"Good night. I shall be busy for a week or two; do not expect to see me."
"You will come when you can?"
"Certainly." He went out and closed the door.
She stood in the same position with her arms folded for the next half hour. How could Dine know what love was? How could she give up a man like Gus Hammerton for a light-haired boy who talked of making life a glorious success? He had his heartache now; it had come at last after all his years of watching Dine growing up: and no one could help him, he must fight it out alone; she remembered what he had said about quoting from a book for Dr. Lake. What "book man" could help him to-night? Would he open a book or fall upon his knees?
Was _he_ sorrowful to-night too, Ralph Towne? How gentle he had been with her and how patient! They had met several times since; once, in his mother"s presence, when he had spoken to her as easily as usual; at other times in the street; he had lifted his hat and pa.s.sed on; the one glimpse of his eyes had been to reveal them very dark and very stern.
She could hear Mr. Hammerton"s voice calling back to her father from the gate; they both laughed and then his quick tramp sounded on the planks.
The tramp kept on and on for hours; the moon arose late; he walked out into the country, now tramping along the wayside and now in the road; it was midnight when he turned his face homeward and something past one when he silently unlocked the door with his night-key and found his way to his room. There was a letter there from Dinah; his sister had laid it on his bureau. It was brief, formal, and ambiguous; she had subscribed herself "Your young, old friend, D." She did not say that she was glad of his letter, she did not ask him to write again. "She thinks that she must not write to me," he thought, "darling little Dine! I would like to see that John Woodstock!"
XX.-SEVERAL THINGS.
The November sky was full of clouds; Tessa liked a cloudy sky; the dried leaves whirled around her and rustled beneath her feet, fastening themselves to her skirt as she walked through them; she had stepped down into the gutter to walk through the leaves because they reminded her of her childish days when she used to walk through them and soil her stockings and endure a reprimand when her mother discovered the cause of it; then she had liked the sound of the leaves, now she only cared for them, as she did for several other things,-for the sake of the long ago past! She imagined herself a ten-year-old maiden with big blue eyes and long, bright braids hanging down her back and tied together at the ends with brown ribbon; she was coming from school with a Greenleaf"s Arithmetic (she ciphered in long division and had a "table" to learn), "Parker"s Philosophy" and "Magnall"s Questions" in her satchel. The lesson to-morrow in that was about Tilgath-pilneser; she had stumbled over the queer name, so she would be sure to remember it. There were crumbs in the napkin in the satchel, too, she had had seed cake for lunch; and a lead pencil that Felix Harrison had sharpened for her at noon, when he had come down-stairs to ask Laura for his share of the lunch, and there was a half sheet of note paper with her spelling for to-morrow from "Scholar"s Companion" written on it; perhaps there was a poorly written and ill-spelled note from Gus Hammerton"s cousin, Mary Sherwood, and there might be a crochet needle and a spool of twenty cotton!
She smiled over the inventory, lingering over each article; oh, if she only were going home from school with that satchel, to help her mother a little, play with Dine, and in the evening to look over her lessons sitting close to her father and then to coax him for a story. And then she would go to bed at eight o"clock to awake in the morning to another day. Mr. Hammerton said that it was a premature "_Vanitas vanitatem_"
for her to declare that "growing up" was as bad as any thing a girl could dream!
But then he did not know about poor Felix, and he could never guess what she had dreamed that she had found in Ralph Towne-and how empty life was because of this thing that had mocked her. Empty with all its fulness because of something that never had been; something that never could be in him.
In those satchel-days her greatest trouble had been an interminable scolding from her mother, or the having to give to Dine her own share of cup-custard, when one chanced to be left from tea.
It was a raw day; the wind played roughly with her veil; the fields were bleak, and the long lines of fence, stretching in every direction and running into places that she did not know and would not care for, gave her a feeling of homesickness. Homesickness with the home she had lived in all her life not a mile distant, with every one that she loved or ever had loved within three miles; every one but Dine, and Dine was as blithe and satisfied as any girl could be.
Still she was homesick; she had been homesick since that evening by the fire in Mrs. Towne"s sitting-room. Homesick because she had dreamed a dream that could never come true; now that he had asked her in plain, straightforward, manly words to love him and become his wife, her heart had opened, the light shone in, and she read all that the three years had written; she _had_ loved him, but the love had been crushed in shame-in shame for her mistake.
"There she is _now_," cried a voice in the distance behind her.
She turned to find Dr. Lake stopping his horse; he sprang out, not lightly, not like himself, and a.s.sisted his wife to the ground.
"She prefers your company, it seems," he said, holding the reins with one hand and giving Tessa the other. "Talk fast now, for I shall not be gone long; I want to get home."
"You can go home, I"ll come when I like," replied Sue.
"We stopped at your house," said Sue, as he drove on; "I asked him to leave me while he goes to Harrison"s; that Felix is always having a fit or something. Do you think Gerald looks so sick?" squeezing her hand under the folds of Tessa"s crimson and gray shawl that she might take her arm.
"He is much changed; I did not like to look at him; has he been ill?"
"Oh, you didn"t hear then! It was day before yesterday! He was thrown out; the horse ran away; he isn"t hurt much; he thinks he is, I do believe. I am not a nurse, I don"t know how to coddle people and fuss over them. The horse is a strange one that father had taken to try, and he threw Gerald out and ran away and smashed the buggy, and a farmer brought him home. He did look as white as a sheet and he hasn"t eaten any thing since; he went out yesterday and insisted upon coming out to-day. Father says that he"s foolhardy; but I guess he knows that he isn"t hurt; I sha"n"t borrow trouble anyway. He mopes and feels blue, but he says nothing ails him; he"s a doctor and he ought to know. Where are you going?"
"Not anywhere in particular; I came out for the air; we will walk on slowly."
"We might go as far as your seat on the roots. Wasn"t that time an age ago? I didn"t feel married-y one bit. I want to go over to Sherwoods to-night to the Sociable, but Gerald says that I am heartless to want to go. I don"t think I am. I didn"t get married to shut myself up. Gerald never has any time to go anywhere with me, and it"s just as stupid and vexatious at home as it ever was. Don"t _you_ ever get married."
"Are you keeping your word?"
"What word?"
"The promise you made me that day by the brook."
"About Gerald? Oh, sometimes I keep it and sometimes I don"t. He always makes up first, I will say that for him. He will never let me go to sleep without kissing him good night."
"Then you did not tell Mary Sherwood that once you did not speak for three days?"
"Bless you, no; Gerald would not let that be true; it was no goodness in me that it wasn"t true, though; perhaps I told her that."
"Do you talk to her about him?"
"Now, Granny, suppose I do!"
Tessa stood still. "Promise me-you shall not take another step with me till you do-that you will not talk to any one against him."
"I won"t. Don"t gripe my hand so tight. He is my husband, he isn"t yours! When he"s contrary, I"ll be contrary, too, and I"ll tell people if I like."
"Then you forfeit my friendship; remember I am not your friend."
"Tessa Wadsworth! you hateful old thing! you know I shall have to give in, for you are my best friend! There," laughing, "let me go, and I"ll promise! I"ll say all the ugly things I have to say to his own face."
They walked on slowly; Sue rambling on and Tessa listening with great interest.
"I had a letter from Stacey last week; Gerald has it in his pocket; he dictated the answer, and I wrote it in my most flourishing style. I"ve got somebody to take good care of me now-if he doesn"t get sick! I don"t like sick people; I made him some gruel yesterday and it was as thick as mush. Oh, the things he promises me when he gets rich! Gets rich! All he wants is for me to love him, poor dear! What _is_ love? Do you know?"
"To discover is one of the things I live for; I know that it suffers long."
"That"s poetry! I don"t want to suffer long and have Gerald sick. I had to get up last night and make him a mustard plaster, and do you believe I was so sleepy that I made it of ginger? He never told me till this morning."
In half an hour he drove up swiftly behind them.
"Susan, you can get in; I don"t feel like getting out to help you. I feel very bad, I want to get home."
He laid the reins in her hand. "You may drive; good-by, Mystic; you and I will have our talk another day."
"Come and see us," Sue shouted back.
The horse trotted on at good speed; Sue"s blue veil floated backward; Tessa walked on thinking of Dr. Lake"s pain-stricken face and figure.
Her first words to Mary Sherwood that evening were:
"How is Dr. Lake?"
"Sick. Worse. Very sick, I suspect. Their girl told our girl that Mrs.
Lake was frightened almost to death."