CHAPTER XXIX.
"IT IS ALL A MESS!"
It fell hard upon Rose to have to meet Joseph again so immediately after the passage she had gone through with Gilbert Roe--to pass, with scarce a pause in which to brace herself together, from the lover of her youth into the presence of the man to whom she had chosen to transfer her regard. She had fooled herself in her pique into the belief that she had trodden down and stamped out the last spark of kindness for the husband who had been, as she told herself, so hard and cruel and insulting--the man who could let her untie their marriage bond, without showing a sign or offering a word of remonstrance. He was nothing to her now--she had been saying it within herself ever since their separation--or if anything, only her aversion. She had been persuading herself that she was an injured woman, and that it was righteous resentment which she had been nursing against the unfeeling tyrant who had blighted her early wifehood. She had resolved that she would never speak to him again, nor even name him; that she would pluck out the very memory of her first and foolish love--have done with him for ever, and begin anew. (As if our past, the foundation of our present, could ever be obliterated!)
When he forced himself upon her so unexpectedly, the anger smouldering through her year of unmolested separation, the regret and disappointment grown sour in concealment and suppression, and turned by silence and defeated pride into what had seemed an inextinguishable hatred, had burst into a flame of fiercest indignation. It had burst into flame, but how pitifully soon it had burnt low! It had been but a fire of straw, blazing up for a moment and sinking as quickly as it rose; leaving nothing behind, nothing but the emptiness of separation. The grievances and wrongs and barriers piled up so high between them, where were they gone to? Vanished utterly away. There had been a leaping flame and a whirling puff of smoke, and the ground was clear between them--clear save for the ashes of happiness destroyed for ever! And there she stood, naked and exposed before her own eyes and his, stripped of her false pretexts, a vain and headstrong fool, who in very wantonness had made bonfire of their wedded happiness!
And yet her indignation had seemed so just, her wrongs so deep and unforgivable! How speedily her wrath had oozed away before a few words! words not of contrition, scarce even of reproach, but only common-sense, and spoken by the old dear voice! Where were the bitter memories now? How could she be so false to herself? Where was her pride?--that stanch support against which she had been wont to set her back, ready to outface the world? It had bent and broken, like a worthless reed, before a few words of the man against whom she had invoked its aid. "Bertie!" She had resolved to obliterate the memory of that name; and yet it had passed her lips, and the old caressing sweetness of the sound was in her ears, and would not go away.
It was not half an hour since the mere sight of him had hardened her with hate, and made her feel strong, if yet unhappy. Now, she was weak as water. If she had stayed, she would have given way and yielded--she could not tell to what--but to anything the old sweet strong influence in that voice had chosen to command her. But she had escaped, and she was still free, and she would keep her liberty, whatever it might cost her peace. At least she thought so.
What would they say, those sympathising friends who had come to her in her conflict, with their well-meant phrases of support, and told her she had done so wisely, and shown so brave a spirit? What would they say to see her lower the lance and go back again to the bondage of her tyrant? How could she face their pity at her weakness? And then there were the others, who had disapproved of her conduct--had advised her to submit, yield something, and make it up; and when she would not, had turned away from knowing her. They would call her repentant, and perhaps would turn again to countenance her reformation! That would be more intolerable even than the pitying surprise of her stancher friends. No; she must follow out the road she had entered on. There could be no returning upon the lost steps. And she had so nearly yielded. It startled her to find she was so weak. She must build a barrier between the old life and the new, which could neither be surmounted nor thrown down.
Joseph was close upon her now. He had not been very long away, but he did not seem in her eyes exactly as he had seemed before. It was not half an hour that he had been gone, yet he looked more ordinary than she had supposed him. The redundancy of waistcoat, or rather of waist, offended her sense of symmetry as it had not done before; and if he had been just a little taller! Bertie was six-feet-one, and gracefully slim, and chestnut-haired, while the other's locks were darkening, as the leaves grow dark before the autumn tints begin to light them up with the rustiness that comes before decay. It was the difference between thirty and forty-seven. What a fool she was to notice such things, and at such a time, when the very contrary was what she would have wished to notice! She told herself so with vehemence, and bit her lip, as if that would make her mind it better; but she went on noticing all the same. When the eye has been turned for a little on the sun, what a poor, dim, purblind thing does the light of a candle afterwards appear!
Joseph came on with swinging elastic strides, impatient to be with her, irradiated with a joyful pride, and beaming on her with smiles of confidence irrepressible.
"If he would only have been tranquil!" she thought. This exuberance seemed so utterly out of place. It was a discord in the bland and half-parental warmth which, she told herself, would have been correct in view of their disparity of age. "It was bad taste. There was even an element of ridicule in a venerable Cupid of forty-seven exerting himself to gambol before her like one of those boy Loves with wings the artists picture. She had not thought so half an hour ago, but we live and change so quickly at times. He was too solid for that sort of thing, and she felt sorry to see him attempt it, for she really respected and liked him."
"You grew tired of waiting, Rose?"
"Why would he call her by her name just then?" she asked herself, forgetting that he had been doing so habitually for a week past, and that she had encouraged him to do it.
"And came to meet me? Forgive me, dearest. I could not help it. Your own disinclination to be kept waiting, must plead for my impatience to get my little parcel, that I might present it. I made the hotel people promise to send it after us, if it should arrive this forenoon. It has come, but the express man would not part with it till I had signed the receipt. Then the rascal went to refresh himself, and I had quite a hunt to find him. However, it is all right now. Shall we turn back and get under the shadow of the trees?"
"As you like," Rose answered, a little dully.
Joseph tore off the wrappings of his parcel as they walked along, laying bare the little ring-case. He opened it, and the merry little stones within, catching the sunbeams, cast them back in a dazzling gleam beyond his expectation.
Rose saw and shuddered. The glancing ray seemed to pierce her with a cold sharp pang, like the thrust of steel. It was the token of her engagement; and that, of a sudden, and without her being aware of an alteration in her mind, had grown distasteful.
"And now, my dearest, will you let me fit it in its place. It is not worthy your acceptance; but then, what is? Still it is pretty, is it not? And seeing that you were kind enough to accept myself, you will let me slip on my ring. It is an earnest of the other you have promised to let me give you."
"Not now, Mr----dear Joseph, I mean." How unreadily his name came to her lips! and half an hour since she had used it freely--had even liked to use it in a very friendly way, as leading up to the more intimate connection which was to be established between them. What a rift between the now and then!
"Do you not like it, dear?" Joseph asked, in a disappointed tone. "I said it was not worthy either of your acceptance or of my love; but still, I confess I thought it pretty, and I hoped you would have worn it."
"Oh, as to that--yes, by all means. It is a lovely ring, the very handsomest I ever saw. Any one might feel proud to wear it on its own merits; but you know how whimsical we women are. It is a whim which I have taken, that I will not put on a ring to-day."
"Let me persuade you out of it, dearest. Let me overbear the whim." He took her hand in his, drew off the glove, and reverently pressed his lips upon the fingers, while she stood looking listlessly and sadly in his face. He took the engagement-finger and attempted to slip on the ring without more ado; but at the touch of it Rose started and drew away her hand with a shrinking cry, while Joseph strove to retain it, and still attempted to slip on the ring.
"It must not be, at least not yet a while, Joseph. I have something which I must tell you, that will make a difference between us. It would be unfair to you not to tell you in time, what may influence your feelings with regard to an engagement between us. And meanwhile, I give you back your promise, that you may be free to do as you will, after you have heard me."
"You shall not give it back, Rose. I will not accept it. And more, I hold you to your promise still. Nothing which you can tell me will induce me to give you back yours."
"Not if you heard dreadful things against me?"
"I would not believe them. I know you too well for that. What do you take me for?"
"I take you for a noble-minded man. It is that which troubles me. I am not worth your caring for."
"You are my own, a part of my very self."
"You would not say so if you knew--that I have been married before!--if you were told that I am a divorced woman!"
"I would not believe them."
"But it is true."
"What a villain the man must have been!--what a fool!--to cast away the flower he was unworthy to have worn! But, my poor darling, if this is so, you have the deeper need of my protecting care."
"But it was I who divorced--him!"
"You have been cruelly used, then. Ah, what you must have suffered! It shall be all the more my care to make you forget your unhappiness. Forget it you shall. Let's say no more about it."
"But I must. You do not know how poor a thing you have anchored your heart to--how fickle and headstrong and vain a creature I have been! I petitioned for a divorce from my husband."
"And you got it. Is not that a proof that you were in the right?--when the law granted your demand? What you must have come through! But it shall be mine to make you forget."
"He--filed no rejoinder, as they call it He let the law take its course."
"He did not, because he could not. The law has relieved you from an unworthy mate. Forget it, my poor darling. Forget him. We have the future before us. Forget all the past."
"He refused to plead; but I am not so sure that he could not have pleaded successfully if he had chosen to do it. My petition was an outrage to him."
"Do not think it. A woman is not driven to take such a step without sufficient grounds."
"That is what the judge said; but--ah me!--I do not know."
"What has called up these morbid fancies in your mind, Rose? You were cheerful an hour ago."
"He--has spoken to me. When you were gone he came to me--and things seem different now. I am not so sure that I was right, as I used to be."
"The sneaking villain! Who is he? Where is he? To come molesting the woman he has wronged, so soon as my back was turned! Kicking is too good for such a hound. Where is he?"
"You must not ask. What would people say of me, if you and he were to meet?... But I am upset; my head is splitting. I do not know what I am saying, or what I do. I will go back to the village inn and lie down."
"We can drive back to Clam Beach. No one will miss us. Come."
"I want to be alone, and think. Do not come with me. Yonder is Lettice Deane; bring me to her, and then let me leave you."
Lettice was following her own amusement in her own way. She was holding a kind of auction of her smiles as she walked upon the sands between Mr Sefton and Peter Wilkie, who vied with each other to engross her attention, flashing speeches across her, to her infinite diversion, in their efforts to extinguish one another. It was amusing, but she cared nothing for either, and was mischievously ready to disgust them both alike, by yielding to Rose's petition for her company back to the village.
"Is your head very bad, Rose, dear?" she asked, full of sympathy, as soon as they were alone. "It must be, to take you away from him so soon after his present. Or is it a sort of necessary discipline?--in case of his growing too confident on the head of it? Let me see it. Everybody knows that the express man was sent after you here. What! you have not put it on yet? I declare, I think you are rigorous. You owed him the satisfaction of seeing you wear it, I think, seeing how much it cost."
"I have not got it. I could not accept it to-day. I have been trying to have an explanation and tell him everything. He--the other--dropped upon me suddenly when I was alone and not expecting him, and we talked--and, oh Lettice! I am in a maze. What am I to do? It seems to be I won't and I will with me, all the time. I can't do both, and I won't do either. I am distracted, Lettice. I must go to bed and try to think."
"Who-o-o----!" Lettice could not whistle as some girls can; but that long-drawn masculine expression of--of everything at once--of the fat having fallen in the fire, with general loss, trouble, and confusion, seemed the only adequate and appropriate one for the occasion, and she framed her lips and voice to the nearest equivalent.
"And what will you do, dear?" she said, after a considerable pause.
"Don't bother me with questions, Lettie. I do not know in the very least. I shall go to bed, and try to sleep, and to forget everything. If one could only forget for always! How good it would be! I am in a mess. And all from having my way, and getting everything I thought I wanted. It is all a mess! an irretrievable muddle. Whatever I may do, it will be sure to be wrong. Oh Lettie! take warning in time; and don't let your little tempers run away with you, as mine have done with me."
CHAPTER XXX.
A CLOSE OBSERVER.
When Rose and Lettice went their way, the three cavaliers found their occupation gone. They stood an instant looking after the retreating fair, then turned to face one another; but there was no satisfaction in view of the witnesses of their discomfiture--each felt small, rather, and perhaps a little ridiculous. The only plaster for their grazed self-love was absence from the witnesses; and accordingly each turned on his heel, going off in quest of some new interest, and diverging as widely from the other two as was possible.
Joseph strolled despondently back toward the stunted grove, to which twice already he had bent his steps, but had not reached. He had borne up bravely enough under Rose's disclosure at the moment. In the thick of the fight one generally does bear up. The excitement of combat stirs the blood, and blows fall scarcely heeded on him who struggles hard to have his way. It is when the battle is over, that the wounds begin to smart, when the stricken have leisure to feel them. And Joseph was wounded sore. It crushed him to think that anything could be said in derogation of the peerless one whom he had found to fit into' the long-vacant shrine, where the beloved of his youth had sat, and whose memory, still hovering there, had made it a holy place. There seemed impiety in associating the new avatar of his love with the ribald vulgarities of the divorce court, in dragging the blossom of his worship through its noisome mire. Yet was she the less precious because her lines had fallen haplessly? Does a jewel lose worth for having fallen in the kennel? He told himself this, and repeated it over and over. He vowed that her need of sympathy and support, was a claim the more upon his honour, and that the claim should be satisfied; but still it was painful to think that the name of his wife to be, had been bandied from mouth to mouth as one of the motley crew who shock chaste ears with their clamour to be relieved from obligations which if was their own free choice to undertake. It dimmed the bright promise of that future in which he had been basking so unsuspiciously, but it should not appal him. He would steadfastly look forward to all being well; his own faith and hope would of themselves contribute to a happy consummation; and for Rose, how much she must have suffered!--how much she needed him!
He had reached the grove at last. His feet were on the turf, and he was strolling upwards through the trees, buried in deep and not too sweet reflections.
"Alone, Joseph?" There was much in the tone to irritate. It contained a suggestion of pity, combined with the "I thought as much," or "I told you so," with which intimate friends are wont to rub up our little sorenesses, and make them smart. It was his sister-in-law who spoke--Susan--who already had expressed her disapproval of his intended change in life, and who could not be expected to regret any little unsmoothness in the current of his love. She had risen from a corner of shade in which she had been encouraging the faltering advances of Walter Petty to closer intimacy with her girl Margaret. The two seemed fairly well tackled in conversation, now, and she felt free to devote a little attention to Joseph and his concerns. She took his arm, and accommodated her pace to his for a little turn, ignoring the sudden tightening of his features into an impatient frown.
"'The course of true love,' &c.--you know the rest, Joseph. Where there is disparity, one must be prepared for little contretemps. One cannot expect young girls to accommodate themselves at once to the steady jog-trot of their seniors. They would not be so attractive, I daresay, if one could. She certainly----"
"What are you talking about, Susan?"
"You do not know, eh? Or rather you think I do not know? I have seen everything--more than you have yourself. I was sitting up here in the shade, when you were called away a while ago."
"Yes, I was called away. It was annoying, I confess; but I got back when I had completed my little matter of business. I see nothing in that which calls for your condolence."
"Of course not, dear Joseph. It was far too cleverly arranged for that. She certainly is clever--an accomplished actress. I only hope it may answer, and that you may not find her out to be too clever by half. A good many people have seen as well as me. It was very well done--quite dramatic, in fact; or rather, pantomimic--for they were far too judicious to raise their voices and be overheard."
"Enough, Susan. I detest insinuations. Who are they whose private affairs you have been watching and prying into? Do you know that you have been accusing yourself of eavesdropping, mitigated only by your inability to hear what was said? It is scarcely the pursuit I should have expected a ladylike person to take up."
"You are rude, Joseph; but I forgive you. One must not expect people to accept disenchantment with an equable mind."
"You speak riddles. I am in no mood for guessing them."
"Just what I say. You are upset, Joseph, and I am truly sorry."
"I am not upset. I am perfectly well and happy, Susan. It is you who are absurd. You have your girls' hands to dispose of. It is occupation enough for any woman. See you do it wisely; and leave me to bestow my own in peace. I decline your interference."
"You are blind, Joseph. There are a score of people in this wood. Every one of them must have seen. It is only you, the one who ought to know, who have not, and do not know. I insist on telling you. You may not like it, but it is my duty."
"Always a duty--when a woman wants to be provoking."
"I forgive the gibe. The young person you have chosen to devote yourself to, has a lover."
"Certainly. The lady you stigmatise as a person has me; and I mean to marry her."
"You and another. Ha! you did not know that! I can read it in your face. Your back was scarcely turned, when out there bounced from behind a tree--a man!--that tall slim young fellow you must have noticed at the Beach any time this last week. He has been devoting himself to that little spare woman with the blue veil whom nobody seems to mind. People said they were engaged, and wondered at one with his good looks bestowing himself so cheaply. Well, as I was saying, out he bounced upon Miss--what's her name?--Miss Hillyard; and I can tell you their interview was an animated one. How the colour of both came and went! There must a great deal have taken place between them. How he gesticulated! She was comparatively calm. He is an ardent fellow, I can tell you, Joseph. Better have an eye on him."
Joseph did not know exactly what to say. He felt himself disloyal in listening; but still he was interested, and if he waited to hear more, he fancied he should be better able to defend Rose.
"The lady he had left--her with the blue veil--seemed to take her squire's sudden desertion in very bad part. She started and looked shocked at his departure, then bent forward where she sat, and looked, and listened. They were within a few yards of her, and she must have heard all that passed. The disillusion must have been terrible. I saw her head bow lower and lower, as though all fortitude were deserting her; and soon she seemed utterly crushed. She buried her head in her lap, and clasped her hands above it--a most pitiable spectacle.
"But that was not the worst. He certainly must be a man without pity or a spark of feeling. He actually had the cruelty to lead the other a little to one side, where she could have a view of the discarded rival. Was it not barbarous? This was too much for the other. It stung her into something like proper self-respect. As soon as the other turned away--and I will do the Hillyard girl the justice to say that she betrayed no sign of gratification at her rival's confusion--she jumped to her feet with a little cry, tied on her hat, and ran away up the hill, as if to hide herself among the trees. Then Miss Rose seemed suddenly to remember about you. She dismissed her admirer with the peremptory assurance of an old hand, who knows exactly what she means to do, and strolled calmly across the sands to meet you coming back to her. She must have managed very well. I saw her leaning on your arm as friendly as possible--a clever girl, but a sad handful, I should imagine, for the man whose doubtful fortune it may be to get her for a wife."
"And now you have done, Susan, with your romance? Let me congratulate you on your talent for 'putting that and that together,' and producing a coherent fiction from true premisses, which might do credit to the author of the 'Arabian Nights.'"
"And pray, if the premisses are true, and nothing of my own is added, how can you venture to suppose that my inferences are astray? You are infatuated, Joseph Naylor."
"My good creature, the young lady has told me of this interview with the tall young man which you have described so graphically. It must indeed have been exciting and full of emotion, but you have entirely failed to catch its true import; and, as far as I can see, there is no reason why you should understand it, either you or any of the twenty other eavesdroppers you mention, who have been gratuitously interesting themselves in what does not concern them. Miss Hillyard is suffering from violent headache in consequence of what occurred, and has returned to the village to lie down. On second thoughts, I believe I shall follow her, and try if she will not let me drive her back to the Beach at once. That will be better than encountering the twenty pairs of curious eyes during the evening, who will want to watch her every movement, and piece a romance out of every time she looks at her watch. Goodbye, Susan. Accept thanks for kind intentions on my account; but do, pray, be more charitable in future. Good-bye, Margaret. I am going back at once, and shall be asleep when you get home. Kiss me good-night, child."
Margaret rose to pay the dutiful salute. Joseph kissed her on the cheek, and finding his lips so conveniently near her ear, he whispered--
"Walter's buggy will be the first in the line. He will be waiting. Get down before the others. Jump in; and God bless you!"
Margaret changed colour violently. Her mother, looking on, was surprised to see an embrace from an old uncle, produce signs of emotion. "It must be because of the young man sitting by," she thought sapiently, and drew happy auguries from the circumstance. Those close observers are so often astray!
When Joseph reached the inn at Blue Fish Creek, he sent up a little note to Rose, asking if she would not rather come home now in quiet, than wait through the racket of the evening, to be followed by a riotous journey after dark with the rest in their overflowing high spirits. Rose consented, and they drove home forthwith.
How different were Joseph's feelings now, from what they had been in the morning! Then, everything was bathed in sunshine and hope. The bare supposition that aught could go amiss did not once cross his mind. Now, he could not say what had befallen him, but a cloud had come down and enveloped him, and blotted out the future, and every certainty from his view, chilling his hopes and even his desires as with an untimely frost. The ring lay forgotten in his pocket. It did not occur to him to offer it again. If he had, the probability is that it would have been accepted, though perhaps without the enthusiasm which would have made the acceptance of value in his eyes.
Another phase of feeling had arisen in Rose's mind since her walk with Lettice. Her friend had betrayed a presentiment, that now Gilbert had had speech of her, he would win her back; and Rose revolted at the idea of figuring before her friends as a repentant naughty child. No; she had made her choice, and she would show that she could hold to it. She might not be happy in the future, but at least she could be steadfast. And truly, the man beside her as she drove, so truthful and so good, deserved all the duty and devotion she could devote to him. If she did not love as once she might have loved, at least he should never know it. She would be but the more dutiful on that account; she would even--what seemed the hardest thing of all to her headstrong nature--even obey him.
She was very near to him then, if Joseph had but known; but he did not. The old doubleness between his wife of long ago, and this heir to her place in his regard, had arisen anew within him, and it was still the older god who held the shrine. He felt regretfully tender and considerate to his companion by his side, but the enthusiasm of the morning was wanting.
They spoke little to one another as they travelled along. Rose was pale and had a splitting headache, and Joseph was consideration itself. He forbore to disturb her, assisted her to alight when they arrived at Clam Beach, and expressed a hope that she would be better in the morning, when they parted and she went up-stairs.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LADY PRINCIPAL.
The Principal of the Female College of Montpelier sat in her room--office, call it, or study--her seat of authority, absorbed in business. Her table was littered with papers; the waste-paper basket overflowed with them. There was ink before her, a pen in her hand. Her cap sat crooked on her head; her whitened hair was rumpled. The too active cerebration within had no doubt disturbed the external trimness of her dome of thought, as phrenologists used to tell us that it worked ridges and hollows in the bones of the skull. She was deep in thought. Her grey, intellectual features were tightened in the effort, and her eye roved vacantly in space in search of those choice forms which had long made her style the model of literary expression in Montpelier.
She had spent the morning in compounding a syllabus, or a compendium--matters in the manufacture of which she was unrivalled. Now she was considering her address on female self-culture, shortly to be delivered before the Institute of Emancipated Woman, with a list of the hundred books which should form the inseparable companions of every female aspirant to Breadth of View. Her eye wandered to the terrestrial globe at her elbow--a symbol of her learned office, handed down from her predecessors in more simple-minded times; and she reviewed the distinguished literary reputations in remote places and times--the less vulgarly popular or comprehensible, the better for her purpose.
Ha! there was the Nile--Egypt--Manetho! A most respectable name Manetho, and not too much said about him. The only difficulty was, were his works extant? She was not sure, and her encyclopædia was too old an edition to make it worth while looking up. Her eye moved eastward: India? eureka! The Rig Veda,--Max Müller and the 'Asiatic Review'! She had read all about it in Littel's 'Living Age,' the pirate's treasure-house.
The Rig Veda should head her list. She had not read it, to be sure; but neither had those whom she addressed, and they would not be able to read it, if they were to try--in the original, at least, and she intended to pour scorn upon the use of translations; but it looked well at the head of a list, showed comprehensiveness in the lecturer, and ensured respect from the omniscient critic of the 'Montpelier Review.'
The 'Zend-Avesta' made a handsome second; but as she did not desire to smother her audience under the load of erudition, she considerately offered it as an alternative to the Rig Veda. "A Saga" came next--she did not specify which. Her familiarity with Scandinavian literature was not intimate enough to particularise; but as not one of her audience would know anything about it, that made little difference. Being minded that nothing she said should savour of the too familiar, she gave Klopstock the first place in her German list rather than Goethe; and for the same reason Marlowe led off her English dramatists, with Shakespeare far down among the ruck. Then there were Hegel and Haekel, with permission to add the 'Critique of Pure Reason' for those who relished intellectual nut-cracking. There was to have been a name or two from every tribe and tongue in Europe; but in her ignorance she could think of no Russian but Turguenief; and when she came to the Lapps, Finns, Liths, and Basques, they had no literary representative whom she had ever heard of. After that she took up a publisher's list and filled up the remaining sixty places at random. What did it matter? People would read what they liked or understood. If they did not understand, it could not influence them one way or other. She knew as well as you or I do, reader, that wheat is not grown on pure sand; that loams, clays, moulds, each produce a vegetation limited by their capacity; that everything will not grow everywhere, and that, if it could, it would not be worth much. But while the public laboured under the fad of comprehensiveness, she recognised that she, its servant, must be comprehensive too, or her employer would pay her off and get some one else who was up to its standard. No one person could read, or, if they could, would care to read, a tenth part of the literature upon her list; but that she considered the one useful element in what she was about. It introduced a moral influence. It would keep her audience humble--an end not always easy to achieve where that audience is feminine, and more richly endowed with aspiration than with solid learning--and show them how much there still was which they did not know, notwithstanding their acquirements.
There came a timid knock at the door, and a second, which the Principal heard; and laying down her pen she sat bolt-upright and said, "Come in."
It was Maida Springer who entered.
At the sight of her subordinate looking crushed and wan, the Principal's aspect softened. Her impatience of interruption gave place to those motherly instincts which nestled sweet and fresh about her heart, though usually sheltered and concealed from an uncongenial world under the dry husk of her superior-woman-hood.
"You--Maida?... I had almost given up hope of seeing you again. But have you been sick? You do not look much benefited by your stay at the shore--rather the other way."
Maida looked down. "I am well, Miss Rolph. I arrived by the night-train. I suppose that accounts for my--for my want of looks," and she sighed; but more for the want of looks, than for herself.
"Did my letter miscarry? It is nearly a fortnight since I wrote."
Maida coloured. "I got it, Miss Rolph, and I am come to thank you. I know I should have written at once; but--I meant to come instead. Indeed I started, but--when----" Her voice died away. She looked down more than she had done before, and her colour deepened.
"What was it, my dear? What prevented your coming?"
Maida lifted her head, drew a long breath, and raised her eyes to Miss Rolph's face. Then the impossibility of uttering what there was to tell arose before her. She bowed her head till the hat-brim and the wisp of blue veil came down between her eyes and those of the Principal. She strained down her arms before her, locked the fingers of both hands together, and was speechless.
Miss Rolph was scarcely pleased that her kindly meant interest should be put aside; but she was not the woman to obtrude unwelcome sympathy. She stiffened back to business, and observed with manifest coldness of voice--
"Your neglect may prove prejudicial to your interests, I fear; though perhaps not. It would have been great advancement for you, and quite a distinguished position, if you had been able to give the course on political economy and sociology. You would have been the first woman in this State to enter that important field. You would have made a name, and become a leader in our sex's emancipation. On the other hand, I admit that I felt a misgiving as to whether your character was yet sufficiently formed for the post. The long ages of woman's subordination have communicated a weakness of moral fibre to the individual of today, which it requires maturity of years, experience, and study, to overcome. I have feared at times that I detected some remains of the old-fashioned missishness in your character, not yet subdued. A year or two longer in your present duties may be advantageous. I have arranged with Dr Langenwoert from Boston to lecture three times a-week next term. After that--who knows?--but it depends on yourself. The Committee believes, as you are aware, that female education should be confided to women alone. You have been appointed a professorial assistant pro tem. to Dr Langenwoert. Avail yourself of your opportunities. Study his methods; and who knows but you may succeed him?"
"Oh, Miss Rolph, how good you are! Forgive my seeming thanklessness,--but, indeed--oh, Miss Rolph!"
Maida came forward and took the Principal's hand. Her voice was too tremulous to be trusted; her eyes were brimming full. She had entered that room feeling so lonely, desolate, and without a friend; and here, in her professional chief, with whom her intercourse had been limited to what related to her duties, was a woman who cared for her, bestowed consideration, and was kind. She could have kissed the hand--she would fain have kissed the lips which had spoken to her kindly; but Miss Rolph was so very superior a woman, so above and beyond female weakness!--and what was that which she had said just now about missish?
Miss Rolph wheeled round on her pivoted chair, and looked with her clear, cool eyes in the other's face.
"Maida Springer, you are in trouble! Tell me what it is. Am not I a woman? Confide in me. I know you have no mother. I would try to advise you as she might have done, though perhaps I am not quite old enough for that."
She might have spared the last observation, being fifty-five, while Maida was but thirty; but, good lady, though undeniably superior, she was still a woman.
Maida's eyes overflowed. This was kindness unexpected.
"Take a chair, my dear. Draw up close to me, and tell me all." And when Maida drew close, she laid a hand upon her shoulder, and one soothingly upon the fingers wringing themselves into knots in perturbed irresolution.
"I would--I would! But how? I cannot speak of it!"
"When people have done no wrong, there is nothing they need fear to tell--to a friend. Injuries and mistakes often seem lessened when we can bring ourselves to speak about them. A burden shared presses with but half the weight it did before. Confide in me, Maida, Unburden your trouble."
Maida's tears flowed freely. She made no effort to restrain them. They softened the dry crust of misery which encased her spirit. Her head inclined to her consoler. So did her heart in tender gratitude. She caressed the soothing hand, but still the pent-up words refused to come. Miss Rolph waited in silence, but found at length that she must assist if the explanation was to be made.
"You said, Maida, that you intended to come instead of answering my letter--that you started?"
"I did. I was at Narwhal Junction waiting for the train, when I met a very old friend on the platform--going to Clam Beach, just as I was coming away. I could not resist going back with my old friend, it was so long since we had met. And after that, the matter of the sociology class escaped my memory."
"Very strange. Is Clam Beach a scene of such rackety dissipation that people forget their private affairs? I had inferred from your descriptions that it was quite retired--a place to rest in."
"My friend and I had not met for years. The meeting engrossed me."
Miss Rolph glanced in Maida's face, one sharp short glance, like an inquisitive bird, and with the flicker of a smile which did not spread beyond the corner of her mouth, inquired--
"And did--she?--your friend, take as engrossing an interest in you, my dear? Such friendships are rare, as well as precious."
"I did not say 'she,' Miss Rolph. It was a gentleman."
"I imagined as much, my dear; but you were so hampered by your noun of epicene gender, that I thought it best to be rid of it."
Maida blushed. "Oh, Miss Rolph! What will you think of me?--of my fitness as a pioneer in Woman's cause?"
"Think, my dear? That you are a woman like the rest of us. This was a feature in your nature that seemed missing. The absence of a universal weakness does not necessarily argue strength. It may arise from insensibility, and merely show an incomplete nature. I think better of you, perhaps. Go on."
"I had known him long ago. My first situation, when I began to teach, was in his uncle's house. He was a student at Harvard, but spent his vacations at home with us. His cousins were mere children; his uncle and aunt had their own affairs; I was his sole companion. He taught me much. It was a happy time. We were both young, fresh and hopeful, and--well---- He is the only young man I ever saw much of. He expected to make his fortune right away, and we---- But I cannot speak of it....
"That was ten years ago. We corresponded--for the first year or so. After that we lost sight of one another. I came to Montpelier; he--was making his fortune. He recognised me on the platform at Narwhal Junction. I was so pleased to find that he remembered me. He asked if I was married, and he told me that he was not. He went back with me to Clam Beach--or so I thought. Perhaps I ought to put it the other way, and say that it was I who went with him; but at any rate we went together, and we were together there all the time. He knew nobody but myself, and he did not care to make acquaintances, it seemed; and he stayed on, though at first he had spoken of leaving in two days. And so it appeared to me--is there not some excuse for me, Miss Rolph?--that we were taking up our intimacy just where we had laid it down before."
"Ah!" said Miss Rolph. The bird-like look of the philosophic investigator had left her features now, and she was listening with genuine interest. She had still a heart, away down deep below her theories and professional fads, and there was perennial interest for her in a kindness between man and woman; which may have been unworthy of her position, but was as salt to preserve her nature sound and wholesome.
"What is his name, my dear? One follows a story so much better for knowing the names."
"Roe--Gilbert Roe. Has it not a pleasant sound?"
Miss Rolph's eyelids quivered in a momentary start. Then she looked down into her lap, compressing her lips, and making as if she would show no sign till all was told.
"He stayed on more than a week. He is there now, I daresay. He was with me constantly--sat beside me at table. People said it was a sure case, and congratulated me; and I--well--what else could I think? I believed them. Looking back now, with my insight cleared by what came after, I am bound to own that he said nothing in all that time. When I tried to hark back to the community of feeling that had subsisted between us long ago, he disregarded and passed it by. I am not accusing him of behaving badly, remember. It is my own foolish credulity alone which I have to blame; and oh, Miss Rolph, what humiliation it has brought on me! It hunted me away home here. I dared not, for shame, go back to Clam Beach, even to bring away my things."
"I do not follow."
"We went one day--it was yesterday, but it seems like years since, for the gulf of misery I have waded across since then. There was a clam-bake at Blue Fish Creek, and we were there. Everybody was there. We were sitting apart in a shady place, waiting till the heat would temper down. He was smoking or reading the paper, I forget which. All of a sudden he jumped up and left me. I looked round. He was addressing a lady who seemed unwilling to hear him. She tried to pass on without noticing him. She had taken no notice of him at the Beach, though they had been living under the same roof for a week. He persisted in accosting her, and angry words passed between them. She said she was free of him. He would not admit it."
"Who was the lady?"
"A Miss Hillyard of Chicago or somewhere. I am not acquainted with her."
"That is my niece! The Gilbert Roe you speak of must be her husband."
"Husband? Ah! that may explain the cruelty of what he did next. And it was cruel and humiliating to me! And there need have been no occasion for it, if he had told me at the first that he was married. She taunted him with my friendship. I heard her. And he--was it manly of him?--he actually proposed to bring her to me, to ask if there was anything between us more than old acquaintanceship!" Maida's voice rose into a cry as she said it. She clenched her hands; and cheeks, brow, neck, grew scarlet, and then she buried her face in her handkerchief and sobbed.
"It must be Rose, my niece, and her husband. I would believe anything that could be told me of them. There never were two such ill-regulated young things brought together, I do believe--so fond, so foolish, so obstinate and wayward. There never was such a fiasco as their married life has proved. Both handsome, both clever, both well off, and each, I believe, most truly attached to the other; yet neither would forbear to gratify a whim, neither would submit to be crossed in the smallest trifle by the other. They squabbled away for not much over a year, and then the Divorce Court came in and parted them. A pair of unruly children! It was whipped they should have been, and made promise to kiss and be friends. Instead of that, they are divorced and discredited for life, and nothing good need be expected ever to happen to either of them any more. These ill-considered changes in our customs are deplorable. It is good to rescue the downtrodden from oppression, but only evil can come of confounding liberty with licence."
"Perhaps you may be mistaken," Maida answered, looking up and drying her eyes. It consoled her to hear her affronters soundly scolded, even in their absence. "Hillyard is no such uncommon name. This lady passed for unmarried at the hotel, and they say she is engaged to be married to a gentleman from Canada. Yes, by the by, it was to remonstrate about that, that Mr Roe spoke to her."
"So the Divorce Court, even, does not end their squabbles! Whom was she said to be engaged to?"
"A Mr Naylor--a real nice gentleman, and devoted to her. Every one was talking about the beautiful presents of jewellery he had ordered her from New York."
"Naylor? What is he like?"
"He is real nice, I should say, by his looks, and very rich. He has some nieces with him, well dressed and real aristocratic. Belong to the first families, I guess, and quite thick with all the first people at the Beach. No culture to speak of, but high-strung--very!"
"How old is this Mr Naylor, should you suppose? and what is he like? Is he a tall man, now, for instance?"
"He is not tall--no. Thick-set, almost stout; a heap shorter than Gil----Mr Roe. Middle-aged. His hair is beginning to turn. Not old, though certainly not young, but with a nice kindly face, and real cheerful. I hope she will stick to him. It would be real distressing if she were to jilt him, and I don't see what call a divorced husband can have to interfere. What were divorces made for, if not to keep bad husbands from bothering?"
Miss Rolph had been moving uneasily in her chair. She stood up now, looking agitated but very firm.
"I believe I know this Mr Naylor. The engagement must be broken off without an hour's delay. The idea is horrible!... I thought I had done with this awful girl. When she left her husband, and refused to listen to right principle and common decency, I washed my hands of her. But this---- It is an unimaginable horror! When does the next train leave for Clam Beach, I wonder? How do you go?"
"You cannot go to-night You will not be able to connect," Maida answered in some disgust. The idea of Naylor's coming in and securing the lady, and leaving Roe forlorn, which she had begun to conjure up, was distinctly consoling. She did not like to think of the energetic Miss Rolph intervening to upset the pleasing possibility.
Miss Rolph spread out a map. "There is Lippenstock, a station where all trains stop, close by. I can book for there, and drive over in the evening."
Maida sighed. "If you go, Miss Rolph, would you kindly mention to Mrs Denwiddie that I am here? You know her, I daresay; you seem to know every one at the Beach. Say I got a telegram--say anything. She is sure to be thinking something dreadful about my going away so sudden-like--without a word, or taking away my things."
Miss Rolph, in her agitation, looked round on Maida. She could not help smiling, notwithstanding her anxiety. The world is filled with such a tangle of conflicting interests, and each of us has room in his little brain only for the few which connect with himself.
"I do not know the lady, my dear; but I shall mention at the office that you were suddenly called home. I will settle your bill, and bid them pack up and forward your things."