CHAPTER XXIV
Arethusa stood on top of the stile a moment or two and surveyed the old House with eyes that saw none too clearly anything that was before them, before she climbed down; yet she had no real need to actually see it, she knew it all, in every well-loved detail, so well.
It stood there, facing the West, and hugging the earth with that curious appearance of having grown in its place like some sort of solid plant, the green blinds every one swung hospitably open. The January sun was far down in the afternoon sky, and its golden light was reflected in every small and shining square of the square-paned front windows, to make each twinkling pane seem to be smiling a welcome.
And it was all just as neat and precise as ever, although in winter garb instead of that of summer. For the clematis vine over the front porch was a matted heap of dead tendrils (they had died for the season in an orderly way, however) and the little garden at one end of the House was all covered over with straw for the cold weather, and queer little miniature straw stacks were bound around all the rose bushes. Miss Eliza's roses were never known to die during the winter. Only the honeysuckle vine retained its greenness. All the dead leaves had been raked out of the yard, and although the trees stood as gaunt and bare as any other trees at this time of the year, they did not seem naked like other trees. They leaned protectingly towards the house, and they seemed to welcome Arethusa too.
Through the lower windows with their looped white curtains, Arethusa caught a glimpse of the flickering of the sitting-room fire, that fire which warmed Miss Asenath. After all, as dear as Ross and Elinor had proved to be, and as much as she truly loved them, this was Home, as Timothy and Miss Eliza had declared. And how good it was to see it all once more. She had never really known before just how much it meant to her!
Miss Eliza had met her at the station and had scolded her vigorously (scolding sometimes meant that Miss Eliza was trying to control her feelings) nearly all of the six miles from Vandalia, because Arethusa looked so badly, in Miss Eliza's opinion.
"I knew no earthly good would come of it," she said, with a satisfied, I-told-you-so air. "You've come back home sick, after gallivanting around in the city, for me to nurse. And my hands full as they are! I knew just exactly how it would be!"
But Arethusa did not mind this scolding. It was really so much a part of the Home atmosphere that she even rather welcomed it. And she needed a scolding, she felt, so she might as well have it for one thing as for another. This was a mere bagatelle to what Miss Eliza would say if she knew What had happened at the January Cotillion!
Arethusa received her tirade with such unusual meekness that Miss Eliza was alarmed immediately, and convinced that the girlwasactually sick.
While the returned wanderer stood on the stile, gazing at the House, the front door flew open and Miss Letitia bustled out, arms outstretched. She almost ran to meet Arethusa. She could not move very fast with such a fat little figure as hers, but she moved faster than she had moved for some years past. And Arethusa dropped every single thing she held and flew down the walk and met Miss Letitia before she was really fairly started.
"Oh, Aunt 'Titia, Aunt 'Titia!"
"There, there," crooned Miss Letitia. "My! My! But we're all glad to get you back! Sister 'Senath's done absolutely nothing but watch the clock ever since we got your father's telegram you were coming. Why, Dearie!" For Arethusa was crying openly on Miss Letitia's comfortable shoulder.
"Arethusa isn't well," remarked Miss Eliza, coming up behind them with most of the dropped belongings; "she must go to bed just as soon as she gets inside the house."
Arethusa lifted her head. "I don't want to go to bed, Aunt 'Liza. I'm not a bit sick."
"Well, do stop carrying on like such a ninny, then!"
But underneath all the sharpness of word and tone of this speech, her niece could somehow read that Miss Eliza was glad to have her back also.
And as for Miss Asenath....
She fairly trembled as she lay on the couch and waited for Arethusa to come to her. She wore the rose-colored birthday gift, but it was not the rose of the shawl that had reflected that faint pink flush to each frail cheek. And it was with all the rush of the old Arethusa across the floor that the girl greeted her dearest of the aunts, and her strong young arms clasped the tiny old lady close to her warm heart in the old loving way. But this Arethusa's eyes were dewy and her voice held a hint of tears; and they were tears which wise Miss Asenath knew almost immediately came not from the mere gladness at being home, after she bade Arethusa stand off so that she might look at her. Miss Asenath, however, said nothing to anybody about her knowledge.
It was good to be at home again, Arethusa felt; good to snuggle down in that old place of hers on the couch and hold Miss Asenath's hand just as she used to; good to watch Miss Letitia's placidity throned in her straight-backed chair and to see her fingers flying as usual and the heap of work in her lap; good even to listen to Miss Eliza's scolding tongue; and good to see Mandy when she waddled in from the kitchen to see "Arethusie" and to state with positiveness that the city did not agree with her at all. But with all of this glow of feeling over getting Home, there was really something wrong, something lacking about it; something Arethusa dimly sensed, but could not exactly define. After awhile Miss Eliza gave her the clue to it, when she imparted the news that Timothy had gone over to Hawesville to a dance.
"Timothy's getting mighty giddy," she added, with great disapproval in voice and manner. "He just gads from one dance to another, all over the county, and he's taken to calling on the town girls. That little visit he made to you in the city had a very bad effect on him, too."
And then with a very little thought, Arethusa knew just what was wrong with her home-coming. It was Timothy.
Timothy, who had always been a part of things for her ever since she could remember, was not there to greet her. Timothy had gone off to a dance and let her come home alone. Timothy, who had always said that he cared more about Arethusa than anyone else in the world, had not seemed to care about her coming back to the Farm. Not in the older, happier days would he have done such a thing as this. And it was well calculated to hurt when she was already so miserable. But then maybe he had not known she was to come; her decision had been so sudden. This might explain.
"Did Timothy know I was coming home to-day?" she asked after a bit, rather timidly.
Miss Eliza snorted. "He most certainly did. I telephoned him myself, this morning, to let him know. That's how I happen to know where he is! You did something to Timothy, Arethusa, when he was in the City to see you. He hasn't been a bit the same since he came home. Gallivanting around with those flip hussies in town! His mother's real worried about him. And he just's running himself thin!"
She would have pursued the subject further, had not Miss Asenath, with gentle diplomacy, interrupted such pursuit. She did not feel as if she could listen to Miss Eliza and Arethusa wrangle over Timothy when the child had just barely got home, after being away so long.
But Arethusa would not have wrangled. She could not have wrangled with Miss Eliza over anything in the world, much less Timothy. She wondered who those girls in town were that he was going to see; Timothy had always declared very emphatically his dislike of the town girls. But she wondered to herself, without asking anybody any questions.
Miss Eliza's sharp eyes watched her niece. She noticed those unusual dark circles under Arethusa's eyes, circles which most certainly were not there when the girl went away; and this strange quietness with which she had come back to them Miss Eliza did not like a bit. The tongue of the Arethusa of three months ago would have gone like a bell clapper under circumstances such as these. And Miss Eliza, who for all her sharp manner and her scolding tongue, loved her niece in her own way as much as either Miss Asenath or Miss Letitia, suddenly wished that she had not let Arethusa make her visit to Lewisburg. She left the sitting-room abruptly and bustled out to the back door to find Blish, whom she scolded most vigorously, much to his astonishment and consternation, for he could not remember a thing he had done or left undone within the last twenty-four hours, since the last scolding, to be scolded for.
Mandy had prepared such a supper for the Arethusa come back to them as not even that much vaunted feast of the prodigal son, for all its fatted calf, could equal. All of Arethusa's favorite dishes were on the table, and it had been set with the company china. Then Mandy and Blish and Nathan, also, came in a group to the door of the dining-room and peeped in with good-natured dark faces stretched wide in brilliant smiling, just to see her eat a few mouthfuls. They were so glad to have her back at the Farm.
Arethusa choked up several times with all the homely kindnesses she received. These dear people who loved her so, how much sweeter they were to her than she at all deserved!
Immediately after supper, Miss Eliza made her niece go to bed. And Arethusa went with such meekness and so altogether unprotesting, that Miss Eliza trotted along up to her room with her, and felt anxiously of her forehead for fever. She was quite positive now that the girl was sick! She bustled around and helped Arethusa undress. She tucked her tightly into the little wooden bed with its turned posts which had always been Arethusa's very own, covering her clear up to her chin with the blue and white squared "counterpin" Miss Letitia had made as a surprise for Arethusa when she should come home. Then Miss Eliza blew out the lamp, efficiently with one blow as always, bade Arethusa peremptorily to go right straight to sleep, and left her. But very unexpectedly, she came back after shutting the door, and trotted briskly across the dark room to give Arethusa a quick little peck on one cheek, which was Miss Eliza's only way of kissing, and to tell her very gruffly that she was awfully glad Arethusa was at home again, and she certainly hoped that she'd have sense enough to stay. Then she once more bade her niece to go straight to sleep and once more departed.
But Arethusa could not go to sleep. She threw back the carefully tucked in covers and got up out of bed, draping the new "counterpin" around her shoulders, and paddled, bare-footed, over to that window of her room which looked in the direction of Timothy's house. It was velvety black over on that horizon, but Arethusa could find the place where the house ought to be. It was a very beautiful night, cold and clear and starry. Arethusa put her head down on the window-sill and gazed up at the stars. There were millions of them, and they all seemed to be winking straight down at her just as sympathetically as possible. She had always loved stars.
As she watched them, a sort of mist began obscuring them from her, and so she brushed at her eyes to wipe it away, but it only seemed to keep on growing to be more decided as a mist; and then it dissolved itself into tears which fell thick and fast, hot tears which splashed on the window-sill ... all because of Timothy's treatment of her on this home-coming afternoon. Arethusa felt as if Timothy's friendship were lost to her forever. Shamed and humiliated by Mr. Bennet, it had remained for life in its cruelty to add this last blow. For unless his feeling for her was absolutely changed, he would never have treated her like this. Arethusa knew Timothy too well.
He had read Mr. Bennet correctly, she remembered now, thinking about her best friend; or about the one who had always, till so recently, been her best friend. He had called Mr. Bennet a "four-flusher." Would that she had not been so blinded in her infatuation as not to heed this warning! She could recall a great many times when Timothy had been proved right in his deductions, which surely ought to have made her place more value on the one concerning Mr. Bennet than she had.
Arethusa felt, just then, as if she would even rather that Miss Eliza should know of that Episode at the January Cotillion than that Timothy should know about it. Timothy's good opinion of her, suddenly, seemed to Arethusa to possess a great charm.
After awhile she crept back into bed, her teeth chattering with the cold, and cried herself to sleep.
In the days which followed Arethusa was kept very busy telling her aunts all that she had done and seen in those three months she had been away from them. And early in the next week, Elinor packed all of the pretty evening frocks which Arethusa, for various scruples, had left hanging in the closet of the green and white room in Lewisburg and sent them down to the Farm, thinking that Arethusa had forgotten them, and might like to have them. There was the Green Frock, and the one like tinted autumn leaves, and the White Dress of her Very Own Party, and many others besides, all reminders of evenings with Mr. Bennet. But even so, Arethusa was glad to see them. She had not realized that she loved them so dearly, until she saw them again. It was just as it had been with the people at the Farm. She spread all the gay beauty of the contents of that box out in the sitting room, and tried them all on, pirouetting and turning and making vivid for the three old ladies who listened to her the parties to which she had worn them.
Miss Letitia was loud in her outspoken admiration of every single frock; her simple heart could not decide which one she liked best, and her seamstress instinct marveled at the wonder of their making. Miss Asenath was more quiet in her approval, but her eyes sparkled at the brightness of their various colors all around her. Miss Eliza was noncommittal, though it was very evident that she found much to displease. When Arethusa tried on the Green Frock which she so dearly loved, she openly expressed her displeasure.
"Did your stepmother," and if ever her rigid little body had signified disapproval of anything it did then, in every line, "did your stepmother permit you to go around dressed like that?"
"All the girls wear dresses like this," replied Arethusa, defensively.
"Then—," began Miss Eliza, with decision, but she snapped her lips together just like a trap and did not finish.
Arethusa, with cheeks that flamed, put away the Green Dress, hung in the darkest corner of the high old walnut wardrobe in her room. The exhibition of the box of clothes ceased abruptly for the time being, and Arethusa fled far away from any chance of Miss Eliza's questions. The Green Dress had been her attire that Fatal Night of the January Cotillion.
Timothy took his time about coming over to see Arethusa, although, had she but known it, it required every bit of self-control he possessed to stay away. He had wanted to rush right over that first afternoon, but his heart was mighty sore still, and he was taking the only way he knew to make Arethusa understand that he did not care in the least how much she gazed adoringly at that very objectionable Mr. Bennet.
She did not see it just exactly that way, however, and as the days went by and she watched for him and he did not come, she put her own construction upon his behavior, and it was right along the line of her conclusions in regard to him that night when she had gazed up at the stars, thinking of him.
But he strolled over, late one afternoon quite formally, just as if he, who had half lived at the Farm all of his life, was making a polite and necessary social call upon its inmates.
Miss Eliza gave him a most vigorous tongue-lashing—before he was quite seated she began it—for going to dances. She considered him headed straight for destruction and had had no opportunity to tell him so. She had seen him but once since he came back from that visit to Arethusa.
"Arethusa dances; ask her to tell you what it's like," he said, most ungraciously.
It was a horrid trick, altogether unworthy of him; but then Timothy was young and things were going hard with him these days. And Miss Eliza's tongue was very sharp; it cut.
So Miss Eliza immediately attacked Arethusa.
"Timothy's of course mistaken. I imagined you'd be going to places where other people did such things, that probably couldn't be helped in a city, but I know you wouldn't so far forget all I've tried to teach you as to indulge in it yourself. It's just public hugging, that's all it is, dancing nowadays!"
"But she did," put in Timothy. "I saw her."
"I can answer for myself, thank you, Timothy Jarvis!" Arethusa said this with a bit of her old asperity. "Yes, I danced, Aunt 'Liza; Father and Mother let me and they didn't think anything was wrong with it."
"Well, I must say! This beats anything I ever heard! I'm not surprised at Ross Worthington, for he was always a bit free in his ideas; but his wife certainly ought to know better than to allow a young girl to take part in such goings on! I must say! I must say!" Miss Eliza's glasses left her nose entirely in her excitement. "What else did you do in the City that you haven't told us about?"
And then ... Arethusa, to the great amazement of everybody, suddenly burst into tears and ran out of the room.
"What on earth ails the child?" inquired Miss Letitia, anxiously. "She's not the least bit like herself!"
"She needs a tonic," answered Miss Eliza decidedly. "I'll see that she begins it, tomorrow. All that carrying-on in the City! Ross Worthington ought to've been ashamed of himself to set by and allow it!" She shut her mouth very grimly. "I'll see to it that she doesn't go there soon again!"
"But he's her father, Sister," interposed Miss Asenath softly; "you must remember that."
"He's her father, 'Senath, and I can't dispute it. But he's an awful unnatural one, the wayIlook at things! And I reckon, when you get right down to it, Arethusa's just as much my child as she is anybody's, seeing how I've taken care of her ever since she was born and had all the trouble of raising her. And ifIknow it, she shan't go to Lewisburg again and come home like this, all worn out!I just won't have it!"
And it was not hard for everyone in the room, Timothy included, to realize that Arethusa's future visits to her father would be few and far between, if there were any.
But Miss Asenath, alone of all of them who loved her, dimly guessed at Arethusa's real trouble. And she tried in every way she could to make her tell, for Arethusa had written Miss Asenath pages and pages of rhapsody of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet. But the girl veered away from such a subject, however adroitly introduced, just like a scared rabbit. So after a little while, Miss Asenath gave up her attempt to find out definitely, and contented herself with showing Arethusa that no matter what it was that was troubling her, Aunt 'Senath loved her as much as ever. And her niece clung to the tenderness of this unfailing love as a drowning man clings to a straw; it was the most that was left to her, with the loss of Timothy's comradeship. She took that tonic Miss Eliza procured for her with meek obedience, although it might seem as if Miss Eliza had hunted until she had found the bitterest and nastiest that she could find. But Arethusa only grew paler and thinner than ever; she lost her appetite also, in spite of the tonic. Ere long, Miss Asenath's intuition told her something else. It was Timothy causing this, she believed, and not something that had happened in the City.
And it was Timothy.
He was as top-loftical and as haughty as possible. He made his visits to the Farm of a scarcity and brevity that brought them near to being no visits at all. Such times as he did condescend to come over to see them, he spent the moments telling of all those gay affairs of which he was a part and which Arethusa did not attend, with a brave show of worldliness that deceived them all except Miss Asenath. Miss Eliza shook her head over him. She did not like this change in Timothy.
Arethusa alternated between a desire to slap him for his suddenly acquired society veneer which had such power to irritate her, and a desire to weep the bitterest and most scalding tears for the completeness of his defection. She could not help wondering, sometimes, if he had, by any most uncanny chance, heard of that Episode at the January Cotillion; and knew that Mr. Bennet had Kissed her and that she had believed that he wanted to marry her and he had Not. The Thought made her writhe in agony under the new blue and white "counter-pin." Rather would she have died a thousand deaths than to have Timothy know of that Disgrace!
For he had been to the City twice since she had come home, with his other gadding about; flying trips—"on business," it is true he had said they were—yet he might have heard of it. All Lewisburg might be ringing with it. Such would undoubtedly explain quite satisfactorily his present scorn of her. He did not seem in the least anxious to marry her now.
Timothy, however, no matter what Arethusa thought concerning him and his gayety and his neglect of her, was having the hardest of hard times. If Arethusa cried herself to sleep at night, and he did not, being masculine and not much given to taking a refuge in tears, he suffered none the less keenly. It seemed to Timothy that he would never, as long as he lived, forget Arethusa's lovely face as she danced with Mr. Bennet that night of her New Year's Party. Every single time he saw her now, it seemed to bring before him the picture she was that night; wearing Mr. Bennet's flowers (he was quite sure that he knew now just who had sent her those flowers) and with that wonderful shine in her eyes just for Mr. Bennet. But he was determined that she should not know that it made any difference to him.
Poor Timothy!
He loved Arethusa more than he ever had, with all the wealth of love his clean young heart had in its power to give, now that he thought her unattainable and with all her own affection given to another man. And this same heart that loved her so ached and ached over Arethusa's paleness and thinness; but he accepted Miss Eliza's explanation as the literal one, that the winter in Lewisburg had been too much for her, and that all she needed was a tonic. Had Timothy talked a little to Miss Asenath, as in the old and far happier days, he might have formed very different conclusions. Yet he would have bitten out his tongue rather than have mentioned Mr. Bennet's hated name, even to gentle Miss Asenath, who never failed to understand all that troubled.
So Timothy and Arethusa played at their cross purposes all through the spring.
For the winter had sped itself away somehow and before anyone was really aware of its coming, spring had slipped upon all of them. The days grew warm once more and Arethusa might once again take her books back to the congenial solitude of Miss Asenath's Woods, where, with a thick, woolly carriage rug spread on the ground under the hollow tree, she lay for long hours and read or dreamed. Miss Eliza absolutely refused to countenance any sitting or lying on the damp earth of spring without that rug beneath her, in Arethusa's present state of seeming ill-health; but she made no objections to as many hours spent in the woodland as Arethusa pleased, only provided the rug was there too.
Timothy was very busy, as all farmers needs must be in the spring. The garden had to be got in, and the fields plowed and planted. He did not have nearly so much time for gadding, and Miss Eliza was pleased. She told him she was every chance she had to do so.
Timothy looked much older, Miss Asenath thought. He had a great deal more dignity, and his blue eyes seemed to have acquired depth. There were stern little lines in his face that had never been there before; just as if the boy Timothy had given place to the man. Miss Asenath loved these evidences of his growing.
But often, when he made his rare and formal visits to the Farm of an evening and he and Arethusa sat so decorously in front of the sitting-room fire with the family, she watched him then a trifle sadly. Miss Asenath believed that she would almost be glad to hear him and Arethusa quarrel once more.
"Poor children!" she said to herself one night. "I wonder when they're going to even begin realising how much time they're wasting! All these precious days are slipping by and nothing can ever bring them back!"
And then, with her frail hands clasped on the locket at her throat, Miss Asenath fell to dreaming.
CHAPTER XXV
Arethusa gathered up her woolly rug and a dog-eared copy of "Jane Eyre," which would have known almost instant confiscation if Miss Eliza had glimpsed it in her possession, and proceeded to go down to the woodland. It was an afternoon in early May, and unseasonably hot. As she passed through the kitchen, Mandy paused in her bread-making and looked around. She shook her head at the girl's evident intention, with disapproval.
"I wouldn' be gwine out theah to be settin' this arternoon, Arethusie. It are gwine to rain," she stated with positiveness. Mandy was by way of being something of a weather prophet.
"Nonsense, Mandy! The sky's as blue as blue! There's not a cloud anywhere!" Arethusa dismissed the idea with laughter. "Don't be such an old prophet of evil!"
"Yes'sum, it are gwine to rain." Mandy left the table and went to the door, her hands full of bread dough, to peer out at the metallic looking sky, "and 'foah ve'y long, too. See thet theah?" She pointed to a low brownish grey line far down on the horizon.
"Oh that! That doesn't mean anything!" Arethusa was not to be deterred.
She trailed the rug after her across the orchard and into the woodland without noticing that it was touching the ground nearly all the way.
Miss Asenath's Woods were very beautiful just now; they were always at their loveliest in the spring. The May-apples were in full bloom, and the ground was splotched with great clumps of them, with their straight waxy stems and their pale green umbrella-like leaves, almost hiding the delicate flowers. Everywhere, through the woodland, were all sorts of ambitious, tiny trees which would be choked out later on by the heaviness of the growth above them, but just at present they lifted their beginning life towards the sun, each one as erect as possible; making, all together, something that seemed like a miniature forest. A love-vine, sentimentally named parasite, was starting its curling way over one of the shrubs; the moss was tinted with new green; and blue and white and purple violets showed their saucy faces here and there in patches, scattered with bits of the straight dark-green of the spears of the star of Bethlehem leaves which made a contrast for the lighter color of the violet foliage. And the spring world was all very still, and very peaceful.
Arethusa spread the rug underneath the Hollow Tree, and lay down upon it, resting her head on her crossed arms. She looked above her into the curving arch of those faraway branches, their gnarled age made beautiful with the tenderness of young leaves. Some of these were so small and delicately curly in their newness, they were almost like the crumpling of a baby's fingers. Patches of the bright blue sky showed through them all. An alert robin ran across the woodland like a very fat little man in a terrible hurry, and he paused at the edge of the rug to look at Arethusa inquiringly, his head on one side. But she never moved an inch to notice him, and so, quite satisfied that she was nothing that could harm him, he pecked about within three feet of her head.
Dreaming was her favorite occupation through these spring days, dreaming of the future and what it might bring to her. And Arethusa, believing that she knew just exactly what was to happen by reason of what had already happened, settled the outlines of this future in her dreaming, over and over again, without a single ray of light to break through the darkness of her picture. She would spend it here at the Farm, this strangely quiet Farm; more than ever "a household of women," without Timothy running in and out every day. And some day she would be old and grey like Miss Eliza, busy farming it herself, and wearing plain black dresses and scolding the servants when they did not do just as she wanted. It was a blank future that contained no Timothy. But Arethusa could not very well put Timothy into the future when he refused to be in the present. She would always live alone, she decided, and when she was quite old she would wear a locket like Miss Asenath's, and people would speak of her as having had a Romance; for she hadhada Romance, and it had ended very sadly. But she would not wear Mr. Bennet's picture in her locket; he was not worthy of that. Perhaps she might wear Timothy's. She had a splendid picture of Timothy which would look very well in a Locket. There were times when, comparing them, Arethusa was quite of the opinion that Timothy was far handsomer than Mr. Bennet. And even if he did go off and marry some one else, he could surely have no objection to her honoring his picture so. His grandfather had not minded Miss Asenath's ownership of his miniature, and he had married some one else, because she had loved him when he was young. Arethusa had always loved Timothy; she loved him now. If Timothy would only stop to think long enough, he would remember the hundreds of times she had told him he was the best friend she had ever had.
Timothy had found, besides his farmer's duties, another way to occupy himself this spring. It was an automobile of very recent acquisition, a long, dark, grey car of beauty. And nearly every night he raced past the front gate of the Farm in it, while Arethusa stood under the shadow of the clematis vine on the front porch and listened for the first low hum of its motor which carried so far ahead of it through the sleeping country, and watched to see its light come flashing up the Pike, drawing back hastily under the vine when it was close to the gate. Timothy had stopped once or twice and asked them all to ride, but he had never asked Arethusa alone. And since he did not ask her by herself, she was too proud to hop in beside him when Miss Letitia and Miss Eliza refused his invitation. If either one of them had gone, it would have been all right. But neither would.
No human power could have got Miss Letitia into it, and Miss Eliza considered it such a sinful waste of money when Timothy told her how much it had cost him, that she showed her great disapproval by declining to even sit in it.
But nearly every night it whizzed by on the way to town, and Arethusa watched for it in the shadow of the clematis vine.
Arethusa sighed deeply, and reached for "Jane Eyre," at the side of the rug.
It was a most abused and mistreated copy of this work, bearing her father's name on its fly leaf, which she had found on a recent rummaging through the garret. A glance through its pages had made her most anxious to read it. It seemed to be rich with sentiment and entertainment, of a truly Romantick nature.
She had read only as far as Jane's venture into the world of Mr. Rochester last night, when forced by the unfeeling Miss Eliza who viewed no printed matter as of such interest as to make for any forgetfulness of what one ought to do, with a stern call from the foot of the stairs, to "put out that light, and stop whatever it is you're reading this minute, and go straight to sleep!" Arethusa had wept bitterly over the cruelty of the early years; she hoped, this afternoon, to see Jane through to an uninterrupted conclusion of Perfect Happiness such as she so unmistakably deserved.
She read eagerly; her grey-green eyes following the lines of print without once lifting. Her only movement was the turning of the leaves, until a large and splashing drop of something fell plump on the page then open, and she wiped it off. But another fell, immediately after it; then another. It was Mandy's rain.
So Arethusa rose and gathered up her rug to start for the house. In her recently acquired submissiveness, the disobeying of Miss Eliza to stay out in a rain seemed to have no attraction.
But the storm broke with such quickness and fury, that Arethusa got no farther towards the house than a big oak a few yards away from the Hollow Tree. Underneath this, she crouched, covering her head with her arms. For the first time in her life she was frightened of a storm. But then, she never remembered having seen such a battle of the elements as this became, in the fewest possible moments. In fact, for years afterwards, folks in the neighborhood spoke of happenings as being just before, or just after, the "Big Storm."
The lightning flashed so continuously that the heavens were like one steady glare of white light; the thunder boomed and crashed in a hideous din without any cessation. The rain beat against her as sharp as needle points, and the wind seemed as if it were trying to lift her off the ground to fling her back again to crush, so hard it blew. Several trees within her observation went down, some torn up by the roots; Arethusa could have wept miserably to see them go, these woodland friends of hers. "Jane Eyre" was blown from her unheeding grasp and against a crooked root of the oak tree. Its water-soaked pages flapped madly back and forth; the equally water-soaked rug had been flung against a near-by bush, wide spread like a sail.
Then suddenly, with a rush and a roar as if the world itself were being torn from its moorings, the Hollow Tree, the very dearest of all the growth in Miss Asenath's Woods, went crashing to the ground. It fell through the tree against which Arethusa crouched, carrying branches of the latter along with it. It was a pure miracle that she was not hit by some of these flying branches, or by the Hollow Tree itself, in its fall; for it was all around her, hemming her into a prison of instantaneous building so that she could not move. Undoubtedly, had she stayed under the Hollow Tree after the Storm began, she would have been killed.
But with this last desecration the Storm seemed satisfied; its fury abated. And ere long leaves slowly dripping and birds chirping were the only sounds.
Arethusa shivered. Her teeth were chattering, partly through fear and partly because she was really very cold. The Storm had seemed to wring every single bit of warmth out of the air, and she had been wet to the skin with that stinging, chilly rain. Her tears fell fast as she reached to touch the Hollow Tree, all about her. Would that the wind had blown down every single tree in the woodland if it had only left her this one!
She tried to climb out. But every attempt she made was unsuccessful. She was pinned in against the oak tree by interlocked branches which her strength seemed unavailing to so much as disturb. It seemed that all she could do would be to lie helplessly back and wait for somebody to come and find her before she could get out.
But would she have to stay in this place all night before anyone did come? And wait until they could chop her out after they came? How many hours would that take? It might even take days! This was such a big tree!
The thought brought a sudden overwhelming terror of her predicament.
She began calling loudly and frantically for everyone at the house; Miss Eliza and Miss Letitia, Blish and Nathan and Mandy, but none of them came. She even called Miss Asenath, hoping she would hear and tell the others.
Then ... she called Timothy.
And Timothy came.
He plunged through the dripping woodland as if on wings or seven-leagued boots, unmindful of the sloppy ground and the wet branches which flopped back as he passed to sting his face, and he came as straight to Arethusa as it was possible for him to come. He had stopped at the Farm to get out of the Storm, on his way back from town, and 'way up there at the house, standing on the back porch watching it, he had heard her calls for Miss Eliza and the rest, and then for him.
But once in the woodland, and there was no visible evidence of her presence, when he had been so sure just where she was to be found, Timothy stopped running and called wildly himself for Arethusa.
"Here I am!" It sounded thin and like a ghost voice, coming from underneath the piled up heap of broken tree right beside him in the most uncanny way.
"Merciful Heavens!" Timothy knelt down and began making frantic efforts to move the huge branches. "Are you hurt?"
"Not a single bit!" Arethusa's spirits began an immediate reviving. Here was Timothy! The unmistakable cheerfulness in her tones somewhat reassured her rescuer. "Only I can't get out!"
"And you're quite positive you're not hurt?" He asked the question solely for the comfort of hearing her repeat that she was not. For he did not see how she had escaped death in such a catastrophe.
"Sure!"
Arethusa, feeling now so much happier, thought that perhaps she might stand upright. She tried the experiment cautiously and found that she could. Her head and shoulders appeared dryad-like above the young green of the leaves beneath her, and leaves and branches framed her face all around. She waved her hand energetically, and called, to attract the stooping Timothy's attention to her present superior position.
His relief when he saw her was almost comical.
"I'll have you out now in a jiffy!"
But such was not to be the case, for although he poked and poked about everywhere distractedly, and pulled at first one part of it and then another, he was unable to move any of that tree, for all his great strength. Then, very unexpectedly, sticking his head around under the lower branches next the ground, he discovered what seemed to offer some possibilities as a road to Arethusa. He started exploration, and very suddenly, he was right beside her.
Now that his anxiety for her safety was no longer rampant, Timothy could see for himself that Arethusa had not a scratch, he remembered the present state of their relationship. That look of sternness which made his young face seem so much older settled down, and he made business-like preparations to help her get out, breaking off small branches all about him.
"Do you think you could crawl back the way I came in here, or do you want me to go back up to the house and get something to cut the tree away?"
But Arethusa was loath to leave just yet. This seemed so much like old times, the way he had come at her call, when he had used to help her down from hay-stacks which she had climbed too rashly, and rescue her from all sorts of other strange situations. She could not see his face, and so she clasped his arm, gratefully, as she had used to do in those other days. Timothy stiffened a little, but she did not notice it.
"Oh, Timothy!" she exclaimed. "Just suppose you hadn't come! I might have had to stay here all night long!"
"I reckon not! Somebody would have come."
She was chilled by his tone. And when she looked up at him, his grim expression made her draw her hand away from his arm, abruptly.
"How did you get in?" she asked, with dignity.
Timothy indicated the road.
So a little procession started back through that gap in the branches, which Arethusa, had she not been so frightened, might have found for herself without bothering him. He went first, to show the way, and she followed, both on hands and knees. He was out when he heard her scream.
"My hair! My hair is all caught! And I can't get it undone at all!"
She had not really asked for his help, but Timothy turned and crept under the tree once more. Arethusa was badly caught. Her red hair had been grabbed by the crookedest possible branch and it was all wound around it as if the Hollow Tree were so determined to keep her underneath it that either the branch or some of her hair would have to be cut off, before it would let her go. And Arethusa's own efforts to get loose had only succeeded in fastening her tighter.
She accepted Timothy's offer of aid as one who is forced to something inevitable, and bent her head obediently so that he could get at the snarl better. Timothy worked away in silence, his knees braced in the soft ground. His fingers were never very good at this sort of thing, and right now they seemed to become clumsiness personified. They trembled so that the snarl seemed to grow worse and worse with each moment. He gritted his teeth and tried his best to control his hands and his heart, which raced and beat so loudly above the crouching girl. He was quite sure she heard it. This nearness was almost more than he could bear.
And to have his hands buried in that fragrant mass of the hair he loved, suddenly proved his undoing.
He stopped his ineffectual work of untangling; but Arethusa did not know that he had until she felt herself held close to a wildly beating heart and heard him whispering, hoarsely, "Arethusa, I ... I just can't bear it ... any longer!"
Then Timothy Kissed her. He kissed her hungrily; her hair, caught in the branches, her startled eyes, her cheeks, and last of all, her mouth.
"I love you," he said, brokenly, over and over again. "I love you!"
And Arethusa lay very quietly, and listened to him say it.
"I can't get your hair out," said Timothy, miserably, "I'll go and get somebody at the house to come, but I...."
Then Arethusa spoke, softly.
"I don't want you to go get somebody at the house. I want you, yourself, to get my hair out."
He almost groaned. Why did she make things so terribly hard for him? Suddenly, something occurred to Timothy. Arethusa had not even tried to slap him for those kisses, nor had she made even the beginnings of a struggle to get away; which was all most un-Arethusa like. He looked down at her, and he saw that her eyes were full of a truly wonderful light, a light which he had never seen in those eyes before, and it was shining straight at him.
"I wantyouto get my hair out," she repeated, "but bef ... before you do, T ... Timothy, please ki ... kiss me again!"
Timothy did as requested.
And the whole world did seem to really be hushed into a Startled Silence by What had happened.
And Arethusa forgot that her hair was fastened apparently inextricably in the branches of the Hollow Tree; perhaps the Hollow Tree had served its best purpose in crashing to the ground. She forgot all about Mr. Bennet and that Timothy might not want to marry her if he knew of the Episode of the January Cotillion. She forgot to question the propriety of the number of Timothy's kisses, as too many before their marriage. She thought of nothing in the wide, wide world but just one thing; that never had she felt more contented than where she was, held in the safety of these strong arms of Timothy's. They seemed to shut her in to guard from all unhappiness or terror, or anything that could possibly hurt her in the days to come. It was just as though she had found a place most truly her own, made for her by Timothy's love; and that it was exactly what she had been searching for, for a long, long while.
But she was still Arethusa.
So after a time she stirred, and said very softly, "I can't possibly stay here all my life with my hair caught like this, Timothy, you know. I ... I really think you'd better undo it. I asked you to."
He roused himself with a happy little laugh, and as his fingers were not trembling so much, this attempt was quite successful, and the red locks were soon free.
Then they crawled through the place in the branches and stood upright, face to face, Arethusa's head drooped, and a warm flush mounted suddenly. She could not be said to be at her best appearance, for her hair was all matted and tangled, and wildly disheveled; her dress was muddy to her knees, and torn in several places; there were dirty marks on her face. But to Timothy, she had never looked lovelier in her life.
It was his suggestion that they have a run up to the house.
Hand in hand, they set off at a mad pace through the orchard. Miss Eliza saw them coming, for she was restlessly waiting on the back porch; she had been waiting for some time. She was grim and disapproving as the flushed pair brought up, panting, before her.
"Well, Arethusa...." she began.
But Timothy interposed in a very masterful sort of way.
"You mustn't scold her, Miss 'Liza, for she came very near being killed!" He drew Arethusa's hand through his arm with a little air of proprietorship which did not escape unnoticed. "The big Hollow Tree fell and it pinned her down. I had an awfully hard time getting her out from under it."
At a sudden recollection of the getting Arethusa out from under the tree he blushed boyishly, and most violently, even through his flush of running. Arethusa followed suit.
"Hum ... ph!" said Miss Eliza.
She regarded them both with keen eyes for a moment, those keen eyes of hers that so little escaped.
"Have you," she asked suddenly, and so suddenly that both boy and girl jumped, "have you decided to marry Timothy at last, Arethusa?"
"Yes," replied Timothy.
"No," replied Arethusa, although very weakly, for it was more from force of habit than anything else.
Timothy put his arm clear around her quite unashamed before Miss Eliza, to the deep interest and great delight of Mandy, peering through the kitchen door; and he drew the unresisting girl close to his side.
"Yes," he repeated, with firmness, "she has!"
Arethusa looked up at him sideway, at the strength of his young profile; and feeling his arm around her and remembering how strong and sure that arm had seemed such a little while before, like a bulwark for safety between her and anything that might threaten, she answered meekly, almost like an echo, "Yes, I have!"
And this was quite in spite of the fact (and yet that may have been the very reason why she did, for she had always declared so emphatically that she would say, "no!" to any such proposition coming from him) that Timothy had made no formal proposal of marriage to her so far this summer.