Her eyes were wide open an hour before the dawn; as the faint light
streamed through the east and glowed brighter and brighter along the rim
of the south that she could see from her position on the pillow, she
arose, wrapped a shawl about her, and went to the window to watch the
new morning. On the last night of the old year she had watched the
sunset standing at her western window, then the light had gone out of
her life and all the world was dark; now, in the new year, her private
and personal new year, the light was rising, creeping up slowly into the
sky, the gold, the faint rose and the bright rose running into each
other, softening, blending, glowing deeper and deeper as she watched.
This new morning that was an old morning to so many other eyes that were
looking out upon it; this new morning that would be again for Dinah,
perhaps, and for all the other girls that were growing up into God's
kingdom on the earth! The robins in Mr. Bird's apple orchard were awake,
too, and chanticleer down the road had proclaimed the opening of another
new day with all his lusty might. She wondered, as she listened and
looked, if Felix were standing in the light of the morning on the porch,
or he might be walking up and down the long garden path. And thanking
God? She wished that she were thanking God. She was thanking Him for the
light, the colors, the refreshing, misty air, the robins and the white
and pink wealth of apple blossoms; but she was not thanking Him because
Felix Harrison loved her.
"And that night they caught nothing."
The words repeated themselves with startling clearness. What connection
could they possibly have with the sunrise? Oh, now she knew; it was
because the fishermen had seen the Lord upon the shore in the morning.
_She_ had caught nothing; all her night of toil had been fruitless; she
had striven and hoped and dreamed, oh, how she had dreamed of all that
she would do and become! And now she could not be glad of any thing.
The years had ended in having Felix Harrison love her; that was all. She
had lived her childhood and girlhood through for such a time as this.
This new year had brought more hard things to bear than any of the old
years; if she could only tell some one who would care and sympathize
with her and help her not only to bear but to do and to become; but her
father would be justly angry and exclaim, "Madness, daughter," her
mother would laugh and look perplexed, Miss Jewett would say, "O, Tessa,
Tessa, I didn't think such a thing of you," and Mr. Towne--but she had no
right to think of him! And Gus! He would look at her steadily and say
nothing; he would be disappointed in her if he knew that she could
promise with her lips, with no love in her heart save the love of
regret, compassion, and contrition for all that she had so unconsciously
caused him to suffer. And how could she reveal to Felix, poor Felix! the
plain, cold truth! how she shrank from him as soon as she was alone and
could think! how as the morning grew brighter and her world more real
she shrank from him yet more and more! how the very thought of his
presence, of his tight arms around her, and his smooth face close to
hers gave her a feeling of repulsion that she had never felt towards any
human being before! She felt that she must flee to the ends of the earth
rather than to endure him. But it was done; she must keep her word; he
should never guess; she would write a note and slip it into his hand
to-day, he would be sure to press through the crowd towards her as she
came out of church. She would write it now and be at rest. Her
writing-desk stood open, pages of manuscript were laid upon it. She
selected a sheet of lemon-colored note paper, and wrote a message,
hurriedly, in pencil. Never afterward would she write a word upon
lemon-colored paper.
"Do not come to me, dear Felix--" she hesitated over the adjective,
erased the words, and dropped the sheet into her waste paper basket and
found another: "Do not come to me, Felix, until I send for you, please.
I am not strong. I want to be alone. Do not think me unkind, you know
that I always did like to be alone. Do not expect too much of me; I am
not what you think; I am a weak, impulsive woman, too tender-hearted to
be wise, or to be just towards myself or towards you. If you want me to
love you, ask it of Him, who is love; do not ask it of me, I am not
love. But do not be troubled, I have given my word, I am not a
covenant-breaker, _I will be true_."
She folded it, not addressing it, and placed it in the pocket of the
dress that she would wear to church; as she passed the window she saw
Dr. Lake driving towards home. Shivering, although the sun was high
enough to shine on the apple blossoms, she crept back to bed, nestling
close to sleepy Dine who loved her morning nap better than the sunrise.
Her confused thoughts ran hither and thither; she found herself
repeating something that she and Mr. Hammerton had learned together
years ago,
"'Yes,' I answered you last night;
'No,' this morning, sir, I say;
Colors seen by candlelight
Do not look the same by day."
Mr. Hammerton said that he and the Wadsworth girls had learned "miles"
of poetry together. The Harrisons were not at church. When had such a
thing happened before? Her fingers were on the note in her pocket as she
passed down the aisle.
"Tessa, Tessa," whispered a loud whisper behind her, and Sue's
irrepressible lips were close to her ear; "come home to dinner with me;
you won't want to go to Bible class, for Miss Jewett is down to
Harrison's. Father sent for her to go early this morning."
"Why is she there?"
"Oh, somebody is sick. Felix. Dr. Lake was there in the night and father
was going this morning. He was taken crazy, I believe. Come home with
me, will you?"
"Very well."
She found Dine waiting for Norah, and told her that she was going home
with Sue, then rejoined Sue at one of the gates.
"I'm awful lonesome Sundays," began Sue; "Aunt Jane has gone, I told
you, didn't I? A cousin of hers died and left some dozens of young ones
and she had to go and take care of them and console the widower. 'The
unconsolable widder of Deacon Bedott will never get married again!' but
she went all the same. She said that she had brought _me_ up far enough
to take care of father."
Sue's lightness grated all along her nerves.
"Did you like Mary Sherwood's hat? Too many flowers, don't you think so?
And she _will_ wear light blue with her sallow face! Wasn't it a queer
sermon, too? Don't you think it is wicked for ministers to frighten
people so? He said that we make our own lives, that we choose every day,
and that every choice has an influence. You think that I don't listen
because I stare around, don't you? I sha'n't forget that ever, because I
have just had a choice that will influence my life; and I chose _not_ to
do it. It's hateful to have Miss Jewett away; I won't go to Bible class,
and I won't let you, either. I have a book to read, or I can go to
sleep."
"Yes, you can go to sleep."
"I have something to tell you," said Sue, shyly, hesitating as she
glanced into Tessa's quiet, almost stern, face.
"Not now--in the street."
"Oh, no, when we are by ourselves. Our parlors are lovely now; you will
see how I have fixed up things. Father is so delighted to have me home
that he will let me do any thing I like."
Voices behind them and voices before them, now and then a soft, Sunday
laugh; through the pauses of Sue's talk Tessa listened, catching at any
thing to keep herself from thinking.
"A rare sermon."
"It will do me good all the week."
"The most becoming spring hat I've seen."
"He is very handsome in the pulpit."
"Come over to tea."
"I expect to do great things this summer."
"If I could talk like that I'd set people to thinking."
"We sha'n't get out of trouble in _this_ world."
"When I can't forgive myself, I just let go of myself, and let God
forgive me."
She wished that she could see that face; the voice sounded familiar, the
reply was in a man's voice; she felt as if she were listening, but she
would have liked to hear the reply, all the more when she discovered
that the talkers were Mr. Lewis Gesner and his sister.
"_Isn't_ she handsomely dressed?" exclaimed Sue in admiration. "She
passed me without seeing me. He is so wrapped up in that sister that he
will never be married."
The crowd became thinner; couples and threes and fours, sometimes only
one, entered at each gate as they moved on; they passed down the long
street almost alone; Dr. Greyson's new house stood nearly a mile from
the Park; there was a grass plot in front and stables in the rear.
Dr. Lake was driving around to the stables.
"I hoped that he wouldn't be home to lunch; he's awful cross," said Sue,
with a pout and a flush. Fifteen minutes later the lunch bell rang; Dr.
Greyson hurried in as they were seating themselves at the table.
Tessa's quickened heart-beats would not allow her to ask about Felix;
she knew that her voice would betray her agitation; Dr. Lake had shaken
hands and had not stopped to speak to her; his miserable face was but a
repetition of yesterday.
Dr. Greyson seldom talked of anything but his patients and he was
interested in Felix Harrison, she knew that she had but to wait
patiently.
"Susie is a perfect housekeeper, isn't she? Somebody will find it out,
I'm afraid."
"That's all I am," said Sue. "Father, why didn't you educate me?"
"Educate a kitten!"
"How is Felix Harrison?" inquired Dr. Lake.
"Bad! Bad enough. That fellow has been walking around with a brain
fever. He'll pull through with care. Miss Jewett will stay until they
can get a nurse; I would rather keep _her_, though. I warned him months
ago. I told him that it would come to this. He has thrown away his life;
he'll never be good for any thing again. I am glad that he has a father
to take care of him; lucky for him, and not so lucky for his father. I
wouldn't care to see my son such a wreck as he'll be. Why a man born
with brains will deliberately make a fool of himself, I can't
understand. Teaching and studying law and what not? He will have fits as
long as he lives coming upon him any day any hour; he will be as much
care as an infant. More, for an infant does grow up, and he will only
become weaker and weaker mentally and physically. He has been under some
great excitement, I suspect. _They_ don't know what it is. He came home
late last night; his father heard a noise in his room and went in to
find him as crazy as a loon. He said that he had heard him talking in
his sleep all night long for two or three nights. I hope that he isn't
engaged. I know a case like his, and that poor fellow _was_ engaged."
"Of course that ended it," said Sue. "A sick husband of all things. I
would drown myself, if I had a sick husband."
"Of course it ended it. It almost broke her heart, though; broke it for
a year, and then a dashing cousin of his mended it."
"Perhaps Felix hasn't any cousin. Dr. Lake, will you have more coffee?"
Sue spoke carelessly, not meeting his glance.
"Thank you, no."
Dr. Greyson ran on talking and eating: "I told the old man the whole
truth; he begged so hard to know the worst. He cried like a baby. He was
proud of Felix. Felix was a fine fellow,--a noble fellow. But he's dead
now; dead, _and_ buried."
"Does Laura know?" inquired Sue, helping herself to sweet pickled
peaches. Tessa was tasting the peaches, her throat so full of sobs that
she swallowed the fruit with pain.
"No, of course not. I told Miss Jewett to tell her any thing, but be
sure to keep her up. He won't die. Why should he? It will come gradually
to her. The very saddest case I know. And to think that it might have
been avoided. I didn't tell his father _that_, though. Felix has no one
but himself to thank. I warned him a year ago. Brains _without_ common
sense is a very poor commodity. What did the minister tell you Miss
Tessa? I haven't been to church since Sue was a baby."
"No wonder that I'm a heathen, then; any body would be with such a
father," retorted Sue.
Dr. Lake excused himself abruptly, and crossing the hall went into the
office.
"That foolish boy has taught me a lesson. I would take a vacation this
summer, only if I leave Sue at home she would run off and marry Lake
before a week."
"You needn't be afraid," answered Sue, scornfully. "I look higher than
Gerald Lake."
The office door stood ajar. Sue colored with vexation as the words in
her high voice left her lips.
"Shall we go into the parlor?" she said rising. "You can find a book and
I'll go to sleep."
The parlors had been refurnished in crimson and brown. Standing in the
centre of the front parlor, Tessa exclaimed, "Oh, how pretty!"
"Isn't it? All my taste. Dr. Lake did advise me, though; he went with
me. Now, you shall sit in the front or back just as you please, in the
most comfortable of chairs, and I will sit opposite you and snooze,--that
is," rather doubtfully, for she was afraid of Tessa, "unless you will
let me tell you my secret."
In passing through the rooms, Tessa had taken a volume of Josephus from
a table; she settled herself at one of the back windows in a pretty
crimson and brown chair, smoothed the folds of her black dress, folded
her hands in her lap over the green volume, and looked up at Sue. Sue
and a book in brown paper were in another crimson and brown chair at
another window; flushed and vexed she played with the edges of her book.
"Do you think that he heard what I said?" she asked anxiously.
"You know as well as I."
She did not feel in a gentle mood towards Sue; her voice and words had
rasped her nerves for the last hour.
"I didn't intend it for him," she was half crying, "but father provoked
me. He does bother me so. I didn't flirt with him, I was real good and
sisterly. I told him to call me Sister Sue. But after it all, he asked
me to marry him, and was as mad as a hornet, and said dreadful things to
me when I refused him."
She nibbled the edge of her book; Tessa had nothing to say.
"I couldn't help it now, could I?" in a tearful voice.
"You know best."
"I _know_ I couldn't. I like him. I can't help liking him; a cat or a
dog would like him. In some things, I like him better than Stacey, and
I'm sure I like him better than old John Gesner."
Tessa opened her book and looked into the handsome face of Flavius
Josephus.
"Haven't you any thing to say to me?"
"No."
"You might sympathize with me."
"I don't know how."
Sue nibbled the edge of her book, with her eyes filled with tears. She
had no friend except Tessa, and now she had deserted her!
Tessa turned the leaves and thought that she was reading; she did read
the words: "The family from which I am derived is not an ignoble one,
but hath descended all along from the priests; and as nobility among
several people is of a different origin, so with us to be of the
sacerdotal dignity is an indication of the splendor of a family."
"Yes," she tried to think, her eyes wandering out of the window towards
the rear of Gesner's Row, "and that is why the promise, to be made kings
and priests--"
"Tessa, I think you are real mean," said Sue, in a pathetic voice.
Tessa met her eyes and smiled. She did not like to be hard towards Sue.
"Do you think that I've been so wicked?"
"I think that you have been so wicked that you must either be forgiven
or punished."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear _me_," dropping her head on the arm of her chair.
Tessa turned another leaf. "Moreover when I was a child and about
fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had to
learning; on which account the high priests and principal men of the
city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion
about the accurate understanding of points of the law."
Her eyes wandered away from the book and out the open window towards the
rows of open windows in the houses behind the stables. At one window was
seated an old man reading; in the same room, for he raised his head to
speak to her, at another window, a woman was sitting reading also. She
was glad that there were two. She wondered if they had been kind to each
other as long as they had known each other. If the old man should die
to-night would the old woman have need to say, "Forgive me." Through the
windows above came the heavy, steady whirr of a sewing-machine, with now
and then a _click_, as if the long seam had come to its end; the bushy,
black head of a German Jew was bent over it; the face that he raised was
not at all like that of the refined Flavius Josephus. No one ever went
to him with knotty points in the law! There were plants in the other
window of the room; she was glad of the plants. It was rather mournful
to be seeking things to be glad about. A child was crying, sharply,
rebelliously; a woman's sharper voice was breaking in upon it.
There was a voice in the stable speaking to a horse, "Quiet, old boy." A
horse was brought out and harnessed to a buggy without a top. Dr.
Greyson climbed into the buggy and drove off. Another horse was brought
out and harnessed to a buggy with a top. She persuaded herself that she
was very much interested in watching people and things; she had not had
time to think of Felix yet. Dr. Lake came out, sprang into the buggy,
and drove slowly out, not looking towards the windows where sat the two
figures, each apparently absorbed in a book.
"Tessa," in a broken voice, like the appeal of a naughty child with the
naughtiness all gone, "what shall I do?"
"I don't know," said Tessa.
"You don't think that I ought to marry him. He smells of medicine so."
"I do not think any thing. If I did think any thing, it would be my
thinking and not yours."
"Do you believe that he cares so _very_ much?"
The exultant undertone was too much for Tessa's patience.
"I hope that he has too much good sense to care long; some day when he
can see how heartless you are, he will despise himself for having
fancied that he loved you."
"You don't care how you hurt my feelings."
"I am not sure that you have any to be hurt."
"You are a mean thing; I don't like you; I wish that I hadn't asked you
to come."
Tessa's eyes were on _Josephus_ again.
After a long, silent hour, during which Sue looked out the window, and
nibbled the edge of her book, and during which Tessa thought of every
body and every thing except Felix Harrison, Sue spoke: "I'm going
up-stairs for a while; excuse me, please."
Tessa nodded, closed her book and leaned back in the pretty crimson and
brown chair. Sue came to her and stood a moment; her heart _was_ sore.
If Tessa would only say something kind! But Tessa would not; she only
said coolly, "Well?"
"You don't believe that I am sorry."
"I don't believe any thing about it, but that you are heartless and
wicked."
Sue stood waiting for another word, but Tessa looked tired, and as if
she had forgotten her presence. Why should she look so, Sue asked
herself resentfully; _she_ had nothing to trouble her? Sue went away,
her arms dropped at her side, her long green dress trailing on the
carpet; tenderness gathered in Tessa's eyes as the green figure
disappeared. "I don't like to be hard to her," she murmured.
The terrible thought of Felix pressed heavier and heavier. She took the
note from her pocket and pondered each word; the cruel, truthful words!
If he had read them she might have had to believe all her life that she
had hastened this illness! The sunshine grew warmer, beating down upon
the paving stones in the yard, the faces kept their places in the
windows, the child's shrill, rebellious cry burst out again and the
woman's sharper voice.
Sue's steps were moving overhead; suddenly, so suddenly as to break in
upon the current of her thoughts, Sue's voice rang out in her clear
soprano, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me."
The voice grated, the words coming from the thoughtless lips grated on
her ear and on her heart, grated more harshly than the woman's sharp
voice in taunting rebuke.
"Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling."
As soon as she had decided that she could not bear it another instant,
the singing ceased. It ceased and left her in tears.