Family Pride Or Purified by Suffering Part 52

"I can't, Aunt Betsy. I can't, after all that has pa.s.sed. It would be unjust to Wilford."

"Unjust to Wilford--fiddlesticks!" was Aunt Betsy's expressive reply, as she started on toward Linwood, saying she was going after the umberell before it got lost, with n.o.body there to tend to things as they should be tended to. "Have you any word to send?" she asked, hoping Katy had relented.

But Katy had not; and with a toss of her head, which shook the raindrops from her capeless shaker, Aunt Betsy went on her way, and was soon confronting Morris, sitting just where Katy had left him, and looking very pale and sad.

He was not glad to see Aunt Betsy. He would rather be alone until such time as he could control himself and still his throbbing heart. But with his usual affability, he bade Aunt Betsy sit down, shivering a little when he saw her in the chair where Katy had sat, her thin, angular body presenting a striking contrast to the graceful, girlish figure which had sat there an hour since, and the huge India rubbers she held up to the fire as unlike as possible to the boot of fairy dimensions he had admired so much when it was drying on the hearth.

"I met Catherine," Aunt Betsy began, "and mistrusted at once that something was to pay, for a girl don't leave her umberell in such a rain and go cryin' home for nothin'."

Morris colored, resenting for an instant this interference by a third party; but Aunt Betsy was so honest and simple-hearted that he could not be angry long, and listened calmly while she continued:

"I have not lived sixty-odd years for nothing, and I know the signs pretty well. I've been through the mill myself."

Here Aunt Betsy's voice grew lower in its tone, and Morris looked up with real interest, while she went on:

"There's Joel Upham--you know Joel--keeps a tin shop now, and seats the folks in meetin'. He asked me once for my company, and to be smart I told him 'no,' when all the time I meant 'yes,' thinkin' he would ask ag'in, but he didn't, and the next I knew he was keepin' company with Patty Adams, now his wife. I remember I sniveled a little at being taken at my word, but it served me right for saying one thing when I meant another. However, it don't matter now. Joel is as clever as the day is long, but he is a shiftless critter, never splits his kindlin's till jest bedtime, and Patty is pestered to death for wood, while his snorin'

nights, she says, is awful, and that I never could abide; so, on the whole, I'm better off than Patty."

Morris laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which did him good, and emboldened his visitor to say more than she had intended saying:

"You just ask her ag'in. Once ain't nothing at all, and she'll come to.

She likes you; 'tain't that which made her say no. It's some foolish idea about faithfulness to Wilford, as if he deserved that she should be faithful. They never orto have had one another--never; and now that he is well in heaven, as I do suppose he is, it ain't I who hanker for him to come back. Neither does Katy, and all she needs is a little urging to tell you yes. So ask her again, will you?"

"I think it very doubtful. Katy knew what she was doing, and meant what she said," Morris replied; and with the consoling remark that if young folks would be fools it was none of her business to bother with them, Aunt Betsy pinned her shawl across her chest, and hunting up both basket and umbrella, bade Morris good-night, and went back across the fields to the farmhouse, hearing from Mrs. Lennox that Katy had gone to bed with a racking headache.

"Just the way I felt when I heard about Joel and Patty," Aunt Betsy said to herself, and as she remembered what had helped her then, so, fifteen minutes later, she appeared at Katy's bedside, with a cup of strong sage tea which she bade Katy swallow, telling her it was good for her complaint.

To prevent being urged and annoyed, Katy drank the tea, and then without a question concerning Aunt Betsy's call at Linwood, lay down upon her pillow, asking to be left alone.

CHAPTER LII.

KATY.

"Are you of the same mind still?" Helen asked, when, three weeks later, she returned from New York, and at the hour for retiring sat in her chamber watching Katy as she brushed her wavy hair, occasionally curling a tress around her fingers and letting it fall upon her snowy nightdress.

They had been talking of Morris, whom Katy had only seen once since that rainy night, and that at church, where he had come the previous Sunday.

Katy had written an account of the transaction to her sister, who had chosen to reply by word of mouth rather than by letter, and so the first moment they were alone she seized the opportunity to ask if Katy was of the same mind still as when she refused the doctor.

"Yes; why shouldn't I be?" Katy replied. "You better than any one else knew what pa.s.sed between Wilford and me concerning Morris, and you can--"

"Do you love Morris?" Helen asked, abruptly, without waiting for Katy to finish her sentence.

For an instant the hands stopped in their work, and Katy's eyes filled with tears, which dropped into her lap as she replied:

"More than I wish I did, seeing I must always tell him no. It's strange, too, how the love for him keeps coming in spite of all I can do. I have not been there since, nor spoken with him until last Sunday, but though I did not know he was coming, I knew the moment he entered the church, and when in the first chant I heard his voice, my fingers trembled so that I could scarcely play, while all the time my heart goes out after the rest I always find with him. But it cannot be."

"Suppose Morris had asked you first, what then?" was Helen's next straightforward question, and Katy, who had no secrets from her sister, answered:

"It might have been, perhaps, though I never thought of it then. Oh, Helen, I wish Wilford had never known that Morris loved me."

She was sobbing now, with her head in Helen's lap, and Helen, smoothing her bright hair, said, gently:

"You have taken a morbid fancy, Katy. You do not reason correctly. It is right for you to answer Morris yes, and Wilford would say so, too. When I received your letter apprising me of the refusal, I read it to Bell, who said she was so sorry, and then told what Wilford said before he died. You must have forgotten it, darling. He referred to a time when you would cease to be his widow, and he said he was willing, said so to her, and you. Do you remember it, Katy?"

"Yes, I do now, but I had forgotten. I was so stunned then, so bewildered, that it made no impression. I did not think he meant Morris.

Helen, do you believe he meant Morris?" and lifting up her face, Katy looked at her sister with a wistfulness which told how anxiously she waited for the answer.

"I know that he meant Morris," Helen replied. "Bell thinks so, too. So does her father, and both bade me tell you to revoke your decision, to marry Dr. Grant, with whom you will be so happy."

"I cannot. It is too late. I told him no, and, Helen, I told him a falsehood, too, which I wish I might take back," she added. "I said I was sorry he ever loved me, when I was not, for the knowing that he had made me very happy. My conscience has smitten me cruelly since for that falsehood told, not intentionally, for I did not consider what I said."

Here was an idea at which Helen caught at once. She knew just how conscientious Katy was, and by working upon this principle she hoped to persuade her into going over to Linwood and telling Morris that when she said she was sorry he loved her she did not mean it. But this Katy would not do. Helen could tell him, if she liked, but she must not encourage him to hope for a recantation of all she had said to him. She meant the rest. She could not be his wife.

Early the next morning Helen went to Linwood, and the same afternoon Morris returned her call. He had been there two or three times since his return from Washington, but not since Katy's refusal, and her cheeks were scarlet as he met him in the parlor and tried to be natural. He did not look unhappy. He was not taking his rejection very hard, after all, she thought, and the little lady felt a very little piqued to find him so cheerful, and even gay, when she had scarcely known a moment's quiet since the day she carried him the custards, and forgot to bring away her umbrella. As it had rained that day, so it did now, a decided, energetic rain, which set in after Morris came, and precluded the possibility of his going home that night.

"He would catch his death of cold," Aunt Betsy said, while Helen, too, joined her entreaties until Morris consented, and the carriage which came around for him at dark returned to Linwood, with the message that the doctor would pa.s.s the night at Deacon Barlow's. A misty, rainy night, who does not enjoy it when sitting by a cheerful fire, they listen dreamily to the falling rain sifting softly through the leafless trees, and answering to the faint sighing of the autumn wind. Morris enjoyed it very much, and but for the green gla.s.ses he still wore would have looked and appeared like his former self as he sat in his armchair, now holding the skein of yarn which Aunt Betsy wound, now talking with the deacon of the probable exchange of all the prisoners, a theme which quickened Helen's pulse and sent the blood to her pale cheeks, and again standing by Katy as she played his favorite airs, his rich ba.s.s voice mingling with hers and Helen's, the three making finer music, Aunt Betsy said, than that for which she paid two dollars at the playhouse.

He did not often address Katy directly, but he knew each time she moved, and watched every varying expression of her face, feeling a kind of pity for her, when without appearing to do so intentionally, the family, one by one, stole from the room--Uncle Ephraim and Aunt Hannah without any excuse; Aunt Betsy to raise the cakes for breakfast; Mrs. Lennox to wind the clock, and Helen to find a book for which Morris had asked.

Katy might not have thought strange of their departure were it not that neither one came back again, and after the lapse of ten minutes or more she felt convinced that she had purposely been left alone with Morris.

The weather and the family had conspired against her, but after one throb of fear she resolved to brave the difficulty and meet whatever might happen as became a woman of twenty-three, and a widow, too. She knew Morris was regarding her intently as she fashioned into shape the coa.r.s.e wool sock, intended for some soldier, and she could almost hear her heart beat in the silence which fell between them ere Morris said to her, in a tone which rea.s.sured her at once:

"And so you told me a falsehood the other day, and your conscience has troubled you ever since?"

"Yes, Morris," and Katy dropped her st.i.tch as she replied. "Yes; that is, I told you I was sorry that you ever loved me, which was not exactly true, for, after I knew you did, I was happier than before."

Her words implied a knowledge of his love previous to that night at Linwood when he had himself confessed it, and he said to her, inquiringly:

"You knew it then before I told you?"

"From Wilford--yes," Katy faltered, a tear dropping on her cheek as she recalled the circ.u.mstances of Wilford's telling her.

"I understand now why you have been so shy of me," Morris said. "It was only natural you should be until you knew what my intentions were; but, Katy, must this shyness continue always? Think now, and say if you did not tell more than one falsehood the other night, as you count falsehoods."

Katy looked wonderingly at him, and he continued;

"You said you could not be my wife. Was that true? Can't you take it back, and give me a different answer?"

Katy's checks were scarlet, and her hands had ceased to flutter about the knitting which lay upon her lap.

"I meant what I said," she whispered; "for knowing, as I do, how Wilford felt, it would not be right for me to be so happy."

"Then it's nothing personal? If there were no harrowing memories of Wilford, you could be happy with me. Is that it, Katy?" Morris asked, coming close to her now, and imprisoning her hands, which she did not try to take away, but let them lie in his as he continued: "Wilford was willing at the last. Have you forgotten that?"