“That is a very insolent young man,” said Aunt Rachel, as Reuben threw his hurried greeting over his shoulder in the dusk.
“Indeed, aunt,” the girl answered, a little more boldly than she would have dared to speak had the light been clearer—“indeed, aunt, you are quite mistaken about him, and I don't understand why you should speak of Mr. Gold and his uncle as you do.”
She cared less what Rachel thought or said of Reuben's uncle, though she had always had a friendly and admiring friendship for the old solitary, than she cared what was thought and said of Reuben. But it was easier to champion the two together than to defend her lover alone.
“You are a child,” said Aunt Rachel, composedly. “What do you know of the opposite sex?”
The question was obviously outside the range of discussion, but it silenced Ruth for the moment. The elder woman presumed upon her triumph, and continued:
“Confidence is natural to youth. That is an axiom I have frequently heard fall from the lips of my dear mistress. As you grow older you will grow less positive in your opinions, and will be careful to have a solid foundation for them. Now I know these people, and you do not.”
“My dear aunt,” said Ruth, in protest, “I have known Mr. Gold ever since I could walk.”
“Of which Mr. Gold are we speaking?” demanded Rachel.
“It is true of both of them,” Ruth answered. “Neither of them would harm a fly, or go a hair's-breadth from the truth for all the world. They are the best men I have ever known.”
“Niece Ruth!” said Rachel, stopping short in her walk, and bringing Ruth to a halt also, “upon the only occasion, since my return to Heydon Hay, on which I have found myself in the society of Mr. Ezra Gold, I took you into my confidence with respect to him. That is to say, I took you into my confidence as much as I have ever taken anybody. Mr. Ezra Gold is a mean and hypocritical person. Mr. Ezra Gold is a person who would not stop at any act of baseness or cruelty. Mr. Ezra Gold is a villain.”
All this came from the old maid's lips with a chill and prim precision, which troubled her hearer more than any heat or violence could have done. But the old man's face and figure were before her with a wonderful vivid clearness. The stoop was that of fatigue, and yet it had a merciful mild courtesy in it too, and the gray face was eloquent of goodness.
“I can't believe it!” cried the girl, warmly. “Dear aunt, there must have been some terrible mistake. I am sure he is a good man. You have only to look at him to know that he is a good man.”
“A whited sepulchre,” said Aunt Rachel, walking on again. She had kept her mittened hand upon the girl's arm throughout the pause in their walk, and her very touch told her that Ruth was wounded and indignant. “What I say, I say of my own knowledge. He is a deliberate and a cruel villain.”
The girl contained herself and was silent. In a little while she began to think with an almost tragic sense of pity of the withered and lonely old maid who walked beside her. She could pity thus profoundly because she could image herself in the like case; and though the figure she saw was far from being clear, her own terror of it and revolt from it told her how terrible it was. If she and Reuben should part as her aunt and Ezra had parted—if she should ever come to think of Reuben as Aunt Rachel thought of Ezra! The thought touched her with an arctic sense of cold and desolation. She drew away from it with an inward shudder, and in that instant of realization she saw the little old maid's personality really and truly standing in the middle of that bleak and frost-bound barrenness which she had dreamed as a possibility for herself. For the first time she saw and understood, and anger and bewilderment were alike swept away in the warm rush of sympathetic pity.
The road was lonely, and Ruth, with both eyes brimming over, placed her arm about her aunt's neck, and, stooping, kissed her on the cheek. Two or three of the girl's tears fell warm on Rachel's face, and the old maid started away from her with a sudden anger, which was less unreasonable than it seemed. She had of late years had an inclination to linger in talk about the theme of woman's trust and man's perfidy. For Ruth, and for Ruth only, she had identified this theory of hers with a living man who was known to both, but she had never intended herself to be pitied. She had never asked for pity in insisting that a righteous judgment should be dealt out to Ezra Gold. She had cried in Ruth's presence after her meeting with Ezra, but she had persuaded herself that her tears resulted from nothing more than the shock she felt at meeting an old repulsion. And since she had got to believe this, it followed as a thing of course that Ruth ought also to have believed it. The girl's pity wounded her and shamed her.
“Thank you,” she said, in her chillest and primmest fashion, as she withdrew from Ruth's embrace. “I am not in want of pity.” It was in her mind to tell Ruth to beware lest she herself should be in need of pity shortly; but she suppressed herself at considerable cost, and walked on stiffly and uncomfortably upright.
“I am very sorry, dear,” said Ruth. “I did not mean to hurt you.”
But Rachel was very indignant, and it was only as she remembered the purloined letter that she consented to be appeased. After all, she had taken the girl's welfare in hand, and had interested herself so kindly in her niece's behalf that she could not bear to be angry with her. So she permitted a truce to be called, and on Ruth's renewed apologies asked graciously that no more should be said about the matter. They parted at the green door of the garden, and Rachel, walking homeward, pondered on one important question. Ought she or ought she not to know the contents of the letter? Without knowing them, how could she know exactly the length to which her niece and the intending worker of her ruin had already gone together? It was necessary to know that, and she slid her hand into the bosom of her dress, and held the letter there, half resolving to read it on her arrival at home. But although, as her theft of the letter itself would prove, her ideas of honor were quaint, they were strong. She had constituted herself Niece Ruth's guardian, and she meant to fulfil all her self-imposed duties to the letter, but there was one whose rights came before her own. The letter should be opened in the presence of Ruth's father, and the two authorities should consult together as to what might be done.
She cast about for a safe and unsuspicious resting-place for the letter, and at last decided upon the tea-caddy.
She placed it there, locked it up, and by the aid of a chair and a table stowed it securely away in the topmost corner of a tall cupboard. Then, having hidden the key in the parlor chimney, she went to bed and to sleep, profoundly convinced that she had adopted the wisest of possible courses, and that Niece Ruth would be saved in the morning.
Meantime Aunt Rachel's antique griefs being out of sight for Ruth, were out of mind. She had her own affairs to think of, and found them at once pressing and delightful. By this time Reuben would have read her note, and would know all it had to tell him. When she thought how much it told him it seemed daring and strange, and almost terrible that she should have written it. For it admitted that his letter had made her very happy; she was not quite sure that she had not written “very, very happy,” and wished it were to write again. But here in the solitude of her own chamber she could kiss Reuben's letter, and could rest it against her hot cheek in an ecstasy of fluttering congratulations. How he looked, how he walked, how he talked, how he smiled, how he played! How brave, how handsome, how altogether noble and good and gifted he was! There was nobody to compare with him in Heydon Hay, and the young men of Castle Barfield were contemptible by comparison with him. A human sun before whose rays other young women's luminaries paled like rush-lights! She seemed to have loved him always, and always to have been sure that he loved her; and yet it was wonderful to know it, and strange beyond strangeness to have told. She fancied him in the act of reading her letter, and she kissed his as she did so. Did he kiss hers? Was he as glad as she was? At these audacious fancies she hid herself and blushed.
Reuben all this while, and until a much later hour, was bewildering himself about the curious and old-fashioned missive he had discovered between the melodious pages of Manzini. Over and over again he searched through the volume, though he had already turned it leaf by leaf and knew that there was no chance of his having overlooked anything. Almost as often as he turned over the leaves of the music-book he reread the note he had taken from it. He questioned himself as to the possibility of his having allowed Ruth's note to fall, and mentally retraced his own fashion of taking up the book, and step by step the way in which he had carried it home. He was sure that nothing could have escaped from its pages since he had laid hands upon it, and was confronted with a double mystery. How had this time-stained epistle found its way into the pages, and how had the more modern missive be had fully expected to find there found its way out of it?
Suddenly an idea occurred to him which, though sufficiently far-fetched, seemed as if it might by chance explain the mystery. Long and long ago a son of the house of Gold had married a daughter of the house of Fuller. It was not outside the reasonable that Ruth should have had possession of this old document, in which a Ruth of that far-distant day had accepted a member of his own household. She might have chosen to answer him by this clear enigma, but a sense of solemnity in the phrasing of the letter made him hope his guess untrue. Desperate mysteries ask naturally for desperate guesses, and Reuben guessed right and left, but the mystery remained as desperate as ever. His thoughts so harried him that at last, though it was late for Heydon Hay, he determined to go at once to Fuller's house and ask for Ruth.
He slipped quietly down-stairs, and, leaving the door ajar, walked quickly along the darkened road, bearing poor Rachel's long-lost letter with him; but his journey, as he might have expected, ended in blank disappointment. Fuller's house was dark. He paced slowly home again, refastened the door, and went to bed, where he lay and tossed till broad dawn; and then reflecting that he would catch Ruth at her earliest household duties, fell asleep, and lay an hour or two beyond his usual time.
But if Reuben were laggard the innocent guardian dragon was early astir. Fuller, in his shirt-sleeves and a broad-brimmed straw hat, was pottering about his garden with a wheelbarrow and a pair of shears. He saw her at the open door of the garden, and sang out cheerily,
“Halloo, Miss Blythe! Beest early afoot this mornin'. I'm a lover o' the mornin' air myself. Theer's no time to my mind when the gardin-stuff looks half as well. The smell o' them roses is real lovely.”
He gave a loud-sounding and hearty sniff, and smacked his lips after it. Rachel seemed to linger a little at the door.
“Come in,” said Fuller, “come in. There's nobody here as bites. Beest come to see Ruth? I doubt if her's about as yet. We ode uns bin twice as early risin' as the young uns, nowadaysen. Wait a bit and I'll gi'e her a bit of a chi-hike. Her'll be down in a minute.”
“No,” said Rachel, “don't call her. I do not wish to see her yet. It will be necessary to see her later on; but first of all I desire to speak to you alone.” Fuller looked a little scared at this exordium, but Rachel did not notice him. He had never known her so precise and picked in air and speech as she seemed to be that morning, and through all this a furtive air of embarrassment peeped out plainly enough for even him to become aware of it. “May we sit down at this table?” she asked. “I presume the chairs are aired already by the warm atmosphere of the morning? There is no danger of rheumatism?”
“What's up?” inquired Fuller, sitting down at once, and setting his shirt-sleeved arms upon the table. “Theer's nothin' the matter, is theer?”
“You shall judge for yourself,” replied Rachel. She drew a letter from her pocket, and covering it with her hand laid it on the table. A distinct odor of tea greeted Fuller's nostrils, and he noticed it even then. “I presume that you are not unacquainted with the character of the Messrs. Gold?”
“It 'ud be odd if I warn't acquynted with 'em,” said Fuller. “I've lived i' the same parish with 'em all my days.”
“That being so,” said Rachel, “you will be able to appreciate my feelings when I tell you that almost upon my first arrival here I discovered that the younger Gold was making advances to my niece Ruth.”
“Ah?” said Fuller, interrogatively. “I don't count on bein' able to see no furder through a millstone than my neighbors, but I've been aweer o' that for a day or two.”
“Ruth is motherless,” pursued Rachel, a little too intent upon saying things in a predetermined way to take close note of Fuller. “A motherless girl in a situation of that kind is always in need of the guidance of an experienced hand.”
“Yis, yis,” assented Fuller, heartily. “Many thanks to you, Miss Blythe, for it's kindly meant, I know.”
“Last night,” said Rachel, “I made a discovery.” There was nothing in the world of which she was more certain than she was of Fuller's approving sanction. Only a few minutes before she had had her doubts about it, and they had made her nervous. She was so very serious that Fuller began to look grave. But he was built of loyalty and unsuspicion; and though for a mere second a fear assailed him that the old lady was about to charge Reuben with playing his daughter false, he scouted the fancy hotly. In the warmth thus gained he spoke more briskly than common.
“Drive along, ma'am. Come to the root o' the matter.”
“This letter,” said Rachel, taking Ruth's answer to Reuben in both hands, “was written last night. It is addressed in your daughter's handwriting to Mr. Reuben Gold.”
“Tis, yis, yis,” said Fuller, impatiently, not knowing what to make of Rachel's funereal gravity.
“It appeared to me, after long consideration, that the best and wisest course I could adopt would be to bring it to you. I regard myself as being in a sense, and subject always to your authority, one of the child's natural guardians. If I did not view things in that light,” the old lady explained, making elaborate motions with her lips for the distinct enunciation of every word, “I should consider that I was guilty of a sinful neglect of duty.”
“Well,” said Fuller, “as to sinful. But drive on, Miss Blythe.”
“It appeared to me, then,” continued Rachel, “that our plain duty would be to read this together, and to consult upon it.”
“Wheer does the letter come from?” Fuller demanded, with a look of bewilderment.
“I discovered it in the—”
“What!” cried the old fellow, jumping from his chair and staring at her across the table with red face and wrathful eyes.
“I discovered it,” replied Rachel, rising also and facing him with her head thrown back and her youthful eyes flashing, “I discovered it in the music-book which was left last night upon this table. I saw it placed there clandestinely by my niece Ruth.”
“Be you mad, Miss Blythe?” asked Fuller, with a slow solemnity of inquiry which would have made the question richly mirthful to an auditor. “Do you mean to tell me as you go about spyin' after wheer my little wench puts her letters to her sweetheart? Why, fie, fie, ma'am! That's a child's trick, not a bit like a growd-up woman.”
Fuller was astonished, but Rachel's amazement transcended his own.
“And you tell me, John Fuller, that you know the character of this man?”
“Know his character!” cried Fuller. “Who should know it better nor me? The lad's well-nigh lived i' my house ever sence he was no higher 'n my elber. Know his character? Ah! Should think I did an' all. The cliverest lad of his hands and the best of his feet for twenty mile around—as full o' pluck as a tarrier an' as kindly-hearted as a wench. Bar his Uncle Ezra, theer niver was a mon to match him in Heydon Hay i' my time. Know his character!” He was unused to speak with so much vigor, and he paused breathless and mopped his scarlet face with his shirt-sleeve, staring across his arm at Rachel meanwhile in mingled rage and wonder.
“His Uncle Ezra?” said Rachel, looking fixedly and scornfully back at him. “His Uncle Ezra is a villain!”
For a second or two he stared at her with a countenance of pure amazement, and then burst into a sudden gurgle of laughter. This so overmastered him that he had to cling to the table for support, and finally to resume his seat. His jolly face went crimson, and the tears chased each other down his fat cheeks. When he seemed to have had his laugh quite out, and sat gasping and mopping his eyes with his shirt-sleeve, a chance look at Rachel reinspired the passion of his mirth, and he laughed anew until he had to clip his wide ribs with his palms as if to hold himself together. A mere gleam of surprise crossed the scorn and anger of Rachel's face as she watched him, but it faded quickly, and when once it had passed her expression remained unchanged.
“Good-morning, Aunt Rachel,” cried Ruth's fresh voice. “You are early.” Rachel turned briskly round in time to see Ruth disappear from a white-curtained upper window. Fuller rose with a face of sudden sobriety, and began once more to mop his eyes. In a mere instant Ruth appeared at the door running towards the pair with a face all smiles. “Why, father,” she cried, kissing the old man on the cheek, “what a laugh! You haven't laughed so for a year. What is the joke, Aunt Rachel?”
She saw at a glance that, whatever the jest might be, Aunt Rachel was no sharer in it.
“I know of no joke, Niece Ruth,” said the old lady, with mincing iciness.
“Theer's summat serious at the bottom on it, but the joke's atop, plain for annybody to see,” said Fuller. “But Miss Bly the's come here this mornin' of a funny sort of a arrant, to my thinking, though her seems to fancy it's as solemn a business as a burying.”
“What is the matter?” asked Ruth, looking from one to the other. Some movement of Rachel's eyes sent hers to the table, and she recognized her own letter in a flash. She moved instinctively and laid her hand upon it.
“That's it,” said her father, with a new gurgle. “'Twas your Aunt Rachel, my dear,” he explained, “as see you put it somewheer last night, an' took care on it for you.” Ruth turned upon the little old lady with a grand gesture, in which both hands were suddenly drawn down and backward until they were clinched together, crushing the letter between them behind her. “Her comes to me this morning,” pursued Fuller, while the old woman and the young one looked at each other, “an' tells me plump an' plain as her wants t' open this letter and read it, along with me.”
“Aunt Rachel!” said Ruth, with a sort of intense quiet, “how dare you?”
“I did nothing but my duty,” said Rachel. “If I have exposed to you the character of these men in vain—”
“Exposed! Exposed!” cried Fuller. “What's this here maggot about exposin'? Who talks about exposin' a lad like that? The best lad i' the country-side without a 'ception!”
“You tell me then,” said Rachel, turning upon him slowly, as if Ruth's eyes had an attraction for her, and she could scarcely leave them—“you tell me then that this Reuben Gold has your approval in making approaches to your daughter?”
“Approval!” shouted Fuller. “Yis. I've seen 'em gettin' fond on each other this five 'ear, and took a pleasure in it. What's agen the lad? Nothin' but the mumblin' of a bumble-bee as an old maid's got in her bonnet. A spite agen his uncle is a thing asisunderstandable.”
“Indeed, sir,” said Aunt Rachel, with frigid politeness. “Will you tell me why?”
“Well, no,” said Fuller. “I'd rather I didn't. Look here. Let's have harmony. I'm no hand at quarrelin', even among the men, let alone among the petticuts. Let's have harmony. The wench has got her letter back, and theer's no harm done. And if theer is, ye'd better fight it out betwigst ye.” With this he turned his back and waddled a pace or two. Then he turned a laughing face upon them, moving slowly on his axis. “Mek it up,” he said, “mek it up. Let's have no ill blood i' the family. Nothin' like harmony.”
Having thus delivered himself he rolled in-doors, and there sat down to his morning pipe. But anger and laughter are alike provocative of thirst, and seeking a jug in the kitchen he took his way to the cellar, and there had a copious draught of small beer, after which he settled himself down in his arm-chair, prepared to make the best of anything which might befall him.
The quarrel from which he had withdrawn himself did not seem so easy to be made up as he had appeared to fancy. Ruth and Rachel stood face to face in silence. To the younger woman the offence which had been committed against her seemed intolerable, and it took this complexion less because of the nature of the act itself than because of its consequences. It had mocked Reuben, and it had made her seem as if she were the mocker.
“You are angry, child!” said Rachel, at length. “I was prepared for that. But I was not prepared for your father's acquiescence in the ruinous course upon which you have entered.”
“Ruinous course?” said Ruth.
“I repeat,” said the old lady, “the ruinous course upon which you have entered. These men are villains.”
“Do they steal other people's letters?” asked Ruth.
“They are villains,” repeated Aunt Rachel, ignoring this inquiry. “Villains, cheats, deceivers. You will rue this day in years to come.” Then, with prodigious sudden stateliness, “I find my advice derided. My counsels are rebuffed. I wish you a good-morning. I can entertain no further interest in your proceedings.”
Rachel marched from the garden and disappeared through the door-way without a backward glance. The girl, holding the crumpled letter in both hands behind her, beat her foot upon the greensward, and looked downward with flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. Her life had not hitherto been fruitful of strong emotions, and she had never felt so angry or aggrieved as she felt now.
“How did she dare? What can Reuben think of me?”
These were the only thoughts which found form in her mind, and each was poignant.
A knock sounded at the street door, and she moved mechanically to answer it, but catching sight of her father's figure in the hall she turned away, and seated herself at the musicians' table.
Fuller greeted Reuben—for the early visitor was no other than he—with a broad grin, and stuck a facetious forefinger in his ribs.
“Come in, lad, come in,” he said, chuckling. “I never seed such a lark i' my born days as we've had here this mornin'.”
“Indeed!” said Reuben. “Can I—” He began to blush and stammer a little. “Can I see Miss Ruth, Mr. Fuller?”
“All i' good time, lad,” replied Fuller. “Come in. Sit thee down.” Reuben complied, scarcely at his ease, and wondered what was coming. “Was you expectin' any sort of a letter last night, Reuben?” the old fellow asked him, with a fat enjoying chuckle.
“Yes, sir,” said Reuben, blushing anew, but regarding his questioner frankly.
“Was that what you took away the book o' duets for, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Didst find the letter?” Fuller was determined to make the most of his history, after the manner of men who have stories ready made for them but rarely.
“I don't know,” replied Reuben, to the old man's amazement. “Do you know what the letter was about, Mr. Fuller?”
“Don't know?” cried Fuller. “What beest hov-erin' about? Knowst whether thee hadst a letter or not, dostn't?”
“I had a letter,” said Reuben, “but I can't think it was meant for me. Perhaps I ought to have spoken first to you, sir, but I wrote to Miss Ruth yesterday—” There he paused, asking himself how to put this altogether sacred thing into words.
“Didst now?” asked Fuller, unctuously enjoying the young man's discomfort. “What might it ha' been about?”
“I wrote to ask her if she would marry me,” said Reuben, with desperate simplicity.
“Ah!” said Fuller. “And what says her to that?”
“I can't believe that I have had her answer,” returned Reuben, with much embarrassment. “I found a letter in the book, but I think—I am sure—it is not meant for me.”
“You'll find Ruth i' the gardin,” said Fuller, puzzled in his turn. “Her'll tell you, mayhap. But wait a bit; her's rare an' wroth this mornin', and I ain't sure as it's safe to be anigh her. Miss Blythe's been here this mornin'—Aunt Rachel, as the wench has allays called her, though her's no more than her mother's second cousin—and it seems as th' old creetur found out about Ruth's letter, and went and took it from wheer it was and marched it off. Her was here this mornin' t' ask me to open it and read it along with her. Theer's no tekin' note of her, Reuben, poor old ooman. Her's got a hive in her head. 'Do you know this young man's character' her says. 'Why, yis,' I says; 'it'd be odd if I didn't,' I says. 'Well,' her says, 'he's a villin.' 'Rubbidge,' says I; 'theer's no moor esteemable feller i' the parish,' I says, 'onless it's his uncle Ezra.' Then her fires up and her says, 'His uncle Ezra is a villin.' Then I bust out a-laughin' in her face. Her's flighty, you know, lad, her's uncommon flighty. Six-and-twenty year ago—it was afore thee couldst toddle—her left the parish because of Ezra.”
“Because of my uncle?” There were so many things to be amazed at in this speech of Fuller's that the youngster hardly knew which to be surprised at most.
“Didst never hear o' that?” asked Fuller. “It's been the talk o' the parish ever sence her come back to live in it. Your uncle used to be a good deal at her mother's house from thirty to six-and-twenty 'ear ago, and used to tek his fiddle theer and gie 'em a taste o' music now and then. Her seems to ha' let it tek root in her poor head as he was squirin' her and mekin' up to her for marriage; but after four or five year her got tired and hopeless, I reckon, and went away. Then I expect her begun to brood a bit, after the mode of a woman as is lonely, and has got no such thing as a man around her, and that's how it is, lad.”
“My uncle!” Reuben fell to pacing up and down the room, talking aloud, but as if he addressed himself rather than his sweetheart's father. “Manzini was the last man whose works he played—the last man he ever handled bow and fiddle for. His own words. He left the book open when he went away, and closed it when he came back again.” He drew the discolored note from his pocket, and stared at it with a look of tragic certainty.
“Be we all mad together?” said Fuller. “What's the matter with the lad, i' the name o' wonder?”
“I'll explain everything, sir,” answered Reuben, like a man awakening from sleep. “And yet I don't know that I can. I don't know that I have a right to explain. I could ask Ruth's advice. It's hard to know what to do in such a case.”
“Theer's no such thing as a straight wescut i' the house, worse luck,” said Fuller. “Theerisa clothesline, if that 'ud serve as well.”
“May I see Miss Ruth, sir?” asked Reuben. “I'll tell you all about it if I can. But I think I have found out a very strange and mournful thing.”
Fuller threw open the window and called “Ruth.” She came in slowly, and started when she saw Reuben there, and both she and he stood for a moment in some confusion.
“Gi'e the wench a kiss and ha' done with it,” said Fuller. “Her's as ready as thee beest willin'.”
Reuben acted on this sage counsel, and Ruth, though she blushed like a rose, made no protest.
“Theer,” said papa, hugging his fat waistcoat, and rolling from the room. “Call me when I'm wanted.”
He was not wanted for a long time, for the lovers had much to say to each other, as was only natural. First of all, Ruth shyly gave Reuben the letter she had written the night before, and he read it, and then there were questions to be asked and answered on either side, as—Did she really love him? And why? And since when? And had she not always known that he loved her? All which the reader shall figure out of his or her own experience or fancy; for these things, though delightful in their own time and place, are not to be written of, having a smack of foolishness with much that is tender and charming.
Next—or rather interlaced with this—came Ruth's version of Aunt Rachel's curious behavior. And then said Reuben,
“I think I hold the key to that. But whether I do or not remains to be seen. I found this in Manzini. You see how old it looks. The very pin that held it to the paper was rusted half through. You see,” turning it over, “it is addressed to Mr. Gold. I am afraid it was meant for my uncle, and that he never saw it. If it is a breach of faith to show it you I cannot help it. Read it, darling, and tell me what you think is best to be done.”
Ruth read it, and looked up with a face pale with extreme compassion.
“Reuben,” she said, “this is Aunt Rachel's handwriting. This is all her story.” She began to cry, and Reuben comforted her. “What can we do?” she asked, gently evading him. “Oh, Reuben, how pitiful, how pitiful it is!”
“Should he have it after all these years?” asked Reuben. “What can it be but a regret to him?”
“Oh yes,” she answered, with clasped hands and new tears in her eyes, “he must have it. Think of his poor spirit knowing afterwards that we had kept it from him?”
“It will be a sore grief for him to see it. I fear so. A sore grief.”
“Aunt Rachel will be less bitter when she knows. But oh, Reuben, to be parted in that way for so long! Do you see it all? He wrote to her asking her to be his wife, and she wrote back, and he never had her answer, and waited for it. And she, waiting and waiting for him, and hearing nothing, thinking she had been tricked and mocked, poor thing, and growing prouder and bitterer until she went away. I never, never heard of anything so sad.” She would have none of Reuben's consoling now, though the tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Go,” she begged him—“go at once, and take it to him. Think if it were you and me!”
“It would never have happened to you and me, my darling,” said Reuben. “I'd have had 'Yes' or 'No' for an answer. A man's offer of his heart is worth a 'No, thank you,' though he made it to a queen.”
“Go at once,” she besought him. “I shall be unhappy till I know he knows!”
“Well, my dear,” said Reuben, “if you say go, I go. But I'd as lief put my hand in a fire. The poor old man will have suffered nothing like this for many a day.”
“Stop an' tek a bit o' breakfast, lad,” cried Fuller, as Reuben hurried by him, at the door which gave upon the garden. “It'll be ready i' five minutes.”
“I have my orders, sir,” said Reuben, with a pale smile. “I can't stop this morning, much as I should like to.”
Like most healthy men of vivid fancy he was a rapid walker, and in a few minutes he was in sight of his uncle's house. His heart failed him and he stopped short irresolutely. Should he send the letter, explaining where he found it, and how? He could hardly bear to think of looking on the pain the old man might endure. And yet would it not be kinder to be with him? Might he not be in need of some one? and if he were, who was there but his nephew—the one man of his kindred left alive?
“I'll do it at once,” said Reuben, and walking straight to the door, he knocked. He would have given all he had to be away when this was done, but he had to stand his ground, and he waited a long time while a hand drew back the shrieking bolts and clattering chain within. Then the key turned in the lock. The door opened and his uncle stood before him.
“Beest early this morning,” he said, with a smile. “Theer's something special brings thee here so 'soon?”
“Yes,” answered Reuben, clearing his throat, “something special.”
“Come in, lad,” said Ezra. “No trouble, I hope. Theer's a kind of a troubled look upon you. What is it?”
Reuben entered without an immediate answer, and Ezra closed the door behind him. The gloom and the almost vault-like odors of the chamber struck upon him with a cold sense of solitude and age. They answered to the thoughts that filled him—the thoughts of his uncle's lonely and sunless life.
“Trouble!” said the old man, in an inward voice. “Theer's trouble everywheer! What is it, lad?”
“Sit down, uncle,” began Reuben, after a pause in which Ezra peered at him anxiously. “I find I must tell you some business of my own to make myself quite clear. I wrote a note to Ruth last night, and I learned from her that she had put an answer between the leaves of Manzini. I took the book home and found a note addressed to Mr. Gold. I opened it, and it was signed with an 'R,' and so I read it. But I can't help thinking it belongs to you. The paper's very yellow and old, and I think “—his voice grew treacherous, and he could scarcely command it—“I think it must have lain there unnoticed for some years.”
He held it out rustling and shaking in his hand. Ezra, breathing hard and short, accepted it, and began to grope in his pockets for his spectacle-case. After a while he found it, and tremblingly setting his glasses astride his nose, began to unfold the paper, which crackled noisily in the dead silence.
When he had unfolded it he glanced across at Reuben and walked to the window.
“Theer's summat wrong,” he said, when he had stood there for a minute or two, with the crisp, thick old paper crackling in his hand. “Summat the matter wi' my eyes. Read it—out.” His voice was ghastly strange.
Reuben approached him and took the letter from his fingers. In this exchange their hands met, and Ezra's was like ice. He laid it on Reuben's shoulder, repeating, “Read it out.”
“'Dear Mr. Gold,'” read Reuben, “I have not answered your esteemed note until now, though in receipt of it since Thursday.'”
“Thursday?” said Ezra.
“Thursday,” repeated Reuben. “'For I dare not seem precipitate in such a matter. But I have consulted my own heart, and have laid it before the Throne, knowing no earthly adviser.'”
There was such a tremor in the hand which held him that Reuben's voice failed for pure pity.
“Yes,” said Ezra. “Goon.”
“'Dear Mr. Gold,'” read Reuben, in a voice even less steady than before, “'it shall be as you wish.'” There he paused again, his voice betraying him.
“Go on,” said Ezra.
“'It shall be as you wish, and I trust God may help me to be a worthy helpmeet. So no more till I hear again from you. R.'”
“That's all?” asked Ezra.
“That's all.”
“Thank you, lad, thank you.” He stooped as if in the act of sitting down, and Reuben, passing an arm about his waist, led him to an armchair. “Thank you, lad,” he said again. An eight-day clock ticked in a neighboring room. “That was how it came to pass,” said the old man, in a voice so strangely commonplace that Reuben started at it. “Ah! That was how it came to pass.” He was silent again for two or three minutes, and the clock ticked on. “That was how it came to pass,” he said again. With great deliberation he set his hands together, finger by finger, in the shape of a wedge, and then pushing them between his knees, bent his head above them, and seemed to stare at the dim pattern of the carpet. He was silent for a long time now, and sat as still as if he were carved in stone. “Who's there?” he cried, suddenly looking up.
“I am here, uncle,” Reuben answered.
“Yes, yes,” said Ezra. “Reuben. Yes, of course. And that was how it came to pass.”
Reuben, with a burning and choking sensation in his throat, stood in his place, not knowing what to say or do.
“Wheer is it?” asked Ezra, looking up again. Reuben handed him the note, and he sat with bent head above it for a long time. “Reuben, lad,” he said then, “I'll wish thee a good-mornin'. I'm like to be poor company, and to tell the truth, lad, I want to be by mysen for a while. I've been shook a bit, my lad, I've been shook a bit.”
As he spoke thus he arose, and with his hands folded behind him walked to and fro. His face was grayer than common, and the bright color which generally marked his cheeks was flown; but it was plain to see that he had recovered full possession of himself, though he was still much agitated. Reuben went away in silence, and Ezra continued to pace the room for an hour. His house-keeper appeared to tell him that breakfast was on the table, but though he answered in his customary manner he took no further notice. She came again to tell him with a voice of complaint that everything was cold and spoiled.
“Well, well, woman,” said Ezra, “leave it theer.”
He went on walking up and down, until, without any acceleration of his pace, he changed the direction of his walk and passed out at the door, feeling in the darkened little passage for his hat.
“You sha'n't goo out wi' nothing on your stomach,” said the servant, who had been watching and waiting to see what he would do. Ezra, to satisfy her, poured out and drank a cup of coffee, and then walked out into the street, bending his steps in the direction of Rachel's cottage. Twice on the way he paused and half drew from his waistcoat-pocket the yellow old note which had so long lingered on its way to him, but each time he returned it without looking at it, and walked on again.
He stood for a moment at the wicket-gate, and then opening it passed through, suffering it to fall with a clatter behind him. His hand trembled strangely as he lifted it to the door, and he knocked with a tremulous loudness. When he had waited for a time he heard Rachel's footsteps tapping on the oil-cloth of the passage which divided her toy sitting-room from her bandbox of a parlor. His gray face went a shade grayer, and he cleared his throat nervously, with the tips of his thin fingers at his month. He heard the rattling of the door-chain, but it seemed rather as if it were being put up than taken down, and this suspicion was confirmed when it was opened with a little jar and stopped short at the confines of the chain. Rachel's face looked round the edge of the door. He had time to speak but a single word—“Rachel!”
The door was vigorously slammed in his face, and he heard the emphatic tapping of footsteps as she retired. He stood for a minute irresolute, and then, quitting the porch, walked round the thread of gravelled foot-path which led to the back of the cottage. He had but rounded the corner of the building when the back door closed with a clang, and he heard the bolts shot. Next, while he still stood irresolute, he saw Rachel approach a window and vigorously apply herself to the blind cord. In the mere instant which intervened between this and the descent of the blind she looked at him with a profound and passionate scorn. The old man sighed, and nodding his head up and down retraced his steps, but lingering in the pathway in the little garden, and surveying the house wistfully, he was again aware of Rachel, who faced him once more with an unchanging countenance. This time she appeared at the parlor window, and a second time the blind came down between him and her gaze of uncompromising scorn.
“Eh, dear!” he said, tremblingly, as he turned away. “Her's got reason to think it, poor thing. It's hard to find out the ways o' Providence. If it warn't for good it couldn't ha' happened, but it's a heavy burden all the same.”