Part 57 (2/2)
Toward the end of the week came another bulky letter, which I devoured, letting my dinner grow cold.
”Our life at the farmhouse has become very quiet,” she wrote. ”Emily improves slowly, for her nervous system has received a severe strain. I told her that thee had sent messages to all the family, and asked if she did not expect one. 'I've no right to any--there's no occasion for any,' she faltered; but her eyes were very wistful and entreating.
'Well,' I said, 'I must clear my conscience, and since he sent thee one, I must give it. He writes, 'Say to Miss Warren in reply that the last words I spoke to her shall ever be true.' I suppose thee knows what he means,' I said, smiling; 'I don't.' She buried her face in the pillow again; but I think thy message did her good, for she soon fell asleep, and looked more peaceful than at any time yet.”
At last there came a letter saying, ”Emily has left us and gone to a cousin--a Mrs. Vining--who resides at Columbus, Ohio. She is much better, but very quiet--very different from her old self. Father put her on the train, and she will have to change cars only once. 'Emily,'
I said to her, 'thee can not go away without one word for Richard.' She was deeply moved, but her resolute will gained the mastery. 'I am trying to act for the best,' she said. 'He has appealed to the future: the future must prove us both, for there must be no more mistakes.'
'Does thee doubt thyself, Emily?' 'I have reason to doubt myself, Mrs.
Yocomb,' she replied. 'But what does thy heart tell thee?' A deep solemn look came into her eyes, and after a few moments she said, 'Pardon me, my dear friend, if I do not answer you fully. Indeed, I would scarcely know how to answer you. I have entered on an experience that is new and strange to me. I am troubled and frightened at myself.
I want to go away among strangers, where I can think and grow calm. I want to be alone with my G.o.d. I should always be weak and vacillating here. Moreover, Mr. Morton has formed an impression of me, of which, perhaps, I cannot complain. This impression may grow stronger in his mind. It has all been too sudden. His experiences have been too intermingled with storm, delirium, and pa.s.sion. He has not had time to think any more than I have. In the larger sphere of work to which you say he has been promoted he may find new interests that will be absorbing. After a quiet and distant retrospect he may thank me for the course I am taking.' 'Emily!' I exclaimed, 'for so tender-hearted a girl thee is very strong.' 'No,' she replied, 'but because I have learned my weakness I am going away from temptation.' I then asked, 'Is thee willing I should tell Richard what thee has said?' After thinking for some time she answered, 'Yes, let everything be based on the simple truth. But tell him he must respect my action--he must leave me to myself.' The afternoon before she left us, Adah and Reuben went over to the village and got some beautiful rosebuds, and Adah brought them up after tea. Emily was much touched, and kissed her again and again. Then she threw herself into my arms and cried for nearly an hour, but she went away bravely. I never can think of it with dry eyes. Zillah was heart-broken, and Reuben clung to her in a way that surprised me. He has been very remorseful that he treated her badly at one time. Adah and I were mopping our eyes, and father kept blowing his nose like a trumpet. She gave way a little at the last moment, for Reuben ran down to the barn and brought out Dapple that she might say good-by to him, and she put her arms around the pretty creature's neck and sobbed for a moment or two. I never saw a horse act so. He followed her right up to the rockaway steps. At last she said, 'Come, let us go, quick!' I shall never forget the scene, and I think that she repressed so much feeling that we had to express it for her. She kissed little Adela tenderly, and the child was crying too. It seemed as if we couldn't go on and take up our every-day life again. I wouldn't have believed that one who was a stranger but a short time ago could have gotten such a hold upon our hearts, but as I think it all over I do not wonder. Dear little Zillah reminds me of what I owe to her. She is very womanly, but she is singularly strong. As she was driven away she looked up at thy window, so thee may guess that thee was the last one in her thoughts. Wait, and be patient. Do just as she says.”
I am glad that my editorial chief did not see me as I read this letter, for I fear I should have been deposed at once. Its influence on me, however, was very satisfactory to him, for if ever a man was put on his mettle I felt that I had been.
”Very well, Emily Warren,” I said, ”we have both appealed to the future: let it judge us.” I worked and tried to live as if the girl's clear dark eyes were always on me, and her last lingering glance at the window from which I had watched her go to meet the lover that, for my sake, she could not marry, was a ray of steady suns.h.i.+ne. She did not realize how unconsciously she had given me hope.
A few days later I looked carefully over our subscription list. Her paper had been stopped, and I felt this keenly; but as I was staring blankly at the obliterated name a happy thought occurred to me, and I turned to the letter V. With a gleam of deep satisfaction in my eyes I found the address, Mrs. Adelaide Vining, Columbus, Ohio.
”Now through the editorial page I can write to her daily,” I thought.
Late in September my chief said to me:
”Look here, Morton, you are pitching into every dragon in the country.
I don't mind fighting three or four evils or abuses at a time, but this general onslaught is raising a breeze.”
”With your permission, I don't care if it becomes a gale, as long as we are well ballasted with facts.”
”Well, to go back to my first figure, be sure you are well armed before you attack. Some of the beasts are old and tough, and have awful stings in their tails. The people seem to like it, though, from the way subscriptions are coming in.”
But I wrote chiefly for one reader. He would have opened his eyes if I had told him that a young music-teacher in Columbus, Ohio, had a large share in conducting the journal. Over my desk in my rooms I had had framed, in illuminated text, the words she had spoken to me on the most memorable day of my life:
”The editor has exceptional opportunities, and might be the knight-errant of our age. If in earnest, and on the right side, he can forge a weapon out of public opinion that few evils could resist. He is in just the position to discover these dragons and drive them from their hiding-places.”
The spirit that breathed in these words I tried to make mine, for I wished to feel and think as she did. While I maintained my individuality of thought I never touched a question but that I first looked at it from her standpoint. I labored for weeks over an editorial ent.i.tled ”Truth versus Conscience,” and sent it like an arrow into the West.
CHAPTER XIX
ADAH
I heard often from the farmhouse, and learned that Mr. Hearn had gone to Europe almost immediately, but that he had returned in the latter part of September, and had spent a week with his little girl, Mrs.
Bradford, his sister, accompanying him. ”They seem to think Adela is doing so well,” Mrs. Yocomb wrote, ”that they have decided to leave her here through October. Adah spends part of every forenoon teaching the little girls.” In the latter part of November I received a letter that made my heart beat thick and fast.
”We expect thee to eat thy Thanksgiving dinner with us, and we expect also a friend from the West. I think she will treat thee civilly. At any rate we have a right to invite whom we please. We drew up a pet.i.tion to Emily, and all signed it. Father added a direful postscript. He said, 'If thee won't come quietly, I will go after thee.
Thee thinks I am a man of peace, but there will be commotion and violence in Ohio if thee doesn't come; so, strong-willed as thee is, thee has got to yield for once.' She wrote father the funniest letter in reply, in which she agreed, for the credit of the Society of Friends, not to provoke him to extremities. She doesn't know thee is coming, but I think she knows me well enough to be sure that thee would be invited. Emily writes that she will not return to New York to live, since she can obtain more scholars than she needs at Columbus.”
Mrs. Yocomb also added that Adah had left home that day for an extended visit in the city, and she gave me her address.
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