Part 24 (1/2)

”Then I am the bearer of ill news. He is to join your new general in a week or two. He could not find you this morning. I think he was relieved to know I should tell you. How much he cares for you! It is not like a man friends.h.i.+p. It is like the way we weak girls care for one another.

How can he be such a brave gentleman as he seems--as he must be? I should have thought it would be you who would have gone first. Why do you not go? Here is Miss Wynne's pet girl-boy away to fight, and you--why do not you go?”

I was puzzled, as well I might be. ”Dost thou want me to go!”

A quick light came into those brown eyes, and a little flush to the cheeks as she said,--oh, so very quickly,--”I want all my friends to do what seems to them right.”

”I am glad to answer,” I said. ”It seems to me my duty to be with the army; my friends have gone, and now Graydon, the last to leave, has also gone. I fancy people smiling to see me still at home--I who am so positive, so outspoken. But here is my father, with whom if I go I break for life, and here is my Aunt Gainor, who bursts into tears if I do but mention my wish to leave her.”

”I see,” said Darthea, not looking at me; ”now I understand fully; I did not before. But--will you think it strange if--if I say--I, a good and loyal woman--that you should go, and soon?” Then there was a long pause, and she added, ”When will this cruel war end?”

”G.o.d knows,” said I. ”Thank thee; thou art right, Darthea.”

Another pause as long came after, when she said abruptly, and in quite another voice, ”You do not like Mr. Arthur Wynne; why do you not?”

I was startled. One never knew when she would get under one's guard and put some p.r.i.c.kly question.

”Dost thou think I have reason to like him?” I said. ”I did like him once, but now I do not; nor does he love me any better. Why dost thou ask me?”

”Oh, for--no matter! I am not going to say why.”

”I think thou knowest, Darthea, that he is no friend of mine.”

”Let us join your aunt,” she said gravely.

”One word more,” said I, ”and I shall trouble thee no further. Best sure that, come what may, there is one man who loves thee with a love no man can better.”

”I wish you had not said that. There are some, Mr. Wynne, who never know when to take No for an answer.”

”I am one,” said I.

To this she made no reply, and rode on looking ahead in a dreamy way that fetched back to my memory a prettiness my dear mother had.

Presently turning, she said:

”Let it end here; and--and my name is Miss p.e.n.i.ston, please.”

There was no pettishness in her voice--only a certain dignity which sits better on little women than on little men, and provokes no smile. She was looking at me with a curious steadiness of gaze as she spoke. It was my last chance for many a day, and I could not let her go with a mere bow of meek submission.

”If I have been rude or discourteous, I am more sorry than I can say. If I called thee Darthea, it was because hope seemed to bring us nearer for one dear moment. Ah! I may call thee Miss p.e.n.i.ston, but for me always thou wilt be Darthea; and I shall love Darthea to the end, even when Miss p.e.n.i.ston has come to be a distant dream and has another name. I am most sorry to have given thee annoyance. Forget that, and pardon me.”

”Mr. Wynne, you are a kindly and courteous gentleman. I wish--and you must not misapprehend me--that I loved you. Oh, I do not. Your aunt, who is so good to me, is a fierce wooer. I am afraid of her, and--she must be miles away; let us join her.” And with this she shook her bridle, and was off at speed, and my mare and I at her side.

If I have made those who loved Darthea p.e.n.i.ston and me understand this winning soul, I shall be glad; and if not I shall at least have had the pleasure of repeating words and describing actions which live in my remembrance with such exactness as does not apply to much of what, to the outer world, may seem far better ent.i.tled to be remembered. She had it in her to hurt you, help you, pity you, mock or amuse you, and back of it all was the honesty and truth of a womanhood capable of courageous conduct, and despising all forms of meanness. That she was variously regarded was natural. Margaret s.h.i.+ppen said she cared only for dress and the men; and the witty Miss Franks, seeing further, but not all, said that Darthea p.e.n.i.ston was an actress of the minute, who believed her every role to be real. My wise aunt declared that she was several women, and that she did not always keep some of them in order. It was clear, to me at least, that she was growing older in mind, and was beginning to keep stricter school for those other women with whom my aunt credited this perplexing little lady.

Before I quite leave her for a time, I must let Jack say a word. It will tell more than I then knew or could know, and will save me from saying that which were better said by another.

”At last there is certainty of a long war, and I, being well again, must take my side. It is fortunate when choice is so easy, for I find it often hard in life to know just what is right. Poor Hugh, who has gone further than I from our fathers' faith, will still declare he is of Friends; but he commonly drops our language if he is not excited or greatly interested, and the rest will go too. It is strange that his resoluteness and clear notions of duty have so helped me, and yet that he is so caught and tied fast by Miss Gainor's dependence upon him, and by his scruples as to his father. He cannot do the thing he would. Now that my own father has sold out his business, I at least am left without excuse. I shall go at once, for fear I shall change my mind.” A more unlikely thing I cannot imagine to have happened to John Warder.

”I saw Darthea to-day,” he goes on to write. ”She is going to New York.

She talked to me with such frankness as almost broke my heart. She does not know how dear she is to me. I was near to telling her; but if she said No,--and she would,--I might--oh, I could not see her again. I had rather live in doubt. And whether Hugh loves her or not I would I knew.