Part 36 (2/2)

Meanwhile Mrs. Ledwith was dwelling more and more upon the European plan. She made up her mind, at last, to ask Uncle t.i.tus. When all was well, she would not seem to break a compact by going away altogether, so soon, to leave him; but now,--he would see the difference; perhaps advise it. She would like to know what he would advise. After all that had happened,--everything so changed,--half her family abroad,--what could she do? Would it not be more prudent to join them, than to set up a home again without them, and keep them out there? And all Helena's education to provide for, and everything so cheap and easy there, and so dear and difficult here?

”Now, tell me, truly, uncle, should you object? Should you take it at all hard? I never meant to have left you, after all you have done; but you see I have to break up, now poor Grant is gone; we cannot live as we did before, even with what you do; and--for a little while--it is cheaper there; and by and by we can come back and make some other plan. Besides, I feel sometimes as if I _must_ go off; as if there weren't anything left here for me.”

Poor woman! poor _girl_, still,--whose life had never truly taken root!

”I suppose,” said Uncle t.i.tus, soberly, ”that G.o.d s.h.i.+nes all round.

He's on this side as much as He is on that.”

Mrs. Ledwith looked up out of her handkerchief, with which at that moment she had covered her eyes.

”I never knew Uncle t.i.tus was pious!” she said to herself. And her astonishment dried her tears.

He said nothing more that was pious, however; he simply a.s.sured her, then and in conversations afterward, that he should take nothing ”hard;” he never expected to bind her, or put her on parole; he chose to come to know his relatives, and he had done so; he had also done what seemed to him right, in return for their meeting him half way; they were welcome to it all, to take it and use it as they best could, and as circ.u.mstances and their own judgment dictated. If they went abroad, he should advise them to do it before the winter.

These words implied consent, approval. Mrs. Ledwith went up-stairs after them with a heart so much lightened that she was very nearly cheerful. There would be a good deal to do now, and something to look forward to; the old pulses of activity were quickened. She could live with those faculties that had been always vital in her, as people breathe with one live lung; but trouble and change had wrought in her no deeper or further capacity; had wakened nothing that had never been awake before.

The house and furniture were to be sold; they would sail in September.

When Desire perceived that it was settled, she gave way; she had said little before; her mother had had many plans, and they amused her; she would not worry her with opposition; and besides, she was herself in a secret dream of a hope half understood.

It happened that she told it to Kenneth Kincaid herself; she saw almost every one who came, instead of her mother; Mrs. Ledwith lived in her own room chiefly. This was the way in which it had come about, that n.o.body noticed or guessed how it was with Desire, and what aspect Kenneth's friends.h.i.+p and kindness, in the simple history of those few weeks, might dangerously grow to bear with her.

Except one person. Luclarion Grapp, at last, made up her mind.

Kenneth heard what Desire told him, as he heard all she ever had to tell, with a gentle interest; comforted her when she said she could not bear to go, with the suggestion that it might not be for very long; and when she looked up in his face with a kind of strange, pained wonder, and repeated,--

”But I cannot _bear_,--I tell you, I cannot _bear_ to go!” he answered,--

”One can bear all that is right; and out of it the good will come that we do not know. All times go by. I am sorry--very sorry--that you must go; but there will be the coming back. We must all wait for that.”

She did not know what she looked for; she did not know what she expected him to mean; she expected nothing; the thought of his preventing it in any way never entered into her head; she knew, if she _had_ thought, how he himself was waiting, working. She only wanted him to _care_. Was this caring? Much? She could not tell.

”We never can come _back_,” she said, impetuously. ”There will be all the time--everything--between.”

He almost spoke to her of it, then; he almost told her that the everything might be more, not less; that friends.h.i.+ps gathered, multiplied; that there would be one home, he hoped, in which, by and by, she would often be; in which she would always be a dear and welcome comer.

But she was so sad, so tried; his lips were held; in his pure, honest kindness, he never dreamt of any harm that his silence might do; it only seemed so selfish to tell her how bright it was with him.

So he said, smiling,--

”And who knows what the 'everything' may be?” And he took both her hands in his as he said good-by,--for his little stops were of minutes on his way, always,--and held them fast, and looked warmly, hopefully into her face.

It was all for her,--to give her hope and courage; but the light of it was partly kindled by his own hope and gladness that lay behind; and how could she know that, or read it right? It was at once too much, and not enough, for her.

Five minutes after, Luclarion Grapp went by the parlor door with a pile of freshly ironed linen in her arms, on her way up-stairs.

Desire lay upon the sofa, her face down upon the pillow; her arms were thrown up, and her hands clasped upon the sofa-arm; her frame shook with sobs.

Luclarion paused for the time of half a step; then she went on. She said to herself in a whisper, as she went,--

”It is a stump; a proper hard one! But there's n.o.body else; and I have got to tell her!”

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