He looked so sorrowful that I was driven to add something.
“I don’t think there is much good,” I said, “in resolving what you will or will not do, before the occasion appears, for it may have something in it you never reckoned on. All I can say is, I will try to do what is right. I cannot promise anything without knowing what my uncle thinks.”
We rose; he took me in his arms for just an instant; and we parted with the understanding that I was to write to him as soon as I had spoken with my uncle.
CHAPTER XV. THE TIME BETWEEN
I now felt quite able to confess to my uncle both what I had thought and what I had done. True, I had much more to confess than when my trouble first awoke; but the growth in the matter of the confession had been such a growth in definiteness as well, as to make its utterance, though more weighty, yet much easier. If I might be in doubt about revealing my thoughts, I could be in none about revealing my actions; and I found it was much less appalling to make known my feelings, when I had the words of John Day to confess as well.
I may here be allowed to remark, how much easier an action is when demanded, than it seems while in the contingent future—how much easier when the thing is before you in its reality, and not as a mere thought-spectre. The thing itself, and the idea of it, are two such different grounds upon which to come either to a decision or to action!
One thing more: when a woman wants to do the right—I do not mean, wants to coax the right to side with her—she will, somehow, be led up to it.
My uncle was very feverish and troubled the first night, and had a good deal of delirium, during which his care and anxiety seemed all about me. Martha had to assure him every other moment that I was well, and in no danger of any sort: he would be silent for a time, and then again show himself tormented with forebodings about me. In the morning, however, he was better; only he looked sadder than usual. She thought he was, for some cause or other, in reality anxious about me. So much I gathered from Martha’s letter, by no means scholarly, but graphic enough.
It gave me much pain. My uncle was miserable about me: he had plainly seen, he knew and felt that something had come between us! Alas, it was no fancy of his brain-troubled soul! Whether I was in fault or not, there was that something! It troubled the unity that had hitherto seemed a thing essential and indivisible!
Dared I go to him without a summons? I knew Martha would call me the moment the doctor allowed her: it would not be right to go without that call. What I had to tell might justify far more anxiety than the sight of me would counteract. If I said nothing, the keen eye of his love would assure itself of the something hid in my silence, and he would not see that I was but waiting his improvement to tell him everything. I resolved therefore to remain where I was.
The next two days were perhaps the most uncomfortable ever I spent. A secret one desires to turn out of doors at the first opportunity, is not a pleasant companion. I do not say I was unhappy, still less that once I wished I had not seen John Day, but oh, how I longed to love him openly! how I longed for my uncle’s sanction, without which our love could not be perfected! Then John’s mother was by no means a gladsome thought—except that he must be a good man indeed, who was good in spite of being unable to love, respect, or trust his mother! The true notion of heaven, is to be with everybody one loves: to him the presence of his mother—such as she was, that is—would destroy any heaven! What a painful but salutary shock it will be to those whose existence is such a glorifying of themselves that they imagine their presence necessary to all about them, when they learn that their disappearance from the world sent a thrill of relief through the hearts of those nearest them! To learn how little they were prized, will one day prove a strong medicine for souls self-absorbed.
“There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed.”
CHAPTER XVI. FAULT AND NO FAULT
The next day I kept the house till the evening, and then went walking in the garden in the twilight. Between the dark alleys and the open wilderness I flitted and wandered, alternating gloom and gleam outside me, even as they chased one another within me.
In the wilderness I looked up—and there was John! He stood outside the fence, just as I had seen him the night before, only now there was no aureole about his head: the moon had not yet reached the horizon.
My first feeling was anger: he had broken our agreement! I did not reflect that there was such a thing as breaking a law, or even a promise, and being blameless. He leaped the fence, and clearing every bush like a deer, came straight toward me. It was no use trying to escape him. I turned my back, and stood. He stopped close behind me, a yard or two away.
“Will you not speak to me?” he said. “It is not my fault I am come.”
“Whose fault then, pray?” I rejoined, with difficulty keeping my position. “Is it mine?”
“My mother’s,” he answered.
I turned and looked him in the eyes, through the dusk saw that he was troubled, ran to him, and put my arms about him.
“She has been spying,” he said, as soon as he could speak. “She will part us at any risk, if she can. She is having us watched this very moment, most likely. She may be watching us herself. She is a terrible woman when she is for or against anything. Literally, I do not know what she would not do to get her own way. She lives for her own way. The loss of it would be to her as the loss of her soul. She will lose it this time though! She will fail this time—if she never did before!”
“Well,” I returned, nowise inclined to take her part, “I hope she will fail! What does she say?”
“She says she would rather go to her grave than see me your husband.”
“Why?”
“Your family seems objectionable to her.”
“What is there against it?”
“Nothing that I know.”
“What is there against my uncle? Is there anything against Martha Moon?” I was indignant at the idea of a whisper against either.
“What have I done?” I went on. “We are all of the family I know: what is it?”
“I don’t think she has had time to invent anything yet; but she pretends there is something, and says if I don’t give you up, if I don’t swear never to look at you again, she will tell it.”
“What did you answer her?”
“I said no power on earth should make me give you up. Whatever she knew, she could know nothing against you, and I was as ready to go to my grave as she was. ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘you may tell my determination by your own! Whether I marry her or not, you and I part company the day I come of age; and if you speak word or do deed against one of her family, my lawyer shall look strictly into your accounts as my guardian.’ You see I knew where to touch her!”
“It is dreadful you should have to speak like that to your mother!”
“It is; but you would feel to her just as I do if you knew all—though you wouldn’t speak so roughly, I know.”
“Can you guess what she has in her mind?”
“Not in the least. She will pretend anything. It is enough that she is determined to part us. How, she cares nothing, so she succeed.”
“But she cannot!”
“It rests with you.”
“How with me?”
“It will be war to the knife between her and me. If she succeed, it must be with you. I will do anything to foil her except lie.”
“What if she should make you see it your duty to give me up?”
“What if there were no difference between right and wrong! We’re as good as married!”
“Yes, of course; but I cannot quite promise, you know, until I hear what my uncle will say.”
“If your uncle is half so good a man as you have made me think him, he will do what he can on our side. He loves what is fair; and what can be fairer than that those who love each other should marry?”
I knew my uncle would not willingly interfere with my happiness, and for myself, I should never marry another than John Day—that was a thing of course: had he not kissed me? But the best of lovers had been parted, and that which had been might be again, though I could not see how! It was good, nevertheless, to hear John talk! It was the right way for a lover to talk! Still, he had no supremacy over what was to be!
“Some would say it cannot be so great a matter to us, when we have known each other such a little while!” I remarked.
“The true time is the long time!” he replied. “Would it be a sign that our love was strong, that it took a great while to come to anything? The strongest things—”
There he stopped, and I saw why: strongest things are not generally of quickest growth! But there was the eucalyptus! And was not St. Paul as good a Christian as any of them? I said nothing, however: there was indeed no rule in the matter!
“You must allow it possible,” I said, “that we may not be married!”
“I will not,” he answered. “It is true my mother may get me brought in as incapable of managing my own affairs; but—”
“What mother would do such a wicked thing!” I cried.
“My mother,” he answered.
“Oh!”
“She would!”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I am sure of it.”
I held my peace. I could not help a sense of dismay at finding myself so near such a woman. I knew of bad women, but only in books: it would appear they were in other places as well!
“We must be on our guard,” he said.
“Against what?”
“I don’t know; whatever she may do.”
“We can’t do anything till she begins!”
“She has begun.”
“How?” I asked incredulous.
“Leander is lame,” he answered.
“I am so sorry!”
“I am so angry!”
“Is it possible I understand you?”
“Quite. She did it.”
“How do you know?”
“I can no more prove it than I can doubt it. I cannot inquire into my mother’s proceedings. I leave that sort of thing to her. Let her spy on me as she will, I am not going to spy on her.”
“Of course not! But if you have no proof, how can you state the thing as a fact?”
“I have what is proof enough for saying it to my own soul.”
“But you have spoken of it to me!”
“You are my better soul. If you are not, then I have done wrong in saying it to you.”
I hastened to tell him I had only made him say what I hoped he meant—only I wasn’t his better soul. He wanted me then to promise that I would marry him in spite of any and every thing. I promised that I would never marry any one but him. I could not say more, I said, not knowing what my uncle might think, but so much it was only fair to say. For I had gone so far as to let him know distinctly that I loved him; and what sort would that love be that could regard it as possible, at any distance of time, to marry another! Or what sort of woman could she be that would shrink from such a pledge! The mischief lies in promises made without forecasting thought. I knew what I was about. I saw forward and backward and all around me. A solitary education opens eyes that, in the midst of companions and engagements, are apt to remain shut. Knowledge of the world is no safeguard to man or woman. In the knowledge and love of truth, lies our only safety.
With that promise he had to be, and was content.
CHAPTER XVII. THE SUMMONS
Next morning the post brought me the following letter from my uncle. Whoever of my readers may care to enter into my feelings as I read, must imagine them for herself: I will not attempt to describe them. The letter was not easy to read, as it was written in bed, and with his left hand.
“My little one,—I think I know more than you imagine. I think the secret flew into your heart of itself; you did not take it up and put it there. I think you tried to drive it out, and it would not go: the same Fate that clips the thread of life, had clipped its wings that it could fly no more! Did my little one think I had not a heart big enough to hold her secret? I wish it had not been so: it has made her suffer! I pray my little one to be sure that I am all on her side; that my will is to do and contrive the best for her that lies in my power. Should I be unable to do what she would like, she must yet believe me true to her as to my God, less than whom only I love her:—less, because God is so much bigger, that so much more love will hang upon him. I love you, dear, more than any other creature except one, and that one is not in this world. Be sure that, whatever it may cost me, I will be to you what your own perfected soul will approve. Not to do my best for you, would be to be false, not to God only, but to your father as well, whom I loved and love dearly. Come to me, my child, and tell me all. I know you have done nothing wrong, nothing to be ashamed of. Some things are so difficult to tell, that it needs help to make way for them: I will help you. I am better. Come to me at once, and we will break the creature’s shell together, and see what it is like, the shy thing!—Your uncle.”
I was so eager to go to him, that it was with difficulty I finished his letter before starting. Death had been sent home, and was in the stable, sorely missing his master. I called Dick, and told him to get ready to ride with me to Wittenage; he must take Thanatos, and be at the door with Zoe in twenty minutes.
We started. As we left the gate, I caught sight of John coming from the other direction, his eyes on the ground, lost in meditation. I stopped. He looked up, saw me, and was at my side in two moments.
“I have heard from my uncle,” I said. “He wants me. I am going to him.”
“If only I had my horse!” he answered.
“Why shouldn’t you take Thanatos?” I rejoined.
“No,” he answered, after a moment’s hesitation.
“It would be an impertinence. I will walk, and perhaps see you there. It’s only sixteen miles, I think.—What a splendid creature he is!”
“He’s getting into years now,” I replied; “but he has been in the stable several days, and I am doubtful whether Dick will feel quite at home on him.”
“Then your uncle would rather I rode him! He knows I am no tailor!” said John.
“How?” I asked.
“I don’t mean he knows who I am, but he saw me a fortnight ago, in one of our fields, giving Leander, who is but three, a lesson or two. He stopped and looked on for a good many minutes, and said a kind word about my handling of the horse. He will remember, I am sure.”
“How glad I am he knows something of you! If you don’t mind being seen with me, then, there is no reason why you should not give me your escort.”
Dick was not sorry to dismount, and we rode away together.
I was glad of this for one definite reason, as well as many indefinite: I wanted John to see my letter, and know what cause I had to love my uncle. I forgot for the moment my resolution not to meet him again before telling my uncle everything. Somehow he seemed to be going with me to receive my uncle’s approval.
He read the letter, old Death carrying him all the time as gently as he carried myself—I often rode him now—and returned it with the tears in his eyes. For a moment or two he did not speak. Then he said in a very solemn way,
“I see! I oughtn’t to have a chance if he be against me! I understand now why I could not get you to promise!—All right! The Lord have mercy upon me!”
“That he will! He is always having mercy upon us!” I answered, loving John and my uncle and God more than ever. I loved John for this especially, at the moment—that his nature remained uninjured toward others by his distrust of her who should have had the first claim on his confidence. I said to myself that, if a man had a bad mother and yet was a good man, there could be no limit to the goodness he must come to. That he was a man after my uncle’s own heart, I had no longer the least doubt. Nor was it a small thing to me that he rode beautifully—never seeming to heed his horse, and yet in constant touch with him.
We reached the town, and the inn where my uncle was lying. On the road we had arranged where he would be waiting me to hear what came next. He went to see the horses put up, and I ran to find Martha. She met me on the stair, and went straight to my uncle to tell him I was come, returned almost immediately, and led me to his room.
I was shocked to see how pale and ill he looked. I feared, and was right in fearing, that anxiety about myself had not a little to do with his condition. His face brightened when he saw me, but his eyes gazed into mine with a searching inquiry. His face brightened yet more when he found his eager look answered by the smile which my perfect satisfaction inspired. I knelt by the bedside, afraid to touch him lest I should hurt his arm.
Slowly he laid his left hand on my head, and I knew he blessed me silently. For a minute or two he lay still.
“Now tell me all about it,” he said at length, turning his patient blue eyes on mine. I began at once, and if I did not tell him all, I let it be plain there was more of the sort behind, concerning which he might question me. When I had ended,
“Is that everything?” he asked, with a smile so like all he had ever been to me, that my whole heart seemed to go out to meet it.
“Yes, uncle,” I answered; “I think I may say so—except that I have not dwelt upon my feelings. Love, they say, is shy; and I fancy you will pardon me that portion.”
“Willingly, my child. More is quite unnecessary.”
“Then you know all about it, uncle?” I ventured. “I was afraid you might not understand me. Could any one, do you think, that had not had the same experience?”
He made me no answer. I looked up. He was ghastly white; his head had fallen back against the bed. I started up, hardly smothering a shriek.
“What is it, uncle?” I gasped. “Shall I fetch Martha?”
“No, my child,” he answered. “I shall be better in a moment. I am subject to little attacks of the heart, but they do not mean much. Give me some of that medicine on the table.”
In a few minutes his colour began to return, and the smile which was forced at first, gradually brightened until it was genuine.
“I will tell you the whole story one day,” he said, “—whether in this world, I am doubtful. But when is nothing, or where, with eternity before us.”
“Yes, uncle,” I answered vaguely, as I knelt again by the bedside.
“A person,” he said, after a while, slowly, and with hesitating effort, “may look and feel a much better person at one time than at another. Upon occasion, he is so happy, or perhaps so well pleased with himself, that the good in him comes all to the surface.”
“Would he be the better or the worse man if it did not, uncle?” I asked.
“You must not get me into a metaphysical discussion, little one,” he answered. “We have something more important on our hands. I want you to note that, when a person is happy, he may look lovable; whereas, things going as he does not like, another, and very unfinished phase of his character may appear.”
“Surely everybody must know that, uncle!”
“Then you can hardly expect me to be confident that your new friend would appear as lovable if he were unhappy!”
“I have seen you, uncle, look as if nothing would ever make you smile again; but I knew you loved me all the time.”
“Did you, my darling? Then you were right. I dare not require of any man that he should be as good-tempered in trouble as out of it—though he must come to that at last; but a man must be just, whatever mood he is in.”
“That is what I always knew you to be, uncle! I never waited for a change in your looks, to tell you anything I wanted to tell you.—I know you, uncle!” I added, with a glow of still triumph.
“Thank you, little one!” he returned, half playfully, yet gravely. “All I want to say comes to this,” he resumed after a pause, “that when a man is in love, you see only the best of him, or something better than he really is. Much good may be in a man, for God made him, and the man yet not be good, for he has done nothing, since his making, to make himself. Before you can say you know a man, you must have seen him in a few at least of his opposite moods. Therefore you cannot wonder that I should desire a fuller assurance of this young man, than your testimony, founded on an acquaintance of three or four days, can give me.”
“Let me tell you, then, something that happened to-day,” I answered. “When first I asked him to come with me this morning, it was a temptation to him of course, not knowing when we might see each other again; but he hadn’t his own horse, and said it would be an impertinence to ride yours.”
“I hope you did not come alone!”
“Oh, no. I had set out with Dick, but John came after all.”
“Then his refusal to ride my horse does not come to much. It is a small thing to have good impulses, if temptation is too much for them.”
“But I haven’t done telling you, uncle!”
“I am hasty, little one. I beg your pardon.”
“I have to tell you what made him give in to riding your horse. I confessed I was a little anxious lest Death, who had not been exercised for some days, should be too much for Dick. John said then he thought he might venture, for you had once spoken very kindly to him of the way he handled his own horse.”
“Oh, that’s the young fellow, is it!” cried my uncle, in a tone that could not be taken for other than one of pleasure. “That’s the fellow, is it?” he repeated. “H’m!”
“I hope you liked the look of him, uncle!” I said.
“The boy is a gentleman anyhow!” he answered.—“You may think whether I was pleased!—I never saw man carry himself better horseward!” he added with a smile.
“Then you won’t object to his riding Death home again?”
“Not in the least!” he replied. “The man can ride.”
“And may I go with him?—that is, if you do not want me!—I wish I could stay with you!”
“Rather than ride home with him?”
“Yes, indeed, if it were to be of use to you!”
“The only way you can be of use to me, is to ride home with Mr. Day, and not see him again until I have had a little talk with him. Tyranny may be a sense of duty, you know, little one!”
“Tyranny, uncle!” I cried, as I laid my cheek to his hand, which was very cold. “You could not make me think you a tyrant!”
“I should not like you to think me one, darling! Still less would I like to deserve it, whether you thought me one or not! But I could not be a tyrant to you if I would. You may defy me when you please.”
“That would be to poison my own soul!” I answered.
“You must understand,” he continued, “that I have no authority over you. If you were going to marry Mr. Day to-morrow, I should have no right to interfere. I am but a make-shift father to you, not a legal guardian.”
“Don’t cast me off, uncle!” I cried. “You know I belong to you as much as if you were my very own father! I am sure my father will say so when we see him. He will never come between you and me.”
He gave a great sigh, and his face grew so intense that I felt as if I had no right to look on it.
“It is one of the deepest hopes of my existence,” he said, “to give you back to him the best of daughters. Be good, my darling, be good, even if you die of sorrow because of it.”
The intensity had faded to a deep sadness, and there came a silence.
“Would you like me to go now, uncle?” I asked.
“I wish I could see Mr. Day at once,” he returned, “but I am so far from strong, that I fear both weakness and injustice. Tell him I want very much to see him, and will let him know as soon as I am able.”
“Thank you, uncle! He will be so glad! Of course he can’t feel as I do, but he does feel that to do anything you did not like, would be just horrid.”
“And you will not see him again, little one, after he has taken you home, till I have had some talk with him?”
“Of course I will not, uncle.”
I bade him good-bye, had a few moments’ conference with Martha, and found John at the place appointed.