CHAPTER XXIX.HOME."The joy that knows thereisa joy—That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there!And, patient in its pure repose,Receiveth so the holier share."
"The joy that knows thereisa joy—That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there!And, patient in its pure repose,Receiveth so the holier share."
Faith's thought and courage saved the mill from utter destruction.
For one fearful moment, when that forward portion of the loom floor fell through, and flame, and vapor, and smoke rioted together in a wild alliance of fury, all seemed lost. But the great water wheel was plying on; the river fought the fire; the rushing, exhaustless streams were pouring out and down, everywhere; and the crowd that in a few moments after the first alarm, and Faith's rescue, gathered at the spot, found its work half done.
A little later, there were only sullen smoke, defeated, smoldering fires, blackened timbers, the burned carding rooms, and the ruin at the front, to tell the awful story of the night.
Mr. Armstrong had carried Faith into one of the unfinished factory houses. Here he was obliged to leave her for a few moments, after making such a rude couch for her as was possible, with a pile of clean shavings, and his own coat, which he insisted, against all her remonstrances, upon spreading above them.
"The first horse and vehicle which comes, Miss Faith, I shall impress for your service," he said; "and to do that I must leave you. I have made that frightened watchman promise to say nothing, at present, of your being here; so I trust the crowd may not annoy you. I shall not be gone long, nor far away."
The first horse and vehicle which came was the one that had brought her there in the afternoon but just past, yet that seemed, strangely, to have been so long ago.
Mr. Rushleigh found her lying here, quiet, amidst the growing tumult—exhausted, patient, waiting.
"My little Faithie!" he cried, coming up to her with hands outstretched, and a quiver of strong feeling in his voice. "To think that you should have been in this horrible danger, and we all lying in our beds, asleep! I do not quite understand it all. You must tell me, by and by. Armstrong has told me what you havedone. You have saved me half my property here—do you know it, child? Can I ever thank you for your courage?"
"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith, rising as he came to her, and holding her hands to his, "don't thank me! and don't wait here! They'll want you—and, oh! my kind friend! there will be nothing to thank me for, when I have told you what I must. I have been very near to death, and I have seen life so clearly! I know now what I did not know yesterday—what I could not answer you then!"
"Let it be as it may, I am sure it will be right and true, and I shall honor you, Faith! And we must bear what is, for it has come of the will of God, and not by any fault of yours. Now, let me take you home."
"May I do that in your stead, Mr. Rushleigh?" asked Roger Armstrong, who entered at this moment, with garments he had brought from somewhere to wrap Faith.
"I must go home," said Faith. "To Aunt Henderson's."
"You shall do as you like," answered Mr. Rushleigh. "But it belongs to us to care for you, I think."
"You do—you have cared for me already," said Faith, earnestly.
And Mr. Rushleigh helped to wrap her up, and kissed her forehead tenderly, and Roger Armstrong lifted her into the chaise, and seated himself by her, and drove her away from out the smoke and noise and curious crowd that had begun to find out she was there, and that she had been shut up in the mill, and had saved herself and stopped the fire; and would have made her as uncomfortable as crowds always do heroes or heroines—had it not been for the friend beside her, whose foresight and precaution had warded it all off.
And the mill owner went back among the villagers and firemen, to direct their efforts for his property.
Glory McWhirk had been up and watching the great fire, since Roger Armstrong first went out.
She had seen it from the window of Miss Henderson's room, where she was to sleep to-night; and had first carefully lowered the blinds lest the light should waken her mistress, who, after suffering much pain, had at length, by the help of an anodyne, fallen asleep; and then she had come round softly to the southwest room, to call the minister.
The door stood open, and she saw him sitting in his chair, asleep. Just as she crossed the threshold to come toward him, he started, and spoke those words out of his restless dream:
"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?"
They were instinct with his love. They were eager with his visionary fear. It only needed a human heart to interpret them.
Glory drew back as he sprang to his feet, and noiselessly disappeared. She would not have him know that she had heard this cry with which he waked.
"He dreamed about her! and he called her Faith. How beautiful it is to be cared for so!"
Glory—while we have so long been following Faith—had no less been living on her own, peculiar, inward life, that reached to, that apprehended, that seized ideally—that was denied, so much!
As Glory had seen, in the old years, children happier than herself, wearing beautiful garments, and "hair that was let to grow," she saw those about her now whom life infolded with a grace and loveliness she might not look for; about whom fair affections, "let to grow," clustered radiant, and enshrined them in their light.
She saw always something that was beyond; something she might not attain; yet, expectant of nothing, but blindly true to the highest within her, she lost no glimpse of the greater, through lowering herself to the less.
Her soul of womanhood asserted itself; longing, ignorantly, for a soul love. "To be cared for, so!"
But she would rather recognize it afar—rather have her joy in knowing the joy that might be—than shut herself from knowledge in the content of a common, sordid lot.
She did not think this deliberately, however; it was not reason, but instinct. She renounced unconsciously. She bore denial, and never knew she was denied.
Of course, the thought of daring to covet what she saw, had never crossed her, in her humbleness. It was quite away from her. It was something with which she had nothing to do. "But it must be beautiful to be like Miss Faith." And she thanked God, mutely, that she had this beautiful life near her, and could look on it every day.
She could not marry Luther Goodell.
"A vague unrestAnd a nameless longing filled her breast";
But, unlike the maiden of the ballad, she could not smother it down, to break forth, by and by, defying the "burden of life," in sweet bright vision, grown to a keen torture then.
Faith had read to her this story of Maud, one day.
"I shouldn't have done so," she had said, when it was ended. "I'd rather have kept that one minute under the apple trees to live on all the rest of my days!"
She could not marry Luther Goodell.
Would it have been better that she should? That she should have gone down from her dreams into a plain man's life, and made a plain man happy? Some women, of far higher mental culture and social place, have done this, and, seemingly, done well. Only God and their own hearts know if the seeming be true.
Glory waited. "Everybody needn't marry," she said.
This night, with those words of Mr. Armstrong's in her ears, revealing to her so much, she stood before that window of his and watched the fire.
Doors were open behind her, leading through to Miss Henderson's chamber. She would hear her mistress if she stirred.
If she had known what she did not know—that Faith Gartney stood at this moment in that burning mill, looking forth despairingly on those bright waters and green fields that lay between it and this home of hers—that were so near her, she might discern each shining pebble and the separate grass blades in the scarlet light, yet so infinitely far, so gone from her forever—had she known all this, without knowing the help and hope that were coming—she would yet have said "How beautiful it would be to be like Miss Faith!"
She watched the fire till it began to deaden, and the glow paled out into the starlight.
By and by, up from the direction of the river road, she saw a chaise approaching. It was stopped at the corner, by the bar place. Two figures descended from it, and entered upon the field path through the stile.
One—yes—it was surely the minister! The other—a woman. Who?
Miss Faith!
Glory met them upon the doorstone.
Faith held her finger up.
"I was afraid of disturbing my aunt," said she.
"Take care of her, Glory," said her companion. "She has been in frightful danger."
"At the fire! And you——"
"I was there in time, thank God!" spoke Roger Armstrong, from his soul.
The two girls passed through to the blue bedroom, softly.
Mr. Armstrong went back to the mills again, with horse and chaise.
Glory shut the bedroom door.
"Why, you are all wet, and draggled, and smoked!" saidshe, taking off Faith's outer, borrowed garments. "Whathashappened to you—and how came you there, Miss Faith?"
"I fell asleep in the countingroom, last evening, and got locked in. I was coming home. I can't tell you now, Glory. I don't dare to think it all over, yet. And we mustn't let Aunt Faith know that I am here."
These sentences they spoke in whispers.
Glory asked no more; but brought warm water, and bathed and rubbed Faith's feet, and helped her to undress, and put her night clothes on, and covered her in bed with blankets, and then went away softly to the kitchen, whence she brought back, presently, a cup of hot tea, and a biscuit.
"Take these, please," she said.
"I don't think I can, Glory. I don't want anything."
"But he told me to take care of you, Miss Faith!"
That, also, had a power with Faith. Because he had said that, she drank the tea, and then lay back—so tired!
"I waited up till you came, sir, because I thought you would like to know," said Glory, meeting Mr. Armstrong once more upon the doorstone, as he returned a second time from the fire. "She's gone to sleep, and is resting beautiful!"
"You are a good girl, Glory, and I thank you," said the minister; and he put his hand forth, and grasped hers as he spoke. "Now go to bed, and rest, yourself."
It was reward enough.
From the plenitude that waits on one life, falls a crumb that stays the craving of another.
CHAPTER XXX.AUNT HENDERSON'S MYSTERY."Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,And I said in underbreath,—All our life is mixed with death,And who knoweth which is best?"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,—Round our restlessness, His rest."Mrs. Browning."So the dreams depart,So the fading phantoms flee,And the sharp realityNow must act its part."Westwood.
"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,And I said in underbreath,—All our life is mixed with death,And who knoweth which is best?
"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,—Round our restlessness, His rest."
Mrs. Browning.
"So the dreams depart,So the fading phantoms flee,And the sharp realityNow must act its part."
Westwood.
It was a little after noon of the next day, when Mr. Rushleigh came to Cross Corners.
Faith was lying back, quite pale, and silent—feeling very weak after the terror, excitement, and fatigue she had gone through—in the large easy-chair which had been brought for her into the southeast room. Miss Henderson had been removed from her bed to the sofa here, and the two were keeping each other quiet company. Neither could bear the strain of nerve to dwell long or particularly on the events of the night. The story had been told, as simply as it might be; and the rest and the thankfulness were all they could think of now. So there were deep thoughts and few words between them. On Faith's part, a patient waiting for a trial yet before her.
"It's Mr. Rushleigh, come over to see Miss Faith. Shall I bring him in?" asked Glory, at the door.
"Will you mind it, aunt?" asked Faith.
"I? No," said Miss Henderson. "Will you mind my being here? That's the question. I'd take myself off, without asking, if I could, you know."
"Dear Aunt Faith! There is something I have to say to Mr. Rushleigh which will be very hard to say, but no more so because you will be by to hear it. It is better so. I shall only have to say it once. I am glad you should be with me."
"Brave little Faithie!" said Mr. Rushleigh, coming in with hands outstretched. "Not ill, I hope?"
"Only tired," Faith answered. "And a little weak, and foolish," as the tears would come, in answer to his cordial words.
"I am sorry. Miss Henderson, that I could not have persuaded this little girl to go home with me last night—this morning, rather. But she would come to you."
"She did just right," Aunt Faith replied. "It's the proper place for her to come to. Not but that we thank you all the same. You're very kind."
"Kinder than I have deserved," whispered Faith, as he took his seat beside her.
Mr. Rushleigh would not let her lead him that way yet. He ignored the little whisper, and by a gentle question or two drew from her that which he had come, especially, to learn and speak of to-day—the story of the fire, and her own knowledge of, and share in it, as she alone could tell it.
Now, for the first time, as she recalled it to explain her motive for entering the mill at all, the rough conversation she had overheard between the two men upon the river bank, suggested to Faith, as the mention of it was upon her lips, a possible clew to the origin of the mischief. She paused, suddenly, and a look of dismayed hesitation came over her face.
"I ought to tell you all, I suppose," she continued. "But pray, sir, do not conclude anything hastily. The two things may have had nothing to do with each other."
And then, reluctantly, she repeated the angry threat that had come to her ears.
Pausing, timidly, to look up in her listener's face, to judge of its expression, a smile there surprised her.
"See how truth is always best," said Mr. Rushleigh. "If you had kept back your knowledge of this, you would have sealed up a painful doubt for your own tormenting. That man, James Regan, came to me this morning. There is good in the fellow, after all. He told me, just as you have, and as Hardy did, the words he spoke in passion. He was afraid, he said, they might be brought up against him. And so he came to 'own up,' and account for his time; and to beg me to believe that he never had any definite thought of harm. I told him I did believe it; and then the poor fellow, rough as he is, turned pale, and burst into tears. Last night gave him a lesson, I think, that will go far to take the hardness out of him. Blasland says, 'he worked like five men and a horse,' at the fire."
Faith's face glowed as she listened, at the nobleness of these two; of the generous, Christian gentleman—of the coarse workman, who wore his nature, like his garb—the worse part of an everyday.
Fire and loss are not all calamity, when such as this comes of them.
Her own recital was soon finished.
Mr. Rushleigh listened, giving his whole sympathy to the danger she had faced, his fresh and fervent acknowledgment and admiring praise to the prompt daring she had shown, as if these things, and naught else, had been in either mind.
At these thanks—at this praise—Faith shrank.
"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" she interrupted, with a low, pained, humbled entreaty—"don't speak so! Only forgive me—if you can!"
Her hands lifted themselves with a slight, imploring gesture toward him. He laid his own upon them, gently, soothingly.
"I will not have you trouble or reproach yourself, Faith," he answered, meeting her meaning, frankly, now. "There are things beyond our control. All we can do is to be simply true. There is something, I know, which you think lies between us to be spoken of. Do not speak at all, if it be hard for you. I will tell the boy that it was a mistake—that it cannot be."
But the father's lip was a little unsteady, to his own feeling, as he said the words.
"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith. "If everything could only be put back as it was, in the old days before all this!"
"But that is what we can't do. Nothing goes back precisely to what it was before."
"No," said Aunt Faith, from her sofa. "And never did, since the days of Humpty Dumpty. You might be glad to, but you can't do it. Things must just be made the best of, as they are. And they're never just alike, two minutes together. They're altering, and working, and going on, all the time. And that's a comfort, too, when you come to think of it."
"There is always comfort, somehow, when there has been no willful wrong. And there has been none here, I am sure."
Faith, with the half smile yet upon her face, called there by her aunt's quaint speaking, bent her head, and burst into tears.
"I came to reassure and to thank you, Faith—not to let you distress yourself so," said Mr. Rushleigh. "Margaret sent all kind messages; but I would not bring her. I thought it would be too much for you, so soon. Another day, she will come. We shall always claim old friendship, my child, and remember our new debt; though the old days themselves cannot quite be brought back again as they were. There may be better days, though, even, by and by."
"Let Margaret know, before she comes, please," whispered Faith. "I don't think I could tell her."
"You shall not have a moment of trial that I can spare you. But—Paul will be content with nothing, as a final word, that does not come from you."
"I will see him when he comes. I wish it. Oh, sir! I am so sorry."
"And so am I, Faith. We must all be sorry. But we areonlysorry. And that is all that need be said."
The conversation, after this, could not be prolonged. Mr. Rushleigh took his leave, kindly, as he had made his greeting.
"Oh, Aunt Faith! What a terrible thing I have done!"
"What a terrible thing you came near doing, you mean, child! Be thankful to the Lord—He's delivered you from it! And look well to the rest of your life, after all this. Out of fire and misery you must have been saved for something!"
Then Aunt Faith called Glory, and told her to bring an egg, beat up in milk—"to a good froth, mind; and sugared and nut-megged, and a teaspoonful of brandy in it."
This she made Faith swallow, and then bade her put her feet up on the sofa, and lean back, and shut her eyes, and not speak another word till she'd had a nap.
All which, strangely enough, Faith—wearied, troubled, yet relieved—obeyed.
For the next two days, what with waiting on the invalids—for Faith was far from well—and with answering the incessant calls at the door of curious people flocking to inquire, Glory McWhirk was kept busy and tired. But not with a thankless duty, as in the days gone by, that she remembered; it was heart work now, and brought heart love as its reward. It was one of her "real good times."
Mr. Armstrong talked and read with them, and gave hand help and ministry also, just when it could be given most effectually.
It was a beautiful lull of peace between the conflict that was past, and the final pang that was to come. Faith accepted it with a thankfulness. Such joy as this was all life had for her, henceforth. There was no restlessness, no selfishness in the love that had so suddenly asserted itself, and borne down all her doubts. She thought not of it, as love, any more. She never dreamed of being other to Mr. Armstrong than she was. Only, that other life had become impossible to her. Here, if she might not elsewhere, she had gone back to the things that were. She could be quite content and happy, so. It was enough to rest in such a friendship. If only she had once seen Paul, and if he could but bear it!
And Roger Armstrong, of intent, was just what he had always been—the kind and earnest friend—the ready helper—no more. He knew Faith Gartney had a trouble to bear; he had read her perplexity—her indecision; he had feared, unselfishly, for the mistake she was making. Miss Henderson had told him, now, in few, plain words, how things were ending; he strove, in all pleasant and thoughtful ways, to soothe and beguile her from her harassment. He dreamed not how the light had come to her that had revealed to her the insufficiency of that other love. He laid his own love back, from his own sight.
So, calmly, and with what peace they might, these hours went on.
"I want to see that Sampson woman," said Aunt Faith, suddenly,to her niece, on the third afternoon of their being together. "Do you think she would come over here if I should send for her?"
Faith flashed a surprised look of inquiry to Miss Henderson's face.
"Why, aunt?" she asked.
"Never mind why, child. I can't tell you now. Of course it's something, or I shouldn't want her. Something I should like to know, and that I suppose she could tell me. Do you think she'd come?"
"Why, yes, auntie. I don't doubt it. I might write her a note."
"I wish you would. Mr. Armstrong says he'll drive over. And I'd like to have you do it right off. Now, don't ask me another word about it, till she's been here."
Faith wrote the note, and Mr. Armstrong went away.
Miss Henderson seemed to grow tired, to-day, after her dinner, and at four o'clock she said to Glory, abruptly:
"I'll go to bed. Help me into the other room."
Faith offered to go too, and assist her. But her aunt said, no, she should do quite well with Glory. "And if the Sampson woman comes, send her in to me."
Faith was astonished, and a little frightened.
What could it be that Miss Henderson wanted with the nurse? Was it professionally that she wished to see her? She knew the peculiar whim, or principle, Miss Sampson always acted on, of never taking cases of common illness. She could not have sent for her in the hope of keeping her merely to wait upon her wants as an invalid, and relieve Glory? Was her aunt aware of symptoms in herself, foretokening other or more serious illness?
Faith could only wonder, and wait.
Glory came back, presently, into the southeast room, to say to Faith that her aunt was comfortable, and thought she should get a nap. But that whenever the nurse came, she was to be shown in to her.
The next half hour, that happened which drove even this thought utterly from Faith's mind.
Paul Rushleigh came.
Faith lay, a little wearily, upon the couch her aunt had quitted; and was thinking, at the very moment—with that sudden, breathless anticipation that sweeps over one, now and then, of a thing awaited apprehensively—of whether this Saturday night would not probably bring him home—when she caught the sound of a horse's feet that stopped before the house, and then a man's step upon the stoop.
It was his. The moment had come.
She sprang to her feet. For an instant she would have fled—anywhither.Then she grew strangely calm and strong. She must meet him quietly. She must tell him plainly. Tell him, if need be, all she knew herself. He had a right to all.
Paul came in, looking grave; and greeted her with a gentle reserve.
A moment, they stood there as they had met, she with face pale, sad, that dared not lift itself; he, not trusting himself to the utterance of a word.
But he had come there, not to reproach, or to bewail; not even to plead. To hear—to bear with firmness—what she had to tell him. And there was, in truth, a new strength and nobleness in look and tone, when, presently, he spoke.
If he had had his way—if all had gone prosperously with him—he would have been, still—recipient of his father's bounty, and accepted of his childish love—scarcely more than a mere, happy boy. This pain, this struggle, this first rebuff of life, crowned him, a man.
Faith might have loved him, now, if she had so seen him, first.
Yet the hour would come when he should know that it had been better as it was. That so he should grow to that which, otherwise, he had never been.
"Faith! My father has told me. That it must be all over. That it was a mistake. I have come to hear it from you."
Then he laid in her hand his father's letter.
"This came with yours," he said. "After this, I expected all the rest."
Faith took the open sheet, mechanically. With half-blinded eyes, she glanced over the few earnest, fatherly, generous lines. When she came to the last, she spoke, low.
"Yes. That is it. He saw it. It would have been no true marriage, Paul, before Heaven!"
"Then why did I love you, Faith?" cried the young man, impetuously.
"I don't know," she said, meditatively, as if she really were to answer that. "Perhaps you will come to love again, differently, yet, Paul; and then you may know why this has been."
"I know," said Paul, sadly, "that you have been outgrowing me, Faith. I have felt that. I know I've been nothing but a careless, merry fellow, living an outside sort of life; and I suppose it was only in this outside companionship you liked me. But there might be something more in me, yet; and you might have brought it out, maybe. Youwerebringing it out. You, and the responsibilities my father put upon me. But it's too late, now. It can't be helped."
"Not too late, Paul, for that noble part of you to grow. It was that I came so near really loving at the last. But—Paul! a woman don't want to lead her husband. She wants to be led.I have thought," she added, timidly, "so much of that verse in the Epistle—'the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.'"
"You camenearloving me!" cried Paul, catching at this sentence, only, out of all that should, by and by, nevertheless, come out in letters of light upon his thought and memory. "Oh, Faith! you may, yet! It isn't all quite over?"
Then Faith Gartney knew she must say it all. All—though the hot crimson flushed up painfully, and the breath came quick, and she trembled from head to foot, there, where she stood. But the truth, mighty, and holy in its might, came up from heart to lip, and the crimson paled, and the breath grew calm, and she stood firm with her pure resolve, even in her maidenly shame, before him.
There are instants, when all thought of the moment itself, and the look and the word of it, are overborne and lost.
"No, Paul. I will tell you truly. With my little, childish heart, I loved you. With the love of a dear friend, I hold you still, and shall hold you, always. But, Paul!—no one else knows it, and I never knew it till I stood face to face with death—with mysoulI have come to love another!"
Deep and low these last words were—given up from the very innermost, and spoken with bowed head and streaming eyes.
Paul Rushleigh took her hand. A manly reverence in him recognized the pure courage that unveiled her woman's heart, and showed him all.
"Faith!" he said, "you have never deceived me. You are always noble. Forgive me that I have made you struggle to love me!"
With these words, he went.
Faith flung herself upon the sofa, and hid her face in its cushion, hearing, through her sobs, the tread of his horse as he passed down the road.
This chapter of her life story was closed.
CHAPTER XXXI.NURSE SAMPSON'S WAY OF LOOKING AT IT."I can believe, it shall you grieve,And somewhat you distrain;But afterward, your paines hard,Within a day or twain,Shall soon aslake; and ye shall takeComfort to you again."Old English Ballad.
"I can believe, it shall you grieve,And somewhat you distrain;But afterward, your paines hard,Within a day or twain,Shall soon aslake; and ye shall takeComfort to you again."
Old English Ballad.
Glory looked in, once, at the southeast room, and saw Faith lying, still with hidden face; and went away softly, shutting the door behind her as she went.
When Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came, she met them at the front entrance, and led the nurse directly to her mistress, as she had been told.
Mr. Armstrong betook himself to his own room. Perhaps the hollow Paul Rushleigh's horse had pawed at the gatepost, and the closed door of the keeping room, revealed something to his discernment that kept him from seeking Faith just then.
There was a half hour of quiet in the old house. A quiet that ever brooded very much.
Then Nurse Sampson came out, with a look on her face that made Faith gaze upon her with an awed feeling of expectation. She feared, suddenly, to ask a question.
It was not a long-drawn look of sympathy. It was not surprised, nor shocked, nor excited. It was a look of business. As if she knew of work before her to do. As if Nurse Sampson were in her own proper element, once more.
Faith knew that something—she could not guess what—something terrible, she feared—had happened, or was going to happen, to her aunt.
It was in the softening twilight that Miss Henderson sent for her to come in.
Aunt Faith leaned against her pillows, looking bright and comfortable, even cheerful; but there was a strange gentleness in look and word and touch, as she greeted the young girl who came to her bedside with a face that wore at once its own subduedness of fresh-past grief, and a wondering, loving apprehension of something to be disclosed concerning the kind friend who lay there, invested so with such new grace of tenderness.
Was there a twilight, other than that of day, softening, also, around her?
"Little Faith!" said Aunt Henderson. Her very voice had taken an unwonted tone.
"Auntie! It is surely something very grave! Will you not tell me?"
"Yes, child. I mean to tell you. It may be grave. Most things are, if we had the wisdom to see it. But it isn't very dreadful. It's what I've had warning enough of, and had mostly made up my mind to. But I wasn't quite sure. Now, I am. I suppose I've got to bear some pain, and go through a risk that will be greater, at my years, than it would have been if I'd been younger. And I may die. That's all."
The words, of old habit, were abrupt. The eye and voice were tender with unspoken love.
Faith turned to Miss Sampson, who sat by.
"And then, again, she mayn't," said the nurse. "I shall stay and see her through. There'll have to be an operation. At least, I think so. We'll have the doctor over, to-morrow. And now, if there's one thing more important than another, it's to keep her cheerful. So, if you've got anything bright and lively to say, speak out! If not,keepout! She'll do well enough, I dare say."
Poor Faith! And, without this new trouble, there was so much that she, herself, was needing comfort for!
"You're a wise woman, Nurse Sampson. But you don't know everything," said Aunt Faith. "The best thing to take people out of their own worries, is to go to work and find out how other folks' worries are getting on. He's been here, hasn't he, child?"
It was not so hard for Aunt Faith, who had borne secretly, so long, the suspicion of what was coming, and had lived on, calmly, nevertheless, in her daily round, to turn thus from the announcement of her own state and possible danger, to thought and inquiry for the affairs of another, as it was for that other, newly apprised, and but half apprised, even, of what threatened, to leave the subject there, and answer. But she saw that Miss Henderson spoke only truth in declaring it was the best way to take her out of her worries; she read Nurse Sampson's look, and saw that she, at any rate, was quite resolved her patient should not be let to dwell longer on any painful or apprehensive thought, and she put off all her own anxious questionings, till she should see the nurse alone, and said, in a low tone—yes, Paul Rushleigh had been there.
"And you've told him the truth, like a woman, and he's heard it like a man?"
"I've told him it must be given up. Oh, it was hard, auntie!"
"You needn't worry. You've done just the rightest thing you could do."
"But it seems so selfish. As if my happiness were of so much more consequence than his. I've made him so miserable, I'm afraid!"
"Miss Sampson!" cried Aunt Faith, with all her old oddity and suddenness, "just tell this girl, if you know, what kind of a commandment a woman breaks, if she can't make up her mind to marry the first man that asks her! 'Tain't inmyDecalogue!"
"I can't tell what commandment she won't be likely to break, if she isn't pretty sure of her own mind before shedoesmarry!" said Miss Sampson, energetically. "Talk of making a man miserable! Supposing you do for a little while? 'Twon't last long. Right's right, and settles itself. Wrong never does. And there isn't a greater wrong than to marry the wrong man. To him as well as to you. And it won't end there—that's the worst of it. There's more concerned than just yourself and him; though you mayn't know how, or who. It's an awful thing to tangle up and disarrange the plans of Providence. And more of it's done, I verily believe, in this matter of marrying, than any other way. It's like mismatching anything else—gloves or stockings—and wearing the wrong ones together. They don't fit; and more'n that, it spoils another pair. I believe, as true as I live, if the angels ever do cry over this miserable world, it's when they see the souls they have paired off, all right, out of heaven, getting mixed up and mismated as they do down here! Why, it's fairly enough to account for all the sin and misery there is in the world! If it wasn't for Adam and Eve and Cain, I should think it did!"
"But it's very hard," said Faith, smiling, despite all her saddening thoughts, at the characteristic harangue, "always to know wrong from right. People may make mistakes, if they mean ever so well."
"Yes, awful mistakes! There's that poor, unfortunate woman in the Bible. I never thought the Lord meant any reflection by what he said—on her. She'd had six husbands. And he knew she hadn't got what she bargained for, after all. Most likely she never had, in the whole six. And if things had got into such a snarl as that eighteen hundred years ago, how many people, do you think, by this time, are right enough in themselves to be right for anybody? I've thought it all over, many a time. I've had reasons of my own, and I've seen plenty of reasons as I've gone about the world. And my conclusion is, that matrimony's come to be more of a discipline, nowadays, than anything else!"
It was strange cheer; and it came at a strange moment; with the very birth of a new anxiety. But so our moments and their influences are mingled. Faith was roused, strengthened, confirmed in her own thought of right, beguiled out of herself, by the words of these two odd, plain-dealing women, as she would not have been if a score of half-comprehending friends had soothed her indirectly with inanities, and delicate half-handlingof that which Aunt Faith and Nurse Sampson went straight to the heart of, and brought out, uncompromisingly, into the light. So much we can endure from a true earnestness and simplicity, rough and homely though it be, which would be impertinent and intolerable if it came but with surface sympathy.
She had a word that night from Robert Armstrong, when he came, late in the evening, from a conversation with Aunt Faith, and found her at the open door upon the stoop. It was only a hand grasp, and a fervent "God bless you, child! You have been brave and true!" and he passed on. But a balm and a quiet fell deep into her heart, and a tone, that was a joy, lingered in her ear, and comforted her as no other earthly comfort could. But this was not all earthly; it lifted her toward heaven. It bore her toward the eternal solace there.
Aunt Faith would have no scenes. She told the others, in turn, very much as she had told Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a wail. There was something for each to do.
Miss Henderson, by Nurse Sampson's advice, remained mostly in her bed. In fact, she had kept back the announcement of this ailment of hers, just so long as she could resist its obvious encroachment. The twisted ankle had been, for long, a convenient explanation of more than its own actual disability.
But it was not a sick room—one felt that—this little limited bound in which her life was now visibly encircled. All the cheer of the house was brought into it. If people were sorry and fearful, it was elsewhere. Neither Aunt Faith nor the nurse would let anybody into "their hospital," as Miss Sampson said, "unless they came with a bright look for a pass." Every evening, the great Bible was opened there, and Mr. Armstrong read with them, and uttered for them words that lifted each heart, with its secret need and thankfulness, to heaven. All together, trustfully, and tranquilly, they waited.
Dr. Wasgatt had been called in. Quite surprised he was, at this new development. He "had thought there was something a little peculiar in her symptoms." But he was one of those Æsculapian worthies who, having lived a scientifically uneventful life, plodding quietly along in his profession among people who had mostly been ill after very ordinary fashions, and who required only the administering of stereotyped remedies, according to the old stereotyped order and rule, had quite forgotten to think of the possibility of any unusual complications. If anybody were taken ill of a colic, and sent for him and told him so, for a colic he prescribed, according to outward indications. The subtle signs that to a keener or more practiced discernment,might have betokened more, he never thought of looking for. What then? All cannot be geniuses; most men just learn a trade. It is only a Columbus who, by the drift along the shore of the fact or continent he stands on, predicates another, far over, out of sight.
Surgeons were to come out from Mishaumok to consult. Mr. and Mrs. Gartney would be home, now, in a day or two, and Aunt Faith preferred to wait till then. Mis' Battis opened the Cross Corners house, and Faith went over, daily, to direct the ordering of things there.
"Faith!" said Miss Henderson, on the Wednesday evening when they were to look confidently for the return of their travelers next day, "come here, child! I have something to say to you."
Faith was sitting alone, there, with her aunt, in the twilight.
"There's one thing on my mind, that I ought to speak of, as things have turned out. When I thought, a few weeks ago, that you were provided for, as far as outside havings go, I made a will, one day. Look in that right-hand upper bureau drawer, and you'll find a key, with a brown ribbon to it. That'll unlock a black box on the middle shelf of the closet. Open it, and take out the paper that lies on the top, and bring it to me."
Faith did all this, silently.
"Yes, this is it," said Miss Henderson, putting on her glasses, which were lying on the counterpane, and unfolding the single sheet, written out in her own round, upright, old-fashioned hand. "It's an old woman's whim; but if you don't like it, it shan't stand. Nobody knows of it, and nobody'll be disappointed. I had a longing to leave some kind of a happy life behind me, if I could, in the Old House. It's only an earthly clinging and hankering, maybe; but I'd somehow like to feel sure, being the last of the line, that there'd be time for my bones to crumble away comfortably into dust, before the old timbers should come down. I meant, once, you should have had it all; but it seemed as if you wasn't going toneedit, and as if there was going to be other kind of work cut out for you to do. And I'm persuaded there is yet, somewhere. So I've done this; and I want you to know it beforehand, in case anything goes wrong—no, not that, but unexpectedly—with me."
She reached out the paper, and Faith took it from her hand. It was not long in reading.
A light shone out of Faith's eyes, through the tears that sprang to them, as she finished it, and gave it back.
"Aunt Faith!" she said, earnestly. "It is beautiful! I am so glad! But, auntie! You'll get well, I know, and begin it yourself!"
"No," said Miss Henderson, quietly. "I may get over this, and I don't say I shouldn't be glad to. But I'm an old tree, and the ax is lying, ground, somewhere, that's to cut me down before very long. Old folks can't change their ways, and begin new plans and doings. I'm only thankful that the Lord has sent me a thought that lightens all the dread I've had for years about leaving the old place; and that I can go, thinking maybe there'll be His work doing in it as long as it stands."
"I don't know," she resumed, after a pause, "how your father's affairs are now. The likelihood is, if he has any health, that he'll go into some kind of a venture again before very long. But I shall have a talk with him, and if he isn't satisfied I'll alter it so as to do something more for you."
"Something more!" said Faith. "But you have done a great deal, as it is! I didn't say so, because I was thinking so much of the other."
"It won't make an heiress of you," said Aunt Faith. "But it'll be better than nothing, if other means fall short. And I don't feel, somehow, as if you need be a burden on my mind. There's a kind of a certainty borne in on me, otherwise. I can't help thinking that what I've done has been a leading. And if it has, it's right. Now, put this back, and tell Miss Sampson she may bring my gruel."