Part 17 (1/2)
”Betty, what have you done? Tell me--tell me quick.”
Then she turned her face toward him, wet with tears. ”Have pity on me, Richard. Have pity on me, Richard, for my heart is broken, and the thing that hurts me most is that it will hurt you.”
”But it wasn't yesterday when I came to you out there in the woods. I heard you laughing, and you ran to meet me as happy as ever--”
”You did not hear me laugh once again after you came and looked in my eyes there in the grove. It was in that instant that my heart began to break, and now I know why. Go back to Cheyenne. Go far away and never think of me any more. I am not worthy of you, anyway. I have let you hold me in your arms and kiss me when I ought not. Oh, I have been so bad--so bad! Let me hide my face. I can't look in your eyes any more.”
But he was cruel. He made her look in his eyes and tell him all the sorrowful truth. Then at last he grew pitiful again and tried brokenly to comfort her, to make her feel that something would intervene to help them, but in his heart he knew that his cause was lost, and his hopes burned within him, a heap of smoldering coals dying in their own ashes.
He had always loved Peter Junior too well to blame him especially as Peter could not have known what havoc he was making of his cousin's hopes. It had all been a terrible mischance, and now they must make the best of it and be brave. Yet a feeling of resentment would creep into his heart in spite of his manful resolve to be fair to his cousin, and let nothing interfere with their lifelong friends.h.i.+p. In vain he told himself that Peter had the same right as he to seek Betty's love. Why not? Why should he think himself the only one to be considered? But there was Betty! And when he thought of her, his soul seemed to go out of him. Too late! Too late! And so he rose and walked sorrowfully away.
When Mary Ballard came home from church, she found her little daughter up in her room on her knees beside her bed, her arms stretched out over the white counterpane, asleep. She had suffered until nature had taken her into her own soothing arms and put her to sleep through sheer weakness. Her cheeks were still burning and her eyelids red from weeping. Mary thought her in a fever, and gently helped her to remove the pretty muslin dress and got her to bed.
Betty drew a long sigh as her head sank back into the pillow. ”My head aches; don't worry, mother, dear.” She thought her heart was closed forever on her terrible secret.
”Mother'll bring you something for it, dear. You must have eaten something at the picnic that didn't agree with you.” She kissed Betty's cheek, and at the door paused to look back on her, and a strange misgiving smote her.
”I can't think what ails her,” she said to Martha. ”She seems to be in a high fever. Did she sleep well last night?”
”Perfectly, but we talked a good while before we went to sleep.
Perhaps she got too tired yesterday. I thought she seemed excited, too. Mrs. Walters always makes her coffee so strong.”
Peter Junior came in to dinner, buoyant and happy. He was disappointed not to see Betty, and frankly avowed it. He followed Mary into the kitchen and begged to be allowed to go up and speak to Betty for only a minute, but Mary thought sleep would be the best remedy and he would better leave her alone. He had been to church with his father, and all through the morning service as he sat at his father's side he had meditated how he could persuade the Elder to look on his plans with some degree of favor--enough at least to warrant him in going on with them and trust to his father's coming around in time.
Neither he nor Richard were at the Elder's at dinner, and the meal pa.s.sed in silence, except for a word now and then in regard to the sermon. Hester thought continually of her son and his hopes, but as she glanced from time to time in her husband's face she realized that silence on her part was still best. Whenever the Elder cleared his throat and looked off out of the window, as was his wont when about to speak of any matter of importance, her heart leaped and her eyes gazed intently at her plate, to hide the emotion she could not restrain. Her hands grew cold and her lips tremulous, but still she waited.
It was the Elder's custom to sleep after the Sunday's dinner, which was always a hearty one, lying down on the sofa in the large parlor, where the closed blinds made a pleasant somberness. Hester pa.s.sed the door and looked in on him, as he lay apparently asleep, his long, bony frame stretched out and the muscles of his strong face relaxing to a softness they sometimes a.s.sumed when sleeping. Her heart went out to him. Oh, if he only knew! If she only dared! His boy ought to love him, and understand him. If they would only understand!
Then she went up into Peter Junior's room and sat there where she had sat seven years before--where she had often sat since--gazing across at the red-coated old ancestor, her hands in her lap, her thoughts busy with her son's future even as then. If all the others had lived, would the quandary and the struggle between opposing wills have been as great for each one as for this sole survivor?
Where were those little ones now? Playing in happy fields and waiting for her and the stern old man who also suffered, but knew not how to reveal his heart? Again and again the words repeated themselves in her heart mechanically: ”Wait on the Lord--Wait on the Lord,” and then, again, ”Oh, Lord, how long?”
Peter Junior returned early from the Ballards', since he could not see Betty, leaving the field open for Martha and her guest, much to the guest's satisfaction. He went straight to the room occupied by Richard whenever he was with them, but no Richard was there. His valise was all packed ready for his start on the morrow, but there was no line pinned to the frame of the mirror telling Peter Junior where to find him, as was Richard's way in the past. With a fleeting glance around to see if any bit of paper had been blown away, he went to his own room and there he found his mother, waiting. In an instant that long ago morning came to his mind, and as then he went swiftly to her, and, kneeling, clasped her in his arms.
”Are you worried, mother mine? It's all right. I will be careful and restrained. Don't be troubled.”
Hester clasped her boy's head to her bosom and rested her face against his soft hair. For a while the silence was deep and the moments burned themselves into the young man's soul with a purifying fire never to be forgotten. Presently she began speaking to him in low, murmuring tones: ”Your father is getting to be an old man, Peter, dear, and I--I am no longer young. Our boy is dear to us--the dearest. In our different ways we long only for what is best for you. If only it might be revealed to you and us alike! Many paths are good paths to walk in, and the way may be happy in any one of them, for happiness is of the spirit. It is in you--not made for you by circ.u.mstances. We have been so happy here, since you came home wounded, and to be wounded is not a happy thing, as you well know; but it seemed to bring you and me happiness, nevertheless. Did it not, dear?”
”Indeed yes, mother. Yes. It gave me a chance to have you to myself a lot, and that ought to make any man happy, with a mother like you. And now--a new happiness came to me, the other day, that I meant to speak of yesterday and couldn't after getting so angry with father. It seemed like sacrilege to speak of it then, and, besides, there was another feeling that made me hesitate.”
”So you are in love with some one, Peter?”
”Yes, mother. How did you guess it?”
”Because only love is a feeling that would make you say you could not speak of it when your heart is full of anger. Is it Betty, dear?”
”Yes, mother. You are uncanny to read me so.”
She laughed softly and held him closer. ”I love Betty, too, Peter. You will always be gentle and kind? You will never be hard and stern with her?”
”Mother! Have I ever been so? Can't you tell by the way I have always acted toward you that I would be tender and kind? She will be myself--my very own. How could I be otherwise?”