Part 8

The years had ended in having Felix Harrison love her; that was all. She had lived her childhood and girlhood through for such a time as this.

This new year had brought more hard things to bear than any of the old years; if she could only tell some one who would care and sympathize with her and help her not only to bear but to do and to become; but her father would be justly angry and exclaim, "Madness, daughter," her mother would laugh and look perplexed, Miss Jewett would say, "O, Tessa, Tessa, I didn't think such a thing of you," and Mr. Towne--but she had no right to think of him! And Gus! He would look at her steadily and say nothing; he would be disappointed in her if he knew that she could promise with her lips, with no love in her heart save the love of regret, compassion, and contrition for all that she had so unconsciously caused him to suffer. And how could she reveal to Felix, poor Felix! the plain, cold truth! how she shrank from him as soon as she was alone and could think! how as the morning grew brighter and her world more real she shrank from him yet more and more! how the very thought of his presence, of his tight arms around her, and his smooth face close to hers gave her a feeling of repulsion that she had never felt towards any human being before! She felt that she must flee to the ends of the earth rather than to endure him. But it was done; she must keep her word; he should never guess; she would write a note and slip it into his hand to-day, he would be sure to press through the crowd towards her as she came out of church. She would write it now and be at rest. Her writing-desk stood open, pages of manuscript were laid upon it. She selected a sheet of lemon-colored note paper, and wrote a message, hurriedly, in pencil. Never afterward would she write a word upon lemon-colored paper.

"Do not come to me, dear Felix--" she hesitated over the adjective, erased the words, and dropped the sheet into her waste paper basket and found another: "Do not come to me, Felix, until I send for you, please. I am not strong. I want to be alone. Do not think me unkind, you know that I always did like to be alone. Do not expect too much of me; I am not what you think; I am a weak, impulsive woman, too tender-hearted to be wise, or to be just towards myself or towards you. If you want me to love you, ask it of Him, who is love; do not ask it of me, I am not love. But do not be troubled, I have given my word, I am not a covenant-breaker, _I will be true_."

She folded it, not addressing it, and placed it in the pocket of the dress that she would wear to church; as she passed the window she saw Dr. Lake driving towards home. Shivering, although the sun was high enough to shine on the apple blossoms, she crept back to bed, nestling close to sleepy Dine who loved her morning nap better than the sunrise. Her confused thoughts ran hither and thither; she found herself repeating something that she and Mr. Hammerton had learned together years ago,

"'Yes,' I answered you last night; 'No,' this morning, sir, I say; Colors seen by candlelight Do not look the same by day."

Mr. Hammerton said that he and the Wadsworth girls had learned "miles" of poetry together. The Harrisons were not at church. When had such a thing happened before? Her fingers were on the note in her pocket as she passed down the aisle.

"Tessa, Tessa," whispered a loud whisper behind her, and Sue's irrepressible lips were close to her ear; "come home to dinner with me; you won't want to go to Bible class, for Miss Jewett is down to Harrison's. Father sent for her to go early this morning."

"Why is she there?"

"Oh, somebody is sick. Felix. Dr. Lake was there in the night and father was going this morning. He was taken crazy, I believe. Come home with me, will you?"

"Very well."

She found Dine waiting for Norah, and told her that she was going home with Sue, then rejoined Sue at one of the gates.

"I'm awful lonesome Sundays," began Sue; "Aunt Jane has gone, I told you, didn't I? A cousin of hers died and left some dozens of young ones and she had to go and take care of them and console the widower. 'The unconsolable widder of Deacon Bedott will never get married again!' but she went all the same. She said that she had brought _me_ up far enough to take care of father."

Sue's lightness grated all along her nerves.

"Did you like Mary Sherwood's hat? Too many flowers, don't you think so? And she _will_ wear light blue with her sallow face! Wasn't it a queer sermon, too? Don't you think it is wicked for ministers to frighten people so? He said that we make our own lives, that we choose every day, and that every choice has an influence. You think that I don't listen because I stare around, don't you? I sha'n't forget that ever, because I have just had a choice that will influence my life; and I chose _not_ to do it. It's hateful to have Miss Jewett away; I won't go to Bible class, and I won't let you, either. I have a book to read, or I can go to sleep."

"Yes, you can go to sleep."

"I have something to tell you," said Sue, shyly, hesitating as she glanced into Tessa's quiet, almost stern, face.

"Not now--in the street."

"Oh, no, when we are by ourselves. Our parlors are lovely now; you will see how I have fixed up things. Father is so delighted to have me home that he will let me do any thing I like."

Voices behind them and voices before them, now and then a soft, Sunday laugh; through the pauses of Sue's talk Tessa listened, catching at any thing to keep herself from thinking.

"A rare sermon."

"It will do me good all the week."

"The most becoming spring hat I've seen."

"He is very handsome in the pulpit."

"Come over to tea."

"I expect to do great things this summer."

"If I could talk like that I'd set people to thinking."

"We sha'n't get out of trouble in _this_ world."

"When I can't forgive myself, I just let go of myself, and let God forgive me."

She wished that she could see that face; the voice sounded familiar, the reply was in a man's voice; she felt as if she were listening, but she would have liked to hear the reply, all the more when she discovered that the talkers were Mr. Lewis Gesner and his sister.

"_Isn't_ she handsomely dressed?" exclaimed Sue in admiration. "She passed me without seeing me. He is so wrapped up in that sister that he will never be married."

The crowd became thinner; couples and threes and fours, sometimes only one, entered at each gate as they moved on; they passed down the long street almost alone; Dr. Greyson's new house stood nearly a mile from the Park; there was a grass plot in front and stables in the rear.

Dr. Lake was driving around to the stables.

"I hoped that he wouldn't be home to lunch; he's awful cross," said Sue, with a pout and a flush. Fifteen minutes later the lunch bell rang; Dr. Greyson hurried in as they were seating themselves at the table.

Tessa's quickened heart-beats would not allow her to ask about Felix; she knew that her voice would betray her agitation; Dr. Lake had shaken hands and had not stopped to speak to her; his miserable face was but a repetition of yesterday.

Dr. Greyson seldom talked of anything but his patients and he was interested in Felix Harrison, she knew that she had but to wait patiently.

"Susie is a perfect housekeeper, isn't she? Somebody will find it out, I'm afraid."

"That's all I am," said Sue. "Father, why didn't you educate me?"

"Educate a kitten!"

"How is Felix Harrison?" inquired Dr. Lake.

"Bad! Bad enough. That fellow has been walking around with a brain fever. He'll pull through with care. Miss Jewett will stay until they can get a nurse; I would rather keep _her_, though. I warned him months ago. I told him that it would come to this. He has thrown away his life; he'll never be good for any thing again. I am glad that he has a father to take care of him; lucky for him, and not so lucky for his father. I wouldn't care to see my son such a wreck as he'll be. Why a man born with brains will deliberately make a fool of himself, I can't understand. Teaching and studying law and what not? He will have fits as long as he lives coming upon him any day any hour; he will be as much care as an infant. More, for an infant does grow up, and he will only become weaker and weaker mentally and physically. He has been under some great excitement, I suspect. _They_ don't know what it is. He came home late last night; his father heard a noise in his room and went in to find him as crazy as a loon. He said that he had heard him talking in his sleep all night long for two or three nights. I hope that he isn't engaged. I know a case like his, and that poor fellow _was_ engaged."

"Of course that ended it," said Sue. "A sick husband of all things. I would drown myself, if I had a sick husband."

"Of course it ended it. It almost broke her heart, though; broke it for a year, and then a dashing cousin of his mended it."

"Perhaps Felix hasn't any cousin. Dr. Lake, will you have more coffee?" Sue spoke carelessly, not meeting his glance.

"Thank you, no."

Dr. Greyson ran on talking and eating: "I told the old man the whole truth; he begged so hard to know the worst. He cried like a baby. He was proud of Felix. Felix was a fine fellow,--a noble fellow. But he's dead now; dead, _and_ buried."

"Does Laura know?" inquired Sue, helping herself to sweet pickled peaches. Tessa was tasting the peaches, her throat so full of sobs that she swallowed the fruit with pain.

"No, of course not. I told Miss Jewett to tell her any thing, but be sure to keep her up. He won't die. Why should he? It will come gradually to her. The very saddest case I know. And to think that it might have been avoided. I didn't tell his father _that_, though. Felix has no one but himself to thank. I warned him a year ago. Brains _without_ common sense is a very poor commodity. What did the minister tell you Miss Tessa? I haven't been to church since Sue was a baby."

"No wonder that I'm a heathen, then; any body would be with such a father," retorted Sue.

Dr. Lake excused himself abruptly, and crossing the hall went into the office.

"That foolish boy has taught me a lesson. I would take a vacation this summer, only if I leave Sue at home she would run off and marry Lake before a week."

"You needn't be afraid," answered Sue, scornfully. "I look higher than Gerald Lake."

The office door stood ajar. Sue colored with vexation as the words in her high voice left her lips.

"Shall we go into the parlor?" she said rising. "You can find a book and I'll go to sleep."

The parlors had been refurnished in crimson and brown. Standing in the centre of the front parlor, Tessa exclaimed, "Oh, how pretty!"

"Isn't it? All my taste. Dr. Lake did advise me, though; he went with me. Now, you shall sit in the front or back just as you please, in the most comfortable of chairs, and I will sit opposite you and snooze,--that is," rather doubtfully, for she was afraid of Tessa, "unless you will let me tell you my secret."

In passing through the rooms, Tessa had taken a volume of Josephus from a table; she settled herself at one of the back windows in a pretty crimson and brown chair, smoothed the folds of her black dress, folded her hands in her lap over the green volume, and looked up at Sue. Sue and a book in brown paper were in another crimson and brown chair at another window; flushed and vexed she played with the edges of her book.

"Do you think that he heard what I said?" she asked anxiously.

"You know as well as I."

She did not feel in a gentle mood towards Sue; her voice and words had rasped her nerves for the last hour.

"I didn't intend it for him," she was half crying, "but father provoked me. He does bother me so. I didn't flirt with him, I was real good and sisterly. I told him to call me Sister Sue. But after it all, he asked me to marry him, and was as mad as a hornet, and said dreadful things to me when I refused him."

She nibbled the edge of her book; Tessa had nothing to say.

"I couldn't help it now, could I?" in a tearful voice.

"You know best."

"I _know_ I couldn't. I like him. I can't help liking him; a cat or a dog would like him. In some things, I like him better than Stacey, and I'm sure I like him better than old John Gesner."

Tessa opened her book and looked into the handsome face of Flavius Josephus.

"Haven't you any thing to say to me?"

"No."

"You might sympathize with me."

"I don't know how."

Sue nibbled the edge of her book, with her eyes filled with tears. She had no friend except Tessa, and now she had deserted her!

Tessa turned the leaves and thought that she was reading; she did read the words: "The family from which I am derived is not an ignoble one, but hath descended all along from the priests; and as nobility among several people is of a different origin, so with us to be of the sacerdotal dignity is an indication of the splendor of a family."

"Yes," she tried to think, her eyes wandering out of the window towards the rear of Gesner's Row, "and that is why the promise, to be made kings and priests--"

"Tessa, I think you are real mean," said Sue, in a pathetic voice.

Tessa met her eyes and smiled. She did not like to be hard towards Sue.

"Do you think that I've been so wicked?"

"I think that you have been so wicked that you must either be forgiven or punished."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear _me_," dropping her head on the arm of her chair.

Tessa turned another leaf. "Moreover when I was a child and about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had to learning; on which account the high priests and principal men of the city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of points of the law."

Her eyes wandered away from the book and out the open window towards the rows of open windows in the houses behind the stables. At one window was seated an old man reading; in the same room, for he raised his head to speak to her, at another window, a woman was sitting reading also. She was glad that there were two. She wondered if they had been kind to each other as long as they had known each other. If the old man should die to-night would the old woman have need to say, "Forgive me." Through the windows above came the heavy, steady whirr of a sewing-machine, with now and then a _click_, as if the long seam had come to its end; the bushy, black head of a German Jew was bent over it; the face that he raised was not at all like that of the refined Flavius Josephus. No one ever went to him with knotty points in the law! There were plants in the other window of the room; she was glad of the plants. It was rather mournful to be seeking things to be glad about. A child was crying, sharply, rebelliously; a woman's sharper voice was breaking in upon it.

There was a voice in the stable speaking to a horse, "Quiet, old boy." A horse was brought out and harnessed to a buggy without a top. Dr. Greyson climbed into the buggy and drove off. Another horse was brought out and harnessed to a buggy with a top. She persuaded herself that she was very much interested in watching people and things; she had not had time to think of Felix yet. Dr. Lake came out, sprang into the buggy, and drove slowly out, not looking towards the windows where sat the two figures, each apparently absorbed in a book.

"Tessa," in a broken voice, like the appeal of a naughty child with the naughtiness all gone, "what shall I do?"

"I don't know," said Tessa.

"You don't think that I ought to marry him. He smells of medicine so."

"I do not think any thing. If I did think any thing, it would be my thinking and not yours."

"Do you believe that he cares so _very_ much?"

The exultant undertone was too much for Tessa's patience.

"I hope that he has too much good sense to care long; some day when he can see how heartless you are, he will despise himself for having fancied that he loved you."

"You don't care how you hurt my feelings."

"I am not sure that you have any to be hurt."

"You are a mean thing; I don't like you; I wish that I hadn't asked you to come."

Tessa's eyes were on _Josephus_ again.

After a long, silent hour, during which Sue looked out the window, and nibbled the edge of her book, and during which Tessa thought of every body and every thing except Felix Harrison, Sue spoke: "I'm going up-stairs for a while; excuse me, please."

Tessa nodded, closed her book and leaned back in the pretty crimson and brown chair. Sue came to her and stood a moment; her heart _was_ sore. If Tessa would only say something kind! But Tessa would not; she only said coolly, "Well?"

"You don't believe that I am sorry."

"I don't believe any thing about it, but that you are heartless and wicked."

Sue stood waiting for another word, but Tessa looked tired, and as if she had forgotten her presence. Why should she look so, Sue asked herself resentfully; _she_ had nothing to trouble her? Sue went away, her arms dropped at her side, her long green dress trailing on the carpet; tenderness gathered in Tessa's eyes as the green figure disappeared. "I don't like to be hard to her," she murmured.

The terrible thought of Felix pressed heavier and heavier. She took the note from her pocket and pondered each word; the cruel, truthful words! If he had read them she might have had to believe all her life that she had hastened this illness! The sunshine grew warmer, beating down upon the paving stones in the yard, the faces kept their places in the windows, the child's shrill, rebellious cry burst out again and the woman's sharper voice.

Sue's steps were moving overhead; suddenly, so suddenly as to break in upon the current of her thoughts, Sue's voice rang out in her clear soprano, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me."

The voice grated, the words coming from the thoughtless lips grated on her ear and on her heart, grated more harshly than the woman's sharp voice in taunting rebuke.

"Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling."

As soon as she had decided that she could not bear it another instant, the singing ceased. It ceased and left her in tears.

X.--FORGETTING THE BREAD.

Again Tessa was spending the night with Miss Jewett; Sue Greyson had chatted away half the evening, and it was nearly eleven before Tessa could put both arms around her friend and squeeze her.

"I am hungry for a talk with you, you dear little woman, every thing is getting to be criss-cross with me nowadays; I'm so troubled and so wicked that I almost want to die. You wouldn't love me any more if you could know how false I am. All my life I have been so proud of being true," she added bitterly, "I despise myself."

"Is that all?"

Miss Jewett was leaning back in her little rocker. Almost before she knew it herself, Tessa had dropped upon the carpet at her feet.

"I have come to learn of you, my saint."

"What have you come to learn, my sinner?"

"I'm confused--I'm bewildered--I'm all in a tangle. People say, 'pray about it'; you say that yourself; and I do pray about all the trials in my life and yet--I can not understand--I am groping my way, I am blind, walking in the dark. Do you know that I believe that praying for a thing is the hardest way in the world to get it? I would rather earn it a thousand times over; I know that you think me dreadfully wicked, but do not stop me, let me pour it all out; hard praying, never ceasing, night and day, is enough to wear one out soul and body, because you _must_ expect to get what you ask for, and if you do not after praying so long the disappointment is heart-breaking. There now! I have said it and I feel better. I have no one except you to talk to and I wouldn't dare tell you how wicked I am. About something I have prayed with all my strength--I will not be ashamed to tell you--I know you will understand; it is about loving somebody. I have been so ashamed and shocked at girls' love-stories and I wanted one so true and pure and unselfish and beautiful, and I have prayed that mine might be that, and I have tried so hard to make it that, and yet I get into trouble and break my own heart, which is nothing at all, and more than break some one else's heart and do as much harm as Sue Greyson does, who is as flighty as a witch! I would rather go without things than pray years and years and be disappointed every day, or go farther and farther into wrong-doing as I do; I don't believe that the flightiest and flirtiest of your girls does as much harm as I do, or is as false to herself as I am! And I have been so proud of being true!"

"My _dear_ child."

"Is that all you can say to comfort me?"

"Why do you pray?"

"Why do I pray?" repeated Tessa in surprise. "To get what I want, I suppose."

"I thought so."

"Isn't that what you pray for?"

"Hardly. I pray that I may get what God wants."

"Oh," said Tessa with a half startled, little cry.

"I fear that you are having a hard time over something, child."

"If you only knew--but you wouldn't believe in me any longer; neither would father, or Dine, or Gus, or any one who trusts me; I will not tell you; I have lost all faith in myself."

"Thank God for that!" exclaimed the little woman brightly.

"I am too sore and bruised to be thankful; I feel, sometimes, as if I could creep into a dark corner and cry my heart out. I could bear it if I were the only one, but to think that I must make somebody's heart ache as mine does! I thought all my prayers would prevail to keep me from making mistakes."

"Perhaps you have been trying to _earn_ your heart's desire by heaping up prayers, piling them up higher and higher, morning, noon, and night, and you have held them up to God thinking that He must be glad to take them; I shouldn't wonder if you had even supposed that you were paying Him overmuch--you had prayed enough to get what you want some time ago."

"That is true," answered Tessa, emphatically. "I have felt as if He were wronging me by taking my prayers and giving me so little in return. I believe that I have thought my prayers precious enough to pay for any thing. I paid my prayers, and I am disappointed that I have not my purchases."

"Then your faith has been all in your _prayers_."

"Yes; I was sure that I could not go wrong because I prayed so much."

"And your faith has been in your _faith_."

"And neither my faith nor my prayers have kept me from being false. Oh, it has been such hard work!"

Tessa's face was drawn as if by physical pain.

"I was thinking in the night last night that I did not believe that Hannah, or Elizabeth, or Huldah, or Persis, or Dorcas ever prayed more fervently or unceasingly than I have; I have builded on my _faith_, no wonder that the first rough wind has shaken my foundation! Ever since Felix Harrison years ago called me a flirt, I have prayed that I might be true; and to-night I am as false as Sue Greyson."

"Through an experience once, long ago, I learned to pray that the will of God might be done in me, even although I must be sifted as wheat."

"I am not brave enough for that. Oh, Miss Jewett, I am afraid that God is angry with me; and I have meant to be so true."

"Do you remember the time that the disciples forgot to take bread?"

"Yes, but that is not like me."

"I think it is--just like you."

"Then tell me."

"It was one time when Jesus and the disciples were alone on board the ship; He had been deeply grieved with the Pharisees, sighing in His spirit over them, for they had tempted Him with asking of Him a sign from heaven. A sign from heaven! And He had just filled four thousand hungry people with seven loaves and a few small fishes!

"By and by He began to talk to the disciples; speaking with authority, perhaps, it even sounded severe to them as He charged them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.