Part 11

“What am I to do?” she asked herself. “What use can I make of my life that shall make it worthy of him? First of all I must be strong. He must never so much as suspect the truth, and of course nobody else must be permitted even to guess it. I must be a help to him, and not a hindrance. He must feel that my friendship, on which he places so high an estimate, is a friendship to be trusted and leant upon. I must more and more make myself his counsellor, a stimulating helpful influence in his life. His purposes are mainly right, and I must encourage him to seek their fulfilment. Such a man as he should not be wasted upon a woman like me, or led by such into a life of inglorious ease and inert content. After all perhaps I may help him as his friend, where, as his wife, my influence over his life and character would have been paralyzing. If I can help, him, my life will not be lost or ruined. It need not even be unhappy. If my love for him is such as he deserves, it will meet disappointment bravely. It will discipline itself to service. It will scorn the selfishness of idle bemoaning. The sacrifice that is burnt upon the altar is not in vain if the odors of it placate the gods. Better helpful sacrifice than idle lamentation.”

Then after a little her mind busied itself with thoughts less subjective and more practical.

“How shall I best help?” she asked herself. “First of all I must utterly crush selfishness in my heart. I must be a cheerful, gladsome influence and not a depressing one. From this hour there are no more tears for me, but only gladdening laughter. I must help toward that end which I see to be inevitable. I must do all that is possible to make it altogether good. I must help to prepare Dorothy to be the wife he needs. She has not been educated for so glorious a future. She has been carefully trained, on the contrary, for a humdrum life for which nature never intended her, the life of submissive wifehood to a man she could never love, a man whom she could not even respect when once her eyes were opened to better things in manhood. I must have her much with me. I must undo what has been done amiss in her education. I must help to fit her for a high ministry to the unselfish ambitions of the one man who is worthy of such a ministry. I must see to it that she is taught the very things that she has been jealously forbidden to learn. I must introduce her to that larger life from which she has been so watchfully secluded. So shall I make of my own life a thing worth while. So shall my love find a mission worthy of its object. So shall it be glorified.”

XIX

DOROTHY’S MASTER

_W_hen Edmonia drove away, leaving Arthur alone, he bade Dick bring his horse, and, mounting, he set off at a gallop toward the most distant part of the plantation. He was dazed by the revelation that Edmonia’s words had made to him as to the state of his own mind, and almost frightened by what she had declared with respect to Dorothy’s feeling. He wanted to be alone in order that he might think the matter out.

It seemed to him absurd that he should really be in love with the mere child whom he had never thought of as other than that. And yet--yes, he must admit that of late he had half unconsciously come to think of the womanhood of her oftener than of the childhood. He saw clearly, when he thought of it, that his fear that he might come to love the girl had been born of a subconsciousness that he had come to love her already.

It was a strange condition of mind in which he found himself. His strongest impulse was to run away and thus save the girl from himself and his love. But would that save her? She was not the kind of woman--he caught himself thinking of her now as a woman and not as a child--she was not the kind of woman to love lightly or to lay a love aside as one might do with a misfit garment. What if it should be true, as Edmonia had declared, that Dorothy had already given him her heart? What would happen to her in that case, should he go away and leave her? “But, psha!” he thought; “that cannot be true. The child does not know what love is. And yet, and yet. Why did she choose me to be her guardian, and why, when I expressed regret that she had done so, did she look at me so, out of those great, solemn, sad eyes of hers, and ask me, with so much intensity if I did not _want_ to be her guardian? Was it not that she instinctively, and in obedience to her love, longed to place her life in my keeping? After all she is not a child. It is only habit that makes me think of her in that way--habit and her strangely childlike confidence in me. But is that confidence childlike, after all? Do not women feel in that way toward the men they love? Dorothy is fully grown and sixteen years of age. Many a woman is married at sixteen.”

Of his own condition of mind Arthur had now no doubt. The thought had come to him that should he go away she would forget him, and he had angrily rejected it as a lie. He knew she would never forget. The further thought had come to him that in such case she would marry some other man, and it stung him like a whip lash to think of that. In brief he knew now, though until a few hours ago he had not so much as suspected it, that he loved Dorothy as he had never dreamed of loving any woman while he lived. He remembered how thoughts of her had colored all his thinking for a month agone and had shaped every plan he had formed.

But what was he now to do? “My life--the life I have marked out for myself,” he reflected, “would not be a suitable one for her.” He had not fully formulated the thought before he knew it to be a falsehood. “She would be supremely happy in such a life. It would give zest and interest to her being. She would rejoice in its sacrifices and share mightily in its toil and its triumphs. She cares nothing for the life of humdrum ease and luxury that has been marked out for her to live. She would care intensely for a life of high endeavor. And yet I must save her from the sacrifice if I can. I must save her from myself and from my love if it be not indeed too late.”

His horse had long ago slowed down to a walk, and was pursuing a course of its own selection. It brought him now to the hickory plantation near the outer gate of the Wyanoke property. Awakening to consciousness of his whereabouts, Arthur drew rein.

“It was here that I first met Dorothy”--he liked now the sound of her name in his ears--“on that glorious June morning when the hickory leaves that now strew the ground were in the full vigor of their first maturity. How confidently she whistled to her hounds, and how promptly they obeyed her call! What a queen she seemed as she disciplined them, and with what stately grace she passed me by without recognition save that implied in a sweeping inclination of her person! That was a bare five months ago! It seems five years, or fifty! How much I have lived since then! And how large a part of my living Dorothy has been!”

Presently he turned and set off at a gallop on his return to the fever camp, his mien that of a strong man who has made up his mind. His plan of action was formed, and he was hastening to carry it out.

It was growing dark when he arrived at the camp, and Dorothy met him with her report as to the condition of the sick. She took his hand as he dismounted, and held it between her own, as was her custom, quite unconscious of the nature of her own impulses.

“I’m very tired, Cousin Arthur,” she said after her report was made. “The journey to Court and all the rest of it have wearied me; and I sat up with Sally last night. You’re glad she’s better, aren’t you?”

“I certainly am,” he replied. “I feared yesterday for her life, but your nursing has saved her, just as it has saved so many others. Sally has passed the crisis now, and has nothing to do but obey you and get well.”

He said this in a tone of perplexity and sadness, which Dorothy’s ears were quick to catch.

“You’re tired too, Cousin Arthur?” she half said, half asked.

“Oh, no. I’m never tired. I--”

“Then you are troubled. You are unhappy, and you must never be that. You never deserve it. Tell me what it is! I won’t have you troubled or unhappy.”

“I’m troubled about you, Dorothy. You’ve been over-straining your strength. There are dark shadows under your eyes, and your cheeks are wan and pale. You must rest and make up your lost sleep. Here, Dick! Go over to the great house and bring Chestnut for your Miss Dorothy, do you hear?”

“No, no, no!” Dorothy answered quickly. “Don’t go, Dick. I do not want the mare. No, Cousin Arthur, I’m not going to quit my post. I only want to sleep now for an hour or two,--just to rest a little. The sick people can’t spare me now.”

“But they must, Dorothy. I will not have you make yourself ill. You must go back to the great house tonight and get a good night’s rest. I’ll look after your sick people.”

Dorothy loosened her hold of his hand, and retreated a step, looking reproachfully at him as she said:

“Don’t you want me here, Cousin Arthur? Don’t you care?”

“I do care, Dorothy, dear! I care a great deal more than I can ever tell you. That is why I want you to go home for a rest tonight. I am seriously anxious about you. Let me explain to you. When one is well and strong and gets plenty of sleep, there is not much danger of infection. But when one is worn out with anxiety and loss of sleep as you are, the danger is very great. You are not afraid of taking the fever. I don’t believe you are afraid of anything, and I am proud of you for that. But I am afraid for you. Think how terrible it would be for me, Dorothy, if you should come down with this malady. Will you not go home for my sake, and for my sake get a good night’s sleep, so that you may come back fresh and well and cheery in the morning? You do not know, you can’t imagine how much I depend upon you for my own strength and courage. Several things trouble me just now, and I have a real need to see you bright and well and strong in the morning. Won’t you try to be so for my sake, Dorothy? Won’t you do as I bid you, just once?”

“Just once?” she responded, with a rising inflection. “Just _always_, you ought to say. As long as I live I’ll do whatever you tell me to do--at least when you tell me the truth as you are doing now. You see I always know when you are telling the truth. With other people it is different. Sometimes I can’t tell how much or how little they mean. But I know you so well! And besides you’re always clumsy at fibbing, even when you do it for a good purpose. That’s why I like you so much--or,” pausing,--“that’s one of the reasons. Has Dick gone for Chestnut?”

“Yes, Dick always obeys me.”

“Oh, but that’s quite different. You are Dick’s master you know--” Then she hesitated again, presently adding, “of course you are my master too--only in a different way. Oh, I see now; you’re my guardian. Of course I must obey my guardian, and I’ll show him a bright, fresh face in the morning. Here comes Dick with Chestnut. Good night--Master!”

From that hour Dorothy thought of Arthur always by that title of “master,” though in the presence of others she never so addressed him.

Arthur watched her ride away in the light of the rising November moon, Dick following closely as her groom. And as he saw her turn at the entrance to the woodlands to wave him a final adieu, he said out loud:

“I fear it is indeed too late!”

XX

A SPECIAL DELIVERY LETTER

_W_hen Dorothy had disappeared, Arthur became conscious of a great loneliness, which he found it difficult to shake off. Presently he remembered that he had a letter to write, a letter which he had decided upon out there under the hickory trees. He had writing materials and a table in his own small quarters, but somehow he felt himself impelled to write this letter upon Dorothy’s own little lap desk and in Dorothy’s own little camp cottage.

“Positively, I am growing sentimental!” he said to himself as he walked toward Dorothy’s house. “I didn’t suspect such a possibility in myself. After all a man knows less about himself than about anybody else. I can detect tuberculosis in another, at a glance. I doubt if I should recognize it in myself. I can discover cardiac trouble by a mere look at the eyes of the man afflicted with it. I know instantly when I look at a man, what his temperament is, what tendencies he has, what probabilities, and even what possibilities inhere in his nature. But what do I know about Arthur Brent? I suppose that any of my comrades at Bellevue could have told me years ago the things I am just now finding out concerning myself. If any of them had predicted my present condition of mind a year ago, I should have laughed in derision of the stupid misconception of me. I thought I knew myself. What an idiot any man is to think that!”

Touching a match to the little camphene lamp on Dorothy’s table, he opened her desk and wrote.

“MY DEAR EDMONIA:

“When you left me this afternoon, it was with a promise that on my next visit to Branton you would tell me of the things that limit Dorothy’s life. It was my purpose then to make an early opportunity for the hearing. I have changed my mind. I do not want to hear now, because when this knowledge comes to me, I must act upon it, in one way or another, and I must act promptly. Should it come to me now, I should not be free to act. I simply cannot, because I must not, leave my work here till it is done. I do not refer now to those plans of which we spoke today, but simply to the fever. I must not quit my post till that is at an end. I am a soldier in the midst of a campaign. I cannot quit my colors till the enemy is completely put to rout. This enemy--the fever--is an obstinate one, slow to give way. It will be many weeks, possibly several months, before I can entirely conquer it. Until then I must remain at my post, no matter what happens. Until then, therefore, I do not want to know anything that might place upon me the duty of withdrawing from present surroundings. I shall ride over to Branton now and then, as matters here grow better, and I hope, too, that you will continue your compassionate visits to our fever camp. But please, my dear Edmonia, do not tell me anything of this matter, until the last negro in the camp is well and I am free to take the next train for New York, and perhaps the next ship for Havre.

“You will understand me, I am sure. I do not want to play a halting, hesitating part in a matter of such consequence. I do not wish to be compelled to sit still when the time comes for me to act. So I must wait till I am free again from this present and most imperative service, before I permit myself to hear that which may make it my duty to go at once into exile.

“In the meantime I shall guard my conduct against every act, and lock my lips against every utterance that might do harm.

“I have formulated a plan of action, and of that I will tell you at the first opportunity, because I want your counsel respecting it. As soon as I am free, I shall act upon it, if you do not think it too late.

“I cannot tell you, my dear Edmonia, how great a comfort it is to me in my perplexity, that I have your sympathy and may rely upon your counsel in my time of need. I have just now begun to realize how little I know of myself, and your wise words, spoken today, have shown me clearly how very much you know of me. To you, therefore, I shall look, in this perplexity, for that guidance for which I have always, hitherto, relied,--in mistaken and conceited self-confidence,--upon my own judgment. Could there be anything more precious than such friendship and ready sympathy as that which you give to me? Whatever else may happen, now or hereafter, I shall always feel that in enriching my life with so loyal, so unselfish a friendship as that which you have given to me, my Virginian episode has been happy in its fruit.

“Poor Dorothy is almost broken down with work and loss of sleep. You will be glad to know that I have sent her to the house for a night of undisturbed rest. I had to use all my influence with her to make her go. And at the last she went, I think, merely because she felt that her going would relieve me of worry and apprehension. She is a real heroine, but she has so much of the martyr’s spirit in her that she needs restraint and control.”

Dick returned to the camp before this letter was finished, and his master delivered it into his hands with an injunction to carry it to Branton in the early morning of the next day. He knew the habit of young women in Virginia, which was to receive and answer all letters carried by the hands of special messengers, before the nine o’clock breakfast hour. And there were far more of such letters interchanged than of those that came and went by the post. For the post, in those years, was not equipped with free delivery devices. Most of the plantations were nearer to each other than to the nearest postoffice, and there were young negroes in plenty to carry the multitudinous missives with which the highly cultured young women of the time and country maintained what was in effect a continuous conversation with each other. They wrote to each other upon every conceivable occasion, and often upon no occasion at all, but merely because the morning was fine and each wanted to call the other’s attention to the fact. If one read a novel that pleased her, she would send it with a note,--usually covering two sheets and heavily crossed,--to some friend whom she desired to share her enjoyment of it. Or if she had found a poem to her liking in Blackwood, or some other of the English magazines, for American periodicals circulated scarcely at all in Virginia in those days--except the Southern Literary Messenger, for which everybody subscribed as a matter of patriotic duty--she would rise “soon” in the morning, make half a dozen manuscript copies of it, and send them by the hands of little darkeys to her half dozen bosom friends, accompanying each with an astonishingly long “note.” I speak with authority here. I have seen Virginia girls in the act of doing this sort of thing, and I have read many hundreds of their literary criticisms. What a pity it is that they are lost to us! For some of them were mightily shrewd both in condemnation and in ecstatic approval, and all of them had the charm of perfect and fearless honesty in utterance, and all of them were founded upon an actual and attentive reading of the works criticised, as printed criticism usually is not.

XXI

HOW A HIGH BRED DAMSEL CONFRONTED FATE AND DUTY

Quite unconsciously Arthur Brent had prepared a very bad morning hour for the best friend he had ever known. His letter was full of dagger thrusts for the loving girl’s soul. Every line of it revealed his state of mind, and that state of mind was a very painful thing for the sensitive woman, who loved him so, to contemplate. The very intimacy of it was a painful reminder; the affection it revealed so frankly stung her to the quick. The missive told her, as no words so intended could have done, how far removed this man’s attitude toward her was from that of the lover. Had his words been angry they might not have indicated any impossibility of love--they might indeed have meant love itself in such a case,--love vexed or baffled, but still love. Had they been cold and indifferent, they might have been interpreted merely as the language of reserve, or as a studied concealment of passion. But their very warmth and candor of friendship would have set the seal of impossibility upon her hope that he might ever come to love her, if she had cherished any such hope, as she did not.

The letter told her by its tone more convincingly than any other form of words could have done, that this man held her in close affection as a friend, and that no thought of a dearer relationship than that could at any time come to him.

Edmonia Bannister was a strong woman, highly bred and much too proud to give way to the weakness of self-pity. She made no moan over her lost love as she laid it away to rest forever in the sepulchre of her heart. Nor did she in her soul repine or complain of fate.

“It is best for him as it is,” she told herself, as she had told herself before during that long, solitary drive in the carriage; “and I must rejoice in it, and not mourn.”

The sting of it did not lie in disappointment. She met that with calm mind as the soldier faces danger without flinching when it comes to him hand in hand with duty. The agony that tortured her was of very different origin. All her pride of person, all her pride of race and family, even her self-respect itself, was sorely stricken by the discovery that she had given her love unasked.

This truth she had not so much as suspected until that conversation in Dorothy’s little porch on the day before had revealed it to her. Then the revelation had so stunned her that she did not realize its full significance. And besides, her mind at that time was fully occupied with efforts so to bear herself as to conceal what she regarded as her shame. Now that she had passed a sleepless night in company with this hideous truth, and now that it came to her anew with its repulsive nakedness revealed in the gray of the morning, she appreciated and exaggerated its deformity, and the realization was more than she could bear.

She had been bred in that false school of ethics which holds a woman bound to remain a stock, a stone, a glacier of insensibility to love until the man shall graciously give her permission to love, by declaring his own love for her. She believed that false teaching implicitly. She was as deeply humiliated, as mercilessly self-reproachful now as if she had committed an immodesty. She told herself that her conduct in permitting herself, however unconsciously, to love this man who had never asked for her love, had “unsexed” her--a term not understanded of men, but one to which women attach a world of hideous meaning.

“I am not well this morning,” she said to her maid as she passed up the stairs in retreat. “No, you need not attend me,” she added quickly upon seeing the devoted serving woman’s purpose; “stay here instead and make my apologies to my brother when he comes out of his room, for leaving him to breakfast alone.”

“Why, Miss Mony, is you done forgot? Mas’ Archer he ain’t here. You know he done stayed at de tavern at de Co’t House las’ night, an’ a mighty poor white folksey breakfas’ he’ll git too.”

“Oh, yes, I had forgotten. So much the better. But don’t accompany me. I want to be alone.”

The maid stared at her in blank amazement. When she had entered her chamber and carefully shut the door, the woman exclaimed:

“Well, I ’clar to gracious! I ain’t never seed nuffin like dat wid Miss Mony before!”

Then with that blind faith which her class at that time cherished in the virtues of morning coffee as a panacea, Dinah turned into the dining room, and with a look of withering scorn at the head dining room servant, demanded:

“Is you a idiot, Polydore? Couldn’t you see dat Miss Mony is seriously decomposed dis mawnin’? What you means by bein’ so stupid? What fer didn’t you give her a cup o’ coffee? An’ why don’t you stir yourself now an’ bring me de coffee urn, an’ de cream jug? Don’t stan’ dar starin’, nigga! Do you heah?”

Having “hopes” in the direction of this comely maid, Polydore was duly abashed by her rebuke while full of admiration for the queenly way in which she had administered it. He brought the urn and its adjuncts and admiringly contemplated the grace with which Dinah prepared a cup for her mistress.