Faith Gartney's Girlhood Part 27

The Rushleighs had come to Lakeside. Every day, nearly, saw Paul, or Margaret, or both, at Cross Corners.

Faith was often, also, at Lakeside.

Old Mr. Rushleigh treated her with a benignant fatherliness, and looked upon her with an evident fondness and pride that threw heavy weight in the scale of his son's chances. And Madam Rushleigh, as she began to be called, since Mrs. Philip had entered the family, petted her in the old, graceful, gracious fashion; and Margaret loved her, simply, and from her heart.

With Paul himself, it had not been as in the days of bouquets, and "Germans," and bridal a.s.sociation in Mishaumok. They were all living and enjoying together a beautiful idyl. Nothing seemed special--nothing was embarra.s.sing.

Faith thought, in these days, that she was very happy.

Mr. Armstrong relinquished her, almost imperceptibly, to her younger friends. In the pleasant twilights, though, when her day's pleasures and occupations were ended, he would often come over, as of old, and sit with them in the summer parlor, or under the elms.

Or Faith would go up the beautiful Ridge walk with him; and he would have a thought for her that was higher than any she could reach, by herself, or with the help of any other human soul.

And the minister? How did his world look to him? Perhaps, as if clouds that had parted, sending a sunbeam across from the west upon the dark sorrow of the morning, had shut again, inexorably, leaving him still to tread the nightward path under the old, leaden sky.

A day came, that set him thinking of all this--of the years that were past, of those that might be to come.

Mr. Armstrong was not quite so old as he had been represented. A man cannot go through plague and anguish, as he had, and "keep," as Nurse Sampson had said, long ago, of women, "the baby face on." There were lines about brow and mouth, and gleams in the hair, that seldom come so early.

This day he completed one-and-thirty years.

The same day, last month, had been Faith's birthday. She was nineteen.

Roger Armstrong thought of the two together.

He thought of these twelve years that lay between them. Of the love--the loss--the stern and bitter struggle--the divine amends and holy hope that they had brought to him; and then of the innocent girl life she had been living in them; then, how the two paths had met so, in these last few, beautiful months.

Whither, and how far apart, trended they now?

He could not see. He waited--leaving the end with G.o.d.

A few weeks went by, in this careless, holiday fashion, with Faith and her friends; and then came the hour when she must face the truth for herself and for another, and speak the word of destiny for both.

She had made a promise for a drive round the Pond Road. Margaret and her brother were to come for her, and to return to Cross Corners for tea.

At the hour fixed, she sat, waiting, under the elms, hat and mantle on, and whiling the moments of delay with a new book Mr. Armstrong had lent her.

Presently, the Rushleighs' light, open, single-seated wagon drove up.

Paul had come alone.

Margaret had a headache, but thought that after sundown she might feel better, and begged that Faith would reverse the plan agreed upon, and let Paul bring her home to tea with them.

Paul took for granted that Faith would keep to her engagement with himself. It was difficult to refuse. She was ready, waiting. It would be absurd to draw back, sensitively, now, she thought. Besides, it would be very pleasant; and why should she be afraid? Yet she wished, very regretfully, that Margaret were there.

She shrank from _tete-a-tetes_--from anything that might help to precipitate a moment she felt herself not quite ready for.

She supposed she did care for Paul Rushleigh as most girls cared for lovers; that she had given him reason to expect she should; she felt, instinctively, whither all this pleased acquiescence of father and mother, and this warm welcome and encouragement at Lakeside, tended; and she had a dim prescience of what must, some time, come of it: but that was all in the far-off by and by. She would not look at it yet.

She was afraid, now, as she let Paul help her into the wagon, and take his place at her side.

She had been frightened by a word of her mother's, when she had gone to her, before leaving, to tell how the plan had been altered, and ask if she had better do as was wished of her.

Mrs. Gartney had a.s.sented with a smile, and a "Certainly, if you like it, Faith; indeed, I don't see how you can very well help it; only----"

"Only what, mother?" asked Faith, a little fearfully.

"Nothing, dear," answered her mother, turning to her with a little caress. But she had a look in her eyes that mothers wear when they begin to see their last woman's sacrifice demand itself at their hands.

"Go, darling. Paul is waiting."

It was like giving her away.

So they drove down, through byways, among the lanes, toward the Wachaug Road.

Summer was in her perfect flush and fullness of splendor. The smell of new-mown hay was in the air.

As they came upon the river, they saw the workmen busy in and about the new mills. Mr. Rushleigh's buggy stood by the fence; and he was there, among his mechanics, with his straw hat and seersucker coat on, inspecting and giving orders.

"What a capital old fellow the governor is!" said Paul, in the fashion young men use, nowadays, to utter their affections.

"Do you know he means to set me up in these mills he is making such a hobby of, and give me half the profits?"

Faith had not known. She thought him very good.

"Yes; he would do anything, I believe, for me--or anybody I cared for."

Faith was silent; and the strange fear came up in heart and throat.

"I like Kinnicutt, thoroughly."

"Yes," said Faith. "It is very beautiful here."

"Not only that. I like the people. I like their simple fashions. One gets at human life and human nature here. I don't think I was ever, at heart, a city boy. I don't like living at arm's length from everybody.

People come close together, in the country. And--Faith! what a minister you've got here! What a sermon that was he preached last Sunday! I've never been what you might call one of the serious sort; but such a sermon as that must do anybody good."

Faith felt a warmth toward Paul as he said this, which was more a drawing of the heart than he had gained from her by all the rest.

"My father says he will keep him here, if money can do it. He never goes to church at Lakeside, now. It needs just such a man among mill villages like these, he says. My father thinks a great deal of his workpeople. He says n.o.body ought to bring families together, and build up a neighborhood, as a manufacturer does, and not look out for more than the money. I think he'll expect a great deal of me, if he leaves me here, at the head of it all. More than I can ever do, by myself."

"Mr. Armstrong will be the very best help to you," said Faith. "I think he means to stay. I'm sure Kinnicutt would seem nothing without him, now."

"Faith! Will you help me to make a home here?"

She could not speak. A great shock had fallen upon her whole nature, as if a thunderbolt she had had presentiment of, burst from a clear blue sky.

They drove on for minutes, without another word.

"Faith! You don't answer me. Must I take silence as I please? It can't be that you don't care for me!"