All through the month of October she felt cross, sometimes she looked
cross, but she did not speak one cross word, not even once; she was not
what we call "sweet" in her happiest moods, but she was thoroughly sound
in her temper and often a little, just a very little, sharp. Never sharp
to her father, however, because she reverenced him, and never to her
mother because she was pitiful towards her; she could appreciate so few
of life's best havings and givings, that Tessa could never make her
enjoyment less by speaking the thoughts that, at times, almost forced
their own utterance; therefore her mood was kept to herself all through
the month.
There was no month in the year that she loved as well as she loved
October; in any of its days it was a trial to be kept within doors.
She would have phrased her mood as "cross" if she had had the leisure or
the inclination to keep a diary; she had kept a journal during the first
year of her friendship with Ralph Towne and had burned it before the
year was ended in one of her times of being ashamed of herself.
One of the happenings that irritated her was the finding in her desk a
scrap of a rhyme that she had written one summer day after a talk with
Ralph Towne; she dropped it into the parlor grate chiding herself for
ever having been so nonsensical and congratulating herself upon having
outgrown it.
It was called _The Silent Side_ and was the story of a maiden wandering
in the twilight up a lane bordered with daisies, somebody didn't come
and her eyes grew tired of watching and her heart beat faint with
waiting, so she wandered down the daisy-bordered lane! She did feel a
little tender over the last lines even if she were laughing over it:
"'Father,' she said, 'I may not say,
But will _you_ not tell him I love him so?"
Had any one in all the world of maidenhood beside her ever prayed such a
prayer? Old words came to her: "Thou knowest my foolishness."
The rhyme was dated the afternoon that Ralph Towne had said--but what
right had she to remember anything that he had said? He had forgotten
and despised her for remembering; but he could not despise her as much
as she despised herself!
Why was it that understanding him as she certainly did understand him,
that she knew that she would fly to the ends of the earth with him if he
should take her hand and say, "Come"; that is, she was _afraid_ that she
would. It was no marvel that the knowledge gave her a feeling of
discomfort, of intense dissatisfaction with herself; how woefully wrong
she must be for such a thing to be true!
On the blank side of a sheet of manuscript, she scribbled a stanza that
haunted her; it gave expression to the life she had lived during the two
years just passed.
"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."
In this month her book was accepted; that check for two hundred and six
dollars gave pleasure that she and others remembered all their lives;
with this check came one for fifteen dollars for Dinah; she almost
laughed her crossness away over Dine's little check.
Dine's reply was characteristic:
"Thus endeth my first and last venture upon the literary sea; I follow
in your wake no longer.
"If it were matrimony now--
"John (isn't John a grand, strong name?) doesn't like literary women. He
reads Owen Meredith to me, and Miss Mulock. He says that I am like Miss
Mulock's _Edna_."
Each letter of Dine's teemed with praises of John Woodstock; she thought
that he was like Adam Bede, or Ninian in "Head of the Family," or
perhaps Max in "A Life for a Life"; she was lonely all day long without
him, and as happy as she could be on earth with him all the long
evenings.
Tessa frowned over the letters; Dine made no allusion to him in letters
written to her father and mother; her whole loving, girlish heart she
poured out to Tessa. And Tessa cried over them and prayed over them.
Sue returned from her bridal tour undeniably miserable; even the radiant
mood of Dr. Lake was much subdued. Tessa met them together at Mrs.
Towne's one evening, two days after the coming home, and was cut to the
heart by their manner towards each other: she was defiant; he,
imploring.
"I'm sorry I'm married any way," she exclaimed.
"Don't say that," he remonstrated, his face flushing painfully.
"I will say it--I _do_ say it! I _am_ sorry!"
"You know that you don't mean it."
"Yes, I do mean it, too."
Dr. Towne glanced at Tessa and gave an embarrassed laugh. Mrs. Towne's
expression became severe; Tessa could have shaken Sue. Nan Gerard turned
on the music stool with her most perfect laugh; Tessa could have shaken
_her_ for the enlightenment that ran through it.
"We will have no more music after that," said Professor Towne.
Sue bade Tessa good night holding both her hands. "I wish I had married
Stacey," she whispered.
"Don't tell Dr. Lake, I beg of you."
"Oh, he knows it. Come and see me."
"No, I will not. You shall not talk to me about your husband."
"I will if I want to. You must come."
"Do come," urged Dr. Lake coming towards them. But she would not
promise.
The last Saturday evening in October found Tessa alone before the fire
in Mrs. Towne's sitting-room; Mrs. Towne was not well, and had sent for
her to come; she had gone to her sleeping room immediately after tea,
and asked Tessa to come to her in two hours.
She was in a "mood"; so she called it to herself, a mood in which
self-analysis held the prominent place; her heart was aching, she knew
not for what, she hardly cared, if the aching might be taken away and
she could go to sleep and then awake to find the sun shining.
For the last hour she had been curled up in a crimson velvet chair, part
of the time with her head bowed upon the arm; there were tears on her
eyelashes, on her fingers, and on the crimson velvet. In the low light,
she was but a gray figure crowned with chestnut braids, and only that
Ralph Towne saw when he entered noiselessly through the half open door.
Tessa thought that no one in the world moved so gently or touched her so
lightly as Ralph Towne. He stood an instant beside her before she
stirred, then she raised her head slowly, ashamed of her flushed, wet
cheeks. She could not hide from the moon.
"Well?" she said, thinking of her eyes and cheeks.
"Are you dreaming dreams alone, here in the dark?"
"I'm afraid so; I dream too many dreams; I want something real; I do not
like the stuff that dreams are made of."
"You are real enough." He leaned against the low mantel with one elbow
resting upon it; she did not lift her eyes; she was afraid. Had he come
to say something to her?
"Miss Tessa."
She did not reply, she was rubbing her fingers over the crimson velvet.
"I have been thinking of something that I wish to say to you."
"Well, I am approachable," in a light, saucy voice.
"Think well before you speak; it is a question that, middle-aged as I
am, I never asked any woman before; I want to ask you to become my
wife."
She had raised her eyes in surprise, unfeigned surprise.
"You need not look like that," he said irritably; "you look as if you
had never thought of it."
"I have not--for a long time; perhaps I did once--before I became old and
wise. I _am_ surprised, I can not understand it; I was so sure that you
could never care for me."
"Why should I not? It is the most natural thing in the world."
"I do not think so; I can not understand."
"Accept it upon my testimony, do not try to understand it."
He betrayed no feeling, except in his quickened tone; she was too
bewildered to be conscious of any feeling at all; she listened to the
sound of her own voice, as if another were speaking; she remembered
afterward, that for once in her life she had heard the sound of her own
voice. She was thinking, "My voice _is_ pleasant, only so cold and
even."
"Will you not answer me?"
She was thinking; she had forgotten to answer.
"Why should you like me?" she said at last.
"There's reason enough, allow me to judge; but you do not come to the
point."
"I do not know how."
"I thought that coming to the point was one of your excellences."
"Your question--your assertion rather--is something very new."
She could see the words; she was reciting them from a printed page.
"Don't you know whether you like me or not?" he asked in the old
assured, boyish way.
"No, I do not know that; if I did I should care for what you are saying,
and now I do not care. Once, in that time when I loved you and you did
not care, I would have died with joy to hear you say what you have said;
my heart would have stopped beating; I should have been too glad to
live; but perhaps when _that_ you went away and died, the Tessa that
loved you went away and died, too. I think that I _did_ die--of shame.
Now I hear you speak the words that I used to pray then every night that
you might speak to me, and now I do not care! When I was little I cried
myself sick once for something I wanted, and when mother gave it to me I
was too sick and tired to care. No, I do not want to marry you, Dr.
Towne, I am too sick and tired to love you."
"Why do you not want to marry me?"
"Because--because--" she looked up into his grave eyes--"I do not want to;
I am not satisfied with you."
"Why are you not satisfied with me?"
"I do not know."
"Are you disappointed in me? Have I changed?"
"Oh, no," she said sorrowfully, "you have not changed--not since I have
known you this time. It is like this, as if I were blind when I knew you
before, and I loved you for what you were to me; but as I could not see
you, I loved you for what I imagined you to be, and now, I am not blind,
my eyes are wide, wide open, and I look at you and wonder 'where is the
one I knew?' I do not know you; you are a stranger to me; I would love
you if I could; I can not say _yes_ and not love you. I have never told
any one, but I may tell you now. While you were away at St. Louis, I
promised to marry some one; he had loved me all my life, and I was so
heart-broken because of the mistake that I had made about you; and I
wanted some one to care for me, so that I might forget how I loved
somebody that did not love me. And then I was wild when I knew what I
had done! I did not love him; I felt as if I were bound in iron; I shall
never forget that. I do not want to feel bound in iron to you. Why did
you not ask me last year when you knew how I cared for you?"
He dropped his eyes, the hot color flushing even to his forehead. "I
could not--sincerely."
"Why did you act as if you liked me?"
"I did like you. I did not love you. I did not understand. I can not
tell you how unhappy I was when I found that you had misunderstood me. I
would not have hurt you for all the universe; I did not dream that you
could misunderstand me; I was attracted to you; I did not know that I
manifested any stronger feeling. Surely you have forgiven me."
"Yes, I have forgiven you; I did not really blame you; I knew that you
did not understand. You are a stupid fellow about women.--You are only a
stupid, dear, big boy."
"But you do not answer me."
"I _have_ answered you. Do you ask me sincerely now?" she asked
curiously.
"You know I do," he said angrily.
"Do you ask me because Miss Gerard has refused you?" with a flash of
merriment crossing her face.
"I never asked Miss Gerard."
"Did you flirt with her?"
"I suppose you give it that name. I was attracted towards her, of
course, but I soon found that she had no depth; she would cling to me, I
could not shake her off. I took her to Mayfield this morning; she asked
to go, I could not refuse the girl. She has made several pretty things
for me; I showed my appreciation by buying pieces of jewelry for her;
was that flirting? I never kissed her, or said I loved her, or talked
any nonsense to her."
"Of course not. You do not know how."
"I know how to talk sense, Miss Tessa."
"Are you asking me because your mother loves me so much?"
"Is it so hard for you to believe that I love you?"
"Yes," she said, her eyes filling at his tone, "I can not believe it. It
is as if you had put both hands around my throat and choked my breath
away and then said politely, 'Excuse me.'"
"Is my love so little to you as that?"
"I have not seen it yet; you _say_ you love me, that is all."
"Is not that enough?"
"It can not be enough, for it does not satisfy me. I have believed so
long that you despised me; one word from you can not change it all."
"Is there something wrong about me?"
"Wrong? Oh, no. How could there be? I do believe that you are a _good_
man."
"You think that you can not be happy with me?" he asked patiently.
"I am happy enough always, everywhere; I was as happy as a bird in a
tree before I knew you; you set me to crying for something, and then
held out your hand empty."
"I love you; isn't that full enough?"
"No, that is not full enough. I want you to _be_ all that I believed you
to be. I shall not be satisfied till then. When you think of me you may
think of me hungering and thirsting for you to be all that I can dream
of your being--all that God is willing to make you."
The light had died out of his eyes.
"Do you know some one that does satisfy you?"
"I know good people, but they do not satisfy me."
"Philip Towne?"
"I should as soon think of loving St. John."
"Tell me, _do_ you love him?"
"Dr. Towne, I never thought of such a thing!" she said with quick
indignation.
"You are a Mystic; Dr. Lake has named you true. Come, be sensible and
don't talk riddles; don't talk like a book; talk plain, good sense; say
_yes_, and leave all your whims behind you forever."
"Loving you was a whim; shall I leave that behind forever?"
"Yes."
"Then I could not endure your presence; it is that that keeps you near
me now. It is not enough for you to love me; I should die of hunger if I
did not love you."
"Love me, then."
Her head went down upon the arm of the chair; she covered her face with
both hands; a childish attitude she often assumed when alone.
"I can't, I can't! I want to; I would if I could! it's too late; I can't
go back and see you as you were--"
"I have asked you to forgive me."
"I do, I do; but I do not love you as I want to love you. I shall never
marry any one, you may be sure of that; I do not want to be married. Why
must I? Who says I must?"
"I say so."
"Your authority I do not recognize. The voice must come from God to my
own heart."
"Lift your head. Look at me."
She obeyed.
"I wish you to understand that I am not to be trifled with; this is
definite; this is final; I have asked and you have refused. You need not
play with me thinking that I shall ask you again, _I never shall_.
Remember, I never shall."
"I do not wish you to ask me again."
"Then this ends the matter."
"This ends the matter," she repeated.
"My mother is not well, she will miss you; you will stay with her just
the same. She will not surmise any thing. She loves you as I did not
know that one woman could love another."
"Is that why you wish to marry me?"
"No. I know my own mind. I have loved you ever since I knew you, but I
was not aware of it; I did not know it until I knew that Miss Gerard was
not like you."
"Oh, I am so sorry! This is the hardest of all. But I might grow not to
like you at all; I might rush away from you; it takes so much love and
confidence and sympathy to be willing to give one's self."
"I am not in a frame of mind to listen to such things; you forget that
you have thrown me away for the sake of a whim!"
"I want to tell your mother; I can not bear for her to be so kind to
me--"
"It isn't enough to hurt me, but you must hurt her, also. She would not
understand--any more than I do--why you throw me away."
"I will not tell her, but I shall feel like a hypocrite. You will not
utterly despise me."
"You can not expect me to feel very kindly towards you. Why may I not
lose all but the memory of _you_?"
"You may. I am willing," she answered wearily. "Oh, I _wanted_ to be
satisfied with you."
He had left the room with his last words, not waiting for reply.
And she could only cry out, with a dry, hard sob, "Oh, Ralph, Ralph, I
_wanted_ to be satisfied with you!"