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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17559-8.txt b/17559-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..821d065 --- /dev/null +++ b/17559-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3468 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Church Steps, by Sarah C. Hallowell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: On the Church Steps + +Author: Sarah C. Hallowell + +Release Date: January 20, 2006 [EBook #17559] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE CHURCH STEPS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +ON THE CHURCH STEPS. + +By SARAH C. HALLOWELL. + + +This e-text was compiled from sections of this novel published in the +August to October editions of: + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 1873 + + +CHAPTER I. + + +What a picture she was as she sat there, my own Bessie! and what a +strange place it was to rest on, those church steps! Behind us lay the +Woolsey woods, with their wooing fragrance of pine and soft rushes of +scented air; and the lakes were in the distance, lying very calm in +the cloud-shadows and seeming to wait for us to come. But to-day +Bessie would nothing of lakes or ledges: she would sit on the church +steps. + +In front of us, straight to the gate, ran a stiff little walk of white +pebbles, hard and harsh as some bygone creed. + +"Think of little bare feet coming up here, Bessie!" I said with a +shiver. "It is too hard. And every carriage that comes up the hill +sees us." + +"And why shouldn't they see us?" said my lady, turning full upon me. +"I am not ashamed to be here." + +"Churches should always have soft walks of turf; and lovers," I would +fain have added, "should have naught but whispering leaves about +them." + +But Bessie cut me short in her imperious way: "But we are not lovers +this morning: at least," with a half-relenting look at my rueful face, +"we are very good friends, and I choose to sit here to show people +that we are." + +"What do you care for _people_--the Bartons or the Meyricks?" as I +noticed a familiar family carriage toiling up the hill, followed by a +lighter phaeton. I recognized already in the latter vehicle the +crimson feather of Fanny Meyrick, and "the whip that was a parasol." + +"Shall I step out into the road this minute, and stop those ladies +like a peaceable highwayman, and tell them you have promised to marry +me, and that their anxiety as to our intimacy may be at rest? Give me +but leave and I will do it. It will make Mrs. Barton comfortable. Then +you and I can walk away into those beckoning woods, and I can have you +all to myself." + +Indeed she was worth having. With the witchery that some girls know, +she had made a very picture of herself that morning, as I have said. +Some soft blue muslin stuff was caught up around her in airy +draperies--nothing stiff or frilled about her: all was soft and +flowing, from the falling sleeve that showed the fair curve of her arm +to the fold of her dress, the ruffle under which her little foot was +tapping, impatiently now. A little white hat with a curling blue +feather shaded her face--a face I won't trust myself to describe, save +by saying that it was the brightest and truest, as I then thought, in +all the world. + +She said something rapidly in Italian--she is always artificial when +she uses a foreign tongue--and this I caught but imperfectly, but it +had a proverbial air about it of the error of too hasty assumptions. + +"Well, now I'll tell you something," she said as the carriages +disappeared over the top of the hill. "Fanny Meyrick is going abroad +in October, and we shall not see her for ever so long." + +Going abroad? Good gracious! That was the very thing I had to tell her +that morning--that I too was ordered abroad. An estate to be +settled--some bothering old claim that had been handed down from +generation to generation, and now springing into life again by the +lapsing of two lives on the other side. But how to tell her as she +looked up into my face with the half-pleading, half-imperious smile +that I knew so well? How to tell her _now_? + +So I said nothing, but foolishly pushed the little pebbles aside with +my stick, fatuously waiting for the subject to pass. Of course my +silence brought an instant criticism: "Why, Charlie, what ails you?" + +"Nothing. And really, Bessie, what is it to us whether Fanny Meyrick +go or stay?" + +"I shouldn't have thought it _was_ anything. But your silence, your +confusion--Charlie, you do care a little for her, after all." + +Two years ago, before Bessie and I had ever met, I had fluttered +around Fanny Meyrick for a season, attracted by her bright brown eyes +and the gypsy flush on her cheek. But there were other moths +fluttering around that adamantine candle too; and I was not long in +discovering that the brown eyes were bright for each and all, and that +the gypsy flush was never stirred by feeling or by thought. It was +merely a fixed ensign of health and good spirits. Consequently the +charm had waned, for me at least; and in my confessions to Bessie +since our near intimacy it was she, not I, who had magnified it into +the shadow even of a serious thought. + +"Care for her? Nonsense, Bessie! Do you want me to call her a mere +doll, a hard, waxen--no, for wax will melt--a Parian creature, such as +you may see by the dozens in Schwartz's window any day? It doesn't +gratify you, surely, to hear me say that of any woman." + +And then--what possessed me?--I was so angry at myself that I took a +mental _résumé_ of all the good that could be said of Fanny +Meyrick--her generosity, her constant cheerfulness; and in somewhat +headlong fashion I expressed myself: "I won't call her a dolt and an +idiot, even to please you. I have seen her do generous things, and she +is never out of temper." + +"Thanks!" said Bessie, nodding her head till the blue feather +trembled. "It is as well, as Aunt Sloman says, to keep my shortcomings +before you." + +"When did Aunt Sloman say that?" I interrupted, hoping for a diversion +of the subject. + +"This morning only. I was late at breakfast. You know, Charlie, I was +_so_ tired with that long horseback ride, and of course everything +waited. Dear aunty never _will_ begin until I come down, but sits +beside the urn like the forlornest of martyrs, and reads last night's +papers over and over again." + +"Well? And was she sorry that she had not invited me to wait with +her?" + +"Yes," said Bessie. "She said all sorts of things, and," flushing +slightly, "that it was a pity you shouldn't know beforehand what you +were to expect." + +"I wish devoutly that I had been there," seizing the little hand that +was mournfully tapping the weatherbeaten stone, and forcing the +downcast eyes to look at me. "I think, both together, we could have +pacified Aunt Sloman." + +It _was_ a diversion, and after a little while Bessie professed she +had had enough of the church steps. + +"How those people do stare! Is it the W----s, do you think, Charlie? I +heard yesterday they were coming." + +From our lofty position on the hillside we commanded the road leading +out of the village--the road that was all alive with carriages on this +beautiful September morning. The W---- carriage had half halted to +reconnoitre, and had only not hailed us because we had sedulously +looked another way. + +"Let's get away," I said, "for the next carriage will not only stop, +but come over;" and Bessie suffered herself to be led through the +little tangle of brier and fern, past the gray old gravestones with +"Miss Faith" and "Miss Mehitable" carved upon them, and into the leafy +shadow of the waiting woods. + +Other lovers have been there before us, but the trees whisper no +secrets save their own. The subject of our previous discussion was not +resumed, nor was Fanny Meyrick mentioned, until on our homeward road +we paused a moment on the hilltop, as we always did. + +It is indeed a hill of vision, that church hill at Lenox. Sparkling +far to the south, the blue Dome lay, softened and shining in the +September sun. There was ineffable peace in the faint blue sky, and, +stealing up from the valley, a shimmering haze that seemed to veil the +bustling village and soften all the rural sounds. + +Bessie drew nearer to me, shading her eyes as she looked down into the +valley: "Charlie dear, let us stay here always. We shall be happier, +better here than to go back to New York." + +"And the law-business?" I asked like a brutal bear, bringing the +realities of life into my darling's girlish dream. + +"Can't you practice law in Foxcroft, and drive over there every +morning? People do." + +"And because they do, and there are enough of them, I must plod along +in the ways that are made for me already. We can make pilgrimages +here, you know." + +"I suppose so," said Bessie with a sigh. + +Just then Fanny Kemble's clock in the tower above us struck the +hour--one, two, three. + +"Bless me! so late? And there's that phaeton coming back over the hill +again. Hurry, Charlie! don't let them see us. They'll think that we've +been here all the time." And Bessie plunged madly down the hill, and +struck off into the side-path that leads into the Lebanon road. The +last vibrations of the bell were still trembling on the air as I +caught up with her again. + +But again the teasing mood of the morning had come over her. Quite out +of breath with the run, as we sat down to rest on the little porch of +Mrs. Sloman's cottage she said, very earnestly, "But you haven't once +said it." + +"Said what, my darling?" + +"That you are glad that Fanny is going abroad." + +"Nonsense! Why should I be glad?" + +"Are you sorry, then?" + +If I had but followed my impulse then, and said frankly that I was, +and why I was! But Mrs. Sloman was coming through the little hall: I +heard her step. Small time for explanation, no time for reproaches. +And I could not leave Bessie, on that morning of all others, hurt or +angry, or only half convinced. + +"No, I am not sorry," I said, pulling down a branch of honeysuckle, +and making a loop of it to draw around her neck. "It is nothing, +either way." + +"Then say after me if it is nothing--feel as I feel for one minute, +won't you?" + +"Yes, indeed." + +"Say, after me, then, word for word, 'I am glad, _very_ glad, that +Fanny Meyrick is to sail in October. I would not have her stay on this +side for _worlds_!" + +And like a fool, a baby, I said it, word for word, from those sweet +smiling lips: "I am glad, _very_ glad, that Fanny Meyrick is to sail +in October. I would not have her stay on this side for _worlds_!" + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The next day was Sunday, and I was on duty at an early hour, prepared +to walk with Bessie to church. My darling was peculiar among women in +this: her church-going dress was sober-suited; like a little gray nun, +almost, she came down to me that morning. Her dress, of some soft gray +stuff, fell around her in the simplest folds, a knot of brown ribbon +at her throat, and in her hat a gray gull's wing. + +I had praised the Italian women for the simplicity of their +church-attire: their black dresses and lace veils make a picturesque +contrast with the gorgeous ceremonials of the high altar. But there +was something in this quiet toilet, so fresh and simple and girl-like, +that struck me as the one touch of grace that the American woman can +give to the best even of foreign taste. Not the dramatic abnegation +indicated by the black dress, but the quiet harmony of a life atune. + +Mrs. Sloman was ready even before Bessie came down. She was a great +invalid, although her prim and rigid countenance forbore any +expression save of severity. She had no pathos about her, not a touch. +Whatever her bodily sufferings may have been--and Bessie dimly hinted +that they were severe to agony at times--they were resolutely shut +within her chamber door; and when she came out in the early morning, +her cold brown hair drawn smoothly over those impassive cheeks, she +looked like a lady abbess--as cold, as unyielding and as hard. + +There was small sympathy between the aunt and niece, but a great deal +of painstaking duty on the one side, and on the other the habit of +affection which young girls have for the faces they have always known. + +Mrs. Sloman had been at pains to tell me, when my frequent visits to +her cottage made it necessary that I should in some fashion explain to +her as to what I wanted there, that her niece, Bessie Stewart, was in +nowise dependent on her, not even for a home. "This cottage we rent in +common. It was her father's desire that her property should not +accumulate, and that she should have nothing at my hands but +companionship, and"--with a set and sickly smile--"advice when it was +called for. We are partners in our expenses, and the arrangement can +be broken up at any moment." + +Was this all? No word of love or praise for the fair young thing that +had brightened all her household in these two years that Bessie had +been fatherless? + +I believe there was love and appreciation, but it was not Mrs. +Sloman's method to be demonstrative or expansive. She approved of the +engagement, and in her grim way had opened an immediate battery of +household ledgers and ways and means. Some idea, too, of making me +feel easy about taking Bessie away from her, I think, inclined her to +this business-like manner. I tried to show her, by my own manner, that +I understood her without words, and I think she was very grateful to +be spared the expression of feeling. Poor soul! repression had become +such a necessity to her! + +So we talked on gravely of the weather, and of the celebrated Doctor +McQ----, who was expected to give us an argumentative sermon that +morning, until _my_ argument came floating in at the door like a calm +little bit of thistledown, to which our previous conversation had been +as the thistle's self. + +The plain little church was gay that morning. Carriage after carriage +drove up with much prancing and champing, and group after group of +city folk came rustling along the aisles. It was a bit of Fifth Avenue +let into Lenox calm. The World and the Flesh were there, at least. + +In the hush of expectancy that preceded the minister's arrival there +was much waving of scented fans, while the well-bred city glances took +in everything without seeming to see. I felt that Bessie and I were +being mentally discussed and ticketed. And as it was our first +appearance at church since--well, _since_--perhaps there was just a +little consciousness of our relations that made Bessie seem to retire +absolutely within herself, and be no more a part of the silken crowd +than was the grave, plain man who rose up in the pulpit. + +I hope the sermon was satisfactory. I am sure it was convincing to a +brown-handed farmer who sat beside us, and who could with difficulty +restrain his applauding comment. But I was lost in a dream of a near +heaven, and could not follow the spoken word. It was just a quiet +little opportunity to contemplate my darling, to tell over her +sweetness and her charm, and to say over and again, like a blundering +school-boy, "It's all mine! mine!" + +The congregation might have been dismissed for aught I knew, and left +me sitting there with her beside me. But I was startled into the +proprieties as we stood up to sing the concluding hymn. I was standing +stock-still beside her, not listening to the words at all, but with a +pleasant sense of everything being very comfortable, and an +old-fashioned swell of harmony on the air, when suddenly the book +dropped from Bessie's hand and fell heavily to the floor. I should +have said she flung it down had it been on any other occasion, so +rapid and vehement was the action. + +I stooped to pick it up, when with a decided gesture she stopped me. I +looked at her surprised. Her face was flushed, indignant, I thought, +and instantly my conscience was on the rack. What had I done, for my +lady was evidently angry? + +Glancing down once more toward the book, I saw that she had set her +foot upon it, and indeed her whole attitude was one of excitement, +defiance. Why did she look so hot and scornful? I was disturbed and +anxious: what was there in the book or in me to anger her? + +As quickly as possible I drew her away from the bustling crowd when +the service was concluded. Fortunately, there was a side-door through +which we could pass out into the quiet churchyard, and we vanished +through it, leaving Mrs. Sloman far behind. Over into the Lebanon road +was but a step, and the little porch was waiting with its cool +honeysuckle shade. But Bessie did not stop at the gate: she was in no +mood for home. And yet she would not answer my outpouring questions as +to whether she was ill, or what _was_ the matter. + +"I'll tell you in a minute. Come, hurry!" she said, hastening along up +the hill through all the dust and heat. + +At last we reached that rustic bit of ruin known popularly as the +"Shed." It was a hard bit of climbing, but I rejoiced that Bessie, so +flushed and excited at the start, grew calmer as we went; and when, +the summit reached, she sat down to rest on a broken board, her color +was natural and she seemed to breathe freely again. + +"Are they all hypocrites, do you think, Charlie?" she said suddenly, +looking up into my face. + +"They? who? Bessie, what have I done to make you angry?" + +"You? Nothing, dear goose! I am angry at myself and at everybody else. +Did it flash upon you, Charlie, what we were singing?" + +Then she quoted the lines, which I will not repeat here, but they +expressed, as the sole aspiration of the singer, a desire to pass +eternity in singing hymns of joy and praise--an impatience for the +time to come, a disregard of earth, a turning away from temporal +things, and again the desire for an eternity of sacred song. + +"Suppose I confess to you," said I, astonished at her earnestness, +"that I did not at all know what I was singing?" + +"That's just it! just what makes it so dreadful! _Nobody_ was thinking +about it--nobody! Nobody there wanted to give up earth and go straight +to heaven and sing. I looked round at all the people, with their new +bonnets, and the diamonds, and the footmen in the pews up stairs, and +I thought, What lies they are all saying! Nobody wants to go to heaven +at all until they are a hundred years old, and too deaf and blind and +tired out to do anything on earth. My heaven is here and now in my own +happiness, and so is yours, Charlie; and I felt so convicted of being +a story-teller that I couldn't hold the book in my hand." + +"Well, then," said I, "shall we have one set of hymns for happy +people, and another for poor, tired-out folks like that little +dressmaker that leaned against the wall?" For Bessie herself had +called my attention to the pale little body who had come to the church +door at the same moment with us. + +"No, not two sets. Do you suppose that she, either, wants to _sing_ on +for ever? And all those girls! Sorry enough they would be to have to +die, and leave their dancing and flirtations and the establishments +they hope to have! It wouldn't be much comfort to them to promise them +they should _sing_. Charlie, I want a hymn that shall give thanks that +I am alive, that I have _you_." + +"Could the dressmaker sing that?" + +"No;" and Bessie's eyes sought the shining blue sky with a wistful, +beseeching tenderness. "Oh, it's all wrong, Charlie dear. She ought to +tell us in a chant how tired and hopeless she is for this world; and +we ought to sing to her something that would cheer her, help her, even +in this world. Why must she wait for all her brightness till she dies? +So perfectly heartless to stand up along side of her and sing _that_!" + +"Well," I said, "you needn't wait till next Sunday to bring her your +words of cheer." + +In a minute my darling was crying on my shoulder. I could understand +the outburst, and was glad of it. + +All athrill with new emotions, new purposes, an eternity of love, she +had come to church to be reminded that earth was naught, that the +trials and tempests here would come to an end some day, and after, to +the patiently victorious, would come the hymns of praise. _Earth_ was +very full that morning to her and me; _earth_ was a place for +worshipful harmonies; and yet the strong contrast with the poor +patient sufferer who had passed into church with us was too much for +Bessie: she craved an expression that should comprehend alike her +sorrow and our abundant joy. + +The tempest of tears passed by, and we had bright skies again. Poor +Mrs. Sloman's dinner waited long that day; and it was with a guilty +sense that she was waiting too that we went down the hill at a +quickened pace when the church clock, sounding up the hillside, came +like a chiding voice. + +And a double sense of guiltiness was creeping over me. I must return +to New York to-morrow, and I had not told Bessie yet of the longer +journey I must make so soon. I put it by again and again in the short +flying hours of that afternoon; and it was not until dusk had fallen +in the little porch, as we sat there after tea, and I had watched the +light from Mrs. Sloman's chamber shine down upon the honeysuckles and +then go out, that I took my resolution. + +"Bessie," I said, leaning over her and taking her face in both my +hands, "I have something to tell you." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I have something to tell you;" and without an instant's pause I went +on: "Mr. D---- has business in England which cannot be attended to by +letter. One of us must go, and they send me. I must sail in two +weeks." + +It was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and Bessie gave a little gasp +of surprise: "So soon! Oh, Charlie, take me with you!" Realizing in +the next instant the purport of the suggestion, she flung away from my +hands and rushed into the parlor, where a dim, soft lamp was burning +on the table. She sat down on a low chair beside it and hid her face +on the table in her hands. + +Like a flash of lightning all the possibilities of our marriage before +many days--arranging it with Mrs. Sloman, and satisfying my partners, +who would expect me to travel fast and work hard in the short time +they had allotted for the journey,--all came surging and throbbing +through my brain, while my first answer was not given in words. + +When I had persuaded Bessie to look at me and to answer me in turn, I +hoped we should be able to talk about it with the calm judgment it +needed. + +"To leave my wife--my wife!"--how I lingered on the word!--"in some +poky lodgings in London, while I am spending my day among dusty boxes +and files of deeds in a dark old office, isn't just my ideal of our +wedding-journey; but, Bessie, if _you_ wish it so--" + +What was there in my tone that jarred her? I had meant to be +magnanimous, to think of her comfort alone, of the hurry and business +of such a journey--tried to shut myself out and think only of her in +the picture. But I failed, of course, and went on stupidly, answering +the quick look of question in her eyes: "If you prefer it--that is, +you know, I must think of you and not of myself." + +Still the keen questioning glance. What new look was this in her eyes, +what dawning thought? + +"No," she answered after a pause, slowly withdrawing her hand from +mine, "think of yourself." + +I had expected that she would overwhelm me in her girlish way with +saucy protestations that she would be happy even in the dull London +lodgings, and that she would defy the law-files to keep me long from +her. This sudden change of manner chilled me with a nameless fear. + +"If _I_ prefer it! If _I_ wish it! I see that I should be quite in +your way, an encumbrance. Don't talk about it any more." + +She was very near crying, and I wish to heaven she had cried. But she +conquered herself resolutely, and held herself cold and musing before +me. I might take her hand, might kiss her unresisting cheek, but she +seemed frozen into sudden thoughtfulness that it was impossible to +meet or to dispel. + +"Bessie, you know you are a little goose! What could I wish for in +life but to carry you off this minute to New York? Come, get your hat +and let's walk over to the parsonage now. We'll get Doctor Wilder to +marry us, and astonish your aunt in the morning." + +"Nonsense!" said Bessie with a slight quiver of her pretty, pouting +mouth. "Do be rational, Charlie!" + +I believe I was rational in my own fashion for a little while, but +when I ventured to say in a very unnecessary whisper, "Then you will +go abroad with me?" Bessie flushed to her temples and rose from the +sofa. She had a way, when she was very much in earnest, or very much +stirred with some passionate thought, of pacing the parlor with her +hands clasped tightly before her, and her arms tense and straining at +the clasping hands. With her head bent slightly forward, and her brown +hair hanging in one long tress over her shoulder, she went swiftly up +and down, while I lay back on the sofa and watched her. She would +speak it out presently, the thought that was hurting her. So I felt +secure and waited, following every movement with a lover's eye. But I +ought not to have waited. I should have drawn her to me and shared +that rapid, nervous walk--should have compelled her with sweet force +to render an account of that emotion. But I was so secure, so entirely +one with her in thought, that I could conceive of nothing but a +passing tempest at my blundering, stupid thoughtfulness for her. + +Suddenly at the door she stopped, and with her hand upon it said, +"Good-night, Charlie;" and was out of the room in a twinkling. + +I sprang from the sofa and to the foot of the stairs, but I saw only a +glimpse of her vanishing dress; and though I called after her in low, +beseeching tones, "Bessie! Bessie!" a door shut in the distant +corridor for only answer. + +What to do? In that decorous mansion I could not follow her; and my +impulse to dash after her and knock at her door till she answered me, +I was forced to put aside after a moment's consideration. + +I stood there in the quiet hall, the old clock ticking away a solemn +"I-told-you-so!" in the corner. I made one step toward the kitchen to +send a message by one of the maids, but recoiled at the suggestion +that this would publish a lovers' quarrel. So I retreated along the +hall, my footsteps making no noise on the India matting, and entered +the parlor again like a thief. I sat down by the table: "Bessie will +certainly come back: she will get over her little petulance, and know +I am here waiting." + +All about the parlor were the traces of my darling. A soft little coil +of rose-colored Berlin wool, with its ivory needle sheathed among the +stitches, lay in a tiny basket. I lifted it up: the basket was made of +scented grass, and there was a delicious sweet and pure fragrance +about the knitting-work. I took possession of it and thrust it into my +breast-pocket. A magazine she had been reading, with the palest slip +of a paper-knife--a bit of delicate Swiss wood--in it, next came in my +way. I tried to settle down and read where she had left off, but the +words danced before my eyes, and a strange tune was repeating in my +ears, "Good-night, Charlie--good-night and good-bye!" + +One mad impulse seized me to go out under her window and call to her, +asking her to come down. But Lenox nights were very still, and the +near neighbors on either side doubtless wide awake to all that was +going on around the Sloman cottage. + +So I sat still like an idiot, and counted the clock-strokes, and +nervously calculated the possibility of her reappearance, until I +heard, at last, footsteps coming along the hall in rapid tread. I +darted up: "Oh, Bessie, I knew you would come back!" as through the +open door walked in--Mary, Mrs. Sloman's maid! + +She started at seeing me: "Excuse me, sir. The parlor was so--I +thought there was no one here." + +"What is it, Mary?" I asked with assumed indifference. "Do you want +Miss Bessie? She went up stairs a few moments ago." + +"No, sir. I thought--that is--" glancing down in awkward confusion at +the key she held in her hand. She was retiring again softly when I saw +in the key the reason of her discomposure. + +"Did you come in to lock up, Mary?" I asked with a laugh. + +"Yes, sir. But it is of no consequence. I thought you had gone, sir." + +"Time I was, I suppose. Well, Mary, you shall lock me out, and then +carry this note to Miss Bessie. It is so late that I will not wait for +her. Perhaps she is busy with Mrs. Sloman." + +Something in Mary's face made me suspect that she knew Mrs. Sloman to +be sound asleep at this moment; but she said nothing, and waited +respectfully until I had scribbled a hasty note, rifling Bessie's +writing-desk for the envelope in which to put my card. Dear child! +there lay my photograph, the first thing I saw as I raised the dainty +lid. + +"Bessie," I wrote, "I have waited until Mary has come in with her +keys, and I suppose I must go. My train starts at nine to-morrow +morning, but you will be ready--will you not?--at six to take a +morning walk with me. I will be here at that hour. You don't know how +disturbed and anxious I shall be till then." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Morning came--or rather the long night came to an end at last--and at +twenty minutes before six I opened the gate at the Sloman cottage. It +was so late in September that the morning was a little hazy and +uncertain. And yet the air was warm and soft--a perfect reflex, I +thought, of Bessie last night--an electric softness under a brooding +cloud. + +The little house lay wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell: +no, it would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely +not make me wait. Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would +wait in the porch--she would certainly come down soon. + +So I waited, whistling softly to myself as I pushed the withered +leaves about with my stick and drew strange patterns among them. Half +an hour passed. + +"I will give her a gentle reminder;" so I gathered a spray from the +honeysuckle, a late bloom among the fast-falling leaves, and aimed it +right at the muslin curtain. The folds parted and it fell into the +room, but instead of the answering face that I looked to see, all was +still again. + +"It's very strange," thought I. "Bessie's pique is not apt to last so +long. She must indeed be angry." + +And I went over each detail of our last night's talk, from her first +burst of "Take me with you!" to my boggling answers, my fears, so +stupidly expressed, that it would be anything but a picturesque +bridal-trip, and the necessity that there was for rapid traveling and +much musty, old research. + +"What a fool I was not to take her then and there! She _is_ myself: +why shouldn't I, then, be selfish? When I do what of all things I want +to, why can't I take it for granted that she will be happy too?" And a +hot flush of shame went over me to think that I had been about to +propose to her, to my own darling girl, that we should be married as +soon as possible _after_ I returned from Europe. + +Her love, clearer-sighted, had striven to forestall our separation: +why should we be parted all those weary weeks? why put the sea between +us? + +I had accepted all these obstacles as a dreary necessity, never +thinking for the moment that conventional objections might be +overcome, aunts and guardians talked over, and the whole matter +arranged by two people determined on their own sweet will. + +What a lumbering, masculine plan was mine! _After I returned from +Europe!_ I grew red and bit my lips with vexation. And now my dear +girl was shy and hurt. How should I win back again that sweet impulse +of confidence? + +Presently the household began to stir. I heard unbarring and +unbolting, and craftily retreated to the gate, that I might seem to be +just coming in, to the servant who should open the door. + +It was opened by a housemaid--not the Mary of the night before--who +stared a moment at seeing me, but on my asking if Miss Bessie was +ready yet to walk, promised smilingly to go and see. She returned in a +moment, saying that Miss Bessie begged that I would wait: she was +hurrying to come down. + +The child! She has slept too soundly. I shall tell her how insensate +she must have been, how serenely unconscious when the flower came in +at the window. + +The clock on the mantel struck seven and the half hour before Bessie +appeared. She was very pale, and her eyes looked away at my greeting. +Passively she suffered herself to be placed in a chair, and then, with +something of her own manner, she said hurriedly, "Don't think I got +your note, Charlie, last night, or I wouldn't, indeed I wouldn't, have +kept you waiting so long this morning." + +"Didn't Mary bring it to you?" I asked, surprised. + +"Yes: that is, she brought it up to my room, but, Charlie dear, I +wasn't there: I wasn't there all night. I did shut my door, though I +heard you calling, and after a little while I crept out into the entry +and looked over the stairs, hoping you were there still, and that I +could come back to you. But you were not there, and everything was so +still that I was sure you had gone--gone without a word. I listened +and listened, but I was too proud to go down into the parlor and see. +And yet I could not go back to my room, next Aunt Sloman's. I went +right up stairs to the blue room, and stayed there. Mary must have put +your note on my table when she came up stairs. I found it there this +morning when I went down." + +"Poor darling! And what did you do all night in the blue room? I am +afraid," looking at her downcast eyes, "that you did not sleep--that +you were angry at me." + +"At you? No, at myself," she said very low. + +"Bessie, you know that my first and only thought was of the hurry and +worry this journey would cost you. You know that to have you with me +was something that I had scarce dared to dream." + +"And therefore," with a flash of blue eyes, "for me to dare to dream +it was--" and again she hid her face. + +"But, my precious, don't you know that it was for _you_ to suggest +what I wanted all the time, but thought it would be too much to ask?" +For I had discovered, of course, in my morning's work among the dead +leaves on the porch, that I had desired it from the moment I had known +of my journey--desired it without acknowledging it to myself or +presuming to plan upon it. + +At this juncture breakfast was announced, and the folding doors thrown +open that led into the breakfast-parlor, disclosing Mrs. Sloman seated +by the silver urn, and a neat little table spread for three, so quick +had been the housemaid's intuitions. + +"Good-morning, Charles: come get some breakfast. You will hardly be in +time for your train," suggested Aunt Sloman in a voice that had in it +all the gloom of the morning. Indeed, the clouds had gathered heavily +during the parlor scene, and some large drops were rattling against +the window. + +I looked at my watch. After eight! Pshaw! I will let this train go, +and will telegraph to the office. I can take the night train, and thus +lose only a few hours. So I stayed. + +What rare power had Bessie in the very depths of her trouble, and with +her face pale and eyes so heavy with her last night's vigil--what gift +that helped her to be gay? Apparently not with an effort, not forced, +she was as joyous and frank as her sunniest self. No exaggeration of +laughter or fun, but the brightness of her every-day manner, teasing +and sparkling round Aunt Sloman, coquetting very naturally with me. It +was a swift change from the gloomy atmosphere we had left behind in +the parlor, and I basked in it delighted, and feeling, poor fool! that +the storm was cleared away, and that the time for the singing of birds +was come. + +I was the more deceived. I did not know all of Bessie yet. Her horror +of a scene, of any suspicion that there was discord between us, and +her rare self-control, that for the moment put aside all trouble, +folded it out of sight and took up the serene old life again for a +little space. + +"Aunt Maria," said Bessie, pushing aside her chair, "won't you take +care of Mr. Munro for a little while? I have a letter to write that I +want him to take to New York." + +Aunt Maria would be happy to entertain me, or rather to have me +entertain her. If I would read to her, now, would I be so kind, while +she washed up her breakfast cups? + +How people can do two things at once I am sure I cannot understand; +and while the maid brought in the large wooden bowl, the steam of +whose household incense rose high in the air, I watched impatient for +the signal to begin. When the tea-cups were all collected, and Aunt +Sloman held one by the handle daintily over the "boiling flood," +"Now," she said with a serene inclination of her head, "if you +please." + +And off I started at a foot-pace through the magazine that had been +put into my hands. Whether it was anything about the "Skelligs," or +"Miss Sedgwick's Letters," or "Stanley-Livingstone," I have not the +remotest idea. I was fascinated by the gentle dip of each tea-cup, and +watched from the corner of my eye the process of polishing each +glittering spoon on a comfortable crash towel. + +Then my thoughts darted off to Bessie. Was she indeed writing to her +old trustee? Judge Hubbard was a friend of my father's, and would +approve of me, I thought, if he did not agree at once to the hurried +marriage and ocean journey. + +"What an unconscionable time it takes her! Don't you think so, Mrs. +Sloman?" I said at last, after I had gone through three several papers +on subjects unknown. + +I suppose it was scarcely a courteous speech. But Mrs. Sloman smiled a +white-lipped smile of sympathy, and said, "Yes: I will go and send her +to you." + +"Oh, don't hurry her," I said falsely, hoping, however, that she +would. + +Did I say before that Bessie was tall? Though so slight that you +always wanted to speak of her with some endearing diminutive, she +looked taller than ever that morning; and as she stood before me, +coming up to the fireplace where I was standing, her eyes looked +nearly level into mine. I did not understand their veiled expression, +and before I had time to study it she dropped them and said hastily, +"Young man, I am pining for a walk." + +"In the rain?" + +"Pshaw! This is nothing, after all, but a Scotch mist. See, I am +dressed for it;" and she threw a tartan cloak over her shoulder--a +blue-and-green tartan that I had never seen before. + +"The very thing for shipboard," I whispered as I looked at her +admiringly. + +Her face was flushed enough now, but she made no answer save to stoop +down and pat the silly little terrier that had come trotting into the +room with her. + +"Fidget shall go--yes, he shall go walking;" and Fidget made a gray +ball of himself in his joy at the permission. + +Up the hill again we walked, with the little Skye terrier cantering in +advance or madly chasing the chickens across the road. + +"Did you finish your letter satisfactorily?" I asked, for I was +fretting with impatience to know its contents. + +"Yes. I will give it to you when you leave to-night." + +"Shall we say next Saturday, Bessie?" said I, resolving to plunge at +once into the sea of our late argument. + +"For what? For you to come again? Don't you always come on Saturday?" + +"Yes, but this time I mean to carry you away." + +A dead pause, which I improved by drawing her hand under my arm and +imprisoning her little gray glove with my other hand. As she did not +speak, I went on fatuously: "You don't need any preparation of gowns +and shawls; you can buy your _trousseau_ in London, if need be; and +we'll settle on the ship, coming over, how and where we are to live in +New York." + +"You think, then, that I am all ready to be married?" + +"I think that my darling is superior to the nonsense of other +girls--that she will be herself always, and doesn't need any +masquerade of wedding finery." + +"You think, then," coldly and drawing her hand away, "that I am +different from other girls?" and the scarlet deepened on her cheek. +"You think I say and do things other girls would not?" + +"My darling, what nonsense! You say and do things that other girls +_cannot_, nor could if they tried a thousand years." + +"Thanks for the compliment! It has at least the merit of dubiousness. +Now, Charlie, if you mention Europe once in this walk I shall be +seriously offended. Do let us have a little peace and a quiet talk." + +"Why, what on earth can we talk about until this is settled? I can't +go back to New York, and engage our passage, and go to see Judge +Hubbard--I suppose you were writing to him this morning?" + +She did not answer, but seemed bent on making the dainty print of her +foot in the moist earth of the road, taking each step carefully, as +though it were the one important and engrossing thing in life. + +"--Unless," I went on, "you tell me you will be ready to go back with +me this day week. You see, Bessie dear, I _must_ sail on the fixed +day. And if we talk it over now and settle it all, it will save no end +of writing to and fro." + +"Good-morning!" said a gay voice behind us--Fanny Meyrick's voice. She +was just coming out of one of the small houses on the roadside. "Don't +you want some company? I've been to call on my washerwoman, and I'm so +glad I've met you. Such an English morning! Shall I walk with you?" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +If I could have changed places with Fidget, I could scarce have +expressed my disapproval of the new-comer more vehemently than he. +Miss Meyrick seemed quite annoyed at the little dog's uncalled-for +snapping and barking, and shook her umbrella at him in vain. I was +obliged to take him in hand myself at last, and to stand in the road +and order him to "Go home!" while the two young ladies walked on, +apparently the best of friends. + +When I rejoined them Fanny Meyrick was talking fast and unconnectedly, +as was her habit: "Yes, lodgings in London--the dearest old house in +Clarges street. Such a butler! He looks like a member of Parliament. +We stayed there once before for three days. I am just going to settle +into an English girl. Had enough of the Continent. Never do see +England now-a-days, nobody. All rush off. So papa is going to have a +comfortable time. Embassy? Oh, I know the general well." + +I looked beseechingly at Bessie. Why wouldn't she say that we too +would be there in London lodgings? Perhaps, then, Fanny Meyrick might +take the hint and leave us soon. + +But Bessie gave no sign, and I relapsed into a somewhat impatient +_résumé_ of my own affairs. Yes: married quietly on Saturday; leave +here on Monday morning train; take, yes, Wednesday's steamer. I could +arrange it with my law-partners to be absent a little longer perhaps, +that there might be some little rest and romance about the +wedding-journey. + +Two or three times in the course of that morning--for she stayed with +us all the morning--Fanny Meyrick rallied me on my preoccupation and +silence: "He didn't use to be so, Bessie, years ago, I assure you. +It's very disagreeable, sir--not an improvement by any means." + +Then--I think without any malice prepense, simply the unreasoning +rattle of a belle of two seasons--she plunged into a description of a +certain fęte at Blankkill on the Hudson, the occasion of our first +acquaintance: "He was so young, Bessie, you can't imagine, and blushed +so beautifully that all the girls were jealous as could be. We were +very good friends--weren't we?--all that summer?" + +"And are still, I hope," said I with my most sweeping bow. "What have +I done to forfeit Miss Meyrick's esteem?" + +"Nothing, except that you used to find your way oftener to Meyrick +Place than you do now. Well, I won't scold you for that: I shall make +up for that on the other side." + +What did she mean? She had no other meaning than that she would have +such compensation in English society that her American admirers would +not be missed. She did not know of my going abroad. + +But Bessie darted a quick glance from her to me, and back again to +her, as though some dawning suspicion had come to her. "I hope," she +said quietly, "that you may have a pleasant winter. It will be +delightful, won't it, Charlie?" + +"Oh, very!" I answered, but half noting the under-meaning of her +words, my mind running on deck state-rooms and the like. + +"Charlie," said Miss Meyrick suddenly, "do you remember what happened +two years ago to-day?" + +"No, I think not." + +Taking out a little book bound in Russia leather and tipped with gold, +she handed it to Bessie, who ran her eye down the page: it was open at +September 28th. + +"Read it," said Fanny, settling herself composedly in her shawl, and +leaning back against a tree with half-shut eyes. + +"'_September 28th_'" Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange +constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love him +for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the +Hudson--moonlight--I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned +out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and swam with me to +shore.'" + +A dead silence as Bessie closed the book and held it in her hand. + +"Oh," said I lightly, "that isn't worth chronicling--that! It was no +question of saving lives. The New York boat was coming up, if I +remember." + +"Yes, it was in trying to steer away from it that I dropped my oar." + +"So you see it would have picked us up, any how. There was nothing but +the ducking to remember." + +"Such a figure, Bessie! Imagine us running along the road to the gate! +I could scarcely move for my dripping skirts; and we frightened papa +so when we stepped up on the piazza out of the moonlight!" + +To stop this torrent of reminiscences, which, though of nothings, I +could see was bringing the red spot to Bessie's cheek, I put out my +hand for the book: "Let me write something down to-day;" and I hastily +scribbled: "_September_ 28. Charles Munro and Bessie Stewart, to sail +for Europe in ten days, ask of their friend Fanny Meyrick her warm +congratulations." + +"Will that do?" I whispered as I handed the book to Bessie. + +"Not at all," said Bessie scornfully and coldly, tearing out the leaf +as she spoke and crumpling it in her hand.--"Sorry to spoil your book, +Fanny dear, but the sentiment would have spoiled it more. Let us go +home." + +As we passed the hotel on that dreary walk home, Fanny would have left +us, but Bessie clung to her and whispered something in a pleading +voice, begging her, evidently, to come home with us. + +"If Mr. Munro will take word to papa," she said, indicating that +worthy, who sat on the upper piazza smoking his pipe. + +"We will walk on," said Bessie coldly. "Come, Fanny dear." + +Strange, thought I as I turned on my heel, this sudden fond intimacy! +Bessie is angry. Why did I never tell her of the ducking? And yet when +I remembered how Fanny had clung to me, how after we had reached the +shore I had been forced to remind her that it was no time for +sentimental gratitude when we both were shivering, I could see why I +had refrained from mentioning it to Bessie until our closer +confidences would allow of it. + +No man, unless he be a downright coxcomb, will ever admit to one woman +that another woman has loved him. To his wife--perhaps. But how much +Fanny Meyrick cared for me I had never sought to know. After the +dismal ending of that moonlight boat-row--I had been already +disenchanted for some time before--I had scarce called at Meyrick +Place more than civility required. The young lady was so inclined to +exaggerate the circumstance, to hail me as her deliverer, that I felt +like the hero of a melodrama whenever we met. And after I had met +Bessie there were pleasanter things to think about--much pleasanter. + +How exasperating girls can be when they try! I had had my _congé_ for +the walk home, I knew, and I was vexed enough to accept it and stay at +the hotel to dinner. + +"I will not be played upon in this way. Bessie knows that I stayed +over the morning train just to be with her, and piled up for to-morrow +no end of work, as well as sarcastic remarks from D. & Co. If she +chooses to show off her affection for Fanny Meyrick in these few hours +that we have together--Fanny Meyrick whom she _hated_ yesterday--she +may enjoy her friendship undisturbed by me." + +So I loitered with my cigar after dinner, and took a nap on the sofa +in my room. I was piqued, and did not care to conceal it. As the clock +struck five I bethought me it was time to betake me to the Sloman +cottage. A sound of wheels and a carriage turning brought me to the +window. The two young ladies were driving off in Fanny Meyrick's +phaeton, having evidently come to the hotel and waited while it was +being made ready. + +"Pique for pique! Serves me right, I suppose." + +Evening found me at the Sloman cottage, waiting with Mrs. Sloman by +the tea-table. Why do I always remember her, sitting monumental by the +silver urn? + +"The girls are very late to-night." + +"Yes." I was beginning to be uneasy. It was nearing train-time again. + +"Such lovely moonlight, I suppose, has tempted them, or they may be +staying at Foxcroft to tea." + +Indeed? I looked at my watch: I had ten minutes. + +A sound of wheels: the phaeton drove up. + +"Oh, Charlie," said Bessie as she sprang out, "you bad boy! you'll +miss your train again. Fanny here will drive you to the hotel. Jump +in, quick!" + +And as the moonlight shone full on her face I looked inquiringly into +her eyes. + +"The letter," I said, "for Judge Hubbard?" hoping that she would go to +the house for it, and then I could follow her for a word. + +"Oh! I had almost forgotten. Here it is;" and she drew it from her +pocket and held it out to me in her gloved hand. I pressed the hand to +my lips, riding-glove and all, and sprang in beside Fanny, who was +with some difficulty making her horse stand still. + +"Good-bye!" from the little figure at the gate. "Don't forget, Fanny, +to-morrow at ten;" and we were off. + +By the wretched kerosene lamp of the car, going down, I read my +letter, for it was for me: "I will not go to Europe, and I forbid you +to mention it again. I shall never, never forget that _I_ proposed it, +and that you--_accepted_ it. Come up to Lenox once more before you +go." + +This was written in ink, and was sealed. It was the morning's note. +But across the envelope these words were written in pencil: "Go to +Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to Lenox, both of you, when you +return." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +I had a busy week of it in New York--copying out instructions, taking +notes of marriages and intermarriages in 1690, and writing each day a +long, pleading letter to Bessie. There was a double strain upon me: +all the arrangements for my client's claims, and in an undercurrent +the arguments to overcome Bessie's decision, went on in my brain side +by side. + +I could not, I wrote to her, make the voyage without her. It would be +the shipwreck of all my new hopes. It was cruel in her to have raised +such hopes unless she was willing to fulfill them: it made the +separation all the harder. I could not and would not give up the plan. +"I have engaged our passage in the Wednesday's steamer: say yes, dear +child, and I will write to Dr. Wilder from here." + +I could not leave for Lenox before Saturday morning, and I hoped to be +married on the evening of that day. But to all my pleading came "No," +simply written across a sheet of note-paper in my darling's graceful +hand. + +Well, I would go up on the Saturday, nevertheless. She would surely +yield when she saw me faithful to my word. + +"I shall be a sorry-looking bridegroom," I thought as I surveyed +myself in the little mirror at the office. It was Friday night, and we +were shutting up. We had worked late by gaslight, all the clerks had +gone home long ago, and only the porter remained, half asleep on a +chair in the hall. + +It was striking nine as I gathered up my bundle of papers and thrust +them into a bag. I was rid of them for three days at least. "Bill, you +may lock up now," I said, tapping the sleepy porter on the shoulder. + +"Oh, Mr. Munro, shure here's a card for yees," handing me a lady's +card. + +"Who left it, Bill?" I hurriedly asked, taking it to the flaring +gaslight on the stairway. + +"Two ladies in a carriage--an old 'un and a pretty young lady, shure. +They charged me giv' it yees, and druv' off." + +"And why didn't you bring it in, you blockhead?" I shouted, for it was +Bessie Stewart's card. On it was written in pencil: "Westminster +Hotel. On our way through New York. Leave on the 8 train for the South +to-night. Come up to dinner." + +The eight-o'clock train, and it was now striking nine! + +"Shure, Mr. Charles, you had said you was not to be disturbed on no +account, and that I was to bring in no messages." + +"Did you tell those ladies that? What time were they here?" + +"About five o'clock--just after you had shut the dure, and the clerks +was gone. Indeed, and they didn't wait for no reply, but hearin' you +were in there, they druv' off the minute they give me the card. The +pretty young lady didn't like the looks of our office, I reckon." + +It was of no use to storm at Bill. He had simply obeyed orders like a +faithful machine. So, after a hot five minutes, I rushed up to the +Westminster. Perhaps they had not gone. Bessie would know there was a +mistake, and would wait for me. + +But they were gone. On the books of the hotel were registered in a +clear hand, Bessie's hand, "Mrs. M. Antoinette Sloman and maid; Miss +Bessie Stewart." They had arrived that afternoon, must have driven +directly from the train to the office, and had dined, after waiting a +little time for some one who did not come. + +"And where were they going?" I asked of the sympathetic clerk, who +seemed interested. + +"Going South--I don't know where. The elder lady seemed delicate, and +the young lady quite anxious that she should stay here to-night and go +on in the morning. But no, she would go on to-night." + +I took the midnight train for Philadelphia. They would surely not go +farther to-night if Mrs. Sloman seemed such an invalid. + +I scanned every hotel-book in vain. I walked the streets of the city, +and all the long Sunday I haunted one or two churches that my memory +suggested to me were among the probabilities for that day. They were +either not in the city or most securely hid. + +And all this time there was a letter in the New York post-office +waiting for me. I found it at my room when I went back to it on Monday +noon. + +It ran as follows: + + "WESTMINSTER HOTEL. + "Very sorry not to see you--Aunt Sloman especially sorry; but + she has set her heart on going to Philadelphia to-night. We + shall stay at a private house, a quiet boarding-house; for + aunt goes to consult Dr. R---- there, and wishes to be very + retired. I shall not give you our address: as you sail so + soon, it would not be worth while to come over. I will write + you on the other side. B.S." + +Where's a Philadelphia directory? Where is this Dr. R----? I find him, +sure enough--such a number Walnut street. Time is precious--Monday +noon! + +"I'll transfer my berth to the Saturday steamer: that will do as well. +Can't help it if they do scold at the office." + +To drive to the Cunard company's office and make the transfer took +some little time, but was not this my wedding holiday? I sighed as I +again took my seat in the car at Jersey City. On this golden Monday +afternoon I should have been slowly coming down the Housatonic Valley, +with my dear little wife beside me. Instead, the unfamiliar train, and +the fat man at my side reading a campaign newspaper, and shaking his +huge sides over some broad burlesque. + +The celebrated surgeon, Dr. R----, was not at home in answer to my +ring on Monday evening. + +"How soon will he be in? I will wait." + +"He can see no patients to-night sir," said the man; "and he may not +be home until midnight." + +"But I am an _im_patient," I might have urged, when a carriage dashed +up to the door. A slight little man descended, and came slowly up the +steps. + +"Dr. R----?" I said inquiringly. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Just one minute, doctor, if you please. I only want to get an address +from you." + +He scanned me from head to foot: "Walk into my office, young man." + +I might have wondered at the brusqueness of his manner had I not +caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the mantelshelf. Dusty +and worn, and with a keen look of anxiety showing out of every +feature, I should scarcely have recognized myself. + +I explained as collectedly as possible that I wanted the address of +one of his patients, a dear old friend of mine, whom I had missed as +she passed through New York, and that, as I was about to sail for +Europe in a few days, I had rushed over to bid her good-bye. "Mrs. +Antoinette Sloman, it is, doctor." + +The doctor eyed me keenly: he put out his hand to the little silver +bell that stood on the table and tapped it sharply. The servant +appeared at the door: "Let the carriage wait, James." + +Again the watchful, keen expression. Did he think me an escaped +lunatic, or that I had an intent to rob the old lady? Apparently the +scrutiny was satisfactory, for he took out a little black book from +his pocket, and turning over the leaves, said, "Certainly, here it +is--No. 30 Elm street, West Philadelphia." + +Over the river, then, again: no wonder I had not seen them in the +Sunday's search. + +"I will take you over," said Dr. R----, replacing the book in his +pocket again. "Mrs. Sloman is on my list. Wait till I eat a biscuit, +and I'll drive you over in my carriage." + +Shrewd little man! thought I: if I am a convict or a lunatic with +designs on Mrs. Sloman, he is going to be there to see. + +"Till he ate a biscuit?" I should think so. To his invitation, most +courteously urged, that I should come and share his supper--"You've +just come from the train, and you won't get back to your hotel for two +hours, at least"--I yielded a ready acceptance, for I was really very +hungry: I forget whether I had eaten anything all day. + +But the biscuit proved to be an elegant little supper served in +glittering plate, and the doctor lounged over the tempting bivalves +until I could scarce conceal my impatience. + +"Do you chance to know," he said carelessly, as at last we rose from +the table and he flung his napkin down, "Mrs. Sloman's niece, Miss +Stewart?" + +"Excellently well," I said smiling: "in fact, I believe I am engaged +to be married to her." + +"My dear fellow," said the doctor, bursting out laughing, "I am +delighted to hear it! Take my carriage and go. I saw you were a +lawyer, and you looked anxious and hurried; and I made up my mind that +you had come over to badger the old lady into making her will. I +congratulate you with all my soul--and myself, too," he added, shaking +my hand. "Only think! Had it not been for your frankness, I should +have taken a five-mile ride to watch you and keep you from doing my +patient an injury." + +The good doctor quite hurried me into the carriage in the effusion of +his discovery; and I was soon rolling away in that luxurious vehicle +over the bridge, and toward Bessie at last. + +I cannot record that interview in words, nor can I now set down any +but the mere outline of our talk. My darling came down to meet me with +a quick flush of joy that she did not try to conceal. She was natural, +was herself, and only too glad, after the _contretemps_ in New York, +to see me again. She pitied me as though I had been a tired child when +I told her pathetically of my two journeys to Philadelphia, and +laughed outright at my interview with Dr. R----. + +I was so sure of my ground. When I came to speak of the journey--_our_ +journey--I knew I should prevail. It was a deep wound, and she shrank +from any talk about it. I had to be very gentle and tender before she +would listen to me at all. + +But there was something else at work against me--what was +it?--something that I could neither see nor divine. And it was not +altogether made up of Aunt Sloman, I was sure. + +"I cannot leave her now, Charlie. Dr. R---- wishes her to remain in +Philadelphia, so that he can watch her case. That settles it, Charlie: +I must stay with her." + +What was there to be said? "Is there no one else, no one to take your +place?" + +"Nobody; and I would not leave her even if there were." + +Still, I was unsatisfied. A feeling of uneasiness took possession of +me. I seemed to read in Bessie's eyes that there was a thought between +us hidden out of sight. There is no clairvoyant like a lover. I could +see the shadow clearly enough, but whence, in her outer life, had the +shadow come? _Between_ us, surely, it could not be. Even her anxiety +for her aunt could not explain it: it was something concealed. + +When at last I had to leave her, "So to-morrow is your last day?" she +said. + +"No, not the last. I have changed my passage to the Saturday steamer." + +The strange look came into her face again. Never before did blue eyes +wear such a look of scrutiny. + +"Well, what is it?" I asked laughingly as I looked straight into her +eyes. + +"The Saturday steamer," she said musingly--"the Algeria, isn't it? I +thought you were in a hurry?" + +"It was my only chance to have you," I explained, and apparently the +argument was satisfactory enough. + +With the saucy little upward toss with which she always dismissed a +subject, "Then it isn't good-bye to-night?" she said. + +"Yes, for two days. I shall run over again on Thursday." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The two days passed, and the Thursday, and the Friday's parting, +harder for Bessie, as it seemed, than she had thought for. It was hard +to raise her dear little head from my shoulder when the last moment +came, and to rush down stairs to the cab, whose shivering horse and +implacable driver seemed no bad emblem of destiny on that raw October +morning. + +I was glad of the lowering sky as I stepped up the gangway to the +ship's deck. "What might have been" went down the cabin stairs with +me; and as I threw my wraps and knapsack into the double state-room I +had chosen I felt like a widower. + +It was wonderful to me then, as I sat down on the side of the berth +and looked around me, how the last two weeks had filled all the future +with dreams. "I must have a genius for castle-building," I laughed. +"Well, the reality is cold and empty enough. I'll go up on deck." + +On deck, among the piles of luggage, were various metal-covered trunks +marked M----. I remember now watching them as they were stowed away. + +But it was with a curious shock, an hour after we had left the dock, +that a turn in my solitary walk on deck brought me face to face with +Fanny Meyrick. + +"You here?" she said. "I thought you had sailed in the Russia! Bessie +told me you were to go then." + +"Did she know," I asked, "that _you_ were going by this steamer?" + +On my life, never was gallantry farther from my thoughts: my question +concerned Bessie alone, but Fanny apparently took it as a compliment, +and looked up gayly: "Oh yes: that was fixed months ago. I told her +about it at Lenox." + +"And did she tell you something else?" I asked sharply. + +"Oh yes. I was very glad to hear of your good prospect. Do be +congratulated, won't you?" + +Rather an odd way to put it, thought I, but it is Fanny Meyrick's way. +"Good prospect!" Heavens! was that the term to apply to my engagement +with Bessie? + +I should have insisted on a distincter utterance and a more flattering +expression of the situation had it been any other woman. But a +lingering suspicion that perhaps the subject was a distasteful one to +Fanny Meyrick made me pause, and a few moments after, as some one else +joined her, I left her and went to the smokestack for my cigar. + +It was impossible, in the daily monotony of ship-life, to avoid +altogether the young lady whom Fate had thrown in my way. She was a +most provokingly good sailor, too. Other women stayed below or were +carried in limp bundles to the deck at noon; but Fanny, perfectly +poised, with the steady glow in her cheek, was always ready to amuse +or be amused. + +I tried, at first, keeping out of her way, with the _Trois +Mousquetaires_ for company. But it seemed to me, as she knew of my +engagement, such avoidance was anything but complimentary to her. +Loyalty to her sex would forbid me to show that I had read her secret. +Why not meet her on the frank, breezy ground of friendship? + +Perhaps, after all, there was no secret. Perhaps her feeling was only +one of girlish gratitude, however needless, for pulling her out of the +Hudson River. I did not know. + +Nor was I particularly pleased with the companion to whom she +introduced me on our third day out--Father Shamrock, an Irish priest, +long resident in America, and bound now for Maynooth. How he had +obtained an introduction to her I do not know, except in the easy, +fatherly way he seemed to have with every one on board. + +"Pshaw!" thought I, "what a nuisance!" for I shared the common +antipathy to his country and his creed. Nor was his appearance +prepossessing--one of Froude's "tonsured peasants," as I looked down +at the square shoulders, the stout, short figure and the broad +beardlessness of the face of the padre. But his voice, rich and +mellow, attracted me in spite of myself. His eyes were sparkling with +kindly humor, and his laugh was irresistible. + +A perfect man of the world, with no priestly austerity about him, he +seemed a perpetual anxiety to the two young priests at his heels. They +were on their dignity always, and, though bound to hold him in +reverence as their superior in age and rank, his songs and his gay +jests were evidently as thorns in their new cassocks. + +Father Shamrock was soon the star of the ship's company. Perfectly +suave, his gayety had rather the French sparkle about it than the +distinguishing Italian trait, and his easy manner had a dash of +manliness which I had not thought to find. Accomplished in various +tongues, rattling off a gay little _chanson_ or an Irish song, it was +a sight to see the young priests looking in from time to time at the +cabin door in despair as the clock pointed to nine, and Father +Shamrock still sat the centre of a gay and laughing circle. + +He had rare tact, too, in talking to women. Of all the ladies on the +Algeria, I question if there were any but the staunchest Protestants. +Some few held themselves aloof at first and declined an introduction. +"Father Shamrock! An Irish priest! How _can_ Miss Meyrick walk with +him and present him as she does?" But the party of recalcitrants grew +less and less, and Fanny Meyrick was very frank in her admiration. +"Convert you?" she laughed over her shoulder to me. "He wouldn't take +the trouble to try." + +And I believe, indeed, he would not. His strong social nature was +evidently superior to any ambition of his cloth. He would have made a +famous diplomat but for the one quality of devotion that was lacking. +I use the word in its essential, not in its religious sense--devotion +to an idea, the faith in a high purpose. + +We had one anxious day of it, and only one. A gale had driven most of +the passengers to the seclusion of their state-rooms, and left the +dinner-table a desert. Alone in the cabin, Father Shamrock, Fanny +Meyrick, a young Russian and myself: I forget a vigilant duenna, the +only woman on board unreconciled to Father Shamrock. She lay prone on +one of the seats, her face rigid and hands clasped in an agony of +terror. She was afraid, she afterward confessed to me, to go to her +state-room: nearness and voices seemed a necessity to her. + +When I joined the party, Father Shamrock, as usual, was the narrator. +But he had dropped out of his voice all the gay humor, and was talking +very soberly. Some story he was telling, of which I gathered, as he +went on, that it was of a young lady, a rich and brilliant society +woman. "Shot right through the heart at Chancellorsville, and he the +only brother. They two, orphans, were all that were left of the +family. He was her darling, just two years younger than she. + +"I went to see her, and found her in an agony. She had not kissed him +when he left her: some little laughing tiff between them, and she had +expected to see him again before his regiment marched. She threw +herself on her knees and made confession; and then she took a holy +vow: if the saints would grant her once more to behold his body, she +would devote herself hereafter to God's holy Church. + +"She gathered all her jewels together in a heap and cast them at my +feet. 'Take them, Father, for the Church: if I find him I shall not +wear them again--or if I do not find him.' + +"I went with her to the front of battle, and we found him after a +time. It was a search, but we found his grave, and we brought him home +with us. Poor boy! beyond recognition, except for the ring he wore; +but she gave him the last kiss, and then she was ready to leave the +world. She took the vows as Sister Clara, the holy vows of poverty and +charity." + +"But, Father," said Fanny, with a new depth in her eyes, "did she not +die behind the bars? To be shut up in a convent with that grief at her +heart!" + +"Bars there were none," said the Father gently. "She left her vocation +to me, and I decided for her to become a Sister of Mercy. I have +little sympathy," with a shrug half argumentative, half +deprecatory--"but little sympathy with the conventual system for +spirits like hers. She would have wasted and worn away in the offices +of prayer. She needed _action_. And she had the full of it in her +calling. She went from bedside to bedside of the sick and dying--here +a child in a fever; there a widow-woman in the last stages of +consumption--night after night, and day after day, with no rest, no +thought of herself." + +"Oh, I have seen her," I could not help interposing, "in a city car. A +shrouded figure that was conspicuous even in her serge dress. She read +a book of _Hours_ all the time, but I caught one glimpse of her eyes: +they were very brilliant." + +"Yes," sighed the Father, "it was an unnatural brightness. I was +called away to Montreal, or I should never have permitted the +sacrifice. She went where-ever the worst cases were of contagion and +poverty, and she would have none to relieve her at her post. So, when +I returned after three months' absence, I was shocked at the change: +she was dying of their family disease. 'It is better, so,' she said, +'dear Father. It was only the bullet that saved Harry from it, and it +would have been sure to come to me at last, after some opera or ball.' +She died last winter--so patient and pure, and such a saintly +sufferer!" + +The Father wiped his eyes. Why should I think of Bessie? Why should +the Sister's veiled figure and pale ardent face rise before me as if +in warning? + +Of just such overwhelming sacrifice was my darling capable were her +life's purpose wrecked. Something there was in the portrait of the +sweet singleness, the noble scorn of self, the devotion unthinking, +uncalculating, which I knew lay hidden in her soul. + +The Father warmed into other themes, all in the same key of mother +Church. I listened dreamily, and to my own thoughts as well. + +He pictured the priest's life of poverty, renunciation, leaving the +world of men, the polish and refinement of scholars, to take the +confidences and bear the burdens of grimy poverty and ignorance. +Surely, I thought, we do wrong to shut such men out of our sympathies, +to label them "Dangerous." Why should we turn the cold shoulder? are +we so true to our ideals? But one glance at the young priests as they +sat crouching in the outer cabin, telling their beads and crossing +themselves with the vehemence of a frightened faith, was enough. +Father Shamrock was no type. Very possibly his own life would show but +coarse and poor against the chaste, heroic portraits he had drawn. He +had the dramatic faculty: for the moment he was what he related--that +was all. + +Our vigilant duenna had gradually risen to a sitting posture, and +drawn nearer and nearer, and as the narrator's voice sank into silence +she said with effusion, "Well, _you_ are a good man, I guess." + +But Fanny Meyrick sat as if entranced. The gale had died away, and, to +break the spell, I asked her if she wanted to take one peep on deck, +to see if there was a star in the heavens. + +There was no star, but a light rising and falling with the ship's +motion, which was pronounced by a sailor to be Queenstown light, shone +in the distance. + +The Father was to leave us there. "We shall not make it to-night," +said the sailor. "It is too rough. Early in the morning the passengers +will land." + +"I wish," said Fanny with a deep sigh, as if wakening from a dream, +"that the Church of Rome was at the bottom of the sea!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Arrived at our dock, I hurried off to catch the train for London. The +Meyricks lingered for a few weeks in Wales before coming to settle +down for the winter. I was glad of it, for I could make my +arrangements unhampered. So I carefully eliminated Clarges street from +my list of lodging-houses, and finally "ranged" myself with a neat +landlady in Sackville street. + +How anxiously I awaited the first letter from Bessie! As the banker's +clerk handed it over the counter to me, instead of the heavy envelope +I had hoped for, it was a thin slip of an affair that fluttered away +from my hand. It was so very slim and light that I feared to open it +there, lest it should be but a mocking envelope, nothing more. + +So I hastened back to my cab, and, ordering the man to drive to the +law-offices, tore it open as I jumped in. It enclosed simply a printed +slip, cut from some New York paper--a list of the Algeria's +passengers. + +"What joke is this?" I said as I scanned it more closely. + +By some spite of fortune my name was printed directly after the +Meyrick party. Was it for this, this paltry thing, that Bessie has +denied me a word? I turned over the envelope, turned it inside +out--not a penciled word even! + +The shadow that I had seen on that good-bye visit to Philadelphia was +clear to me now. I had said at Lenox, repeating the words after Bessie +with fatal emphasis, "I am glad, very glad, that Fanny Meyrick is to +sail in October. I would not have her stay on this side for worlds!" +Then the next day, twenty-four hours after, I told her that I too was +going abroad. Coward that I was, not to tell her at first! She might +have been sorry, vexed, but not _suspicious_. + +Yes, that was the ugly word I had to admit, and to admit that I had +given it room to grow. + +My first hesitancy about taking her with me, my transfer from the +Russia to the later steamer, and, to crown all, that leaf from Fanny's +pocket-book: "I shall love him for ever and ever"! + +And yet she _had_ faith in me. She had told Fanny Meyrick we were +engaged. _Had she not_? + +My work in London was more tedious and engrossing than I had expected. +Even a New York lawyer has much to learn of the law's delay in those +pompous old offices amid the fog. Had I been working for myself, I +should have thrown up the case in despair, but advices from our office +said "Stick to it," and I stayed. + +Eating out my own heart with anxiety whenever I thought of my home +affair, perhaps it was well for me that I had the monotonous, musty +work that required little thought, but only a persistent plodding and +a patient holding of my end of the clue. + +In all these weeks I had nothing from Bessie save that first cruel +envelope. Letter after letter went to her, but no response came. I +wrote to Mrs. Sloman too, but no answer. Then I bethought me of Judge +Hubbard, but received in reply a note from one of his sons, stating +that his father was in Florida--that he had communicated with him, but +regretted that he was unable to give me Miss Stewart's present +address. + +Why did I not seek Fanny Meyrick? She must have come to London long +since, and surely the girls were in correspondence. I was too proud. +She knew of our relations: Bessie had told her. I could not bring +myself to reveal to her how tangled and gloomy a mystery was between +us. I could explain nothing without letting her see that she was the +unconscious cause. + +At last, when one wretched week after another had gone by, and we were +in the new year, I could bear it no longer. "Come what will, I must +know if Bessie writes to her." + +I went to Clarges street. My card was carried into the Meyricks' +parlor, and I followed close upon it. Fanny was sitting alone, reading +by a table. She looked up in surprise as I stood in the doorway. A +little coldly, I thought, she came forward to meet me, but her manner +changed as she took my hand. + +"I was going to scold you, Charlie, for avoiding us, for staying away +so long, but that is accounted for now. Why didn't you send us word +that you were ill? Papa is a capital nurse." + +"But I have not been ill," I said, bewildered, "only very busy and +very anxious." + +"I should think so," still holding my hand, and looking into my face +with an expression of deep concern. "Poor fellow! You do look worn. +Come right here to this chair by the fire, and let me take care of +you. You need rest." + +And she rang the bell. I suffered myself to be installed in the soft +crimson chair by the fire. It was such a comfort to hear a friendly +voice after all those lonely weeks! When the servant entered with a +tray, I watched her movements over the tea-cups with a delicious sense +of the womanly presence and the home-feeling stealing over me. + +"I can't imagine what keeps papa," she said, chatting away with +woman's tact: "he always smokes after dinner, and comes up to me for +his cup of tea afterward." + +Then, as she handed me a tiny porcelain cup, steaming and fragrant, "I +should never have congratulated you, Charlie, on board the steamer if +I had known it was going to end in this way." + +_This way_! Then Bessie must have told her. + +"End?" I said stammering: "what--what end?" + +"In wearing you out. Bessie told me at Lenox, the day we took that +long walk, that you had this important case, and it was a great thing +for a young lawyer to have such responsibility." + +Poor little porcelain cup! It fell in fragments on the floor as I +jumped to my feet: "Was that _all_ she told you? Didn't she tell you +that we were engaged?" + +For a moment Fanny did not speak. The scarlet glow on her cheek, the +steady glow that was always there, died away suddenly and left her +pale as ashes. Mechanically she opened and shut the silver sugar-tongs +that lay on the table under her hand, and her eyes were fixed on me +with a wild, beseeching expression. + +"Did you not know," I said in softer tones, still standing by the +table and looking down on her, "that day at Lenox that we were +engaged? Was it not for _that_ you congratulated me on board the +steamer?" + +A deep-drawn sigh as she whispered, "Indeed, no! Oh dear! what have I +done?" + +"You?--nothing!" I said with a sickly smile; "but there is some +mistake, some mystery. I have never had one line from Bessie since I +reached London, and when I left her she was my own darling little wife +that was to be." + +Still Fanny sat pale as ashes, looking into the fire and muttering to +herself. "Heavens! To think--Oh, Charlie," with a sudden burst, "it's +all my doing! How can I ever tell you?" + +"You hear from Bessie, then? Is she--is she well? Where is she? What +is all this?" And I seated myself again and tried to speak calmly, for +I saw that something very painful was to be said--something that she +could hardly say; and I wanted to help her, though how I knew not. + +At this moment the door opened and "papa" came in. He evidently saw +that he had entered upon a scene as his quick eye took in the +situation, but whether I was accepted or rejected as the future +son-in-law even his penetration was at fault to discover. + +"Oh, papa," said Fanny, rising with evident relief, "just come and +talk to Mr. Munro while I get him a package he wants to take with +him." + +It took a long time to prepare that package. Mr. Meyrick, a cool, +shrewd man of the world, was taking a mental inventory of me, I felt +all the time. I was conscious that I talked incoherently and like a +school-boy of the treaty. Every American in London was bound to have +his special opinion thereupon, and Meyrick, I found, was of the +English party. Then we discussed the special business which had +brought me to England. + +"A very unpresentable son-in-law," I read in his eye, while he was +evidently astonished at his daughter's prolonged absence. + +Our talk flagged and the fire grew gray in its flaky ashes before +Fanny again appeared. + +"I know, papa, you think me very rude to keep Mr. Munro so long +waiting, but there were some special directions to go with the packet, +and it took me a long time to get them right. It is for Bessie, +papa--Bessie Stewart, Mr. Munro's dear little _fiancée_." + +Escaping as quickly as possible from Mr. Meyrick's neatly turned +felicitations--and that the satisfaction he expressed was genuine I +was prepared to believe--hurried home to Sackville street. + +My bedroom was always smothering in its effect on me--close draperies +to the windows, heavy curtains around the bed--and I closed the door +and lighted my candle with a sinking heart. + +The packet was simply a long letter, folded thickly in several +wrappers and tied with a string. The letter opened abruptly: + +"What I am going to do I am sure no woman on earth ever did before me, +nor would I save to undo the trouble I have most innocently made. What +must you have thought of me that day at Lenox, staying close all day +to two engaged people, who must have wished me away a thousand times? +But I did not dream you were engaged. + +"Remember, I had just come over from Saratoga, and knew nothing of +Lenox gossip, then or afterward. Something in your manner once or +twice made me look at you and think that perhaps you were _interested_ +in Bessie, but hers to you was so cold, so distant, that I thought it +was only a notion of my jealous self. + +"Was I foolish to lay so much stress on that anniversary time? Do you +know that the year before we had spent it together, too?--September +28th. True, that year it was at Bertie Cox's funeral, but we had +walked together, and I was happy in being near you. + +"For, you see, it was from something more than the Hudson River that +you had brought me out. You had rescued me from the stupid gayety of +my first winter--from the flats of fashionable life. You had given me +an ideal--something to live up to and grow worthy of. + +"Let that pass. For myself, it is nothing, but for the deeper harm I +have done, I fear, to Bessie and to you. + +"Again, on that day at Lenox, when Bessie and I drove together in the +afternoon, I tried to make her talk about you, to find out what you +were to her. But she was so distant, so repellant, that I fancied +there was nothing at all between you; or, rather, if you had cared for +her at all, that she had been indifferent to you. + +"Indeed, she quite forbade the subject by her manner; and when she +told me you were going abroad, I could not help being very happy, for +I thought then that I should have you all to myself. + +"When I saw you on shipboard, I fancied, somehow, that you had changed +your passage to be with us. It was very foolish; and I write it, +thankful that you are not here to see me. So I scribbled a little note +to Bessie, and sent it off by the pilot: I don't know where you were +when the pilot went. This is, as nearly as I remember it, what I +wrote: + + "'DEAR BESSIE: Charlie Munro is on board. He must have + changed his passage to be with us. I know from something + that he has just told _me_ that this is so, and that he + consoles himself already for your coldness. You remember + what I told you when we talked about him. I shall _try_ now. + F.M.' + +"Bessie would know what that meant. Oh, must I tell you what a weak, +weak girl I was? When I found out at Lenox, as I thought, that Bessie +did not care for you, I said to her that once I thought you _had_ +cared for me, but that papa had offended you by his manner--you +weren't of an old Knickerbocker family, you know--and had given you to +understand that your visits were not acceptable. + +"I am sure now that it was because I wanted to think so that I put +that explanation upon your ceasing to visit me, and because papa +always looked so decidedly _queer_ whenever your name was mentioned. + +"I had always had everything in life that I wanted, and I believed +that in due time you would come back to me. + +"Bessie knew well enough what that pilot-letter meant, for here is her +answer." + +Pinned fast to the end of Fanny's letter, so that by no chance should +I read it first, were these words in my darling's hand: + + "Got your pilot-letter. Aunt is much better. We shall be + traveling about so much that you need not write me the + progress of your romance, but believe me I shall be most + interested in its conclusion. BESSIE S." + +It was all explained now. My darling, so sensitive and spirited, had +given her leave "to try." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +But was that all? Was she wearing away the slow months in passionate +unbelief of me? I could not tell. But before I slept that night I had +taken my resolve. I would sail for home by the next steamer. The case +would suffer, perhaps, by the delay and the change of hands: D---- +must come out to attend to it himself, then, but I would suffer no +longer. + +No use to write to Bessie. I had exhausted every means to reach her +save that of the detectives. "I'll go to the office, file my papers +till the next man comes over, see Fanny Meyrick, and be off." + +But what to say to Fanny? Good, generous girl! She had indeed done +what few women in the world would have had the courage to do--shown +her whole heart to a man who loved another. It would be an +embarrassing interview; and I was not sorry when I started out that +morning that it was too early yet to call. + +To the office first, then, I directed my steps. But here Fate lay +_perdu_ and in wait for me. + +"A letter, Mr. Munro, from D---- & Co.," said the brisk young +clerk. They had treated me with great respect of late, for, indeed, +our claim was steadily growing in weight, and was sure to come right +before long. I opened and read: + +"The missing paper is found on this side of the Atlantic--what you +have been rummaging for all winter on the other. A trusty messenger +sails at once, and will report himself to you." + +"At once!" Well, there's only a few days' delay, at most. Perhaps it's +young Bunker. He can take the case and end it: anybody can end it now. + +And my heart was light. "A few days," I said to myself as I ran up the +steps in Clarges street. + +"Miss Fanny at home?" to the man, or rather to the member of +Parliament, who opened the door--"Miss Meyrick, I mean." + +"Yes, sir--in the drawing-room, sir;" and he announced me with a +flourish. + +Fanny sat in the window. She might have been looking out for me, for +on my entrance she parted the crimson curtains and came forward. + +Again the clear glow in her cheek, the self-possessed Fanny of old. + +"Charlie," she began impetuously, "I have been thinking over shipboard +and Father Shamrock, and all. You didn't think then--did you?--that I +cared so very much for you? I am so glad that the Father bewitched me +as he did, for I can remember no foolishness on my part to you, +sir--none at all. Can you?" + +Stammering, confused, I seemed to have lost my tongue and my head +together. I had expected tears, pale cheeks, a burst of self-reproach, +and that I should have to comfort and be very gentle and sympathetic. +I had dreaded the _rôle_; but here was a new turn of affairs; and, I +own it, my self-love was not a little wounded. The play was played +out, that was evident. The curtain had fallen, and here was I, a +late-arrived hero of romance, the chivalric elder brother, with all my +little stock of property-phrases--friendship of a life, esteem, +etc.--of no more account than a week-old playbill. + +For, I must confess it, I had rehearsed some little forgiveness scene, +in which I should magnanimously kiss her hand, and tell her that I +should honor her above all women for her courage and her truth; and in +which she would cry until her poor little heart was soothed and +calmed; and that I should have the sweet consciousness of being +beloved, however hopelessly, by such a brilliant, ardent soul. + +But Mistress Fanny had quietly turned the tables on me, and I believe +I was angry enough for the moment to wish it had not been so. + +But only for a moment. It began to dawn upon me soon, the rare tact +which had made easy the most embarrassing situation in the world--the +_bravura_ style, if I may call it so, that had carried us over such a +difficult bar. + +It _was_ delicacy, this careless reminder of the fascinating Father, +and perhaps there was a modicum of truth in that acknowledgment too. + +I took my leave of Fanny Meyrick, and walked home a wiser man. + +But the trusty messenger, who arrived three days later, was not, as I +had hoped, young Bunker or young Anybody. It was simply Mrs. D----, +with a large traveling party. They came straight to London, and +summoned me at once to the Langham Hotel. + +I suppose I looked somewhat amazed at sight of the portly lady, whom I +had last seen driving round Central Park. But the twin Skye terriers +who tumbled in after her assured me of her identity soon enough. + +"Mr. D---- charged me, Mr. Munro," she began after our first +ceremonious greeting, "to give this into no hands but yours. I have +kept it securely with my diamonds, and those I always carry about me." + +From what well-stitched diamond receptacle she had extracted the paper +I did not suffer myself to conjecture, but the document was strongly +perfumed with violet powder. + +"You see, I was coming over," she proceeded to explain, "in any event, +and when Mr. D---- talked of sending Bunker--I think it was +Bunker--with us, I persuaded him to let me be messenger instead. It +wasn't worth while, you know, to have any more people leave the +office, you being away, and--Oh, Ada, my dear, here is Mr. Munro!" + +As Ada, a slim, willowy creature, with the _surprised_ look in her +eyes that has become the fashion of late, came gliding up to me, I +thought that the reason for young Bunker's omission from the party was +possibly before me. + +Bother on her matrimonial, or rather anti-matrimonial, devices! Her +maternal solicitude lest Ada should be charmed with the poor young +clerk on the passage over had cost me weeks of longer stay. For at +this stage a request for any further transfer would have been +ridiculous and wrong. As easy to settle it now as to arrange for any +one else; so the first of April found me still in London, but leaving +it on the morrow for home. + +"Bessie is in Lenox, I think," Fanny Meyrick had said to me as I bade +her good-bye. + +"What! You have heard from her?" + +"No, but I heard incidentally from one of my Boston friends this +morning that he had seen her there, standing on the church steps." + +I winced, and a deeper glow came into Fanny's cheek. + +"You will give her my letter? I would have written to her also, but it +was indeed only this morning that I heard. You will give her that?" + +"I have kept it for her," I said quietly; and the adieus were over. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Lenox again, and bluebirds darting to and fro among the maples. I had +reached the hotel at midnight. Our train was late, detained on the +road, and though my thoughts drove instantly to the Sloman cottage, I +allowed the tardier coach-horses to set me down at the hotel. I had +not telegraphed from New York. I would give her no chance to withhold +herself from me, or to avoid me by running away. There was no time for +her, as yet, to have read of the ship's arrival. I would take her +unawares. + +So, after the bountiful Nora, who presides over the comfort of her +favorites, had plied me with breakfast-cakes and milk and honey, I +sauntered down toward the Lebanon road. Yes, sauntered, for I felt +that a great crisis in my life was at hand, and at such times a +wonderful calmness, almost to lethargy, possesses me. I went slowly up +the hill. The church-clock was striking nine--calm, peaceful strokes. +There was no tremor in them, no warning of what was coming. The air +was very still, and I stopped a moment to watch the bluebirds before I +turned into the Lebanon road. + +There was the little gray cottage, with its last year's vines about +it, a withered spray here and there waving feebly as the soft April +air caught it and tossed it to and fro. No sign of life about the +cottage--doors and windows tight shut and barred. Only the little gate +swung open, but that might have been the wind. I stepped up on the +porch. No sound save the echo of my steps and the knocking of my +heart. I rang the bell. It pealed violently, but there were no +answering sounds: nothing stirred. + +I rang again, more gently, and waited, looking along the little path +to the gate. There was snow, the winter's snow, lingering about the +roots of the old elm, the one elm tree that overhung the cottage. Last +winter's snow lying there, and of the people who had lived in the +house, and made it warm and bright, not a footprint, not a trace! + +Again I rang, and this time I heard footsteps coming round the corner +of the house. I sat down on the rustic bench by the door. If it had +been Bessie's self, I could not have stirred, I was so chilled, so +awed by the blank silence. A brown sun-bonnet, surmounting a tall, +gaunt figure, came in sight. + +"What is it?" asked the owner of the sun-bonnet in a quick, sharp +voice that seemed the prelude to "Don't want any." + +"Where are Mrs. Sloman and Miss Stewart? Are they not in Lenox?" + +"Miss' Sloman, she's away to Minnarsoter: ben thar' all winter for her +health. She don't cal'late to be home afore June." + +"And Miss Stewart?--is she with her?" + +"Miss Stewart? I dunno," said the woman, with a strange look about the +corners of her mouth. "I dunno: I never see her; and the family was +all away afore I came here to take charge. They left the kitchen-end +open for me; and my sister-in-law--that's Hiram Splinter's wife--she +made all the 'rangements. But I _did_ hear," hesitating a moment, "as +how Bessie Stewart was away to Shaker Village; and some does say"--a +portentous pause and clearing of her throat--"that she's jined." + +"_Joined_--what?" I asked, all in a mist of impatience and perplexity. + +"Jined the Shakers." + +"Nonsense!" I said, recovering my breath angrily. "Where is this +Hiram's wife? Let me see her." + +"In the back lot--there where you see the yaller house where the +chimney's smoking. That's Hiram's house. He has charge of the Gold +property on the hill. Won't you come in and warm yourself by the fire +in the kitchen? I was away to the next neighbor's, and I was sure I +hear our bell a-ringin'. Did you hev' to ring long?" + +But I was away, striding over the cabbage-patch and climbing the +worm-fence that shut in the estate of Hiram. Some wretched mistake: +the woman does not know what she's talking about. These Splinters! +they seem to have had some communication with Mrs. Sloman: they will +know. + +Mrs. Splinter, a neat, bright-eyed woman of about twenty-five, opened +the door at my somewhat peremptory knock. I recollected her in a +moment as a familiar face--some laundress or auxiliary of the Sloman +family in some way; and she seemed to recognize me as well: "Why! it's +Mr. Munro! Walk in, sir, and sit down," dusting off a chair with her +apron as she spoke. + +"Miss Stewart--where is she? _You_ know." + +"Miss Stewart?" said the woman, sinking down into a chair and looking +greatly disturbed. "Miss Stewart's gone to live with the Shakers. My +husband drove her over with his team--her and her trunk." + +"Why, where was her aunt? Did Mrs. Sloman know? Why isn't Miss Bessie +with her?" + +"Miss' Sloman said all she could--_afterward_ I guess," said the +woman, wiping her eyes, "but 'twan't no use then. You see, Miss' +Sloman had jined a party that was goin' to Minnesota--while she was in +Philadelfy, that was--and Miss Stewart she wasn't goin'. She reckoned +she'd spend the winter here in the house. Miss' Sloman's maid--that's +Mary--was goin' with her to the West, and I was to hire my +sister-in-law to take charge of things here, so that Miss Bessie could +have her mind free-like to come and go. But afore ever Mary +Jane--that's my sister-in-law--could come over from Lee, where she was +livin' out, Miss Bessie comes up and opens the house. She stayed there +about a week, and she had lots of company while she was here. I think +she got tired. They was people that was just goin' to sail for Europe, +and as soon as they went she just shut up and told me to send for Mary +Jane to take care of things. So Mary Jane never see her, and perhaps +she giv' you a crooked answer, sir, if you was inquirin' of her over +to the cottage." + +"Where's Hiram? where's your husband? Can I have his team this +morning?" + +"I guess so," said the sympathetic Mrs. Splinter. "He'll show you the +very house he druv' her to." + +Hiram was hunted for and found; and an hour later I was bowling along +the Lebanon road behind the bay team he was so proud of. I had +concluded to take him with me, as he could identify places and +people, and I knew well what castles the Shaker houses are for the +world's people outside. Hiram was full of talk going over. He seemed +to have been bottling it up, and I was the first auditor for his +wrath. "I know 'm," he said, cracking his whip over his horses' heads. +"They be sharp at a bargain, they be. If they've contrived to get a +hold on Bessie Stewart, property and all, it'll go hard on 'em to give +her up." + +"A _hold_ on Bessie!" What dreadful words! I bade him sharply hold his +tongue and mind his horses, but he went on muttering in an undertone, +"Yo'll see, yo'll see! You're druv' pretty hard, young man, I expect, +so I won't think nothing of your ha'sh words, and we'll get her out, +for all Elder Nebson." + +So Hiram, looked out along the road from under his huge fur-cap, and +up hill and down. The miles shortened, until at last the fair houses +and barns of the Shaker village came in sight. A sleeping village, one +would have thought. Nobody in the road save one old man, who eyed us +suspiciously through the back of a chair he was carrying. + +"It must be dinner-time, I think," said Hiram as he drove cautiously +along. Stopping at a house near the bridge: "Now this is the very +house. Just you go right up and knock at that 'ere door." + +I knocked. In a twinkling the door was opened by a neat Shaker sister, +whose round, smiling face was flushed, as though she had just come +from cooking dinner. I stepped across the threshold: "Bessie Stewart +is here. Please say to her that a friend--a friend from +England--wishes to see her." + +"Sure," said the motherly-faced woman, for she was sweet and motherly +in spite of her Shaker garb, "I'll go and see." + +Smilingly she ushered me into a room at the left of the hall. "Take +seat, please;" and with a cheerful alacrity she departed, closing the +door gently behind her. + +"Well," thought I, "this is pleasant: no bolts or bars here. I'm sure +of one friend at court." + +I had leisure to observe the apartment--the neatly-scrubbed floor, +with one narrow cot bed against the wall, a tall bureau on which some +brown old books were lying, and the little dust-pan and dust-brush on +a brass nail in the corner. There was a brightly polished stove with +no fire in it, and some straight-backed chairs of yellow wood stood +round the room. An open door into a large, roomy closet showed various +garments of men's apparel hanging upon the wall. The plain thermometer +in the window casement seemed the one article of luxury or ornament in +the apartment. I believe I made my observations on all these things +aloud, concluding with, "Oh, Bessie! Bessie! you shall not stay here." +I know that I was startled enough by the apparition of a man standing +in the open closet door. He must have been within it at my entrance, +and had heard all I said. + +He came forward, holding out his hand--very friendly apparently. Then, +requesting me to be seated, he drew out a chair from the wall and sat +down, tilting it back on two legs and leaning against the wall, with +his hands folded before him. Some commonplace remark about the +weather, which I answered, led to a rambling conversation, in which he +expressed the greatest curiosity as to worldly matters, and asked +several purely local questions about the city of New York. Perhaps his +ignorance was feigned. I do not know, but I found myself relating, +_ŕ la_ Stanley-Livingstone, some of the current events of the day. His +face was quite intelligent, tanned with labor in the fields, and his +brown eyes were kind and soft, like those of some dumb animals. I note +his eyes here especially, as different in expression from those of +others of his sect. + +Several times during the conversation I heard footsteps in the hall, +and darted from my seat, and finally, in my impatience, began to pace +the floor. Kindly as he looked, I did not wish to question the man +about Bessie. I would rely upon the beaming portress, whose "_Sure_" +was such an earnest of her good-will. Moreover, a feeling of contempt, +growing out of pity, was taking possession of me. This man, in what +did he differ from the Catholic priest save in the utter selfishness +of his creed? Beside the sordid accumulation of gain to which his life +was devoted the priest's mission among crowded alleys and +fever-stricken lanes seemed luminous and grand. A moral suicide, with +no redeeming feature. The barns bursting with fatness, the comfortable +houses, gain added to gain--to what end? I was beginning to give very +short answers indeed to his questions, and was already meditating a +foray through the rest of the house, when the door opened slowly and a +lady-abbess entered. She was stiff and stately, with the most formal +neckerchief folded precisely over her straitened bust, a clear-muslin +cap concealing her hair, and her face, stony, blue-eyed and cold--a +pale, frozen woman standing stately there. + +"Bessie Stewart?" said I. "She is here--I know it. Do not detain her. +I must see her. Why all this delay?" + +"Dost thou mean Sister Eliza?" she asked in chilling tones. + +"No, nobody's sister--least of all a sister here--but the young lady +who came over here from Lenox two months ago--Bessie Stewart, Mrs. +Sloman's niece." (I knew that Mrs. Sloman was quite familiar with some +of the Shakeresses, and visited them at times.) + +Very composedly the sister took a chair and folded her hands across +her outspread handkerchief before she spoke again. I noticed at this +moment that her dress was just the color of her eyes, a pale, stony +blue. + +"Sister Eliza: it is the same," in measured accents. "She is not here: +she has gone--to Watervliet." + +Can this be treachery? I thought, and is she still in the house? Will +they hide from her that I am here? But there was no fathoming the +woman's cold blue eyes. + +"To Watervliet?" I inquired dismally. "How? when? how did she go?" + +"She went in one of our wagons: Sister Leah and Brother Ephraim went +along." + +"When will they return?" + +"I cannot say." + +All this time the man was leaning back against the wall, but uttered +not a word. A glance of triumph shot from the sister's eyes as I rose. +But she was mistaken if she thought I was going away. I stepped to the +window, and throwing it open called to Hiram, who was still sitting in +his wagon, chewing composedly a bit of straw. He leaped out in an +instant, and leaning out to him I rapidly repeated in an undertone the +previous conversation: "What would you do?" + +"Ten chances to one it's a lie. Tell 'em you'll set there till you see +her. They can't shake us off that way." + +I drew in my head. The pair still sat as before. "Well," said I, "as I +_must_ see her, and as you seem so uncertain about it, I will wait +here." + +And again I took my seat. The sister's face flushed. I had meant no +rudeness in my tone, but she must have detected the suspicion in it. +She crimsoned to her temples, and said hastily, "It is impossible for +us to entertain strangers to-day. A brother is dying in the house: we +are all waiting for him to pass away from moment to moment. We can +submit to no intrusion." + +Well, perhaps it was an intrusion. It was certainly their house if it +did hold my darling. I looked at her steadily: "Are you sure that +Bessie Stewart has gone away from here?" + +"To Watervliet--yea," she answered composedly. "She left here last +week." + +My skill at cross-examination was at fault. If that woman was lying, +she would be a premium witness. "I should be sorry, madam," I said, +recalling the world's etiquette, which I had half forgotten, "to +intrude upon you at this or any other time, but I cannot leave here in +doubt. Will you oblige me by stating the exact hour and day at which +Miss Stewart is expected to return from Watervliet, and the road +thither?" + +She glanced across the room. Answering the look, the man spoke, for +the first time since she had entered: "The party, I believe, will be +home to-night." + +"And she with them?" + +"Yea, unless she has elected to remain." + +"At what hour?" + +"I cannot tell." + +"By what road shall I meet her?" + +"There are two roads: we generally use the river-road." + +"To-night? I will go to meet her. By the river-road, you say?" + +"Yea." + +"And if I do not meet her?" + +"If thou dost not meet her," said the lady-abbess, answering calmly, +"it will be because she is detained on the road." + +I had to believe her, and yet I was very skeptical. As I walked out of +the door the man was at my heels. He followed me out on to the wooden +stoop and nodded to Hiram. + +"Who is that, Hiram?" I whispered as he leaned across the back of a +horse, adjusting some leathern buckle. + +"That?" said Hiram under his breath. "That's a deep 'un: that's Elder +Nebson." + +Great was the dissatisfaction of the stout-hearted Splinter at my +retreat, as he called it, from the enemy's ground. + +"I'd ha' liked nothin' better than to beat up them quarters. I thought +every minit' you'd be calling me, and was ready to go in." And he +clenched his fist in a way that showed unmistakably how he would have +"gone in" had he been summoned. By this time we were driving on +briskly toward the river-road. "You wa'n't smart, I reckon, to leave +that there house. It was your one chance, hevin' got in. Ten chances +to one she's hid away som'eres in one of them upper rooms," and he +pointed to a row of dormer-windows, "not knowin' nothin' of your bein' +there." + +"Stop!" I said with one foot on the shafts. "You don't mean to say she +is shut up there?" + +"Shet up? No: they be too smart for that. But there's plenty ways to +shet a young gal's eyes an' ears 'thout lockin' of her up. How'd she +know who was in this wagon, even if she seed it from her winders? To +be sure, I made myself conspicuous enough, a-whistlin' 'Tramp, tramp,' +and makin' the horses switch round a good deal. But, like enough, ef +she'd be down-spereted-like, she'd never go near the winder, but just +set there, a-stitchin' beads on velvet or a-plattin' them mats." + +"Why should she work?" I asked, with my grasp still on the reins. + +"Them all does," he answered, taking a fresh bite of the straw. "It's +the best cure for sorrow, they say. Or mebbe she's a-teachin' the +children. I see a powerful sight of children comin' along while you +was in there talkin', a-goin' to their school, and I tried to ask some +o' them about her. But the old sheep who was drivin' on 'em looked at +me like vinegar, and I thought I'd better shet up, or mebbe she'd give +the alarm that we was here with horses and wagon to carry her off." + +I had a painful moment of indecision as Hiram paused in his narrative +and leisurely proceeded to evict a fly from the near horse's ear. "I +think we'll go on, Hiram," I said, jumping back to my seat again. +"Take the river-road." + +Hiram had brought plentiful provision for his horses in a bag under +the seat. "Victualed for a march or a siege," he said as he dragged +out a tin kettle from the same receptacle when we drew up by the +roadside an hour after. "We're clear of them pryin' Shakers, and we'll +just rest a spell." + +I could not demur, though my impatience was urging me on faster than +his hungry horses could go. + +"I told Susan," he said, "to put me up a bit of pie and cheese--mebbe +we wouldn't be back afore night. Won't you hev' some?--there's a +plenty." + +But I declined the luncheon, and while he munched away contentedly, +and while the horses crunched their corn, I got out and walked on, +telling Hiram to follow at his leisure. My heart beat fast as I espied +a wagon in the distance with one--yes, two--Shaker bonnets in it. +Bessie in masquerade! Perhaps so--it could not be the other: that +would be too horrible. But she was coming, surely coming, and the cold +prim sister had told the truth, after all. + +The wagon came nearer. In it were two weather-beaten dames, neither of +whom could possibly be mistaken for Bessie in disguise; and the lank, +long-haired brother who was driving them looked ignorant as a child of +anything save the management of his horses. I hailed them, and the +wagon drew up at the side of the road. + +It was the women who answered in shrill, piping voices: "Ben to +Watervliet? Nay, they'd ben driving round the country, selling garden +seeds." + +"Did they know Bessie Stewart, who was staying in the Shaker village, +in the house by the bridge?" + +"Sure, there had ben a stranger woman come there some time ago: they +could not tell--never heerd her name." + +I was forced to let them drive on after I had exhausted every possible +inquiry, trusting that Hiram, who was close behind, would have keener +wit in questioning them, but Hiram, as it happened, did not come up to +them at all. They must have turned off into some farm-house lane +before they passed him. The afternoon wore on. It grew toward sunset, +and still we kept the river-road. There was no trace of the Shaker +wagon, and indeed the road was growing wild and lonely. + +"I tell you what," said Hiram, stopping suddenly, "these beasts can't +go on for ever, and then turn round and come back again. I'll turn +here, and drive to the little tavern we passed about two mile back, +and stable 'em, and then you and me can watch the road." + +It was but reasonable, and I had to assent, though to turn back seemed +an evil omen, and to carry me away from Bessie. The horses were +stabled, and I meanwhile paced the broad open sweep in front of the +tavern, across which the lights were shining. Hiram improved the +opportunity to eat a hearty supper, urging me to partake. But as I +declined, in my impatience, to take my eyes off the road, he brought +me out a bowl of some hot fluid and something on a plate, which I got +through with quickly enough, for the cool evening air had sharpened my +appetite. I rested the bowl on the broad bench beside the door, while +Hiram went backward and forward with the supplies. + +"Now," said he as I finished at last, still keeping my eye upon the +road, "you go in and take a turn lyin' down: I'll watch the road. I'm +a-goin' to see this thing out." + +But I was not ready to sleep yet; so, yielding to my injunction, he +went in, and I seated myself, wrapped in a buffalo robe from the +wagon. The night was damp and chill. + +"Hedn't you better set at the window?" said the kind-hearted landlady, +bustling out. Hiram had evidently told her the story. + +"Oh no, thank you;" for I was impatient of walls and tongues, and +wanted to be alone with my anxiety. + +What madness was this in Bessie? She could not, oh she could not, have +thrown her life away! What grief and disquiet must have driven her +into this refuge! Poor little soul, scorched and racked by distrust +and doubt! if she could not trust me, whom should she trust? + +The household noises ceased one by one; the clump of willows by the +river grew darker and darker; the stars came out and shone with that +magnetic brilliancy that fixes our gaze upon them, leading one to +speculate on their influence, and-- + +A hand on my shoulder: Hiram with a lantern turned full upon my face. +"'Most one o'clock," he said, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Come to take +my turn. Have you seen nothing?" + +"Nothing," I said, staggering to my feet, which felt like +lead--"nothing." + +I did not confess it, but to this hour I cannot tell whether I had +been nodding for one minute or ten. I kept my own counsel as I turned +over the watch to Hiram, but a suspicion shot through me that perhaps +that wagon had gone by, after all, in the moment that I had been off +guard. + +Hiram kept the watch faithfully till five that morning, when I too was +stirring. One or two teams had passed, but no Shaker wagon rattling +through the night. We breakfasted in the little room that overlooked +the road. Outside, at the pump, a lounging hostler, who had been +bribed to keep a sharp lookout for a Shaker wagon, whistled and waited +too. + +"Tell you what," said Hiram, bolting a goodly rouleau of ham and eggs, +"I've got an idee. You and me might shilly-shally here on this road +all day, and what surety shall we hev' that they hevn't gone by the +other road. Old gal said there was two?" + +"Yes, but the folks here say that the other is a wild mountain-road, +and not much used." + +"Well, you see they comes down by the boat a piece, or they _may_ cut +across the river at Greenbush. They have queer ways. Now, mebbe they +_have_ come over that mountain-road in the night, while you and me was +a-watchin' this like ferrits. In that case she's safe and sound at +Shaker Village, not knowin' anything of your coming; and Elder Nebson +and that other is laughin' in their sleeves at us." + +"Perhaps so." + +"Now, this is my advice, but I'll do just as you say. 'Tain't no good +to lay around and watch that ere house _to day_. Ef we hedn't been in +such a white heat, we might just hev' hid round in the neighborhood +_there_ till she came along. But it's too late, for that now. Let's +you and me lay low till Sunday. She'll be sure to go to meetin' on +Sunday ef she's there, and you can quietly slip in and see if she is. +And to shut their eyes up, so that they won't suspect nothin', we'll +leave a message on one of your pasteboards that you're very sorry not +to hev' seen her, drefful sorry, but that you can't wait no longer, +and you are off. They'll think you're off for York: you've got York on +your cards, hevn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"You just come and stay to my house: we'll make you comfortable, and +there's only one day longer to wait. This is Friday, be'ent it? You'd +best not be seen around to the hotel, lest any of their spies be +about. They do a powerful sight o' drivin' round the country this time +o' year. And then, you see, ef on Sunday she isn't there, you can go +over to Watervliet, or we'll search them houses--whichever you +choose." + +There seemed no help for it but to take Hiram's advice. We drove +homeward through the Shaker village, and drew up at the house again. +This time the door was opened by a bent, sharp little Creole, as I +took her to be: the beaming portress of the day before had been +relieved at her post. + +"Nay, Bessie Stewart was not at home: she would go and inquire for me +when she was expected." + +"No," I said carelessly, not wishing to repeat the scene of yesterday +and to present myself, a humiliated failure, before the two elders +again--"no: give her this card when she does come, and tell her I +could stay no longer." + +I had not written any message on the card, for the message, indeed, +was not for Bessie, but for the others. She would interpret it that I +was in the neighborhood, anxious and waiting: she would understand. + +"Home, then, Hiram," as I took my seat beside him. "We'll wait till +Sunday." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +"You'd better eat sum'thin'," said Hiram over the breakfast-table on +Sunday morning. "Got a good long drive afore you, and mebbe a good +day's work besides. No? Well, then, Susan, you put the apple-brandy +into the basket, and some of them rusks, for I reckon we'll hev' work +with this young man afore night." + +Susan, bless her good heart! wanted to go along, and as Hiram's +excitement was evidently at the highest pitch, he consented that she +should occupy the back seat of the wagon: "P'raps Miss Stewart'll feel +more comfortable about leavin' when she sees there's a woman along." + +It was a rainy morning, and there were but few wagons on the road. +Arrived at the village, we encountered one little procession after +another of broad-brim straws and Shaker bonnets turning out of the +several houses as we drove past. They stepped along quickly, and +seemed to take no notice of us. + +"Reckon we're the only visitors to-day," whispered Hiram as he stopped +at the horseblock in front of the meeting-house. "You know where you +hev' to set--on the left-hand side; and Susan, she goes to the right." + +I followed Susan up the steps, and she hastened, as ordered, to the +right, while I took my seat on one of the back benches of the left, +against the wall. It was a barn-like structure, large, neat and +exquisitely chill. Two large stoves on either side possibly had fire +in them--an old man who looked like an ancient porter went to them +from time to time and put on coal--but the very walls reflected a +chill, blue glare. The roof was lofty and vaulted, and added to the +hollow coldness of the hall. The whole apartment was clean to +sanctity, and in its straitness and blank dreariness no unfit emblem +of the faith it embodied. + +Around three sides of the hall, and facing the benches for visitors, +the Shaker fraternity were ranged. The hats and straight straw bonnets +hung decorously upon the wall over their heads: here and there a +sky-blue shawl or one of faded lilac hung beneath the headgear. Across +the wide apartment it was difficult to distinguish faces. I scanned +closely the sisterhood--old, withered faces most of them, with here +and there one young and blooming--but no Bessie as yet. Still, they +were coming in continually through the side door: she might yet +appear. I recognized my lady-abbess, who sat directly facing me, in a +seat of state apparently, and close to her, on the brethren's side of +the house, was Elder Nebson. + +The services began. All rose, and sisters and brethren faced each +other and sang a hymn, with no accompaniment and no melody--a harsh +chant in wild, barbaric measure. Then, after a prayer, they entered +upon the peculiar method of their service. Round and round the room +they trooped in two large circles, sister following sister, brother +brother, keeping time with their hanging hands to the rhythm of the +hymn. Clustered in the centre was a little knot of men and women, the +high dignitaries, who seemed to lead the singing with their clapping +hands. + +The circles passed each other and wove in and out, each preserving its +unbroken continuity. I looked for Elder Nebson: could it be that he +was joining in these gyrations? Yes, he was leading one of the lines. +But I noticed that his hands moved mechanically, not with the +spasmodic fervor of the rest, and that his eyes, instead of the dull, +heavy stare of his fellows, sought with faithful yet shy constancy the +women's ranks. And as the women filed past me, wringing their hands, I +scrutinized each face and figure--the sweet-faced portress, the +shrunken little creole ("A mulatto, she is," Hiram whispered--he had +taken his seat beside me--"and very powerful, they say, among 'em"), +and some fair young girls; two or three of these with blooming cheeks +bursting frankly through the stiff bordering of their caps. But I saw +not the face I sought. + +"Them children! Ain't it awful?" muttered Hiram as a file of blue-coat +boys shambled past, with hair cut square across their foreheads and +bleached white with the sun. "Ain't got a grain of sense! Look at +'em!--all crowded clean out by the Shaker schools." + +And surely they were a most unpromising little crowd. Waifs, snatched +probably from some New York whirlpool of iniquity, and wearing the +brute mark on their faces, which nothing in this school of their +transplanting tended to erase--a sodden little party, like stupid +young beasts of burden, uncouth and awkward. + +As the girls came round again, and I had settled it in my mind that +there was certainly no Bessie in the room, I could watch them more +calmly. Eagerly as I sought her face, it was a relief, surely, that it +was not there. Pale to ghastliness, most of them, with high, sharpened +shoulders, and features set like those of a corpse, it was indeed +difficult to realize that these ascetic forms, these swaying devotees, +were women--women who might else have been wives and mothers. Some of +them wore in their hollow eyes an expression of ecstasy akin to +madness, and there was not a face there that was not saintly pure. + +It was a strange union that assembled under one roof these nun-like +creatures, wasted and worn with their rigid lives, and the heavy, +brutish men, who shambled round the room like plough-horses. _Wicked_ +eyes some of them had, mere slits through which a cunning and selfish +spirit looked out. Some faces there were of power, but in them the +disagreeable traits were even more strongly marked: the ignorant, +narrow foreheads were better, less responsible, it seemed. + +The singing ended, there was a sermon from a high priest who stood out +imperious among his fellows. But this was not a sermon to the flock. +It was aimed at the scanty audience of strangers with words of +unblushing directness. How men and women may continue pure in the +constant hearing and repetition of such revolting arguments and +articles of faith is matter of serious question. The divine instincts +of maternity, the sweet attractions of human love, were thrown down +and stamped under foot in the mud of this man's mind; and at each +peroration, exhorting his hearers to shake off Satan, a strong +convulsive shiver ran through the assembly. + +"Bessie is certainly not here: possibly she's still at Watervliet," I +whispered to; Hiram as the concluding hymn began. "But I'll have a +chance at Elder Nebson and that woman before they leave the house." + +The rain had ceased for some time, and as again the wild chant went up +from those harsh strained voices, a stray sunbeam, like a gleam of +good promise, shot across the floor. But what was this little figure +stealing in through a side-door and joining the circling throng?--a +figure in lilac gown, with the stiff muslin cap and folded +neckerchief. She entered at the farthest corner of the room, and I +watched her approach with beating heart. Something in the easy step +was familiar, and yet it could not be. She passed around with the rest +in the inner circle, and, leaning forward, I held my breath lest +indeed it might be she. + +The circle opened, and again the long line of march around the room. +The lilac figure came nearer and nearer, and now I see her face. It is +Bessie! + +With a cry I sprang up, but with a blow, a crash, a horrible darkness +swept over me like a wave, and I knew nothing. + +When I came to myself I was lying on a bed in a room that was new to +me. A strong light, as of the setting sun, shone upon the whitewashed +wall. There was a little table, over which hung a looking-glass, +surmounted by two fans of turkey feathers. I stared feebly at the fans +for a while, and then closed my eyes again. + +Where was I? I had a faint remembrance of jolting in a wagon, and of +pitying faces bent over me, but where was I now? Again I opened my +eyes, and noted the gay patchwork covering of the bed, and the green +paper curtain of the window in the golden wall--green, with a tall +yellow flower-pot on it, with sprawling roses of blue and red. Turning +with an effort toward the side whence all the brightness came, in a +moment two warm arms were round my neck, and a face that I could not +see was pressed close to mine. + +"Oh, Charlie, Charlie! forgive, forgive me for being so bad!" + +"Bessie," I answered dreamingly, and seemed to be drifting away again. +But a strong odor of pungent salts made my head tingle again, and when +I could open my eyes for the tears they rested on my darling's +face--my own darling in a soft white dress, kneeling by my bedside, +with both her arms round me. A vigorous patting of the pillow behind +me revealed Mrs. Splinter, tearful too: "He's come to now. Don't +bother him with talk, Miss Bessie. I'll fetch the tea." + +And with motherly insistance she brought me a steaming bowl of +beef-tea, while I still lay, holding Bessie's hand, with a feeble +dawning that the vision was real. + +"No," she said as Bessie put out her arm for the bowl, "you prop up +his head. I've got a steddyer hand: you'd just spill it all over his +go-to-meetin' suit." + +I looked down at myself. I was still dressed in the clothes that I had +worn--when was it? last week?--when I had started for the Shaker +meeting. + +"How long?" I said feebly. + +"Only this morning, you darling boy, it all happened; and here we are, +snug at Mrs. Splinter's, and Mary Jane is getting the cottage ready +for us as fast as ever she can." + +How good that beef-tea was! Bessie knew well what would give it the +_sauce piquante_. "Ready for us!" + +"Here's the doctor at last," said Hiram, putting his head in at the +door. "Why, hillo! are we awake?" + +"The doctor! Dr. Wilder?" I said beamingly. How good of Bessie! how +thoughtful! + +"Not Dr. Wilder, you dear old boy!" said Bessie, laughing and +blushing, "though I sha'n't scold you, Charlie, for that!" in a +whisper in my ear. "It's Dr. Bolster of Lee. Hiram has been riding all +over the country for him this afternoon." + +"I'll go down to him," I said, preparing to rise. + +"No you won't;" and Mrs. Splinter's strong arm, as well as Bessie's +soft hand, patted me down again. + +Dr. Bolster pronounced, as well he might, that all danger was over. +The blow on my head--I must have struck it with force against the +projecting window-shelf as I sprang up--was enough to have stunned me; +but the doctor, I found, was inclined to theorize: "A sudden vertigo, +a dizziness: the Shaker hymns and dances have that effect sometimes +upon persons viewing them for the first time. Or perhaps the heat of +the room." He calmly fingered my pulse for a few seconds, with his fat +ticking watch in his other hand, and then retired to the bureau to +write a prescription, which I was indignantly prepared to repudiate. +But Bessie, in a delightful little pantomime, made signs to me to be +patient: we could throw it all out of the window afterward if need be. + +"A soothing draught, and let him keep quiet for a day or so, will be +all that is required. I will call to-morrow if you would prefer it." + +"We will send you a note, doctor, to-morrow morning: he seems so much +stronger already that perhaps it will not be necessary to make you +take such a long drive." + +"Yes, yes, I'm very busy. You send me word whether to come or not." + +And bustlingly the good doctor departed, with Mrs. Splinter +majestically descending to hold whispered conference with him at the +gate. + +"Charlie, I _will_ send for Dr. Wilder if you are ready, for I'm never +going to leave you another minute as long as we live." + +"I think," said I, laughing, "that I should like to stand up first on +my feet; that is, if I have any feet." + +What a wonderful prop and support was Bessie! How skillfully she +helped me to step once, twice, across the floor! and when I sank down, +very tired, in the comfortable easy-chair by the window, she knelt on +the floor beside me and bathed my forehead with fragrant cologne, that +certainly did not come from Mrs. Splinter's tall bottle of lavender +compound on the bureau. + +"Oh, my dear boy, I have _so_ much to say! Where shall I begin?" + +"At the end," I said quietly. "Send for Dr. Wilder." + +"But don't you want to hear what a naughty girl--" + +"No, I want to hear nothing but 'I, Elizabeth, take thee--'" + +"But I've been so very jealous, so suspicious and angry. _Don't_ you +want to hear how bad I am?" + +"No," I said, closing the discussion after an old fashion of the +Sloman cottage, "not until we two walk together to the Ledge +to-morrow, my little wife and I." + +"Where's a card--your card, Charlie? It would be more proper-like, as +Mrs. Splinter would say, for you to write it." + +"I will try," I said, taking out a card-case from my breast-pocket. As +I drew it forth my hand touched a package, Fanny Meyrick's packet. +Shall I give it to her now? I hesitated. No, we'll be married first in +the calm faith that each has in the other to-day, needing no outward +assurance or written word. + +I penciled feebly, with a very shaky hand, my request that the doctor +would call at Hiram Splinter's, at his earliest convenience that +evening, to perform the ceremony of marriage between his young friend, +Bessie Stewart, and the subscriber. Hiram's eldest son, a youth of +eight, was swinging on the gate under our window. To him Bessie +entrusted the card, with many injunctions to give it into no other +hands than the doctor's own. + +In less time than we had anticipated, as we looked out of the window +at the last pink glow of the sunset, the urchin reappeared, walking +with great strides beside a spare little-figure, whom we recognized as +the worthy doctor himself. + +"Good gracious! he _is_ in a hurry!" said Bessie, retiring hastily +from the window; "and we have not said a word to Mrs. Splinter yet!" + +We had expected the little doctor would wait below until the +bridal-party should descend; but no, he came directly up stairs, and +walked into the room without prelude. He took Bessie in his arms with +fatherly tenderness: "Ah, you runaway! so you've come back at last?" + +"Yes, doctor, and don't you let go of her until you have married her +fast to me." + +"Ahem!" said the doctor, clearing his throat, "that is just what I +came to advise you about. Hiram told me this afternoon of the chase +you two had had, and of your illness this morning. Now, as it is half +over the village by this time that Bessie Stewart has been rescued +from the Shaker village by a chivalrous young gentleman, and as +everybody is wild with impatience to know the _dénoűment_, I want you +to come down quietly to the church this evening and be married after +evening service." + +"To please everybody?" I said, in no very pleasant humor. + +"I think it will be wisest, best; and I am sure this discreetest of +women," still holding Bessie's hand, "will agree with me. You need not +sit through the service. Hiram can bring you down after it has begun; +and you may sit in the vestry till the clerk calls you. I'll preach a +short sermon to-night," with a benignant chuckle. + +He had his will. Some feeling that it would please Mrs. Sloman best, +the only person besides ourselves whom it concerned us to please, +settled it in Bessie's mind, although she anxiously inquired several +times before the doctor left if I felt equal to going to church. +Suppose I should faint on the way? + +I was equal to it, for I took a long nap on the sofa in Mrs. +Splinter's parlor through the soft spring twilight, while Bessie held +what seemed to me interminable conferences with Mary Jane. + +It was not a brilliant ceremony so far as the groom was concerned. As +we stood at the chancel-rail I am afraid that the congregation, +largely augmented, by this time, by late-comers--for the doctor had +spread the news through the village far and wide--thought me but a +very pale and quiet bridegroom. + +But the bride's beauty made amends for all. Just the same soft white +dress of the afternoon--or was it one like it?--with no ornaments, no +bridal veil. I have always pitied men who have to plight their troth +to a moving mass of lace and tulle, weighed down with orange-blossoms +massive as lead. This was my own little wife as she would walk by my +side through life, dressed as she might be the next day and always. + +But the next day it was the tartan cloak that she wore, by special +request, as we climbed the hill to the Ledge. It was spring +indeed--bluebirds in the air, and all the sky shone clear and warm. + +"Let _me_ begin," said my wife as she took her old seat under the +sheltering pine. "You can't have anything to say, Charlie, in +comparison with me." + +There was a short preliminary pause, and then she began. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +"Well, after you wouldn't take me to Europe, you know--" + +"You naughty girl!" + +"No interruptions, sir. After you _couldn't_ take me to Europe I felt +very much hurt and wounded, and ready to catch at any straw of +suspicion. I ran away from you that night and left you in the parlor, +hoping that you would call me back, and yet longing to hide myself +from you too. You understand?" + +"Yes, let us not dwell on that." + +"Well, I believe I never thought once of Fanny Meyrick's going to +Europe too until she joined us on the road that day--you remember?--at +the washerwoman's gate." + +"Yes; and do _you_ remember how Fidget and I barked at her with all +our hearts?" + +"I was piqued then at the air of ownership Fanny seemed to assume in +you. She had just come to Lenox, I knew; she could know nothing of our +intimacy, our relations; and this seemed like the renewal of something +old--something that had been going on before. Had she any claim on +you? I wondered. And then, too, you were so provokingly reticent about +her whenever her name had been mentioned before." + +"Was I? What a fool I was! But, Bessie dear, I could not say to even +you, then, that I believed Fanny Meyrick was in--cared a great deal +for me." + +"I understand," said Bessie nodding. "We'll skip that, and take it for +granted. But you see _I_ couldn't take anything for granted but just +what I saw that day; and the little memorandum-book and Fanny's +reminiscences nearly killed me. I don't know how I sat through it all. +I tried to avoid you all the rest of the day. I wanted to think, and +to find out the truth from Fanny." + +"I should think you _did_ avoid me pretty successfully, leaving me to +dine coldly at the hotel, and then driving all the afternoon till +train-time." + +"It was in talking to Fanny that afternoon that I discovered how she +felt toward you. She has no concealment about her, not any, and I +could read her heart plainly enough. But then she hinted at her +father's treatment of you; thought he had discouraged you, rebuffed +you, and reasoned so that I fairly thought there might be truth in it, +_remembering it was before you knew me."_ + +"Listen one minute, Bessie, till I explain that. It's my belief, and +always was, that that shrewd old fellow, Henry Meyrick, saw very +clearly how matters were all along--saw how the impetuous Miss Fanny +was--" + +"_Falling in love_: don't pause for a 'more tenderer word,' Charlie. +Sam Weller couldn't find any." + +"Well, falling in love, if you _will_ say it--and that it was +decidedly a difficult situation for me. I remember so well that night +on the piazza, when Fanny clung about me like a mermaid, he bade her +sharply go and change her dripping garments, and what Fanny calls 'a +decidedly queer' expression came into his face. He could not say +anything, poor old chap! and he always behaved with great courtesy to +me. I am sure he divined that I was a most unimpassioned actor in that +high-comedy plunge into the Hudson." + +"Very well: I believe it, I'm sure, but, you see, how could I know +then what was or was not true? Then it was that I resolved to give you +leave--or rather give her leave to try. I had written my note in the +morning, saying _no_ finally to the Europe plan, and I scrawled across +it, in lead-pencil, while Fanny stood at her horse's head, those ugly +words, you remember?" + +"Yes," I said: "'Go to Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to +Lenox, both of you, when you return.'" + +"Then, after that, my one idea was to get away from Lenox. The place +was hateful to me, and you were writing those pathetic letters about +being married, and state-rooms, and all. It only made me more +wretched, for I thought you were the more urgent now that you had been +lacking before. I hurried aunt off to Philadelphia, and in New York +she hurried me. She would not wait, though I did want to, and I was so +disappointed at the hotel! But I thought there was a fate in it to +give Fanny Meyrick her chance, poor thing! and so I wrote that +good-bye note without an address." + +"But I found you, for all, thanks to Dr. R----!" + +"Yes, and when you came that night I was so happy. I put away all +fear: I had to remind myself, actually, all the time, of what I owed +to Fanny, until you told me you had changed your passage to the +Algeria, and that gave me strength to be angry. Oh, my dear, I'm +afraid you'll have a very bad wife. Of course the minute you had +sailed I began to be horribly jealous, and then I got a letter by the +pilot that made me worse." + +"But," said I, "you got my letters from the other side. Didn't that +assure you that you might have faith in me?" + +"But I would not receive them. Aunt Sloman has them all, done up and +labeled for you, doubtless. She, it seems--had you talked her +over?--thought I ought to have gone with you, and fretted because she +was keeping me. Then I couldn't bear it another day. It was just after +you had sailed, and I had cut out the ship-list to send you; and I had +worked myself up to believe you would go back to Fanny Meyrick if you +had the chance. I told Aunt Sloman that it was all over between +us--that you might continue to write to me, but I begged that she +would keep all your letters in a box until I should ask her for them." + +"But I wrote letters to her, too, asking what had become of you." + +"She went to Minnesota, you know, early in February." + +"And why didn't you go with her?" + +"She scolded me dreadfully because I would not. But she was so well, +and she had her maid and a pleasant party of Philadelphia friends; and +I--well, I didn't want to put all those hundreds of miles between me +and the sea." + +"And was Shaker Village so near, then, to the sea?" + +"Oh, Charlie," hiding her face on my shoulder, "that was cowardice in +me. You know I meant to keep the cottage open and live there. It was +the saddest place in all the world, but still I wanted to be +there--alone. But I found I could not be alone; and the last people +who came drove me nearly wild--those R----s, Fanny Meyrick's +friends--and they talked about her and about you, so that I could bear +it no longer. I wanted to hide myself from all the world. I knew I +could be quiet at the Shaker village. I had often driven over there +with Aunt Sloman: indeed, Sophia--that's the one you saw--is a great +friend of Aunt Maria's." + +"So the lady-abbess confessed, did she?" I asked with some curiosity. + +"Yes: she said you were rudely inquisitive; but she excused you as +unfamiliar with Shaker ways." + +"And were you really at Watervliet?" + +"Yes, but don't be in a hurry: we'll come to that presently. Sophia +gave me a pretty little room opening out of hers, and they all treated +me with great kindness, if they _did_ call me Eliza." + +"And did you," I asked with some impatience, remembering Hiram's +description--"did you sew beads on velvet and plait straw for mats?" + +"Nonsense! I did whatever I pleased. I was parlor-boarder, as they say +in the schools. But I did learn something, sir, from that dear old +sister Martha. You saw _her_?" + +"The motherly body who invited me in?" + +"Yes: isn't she a dear? I took lessons from her in all sorts of +cookery: you shall see, Charlie, I've profited by being a Shakeress." + +"Yes, my darling, but did you--you didn't go to church?" + +"Only once," she said, with a shiver that made her all the dearer, +"and they preached such dreary stuff that I told Sophia I would never +go again." + +"But did you really wear that dress I saw you in?" + +"For that once only. You see, I was at Watervliet when you came. If +you had only gone straight there, dear goose! instead of dodging in +the road, you would have found me. I had grown a little tired of the +monotony of the village, and was glad to join the party starting for +Niskayuna, it was such a glorious drive across the mountain. I longed +for you all the time." + +"Pretty little Shakeress! But why did they put us on such a false +track?" + +"Oh, we had expected to reach home that night, but one of the horses +was lame, and we did not start as soon as we had planned. We came back +on Saturday afternoon--Saturday afternoon, and this is Monday +morning!", leaning back dreamily, and looking across the blue distance +to the far-off hills. "Then I got your card, and they told me about +you, and I knew, for all the message, that you'd be back on Sunday +morning. But how could I tell then that Fanny Meyrick would not be +with you?" + +"Bessie!" and my hand tightened on hers. + +"Oh, Charlie, you don't know what it is to be jealous. Of course I did +know that--no, I didn't, either, though I must have been _sure_ +underneath that day. For it was more in fun than anything else, after +I knew you were in the meeting-house--" + +"How did you know?" + +"I saw you drive up--you and Hiram and Mrs. Hiram." + +"You didn't think, then, that it was Mrs. Charles?" + +"So I stole into Sophia's room, and put on one of her dresses. She is +tall too, but it did not fit very well." + +"I should think not," I answered, looking down admiringly at her. + +"In fact," laughing, "I took quite a time pinning myself into it and +getting the neckerchief folded prim. I waited till after the sermon, +and then I knew by the singing that it was the last hymn, so I darted +in. I don't know what they thought--that I was suddenly converted, I +suppose, and they would probably have given thanks over me as a brand +snatched from the burning. Did I do the dance well? I didn't want to +put them out." + +"My darling, it was a dreadful masquerade. Did you want to punish me +to the end?" + +"I was punished myself, Charlie, when you fell. Oh dear! don't let's +talk about the dreadful thing any more. But I think you would have +forgiven Elder Nebson if you had seen how tenderly he lifted you into +the wagon. There, now: where are we going to live in New York, and +what have we got to live on besides my little income?" + +"Income! I had forgotten you had any." + +"Ask Judge Hubbard if I haven't. You'll see." + +"But, my dear," said I gravely, drawing forth the packet from my +breast, "I, too, have my story to tell. I cannot call it a confession, +either; rather it is the story of somebody else--Hallo! who's broken +the seal?" For on shipboard I had beguiled the time by writing a sort +of journal to accompany Fanny's letter, and had placed all together in +a thick white envelope, addressing it, in legal parlance, "To whom it +may concern." + +"_I_ did," said Bessie faintly, burying her face on my arm. "It fell +out of your pocket when they carried you up stairs; and I read it, +every word, twice over, before you came to yourself." + +"You little witch! And I thought you were marrying me out of pure +faith in me, and not of sight or knowledge." + +"It was faith, the highest faith," said Bessie proudly, and looking +into my eyes with her old saucy dash, "to know, to feel sure, that +that sealed paper concerned nobody but me." + +And so she has ever since maintained. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: +This is a compiled version of a novel published in sections +in the LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. + +List of the e-books from which this text was compiled: +[EBook #13828] August 1873 +[EBook #14036] September 1873 +[EBook #13964] October 1873 + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's On the Church Steps, by Sarah C. Hallowell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE CHURCH STEPS *** + +***** This file should be named 17559-8.txt or 17559-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/5/5/17559/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Hallowell. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Church Steps, by Sarah C. Hallowell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: On the Church Steps + +Author: Sarah C. Hallowell + +Release Date: January 20, 2006 [EBook #17559] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE CHURCH STEPS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>ON THE CHURCH STEPS.</h1> + +<h2>By SARAH C. HALLOWELL.</h2> + +<div class="bbox"> +<p>This e-text was compiled from sections of this novel published in +the August to October editions of:</p> + +<h3>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h3> +<h4>OF</h4> +<h3>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</h3> +<h4>1873</h4> +</div> + + +<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3> +<p>What a picture she was as she sat there, my own Bessie! and what a strange +place it was to rest on, those church steps! Behind us lay the Woolsey woods, +with their wooing fragrance of pine and soft rushes of scented air; and the +lakes were in the distance, lying very calm in the cloud-shadows and seeming to +wait for us to come. But to-day Bessie would nothing of lakes or ledges: she +would sit on the church steps.</p> +<p>In front of us, straight to the gate, ran a stiff little walk of white +pebbles, hard and harsh as some bygone creed.</p> +<p>"Think of little bare feet coming up here, Bessie!" I said with a shiver. "It +is too hard. And every carriage that comes up the hill sees us."</p> +<p>"And why shouldn't they see us?" said my lady, turning full upon me. "I am +not ashamed to be here."</p> +<p>"Churches should always have soft walks of turf; and lovers," I would fain +have added, "should have naught but whispering leaves about them."</p> +<p>But Bessie cut me short in her imperious way: "But we are not lovers this +morning: at least," with a half-relenting look at my rueful face, "we are very +good friends, and I choose to sit here to show people that we are."</p> +<p>"What do you care for <i>people</i>—the Bartons or the Meyricks?" as I +noticed a familiar family carriage toiling up the hill, followed by a lighter +phaeton. I recognized already in the latter vehicle the crimson feather of Fanny +Meyrick, and "the whip that was a parasol."</p> +<p>"Shall I step out into the road this minute, and stop those ladies like a +peaceable highwayman, and tell them you have promised to marry me, and that +their anxiety as to our intimacy may be at rest? Give me but leave and I will do +it. It will make Mrs. Barton comfortable. Then you and I can walk away into +those beckoning woods, and I can have you all to myself."</p> +<p>Indeed she was worth having. With the witchery that some girls know, she had +made a very picture of herself that morning, as I have said. Some soft blue +muslin stuff was caught up around her in airy draperies—nothing stiff or frilled +about her: all was soft and flowing, from the falling sleeve that showed the +fair curve of her arm to the fold of her dress, the ruffle under which her +little foot was tapping, impatiently now. A little white hat with a curling blue +feather shaded her face—a face I won't trust myself to describe, save by saying +that it was the brightest and truest, as I then thought, in all the world.</p> +<p>She said something rapidly in Italian—she is always artificial when she uses +a foreign tongue—and this I caught but imperfectly, but it had a proverbial air +about it of the error of too hasty assumptions.</p> +<p>"Well, now I'll tell you something," she said as the carriages disappeared +over the top of the hill. "Fanny Meyrick is going abroad in October, and we +shall not see her for ever so long."</p> +<p>Going abroad? Good gracious! That was the very thing I had to tell her that +morning—that I too was ordered abroad. An estate to be settled—some bothering +old claim that had been handed down from generation to generation, and now +springing into life again by the lapsing of two lives on the other side. But how +to tell her as she looked up into my face with the half-pleading, half-imperious +smile that I knew so well? How to tell her <i>now</i>?</p> +<p>So I said nothing, but foolishly pushed the little pebbles aside with my +stick, fatuously waiting for the subject to pass. Of course my silence brought +an instant criticism: "Why, Charlie, what ails you?"</p> +<p>"Nothing. And really, Bessie, what is it +to us whether Fanny Meyrick go or stay?"</p> +<p>"I shouldn't have thought it <i>was</i> anything. But your silence, your +confusion—Charlie, you do care a little for her, after all."</p> +<p>Two years ago, before Bessie and I had ever met, I had fluttered around Fanny +Meyrick for a season, attracted by her bright brown eyes and the gypsy flush on +her cheek. But there were other moths fluttering around that adamantine candle +too; and I was not long in discovering that the brown eyes were bright for each +and all, and that the gypsy flush was never stirred by feeling or by thought. It +was merely a fixed ensign of health and good spirits. Consequently the charm had +waned, for me at least; and in my confessions to Bessie since our near intimacy +it was she, not I, who had magnified it into the shadow even of a serious +thought.</p> +<p>"Care for her? Nonsense, Bessie! Do you want me to call her a mere doll, a +hard, waxen—no, for wax will melt—a Parian creature, such as you may see by the +dozens in Schwartz's window any day? It doesn't gratify you, surely, to hear me +say that of any woman."</p> +<p>And then—what possessed me?—I was so angry at myself that I took a mental +<i>résumé</i> of all the good that could be said of Fanny Meyrick—her +generosity, her constant cheerfulness; and in somewhat headlong fashion I +expressed myself: "I won't call her a dolt and an idiot, even to please you. I +have seen her do generous things, and she is never out of temper."</p> +<p>"Thanks!" said Bessie, nodding her head till the blue feather trembled. "It +is as well, as Aunt Sloman says, to keep my shortcomings before you."</p> +<p>"When did Aunt Sloman say that?" I interrupted, hoping for a diversion of the +subject.</p> +<p>"This morning only. I was late at breakfast. You know, Charlie, I was +<i>so</i> tired with that long horseback ride, and of course everything waited. +Dear aunty never <i>will</i> begin until I come down, but sits beside the urn +like the forlornest of martyrs, and reads last night's papers over and over +again."</p> +<p>"Well? And was she sorry that she had not invited me to wait with her?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said Bessie. "She said all sorts of things, and," flushing slightly, +"that it was a pity you shouldn't know beforehand what you were to expect."</p> +<p>"I wish devoutly that I had been there," seizing the little hand that was +mournfully tapping the weatherbeaten stone, and forcing the downcast eyes to +look at me. "I think, both together, we could have pacified Aunt Sloman."</p> +<p>It <i>was</i> a diversion, and after a little while Bessie professed she had +had enough of the church steps.</p> +<p>"How those people do stare! Is it the W——s, do you think, Charlie? I heard +yesterday they were coming."</p> +<p>From our lofty position on the hillside we commanded the road leading out of +the village—the road that was all alive with carriages on this beautiful +September morning. The W—— carriage had half halted to reconnoitre, and had only +not hailed us because we had sedulously looked another way.</p> +<p>"Let's get away," I said, "for the next carriage will not only stop, but come +over;" and Bessie suffered herself to be led through the little tangle of brier +and fern, past the gray old gravestones with "Miss Faith" and "Miss Mehitable" +carved upon them, and into the leafy shadow of the waiting woods.</p> +<p>Other lovers have been there before us, but the trees whisper no secrets save +their own. The subject of our previous discussion was not resumed, nor was Fanny +Meyrick mentioned, until on our homeward road we paused a moment on the hilltop, +as we always did.</p> +<p>It is indeed a hill of vision, that church hill at Lenox. Sparkling far to +the south, the blue Dome lay, softened and shining in the September sun. There +was ineffable peace in the faint blue sky, and, stealing up from the valley, a +shimmering haze that seemed to veil the bustling village and soften all the +rural sounds.</p> +<p>Bessie drew nearer to me, shading her eyes as she looked down into the +valley: "Charlie dear, let us stay here always. We shall be happier, better here +than to go back to New York."</p> +<p>"And the law-business?" I asked like a brutal bear, bringing the realities of +life into my darling's girlish dream.</p> +<p>"Can't you practice law in Foxcroft, and drive over there every morning? +People do."</p> +<p>"And because they do, and there are enough of them, I must plod along in the +ways that are made for me already. We can make pilgrimages here, you know."</p> +<p>"I suppose so," said Bessie with a sigh.</p> +<p>Just then Fanny Kemble's clock in the tower above us struck the hour—one, +two, three.</p> +<p>"Bless me! so late? And there's that phaeton coming back over the hill again. +Hurry, Charlie! don't let them see us. They'll think that we've been here all +the time." And Bessie plunged madly down the hill, and struck off into the +side-path that leads into the Lebanon road. The last vibrations of the bell were +still trembling on the air as I caught up with her again.</p> +<p>But again the teasing mood of the morning had come over her. Quite out of +breath with the run, as we sat down to rest on the little porch of Mrs. Sloman's +cottage she said, very earnestly, "But you haven't once said it."</p> +<p>"Said what, my darling?"</p> +<p>"That you are glad that Fanny is going abroad."</p> +<p>"Nonsense! Why should I be glad?"</p> +<p>"Are you sorry, then?"</p> +<p>If I had but followed my impulse then, and said frankly that I was, and why I +was! But Mrs. Sloman was coming through the little hall: I heard her step. Small +time for explanation, no time for reproaches. And I could not leave Bessie, on +that morning of all others, hurt or angry, or only half convinced.</p> +<p>"No, I am not sorry," I said, pulling down a branch of honeysuckle, and +making a loop of it to draw around her neck. "It is nothing, either way."</p> +<p>"Then say after me if it is nothing—feel as I feel for one minute, won't +you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, indeed."</p> +<p>"Say, after me, then, word for word, 'I am glad, <i>very</i> glad, that Fanny +Meyrick is to sail in October. I would not have her stay on this side for +<i>worlds</i>!"</p> +<p>And like a fool, a baby, I said it, word for word, from those sweet smiling +lips: "I am glad, <i>very</i> glad, that Fanny Meyrick is to sail in October. I +would not have her stay on this side for <i>worlds</i>!"</p> +<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3> +<p>The next day was Sunday, and I was on duty at an early hour, prepared to walk +with Bessie to church. My darling was peculiar among women in this: her +church-going dress was sober-suited; like a little gray nun, almost, she came +down to me that morning. Her dress, of some soft gray stuff, fell around her in +the simplest folds, a knot of brown ribbon at her throat, and in her hat a gray +gull's wing.</p> +<p>I had praised the Italian women for the simplicity of their church-attire: +their black dresses and lace veils make a picturesque contrast with the gorgeous +ceremonials of the high altar. But there was something in this quiet toilet, so +fresh and simple and girl-like, that struck me as the one touch of grace that +the American woman can give to the best even of foreign taste. Not the dramatic +abnegation indicated by the black dress, but the quiet harmony of a life +atune.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sloman was ready even before Bessie came down. She was a great invalid, +although her prim and rigid countenance forbore any expression save of severity. +She had no pathos about her, not a touch. Whatever her bodily sufferings may +have been—and Bessie dimly hinted that they were severe to agony at times—they +were resolutely shut within her chamber door; and when she came out in the early +morning, her cold brown hair drawn smoothly over those impassive cheeks, she +looked like a lady abbess—as cold, as unyielding and as hard.</p> +<p>There was small sympathy between the aunt and niece, but a great deal of +painstaking duty on the one side, and on the +other the habit of affection which young girls have for the faces they have +always known.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sloman had been at pains to tell me, when my frequent visits to her +cottage made it necessary that I should in some fashion explain to her as to +what I wanted there, that her niece, Bessie Stewart, was in nowise dependent on +her, not even for a home. "This cottage we rent in common. It was her father's +desire that her property should not accumulate, and that she should have nothing +at my hands but companionship, and"—with a set and sickly smile—"advice when it +was called for. We are partners in our expenses, and the arrangement can be +broken up at any moment."</p> +<p>Was this all? No word of love or praise for the fair young thing that had +brightened all her household in these two years that Bessie had been +fatherless?</p> +<p>I believe there was love and appreciation, but it was not Mrs. Sloman's +method to be demonstrative or expansive. She approved of the engagement, and in +her grim way had opened an immediate battery of household ledgers and ways and +means. Some idea, too, of making me feel easy about taking Bessie away from her, +I think, inclined her to this business-like manner. I tried to show her, by my +own manner, that I understood her without words, and I think she was very +grateful to be spared the expression of feeling. Poor soul! repression had +become such a necessity to her!</p> +<p>So we talked on gravely of the weather, and of the celebrated Doctor McQ——, +who was expected to give us an argumentative sermon that morning, until +<i>my</i> argument came floating in at the door like a calm little bit of +thistledown, to which our previous conversation had been as the thistle's +self.</p> +<p>The plain little church was gay that morning. Carriage after carriage drove +up with much prancing and champing, and group after group of city folk came +rustling along the aisles. It was a bit of Fifth Avenue let into Lenox calm. The +World and the Flesh were there, at least.</p> +<p>In the hush of expectancy that preceded the minister's arrival there was much +waving of scented fans, while the well-bred city glances took in everything +without seeming to see. I felt that Bessie and I were being mentally discussed +and ticketed. And as it was our first appearance at church since—well, +<i>since</i>—perhaps there was just a little consciousness of our relations that +made Bessie seem to retire absolutely within herself, and be no more a part of +the silken crowd than was the grave, plain man who rose up in the pulpit.</p> +<p>I hope the sermon was satisfactory. I am sure it was convincing to a +brown-handed farmer who sat beside us, and who could with difficulty restrain +his applauding comment. But I was lost in a dream of a near heaven, and could +not follow the spoken word. It was just a quiet little opportunity to +contemplate my darling, to tell over her sweetness and her charm, and to say +over and again, like a blundering school-boy, "It's all mine! mine!"</p> +<p>The congregation might have been dismissed for aught I knew, and left me +sitting there with her beside me. But I was startled into the proprieties as we +stood up to sing the concluding hymn. I was standing stock-still beside her, not +listening to the words at all, but with a pleasant sense of everything being +very comfortable, and an old-fashioned swell of harmony on the air, when +suddenly the book dropped from Bessie's hand and fell heavily to the floor. I +should have said she flung it down had it been on any other occasion, so rapid +and vehement was the action.</p> +<p>I stooped to pick it up, when with a decided gesture she stopped me. I looked +at her surprised. Her face was flushed, indignant, I thought, and instantly my +conscience was on the rack. What had I done, for my lady was evidently +angry?</p> +<p>Glancing down once more toward the book, I saw that she had set her foot upon +it, and indeed her whole attitude was one of excitement, defiance. Why did she +look so hot and scornful? I was disturbed and anxious: what was there in the +book or in me to anger her?</p> +<p>As quickly as possible I drew her away from the bustling crowd when the +service was concluded. Fortunately, there was a side-door through which we could +pass out into the quiet churchyard, and we vanished through it, leaving Mrs. +Sloman far behind. Over into the Lebanon road was but a step, and the little +porch was waiting with its cool honeysuckle shade. But Bessie did not stop at +the gate: she was in no mood for home. And yet she would not answer my +outpouring questions as to whether she was ill, or what <i>was</i> the +matter.</p> +<p>"I'll tell you in a minute. Come, hurry!" she said, hastening along up the +hill through all the dust and heat.</p> +<p>At last we reached that rustic bit of ruin known popularly as the "Shed." It +was a hard bit of climbing, but I rejoiced that Bessie, so flushed and excited +at the start, grew calmer as we went; and when, the summit reached, she sat down +to rest on a broken board, her color was natural and she seemed to breathe +freely again.</p> +<p>"Are they all hypocrites, do you think, Charlie?" she said suddenly, looking +up into my face.</p> +<p>"They? who? Bessie, what have I done to make you angry?"</p> +<p>"You? Nothing, dear goose! I am angry at myself and at everybody else. Did it +flash upon you, Charlie, what we were singing?"</p> +<p>Then she quoted the lines, which I will not repeat here, but they expressed, +as the sole aspiration of the singer, a desire to pass eternity in singing hymns +of joy and praise—an impatience for the time to come, a disregard of earth, a +turning away from temporal things, and again the desire for an eternity of +sacred song.</p> +<p>"Suppose I confess to you," said I, astonished at her earnestness, "that I +did not at all know what I was singing?"</p> +<p>"That's just it! just what makes it so dreadful! <i>Nobody</i> was thinking +about it—nobody! Nobody there wanted to give up earth and go straight to heaven +and sing. I looked round at all the people, +with their new bonnets, and the diamonds, and the footmen in the pews up stairs, +and I thought, What lies they are all saying! Nobody wants to go to heaven at +all until they are a hundred years old, and too deaf and blind and tired out to +do anything on earth. My heaven is here and now in my own happiness, and so is +yours, Charlie; and I felt so convicted of being a story-teller that I couldn't +hold the book in my hand."</p> +<p>"Well, then," said I, "shall we have one set of hymns for happy people, and +another for poor, tired-out folks like that little dressmaker that leaned +against the wall?" For Bessie herself had called my attention to the pale little +body who had come to the church door at the same moment with us.</p> +<p>"No, not two sets. Do you suppose that she, either, wants to <i>sing</i> on +for ever? And all those girls! Sorry enough they would be to have to die, and +leave their dancing and flirtations and the establishments they hope to have! It +wouldn't be much comfort to them to promise them they should <i>sing</i>. +Charlie, I want a hymn that shall give thanks that I am alive, that I have +<i>you</i>."</p> +<p>"Could the dressmaker sing that?"</p> +<p>"No;" and Bessie's eyes sought the shining blue sky with a wistful, +beseeching tenderness. "Oh, it's all wrong, Charlie dear. She ought to tell us +in a chant how tired and hopeless she is for this world; and we ought to sing to +her something that would cheer her, help her, even in this world. Why must she +wait for all her brightness till she dies? So perfectly heartless to stand up +along side of her and sing <i>that</i>!"</p> +<p>"Well," I said, "you needn't wait till next Sunday to bring her your words of +cheer."</p> +<p>In a minute my darling was crying on my shoulder. I could understand the +outburst, and was glad of it.</p> +<p>All athrill with new emotions, new purposes, an eternity of love, she had +come to church to be reminded that earth was naught, that the trials and +tempests here would come to an end some day, and after, to the patiently +victorious, would come the hymns of praise. +<i>Earth</i> was very full that morning to her and me; <i>earth</i> was a place +for worshipful harmonies; and yet the strong contrast with the poor patient +sufferer who had passed into church with us was too much for Bessie: she craved +an expression that should comprehend alike her sorrow and our abundant joy.</p> +<p>The tempest of tears passed by, and we had bright skies again. Poor Mrs. +Sloman's dinner waited long that day; and it was with a guilty sense that she +was waiting too that we went down the hill at a quickened pace when the church +clock, sounding up the hillside, came like a chiding voice.</p> +<p>And a double sense of guiltiness was creeping over me. I must return to New +York to-morrow, and I had not told Bessie yet of the longer journey I must make +so soon. I put it by again and again in the short flying hours of that +afternoon; and it was not until dusk had fallen in the little porch, as we sat +there after tea, and I had watched the light from Mrs. Sloman's chamber shine +down upon the honeysuckles and then go out, that I took my resolution.</p> +<p>"Bessie," I said, leaning over her and taking her face in both my hands, "I +have something to tell you."</p> +<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3> +<p>"I have something to tell you;" and without an instant's pause I went on: +"Mr. D—— has business in England which cannot be attended to by letter. One of +us must go, and they send me. I must sail in two weeks."</p> +<p>It was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and Bessie gave a little gasp of +surprise: "So soon! Oh, Charlie, take me with you!" Realizing in the next +instant the purport of the suggestion, she flung away from my hands and rushed +into the parlor, where a dim, soft lamp was burning on the table. She sat down +on a low chair beside it and hid her face on the table in her hands.</p> +<p>Like a flash of lightning all the possibilities of our marriage before many +days—arranging it with Mrs. Sloman, and satisfying my partners, who would expect +me to travel fast and work hard in the short time they had allotted for the +journey,—all came surging and throbbing through my brain, while my first answer +was not given in words.</p> +<p>When I had persuaded Bessie to look at me and to answer me in turn, I hoped +we should be able to talk about it with the calm judgment it needed.</p> +<p>"To leave my wife—my wife!"—how I lingered on the word!—"in some poky +lodgings in London, while I am spending my day among dusty boxes and files of +deeds in a dark old office, isn't just my ideal of our wedding-journey; but, +Bessie, if <i>you</i> wish it so—"</p> +<p>What was there in my tone that jarred her? I had meant to be magnanimous, to +think of her comfort alone, of the hurry and business of such a journey—tried to +shut myself out and think only of her in the picture. But I failed, of course, +and went on stupidly, answering the quick look of question in her eyes: "If you +prefer it—that is, you know, I must think of you and not of myself."</p> +<p>Still the keen questioning glance. What new look was this in her eyes, what +dawning thought?</p> +<p>"No," she answered after a pause, slowly withdrawing her hand from mine, +"think of yourself."</p> +<p>I had expected that she would overwhelm me in her girlish way with saucy +protestations that she would be happy even in the dull London lodgings, and that +she would defy the law-files to keep me long from her. This sudden change of +manner chilled me with a nameless fear.</p> +<p>"If <i>I</i> prefer it! If <i>I</i> wish it! I see that I should be quite in +your way, an encumbrance. Don't talk about it any more."</p> +<p>She was very near crying, and I wish to heaven she had cried. But she +conquered herself resolutely, and held herself cold and musing before me. I +might take her hand, might kiss her unresisting cheek, but she seemed frozen +into sudden thoughtfulness that it was impossible to meet or to dispel.</p> +<p>"Bessie, you know you are a little goose! What could I wish for in life but +to carry you off this minute to New York? Come, get your hat and let's walk over +to the parsonage now. We'll get Doctor Wilder to marry us, and astonish your +aunt in the morning."</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" said Bessie with a slight quiver of her pretty, pouting mouth. +"Do be rational, Charlie!"</p> +<p>I believe I was rational in my own fashion for a little while, but when I +ventured to say in a very unnecessary whisper, "Then you will go abroad with +me?" Bessie flushed to her temples and rose from the sofa. She had a way, when +she was very much in earnest, or very much stirred with some passionate thought, +of pacing the parlor with her hands clasped tightly before her, and her arms +tense and straining at the clasping hands. With her head bent slightly forward, +and her brown hair hanging in one long tress over her shoulder, she went swiftly +up and down, while I lay back on the sofa and watched her. She would speak it +out presently, the thought that was hurting her. So I felt secure and waited, +following every movement with a lover's eye. But I ought not to have waited. I +should have drawn her to me and shared that rapid, nervous walk—should have +compelled her with sweet force to render an account of that emotion. But I was +so secure, so entirely one with her in thought, that I could conceive of nothing +but a passing tempest at my blundering, stupid thoughtfulness for her.</p> +<p>Suddenly at the door she stopped, and with her hand upon it said, +"Good-night, Charlie;" and was out of the room in a twinkling.</p> +<p>I sprang from the sofa and to the foot of the stairs, but I saw only a +glimpse of her vanishing dress; and though I called after her in low, beseeching +tones, "Bessie! Bessie!" a door shut in the distant corridor for only +answer.</p> +<p>What to do? In that decorous mansion I could not follow her; and my impulse +to dash after her and knock at her door till she answered me, I was forced to +put aside after a moment's consideration.</p> +<p>I stood there in the quiet hall, the old clock ticking away a solemn +"I-told-you-so!" in the corner. I made one step toward the kitchen to send a +message by one of the maids, but recoiled at the suggestion that this would +publish a lovers' quarrel. So I retreated along the hall, my footsteps making no +noise on the India matting, and entered the parlor again like a thief. I sat +down by the table: "Bessie will certainly come back: she will get over her +little petulance, and know I am here waiting."</p> +<p>All about the parlor were the traces of my darling. A soft little coil of +rose-colored Berlin wool, with its ivory needle sheathed among the stitches, lay +in a tiny basket. I lifted it up: the basket was made of scented grass, and +there was a delicious sweet and pure fragrance about the knitting-work. I took +possession of it and thrust it into my breast-pocket. A magazine she had been +reading, with the palest slip of a paper-knife—a bit of delicate Swiss wood—in +it, next came in my way. I tried to settle down and read where she had left off, +but the words danced before my eyes, and a strange tune was repeating in my +ears, "Good-night, Charlie—good-night and good-bye!"</p> +<p>One mad impulse seized me to go out under her window and call to her, asking +her to come down. But Lenox nights were very still, and the near neighbors on +either side doubtless wide awake to all that was going on around the Sloman +cottage.</p> +<p>So I sat still like an idiot, and counted the clock-strokes, and nervously +calculated the possibility of her reappearance, until I heard, at last, +footsteps coming along the hall in rapid tread. I darted up: "Oh, Bessie, I knew +you would come back!" as through the open door walked in—Mary, Mrs. Sloman's +maid!</p> +<p>She started at seeing me: "Excuse me, sir. The parlor was so—I thought there +was no one here."</p> +<p>"What is it, Mary?" I asked with assumed indifference. "Do you want Miss +Bessie? She went up stairs a few moments ago."</p> +<p>"No, sir. I thought—that is—" glancing +down in awkward confusion at the key she held in her hand. She was retiring +again softly when I saw in the key the reason of her discomposure.</p> +<p>"Did you come in to lock up, Mary?" I asked with a laugh.</p> +<p>"Yes, sir. But it is of no consequence. I thought you had gone, sir."</p> +<p>"Time I was, I suppose. Well, Mary, you shall lock me out, and then carry +this note to Miss Bessie. It is so late that I will not wait for her. Perhaps +she is busy with Mrs. Sloman."</p> +<p>Something in Mary's face made me suspect that she knew Mrs. Sloman to be +sound asleep at this moment; but she said nothing, and waited respectfully until +I had scribbled a hasty note, rifling Bessie's writing-desk for the envelope in +which to put my card. Dear child! there lay my photograph, the first thing I saw +as I raised the dainty lid.</p> +<p>"Bessie," I wrote, "I have waited until Mary has come in with her keys, and I +suppose I must go. My train starts at nine to-morrow morning, but you will be +ready—will you not?—at six to take a morning walk with me. I will be here at +that hour. You don't know how disturbed and anxious I shall be till then."</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> +<p>Morning came—or rather the long night came to an end at last—and at twenty +minutes before six I opened the gate at the Sloman cottage. It was so late in +September that the morning was a little hazy and uncertain. And yet the air was +warm and soft—a perfect reflex, I thought, of Bessie last night—an electric +softness under a brooding cloud.</p> +<p>The little house lay wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell: no, it +would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely not make me wait. +Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would wait in the porch—she would +certainly come down soon.</p> +<p>So I waited, whistling softly to myself as I pushed the withered leaves about +with my stick and drew strange patterns among them. Half an hour passed.</p> +<p>"I will give her a gentle reminder;" so I gathered a spray from the +honeysuckle, a late bloom among the fast-falling leaves, and aimed it right at +the muslin curtain. The folds parted and it fell into the room, but instead of +the answering face that I looked to see, all was still again.</p> +<p>"It's very strange," thought I. "Bessie's pique is not apt to last so long. +She must indeed be angry."</p> +<p>And I went over each detail of our last night's talk, from her first burst of +"Take me with you!" to my boggling answers, my fears, so stupidly expressed, +that it would be anything but a picturesque bridal-trip, and the necessity that +there was for rapid traveling and much musty, old research.</p> +<p>"What a fool I was not to take her then and there! She <i>is</i> myself: why +shouldn't I, then, be selfish? When I do what of all things I want to, why can't +I take it for granted that she will be happy too?" And a hot flush of shame went +over me to think that I had been about to propose to her, to my own darling +girl, that we should be married as soon as possible <i>after</i> I returned from +Europe.</p> +<p>Her love, clearer-sighted, had striven to forestall our separation: why +should we be parted all those weary weeks? why put the sea between us?</p> +<p>I had accepted all these obstacles as a dreary necessity, never thinking for +the moment that conventional objections might be overcome, aunts and guardians +talked over, and the whole matter arranged by two people determined on their own +sweet will.</p> +<p>What a lumbering, masculine plan was mine! <i>After I returned from +Europe!</i> I grew red and bit my lips with vexation. And now my dear girl was +shy and hurt. How should I win back again that sweet impulse of confidence?</p> +<p>Presently the household began to stir. I heard unbarring and unbolting, and +craftily retreated to the gate, that I might seem to be just coming in, to the +servant who should open the door.</p> +<p>It was opened by a housemaid—not the Mary of the night before—who stared a +moment at seeing me, but on my asking if Miss Bessie was ready yet to walk, +promised smilingly to go and see. She returned in a moment, saying that Miss +Bessie begged that I would wait: she was hurrying to come down.</p> +<p>The child! She has slept too soundly. I shall tell her how insensate she must +have been, how serenely unconscious when the flower came in at the window.</p> +<p>The clock on the mantel struck seven and the half hour before Bessie +appeared. She was very pale, and her eyes looked away at my greeting. Passively +she suffered herself to be placed in a chair, and then, with something of her +own manner, she said hurriedly, "Don't think I got your note, Charlie, last +night, or I wouldn't, indeed I wouldn't, have kept you waiting so long this +morning."</p> +<p>"Didn't Mary bring it to you?" I asked, surprised.</p> +<p>"Yes: that is, she brought it up to my room, but, Charlie dear, I wasn't +there: I wasn't there all night. I did shut my door, though I heard you calling, +and after a little while I crept out into the entry and looked over the stairs, +hoping you were there still, and that I could come back to you. But you were not +there, and everything was so still that I was sure you had gone—gone without a +word. I listened and listened, but I was too proud to go down into the parlor +and see. And yet I could not go back to my room, next Aunt Sloman's. I went +right up stairs to the blue room, and stayed there. Mary must have put your note +on my table when she came up stairs. I found it there this morning when I went +down."</p> +<p>"Poor darling! And what did you do all night in the blue room? I am afraid," +looking at her downcast eyes, "that you did not sleep—that you were angry at +me."</p> +<p>"At you? No, at myself," she said very low.</p> +<p>"Bessie, you know that my first and only thought was of the hurry and worry +this journey would cost you. You know that +to have you with me was something that I had scarce dared to dream."</p> +<p>"And therefore," with a flash of blue eyes, "for me to dare to dream it was—" +and again she hid her face.</p> +<p>"But, my precious, don't you know that it was for <i>you</i> to suggest what +I wanted all the time, but thought it would be too much to ask?" For I had +discovered, of course, in my morning's work among the dead leaves on the porch, +that I had desired it from the moment I had known of my journey—desired it +without acknowledging it to myself or presuming to plan upon it.</p> +<p>At this juncture breakfast was announced, and the folding doors thrown open +that led into the breakfast-parlor, disclosing Mrs. Sloman seated by the silver +urn, and a neat little table spread for three, so quick had been the housemaid's +intuitions.</p> +<p>"Good-morning, Charles: come get some breakfast. You will hardly be in time +for your train," suggested Aunt Sloman in a voice that had in it all the gloom +of the morning. Indeed, the clouds had gathered heavily during the parlor scene, +and some large drops were rattling against the window.</p> +<p>I looked at my watch. After eight! Pshaw! I will let this train go, and will +telegraph to the office. I can take the night train, and thus lose only a few +hours. So I stayed.</p> +<p>What rare power had Bessie in the very depths of her trouble, and with her +face pale and eyes so heavy with her last night's vigil—what gift that helped +her to be gay? Apparently not with an effort, not forced, she was as joyous and +frank as her sunniest self. No exaggeration of laughter or fun, but the +brightness of her every-day manner, teasing and sparkling round Aunt Sloman, +coquetting very naturally with me. It was a swift change from the gloomy +atmosphere we had left behind in the parlor, and I basked in it delighted, and +feeling, poor fool! that the storm was cleared away, and that the time for the +singing of birds was come.</p> +<p>I was the more deceived. I did not know all of Bessie yet. Her horror of a +scene, of any suspicion that there was +discord between us, and her rare self-control, that for the moment put aside all +trouble, folded it out of sight and took up the serene old life again for a +little space.</p> +<p>"Aunt Maria," said Bessie, pushing aside her chair, "won't you take care of +Mr. Munro for a little while? I have a letter to write that I want him to take +to New York."</p> +<p>Aunt Maria would be happy to entertain me, or rather to have me entertain +her. If I would read to her, now, would I be so kind, while she washed up her +breakfast cups?</p> +<p>How people can do two things at once I am sure I cannot understand; and while +the maid brought in the large wooden bowl, the steam of whose household incense +rose high in the air, I watched impatient for the signal to begin. When the +tea-cups were all collected, and Aunt Sloman held one by the handle daintily +over the "boiling flood," "Now," she said with a serene inclination of her head, +"if you please."</p> +<p>And off I started at a foot-pace through the magazine that had been put into +my hands. Whether it was anything about the "Skelligs," or "Miss Sedgwick's +Letters," or "Stanley-Livingstone," I have not the remotest idea. I was +fascinated by the gentle dip of each tea-cup, and watched from the corner of my +eye the process of polishing each glittering spoon on a comfortable crash +towel.</p> +<p>Then my thoughts darted off to Bessie. Was she indeed writing to her old +trustee? Judge Hubbard was a friend of my father's, and would approve of me, I +thought, if he did not agree at once to the hurried marriage and ocean +journey.</p> +<p>"What an unconscionable time it takes her! Don't you think so, Mrs. Sloman?" +I said at last, after I had gone through three several papers on subjects +unknown.</p> +<p>I suppose it was scarcely a courteous speech. But Mrs. Sloman smiled a +white-lipped smile of sympathy, and said, "Yes: I will go and send her to +you."</p> +<p>"Oh, don't hurry her," I said falsely, hoping, however, that she would.</p> +<p>Did I say before that Bessie was tall? Though so slight that you always +wanted to speak of her with some endearing diminutive, she looked taller than +ever that morning; and as she stood before me, coming up to the fireplace where +I was standing, her eyes looked nearly level into mine. I did not understand +their veiled expression, and before I had time to study it she dropped them and +said hastily, "Young man, I am pining for a walk."</p> +<p>"In the rain?"</p> +<p>"Pshaw! This is nothing, after all, but a Scotch mist. See, I am dressed for +it;" and she threw a tartan cloak over her shoulder—a blue-and-green tartan that +I had never seen before.</p> +<p>"The very thing for shipboard," I whispered as I looked at her +admiringly.</p> +<p>Her face was flushed enough now, but she made no answer save to stoop down +and pat the silly little terrier that had come trotting into the room with +her.</p> +<p>"Fidget shall go—yes, he shall go walking;" and Fidget made a gray ball of +himself in his joy at the permission.</p> +<p>Up the hill again we walked, with the little Skye terrier cantering in +advance or madly chasing the chickens across the road.</p> +<p>"Did you finish your letter satisfactorily?" I asked, for I was fretting with +impatience to know its contents.</p> +<p>"Yes. I will give it to you when you leave to-night."</p> +<p>"Shall we say next Saturday, Bessie?" said I, resolving to plunge at once +into the sea of our late argument.</p> +<p>"For what? For you to come again? Don't you always come on Saturday?"</p> +<p>"Yes, but this time I mean to carry you away."</p> +<p>A dead pause, which I improved by drawing her hand under my arm and +imprisoning her little gray glove with my other hand. As she did not speak, I +went on fatuously: "You don't need any preparation of gowns and shawls; you can +buy your <i>trousseau</i> in London, if need be; and we'll settle on the ship, +coming over, how and where we are to live in New York."</p> +<p>"You think, then, that I am all ready to be married?"</p> +<p>"I think that my darling is superior to the nonsense of other girls—that she +will be herself always, and doesn't need any masquerade of wedding finery."</p> +<p>"You think, then," coldly and drawing her hand away, "that I am different +from other girls?" and the scarlet deepened on her cheek. "You think I say and +do things other girls would not?"</p> +<p>"My darling, what nonsense! You say and do things that other girls +<i>cannot</i>, nor could if they tried a thousand years."</p> +<p>"Thanks for the compliment! It has at least the merit of dubiousness. Now, +Charlie, if you mention Europe once in this walk I shall be seriously offended. +Do let us have a little peace and a quiet talk."</p> +<p>"Why, what on earth can we talk about until this is settled? I can't go back +to New York, and engage our passage, and go to see Judge Hubbard—I suppose you +were writing to him this morning?"</p> +<p>She did not answer, but seemed bent on making the dainty print of her foot in +the moist earth of the road, taking each step carefully, as though it were the +one important and engrossing thing in life.</p> +<p>"—Unless," I went on, "you tell me you will be ready to go back with me this +day week. You see, Bessie dear, I <i>must</i> sail on the fixed day. And if we +talk it over now and settle it all, it will save no end of writing to and +fro."</p> +<p>"Good-morning!" said a gay voice behind us—Fanny Meyrick's voice. She was +just coming out of one of the small houses on the roadside. "Don't you want some +company? I've been to call on my washerwoman, and I'm so glad I've met you. Such +an English morning! Shall I walk with you?"</p> +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> +<p>If I could have changed places with Fidget, I could scarce have expressed +my disapproval of the new-comer more +vehemently than he. Miss Meyrick seemed quite annoyed at the little dog's +uncalled-for snapping and barking, and shook her umbrella at him in vain. I was +obliged to take him in hand myself at last, and to stand in the road and order +him to "Go home!" while the two young ladies walked on, apparently the best of +friends.</p> +<p>When I rejoined them Fanny Meyrick was talking fast and unconnectedly, as was +her habit: "Yes, lodgings in London—the dearest old house in Clarges street. +Such a butler! He looks like a member of Parliament. We stayed there once before +for three days. I am just going to settle into an English girl. Had enough of +the Continent. Never do see England now-a-days, nobody. All rush off. So papa is +going to have a comfortable time. Embassy? Oh, I know the general well."</p> +<p>I looked beseechingly at Bessie. Why wouldn't she say that we too would be +there in London lodgings? Perhaps, then, Fanny Meyrick might take the hint and +leave us soon.</p> +<p>But Bessie gave no sign, and I relapsed into a somewhat impatient +<i>résumé</i> of my own affairs. Yes: married quietly on Saturday; leave here on +Monday morning train; take, yes, Wednesday's steamer. I could arrange it with my +law-partners to be absent a little longer perhaps, that there might be some +little rest and romance about the wedding-journey.</p> +<p>Two or three times in the course of that morning—for she stayed with us all +the morning—Fanny Meyrick rallied me on my preoccupation and silence: "He didn't +use to be so, Bessie, years ago, I assure you. It's very disagreeable, sir—not +an improvement by any means."</p> +<p>Then—I think without any malice prepense, simply the unreasoning rattle of a +belle of two seasons—she plunged into a description of a certain fęte at +Blankkill on the Hudson, the occasion of our first acquaintance: "He was so +young, Bessie, you can't imagine, and blushed so beautifully that all the girls +were jealous as could be. We were very good +friends—weren't we?—all that summer?"</p> +<p>"And are still, I hope," said I with my most sweeping bow. "What have I done +to forfeit Miss Meyrick's esteem?"</p> +<p>"Nothing, except that you used to find your way oftener to Meyrick Place than +you do now. Well, I won't scold you for that: I shall make up for that on the +other side."</p> +<p>What did she mean? She had no other meaning than that she would have such +compensation in English society that her American admirers would not be missed. +She did not know of my going abroad.</p> +<p>But Bessie darted a quick glance from her to me, and back again to her, as +though some dawning suspicion had come to her. "I hope," she said quietly, "that +you may have a pleasant winter. It will be delightful, won't it, Charlie?"</p> +<p>"Oh, very!" I answered, but half noting the under-meaning of her words, my +mind running on deck state-rooms and the like.</p> +<p>"Charlie," said Miss Meyrick suddenly, "do you remember what happened two +years ago to-day?"</p> +<p>"No, I think not."</p> +<p>Taking out a little book bound in Russia leather and tipped with gold, she +handed it to Bessie, who ran her eye down the page: it was open at September +28th.</p> +<p>"Read it," said Fanny, settling herself composedly in her shawl, and leaning +back against a tree with half-shut eyes.</p> +<p>"'<i>September 28th</i>'" Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange +constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love him for ever and +ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the Hudson—moonlight—I was rowing. Dropt +my oar into the water. Leaned out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me +and swam with me to shore.'"</p> +<p>A dead silence as Bessie closed the book and held it in her hand.</p> +<p>"Oh," said I lightly, "that isn't worth chronicling—that! It was no question +of saving lives. The New York boat was coming up, if I remember."</p> +<p>"Yes, it was in trying to steer away from it that I dropped my oar."</p> +<p>"So you see it would have picked us up, any how. There was nothing but the +ducking to remember."</p> +<p>"Such a figure, Bessie! Imagine us running along the road to the gate! I +could scarcely move for my dripping skirts; and we frightened papa so when we +stepped up on the piazza out of the moonlight!"</p> +<p>To stop this torrent of reminiscences, which, though of nothings, I could see +was bringing the red spot to Bessie's cheek, I put out my hand for the book: +"Let me write something down to-day;" and I hastily scribbled: "<i>September</i> +28. Charles Munro and Bessie Stewart, to sail for Europe in ten days, ask of +their friend Fanny Meyrick her warm congratulations."</p> +<p>"Will that do?" I whispered as I handed the book to Bessie.</p> +<p>"Not at all," said Bessie scornfully and coldly, tearing out the leaf as she +spoke and crumpling it in her hand.—"Sorry to spoil your book, Fanny dear, but +the sentiment would have spoiled it more. Let us go home."</p> +<p>As we passed the hotel on that dreary walk home, Fanny would have left us, +but Bessie clung to her and whispered something in a pleading voice, begging +her, evidently, to come home with us.</p> +<p>"If Mr. Munro will take word to papa," she said, indicating that worthy, who +sat on the upper piazza smoking his pipe.</p> +<p>"We will walk on," said Bessie coldly. "Come, Fanny dear."</p> +<p>Strange, thought I as I turned on my heel, this sudden fond intimacy! Bessie +is angry. Why did I never tell her of the ducking? And yet when I remembered how +Fanny had clung to me, how after we had reached the shore I had been forced to +remind her that it was no time for sentimental gratitude when we both were +shivering, I could see why I had refrained from mentioning it to Bessie until +our closer confidences would allow of it.</p> +<p>No man, unless he be a downright coxcomb, will ever admit to one woman that +another woman has loved him. To his wife—perhaps. But how much Fanny Meyrick +cared for me I had never sought to know. After the dismal ending of that +moonlight boat-row—I had been already disenchanted for some time before—I had +scarce called at Meyrick Place more than civility required. The young lady was +so inclined to exaggerate the circumstance, to hail me as her deliverer, that I +felt like the hero of a melodrama whenever we met. And after I had met Bessie +there were pleasanter things to think about—much pleasanter.</p> +<p>How exasperating girls can be when they try! I had had my <i>congé</i> for +the walk home, I knew, and I was vexed enough to accept it and stay at the hotel +to dinner.</p> +<p>"I will not be played upon in this way. Bessie knows that I stayed over the +morning train just to be with her, and piled up for to-morrow no end of work, as +well as sarcastic remarks from D. & Co. If she chooses to show off her +affection for Fanny Meyrick in these few hours that we have together—Fanny +Meyrick whom she <i>hated</i> yesterday—she may enjoy her friendship undisturbed +by me."</p> +<p>So I loitered with my cigar after dinner, and took a nap on the sofa in my +room. I was piqued, and did not care to conceal it. As the clock struck five I +bethought me it was time to betake me to the Sloman cottage. A sound of wheels +and a carriage turning brought me to the window. The two young ladies were +driving off in Fanny Meyrick's phaeton, having evidently come to the hotel and +waited while it was being made ready.</p> +<p>"Pique for pique! Serves me right, I suppose."</p> +<p>Evening found me at the Sloman cottage, waiting with Mrs. Sloman by the +tea-table. Why do I always remember her, sitting +monumental by the silver urn?</p> +<p>"The girls are very late to-night."</p> +<p>"Yes." I was beginning to be uneasy. It was nearing train-time again.</p> +<p>"Such lovely moonlight, I suppose, has tempted them, or they may be staying +at Foxcroft to tea."</p> +<p>Indeed? I looked at my watch: I had ten minutes.</p> +<p>A sound of wheels: the phaeton drove up.</p> +<p>"Oh, Charlie," said Bessie as she sprang out, "you bad boy! you'll miss your +train again. Fanny here will drive you to the hotel. Jump in, quick!"</p> +<p>And as the moonlight shone full on her face I looked inquiringly into her +eyes.</p> +<p>"The letter," I said, "for Judge Hubbard?" hoping that she would go to the +house for it, and then I could follow her for a word.</p> +<p>"Oh! I had almost forgotten. Here it is;" and she drew it from her pocket and +held it out to me in her gloved hand. I pressed the hand to my lips, +riding-glove and all, and sprang in beside Fanny, who was with some difficulty +making her horse stand still.</p> +<p>"Good-bye!" from the little figure at the gate. "Don't forget, Fanny, +to-morrow at ten;" and we were off.</p> +<p>By the wretched kerosene lamp of the car, going down, I read my letter, for +it was for me: "I will not go to Europe, and I forbid you to mention it again. I +shall never, never forget that <i>I</i> proposed it, and that +you—<i>accepted</i> it. Come up to Lenox once more before you go."</p> +<p>This was written in ink, and was sealed. It was the morning's note. But +across the envelope these words were written in pencil: "Go to Europe with Fanny +Meyrick, and come up to Lenox, both of you, when you return."</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3> +<p>I had a busy week of it in New York—copying out instructions, taking notes of +marriages and intermarriages in 1690, and writing each day a long, pleading +letter to Bessie. There was a double strain upon me: all the arrangements for my +client's claims, and in an undercurrent the arguments to overcome Bessie's +decision, went on in my brain side by side.</p> +<p>I could not, I wrote to her, make the voyage without her. It would be the +shipwreck of all my new hopes. It was cruel in her to have raised such hopes +unless she was willing to fulfill them: it made the separation all the harder. I +could not and would not give up the plan. "I have engaged our passage in the +Wednesday's steamer: say yes, dear child, and I will write to Dr. Wilder from +here."</p> +<p>I could not leave for Lenox before Saturday morning, and I hoped to be +married on the evening of that day. But to all my pleading came "No," simply +written across a sheet of note-paper in my darling's graceful hand.</p> +<p>Well, I would go up on the Saturday, nevertheless. She would surely yield +when she saw me faithful to my word.</p> +<p>"I shall be a sorry-looking bridegroom," I thought as I surveyed myself in +the little mirror at the office. It was Friday night, and we were shutting up. +We had worked late by gaslight, all the clerks had gone home long ago, and only +the porter remained, half asleep on a chair in the hall.</p> +<p>It was striking nine as I gathered up my bundle of papers and thrust them +into a bag. I was rid of them for three days at least. "Bill, you may lock up +now," I said, tapping the sleepy porter on the shoulder.</p> +<p>"Oh, Mr. Munro, shure here's a card for yees," handing me a lady's card.</p> +<p>"Who left it, Bill?" I hurriedly asked, taking it to the flaring gaslight on +the stairway.</p> +<p>"Two ladies in a carriage—an old 'un and a pretty young lady, shure. They +charged me giv' it yees, and druv' off."</p> +<p>"And why didn't you bring it in, you blockhead?" I shouted, for it was Bessie +Stewart's card. On it was written in pencil: "Westminster Hotel. On our way +through New York. Leave on the 8 train for the South to-night. Come up to +dinner."</p> +<p>The eight-o'clock train, and it was now striking nine!</p> +<p>"Shure, Mr. Charles, you had said you was not to be disturbed on no account, +and that I was to bring in no messages."</p> +<p>"Did you tell those ladies that? What time were they here?"</p> +<p>"About five o'clock—just after you had shut the dure, and the clerks was +gone. Indeed, and they didn't wait for no reply, but hearin' you were in there, +they druv' off the minute they give me the card. The pretty young lady didn't +like the looks of our office, I reckon."</p> +<p>It was of no use to storm at Bill. He had simply obeyed orders like a +faithful machine. So, after a hot five minutes, I rushed up to the Westminster. +Perhaps they had not gone. Bessie would know there was a mistake, and would wait +for me.</p> +<p>But they were gone. On the books of the hotel were registered in a clear +hand, Bessie's hand, "Mrs. M. Antoinette Sloman and maid; Miss Bessie Stewart." +They had arrived that afternoon, must have driven directly from the train to the +office, and had dined, after waiting a little time for some one who did not +come.</p> +<p>"And where were they going?" I asked of the sympathetic clerk, who seemed +interested.</p> +<p>"Going South—I don't know where. The elder lady seemed delicate, and the +young lady quite anxious that she should +stay here to-night and go on in the morning. But no, she would go on +to-night."</p> +<p>I took the midnight train for Philadelphia. They would surely not go farther +to-night if Mrs. Sloman seemed such an invalid.</p> +<p>I scanned every hotel-book in vain. I walked the streets of the city, and all +the long Sunday I haunted one or two churches that my memory suggested to me +were among the probabilities for that day. They were either not in the city or +most securely hid.</p> +<p>And all this time there was a letter in the New York post-office waiting for +me. I found it at my room when I went back to it on Monday noon.</p> +<p>It ran as follows:</p> +<div class="blockquot">"WESTMINSTER HOTEL. "Very sorry not to see you—Aunt Sloman + especially sorry; but she has set her heart on going to Philadelphia to-night. + We shall stay at a private house, a quiet boarding-house; for aunt goes to + consult Dr. R—— there, and wishes to be very retired. I shall not give you our + address: as you sail so soon, it would not be worth while to come over. I will + write you on the other side. B.S." </div> +<p>Where's a Philadelphia directory? Where is this Dr. R——? I find him, sure +enough—such a number Walnut street. Time is precious—Monday noon!</p> +<p>"I'll transfer my berth to the Saturday steamer: that will do as well. Can't +help it if they do scold at the office."</p> +<p>To drive to the Cunard company's office and make the transfer took some +little time, but was not this my wedding holiday? I sighed as I again took my +seat in the car at Jersey City. On this golden Monday afternoon I should have +been slowly coming down the Housatonic Valley, with my dear little wife beside +me. Instead, the unfamiliar train, and the fat man at my side reading a campaign +newspaper, and shaking his huge sides over some broad burlesque.</p> +<p>The celebrated surgeon, Dr. R——, was not at home in answer to my ring on +Monday evening.</p> +<p>"How soon will he be in? I will wait."</p> +<p>"He can see no patients to-night sir," said the man; "and he may not be home +until midnight."</p> +<p>"But I am an <i>im</i>patient," I might have urged, when a carriage dashed up +to the door. A slight little man descended, and came slowly up the steps.</p> +<p>"Dr. R——?" I said inquiringly.</p> +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> +<p>"Just one minute, doctor, if you please. I only want to get an address from +you."</p> +<p>He scanned me from head to foot: "Walk into my office, young man."</p> +<p>I might have wondered at the brusqueness of his manner had I not caught a +glimpse of myself in the mirror over the mantelshelf. Dusty and worn, and with a +keen look of anxiety showing out of every feature, I should scarcely have +recognized myself.</p> +<p>I explained as collectedly as possible that I wanted the address of one of +his patients, a dear old friend of mine, whom I had missed as she passed through +New York, and that, as I was about to sail for Europe in a few days, I had +rushed over to bid her good-bye. "Mrs. Antoinette Sloman, it is, doctor."</p> +<p>The doctor eyed me keenly: he put out his hand to the little silver bell that +stood on the table and tapped it sharply. The servant appeared at the door: "Let +the carriage wait, James."</p> +<p>Again the watchful, keen expression. Did he think me an escaped lunatic, or +that I had an intent to rob the old lady? Apparently the scrutiny was +satisfactory, for he took out a little black book from his pocket, and turning +over the leaves, said, "Certainly, here it is—No. 30 Elm street, West +Philadelphia."</p> +<p>Over the river, then, again: no wonder I had not seen them in the Sunday's +search.</p> +<p>"I will take you over," said Dr. R——, replacing the book in his pocket again. +"Mrs. Sloman is on my list. Wait till I eat a biscuit, and I'll drive you over +in my carriage."</p> +<p>Shrewd little man! thought I: if I am a convict or a lunatic with designs on +Mrs. Sloman, he is going to be there to see.</p> +<p>"Till he ate a biscuit?" I should think so. To his invitation, most +courteously urged, that I should come and share his supper—"You've just come +from the train, and you won't get back to your hotel for two hours, at least"—I +yielded a ready acceptance, for I was really very hungry: I forget whether I had +eaten anything all day.</p> +<p>But the biscuit proved to be an elegant little supper served in glittering +plate, and the doctor lounged over the tempting bivalves until I could scarce +conceal my impatience.</p> +<p>"Do you chance to know," he said carelessly, as at last we rose from the +table and he flung his napkin down, "Mrs. Sloman's niece, Miss Stewart?"</p> +<p>"Excellently well," I said smiling: "in fact, I believe I am engaged to be +married to her."</p> +<p>"My dear fellow," said the doctor, bursting out laughing, "I am delighted to +hear it! Take my carriage and go. I saw you were a lawyer, and you looked +anxious and hurried; and I made up my mind that you had come over to badger the +old lady into making her will. I congratulate you with all my soul—and myself, +too," he added, shaking my hand. "Only think! Had it not been for your +frankness, I should have taken a five-mile ride to watch you and keep you from +doing my patient an injury."</p> +<p>The good doctor quite hurried me into the carriage in the effusion of his +discovery; and I was soon rolling away in that luxurious vehicle over the +bridge, and toward Bessie at last.</p> +<p>I cannot record that interview in words, nor can I now set down any but the +mere outline of our talk. My darling came down to meet me with a quick flush of +joy that she did not try to conceal. She was natural, was herself, and only too +glad, after the <i>contretemps</i> in New York, to see me again. She pitied me +as though I had been a tired child when I told her pathetically of my two +journeys to Philadelphia, and laughed outright at my interview with Dr. R——.</p> +<p>I was so sure of my ground. When I came to speak of the journey—<i>our</i> +journey—I knew I should prevail. It was a deep wound, and she shrank from any +talk about it. I had to be very gentle and tender before she would listen to me +at all.</p> +<p>But there was something else at work against me—what was it?—something that I +could neither see nor divine. And it was not altogether made up of Aunt Sloman, +I was sure.</p> +<p>"I cannot leave her now, Charlie. Dr. R—— wishes her to remain in +Philadelphia, so that he can watch her case. That settles it, Charlie: I must +stay with her."</p> +<p>What was there to be said? "Is there no one else, no one to take your +place?"</p> +<p>"Nobody; and I would not leave her even if there were."</p> +<p>Still, I was unsatisfied. A feeling of uneasiness took possession of me. I +seemed to read in Bessie's eyes that there was a thought between us hidden out +of sight. There is no clairvoyant like a lover. I could see the shadow clearly +enough, but whence, in her outer life, had the shadow come? <i>Between</i> us, +surely, it could not be. Even her anxiety for her aunt could not explain it: it +was something concealed.</p> +<p>When at last I had to leave her, "So to-morrow is your last day?" she +said.</p> +<p>"No, not the last. I have changed my passage to the Saturday steamer."</p> +<p>The strange look came into her face again. Never before did blue eyes wear +such a look of scrutiny.</p> +<p>"Well, what is it?" I asked laughingly as I looked straight into her +eyes.</p> +<p>"The Saturday steamer," she said musingly—"the Algeria, isn't it? I thought +you were in a hurry?"</p> +<p>"It was my only chance to have you," I explained, and apparently the argument +was satisfactory enough.</p> +<p>With the saucy little upward toss with which she always dismissed a subject, +"Then it isn't good-bye to-night?" she said.</p> +<p>"Yes, for two days. I shall run over again on Thursday."</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3> +<p>The two days passed, and the Thursday, and the Friday's parting, harder for +Bessie, as it seemed, than she had thought for. It was hard to raise her dear +little head from my shoulder when the last moment came, and to rush down stairs +to the cab, whose shivering horse and implacable driver seemed no bad emblem of +destiny on that raw October morning.</p> +<p>I was glad of the lowering sky as I stepped up the gangway to the ship's +deck. "What might have been" went down the cabin stairs with me; and as I threw +my wraps and knapsack into the double state-room I had chosen I felt like a +widower.</p> +<p>It was wonderful to me then, as I sat down on the side of the berth and +looked around me, how the last two weeks had filled all the future with dreams. +"I must have a genius for castle-building," I laughed. "Well, the reality is +cold and empty enough. I'll go up on deck."</p> +<p>On deck, among the piles of luggage, were various metal-covered trunks marked +M——. I remember now watching them as they were stowed away.</p> +<p>But it was with a curious shock, an hour after we had left the dock, that a +turn in my solitary walk on deck brought me face to face with Fanny Meyrick.</p> +<p>"You here?" she said. "I thought you had sailed in the Russia! Bessie told me +you were to go then."</p> +<p>"Did she know," I asked, "that <i>you</i> were going by this steamer?"</p> +<p>On my life, never was gallantry farther from my thoughts: my question +concerned Bessie alone, but Fanny apparently took it as a compliment, and looked +up gayly: "Oh yes: that was fixed months ago. I told her about it at Lenox."</p> +<p>"And did she tell you something else?" I asked sharply.</p> +<p>"Oh yes. I was very glad to hear of your good prospect. Do be congratulated, +won't you?"</p> +<p>Rather an odd way to put it, thought I, but it is Fanny Meyrick's way. "Good +prospect!" Heavens! was that the term to apply to my engagement with Bessie?</p> +<p>I should have insisted on a distincter utterance and a more flattering +expression of the situation had it been any other woman. But a lingering +suspicion that perhaps the subject was a distasteful one to Fanny Meyrick made +me pause, and a few moments after, as some one else joined her, I left her and +went to the smokestack for my cigar.</p> +<p>It was impossible, in the daily monotony of ship-life, to avoid altogether +the young lady whom Fate had thrown in my way. She was a most provokingly good +sailor, too. Other women stayed below or were carried in limp bundles to the +deck at noon; but Fanny, perfectly poised, with the steady glow in her cheek, +was always ready to amuse or be amused.</p> +<p>I tried, at first, keeping out of her way, with the <i>Trois +Mousquetaires</i> for company. But it seemed to me, as she knew of my +engagement, such avoidance was anything but complimentary to her. Loyalty to her +sex would forbid me to show that I had read her secret. Why not meet her on the +frank, breezy ground of friendship?</p> +<p>Perhaps, after all, there was no secret. Perhaps her feeling was only one of +girlish gratitude, however needless, for pulling her out of the Hudson River. I +did not know.</p> +<p>Nor was I particularly pleased with the companion to whom she introduced me +on our third day out—Father Shamrock, an Irish priest, long resident in America, +and bound now for Maynooth. How he had obtained an introduction to her I do not +know, except in the easy, fatherly way he seemed to have with every one on +board.</p> +<p>"Pshaw!" thought I, "what a nuisance!" for I shared the common antipathy to +his country and his creed. Nor was his appearance prepossessing—one of Froude's +"tonsured peasants," as I looked down at the square shoulders, +the stout, short figure and the broad +beardlessness of the face of the padre. But his voice, rich and mellow, +attracted me in spite of myself. His eyes were sparkling with kindly humor, and +his laugh was irresistible.</p> +<p>A perfect man of the world, with no priestly austerity about him, he seemed a +perpetual anxiety to the two young priests at his heels. They were on their +dignity always, and, though bound to hold him in reverence as their superior in +age and rank, his songs and his gay jests were evidently as thorns in their new +cassocks.</p> +<p>Father Shamrock was soon the star of the ship's company. Perfectly suave, his +gayety had rather the French sparkle about it than the distinguishing Italian +trait, and his easy manner had a dash of manliness which I had not thought to +find. Accomplished in various tongues, rattling off a gay little <i>chanson</i> +or an Irish song, it was a sight to see the young priests looking in from time +to time at the cabin door in despair as the clock pointed to nine, and Father +Shamrock still sat the centre of a gay and laughing circle.</p> +<p>He had rare tact, too, in talking to women. Of all the ladies on the Algeria, +I question if there were any but the staunchest Protestants. Some few held +themselves aloof at first and declined an introduction. "Father Shamrock! An +Irish priest! How <i>can</i> Miss Meyrick walk with him and present him as she +does?" But the party of recalcitrants grew less and less, and Fanny Meyrick was +very frank in her admiration. "Convert you?" she laughed over her shoulder to +me. "He wouldn't take the trouble to try."</p> +<p>And I believe, indeed, he would not. His strong social nature was evidently +superior to any ambition of his cloth. He would have made a famous diplomat but +for the one quality of devotion that was lacking. I use the word in its +essential, not in its religious sense—devotion to an idea, the faith in a high +purpose.</p> +<p>We had one anxious day of it, and only one. A gale had driven most of the +passengers to the seclusion of their state-rooms, and left the dinner-table a +desert. Alone in the cabin, Father Shamrock, Fanny Meyrick, a young Russian and +myself: I forget a vigilant duenna, the only woman on board unreconciled to +Father Shamrock. She lay prone on one of the seats, her face rigid and hands +clasped in an agony of terror. She was afraid, she afterward confessed to me, to +go to her state-room: nearness and voices seemed a necessity to her.</p> +<p>When I joined the party, Father Shamrock, as usual, was the narrator. But he +had dropped out of his voice all the gay humor, and was talking very soberly. +Some story he was telling, of which I gathered, as he went on, that it was of a +young lady, a rich and brilliant society woman. "Shot right through the heart at +Chancellorsville, and he the only brother. They two, orphans, were all that were +left of the family. He was her darling, just two years younger than she.</p> +<p>"I went to see her, and found her in an agony. She had not kissed him when he +left her: some little laughing tiff between them, and she had expected to see +him again before his regiment marched. She threw herself on her knees and made +confession; and then she took a holy vow: if the saints would grant her once +more to behold his body, she would devote herself hereafter to God's holy +Church.</p> +<p>"She gathered all her jewels together in a heap and cast them at my feet. +'Take them, Father, for the Church: if I find him I shall not wear them again—or +if I do not find him.'</p> +<p>"I went with her to the front of battle, and we found him after a time. It +was a search, but we found his grave, and we brought him home with us. Poor boy! +beyond recognition, except for the ring he wore; but she gave him the last kiss, +and then she was ready to leave the world. She took the vows as Sister Clara, +the holy vows of poverty and charity."</p> +<p>"But, Father," said Fanny, with a new depth in her eyes, "did she not die +behind the bars? To be shut up in a convent +with that grief at her heart!"</p> +<p>"Bars there were none," said the Father gently. "She left her vocation to me, +and I decided for her to become a Sister of Mercy. I have little sympathy," with +a shrug half argumentative, half deprecatory—"but little sympathy with the +conventual system for spirits like hers. She would have wasted and worn away in +the offices of prayer. She needed <i>action</i>. And she had the full of it in +her calling. She went from bedside to bedside of the sick and dying—here a child +in a fever; there a widow-woman in the last stages of consumption—night after +night, and day after day, with no rest, no thought of herself."</p> +<p>"Oh, I have seen her," I could not help interposing, "in a city car. A +shrouded figure that was conspicuous even in her serge dress. She read a book of +<i>Hours</i> all the time, but I caught one glimpse of her eyes: they were very +brilliant."</p> +<p>"Yes," sighed the Father, "it was an unnatural brightness. I was called away +to Montreal, or I should never have permitted the sacrifice. She went where-ever +the worst cases were of contagion and poverty, and she would have none to +relieve her at her post. So, when I returned after three months' absence, I was +shocked at the change: she was dying of their family disease. 'It is better, +so,' she said, 'dear Father. It was only the bullet that saved Harry from it, +and it would have been sure to come to me at last, after some opera or ball.' +She died last winter—so patient and pure, and such a saintly sufferer!"</p> +<p>The Father wiped his eyes. Why should I think of Bessie? Why should the +Sister's veiled figure and pale ardent face rise before me as if in warning?</p> +<p>Of just such overwhelming sacrifice was my darling capable were her life's +purpose wrecked. Something there was in the portrait of the sweet singleness, +the noble scorn of self, the devotion unthinking, uncalculating, which I knew +lay hidden in her soul.</p> +<p>The Father warmed into other themes, all in the same key of mother Church. I +listened dreamily, and to my own thoughts as well.</p> +<p>He pictured the priest's life of poverty, renunciation, leaving the world of +men, the polish and refinement of scholars, to take the confidences and bear the +burdens of grimy poverty and ignorance. Surely, I thought, we do wrong to shut +such men out of our sympathies, to label them "Dangerous." Why should we turn +the cold shoulder? are we so true to our ideals? But one glance at the young +priests as they sat crouching in the outer cabin, telling their beads and +crossing themselves with the vehemence of a frightened faith, was enough. Father +Shamrock was no type. Very possibly his own life would show but coarse and poor +against the chaste, heroic portraits he had drawn. He had the dramatic faculty: +for the moment he was what he related—that was all.</p> +<p>Our vigilant duenna had gradually risen to a sitting posture, and drawn +nearer and nearer, and as the narrator's voice sank into silence she said with +effusion, "Well, <i>you</i> are a good man, I guess."</p> +<p>But Fanny Meyrick sat as if entranced. The gale had died away, and, to break +the spell, I asked her if she wanted to take one peep on deck, to see if there +was a star in the heavens.</p> +<p>There was no star, but a light rising and falling with the ship's motion, +which was pronounced by a sailor to be Queenstown light, shone in the +distance.</p> +<p>The Father was to leave us there. "We shall not make it to-night," said the +sailor. "It is too rough. Early in the morning the passengers will land."</p> +<p>"I wish," said Fanny with a deep sigh, as if wakening from a dream, "that the +Church of Rome was at the bottom of the sea!"</p> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> +<p>Arrived at our dock, I hurried off to catch the train for London. The +Meyricks lingered for a few weeks in Wales before coming to settle down for the +winter. I was glad of it, for I could make my arrangements unhampered. +So I carefully eliminated Clarges street from my +list of lodging-houses, and finally "ranged" myself with a neat landlady in +Sackville street.</p> +<p>How anxiously I awaited the first letter from Bessie! As the banker's clerk +handed it over the counter to me, instead of the heavy envelope I had hoped for, +it was a thin slip of an affair that fluttered away from my hand. It was so very +slim and light that I feared to open it there, lest it should be but a mocking +envelope, nothing more.</p> +<p>So I hastened back to my cab, and, ordering the man to drive to the +law-offices, tore it open as I jumped in. It enclosed simply a printed slip, cut +from some New York paper—a list of the Algeria's passengers.</p> +<p>"What joke is this?" I said as I scanned it more closely.</p> +<p>By some spite of fortune my name was printed directly after the Meyrick +party. Was it for this, this paltry thing, that Bessie has denied me a word? I +turned over the envelope, turned it inside out—not a penciled word even!</p> +<p>The shadow that I had seen on that good-bye visit to Philadelphia was clear +to me now. I had said at Lenox, repeating the words after Bessie with fatal +emphasis, "I am glad, very glad, that Fanny Meyrick is to sail in October. I +would not have her stay on this side for worlds!" Then the next day, twenty-four +hours after, I told her that I too was going abroad. Coward that I was, not to +tell her at first! She might have been sorry, vexed, but not +<i>suspicious</i>.</p> +<p>Yes, that was the ugly word I had to admit, and to admit that I had given it +room to grow.</p> +<p>My first hesitancy about taking her with me, my transfer from the Russia to +the later steamer, and, to crown all, that leaf from Fanny's pocket-book: "I +shall love him for ever and ever"!</p> +<p>And yet she <i>had</i> faith in me. She had told Fanny Meyrick we were +engaged. <i>Had she not</i>?</p> +<p>My work in London was more tedious and engrossing than I had expected. Even a +New York lawyer has much to learn of the law's delay in those pompous old +offices amid the fog. Had I been working for myself, I should have thrown up the +case in despair, but advices from our office said "Stick to it," and I +stayed.</p> +<p>Eating out my own heart with anxiety whenever I thought of my home affair, +perhaps it was well for me that I had the monotonous, musty work that required +little thought, but only a persistent plodding and a patient holding of my end +of the clue.</p> +<p>In all these weeks I had nothing from Bessie save that first cruel envelope. +Letter after letter went to her, but no response came. I wrote to Mrs. Sloman +too, but no answer. Then I bethought me of Judge Hubbard, but received in reply +a note from one of his sons, stating that his father was in Florida—that he had +communicated with him, but regretted that he was unable to give me Miss +Stewart's present address.</p> +<p>Why did I not seek Fanny Meyrick? She must have come to London long since, +and surely the girls were in correspondence. I was too proud. She knew of our +relations: Bessie had told her. I could not bring myself to reveal to her how +tangled and gloomy a mystery was between us. I could explain nothing without +letting her see that she was the unconscious cause.</p> +<p>At last, when one wretched week after another had gone by, and we were in the +new year, I could bear it no longer. "Come what will, I must know if Bessie +writes to her."</p> +<p>I went to Clarges street. My card was carried into the Meyricks' parlor, and +I followed close upon it. Fanny was sitting alone, reading by a table. She +looked up in surprise as I stood in the doorway. A little coldly, I thought, she +came forward to meet me, but her manner changed as she took my hand.</p> +<p>"I was going to scold you, Charlie, for avoiding us, for staying away so +long, but that is accounted for now. Why didn't you send us word that you were +ill? Papa is a capital nurse."</p> +<p>"But I have not been ill," I said, bewildered, "only very busy and very +anxious."</p> +<p>"I should think so," still holding my hand, and looking into my face with an +expression of deep concern. "Poor fellow! You do look worn. Come right here to +this chair by the fire, and let me take care of you. You need rest."</p> +<p>And she rang the bell. I suffered myself to be installed in the soft crimson +chair by the fire. It was such a comfort to hear a friendly voice after all +those lonely weeks! When the servant entered with a tray, I watched her +movements over the tea-cups with a delicious sense of the womanly presence and +the home-feeling stealing over me.</p> +<p>"I can't imagine what keeps papa," she said, chatting away with woman's tact: +"he always smokes after dinner, and comes up to me for his cup of tea +afterward."</p> +<p>Then, as she handed me a tiny porcelain cup, steaming and fragrant, "I should +never have congratulated you, Charlie, on board the steamer if I had known it +was going to end in this way."</p> +<p><i>This way</i>! Then Bessie must have told her.</p> +<p>"End?" I said stammering: "what—what end?"</p> +<p>"In wearing you out. Bessie told me at Lenox, the day we took that long walk, +that you had this important case, and it was a great thing for a young lawyer to +have such responsibility."</p> +<p>Poor little porcelain cup! It fell in fragments on the floor as I jumped to +my feet: "Was that <i>all</i> she told you? Didn't she tell you that we were +engaged?"</p> +<p>For a moment Fanny did not speak. The scarlet glow on her cheek, the steady +glow that was always there, died away suddenly and left her pale as ashes. +Mechanically she opened and shut the silver sugar-tongs that lay on the table +under her hand, and her eyes were fixed on me with a wild, beseeching +expression.</p> +<p>"Did you not know," I said in softer tones, still standing by the table and +looking down on her, "that day at Lenox that we were engaged? Was it not for +<i>that</i> you congratulated me on board the steamer?"</p> +<p>A deep-drawn sigh as she whispered, "Indeed, no! Oh dear! what have I +done?"</p> +<p>"You?—nothing!" I said with a sickly smile; "but there is some mistake, some +mystery. I have never had one line from Bessie since I reached London, and when +I left her she was my own darling little wife that was to be."</p> +<p>Still Fanny sat pale as ashes, looking into the fire and muttering to +herself. "Heavens! To think—Oh, Charlie," with a sudden burst, "it's all my +doing! How can I ever tell you?"</p> +<p>"You hear from Bessie, then? Is she—is she well? Where is she? What is all +this?" And I seated myself again and tried to speak calmly, for I saw that +something very painful was to be said—something that she could hardly say; and I +wanted to help her, though how I knew not.</p> +<p>At this moment the door opened and "papa" came in. He evidently saw that he +had entered upon a scene as his quick eye took in the situation, but whether I +was accepted or rejected as the future son-in-law even his penetration was at +fault to discover.</p> +<p>"Oh, papa," said Fanny, rising with evident relief, "just come and talk to +Mr. Munro while I get him a package he wants to take with him."</p> +<p>It took a long time to prepare that package. Mr. Meyrick, a cool, shrewd man +of the world, was taking a mental inventory of me, I felt all the time. I was +conscious that I talked incoherently and like a school-boy of the treaty. Every +American in London was bound to have his special opinion thereupon, and Meyrick, +I found, was of the English party. Then we discussed the special business which +had brought me to England.</p> +<p>"A very unpresentable son-in-law," I read in his eye, while he was evidently +astonished at his daughter's prolonged absence.</p> +<p>Our talk flagged and the fire grew gray in its flaky ashes before Fanny again +appeared.</p> +<p>"I know, papa, you think me very rude to keep Mr. Munro so long waiting, +but there were some special directions to go +with the packet, and it took me a long time to get them right. It is for Bessie, +papa—Bessie Stewart, Mr. Munro's dear little <i>fiancée</i>."</p> +<p>Escaping as quickly as possible from Mr. Meyrick's neatly turned +felicitations—and that the satisfaction he expressed was genuine I was prepared +to believe—hurried home to Sackville street.</p> +<p>My bedroom was always smothering in its effect on me—close draperies to the +windows, heavy curtains around the bed—and I closed the door and lighted my +candle with a sinking heart.</p> +<p>The packet was simply a long letter, folded thickly in several wrappers and +tied with a string. The letter opened abruptly:</p> +<p>"What I am going to do I am sure no woman on earth ever did before me, nor +would I save to undo the trouble I have most innocently made. What must you have +thought of me that day at Lenox, staying close all day to two engaged people, +who must have wished me away a thousand times? But I did not dream you were +engaged.</p> +<p>"Remember, I had just come over from Saratoga, and knew nothing of Lenox +gossip, then or afterward. Something in your manner once or twice made me look +at you and think that perhaps you were <i>interested</i> in Bessie, but hers to +you was so cold, so distant, that I thought it was only a notion of my jealous +self.</p> +<p>"Was I foolish to lay so much stress on that anniversary time? Do you know +that the year before we had spent it together, too?—September 28th. True, that +year it was at Bertie Cox's funeral, but we had walked together, and I was happy +in being near you.</p> +<p>"For, you see, it was from something more than the Hudson River that you had +brought me out. You had rescued me from the stupid gayety of my first +winter—from the flats of fashionable life. You had given me an ideal—something +to live up to and grow worthy of.</p> +<p>"Let that pass. For myself, it is nothing, but for the deeper harm I have +done, I fear, to Bessie and to you.</p> +<p>"Again, on that day at Lenox, when Bessie and I drove together in the +afternoon, I tried to make her talk about you, to find out what you were to her. +But she was so distant, so repellant, that I fancied there was nothing at all +between you; or, rather, if you had cared for her at all, that she had been +indifferent to you.</p> +<p>"Indeed, she quite forbade the subject by her manner; and when she told me +you were going abroad, I could not help being very happy, for I thought then +that I should have you all to myself.</p> +<p>"When I saw you on shipboard, I fancied, somehow, that you had changed your +passage to be with us. It was very foolish; and I write it, thankful that you +are not here to see me. So I scribbled a little note to Bessie, and sent it off +by the pilot: I don't know where you were when the pilot went. This is, as +nearly as I remember it, what I wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot">"'DEAR BESSIE: Charlie Munro is on board. He must have changed his + passage to be with us. I know from something that he has just told <i>me</i> + that this is so, and that he consoles himself already for your coldness. You + remember what I told you when we talked about him. I shall <i>try</i> now. + F.M.' </div> + +<p>"Bessie would know what that meant. Oh, must I tell you what a weak, weak +girl I was? When I found out at Lenox, as I thought, that Bessie did not care +for you, I said to her that once I thought you <i>had</i> cared for me, but that +papa had offended you by his manner—you weren't of an old Knickerbocker family, +you know—and had given you to understand that your visits were not +acceptable.</p> +<p>"I am sure now that it was because I wanted to think so that I put that +explanation upon your ceasing to visit me, and because papa always looked so +decidedly <i>queer</i> whenever your name was mentioned.</p> +<p>"I had always had everything in life that I wanted, and I believed that in +due time you would come back to me.</p> +<p>"Bessie knew well enough what that +pilot-letter meant, for here is her answer."</p> +<p>Pinned fast to the end of Fanny's letter, so that by no chance should I read +it first, were these words in my darling's hand:</p> +<p>"Got your pilot-letter. Aunt is much better. We shall be traveling about so +much that you need not write me the progress of your romance, but believe me I +shall be most interested in its conclusion. BESSIE S."</p> +<p>It was all explained now. My darling, so sensitive and spirited, had given +her leave "to try."</p> +<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3> +<p>But was that all? Was she wearing away the slow months in passionate unbelief +of me? I could not tell. But before I slept that night I had taken my resolve. I +would sail for home by the next steamer. The case would suffer, perhaps, by the +delay and the change of hands: D—— must come out to attend to it himself, then, +but I would suffer no longer.</p> +<p>No use to write to Bessie. I had exhausted every means to reach her save that +of the detectives. "I'll go to the office, file my papers till the next man +comes over, see Fanny Meyrick, and be off."</p> +<p>But what to say to Fanny? Good, generous girl! She had indeed done what few +women in the world would have had the courage to do—shown her whole heart to a +man who loved another. It would be an embarrassing interview; and I was not +sorry when I started out that morning that it was too early yet to call.</p> +<p>To the office first, then, I directed my steps. But here Fate lay +<i>perdu</i> and in wait for me.</p> +<p>"A letter, Mr. Munro, from D—— & Co.," said the brisk young clerk. They +had treated me with great respect of late, for, indeed, our claim was steadily +growing in weight, and was sure to come right before long. I opened and +read:</p> +<p>"The missing paper is found on this side of the Atlantic—what you have been +rummaging for all winter on the other. A trusty messenger sails at once, and +will report himself to you."</p> +<p>"At once!" Well, there's only a few days' delay, at most. Perhaps it's young +Bunker. He can take the case and end it: anybody can end it now.</p> +<p>And my heart was light. "A few days," I said to myself as I ran up the steps +in Clarges street.</p> +<p>"Miss Fanny at home?" to the man, or rather to the member of Parliament, who +opened the door—"Miss Meyrick, I mean."</p> +<p>"Yes, sir—in the drawing-room, sir;" and he announced me with a flourish.</p> +<p>Fanny sat in the window. She might have been looking out for me, for on my +entrance she parted the crimson curtains and came forward.</p> +<p>Again the clear glow in her cheek, the self-possessed Fanny of old.</p> +<p>"Charlie," she began impetuously, "I have been thinking over shipboard and +Father Shamrock, and all. You didn't think then—did you?—that I cared so very +much for you? I am so glad that the Father bewitched me as he did, for I can +remember no foolishness on my part to you, sir—none at all. Can you?"</p> +<p>Stammering, confused, I seemed to have lost my tongue and my head together. I +had expected tears, pale cheeks, a burst of self-reproach, and that I should +have to comfort and be very gentle and sympathetic. I had dreaded the +<i>rôle</i>; but here was a new turn of affairs; and, I own it, my self-love was +not a little wounded. The play was played out, that was evident. The curtain had +fallen, and here was I, a late-arrived hero of romance, the chivalric elder +brother, with all my little stock of property-phrases—friendship of a life, +esteem, etc.—of no more account than a week-old playbill.</p> +<p>For, I must confess it, I had rehearsed some little forgiveness scene, in +which I should magnanimously kiss her hand, and tell her that I should honor her +above all women for her courage and her truth; and in which she would cry +until her poor little heart was soothed and +calmed; and that I should have the sweet consciousness of being beloved, however +hopelessly, by such a brilliant, ardent soul.</p> +<p>But Mistress Fanny had quietly turned the tables on me, and I believe I was +angry enough for the moment to wish it had not been so.</p> +<p>But only for a moment. It began to dawn upon me soon, the rare tact which had +made easy the most embarrassing situation in the world—the <i>bravura</i> +style, if I may call it so, that had carried us over such a difficult bar.</p> +<p>It <i>was</i> delicacy, this careless reminder of the fascinating Father, and +perhaps there was a modicum of truth in that acknowledgment too.</p> +<p>I took my leave of Fanny Meyrick, and walked home a wiser man.</p> +<p>But the trusty messenger, who arrived three days later, was not, as I had +hoped, young Bunker or young Anybody. It was simply Mrs. D——, with a large +traveling party. They came straight to London, and summoned me at once to the +Langham Hotel.</p> +<p>I suppose I looked somewhat amazed at sight of the portly lady, whom I had +last seen driving round Central Park. But the twin Skye terriers who tumbled in +after her assured me of her identity soon enough.</p> +<p>"Mr. D—— charged me, Mr. Munro," she began after our first ceremonious +greeting, "to give this into no hands but yours. I have kept it securely with my +diamonds, and those I always carry about me."</p> +<p>From what well-stitched diamond receptacle she had extracted the paper I did +not suffer myself to conjecture, but the document was strongly perfumed with +violet powder.</p> +<p>"You see, I was coming over," she proceeded to explain, "in any event, and +when Mr. D—— talked of sending Bunker—I think it was Bunker—with us, I persuaded +him to let me be messenger instead. It wasn't worth while, you know, to have any +more people leave the office, you being away, and—Oh, Ada, my dear, here is Mr. +Munro!"</p> +<p>As Ada, a slim, willowy creature, with the <i>surprised</i> look in her eyes +that has become the fashion of late, came gliding up to me, I thought that the +reason for young Bunker's omission from the party was possibly before me.</p> +<p>Bother on her matrimonial, or rather anti-matrimonial, devices! Her maternal +solicitude lest Ada should be charmed with the poor young clerk on the passage +over had cost me weeks of longer stay. For at this stage a request for any +further transfer would have been ridiculous and wrong. As easy to settle it now +as to arrange for any one else; so the first of April found me still in London, +but leaving it on the morrow for home.</p> +<p>"Bessie is in Lenox, I think," Fanny Meyrick had said to me as I bade her +good-bye.</p> +<p>"What! You have heard from her?"</p> +<p>"No, but I heard incidentally from one of my Boston friends this morning that +he had seen her there, standing on the church steps."</p> +<p>I winced, and a deeper glow came into Fanny's cheek.</p> +<p>"You will give her my letter? I would have written to her also, but it was +indeed only this morning that I heard. You will give her that?"</p> +<p>"I have kept it for her," I said quietly; and the adieus were over.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3> +<p>Lenox again, and bluebirds darting to and fro among the maples. I had reached +the hotel at midnight. Our train was late, detained on the road, and though my +thoughts drove instantly to the Sloman cottage, I allowed the tardier +coach-horses to set me down at the hotel. I had not telegraphed from New York. I +would give her no chance to withhold herself from me, or to avoid me by running +away. There was no time for her, as yet, to have read of the ship's arrival. I +would take her unawares.</p> +<p>So, after the bountiful Nora, who presides over the comfort of her favorites, +had plied me with breakfast-cakes and milk and honey, I sauntered down toward +the Lebanon road. Yes, sauntered, for I felt that a great crisis in my life was +at hand, and at such times a wonderful calmness, almost to lethargy, possesses +me. I went slowly up the hill. The church-clock was striking nine—calm, peaceful +strokes. There was no tremor in them, no warning of what was coming. The air was +very still, and I stopped a moment to watch the bluebirds before I turned into +the Lebanon road.</p> +<p>There was the little gray cottage, with its last year's vines about it, a +withered spray here and there waving feebly as the soft April air caught it and +tossed it to and fro. No sign of life about the cottage—doors and windows tight +shut and barred. Only the little gate swung open, but that might have been the +wind. I stepped up on the porch. No sound save the echo of my steps and the +knocking of my heart. I rang the bell. It pealed violently, but there were no +answering sounds: nothing stirred.</p> +<p>I rang again, more gently, and waited, looking along the little path to the +gate. There was snow, the winter's snow, lingering about the roots of the old +elm, the one elm tree that overhung the cottage. Last winter's snow lying there, +and of the people who had lived in the house, and made it warm and bright, not a +footprint, not a trace!</p> +<p>Again I rang, and this time I heard footsteps coming round the corner of the +house. I sat down on the rustic bench by the door. If it had been Bessie's self, +I could not have stirred, I was so chilled, so awed by the blank silence. A +brown sun-bonnet, surmounting a tall, gaunt figure, came in sight.</p> +<p>"What is it?" asked the owner of the sun-bonnet in a quick, sharp voice that +seemed the prelude to "Don't want any."</p> +<p>"Where are Mrs. Sloman and Miss Stewart? Are they not in Lenox?"</p> +<p>"Miss' Sloman, she's away to Minnarsoter: ben thar' all winter for her +health. She don't cal'late to be home afore June."</p> +<p>"And Miss Stewart?—is she with her?"</p> +<p>"Miss Stewart? I dunno," said the woman, with a strange look about the +corners of her mouth. "I dunno: I never see her; and the family was all away +afore I came here to take charge. They left the kitchen-end open for me; and my +sister-in-law—that's Hiram Splinter's wife—she made all the 'rangements. But I +<i>did</i> hear," hesitating a moment, "as how Bessie Stewart was away to Shaker +Village; and some does say"—a portentous pause and clearing of her throat—"that +she's jined."</p> +<p>"<i>Joined</i>—what?" I asked, all in a mist of impatience and +perplexity.</p> +<p>"Jined the Shakers."</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" I said, recovering my breath angrily. "Where is this Hiram's +wife? Let me see her."</p> +<p>"In the back lot—there where you see the yaller house where the chimney's +smoking. That's Hiram's house. He has charge of the Gold property on the hill. +Won't you come in and warm yourself by the +fire in the kitchen? I was away to the next neighbor's, and I was sure I hear +our bell a-ringin'. Did you hev' to ring long?"</p> +<p>But I was away, striding over the cabbage-patch and climbing the worm-fence +that shut in the estate of Hiram. Some wretched mistake: the woman does not know +what she's talking about. These Splinters! they seem to have had some +communication with Mrs. Sloman: they will know.</p> +<p>Mrs. Splinter, a neat, bright-eyed woman of about twenty-five, opened the +door at my somewhat peremptory knock. I recollected her in a moment as a +familiar face—some laundress or auxiliary of the Sloman family in some way; and +she seemed to recognize me as well: "Why! it's Mr. Munro! Walk in, sir, and sit +down," dusting off a chair with her apron as she spoke.</p> +<p>"Miss Stewart—where is she? <i>You</i> know."</p> +<p>"Miss Stewart?" said the woman, sinking down into a chair and looking greatly +disturbed. "Miss Stewart's gone to live with the Shakers. My husband drove her +over with his team—her and her trunk."</p> +<p>"Why, where was her aunt? Did Mrs. Sloman know? Why isn't Miss Bessie with +her?"</p> +<p>"Miss' Sloman said all she could—<i>afterward</i> I guess," said the woman, +wiping her eyes, "but 'twan't no use then. You see, Miss' Sloman had jined a +party that was goin' to Minnesota—while she was in Philadelfy, that was—and Miss +Stewart she wasn't goin'. She reckoned she'd spend the winter here in the house. +Miss' Sloman's maid—that's Mary—was goin' with her to the West, and I was to +hire my sister-in-law to take charge of things here, so that Miss Bessie could +have her mind free-like to come and go. But afore ever Mary Jane—that's my +sister-in-law—could come over from Lee, where she was livin' out, Miss Bessie +comes up and opens the house. She stayed there about a week, and she had lots of +company while she was here. I think she got tired. They was people that was just +goin' to sail for Europe, and as soon as they went she just shut up and told me +to send for Mary Jane to take care of things. So Mary Jane never see her, and +perhaps she giv' you a crooked answer, sir, if you was inquirin' of her over to +the cottage."</p> +<p>"Where's Hiram? where's your husband? Can I have his team this morning?"</p> +<p>"I guess so," said the sympathetic Mrs. Splinter. "He'll show you the very +house he druv' her to."</p> +<p>Hiram was hunted for and found; and an hour later I was bowling along the +Lebanon road behind the bay team he was so proud of. I had concluded to take +him with me, as he could identify places and people, and I knew well what +castles the Shaker houses are for the world's people outside. Hiram was full of +talk going over. He seemed to have been bottling it up, and I was the first +auditor for his wrath. "I know 'm," he said, cracking his whip over his horses' +heads. "They be sharp at a bargain, they be. If they've contrived to get a hold +on Bessie Stewart, property and all, it'll go hard on 'em to give her up."</p> +<p>"A <i>hold</i> on Bessie!" What dreadful words! I bade him sharply hold his +tongue and mind his horses, but he went on muttering in an undertone, "Yo'll +see, yo'll see! You're druv' pretty hard, young man, I expect, so I won't think +nothing of your ha'sh words, and we'll get her out, for all Elder Nebson."</p> +<p>So Hiram, looked out along the road from under his huge fur-cap, and up hill +and down. The miles shortened, until at last the fair houses and barns of the +Shaker village came in sight. A sleeping village, one would have thought. Nobody +in the road save one old man, who eyed us suspiciously through the back of a +chair he was carrying.</p> +<p>"It must be dinner-time, I think," said Hiram as he drove cautiously along. +Stopping at a house near the bridge: "Now this is the very house. Just you go +right up and knock at that 'ere door."</p> +<p>I knocked. In a twinkling the door was +opened by a neat Shaker sister, whose round, smiling face was flushed, as though +she had just come from cooking dinner. I stepped across the threshold: "Bessie +Stewart is here. Please say to her that a friend—a friend from England—wishes to +see her."</p> +<p>"Sure," said the motherly-faced woman, for she was sweet and motherly in +spite of her Shaker garb, "I'll go and see."</p> +<p>Smilingly she ushered me into a room at the left of the hall. "Take seat, +please;" and with a cheerful alacrity she departed, closing the door gently +behind her.</p> +<p>"Well," thought I, "this is pleasant: no bolts or bars here. I'm sure of one +friend at court."</p> +<p>I had leisure to observe the apartment—the neatly-scrubbed floor, with one +narrow cot bed against the wall, a tall bureau on which some brown old books +were lying, and the little dust-pan and dust-brush on a brass nail in the +corner. There was a brightly polished stove with no fire in it, and some +straight-backed chairs of yellow wood stood round the room. An open door into a +large, roomy closet showed various garments of men's apparel hanging upon the +wall. The plain thermometer in the window casement seemed the one article of +luxury or ornament in the apartment. I believe I made my observations on all +these things aloud, concluding with, "Oh, Bessie! Bessie! you shall not stay +here." I know that I was startled enough by the apparition of a man standing in +the open closet door. He must have been within it at my entrance, and had heard +all I said.</p> +<p>He came forward, holding out his hand—very friendly apparently. Then, +requesting me to be seated, he drew out a chair from the wall and sat down, +tilting it back on two legs and leaning against the wall, with his hands folded +before him. Some commonplace remark about the weather, which I answered, led to +a rambling conversation, in which he expressed the greatest curiosity as to +worldly matters, and asked several purely local questions about the city of New +York. Perhaps his ignorance was feigned. I do not know, but I found myself +relating, <i>ŕ la</i> Stanley-Livingstone, some of the current events of the +day. His face was quite intelligent, tanned with labor in the fields, and his +brown eyes were kind and soft, like those of some dumb animals. I note his eyes +here especially, as different in expression from those of others of his +sect.</p> +<p>Several times during the conversation I heard footsteps in the hall, and +darted from my seat, and finally, in my impatience, began to pace the floor. +Kindly as he looked, I did not wish to question the man about Bessie. I would +rely upon the beaming portress, whose "<i>Sure</i>" was such an earnest of her +good-will. Moreover, a feeling of contempt, growing out of pity, was taking +possession of me. This man, in what did he differ from the Catholic priest save +in the utter selfishness of his creed? Beside the sordid accumulation of gain to +which his life was devoted the priest's mission among crowded alleys and +fever-stricken lanes seemed luminous and grand. A moral suicide, with no +redeeming feature. The barns bursting with fatness, the comfortable houses, gain +added to gain—to what end? I was beginning to give very short answers indeed to +his questions, and was already meditating a foray through the rest of the house, +when the door opened slowly and a lady-abbess entered. She was stiff and +stately, with the most formal neckerchief folded precisely over her straitened +bust, a clear-muslin cap concealing her hair, and her face, stony, blue-eyed and +cold—a pale, frozen woman standing stately there.</p> +<p>"Bessie Stewart?" said I. "She is here—I know it. Do not detain her. I must +see her. Why all this delay?"</p> +<p>"Dost thou mean Sister Eliza?" she asked in chilling tones.</p> +<p>"No, nobody's sister—least of all a sister here—but the young lady who came +over here from Lenox two months ago—Bessie Stewart, Mrs. Sloman's niece." (I +knew that Mrs. Sloman was quite familiar with some of the Shakeresses, and +visited them at times.)</p> +<p>Very composedly the sister took a chair and folded her hands across her +outspread handkerchief before she spoke again. I noticed at this moment that her +dress was just the color of her eyes, a pale, stony blue.</p> +<p>"Sister Eliza: it is the same," in measured accents. "She is not here: she +has gone—to Watervliet."</p> +<p>Can this be treachery? I thought, and is she still in the house? Will they +hide from her that I am here? But there was no fathoming the woman's cold blue +eyes.</p> +<p>"To Watervliet?" I inquired dismally. "How? when? how did she go?"</p> +<p>"She went in one of our wagons: Sister Leah and Brother Ephraim went +along."</p> +<p>"When will they return?"</p> +<p>"I cannot say."</p> +<p>All this time the man was leaning back against the wall, but uttered not a +word. A glance of triumph shot from the sister's eyes as I rose. But she was +mistaken if she thought I was going away. I stepped to the window, and throwing +it open called to Hiram, who was still sitting in his wagon, chewing composedly +a bit of straw. He leaped out in an instant, and leaning out to him I rapidly +repeated in an undertone the previous conversation: "What would you do?"</p> +<p>"Ten chances to one it's a lie. Tell 'em you'll set there till you see her. +They can't shake us off that way."</p> +<p>I drew in my head. The pair still sat as before. "Well," said I, "as I +<i>must</i> see her, and as you seem so uncertain about it, I will wait +here."</p> +<p>And again I took my seat. The sister's face flushed. I had meant no rudeness +in my tone, but she must have detected the suspicion in it. She crimsoned to her +temples, and said hastily, "It is impossible for us to entertain strangers +to-day. A brother is dying in the house: we are all waiting for him to pass away +from moment to moment. We can submit to no intrusion."</p> +<p>Well, perhaps it was an intrusion. It was certainly their house if it did +hold my darling. I looked at her steadily: "Are you sure that Bessie Stewart has +gone away from here?"</p> +<p>"To Watervliet—yea," she answered composedly. "She left here last week."</p> +<p>My skill at cross-examination was at fault. If that woman was lying, she +would be a premium witness. "I should be sorry, madam," I said, recalling the +world's etiquette, which I had half forgotten, "to intrude upon you at this or +any other time, but I cannot leave here in doubt. Will you oblige me by stating +the exact hour and day at which Miss Stewart is expected to return from +Watervliet, and the road thither?"</p> +<p>She glanced across the room. Answering the look, the man spoke, for the first +time since she had entered: "The party, I believe, will be home to-night."</p> +<p>"And she with them?"</p> +<p>"Yea, unless she has elected to remain."</p> +<p>"At what hour?"</p> +<p>"I cannot tell."</p> +<p>"By what road shall I meet her?"</p> +<p>"There are two roads: we generally use the river-road."</p> +<p>"To-night? I will go to meet her. By the river-road, you say?"</p> +<p>"Yea."</p> +<p>"And if I do not meet her?"</p> +<p>"If thou dost not meet her," said the lady-abbess, answering calmly, "it will +be because she is detained on the road."</p> +<p>I had to believe her, and yet I was very skeptical. As I walked out of the +door the man was at my heels. He followed me out on to the wooden stoop and +nodded to Hiram.</p> +<p>"Who is that, Hiram?" I whispered as he leaned across the back of a horse, +adjusting some leathern buckle.</p> +<p>"That?" said Hiram under his breath. "That's a deep 'un: that's Elder +Nebson."</p> +<p>Great was the dissatisfaction of the stout-hearted Splinter at my retreat, as +he called it, from the enemy's ground.</p> +<p>"I'd ha' liked nothin' better than to beat up them quarters. I thought every +minit' you'd be calling me, and was ready to go in." And he clenched his fist in +a way that showed unmistakably how he would have "gone in" had he +been summoned. By this time we were driving on +briskly toward the river-road. "You wa'n't smart, I reckon, to leave that there +house. It was your one chance, hevin' got in. Ten chances to one she's hid away +som'eres in one of them upper rooms," and he pointed to a row of dormer-windows, +"not knowin' nothin' of your bein' there."</p> +<p>"Stop!" I said with one foot on the shafts. "You don't mean to say she is +shut up there?"</p> +<p>"Shet up? No: they be too smart for that. But there's plenty ways to shet a +young gal's eyes an' ears 'thout lockin' of her up. How'd she know who was in +this wagon, even if she seed it from her winders? To be sure, I made myself +conspicuous enough, a-whistlin' 'Tramp, tramp,' and makin' the horses switch +round a good deal. But, like enough, ef she'd be down-spereted-like, she'd never +go near the winder, but just set there, a-stitchin' beads on velvet or +a-plattin' them mats."</p> +<p>"Why should she work?" I asked, with my grasp still on the reins.</p> +<p>"Them all does," he answered, taking a fresh bite of the straw. "It's the +best cure for sorrow, they say. Or mebbe she's a-teachin' the children. I see a +powerful sight of children comin' along while you was in there talkin', a-goin' +to their school, and I tried to ask some o' them about her. But the old sheep +who was drivin' on 'em looked at me like vinegar, and I thought I'd better shet +up, or mebbe she'd give the alarm that we was here with horses and wagon to +carry her off."</p> +<p>I had a painful moment of indecision as Hiram paused in his narrative and +leisurely proceeded to evict a fly from the near horse's ear. "I think we'll go +on, Hiram," I said, jumping back to my seat again. "Take the river-road."</p> +<p>Hiram had brought plentiful provision for his horses in a bag under the seat. +"Victualed for a march or a siege," he said as he dragged out a tin kettle from +the same receptacle when we drew up by the roadside an hour after. "We're clear +of them pryin' Shakers, and we'll just rest a spell."</p> +<p>I could not demur, though my impatience was urging me on faster than his +hungry horses could go.</p> +<p>"I told Susan," he said, "to put me up a bit of pie and cheese—mebbe we +wouldn't be back afore night. Won't you hev' some?—there's a plenty."</p> +<p>But I declined the luncheon, and while he munched away contentedly, and while +the horses crunched their corn, I got out and walked on, telling Hiram to follow +at his leisure. My heart beat fast as I espied a wagon in the distance with +one—yes, two—Shaker bonnets in it. Bessie in masquerade! Perhaps so—it could not +be the other: that would be too horrible. But she was coming, surely coming, and +the cold prim sister had told the truth, after all.</p> +<p>The wagon came nearer. In it were two weather-beaten dames, neither of whom +could possibly be mistaken for Bessie in disguise; and the lank, long-haired +brother who was driving them looked ignorant as a child of anything save the +management of his horses. I hailed them, and the wagon drew up at the side of +the road.</p> +<p>It was the women who answered in shrill, piping voices: "Ben to Watervliet? +Nay, they'd ben driving round the country, selling garden seeds."</p> +<p>"Did they know Bessie Stewart, who was staying in the Shaker village, in the +house by the bridge?"</p> +<p>"Sure, there had ben a stranger woman come there some time ago: they could +not tell—never heerd her name."</p> +<p>I was forced to let them drive on after I had exhausted every possible +inquiry, trusting that Hiram, who was close behind, would have keener wit in +questioning them, but Hiram, as it happened, did not come up to them at all. +They must have turned off into some farm-house lane before they passed him. The +afternoon wore on. It grew toward sunset, and still we kept the river-road. +There was no trace of the Shaker wagon, and indeed the road was growing wild and +lonely.</p> +<p>"I tell you what," said Hiram, stopping suddenly, "these beasts can't go on +for ever, and then turn round and come back +again. I'll turn here, and drive to the little tavern we passed about two mile +back, and stable 'em, and then you and me can watch the road."</p> +<p>It was but reasonable, and I had to assent, though to turn back seemed an +evil omen, and to carry me away from Bessie. The horses were stabled, and I +meanwhile paced the broad open sweep in front of the tavern, across which the +lights were shining. Hiram improved the opportunity to eat a hearty supper, +urging me to partake. But as I declined, in my impatience, to take my eyes off +the road, he brought me out a bowl of some hot fluid and something on a plate, +which I got through with quickly enough, for the cool evening air had sharpened +my appetite. I rested the bowl on the broad bench beside the door, while Hiram +went backward and forward with the supplies.</p> +<p>"Now," said he as I finished at last, still keeping my eye upon the road, +"you go in and take a turn lyin' down: I'll watch the road. I'm a-goin' to see +this thing out."</p> +<p>But I was not ready to sleep yet; so, yielding to my injunction, he went in, +and I seated myself, wrapped in a buffalo robe from the wagon. The night was +damp and chill.</p> +<p>"Hedn't you better set at the window?" said the kind-hearted landlady, +bustling out. Hiram had evidently told her the story.</p> +<p>"Oh no, thank you;" for I was impatient of walls and tongues, and wanted to +be alone with my anxiety.</p> +<p>What madness was this in Bessie? She could not, oh she could not, have thrown +her life away! What grief and disquiet must have driven her into this refuge! +Poor little soul, scorched and racked by distrust and doubt! if she could not +trust me, whom should she trust?</p> +<p>The household noises ceased one by one; the clump of willows by the river +grew darker and darker; the stars came out and shone with that magnetic +brilliancy that fixes our gaze upon them, leading one to speculate on their +influence, and—</p> +<p>A hand on my shoulder: Hiram with a lantern turned full upon my face. "'Most +one o'clock," he said, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Come to take my turn. Have +you seen nothing?"</p> +<p>"Nothing," I said, staggering to my feet, which felt like lead—"nothing."</p> +<p>I did not confess it, but to this hour I cannot tell whether I had been +nodding for one minute or ten. I kept my own counsel as I turned over the watch +to Hiram, but a suspicion shot through me that perhaps that wagon had gone by, +after all, in the moment that I had been off guard.</p> +<p>Hiram kept the watch faithfully till five that morning, when I too was +stirring. One or two teams had passed, but no Shaker wagon rattling through the +night. We breakfasted in the little room that overlooked the road. Outside, at +the pump, a lounging hostler, who had been bribed to keep a sharp lookout for a +Shaker wagon, whistled and waited too.</p> +<p>"Tell you what," said Hiram, bolting a goodly rouleau of ham and eggs, "I've +got an idee. You and me might shilly-shally here on this road all day, and what +surety shall we hev' that they hevn't gone by the other road. Old gal said there +was two?"</p> +<p>"Yes, but the folks here say that the other is a wild mountain-road, and not +much used."</p> +<p>"Well, you see they comes down by the boat a piece, or they <i>may</i> cut +across the river at Greenbush. They have queer ways. Now, mebbe they <i>have</i> +come over that mountain-road in the night, while you and me was a-watchin' this +like ferrits. In that case she's safe and sound at Shaker Village, not knowin' +anything of your coming; and Elder Nebson and that other is laughin' in their +sleeves at us."</p> +<p>"Perhaps so."</p> +<p>"Now, this is my advice, but I'll do just as you say. 'Tain't no good to lay +around and watch that ere house <i>to day</i>. Ef we hedn't been in such a white +heat, we might just hev' hid round in the neighborhood <i>there</i> till she +came along. But it's too late, for that now. Let's you +and me lay low till Sunday. She'll be sure to go to meetin' on +Sunday ef she's there, and you can quietly slip in and see if she is. And to +shut their eyes up, so that they won't suspect nothin', we'll leave a message on +one of your pasteboards that you're very sorry not to hev' seen her, drefful +sorry, but that you can't wait no longer, and you are off. They'll think you're +off for York: you've got York on your cards, hevn't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"You just come and stay to my house: we'll make you comfortable, and there's +only one day longer to wait. This is Friday, be'ent it? You'd best not be seen +around to the hotel, lest any of their spies be about. They do a powerful sight +o' drivin' round the country this time o' year. And then, you see, ef on Sunday +she isn't there, you can go over to Watervliet, or we'll search them +houses—whichever you choose."</p> +<p>There seemed no help for it but to take Hiram's advice. We drove homeward +through the Shaker village, and drew up at the house again. This time the door +was opened by a bent, sharp little Creole, as I took her to be: the beaming +portress of the day before had been relieved at her post.</p> +<p>"Nay, Bessie Stewart was not at home: she would go and inquire for me when +she was expected."</p> +<p>"No," I said carelessly, not wishing to repeat the scene of yesterday and to +present myself, a humiliated failure, before the two elders again—"no: give her +this card when she does come, and tell her I could stay no longer."</p> +<p>I had not written any message on the card, for the message, indeed, was not +for Bessie, but for the others. She would interpret it that I was in the +neighborhood, anxious and waiting: she would understand.</p> +<p>"Home, then, Hiram," as I took my seat beside him. "We'll wait till +Sunday."</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3> +<p>"You'd better eat sum'thin'," said Hiram over the breakfast-table on Sunday +morning. "Got a good long drive afore you, and mebbe a good day's work besides. +No? Well, then, Susan, you put the apple-brandy into the basket, and some of +them rusks, for I reckon we'll hev' work with this young man afore night."</p> +<p>Susan, bless her good heart! wanted to go along, and as Hiram's excitement +was evidently at the highest pitch, he consented that she should occupy the back +seat of the wagon: "P'raps Miss Stewart'll feel more comfortable about leavin' +when she sees there's a woman along."</p> +<p>It was a rainy morning, and there were but few wagons on the road. Arrived at +the village, we encountered one little procession after another of broad-brim +straws and Shaker bonnets turning out of the several houses as we drove past. +They stepped along quickly, and seemed to take no notice of us.</p> +<p>"Reckon we're the only visitors to-day," whispered Hiram as he stopped at the +horseblock in front of the meeting-house. "You know where you hev' to set—on the +left-hand side; and Susan, she goes to the right."</p> +<p>I followed Susan up the steps, and she hastened, as ordered, to the right, +while I took my seat on one of the back benches of the left, against the wall. +It was a barn-like structure, large, neat and exquisitely chill. Two large +stoves on either side possibly had fire in them—an old man who looked like an +ancient porter went to them from time to time and put on coal—but the very walls +reflected a chill, blue glare. The roof was lofty and vaulted, and added to the +hollow coldness of the hall. The whole apartment was clean to sanctity, and in +its straitness and blank dreariness no unfit emblem of the faith it +embodied.</p> +<p>Around three sides of the hall, and facing the benches for visitors, the +Shaker fraternity were ranged. The hats and straight straw bonnets hung +decorously upon the wall over their heads: here and there a sky-blue shawl or +one of faded lilac hung beneath the headgear. Across the wide apartment it was +difficult to distinguish faces. I scanned +closely the sisterhood—old, withered faces most of them, with here and there one +young and blooming—but no Bessie as yet. Still, they were coming in continually +through the side door: she might yet appear. I recognized my lady-abbess, who +sat directly facing me, in a seat of state apparently, and close to her, on the +brethren's side of the house, was Elder Nebson.</p> +<p>The services began. All rose, and sisters and brethren faced each other and +sang a hymn, with no accompaniment and no melody—a harsh chant in wild, barbaric +measure. Then, after a prayer, they entered upon the peculiar method of their +service. Round and round the room they trooped in two large circles, sister +following sister, brother brother, keeping time with their hanging hands to the +rhythm of the hymn. Clustered in the centre was a little knot of men and women, +the high dignitaries, who seemed to lead the singing with their clapping +hands.</p> +<p>The circles passed each other and wove in and out, each preserving its +unbroken continuity. I looked for Elder Nebson: could it be that he was joining +in these gyrations? Yes, he was leading one of the lines. But I noticed that his +hands moved mechanically, not with the spasmodic fervor of the rest, and that +his eyes, instead of the dull, heavy stare of his fellows, sought with faithful +yet shy constancy the women's ranks. And as the women filed past me, wringing +their hands, I scrutinized each face and figure—the sweet-faced portress, the +shrunken little creole ("A mulatto, she is," Hiram whispered—he had taken his +seat beside me—"and very powerful, they say, among 'em"), and some fair young +girls; two or three of these with blooming cheeks bursting frankly through the +stiff bordering of their caps. But I saw not the face I sought.</p> +<p>"Them children! Ain't it awful?" muttered Hiram as a file of blue-coat boys +shambled past, with hair cut square across their foreheads and bleached white +with the sun. "Ain't got a grain of sense! Look at 'em!—all crowded clean out by +the Shaker schools."</p> +<p>And surely they were a most unpromising little crowd. Waifs, snatched +probably from some New York whirlpool of iniquity, and wearing the brute mark on +their faces, which nothing in this school of their transplanting tended to +erase—a sodden little party, like stupid young beasts of burden, uncouth and +awkward.</p> +<p>As the girls came round again, and I had settled it in my mind that there was +certainly no Bessie in the room, I could watch them more calmly. Eagerly as I +sought her face, it was a relief, surely, that it was not there. Pale to +ghastliness, most of them, with high, sharpened shoulders, and features set like +those of a corpse, it was indeed difficult to realize that these ascetic forms, +these swaying devotees, were women—women who might else have been wives and +mothers. Some of them wore in their hollow eyes an expression of ecstasy akin to +madness, and there was not a face there that was not saintly pure.</p> +<p>It was a strange union that assembled under one roof these nun-like +creatures, wasted and worn with their rigid lives, and the heavy, brutish men, +who shambled round the room like plough-horses. <i>Wicked</i> eyes some of them +had, mere slits through which a cunning and selfish spirit looked out. Some +faces there were of power, but in them the disagreeable traits were even more +strongly marked: the ignorant, narrow foreheads were better, less responsible, +it seemed.</p> +<p>The singing ended, there was a sermon from a high priest who stood out +imperious among his fellows. But this was not a sermon to the flock. It was +aimed at the scanty audience of strangers with words of unblushing directness. +How men and women may continue pure in the constant hearing and repetition of +such revolting arguments and articles of faith is matter of serious question. +The divine instincts of maternity, the sweet attractions of human love, were +thrown down and stamped under foot in the mud of this man's mind; and at each +peroration, exhorting his hearers to shake off Satan, a strong convulsive shiver +ran through the assembly.</p> +<p>"Bessie is certainly not here: possibly +she's still at Watervliet," I whispered to; Hiram +as the concluding hymn began. "But I'll have a chance at Elder Nebson and that +woman before they leave; the house."</p> +<p>The rain had ceased for some time, and as again the wild chant went up from +those harsh strained voices, a stray sunbeam, like a gleam of good promise, shot +across the floor. But what was this little figure stealing in through a +side-door and joining the circling throng?—a figure in lilac gown, with the +stiff muslin cap and folded neckerchief. She entered at the farthest corner of +the room, and I watched her approach with beating heart. Something in the easy +step was familiar, and yet it could not be. She passed around with the rest in +the inner circle, and, leaning forward, I held my breath lest indeed it might be +she.</p> +<p>The circle opened, and again the long line of march around the room. The +lilac figure came nearer and nearer, and now I see her face. It is Bessie!</p> +<p>With a cry I sprang up, but with a blow, a crash, a horrible darkness swept +over me like a wave, and I knew nothing.</p> +<p>When I came to myself I was lying on a bed in a room that was new to me. A +strong light, as of the setting sun, shone upon the whitewashed wall. There was +a little table, over which hung a looking-glass, surmounted by two fans of +turkey feathers. I stared feebly at the fans for a while, and then closed my +eyes again.</p> +<p>Where was I? I had a faint remembrance of jolting in a wagon, and of pitying +faces bent over me, but where was I now? Again I opened my eyes, and noted the +gay patchwork covering of the bed, and the green paper curtain of the window in +the golden wall—green, with a tall yellow flower-pot on it, with sprawling roses +of blue and red. Turning with an effort toward the side whence all the +brightness came, in a moment two warm arms were round my neck, and a face that I +could not see was pressed close to mine.</p> +<p>"Oh, Charlie, Charlie! forgive, forgive me for being so bad!"</p> +<p>"Bessie," I answered dreamingly, and seemed to be drifting away again. But a +strong odor of pungent salts made my head tingle again, and when I could open my +eyes for the tears they rested on my darling's face—my own darling in a soft +white dress, kneeling by my bedside, with both her arms round me. A vigorous +patting of the pillow behind me revealed Mrs. Splinter, tearful too: "He's come +to now. Don't bother him with talk, Miss Bessie. I'll fetch the tea."</p> +<p>And with motherly insistance she brought me a steaming bowl of beef-tea, +while I still lay, holding Bessie's hand, with a feeble dawning that the vision +was real.</p> +<p>"No," she said as Bessie put out her arm for the bowl, "you prop up his head. +I've got a steddyer hand: you'd just spill it all over his go-to-meetin' +suit."</p> +<p>I looked down at myself. I was still dressed in the clothes that I had +worn—when was it? last week?—when I had started for the Shaker meeting.</p> +<p>"How long?" I said feebly.</p> +<p>"Only this morning, you darling boy, it all happened; and here we are, snug +at Mrs. Splinter's, and Mary Jane is getting the cottage ready for us as fast as +ever she can."</p> +<p>How good that beef-tea was! Bessie knew well what would give it the <i>sauce +piquante</i>. "Ready for us!"</p> +<p>"Here's the doctor at last," said Hiram, putting his head in at the door. +"Why, hillo! are we awake?"</p> +<p>"The doctor! Dr. Wilder?" I said beamingly. How good of Bessie! how +thoughtful!</p> +<p>"Not Dr. Wilder, you dear old boy!" said Bessie, laughing and blushing, +"though I sha'n't scold you, Charlie, for that!" in a whisper in my ear. "It's +Dr. Bolster of Lee. Hiram has been riding all over the country for him this +afternoon."</p> +<p>"I'll go down to him," I said, preparing to rise.</p> +<p>"No you won't;" and Mrs. Splinter's strong arm, as well as Bessie's soft +hand, patted me down again.</p> +<p>Dr. Bolster pronounced, as well he might, that all danger was over. The +blow on my head—I must have struck it with force +against the projecting window-shelf as I sprang up—was enough to have stunned +me; but the doctor, I found, was inclined to theorize: "A sudden vertigo, a +dizziness: the Shaker hymns and dances have that effect sometimes upon persons +viewing them for the first time. Or perhaps the heat of the room." He calmly +fingered my pulse for a few seconds, with his fat ticking watch in his other +hand, and then retired to the bureau to write a prescription, which I was +indignantly prepared to repudiate. But Bessie, in a delightful little pantomime, +made signs to me to be patient: we could throw it all out of the window +afterward if need be.</p> +<p>"A soothing draught, and let him keep quiet for a day or so, will be all that +is required. I will call to-morrow if you would prefer it."</p> +<p>"We will send you a note, doctor, to-morrow morning: he seems so much +stronger already that perhaps it will not be necessary to make you take such a +long drive."</p> +<p>"Yes, yes, I'm very busy. You send me word whether to come or not."</p> +<p>And bustlingly the good doctor departed, with Mrs. Splinter majestically +descending to hold whispered conference with him at the gate.</p> +<p>"Charlie, I <i>will</i> send for Dr. Wilder if you are ready, for I'm never +going to leave you another minute as long as we live."</p> +<p>"I think," said I, laughing, "that I should like to stand up first on my +feet; that is, if I have any feet."</p> +<p>What a wonderful prop and support was Bessie! How skillfully she helped me to +step once, twice, across the floor! and when I sank down, very tired, in the +comfortable easy-chair by the window, she knelt on the floor beside me and +bathed my forehead with fragrant cologne, that certainly did not come from Mrs. +Splinter's tall bottle of lavender compound on the bureau.</p> +<p>"Oh, my dear boy, I have <i>so</i> much to say! Where shall I begin?"</p> +<p>"At the end," I said quietly. "Send for Dr. Wilder."</p> +<p>"But don't you want to hear what a naughty girl—"</p> +<p>"No, I want to hear nothing but 'I, Elizabeth, take thee—'"</p> +<p>"But I've been so very jealous, so suspicious and angry. <i>Don't</i> you +want to hear how bad I am?"</p> +<p>"No," I said, closing the discussion after an old fashion of the Sloman +cottage, "not until we two walk together to the Ledge to-morrow, my little wife +and I."</p> +<p>"Where's a card—your card, Charlie? It would be more proper-like, as Mrs. +Splinter would say, for you to write it."</p> +<p>"I will try," I said, taking out a card-case from my breast-pocket. As I drew +it forth my hand touched a package, Fanny Meyrick's packet. Shall I give it to +her now? I hesitated. No, we'll be married first in the calm faith that each has +in the other to-day, needing no outward assurance or written word.</p> +<p>I penciled feebly, with a very shaky hand, my request that the doctor would +call at Hiram Splinter's, at his earliest convenience that evening, to perform +the ceremony of marriage between his young friend, Bessie Stewart, and the +subscriber. Hiram's eldest son, a youth of eight, was swinging on the gate under +our window. To him Bessie entrusted the card, with many injunctions to give it +into no other hands than the doctor's own.</p> +<p>In less time than we had anticipated, as we looked out of the window at the +last pink glow of the sunset, the urchin reappeared, walking with great strides +beside a spare little-figure, whom we recognized as the worthy doctor +himself.</p> +<p>"Good gracious! he <i>is</i> in a hurry!" said Bessie, retiring hastily from +the window; "and we have not said a word to Mrs. Splinter yet!"</p> +<p>We had expected the little doctor would wait below until the bridal-party +should descend; but no, he came directly up stairs, and walked into the room +without prelude. He took Bessie in his arms with fatherly tenderness: "Ah, you +runaway! so you've come back at last?"</p> +<p>"Yes, doctor, and don't you let go of her until you have married her fast to +me."</p> +<p>"Ahem!" said the doctor, clearing his throat, "that is just what I came to +advise you about. Hiram told me this afternoon of the chase you two had had, and +of your illness this morning. Now, as it is half over the village by this time +that Bessie Stewart has been rescued from the Shaker village by a chivalrous +young gentleman, and as everybody is wild with impatience to know the +<i>dénoűment</i>, I want you to come down quietly to the church this evening and +be married after evening service."</p> +<p>"To please everybody?" I said, in no very pleasant humor.</p> +<p>"I think it will be wisest, best; and I am sure this discreetest of women," +still holding Bessie's hand, "will agree with me. You need not sit through the +service. Hiram can bring you down after it has begun; and you may sit in the +vestry till the clerk calls you. I'll preach a short sermon to-night," with a +benignant chuckle.</p> +<p>He had his will. Some feeling that it would please Mrs. Sloman best, the only +person besides ourselves whom it concerned us to please, settled it in Bessie's +mind, although she anxiously inquired several times before the doctor left if I +felt equal to going to church. Suppose I should faint on the way?</p> +<p>I was equal to it, for I took a long nap on the sofa in Mrs. Splinter's +parlor through the soft spring twilight, while Bessie held what seemed to me +interminable conferences with Mary Jane.</p> +<p>It was not a brilliant ceremony so far as the groom was concerned. As we +stood at the chancel-rail I am afraid that the congregation, largely augmented, +by this time, by late-comers—for the doctor had spread the news through the +village far and wide—thought me but a very pale and quiet bridegroom.</p> +<p>But the bride's beauty made amends for all. Just the same soft white dress of +the afternoon—or was it one like it?—with no ornaments, no bridal veil. I have +always pitied men who have to plight their troth to a moving mass of lace and +tulle, weighed down with orange-blossoms massive as lead. This was my own little +wife as she would walk by my side through life, dressed as she might be the next +day and always.</p> +<p>But the next day it was the tartan cloak that she wore, by special request, +as we climbed the hill to the Ledge. It was spring indeed—bluebirds in the air, +and all the sky shone clear and warm.</p> +<p>"Let <i>me</i> begin," said my wife as she took her old seat under the +sheltering pine. "You can't have anything to say, Charlie, in comparison with +me."</p> +<p>There was a short preliminary pause, and then she began.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3> +<p>"Well, after you wouldn't take me to Europe, you know—"</p> +<p>"You naughty girl!"</p> +<p>"No interruptions, sir. After you <i>couldn't</i> take me to Europe I felt +very much hurt and wounded, and ready to catch at any straw of suspicion. I ran +away from you that night and left you in the parlor, hoping that you would call +me back, and yet longing to hide myself from you too. You understand?"</p> +<p>"Yes, let us not dwell on that."</p> +<p>"Well, I believe I never thought once of Fanny Meyrick's going to Europe too +until she joined us on the road that day—you remember?—at the washerwoman's +gate."</p> +<p>"Yes; and do <i>you</i> remember how Fidget and I barked at her with all our +hearts?"</p> +<p>"I was piqued then at the air of ownership Fanny seemed to assume in you. She +had just come to Lenox, I knew; she could know nothing of our intimacy, our +relations; and this seemed like the renewal of something old—something that had +been going on before. Had she any claim on you? I wondered. And then, too, you +were so provokingly reticent about her whenever her name had been mentioned +before."</p> +<p>"Was I? What a fool I was! But, Bessie dear, I could not say to even you, +then, that I believed Fanny Meyrick was in—cared a great deal for me."</p> +<p>"I understand," said Bessie nodding. "We'll skip that, and take it for +granted. But you see <i>I</i> couldn't take +anything for granted but just what I saw that day; and the little +memorandum-book and Fanny's reminiscences nearly killed me. I don't know how I +sat through it all. I tried to avoid you all the rest of the day. I wanted to +think, and to find out the truth from Fanny."</p> +<p>"I should think you <i>did</i> avoid me pretty successfully, leaving me to +dine coldly at the hotel, and then driving all the afternoon till +train-time."</p> +<p>"It was in talking to Fanny that afternoon that I discovered how she felt +toward you. She has no concealment about her, not any, and I could read her +heart plainly enough. But then she hinted at her father's treatment of you; +thought he had discouraged you, rebuffed you, and reasoned so that I fairly +thought there might be truth in it, <i>remembering it was before you knew +me."</i></p> +<p>"Listen one minute, Bessie, till I explain that. It's my belief, and always +was, that that shrewd old fellow, Henry Meyrick, saw very clearly how matters +were all along—saw how the impetuous Miss Fanny was—"</p> +<p>"<i>Falling in love</i>: don't pause for a 'more tenderer word,' Charlie. Sam +Weller couldn't find any."</p> +<p>"Well, falling in love, if you <i>will</i> say it—and that it was decidedly a +difficult situation for me. I remember so well that night on the piazza, when +Fanny clung about me like a mermaid, he bade her sharply go and change her +dripping garments, and what Fanny calls 'a decidedly queer' expression came into +his face. He could not say anything, poor old chap! and he always behaved with +great courtesy to me. I am sure he divined that I was a most unimpassioned actor +in that high-comedy plunge into the Hudson."</p> +<p>"Very well: I believe it, I'm sure, but, you see, how could I know then what +was or was not true? Then it was that I resolved to give you leave—or rather +give her leave to try. I had written my note in the morning, saying <i>no</i> +finally to the Europe plan, and I scrawled across it, in lead-pencil, while +Fanny stood at her horse's head, those ugly words, you remember?"</p> +<p>"Yes," I said: "'Go to Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to Lenox, both +of you, when you return.'"</p> +<p>"Then, after that, my one idea was to get away from Lenox. The place was +hateful to me, and you were writing those pathetic letters about being married, +and state-rooms, and all. It only made me more wretched, for I thought you were +the more urgent now that you had been lacking before. I hurried aunt off to +Philadelphia, and in New York she hurried me. She would not wait, though I did +want to, and I was so disappointed at the hotel! But I thought there was a fate +in it to give Fanny Meyrick her chance, poor thing! and so I wrote that good-bye +note without an address."</p> +<p>"But I found you, for all, thanks to Dr. R——!"</p> +<p>"Yes, and when you came that night I was so happy. I put away all fear: I had +to remind myself, actually, all the time, of what I owed to Fanny, until you +told me you had changed your passage to the Algeria, and that gave me strength +to be angry. Oh, my dear, I'm afraid you'll have a very bad wife. Of course the +minute you had sailed I began to be horribly jealous, and then I got a letter by +the pilot that made me worse."</p> +<p>"But," said I, "you got my letters from the other side. Didn't that assure +you that you might have faith in me?"</p> +<p>"But I would not receive them. Aunt Sloman has them all, done up and labeled +for you, doubtless. She, it seems—had you talked her over?—thought I ought to +have gone with you, and fretted because she was keeping me. Then I couldn't bear +it another day. It was just after you had sailed, and I had cut out the +ship-list to send you; and I had worked myself up to believe you would go back +to Fanny Meyrick if you had the chance. I told Aunt Sloman that it was all over +between us—that you might continue to write to me, but I begged that she would +keep all your letters in a box until I should ask her for them."</p> +<p>"But I wrote letters to her, too, asking what had become of you."</p> +<p>"She went to Minnesota, you know, early in February."</p> +<p>"And why didn't you go with her?"</p> +<p>"She scolded me dreadfully because I would not. But she was so well, and she +had her maid and a pleasant party of Philadelphia friends; and I—well, I didn't +want to put all those hundreds of miles between me and the sea."</p> +<p>"And was Shaker Village so near, then, to the sea?"</p> +<p>"Oh, Charlie," hiding her face on my shoulder, "that was cowardice in me. You +know I meant to keep the cottage open and live there. It was the saddest place +in all the world, but still I wanted to be there—alone. But I found I could not +be alone; and the last people who came drove me nearly wild—those R——s, Fanny +Meyrick's friends—and they talked about her and about you, so that I could bear +it no longer. I wanted to hide myself from all the world. I knew I could be +quiet at the Shaker village. I had often driven over there with Aunt Sloman: +indeed, Sophia—that's the one you saw—is a great friend of Aunt Maria's."</p> +<p>"So the lady-abbess confessed, did she?" I asked with some curiosity.</p> +<p>"Yes: she said you were rudely inquisitive; but she excused you as unfamiliar +with Shaker ways."</p> +<p>"And were you really at Watervliet?"</p> +<p>"Yes, but don't be in a hurry: we'll come to that presently. Sophia gave me a +pretty little room opening out of hers, and they all treated me with great +kindness, if they <i>did</i> call me Eliza."</p> +<p>"And did you," I asked with some impatience, remembering Hiram's +description—"did you sew beads on velvet and plait straw for mats?"</p> +<p>"Nonsense! I did whatever I pleased. I was parlor-boarder, as they say in the +schools. But I did learn something, sir, from that dear old sister Martha. You +saw <i>her</i>?"</p> +<p>"The motherly body who invited me in?"</p> +<p>"Yes: isn't she a dear? I took lessons from her in all sorts of cookery: you +shall see, Charlie, I've profited by being a Shakeress."</p> +<p>"Yes, my darling, but did you—you didn't go to church?"</p> +<p>"Only once," she said, with a shiver that made her all the dearer, "and they +preached such dreary stuff that I told Sophia I would never go again."</p> +<p>"But did you really wear that dress I saw you in?"</p> +<p>"For that once only. You see, I was at Watervliet when you came. If you had +only gone straight there, dear goose! instead of dodging in the road, you would +have found me. I had grown a little tired of the monotony of the village, and +was glad to join the party starting for Niskayuna, it was such a glorious drive +across the mountain. I longed for you all the time."</p> +<p>"Pretty little Shakeress! But why did they put us on such a false track?"</p> +<p>"Oh, we had expected to reach home that night, but one of the horses was +lame, and we did not start as soon as we had planned. We came back on Saturday +afternoon—Saturday afternoon, and this is Monday morning!", leaning back +dreamily, and looking across the blue distance to the far-off hills. "Then I got +your card, and they told me about you, and I knew, for all the message, that +you'd be back on Sunday morning. But how could I tell then that Fanny Meyrick +would not be with you?"</p> +<p>"Bessie!" and my hand tightened on hers.</p> +<p>"Oh, Charlie, you don't know what it is to be jealous. Of course I did know +that—no, I didn't, either, though I must have been <i>sure</i> underneath that +day. For it was more in fun than anything else, after I knew you were in the +meeting-house—"</p> +<p>"How did you know?"</p> +<p>"I saw you drive up—you and Hiram and Mrs. Hiram."</p> +<p>"You didn't think, then, that it was Mrs. Charles?"</p> +<p>"So I stole into Sophia's room, and put on one of her dresses. She is tall +too, but it did not fit very well."</p> +<p>"I should think not," I answered, looking down admiringly at her.</p> +<p>"In fact," laughing, "I took quite a time +pinning myself into it and getting the neckerchief folded prim. I waited till +after the sermon, and then I knew by the singing that it was the last hymn, so I +darted in. I don't know what they thought—that I was suddenly converted, I +suppose, and they would probably have given thanks over me as a brand snatched +from the burning. Did I do the dance well? I didn't want to put them out."</p> +<p>"My darling, it was a dreadful masquerade. Did you want to punish me to the +end?"</p> +<p>"I was punished myself, Charlie, when you fell. Oh dear! don't let's talk +about the dreadful thing any more. But I think you would have forgiven Elder +Nebson if you had seen how tenderly he lifted you into the wagon. There, now: +where are we going to live in New York, and what have we got to live on besides +my little income?"</p> +<p>"Income! I had forgotten you had any."</p> +<p>"Ask Judge Hubbard if I haven't. You'll see."</p> +<p>"But, my dear," said I gravely, drawing forth the packet from my breast, "I, +too, have my story to tell. I cannot call it a confession, either; rather it is +the story of somebody else—Hallo! who's broken the seal?" For on shipboard I had +beguiled the time by writing a sort of journal to accompany Fanny's letter, and +had placed all together in a thick white envelope, addressing it, in legal +parlance, "To whom it may concern."</p> +<p>"<i>I</i> did," said Bessie faintly, burying her face on my arm. "It fell out +of your pocket when they carried you up stairs; and I read it, every word, twice +over, before you came to yourself."</p> +<p>"You little witch! And I thought you were marrying me out of pure faith in +me, and not of sight or knowledge."</p> +<p>"It was faith, the highest faith," said Bessie proudly, and looking into my +eyes with her old saucy dash, "to know, to feel sure, that that sealed paper +concerned nobody but me."</p> +<p>And so she has ever since maintained.</p> + +<div class="bbox"> +<p>Transcriber's note:</p> + +<p>This is a compiled version of a novel published in sections +in the LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</p> + +<p>Links to the e-books from which this text was compiled:</p> +<ul> +<li>[August 1873 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13828">#13828</a>]</li> +<li>[September 1873 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14036">#14036</a>]</li> +<li>[October 1873 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13964">#13964</a>]</li></ul></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's On the Church Steps, by Sarah C. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: On the Church Steps + +Author: Sarah C. Hallowell + +Release Date: January 20, 2006 [EBook #17559] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE CHURCH STEPS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +ON THE CHURCH STEPS. + +By SARAH C. HALLOWELL. + + +This e-text was compiled from sections of this novel published in the +August to October editions of: + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 1873 + + +CHAPTER I. + + +What a picture she was as she sat there, my own Bessie! and what a +strange place it was to rest on, those church steps! Behind us lay the +Woolsey woods, with their wooing fragrance of pine and soft rushes of +scented air; and the lakes were in the distance, lying very calm in +the cloud-shadows and seeming to wait for us to come. But to-day +Bessie would nothing of lakes or ledges: she would sit on the church +steps. + +In front of us, straight to the gate, ran a stiff little walk of white +pebbles, hard and harsh as some bygone creed. + +"Think of little bare feet coming up here, Bessie!" I said with a +shiver. "It is too hard. And every carriage that comes up the hill +sees us." + +"And why shouldn't they see us?" said my lady, turning full upon me. +"I am not ashamed to be here." + +"Churches should always have soft walks of turf; and lovers," I would +fain have added, "should have naught but whispering leaves about +them." + +But Bessie cut me short in her imperious way: "But we are not lovers +this morning: at least," with a half-relenting look at my rueful face, +"we are very good friends, and I choose to sit here to show people +that we are." + +"What do you care for _people_--the Bartons or the Meyricks?" as I +noticed a familiar family carriage toiling up the hill, followed by a +lighter phaeton. I recognized already in the latter vehicle the +crimson feather of Fanny Meyrick, and "the whip that was a parasol." + +"Shall I step out into the road this minute, and stop those ladies +like a peaceable highwayman, and tell them you have promised to marry +me, and that their anxiety as to our intimacy may be at rest? Give me +but leave and I will do it. It will make Mrs. Barton comfortable. Then +you and I can walk away into those beckoning woods, and I can have you +all to myself." + +Indeed she was worth having. With the witchery that some girls know, +she had made a very picture of herself that morning, as I have said. +Some soft blue muslin stuff was caught up around her in airy +draperies--nothing stiff or frilled about her: all was soft and +flowing, from the falling sleeve that showed the fair curve of her arm +to the fold of her dress, the ruffle under which her little foot was +tapping, impatiently now. A little white hat with a curling blue +feather shaded her face--a face I won't trust myself to describe, save +by saying that it was the brightest and truest, as I then thought, in +all the world. + +She said something rapidly in Italian--she is always artificial when +she uses a foreign tongue--and this I caught but imperfectly, but it +had a proverbial air about it of the error of too hasty assumptions. + +"Well, now I'll tell you something," she said as the carriages +disappeared over the top of the hill. "Fanny Meyrick is going abroad +in October, and we shall not see her for ever so long." + +Going abroad? Good gracious! That was the very thing I had to tell her +that morning--that I too was ordered abroad. An estate to be +settled--some bothering old claim that had been handed down from +generation to generation, and now springing into life again by the +lapsing of two lives on the other side. But how to tell her as she +looked up into my face with the half-pleading, half-imperious smile +that I knew so well? How to tell her _now_? + +So I said nothing, but foolishly pushed the little pebbles aside with +my stick, fatuously waiting for the subject to pass. Of course my +silence brought an instant criticism: "Why, Charlie, what ails you?" + +"Nothing. And really, Bessie, what is it to us whether Fanny Meyrick +go or stay?" + +"I shouldn't have thought it _was_ anything. But your silence, your +confusion--Charlie, you do care a little for her, after all." + +Two years ago, before Bessie and I had ever met, I had fluttered +around Fanny Meyrick for a season, attracted by her bright brown eyes +and the gypsy flush on her cheek. But there were other moths +fluttering around that adamantine candle too; and I was not long in +discovering that the brown eyes were bright for each and all, and that +the gypsy flush was never stirred by feeling or by thought. It was +merely a fixed ensign of health and good spirits. Consequently the +charm had waned, for me at least; and in my confessions to Bessie +since our near intimacy it was she, not I, who had magnified it into +the shadow even of a serious thought. + +"Care for her? Nonsense, Bessie! Do you want me to call her a mere +doll, a hard, waxen--no, for wax will melt--a Parian creature, such as +you may see by the dozens in Schwartz's window any day? It doesn't +gratify you, surely, to hear me say that of any woman." + +And then--what possessed me?--I was so angry at myself that I took a +mental _resume_ of all the good that could be said of Fanny +Meyrick--her generosity, her constant cheerfulness; and in somewhat +headlong fashion I expressed myself: "I won't call her a dolt and an +idiot, even to please you. I have seen her do generous things, and she +is never out of temper." + +"Thanks!" said Bessie, nodding her head till the blue feather +trembled. "It is as well, as Aunt Sloman says, to keep my shortcomings +before you." + +"When did Aunt Sloman say that?" I interrupted, hoping for a diversion +of the subject. + +"This morning only. I was late at breakfast. You know, Charlie, I was +_so_ tired with that long horseback ride, and of course everything +waited. Dear aunty never _will_ begin until I come down, but sits +beside the urn like the forlornest of martyrs, and reads last night's +papers over and over again." + +"Well? And was she sorry that she had not invited me to wait with +her?" + +"Yes," said Bessie. "She said all sorts of things, and," flushing +slightly, "that it was a pity you shouldn't know beforehand what you +were to expect." + +"I wish devoutly that I had been there," seizing the little hand that +was mournfully tapping the weatherbeaten stone, and forcing the +downcast eyes to look at me. "I think, both together, we could have +pacified Aunt Sloman." + +It _was_ a diversion, and after a little while Bessie professed she +had had enough of the church steps. + +"How those people do stare! Is it the W----s, do you think, Charlie? I +heard yesterday they were coming." + +From our lofty position on the hillside we commanded the road leading +out of the village--the road that was all alive with carriages on this +beautiful September morning. The W---- carriage had half halted to +reconnoitre, and had only not hailed us because we had sedulously +looked another way. + +"Let's get away," I said, "for the next carriage will not only stop, +but come over;" and Bessie suffered herself to be led through the +little tangle of brier and fern, past the gray old gravestones with +"Miss Faith" and "Miss Mehitable" carved upon them, and into the leafy +shadow of the waiting woods. + +Other lovers have been there before us, but the trees whisper no +secrets save their own. The subject of our previous discussion was not +resumed, nor was Fanny Meyrick mentioned, until on our homeward road +we paused a moment on the hilltop, as we always did. + +It is indeed a hill of vision, that church hill at Lenox. Sparkling +far to the south, the blue Dome lay, softened and shining in the +September sun. There was ineffable peace in the faint blue sky, and, +stealing up from the valley, a shimmering haze that seemed to veil the +bustling village and soften all the rural sounds. + +Bessie drew nearer to me, shading her eyes as she looked down into the +valley: "Charlie dear, let us stay here always. We shall be happier, +better here than to go back to New York." + +"And the law-business?" I asked like a brutal bear, bringing the +realities of life into my darling's girlish dream. + +"Can't you practice law in Foxcroft, and drive over there every +morning? People do." + +"And because they do, and there are enough of them, I must plod along +in the ways that are made for me already. We can make pilgrimages +here, you know." + +"I suppose so," said Bessie with a sigh. + +Just then Fanny Kemble's clock in the tower above us struck the +hour--one, two, three. + +"Bless me! so late? And there's that phaeton coming back over the hill +again. Hurry, Charlie! don't let them see us. They'll think that we've +been here all the time." And Bessie plunged madly down the hill, and +struck off into the side-path that leads into the Lebanon road. The +last vibrations of the bell were still trembling on the air as I +caught up with her again. + +But again the teasing mood of the morning had come over her. Quite out +of breath with the run, as we sat down to rest on the little porch of +Mrs. Sloman's cottage she said, very earnestly, "But you haven't once +said it." + +"Said what, my darling?" + +"That you are glad that Fanny is going abroad." + +"Nonsense! Why should I be glad?" + +"Are you sorry, then?" + +If I had but followed my impulse then, and said frankly that I was, +and why I was! But Mrs. Sloman was coming through the little hall: I +heard her step. Small time for explanation, no time for reproaches. +And I could not leave Bessie, on that morning of all others, hurt or +angry, or only half convinced. + +"No, I am not sorry," I said, pulling down a branch of honeysuckle, +and making a loop of it to draw around her neck. "It is nothing, +either way." + +"Then say after me if it is nothing--feel as I feel for one minute, +won't you?" + +"Yes, indeed." + +"Say, after me, then, word for word, 'I am glad, _very_ glad, that +Fanny Meyrick is to sail in October. I would not have her stay on this +side for _worlds_!" + +And like a fool, a baby, I said it, word for word, from those sweet +smiling lips: "I am glad, _very_ glad, that Fanny Meyrick is to sail +in October. I would not have her stay on this side for _worlds_!" + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The next day was Sunday, and I was on duty at an early hour, prepared +to walk with Bessie to church. My darling was peculiar among women in +this: her church-going dress was sober-suited; like a little gray nun, +almost, she came down to me that morning. Her dress, of some soft gray +stuff, fell around her in the simplest folds, a knot of brown ribbon +at her throat, and in her hat a gray gull's wing. + +I had praised the Italian women for the simplicity of their +church-attire: their black dresses and lace veils make a picturesque +contrast with the gorgeous ceremonials of the high altar. But there +was something in this quiet toilet, so fresh and simple and girl-like, +that struck me as the one touch of grace that the American woman can +give to the best even of foreign taste. Not the dramatic abnegation +indicated by the black dress, but the quiet harmony of a life atune. + +Mrs. Sloman was ready even before Bessie came down. She was a great +invalid, although her prim and rigid countenance forbore any +expression save of severity. She had no pathos about her, not a touch. +Whatever her bodily sufferings may have been--and Bessie dimly hinted +that they were severe to agony at times--they were resolutely shut +within her chamber door; and when she came out in the early morning, +her cold brown hair drawn smoothly over those impassive cheeks, she +looked like a lady abbess--as cold, as unyielding and as hard. + +There was small sympathy between the aunt and niece, but a great deal +of painstaking duty on the one side, and on the other the habit of +affection which young girls have for the faces they have always known. + +Mrs. Sloman had been at pains to tell me, when my frequent visits to +her cottage made it necessary that I should in some fashion explain to +her as to what I wanted there, that her niece, Bessie Stewart, was in +nowise dependent on her, not even for a home. "This cottage we rent in +common. It was her father's desire that her property should not +accumulate, and that she should have nothing at my hands but +companionship, and"--with a set and sickly smile--"advice when it was +called for. We are partners in our expenses, and the arrangement can +be broken up at any moment." + +Was this all? No word of love or praise for the fair young thing that +had brightened all her household in these two years that Bessie had +been fatherless? + +I believe there was love and appreciation, but it was not Mrs. +Sloman's method to be demonstrative or expansive. She approved of the +engagement, and in her grim way had opened an immediate battery of +household ledgers and ways and means. Some idea, too, of making me +feel easy about taking Bessie away from her, I think, inclined her to +this business-like manner. I tried to show her, by my own manner, that +I understood her without words, and I think she was very grateful to +be spared the expression of feeling. Poor soul! repression had become +such a necessity to her! + +So we talked on gravely of the weather, and of the celebrated Doctor +McQ----, who was expected to give us an argumentative sermon that +morning, until _my_ argument came floating in at the door like a calm +little bit of thistledown, to which our previous conversation had been +as the thistle's self. + +The plain little church was gay that morning. Carriage after carriage +drove up with much prancing and champing, and group after group of +city folk came rustling along the aisles. It was a bit of Fifth Avenue +let into Lenox calm. The World and the Flesh were there, at least. + +In the hush of expectancy that preceded the minister's arrival there +was much waving of scented fans, while the well-bred city glances took +in everything without seeming to see. I felt that Bessie and I were +being mentally discussed and ticketed. And as it was our first +appearance at church since--well, _since_--perhaps there was just a +little consciousness of our relations that made Bessie seem to retire +absolutely within herself, and be no more a part of the silken crowd +than was the grave, plain man who rose up in the pulpit. + +I hope the sermon was satisfactory. I am sure it was convincing to a +brown-handed farmer who sat beside us, and who could with difficulty +restrain his applauding comment. But I was lost in a dream of a near +heaven, and could not follow the spoken word. It was just a quiet +little opportunity to contemplate my darling, to tell over her +sweetness and her charm, and to say over and again, like a blundering +school-boy, "It's all mine! mine!" + +The congregation might have been dismissed for aught I knew, and left +me sitting there with her beside me. But I was startled into the +proprieties as we stood up to sing the concluding hymn. I was standing +stock-still beside her, not listening to the words at all, but with a +pleasant sense of everything being very comfortable, and an +old-fashioned swell of harmony on the air, when suddenly the book +dropped from Bessie's hand and fell heavily to the floor. I should +have said she flung it down had it been on any other occasion, so +rapid and vehement was the action. + +I stooped to pick it up, when with a decided gesture she stopped me. I +looked at her surprised. Her face was flushed, indignant, I thought, +and instantly my conscience was on the rack. What had I done, for my +lady was evidently angry? + +Glancing down once more toward the book, I saw that she had set her +foot upon it, and indeed her whole attitude was one of excitement, +defiance. Why did she look so hot and scornful? I was disturbed and +anxious: what was there in the book or in me to anger her? + +As quickly as possible I drew her away from the bustling crowd when +the service was concluded. Fortunately, there was a side-door through +which we could pass out into the quiet churchyard, and we vanished +through it, leaving Mrs. Sloman far behind. Over into the Lebanon road +was but a step, and the little porch was waiting with its cool +honeysuckle shade. But Bessie did not stop at the gate: she was in no +mood for home. And yet she would not answer my outpouring questions as +to whether she was ill, or what _was_ the matter. + +"I'll tell you in a minute. Come, hurry!" she said, hastening along up +the hill through all the dust and heat. + +At last we reached that rustic bit of ruin known popularly as the +"Shed." It was a hard bit of climbing, but I rejoiced that Bessie, so +flushed and excited at the start, grew calmer as we went; and when, +the summit reached, she sat down to rest on a broken board, her color +was natural and she seemed to breathe freely again. + +"Are they all hypocrites, do you think, Charlie?" she said suddenly, +looking up into my face. + +"They? who? Bessie, what have I done to make you angry?" + +"You? Nothing, dear goose! I am angry at myself and at everybody else. +Did it flash upon you, Charlie, what we were singing?" + +Then she quoted the lines, which I will not repeat here, but they +expressed, as the sole aspiration of the singer, a desire to pass +eternity in singing hymns of joy and praise--an impatience for the +time to come, a disregard of earth, a turning away from temporal +things, and again the desire for an eternity of sacred song. + +"Suppose I confess to you," said I, astonished at her earnestness, +"that I did not at all know what I was singing?" + +"That's just it! just what makes it so dreadful! _Nobody_ was thinking +about it--nobody! Nobody there wanted to give up earth and go straight +to heaven and sing. I looked round at all the people, with their new +bonnets, and the diamonds, and the footmen in the pews up stairs, and +I thought, What lies they are all saying! Nobody wants to go to heaven +at all until they are a hundred years old, and too deaf and blind and +tired out to do anything on earth. My heaven is here and now in my own +happiness, and so is yours, Charlie; and I felt so convicted of being +a story-teller that I couldn't hold the book in my hand." + +"Well, then," said I, "shall we have one set of hymns for happy +people, and another for poor, tired-out folks like that little +dressmaker that leaned against the wall?" For Bessie herself had +called my attention to the pale little body who had come to the church +door at the same moment with us. + +"No, not two sets. Do you suppose that she, either, wants to _sing_ on +for ever? And all those girls! Sorry enough they would be to have to +die, and leave their dancing and flirtations and the establishments +they hope to have! It wouldn't be much comfort to them to promise them +they should _sing_. Charlie, I want a hymn that shall give thanks that +I am alive, that I have _you_." + +"Could the dressmaker sing that?" + +"No;" and Bessie's eyes sought the shining blue sky with a wistful, +beseeching tenderness. "Oh, it's all wrong, Charlie dear. She ought to +tell us in a chant how tired and hopeless she is for this world; and +we ought to sing to her something that would cheer her, help her, even +in this world. Why must she wait for all her brightness till she dies? +So perfectly heartless to stand up along side of her and sing _that_!" + +"Well," I said, "you needn't wait till next Sunday to bring her your +words of cheer." + +In a minute my darling was crying on my shoulder. I could understand +the outburst, and was glad of it. + +All athrill with new emotions, new purposes, an eternity of love, she +had come to church to be reminded that earth was naught, that the +trials and tempests here would come to an end some day, and after, to +the patiently victorious, would come the hymns of praise. _Earth_ was +very full that morning to her and me; _earth_ was a place for +worshipful harmonies; and yet the strong contrast with the poor +patient sufferer who had passed into church with us was too much for +Bessie: she craved an expression that should comprehend alike her +sorrow and our abundant joy. + +The tempest of tears passed by, and we had bright skies again. Poor +Mrs. Sloman's dinner waited long that day; and it was with a guilty +sense that she was waiting too that we went down the hill at a +quickened pace when the church clock, sounding up the hillside, came +like a chiding voice. + +And a double sense of guiltiness was creeping over me. I must return +to New York to-morrow, and I had not told Bessie yet of the longer +journey I must make so soon. I put it by again and again in the short +flying hours of that afternoon; and it was not until dusk had fallen +in the little porch, as we sat there after tea, and I had watched the +light from Mrs. Sloman's chamber shine down upon the honeysuckles and +then go out, that I took my resolution. + +"Bessie," I said, leaning over her and taking her face in both my +hands, "I have something to tell you." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I have something to tell you;" and without an instant's pause I went +on: "Mr. D---- has business in England which cannot be attended to by +letter. One of us must go, and they send me. I must sail in two +weeks." + +It was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and Bessie gave a little gasp +of surprise: "So soon! Oh, Charlie, take me with you!" Realizing in +the next instant the purport of the suggestion, she flung away from my +hands and rushed into the parlor, where a dim, soft lamp was burning +on the table. She sat down on a low chair beside it and hid her face +on the table in her hands. + +Like a flash of lightning all the possibilities of our marriage before +many days--arranging it with Mrs. Sloman, and satisfying my partners, +who would expect me to travel fast and work hard in the short time +they had allotted for the journey,--all came surging and throbbing +through my brain, while my first answer was not given in words. + +When I had persuaded Bessie to look at me and to answer me in turn, I +hoped we should be able to talk about it with the calm judgment it +needed. + +"To leave my wife--my wife!"--how I lingered on the word!--"in some +poky lodgings in London, while I am spending my day among dusty boxes +and files of deeds in a dark old office, isn't just my ideal of our +wedding-journey; but, Bessie, if _you_ wish it so--" + +What was there in my tone that jarred her? I had meant to be +magnanimous, to think of her comfort alone, of the hurry and business +of such a journey--tried to shut myself out and think only of her in +the picture. But I failed, of course, and went on stupidly, answering +the quick look of question in her eyes: "If you prefer it--that is, +you know, I must think of you and not of myself." + +Still the keen questioning glance. What new look was this in her eyes, +what dawning thought? + +"No," she answered after a pause, slowly withdrawing her hand from +mine, "think of yourself." + +I had expected that she would overwhelm me in her girlish way with +saucy protestations that she would be happy even in the dull London +lodgings, and that she would defy the law-files to keep me long from +her. This sudden change of manner chilled me with a nameless fear. + +"If _I_ prefer it! If _I_ wish it! I see that I should be quite in +your way, an encumbrance. Don't talk about it any more." + +She was very near crying, and I wish to heaven she had cried. But she +conquered herself resolutely, and held herself cold and musing before +me. I might take her hand, might kiss her unresisting cheek, but she +seemed frozen into sudden thoughtfulness that it was impossible to +meet or to dispel. + +"Bessie, you know you are a little goose! What could I wish for in +life but to carry you off this minute to New York? Come, get your hat +and let's walk over to the parsonage now. We'll get Doctor Wilder to +marry us, and astonish your aunt in the morning." + +"Nonsense!" said Bessie with a slight quiver of her pretty, pouting +mouth. "Do be rational, Charlie!" + +I believe I was rational in my own fashion for a little while, but +when I ventured to say in a very unnecessary whisper, "Then you will +go abroad with me?" Bessie flushed to her temples and rose from the +sofa. She had a way, when she was very much in earnest, or very much +stirred with some passionate thought, of pacing the parlor with her +hands clasped tightly before her, and her arms tense and straining at +the clasping hands. With her head bent slightly forward, and her brown +hair hanging in one long tress over her shoulder, she went swiftly up +and down, while I lay back on the sofa and watched her. She would +speak it out presently, the thought that was hurting her. So I felt +secure and waited, following every movement with a lover's eye. But I +ought not to have waited. I should have drawn her to me and shared +that rapid, nervous walk--should have compelled her with sweet force +to render an account of that emotion. But I was so secure, so entirely +one with her in thought, that I could conceive of nothing but a +passing tempest at my blundering, stupid thoughtfulness for her. + +Suddenly at the door she stopped, and with her hand upon it said, +"Good-night, Charlie;" and was out of the room in a twinkling. + +I sprang from the sofa and to the foot of the stairs, but I saw only a +glimpse of her vanishing dress; and though I called after her in low, +beseeching tones, "Bessie! Bessie!" a door shut in the distant +corridor for only answer. + +What to do? In that decorous mansion I could not follow her; and my +impulse to dash after her and knock at her door till she answered me, +I was forced to put aside after a moment's consideration. + +I stood there in the quiet hall, the old clock ticking away a solemn +"I-told-you-so!" in the corner. I made one step toward the kitchen to +send a message by one of the maids, but recoiled at the suggestion +that this would publish a lovers' quarrel. So I retreated along the +hall, my footsteps making no noise on the India matting, and entered +the parlor again like a thief. I sat down by the table: "Bessie will +certainly come back: she will get over her little petulance, and know +I am here waiting." + +All about the parlor were the traces of my darling. A soft little coil +of rose-colored Berlin wool, with its ivory needle sheathed among the +stitches, lay in a tiny basket. I lifted it up: the basket was made of +scented grass, and there was a delicious sweet and pure fragrance +about the knitting-work. I took possession of it and thrust it into my +breast-pocket. A magazine she had been reading, with the palest slip +of a paper-knife--a bit of delicate Swiss wood--in it, next came in my +way. I tried to settle down and read where she had left off, but the +words danced before my eyes, and a strange tune was repeating in my +ears, "Good-night, Charlie--good-night and good-bye!" + +One mad impulse seized me to go out under her window and call to her, +asking her to come down. But Lenox nights were very still, and the +near neighbors on either side doubtless wide awake to all that was +going on around the Sloman cottage. + +So I sat still like an idiot, and counted the clock-strokes, and +nervously calculated the possibility of her reappearance, until I +heard, at last, footsteps coming along the hall in rapid tread. I +darted up: "Oh, Bessie, I knew you would come back!" as through the +open door walked in--Mary, Mrs. Sloman's maid! + +She started at seeing me: "Excuse me, sir. The parlor was so--I +thought there was no one here." + +"What is it, Mary?" I asked with assumed indifference. "Do you want +Miss Bessie? She went up stairs a few moments ago." + +"No, sir. I thought--that is--" glancing down in awkward confusion at +the key she held in her hand. She was retiring again softly when I saw +in the key the reason of her discomposure. + +"Did you come in to lock up, Mary?" I asked with a laugh. + +"Yes, sir. But it is of no consequence. I thought you had gone, sir." + +"Time I was, I suppose. Well, Mary, you shall lock me out, and then +carry this note to Miss Bessie. It is so late that I will not wait for +her. Perhaps she is busy with Mrs. Sloman." + +Something in Mary's face made me suspect that she knew Mrs. Sloman to +be sound asleep at this moment; but she said nothing, and waited +respectfully until I had scribbled a hasty note, rifling Bessie's +writing-desk for the envelope in which to put my card. Dear child! +there lay my photograph, the first thing I saw as I raised the dainty +lid. + +"Bessie," I wrote, "I have waited until Mary has come in with her +keys, and I suppose I must go. My train starts at nine to-morrow +morning, but you will be ready--will you not?--at six to take a +morning walk with me. I will be here at that hour. You don't know how +disturbed and anxious I shall be till then." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Morning came--or rather the long night came to an end at last--and at +twenty minutes before six I opened the gate at the Sloman cottage. It +was so late in September that the morning was a little hazy and +uncertain. And yet the air was warm and soft--a perfect reflex, I +thought, of Bessie last night--an electric softness under a brooding +cloud. + +The little house lay wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell: +no, it would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely +not make me wait. Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would +wait in the porch--she would certainly come down soon. + +So I waited, whistling softly to myself as I pushed the withered +leaves about with my stick and drew strange patterns among them. Half +an hour passed. + +"I will give her a gentle reminder;" so I gathered a spray from the +honeysuckle, a late bloom among the fast-falling leaves, and aimed it +right at the muslin curtain. The folds parted and it fell into the +room, but instead of the answering face that I looked to see, all was +still again. + +"It's very strange," thought I. "Bessie's pique is not apt to last so +long. She must indeed be angry." + +And I went over each detail of our last night's talk, from her first +burst of "Take me with you!" to my boggling answers, my fears, so +stupidly expressed, that it would be anything but a picturesque +bridal-trip, and the necessity that there was for rapid traveling and +much musty, old research. + +"What a fool I was not to take her then and there! She _is_ myself: +why shouldn't I, then, be selfish? When I do what of all things I want +to, why can't I take it for granted that she will be happy too?" And a +hot flush of shame went over me to think that I had been about to +propose to her, to my own darling girl, that we should be married as +soon as possible _after_ I returned from Europe. + +Her love, clearer-sighted, had striven to forestall our separation: +why should we be parted all those weary weeks? why put the sea between +us? + +I had accepted all these obstacles as a dreary necessity, never +thinking for the moment that conventional objections might be +overcome, aunts and guardians talked over, and the whole matter +arranged by two people determined on their own sweet will. + +What a lumbering, masculine plan was mine! _After I returned from +Europe!_ I grew red and bit my lips with vexation. And now my dear +girl was shy and hurt. How should I win back again that sweet impulse +of confidence? + +Presently the household began to stir. I heard unbarring and +unbolting, and craftily retreated to the gate, that I might seem to be +just coming in, to the servant who should open the door. + +It was opened by a housemaid--not the Mary of the night before--who +stared a moment at seeing me, but on my asking if Miss Bessie was +ready yet to walk, promised smilingly to go and see. She returned in a +moment, saying that Miss Bessie begged that I would wait: she was +hurrying to come down. + +The child! She has slept too soundly. I shall tell her how insensate +she must have been, how serenely unconscious when the flower came in +at the window. + +The clock on the mantel struck seven and the half hour before Bessie +appeared. She was very pale, and her eyes looked away at my greeting. +Passively she suffered herself to be placed in a chair, and then, with +something of her own manner, she said hurriedly, "Don't think I got +your note, Charlie, last night, or I wouldn't, indeed I wouldn't, have +kept you waiting so long this morning." + +"Didn't Mary bring it to you?" I asked, surprised. + +"Yes: that is, she brought it up to my room, but, Charlie dear, I +wasn't there: I wasn't there all night. I did shut my door, though I +heard you calling, and after a little while I crept out into the entry +and looked over the stairs, hoping you were there still, and that I +could come back to you. But you were not there, and everything was so +still that I was sure you had gone--gone without a word. I listened +and listened, but I was too proud to go down into the parlor and see. +And yet I could not go back to my room, next Aunt Sloman's. I went +right up stairs to the blue room, and stayed there. Mary must have put +your note on my table when she came up stairs. I found it there this +morning when I went down." + +"Poor darling! And what did you do all night in the blue room? I am +afraid," looking at her downcast eyes, "that you did not sleep--that +you were angry at me." + +"At you? No, at myself," she said very low. + +"Bessie, you know that my first and only thought was of the hurry and +worry this journey would cost you. You know that to have you with me +was something that I had scarce dared to dream." + +"And therefore," with a flash of blue eyes, "for me to dare to dream +it was--" and again she hid her face. + +"But, my precious, don't you know that it was for _you_ to suggest +what I wanted all the time, but thought it would be too much to ask?" +For I had discovered, of course, in my morning's work among the dead +leaves on the porch, that I had desired it from the moment I had known +of my journey--desired it without acknowledging it to myself or +presuming to plan upon it. + +At this juncture breakfast was announced, and the folding doors thrown +open that led into the breakfast-parlor, disclosing Mrs. Sloman seated +by the silver urn, and a neat little table spread for three, so quick +had been the housemaid's intuitions. + +"Good-morning, Charles: come get some breakfast. You will hardly be in +time for your train," suggested Aunt Sloman in a voice that had in it +all the gloom of the morning. Indeed, the clouds had gathered heavily +during the parlor scene, and some large drops were rattling against +the window. + +I looked at my watch. After eight! Pshaw! I will let this train go, +and will telegraph to the office. I can take the night train, and thus +lose only a few hours. So I stayed. + +What rare power had Bessie in the very depths of her trouble, and with +her face pale and eyes so heavy with her last night's vigil--what gift +that helped her to be gay? Apparently not with an effort, not forced, +she was as joyous and frank as her sunniest self. No exaggeration of +laughter or fun, but the brightness of her every-day manner, teasing +and sparkling round Aunt Sloman, coquetting very naturally with me. It +was a swift change from the gloomy atmosphere we had left behind in +the parlor, and I basked in it delighted, and feeling, poor fool! that +the storm was cleared away, and that the time for the singing of birds +was come. + +I was the more deceived. I did not know all of Bessie yet. Her horror +of a scene, of any suspicion that there was discord between us, and +her rare self-control, that for the moment put aside all trouble, +folded it out of sight and took up the serene old life again for a +little space. + +"Aunt Maria," said Bessie, pushing aside her chair, "won't you take +care of Mr. Munro for a little while? I have a letter to write that I +want him to take to New York." + +Aunt Maria would be happy to entertain me, or rather to have me +entertain her. If I would read to her, now, would I be so kind, while +she washed up her breakfast cups? + +How people can do two things at once I am sure I cannot understand; +and while the maid brought in the large wooden bowl, the steam of +whose household incense rose high in the air, I watched impatient for +the signal to begin. When the tea-cups were all collected, and Aunt +Sloman held one by the handle daintily over the "boiling flood," +"Now," she said with a serene inclination of her head, "if you +please." + +And off I started at a foot-pace through the magazine that had been +put into my hands. Whether it was anything about the "Skelligs," or +"Miss Sedgwick's Letters," or "Stanley-Livingstone," I have not the +remotest idea. I was fascinated by the gentle dip of each tea-cup, and +watched from the corner of my eye the process of polishing each +glittering spoon on a comfortable crash towel. + +Then my thoughts darted off to Bessie. Was she indeed writing to her +old trustee? Judge Hubbard was a friend of my father's, and would +approve of me, I thought, if he did not agree at once to the hurried +marriage and ocean journey. + +"What an unconscionable time it takes her! Don't you think so, Mrs. +Sloman?" I said at last, after I had gone through three several papers +on subjects unknown. + +I suppose it was scarcely a courteous speech. But Mrs. Sloman smiled a +white-lipped smile of sympathy, and said, "Yes: I will go and send her +to you." + +"Oh, don't hurry her," I said falsely, hoping, however, that she +would. + +Did I say before that Bessie was tall? Though so slight that you +always wanted to speak of her with some endearing diminutive, she +looked taller than ever that morning; and as she stood before me, +coming up to the fireplace where I was standing, her eyes looked +nearly level into mine. I did not understand their veiled expression, +and before I had time to study it she dropped them and said hastily, +"Young man, I am pining for a walk." + +"In the rain?" + +"Pshaw! This is nothing, after all, but a Scotch mist. See, I am +dressed for it;" and she threw a tartan cloak over her shoulder--a +blue-and-green tartan that I had never seen before. + +"The very thing for shipboard," I whispered as I looked at her +admiringly. + +Her face was flushed enough now, but she made no answer save to stoop +down and pat the silly little terrier that had come trotting into the +room with her. + +"Fidget shall go--yes, he shall go walking;" and Fidget made a gray +ball of himself in his joy at the permission. + +Up the hill again we walked, with the little Skye terrier cantering in +advance or madly chasing the chickens across the road. + +"Did you finish your letter satisfactorily?" I asked, for I was +fretting with impatience to know its contents. + +"Yes. I will give it to you when you leave to-night." + +"Shall we say next Saturday, Bessie?" said I, resolving to plunge at +once into the sea of our late argument. + +"For what? For you to come again? Don't you always come on Saturday?" + +"Yes, but this time I mean to carry you away." + +A dead pause, which I improved by drawing her hand under my arm and +imprisoning her little gray glove with my other hand. As she did not +speak, I went on fatuously: "You don't need any preparation of gowns +and shawls; you can buy your _trousseau_ in London, if need be; and +we'll settle on the ship, coming over, how and where we are to live in +New York." + +"You think, then, that I am all ready to be married?" + +"I think that my darling is superior to the nonsense of other +girls--that she will be herself always, and doesn't need any +masquerade of wedding finery." + +"You think, then," coldly and drawing her hand away, "that I am +different from other girls?" and the scarlet deepened on her cheek. +"You think I say and do things other girls would not?" + +"My darling, what nonsense! You say and do things that other girls +_cannot_, nor could if they tried a thousand years." + +"Thanks for the compliment! It has at least the merit of dubiousness. +Now, Charlie, if you mention Europe once in this walk I shall be +seriously offended. Do let us have a little peace and a quiet talk." + +"Why, what on earth can we talk about until this is settled? I can't +go back to New York, and engage our passage, and go to see Judge +Hubbard--I suppose you were writing to him this morning?" + +She did not answer, but seemed bent on making the dainty print of her +foot in the moist earth of the road, taking each step carefully, as +though it were the one important and engrossing thing in life. + +"--Unless," I went on, "you tell me you will be ready to go back with +me this day week. You see, Bessie dear, I _must_ sail on the fixed +day. And if we talk it over now and settle it all, it will save no end +of writing to and fro." + +"Good-morning!" said a gay voice behind us--Fanny Meyrick's voice. She +was just coming out of one of the small houses on the roadside. "Don't +you want some company? I've been to call on my washerwoman, and I'm so +glad I've met you. Such an English morning! Shall I walk with you?" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +If I could have changed places with Fidget, I could scarce have +expressed my disapproval of the new-comer more vehemently than he. +Miss Meyrick seemed quite annoyed at the little dog's uncalled-for +snapping and barking, and shook her umbrella at him in vain. I was +obliged to take him in hand myself at last, and to stand in the road +and order him to "Go home!" while the two young ladies walked on, +apparently the best of friends. + +When I rejoined them Fanny Meyrick was talking fast and unconnectedly, +as was her habit: "Yes, lodgings in London--the dearest old house in +Clarges street. Such a butler! He looks like a member of Parliament. +We stayed there once before for three days. I am just going to settle +into an English girl. Had enough of the Continent. Never do see +England now-a-days, nobody. All rush off. So papa is going to have a +comfortable time. Embassy? Oh, I know the general well." + +I looked beseechingly at Bessie. Why wouldn't she say that we too +would be there in London lodgings? Perhaps, then, Fanny Meyrick might +take the hint and leave us soon. + +But Bessie gave no sign, and I relapsed into a somewhat impatient +_resume_ of my own affairs. Yes: married quietly on Saturday; leave +here on Monday morning train; take, yes, Wednesday's steamer. I could +arrange it with my law-partners to be absent a little longer perhaps, +that there might be some little rest and romance about the +wedding-journey. + +Two or three times in the course of that morning--for she stayed with +us all the morning--Fanny Meyrick rallied me on my preoccupation and +silence: "He didn't use to be so, Bessie, years ago, I assure you. +It's very disagreeable, sir--not an improvement by any means." + +Then--I think without any malice prepense, simply the unreasoning +rattle of a belle of two seasons--she plunged into a description of a +certain fete at Blankkill on the Hudson, the occasion of our first +acquaintance: "He was so young, Bessie, you can't imagine, and blushed +so beautifully that all the girls were jealous as could be. We were +very good friends--weren't we?--all that summer?" + +"And are still, I hope," said I with my most sweeping bow. "What have +I done to forfeit Miss Meyrick's esteem?" + +"Nothing, except that you used to find your way oftener to Meyrick +Place than you do now. Well, I won't scold you for that: I shall make +up for that on the other side." + +What did she mean? She had no other meaning than that she would have +such compensation in English society that her American admirers would +not be missed. She did not know of my going abroad. + +But Bessie darted a quick glance from her to me, and back again to +her, as though some dawning suspicion had come to her. "I hope," she +said quietly, "that you may have a pleasant winter. It will be +delightful, won't it, Charlie?" + +"Oh, very!" I answered, but half noting the under-meaning of her +words, my mind running on deck state-rooms and the like. + +"Charlie," said Miss Meyrick suddenly, "do you remember what happened +two years ago to-day?" + +"No, I think not." + +Taking out a little book bound in Russia leather and tipped with gold, +she handed it to Bessie, who ran her eye down the page: it was open at +September 28th. + +"Read it," said Fanny, settling herself composedly in her shawl, and +leaning back against a tree with half-shut eyes. + +"'_September 28th_'" Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange +constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love him +for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the +Hudson--moonlight--I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned +out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and swam with me to +shore.'" + +A dead silence as Bessie closed the book and held it in her hand. + +"Oh," said I lightly, "that isn't worth chronicling--that! It was no +question of saving lives. The New York boat was coming up, if I +remember." + +"Yes, it was in trying to steer away from it that I dropped my oar." + +"So you see it would have picked us up, any how. There was nothing but +the ducking to remember." + +"Such a figure, Bessie! Imagine us running along the road to the gate! +I could scarcely move for my dripping skirts; and we frightened papa +so when we stepped up on the piazza out of the moonlight!" + +To stop this torrent of reminiscences, which, though of nothings, I +could see was bringing the red spot to Bessie's cheek, I put out my +hand for the book: "Let me write something down to-day;" and I hastily +scribbled: "_September_ 28. Charles Munro and Bessie Stewart, to sail +for Europe in ten days, ask of their friend Fanny Meyrick her warm +congratulations." + +"Will that do?" I whispered as I handed the book to Bessie. + +"Not at all," said Bessie scornfully and coldly, tearing out the leaf +as she spoke and crumpling it in her hand.--"Sorry to spoil your book, +Fanny dear, but the sentiment would have spoiled it more. Let us go +home." + +As we passed the hotel on that dreary walk home, Fanny would have left +us, but Bessie clung to her and whispered something in a pleading +voice, begging her, evidently, to come home with us. + +"If Mr. Munro will take word to papa," she said, indicating that +worthy, who sat on the upper piazza smoking his pipe. + +"We will walk on," said Bessie coldly. "Come, Fanny dear." + +Strange, thought I as I turned on my heel, this sudden fond intimacy! +Bessie is angry. Why did I never tell her of the ducking? And yet when +I remembered how Fanny had clung to me, how after we had reached the +shore I had been forced to remind her that it was no time for +sentimental gratitude when we both were shivering, I could see why I +had refrained from mentioning it to Bessie until our closer +confidences would allow of it. + +No man, unless he be a downright coxcomb, will ever admit to one woman +that another woman has loved him. To his wife--perhaps. But how much +Fanny Meyrick cared for me I had never sought to know. After the +dismal ending of that moonlight boat-row--I had been already +disenchanted for some time before--I had scarce called at Meyrick +Place more than civility required. The young lady was so inclined to +exaggerate the circumstance, to hail me as her deliverer, that I felt +like the hero of a melodrama whenever we met. And after I had met +Bessie there were pleasanter things to think about--much pleasanter. + +How exasperating girls can be when they try! I had had my _conge_ for +the walk home, I knew, and I was vexed enough to accept it and stay at +the hotel to dinner. + +"I will not be played upon in this way. Bessie knows that I stayed +over the morning train just to be with her, and piled up for to-morrow +no end of work, as well as sarcastic remarks from D. & Co. If she +chooses to show off her affection for Fanny Meyrick in these few hours +that we have together--Fanny Meyrick whom she _hated_ yesterday--she +may enjoy her friendship undisturbed by me." + +So I loitered with my cigar after dinner, and took a nap on the sofa +in my room. I was piqued, and did not care to conceal it. As the clock +struck five I bethought me it was time to betake me to the Sloman +cottage. A sound of wheels and a carriage turning brought me to the +window. The two young ladies were driving off in Fanny Meyrick's +phaeton, having evidently come to the hotel and waited while it was +being made ready. + +"Pique for pique! Serves me right, I suppose." + +Evening found me at the Sloman cottage, waiting with Mrs. Sloman by +the tea-table. Why do I always remember her, sitting monumental by the +silver urn? + +"The girls are very late to-night." + +"Yes." I was beginning to be uneasy. It was nearing train-time again. + +"Such lovely moonlight, I suppose, has tempted them, or they may be +staying at Foxcroft to tea." + +Indeed? I looked at my watch: I had ten minutes. + +A sound of wheels: the phaeton drove up. + +"Oh, Charlie," said Bessie as she sprang out, "you bad boy! you'll +miss your train again. Fanny here will drive you to the hotel. Jump +in, quick!" + +And as the moonlight shone full on her face I looked inquiringly into +her eyes. + +"The letter," I said, "for Judge Hubbard?" hoping that she would go to +the house for it, and then I could follow her for a word. + +"Oh! I had almost forgotten. Here it is;" and she drew it from her +pocket and held it out to me in her gloved hand. I pressed the hand to +my lips, riding-glove and all, and sprang in beside Fanny, who was +with some difficulty making her horse stand still. + +"Good-bye!" from the little figure at the gate. "Don't forget, Fanny, +to-morrow at ten;" and we were off. + +By the wretched kerosene lamp of the car, going down, I read my +letter, for it was for me: "I will not go to Europe, and I forbid you +to mention it again. I shall never, never forget that _I_ proposed it, +and that you--_accepted_ it. Come up to Lenox once more before you +go." + +This was written in ink, and was sealed. It was the morning's note. +But across the envelope these words were written in pencil: "Go to +Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to Lenox, both of you, when you +return." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +I had a busy week of it in New York--copying out instructions, taking +notes of marriages and intermarriages in 1690, and writing each day a +long, pleading letter to Bessie. There was a double strain upon me: +all the arrangements for my client's claims, and in an undercurrent +the arguments to overcome Bessie's decision, went on in my brain side +by side. + +I could not, I wrote to her, make the voyage without her. It would be +the shipwreck of all my new hopes. It was cruel in her to have raised +such hopes unless she was willing to fulfill them: it made the +separation all the harder. I could not and would not give up the plan. +"I have engaged our passage in the Wednesday's steamer: say yes, dear +child, and I will write to Dr. Wilder from here." + +I could not leave for Lenox before Saturday morning, and I hoped to be +married on the evening of that day. But to all my pleading came "No," +simply written across a sheet of note-paper in my darling's graceful +hand. + +Well, I would go up on the Saturday, nevertheless. She would surely +yield when she saw me faithful to my word. + +"I shall be a sorry-looking bridegroom," I thought as I surveyed +myself in the little mirror at the office. It was Friday night, and we +were shutting up. We had worked late by gaslight, all the clerks had +gone home long ago, and only the porter remained, half asleep on a +chair in the hall. + +It was striking nine as I gathered up my bundle of papers and thrust +them into a bag. I was rid of them for three days at least. "Bill, you +may lock up now," I said, tapping the sleepy porter on the shoulder. + +"Oh, Mr. Munro, shure here's a card for yees," handing me a lady's +card. + +"Who left it, Bill?" I hurriedly asked, taking it to the flaring +gaslight on the stairway. + +"Two ladies in a carriage--an old 'un and a pretty young lady, shure. +They charged me giv' it yees, and druv' off." + +"And why didn't you bring it in, you blockhead?" I shouted, for it was +Bessie Stewart's card. On it was written in pencil: "Westminster +Hotel. On our way through New York. Leave on the 8 train for the South +to-night. Come up to dinner." + +The eight-o'clock train, and it was now striking nine! + +"Shure, Mr. Charles, you had said you was not to be disturbed on no +account, and that I was to bring in no messages." + +"Did you tell those ladies that? What time were they here?" + +"About five o'clock--just after you had shut the dure, and the clerks +was gone. Indeed, and they didn't wait for no reply, but hearin' you +were in there, they druv' off the minute they give me the card. The +pretty young lady didn't like the looks of our office, I reckon." + +It was of no use to storm at Bill. He had simply obeyed orders like a +faithful machine. So, after a hot five minutes, I rushed up to the +Westminster. Perhaps they had not gone. Bessie would know there was a +mistake, and would wait for me. + +But they were gone. On the books of the hotel were registered in a +clear hand, Bessie's hand, "Mrs. M. Antoinette Sloman and maid; Miss +Bessie Stewart." They had arrived that afternoon, must have driven +directly from the train to the office, and had dined, after waiting a +little time for some one who did not come. + +"And where were they going?" I asked of the sympathetic clerk, who +seemed interested. + +"Going South--I don't know where. The elder lady seemed delicate, and +the young lady quite anxious that she should stay here to-night and go +on in the morning. But no, she would go on to-night." + +I took the midnight train for Philadelphia. They would surely not go +farther to-night if Mrs. Sloman seemed such an invalid. + +I scanned every hotel-book in vain. I walked the streets of the city, +and all the long Sunday I haunted one or two churches that my memory +suggested to me were among the probabilities for that day. They were +either not in the city or most securely hid. + +And all this time there was a letter in the New York post-office +waiting for me. I found it at my room when I went back to it on Monday +noon. + +It ran as follows: + + "WESTMINSTER HOTEL. + "Very sorry not to see you--Aunt Sloman especially sorry; but + she has set her heart on going to Philadelphia to-night. We + shall stay at a private house, a quiet boarding-house; for + aunt goes to consult Dr. R---- there, and wishes to be very + retired. I shall not give you our address: as you sail so + soon, it would not be worth while to come over. I will write + you on the other side. B.S." + +Where's a Philadelphia directory? Where is this Dr. R----? I find him, +sure enough--such a number Walnut street. Time is precious--Monday +noon! + +"I'll transfer my berth to the Saturday steamer: that will do as well. +Can't help it if they do scold at the office." + +To drive to the Cunard company's office and make the transfer took +some little time, but was not this my wedding holiday? I sighed as I +again took my seat in the car at Jersey City. On this golden Monday +afternoon I should have been slowly coming down the Housatonic Valley, +with my dear little wife beside me. Instead, the unfamiliar train, and +the fat man at my side reading a campaign newspaper, and shaking his +huge sides over some broad burlesque. + +The celebrated surgeon, Dr. R----, was not at home in answer to my +ring on Monday evening. + +"How soon will he be in? I will wait." + +"He can see no patients to-night sir," said the man; "and he may not +be home until midnight." + +"But I am an _im_patient," I might have urged, when a carriage dashed +up to the door. A slight little man descended, and came slowly up the +steps. + +"Dr. R----?" I said inquiringly. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Just one minute, doctor, if you please. I only want to get an address +from you." + +He scanned me from head to foot: "Walk into my office, young man." + +I might have wondered at the brusqueness of his manner had I not +caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the mantelshelf. Dusty +and worn, and with a keen look of anxiety showing out of every +feature, I should scarcely have recognized myself. + +I explained as collectedly as possible that I wanted the address of +one of his patients, a dear old friend of mine, whom I had missed as +she passed through New York, and that, as I was about to sail for +Europe in a few days, I had rushed over to bid her good-bye. "Mrs. +Antoinette Sloman, it is, doctor." + +The doctor eyed me keenly: he put out his hand to the little silver +bell that stood on the table and tapped it sharply. The servant +appeared at the door: "Let the carriage wait, James." + +Again the watchful, keen expression. Did he think me an escaped +lunatic, or that I had an intent to rob the old lady? Apparently the +scrutiny was satisfactory, for he took out a little black book from +his pocket, and turning over the leaves, said, "Certainly, here it +is--No. 30 Elm street, West Philadelphia." + +Over the river, then, again: no wonder I had not seen them in the +Sunday's search. + +"I will take you over," said Dr. R----, replacing the book in his +pocket again. "Mrs. Sloman is on my list. Wait till I eat a biscuit, +and I'll drive you over in my carriage." + +Shrewd little man! thought I: if I am a convict or a lunatic with +designs on Mrs. Sloman, he is going to be there to see. + +"Till he ate a biscuit?" I should think so. To his invitation, most +courteously urged, that I should come and share his supper--"You've +just come from the train, and you won't get back to your hotel for two +hours, at least"--I yielded a ready acceptance, for I was really very +hungry: I forget whether I had eaten anything all day. + +But the biscuit proved to be an elegant little supper served in +glittering plate, and the doctor lounged over the tempting bivalves +until I could scarce conceal my impatience. + +"Do you chance to know," he said carelessly, as at last we rose from +the table and he flung his napkin down, "Mrs. Sloman's niece, Miss +Stewart?" + +"Excellently well," I said smiling: "in fact, I believe I am engaged +to be married to her." + +"My dear fellow," said the doctor, bursting out laughing, "I am +delighted to hear it! Take my carriage and go. I saw you were a +lawyer, and you looked anxious and hurried; and I made up my mind that +you had come over to badger the old lady into making her will. I +congratulate you with all my soul--and myself, too," he added, shaking +my hand. "Only think! Had it not been for your frankness, I should +have taken a five-mile ride to watch you and keep you from doing my +patient an injury." + +The good doctor quite hurried me into the carriage in the effusion of +his discovery; and I was soon rolling away in that luxurious vehicle +over the bridge, and toward Bessie at last. + +I cannot record that interview in words, nor can I now set down any +but the mere outline of our talk. My darling came down to meet me with +a quick flush of joy that she did not try to conceal. She was natural, +was herself, and only too glad, after the _contretemps_ in New York, +to see me again. She pitied me as though I had been a tired child when +I told her pathetically of my two journeys to Philadelphia, and +laughed outright at my interview with Dr. R----. + +I was so sure of my ground. When I came to speak of the journey--_our_ +journey--I knew I should prevail. It was a deep wound, and she shrank +from any talk about it. I had to be very gentle and tender before she +would listen to me at all. + +But there was something else at work against me--what was +it?--something that I could neither see nor divine. And it was not +altogether made up of Aunt Sloman, I was sure. + +"I cannot leave her now, Charlie. Dr. R---- wishes her to remain in +Philadelphia, so that he can watch her case. That settles it, Charlie: +I must stay with her." + +What was there to be said? "Is there no one else, no one to take your +place?" + +"Nobody; and I would not leave her even if there were." + +Still, I was unsatisfied. A feeling of uneasiness took possession of +me. I seemed to read in Bessie's eyes that there was a thought between +us hidden out of sight. There is no clairvoyant like a lover. I could +see the shadow clearly enough, but whence, in her outer life, had the +shadow come? _Between_ us, surely, it could not be. Even her anxiety +for her aunt could not explain it: it was something concealed. + +When at last I had to leave her, "So to-morrow is your last day?" she +said. + +"No, not the last. I have changed my passage to the Saturday steamer." + +The strange look came into her face again. Never before did blue eyes +wear such a look of scrutiny. + +"Well, what is it?" I asked laughingly as I looked straight into her +eyes. + +"The Saturday steamer," she said musingly--"the Algeria, isn't it? I +thought you were in a hurry?" + +"It was my only chance to have you," I explained, and apparently the +argument was satisfactory enough. + +With the saucy little upward toss with which she always dismissed a +subject, "Then it isn't good-bye to-night?" she said. + +"Yes, for two days. I shall run over again on Thursday." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The two days passed, and the Thursday, and the Friday's parting, +harder for Bessie, as it seemed, than she had thought for. It was hard +to raise her dear little head from my shoulder when the last moment +came, and to rush down stairs to the cab, whose shivering horse and +implacable driver seemed no bad emblem of destiny on that raw October +morning. + +I was glad of the lowering sky as I stepped up the gangway to the +ship's deck. "What might have been" went down the cabin stairs with +me; and as I threw my wraps and knapsack into the double state-room I +had chosen I felt like a widower. + +It was wonderful to me then, as I sat down on the side of the berth +and looked around me, how the last two weeks had filled all the future +with dreams. "I must have a genius for castle-building," I laughed. +"Well, the reality is cold and empty enough. I'll go up on deck." + +On deck, among the piles of luggage, were various metal-covered trunks +marked M----. I remember now watching them as they were stowed away. + +But it was with a curious shock, an hour after we had left the dock, +that a turn in my solitary walk on deck brought me face to face with +Fanny Meyrick. + +"You here?" she said. "I thought you had sailed in the Russia! Bessie +told me you were to go then." + +"Did she know," I asked, "that _you_ were going by this steamer?" + +On my life, never was gallantry farther from my thoughts: my question +concerned Bessie alone, but Fanny apparently took it as a compliment, +and looked up gayly: "Oh yes: that was fixed months ago. I told her +about it at Lenox." + +"And did she tell you something else?" I asked sharply. + +"Oh yes. I was very glad to hear of your good prospect. Do be +congratulated, won't you?" + +Rather an odd way to put it, thought I, but it is Fanny Meyrick's way. +"Good prospect!" Heavens! was that the term to apply to my engagement +with Bessie? + +I should have insisted on a distincter utterance and a more flattering +expression of the situation had it been any other woman. But a +lingering suspicion that perhaps the subject was a distasteful one to +Fanny Meyrick made me pause, and a few moments after, as some one else +joined her, I left her and went to the smokestack for my cigar. + +It was impossible, in the daily monotony of ship-life, to avoid +altogether the young lady whom Fate had thrown in my way. She was a +most provokingly good sailor, too. Other women stayed below or were +carried in limp bundles to the deck at noon; but Fanny, perfectly +poised, with the steady glow in her cheek, was always ready to amuse +or be amused. + +I tried, at first, keeping out of her way, with the _Trois +Mousquetaires_ for company. But it seemed to me, as she knew of my +engagement, such avoidance was anything but complimentary to her. +Loyalty to her sex would forbid me to show that I had read her secret. +Why not meet her on the frank, breezy ground of friendship? + +Perhaps, after all, there was no secret. Perhaps her feeling was only +one of girlish gratitude, however needless, for pulling her out of the +Hudson River. I did not know. + +Nor was I particularly pleased with the companion to whom she +introduced me on our third day out--Father Shamrock, an Irish priest, +long resident in America, and bound now for Maynooth. How he had +obtained an introduction to her I do not know, except in the easy, +fatherly way he seemed to have with every one on board. + +"Pshaw!" thought I, "what a nuisance!" for I shared the common +antipathy to his country and his creed. Nor was his appearance +prepossessing--one of Froude's "tonsured peasants," as I looked down +at the square shoulders, the stout, short figure and the broad +beardlessness of the face of the padre. But his voice, rich and +mellow, attracted me in spite of myself. His eyes were sparkling with +kindly humor, and his laugh was irresistible. + +A perfect man of the world, with no priestly austerity about him, he +seemed a perpetual anxiety to the two young priests at his heels. They +were on their dignity always, and, though bound to hold him in +reverence as their superior in age and rank, his songs and his gay +jests were evidently as thorns in their new cassocks. + +Father Shamrock was soon the star of the ship's company. Perfectly +suave, his gayety had rather the French sparkle about it than the +distinguishing Italian trait, and his easy manner had a dash of +manliness which I had not thought to find. Accomplished in various +tongues, rattling off a gay little _chanson_ or an Irish song, it was +a sight to see the young priests looking in from time to time at the +cabin door in despair as the clock pointed to nine, and Father +Shamrock still sat the centre of a gay and laughing circle. + +He had rare tact, too, in talking to women. Of all the ladies on the +Algeria, I question if there were any but the staunchest Protestants. +Some few held themselves aloof at first and declined an introduction. +"Father Shamrock! An Irish priest! How _can_ Miss Meyrick walk with +him and present him as she does?" But the party of recalcitrants grew +less and less, and Fanny Meyrick was very frank in her admiration. +"Convert you?" she laughed over her shoulder to me. "He wouldn't take +the trouble to try." + +And I believe, indeed, he would not. His strong social nature was +evidently superior to any ambition of his cloth. He would have made a +famous diplomat but for the one quality of devotion that was lacking. +I use the word in its essential, not in its religious sense--devotion +to an idea, the faith in a high purpose. + +We had one anxious day of it, and only one. A gale had driven most of +the passengers to the seclusion of their state-rooms, and left the +dinner-table a desert. Alone in the cabin, Father Shamrock, Fanny +Meyrick, a young Russian and myself: I forget a vigilant duenna, the +only woman on board unreconciled to Father Shamrock. She lay prone on +one of the seats, her face rigid and hands clasped in an agony of +terror. She was afraid, she afterward confessed to me, to go to her +state-room: nearness and voices seemed a necessity to her. + +When I joined the party, Father Shamrock, as usual, was the narrator. +But he had dropped out of his voice all the gay humor, and was talking +very soberly. Some story he was telling, of which I gathered, as he +went on, that it was of a young lady, a rich and brilliant society +woman. "Shot right through the heart at Chancellorsville, and he the +only brother. They two, orphans, were all that were left of the +family. He was her darling, just two years younger than she. + +"I went to see her, and found her in an agony. She had not kissed him +when he left her: some little laughing tiff between them, and she had +expected to see him again before his regiment marched. She threw +herself on her knees and made confession; and then she took a holy +vow: if the saints would grant her once more to behold his body, she +would devote herself hereafter to God's holy Church. + +"She gathered all her jewels together in a heap and cast them at my +feet. 'Take them, Father, for the Church: if I find him I shall not +wear them again--or if I do not find him.' + +"I went with her to the front of battle, and we found him after a +time. It was a search, but we found his grave, and we brought him home +with us. Poor boy! beyond recognition, except for the ring he wore; +but she gave him the last kiss, and then she was ready to leave the +world. She took the vows as Sister Clara, the holy vows of poverty and +charity." + +"But, Father," said Fanny, with a new depth in her eyes, "did she not +die behind the bars? To be shut up in a convent with that grief at her +heart!" + +"Bars there were none," said the Father gently. "She left her vocation +to me, and I decided for her to become a Sister of Mercy. I have +little sympathy," with a shrug half argumentative, half +deprecatory--"but little sympathy with the conventual system for +spirits like hers. She would have wasted and worn away in the offices +of prayer. She needed _action_. And she had the full of it in her +calling. She went from bedside to bedside of the sick and dying--here +a child in a fever; there a widow-woman in the last stages of +consumption--night after night, and day after day, with no rest, no +thought of herself." + +"Oh, I have seen her," I could not help interposing, "in a city car. A +shrouded figure that was conspicuous even in her serge dress. She read +a book of _Hours_ all the time, but I caught one glimpse of her eyes: +they were very brilliant." + +"Yes," sighed the Father, "it was an unnatural brightness. I was +called away to Montreal, or I should never have permitted the +sacrifice. She went where-ever the worst cases were of contagion and +poverty, and she would have none to relieve her at her post. So, when +I returned after three months' absence, I was shocked at the change: +she was dying of their family disease. 'It is better, so,' she said, +'dear Father. It was only the bullet that saved Harry from it, and it +would have been sure to come to me at last, after some opera or ball.' +She died last winter--so patient and pure, and such a saintly +sufferer!" + +The Father wiped his eyes. Why should I think of Bessie? Why should +the Sister's veiled figure and pale ardent face rise before me as if +in warning? + +Of just such overwhelming sacrifice was my darling capable were her +life's purpose wrecked. Something there was in the portrait of the +sweet singleness, the noble scorn of self, the devotion unthinking, +uncalculating, which I knew lay hidden in her soul. + +The Father warmed into other themes, all in the same key of mother +Church. I listened dreamily, and to my own thoughts as well. + +He pictured the priest's life of poverty, renunciation, leaving the +world of men, the polish and refinement of scholars, to take the +confidences and bear the burdens of grimy poverty and ignorance. +Surely, I thought, we do wrong to shut such men out of our sympathies, +to label them "Dangerous." Why should we turn the cold shoulder? are +we so true to our ideals? But one glance at the young priests as they +sat crouching in the outer cabin, telling their beads and crossing +themselves with the vehemence of a frightened faith, was enough. +Father Shamrock was no type. Very possibly his own life would show but +coarse and poor against the chaste, heroic portraits he had drawn. He +had the dramatic faculty: for the moment he was what he related--that +was all. + +Our vigilant duenna had gradually risen to a sitting posture, and +drawn nearer and nearer, and as the narrator's voice sank into silence +she said with effusion, "Well, _you_ are a good man, I guess." + +But Fanny Meyrick sat as if entranced. The gale had died away, and, to +break the spell, I asked her if she wanted to take one peep on deck, +to see if there was a star in the heavens. + +There was no star, but a light rising and falling with the ship's +motion, which was pronounced by a sailor to be Queenstown light, shone +in the distance. + +The Father was to leave us there. "We shall not make it to-night," +said the sailor. "It is too rough. Early in the morning the passengers +will land." + +"I wish," said Fanny with a deep sigh, as if wakening from a dream, +"that the Church of Rome was at the bottom of the sea!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Arrived at our dock, I hurried off to catch the train for London. The +Meyricks lingered for a few weeks in Wales before coming to settle +down for the winter. I was glad of it, for I could make my +arrangements unhampered. So I carefully eliminated Clarges street from +my list of lodging-houses, and finally "ranged" myself with a neat +landlady in Sackville street. + +How anxiously I awaited the first letter from Bessie! As the banker's +clerk handed it over the counter to me, instead of the heavy envelope +I had hoped for, it was a thin slip of an affair that fluttered away +from my hand. It was so very slim and light that I feared to open it +there, lest it should be but a mocking envelope, nothing more. + +So I hastened back to my cab, and, ordering the man to drive to the +law-offices, tore it open as I jumped in. It enclosed simply a printed +slip, cut from some New York paper--a list of the Algeria's +passengers. + +"What joke is this?" I said as I scanned it more closely. + +By some spite of fortune my name was printed directly after the +Meyrick party. Was it for this, this paltry thing, that Bessie has +denied me a word? I turned over the envelope, turned it inside +out--not a penciled word even! + +The shadow that I had seen on that good-bye visit to Philadelphia was +clear to me now. I had said at Lenox, repeating the words after Bessie +with fatal emphasis, "I am glad, very glad, that Fanny Meyrick is to +sail in October. I would not have her stay on this side for worlds!" +Then the next day, twenty-four hours after, I told her that I too was +going abroad. Coward that I was, not to tell her at first! She might +have been sorry, vexed, but not _suspicious_. + +Yes, that was the ugly word I had to admit, and to admit that I had +given it room to grow. + +My first hesitancy about taking her with me, my transfer from the +Russia to the later steamer, and, to crown all, that leaf from Fanny's +pocket-book: "I shall love him for ever and ever"! + +And yet she _had_ faith in me. She had told Fanny Meyrick we were +engaged. _Had she not_? + +My work in London was more tedious and engrossing than I had expected. +Even a New York lawyer has much to learn of the law's delay in those +pompous old offices amid the fog. Had I been working for myself, I +should have thrown up the case in despair, but advices from our office +said "Stick to it," and I stayed. + +Eating out my own heart with anxiety whenever I thought of my home +affair, perhaps it was well for me that I had the monotonous, musty +work that required little thought, but only a persistent plodding and +a patient holding of my end of the clue. + +In all these weeks I had nothing from Bessie save that first cruel +envelope. Letter after letter went to her, but no response came. I +wrote to Mrs. Sloman too, but no answer. Then I bethought me of Judge +Hubbard, but received in reply a note from one of his sons, stating +that his father was in Florida--that he had communicated with him, but +regretted that he was unable to give me Miss Stewart's present +address. + +Why did I not seek Fanny Meyrick? She must have come to London long +since, and surely the girls were in correspondence. I was too proud. +She knew of our relations: Bessie had told her. I could not bring +myself to reveal to her how tangled and gloomy a mystery was between +us. I could explain nothing without letting her see that she was the +unconscious cause. + +At last, when one wretched week after another had gone by, and we were +in the new year, I could bear it no longer. "Come what will, I must +know if Bessie writes to her." + +I went to Clarges street. My card was carried into the Meyricks' +parlor, and I followed close upon it. Fanny was sitting alone, reading +by a table. She looked up in surprise as I stood in the doorway. A +little coldly, I thought, she came forward to meet me, but her manner +changed as she took my hand. + +"I was going to scold you, Charlie, for avoiding us, for staying away +so long, but that is accounted for now. Why didn't you send us word +that you were ill? Papa is a capital nurse." + +"But I have not been ill," I said, bewildered, "only very busy and +very anxious." + +"I should think so," still holding my hand, and looking into my face +with an expression of deep concern. "Poor fellow! You do look worn. +Come right here to this chair by the fire, and let me take care of +you. You need rest." + +And she rang the bell. I suffered myself to be installed in the soft +crimson chair by the fire. It was such a comfort to hear a friendly +voice after all those lonely weeks! When the servant entered with a +tray, I watched her movements over the tea-cups with a delicious sense +of the womanly presence and the home-feeling stealing over me. + +"I can't imagine what keeps papa," she said, chatting away with +woman's tact: "he always smokes after dinner, and comes up to me for +his cup of tea afterward." + +Then, as she handed me a tiny porcelain cup, steaming and fragrant, "I +should never have congratulated you, Charlie, on board the steamer if +I had known it was going to end in this way." + +_This way_! Then Bessie must have told her. + +"End?" I said stammering: "what--what end?" + +"In wearing you out. Bessie told me at Lenox, the day we took that +long walk, that you had this important case, and it was a great thing +for a young lawyer to have such responsibility." + +Poor little porcelain cup! It fell in fragments on the floor as I +jumped to my feet: "Was that _all_ she told you? Didn't she tell you +that we were engaged?" + +For a moment Fanny did not speak. The scarlet glow on her cheek, the +steady glow that was always there, died away suddenly and left her +pale as ashes. Mechanically she opened and shut the silver sugar-tongs +that lay on the table under her hand, and her eyes were fixed on me +with a wild, beseeching expression. + +"Did you not know," I said in softer tones, still standing by the +table and looking down on her, "that day at Lenox that we were +engaged? Was it not for _that_ you congratulated me on board the +steamer?" + +A deep-drawn sigh as she whispered, "Indeed, no! Oh dear! what have I +done?" + +"You?--nothing!" I said with a sickly smile; "but there is some +mistake, some mystery. I have never had one line from Bessie since I +reached London, and when I left her she was my own darling little wife +that was to be." + +Still Fanny sat pale as ashes, looking into the fire and muttering to +herself. "Heavens! To think--Oh, Charlie," with a sudden burst, "it's +all my doing! How can I ever tell you?" + +"You hear from Bessie, then? Is she--is she well? Where is she? What +is all this?" And I seated myself again and tried to speak calmly, for +I saw that something very painful was to be said--something that she +could hardly say; and I wanted to help her, though how I knew not. + +At this moment the door opened and "papa" came in. He evidently saw +that he had entered upon a scene as his quick eye took in the +situation, but whether I was accepted or rejected as the future +son-in-law even his penetration was at fault to discover. + +"Oh, papa," said Fanny, rising with evident relief, "just come and +talk to Mr. Munro while I get him a package he wants to take with +him." + +It took a long time to prepare that package. Mr. Meyrick, a cool, +shrewd man of the world, was taking a mental inventory of me, I felt +all the time. I was conscious that I talked incoherently and like a +school-boy of the treaty. Every American in London was bound to have +his special opinion thereupon, and Meyrick, I found, was of the +English party. Then we discussed the special business which had +brought me to England. + +"A very unpresentable son-in-law," I read in his eye, while he was +evidently astonished at his daughter's prolonged absence. + +Our talk flagged and the fire grew gray in its flaky ashes before +Fanny again appeared. + +"I know, papa, you think me very rude to keep Mr. Munro so long +waiting, but there were some special directions to go with the packet, +and it took me a long time to get them right. It is for Bessie, +papa--Bessie Stewart, Mr. Munro's dear little _fiancee_." + +Escaping as quickly as possible from Mr. Meyrick's neatly turned +felicitations--and that the satisfaction he expressed was genuine I +was prepared to believe--hurried home to Sackville street. + +My bedroom was always smothering in its effect on me--close draperies +to the windows, heavy curtains around the bed--and I closed the door +and lighted my candle with a sinking heart. + +The packet was simply a long letter, folded thickly in several +wrappers and tied with a string. The letter opened abruptly: + +"What I am going to do I am sure no woman on earth ever did before me, +nor would I save to undo the trouble I have most innocently made. What +must you have thought of me that day at Lenox, staying close all day +to two engaged people, who must have wished me away a thousand times? +But I did not dream you were engaged. + +"Remember, I had just come over from Saratoga, and knew nothing of +Lenox gossip, then or afterward. Something in your manner once or +twice made me look at you and think that perhaps you were _interested_ +in Bessie, but hers to you was so cold, so distant, that I thought it +was only a notion of my jealous self. + +"Was I foolish to lay so much stress on that anniversary time? Do you +know that the year before we had spent it together, too?--September +28th. True, that year it was at Bertie Cox's funeral, but we had +walked together, and I was happy in being near you. + +"For, you see, it was from something more than the Hudson River that +you had brought me out. You had rescued me from the stupid gayety of +my first winter--from the flats of fashionable life. You had given me +an ideal--something to live up to and grow worthy of. + +"Let that pass. For myself, it is nothing, but for the deeper harm I +have done, I fear, to Bessie and to you. + +"Again, on that day at Lenox, when Bessie and I drove together in the +afternoon, I tried to make her talk about you, to find out what you +were to her. But she was so distant, so repellant, that I fancied +there was nothing at all between you; or, rather, if you had cared for +her at all, that she had been indifferent to you. + +"Indeed, she quite forbade the subject by her manner; and when she +told me you were going abroad, I could not help being very happy, for +I thought then that I should have you all to myself. + +"When I saw you on shipboard, I fancied, somehow, that you had changed +your passage to be with us. It was very foolish; and I write it, +thankful that you are not here to see me. So I scribbled a little note +to Bessie, and sent it off by the pilot: I don't know where you were +when the pilot went. This is, as nearly as I remember it, what I +wrote: + + "'DEAR BESSIE: Charlie Munro is on board. He must have + changed his passage to be with us. I know from something + that he has just told _me_ that this is so, and that he + consoles himself already for your coldness. You remember + what I told you when we talked about him. I shall _try_ now. + F.M.' + +"Bessie would know what that meant. Oh, must I tell you what a weak, +weak girl I was? When I found out at Lenox, as I thought, that Bessie +did not care for you, I said to her that once I thought you _had_ +cared for me, but that papa had offended you by his manner--you +weren't of an old Knickerbocker family, you know--and had given you to +understand that your visits were not acceptable. + +"I am sure now that it was because I wanted to think so that I put +that explanation upon your ceasing to visit me, and because papa +always looked so decidedly _queer_ whenever your name was mentioned. + +"I had always had everything in life that I wanted, and I believed +that in due time you would come back to me. + +"Bessie knew well enough what that pilot-letter meant, for here is her +answer." + +Pinned fast to the end of Fanny's letter, so that by no chance should +I read it first, were these words in my darling's hand: + + "Got your pilot-letter. Aunt is much better. We shall be + traveling about so much that you need not write me the + progress of your romance, but believe me I shall be most + interested in its conclusion. BESSIE S." + +It was all explained now. My darling, so sensitive and spirited, had +given her leave "to try." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +But was that all? Was she wearing away the slow months in passionate +unbelief of me? I could not tell. But before I slept that night I had +taken my resolve. I would sail for home by the next steamer. The case +would suffer, perhaps, by the delay and the change of hands: D---- +must come out to attend to it himself, then, but I would suffer no +longer. + +No use to write to Bessie. I had exhausted every means to reach her +save that of the detectives. "I'll go to the office, file my papers +till the next man comes over, see Fanny Meyrick, and be off." + +But what to say to Fanny? Good, generous girl! She had indeed done +what few women in the world would have had the courage to do--shown +her whole heart to a man who loved another. It would be an +embarrassing interview; and I was not sorry when I started out that +morning that it was too early yet to call. + +To the office first, then, I directed my steps. But here Fate lay +_perdu_ and in wait for me. + +"A letter, Mr. Munro, from D---- & Co.," said the brisk young +clerk. They had treated me with great respect of late, for, indeed, +our claim was steadily growing in weight, and was sure to come right +before long. I opened and read: + +"The missing paper is found on this side of the Atlantic--what you +have been rummaging for all winter on the other. A trusty messenger +sails at once, and will report himself to you." + +"At once!" Well, there's only a few days' delay, at most. Perhaps it's +young Bunker. He can take the case and end it: anybody can end it now. + +And my heart was light. "A few days," I said to myself as I ran up the +steps in Clarges street. + +"Miss Fanny at home?" to the man, or rather to the member of +Parliament, who opened the door--"Miss Meyrick, I mean." + +"Yes, sir--in the drawing-room, sir;" and he announced me with a +flourish. + +Fanny sat in the window. She might have been looking out for me, for +on my entrance she parted the crimson curtains and came forward. + +Again the clear glow in her cheek, the self-possessed Fanny of old. + +"Charlie," she began impetuously, "I have been thinking over shipboard +and Father Shamrock, and all. You didn't think then--did you?--that I +cared so very much for you? I am so glad that the Father bewitched me +as he did, for I can remember no foolishness on my part to you, +sir--none at all. Can you?" + +Stammering, confused, I seemed to have lost my tongue and my head +together. I had expected tears, pale cheeks, a burst of self-reproach, +and that I should have to comfort and be very gentle and sympathetic. +I had dreaded the _role_; but here was a new turn of affairs; and, I +own it, my self-love was not a little wounded. The play was played +out, that was evident. The curtain had fallen, and here was I, a +late-arrived hero of romance, the chivalric elder brother, with all my +little stock of property-phrases--friendship of a life, esteem, +etc.--of no more account than a week-old playbill. + +For, I must confess it, I had rehearsed some little forgiveness scene, +in which I should magnanimously kiss her hand, and tell her that I +should honor her above all women for her courage and her truth; and in +which she would cry until her poor little heart was soothed and +calmed; and that I should have the sweet consciousness of being +beloved, however hopelessly, by such a brilliant, ardent soul. + +But Mistress Fanny had quietly turned the tables on me, and I believe +I was angry enough for the moment to wish it had not been so. + +But only for a moment. It began to dawn upon me soon, the rare tact +which had made easy the most embarrassing situation in the world--the +_bravura_ style, if I may call it so, that had carried us over such a +difficult bar. + +It _was_ delicacy, this careless reminder of the fascinating Father, +and perhaps there was a modicum of truth in that acknowledgment too. + +I took my leave of Fanny Meyrick, and walked home a wiser man. + +But the trusty messenger, who arrived three days later, was not, as I +had hoped, young Bunker or young Anybody. It was simply Mrs. D----, +with a large traveling party. They came straight to London, and +summoned me at once to the Langham Hotel. + +I suppose I looked somewhat amazed at sight of the portly lady, whom I +had last seen driving round Central Park. But the twin Skye terriers +who tumbled in after her assured me of her identity soon enough. + +"Mr. D---- charged me, Mr. Munro," she began after our first +ceremonious greeting, "to give this into no hands but yours. I have +kept it securely with my diamonds, and those I always carry about me." + +From what well-stitched diamond receptacle she had extracted the paper +I did not suffer myself to conjecture, but the document was strongly +perfumed with violet powder. + +"You see, I was coming over," she proceeded to explain, "in any event, +and when Mr. D---- talked of sending Bunker--I think it was +Bunker--with us, I persuaded him to let me be messenger instead. It +wasn't worth while, you know, to have any more people leave the +office, you being away, and--Oh, Ada, my dear, here is Mr. Munro!" + +As Ada, a slim, willowy creature, with the _surprised_ look in her +eyes that has become the fashion of late, came gliding up to me, I +thought that the reason for young Bunker's omission from the party was +possibly before me. + +Bother on her matrimonial, or rather anti-matrimonial, devices! Her +maternal solicitude lest Ada should be charmed with the poor young +clerk on the passage over had cost me weeks of longer stay. For at +this stage a request for any further transfer would have been +ridiculous and wrong. As easy to settle it now as to arrange for any +one else; so the first of April found me still in London, but leaving +it on the morrow for home. + +"Bessie is in Lenox, I think," Fanny Meyrick had said to me as I bade +her good-bye. + +"What! You have heard from her?" + +"No, but I heard incidentally from one of my Boston friends this +morning that he had seen her there, standing on the church steps." + +I winced, and a deeper glow came into Fanny's cheek. + +"You will give her my letter? I would have written to her also, but it +was indeed only this morning that I heard. You will give her that?" + +"I have kept it for her," I said quietly; and the adieus were over. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Lenox again, and bluebirds darting to and fro among the maples. I had +reached the hotel at midnight. Our train was late, detained on the +road, and though my thoughts drove instantly to the Sloman cottage, I +allowed the tardier coach-horses to set me down at the hotel. I had +not telegraphed from New York. I would give her no chance to withhold +herself from me, or to avoid me by running away. There was no time for +her, as yet, to have read of the ship's arrival. I would take her +unawares. + +So, after the bountiful Nora, who presides over the comfort of her +favorites, had plied me with breakfast-cakes and milk and honey, I +sauntered down toward the Lebanon road. Yes, sauntered, for I felt +that a great crisis in my life was at hand, and at such times a +wonderful calmness, almost to lethargy, possesses me. I went slowly up +the hill. The church-clock was striking nine--calm, peaceful strokes. +There was no tremor in them, no warning of what was coming. The air +was very still, and I stopped a moment to watch the bluebirds before I +turned into the Lebanon road. + +There was the little gray cottage, with its last year's vines about +it, a withered spray here and there waving feebly as the soft April +air caught it and tossed it to and fro. No sign of life about the +cottage--doors and windows tight shut and barred. Only the little gate +swung open, but that might have been the wind. I stepped up on the +porch. No sound save the echo of my steps and the knocking of my +heart. I rang the bell. It pealed violently, but there were no +answering sounds: nothing stirred. + +I rang again, more gently, and waited, looking along the little path +to the gate. There was snow, the winter's snow, lingering about the +roots of the old elm, the one elm tree that overhung the cottage. Last +winter's snow lying there, and of the people who had lived in the +house, and made it warm and bright, not a footprint, not a trace! + +Again I rang, and this time I heard footsteps coming round the corner +of the house. I sat down on the rustic bench by the door. If it had +been Bessie's self, I could not have stirred, I was so chilled, so +awed by the blank silence. A brown sun-bonnet, surmounting a tall, +gaunt figure, came in sight. + +"What is it?" asked the owner of the sun-bonnet in a quick, sharp +voice that seemed the prelude to "Don't want any." + +"Where are Mrs. Sloman and Miss Stewart? Are they not in Lenox?" + +"Miss' Sloman, she's away to Minnarsoter: ben thar' all winter for her +health. She don't cal'late to be home afore June." + +"And Miss Stewart?--is she with her?" + +"Miss Stewart? I dunno," said the woman, with a strange look about the +corners of her mouth. "I dunno: I never see her; and the family was +all away afore I came here to take charge. They left the kitchen-end +open for me; and my sister-in-law--that's Hiram Splinter's wife--she +made all the 'rangements. But I _did_ hear," hesitating a moment, "as +how Bessie Stewart was away to Shaker Village; and some does say"--a +portentous pause and clearing of her throat--"that she's jined." + +"_Joined_--what?" I asked, all in a mist of impatience and perplexity. + +"Jined the Shakers." + +"Nonsense!" I said, recovering my breath angrily. "Where is this +Hiram's wife? Let me see her." + +"In the back lot--there where you see the yaller house where the +chimney's smoking. That's Hiram's house. He has charge of the Gold +property on the hill. Won't you come in and warm yourself by the fire +in the kitchen? I was away to the next neighbor's, and I was sure I +hear our bell a-ringin'. Did you hev' to ring long?" + +But I was away, striding over the cabbage-patch and climbing the +worm-fence that shut in the estate of Hiram. Some wretched mistake: +the woman does not know what she's talking about. These Splinters! +they seem to have had some communication with Mrs. Sloman: they will +know. + +Mrs. Splinter, a neat, bright-eyed woman of about twenty-five, opened +the door at my somewhat peremptory knock. I recollected her in a +moment as a familiar face--some laundress or auxiliary of the Sloman +family in some way; and she seemed to recognize me as well: "Why! it's +Mr. Munro! Walk in, sir, and sit down," dusting off a chair with her +apron as she spoke. + +"Miss Stewart--where is she? _You_ know." + +"Miss Stewart?" said the woman, sinking down into a chair and looking +greatly disturbed. "Miss Stewart's gone to live with the Shakers. My +husband drove her over with his team--her and her trunk." + +"Why, where was her aunt? Did Mrs. Sloman know? Why isn't Miss Bessie +with her?" + +"Miss' Sloman said all she could--_afterward_ I guess," said the +woman, wiping her eyes, "but 'twan't no use then. You see, Miss' +Sloman had jined a party that was goin' to Minnesota--while she was in +Philadelfy, that was--and Miss Stewart she wasn't goin'. She reckoned +she'd spend the winter here in the house. Miss' Sloman's maid--that's +Mary--was goin' with her to the West, and I was to hire my +sister-in-law to take charge of things here, so that Miss Bessie could +have her mind free-like to come and go. But afore ever Mary +Jane--that's my sister-in-law--could come over from Lee, where she was +livin' out, Miss Bessie comes up and opens the house. She stayed there +about a week, and she had lots of company while she was here. I think +she got tired. They was people that was just goin' to sail for Europe, +and as soon as they went she just shut up and told me to send for Mary +Jane to take care of things. So Mary Jane never see her, and perhaps +she giv' you a crooked answer, sir, if you was inquirin' of her over +to the cottage." + +"Where's Hiram? where's your husband? Can I have his team this +morning?" + +"I guess so," said the sympathetic Mrs. Splinter. "He'll show you the +very house he druv' her to." + +Hiram was hunted for and found; and an hour later I was bowling along +the Lebanon road behind the bay team he was so proud of. I had +concluded to take him with me, as he could identify places and +people, and I knew well what castles the Shaker houses are for the +world's people outside. Hiram was full of talk going over. He seemed +to have been bottling it up, and I was the first auditor for his +wrath. "I know 'm," he said, cracking his whip over his horses' heads. +"They be sharp at a bargain, they be. If they've contrived to get a +hold on Bessie Stewart, property and all, it'll go hard on 'em to give +her up." + +"A _hold_ on Bessie!" What dreadful words! I bade him sharply hold his +tongue and mind his horses, but he went on muttering in an undertone, +"Yo'll see, yo'll see! You're druv' pretty hard, young man, I expect, +so I won't think nothing of your ha'sh words, and we'll get her out, +for all Elder Nebson." + +So Hiram, looked out along the road from under his huge fur-cap, and +up hill and down. The miles shortened, until at last the fair houses +and barns of the Shaker village came in sight. A sleeping village, one +would have thought. Nobody in the road save one old man, who eyed us +suspiciously through the back of a chair he was carrying. + +"It must be dinner-time, I think," said Hiram as he drove cautiously +along. Stopping at a house near the bridge: "Now this is the very +house. Just you go right up and knock at that 'ere door." + +I knocked. In a twinkling the door was opened by a neat Shaker sister, +whose round, smiling face was flushed, as though she had just come +from cooking dinner. I stepped across the threshold: "Bessie Stewart +is here. Please say to her that a friend--a friend from +England--wishes to see her." + +"Sure," said the motherly-faced woman, for she was sweet and motherly +in spite of her Shaker garb, "I'll go and see." + +Smilingly she ushered me into a room at the left of the hall. "Take +seat, please;" and with a cheerful alacrity she departed, closing the +door gently behind her. + +"Well," thought I, "this is pleasant: no bolts or bars here. I'm sure +of one friend at court." + +I had leisure to observe the apartment--the neatly-scrubbed floor, +with one narrow cot bed against the wall, a tall bureau on which some +brown old books were lying, and the little dust-pan and dust-brush on +a brass nail in the corner. There was a brightly polished stove with +no fire in it, and some straight-backed chairs of yellow wood stood +round the room. An open door into a large, roomy closet showed various +garments of men's apparel hanging upon the wall. The plain thermometer +in the window casement seemed the one article of luxury or ornament in +the apartment. I believe I made my observations on all these things +aloud, concluding with, "Oh, Bessie! Bessie! you shall not stay here." +I know that I was startled enough by the apparition of a man standing +in the open closet door. He must have been within it at my entrance, +and had heard all I said. + +He came forward, holding out his hand--very friendly apparently. Then, +requesting me to be seated, he drew out a chair from the wall and sat +down, tilting it back on two legs and leaning against the wall, with +his hands folded before him. Some commonplace remark about the +weather, which I answered, led to a rambling conversation, in which he +expressed the greatest curiosity as to worldly matters, and asked +several purely local questions about the city of New York. Perhaps his +ignorance was feigned. I do not know, but I found myself relating, +_a la_ Stanley-Livingstone, some of the current events of the day. His +face was quite intelligent, tanned with labor in the fields, and his +brown eyes were kind and soft, like those of some dumb animals. I note +his eyes here especially, as different in expression from those of +others of his sect. + +Several times during the conversation I heard footsteps in the hall, +and darted from my seat, and finally, in my impatience, began to pace +the floor. Kindly as he looked, I did not wish to question the man +about Bessie. I would rely upon the beaming portress, whose "_Sure_" +was such an earnest of her good-will. Moreover, a feeling of contempt, +growing out of pity, was taking possession of me. This man, in what +did he differ from the Catholic priest save in the utter selfishness +of his creed? Beside the sordid accumulation of gain to which his life +was devoted the priest's mission among crowded alleys and +fever-stricken lanes seemed luminous and grand. A moral suicide, with +no redeeming feature. The barns bursting with fatness, the comfortable +houses, gain added to gain--to what end? I was beginning to give very +short answers indeed to his questions, and was already meditating a +foray through the rest of the house, when the door opened slowly and a +lady-abbess entered. She was stiff and stately, with the most formal +neckerchief folded precisely over her straitened bust, a clear-muslin +cap concealing her hair, and her face, stony, blue-eyed and cold--a +pale, frozen woman standing stately there. + +"Bessie Stewart?" said I. "She is here--I know it. Do not detain her. +I must see her. Why all this delay?" + +"Dost thou mean Sister Eliza?" she asked in chilling tones. + +"No, nobody's sister--least of all a sister here--but the young lady +who came over here from Lenox two months ago--Bessie Stewart, Mrs. +Sloman's niece." (I knew that Mrs. Sloman was quite familiar with some +of the Shakeresses, and visited them at times.) + +Very composedly the sister took a chair and folded her hands across +her outspread handkerchief before she spoke again. I noticed at this +moment that her dress was just the color of her eyes, a pale, stony +blue. + +"Sister Eliza: it is the same," in measured accents. "She is not here: +she has gone--to Watervliet." + +Can this be treachery? I thought, and is she still in the house? Will +they hide from her that I am here? But there was no fathoming the +woman's cold blue eyes. + +"To Watervliet?" I inquired dismally. "How? when? how did she go?" + +"She went in one of our wagons: Sister Leah and Brother Ephraim went +along." + +"When will they return?" + +"I cannot say." + +All this time the man was leaning back against the wall, but uttered +not a word. A glance of triumph shot from the sister's eyes as I rose. +But she was mistaken if she thought I was going away. I stepped to the +window, and throwing it open called to Hiram, who was still sitting in +his wagon, chewing composedly a bit of straw. He leaped out in an +instant, and leaning out to him I rapidly repeated in an undertone the +previous conversation: "What would you do?" + +"Ten chances to one it's a lie. Tell 'em you'll set there till you see +her. They can't shake us off that way." + +I drew in my head. The pair still sat as before. "Well," said I, "as I +_must_ see her, and as you seem so uncertain about it, I will wait +here." + +And again I took my seat. The sister's face flushed. I had meant no +rudeness in my tone, but she must have detected the suspicion in it. +She crimsoned to her temples, and said hastily, "It is impossible for +us to entertain strangers to-day. A brother is dying in the house: we +are all waiting for him to pass away from moment to moment. We can +submit to no intrusion." + +Well, perhaps it was an intrusion. It was certainly their house if it +did hold my darling. I looked at her steadily: "Are you sure that +Bessie Stewart has gone away from here?" + +"To Watervliet--yea," she answered composedly. "She left here last +week." + +My skill at cross-examination was at fault. If that woman was lying, +she would be a premium witness. "I should be sorry, madam," I said, +recalling the world's etiquette, which I had half forgotten, "to +intrude upon you at this or any other time, but I cannot leave here in +doubt. Will you oblige me by stating the exact hour and day at which +Miss Stewart is expected to return from Watervliet, and the road +thither?" + +She glanced across the room. Answering the look, the man spoke, for +the first time since she had entered: "The party, I believe, will be +home to-night." + +"And she with them?" + +"Yea, unless she has elected to remain." + +"At what hour?" + +"I cannot tell." + +"By what road shall I meet her?" + +"There are two roads: we generally use the river-road." + +"To-night? I will go to meet her. By the river-road, you say?" + +"Yea." + +"And if I do not meet her?" + +"If thou dost not meet her," said the lady-abbess, answering calmly, +"it will be because she is detained on the road." + +I had to believe her, and yet I was very skeptical. As I walked out of +the door the man was at my heels. He followed me out on to the wooden +stoop and nodded to Hiram. + +"Who is that, Hiram?" I whispered as he leaned across the back of a +horse, adjusting some leathern buckle. + +"That?" said Hiram under his breath. "That's a deep 'un: that's Elder +Nebson." + +Great was the dissatisfaction of the stout-hearted Splinter at my +retreat, as he called it, from the enemy's ground. + +"I'd ha' liked nothin' better than to beat up them quarters. I thought +every minit' you'd be calling me, and was ready to go in." And he +clenched his fist in a way that showed unmistakably how he would have +"gone in" had he been summoned. By this time we were driving on +briskly toward the river-road. "You wa'n't smart, I reckon, to leave +that there house. It was your one chance, hevin' got in. Ten chances +to one she's hid away som'eres in one of them upper rooms," and he +pointed to a row of dormer-windows, "not knowin' nothin' of your bein' +there." + +"Stop!" I said with one foot on the shafts. "You don't mean to say she +is shut up there?" + +"Shet up? No: they be too smart for that. But there's plenty ways to +shet a young gal's eyes an' ears 'thout lockin' of her up. How'd she +know who was in this wagon, even if she seed it from her winders? To +be sure, I made myself conspicuous enough, a-whistlin' 'Tramp, tramp,' +and makin' the horses switch round a good deal. But, like enough, ef +she'd be down-spereted-like, she'd never go near the winder, but just +set there, a-stitchin' beads on velvet or a-plattin' them mats." + +"Why should she work?" I asked, with my grasp still on the reins. + +"Them all does," he answered, taking a fresh bite of the straw. "It's +the best cure for sorrow, they say. Or mebbe she's a-teachin' the +children. I see a powerful sight of children comin' along while you +was in there talkin', a-goin' to their school, and I tried to ask some +o' them about her. But the old sheep who was drivin' on 'em looked at +me like vinegar, and I thought I'd better shet up, or mebbe she'd give +the alarm that we was here with horses and wagon to carry her off." + +I had a painful moment of indecision as Hiram paused in his narrative +and leisurely proceeded to evict a fly from the near horse's ear. "I +think we'll go on, Hiram," I said, jumping back to my seat again. +"Take the river-road." + +Hiram had brought plentiful provision for his horses in a bag under +the seat. "Victualed for a march or a siege," he said as he dragged +out a tin kettle from the same receptacle when we drew up by the +roadside an hour after. "We're clear of them pryin' Shakers, and we'll +just rest a spell." + +I could not demur, though my impatience was urging me on faster than +his hungry horses could go. + +"I told Susan," he said, "to put me up a bit of pie and cheese--mebbe +we wouldn't be back afore night. Won't you hev' some?--there's a +plenty." + +But I declined the luncheon, and while he munched away contentedly, +and while the horses crunched their corn, I got out and walked on, +telling Hiram to follow at his leisure. My heart beat fast as I espied +a wagon in the distance with one--yes, two--Shaker bonnets in it. +Bessie in masquerade! Perhaps so--it could not be the other: that +would be too horrible. But she was coming, surely coming, and the cold +prim sister had told the truth, after all. + +The wagon came nearer. In it were two weather-beaten dames, neither of +whom could possibly be mistaken for Bessie in disguise; and the lank, +long-haired brother who was driving them looked ignorant as a child of +anything save the management of his horses. I hailed them, and the +wagon drew up at the side of the road. + +It was the women who answered in shrill, piping voices: "Ben to +Watervliet? Nay, they'd ben driving round the country, selling garden +seeds." + +"Did they know Bessie Stewart, who was staying in the Shaker village, +in the house by the bridge?" + +"Sure, there had ben a stranger woman come there some time ago: they +could not tell--never heerd her name." + +I was forced to let them drive on after I had exhausted every possible +inquiry, trusting that Hiram, who was close behind, would have keener +wit in questioning them, but Hiram, as it happened, did not come up to +them at all. They must have turned off into some farm-house lane +before they passed him. The afternoon wore on. It grew toward sunset, +and still we kept the river-road. There was no trace of the Shaker +wagon, and indeed the road was growing wild and lonely. + +"I tell you what," said Hiram, stopping suddenly, "these beasts can't +go on for ever, and then turn round and come back again. I'll turn +here, and drive to the little tavern we passed about two mile back, +and stable 'em, and then you and me can watch the road." + +It was but reasonable, and I had to assent, though to turn back seemed +an evil omen, and to carry me away from Bessie. The horses were +stabled, and I meanwhile paced the broad open sweep in front of the +tavern, across which the lights were shining. Hiram improved the +opportunity to eat a hearty supper, urging me to partake. But as I +declined, in my impatience, to take my eyes off the road, he brought +me out a bowl of some hot fluid and something on a plate, which I got +through with quickly enough, for the cool evening air had sharpened my +appetite. I rested the bowl on the broad bench beside the door, while +Hiram went backward and forward with the supplies. + +"Now," said he as I finished at last, still keeping my eye upon the +road, "you go in and take a turn lyin' down: I'll watch the road. I'm +a-goin' to see this thing out." + +But I was not ready to sleep yet; so, yielding to my injunction, he +went in, and I seated myself, wrapped in a buffalo robe from the +wagon. The night was damp and chill. + +"Hedn't you better set at the window?" said the kind-hearted landlady, +bustling out. Hiram had evidently told her the story. + +"Oh no, thank you;" for I was impatient of walls and tongues, and +wanted to be alone with my anxiety. + +What madness was this in Bessie? She could not, oh she could not, have +thrown her life away! What grief and disquiet must have driven her +into this refuge! Poor little soul, scorched and racked by distrust +and doubt! if she could not trust me, whom should she trust? + +The household noises ceased one by one; the clump of willows by the +river grew darker and darker; the stars came out and shone with that +magnetic brilliancy that fixes our gaze upon them, leading one to +speculate on their influence, and-- + +A hand on my shoulder: Hiram with a lantern turned full upon my face. +"'Most one o'clock," he said, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Come to take +my turn. Have you seen nothing?" + +"Nothing," I said, staggering to my feet, which felt like +lead--"nothing." + +I did not confess it, but to this hour I cannot tell whether I had +been nodding for one minute or ten. I kept my own counsel as I turned +over the watch to Hiram, but a suspicion shot through me that perhaps +that wagon had gone by, after all, in the moment that I had been off +guard. + +Hiram kept the watch faithfully till five that morning, when I too was +stirring. One or two teams had passed, but no Shaker wagon rattling +through the night. We breakfasted in the little room that overlooked +the road. Outside, at the pump, a lounging hostler, who had been +bribed to keep a sharp lookout for a Shaker wagon, whistled and waited +too. + +"Tell you what," said Hiram, bolting a goodly rouleau of ham and eggs, +"I've got an idee. You and me might shilly-shally here on this road +all day, and what surety shall we hev' that they hevn't gone by the +other road. Old gal said there was two?" + +"Yes, but the folks here say that the other is a wild mountain-road, +and not much used." + +"Well, you see they comes down by the boat a piece, or they _may_ cut +across the river at Greenbush. They have queer ways. Now, mebbe they +_have_ come over that mountain-road in the night, while you and me was +a-watchin' this like ferrits. In that case she's safe and sound at +Shaker Village, not knowin' anything of your coming; and Elder Nebson +and that other is laughin' in their sleeves at us." + +"Perhaps so." + +"Now, this is my advice, but I'll do just as you say. 'Tain't no good +to lay around and watch that ere house _to day_. Ef we hedn't been in +such a white heat, we might just hev' hid round in the neighborhood +_there_ till she came along. But it's too late, for that now. Let's +you and me lay low till Sunday. She'll be sure to go to meetin' on +Sunday ef she's there, and you can quietly slip in and see if she is. +And to shut their eyes up, so that they won't suspect nothin', we'll +leave a message on one of your pasteboards that you're very sorry not +to hev' seen her, drefful sorry, but that you can't wait no longer, +and you are off. They'll think you're off for York: you've got York on +your cards, hevn't you?" + +"Yes." + +"You just come and stay to my house: we'll make you comfortable, and +there's only one day longer to wait. This is Friday, be'ent it? You'd +best not be seen around to the hotel, lest any of their spies be +about. They do a powerful sight o' drivin' round the country this time +o' year. And then, you see, ef on Sunday she isn't there, you can go +over to Watervliet, or we'll search them houses--whichever you +choose." + +There seemed no help for it but to take Hiram's advice. We drove +homeward through the Shaker village, and drew up at the house again. +This time the door was opened by a bent, sharp little Creole, as I +took her to be: the beaming portress of the day before had been +relieved at her post. + +"Nay, Bessie Stewart was not at home: she would go and inquire for me +when she was expected." + +"No," I said carelessly, not wishing to repeat the scene of yesterday +and to present myself, a humiliated failure, before the two elders +again--"no: give her this card when she does come, and tell her I +could stay no longer." + +I had not written any message on the card, for the message, indeed, +was not for Bessie, but for the others. She would interpret it that I +was in the neighborhood, anxious and waiting: she would understand. + +"Home, then, Hiram," as I took my seat beside him. "We'll wait till +Sunday." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +"You'd better eat sum'thin'," said Hiram over the breakfast-table on +Sunday morning. "Got a good long drive afore you, and mebbe a good +day's work besides. No? Well, then, Susan, you put the apple-brandy +into the basket, and some of them rusks, for I reckon we'll hev' work +with this young man afore night." + +Susan, bless her good heart! wanted to go along, and as Hiram's +excitement was evidently at the highest pitch, he consented that she +should occupy the back seat of the wagon: "P'raps Miss Stewart'll feel +more comfortable about leavin' when she sees there's a woman along." + +It was a rainy morning, and there were but few wagons on the road. +Arrived at the village, we encountered one little procession after +another of broad-brim straws and Shaker bonnets turning out of the +several houses as we drove past. They stepped along quickly, and +seemed to take no notice of us. + +"Reckon we're the only visitors to-day," whispered Hiram as he stopped +at the horseblock in front of the meeting-house. "You know where you +hev' to set--on the left-hand side; and Susan, she goes to the right." + +I followed Susan up the steps, and she hastened, as ordered, to the +right, while I took my seat on one of the back benches of the left, +against the wall. It was a barn-like structure, large, neat and +exquisitely chill. Two large stoves on either side possibly had fire +in them--an old man who looked like an ancient porter went to them +from time to time and put on coal--but the very walls reflected a +chill, blue glare. The roof was lofty and vaulted, and added to the +hollow coldness of the hall. The whole apartment was clean to +sanctity, and in its straitness and blank dreariness no unfit emblem +of the faith it embodied. + +Around three sides of the hall, and facing the benches for visitors, +the Shaker fraternity were ranged. The hats and straight straw bonnets +hung decorously upon the wall over their heads: here and there a +sky-blue shawl or one of faded lilac hung beneath the headgear. Across +the wide apartment it was difficult to distinguish faces. I scanned +closely the sisterhood--old, withered faces most of them, with here +and there one young and blooming--but no Bessie as yet. Still, they +were coming in continually through the side door: she might yet +appear. I recognized my lady-abbess, who sat directly facing me, in a +seat of state apparently, and close to her, on the brethren's side of +the house, was Elder Nebson. + +The services began. All rose, and sisters and brethren faced each +other and sang a hymn, with no accompaniment and no melody--a harsh +chant in wild, barbaric measure. Then, after a prayer, they entered +upon the peculiar method of their service. Round and round the room +they trooped in two large circles, sister following sister, brother +brother, keeping time with their hanging hands to the rhythm of the +hymn. Clustered in the centre was a little knot of men and women, the +high dignitaries, who seemed to lead the singing with their clapping +hands. + +The circles passed each other and wove in and out, each preserving its +unbroken continuity. I looked for Elder Nebson: could it be that he +was joining in these gyrations? Yes, he was leading one of the lines. +But I noticed that his hands moved mechanically, not with the +spasmodic fervor of the rest, and that his eyes, instead of the dull, +heavy stare of his fellows, sought with faithful yet shy constancy the +women's ranks. And as the women filed past me, wringing their hands, I +scrutinized each face and figure--the sweet-faced portress, the +shrunken little creole ("A mulatto, she is," Hiram whispered--he had +taken his seat beside me--"and very powerful, they say, among 'em"), +and some fair young girls; two or three of these with blooming cheeks +bursting frankly through the stiff bordering of their caps. But I saw +not the face I sought. + +"Them children! Ain't it awful?" muttered Hiram as a file of blue-coat +boys shambled past, with hair cut square across their foreheads and +bleached white with the sun. "Ain't got a grain of sense! Look at +'em!--all crowded clean out by the Shaker schools." + +And surely they were a most unpromising little crowd. Waifs, snatched +probably from some New York whirlpool of iniquity, and wearing the +brute mark on their faces, which nothing in this school of their +transplanting tended to erase--a sodden little party, like stupid +young beasts of burden, uncouth and awkward. + +As the girls came round again, and I had settled it in my mind that +there was certainly no Bessie in the room, I could watch them more +calmly. Eagerly as I sought her face, it was a relief, surely, that it +was not there. Pale to ghastliness, most of them, with high, sharpened +shoulders, and features set like those of a corpse, it was indeed +difficult to realize that these ascetic forms, these swaying devotees, +were women--women who might else have been wives and mothers. Some of +them wore in their hollow eyes an expression of ecstasy akin to +madness, and there was not a face there that was not saintly pure. + +It was a strange union that assembled under one roof these nun-like +creatures, wasted and worn with their rigid lives, and the heavy, +brutish men, who shambled round the room like plough-horses. _Wicked_ +eyes some of them had, mere slits through which a cunning and selfish +spirit looked out. Some faces there were of power, but in them the +disagreeable traits were even more strongly marked: the ignorant, +narrow foreheads were better, less responsible, it seemed. + +The singing ended, there was a sermon from a high priest who stood out +imperious among his fellows. But this was not a sermon to the flock. +It was aimed at the scanty audience of strangers with words of +unblushing directness. How men and women may continue pure in the +constant hearing and repetition of such revolting arguments and +articles of faith is matter of serious question. The divine instincts +of maternity, the sweet attractions of human love, were thrown down +and stamped under foot in the mud of this man's mind; and at each +peroration, exhorting his hearers to shake off Satan, a strong +convulsive shiver ran through the assembly. + +"Bessie is certainly not here: possibly she's still at Watervliet," I +whispered to; Hiram as the concluding hymn began. "But I'll have a +chance at Elder Nebson and that woman before they leave the house." + +The rain had ceased for some time, and as again the wild chant went up +from those harsh strained voices, a stray sunbeam, like a gleam of +good promise, shot across the floor. But what was this little figure +stealing in through a side-door and joining the circling throng?--a +figure in lilac gown, with the stiff muslin cap and folded +neckerchief. She entered at the farthest corner of the room, and I +watched her approach with beating heart. Something in the easy step +was familiar, and yet it could not be. She passed around with the rest +in the inner circle, and, leaning forward, I held my breath lest +indeed it might be she. + +The circle opened, and again the long line of march around the room. +The lilac figure came nearer and nearer, and now I see her face. It is +Bessie! + +With a cry I sprang up, but with a blow, a crash, a horrible darkness +swept over me like a wave, and I knew nothing. + +When I came to myself I was lying on a bed in a room that was new to +me. A strong light, as of the setting sun, shone upon the whitewashed +wall. There was a little table, over which hung a looking-glass, +surmounted by two fans of turkey feathers. I stared feebly at the fans +for a while, and then closed my eyes again. + +Where was I? I had a faint remembrance of jolting in a wagon, and of +pitying faces bent over me, but where was I now? Again I opened my +eyes, and noted the gay patchwork covering of the bed, and the green +paper curtain of the window in the golden wall--green, with a tall +yellow flower-pot on it, with sprawling roses of blue and red. Turning +with an effort toward the side whence all the brightness came, in a +moment two warm arms were round my neck, and a face that I could not +see was pressed close to mine. + +"Oh, Charlie, Charlie! forgive, forgive me for being so bad!" + +"Bessie," I answered dreamingly, and seemed to be drifting away again. +But a strong odor of pungent salts made my head tingle again, and when +I could open my eyes for the tears they rested on my darling's +face--my own darling in a soft white dress, kneeling by my bedside, +with both her arms round me. A vigorous patting of the pillow behind +me revealed Mrs. Splinter, tearful too: "He's come to now. Don't +bother him with talk, Miss Bessie. I'll fetch the tea." + +And with motherly insistance she brought me a steaming bowl of +beef-tea, while I still lay, holding Bessie's hand, with a feeble +dawning that the vision was real. + +"No," she said as Bessie put out her arm for the bowl, "you prop up +his head. I've got a steddyer hand: you'd just spill it all over his +go-to-meetin' suit." + +I looked down at myself. I was still dressed in the clothes that I had +worn--when was it? last week?--when I had started for the Shaker +meeting. + +"How long?" I said feebly. + +"Only this morning, you darling boy, it all happened; and here we are, +snug at Mrs. Splinter's, and Mary Jane is getting the cottage ready +for us as fast as ever she can." + +How good that beef-tea was! Bessie knew well what would give it the +_sauce piquante_. "Ready for us!" + +"Here's the doctor at last," said Hiram, putting his head in at the +door. "Why, hillo! are we awake?" + +"The doctor! Dr. Wilder?" I said beamingly. How good of Bessie! how +thoughtful! + +"Not Dr. Wilder, you dear old boy!" said Bessie, laughing and +blushing, "though I sha'n't scold you, Charlie, for that!" in a +whisper in my ear. "It's Dr. Bolster of Lee. Hiram has been riding all +over the country for him this afternoon." + +"I'll go down to him," I said, preparing to rise. + +"No you won't;" and Mrs. Splinter's strong arm, as well as Bessie's +soft hand, patted me down again. + +Dr. Bolster pronounced, as well he might, that all danger was over. +The blow on my head--I must have struck it with force against the +projecting window-shelf as I sprang up--was enough to have stunned me; +but the doctor, I found, was inclined to theorize: "A sudden vertigo, +a dizziness: the Shaker hymns and dances have that effect sometimes +upon persons viewing them for the first time. Or perhaps the heat of +the room." He calmly fingered my pulse for a few seconds, with his fat +ticking watch in his other hand, and then retired to the bureau to +write a prescription, which I was indignantly prepared to repudiate. +But Bessie, in a delightful little pantomime, made signs to me to be +patient: we could throw it all out of the window afterward if need be. + +"A soothing draught, and let him keep quiet for a day or so, will be +all that is required. I will call to-morrow if you would prefer it." + +"We will send you a note, doctor, to-morrow morning: he seems so much +stronger already that perhaps it will not be necessary to make you +take such a long drive." + +"Yes, yes, I'm very busy. You send me word whether to come or not." + +And bustlingly the good doctor departed, with Mrs. Splinter +majestically descending to hold whispered conference with him at the +gate. + +"Charlie, I _will_ send for Dr. Wilder if you are ready, for I'm never +going to leave you another minute as long as we live." + +"I think," said I, laughing, "that I should like to stand up first on +my feet; that is, if I have any feet." + +What a wonderful prop and support was Bessie! How skillfully she +helped me to step once, twice, across the floor! and when I sank down, +very tired, in the comfortable easy-chair by the window, she knelt on +the floor beside me and bathed my forehead with fragrant cologne, that +certainly did not come from Mrs. Splinter's tall bottle of lavender +compound on the bureau. + +"Oh, my dear boy, I have _so_ much to say! Where shall I begin?" + +"At the end," I said quietly. "Send for Dr. Wilder." + +"But don't you want to hear what a naughty girl--" + +"No, I want to hear nothing but 'I, Elizabeth, take thee--'" + +"But I've been so very jealous, so suspicious and angry. _Don't_ you +want to hear how bad I am?" + +"No," I said, closing the discussion after an old fashion of the +Sloman cottage, "not until we two walk together to the Ledge +to-morrow, my little wife and I." + +"Where's a card--your card, Charlie? It would be more proper-like, as +Mrs. Splinter would say, for you to write it." + +"I will try," I said, taking out a card-case from my breast-pocket. As +I drew it forth my hand touched a package, Fanny Meyrick's packet. +Shall I give it to her now? I hesitated. No, we'll be married first in +the calm faith that each has in the other to-day, needing no outward +assurance or written word. + +I penciled feebly, with a very shaky hand, my request that the doctor +would call at Hiram Splinter's, at his earliest convenience that +evening, to perform the ceremony of marriage between his young friend, +Bessie Stewart, and the subscriber. Hiram's eldest son, a youth of +eight, was swinging on the gate under our window. To him Bessie +entrusted the card, with many injunctions to give it into no other +hands than the doctor's own. + +In less time than we had anticipated, as we looked out of the window +at the last pink glow of the sunset, the urchin reappeared, walking +with great strides beside a spare little-figure, whom we recognized as +the worthy doctor himself. + +"Good gracious! he _is_ in a hurry!" said Bessie, retiring hastily +from the window; "and we have not said a word to Mrs. Splinter yet!" + +We had expected the little doctor would wait below until the +bridal-party should descend; but no, he came directly up stairs, and +walked into the room without prelude. He took Bessie in his arms with +fatherly tenderness: "Ah, you runaway! so you've come back at last?" + +"Yes, doctor, and don't you let go of her until you have married her +fast to me." + +"Ahem!" said the doctor, clearing his throat, "that is just what I +came to advise you about. Hiram told me this afternoon of the chase +you two had had, and of your illness this morning. Now, as it is half +over the village by this time that Bessie Stewart has been rescued +from the Shaker village by a chivalrous young gentleman, and as +everybody is wild with impatience to know the _denoument_, I want you +to come down quietly to the church this evening and be married after +evening service." + +"To please everybody?" I said, in no very pleasant humor. + +"I think it will be wisest, best; and I am sure this discreetest of +women," still holding Bessie's hand, "will agree with me. You need not +sit through the service. Hiram can bring you down after it has begun; +and you may sit in the vestry till the clerk calls you. I'll preach a +short sermon to-night," with a benignant chuckle. + +He had his will. Some feeling that it would please Mrs. Sloman best, +the only person besides ourselves whom it concerned us to please, +settled it in Bessie's mind, although she anxiously inquired several +times before the doctor left if I felt equal to going to church. +Suppose I should faint on the way? + +I was equal to it, for I took a long nap on the sofa in Mrs. +Splinter's parlor through the soft spring twilight, while Bessie held +what seemed to me interminable conferences with Mary Jane. + +It was not a brilliant ceremony so far as the groom was concerned. As +we stood at the chancel-rail I am afraid that the congregation, +largely augmented, by this time, by late-comers--for the doctor had +spread the news through the village far and wide--thought me but a +very pale and quiet bridegroom. + +But the bride's beauty made amends for all. Just the same soft white +dress of the afternoon--or was it one like it?--with no ornaments, no +bridal veil. I have always pitied men who have to plight their troth +to a moving mass of lace and tulle, weighed down with orange-blossoms +massive as lead. This was my own little wife as she would walk by my +side through life, dressed as she might be the next day and always. + +But the next day it was the tartan cloak that she wore, by special +request, as we climbed the hill to the Ledge. It was spring +indeed--bluebirds in the air, and all the sky shone clear and warm. + +"Let _me_ begin," said my wife as she took her old seat under the +sheltering pine. "You can't have anything to say, Charlie, in +comparison with me." + +There was a short preliminary pause, and then she began. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +"Well, after you wouldn't take me to Europe, you know--" + +"You naughty girl!" + +"No interruptions, sir. After you _couldn't_ take me to Europe I felt +very much hurt and wounded, and ready to catch at any straw of +suspicion. I ran away from you that night and left you in the parlor, +hoping that you would call me back, and yet longing to hide myself +from you too. You understand?" + +"Yes, let us not dwell on that." + +"Well, I believe I never thought once of Fanny Meyrick's going to +Europe too until she joined us on the road that day--you remember?--at +the washerwoman's gate." + +"Yes; and do _you_ remember how Fidget and I barked at her with all +our hearts?" + +"I was piqued then at the air of ownership Fanny seemed to assume in +you. She had just come to Lenox, I knew; she could know nothing of our +intimacy, our relations; and this seemed like the renewal of something +old--something that had been going on before. Had she any claim on +you? I wondered. And then, too, you were so provokingly reticent about +her whenever her name had been mentioned before." + +"Was I? What a fool I was! But, Bessie dear, I could not say to even +you, then, that I believed Fanny Meyrick was in--cared a great deal +for me." + +"I understand," said Bessie nodding. "We'll skip that, and take it for +granted. But you see _I_ couldn't take anything for granted but just +what I saw that day; and the little memorandum-book and Fanny's +reminiscences nearly killed me. I don't know how I sat through it all. +I tried to avoid you all the rest of the day. I wanted to think, and +to find out the truth from Fanny." + +"I should think you _did_ avoid me pretty successfully, leaving me to +dine coldly at the hotel, and then driving all the afternoon till +train-time." + +"It was in talking to Fanny that afternoon that I discovered how she +felt toward you. She has no concealment about her, not any, and I +could read her heart plainly enough. But then she hinted at her +father's treatment of you; thought he had discouraged you, rebuffed +you, and reasoned so that I fairly thought there might be truth in it, +_remembering it was before you knew me."_ + +"Listen one minute, Bessie, till I explain that. It's my belief, and +always was, that that shrewd old fellow, Henry Meyrick, saw very +clearly how matters were all along--saw how the impetuous Miss Fanny +was--" + +"_Falling in love_: don't pause for a 'more tenderer word,' Charlie. +Sam Weller couldn't find any." + +"Well, falling in love, if you _will_ say it--and that it was +decidedly a difficult situation for me. I remember so well that night +on the piazza, when Fanny clung about me like a mermaid, he bade her +sharply go and change her dripping garments, and what Fanny calls 'a +decidedly queer' expression came into his face. He could not say +anything, poor old chap! and he always behaved with great courtesy to +me. I am sure he divined that I was a most unimpassioned actor in that +high-comedy plunge into the Hudson." + +"Very well: I believe it, I'm sure, but, you see, how could I know +then what was or was not true? Then it was that I resolved to give you +leave--or rather give her leave to try. I had written my note in the +morning, saying _no_ finally to the Europe plan, and I scrawled across +it, in lead-pencil, while Fanny stood at her horse's head, those ugly +words, you remember?" + +"Yes," I said: "'Go to Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to +Lenox, both of you, when you return.'" + +"Then, after that, my one idea was to get away from Lenox. The place +was hateful to me, and you were writing those pathetic letters about +being married, and state-rooms, and all. It only made me more +wretched, for I thought you were the more urgent now that you had been +lacking before. I hurried aunt off to Philadelphia, and in New York +she hurried me. She would not wait, though I did want to, and I was so +disappointed at the hotel! But I thought there was a fate in it to +give Fanny Meyrick her chance, poor thing! and so I wrote that +good-bye note without an address." + +"But I found you, for all, thanks to Dr. R----!" + +"Yes, and when you came that night I was so happy. I put away all +fear: I had to remind myself, actually, all the time, of what I owed +to Fanny, until you told me you had changed your passage to the +Algeria, and that gave me strength to be angry. Oh, my dear, I'm +afraid you'll have a very bad wife. Of course the minute you had +sailed I began to be horribly jealous, and then I got a letter by the +pilot that made me worse." + +"But," said I, "you got my letters from the other side. Didn't that +assure you that you might have faith in me?" + +"But I would not receive them. Aunt Sloman has them all, done up and +labeled for you, doubtless. She, it seems--had you talked her +over?--thought I ought to have gone with you, and fretted because she +was keeping me. Then I couldn't bear it another day. It was just after +you had sailed, and I had cut out the ship-list to send you; and I had +worked myself up to believe you would go back to Fanny Meyrick if you +had the chance. I told Aunt Sloman that it was all over between +us--that you might continue to write to me, but I begged that she +would keep all your letters in a box until I should ask her for them." + +"But I wrote letters to her, too, asking what had become of you." + +"She went to Minnesota, you know, early in February." + +"And why didn't you go with her?" + +"She scolded me dreadfully because I would not. But she was so well, +and she had her maid and a pleasant party of Philadelphia friends; and +I--well, I didn't want to put all those hundreds of miles between me +and the sea." + +"And was Shaker Village so near, then, to the sea?" + +"Oh, Charlie," hiding her face on my shoulder, "that was cowardice in +me. You know I meant to keep the cottage open and live there. It was +the saddest place in all the world, but still I wanted to be +there--alone. But I found I could not be alone; and the last people +who came drove me nearly wild--those R----s, Fanny Meyrick's +friends--and they talked about her and about you, so that I could bear +it no longer. I wanted to hide myself from all the world. I knew I +could be quiet at the Shaker village. I had often driven over there +with Aunt Sloman: indeed, Sophia--that's the one you saw--is a great +friend of Aunt Maria's." + +"So the lady-abbess confessed, did she?" I asked with some curiosity. + +"Yes: she said you were rudely inquisitive; but she excused you as +unfamiliar with Shaker ways." + +"And were you really at Watervliet?" + +"Yes, but don't be in a hurry: we'll come to that presently. Sophia +gave me a pretty little room opening out of hers, and they all treated +me with great kindness, if they _did_ call me Eliza." + +"And did you," I asked with some impatience, remembering Hiram's +description--"did you sew beads on velvet and plait straw for mats?" + +"Nonsense! I did whatever I pleased. I was parlor-boarder, as they say +in the schools. But I did learn something, sir, from that dear old +sister Martha. You saw _her_?" + +"The motherly body who invited me in?" + +"Yes: isn't she a dear? I took lessons from her in all sorts of +cookery: you shall see, Charlie, I've profited by being a Shakeress." + +"Yes, my darling, but did you--you didn't go to church?" + +"Only once," she said, with a shiver that made her all the dearer, +"and they preached such dreary stuff that I told Sophia I would never +go again." + +"But did you really wear that dress I saw you in?" + +"For that once only. You see, I was at Watervliet when you came. If +you had only gone straight there, dear goose! instead of dodging in +the road, you would have found me. I had grown a little tired of the +monotony of the village, and was glad to join the party starting for +Niskayuna, it was such a glorious drive across the mountain. I longed +for you all the time." + +"Pretty little Shakeress! But why did they put us on such a false +track?" + +"Oh, we had expected to reach home that night, but one of the horses +was lame, and we did not start as soon as we had planned. We came back +on Saturday afternoon--Saturday afternoon, and this is Monday +morning!", leaning back dreamily, and looking across the blue distance +to the far-off hills. "Then I got your card, and they told me about +you, and I knew, for all the message, that you'd be back on Sunday +morning. But how could I tell then that Fanny Meyrick would not be +with you?" + +"Bessie!" and my hand tightened on hers. + +"Oh, Charlie, you don't know what it is to be jealous. Of course I did +know that--no, I didn't, either, though I must have been _sure_ +underneath that day. For it was more in fun than anything else, after +I knew you were in the meeting-house--" + +"How did you know?" + +"I saw you drive up--you and Hiram and Mrs. Hiram." + +"You didn't think, then, that it was Mrs. Charles?" + +"So I stole into Sophia's room, and put on one of her dresses. She is +tall too, but it did not fit very well." + +"I should think not," I answered, looking down admiringly at her. + +"In fact," laughing, "I took quite a time pinning myself into it and +getting the neckerchief folded prim. I waited till after the sermon, +and then I knew by the singing that it was the last hymn, so I darted +in. I don't know what they thought--that I was suddenly converted, I +suppose, and they would probably have given thanks over me as a brand +snatched from the burning. Did I do the dance well? I didn't want to +put them out." + +"My darling, it was a dreadful masquerade. Did you want to punish me +to the end?" + +"I was punished myself, Charlie, when you fell. Oh dear! don't let's +talk about the dreadful thing any more. But I think you would have +forgiven Elder Nebson if you had seen how tenderly he lifted you into +the wagon. There, now: where are we going to live in New York, and +what have we got to live on besides my little income?" + +"Income! I had forgotten you had any." + +"Ask Judge Hubbard if I haven't. You'll see." + +"But, my dear," said I gravely, drawing forth the packet from my +breast, "I, too, have my story to tell. I cannot call it a confession, +either; rather it is the story of somebody else--Hallo! who's broken +the seal?" For on shipboard I had beguiled the time by writing a sort +of journal to accompany Fanny's letter, and had placed all together in +a thick white envelope, addressing it, in legal parlance, "To whom it +may concern." + +"_I_ did," said Bessie faintly, burying her face on my arm. "It fell +out of your pocket when they carried you up stairs; and I read it, +every word, twice over, before you came to yourself." + +"You little witch! And I thought you were marrying me out of pure +faith in me, and not of sight or knowledge." + +"It was faith, the highest faith," said Bessie proudly, and looking +into my eyes with her old saucy dash, "to know, to feel sure, that +that sealed paper concerned nobody but me." + +And so she has ever since maintained. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: +This is a compiled version of a novel published in sections +in the LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. + +List of the e-books from which this text was compiled: +[EBook #13828] August 1873 +[EBook #14036] September 1873 +[EBook #13964] October 1873 + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's On the Church Steps, by Sarah C. 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