CHAPTER XVIII
“Rhoda,” called Mrs. Ware from the veranda steps, “will you come here, please?”
Rhoda was standing between the rows of lilac that hedged the walk to the front gate, inspecting the swelling buds and saying to herself with pleasure that they looked as if they would bloom early that year. The lilac was her best-loved flower and these two lines of bushes had been planted because of her pleading, ten years before. Every season she watched anxiously for the buds to show sign of returning life, and Charlotte declared that after they began to swell she measured them with a tape line every day to mark their growth. When they bloomed she kept bowls of the flowers all over the house and was rarely without a spray in her hair or her dress.
Mrs. Ware noted that her daughter’s step was not as brisk as usual and saw that the glow was gone from her face, while into her eyes had come a look of wistfulness. Believing she knew the cause, she longed to take the girl in her arms and say, “Don’t worry, dear. He’ll be here soon, I’m sure, for I wrote to him to come.” But she thought it best to keep her own secrets and so what she said was:
“Mrs. Winston has just sent word that little Harriet is worse and she wants your father to come at once. He’s not likely to be back here before noon. So I want you to drive me over to their house and then take the message to your father—I know where he is—so he can stop there before he comes home. Get ready at once, honey. I’ve told Jim to harness up, and I’ve only to put on my bonnet.”
Charlotte watched them as they drove down the hill, thinking discontentedly, “Mother doesn’t care half as much about me as she does about Rhoda. She’d just give her eyes to have Rhoda marry Jeff, and she never shows the least interest that way in me. I don’t believe she’d care if I was to be an old maid. An old maid! Oh, la! Well, I’m not going to, and I’ll not marry anybody in Hillside, either.”
Looking rather pleased with herself at this ultimatum she sauntered into the house and the notes of the “Battle of Prague” were soon resounding through the silent rooms. But the clanging of the knocker at the front door presently crashed them into discord. A moment later she crossed the hall into the parlor, whither Lizzie had shown Jefferson Delavan, thinking:
“What good luck there’s nobody at home but me! I wish Rhoda had refused him again first. Well, I’ll tell him she’s going to.”
A twinkle of amusement came now and theninto Delavan’s eyes as he watched the airs and graces, the sidelong glances, and all the dainty feminine tricks of movement and gesture and poise with which Charlotte accompanied her conversation. It was not her physical habit ever to remain quietly seated, or even in the same position for more than a few minutes. Her restless spirits, her active body and her native vivacity of manner combined to keep her in motion almost as incessant and quite as unconscious as that of a bird flitting about in a tree. Although she did not know it this habit was one of her most charming characteristics. She had a certain dignity of carriage, like her mother’s, which made itself manifest, notwithstanding her absurdly large hoopskirt, and this, with her grace of action and of posture, made her movements always pleasing to look at, while her bird-like flights gave an elusiveness to her manner that enhanced her charm.
She saw the admiration in Delavan’s face as his eyes followed her, and tilted her skirts in a way that would have scandalized her mother, although she observed that her companion seemed not at all dismayed by the glimpses of slender foot and ankle that she made possible. That occasional twinkle of amusement she took as a tribute to her gaiety and laughed and chattered all the more.
“Has your true heart been pining, Miss Charlotte?” he presently asked in a quizzical tone, ashe leaned upon the back of her chair, looking down smilingly into her pretty, upturned face.
She flushed a little, but made wide eyes at him and said, “What do you mean?”
“Oh, I was given to understand that some hearts in Hillside are in a rather bad way. Is yours true and does it pine?”
She made a graceful little gesture and turned upon him with a merry face and a look distinctly provocative: “Suppose it was, either or both, what would it matter to you?”
She looked up at him, smiling, with saucy lips and inviting eyes, and before she knew what he was doing he had slipped an arm around her waist and lifted her to her feet. She struggled to free herself, but he held her against his breast, pushed back her head and kissed her squarely upon the lips, once, twice, and thrice. With her hands against his chest she tried to push him away and struggled to turn her face from his. But she was helpless in his grasp until he released her.
“You brute!” she exclaimed, dashing the angry tears from her eyes. “How dare you!”
He leaned against the back of the chair, hand in pocket, and laughed indulgently. “Didn’t you want me to? It looked that way.”
“Of course I didn’t,” she stormed. “You’re a horrid thing, and I hate you!”
“Well, I’m glad to know you didn’t. It’s much better that you were only pretending.”
“How do you think Rhoda will take it, when I tell her? And I shall!”
“Oh, tell her if you like. But how doyouthink she will take your trying to persuade a kiss from her lover?”
Her eyes blazed angrily and she stamped her foot, but said nothing.
“Never mind, little sister,” he went on, patting her shoulder. “I was only giving you a lesson, and it’s much better to keep such things in the family. Remember after this that if you ask a man so plainly to kiss you he’s very likely to do it.”
“Don’t call me ‘sister,’ you horrid thing! I’m not!” she exclaimed, turning away.
“I hope you will be some day.”
“I won’t! Rhoda isn’t going to marry you!”
“So she’s told me a number of times!” and he laughed again, an easy, happy, self-satisfied laugh.
She faced about, curiosity in her heart. Had something happened without her knowledge? Would he seem so sure, would he wear openly that look of confident love if Rhoda had not accepted him? The imp of mischief stirred once more in her breast. She moved a step nearer.
“Say, do you know, Jeff, that’s the first time a man ever kissed me!”
“You’ve had better luck than you deserve, little sister.”
“If you’re so much in love with Rhoda what did you want to do it for?”
“Why did you look as if you wanted me to if you didn’t?”
“I didn’t look that way!”
“Oh, didn’t you? Then my previous observations have been at fault. Perhaps I thought I’d like to find out why you sent me that anonymous letter. At first I thought you meant it as a hint for Rhoda’s sake. But after you’d been five minutes in this room it seemed to me that you were taking very queer means for advancing her interests. If you had unfortunately fallen in love with me yourself it wouldn’t have been quite so bad. But you haven’t, little sister, you haven’t. You’d have wanted me to kiss you again if you had.”
“You’re a horrid brute, that’s what you are, and I hate you!”
“I’m sorry to hear it, for I’ve always liked you, and you’re Rhoda’s sister. But I hope you’ll remember that treachery isn’t a nice thing, in either love or war.”
She moved uncertainly toward the door and, glancing through the window, saw her sister drive past the front gate. “There’s Rhoda!” she exclaimed, casting back at him a fiery glance. “I shall tell her just the sort of man you are!” But she did not forget to give her hoopskirt an extra tilt as she dashed out. Delavan, noting it, smiled as he followed her to the door and cast a glanceafter her figure, hurriedly retreating up the stairs.
Rhoda did not know that Jeff was there until she came into the hall through the office and saw him standing in the parlor door. “Sweetheart!” he called in low tones, and moved toward her, with outstretched hand. A glad light came into her face at sight of him, but she stood still and did not speak, until he was at her side.
“Don’t, Jeff! When I have told you so many times it can’t be!” she pleaded, and drew away from him as he would take her in his arms.
“I know, dearest! But it’s different now, when I know what you really want!”
She turned so that he could not see her face and asked with a sort of gasp, “What do you mean?”
If he could have seen her countenance as she stood with face averted, finger on lip, listening breathlessly for his reply, nothing would have prevented him from seizing her in his arms and doing as she had begged in the letter she had not meant him to see. For it glowed with love and trembled upon surrender and shone with gladness that he knew her inmost heart.
“Ah, Rhoda Ware, I know your secret now!” He was bending near her, his hands hovering over her, but still he would not touch her while she seemed unwilling. “I know, now, how much you love me, and how ready at last you are to give up to your heart. Come then, dear one, or I shall surely do as you bade me in your letter!”
A sudden stiffening and shrinking in her attitude made him fall back a step and look at her anxiously. Slowly, very slowly, she turned, lifting her head, until she faced him. And slowly the love-light and the trembling nearness to surrender faded out of her countenance and left it drawn with the effort by which she had forced herself once more to the point of denial, with lips compressed and gray eyes steely with resolution.
“Jeff,” she began, and her voice was unsteady, “it’s not fair to either of us that you saw what I wrote. I didn’t mean to put that into my letter—I wrote it out only because my heart ached so and it seemed some relief. But I thought I’d burned it. I’m sorry it got mixed in with the other sheets. But it was a mistake, and you’ll forgive me, won’t you, dear Jeff, and you won’t feel that it was a promise?”
Her voice fell away into pleading tones and she stood hesitating, poised, as if wishing him to stand aside and let her pass. With instinctive deference he stepped aside and she moved quickly to the foot of the stairs. But he sprang after her and seized her hand, exclaiming, as he drew her into the parlor, “No, Rhoda! I shall not let you ruin both our lives and break both our hearts, after that glimpse you gave me of yours!”
She steadied herself for the struggle she knew must come, and suddenly felt her nerves grow firm and her brain clear, as they always did when shefaced great need. She was calmer than he and more mistress of herself as she said:
“I can’t say anything different to what I’ve always said, and said in that letter, that I feel to the bottom of my heart that slavery is such a wrong, such a curse, such a horrible thing that I can’t marry you because you believe in it and are a part of it.”
“‘Don’t, Jeff, please don’t!’ she pleaded.”
He gazed at her silently a moment, and the love in his face, that had but just now been more of the body than of the soul, was transfused with admiration of her spirit. “And you can still say that to me,” he marveled in hushed accents, “after your heart has ached as it must have when you wrote those lines?”
She dropped her eyes lest he see the sudden start of tears. It was a subtle undermining of her defenses, had he known it, thus to cease demanding and reveal such understanding and sympathy. Of such sort was her ideal love, and it hurt more than ever to put it from her. One hand was pressed against her heart, as if she could thus lessen the physical pain, and she said piteously, “It’s aching now, Jeff!”
He looked at her irresolutely. Her drooping figure, her averted face, her trembling voice—they were all such a plea of weakness to strength, of feminine trust to masculine power to help, that even if he had not loved her the impulse to take her in his arms and comfort her would have beenwell-nigh overpowering. But he knew not what unexpected visage her spirit might next reveal and he had already learned that, although the primitive woman in her might call loudly one moment, in the next the civilized woman would thrust her into her cave and in dignity and strength stand guard at the door. For a moment he wavered, then with clenched hands turned on his heel and walked across the room, exclaiming:
“And you won’t let me stop it, you won’t let me comfort you!” Then he faced about and as his eyes fell again upon her, he cried, “By heaven, I will!” And he sprang toward her.
But already she had gathered up her resolution once more and it was the civilized woman, not to be won save with her own consent, who moved aside and eluded the embrace with which he would have swept her to his breast. He dropped on his knees at her feet and buried his face in her dress. A moment she stood with both hands clenched against her heart. Then she bent over him and laid them as softly upon his head as a compassionate mother might have done.
“Don’t Jeff, please don’t!” she pleaded. “It’s so hard already—don’t make it harder, for both of us. We’ll have to just recognize what is, and accept it.”
He rose again, seizing one of her hands as it fell from his head. “But what is, Rhoda, except that we love each other with such strength thatGod who made us must have meant us to be husband and wife? What else is there that matters, beside that?”
“I’ve told you so often, dear, what it is that matters!”
“What do you want me to do, dear heart? I’ll free my slaves, if you wish, and pay them wages.”
Her face lighted and she smiled wistfully at him, but shook her head. “It’s deeper than that, Jeff, deeper than just the ownership of a few slaves. I knew you would do that, for my sake. I told myself so—” she broke off, smiled fondly upon him, then laid her free hand upon the two already clasped.
“Listen, Jeff, let me tell you—I didn’t intend to, but perhaps it’s best. After I sent you that last letter, I had a sudden fear that I had put in the sheet I didn’t mean you to see. It was only a second, and then I felt sure I had burned it. But for a little while I—I almost wished I had, and in my heart I said I would give up and that I would write you to come. It seemed as if you would know anyway, and as if you were coming, without my telling you. And for three or four days I sat at my window and watched for you and dreamed about our love, and about our life together at beautiful Fairmount—” she hesitated an instant and blushed faintly, but the true woman in her sent her on—“with our children growingup around us, and we so happy and growing old together— Oh, Jeff, it was such a beautiful dream!”
“Not half so beautiful or happy as the reality would be, sweetheart! Oh, Rhoda, won’t you make it true!”
“We’d be happy for a while, dear, but we’d wake up, sooner or later, just as I did, and then we’d find out that there was no true marriage between us, and our happiness would end.”
Denial was in his face and voice as he quickly answered: “Never, Rhoda! I can’t believe it! Why should we waken? Why did you?”
“It was the Dred Scott decision.”
He smiled incredulously. “I suppose I would have anyway, after a little,” she went on, “if you hadn’t got here first—” and she smiled up at him ingenuously.
“O, how I wish I had! If it hadn’t been for that storm—”
“It’s better to wake up too soon than too late,” she broke in. “As soon as I knew about that decision and all that the chief justice had said, and understood how delighted the South is over it, and how it has saddened and discouraged all of us up here at the North who hate slavery, then I saw once more that I couldn’t compromise with my conscience, not the least little bit.”
“But, Rhoda, you won’t have to, if I free my slaves. And I will!”
“I’ve thought that all out, and it wouldn’t help us any—though I’d be glad for the slaves. Don’t you see, Jeff, that if you should free them, still believing in slavery as you do, and still being devoted to the South and wanting with all your soul to further her interests, which you think are bound up in slavery—don’t you see that after a while you would begin to feel that for my sake you had done something wrong, had been false to your own ideals? And I would know it and it would make me unhappy. I don’t think, Jeff, that I’d want you to free your negroes, except as you might be convinced that it’s wrong to keep them enslaved.”
She stopped and looked up at him with her flashing smile. “I’ll run every one of them off to freedom that I can get a chance to, but—”
He smiled back at her indulgently, and then they both laughed a little, glad of the relief from the high tension which had held them.
“Rhoda, you are such a dear girl!” he murmured fondly. Her hands were imprisoned, one in each of his, but he did not attempt to lessen the distance between them. The earthly side of their love was fading out of their mutual consciousness, for the moment, as their thoughts mounted to the things of the spirit.
“It’s such a wide gulf between us, although we are so near,” she went on. “Your letters have shown me that. To the bottom of your heart youbelieve that all that the South is struggling for is right and good and is her just right and will be for the good of the world.”
He threw back his head and his eyes shone. “I do, Rhoda,” he exclaimed with emphasis. “I love the South, and her ideals are mine and her ambitions are mine! They are just and right and the more widely they are spread the better it will be for civilization and the whole world!”
She nodded. “Yes, I understand how you feel, though I didn’t at first. And I believe to the bottom of my heart that the enslavement of man by man”—her face was glowing now with the inner fires of conviction and her low voice thrilled with the intensity of her feeling—“is wrong and degrades both of them and is the cause of no end of horrible things. And I don’t believe that anything good can ever come out of it.”
“But you don’t know, Rhoda—you never have seen—” he began earnestly.
“Ah, but I have seen, Jeff,” she broke in sadly. “I’ve seen the poor negroes that my father and I have helped on their way to Canada taking such desperate risks and enduring such awful sufferings in the hope of winning their freedom that I don’t need to see anything else. Divided like that, dear, on a matter that goes so deep with both of us, there could be no real understanding and sympathy between us, no true marriage. I think your convictions and your ideals are wrong—they are hatefulto me—but I honor you for being true to them. I honor you more and love you more than I would if you gave them up, while you still believed in them, for love of me.”
“You are right, dear heart,” he said, the pain of baffled and hopeless love sounding in his voice. “I could not be false to my convictions and my principles, even for you, my sweet, any more than you could be false to yours. You make me understand, as I haven’t before, what this means to you.”
“No, Jeff, I can’t see that there’s any hope for us, for our happiness, on this earth, as long as this thing lasts that lies between us. Perhaps, in heaven—”
Their eyes met, and her voice trembled and ceased. They stood with hands clasped, looking through open windows into each other’s souls, gazing deep into the warm and lovely depths of love, which they were putting behind them, and turning their vision upward along the heights where material aims crumbled away and hope and aspiration became only the essence of the soul’s ideals. And as they gazed it seemed to them that somewhere up in that dim region of eternal truth their spirits met and were joined.
A faint sigh fluttered from Rhoda’s lips. With a start Delavan dropped her hands and sank upon the sofa beside them. His head bowed on his breast and a deep, shuddering breath, that was almost a sob, shook his body.
“I think I’ll go now,” said Rhoda tremulously.
“No, don’t go. I want you beside me a little while. Sit down here. No, don’t be afraid—give me your hand.”
For a little space they sat in silence, like two children venturing into some unknown region and gaining courage by clasp of hands. At last he rose.
“I will leave you now, dear heart. But it’s not good-by, even yet. I still believe that sometime I shall call you wife. I’m proud to have won your love, Rhoda, prouder than of anything else I shall ever do.”
He pressed her hand to his lips, bowed ceremoniously, and a moment later she was listening to the sound of his footsteps as he walked down the path to the gate.