Chapter 17

"And who knows what the 'everything' may be?" And he took both her hands in his as he said good-by,--for his little stops were of minutes on his way, always,--and held them fast, and looked warmly, hopefully into her face.

It was all for her,--to give her hope and courage; but the light of it was partly kindled by his own hope and gladness that lay behind; and how could she know that, or read it right? It was at once too much, and not enough, for her.

Five minutes after, Luclarion Grapp went by the parlor door with a pile of freshly ironed linen in her arms, on her way up-stairs.

Desire lay upon the sofa, her face down upon the pillow; her arms were thrown up, and her hands clasped upon the sofa-arm; her frame shook with sobs.

Luclarion paused for the time of half a step; then she went on. She said to herself in a whisper, as she went,--

"It is a stump; a proper hard one! But there's nobody else; and I have got to tell her!"

* * * * *

That evening, under some pretense of clean towels, Luclarion came up into Desire's room.

She was sitting alone, by the window, in the dark.

Luclarion fussed round a little; wiped the marble slab and the basin; set things straight; came over and asked Desire if she should not put up the window-bars, and light the gas.

"No," said Desire. "I like this best."

So did Luclarion. She had only said it to make time.

"Desire," she said,--she never put the "Miss" on, she had been too familiar all her life with those she was familiar with at all,--"the fact is I've got something to say, and I came up to say it."

She drew near--came close,--and laid her great, honest, faithful hand on the back of Desire Ledwith's chair, put the other behind her own waist, and leaned over her.

"You see, I'm a woman, Desire, and I know. You needn't mind me, I'm an old maid; that's the way I do know. Married folks, even mothers, half the time forget. But old maids never forget. I've had my stumps, and I can see that you've got yourn. But you'd ought to understand; and there's nobody, from one mistake and another, that's going to tell you. It's awful hard; it will be a trouble to you at first,"--and Luclarion's strong voice trembled tenderly with the sympathy that her old maid heart had in it, after, and because of, all those years,--"but Kenneth Kincaid"--

"_What_!" cried Desire, starting to her feet, with a sudden indignation.

"Is going to be married to Rosamond Holabird," said Luclarion, very gently. "There! you ought to know, and I have told you."

"What makes you suppose that that would be a trouble to me?" blazed Desire. "How do you dare"--

"I didn't dare; but I had to!" sobbed Luclarion, putting her arms right round her.

And then Desire--as she would have done at any rate, for that blaze was the mere flash of her own shame and pain--broke down with a moan.

"All at once! All at once!" she said piteously, and hid her face in Luclarion's bosom.

And Luclarion folded her close; hugged her, the good woman, in her love that was sisterly and motherly and all, because it was the love of an old maid, who had endured, for a young maid upon whom the endurance was just laid,--and said, with the pity of heaven in the words,--

"Yes. All at once. But the dear Lord stands by. Take hold of His hand,--and bear with all your might!"

XIX.

INSIDE.

"Do you think, Luclarion," said Desire, feebly, as Luclarion came to take away her bowl of chicken broth,--"that it is my _duty_ to go with mamma?"

"I don't know," said Luclarion, standing with the little waiter in her right hand, her elbow poised upon her hip,--"I've thought of that, and I _don't_ know. There's most generally a stump, you see, one way or another, and that settles it, but here there's one both ways. I've kinder lost my road: come to two blazes, and can't tell which. Only, it ain't my road, after all. It lays between the Lord and you, and I suppose He means it shall. Don't you worry; there'll be some sort of a sign, inside or out. That's His business, you've just got to keep still, and get well."

Desire had asked her mother, before this, if she would care very much,--no, she did not mean that,--if she would be disappointed, or disapprove, that she should stay behind.

"Stay behind? Not go to Europe? Why, where _could_ you stay? What would you do?"

"There would be things to do, and places to stay," Desire had answered, constrainedly. "I could do like Dorris."

"Teach music!"

"No. I don't know music. But I might teach something I do know. Or I could--rip," she said, with an odd smile, remembering something she had said one day so long ago; the day the news came up to Z---- from Uncle Oldways. "And I might make out to put together for other people, and for a real business. I never cared to do it just for myself."

"It is perfectly absurd," said Mrs Ledwith. "You couldn't be left to take care of yourself. And if you could, how it would look! No; of course you must go with us."

"But do you _care_?"

"Why, if there were any proper way, and if you really hate so to go,--but there isn't," said Mrs. Ledwith, not very grammatically or connectedly.

"She _doesn't_ care," said Desire to herself, after her mother had left her, turning her face to the pillow, upon which two tears ran slowly down. "And that is my fault, too, I suppose. I have never been _anything_!"

Lying there, she made up her mind to one thing. She would get Uncle Titus to come, and she would talk to him.

"He won't encourage me in any notions," she said to herself. "And I mean now, if I can find it out, to do the thing God means; and then I suppose,--I _believe_,--the snarl will begin to unwind."

Meanwhile, Luclarion, when she had set a nice little bowl of tea-muffins to rise, and had brought up a fresh pitcher of ice-water into Desire's room, put on her bonnet and went over to Aspen Street for an hour.

Down in the kitchen, at Mrs. Ripwinkley's, they were having a nice time.

Their girl had gone. Since Luclarion left, they had fallen into that Gulf-stream which nowadays runs through everybody's kitchen. Girls came, and saw, and conquered in their fashion; they muddled up, and went away.

The nice times were in the intervals when they _had_ gone away.

Mrs. Ripwinkley did not complain; it was only her end of the "stump;" why should she expect to have a Luclarion Grapp to serve her all her life?

This last girl had gone as soon as she found out that Sulie Praile was "no relation, and didn't anyways belong there, but had been took in." She "didn't go for to come to work in an _Insecution_. She had always been used to first-class private families."

Girls will not stand any added numbers, voluntarily assumed, or even involuntarily befalling; they will assist in taking up no new responsibilities; to allow things to remain as they are, and cannot help being, is the depth of their condescension,--the extent of what they will put up with. There must be a family of some sort, of course, or there would not be a "place;" that is what the family is made for; but it must be established, no more to fluctuate; that is, you may go away, some of you, if you like, or you may die; but nobody must come home that has been away, and nobody must be born. As to anybody being "took in!" Why, the girl defined it; it was not being a family, but an _Insecution_.

So the three--Diana, and Hazel, and Sulie--were down in the kitchen; Mrs. Ripwinkley was busy in the dining-room close by; there was a berry-cake to be mixed up for an early tea. Diana was picking over the berries, Hazel was chopping the butter into the flour, and Sulie on a low cushioned seat in a corner--there was one kept ready for her in every room in the house, and Hazel and Diana carried her about in an "arm-chair," made of their own clasped hands and wrists, wherever they all wanted to go,--Sulie was beating eggs.

Sulie did that so patiently; you see she had no temptation to jump up and run off to anything else. The eggs turned, under her fingers, into thick, creamy, golden froth, fine to the last possible divisibility of the little air-bubbles.

They could not do without Sulie now. They had had her for "all winter;" but in that winter she had grown into their home.

"Why," said Hazel to her mother, when they had the few words about it that ended in there being no more words at all,--"that's the way children are _born_ into houses, isn't it? They just come; and they're new and strange at first, and seem so queer. And then after a while you can't think how the places were, and they not in them. Sulie belongs, mother!"

So Sulie beat eggs, and darned stockings, and painted her lovely little flower-panels and racks and easels, and did everything that could be done, sitting still in her round chair, or in the cushioned corners made for her; and was always in the kitchen, above all, when any pretty little cookery was going forward.

Vash ran in and out from the garden, and brought balsamine blossoms, from which she pulled the little fairy slippers, and tried to match them in pairs; and she picked off the "used-up and puckered-up" morning glories, which she blew into at the tube-end, and "snapped" on the back of her little brown hand.

Wasn't that being good for anything, while berry-cake was making? The girls thought it was; as much as the balsamine blossoms were good for anything, or the brown butterflies with golden spots on their wings, that came and lived among them. The brown butterflies were a "piece of the garden;" little brown Vash was a piece of the house. Besides, she would eat some of the berry-cake when it was made; wasn't that worth while? She would have a "little teenty one" baked all for herself in a tin pepper-pot cover. Isn't that the special pleasantness of making cakes where little children are?

Vash was always ready for an "Aaron," too; they could not do without her, any more than without Sulie. Pretty soon, when Diana should have left school, and Vash should be a little bigger, they meant to "coöperate," as the Holabirds had done at Westover.

Of course, they knew a great deal about the Holabirds by this time. Hazel had stayed a week with Dorris at Miss Waite's; and one of Witch Hazel's weeks among "real folks" was like the days or hours in fairy land, that were years on the other side. She found out so much and grew so close to people.

Hazel and Ruth Holabird were warm friends. And Hazel was to be Ruth's bridesmaid, by and by!

For Ruth Holabird was going to be married to Dakie Thayne.

"That seemed so funny," Hazel said. "Ruth didn't _look_ any older than she did; and Mr. Dakie Thayne was such a nice boy!"

He was no less a man, either; he had graduated among the first three at West Point; he was looking earnestly for the next thing that he should do in life with his powers and responsibilities; he did not count his marrying a _separate_ thing; that had grown up alongside and with the rest; of course he could do nothing without Ruth; that was just what he had told her; and she,--well Ruth was always a sensible little thing, and it was just as plain to her as it was to him. Of course she must help him think and plan; and when the plans were made, it would take two to carry them out; why, yes, they must be married. What other way would there be?

That wasn't what she _said_, but that was the quietly natural and happy way in which it grew to be a recognized thing in her mind, that pleasant summer after he came straight home to them with his honors and his lieutenant's commission in the Engineers; and his hearty, affectionate taking-for-granted; and it was no surprise or question with her, only a sure and very beautiful "rightness," when it came openly about.

Dakie Thayne was a man; the beginning of a very noble one; but it is the noblest men that always keep a something of the boy. If you had not seen anything more of Dakie Thayne until he should be forty years old, you would then see something in him which would be precisely the same that it was at Outledge, seven years ago, with Leslie Goldthwaite, and among the Holabirds at Westover, in his first furlough from West Point.

Luclarion came into the Ripwinkley kitchen just as the cakes--the little pepper-pot one and all--were going triumphantly into the oven, and Hazel was baring her little round arms to wash the dishes, while Diana tended the pans.

Mrs. Ripwinkley heard her old friend's voice, and came out.

"That girl ought to be here with you; or somewheres else than where she is, or is likely to be took," said Luclarion, as she looked round and sat down, and untied her bonnet-strings.

Miss Grapp hated bonnet-strings; she never endured them a minute longer than she could help.

"Desire?" asked Mrs. Ripwinkley, easily comprehending.

"Yes; Desire. I tell you she has a hard row to hoe, and she wants comforting. She wants to know if it is her duty to go to Yourup with her mother. Now it may be her duty to be _willing_ to go; but it ain't anybody's else duty to let her. That's what came to me as I was coming along. I couldn't tell _her_ so, you see, because it would interfere with her part; and that's all in the tune as much as any; only we've got to chime in with our parts at the right stroke, the Lord being Leader. Ain't that about it, Mrs. Ripwinkley?"

"If we are sure of the score, and can catch the sign," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, thoughtfully.

"Well, I've sung mine; it's only one note; I may have to keep hammering on it; that's according to how many repeats there are to be. Mr. Oldways, he ought to know, for one. Amongst us, we have got to lay our heads together, and work it out. She's a kind of an odd chicken in that brood; and my belief is she's like the ugly duck Hazel used to read about. But she ought to have a chance; if she's a swan, she oughtn't to be trapesed off among the weeds and on the dry ground. 'Tisn't even ducks she's hatched with; they don't take to the same element."

"I'll speak to Uncle Titus, and I will think," said Mrs. Ripwinkley.

But before she did that, that same afternoon by the six o'clock penny post, a little note went to Mr. Oldways:--

"DEAR UNCLE TITUS,--

"I want to talk with you a little. If I were well, I should come to see you in your study. Will you come up here, and see me in my room?

"Yours sincerely, DESIRE LEDWITH."

Uncle Titus liked that. It counted upon something in him which few had the faith to count upon; which, truly he gave few people reason to expect to find.

He put his hat directly on, took up his thick brown stick, and trudged off, up Borden Street to Shubarton Place.

When Luclarion let him in, he told her with some careful emphasis, that he had come to see Desire.

"Ask her if I shall come up," he said. "I'll wait down here."

Helena was practicing in the drawing-room. Mrs. Ledwith lay, half asleep, upon a sofa. The doors into the hall were shut,--Luclarion had looked to that, lest the playing should disturb Desire.

Luclarion was only gone three minutes. Then she came back, and led Mr. Oldways up three flights of stairs.

"It's a long climb, clear from the door," she said.

"I can climb," said Mr. Oldways, curtly.

"I didn't expect it was going to stump _you_," said Luclarion, just as short in her turn. "But I thought I'd be polite enough to mention it."

There came a queer little chuckling wheeze from somewhere, like a whispered imitation of the first few short pants of a steam-engine: that was Uncle Titus, laughing to himself.

Luclarion looked down behind her, out of the corner of her eyes, as she turned the landing. Uncle Titus's head was dropped between his shoulders, and his shoulders were shaking up and down. But he kept his big stick clutched by the middle, in one hand, and the other just touched the rail as he went up. Uncle Titus was not out of breath. Not he. He could laugh and climb.

Desire was sitting up for a little while, before going to bed again for the night. There was a low gas-light burning by the dressing-table, ready to turn up when the twilight should be gone; and a street lamp, just lighted, shone across into the room. Luclarion had been sitting with her, and her gray knitting-work lay upon the chair that she offered when she had picked it up, to Mr. Oldways. Then she went away and left them to their talk.

"Mrs. Ripwinkley has been spry about it," she said to herself, going softly down the stairs. "But she always was spry."

"You're getting well, I hope," said Uncle Titus, seating himself, after he had given Desire his hand.

"I suppose so," said Desire, quietly. "That was why I wanted to see you. I want to know what I ought to do when I am well."

"How can I tell?" asked Uncle Titus, bluntly.

"Better than anybody I can ask. The rest are all too sympathizing. I am afraid they would tell me as I wish they should."

"And I don't sympathize? Well, I don't think I do much. I haven't been used to it."

"You have been used to think what was right; and I believe you would tell me truly. I want to know whether I ought to go to Europe with my mother."

"Why not? Doesn't she want you to go?"--and Uncle Titus was sharp this time.

"I suppose so; that is, I suppose she expects I will. But I don't know that I should be much except a hindrance to her. And I think I could stay and do something here, in some way. Uncle Titus, I hate the thought of going to Europe! Now, don't you suppose I ought to go?"

"_Why_ do you hate the thought of going to Europe?" asked Uncle Titus, regarding her with keenness.

"Because I have never done anything real in all my life!" broke forth Desire. "And this seems only plastering and patching what can't be patched. I want to take hold of something. I don't want to float round any more. What is there left of all we have ever tried to do, all these years? Of all my poor father's work, what is there to show for it now? It has all melted away as fast as it came, like snow on pavements; and now his life has melted away; and I feel as if we had never been anything real to each other! Uncle Titus, I can't tell you _how_ I feel!"

Uncle Titus sat very still. His hat was in one hand, and both together held his cane, planted on the floor between his feet. Over hat and cane leaned his gray head, thoughtfully. If Desire could have seen his eyes, she would have found in them an expression that she had never supposed could be there at all.

She had not so much spoken _to_ Uncle Titus, in these last words of hers, as she had irresistibly spoken _out_ that which was in her. She wanted Uncle Titus's good common sense and sense of right to help her decide; but the inward ache and doubt and want, out of which grew her indecisions,--these showed themselves forth at that moment simply because they must, with no expectation of a response from him. It might have been a stone wall that she cried against; she would have cried all the same.

Then it was over, and she was half ashamed, thinking it was of no use, and he would not understand; perhaps that he would only set the whole down to nerves and fidgets and contrariness, and give her no common sense that she wanted, after all.

But Uncle Titus spoke, slowly; much as if he, too, were speaking out involuntarily, without thought of his auditor. People do so speak, when the deep things are stirred; they speak into the deep that answereth unto itself,--the deep that reacheth through all souls, and all living, whether souls feel into it and know of it or not.

"The real things are inside," he said. "The real world is the inside world. _God_ is not up, nor down, but in the _midst_."

Then he looked up at Desire.

"What is real of your life is living inside you now. That is something. Look at it and see what it is."

"Discontent. Misery. Failure."

"_Sense_ of failure. Well. Those are good things. The beginning of better. Those are _live_ things, at any rate."

Desire had never thought of that.

Now _she_ sat still awhile.

Then she said,--"But we can't _be_ much, without doing it. I suppose we are put into a world of outsides for something."

"Yes. To find out what it means. That's the inside of it. And to help make the outside agree with the in, so that it will be easier for other people to find out. That is the 'kingdom come and will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.' Heaven is the inside,--the truth of things."

"Why, I never knew"--began Desire, astonished. She had almost finished aloud, as her mother had done in her own mind. She never knew that Uncle Oldways was "pious."

"Never knew that was what it meant? What else can it mean? What do you suppose the resurrection was, or is?"

Desire answered with a yet larger look of wonder, only in the dim light it could not be wholly seen.

"The raising up of the dead; Christ coming up out of the tomb."

"The coming out of the tomb was a small part of it; just what could not help being, if the rest was. Jesus Christ rose out of dead _things_, I take it, into these very real ones that we are talking of, and so lived in them. The resurrection is a man's soul coming alive to the soul of creation--God's soul. _That_ is eternal life, and what Jesus of Nazareth was born to show. Our coming to that is our being 'raised with Him;' and it begins, or ought to, a long way this side the tomb. If people would only read the New Testament, expecting to get as much common sense and earnest there as they do among the new lights and little 'progressive-thinkers' that are trying to find it all out over again, they might spare these gentlemen and themselves a great deal of their trouble."

The exclamation rose half-way to her lips again,--"I never knew you thought like this. I never heard you talk of these things before!"

But she held it back, because she would not stop him by reminding him that he _was_ talking. It was just the truth that was saying itself. She must let it say on, while it would.

"Un--"

She stopped there, at the first syllable. She would not even call him "Uncle Titus" again, for fear of recalling him to himself, and hushing him up.

"There is something--isn't there--about those who _attain_ to that resurrection; those who are _worthy_? I suppose there must be some who are just born to this world, then, and never--'born again?'"

"It looks like it, sometimes; who can tell?"

"Uncle Oldways,"--it came out this time in her earnestness, and her strong personal appeal,--"do you think there are some people--whole families of people--who have no business in the reality of things to be at all? Who are all a mistake in the world, and have nothing to do with its meaning? I have got to feeling sometimes lately, as if--_I_--had never had any business to be."

She spoke slowly--awe-fully. It was a strange speech for a girl in her nineteenth year. But she was a girl in this nineteenth century, also; and she had caught some of the thoughts and questions of it, and mixed them up with her own doubts and unsatisfactions which they could not answer.

"The world is full of mistakes; mistakes centuries long; but it is full of salvation and setting to rights, also. 'The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened.' You have been _allowed_ to be, Desire Ledwith. And so was the man that was born blind. And I think there is a colon put into the sentence about him, where a comma was meant to be."

Desire did not ask him, then, what he meant; but she turned to the story after he had gone, and found this:--

"Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifest in him."

You can see, if you look also, where she took the colon out, and put the comma in.

Were all the mistakes--the sins, even--for the very sake of the pure blessedness and the more perfect knowledge of the setting right?

Desire began to think that Uncle Oldways' theology might help her.

What she said to him now was,--