Читать книгу Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline - Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin - Страница 8

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On the evening of the eighteenth of January, Tessa was sitting alone in her chamber, wrapped in her shawl, writing. She was keeping a secret, for she was writing a book and no one knew it but Mr. Hammerton; he would not have known it had not several questions arisen to which she could find no answer.

“I can not do without my encyclopedia,” she had said.

She had written the title lovingly—“Under the Wings.”

This chamber was her sanctuary; she was born in this room, she had lived in it ever since; her little battles had been fought on this consecrated ground, her angry tears, her wilful tears, and the few later grateful tears had fallen while kneeling at the side of the white-draped bed or sitting at the window with her head in her hands or on the window-sill. A stranger would have thought it a plain, low room with its cottage set of pale green and gold trimmings, its ingrain carpet of oak leaves on a green ground, its gray paper with scarlet border, and three white shades with scarlet tassels.

The high mantel was piled with books, the gifts of her father, Mr. Hammerton, and Miss Jewett; on the walls were photographs in oval black-walnut frames of Miss Jewett, sitting at a table with her elbow upon it and one hand resting on a book in her lap, of her father and mother, she sitting and he standing behind her, and one of herself and Dinah, taken when they were fifteen and twenty-one; there were also a large photograph taken from a painting of the Mater Dolorosa, which Mr. Hammerton had given her on her fourteenth birthday and a chromo of Red Riding Hood that he had given to Dinah upon her fourteenth birthday. Upon the table at which she was writing, books were piled, and a package of old letters that she had been sorting, and choosing some to burn, among which were two from Felix Harrison. The package contained several from Mr. Hammerton, but his were never worth burning; they were only worth keeping because they were so like himself. Pages of manuscript were scattered among the books, and a long envelope contained two rejected articles that she had planned to rewrite after a consultation with Mr. Hammerton and to send elsewhere. She had cried over her first rejected article (when she was eighteen), and two years afterward had revised it, changed the title, and her father had been proud of it in print.

She was writing and thinking of Sue when a noisy entrance below announced her presence.

“Go right up,” said Mrs. Wadsworth’s voice. “Tessa is star-gazing in her room. Don’t stay if you are chilly. Tessa likes to be cold.”

Tessa met her at the head of the stairs.

“I’ve come to stay all night. Do you want me?”

“I want you more than I want any one in the world.”

“That’s refreshing. I wanted to see you and that’s why I came. Norah Bird said that Dine was to stay all night with her and I knew I should have you all to myself. Dr. Lake brought me. I believe that he wanted me to come. What do you stay up here for? It’s lovely down-stairs with your father and mother; she is sewing and he is reading to her. Put away that great pile of foolscap and talk to me; I’m as full of talk as an egg is full of meat.”

“Must I break the shell?”

“Your room always looks pretty and there isn’t much in it, either.”

“Of course not, after Old Place.”

“Old Place is enchanting!” Sue tossed her gloves and hat to the bed. “I’ll keep on my sacque; I want to stay up here.”

Tessa had reseated herself at the table. Sue dropped down on the carpet at her feet.

“Have they gone?”

“Oh, yes! I stayed to see them off and drove to the depot with them. We called for Nan Gerard. What a flirt that girl is! Any one would think that she had known Mr. Ralph all his life.”

Sue leaned backward against Tessa; her face was feverish and excited, her thin cheeks would have looked hollow but for their high color, her eyes as she raised them revealed something new; something new and not altogether pleasant.

Tessa touched her hair and then bent over and kissed her. It was so seldom that Sue was kissed.

“You know that night—” Sue began with an effort, “the night before New Years. Mr. Ralph found me in his den, I was arranging one of his tables, and he said that he wanted to talk to me. And I should think he did! I didn’t know that he had so much tongue in his head. His mother calls him Ralph the Silent. Grace Geer calls him Ralph the Wily when nobody hears. He is Ralph the Hateful when he wants to be. How he went on! Fury! There! I promised him not to talk slang or to use ‘unlady-like exclamations.’ I was as high and mighty as he was, but I wanted to cry all the time. He said that I ought to live for something, that I am not a child but a woman. And I promised him that I wouldn’t read novels until he says that I may! He said that I didn’t know what trouble is! He has had trouble, Grace Geer says. I don’t see how. Some girl I suppose. Perhaps she flirted with him. I hope she did. But I have had trouble. Did he ever wait and wait and wait for a thing till he almost died with waiting, and then find that he didn’t get it and never could? Did you ever feel so?”

The appealing eyes were looking into hers; she could not speak instantly.

“I don’t believe that you ever did. You are quiet. You have a nice home and people to love you; your mother and father are so proud of you; your mother is always talking to people about you as if she couldn’t live without you! And you don’t have beaux and such horrid things! I shouldn’t think that you would like Dine to have a lover before you have one.”

“Dine?” said Tessa, looking perplexed.

“Why, yes, Mr. Hammerton.”

“Oh, I forgot him,” replied Tessa, almost laughing.

“I wish that I had never seen Old Place. I never should have thought any thing if it hadn’t been for Grace Geer. Before I went to Old Place I expected to marry Stacey. She put things into my head. She used to call me Mrs. Ralph, and tell me how splendidly I could dress after I was married! And she used to ask me what he said to me and explain that it meant something. I didn’t know that it meant any thing. He was so old and so wise that I thought he could never think of me. Once she went home with me and she told father and Aunt Jane and Dr. Lake that they were going to lose me. He told me himself that night that he was more interested in me than in any body.”

“Did he say that?” asked Tessa, startled.

“Yes, he did.”

“So am I interested in your life. I want to see what becomes of you.”

“Oh, he didn’t mean that. He meant in me. But I suppose he didn’t mean any thing, or he wouldn’t have told his mother not to take me to St. Louis. You think I like him because he’s rich and handsome, but I don’t. I like him because he was so kind to me; nobody was ever so kind to me before; I can love any one who is kind to me. He gave me his photograph a year ago. It’s elegant. I’ll show it to you some time. I know he had six taken, for I saw them and counted them; he didn’t know it, though. And I heard him tell his mother that he had five taken. I never could find out where that sixth one went to. I know that his mother had one, and Grace Geer, and Miss Sarepta Towne, that’s three! And mine was four, and Philip Towne’s was five. I asked him where the other was.”

“What did he say?” asked Tessa, gravely.

“He said nothing. I know that Aunt Jane thinks my not going the queerest thing in nature, and father looked rather nonplussed and asked me what I had been doing. I am as ashamed as I can be.”

Tessa arranged her papers thoughtfully; she was pondering Grace Geer’s name for Mr. Towne.

“Perhaps he will change his mind and come home and like me,” said Sue, brightening.

“O, Sue, Sue, don’t make a disappointment for yourself! When there are so many good and beautiful things in the world, why do you see only this that is being withheld?”

“Because—” with a drooping head, “I want it so.”

“There are good men and good women in the world, Sue; men and women whose word is pure gold.”

“Whose, I’d like to know?”

“Miss Jewett’s.”

“Oh, of course!”

“And Gus Hammerton’s.”

“Oh, he’s as wise and stupid as an owl!”

“Dr. Johnson could think in Latin and I should not wonder if Gus could.”

“But he’s awkward and never talks nonsense, and he wears spectacles and has a tiny bald spot on the top of his head, the place where the wool ought to grow! The girls don’t run after him.”

“They are not wise enough.”

“He’s so old, too.”

“He’s younger than Mr. Towne.”

“He doesn’t look so. And he’s poor.”

“He has a good salary in the bank.”

“Mr. Ralph has the pure gold, but it is not in his word. I only wish it was. I always pray over my love affairs; they ought to come out all right.”

“How do you know what ‘all right’ is?”

“I know what I want.”

“I’ll say to you what Miss Jewett always says Wait.”

“What for? I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“What? Tell me.”

“The will of God.”

“Oh!” Sue drew nearer as if she were frightened. After a while she spoke: “I’m so sorry for dear Mrs. Towne. She has every thing in the world but the thing she wants most. She said one day that she would be willing to be the poorest woman in Dunellen if she might have a daughter. She said it one day after we had passed you; you were alone, picking up leaves near the corner by the brook. ‘A daughter like that,’ she said, and she turned to look back at you; you were standing still with the leaves in your hand. Mr. Ralph didn’t say anything, but he looked back, too. I said, ‘That’s Tessa Wadsworth.’ Mrs. Towne said, ‘Do you know her, Ralph?’ and he said, ‘I have met her several times.’”

Tessa had wiped her gold pen and slipped it into its morocco case; she closed her writing-desk as she said cheerily: “Now about this winter, Sue; what do you intend to do?”

“You don’t know how horrid it is at home! Father always has his pockets full of bottles and he doesn’t care for the things that interest me; all he talks about is his ‘cases,’ and all Aunt Jane cares for is house-work and the murders in the newspapers; Dr. Lake is splendid, but he’s so poor and he’s low-spirited when he isn’t full of fun; and when his engagement with father is ended he’ll set up for himself, and it will take him a century to afford to be married.”

“Sue, look up at me and listen.”

Sue looked up and listened.

“I pray you don’t flirt with Dr. Lake.”

Sue laughed a conscious laugh.

“Men flirt; they haven’t any hearts.”

“He has. You do not know the influence for evil that you may become in his life.”

Sue’s eyes grew wild, she clung to Tessa with both hands. “You sha’n’t talk so to me. You sha’n’t. You make me afraid. I’ll try to be good. I will try.”

“How will you try?”

“I won’t try to make him like me. I am sure that he would if I should try a little. I’ll tell him about Stacey. Tessa, I don’t want to be an old maid.”

Tessa’s eyes and lips kept themselves grave.

“I wouldn’t think about that. I’d do good and be good; I’d help Aunt Jane, and go with your father on his long drives—”

“I’d rather go with Dr. Lake.”

“Let your father see what a delightful daughter you can be. My father and I can talk for hours about books and places and people.”

“Hateful! I hate books. And I don’t know about places and book-people.”

“And don’t wait for Dr. Lake to come in at night.”

“I do. I made him a cup of coffee last night.”

“Who makes coffee for your father?”

“Oh father thought that I made it for him. But Dr. Lake knew!”

“I will read history with you this winter. Dine and I intend to study German with Gus Hammerton; you can study with us, if you will.”

“Ugh!” groaned Sue, “as if that were as much fun as getting married.”

“It may help along. Who knows?” laughed Tessa.

“I’m going to make Miss Gesner a visit next month. She asked me to-day. But they are such old men? Mr. John Gesner is an old beau! Mr. Lewis is lovely, so kind and polite. And Miss Gesner is charming when she doesn’t try to educate me. Their house is grander than Old Place and they keep more servants. I’ll forget all about Old Place before spring. Mr. John Gesner likes girls.”

“Sue.”

“Well! Don’t be so solemn.”

“If I were to die and leave a little girl in the world as your mother left you, I would hope that some one would watch over her, and if the time came, through her own foolishness, or in the way of God’s discipline, for a disappointment to come to her, I would hope that this friend would love her as I love you to-night. She would warn her, advise her, and encourage her! Don’t go to visit Miss Gesner; she is selfish to ask you; you are bright and lively and she likes to have you to help entertain her friends—but you will not be so good a daughter to your father if your heart is drawn away from his home; the best home that he can afford to give you.”

“There’s danger at home and danger abroad,” laughed Sue. “Don’t you wish that you could put me in a glass case?”

“I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Oh, something will happen to me before long. I’ll get married or die or something. I’m glad I had my things ready to go with the Townes, for now I have them ready to go to Miss Gesner’s. I wish I had a mother and my little brother hadn’t died. I’d like to have a real home like yours! I wouldn’t mind if it were as plain as this; but I’d rather have it like Old Place. Won’t Nan Gerard have a lovely time? Such a long journey, and Mr. Ralph will be so attentive, and she’ll be so proud to be with such a handsome fellow! Don’t you like to be proud of people that belong to you? I am always proud enough to go out with Mr. Ralph.”

“There is some one else to be proud of somewhere! Sue, can’t you be brave?”

“Somebody will have what I want,” said Sue. “I can’t bear to think of that. I shall have to drive past Old Place in father’s chaise with one horse, and I hate to drive with one horse! and see somebody in my place in silks and velvets and diamonds and emeralds! And she will have visitors from all over and Old Place will be full of good times and Mr. Ralph will let her do it all and be so kind to her! And she will be so proud and happy and handsome. Would you like that? You know you wouldn’t. Do you think that I really must give him up?”

Sue did not see the distressed face above her; she felt that the fingers that touched her hair and forehead were loving and pitiful.

“Don’t talk so; don’t think so! Forget all about Old Place. Do you not remember Mrs. Towne’s kindness? That is a happier thing to think of than the grounds and the house and handsome furniture.”

“I wish I had told you about it before,” sobbed Sue. “You would have made it right for me; then I wouldn’t have thought and thought about it until it was real. And now I can’t believe that it isn’t true and the house is shut up with only Mr. and Mrs. Ryerson and the boy to look after things and Mr. Ralph gone not to come back—ever, perhaps. If Mrs. Towne should die, perhaps he won’t come back but go off and be a doctor; for he doesn’t want to be married, he said so; he told his mother so. I don’t want him to be a doctor and have bottles in all his pockets and smell of medicine like father and Dr. Lake. He wouldn’t be Mr. Ralph any more.”

“So much the better for you.”

“Then you don’t think that he’s so grand.”

She answered quietly, surprising herself with the truth that she had not dared to confess to herself, “No. I do not think he is so grand.”

“Who is?”

“Who is? George Macdonald and George Eliot and Shakespeare and St. Paul and my father and your father,” laughed Tessa.

“Hark. They are singing over the way.”

“There’s a child’s party there to-night.”

Tessa went to the window.

Loud and merry were the voices:

“Little Sally Waters sitting in the sun,

Weeping and crying for a man.”

Sue laughed. “Oh, how that carries me back.”

“That’s good advice,” said Tessa, as the children shouted—

“Rise, Sally, rise, and wipe off your eyes.”

“I wish that I were a little girl over there in the fun,” said Sue. “Suppose we go.”

“I intended to go. Perhaps we can teach them some new games.”

No one among the children was merrier than Sue; not one any more a child.

“I think I’ll stay little,” said Sue, coming to Tessa, half out of breath. “I’m never going to grow up; it’s hateful being a woman, isn’t it?”

“You will never know,” said Tessa laughing. “There’s little Harry Sherwood calling for Sue Greyson now.”

Towards midnight, when Tessa was asleep, Sue awakened her with, “Put your arm around me, I can’t go to sleep.”

Sue lay still not speaking or moving.

The clock in the sitting-room struck three.

“Tessa, Tessa,” whispered a startled voice, “are you awake?”

“Yes,” rousing herself, “what is it? Is any thing the matter?”

“Oh, no,” wearily, “but it has struck one, and two, and three, and I’m afraid it will strike four.”

“I suppose it will unless the clock stops or time ceases to be.”

“What will be when time ceases to be? What comes next?”

“Forever comes next. Don’t you want it to be forever?”

“You sha’n’t talk so and frighten me. I can’t go to sleep. I thought somebody was dying or dead.”

“You were dreaming.” Tessa put a loving arm around her. “Didn’t you ever say the multiplication table in the night?”

“No, nor any other time.”

The moonlight shone in through the open window, making a golden track across the carpet.

“The moon shines on Red Riding Hood,” said Sue. “Tell me a story, Tessa.”

“Don’t you like the moonlight? Some one had a lovely little room once and she said that the moonlight came in and swept it clean of foolish thoughts.”

“What else?” in an interested voice.

“It is a long story; it is in blank verse, too, and you like rhymes.”

“I’ve been trying to say Mother Goose and Old Mother Hubbard.”

“I will tell you a story,” said Tessa, as wide awake as if the sun were shining. “I will rhyme it as I run along, and when I hesitate and can not make good sense and a perfect rhyme, we’ll go to sleep.”

“Well, but you must do your best.”

“I always do my best. I tell Gus and Dine stories in rhyme.”

So she began with a description of a little girl who was fair and a boy who was brave, who grew up and grew together, but cruel fate in the shape of a step-mother separated them, and he travelled all over the world, and she stayed at home and made tatting, until a hundred years went by and he came to the door a worn-out traveller and found her a withered maiden sitting alone feeding her cat. Afterward in trying to recall this, she only remembered one couplet:

“He was covered with snow, his hat with fur,

He took it off and bowed to her.”

Once or twice Sue gave a hysterical laugh.

The story was brought to a proper and blissful conclusion; still Sue was sleepless.

“How far on their journey do you suppose they are now?”

“I’m not a time-table.”

Sue lay too still to be asleep; when she was still she was a marvel of stillness.

Daylight and breakfast found her in high spirits, asking advice of Mrs. Wadsworth about making a wrapper out of an old brown cashmere, and talking to Tessa about the drive that she had promised to take with Dr. Lake, saying the last thing as she ran down the steps, “I’ll come and study German if I can’t find any thing better to do.”

In all the talks afterward, Sue never alluded to this night; it was the only part of her life that she wished Tessa to forget; she herself forgot every thing except that she was miserable about Mr. Ralph and two of the lines in the story that she had laughed about and called as “stupid” as her own life:

“The room in which she lived alone, was carpeted with matting;

She spent the hours, she spent the days, in making yards of

tatting.”