CHAPTER XXIV.CONFLICT."O Life, O Beyond,Artthou fair!—artthou sweet?"Mrs. Browning.
"O Life, O Beyond,Artthou fair!—artthou sweet?"
Mrs. Browning.
There followed days that almost won Faith back into her outward life of pleasantness.
Margaret came over with Madam Rushleigh, and felicitated herself and friend, impetuously. Paul's mother thanked her for making her son happy. Old Mr. Rushleigh kissed her forehead with a blessing. And Mr. and Mrs. Gartney looked upon their daughter as with new eyes of love. Hendie rode the black horse every day, and declared that "everything was just as jolly as it could be!"
Paul drove her out, and walked with her, and talked of his plans, and all they would do and have together.
And she let herself be brightened by all this outward cheer and promise, and this looking forward to a happiness and use that were to come. But still she shrank and trembled at every loverlike caress, and still she said, fearfully, every now and then:
"Paul—I don't feel as you do. What if I don't love you as I ought?"
And Paul called her his little oversensitive, conscientious Faithie, and persuaded himself and her that he had no fear—that he was quite satisfied.
When Mr. Armstrong came to see her, gravely and tenderly wishing her joy, and looked searchingly into her face for the pure content that should be there, she bent her head into her hands, and wept.
She was very weak, you say? She ought to have known her own mind better? Perhaps. I speak of her as she was. There are mistakes like these in life; there are hearts that suffer thus, unconscious of their ail.
The minister waited while the momentary burst of emotion subsided, and something of Faith's wonted manner returned.
"It is very foolish of me," she said, "and you must think me very strange. But, somehow, tears come easily when one has been feeling a great deal. And such kind words from you touch me."
"My words and thoughts will always be kind for you, my child. And I know very well that tears may mean sweeter and deeper things than smiles. I will not try you with much talking now. You have my affectionate wishes and my prayers. If there is ever any help that I can give, to you who have so muchloving help about you, count on me as an earnest friend, always."
The hour was past when Faith, if she could ever, could have asked of him the help she did most sorely need.
And so, with a gentle hand clasp, he went away.
Mr. Gartney began to be restless about Michigan. He wanted to go and see this wild estate of his. He would have liked to take his wife, now that haying would soon be over, and he could spare the time from his farm, and make it a pleasant summer journey for them both. But he could neither leave Faith, nor take her, well, it seemed. Hendie might go. Fathers always think their boys ready for the world when once they are fairly out of the nursery.
One day, Paul came to Cross Corners with news.
Mr. Rushleigh had affairs to be arranged and looked to, in New York—matters connected with the mills, which had, within a few weeks, begun to run; he had been there, once, about them; he could do all quite well, now, by letter, and an authorized messenger; he could not just now very well leave Kinnicutt. Besides, he wanted Paul to see and know his business friends, and to put himself in the way of valuable business information. Would Faith spare him for a week or two—he bade his son to ask.
Madam Rushleigh would accompany Paul; and before his return he would go with his mother to Saratoga, where her daughter Gertrude and Mrs. Philip Rushleigh were, and where he was to leave her for the remainder of their stay.
Margaret liked Kinnicutt better than any watering-place; and she and her father had made a little plan of their own, which, if Faith would go back with him, they would explain to her.
So Faith went over to Lakeside to tea, and heard the plan.
"We are going to make our first claim upon you, Faith," said the elder Mr. Rushleigh, as he led his daughter-in-law elect out on the broad piazza under the Italian awnings, when the slight summer evening repast was ended. "We want to borrow you, while madam and the yonker are gone. Your father tells me he wishes to make a Western journey. Now, why not send him off at this very time? I think your mother intends accompanying him?"
"It had been talked of," Faith said; "and perhaps her father would be very glad to go when he could leave her in such good keeping. She would tell him what Mr. Rushleigh had been so kind as to propose."
It was a suggestion of real rest to Faith—this free companionship with Margaret again, in the old, girlish fashion—and the very thoughtful look, that was almost sad, which had become habitual to her face, of late, brightened into the old, careless pleasure, as she spoke.
Old Mr. Rushleigh saw something in this that began to seem to him more than mere maidenly shyness.
By and by, Margaret called her brother to sing with her.
"Come, Faithie," said Paul, drawing her gently by the hand. "I can't sing unless you go, too."
Faith went; more, it seemed, of his will, than her own.
"How does that appear to you?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his wife. "Is it all right? Does the child care for Paul?"
"Care!" exclaimed the mother, almost surprised into too audible speech. "How can she help caring? And hasn't it grown up from childhood with them? What put such a question into your head? I should as soon think of doubting whether I cared for you."
It was easier for the father to doubt, jealously, for his son, than for the mother to conceive the possibility of indifference in the woman her boy had chosen.
"Besides," added Mrs. Rushleigh, "why, else, should she have accepted him? IknowFaith Gartney is not mercenary, or worldly ambitious."
"I am quite sure of that, as well," answered her husband. "It is no doubt of her motive or her worth—I can't say it is really a doubt of anything; but, Gertrude, she must not marry the boy unless her whole heart is in it! A sharp stroke is better than a lifelong pain."
"I'm sure I can't tell what has come over you! She can't ever have thought of anybody else! And she seems quite one of ourselves."
"Yes; that's just the uncertainty," replied Mr. Rushleigh. "Whether it isn't as much Margaret, and you and I, as Paul. Whether she fully knows what she is about. She can't marry the family, you know. We shall die, and go off, and Heaven knows what; Paul must be the whole world to her, or nothing. I hope he hasn't hurried her—or let her hurry herself."
"Hurry! She has had years to make up her mind in!"
Mrs. Rushleigh, woman as she was, would not understand.
"We shall go, in three days," said Paul, when he stood in the moonlight with Faith at the little white gate under the elms, after driving her home; "and I must have you all the time to myself, until then!"
Faith wondered if it were right that she shouldn't quite care to be "had all the time to himself until then"? Whether such demonstrativeness and exclusiveness of affection was ever a little irksome to others as to her?
Faith thought and questioned, often, what other girls might feel in positions like her own, and tried to judge herself by them; it absolutely never occurred to her to think how it might have been if another than Paul had stood in this relation toward herself.
The young man did not quite have his own way, however. His father went down to Mishaumok on one of the three days, and left him in charge at the mills; and there were people to see, and arrangements to make; but some part of each day he did manage to devote to Faith, and they had walking and driving together, and every night Paul stayed to tea at Cross Corners.
On the last evening, they sat together, by the hillside door, in the summer parlor.
"Faithie," said Paul, a little suddenly, "there is something you must do for me—do you know?"
"What is it?" asked Faith, quite calmly.
"You must wear this, now, and keep the forget-me-not for a guard."
He held her hand, that wore the ring, in one of his, and there was a flash of diamonds as he brought the other toward it.
Then Faith gave a quick, strange cry.
"I can't! I can't! Oh, Paul! don't ask me!" And her hand was drawn from the clasp of his, and her face was hidden in both her own.
Paul drew back—hurt, silent.
"If I could only wait!" she murmured. "I don't dare, yet!"
She could wear the forget-me-not, as she wore the memory of all their long young friendship, it belonged to the past; but this definite pledge for the future—these diamonds!
"Do you not quite belong to me, even yet?" asked Paul, with a resentment, yet a loving and patient one, in his voice.
"I told you," said Faith, "that I would try—to be to you as you wish; but Paul! if I couldn't be so, truly?—I don't know why I feel so uncertain. Perhaps it is because you care for me too much. Your thought for me is so great, that mine, when I look at it, never seems worthy."
Paul was a man. He could not sue, too cringingly, even for Faith Gartney's love.
"And I told you, Faith, that I was satisfied to be allowed to love you. That you should love me a little, and let it grow to more. But if it is not love at all—if I frighten you, and repel you—I have no wish to make you unhappy. I must let you go. And yet—oh, Faith!" he cried—the sternness all gone, and only the wild love sweeping through his heart, and driving wild words before it—"it can't be that it is no love, after all! It would be too cruel!"
At those words, "I must let you go," spoken apparently with calmness, as if it could be done, Faith felt a bound of freedom in her soul. If he would let her go, and care for her in the old way, only as a friend! But the strong passionate accents came after; and the old battle of doubt and pity and remorse surged up again, and the cloud of their strife dimmed all perception, save that she was very, very wretched.
She sobbed, silently.
"Don't let us say good-by, so," said Paul. "Don't let us quarrel. We will let all wait, as you wish, till I come home again."
So he still clung to her, and held her, half bound.
"And your father, Paul? And Margaret? How can I let them receive me as they do—how can I go to them as I have promised, in all this indecision?"
"They want you, Faith, for your own sake. There is no need for you to disappoint them. It is better to say nothing more until we do know. I ask it of you—do not refuse me this—to let all rest just here; to make no difference until I come back. You will let me write, Faith?"
"Why, yes, Paul," she said, wonderingly.
It was so hard for her to comprehend that it could not be with him, any longer, as it had been; that his written or his spoken word could not be, for a time, at least, mere friendly any more.
And so she gave him, unwittingly, this hope to go with.
"I think youdocare for me, Faith, if you only knew it!" said he, half sadly and very wistfully, as they parted.
"I do care, very much," Faith answered, simply and earnestly. "I never can help caring. It is only that I am afraid I care so differently from you!"
She was nearer loving him at that moment, than she had ever been.
Who shall attempt to bring into accord the seeming contradictions of a woman's heart?
CHAPTER XXV.A GAME AT CHESS."Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,I lapse into the glad releaseOf nature's own exceeding peace."Whittier
"Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,I lapse into the glad releaseOf nature's own exceeding peace."
Whittier
"I don't see," said Aunt Faith, "why the child can't come to me, Henderson, while you and Elizabeth are away. I don't believe in putting yourself under obligations to people till you're sure they're going to be something to you. Things don't always turn out according to the Almanac."
"She goes just as she always has gone to the Rushleighs," replied Mr. Gartney. "Paul is to be away. It is a visit to Margaret.Still, I shall be absent at least a fortnight, and it might be well that she should divide her time, and come to Cross Corners for a few days, if it is only to see the house opened and ready. Luther can have a bed here, if Mis' Battis should be afraid."
Mis' Battis was to improve the fortnight's interval for a visit to Factory Village.
"Well, fix it your own way," said Miss Henderson. "I'm ready for her, any time. Only, if she's going to peak and pine as she has done ever since this grand match was settled for her, Glory and I'll have our hands full, nursing her, by then you get back!"
"Faith is quite well," said Mrs. Gartney. "It is natural for a girl to be somewhat thoughtful when she decides for herself such an important relation."
"Symptoms differ, in different cases.Ishould say she was taking it pretty hard," said the old lady.
Mr. and Mrs. Gartney left home on Monday.
Faith and Mis' Battis remained in the house a few hours after, setting all things in that dreary "to rights" before leaving, which is almost, in its chillness and silence, like burial array. Glory came over to help; and when all was done—blinds shut, windows and doors fastened, fire out, ashes removed—stove blackened—Luther drove Mis' Battis and her box over to Mrs. Pranker's, and Glory took Faith's little bag for her to the Old House.
This night she was to stay with her aunt. She wanted just this little pause and quiet before going to the Rushleighs'.
"Tell Aunt Faith I'm coming," said she, as she let herself and Glory out at the front door, and then, locking it, put the key in her pocket. "I'll just walk up over the Ridge first, for a little coolness and quiet, after this busy day."
There was the peace of a rested body and soul upon her face when she came down again a half hour after, and crossed the lane, and entered, through the stile, upon the field path to the Old House. Heart and will had been laid asleep—earthly plan and purpose had been put aside in all their incompleteness and uncertainty—and only God and Nature had been permitted to come near.
Mr. Armstrong walked down and met her midway in the field.
"How beautiful mere simpleness and quiet are," said Faith. "The cool look of trees and grass, and the stillness of this evening time, are better even than flowers, and bright sunlight, and singing of birds!"
"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters: He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.'"
They did not disturb the stillness by more words. They cameup together, in the hush and shadow, to the pleasant doorstone, that offered its broad invitation to their entering feet, and where Aunt Faith at this moment stood, watching and awaiting them.
"Go into the blue bedroom, and lay off your things, child," she said, giving Faith a kiss of welcome, "and then come back and we'll have our tea."
Faith disappeared through passages and rooms beyond.
Aunt Henderson turned quickly to the minister.
"You're her spiritual adviser, ain't you?" she asked, abruptly.
"I ought to be," answered Mr. Armstrong.
"Why don't you advise her, then?"
"Spiritually, I do and will, in so far as so pure a spirit can need a help from me. But—I think I know what you mean, Miss Henderson—spirit and heart are two. I am a man; and she is—what you know."
Miss Henderson's keen eyes fixed themselves, for a minute, piercingly and unflinchingly, on the minister's face. Then she turned, without a word, and went into the house to see the tea brought in. She knew, now, all there was to tell.
Faith's face interpreted itself to Mr. Armstrong. He saw that she needed, that she would have, rest. Rest, this night, from all that of late had given her weariness and trouble. So, he did not even talk to her in the way they mostly talked together; he would not rouse, ever so distantly, thought, that might, by so many subtle links, bear round upon her hidden pain. But he brought, after tea, a tiny chessboard, and set the delicate carved men upon it, and asked her if she knew the game.
"A little," she said. "What everybody always owns to knowing—the moves."
"Suppose we play."
It was a very pleasant novelty—sitting down with this grave, earnest friend to a game of skill—and seeing him bring to it all the resource of power and thought that he bent, at other times, on more important work.
"Not that, Miss Faith! You don't mean that! You put your queen in danger."
"My queen is always a great trouble to me," said Faith, smiling, as she retracted the half-made move. "I think I do better when I give her up in exchange."
"Excuse me, Miss Faith; but that always seems to me a cowardly sort of game. It is like giving up a great power in life because one is too weak to claim and hold it."
"Only I make you lose yours, too."
"Yes, there is a double loss and inefficiency. Does that make a better game, or one pleasanter to play?"
"There are two people, in there, talking riddles; and theydon't even know it," said Miss Henderson to her handmaid, in the kitchen close by.
Perhaps Mr. Armstrong, as he spoke, did discern a possible deeper significance in his own words; did misgive himself that he might rouse thoughts so; at any rate, he made rapid, skillful movements on the board, that brought the game into new complications, and taxed all Faith's attention to avert their dangers to herself.
For half an hour, there was no more talking.
Then Faith's queen was put in helpless peril.
"I must give her up," said she. "She is all but gone."
A few moves more, and all Faith's hope depended on one little pawn, that might be pushed to queen and save her game.
"How one does want the queen power at the last!" said she. "And how much easier it is to lose it, than to get it back!"
"It is like the one great, leading possibility, that life, in some sort, offers each of us," said Mr. Armstrong. "Once lost—once missed—we may struggle on without it—we may push little chances forward to partial amends; but the game is changed; its soul is gone."
As he spoke he made the move that led to obvious checkmate.
Glory came in to the cupboard, now, and began putting up the tea things she had brought from washing.
Mr. Armstrong had done just what, at first, he had meant not to do. Had he bethought himself better, and did he seize the opening to give vague warning where he might not speak more plainly? Or, had his habit, as a man of thought, discerning quick meaning in all things, betrayed him into the instant's forgetfulness?
However it might be, Glory caught glimpse of two strange, pained faces over the little board and its mystic pieces.
One, pale—downcast—with expression showing a sudden pang; the other, suffering also, yet tender, self-forgetful, loving—looking on.
"I don't know whichever is worst," she said afterwards, without apparent suggestion of word or circumstance, to her mistress; "to see the beautiful times that there are in the world, and not be in 'em—or to see people that might be in 'em, and ain't!"
They were all out on the front stoop, later. They sat in the cool, summer dusk, and looked out between the arched lattices where the vines climbed up, seeing the stars rise, far away, eastwardly, in the blue; and Mr. Armstrong, talking with Faith, managed to win her back into the calm he had, for an instant, broken; and to keep her from pursuing the thought that by and by would surely come back, and which she would surely want all possible gain of strength to grapple with.
Faith met his intention bravely, seconding it with her own. These hours, to the last, should still be restful. She would not think, to-night, of those words that had startled her so—of all they suggested or might mean—of life's great possibility lost to him, away back in the sorrowful past, as she also, perhaps was missing it—relinquishing it—now.
She knew not that his thought had been utterly self-forgetful. She believed that he had told her, indirectly, of himself, when he had spoken those dreary syllables—"the game is changed. Its soul is gone!"
CHAPTER XXVI.LAKESIDE."Look! are the southern curtains drawn?Fetch me a fan, and so begone!· · · · · ·Rain me sweet odors on the air,And wheel me up my Indian chair;And spread some book not overwiseFlat out before my sleepy eyes."O. W. Holmes.
"Look! are the southern curtains drawn?Fetch me a fan, and so begone!· · · · · ·Rain me sweet odors on the air,And wheel me up my Indian chair;And spread some book not overwiseFlat out before my sleepy eyes."
O. W. Holmes.
The Rushleighs' breakfast room at Lakeside was very lovely in a summer's morning.
Looking off, northwestwardly, across the head of the Pond, the long windows, opening down to the piazza, let in all the light and joy of the early day, and that indescribable freshness born from the union of woods and water.
Faith had come down long before the others, this fair Wednesday morning.
Mr. Rushleigh found her, when he entered, sitting by a window—a book upon her lap, to be sure—but her eyes away off over the lake, and a look in them that told of thoughts horizoned yet more distantly.
Last night, he had brought home Paul's first letter.
When he gave it to her, at tea time, with a gay and kindly word, the color that deepened vividly upon her face, and the quiet way in which she laid it down beside her plate, were nothing strange, perhaps; but—was he wrong? the eyes that drooped so quickly as the blushes rose, and then lifted themselves again so timidly to him as he next addressed her, were surely brimmed with feeling that was not quite, or wholly glad.
And now, this wistful, silent, musing, far-off look!
"Good morning, Faithie!"
"Good morning." And the glance came back—the reverie was broken—Faith's spirit informed her visible presence again,and bade him true and gentle welcome. "You haven't your morning paper yet? I'll bring it. Thomas left it in the library, I think. He came back from the early train, half an hour ago."
"Can't you women tell what's the matter with each other?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his daughter, who entered by the other door, as Faith went out into the hall. "What ails Faith, Margaret?"
"Nothing of consequence, I think. She is tired with all that has been going on, lately. And then she's the shyest little thing!"
"It's a sort of shyness that don't look so happy as it might, it seems to me. And what has become of Paul's diamonds, I wonder? I went with him to choose some, last week. I thought I should see them next upon her finger."
Margaret opened her eyes widely. Of course, this was the first she had heard of the diamonds. Where could they be, indeed? Was anything wrong? They had not surely quarreled!
Faith came in with the paper. Thomas brought up breakfast. And presently, these three, with all their thoughts of and for each other, that reached into the long years to come, and had their roots in all that had gone by, were gathered at the table, seemingly with no further anxiety than to know whether one or another would have toast or muffins—eggs or raspberries.
Do we not—and most strangely and incomprehensively—live two lives?
"I must write to my mother, to-day," said Margaret, when her father had driven away to the mills, and they had brought in a few fresh flowers from the terrace for the vases, and had had a little morning music, which Margaret always craved, "as an overture," she said, "to the day."
"I must write to my mother; and you, I suppose, will be busy with answering Paul?"
A little consciousness kept her from looking straight in Faith's face, as she spoke. Had she done so, she might have seen that a paleness came over it, and that the lips trembled.
"I don't know," was the answer. "Perhaps not, to-day."
"Not to-day? Won't he be watching every mail? I don't know much about it, to be sure; but I fancied lovers were such uneasy, exacting creatures!"
"Paul is very patient," said Faith—not lightly, as Margaret had spoken, but as one self-reproached, almost, for abusing patience—"and they go to-morrow to Lake George. He won't look for a letter until he gets to Saratoga."
She had calculated her time as if it were the minutes of a reprieve.
When Paul Rushleigh, with his mother, reached Saratoga, he found two letters there, for him. One kind, simple, but reticent,from Faith—a mere answer to that which she could answer, of his own. The other was from his father.
"There seems," he wrote to his son, toward the close, "to be a little cloud upon Faith, somehow. Perhaps it is one you would not wish away. It may brighten up and roll off, at your return. You, possibly, understand it better than I. Yet I feel, in my strong anxiety for your true good, impelled to warn you against letting her deceive herself and you, by giving you less than, for her own happiness and yours, she ought to be able to give. Do not marry the child, Paul, if there can be a doubt of her entire affection for you. You had better go through life alone, than with a wife's half love. If you have reason to imagine that she feels bound by anything in the past to what the present cannot heartily ratify—release her. I counsel you to this, not more in justice to her, than for the saving of your own peace. She writes you to-day. It may be that the antidote comes with the hurt. I may be quite mistaken. But I hurt you, my son, only to save a sorer pain. Faith is true. If she says she loves you, believe her, and take her, though all the world should doubt. But if she is fearful—if she hesitates—be fearful, and hesitate yourself, lest your marriage be no true marriage before Heaven!"
Paul Rushleigh thanked his father, briefly, for his admonition, in reply. He wrote, also, to Faith—affectionately, but with something, at last, of her own reserve. He should not probably write again. In a week, or less, he would be home.
And behind, and beyond all this, that could be put on paper, was the hope of a life—the sharp doubt of days—waiting the final word!
In a week, he would be home! A week! It might bring much!
Wednesday had come round again.
Dinner was nearly ended at Lakeside. Cool jellies, and creams, and fruits, were on the table for dessert. Steaming dishes of meats and vegetables had been gladly sent away, but slightly partaken. The day was sultry. Even now, at five in the afternoon, the heat was hardly mitigated from that of midday.
They lingered over their dessert, and spoke, rather languidly, of what might be done after.
"For me," said Mr. Rushleigh, "I must go down to the mills again, before night. If either, or both of you, like a drive, I shall be glad to have you with me."
"Those hot mills!" exclaimed Margaret. "What an excursion to propose!"
"I could find you a very cool corner, even in those hot mills," replied her father. "My little sanctum, upstairs, that overlooks the river, and gets its breezes, is the freshest place I have been in, to-day. Will you go, Faith?"
"Oh, yes! she'll go! I see it in her eyes!" said Margaret. "She is getting to be as much absorbed in all those frantic looms and things—that set me into a fever just to think of, whizzing and humming all day long in this horrible heat—as you are! I believe she expects to help Paul overseer the factory, one of these days, she is so fierce to peer into and understand everything about it. Or else, she means mischief! You had a funny look in your face, Faithie, the other day, when you stood there by the great rope that hoists the water gate, and Mr. Blasland was explaining it to us!"
"I was thinking, I remember," said Faith, "what a strange thing it was to have one's hand on the very motive power of it all. To see those great looms, and wheels, and cylinders, and spindles, we had been looking at, and hear nothing but their deafening roar all about us, and to think that even I, standing there with my hand upon the rope, might hush it all, and stop the mainspring of it in a minute!"
Ah, Faithie! Did you think, as you said this, how your little hand lay, otherwise, also, on the mainspring and motive of it all? One of the three, at least, thought of it, as you spoke.
"Well—your heart's in the spindles, I see!" rejoined Margaret. "So, don't mind me. I haven't a bit of a plan for your entertainment, here. I shouldn't, probably, speak to you, if you stayed. It's too hot for anything but a book, and a fan, and a sofa by an open window!"
Faith laughed; but, before she could reply, a chaise rolled up to the open front door, and the step and voice of Dr. Wasgatt were heard, as he inquired for Miss Gartney.
Faith left her seat, with a word of excuse, and met him in the hall.
"I had a patient up this way," said he, "and came round to bring you a message from Miss Henderson. Nothing to be frightened at, in the least; only that she isn't quite so well as ordinary, these last hot days, and thought perhaps you might as lief come over. She said she was expecting you for a visit there, before your folks get back. No, thank you"—as Faith motioned to conduct him to the drawing-room—"can't come in. Sorry I couldn't offer to take you down; but I've got more visits to make, and they lie round the other way."
"Is Aunt Faith ill?"
"Well—no. Not so but that she'll be spry again in a day or two; especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd like to have you there."
"I'll come."
And Faith went back, quickly, as Dr. Wasgatt departed, to make his errand known, and to ask if Mr. Rushleigh would mind driving her round to Cross Corners, after going to his mills.
"Wait till to-morrow, Faithie," said Margaret, in the tone of one whom it fatigues to think of an exertion, even for another. "You'll want your box with you, you know; and there isn't time for anything to-night."
"I think I ought to go now," answered Faith. "Aunt Henderson never complains for a slight ailment, and she might be ill again, to-night. I can take all I shall need before to-morrow in my little morocco bag. I won't keep you waiting a minute," she added, turning to Mr. Rushleigh.
"I can wait twenty, if you wish," he answered kindly.
But in less than ten, they were driving down toward the river.
Margaret Rushleigh had betaken herself to her own cool chamber, where the delicate straw matting, and pale green, leaf-patterned chintz of sofa, chairs, and hangings, gave a feeling of the last degree of summer lightness and daintiness, and the gentle air breathed in from the southwest, sifted, on the way, of its sunny heat, by the green draperies of vine and branch it wandered through.
Lying there, on the cool, springy cushions of her couch—turning the fresh-cut leaves of the AugustMishaumok—she forgot the wheels and the spindles—the hot mills, and the ceaseless whir.
Just at that moment of her utter comfort and content, a young factory girl dropped, fainting, in the dizzy heat, before her loom.
CHAPTER XXVII.AT THE MILLS."For all day the wheels are droning, turning,—Their wind comes in our faces,—Till our hearts turn,—our head with pulses burning,—And the walls turn in their places."Mrs. Browning.
"For all day the wheels are droning, turning,—Their wind comes in our faces,—Till our hearts turn,—our head with pulses burning,—And the walls turn in their places."
Mrs. Browning.
Faith sat silent by Mr. Rushleigh's side, drinking in, also, with a cool content, the river air that blew upon their faces as they drove along.
"Faithie!" said Paul's father, a little suddenly, at last—"do you know how true a thing you said a little while ago?"
"How, sir?" asked Faith, not perceiving what he meant.
"When you spoke of having your hand on the mainspring of all this?"
And he raised his right arm, motioning with the slenderwhip he held, along the line of factory buildings that lay before them.
A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow. She sat and suffered it under his eye—uttering not a syllable.
"I knew you didnotknow. You did not think of it so. Yet it is true, none the less. Faith! Are you happy? Are you satisfied?"
Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes.
"I do not wish to distress you, my dear. It is only a little word I should like to hear you speak. I must, so far as I can, see that my children are happy, Faith."
"I suppose," said Faith, tremulously, struggling to speech—"one cannot expect to be utterly happy in this world."
"One does expect it, forgetting all else, at the moment when is given what seems to one life's first, great good—the earthly good that comes but once. I remember my own youth, Faithie. Pure, present content is seldom overwise."
"Only," said Faith, still tremblingly, "that the responsibility comes with the good. That feeling of having one's hand upon the mainspring is a fearful one."
"I am not given," said Mr. Rushleigh, "to quoting Bible at all times; but you make a line of it come up to me. 'There is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth out fear.'"
"Be sure of yourself, dear child. Be sure you are content and happy; and tell me so, if you can; or, tell me otherwise, if you must, without a reserve or misgiving," he said again, as they drove down the mill entrance; and their conversation, for the time, came, necessarily, to an end.
Coming into the mill yard, they were aware of a little commotion about one of the side doors.
The mill girl who had fainted sat here, surrounded by two or three of her companions, slowly recovering.
"It is Mary Grover, sir, from up at the Peak," said one of them, in reply to Mr. Rushleigh's question. "She hasn't been well for some days, but she's kept on at her work, and the heat, to-day, was too much for her. She'd ought to be got home, if there was any way. She can't ever walk."
"I'll take her, myself," said the mill owner, promptly. "Keep her quiet here a minute or two, while I go in and speak to Blasland."
But first he turned to Faith again. "What shall I do with you, my child?"
"Dear Mr. Rushleigh," said she, with all her gratitude for his just spoken kindness to herself and her appreciation of his ready sympathy for the poor workgirl, in her voice—"don't think of me! It's lovely out there over the footbridge,and in the fields; and that way, the distance is nearly nothing to Aunt Faith's. I should like the walk—really."
"Thank you," said Mr. Rushleigh. "I believe you would. Then I'll take Mary Grover up to the Peak."
And he shook her hand, and left her standing there, and went up into the mill.
Two of the girls who had come out with Mary Grover, followed him and returned to their work. One, sitting with her in the doorway, on one of the upper steps, and supporting her yet dizzy head upon her shoulder, remained.
Faith asked if she could do anything, and was answered, no, with thanks.
She turned away, then, and walked over the planking above the race way, toward the river, where a pretty little footbridge crossed it here, from the end of the mill building.
Against this end, projected, on this side, a square, tower-like appendage to the main structure, around which one must pass to reach the footbridge. A door at the base opened upon a staircase leading up. This was the entrance to Mr. Rushleigh's "sanctum," above, which communicated, also, with the second story of the mill.
Here Faith paused. She caught, from around the corner, a sound of the angry voices of men.
"I tell you, I'll stay here till I see the boss!"
"I tell you, the boss won't see you. He's done with you."
"Let himbedone with me, then; and not go spoiling my chance with other people! I'll see it out with him, somehow, yet."
"Better not threaten. He won't go out of his way to meddle with you; only it's no use your sending anybody here after a character. He's one of the sort that speaks the truth and shames the devil."
"I'll let him know he ain't boss of the whole country round! D—d if I don't!"
Faith turned away from hearing more of this, and from facing the speakers; and took refuge up the open staircase.
Above—in the quiet little countingroom, shut off by double doors at the right from the great loom chamber of the mill, and opening at the front by a wide window upon the river that ran tumbling and flashing below, spanned by the graceful little bridge that reached the green slope of the field beyond—it was so cool and pleasant—so still with continuous and softened sound—that Faith sat down upon the comfortable sofa there, to rest, to think, to be alone, a little.
She had Paul's letter in her pocket; she had his father's words fresh upon ear and heart. A strange peace came over her, as she placed herself here; as if, somehow, a way was soon to be opened and made clear to her. As if she should come to know herself, and to be brave to act as God should show her how.
She heard, presently, Mr. Rushleigh's voice in the mill yard, and then the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it.
It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith's.
CHAPTER XXVIII.LOCKED IN."How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were anything else in the world."—Hare.
"How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were anything else in the world."—Hare.
It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story, several coincident circumstances, that apart, would have had no noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation upon some catastrophe ordénouementthat develops itself therefrom.
Last night, a man—an employee in Mr. Rushleigh's factory—had been kept awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter—but it has to do with our story.
Last night, also, Faith—Paul's second letter just received—had lain sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt, pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she felt—thus, or so—in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure of her feeling now?
The new wine in the old bottles—the new cloth in the old garment—these, in Faith's life, were at variance. What satisfied once, satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a seething—a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and torn—wonderingly, helplessly—in the half-comprehended struggle!
So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed her into rest.
She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa, and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on—she fell asleep.
How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she awoke.
Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was here alone. That it was night—that nobody could know it—that she was locked up here, in the great dreary mill.
She raised herself upon the sofa, and sat in a terrified amaze. She took out her watch, and tried to see, by the starlight, the time. The slender black hands upon its golden face were invisible. It ticked—it was going. She knew, by that, it could not be far beyond midnight, at the most. She was chilly, in her white dress, from the night air. She went to the open window, and looked out from it, before she drew it down. Away, over the fields, and up and down the river, all was dark, solitary.
Nobody knew it—she was here alone.
She shut the window, softly, afraid of the sounds herself might make. She opened the double doors from the countingroom, and stood on the outer threshold, and looked into the mill. The heavy looms were still. They stood like great, dead creatures, smitten in the midst of busy motion. There was an awfulness in being here, the only breathing, moving thing—in darkness—where so lately had been the deafening hum of rolling wheels, and clanking shafts, and flying shuttles, and busy, moving human figures. It was as if the world itself were stopped, and she forgotten on its mighty, silent course.
Should she find her way to the great bell, ring it, and make an alarm? She thought of this; and then she reasoned with herself that she was hardly so badly off, as to justify her, quite, in doing that. It would rouse the village, it would bring Mr. Rushleigh down, perhaps—it would cause a terrible alarm. And all that she might be spared a few hours longer of loneliness and discomfort. She was safe. It would soon be morning.
The mill would be opened early. She would go back to the sofa, and try to sleep again. Nobody could be anxious about her. The Rushleighs supposed her to be at Cross Corners. Her aunt would think her detained at Lakeside. It was really no great matter. She would be brave, and quiet.
So she shut the double doors again, and found a coat of Paul's, or Mr. Rushleigh's, in the closet of the countingroom, and lay down upon the sofa, covering herself with that.
For an hour or more, her heart throbbed, her nerves were excited, she could not sleep. But at last she grew calmer, her thought wandered from her actual situation—became indistinct—and slumber held her again, dreamily.
There was another sleeper, also, in the mill whom Faith knew nothing of.
Michael Garvin, the night watchman—the same whosechild had been ill the night before—when Faith came out into the loom chamber, had left it but a few minutes, going his silent round within the building, and recording his faithfulness by the half-hour pin upon the watch clock. Six times he had done this, already. It was half past ten.
He had gone up, now, by the stairs from the weaving room, into the third story. These stairs ascended at the front, from within the chamber.
Michael Garvin went on nearly to the end of the room above—stopped, and looked out at a window. All still, all safe apparently.
He was very tired. What harm in lying down somewhere in a corner, for five minutes? He need not shut his eyes. He rolled his coat up for a pillow, and threw it against the wall beneath the window. The next instant he had stretched his stalwart limbs along the floor, and before ten minutes of his seventh half hour were spent—long before Faith, who thought herself all alone in the great building, had lost consciousness of her strange position—he was fast asleep.
Fast asleep, here, in the third story!
So, since the days of the disciples, men have grown heavy and forgotten their trust. So they have slumbered upon decks, at sea. So sentinels have lain down at picket posts, though they knew the purchase of that hour of rest might be the leaden death!
Faith Gartney dreamed, uneasily.
She thought herself wandering, at night, through the deserted streets of a great city. She seemed to have come from somewhere afar off, and to have no place to go to.
Up and down, through avenues sometimes half familiar, sometimes wholly unknown, she went wearily, without aim, or end, or hope. "Tired! tired! tired!" she seemed to say to herself. "Nowhere to rest—nobody to take care of me!"
Then—city, streets, and houses disappeared; the scenery of her dream rolled away, and opened out, and she was standing on a high, bare cliff, away up in wintry air; threatening rocky avalanches overhanging her—chill winds piercing her—and no pathway visible downward. Still crying out in loneliness and fear. Still with none to comfort or to help.
Standing on the sheer edge of the precipice—behind her, suddenly, a crater opened. A hissing breath came up, and the chill air quivered and scorched about her. Her feet were upon a volcano! A lake of boiling, molten stone heaved—huge, brazen, bubbling—spreading wider and wider, like a great earth ulcer, eating in its own brink continually. Up in the air over her, reared a vast, sulphurous canopy of smoke. The narrowing ridge beneath her feet burned—trembled. She hovered between two destructions.
Instantly—in that throbbing, agonizing moment of her dream, just after which one wakes—she felt a presence—she heard a call—she thought two arms were stretched out toward her—there seemed a safety and a rest near by; she was borne by an unseen impulse, along the dizzy ridge that her feet scarce touched, toward it; she was taken—folded, held; smoke, fire, the threatening danger of the cliff, were nothing, suddenly, any more. Whether they menaced still, she thought not; a voice she knew and trusted was in her ear; a grasp of loving strength sustained her; she was utterly secure.
So vividly she felt the presence—so warm and sure seemed that love and strength about her—that waking out of such pause of peace, before her senses recognized anything that was real without, she stretched her hands, as if to find it at her side, and her lips breathed a name—the name of Roger Armstrong.
Then she started to her feet. The kind, protecting presence faded back into her dream.
The horrible smoke, the scorching smell, were true.
A glare smote sky and trees and water, as she saw them from the window.
There was fire near her!
Could it be among the buildings of the mill?
The long, main structure ran several feet beyond the square projection within which she stood. Upon the other side, close to the front, quite away, of course, from all observation hence, joined, at right angles, another building, communicating and forming one with the first. Here were the carding rooms. Then beyond, detached, were houses for storage and other purposes connected with the business.
Was it from one of these the glare and smoke and suffocating burning smell were pouring?
Or, lay the danger nearer—within these close, contiguous walls?
Vainly she threw up the one window, and leaned forth.
She could not tell.
At this moment, Roger Armstrong, also, woke from out a dream.
In this strange, second life of ours, that replaces the life of day, do we not meet interiorly? Do not thoughts and knowledges cross, from spirit to spirit, over the abyss, that lip, and eye, and ear, in waking moments, neither send nor receive? That even mind itself is scarcely conscious of? Is not the great deep of being, wherein we rest, electric with a sympathetic life—and do not warnings and promises and cheer pulse in upon us, mysteriously, in these passive hours of the flesh, when soul only is awake and keen?
Do not two thoughts, two consciousnesses, call and answer to each other, mutely, in twin dreams of night?
Roger Armstrong came in, late, that evening, from a visit to a distant sick parishioner. Then he sat, writing, for an hour or two longer.
By and by, he threw down his pen—pushed back his armchair before his window—stretched his feet, wearily, into the deep, old-fashioned window seat—leaned his head back, and let the cool breeze stir his hair.
So it soothed him into sleep.
He dreamed of Faith. He dreamed he saw her stand, afar off, in some solitary place, and beckon, as it were, visibly, from a wide, invisible distance. He dreamed he struggled to obey her summons. He battled with the strange inertia of sleep. He strove—he gasped—he broke the spell and hastened on. He plunged—he climbed—he stood in a great din that bewildered and threatened; there was a lurid light that glowed intense about him as he went; in the midst of all—beyond—she beckoned still.
"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?"
These words broke forth from him aloud, as he started to his feet, and stretched his hands, impulsively, out before him, toward the open window.
His eyes flashed wide upon that crimson glare that flooded sky and field and river.
There was fire at the mills!
Not a sound, yet, from the sleeping village.
The heavy, close-fitting double doors between the countingroom and the great mill chamber were shut. Only by opening these and venturing forth, could Faith gain certain knowledge of her situation.
Once more she pulled them open and passed through.
A blinding smoke rushed thick about her, and made her gasp for breath. Up through the belt holes in the floor, toward the farther end of the long room, sprang little tongues of flame that leaped higher and higher, even while she strove for sight, that single, horrified, suffocating instant, and gleamed, mockingly, upon the burnished shafts of silent looms.
In at the windows on the left, came the vengeful shine of those other windows, at right angles, in the adjacent building. The carding rooms, and the whole front of the mill, below, were all in flames!
In frantic affright, in choking agony, Faith dashed herself back through the heavy doors, that swung on springs, and closed tightly once more after her.
Here, at the open window, she took breath. Must she wait here, helpless, for the fiery death?
Down below her, the narrow brink—the rushing river. No foothold—no chance for a descent. Behind her, only those two doors, barring out flame and smoke!
And the little footbridge, lying in the light across the water, and the green fields stretching away, cool and safe beyond. A little farther—her home!
"Fire!"
She cried the fearful word out upon the night, uselessly. There was no one near. The village slumbered on, away there to the left. The strong, deep shout of a man might reach it, but no tone of hers. There were no completed or occupied dwelling houses, as yet, about the new mills. Mr. Rushleigh was putting up some blocks; but, for the present, there was nothing nearer than the village proper of Kinnicutt on the one hand, and as far, or farther, on the other the houses at Lakeside.
The flames themselves, alone, could signal her danger, and summon help. How long would it be first?
Thoughts of father, mother, and little brother—thoughts of the kind friends at Lakeside, parted from but a few hours before—thoughts of the young lover to whom the answer he waited for should be given, perhaps, so awfully; through all, lighting, as it were, suddenly and searchingly, the deep places of her own soul, the thought—the feeling, rather, of that presence in her dream; of him who had led her, taught her, lifted her so, to high things; brought her nearer, by his ministry, to God! Of all human influence or love, his was nearest and strongest, spiritually, to her, now!
All at once, across these surging, crowding, agonizing feelings, rushed an inspiration for the present moment.
The water gate! The force pump!
The apparatus for working these lay at this end of the building. She had been shown the method of its operation; they had explained to her its purpose. It was perfectly simple. Only the drawing of a rope over a pulley—the turning of a faucet. She could do it, if she could only reach the spot.
Instantly and strangely, the cloud of terror seemed to roll away. Her faculties cleared. Her mind was all alert and quickened. She thought of things she had heard of years before, and long forgotten. That a wet cloth about the face would defend from smoke. That down low, close to the floor, was always a current of fresher air.
She turned a faucet that supplied a basin in the countingroom, held her handkerchief to it, and saturated it with water. Then she tied it across her forehead, letting it hang before her face like a veil. She caught a fold of it between her teeth.
And so, opening the doors between whose cracks the pent-up smoke was curling, she passed through, crouching down, andcrawled along the end of the chamber, toward the great rope in the opposite corner.
The fire was creeping thitherward, also, to meet her. Along from the front, down the chamber on the opposite side, the quick flames sprang and flashed, momently higher, catching already, here and there, from point to point, where an oiled belt or an unfinished web of cloth attracted their hungry tongues.
As yet, they were like separate skirmishers, sent out in advance; their mighty force not yet gathered and rolled together in such terrible sheet and volume as raged beneath.
She reached the corner where hung the rope.
Close by, was the faucet in the main pipe fed by the force pump. Underneath it, lay a coil of hose, attached and ready.
She turned the faucet, and laid hold of the long rope. A few pulls, and she heard the dashing of the water far below. The wheel was turning.
The pipes filled. She lifted the end of the coiled hose, and directed it toward the forward part of the chamber, where flames were wreathing, climbing, flashing. An impetuous column of water rushed, eager, hissing, upon blazing wood and heated iron.
Still keeping the hose in her grasp, she crawled back again, half stifled, yet a new hope of life aroused within her, to the double doors. Before these, with the little countingroom behind her, as her last refuge, she took her stand.
How long could she fight off death? Till help came?
All this had been done and thought quickly. There had been less time than she would have believed, since she first woke to the knowledge of this, her horrible peril.
The flames were already repulsed. The mill was being flooded. Down the belt holes the water poured upon the fiercer blaze below, that swept across the forward and central part of the great spinning room, from side to side.
At this moment, a cry, close at hand.
"Fire!"
A man was swaying by a rope, down from a third-story window.
"Fire!" came again, instantly, from without, upon another side.
It was a voice hoarse, excited, strained. A tone Faith had never heard before; yet she knew, by a mysterious intuition, from whom it came. She dropped the hose, still pouring out its torrent, to the floor, and sprang back, through the doors, to the countingroom window. The voice came from the riverside.
A man was dashing down the green slope, upon the footbridge.
Faith stretched her arms out, as a child might, wakened in pain and terror. A cry, in which were uttered the fear, the horror, that were now first fully felt, as a possible safety appeared, and the joy, that itself came like a sudden pang, escaped her, piercingly, thrillingly.
Roger Armstrong looked upward as he sprang upon the bridge.
He caught the cry. He saw Faith stand there, in her white dress, that had been wet and blackened in her battling with the fire.
A great soul glance of courage and resolve flashed from his eyes. He reached his uplifted arms toward her, answering hers. He uttered not a word.
"Round! round!" cried Faith. "The door upon the other side!"
Roger Armstrong, leaping to the spot, and Michael Garvin, escaped by the long rope that hung vibrating from his grasp, down the brick wall of the building, met at the staircase door.
"Help me drive that in!" cried the minister.
And the two men threw their stalwart shoulders against the barrier, forcing lock and hinges.
Up the stairs rushed Roger Armstrong.
Answering the crash of the falling door, came another and more fearful crash within.
Gnawed by the fire, the timbers and supports beneath the forward portion of the second floor had given way, and the heavy looms that stood there had gone plunging down. A horrible volume of smoke and steam poured upward, with the flames, from out the chasm, and rushed, resistlessly, everywhere.
Roger Armstrong dashed into the little countingroom. Faith lay there, on the floor. At that fearful crash, that rush of suffocating smoke, she had fallen, senseless. He seized her, frantically, in his arms to bear her down.
"Faith! Faith!" he cried, when she neither spoke nor moved. "My darling! Are you hurt? Are you killed? Oh, my God! must there be another?"
Faith did not hear these words, uttered with all the passionate agony of a man who would hold the woman he loves to his heart, and defy for her even death.
She came to herself in the open air. She felt herself in his arms. She only heard him say, tenderly and anxiously, in something of his old tone, as her consciousness returned, and he saw it:
"My dear child!"
But she knew then all that had been a mystery to her in herself before.
She knew that she loved Roger Armstrong. That it was not a love of gratitude and reverence, only; but that her very soul was rendered up to him, involuntarily, as a woman renders herself but once. That she would rather have died there, in that flame and smoke, held in his arms—gathered to his heart—than have lived whatever life of ease and pleasantness—aye, even of use—with any other! She knew that her thought, in those terrible moments before he came, had been—not father's or mother's, only; not her young lover, Paul's; but, deepest and mostly, his!