count up my mercies I'll remember that."
She was dwelling upon those words of her father late that afternoon as
she sauntered homeward with her hands full of wild flowers and grasses.
"Mystic, will you ride with me?"
A feeling of warmth and of tenderness ever crept into her heart at the
sound of this voice.
She loved Dr. Lake.
"No, sir, thank you; I am out for a walk and when I walk I never ride."
"But I want to talk to you--to tell you something." She stepped nearer
and stood at the carriage wheel; his voice was sharp and his white
temples hollow. "Sue has refused me," he began with a laugh. "I proposed
last night, and what do you think she said? 'Why, Dr. Lake, you are
poor, and you smell of medicine.'"
"They are both true," she said, not conscious of what reply she was
making.
"Yes," he answered bitterly, "they are both true and will _be_ true
until the end of time. Don't you think that you could reason with her
and change her mind; you have influence." He laid his gloved hand on the
hand that rested on the wheel. "It will kill me, Mystic, if she doesn't
marry me."
So weak, so pitiful! She could have cried. And all for love of flighty
Sue Greyson!
"I was sure that she would accept me. She has done every thing _but_
accept me. I did not know that a woman would permit a man to take her
day after day into his arms and kiss her unless she intended to marry
him. Would _you_ permit that?" he asked.
"You know that I would not," she answered proudly; "but Sue doesn't know
any better; all she cares for is the 'fun' of the moment."
"I have been hoping so long; since Towne went away; I can't bear this."
"There is as much strength for you as for any of us," she said gently.
"But I am too weak to hold it."
And he looked too weak to hold it. She could not lift her full eyes. "I
am so sorry," was all she could speak.
"There isn't any thing worth living for anyway; I, for one, am not
thankful for my 'creation.' I wish I was dead and buried and out of
sight forever. Sue Greyson has another offer to whisper to all Dunellen.
I would not stay here, I would go back to that wretched hospital, but my
engagement with her father extends through another year. Well, you won't
ride home with me?"
"Not to-day, I want to be out in this air."
"And you don't want to be shut in here with my growling. I don't blame
you; I'd run away from myself if I could. I'll kill half Dunellen and
all Mayfield with overdoses before another night, and then take a big
dose myself. Say, Mystic, you are posted in these things, where would be
the harm?"
"Take it and see."
"Not yet awhile. I am not sure of many things, but I _am_ sure that a
man's life in this world will stare in his face in the next. And my life
has not been fit even for your eyes."
Homely, shabby, old, worn, excited, with a sharp ring in his voice and a
stoop in his shoulders. What was there in him to touch Sue Greyson?
Where was the first point of sympathy?
Tessa could have taken him into her arms and cared for him as she would
have cared for a child.
"I have just seen an old man die; a good old man; he was over ninety; he
prayed to the last; that is his lips moved and his old wife laid his
hands together; he liked to clasp his hands when he prayed, she said.
She put her ear down close to his mouth, but she could not distinguish
the words. I was wishing that I could go in his place, and that he could
take up my life and live it through for me. He would do better with it
than I shall."
"Is not that rather selfish?"
"Life is such a sham. I don't believe in the transmigration of souls; I
don't want to come back and pull through another miserable existence."
"I want you to stay this soul in this body; I do not want to lose you."
"If every woman in the world were like you--"
"And every man were as tired and hungry as you--"
"What would he do?"
"He would hurry home to a good, hot dinner."
"I have not eaten or drank since yesterday morning. Sue has a hot dinner
waiting for me. She will sit with me while I eat, and tell me, perhaps,
that she has had a letter from that fellow in Philadelphia, or that that
well-preserved specimen of manhood, old John Gesner, has asked her to
drive with him. Some flirtation of hers is sauce to every dish."
"Poor Sue," sighed Tessa.
"She might be happy if she would; I would take care of her."
"Good-by," squeezing his fingers through his glove. "Go home and eat."
"Give me a good word before I go."
"Wait."
"Is that the best word you know?"
"It is good enough."
"Well, good day, Mystic," he said, lifting his hat.
She went back to the grassy wayside, thinking. What right had Sue
Greyson's light fingers to meddle with a life like Dr. Lake's? They had
not one taste in common. How could he find her attractive? She disliked
every thing in which he was interested; it was true that she could sing,
sing like one of the wild birds down in the woods, and he loved music.
She paused and stood leaning against the rails of a fence, and looked
across the green acres of winter wheat; one day in September she had
stood there watching the men as they were drilling the wheat; afterward
she had seen the tender, green blades springing up in straight rows, and
once she had seen the whole field green beneath a light snow. The wind
moved her veil slightly, both hands were drooping as her elbows leaned
upon the upper rail, her cheeks were tinged with the excitement of Dr.
Lake's words, and her eyes suffused with a mist that was too sorrowful
to drop with tears. A quick step on the grass at her side did not
startle her; she did not stir until a voice propounded gravely: "If a
man should be born with two heads, on which forehead must he wear the
phylactery?"
She turned with a laugh. "Gus, I would know that was you if I heard the
voice and the question in the Great Desert."
"Can't you decide?"
"My thoughts were not nonsense."
"Of course not, you were labelling and pigeon holing all that you have
thought of since sunrise! I've been sitting on a stone waiting for your
conference to end. Are you in the habit of meeting strange men and
conversing with them."
"Yes, I came out to meet you."
"I only wish you did! I wish that you would make a stranger of me and be
polite to me. It is nothing new for you to be wandering on a Saturday
afternoon, and nothing new for you to find me."
"I didn't find you."
"I intended to give you the honor of the discovery; now we will share
the glory. Shall we go on?"
"I have been to my roots; do you know my roots? Do you know the corner
above Old Place and the tiny stream?"
"I know every corner, and every root, and every stream. Shall I carry
your flowers for you? I never can see why I should relieve a maiden of a
burden when her avoirdupois equals mine. You will not give them to me? I
have something to read to you--something of my own composing--I composed
it in one brilliant wakeful moment--you will appreciate it."
"I do not believe it."
"Wait until you hear it. Lady Blue, are you going to be literary and
never be married! Woe to the day when I taught you all you know."
They went on, slowly, for she liked to talk to Mr. Hammerton. "Father
said something like that this morning and it troubled me; why may I not
do as I like best? Why should he care to see me married before he dies?"
"Why should he not?"
"Nonsense. I can take good care of myself; beside," with a mischievous
glance into his serious eyes, "I really don't know whom to marry."
"Oh, you could easily find some one. If all else fail, come to me, and
if I am not too busy I will take you into consideration."
"Thanks, good friend! But you will always be too busy. What have you to
read to me?"
"Something that you will appreciate. I wrote it for you. Stay, sit down,
while I read it."
"I don't want to. You can read and walk. The mother of Mrs. Hemans could
read aloud while walking up hill."
Mr. Hammerton's voice was not pleasant to a stranger, but Tessa liked it
because it belonged to him; it was a part of him like his big nose, his
spectacles, and the tiny bald spot over which, every day, he carefully
brushed his hair. The color in his cheeks was as pretty as a girl's, and
so was the delicate whiteness of his forehead; the bushy mustache,
however, made amends for the complexion that he sometimes regretted;
Tessa had once told him that his big nose, his mustache, and his
awkwardness were all that kept him from being as pretty as his sister.
"I am not the mother of Mrs. Hemans." He took a sheet of paper from his
pocket-book, and showed her the poem written in his peculiarly plain,
upright hand.
"Excuse my singing and I will read. You must not think of any thing
else."
"I will not."
"You are walking too fast."
She obediently took slower steps.
He cleared his throat and, holding the paper near his eyes, began to
read. A shadow gathered in his listener's eyes at the first four lines.
"A nightingale made a mistake;
She sang a few notes out of tune,
Her heart was ready to break,
And she hid from the moon.
"She wrung her claws, poor thing,
But was far too proud to speak;
She tucked her head under her wing,
And pretended to be asleep.
"A lark arm in arm with a thrush,
Came sauntering up to the place;
The nightingale felt herself blush,
Though feathers hid her face.
"She knew they had heard her song,
She felt them snicker and sneer.
She thought this life was too long,
And wished she could skip a year.
"'O, nightingale!' cooed a dove,
O, nightingale, what's the use;
You bird of beauty and love,
Why behave like a goose?
"'Don't skulk away from our sight,
Like a common, contemptible fowl;
You bird of joy and delight,
Why behave like an owl?
"'Only think of all you have done;
Only think of all you can do;
A false note is really fun
From such a bird as you.
"'Lift up your proud little crest:
Open your musical beak;
Other birds have to do their best,
You need only to speak.'
"The nightingale shyly took
Her head from under her wing,
And giving the dove a look,
Straightway began to sing.
"There was never a bird could pass;
The night was divinely calm;
And the people stood on the grass,
To hear that wonderful psalm!
"The nightingale did not care,
She only sang to the skies;
Her song ascended there,
And there she fixed her eyes.
"The people that stood below
She knew but little about;
And this story's a moral, I know,
If you'll try to find it out."
"How did you know that I need that?" she asked, taking it from his hand.
"Who wrote it?"
"I did."
"Don't you know?"
"No. I don't know. I copied it for you."
"Thank you. I thank you very much. You could not have brought me any
thing better."
"I brought you a piece of news, too."
"As good as the poem?"
"Nan Gerard thinks so. She is to be married and to live at Old Place;
our castle in the air."
"Old Place isn't my castle in the air. Who told you?"
"A woman's question. I never told a woman a secret yet that she did not
reply, 'Who told you?' Mary Sherwood told me, of course. Do you
congratulate Naughty Nan?"
"Must I?"
"It's queer that I do not know that man. I have missed an introduction a
thousand times. Do you congratulate her?"
"I am supposed to congratulate _him_. He is very lovable."
"I thought that only women were that."
"That's an admission," laughed Tessa, "you cross old bachelor."
"You learned that from Dine."
"No, I learned it from you."
Tessa talked rapidly and lightly, perhaps, because she did not feel like
talking at all.
Would he marry Nan Gerard? Why could she not be glad for Nan Gerard? Why
must she be just a little sorry for herself? Why must it make a
difference to her? Why must the weight of the flowers be too heavy for
her hand, and why must she give them that toss over a fence across a
field?
"Your pretty flowers," expostulated Mr. Hammerton.
"I do not care for them; they were withering."
"I have a thought; I wonder why it should come to me; I am wondering if
you and I walk together here a year from to-day what we shall be talking
about. My prophetic soul reveals to me that a year makes a difference
sometimes."
"I remember a year ago to-day," she answered. "A year _has_ made a
difference."
"Not to you or me?"
"To Nan Gerard?" she answered seriously.
"But that does not affect us."
Did it not? A year ago to-day Ralph Towne had brought her some English
violets, and she had pressed them and thrown a thought about him and
about them into a poem. To-day had he taken violets to Nan Gerard?
"Lady Blue; you are absent-minded."
"Am I? I was only labelling and pigeon-holing a thought; it is to be
laid away to moulder with the dust of ages."
"A thought that can not be spoken?"
"A thought that it was folly to think, and that would be worse than
folly to speak."
If he replied she did not hear; they sauntered on, she keeping the path
and he walking on the grass.
A carriage passed, driving slowly. The two ladies within watched the
pedestrians,--a fair-faced girl with thoughtful eyes, and a tall man with
an intellectual face,--as if they were a part of the landscape of the
spring.
"'In the spring a young man's fancy--'"
laughingly quoted one of them.
"Will she accept or refuse him?" asked the other.
"If she do either it will be once and forever," was the reply seriously
given. "Did you notice her mouth? She has been very much troubled, but
she can be made very glad."
After the carriage had passed, Mr. Hammerton spoke, "I am glad we amused
those people; they failed to decide whether or not we are lovers."
"They have very little penetration, then," said Tessa. "I am too languid
and you are too unconscious."
"There is nothing further to be said; you do not know what you have
nipped in the bud."
"I suppose we never know that."
Dinah met them at the gate, her wind-blown curls and laughing eyes in
striking contrast to the older face that had lost all its color. Tessa
did not see that Mr. Hammerton's eyes were studying the change in her
face; she had no more care of the changes in her face with him than with
Dinah.
"I'll be in about eight," he said to Dinah, as Tessa brushed past him to
enter the gate.
Another thing that influenced impressible Tessa this day, was a talk at
the tea-table. They were sitting around the tea-table cozily, the four
people who, in her mother's thought, constituted all Tessa's world. Mr.
Wadsworth in an easy position in his arm-chair was listening to his
three girls and deciding that his little wife was really the handsomest
and sprightliest woman that he had ever seen, that happy little Dine was
as bewitching as she could well be, and that Tessa, the light of his
eyes, was like no one else in all the world. Not that any stranger
sitting in his arm-chair would have looked through his eyes, but he was
an old man, disappointed in his life, and his three girls were all of
earth and a part of heaven to him. They were all talking and he was
satisfied to listen. "I believe that some girls are born without a
mother's heart," Mrs. Wadsworth said in reply to a story of Dine's about
a young mother in Dunellen who had slapped her baby, saying that she
hated it and was nothing but a slave to it! "Now, here's Tessa. _She_
has no motherliness. Only this morning Freddie Stone fell down near the
gate and hurt his head; his screams were terrifying, but she went on
working and let him scream. As I said it is all as girls are born."
"Yes," answered Tessa, in the deliberate way in which she had schooled
herself to reply to her mother, "I know that your last assertion is
true. There was a lady in school, a teacher of mathematics, she
acknowledged that she did not love her own little girls as other mothers
seemed to do. She stated it as she would have stated any fact in
geometry; perhaps she thought that she was no more responsible for one
than for the other. The mere fact of motherhood does not bring mother
love within; any mother that does not give to her child a true idea of
the mother-heart of God fails utterly in being a mother. She may be a
nurse, a paid nurse, or a nurse upon compulsion; any hired nurse can
wash a child's face, can tie its sash and make pretty things for it to
wear, and _any_ nurse, who was never mother to a child, can teach it
what God means when He says, 'as a mother comforteth.' Miss Jewett could
not be happier in her Bible class girls if they were all her own
children; she says so herself. Mary Sherwood said to her one day, 'If my
mother were like you, how different I should have been!'"
"Such a case is an exception," returned Mrs. Wadsworth excitedly.
"Nineteen out of her twenty-three girls tell her their troubles when
they would not tell their own mothers," said Dinah. "She has
twenty-three secret drawers to keep their secrets in."
"She has time to listen to fol-de-rol. She advises them all to marry for
some silly notion and let a good home slip, I've no doubt."
"I expect that twenty-one of her girls have refused John Gesner,"
laughed Mr. Wadsworth. "He will have to bribe Miss Jewett to let them
alone."
"Only twenty, father," said Dine. "Tessa and Sue and I are waiting to do
it."
"I will make this house too uncomfortable for the one of you that does
refuse him."
"Mother! mother!" remonstrated Mr. Wadsworth gently.
"He'll never have the honor," said Dine. "Mr. Lewis Gesner is the
gentleman; I have always admired him. Haven't you, Tessa?"
"Yes; I like to shake hands with him; he has a trustworthy face."
"So much for the mothers of Dunellen, Tessa; how about the fathers?
Would the girls like to have Miss Jewett for a father, too?"
"Oh, the fathers have the bread-winning to do. If the mothers do not
understand, we can not expect the fathers to understand. There was a
girl at school who had had a hard home experience; she told me that she
never repeated the second word of the Lord's prayer; that she said
instead: Our Lord, who art in heaven?"
"Oh, deary me! How dreadful!" cried Dinah, moving nearer the arm-chair
and dropping her head on her father's shoulder. "Didn't she _ever_ learn
to say it?"
"Not while we were at school."
"Tessa, you can talk," said her mother.
"Yes," said Tessa, humbly, "I can talk."
"She was a very wicked girl," continued Mrs. Wadsworth. "I don't see how
she dared; I should think that she would have been afraid of dying in
her sleep as a judgment sent upon her."
"Perhaps she did not repeat the prayer as a charm," answered Tessa, in
her clearest tones.
Dinah lifted her head to laugh.
"You upheld her, no doubt," declared Mrs. Wadsworth.
"I sympathized with her as they who never had a pain can feel for the
sick," said Tessa, smiling into her father's eyes.
"How did you talk to her?" asked Dine.
"What is talk? I only told her to wait and she would know."
"It's easy to talk," said Mrs. Wadsworth uncomfortably. "You can talk an
hour about sympathy, but you didn't run out to Freddie Stone."
"Why didn't you?" inquired her father seriously.
Tessa laughed, while Dine answered.
"Mother was there talking as fast as she could talk, Bridget was there
with a basin of water and a sponge, Mrs. Bird had run over, a carriage
with two ladies, a coachman and a footman had stopped to look on, and
oh, I was there too. He was somewhat bloody."
"You are excused, daughter. Save your energies for a time of greater
need."
"Energies! Need!" tartly exclaimed Mrs. Wadsworth. "If she begins to be
literary, she will care for nothing else."
"I see no evidence of a lessening interest yet," replied her father.
"Oh, I might know that you would encourage her. She might as well have
the small-pox as far as her prospects go! A needle is a woman's weapon."
"You forget her tongue, mother," suggested Dine. "Oh, Tessa, what is
that about a needle; Mrs. Browning says it."
Tessa repeated:
"'A woman takes a housewife from her breast,
And plucks the delicatest needle out
As 'twere a rose, and pricks you carefully
'Neath nails, 'neath eyelids, in your nostrils,--say,
A beast would roar so tortured--but a man,
A human creature, must not, shall not flinch,
No, not for shame.'"
"Some woman wrote that when she'd have done better to be sewing for her
husband, I'll warrant," commented Mrs. Wadsworth. Mr. Wadsworth looked
grave.
"Oh she had a literary husband," replied Tessa, mischievously. "A word
that rhymed with supper would do instead of bread and butter; and he
cared more for one of her poems than he did for his buttons."
"Literary men don't grow on every bush; and they don't take to literary
women, either," said her mother.
"Mother, you forget the Howitts, William and Mary; what good, good times
they have taking long walks and writing; like you and Gus, Tessa, and
Mr. and Mrs. Browning--"
"You don't find such people in Dunellen; _we_ live in Dunellen. Gus will
choose a woman that doesn't care for books, and so will Mr. Towne, mark
my words! And so will Felix Harrison, even if he is killing himself with
study."
"He is improving greatly," said Mr. Wadsworth, pulling one of Dine's
long curls straight. "He is going away Monday to finish his studies."
"I honor him," said Tessa, flushing slightly.
"Don't," said Dine, "he sha'n't have you, Tessa. Don't honor him."
"That's all you and your father think of--keeping Tessa. She needs the
wear and tear of married life to give her character."
"It's queer about that," rejoined Tessa in a perplexed tone, playing
with her napkin ring. "If such discipline _be_ the best, why is any
woman permitted to be without it? Why does not the fitting husband
appear as soon as the girl begins to wish for him? In the East, where it
is shameful for a girl not to be married at eleven, I have yet to learn
that the wives are noted for strength or beauty of character."
"You may talk," said her mother, heatedly, "but two years hence _you_
will dance in a brass kettle."
"I hope that I shall work in it," answered Tessa, coloring painfully,
however. Whether her lips were touched with a slight contempt, or
tremulous because she was very, very much hurt, Dinah could not decide;
she was silent because she could not think of any thing sharp enough to
reply; she never liked to be _too_ saucy.
Mr. Wadsworth spoke in his genial voice: "It's a beautiful thing,
daughters, to help a good man live a good life."
Dinah thought: "I would love to do such a beautiful thing." Tessa was
saying to herself, "Oh, what should I do if my father were to die!"
Mr. Wadsworth pushed back his chair, went around to his wife and kissed
her. Tessa loved him for it.
"You have helped a good man, a good old man, haven't you, fairy?" he
said, smoothing the hair that was as pretty as Dinah's.
"Yes," answered his wife, and Tessa shivered from head to foot. "People
all said that you were a different man after you were married."
"I'm going over to Norah's," cried Dinah. "I told her that I would come
to write our French together. And, oh, father! I forgot to tell you, Gus
will be in about eight."
"I don't know that I care for chess; I can not concentrate my attention
as I could a year ago."
"Why do you run off if he is coming?" asked Mrs. Wadsworth.
"He comes too often to be attended to," Dine answered. "Won't you be
around, Tessa?"
"Perhaps."
Tessa had resolved to give the evening to writing letters, and was
passing through the dining-room with a china candlestick in her hand,
when her father, reading Shakespeare at the round table, on which stood
a shaded lamp, detained her by catching at her dress.
"Set your light down, daughter, and stay a moment."
With her hand upon his shoulder, she looked down over the page he was
reading:
"'Heaven doth with us as we with torches do;
Not light them for themselves--'"
she read aloud.
"I made my will to-day," he said quietly; "that is, I changed it. Lewis
Gesner and Gus Hammerton, my tried friends, were in the office at the
time. If you ever need a friend, daughter, any thing done for you that
Gus can not do--I count on him as the friend of my girls for life--go to
Lewis Gesner."
"I don't want a friend; I have you."
"If I should tell your mother about the will she would go into
hysterics, and Dine would be sure that I am going to die; I have divided
my little all equally among my three. That is, all but this house and
garden, which I have given to my elder daughter, Theresa Louise. It is
to be hers solely, without any gainsaying. Your mother will fume when
the fact is made known to her, but I give it to you that my three girls
may always have a roof, humble though it be, over their heads. The old
man did not know how to make money, but he left them enough to be
comfortable all their lives there was never any need that his wife
should worry and work, or that his daughter should marry for a home.
Very good record for the old man; eh, daughter?"
She laid her cheek against the bald forehead and put both arms around
his neck.
"And, Tessa, child, your mother is half right about you; don't have any
notions about marriage; promise me that you will marry--for you will,
some day--but for the one best reason."
"What is that?" she asked roguishly. "How am I to know?"
"What do you think?"
"Because somebody needs me and I can do him good."
"A Hottentot might urge that; you will find the reason in time. Don't
make an idol; that is your temperament."
"I know it."
"And above all things don't sacrifice yourself; few men appreciate being
done good to! I know men, they are terribly human. Gus Hammerton is a
fine fellow."
"_He_ is terribly human," she answered with a little laugh.
"Am I harsh towards your mother ever, do you think?" he asked in a
changed tone.
"Why, _no_," she exclaimed in surprise.
"I used to be. I tried to mould her. Don't _you_ ever try to mould any
body; now run away to your work or to your book! Don't sigh over me, I
am 'well and hearty.' How short my life seems when I look back. Such
dreams as I had. It's all right, though."
She could not run away, for the door-bell, in answer to a most decided
pull, detained her; she opened it, expecting to see Mr. Hammerton, but
to her surprise, and but slightly to her pleasure, Felix Harrison stood
there in broad-shouldered health.
"Good evening," she said with some bewilderment.
"Do I startle you?" he asked in the old gracious, winning manner. "May I
come in?"
"I am very glad to see you. Will you walk into my parlor, Mr. Fly?"
The one tall candle in the china candlestick was the only light in the
room. She set it upon the table, saying, "Excuse me, and I will bring a
light, that we may the better look at each other. The light of other
days is hardly sufficient."
"It is enough for me," he said, pushing the ottoman towards one of the
low arm-chairs. "Sit down and I will take the ottoman. The parrot
recognizes me."
Her hand moved nervously on the arm of her chair; the hand was larger
now than when it had spilled ink on his copy-book, larger even than when
it had written her first, shy, proud, indignant refusal.
"You are not the tempest you used to be," he said smiling after a survey
of her face.
"_Wasn't_ I a tempest? I have outgrown my little breezes. In time I may
become as gentle as a zephyr."
"You always were gentle enough."
"Not to you."
"Not to me when I tormented you."
"Probably I should not be gentle if I were tormented now."
She had never decided to which of the five thousand shades of green
Felix Harrison's eyes belonged; they were certainly green; one of the
English poets had green eyes, she wondered if they were like Felix
Harrison's. To-night they glittered as if they were no color at all.
This face beside her was a spiritualized face; a strong mouth as sweet
as a woman's, a round benevolent chin; a low, square forehead; hair as
light as her own; his side face as he turned at least five years younger
than the full face; she had often laughed at his queer fashion of
growing old and growing young. At times, in the years when they were
more together than of late, he had changed so greatly that, after not
having seen him for several days she had passed him in the street
without recognition; these times had been in those indignant times after
she had refused him; that they were more than indignant times to him she
was made painfully aware by these changes in his rugged face.
"I have been thinking over those foolish times," she said, breaking the
silence. "I am glad that you came in to-night; I am in a mood for
confessing my wrong-doings; I have said many quick words; you know you
always had the talent for irritating me."
"Yes, I always worried you."
"You did not intend to," she said hastily, watching the movement of his
lips; "we did not understand, that is all. It takes longer than a summer
and a winter for heart to answer to heart."
"We have known each other many summers and many winters."
"And now we are old, sensible, hard-working people; having given up all
nonsense we are discovering the sense there is in sense."
He turned his face with a listening look in his eyes.
"Did not some one come in? Shall we be disturbed?"
"Not unless we wish to be. It is only Mr. Hammerton, he is a great
friend of father's. He renews his youth in him."
"Is he not _your_ friend?"
How well she remembered his suspicious, exacting questions!
"He is my best friend," she said proudly.
"I wish I was in heaven," he said, his voice grown weak. "Every thing
goes wrong with me; every thing has gone wrong all my life. Father is in
a rage because I will not stay home; he offered me to-day the deed for
two hundred acres as a bribe. I should be stronger to-day but that he
worked my life out when I was a growing boy."
"A country life is best for you. Your old homestead is the loveliest
place around, with its deep eaves and dormer-windows and vines. That
wide hall is one of my pleasant recollections, and the porch that looks
into the garden, the blue hills away off, and the cool woods, the
thrushes and the robins and the whip-poor-will at twilight; that
solitary note sets me to crying, or it used to when I dreamed dreams and
told them to Laura! I hope that Laura will love the place too well to
leave it; it is my ideal of a home; much more than splendid Old Place
is."
"I will stay if you will come and live in it with me," he said quietly.
"I like my own home better," she answered as quietly. "Are you stronger
than you were?"
"Much stronger. I have not had one of those attacks since March. Lake
warns me; but I am twice the man that he is! How he coughed last winter!
I haven't any thing to live for, anyway."
"It is very weak for you to say that."
"Whose fault is it that I am so weak? Whose fault is it that my life is
spoiled? You have spoiled every thing for me by playing fast and loose
with me."
"I never did that," she answered indignantly. "You accuse me
wrongfully."
"Every time you speak to me or look at me you give me hope; an hour with
you I live on for months. O, Tessa," dropping his head in both hands, "I
have loved you all my life."
"I know it," she said solemnly. "Can't you be brave and bear it?"
"I _am_ bearing it. I am bearing it and it is killing me. You never had
the water ebb and flow, ebb and flow when you were dying of thirst.
Women can not suffer; they are heartless, all their heart is used in
causing men to suffer. A touch of your hand, the color in your cheek, a
dropping of your eyes, talks to me and tells me a lie; and then you go
up-stairs and kneel down to Him, who is the truth-maker! You are a
covenant-breaker. You have looked at me scores of times as if you loved
me; you have told me that you like to be with me; and when I come to you
and ask you like a man to become my wife, you blush and falter, and
answer like a woman--_no_. I beg your pardon--"
The tears stood in her eyes but would not fall.
"I did not come here to upbraid you. I did not start from home with the
intention of coming; but I saw you through the window with your arms
around your father's neck and I thought, 'Her heart is soft to-night;
she will listen to me.' I was drawn in, as you always draw me, against
my better judgment. I shall not trouble you again; I am going away.
Tessa," suddenly snatching both hands, "if you are so sorry for me, why
can't you love me?"
"I don't know," not withdrawing her hands, "something hinders. I honor
you. I admire you. Your love for me is a great rest to me; I want to
wrap myself up in it and go to sleep; I do not want to give it up--no one
else loves me, and I _do_ want somebody to love me."
"I will love you; only let me. Marry me and I will stay at home; I will
do for you all that a human heart and two human hands can do; I will
_be_ to you all that you will help me to be."
"But I do not want to marry you," she said perplexed. "I should have to
give up too much. I love my home and the people in it better than I love
you."
"I will not take you away; you shall have them all; you shall come to
them and they shall come to you; remember that I have never loved any
one but you--" the great tears were rolling down his cheeks. "I am not
worth it; I am not worthy to speak to you, or even to hold your hands
like this." He broke down utterly, sobbing wearily and excitedly.
"Don't, oh, don't," she cried hurriedly. "I may grow to love you if you
want me to so much, and you are good and true, I can believe every word
you say--not soon--in two or three years perhaps."
His tears were on her hands, and he had loved her all her life; no one
else loved her, no one else ever would love her like this; he was good
and true, and she wanted some one to love her; she wanted to be sure of
love somewhere and then to go to sleep. Her father should see her
married before he died; her mother would never--
"You have promised," he cried, in a thick voice. "You have promised and
you never break your word."
"I have promised and I never break my word; but you must not speak of it
to any one, not even to Laura, and I will not tell father, or Gus, or
Miss Jewett, or Dine; no one must guess it for one year--it is so sudden
and strange! I couldn't bear to hear it spoken of; and if you are very
gentle and do not _try_ to make me love you--you must not kiss me, or put
your arms around me, you know I never did like that, and perhaps that is
one reason why I never liked you before--you must let me alone, let love
come of itself and grow of itself."
"I will," he uttered brokenly, and rose up trembling from head to foot.
"May God bless you!--bless you!--bless you!"
It was better for him to leave her; the strain had been too great for
both.
"I must be alone; I must go out under the stars and thank God."
She lifted her face to his and kissed him. How unutterably glad and
thankful she was in all her life afterward that she gave that kiss
unasked.
"God bless you, my darling," he said tenderly, "and He _will_ bless you
for this."
Bewildered, not altogether unhappy, she sat alone while he went out
under the stars.
Was this the end of all her girlhood's dreams?
Only Felix Harrison! Must she pass all her life with him? Must her
father and mother and Gus and Dine be not so much to her because Felix
Harrison had become more--had become most? And Ralph Towne? Ought she to
love Felix as she had loved him?
The hurried questions were answerless. She did not belong to herself;
not any more to her father as she had belonged to him half an hour since
with both her arms around his neck. Love constituted ownership, and she
belonged to Felix through this mighty right of love; did he belong to
her through the same divine right?
He was thanking God and so must she thank Him.
"Tessa," called her father, "come here, daughter!"
With the candle in her hand, she stood in the door-way of the
sitting-room. "Well," she said.
"With whom were you closeted?" asked Mr. Hammerton, looking up from the
chess-board.
The effort to speak in her usual tone lent to her voice a sharpness that
startled herself.
"Felix Harrison."
"Your old tormentor!" suggested Mr. Hammerton.
"Who ever called him that?" She came to the table, set the candlestick
down and looked over the chess-board.
"She has refused him again," mentally decided Mr. Hammerton, carefully
moving his queen.
"I called you, daughter, because Gus withstood me out and out about
'Heaven doth with us as we with torches do.' Find it and let his
obstinate eyes behold!"
She opened the volume, turning the leaves with fingers that trembled.
"Truly enough," she was thinking, "a year from to-day will find a
difference."
"Now I am going over for Dine," she said, after Mr. Hammerton had
acknowledged himself in the wrong.
"Permit me to accompany you," he said. Even with Tessa Wadsworth, Gus
Hammerton was often formal. They found Dinah bidding Norah good-by at
Mr. Bird's gate; they were laughing at nothing, as usual.
"Let us walk to the end of the planks," suggested Mr. Hammerton. "On a
night like this I could tramp till sunrise." He drew Tessa's arm through
his, saying, "Now, Dine, take the other fin."
The end of the planks touched a piece of woods; at the entrance of the
wood stood an old building, windowless, doorless, chimneyless; the
school children knew that it was haunted.
"We're afraid," laughed Dine; "the old hut looks ghostly."
"It _is_ ghostly, I will relate its history. Once upon a time, upon a
dark night, so dark that I could not see the white horse upon which I
rode--"
"Oh, that's splendid," cried Dinah, hanging contentedly upon his arm.
"Listen, Tessa."
But Tessa could not listen. She was feeling the peace that rested over
the woods, the fields; that was enwrapping Old Place, and further down
the dim road the low-eaved homestead that must thenceforth be home to
her. There could be no more air-castles; her future was decided. She had
turned the leaf and discovered a name that hitherto had meant so little:
Felix Harrison. Not Ralph Towne; a year ago to-night it was English
violets and Ralph Towne. The peace that brooded over all might be hers,
if only she would be content.
At this moment,--while she was trying to be content, trying to believe
that she could interpret the peace of the shining stars, and while she
was hearing the sound of her companion's words, a solemn, even tone that
rolled on in unison with her thoughts,--two people far away were thinking
of her; thinking of her, but not wishing and not daring to speak her
name.
"I can not understand, Ralph. I was sure that we would bring Naughty Nan
away with us."
"Truly, mother, I would have pleased you, if I could."
"You are too serious for her; with all her mischievous advances,--like a
white kitten provokingly putting out its paw,--she was more than half
afraid of you."
"It does not hurt her to be afraid."
"She is most bewitching."
"Now, mother! But it is too late; she will understand by my parting
words that I do not expect to see her soon again. In my mind is a memory
that has kept me from loving that delicious Naughty Nan."
"Is the memory a fancy?"
"No; it is too real for my ease of mind. If I were a poet, which I am
not, I should think that her spirit haunted me."
"Can you tell me no more of her? That daughter that I might have had!"
"I do not understand her: she is beyond me, she baffles me."
"I read of a man once who loved a woman too well to marry any one else,
and yet he did not love her well enough to marry her."
"Was he a fool?"
"Answer the question for yourself. Are _you_ a fool?"
"Yes, I am. I do not know my own mind. I should call another man a
fool."
"It may not be too late," she gently urged.
"Too late for what?" he asked irritably.
"To be wise."