Part 14

"You are not listening to me at all," cried Sue at last "I might as well talk to the tree as to talk to you!"

"I am listening; what is it?"

"It's all settled--splendidly settled--and I'm as happy as Cinderella when she found the Prince! Now guess!"

"Well, then," stooping to pick a weed that had gone to seed, "I guess that you have come to your right mind, that you will marry Stacey on Friday and all will go as merry as a marriage bell should."

"What a thing to guess! That's too horrid! Guess again."

"You have grown good and 'steady,' you will keep house for your father and be what he is always calling you,--the comfort of his old age,--and forego lovers and such perplexities forever."

"That's horrider still! Do guess something sensible."

"You are going to marry Dr. Lake. Your father has stormed and stormed, but now he has become mild and peaceable; you are to be married Friday morning and start off immediately in the sober certainty of waking bliss."

"Yes," said Sue very seriously, "that is it. Every thing is as grand as a story-book, except that father will not give me the house for a wedding present. Oh, those wretched days since I saw you last! I did think that I would take laudanum or kill myself with a penknife. You don't know what I have been through. Old Blue Beard is pious to what father has been; Gerald, _he_ kept out of the house. I should have run away before this, only I knew that father would come around and beg my pardon. He always does."

Tessa stooped to dip her fingers in the water.

"And _this_ is your idea of marriage," she said quietly.

"No, it isn't. I never looked forward to any thing like this; I always wanted something better. I am not doing very well, although I suppose there _are_ girls in Dunellen who would think Gerald a catch."

"Oh, Sue, Sue! when he loves you so! If he could hear you, it would break his heart!"

"Take him yourself then, if you think he's so much," laughed Sue. "Nan Gerard will get the catch!"

"Sue, I am ashamed of you!" exclaimed Tessa rising. "I am glad if you are happy--as happy as you know how to be. I want you to be happy--and _do_ be good to Dr. Lake."

How Sue laughed!

"Oh, you dear old Goody Goody," she cried, springing to her feet and throwing her arms around Tessa. "What else should I be to my own wedded husband? But it does seem queer so near to Old Place to be talking about marrying Dr. Lake."

"We'll remember this place always, Sue, and that you promised to be kind to Dr. Lake."

"Yes, I'll remember," with a shadow passing over her face. "The next time you and I sit here it will be all over with me. I shall be out of lovers for the rest of my natural life." She laughed and chatted all the way home; her listener was silent and sore at heart.

"You will come to-morrow night and see the last of me, won't you? This is what I came to ask you, 'the last sad office' isn't that it? Sue Greyson will never ask you another favor."

"Yes, I will come." She had always loved Sue Greyson. She did not often kiss her, but she kissed her now.

"Don't look so. Laugh, can't you? If it is something terrible, it isn't happening to you."

"The things that happen to me are the easiest to bear."

Sue crossed over to the planks and went on pondering this, then gave it up to wonder how she would wear her hair on her wedding morning; Tessa would make it look pretty any way, for she was born a hair-dresser.

And Tessa went in and up-stairs, thinking of a remark of Miss Jewett's: "I should not understand my life at all, it would be all in a tangle, if it were not for my prayers."

XVII.--THE NIGHT BEFORE.

Two of the pretty crimson and brown chairs were drawn to the back parlor grate; Sue had kindled a fire in the back parlor because she felt "shivery," beside, it had rained all day; the wedding morning promised to be chilly and rainy.

Early after tea Dr. Greyson had been called away; Dr. Lake had not returned from a long drive, the latest Irish girl was singing lustily in the kitchen; Sue and Tessa were alone together before the fire. The white shades were down, the doors between the rooms closed, they were altogether cozy and comfortable. Almost as comfortable, Tessa was thinking, as if there were no dreaded to-morrow; but then she was the only person in the world who could see any thing to be dreaded in the to-morrow. Tessa's fingers were moving in and out among the white wool that she was crocheting into a long comforter for her father; Sue sat idly restless looking into Tessa's face or into the fire.

Now and then Tessa spoke, now and then Sue ejaculated or laughed or sighed.

"Life is too queer for any thing," she said reflectively. "Don't you know the minister said that Sunday that we helped to make our own lives? I have often thought of that."

Tessa's wool was tangled, she unknotted it without replying.

The rain plashed against the windows, a coal fell through the grate and dropped upon the fender.

"I wonder how Stacey feels," said Sue. "Perhaps he is taking out another girl to-night. That ring was large, it will not fit a small hand; perhaps he sold it, you can always get three quarters the worth of a diamond, I have heard people say."

Tessa's lips were not encouraging, but Sue was not looking at her.

"Gerald has the wedding ring in his pocket; I tried it on this noon. I wanted to wear it to get used to it, but he wouldn't let me. He is sentimental like you. I expect that he is really enjoying carrying it around in his pocket. S. G. L. is written in it."

The rain plashed and Tessa worked; suddenly the door-bell gave a sharp clang, a moment later little Miss Jewett, in a waterproof, was ushered in.

"I had to come, girls. I hope I don't intrude."

"Intrude!" Both of Sue's affectionate arms were around the wet figure. "Tessa is thinking of glum things to say to me, do sit down and say something funny."

The long waterproof was unbuttoned and hung upon the hat-stand in the hall, the rubbers were placed upon the hearth to dry, and the plump little woman pressed into Tessa's arm-chair. Moving an ottoman to her side, Tessa sat with her arm upon the arm of her chair.

"I'm _so_ glad to see you," Sue cried, dropping into her own chair. "What a long walk you have had in the rain just to give me some good advice. Don't you wish that Tessa was going off, too?"

"Tessa will not go off till she is good and ready," replied Miss Jewett, "and then she will go off to some purpose."

"Make a good match, do you mean?"

"If she can find her match," caressing the hand on the arm of the chair.

"Oh, Miss Jewett, tell us a story! A real love story! Humor me just this once, this last time! I don't like advice and I do like love stories."

"Do you, too, Tessa?"

"Yes, I shall write one some day! They shall both be perfect and love each other perfectly. It shall not be an earthly story, but a heavenly one."

"That would be too tame," said Sue. "I should want it to be a little wicked."

"That would be more like life--"

"And then get good in the end! That is like life, too," interrupted Sue. "Now, go on, please."

"Very well. To-night is an event, I suppose I may as well celebrate it. I will tell you about a present I had once, the most perfect gift I ever received."

"But I wanted a love story."

"And you think that _my_ story can not be that? Sometimes I think that unmarried people live the most perfect love stories."

Lifting the mass of white wool from Tessa's lap and taking the needle, she worked half a minute before she spoke; Sue's curious, bright eyes were on her face, Tessa's were on the wool she was playing with.

"Twenty-five years ago, when I was younger than I am now, and as intense and as full of aspirations as Tessa here, and as full of fun, as _you_, Sue Greyson, I boarded one winter with a widow. She was quite middle-aged and lived alone with her chickens and cat, very comfortably off, but she wanted a boarder or two for company. My store was a little affair then, but I was a busy body; I used to study and sew evenings. Ah, those evenings! I often think them over now as I sit alone. I shall never forget that winter. I _grew_. The widow and I were not alone; before I had been there a week a young man came, he was scarcely older than I--"

Sue laughed and looked at Tessa.

"He was to sail away in the spring to some dreadful place,--that sounds like you, Sue,--to be a missionary!"

"A _missionary!_" exclaimed Sue.

"Every evening he read aloud to us, usually poetry or the Bible. Poetry meant something to me then--that sounds like you, Tessa. One evening he read Esther, one evening Ruth, and when he read Nehemiah, oh, how enthusiastic we were! He talked and talked and talked, and I listened and listened and listened till all my heart went out to meet him."

"Ah," cried Sue, "to think of you being in love, Miss Jewett. I didn't know that you were ever so naughty!"

"At last the time came that he must go--the very last evening. I thought that those evenings could never end, but they did. I could hardly see my stitches for tears; I was making over a black bombazine for the widow, and the next evening I had to rip my work out! He read awhile,--he was reading _Rasselas_ that night,--and then he dropped the book and talked of his work and the life he expected to lead.

"'You ought to take a wife,' said the widow.

"'No woman will ever love me well enough to go to such a place with me,' he said.

"Just then I dropped the scissors and had to bend down to pick them up. The widow went out into the kitchen to set the sponge for her bread and clear out the stove for morning, and we stayed alone and talked. We talked about whether he would be homesick and seasick, and how glad he would be of letters from home; not that he had many friends to write to him, though; and I sewed on and on, and threaded my needle, and dropped my scissors, and almost cried because all I cared for in the wide world would sail away with him, and he would never know!

"'The best of friends must part,' he said when she brought in his candle and lighted it for him.

"In the morning, we all arose early and took our last breakfast together by lamplight. She shook hands with him twice, and wished him all sorts of good wishes, and then he held out his hand to me and said, 'Good-by.' I said, 'Good-by.' And then he said, 'You have given me a very pleasant winter; I shall often think of it.' And I said, 'Thank you,' and ran away up-stairs to cry by myself. That was five and twenty years ago--before you were born, Sue, and before Tessa could creep; there were wet eyes in the world, before you were born, girls, and there will be wet eyes long after we are all dead; and always for the same reason--because somebody loves somebody.

"He is a hard worker--I rejoice in his life. Five years ago he came home, but not to Dunellen; he had no friends here; after resting awhile he returned to his field of labor, and died before he reached it, but was buried in the place he loved better than home.

"I thought of him and loved him and prayed for him through those twenty years. I think of him and love him and give thanks for him now, and shall till I die and afterwards!"

"Why didn't you go with him?" asked Sue.

"He did not ask me."

"Would you if he had?"

"I certainly should."

"Couldn't you bring him to the point? It would have been easy enough."

"The gentleman did the asking in those days," Sue laughed. "And wasn't he ever married?"

"No."

"What a pity! I thought that every thing always went right for people like you and Tessa. But I don't see where the perfect gift comes in, do you, Tessa?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid that I don't want such a perfect gift. I couldn't bear it--twenty years."

"Tell me--I can't guess. Did he give you something?"

"No, _he_ did not."

"Didn't he love _you?_"

"No, he did not love me."

"Where is the gift then?"

"My love for him was my perfect gift. It was given by One in whom there is no shadow of turning."

"I am not strong enough to receive such a gift," said Tessa looking troubled.

"Oh, dear me, I hope not. Oh, dear me, horrid! What a story to tell the night before my wedding! All I care about is about _being loved!_ I didn't know that the loving made any difference or did any good! That story is too sorrowful. Gerald would like that."

The long ivory needle moved in and out; the fair face, half a century old, was full of loveliness.

"That is for you to remember all your life, Sue."

"I sha'n't. I shall forget it. I only remember pleasant things."

"I wonder if Fredrika Bremer were as happy as you, Miss Jewett. She says that a gentleman inspired her with a 'pure and warm feeling,' that it was never responded to, and yet it had a powerful influence upon her development."

"Was she _real?_" inquired Sue. "I thought that she only wrote books."

"It takes very real people to write," answered Tessa. "The more real you are, the more you are called to write."

Slipping off the low chair, down to the rug, Sue laid her head in Miss Jewett's lap, the white wool half concealing the braids and curls and frizzes, the thin, excited face was turned toward the fire, the brown eyes, wild and yet timid, were misty with tears.

Miss Jewett and Tessa Wadsworth were the only people in the world who had ever seen this phase of Sue Greyson.

Dr. Lake had never seen her subdued or frightened. At this instant she was both. There were some things that Sue could feel; there were not any that she could understand.

"Sometimes," said Sue, in a hollow whisper, "I'm so afraid, I want to run away; I was afraid I might run away and so I asked Tessa to come to-night."

"My dear!" Miss Jewett's warm lips touched her forehead.

"Oh, it isn't any thing! I like Gerald; I adore him. I wouldn't marry him if I didn't! I am always afraid of a leap into the dark, and I am always jumping into dark places."

"It is a leap for _him_, too, Sue; you seem to forget that," suggested Tessa.

"You always think of him, you never think of me."

"It is a pity for no one to think of him; if I were to be married to-morrow, I should cry all night, out of pity for the hapless bridegroom."

"Tessa, you ridiculous child," exclaimed Miss Jewett.

"In books," Sue went on, still with her face turned from them, "girls choose the one they are to marry out of all the world. Why don't we?"

"We do," said Tessa.

"We don't. We take somebody because he asks us and nobody else asks."

"_I_ will not. I do not believe that God means it so. He chooses that we shall satisfy the best and hungriest part of ourselves, and the best part is the hungriest, and the hungriest the best; we may not have opportunity in one year, or two years, or ten years, but if we wait He will give us the things we most need! He did not give us any longing simply to make us go crying through the universe; the longing is His message making known to us that the good thing _is_. I will not be false to myself, cheating myself by shutting my eyes and saying, 'Ah, _this_ is good! I have found my choice,' when my whole soul protests, knowing that it is a lie. I can wait."

"Oh, Tessa!" laughed Sue. "Doesn't she talk like a book? I never half know what she means when she goes into such hysterics. Do you expect to get all your good things?"

"All _my_ good things! Yes, every single one; it is only a question of time. God can not forget, nor can He die. I shall not be discouraged until I am sure that He is dead."

"O, Tessa, you are wicked," cried Sue.

"You remind me of something," said Miss Jewett. "'Blessed are all they that wait _for Him_.'"

"I can't wait for my blessings," said Sue; "I want to snatch them."

Gently pushing aside Sue's head, Tessa found her work and her needle; she worked silently while Sue laughed and grumbled and Miss Jewett talked, not over Sue's head as Tessa's habit was, but into her heart.

"Sue, I shall lose you in Bible class."

"I never answered any questions or studied any lesson, you will not care for my empty place. Gerald is getting awfully good; he reads the Bible and Prayer-book every night; every morning when I go in to fix up his room, I find them on a little table by his bed; I suppose he reads in bed nights. He used to be bad and talk dreadful things when he first came; did you ever hear him, Tessa?"

"Yes."

"But he's awful good now; he thinks that people ought to go to church, and say their prayers; I hope he will keep it up; _I_ will not hinder him. I want to be good, too."

Tessa's needle moved in and out; she did not hear Sue's voice, or see the kneeling, green figure; her eyes were looking upon the face she had looked down into that evening in January, such a little time since; and she was hearing her voice as she heard it in the night. Had she forgotten so soon? Or was it the remembrance that gave her the unrest to-night? Was she conscious without understanding? And had _her_ Ralph Towne done this? After having withdrawn himself from Sue, was he keeping her from seeing the good and the happiness of marriage with Dr. Lake? Would the thought of him come between her and the contentment that she might have had?

But no, she was putting herself into Sue's position; that would not do; it was Sue's self and not her own self that she must analyze! If she could tell Ralph Towne her fears to-night, his eyes would grow dark and grave, and then he would toss the feeling away with his amused laugh and say, "Sue is not deep enough for that! She did not care for me. Why must you think a romance about her?"

Was she not deep enough for that? Who could tell that?

She listened to Sue's lively talk and tried to believe that his reply would be just; the one most bitter thought of all was, that if she were suffering it was through his selfishness or stupidity. Why must he be so stupid about such things? Had he no heart himself?

Sue was laughing again. "Oh, dear! I must be happy; if I am not I shall be unhappy! It would kill me to be unhappy! I never think of unpleasant things five minutes."

The sound of wheels near the windows, and a call to "Jerry" in a loud, quick voice, brought them all to a startling sense of the present.

"There he is," cried Sue, springing lightly to her feet.

Tessa was relieved that she said "he" instead of "Gerald" or "Dr. Lake."

"If you will not stay all night, too, Miss Jewett, he shall take you home."

"I can not, dear. I only came because I wanted to talk with Sue Greyson once more before I lost her."

Rubbers and waterproof were hurried on, and Tessa was left alone with the fire, the rain, and her work.

Suppose that it were herself who was to be married to-morrow--

Would she wish to run away? Run away from whom? Although her Ralph Towne had died and been buried, that old, sharp, sweet, memory was wrapped around her still; it would always be sweet although so sharp--and bitterly, bitterly sharp although so sweet; if it might become wholly the one or wholly the other, but it could never be that; never unless she learned Love's lesson as Mrs. Towne had laid it before her. But that was so utterly and hopelessly beyond her present growth!

Would he despise her if he could know how much that happy time was in her thoughts? Was she tenacious where stronger minds would forget? He would think her weak and romantic like the heroine of a story paper novel; that is, if he could think weak any thing so wholly innocent.

She trusted the emerald ring on her finger; at times it burned into her flesh; sometimes she tore it off that she might forget her promise, and then--oh, foolish, incomprehensible, womanly Tessa!--she would take it again and slip it on with a reverence and love for the old memory that she could not be ashamed of although she tried.

Had she been too hard upon Ralph Towne in their latest interview? Why need she have given shape to her hitherto unspoken thoughts concerning his life; she could not tell him of her prayers that he might change and yet become--for it was not too late--the good, good man that she had once believed him to be. He had taken away her faith in himself; he might give it back, grown stronger, if he would. If he only would!

Dr. Greyson's step was in the hall; Sue's voice was less excited, her father was speaking quietly to her. Sue, poor Sue! She would never be again the free, wild Sue Greyson that she was to-night.

Tessa felt Dr. Lake's mood; she could have written out his thoughts, as he drove homeward in the rain; she dreaded his hilarious entrance, how his eyes would shine, with tears close behind them!

Her reverie was interrupted by the entrance that she dreaded. "Ah, Mystic, praying for my happiness here alone! I know you are. I come to be congratulated."

"I congratulate you," she said rising and taking his hand. Not so very long afterward, when she saw his cold, dead hands folded together and touched them, she remembered with starting tears this soft, hot, clinging clasp.

"You didn't dream of this two months ago, did you?" he cried, dropping into the chair that Sue had been sitting in. "You didn't know that I was born under a lucky star despite all my woeful past. I have turned over a new leaf; I turned it over to-night in the rain; it is chapter first. Such a white page, Mystic. Don't you want to write something on it for me?"

"I wouldn't dare."

"Oh, yes, you would! What do you wish for me? Write that."

"I wish for you--" she rolled the white wool over her hand.

"Well, go on! Something that must come true!"

"--The love that suffers long and is _kind_."

"Whew!" He drew a long breath. "There is no place for that in me."

Sue entered noisily. She did every thing noisily.

"Come here, Susan." Dr. Lake caught her in his arms, but she slipped through them, moving to Tessa's side, seating herself upon the rug, and resting both hands in Tessa's lap.

"I was reading the other day"--he stooped to smooth Sue's flounce--"of a fellow who fell dead upon his wedding day, as soon as the knot was tied. Perhaps it was tied too tight and choked him. Suppose I drop dead, Susan, will you like to be a bewitching young widow so soon? Whom would you find to flirt with before night?"

"Gerald, you are wicked!"

"Probably this bridegroom had heart disease. I haven't heart disease, except for you, my Shrine, my Heart's Desire."

"Isn't he wretched, Tessa? He tells me all kinds of stories about people dying of joy!"

He bent forward, drawing her towards him backward, and with both arms around her, kissed the top of her head and her forehead.

"You mustn't do so before folks," said Sue shaking herself free.

"Mystic isn't folks! She is my guardian angel."

"I know that you would rather have married her."

"But she wouldn't rather have married me, would you, Mystic?"

"I can't imagine it," returned Tessa, as seriously as he had spoken. "Set your jealous heart at rest, Sue."

"I never thought of it, but once in my life," he continued, musingly, "and that was when I was down in the deeps about you, Susan; I did think that she might drag me out--a drowning man, you know, will catch at a straw. It was one night when she was weeding her pansies and refused to ride with me. I'm glad that you never _did_ refuse me, Mystic, you couldn't be setting there so composedly."

"Oh, yes, I would; I should have known that you were insane."

"I was insane--all one week."

"I believe that," said Sue.

"I wonder what we shall all be thinking about the next time that we three sit here together! It will be too late for us to go back then, Susan; the die will be cast, the Rubicon crossed, another poor man undone forever. Are you regretting it, child?" drawing her again towards him backward and gazing down into her face. "Shall we quit at this last last minute? Speak the word! You never shall throw it up at me, that I urged you into it. It will be a mess for us if we do hate each other after awhile."

"I will never hate you, Gerald."

"But I might hate you, though, who knows?" smoothing her hair with his graceful, weak hands.