The Iron Woman Part 29

Elizabeth tore the letter up and threw it into the fire. But she softened a little. "Poor Blair," she said to herself, "but of course I shall never forgive him."

She had not told David what Blair had done. "He would be furious," she thought. "I'll tell him later--when we are married"; at the word, the warm, beautiful wave of young love rose in her heart; "later, when I belong to him, I will tell him everything!" She would tell him everything just as she would give him everything; not that she had much to give him--only herself and her little money. That blessed money, on which he and she could live for two years,--she was going to give him that! For she and Nannie and Cherry-pie had decided that if the money were _his_, by a gift, then David, who was perfectly crazy and n.o.ble about independence, would feel that he and Elizabeth were living on his money, not hers. It was an artless and very feminine distinction, but serious enough to the three women who were all so young--Elizabeth, in fact, being the oldest, and Cherry-pie, at sixty-three, the youngest. And not only had they discovered this way of overcoming David's scruples about a shorter engagement, but Elizabeth had had another inspiration: why not be married on the very day that the money came into her possession? "Oh, splendid!" said Nannie; but she spoke with an effort, remembering Blair. A little timidly, Elizabeth had told her uncle of this wonderful plan about the money. He snorted with amus.e.m.e.nt at her way of whipping the devil round the stump by a "gift" to David; but after a rather startled moment, although he would not commit himself to a date, he was inclined to think an earlier marriage practicable. We are selfish creatures at best, all of us: Elizabeth's way of being happy herself opened a possibility of happiness for her uncle. "Mrs. Richie can't make David an excuse for saying 'no,' if the boy gets a home of his own," he thought; and added to himself, "of course, when the child's money is used up, I'll help them out." But to his niece he only barked warningly: "Well, let's hear what David has to say; _he_ has some sense."

"Do you think there's much doubt as to what he'll say?" Elizabeth said; and the dimple deepened so entrancingly that Robert Ferguson gave her a meager kiss. After securing this somewhat tentative consent, Elizabeth and Cherry-pie decided that the next thing to do was to "make David write to uncle, and simply _insist_ that the wedding shall be next month!" Her plan was very simple: when David came to Mercer to spend her birthday, he should receive, at the same moment, her money and herself.

That future time of sacramental giving and of complete taking was in her thoughts with tenderness and shame and glory, as it is in the thought of every woman who loves and forgets herself. Yes, he could have her now; but he must take her money! That was the price he had to pay--the taking of her money. That it would be a high price to a man with his peculiarly intense feeling about independence, Elizabeth knew; but he would be willing to pay it!

Elizabeth could not doubt that. No price could be too high, he loved her so! She s.h.i.+vered with happiness at the thought of how he loved her; some soft impulse of pa.s.sion made her lift her round wrist,--that bitten wrist! to her mouth, and kiss it, hard.

David had kissed it, many times! Yes; she was his if he would pay the price! She was going to tell him so, and then wait, glowing, and shrinking, and eager, for him to come and "take her."

It was so true, so limpid, this n.o.ble flame that burned in her, that she almost forgot Blair's behavior; the only thing she thought of was her plan, and the difficulty of putting it into the cold limits of pen and ink! But with much joyous underlining of important words she did succeed in stating it to him. She told him, not only the practical details, but with a lovely, untrammelled outpouring of her soul which was sacrificial, she told him that she wanted to be his wife. She had no reserves; it was an elemental moment, and the matter of what is called modesty had no place in her ardent purity. It rarely has a place in organic impulses. In connection with death, or birth, or love, modesty is only a rather puerile self-consciousness. So Elizabeth, who had never been self-conscious in her life, told David, with perfect simplicity, that she "wanted to be married."

She said she had "worked the money part of it out," and according to her latest estimate of how much, or rather how little, they could live on, it was possible. "You will say, we haven't even as much as this," she wrote, after she had stated what seemed to be the minimum income; then, triumphantly: "_we have!_ the money Uncle is going to give me on my birthday! If we live on it, instead of h.o.a.rding it up, it will last _at least_ two years! I've talked to Uncle about it, and I'm pretty sure he will consent; but you'd better write and urge him,--_just insist!_" Then she approached the really difficult matter of making David agree to live on money that was not his. She admitted that she knew how he felt on such matters. "And you are all wrong," she declared candidly, "wrong, and a goose. But, so long as you do feel so, why, you needn't any longer. For I am going to give the money to you. It is to be yours, _not mine_. You can't refuse to use the money that is _yours_, that comes to you as a 'gift'? It will be as much _yours_ as if somebody left it to you in their will, and you can burn it up, if you want to!" And when "business" had been written out, her heart spoke:

"Dear" (she stopped to kiss the paper), "dear, I hope you won't burn it up, because I am tired of waiting, and I hope you are too;"--when she wrote those last words, she was suddenly shy; "Uncle is to give me the money on my birthday--let us be married that day. I _want_ to be married. I am all yours, David, all my soul, and all my mind, and all my body. I have nothing that is not yours to take; so the money is yours. No, I will not even give it to you! it belongs to you already--as I do. Dear, come and take it--and me. I love you--love you--love you. _I want you to take me_. I want to be your wife. Do you understand? I _want_ to belong to you. I _am_ yours."

So she tried, this untutored creature, to put her soul and body into words, to write the thing that cannot even be spoken, whose utterance is silence. The mailing of the letter was a rite in itself; in the dusk, as she held the green lip of the post-box open, she kissed the envelope, as she had kissed the glowing sheet an hour before. She said to herself that she was "too happy to live!" As she said it, a wave of pity blotted out her usual shamed resentment at that poor mother of hers who had not been happy;--and whose lack of self-control was, Elizabeth believed, her legacy to her child. But her gravity was only for a moment; forgetting Blair, and the possible chance of meeting him, she flew down to Nannie's to tell her that the die had been cast--the letter had been written! Nannie, sitting by herself in the parlor, brooding over her brother's troubles, was trying to draw; but Elizabeth brushed aside pencils and crusts of bread and india-rubbers, and flung her arms about her, pressing her face against hers and pouring the happy secret into her ear:

"Oh, Nannie--I've told him! We'll be married on my birthday. Go ahead and get your dress!" she said, breathlessly, and Nannie tried her best to be happy, too.

For the next three days Elizabeth moved about in a half-dream, sometimes reddening suddenly; sometimes breathing a little quickly, with a faint fright in her eyes,--had she said too much?

would he understand? Then a gush of confident love filled her like music. "I couldn't say too much! I want him to know that I feel--that way."

When David read that throbbing letter, he grew scarlet to his temples. There had been many moments during their engagement when Elizabeth, in slighter ways, had bared her soul to him, and always he had had the impulse to cover his eyes, as in a holy of holies. He had never, in those moments, dared to take advantage of such divine nakedness, even by a kiss. But she had never before trusted her pa.s.sion to the coldness of pen and ink; it had had the accompaniment of eyes and lips, and eager, breaking voice. Perhaps if the letter had come at a different moment, he could more easily have called up that voice, and those humid eyes; he might have felt again the rose-pressure of the soft mouth. As it was, he read it in troubled preoccupation; then reddened sharply: he was a worthless cuss; he couldn't stand on his own legs and get married like a man; his girl had to urge her uncle to let her support her lover! "d.a.m.n," said David softly.

A letter is a risky thing; the writer gambles on the reader's frame of mind. David's frame of mind when he read those words about urging Robert Ferguson, was not hospitable to other people's generosity, for Elizabeth's hot letter came on what had been, figuratively speaking, a very cold day. In the morning he had been reprimanded by the House officer for some slight forgetfulness--a forgetfulness caused by his absorption in planning an experiment in the laboratory. At noon he made the experiment, which, instead of crowning a series of deductions with triumphant proof, utterly failed. Then he had had pressing reminders of bills, still unpaid, for a pair of trousers and a case of instruments, and he had admitted to himself that he would have to ask his mother for the money to meet them. "I am a fizzle, all round," he had told himself grimly. "Can't remember anything overnight. Can't count on a doggone reaction. Can't pay for my own pants! I won't be able to marry for ten years. If Elizabeth is wise, she will throw me over. She'll be tired of waiting for me, before I can earn enough to buy my instruments-- let alone the shoe-strings Mr. Ferguson talked about!"

Then her letter came. It was a spur on rowelled flesh. Elizabeth _was_ tired of waiting! She said so. But she would help him; she had induced her uncle to consent that she should "give" him money; that she should, in fact, support him!--just as his mother had been doing all his life. He was sore with disappointment at himself, yet, when he answered her letter his eyes stung at the thought of the loveliness of her love! He held her letter in his hand as he wrote, and once he put it to his lips. All the same he wrote, as he had to write, laconically:

"DEAR ELIZABETH,--I'm sure Mr. Ferguson will agree with me that your money cannot be mine, by any gift. Calling it so won't make it so. Anyhow, it would not support us two years. By that time, as things look now, I shall probably not be earning any kind of an income. I am sorry you are tired of waiting, but I can't let you be imprudent. And apart from prudence, I could not respect myself if you supported me. It has been misery to me to have Materna saddled with a big, lazy brute of a fellow like me, who ought by this time to be taking care of you both. I am sure, if you think it over, you would be ashamed of me if I asked your uncle to help me out by letting you marry me now. Anyhow, I should be ashamed of myself. Well, the Lord only knows when I will come up to time! You might as well make up your mind to it that I'm a fizzle. I am discouraged with myself and everything else, and I see you are too; Heaven knows I don't blame you. I know you think it is an awfully long time to wait, but it isn't as long to you as it is to me. Dear, I love you; I can't tell you how I love you. I haven't words, as you have, but you know I do-- and yet sometimes I feel as if I oughtn't to marry you."

Elizabeth, running down the steps to meet the postman, saw a familiar imprint on the corner of an envelope, and drew it from the pack before the good-natured man could hand it to her.

"Guess you don't want no Philadelphia letter?" he said slyly.

"Of course I don't!" she retorted; and the trudging postman smiled for a whole block because of the light in her face. In the house, the letter in her hand, she stopped to hug Miss White.

"Cherry-pie! the letter has come. I'm to be married on my birthday!"

"Oh, my lamb," said Cherry-pie, "however shall I get things ready in time!" Elizabeth did not wait to help her in her housekeeping anxieties. She fled singing up to her room.

"Oh, that will be joyful, joyful, joyful, Oh, that will be joyful, To meet to part no more!"

Then she opened the letter.... She read the last lines with unseeing eyes; the first lines were branding themselves into her soul. She folded the brief sheet with deliberation, and slowly put it back into the envelope. Then the color began to fall out of her face. Her eyes smoldered, glowed, then suddenly blazed: "He is sorry I am tired waiting."

Something warm, like a lifting tide of heat, was rising just below her breast-bone; it rose, and rose, and surged, until she gasped, and cried out hoa.r.s.ely: "If 'I think it over,' I'll be 'ashamed,' will I? 'Couldn't respect himself? What about me respecting myself?" And the intolerable wave of heat still rose, swelling and bursting until it choked her; she was strangling!

She clutched at her throat, then flung out clenched hands. "He 'can't let' me marry him? It's 'a long time for _me_ to wait'! I must 'make up my mind to it'! I hate him--I want to kill him--I want to tear him! What did I tell him? 'to come and take me'? And he doesn't want me! And Nannie knows I told him to come, and Miss White and Uncle know it. And they will know he didn't want me. Oh, how could I have told him I wanted him? I must kill him. I must kill myself--" Her wild outpouring of words was without sense or meaning to her. She shuddered violently, something crimson seemed to spread before her eyes, but the pallor of her face was ghastly. She began to pace up and down the room. Once she unfolded the letter, and glancing again at those moderate words, laughed loudly. "'His,'" she said, "I told him I was 'his'? I must have been out of my head. Well, I'll 'think it over!' I'll 'think it over!'--he needn't worry about that. Oh, I could kill myself! And I told Cherry-pie I was going to be--" she could not speak the word. She stood still and gasped for breath.

The paroxysm was so violent, and so long in coming to its height before there could be any ebb, that suddenly she reeled slightly.

A gray mist seemed to roll up out of the corners of the room. She sank down on the floor, crumpling up against her bed. When she opened her eyes, the mist had gone, and she felt very stiff and a little sick. "Why, where am I?" she said aloud, "what's the matter with me?" Then, dully, she remembered David's letter. "I was so angry I fainted," she thought, in listless astonishment.

For the moment she was entirely without feeling, neither angry, nor wounded, nor ashamed. Then, little by little, the dreadful wave, which had ebbed, began to rise again. But now it was cold, not hot. She said to herself, quietly, that she would write to David Richie, and tell him she _had_ 'thought it over'; and that neither she nor her money was his, or any further concern of his. "He needn't trouble himself; there would be no more 'imprudence.' Oh, fool! fool! immodest fool! to have told him he 'could have her for the taking,' and he said it was 'long' for _her_ to wait!" It was an unbearable recollection. "His,"

she had said; "soul and body." She saw again the written words that she had kissed, and she had an impulse to tear the flesh of the lovely young body she had offered this man, and he had-- declined. "_His?_" She blushed until she had to put her cold hands on her cheeks and forehead to ease the scorch. The modesty which a great and simple moment had obliterated came back with intolerable sharpness.

By and by she got on her feet and dragged herself to a chair; she looked very wan and languid. For the moment the fire was out. It had burned up precious things.

"I'll write to him to-morrow," she thought. And through the cold rage she felt a hot stab of satisfaction; her letter--"a rather different letter, this time!" would make him suffer! But not enough. Not enough. She wished she could make him die, as she was dying. But she could not write at that moment; the idea of taking up a pen turned her sick with the remembrance of what her pen had written three days before. Instead of writing, she would go out and walk, and walk, and walk, and think how she could punish him-- how she could _kill_ him! Where should she go? Never mind!

anywhere; anywhere. Just let her get out, let her be alone, where n.o.body could speak to her. How could she ever speak to people again?--to Miss White, who was down in the dining-room, now, planning for the--wedding! To Nannie, who knew that David had been summoned, and who must be told that he refused to come; to Blair, who would guess--she paused, remembering that she was angry with Blair. There was a perceptible instant before she could recollect why; when she did, she felt a pang of relief in her agony of humiliation. Blair, whatever else he was, was a _man_, a man who could love a woman! It occurred to her that the girl Blair loved would not be thought immodest if she showed him how much she loved him.

She began to put on her things to go out, and as she fastened her hat she looked at herself in the gla.s.s. "I have a wicked sort of face," she thought, with a curious detachment from the situation which was almost that of an outside observer. She packed a small hand-bag, and then opened her purse to see if she had money enough to carry out a vague plan of going somewhere to spend the night, "to get away from people." It was noon when she went down- stairs; in the hall she called to Miss White that she was going out.

"But it's just dinner-time, my lamb," Miss White called back from the dining-room; "and I must talk to you about--"

"I--I want to see Nannie," Elizabeth said, in a smothered voice.

It occurred to her that, later, she would go and tell Nannie that she had broken her engagement; it would be a satisfaction to do that, at any rate!

"Oh, you're going to take dinner with her?" Miss White said, peering out into the hall; "well, tell her to come in this afternoon and let us talk things over. There is so much to be done between now and the wedding," Cherry-pie fretted happily.

"_Wedding!"_ Elizabeth said to herself; then slipped back the latch of the front door: "I sha'n't come back until to-morrow."

"Oh, my lamb!" Miss White remonstrated, "I _must_ ask you some questions about the wedding!" Then she remembered more immediate questions: "Is your satchel packed? Have you plenty of clean pocket-handkerchiefs? Elizabeth! be careful not to take cold, and ask Nannie how many teaspoons she can lend us--" The door slammed. It seemed to Elizabeth that she could never look Cherry-pie in the face again. She had a frantic feeling that if she could not escape from that intolerable insistence on the--the wedding, she would die. In the street, the mere cessation of Miss White's joyous twittering was a relief. Well, she must go where she could be alone. She walked several blocks before she thought of Willis's; it would take at least two hours to get there, and she could think things over without interruption. She would think how she could save her self-respect before Miss White and her uncle and Nannie; and she would also think of some dreadful way, some terrible way to punish David Richie! Yes; she would walk out to Willis's... .

"Elizabeth!" some one said, at her elbow, and with a start she turned to see Blair. As they looked at each other, these two unhappy beings, each felt a faint pity for the other. Blair's face was haggard; Elizabeth's was white to the point of ghastliness, but there was a smudge of crimson just below the glittering amber of her eyes. "Elizabeth!" he said, shocked, "what is it? You are ill! What has happened?"

"Nothing. I--am tired." She was so unconscious of everything but the maelstrom realization that she hated David that she did not remember that the hesitating man beside her was under the ban of her displeasure. Her only thought was that she wished he would leave her to herself.

"Dark day, isn't it?" Blair said; but his voice broke in his throat.

"I think we are going to have rain," Elizabeth answered, mechanically. She was perfectly unaware of what she said, for at that moment she saw, on the other side of the street, the friendly postman who two hours ago had brought her David Richie's insult; now, his empty pouch over his shoulder, he was trudging back to the post-office. Against the clamoring fury of her thoughts and the instant vision of David's letter, Blair's presence was no more to her than the brush of a wing across the surface of a torrent.

As for Blair, he was dazed, and then ecstatic. She had not sent him away! She was perfectly matter-of-fact! "'_I think we are going to have rain_.'" She must have forgiven him! "May I walk home with you, Elizabeth?" he said breathlessly.

"I'm not going home. I am--just walking."

"So am I," he said. He had got himself in hand by this time; every faculty was alert; he had his chance to ask for pardon!

"Come out to Mrs. Todd's, and have some pink ice-cream.

Elizabeth, do you remember the paper roses on those dreadful marble-topped tables that were sort of semi-transparent?"

Elizabeth half smiled. "I had forgotten them; how horrid they were!" With the surface of her mind she was conscious that his presence was a relief; it was like a veil between her and the flames.

Blair, watching her furtively, said: "I'll treat. Come along, let's have a spree!"

"You always did do the treating," she said absently. Blair laughed. The primitive emotions are always naked; but how inevitably most of us try to cover them with the fig-leaf of trivial speech--a laugh, perhaps, or a question about the weather; somehow, in some way, the nakedness must be covered! So now, Love and Hate, walking side by side in Mercer's murky noon, were for the moment hidden from each other. Blair laughed, and said he would make her "treat" for a change, and she replied that she couldn't afford it.

At the toll-house he urged again, with gay obstinacy. "Oh, come in! You needn't eat the stuff, but just for the fun of the thing; Mrs. Todd will be charmed to see us, I'm sure."

"Well," Elizabeth agreed; for a moment the vapid talk was like balm laid upon burnt flesh. Then suddenly she remembered how David had sprung up that snowy path to the toll-house, to knock on the window and cry, "I've got her!" Ah, he was a little too sure; a _little_ too sure! She was not so easy to get as all that, not so cheap as he seemed to think--though she had offered herself; had even told him she was "tired of waiting"! (And at home Cherry-pie was counting the teaspoons for the wedding breakfast.)

Blair heard that fierce intake of her breath, and quivered without knowing why. "Yes, let us go!" Elizabeth said fiercely.

At least this chuckling old woman should see that David had not "got her"; she should see her with Blair, and know that there were men in the world who cared for her, if David Richie did not.

Mrs. Todd was not at home; perhaps, if she had been... .