Chapter 2

“It is not valuable at all,” said Aaron, declining to take it back from the widow’s hand.

“Oh, I am quite sure it is. It is worth ten dollars at least—or twenty,” said poor Mrs. Bell, not in the very best taste. But she was perplexed, and did not know how to get out of the scrape. The article in question now lay upon the table-cloth, appropriated by no one, and at this moment Hetta came into the room.

“It is not worth ten cents,” said Aaron, with something like a frown on his brow. “But as we had been talking about the bridge, I thought Miss Susan would accept it.”

“Accept what?” said Hetta. And then her eye fell upon the drawing and she took it up.

“It is beautifully done,” said Mrs. Bell, wishing much to soften the matter; perhaps the more so that Hetta the demure was now present. “I am telling Mr. Dunn that we can’t take a present of anything so valuable.”

“Oh dear no,” said Hetta. “It wouldn’t be right.”

It was a cold frosty evening in March, and the fire was burning brightly on the hearth. Aaron Dunn took up the drawing quietly—very quietly—and rolling it up, as such drawings are rolled, put it between the blazing logs. It was the work of four evenings, and his chef-d’œuvre in the way of art.

Susan, when she saw what he had done, burst out into tears. The widow could very readily have done so also, but she was able to refrain herself, and merely exclaimed—“Oh, Mr. Dunn!”

“If Mr. Dunn chooses to burn his own picture, he has certainly a right to do so,” said Hetta.

Aaron immediately felt ashamed of what he had done; and he also could have cried, but for his manliness. He walked away to one of the parlour-windows, and looked out upon the frosty night. It was dark, but the stars were bright, and he thought that he should like to be walking fast by himself along the line of rails towards Balston. There he stood, perhaps for three minutes. He thought it would be proper to give Susan time to recover from her tears.

“Will you please to come to your tea, sir?” said the soft voice of Mrs. Bell.

He turned round to do so, and found that Susan was gone. It was not quite in her power to recover from her tears in three minutes. And then the drawing had been so beautiful! It had been done expressly for her too! And there had been something, she knew not what, in his eye as he had so declared. She had watched him intently over those four evenings’ work, wondering why he did not show it, till her feminine curiosity had become rather strong. It was something very particular, she was sure, and she had learned that all that precious work had been for her. Now all that precious work was destroyed. How was it possible that she should not cry for more than three minutes?

The others took their meal in perfect silence, and when it was over the two women sat down to their work. Aaron had a book which he pretended to read, but instead of reading he was bethinking himself that he had behaved badly. What right had he to throw them all into such confusion by indulging in his passion? He was ashamed of what he had done, and fancied that Susan would hate him. Fancying that, he began to find at the same time that he by no means hated her.

At last Hetta got up and left the room. She knew that her sister was sitting alone in the cold, and Hetta was affectionate. Susan had not been in fault, and therefore Hetta went up to console her.

“Mrs. Bell,” said Aaron, as soon as the door was closed, “I beg your pardon for what I did just now.”

“Oh, sir, I’m so sorry that the picture is burnt,” said poor Mrs. Bell.

“The picture does not matter a straw,” said Aaron. “But I see that I have disturbed you all,—and I am afraid I have made Miss Susan unhappy.”

“She was grieved because your picture was burnt,” said Mrs. Bell, putting some emphasis on the “your,” intending to show that her daughter had not regarded the drawing as her own. But the emphasis bore another meaning; and so the widow perceived as soon as she had spoken.

“Oh, I can do twenty more of the same if anybody wanted them,” said Aaron. “If I do another like it, will you let her take it, Mrs. Bell?—just to show that you have forgiven me, and that we are friends as we were before?”

Was he, or was he not a wolf? That was the question which Mrs. Bell scarcely knew how to answer. Hetta had given her voice, saying he was lupine. Mr. Beckard’s opinion she had not liked to ask directly. Mr. Beckard she thought would probably propose to Hetta; but as yet he had not done so. And, as he was still a stranger in the family, she did not like in any way to compromise Susan’s name. Indirectly she had asked the question, and, indirectly also, Mr. Beckard’s answer had been favourable.

“But it mustn’t mean anything, sir,” was the widow’s weak answer, when she had paused on the question for a moment.

“Oh no, of course not,” said Aaron, joyously, and his face became radiant and happy. “And I do beg your pardon for burning it; and the young ladies’ pardon too.” And then he rapidly got out his cardboard, and set himself to work about another bridge. The widow, meditating many things in her heart, commenced the hemming of a handkerchief.

In about an hour the two girls came back to the room and silently took their accustomed places. Aaron hardly looked up, but went on diligently with his drawing. This bridge should be a better bridge than that other. Its acceptance was now assured. Of course it was to mean nothing. That was a matter of course. So he worked away diligently, and said nothing to anybody.

When they went off to bed the two girls went into the mother’s room. “Oh, mother, I hope he is not very angry,” said Susan.

“Angry!” said Hetta, “if anybody should be angry, it is mother. He ought to have known that Susan could not accept it. He should never have offered it.”

“But he’s doing another,” said Mrs. Bell.

“Not for her,” said Hetta.

“Yes he is,” said Mrs. Bell, “and I have promised that she shall take it.” Susan as she heard this sank gently into the chair behind her, and her eyes became full of tears. The intimation was almost too much for her.

“Oh, mother!” said Hetta.

“But I particularly said that it was to mean nothing.”

“Oh, mother, that makes it worse.”

Why should Hetta interfere in this way, thought Susan to herself. Had she interfered when Mr. Beckard gave Hetta a testament bound in Morocco? had not she smiled, and looked gratified, and kissed her sister, and declared that Phineas Beckard was a nice dear man, and by far the most elegant preacher at the Springs? Why should Hetta be so cruel?

“I don’t see that, my dear,” said the mother. Hetta would not explain before her sister, so they all went to bed.

On the Thursday evening the drawing was finished. Not a word had been said about it, at any rate in his presence, and he had gone on working in silence. “There,” said he, late on the Thursday evening, “I don’t know that it will be any better if I go on daubing for another hour. There, Miss Susan; there’s another bridge. I hope that will neither burst with the frost, nor yet be destroyed by fire,” and he gave it a light flip with his fingers and sent it skimming over the table.

Susan blushed and smiled, and took it up. “Oh, it is beautiful,” she said. “Isn’t it beautifully done, mother?” and then all the three got up to look at it, and all confessed that it was excellently done.

“And I am sure we are very much obliged to you,” said Susan after a pause, remembering that she had not yet thanked him.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said he, not quite liking the word “we.” On the following day he returned from his work to Saratoga about noon. This he had never done before, and therefore no one expected that he would be seen in the house before the evening. On this occasion, however, he went straight thither, and as chance would have it, both the widow and her elder daughter were out. Susan was there alone in charge of the house.

He walked in and opened the parlour door. There she sat, with her feet on the fender, with her work unheeded on the table behind her, and the picture, Aaron’s drawing, lying on her knees. She was gazing at it intently as he entered, thinking in her young heart that it possessed all the beauties which a picture could possess.

“Oh, Mr. Dunn,” she said, getting up and holding the telltale sketch behind the skirt of her dress.

“Miss Susan, I have come here to tell your mother that I must start for New York this afternoon and be there for six weeks, or perhaps longer.”

“Mother is out,” said she; “I’m so sorry.”

“Is she?” said Aaron.

“And Hetta too. Dear me. And you’ll be wanting dinner. I’ll go and see about it.”

Aaron began to swear that he could not possibly eat any dinner. He had dined once, and was going to dine again;—anything to keep her from going.

“But you must have something, Mr. Dunn,” and she walked towards the door.

But he put his back to it. “Miss Susan,” said he, “I guess I’ve been here nearly two months.”

“Yes, sir, I believe you have,” she replied, shaking in her shoes, and not knowing which way to look.

“And I hope we have been good friends.”

“Yes, sir,” said Susan, almost beside herself as to what she was saying.

“I’m going away now, and it seems to be such a time before I’ll be back.”

“Will it, Sir?”

“Six weeks, Miss Susan!” and then he paused, looking into her eyes, to see what he could read there. She leant against the table, pulling to pieces a morsel of half-ravelled muslin which she held in her hand; but her eyes were turned to the ground, and he could hardly see them.

“Miss Susan,” he continued, “I may as well speak out now as at another time.” He too was looking towards the ground, and clearly did not know what to do with his hands. “The truth is just this. I—I love you dearly, with all my heart. I never saw any one I ever thought so beautiful, so nice, and so good;—and what’s more, I never shall. I’m not very good at this sort of thing, I know; but I couldn’t go away from Saratoga for six weeks and not tell you.” And then he ceased. He did not ask for any love in return. His presumption had not got so far as that yet. He merely declared his passion, leaning against the door, and there he stood twiddling his thumbs.

Susan had not the slightest conception of the way in which she ought to receive such a declaration. She had never had a lover before; nor had she ever thought of Aaron absolutely as a lover, though something very like love for him had been crossing over her spirit. Now, at this moment, she felt that he was the beau-idéal of manhood, though his boots were covered with the railway mud, and though his pantaloons were tucked up in rolls round his ankles. He was a fine, well-grown, open-faced fellow, whose eye was bold and yet tender, whose brow was full and broad, and all his bearing manly. Love him! Of course she loved him. Why else had her heart melted with pleasure when her mother said that that second picture was to be accepted?

But what was she to say? Anything but the open truth; she well knew that. The open truth would not do at all. What would her mother say and Hetta if she were rashly to say that? Hetta, she knew, would be dead against such a lover, and of her mother’s approbation she had hardly more hope. Why they should disapprove of Aaron as a lover she had never asked herself. There are many nice things that seem to be wrong only because they are so nice. Maybe that Susan regarded a lover as one of them. “Oh, Mr. Dunn, you shouldn’t.” That in fact was all that she could say.

“Should not I?” said he. “Well, perhaps not; but there’s the truth, and no harm ever comes of that. Perhaps I’d better not ask you for an answer now, but I thought it better you should know it all. And remember this—I only care for one thing now in the world, and that is for your love.” And then he paused, thinking possibly that in spite of what he had said he might perhaps get some sort of an answer, some inkling of the state of her heart’s disposition towards him.

But Susan had at once resolved to take him at his word when he suggested that an immediate reply was not necessary. To say that she loved him was of course impossible, and to say that she did not was equally so. She determined therefore to close at once with the offer of silence.

When he ceased speaking there was a moment’s pause, during which he strove hard to read what might be written on her down-turned face. But he was not good at such reading. “Well, I guess I’ll go and get my things ready now,” he said, and then turned round to open the door.

“Mother will be in before you are gone, I suppose,” said Susan.

“I have only got twenty minutes,” said he, looking at his watch. “But, Susan, tell her what I have said to you. Goodbye.” And he put out his hand. He knew he should see her again, but this had been his plan to get her hand in his.

“Good-bye, Mr. Dunn,” and she gave him her hand.

He held it tight for a moment, so that she could not draw it away,—could not if she would. “Will you tell your mother?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, quite in a whisper. “I guess I’d better tell her.” And then she gave a long sigh. He pressed her hand again and got it up to his lips.

“Mr. Dunn, don’t,” she said. But he did kiss it. “God bless you, my own dearest, dearest girl! I’ll just open the door as I come down. Perhaps Mrs. Bell will be here.” And then he rushed up stairs.

But Mrs. Bell did not come in. She and Hetta were at a weekly service at Mr. Beckard’s meeting-house, and Mr. Beckard it seemed had much to say. Susan, when left alone, sat down and tried to think. But she could not think; she could only love. She could use her mind only in recounting to herself the perfections of that demigod whose heavy steps were so audible overhead, as he walked to and fro collecting his things and putting them into his bag.

And then, just when he had finished, she bethought herself that he must be hungry. She flew to the kitchen, but she was too late. Before she could even reach at the loaf of bread he descended the stairs, with a clattering noise, and heard her voice as she spoke quickly to Kate O’Brien.

“Miss Susan,” he said, “don’t get anything for me, for I’m off.”

“Oh, Mr. Dunn, I am so sorry. You’ll be so hungry on your journey,” and she came out to him in the passage.

“I shall want nothing on the journey, dearest, if you’ll say one kind word to me.”

Again her eyes went to the ground. “What do you want me to say, Mr. Dunn?”

“Say, God bless you, Aaron.”

“God bless you, Aaron,” said she; and yet she was sure that she had not declared her love. He however thought otherwise, and went up to New York with a happy heart.

Things happened in the next fortnight rather quickly. Susan at once resolved to tell her mother, but she resolved also not to tell Hetta. That afternoon she got her mother to herself in Mrs. Bell’s own room, and then she made a clean breast of it.

“And what did you say to him, Susan?”

“I said nothing, mother.”

“Nothing, dear!”

“No, mother; not a word. He told me he didn’t want it.” She forgot how she had used his Christian name in bidding God bless him.

“Oh dear!” said the widow.

“Was it very wrong?” asked Susan.

“But what do you think yourself, my child?” asked Mrs. Bell after a while. “What are your own feelings.”

Mrs. Bell was sitting on a chair and Susan was standing opposite to her against the post of the bed. She made no answer, but moving from her place, she threw herself into her mother’s arms, and hid her face on her mother’s shoulder. It was easy enough to guess what were her feelings.

“But, my darling,” said her mother, “you must not think that it is an engagement.”

“No,” said Susan, sorrowfully.

“Young men say those things to amuse themselves.” Wolves, she would have said, had she spoken out her mind freely.

“Oh, mother, he is not like that.”

The daughter contrived to extract a promise from the mother that Hetta should not be told just at present. Mrs. Bell calculated that she had six weeks before her; as yet Mr. Beckard had not spoken out, but there was reason to suppose that he would do so before those six weeks would be over, and then she would be able to seek counsel from him.

Mr. Beckard spoke out at the end of six days, and Hetta frankly accepted him. “I hope you’ll love your brother-in-law,” said she to Susan.

“Oh, I will indeed,” said Susan; and in the softness of her heart at the moment she almost made up her mind to tell; but Hetta was full of her own affairs, and thus it passed off.

It was then arranged that Hetta should go and spend a week with Mr. Beckard’s parents. Old Mr. Beckard was a farmer living near Utica, and now that the match was declared and approved, it was thought well that Hetta should know her future husband’s family. So she went for a week, and Mr. Beckard went with her. “He will be back in plenty of time for me to speak to him before Aaron Dunn’s six weeks are over,” said Mrs. Bell to herself.

But things did not go exactly as she expected. On the very morning after the departure of the engaged couple, there came a letter from Aaron, saying that he would be at Saratoga that very evening. The railway people had ordered him down again for some days’ special work; then he was to go elsewhere, and not to return to Saratoga till June. “But he hoped,” so said the letter, “that Mrs. Bell would not turn him into the street even then, though the summer might have come, and her regular lodgers might be expected.”

“Oh dear, oh dear!” said Mrs. Bell to herself, reflecting that she had no one of whom she could ask advice, and that she must decide that very day. Why had she let Mr. Beckard go without telling him? Then she told Susan, and Susan spent the day trembling. Perhaps, thought Mrs. Bell, he will say nothing about it. In such case, however, would it not be her duty to say something? Poor mother! She trembled nearly as much as Susan.

It was dark when the fatal knock came at the door. The tea-things were already laid, and the tea-cake was already baked; for it would at any rate be necessary to give Mr. Dunn his tea. Susan, when she heard the knock, rushed from her chair and took refuge up stairs. The widow gave a long sigh and settled her dress. Kate O’Brien with willing step opened the door, and bade her old friend welcome.

“How are the ladies?” asked Aaron, trying to gather something from the face and voice of the domestic.

“Miss Hetta and Mr. Beckard be gone off to Utica, just man-and-wife like! and so they are, more power to them.”

“Oh indeed; I’m very glad,” said Aaron—and so he was; very glad to have Hetta the demure out of the way. And then he made his way into the parlour, doubting much, and hoping much.

Mrs. Bell rose from her chair, and tried to look grave. Aaron glancing round the room saw that Susan was not there. He walked straight up to the widow, and offered her his hand, which she took. It might be that Susan had not thought fit to tell, and in such case it would not be right for him to compromise her; so he said never a word.

But the subject was too important to the mother to allow of her being silent when the young man stood before her. “Oh, Mr. Dunn,” said she, “what is this you have been saying to Susan?”

“I have asked her to be my wife,” said he, drawing himself up and looking her full in the face. Mrs. Bell’s heart was almost as soft as her daughter’s, and it was nearly gone; but at the moment she had nothing to say but, “Oh dear, oh dear!”

“May I not call you mother?” said he, taking both her hands in his.

“Oh dear—oh dear! But will you be good to her? Oh, Aaron Dunn, if you deceive my child!”

In another quarter of an hour, Susan was kneeling at her mother’s knee, with her face on her mother’s lap; the mother was wiping tears out of her eyes; and Aaron was standing by holding one of the widow’s hands.

“You are my mother too, now,” said he. What would Hetta and Mr. Beckard say, when they came back? But then he surely was not a wolf!

There were four or five days left for courtship before Hetta and Mr. Beckard would return; four or five days during which Susan might be happy, Aaron triumphant, and Mrs. Bell nervous. Days I have said, but after all it was only the evenings that were so left. Every morning Susan got up to give Aaron his breakfast, but Mrs. Bell got up also. Susan boldly declared her right to do so, and Mrs. Bell found no objection which she could urge.

But after that Aaron was always absent till seven or eight in the evening, when he would return to his tea. Then came the hour or two of lovers’ intercourse.

But they were very tame, those hours. The widow still felt an undefined fear that she was wrong, and though her heart yearned to know that her daughter was happy in the sweet happiness of accepted love, yet she dreaded to be too confident. Not a word had been said about money matters; not a word of Aaron Dunn’s relatives. So she did not leave them by themselves, but waited with what patience she could for the return of her wise counsellors.

And then Susan hardly knew how to behave herself with her accepted suitor. She felt that she was very happy; but perhaps she was most happy when she was thinking about him through the long day, assisting in fixing little things for his comfort, and waiting for his evening return. And as he sat there in the parlour, she could be happy then too, if she were but allowed to sit still and look at him,—not stare at him, but raise her eyes every now and again to his face for the shortest possible glance, as she had been used to do ever since he came there.

But he, unconscionable lover, wanted to hear her speak, was desirous of being talked to, and perhaps thought that he should by rights be allowed to sit by her, and hold her hand. No such privileges were accorded to him. If they had been alone together, walking side by side on the green turf, as lovers should walk, she would soon have found the use of her tongue,—have talked fast enough no doubt. Under such circumstances, when a girl’s shyness has given way to real intimacy, there is in general no end to her power of chatting. But though there was much love between Aaron and Susan, there was as yet but little intimacy. And then, let a mother be ever so motherly—and no mother could have more of a mother’s tenderness than Mrs. Bell—still her presence must be a restraint. Aaron was very fond of Mrs. Bell; but nevertheless he did sometimes wish that some domestic duty would take her out of the parlour for a few happy minutes. Susan went out very often, but Mrs. Bell seemed to be a fixture.

Once for a moment he did find his love alone, immediately as he came into the house. “My own Susan, you do love me? do say so to me once.” And he contrived to slip his arm round her waist. “Yes,” she whispered; but she slipped like an eel from his hands, and left him only preparing himself for a kiss. And then when she got to her room, half frightened, she clasped her hands together, and bethought herself that she did really love him with a strength and depth of love which filled her whole existence. Why could she not have told him something of all this?

And so the few days of his second sojourn at Saratoga passed away, not altogether satisfactorily. It was settled that he should return to New York on Saturday night, leaving Saratoga on that evening; and as the Beckards—Hetta was already regarded quite as a Beckard—were to be back to dinner on that day, Mrs. Bell would have an opportunity of telling her wondrous tale. It might be well that Mr. Beckard should see Aaron before his departure.