He drew the cracked and faded letter from his waistcoat-pocket, and held it out towards Reuben without looking at him.
"I think that will be the best and kindest course, sir," said Reuben, accepting the letter and placing it in his pocket-book. "It may not be easy for Ruth to speak to her just at first, for she is very angry with her for having engaged herself to me."
"I have heard word of her opposing it," answered Ezra. "Theer are them in Heydon Hay as elsewheer--folks, without being aythur coa.r.s.e-hearted or hard-minded, as talk of their neighbors" affairs, and love to tell you whatever there is to be heard as is unpleasing. I have been told as her describes me as a villin, and speaks in the same terms of you, Reuben. And that"s why I advised you to speak out before there should be time to make mischief, if by any chance mischief might be made. And I"ve seen enough to know as theer"s no staple so easy to mannyfacture as ill-will, even betwixt them as thinks well of each other. But, Reuben, even the best of women are talkers, and I look for it to be made a point on between Ruth and you, that no word of this is breathed except between your two selves."
"You may trust Ruth as much as you trust me, uncle," said Reuben.
"Like enough," answered Ezra. "And I"ve a warm liking for her. But there"ll be no unkind-ness in naming my particular wish i" this affair."
"No, no," answered Reuben. "I will tell her what you say. You may trust us both."
"Let me know how things go," said the old man. "And good-night, Reuben."
A tender twilight still reigned outside, and Reuben, walking along the village street, could see the softened ma.s.s of roofs and chimneys and the dark green bulk of trees outlined clearly against the sky. The air was soft and still, and something in the quiet and the dimness of the hour seemed to bear a hint of memory or continuation of the scene which had just closed. He was going to see Ruth at once, and she was naturally in his mind, and presented herself as vividly there as if he had been in her presence. The old man"s trouble was so much more real to a lover than it could have been to another man! If it were he and Ruth who were thus parted! There lay a whole heartache. He loved Ezra, and yet it did not seem possible to feel his grief half so well save by seeing it as his own. Such a lonely terror lay in the thought of parting from Ruth and living forever without her, that it awoke in him an actual pang of pain for his uncle"s trouble.
"But," said Reuben, as he strode along, "that is what was. He felt it, no doubt, and felt it for many a dreary month. But it"s over now, for the most part. I could have cried for him this morning, and again to-night, but it was more pity for the past than for the present."
Ezra had been a sad man always, since Reuben could remember him, and yet not altogether an unhappy one. The sunshine of his life had seemed veiled, but not extinguished. And could love do so little at its most unfortunate and hapless ending? For some, maybe, but surely not for Reuben! For him, if love should die, what could there be but clouds and darkness forever and always? But the old take things tranquilly, and to the young it seems that they must always have been tranquil. Uncle Ezra a lover? A possible fancy. But Ezra loving as _he_ loved? An impossible fancy. And even six-and-thirty looked old to Reuben"s eyes, for he stood a whole decade under it.
"I will go at once," said Ruth, so soon as she knew what was required of her. "I"ll just tell father, and then I"ll put on my hat and be ready in a minute. Will you "--with an exquisite demureness and simplicity--"will you go with me, Reuben?"
"Go and see Aunt Rachel?" cried old Fuller, when the girl had told him her intention. "Well, why not?" Ruth ran up-stairs, and Fuller waddled into the room where Reuben waited. "Ruth talks about bringin" th" ode wench back to rayson," he said, with a fat chuckle, "but that"s a road Miss Blythe "ll niver travel again, I reckon. Her said good-by to rayson, and shook hands a many hears ago. It"s a bit too late i" life to patch up the quarrel betwigst "em now."
The old man"s paces were so leisurely and heavy and Ruth"s so quick and light that she was in the room before he had formulated this opinion, and stood at the looking-gla.s.s regarding Reuben"s reflection in its dimly illumined depths as she patted and smoothed the ribbons beneath her chin.
"Let us hope not, father," she said; and then turning upon Reuben, "I am ready."
He offered her his arm and she took it. It was the simple fashion of the time and place. No engaged lovers took an airing of a dozen yards without that outward sign of the tie between them. They walked along in the soft summer evening, pitying Ezra and Rachel in gentle whispers.
"I was thinking just now if you and I should part, dear--if their case were ours!"
"Oh, Reuben!"
And so the grief of the old was a part of the joy of the young, tender-hearted as they were. They played round the mournful old history.
"But you would speak, Reuben? You would never let me go without a word?"
"And if I didn"t speak, dear? If something held me back from speaking?"
"But you wouldn"t let it hold you back."
"Not now, darling. But I might have done yesterday--before I knew."
Before he knew! He must have always known! But of that she would say nothing.
In front of the one village shop in which the pair of window candles still glimmered, they paused, while Reuben searched his pocket-book for the note, and then went on again, in perfumed darkness, until they reached the gate of Rachel"s cottage.
"Be brave, darling," Reuben whispered here. "Don"t let her repulse you easily."
Ruth entered at the gate, stole on tiptoe along the gravelled path, knocked and listened. The whole front of the little house was in darkness, but by-and-by even Reuben from his post behind the hedge heard the faint noise made by slippered feet in the oil-clothed hall. "Who"s there?" said" a voice from within.
"Dear aunt," Ruth answered, "let me in. Do, please, let me in. I want to speak to you."
Reuben, listening, heard the sound of the jarring chain, and the door was opened. He peeped through the interstices of the hedge, and saw Miss Blythe smiling in the light of the candle she carried in her left hand.
"Dear niece," said Rachel, with an unusually fine and finicking accent.
"Enter, you are welcome."
Ruth entered, the door was closed, and Reuben sat down on the bank outside to await his sweetheart"s return.
"I understand," said Rachel. "You are welcome, my child. I detest rancor in families. I can forgive and forget." As she spoke thus she led the way into her small sitting-room. To Ruth the poor creature"s unconsciousness seemed terrible. She laid her arms about Aunt Rachel"s withered figure, and cried a little as she leaned upon her shoulder.
"There, there," said Aunt Rachel, with a note of patronage in her voice, "compose yourself, dear child, compose yourself. I am glad to see you.
Take your own time, dear child, your own time."
At this Ruth cried afresh. It was evident that Aunt Rachel supposed her here to perform an office of penitence; and it was all so pitiful to the girl"s heart, which, tender enough by nature, had been made soft and more tender still by her recent talk with Reuben in the lane.
"Don"t talk so. Don"t speak so," she said, brokingly. "Dear aunt, read this, and then you will know why I am here."
"Ah!" sighed Aunt Rachel, with a world of meaning. "What did I tell you, my dear?" She took the letter from her niece"s hand, kissed the charming bearer of it casually, as if in certainty that she would soon be comforted, and began to search for her gla.s.ses.
Ruth, understanding the old lady"s error, was moved still more by it, but emotion and tender interest were at war, and she sat in a half frightened silence, piteously wondering what would happen. Rachel had found her gla.s.ses, had set the letter upon the table before her, and now drawing the candle nearer, placed the spectacles deliberately astride upon her fine little nose, snuffed the candle, and took up the cracking old bit of paper with an air of triumph and hope fulfilled which cut Ruth to the heart.
The younger woman hid her face in her hands, and furtively watched the elder through her fingers.
Rachel read but a line, and then dropping the letter stared across the candle at Ruth, and pa.s.sed a hand across her forehead, brushing her gla.s.ses away in the act. She groped for them, polished them with an automatic look, and began again. Ruth, too frightened even to sob, still looked at her, and save for the rustle of the withered paper in the withered fingers the silence was complete.
"What is this?" cried Aunt Rachel, suddenly. "Why do you bring me this?"
She was standing bolt upright, with both hands clasped downward on the letter.
"It was only found last night," said Ruth, rising and making a single step towards her. "From the hour you wrote it until then it was never seen. Reuben found it and brought it to me."
The old maid"s face went white, and but that the chair she had thrust away from her in rising rested against the mantle-piece, she would have fallen. Ruth ran towards her and set a protecting arm about her waist.
Her own tears were falling fast, and her voice was altogether broken.
"It was in Manzini, the book you took Reuben"s letter from. He found it there, and thought it came from me, until he saw that the paper was old, and that it did not quite answer his own letter. He took it to his uncle Ezra, and the poor old man"s heart is broken. Oh, aunt, his heart is broken! He had never seen it. He had waited, waited--"
She could say no more, she was so agitated by her own words, and so stricken by the stony face before her.
Suddenly the old maid melted into tears. Reuben, sitting and waiting on the bank of the hedge without, had heard Ruth"s broken voice, and now he could hear Rachel weeping. The night was without a sound, and he could hear nothing but the murmurs and sobbings from the little sitting-room.
Rachel cried unrestrainedly and long, and Reuben waited with exemplary patience. At last Ruth came out and whispered to him,
"Tell father I am going to stay with Aunt Rachel to-night."
Reuben, naturally enough, would have kept her there and questioned her, but she ran back into the cottage before he could detain her, and after lingering a while bareheaded before the casket which held her, he took his way back to Fuller and gave him his daughter"s message.
"Ah!" said Fuller. "At that rate it "ud seem to be pretty well straightened out betwigst "em. I"m glad to think it, for theer"s nothin"
like, harmony among them as is tied together. But hows"ever her an" the wench may mek it up, Reuben, thee"lt be a villin till the end o" the chapter." The villany attributed to Reuben and Ezra tickled the old man greatly, and his fat body was so agitated by his mirth that his legs became unequal to their burden. He had to drop into his great cushioned arm-chair to have his laugh out. "That villany o" thine "ll be the death o" me," he said, as he wiped his eyes.
Rachel and Ruth sat far into the night, and the old maid told over and over again the story of the courtship and the misunderstanding between herself and Ezra.