Part 6

Mr. Stebbins paused on the threshold. There was something unusually repellent about the room, a lingering funereal atmosphere, which reached even his dull senses. He would have infinitely preferred the sitting-room; but a latent sense of something in his errand which required the utmost dignity in his surroundings prevailed, and he therefore entered and seated himself on one of the prickly chairs, which creaked expostulatingly beneath him.

"I--ahem! Is Miss Bradford in?"

This question was, of course, a mere form,--a _ruse de guerre_, as it were,--and Mr. Stebbins chuckled inwardly over his remarkable diplomacy. He had seen Thirza at the window, and witnessed her sudden flight; but, so far from feeling affronted by the act, it had rather pleased him. It indicated maiden shyness, and he accepted it as a flattering tribute to his powers of fascination. "She's gone to fix up her hair, or somethin'," he reflected.

When Jane came to summon her, she found Thirza sitting by the window of the fore-chamber, gazing thoughtfully out into the twilight again.

"Thirzy!" whispered the spinster, as mysteriously as if Mr. Stebbins was within possible earshot, "Orthaniel Stebbins wants ter see yer. Go right down!"

"Jane, I--sha'n't!" answered Thirza, shortly.

Jane started, and opened her small gray eyes their very widest.

"Wh-at?" she stammered.

"I mean I don't want to go down," said Thirza, more politely. "I don't wish to see him."

"Wall, if that don't beat the master!" exclaimed Jane, coming nearer. "Why, he's got on his Sunday clo'es! 'S likely 's not he's a-goin' ter propose ter ye!"

"You had better send him away, then," said Thirza.

"Ye don't mean to say ye wouldn't hev him!" gasped Jane, with a look of incredulous amazement which, catching Thirza's eye, caused her to burst into a laugh.

"I suppose I must go down," she said at last, rising. "If I don't, I shall have all Jones' Hill down upon me. Oh dear!"

Mr. Stebbins would have been surprised to see that she passed the mirror without even one glance.

"Hadn't ye better take off yer apron, an' put on a pink bow, or somethin'?" suggested Jane; "ye look real plain."

Thirza did not deign to reply, but walked indifferently away.

"Wall!" ejaculated the bewildered spinster, "I hope I may never!" And then, being a person who believed in improving one's opportunities, she proceeded at once to a careful re-examination of the "silk-warp alpacky," which hung in straight, solemn folds from a nail in the closet; it had hung precisely the same upon Aunt Abigail's lathy form.

Thirza went into the gloomy fore-room. It struck a chill to her heart, and she went straight past Mr. Stebbins, with merely a nod and a "good-evening," and threw open another shutter, before seating herself so far from him, and in such a position, that he could only see her face by an extraordinary muscular feat. Mr. Stebbins felt that his reception was not an encouraging one. He hemmed and hawed, and at last managed to utter:

"Pleasant evenin', Miss Bradford."

"Very," responded Thirza. It was particularly cold and disagreeable outside, even for a New England April.

"I guess we kin begin plantin' by next week," continued the gentleman.

"Do you really think so?" responded Thirza, in an absent sort of way.

It was not much; but it was a question, and in so far helped on the conversation. Mr. Stebbins was re-assured.

"Yes," he resumed, in an animated manner, "I actooally dew! Ye see, Miss Bradford, ye haint said nothin' tew me about the farm, so I thought I'd come 'roun' an' find out what yer plans is."

"I haven't made any," said Thirza, as he paused.

"Oh--ye haint? Well, ye know I've been a-workin' on't on shares fur yer aunt Abigail, goin' on five year, an' I'm ready ter dew the same fur _you_; that is----" and here Mr. Stebbins hitched a little nearer, while a smile, which displayed not only all his teeth, but no little gum as well, spread itself over his bucolic features, "that is, if we can't make no other arrangements more pleasin'."

There was no mistaking his intentions now; they spoke from every feature of his shrewdly smiling countenance, from his agitated knees and elbows, and from the uneasy hands and feet which seemed struggling to detach themselves from their lank continuations and abscond then and there.

Thirza looked her wooer calmly in the face. Her imperturbability embarrassed but did not dishearten him.

"Thar ain't no use in foolin' round the stump!" he continued. "I might jest as well come out with it, plain an' squar! I'm ready an' willin' to take the _hull_ farm off yer hands if you're agreeable. You jest marry me, Thirzy, an' that settles the hull question slick as a whistle!" and Mr. Stebbins settled back in his chair with a look as if he had just elucidated a long-mooted problem in social science.

Thirza rose: there was a little red spot on each cheek, and an unwonted sparkle in her soft eyes; but her manner was otherwise unruffled as she answered:

"You are really very kind, Mr. Stebbins, but I think I shall find some other way out of the dilemma. I couldn't think of troubling _you_."

"Oh----" he stammered, "'tain't--no trouble--at all!"

But Thirza was gone.

For a moment Mr. Stebbins doubted his identity. He stared blankly at the open door awhile, and then his eyes wandered vacantly over the carpet and wall, finally coming to rest upon the toes of his substantial boots. He sat for some time thus, repeating Thirza's words as nearly as he could recall them, endeavoring to extract the pith of meaning from the surrounding fibres of polite language. Had she actually refused him? Mr. Stebbins, by a long and circuitous mental process, arrived at length at the conclusion that she _had_, and accordingly rose, walked out of the front door and down the narrow path, in a state of mind best known to rejected suitors. As he closed the gate he cast one sheepish look toward the house.

"I'll be darned!" he muttered, "I'll be darned if I hain't got the mitten!" and, discomfited and sore, the Adonis of Jones' Hill disappeared in the evening shadows.

Jane was watching his departure from behind the curtain of the sitting-room window. In all probability her gentle bosom had never been the scene of such a struggle as was now going on beneath the chaste folds of her striped calico gown. She could not doubt the object of Mr. Stebbins's visit, nor its obvious result. Astonishment, incredulity, curiosity, in turn possessed her.

"Waal!" she soliloquized, as the curtain fell from her trembling fingers, "the way some folks fly in the face of Providence doos beat the master!"

Thirza, too, had observed her suitor as he strode away, with an expression of scorn upon her face which finally gave way to one of amusement, ending in a laugh--a curious hysterical laugh. A moment later she had thrown herself upon the bed, and Jane, who in a state of curiosity bordering on asphyxia, came up to the door soon after, heard a sound of sobbing, and considerately went away.

Thirza had her cry out; every woman knows what that means, and knows, too, the mingled sense of relief and exhaustion which follows. It was fully an hour later when she arose and groped her way down into the sitting-room where Jane sat knitting zealously by the light of a small lamp. That person's internal struggles commenced afresh, and a feeling of indignation quite comprehensible burnt in her much-vexed bosom as Thirza, after lighting another lamp, bade her "good-night," and went out of the room, leaving her cravings for fuller information unassuaged.

Once more in her room, Thirza seated herself before the glass and began to loosen the heavy dark braids of her hair. Upon the bureau lay an open letter, and leaving the soft tresses half undone, she took it up and re-read it. When she had finished she let it fall upon her lap and fell to thinking. The letter was from her cousin Sue, and bore a foreign post-mark, and from thinking over its contents Thirza fell into reflections upon the diversity of human fate, particularly her own and Sue's. They had commenced life under very similar circumstances. Both had been born about the same time, and in the town of Millburn. Both were "only" children, the fathers of both were mechanics of the better class, and the girls were closely associated up to their fourteenth year, as play-fellows and school-mates. Sue was an ordinary sort of a girl, with a rather pretty blonde face; Thirza, a bright, original creature, with a mobile, dark face, which almost every one turned to take a second look at; a girl who, with a book, almost any book, became oblivious of all else. Her father was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, of a dreamy, speculative turn of mind, and subject to periods of intense depression. When she was about fourteen years old, Thirza went one evening to the barn to call her father to supper. Receiving no answer to her call, she entered, and there, in a dim corner, she saw _something_ suspended from a beam,--something she could never efface from her memory. A shaft of sunlight full of dancing motes fell athwart the distorted face, whose smile she must now forever miss, and across the rigid hands which would never again stroke her hair in the old fond, proud way. In that moment the child became a woman. She went to the nearest neighbor, and without scream or sob told what she had seen--then she went to her mother. Soon after, the young girl whose school-life was thus early ended took her place at a loom in one of the great cotton-mills, and there she remained for more than ten years, the sole support and comfort of her weak, complaining mother, who from the dreadful day that made her a widow, sank into hopeless invalidism. One year previously to the commencement of this story she had been laid to rest. In the meantime Sue had grown up, and married a "smart fellow," who after a few years of successful business life in New York, had been sent by some great firm to take charge of a branch establishment in Paris.

Thirza was thinking of these things now, as she sat with Sue's gossipy letter on her lap--thinking of them wearily, and even with some bitterness. It seemed to her hard and strange that Sue should have everything, and she only her lonely, toilsome life, and her dreams. These indeed remained; no one could forbid them to her--no amount of toil and constant contact with sordid natures could despoil her of her one priceless treasure, the power to live, in imagination, brief but exquisite phases of existence which no one around her ever suspected. Books furnished the innocent hasheesh, which transported her out of the stale atmosphere of her boarding-house into realms of ever new delight.

But to-night she could not dream. The interview with Mr. Stebbins had been a rude shock, a bitter humiliation to her. She had held herself so proudly aloof from the men of her acquaintance that none had ever before ventured to cross the fine line of reserve she had drawn about her; and now, this uncouth, mercenary clown had dared pull down the barrier, and trample under foot the delicate flowers of sentiment she had cherished with such secrecy and care. Her first wooer! Not thus, in the idle dreams which come to every maiden's heart, had Thirza pictured him. That other rose before her now, and strangely enough, it took on the semblance, as it often had of late, of one she had almost daily seen--a handsome face, a true and good one, too; and yet the hot blood surged into her cheeks, and she tried to banish the image from her mind. It would not go at her bidding, however, and, as if to hide from her own eyes in the darkness, Thirza arose and put out the light.

There was no time for dreaming after this, for the question of her inheritance must be settled. So, after a day or two of reflection, Thirza drove into town and held a long consultation with Squire Brooks, the result of which was that the farm was announced for sale. It was not long before a purchaser appeared, and in due course of time Thirza found herself, for the first time in her life, in possession of a bank-book!

She returned to her place in the mill, notwithstanding, and was secretly edified in observing the effect which her re-appearance produced upon the operatives. The women watched her askance, curiously and enviously, indulging in furtive remarks upon her unchanged appearance. As an heiress something had evidently been expected of her in the way of increased elegance in dress, and its non-appearance excited comment. On the part of the men there was a slight increase of respect in their mode of salutation, and in one or two instances, an endeavor to cultivate a nearer acquaintance, an endeavor, it is needless to say, without success.

But if there was no outer change in Thirza, there was an inner change going on, which became at length a feverish restlessness, which disturbed her night and day. She found herself continually taking down from her shelves certain fascinating books, treating of foreign scenes and people; reading and re-reading them, and laying them aside with strange reluctance. Then she fell into a habit of taking her little bank-book, and figuring assiduously upon the covers. Three thousand dollars! Enough, she bitterly reflected, to keep her from the almshouse when her hands became too feeble to tend the loom, but a paltry sum, after all! Many persons, even in Millburn, spent far more than that yearly.

All at once a thought flashed upon her, a thought which took away her breath and set her brain to whirling. And yet it was not an absolutely new thought. It had haunted her under various disguises from the moment when Jane Withers, by a few words, had transmuted the barren pastures and piney woods of her farm into actual dollars; and now, after hovering about all this time, it had found a moment,--when some fascinating book had thrown her off her guard,--to spring upon and overpower her. For a moment she was stunned and overwhelmed--then she calmly closed the little bank-book, and said: "I will do it!"

In one week the whole town knew that Thirza Bradford was going to travel, and all former discussions of her affairs sank into nothing in comparison with the importance they now assumed. Among her immediate acquaintances there was considerable excitement, and their opinions were freely, if not elegantly, expressed. The men, almost without exception, pronounced her "a fool," as did the elder women, whose illusions, if they had ever entertained any, had long since been dispelled. But among the younger women there was a more or less repressed feeling of sympathy, amounting to envy. Poor girls! they, too, no doubt, indulged in secret longings which their prosaic work-a-day world failed to satisfy; and doubtless those who had themselves "aunt Abigails," or any other "expectations" of a like nature, were led into wild and wicked speculations upon the tenure of human life, for which, it is to be hoped, Thirza will not be held accountable.

It is the fashion of the day to ascribe our more objectionable peculiarities and predilections to "hereditary taint," and there is something so comforting and satisfactory in this theory, that it has attracted many adherents not otherwise of a scientific turn of mind. Millburn was not scientific; but even Millburn fell into the same way of theorizing.

"Bill Bradford," said public opinion, "was an oneasy sort of a chap,--a half crazy, extravagant critter,--and Thirzy is a chip o' the old block."

When the news reached Jones' Hill,--which it shortly did by the never-failing means of Jane Withers, who was accommodatingly helping Orthaniel's mother through a course of "soap-bilin',"--the comments were severe. Orthaniel received the tidings as he was about starting for the cow-yard, with a milk-pail in each hand. He listened, with fallen jaw, unto the bitter end. Then, giving his blue overalls an expressive hitch, he remarked ungallantly:

"That gal hain't got no more sense 'n a yaller dog!"--and he, at least, may be pardoned for so thinking.

As for Thirza, her decision once made, she troubled herself little about the "speech of people." From the moment when she had closed her little bank-book with the words "I will do it," she became, not another woman, but her real self. She went serenely about her simple preparations for her departure in a state of quiet exultation which lent a new charm to her dark face and a new grace to her step.

Squire Brooks arranged her money affairs for her,--not without remonstrance, however. It seemed to the close-fisted, elderly man a wild and wanton thing to do; but there was something in the half-repressed enthusiasm of the girl which caused the wise, prudential words to die upon his lips. When she left his office, on the evening before her departure, he watched the light-stepping figure out of sight, and then walked up to the dingy office mirror and surveyed his wrinkled visage on all sides. Carefully brushing up the sparse gray locks which had been ordered to the front, as it were, to fill the gaps created by Time's onslaughts, he shook his head deprecatingly, and with a sigh walked away from the glass, humming softly "Mary of Argyle."

As Thirza, absorbed in thought, turned into the long, shaded street which led down to her boarding-house, she was startled out of her reverie by the sound of her own name, pronounced in a friendly tone. Looking up, she saw a gentleman approaching. Her heart gave a quick leap as she recognized Warren Madison, son of the richest manufacturer of Millburn. He was no recent acquaintance. In her school days, when social distinctions weighed but little, there had been a childish intimacy and fondness between them. Time and separation, and the wide difference in their position,--which she, at least, felt most keenly,--had estranged them. Since the young man's return, after years of study and travel, to become his father's partner, she had met him very often, both in the mill and outside of it, and he had constantly shown a disposition to renew their former friendship. But poor, proud Thirza had rejected all his advances. Even now, although her cheeks tingled and her hands trembled nervously, she would have passed him with a simple nod; but somehow, before she realized it, young Madison had secured her hand and a smile, too; and, to her surprise, she found herself walking by his side, talking with something of the familiarity of the old school days.

"I have been absent for some time, and only heard to-day that you are going away," he said.

"Yes," responded Thirza. "I am going away--to Europe."

"To seek your fortune?" said he, with a smile.

"No--to spend it," said Thirza, in the same manner. "I suppose that you, like Parson Smythers and the rest of Millburn, consider it an 'ex_try-or_dinary proceeding,'"--this with a fair imitation of the reverend gentleman's peculiar drawl.

Madison smiled.

"Don't count me among your judges, I beg of you, Thirza," he responded, more gravely. "Perhaps I understand you better than you think."

She glanced quickly up into his face,--a handsome face, frank and noble in its expression.

"Understand me?" she repeated; "I don't think any one understands me. Not that they are to blame--I am hardly worth the trouble, I suppose. I know," she continued, moved by an impulse to unburden her heart to some one, "I know that people are discussing and condemning me, and it does not trouble me at all to know it; but I don't mind saying this much _to you_." She caught the last two words back between her lips, but not before they had reached the young man's ears. He glanced quickly into her downcast face, with a look full of eager questioning; but this Thirza did not see, for she had turned her eyes away in confusion. "You know what my life has been," she went on impetuously. "I have never had any youth. Ever since I was a child, I have toiled to keep body and soul together. I have succeeded in feeding the one; but the other has starved. I have weighed everything in the balance. I am all alone in the world--all I had to live for is--up there." She pointed over her shoulder toward the old burying-ground. "I may be foolish,--even selfish and wicked,--but I can't help it! I am going to leave everything behind me, all the work and all the worry, and give myself a holiday. For one whole year I am going to _live_--really _live_! After that, I can bear the old life better--perhaps!"

The girl was almost beautiful as she spoke, with the soft fire in her eyes and her cheeks aglow. Her voice was sweet and full, and vibrated like a harp-string. The young man beside her did not look at her. He walked steadily forward, gazing straight down into the dusty road, and striking out almost savagely with his cane at the innocent heads of the white clover which crowded up to the road-side.

"I think I know how you feel," he said, after a while. "Why, do you know, I have often had such thoughts myself. Better one year of real life, as you say, than a century of dull routine!"

By this time they had reached the door of Thirza's boarding-house. There were faces at almost every window of the much-windowed establishment, to say nothing of those of the neighboring houses; but neither Thirza nor her companion was aware of this.

They stood on the steps a moment in silence; then he held out his hand. As she placed her own within it, she felt it tremble. Their eyes met, too, with a swift recognition, and a sharp, sweet pain went through her heart. She forced herself to turn her eyes away, and to say quietly:

"Good-evening and good-bye, Mr. Madison."

The young man dropped her hand and drew a quick breath.

"Good-bye, Thirza," he said; "may you find it all that you anticipate. Good-bye."

And the score or more pairs of inquisitive eyes at the surrounding windows saw young Mr. Madison walk calmly away, and Miss Bradford, with equal calmness, enter her boarding-house.

The next morning Thirza went away, and, the nine days' wonder being over, she was dropped almost as completely out of the thoughts and conversation of the people of Millburn as if she had never existed.

We will not accompany her on her travels. There was a time when we might have done so; but alas, for the story-writer of to-day! Picture-galleries, palaces, and châlets, noble, peasant, and brigand, gondolas, volcanoes, and glaciers,--all are as common and familiar to the reader of the period as bonbons. It is enough to say that Thirza wandered now in reality, as she had so often in fancy, through the storied scenes which had so charmed her imagination; often doubting if it were indeed herself, or if what she saw were not the baseless fabric of a vision, which the clanging of the factory bell might demolish at any moment.

Sue's astonishment when Thirza, after two months in England and Scotland, walked one day into her apartment in Paris, quite unannounced, can be imagined. She wondered and conjectured, but, as her unexpected guest was neither awkward nor badly dressed, accepted the situation gracefully, and ended by really enjoying it. After delightful Paris days, came Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, and then more of Paris, and at last came a time when inexorable figures showed Thirza plainly that she must think of returning to America.

"Thirza," protested Sue, "you really _mustn't_ go."

For answer Thirza held up to view a travel-stained porte-monnaie.

"Perhaps we can arrange it somehow," persisted her cousin, vaguely. "You might take a situation as governess, you know;" these words were uttered doubtfully, and with a deprecating glance at the face opposite.

"Thank you!" responded Thirza. "I don't feel a call in that direction. I think, on the whole, I'd prefer weaving cotton."

"You'll find it unendurable!" groaned Sue.

"Well, _que voulez-vous_?" responded her cousin, lightly; a quick ear would have noted the slight tremor in her voice. "I have had a glorious holiday."