Part 17

Nan said that she was a queen surrounded by courtiers, for first one and then another came for a quiet talk. When she was not talking or listening, she was watching: figures, faces, voices, motions, all held something in them worth her studying; she had been watching under cover of a book of engravings Professor Towne, for some time before he came and stood at the arm of her sofa.

She was shy, at first, as she ever was with strangers, but no one could be shy with him for a longer time than five minutes. Dine's last letter had contained an account of an afternoon with Miss Towne, with many quotations from her sayings.

"My sister thinks that your sister is a saint," said Tessa; "she has written me about her beautiful life."

"All about her invalids, I suppose. _Shut-ins_ she calls them! Invalids are her mania; she had thirty-five on her list at her last writing; she finds them north, south, east, and west."

"Dine loves to hear about them; Miss Towne gives her some of their letters to read to Aunt Theresa. Dine runs over every morning to hear about last night's mail. I am looking forward to my good times with her if she will be as good to me as she is to my little sister."

"She is looking forward to you; your sister's enthusiasm never flags when she may talk of you."

The talk drifted into books; Mr. Hammerton drew nearer, his questions and apt replies added zest to the conversation; Tessa mentally decided that he was more original than the Professor; the Professor's questions were good, but no one in all _her_ world could reply like Gus Hammerton; she was proud of him to-night with a feeling of ownership; in loving Dine, had he not become as near as a brother to her?

This feeling of ownership was decidedly pleasant; with it came a safe, warm feeling that she was taken care of; that she had a right to be taken care of and to be proud of him. No one in the world, the most keen-eyed student of human nature, could ever have guessed that he was suffering from a heartache; he had greeted her with the self-possession of ten years ago, had inquired about the "folks at home," and asked if Dine were up in the clouds still. Could Dine have made a mistake? Had she dreamed it?

Professor Towne moved away to go to Nan Gerard; Tessa listened to Mr. Hammerton, he was telling her about a discovery in science, and half comprehending and not at all replying she watched Professor Towne's countenance and motions. She could hear about this discovery some other time, but she might not have another opportunity to study the Professor. He was her lesson to-night. As he talked, she decided that he did not so much resemble his cousin as her first glance had revealed; his voice was resonant, his manner more courteous; he was not at all the "big boy," he was dignified, frank, and yet reserved; simple, at times, as his sister might be, and cultured, far beyond any thing she had ever thought of in regard to Dr. Towne; he was as intellectual as Gus Hammerton, as gracious as Felix Harrison, with as much heart as Dr. Lake, a physical presence as fascinating as Dr. Towne, and as pure-hearted and spiritualized as only himself could be. She had found her ideal at last. She had found him and was scrutinizing him as coolly and as critically as if he were one of the engravings in the book in her lap. She would never find a flaw in him; when she wrote her novel he should be her hero.

"Why, doctor! Have the skies fallen? Did you hear that we were all taken with convulsions?"

Nan Gerard's laugh followed this; the doctor's reply was cool and commonplace.

"What is the title of your book?" Mr. Hammerton was asking. "'Hepsey's Heartache?' 'Jennie's Jumble?' 'Dora's Distress?' 'Fannie's Fancy?' or it may be 'Up Top or Down Below,' 'Smashed Hopes or Broken Idols.'"

"I will not answer you if you are not serious."

"I thought that young ladies gloried in sentiment."

She turned the leaves of her book.

"Lady Blue, I can not be a just critic; I can not take a sentimental standpoint; you take it naturally and truly; you are right to do so; it is your mission, your calling, your election. Do not think that I despise sentiment and the ideal world of feeling--"

"You know that I do not think that," she interrupted earnestly.

"These questions of feeling can not be tackled like a problem in mathematics, and an answer given in cold, clear cut, adequate words; such a problem I like to tackle; such an answer I like to give; but these sentimental questions in 'Blighted Hopes' are many sided, involved, and curvilinear; they are for the theologian, metaphysician, and mystic. What can you and I say about life's hard questions after Ecclesiastes and Job?"

"Then you think I am presuming?"

"Did I not just say that sentiment is your mission? The story of each human life has a pathos of its own, and each is an enigma of which God only knows the solution."

She colored and dropped her eyes; he did not dream that she knew any thing of the "pathos" in his life. How kind she would be to him!

"You are living your solution; perhaps you will help me to find mine."

"I can't imagine any one in the world knowing you well enough to be of any help to you."

"Very likely; but I am not on a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, crowned with a diadem of snow!"

"It's a little bit warm at the foot of Mount Blanc," she replied laughing.

"Then you shall live at the foot."

"Dine and I," she answered audaciously.

"Not Dine! She has gone away from us; she would rather listen to a love-ditty from the lips of her new acquaintance than a volume of sober sense from us."

"I had not thought to be jealous. She is not taking any thing from me."

"Be careful; never tell her any thing again; if you write to her that Mary wears a black silk to-night, and that Nan has geranium leaves in her hair, she will run and tell him. She will never keep another secret for you."

Tessa looked grave. She never would be supreme in her little sister's heart again. Perhaps this evening she had arrayed herself in garnet and gone with him to the mite society, and was laughing and playing games, fox and geese, or ninepins, in somebody's little whitewashed parlor, forgetting that such a place as Dunellen was down upon the map.

"Gus, we want you," said Mary Sherwood, approaching them. "The girls are having a quarrel about who wrote something; now, go and tease them to your heart's content."

"Wrote what?" asked Tessa.

"Oh, I don't know. Why are you so still? You are sitting here as stately and grand and pale and intellectual--one must be pale to look intellectual, I suppose--as if you had written _Middlemarch_. I thought that you never went home without a separate talk with every person in the room, and there you sit like a turtle in a shell. What change has passed over the spirit of your dream?"

"I feel quiet; I feel as if I were afraid that some one would push against me if I should attempt to cross the room."

Mary was called away and she drew herself into her sofa corner; the two long rooms were crowded; bright colors were flashing before her eyes, the buzz and hum of merry talk filled her ears; a black silk in contrast with a gray or blue cashmere; a white necktie, a head with drooping curls, a low, fair forehead, a pair of square shoulders in broadcloth, an open mouth with fine teeth, sloping shoulders of gray silk, a slender waist of brown, a coat-sleeve with cuff and onyx cuff-button, a small hand with a diamond on the first finger, and dark marks of needle-pricks on the tip of the same finger, a pearl ear-ring in a red, homely ear;--Tessa's eyes saw them all, as well as the rounded chin, the fretful lip, the humorous lines at the corner of the eye, the manner that was frank and the manner that was intended to be, the lips that were speaking truth and the lips that were dissembling, the eyes that were contented and the eyes that were missing something--a word, perhaps, or a little attention, the eyes that brightened when some one approached, the eyes that dropped because some one was talking nonsense to some one else;--it was a rest to dwell upon these things and forget that Dr. Lake was suffering and Sue frightened.

The gentlemen's faces she did not scan; it was fair, matured women like Mrs. Towne and Miss Jewett, and sprightly, sweet girls like Nan Gerard that she loved.

Dr. Towne was hedged in a corner, behind a chair, conversing or seeming to converse with a gentleman; he was not a lady's man, he could not be himself in the presence of a third or fourth person, that is himself, socially; he could be himself professionally under the gaze of the multitude. Tessa smiled, thinking how uncomfortable he must be and how he must wish himself at home. Was he longing for his leisure at Old Place, where, as a society man, nothing was expected of him? Did he regret that he had come out "into the world"? Was the old life in his "den" with his book a dream that he would fain dream again? Perhaps that book that had loomed up before her as containing the wisdom of the ages was not such a grand affair after all? Who had ever thought so beside herself? Who had ever worshipped him as hero and saint beside herself? He was not looking like either, just now, for his face was flushed with the heat of the room and he was standing in a cramped position.

"The bear is in his corner growling," said Nan Gerard bending over her. "How ungracious he can be when he wills. Sometimes he is positively rude to me."

"Is there but one bear?"

"You know well enough whom I mean. I expect that Mrs. Lake is mad enough because she couldn't come! How prettily she makes up; I have seen her when she really looked elegant. Homely girls have a way of looking prettier than the pretty ones. How grave you are! You don't like my nonsense, do you?"

"I was thinking of poor Sue."

"Oh yes; sad, isn't it? She'll be married in less than two years, if he dies, see if she isn't. I can't understand what her attraction is! She has a thousand little airs, perhaps that is it. I am to sleep with you to-night. May I?"

"Thank you," said Tessa warmly, "I am very glad."

"There, the bear is looking at us. He'll be over here; now I'll go over to the piano and see if I can make him follow me; I've had great fun doing that before now--_you_ don't do such things;" Nan shook her curls back with a pretty movement, threw a grave, alluring glance across the heads, and through the lights at the bear, then moved demurely away.

The color touched his eyes; he looked amused and provoked; Tessa saw it while her eyes were busy with the lady in the chair near him; would he follow her? Mr. Hammerton returned.

"'Why, William, on that old gray stone, Thus for the length of a half a day, Why, William, sit you thus alone, And dream the time away?' Only six ladies have found their way to you in the last half hour; with what sorcery do you draw them towards you? Tessa," speaking in a grave tone, "it's a beautiful thing for a woman to be attractive to women!"

"It is a very happy thing."

"Will you go to supper with me or do you prefer to sit on the old gray stone? You once liked to go with me to get rid of poor Harrison; is there any one that you wish to rid yourself of now? In these extremities I am at your service."

"Are you taking me to rid yourself of a pertinacious maiden?"

"No, the girls do not trouble me; I wish they would; if Naughty Nan would only run after me, now--there! there goes Towne; _he's_ after her, I know."

Tessa enjoyed the roguish, demure eyes with which she made room for him at her side, and flashed back a congratulation in return for the little nod of triumph which Nan telegraphed to her.

"You are in league, you two; I can see that with my short-sighted eyes; say, you and he were prime friends once, weren't you?"

"We are now."

"Humph! as they say in books! Why don't _you_ bring him with your eyes, then?"

"What for?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, because he has money; he is a moral and respectable young man, also."

"You are something of a phrenologist; tell me what he is."

"I will not. You will be thinking about him instead of about me."

"I will be thinking of your deep knowledge of human nature, of your unrivalled penetration. Don't you know that a woman likes to hear one man talk about another?"

"But you would not take my opinion, nevertheless."

"True; I prefer my own unless yours confirm mine. Tell me, please, what is he!"

"I have never given him five minutes' thought."

"You know his face; look away from him and think."

"He isn't a genius; but he has brains," replied Mr. Hammerton slowly; "he is very quiet, as quiet as any man you know; he is very gentle, his manner is perfection in a sick room--and nowhere else, I fancy--"

"That's too bad."

"Remember that I do not know him; I am speaking as a phrenologist; I have never been introduced to him. He does not understand human nature, he could live a year under the roof with you or me, particularly you, and not feel acquainted with you; he is shy of women, he never knows whether they are talking sense or nonsense; he is not a lady's man in the least, you may drop your handkerchief and stoop for it, he would never know it."

"Neither would you."

"He can keep a secret, that he can do to perfection. Tell him that you are in love with him and he will never, never tell! He is no musician. Naughty Nan may break her wrists and the keys of the piano, they will not unlock his ears or his heart; he is not fluent in conversation, he states a fact briefly, he answers a question exactly, he has no more to say; but he is a good listener, he does not forget; he is sympathetic, but he does not show it particularly, very few would think that he has any heart at all; I will wager that not two people in the world know him, understand, or can easily approach him; his temper is even, but when he _is_ angry 'beware the fury of a patient man!' He likes to see things orderly; he seldom raises his voice; he is exceedingly deliberate, and while he _is_ deliberating he would do or leave undone many things that he would afterward regret. He will rush into matrimony, or he will be in love for years before he knows it; his temperament is bilious. Now, Lady Blue, have I described a hero fit for a modern romance?"

"No, only a commonplace man. All you have said is literally true."

"He is a _good_ man," said Mr. Hammerton, emphatically. "I mean, good as men go, in these days. Naughty Nan is to be congratulated. Do you not think so?"

"Perhaps," said Tessa doubtfully.

"I believe that he is planning an attack on the citadel under my charge; I will move off, and give him an opportunity; I want to talk to the Professor."

How many years ago was it since Felix had attended one of Mary Sherwood's little parties? Not more than three or four; she remembered how he used to hear her voice in its lightest speaking, how soon he became aware whenever she changed her position; how many times she had raised her eyes to meet his with their fixed, intense gaze; how his eyes would glitter and what a set look would stiffen his lips. And oh, how she had teased him in those days by refusing his eagerly proffered attentions and accepting Gus Hammerton in the matter-of-fact fashion in which he had suggested himself as ever at her service! In all the years she could remember these two, Gus, helpful and friendly, not in the least lover-like (she could as easily imagine the bell on the old Academy a lover), and Felix, poor Felix,--he would always be "poor Felix" now,--with his burning jealousy and intrusive affection.

Was he asleep now, or awake and in pain? Was he lying alone thinking of what he might have been but for his own undisciplined eagerness, not daring to look into the future nights and days, that would be like these, only more helpless, more terrible?

The talk and laughter ran on, her cheeks were hot, her head weary; she longed for a cool pillow and a dark chamber; some one was speaking, she lifted her eyes to reply.

"Miss Tessa, my mother misses you every hour."

"I am very sorry. There is room on my sofa, will you sit down?"

"No. I was too hasty in our last conversation," bending so low that his breath touched her hair, "I come to ask you to reconsider; will you?"

"Do you want such an answer as that would be?"

"That is what I do want; then you will be sure, so sure that you will never change--"

"I am not changeable."

"I think you are; in six months I will come to you again, when shall it be?"

"So long! If you care, the suspense will be very hard for you. I do not like to hurt you so."

"I prefer the six months."

"Well," speaking in her ordinary tone, "do not come to me, wherever I may be--we may both be in the next world by that time--"

"We shall not be so much changed as to forget, shall we?"

"Or not to care? I will write you a letter on the first day of June; I will mail it before ten o'clock."

She laid her hand in his; he held it a moment, neither speaking.

"Oh, you _are_ here," cried a voice.

And she was talking the wildest nonsense in two minutes, with her eyes and cheeks aflame.

At half past one the last guests had departed; Mary paused in a description of somebody's dress and asked Tessa if she would like to go to bed.

"I have always wished to get near to you," said Nan, leading the way up-stairs. "I knew that there was a place in your heart for me to creep into."

Tessa had a way of falling in love with girls; that night she fell in love with Nan Gerard; sitting on the carpet close to the register in a white skirt and crimson breakfast sacque, bending forward with her arms clasping her knees, she told Tessa the story of her life.

Tessa was seated on the bed, still in the black silk she had worn, with a white shawl of Shetland wool thrown around her; she had taken the hair-pins out of the hair and the long braid was brought forward and laid across her bosom reaching far below her waist.

She braided and unbraided the ends of it as Nan talked about last winter and Dr. Towne.

"I like to talk to you; I can trust you, I wouldn't be afraid to tell you any thing; I can not trust Mary, she exaggerates fearfully. I don't mind telling _you_ that I came near falling in love with that handsome black bear; it was only skin deep however; I think that I have lost my attraction for him, whatever it was; I never do take falling in love hard; why, some girls take it as a matter of life and death; I think the reason must be that I can never love any one as I loved Robert. He was a saint. Yes, he was; you needn't look incredulous! I am not sentimental, I am practical and I intend to marry some day. People call me a flirt, perhaps I am, but my fun is very innocent and most delightful.

"I know this: Ralph Towne would not like me if I were the only girl in existence; he wants some one who can think as well as talk; you wouldn't guess it to hear _him_ talk, would you?

"Did you ever see a man who could not talk some kind of nonsense? There's Gus Hammerton, can't he talk splendid nonsense? Some of his nonsense is too deep for me.

"Now, I've been trying an experiment with Dr. Towne, he is such an old bear that I thought it would do no harm; I made up my mind to see if it were possible for a marriageable woman to treat a marriageable man as if he were another woman! I don't know about it though," she added ruefully.

"Has it failed?"

"I think it has--rather. He does not understand--"

"No man would understand."

"I would understand if he would treat me as if I were Nathan instead of Nan; what grand, good friends we could be!"

"I am glad that you can see that it has failed. How do you detect the failure?"

"I have eyes. I know. His mother does not understand either. I think that I shall begin to be more--"

"Maidenly?"

Nan colored. "Was I unmaidenly? I have resolved never to ask him to take me anywhere again; I have made him no end of pretty things, I will do it no more. I would not like to have him lose his respect for me."

"It usually costs something to try an experiment; I am glad that yours has cost you no more."

"So am I, heartily glad. My next shall be of a different nature. Did you never try an experiment?"

"Not of that kind; I tried an experiment once of believing every thing that somebody said, and acting upon it, as if it meant what it would have meant to me."

"And you came to grief?"

"I thought so, at first. Life _is_ a long story, isn't it?"

"It's an interesting one to me. I kept a journal about _my_ experiment; I'll read it to you, shall I?"

"I would like it ever so much if you like _me_ well enough to do it."

"Of course I do," springing up. "And after I read it to you, you shall write the 'final' for me."

In the top drawer of the bureau, she fumbled among neckties, pocket-handkerchiefs, and a collection of odds and ends, and at last, brought out a small, soft-covered, thin book with edges of gilt.

"I named it 'Nan's Experiment,'" she said seriously, reseating herself near the register. "If you wish to listen in comfort, draw that rocker close to me, and take off your boots and heat your feet. If you are in a comfortable position, you will be in a more merciful frame of mind to judge my misdoings."

Tessa obeyed, and leaned back in the cushioned chair, braiding and unbraiding her hair as she listened.

The journal opened with an account of the journey by train to St. Louis. The description of her escort was enthusiastic and girlish in the extreme.

"Is it nonsense?" the reader asked.

"Even if it were, I haven't travelled so far away from those days that I can not understand."

She read with more confidence.

Ralph Towne would have been pleased with the intentness of Tessa's eyes and the softening of her lips.

"You _dear_ Naughty Nan," cried Tessa, as the book fell from the reader's hands.

"Then you do not blame me so much?"

"It is only a mistake. Who does not make a mistake? It sounds rather more than skin-deep, though."

"Oh, I had to throw in a little agony to make it interesting. I don't want him to think--"

"What he thinks is the price you pay for your experiment."

"Now write a last sentence, and I'll keep it forever; the names are all fictitious; no one can understand it; I'll find a pencil."

Tessa held the pencil a moment. Nan on her knees watched her.

"Something that I shall remember all my life--whenever I do a foolish thing--if I ever _do_ again."

"Do you know Jean Ingelow?"

"She is the one Professor Towne reads from?"

"Yes. I will write some words of hers."

The pencil wrote, and Nan, on her knees, read it word by word.

"I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover, While dear hands are laid on my head; 'The child is a woman, the book may close over, For all the lessons are said.'

"I wait for my story--the birds can not sing it, Not one as he sits on the tree; The bells can not ring it, but long years, O bring it! Such as I wish it to be."

"Thank you, very much. You write a fine hand. 'Such as I wish it to be?' No one's story is ever that--do you think it ever is?"

"We will do our best to make ours such as we wish it to be."

"Professor Towne is to have a private class in elocution after the holidays, and I'm going to join. He says that I will make a reader. I wish that you would join too."

"I wish I might, but I shall not be at home; I am to spend a part of the winter away."

"Oh, are you? Just as I have found you. But you promise to write to me?"

"Yes, I will write to you; I beg of you not to try any experiments with me," she added laughing.

"Don't be afraid," said Nan, seriously.

"I wish you would make a friend of Miss Jewett; you will be glad of it as long as you live."

"I am doing it; but I don't want _you_ to go away."

"I shall come back some day, childie."

Nan moved nearer, still on her knees, drew Tessa's cheek down to her lips,--her warm, saucy, loving lips,--saying, "My counsellor."