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The third Sabbath in October was bland and bright as June. Roy, who had arrived in Dundee on Saturday evening, invited his wife to a stroll in the garden with him after the dispersion of the afternoon congregation. There were more sere than green leaves in the rose labyrinth, but one side of the arbor was covered by a thrifty micra phylia that had been known to keep its foliage from Autumn to Spring when the winter was not severe, and which had put forth, within a week, a few large milk-white roses, warmed into delicious fragrance by the sunny day.
"Sweets to the sweet!" said Roy, cutting a half-open blossom and a bud, and fastening them in Jessie's brooch. "I wish they did not match your cheeks so nearly, Love!"
She smiled faintly.
"I am gaining strength rapidly. There is nothing the matter with me, except that I have not enough to do to keep me from moping. There is one thing you must let me speak of while Eunice is not by,"—she continued, hurriedly. "I may not have appeared grateful for your permission to remain here until her arrangements about the school are completed, but I am thankful! I feel your goodness—your generosity, deeply! I wish I were more worthy of it!"
Unconsciously, she had laid hold of the lappel of his coat, and was fingering it nervously. Then—a girlish trick she used to practise when coaxing or bantering her father, and, occasionally, when talking saucily with himself—she began with deliberate fingers to button the coat from the throat down. "Making a mummy of me, Madcap!" was the alliterative comment Mr. Kirke usually made when the process was finished. Roy recollected it now, and smiled to himself. The action—her first voluntary caress since his return from abroad, thrilled him with ecstasy. Her downcast eyes and trembling lips recalled, in one rapturous rush, thoughts of the shy dalliance of the girl he had wooed amid these bowers. He was winning her back to her true self,—or, rather, nature and affection were recovering from the lethargy induced by the shock she had sustained.
"My wife must never speak to me of gratitude!" he said, restraining the pæan the heart would have sung through the lips. "Your happiness should be—if I know myself— is my chief consideration. Much as I regret Eunice's refusal to share our dwelling, I should be savage in my unkindness if I were to add to your disappointment by denying your request that you might be left together a week or two longer. Nor do I wish to punish her, or, in any manner, express my chagrin at her determination. She is actuated by motives which are weighty in her estimation. The sight of her glistening eyes when I told her, this morning, that you were not to be separated while she remained in the Parsonage, went far toward compensating me for my self-denial. By and by, my bird will nestle in my bosom, settle herself in our home. The knowledge that you are, indeed and in truth, mine, dear one, renders me patient, almost satisfied, in your absence. If I say hourly, in the thought of your coming to and dwelling with me—' God speed the day!' the aspiration does not incline me to force your inclination, to withhold from you a reasonable indulgence, that I may see you the sooner in your right place. I would be your husband—not your jailor, my pet!"
It was impossible to look into his moved face; to hear the cadence of passion and yearning that trembled along the last sentences, and not believe that, whatever might be the record of his past loves and defections, his whole heart was now given to her who bore his name. The listener's paroxysm of humility bowed her in spirit to his feet. He was heaping burning coals upon her shamed head.
"And God make me fit for that home!" she said, solemnly, lifted in the exaltation of high resolve above the mental apathy and physical repulsion which had, up to this hour, made this enforced union an ever-present nightmare. "Indeed, Roy, I will strive to be a good wife! I have nothing to live for except the hope of making you happy. You know what I am, weak and faulty—a spoiled child from the beginning, to whom, everything like discipline was unknown until lately. And then—one stroke followed another so rapidly that I have hardly been sane, I think. But I do want to satisfy you in every respect, or so far as one like me can!"
"'So far as you can!'" his whole soul in the eyes that beamed into hers, and in the sweet, proud smile irradiating his grave features. "The work is done, dearest! My cup runneth over. It will scarcely bear a rose-leaf this evening,—only this seal of our renewed covenant, my angel of blessing, my good, true wife !" bending to kiss her.
He remembered afterward, how she clung to his shoulder and hid her face there, when he placed her beside him on the bench in the arbor, where they sat out the half-hour of sunset as they had so many others in days gone by.
Eunice, seated behind the tea-urn when they obeyed Patsey's summons to supper, noted the lessened gloom of her sister's mien and Roy's expression of radiant content; saw, when they gathered about the hearth for the evening's talk, that Roy took in his clasp the hand which generally lay listlessly across its fellow in Jessie's lap, and that she allowed him to retain it. Saw and was thankful for these slight harbingers of the return of the love and brightness which were once her child's life. Tried to comfort herself in her isolation with the belief that the night was passing from her darling's spirit.
"Wounds soon heal in hearts young and healthy as is hers!" she thought. "For this, at least, I may return hearty thanks."
Within two days after the receipt of Roy's first letter, Eunice had announced to Jessie the reverse of her plans for the winter. Instead of removing with them to Hamilton, she had decided to hire a cottage in the village, and open a school for girls. She had partially engaged both house and pupils before she broached the subject to her sister. Thoroughly aroused from her selfish languor by the startling intelligence, Jessie had opposed the scheme with might and main. Accustomed as she was to Eunice's calm but resolute measures, and her taciturnity respecting her own views, wants, and plans, this retreat from a position which had not been taken without much and serious thought, filled her with consternation. Having plied her unsuccessfully with arguments and entreaties of her own devising, Jessie wrote to Roy, begging him to use his powerful influence to avert the threatened evil.
"I cannot do without her!" she said, without staying to reflect upon what might be the husband's feeling on reading the avowal, "unlike as we are and reserved as we have been to one another on some subjects, our hearts are knit together by bands which are all the stronger for our late loss. In the anticipation of this parting, my only sister seems to me like my second soul—the other part of myself. I shall be less than half a woman without her. You can do more with her than any one else. If you desire my happiness, and I know you do, entreat her not to leave me!"
If aught in this letter wounded Fordham, nobody knew it. He wrote to Eunice forthwith and urgently; did his best to dissuade her from the novel project, partly because he loved and respected her, chiefly because the matter was one that concerned Jessie's comfort and happiness. He accomplished nothing, except to elicit from Eunice the admission that she had no counter-reasoning to offer, and a mild but firm repetition of her unalterable resolve. He made a second attempt on Saturday evening, during Jessie's absence from the room. Eunice sewed on steadily without a word, while he set forth the disadvantages of her present plan—the advantages of the former. Finally, brought to bay by his argument and searching questions, she confronted him abruptly.
"I must have work, and plenty of it, just now, Roy! I dare not be idle! When it shall be safe and best for me to rest and think, I will accept your offer. I beg you to believe that I act from principle—not caprice. I am sure that I am doing right. And now, please say no more."
He desisted at that, and with characteristic magnanimity, undertook to reconcile his wife to the separation, by holding out the hope that it was but temporary, besides inquiring into the minutiæ of her design, and lending her what assistance she required in the furtherance of it. All was in train when he returned to his post of duty on Thursday morning. Repairs were in progress upon the leased cottage, which was pretty and convenient; twenty pupils engaged to begin lessons early in November; the sale of the surplus furniture was over, and the sisters, with Patsey, were busy getting the rest of their effects in order for transportation. Jessie was to follow in two weeks, when she had seen Eunice and the faithful servant domiciled in their new abode.
It was the longest fortnight Roy had ever known, although he kept his loneliness and longing to himself, concealing their existence most carefully from his wife. She would come to "him and home," on Wednesday of the second week, and he passed every hour he could spare from college duties and sleep, in getting the house ready for her reception. On Monday, arrived boxes from Dundee which he unpacked with his own hands. They contained Jessie's personal property—books, books and bijouterie , and the most delightful occupation of his solitude was the arrangement of these in parlor and sitting-room. He slept at "home," as he proudly called it, after these were brought in. They were too valuable to be left unguarded.
On Tuesday night, Orrin Wyllys, who had just returned from a visit of three or four days to his fiancée , chanced to pass the house, and seeing lights on the first floor, rang the bell.
Roy answered it. He was in dressing-gown and slippers—a cigar in one hand, a book in the other.
"A domesticated Benedict to the life!" laughed his cousin, as he followed him into the library. "Aha! there is an old and valued acquaintance."
The portrait of the girl at the wishing-well hung opposite the door, and, he observed, in exact range of Roy's vision as he sat in his chair.
"You will find many more if you will use your eyes. Come with me."
The dining-room adjoined the library, and the parlors were just across the hall. A bronze statuette of Pallas—four feet high, mounted upon a column of Egyptian marble—presented to the popular professor by the students, was the most conspicuous ornament; but scattered here and there were many interesting works of art selected by him in foreign lands—always with reference to Jessie's tastes and wishes. The piano was Orrin's bridal gift—a surprise held in reserve by the fond husband to brighten the coming home of his household deity. But the sitting-room back of the state apartments, was the one on which he had expended most care and time. A bay-window did duty for the more roomy oriel, and the shelf, which was an extension of the sill, was filled with plants.
"Next Spring we will set a root of jessamine outside," remarked Roy, when Orrin praised the infant creepers—ivy and passion-flower—on the inside of the casement.
The carpet was mosses, green, gray, and russet, specked with red-topped lichens; the walls were flushed with pink. Jessie's escritoire was in one corner, her work-stand in another. A reading-lamp, with its alabaster shade, was upon the centre-table, and a low lounging chair beside it. The picture of Jessie's mother hung over the mantel; Jessie's books strewed the stands, and were ranged in rows within a handsome bookcase at the back of the room. Choice engravings were hung in good lights, and within the fireplace lay long, well-seasoned logs ready for lighting.
"Beauty's bower!" said Orrin, gazing about him with unqualified approbation. "Who would have given you credit for such a genius for furnishing? For the individuality of your appointments shows that you are not indebted to the upholsterer for the charming effect. But perhaps you have worked under orders. Did Mrs. Fordham and her sister give you general directions?"
"None. I am happy to have the approval of a connoisseur," rejoined Roy, lightly. "I knew, of course, what Jessie would like, and have tried to please her. Upholsterers and cartes blanches from papa, and the toils of magnificence are the luxuries (and nuisances) of men who marry heiresses. As perhaps you have discovered."
"Sagely guessed! I heard little besides millinery, dressmaking, and upholstery talk while in B——. Ponderous preparations, so it struck me, for such everyday events as marrying, giving in marriage, and going to housekeeping. I had come to the conclusion that I was anti-domestic in my proclivities, but a sight of this idyl of a home has staggered the belief. I am glad you are married, old fellow!" clapping him on the shoulder. "I could not tell you in a month how glad!"
"Don't begin, then!" Roy led the way to the library. "Else, not to be outdone, I must take at least a year in which to express my gratification at the event."
Orrin eyed him furtively while he affected to be engrossed in the delicate operation of lighting the cigar tendered by the host. Roy's clear, open brow, sunny smile, and the hearty ring of his voice were indubitable signs of the sincerity of his happiness. It was with a lighter spirit—I leave conscience out of the question—that his kinsman threw himself back in his comfortable chair, and prepared to enjoy the evening.
"The last of my quasi widowerhood!" said Roy. "I wish it were the last of your bachelor days, Orrin!"
" Ca viendra! " returned the other, his cigar between his teeth. "Next month is December."
"I hope your wife will take as kindly to me as mine does to you!" pursued Roy. "And that I may, one day, have the opportunity to prove by services rendered her, my appreciation of the care you have taken of my interests in my absence."
"Don't speak of it, my dear boy!" said Orrin, hastily.
Even he colored slightly at the unintentional sarcasm. He coughed to emit the smoke that had gone down the wrong way, and this gave him time to rally his ideas. No harm had come of his innocent pastime. Roy was none the wiser, and his bride had had the advantage of a new sensation in the development of her latent capacities for loving and suffering. She would be better and stronger all her life; her character would gain breadth and fibre for the emotion that had stirred the depths of her being. It was wholesome, if sharp, discipline—a sort of spiritual subsoil ploughing, without which she might never have developed aright. Women were a marvellous and an entertaining study. Their powers of craft and concealment were beyond man's ken or imitation. The most imprudently passionate of them acted sometimes with circumspection that would put a Talleyrand to the blush. Jessie, mad and desperate as she was at her last interview with himself, had nevertheless reconsidered her resolution to reveal her inconstancy to her lawful lover, and judiciously judging that the Past was gone beyond recall, had taken up with the old love so soon as the new one was off. She could not have done better for all parties. "Scenes," except when sentimental and en tête-à-tête , were a vulgarism to be eschewed by refined people.
he repeated, mentally, thus salving the smart caused by Roy's thanks. "Jessie and I will be capital friends and neighbors. She will like me none the less because she knows that, had she been possessed of the fair and fond Hester's wealth, her destiny would have been changed. She is too acute of perception not to comprehend that, in that case, my sense of what was due to her and myself would not have let me resign her, even to my honored cousin, here. But what is, is best, I suppose.
"You have never met my Dulcinea, I believe?" he said aloud, both cigar and windpipe being in good working order by the time he reached this consolatory sequel.
"I have not had that pleasure. Jessie gave me a slight sketch of her—a mere outline, which I hope to fill up for myself, shortly, from life."
"Then," meditated the cool and candid bridegroom-elect, "my tow-headed divinity lied egregiously about that old affair! I must cross-examine her in earnest, and if my suspicion is correct, make her retract certain counts in her indictment against Jessie's husband. I owe him that much reparation. Since they are a wedded unit, things should go upon velvet so far as is consistent with the fact of human imperfection. I'll send the lovely Hester to make amends to Mrs. Fordham, some time. If I do not forget it."
He was in one of his gracefully indolent moods to-night, and did not hurry himself in speech.
"She is not handsome. You would not, I fear, consider her even pretty," he resumed, after a few lulling puffs, such as might be necessary to temper loverly exaggeration. "But she is a dear, affectionate, pliant little thing, and will make just the wife a blasé world citizen like myself needs. I hope—I think you will like her. But I don't expect you to see in her the peer of your glorious Jessie, however well she may suit me."
Roy, when left alone again, pondered this speech dissatisfiedly.
"I am not quite content with this match, nor with Orrin's tone. I had not looked for a lover's rhapsodies, knowing his critical taste in these matters, but he ought not to acknowledge or feel the need of apologies for his choice. I am afraid his love does not leave him as little to wish for and to fear, as mine does me."
He looked up at the portrait with a smile.
"But there is only one Jessie in the world, and she will be here to-morrow night."
Still standing before the picture, he made an involuntary gesture, as of folding something in his arms.
"My darling! soon to be my angel in the house! I think it would kill me to lose you now."
His sudden motion had struck a book from the corner of the table, exposing a letter that lay beneath. It was a foreign envelope, and had probably been given to the servant by the postman that afternoon, and placed there by her with the book on the top, for safe-keeping. An enclosure fell out as he opened the cover—a letter that had arrived in Heidelberg after he set out for home, said a line from a fellow-student in the University. The smile lingered lovingly about mouth and eyes, while he tore off the inner wrapper.
The superscription was Jessie's; the note the short and cold farewell she had indited after her parting with Orrin Wyllys, on the 6th of September.
"No harm done!" reiterated the affectionate kinsman, walking slowly along to his lodgings, under the pure moon. "I should have been sorry had she carried her threat into execution; spoiled her own prospects, and made Roy wretched. But I could find it in my heart to regret the witch even now that I am on the eve of beatification. The affair was interesting—most engaging while it lasted—had more cayenne and wine in it than this very lawful and eminently remunerative love-making. My 'lassie wi' the lint-white locks,' says it is 'just the sweetest thing in the world.' Peut être!
'An excellent piece of work, Madame Lady!
Would it were done!'"