Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline Part 5

"I understand you, Miss Tessa."

He spoke gently; her heart was at rest again.

"You say that you can not understand whether I am wily or sincere?"

"I can not understand."

"Neither can I. But I _think_ that I am sincere!"

"And please be careful how you change your att.i.tude towards her; you are unconventional enough to refuse a woman upon the slightest pretext. I know that you will say 'I regret exceedingly, Miss Sue, that you have misinterpreted my friendly attentions.'"

"I would like to; I think many things that I do not speak, Miss Tessa."

"Your head and heart would echo a perpetual silence if you did not," she laughed. "The Sphinx is a chatterbox compared to you."

As they drove up under the maple-trees before the low iron gate, he said, "Has this year been a happy year to you? Do you sleep well?"

"Wouldn't you like to look at my tongue and feel my pulse?" she returned in her lightest tone.

"Will you not answer me?" he asked gravely.

"This year has been the best year of my life."

"So has it been my best year. This winter I shall decide several things pertaining to my future; it is my plan to practice for awhile-and not marry!"

Were those last words for her? Discomfited and wounded-oh, how wounded!-her lips refused to speak.

"Good-by," she said, just touching his hand.

He turned as he was driving off and lifted his hat, the suns.h.i.+ne of his eyes fell full upon her; her smile was but a pitiful effort; what right had he to say such a thing to her?

"I hope," she said, as she walked up the path, "that I shall never see you again."

"I wish that I had never seen her," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, touching his horse with the whip.

And thus a part of the old year died and was buried.

Shaking with cold, not daring to go away by herself, she irresolutely turned the k.n.o.b of the sitting-room door; her face, she was aware, was not in a state to be taken before her mother's critical eyes; but her heart was so crushed, she pitied herself with such infinite compa.s.sion, that she longed for some one to speak to her kindly, to touch her as if they loved her; any thing to take some of the aching away from that place in her heart where the tears were frozen.

When she needed any mothering she gave it to herself; with her arms around her s.h.i.+vering, shrinking self, she was beseeching, "Be brave; it's almost over."

In the old days, the impulsive little Tessa had always chided herself; the sensitive little Tessa had always comforted herself; the truthful, eager, castle-building little Tessa had always been her own refuge, s.h.i.+eld, adviser, and best comforter.

With more bosom friends than she knew how to have confidences with, with more admiring girl friends than she could find a place for, with more hearts open to her than to any one girl at school, Tessa the child, Tessa the maiden, and Tessa the woman had always lived within herself, leaned upon herself.

Mr. Hammerton said that she was a confutation of the oak and vine theory, that he had stood and stood to be entwined about, but that she would never entwine.

In this moment, standing at the door, with her hand upon the k.n.o.b, a ray of comfort shone into her heart and nestled there like a gleam of sunlight peering through an opening in an under-growth, and the ray of comfort was, that, perhaps Gus Hammerton would come to-night and talk to her in his kindly, practical, unsentimental fas.h.i.+on, sympathizing with her unspoken thoughts, and tender towards the feelings of whose existence he was unaware.

Perhaps-but of late, did she fancy, or was it true? that he was rather shy with her, and dropped into the chair nearest to Dinah.

Well! she could be alone by and by and go to sleep!

So relentless was she, in that instant toward Ralph Towne that it would have been absolute relief could she have looked into his dead face: to see the cold lids shut down fast over the suns.h.i.+ny eyes, to know that the stiff lips could never open to speak meaningless words, to touch his head and feel a.s.sured that, warm and soft, his fingers could never hold hers again.

"Why, Tessa, you look frozen to death," exclaimed her mother. "How far did you go and where did you meet Mr. Towne?"

"I went to Mayfield," she closed the door and moved towards the gay little figure reading "The Story of Elizabeth" upon the lounge. "Mr.

Towne overtook me after I had pa.s.sed Old Place."

"O, Tessa," cried Dinah, dropping her book, "Dr. Lake was here. What a pity you were out! He asked where 'Mystic' was. I made a list on the cover of my book of the things that he talked about. Just hear them. One ought to understand short-hand to keep up with him. Now listen."

Tessa stood and listened.

"'The Valley of the Dog, "'The Car of Juggernaut, "'Insanity, "'Intemperance, "'Tobacco, "'Slavery, "'Church and State, "'Conceit, "'Surgery, "'The English Government, "'Marriage, "'Flirtations, "'Ladies as Physicians, "'The Wicked World, "'A Quotation from Scott.'

"And that isn't half. I began to grow interested there, and forgot to write."

"Where did the professional call come in?"

"Oh, that doesn't take a second. He watches his patient while he talks!

Oh, and he told two hospital stories, a story of his school life, and about being lost in the woods, and about a camp-meeting! He is from Mississippi. Your Mr. Towne couldn't say so much in ten years."

"He says that the disease in my lungs is not progressive, but that I should protect my health! I ought to spend every winter in the West Indies or in the south of Europe! South of Europe, indeed! On your father's business! Now if I had married John Gesner I might have spent my winters in any part of the civilized world."

"Would you have taken us?" asked Dinah.

"The future is veiled from us mercifully."

Dinah laughed. "Mother, you forget about love."

"_Love!_" exclaimed Mrs. Wadsworth scornfully, "I should like to know what love is."

"Father knows," said Dinah. "Have you read 'Elizabeth,' Tessa?"

"Yes."

"I'd _die_ before I'd act as she did, wouldn't you? I'd die before I'd let any body know that I cared for him more than he cared for me, wouldn't you?"

"It isn't so easy to die."

"Did Mr. Towne speak of Sue Greyson?" inquired Mrs. Wadsworth.

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing-much?"