Hetty's Strange History Part 9

exclaimed the doctor in a whisper which seemed to ring like a shout, and he kissed Hetty again and again. Still Sally and Raby slept on: the hickory fire leaped up as in joy; and a sudden wind shook the windows.

Hetty struggled once more to free herself, but the arms were like arms of oak.

"Say that you love me, Hetty," pleaded the doctor.

"When you let me go, perhaps I will," whispered Hetty.

Instantly the arms fell; and the doctor stood opposite her in the doorway, his head bent forward and his eyes fixed on her face.

Hetty cast her eyes down. Words did not come. It would have been easier to have said them while she was held close to Doctor Eben's side.

Suddenly, before he had a suspicion of what she was about to do, she had darted away, was lost in the darkness, and in a second more he heard her door shut at the farther end of the hall.

Dr. Eben laughed a low and pleasant laugh. "She might as well have said it," he thought: "she will say it to-morrow. I have won!" and he sank into the great white dimity-covered chair, at the head of Raby's bed, and looked into the fire. The very coals seemed to marshal themselves into shapes befitting his triumph: castles rose and fell; faces grew, smiled, and faded away smiling; roses and lilies and palms glowed ruby red, turned to silver, and paled into spiritual gray. The silence of the night seemed resonant with a very symphony of joy. Still Sally and Raby slept on. The boy's sweet face took each hour a more healthful tint; and, as Doctor Eben watched the blessed change, he said to himself:

"What a night! what a night! Two lives saved! Raby's and mine." As the morning drew near, he threw up the shades of the eastern window, and watched for the dawn. "I will see this day's sun rise," he said with a thrill of devout emotion; and he watched the horizon while it changed like a great flower calyx from gray to pearly yellow, from yellow to pale green, and at last, when it could hold back the day no longer, to a vast rose red with a golden sun in its centre.

IX.

That morning's light could have fallen on no happier house, the world over, than "Gunn's." A little child brought back to life, out of the gates of death; two hearts entering anew on life, through the gates of love; half a score of hearts, each glad in the gladness of each other, and in the gladness of all,--what a morning it was!

Doctor Eben and Hetty met at the head of the stairs.

"Oh, Hetty!" exclaimed the doctor.

"Well?" said Hetty, in a half-defiant tone, without looking up. He came nearer, and was about to kiss her.

She darted back, and lifting her eyes gave him a glance of such mingled love and reproof that he was bewildered.

"Why, Hetty, surely I may kiss you?" he exclaimed.

"I was asleep last night," she answered gravely, "and you did very wrong," and without another word or look she pa.s.sed on.

Doctor Eben was thoroughly angry.

"What does she mean?" he said to himself. "She needn't think I am to be played with like a boy;" and the doctor took his seat at the breakfast table, with a sterner countenance than Hetty had ever seen him wear. In a few moments she began to cast timid and deprecating looks at him. His displeasure hurt her indescribably. She had not intended to offend or repel him. She did not know precisely what she had intended: in fact she had not intended any thing. If the doctor had understood more about love, he would have known that all manifestations in Hetty at this time were simply like the unconscious flutterings of a bird in the hand in which it is just about to nestle and rest. But he did not understand, and when Hetty, following him into the hall, stood shyly by his side, and looking up into his face said inquiringly, "Doctor?" he answered her as she had answered him, a short time before, with the curt monosyllable, "Well?" His tone was curter than his words. Hetty colored, and saying gently, "No matter; nothing now," turned away. Her whole movement was so significant of wounded feeling that it smote Doctor Eben's heart. He sprang after her and laid his hand on her arm. "Hetty,"

he said, "do tell me what it was you were going to say; I did not mean to hurt your feelings: but I don't know what to make of you."

"Not--know--what--to--make--of--me!" repeated Hetty, very slowly, in a tone of the intensest astonishment.

"You wouldn't say you loved me," replied the doctor, beginning to feel a little ashamed of himself.

Hetty's eyes were fixed on his now, with no wavering in their gaze. She looked at him, as if her life lay in the balance of what she might read in his face.

"Did you not know that I loved you before you asked me to say so?" she said with emphasis. It was the doctor's turn now to color. He answered evasively:

"A man has no right to know that, Hetty, until a woman tells him so."

"Did you not think that I loved you," repeated Hetty, with the same emphasis, and a graver expression on her face.

Dr. Eben hesitated. Already, he felt a sort of fear of the incalculable processes and changes in this woman's mind. Would she be angry if he said, he had thought she loved him? Would she be sure to recognize any equivocation, and be angrier at that?

"Hetty," he said, taking her hand in his, "I did hope very strongly that you loved me, or else I should never have asked you to say so; but you ought to be willing to say so, if it be true. Think how many times I have said it to you."

Hetty's eyes did not leave his: their expression deepened until they seemed to darken and enlarge. She did not speak.

"Will you not say it now, Hetty?" urged the doctor.

"I can't," replied Hetty, and turned and walked slowly away. Presently she turned again, and walked swiftly back to him, and exclaimed:

"What do you suppose is the reason it is so hard for me to say it?"

Dr. Eben laughed. "I can't imagine, Hetty. The only thing that is hard for me, is not to keep saying it all the time."

Hetty smiled.

"There must be something wrong in me. I think I shall never say it. But I suppose"--She hesitated, and her eyes twinkled. "I suppose you might come to be very sure of it without my ever saying it?"

"I am sure of it now, you darling," exclaimed the doctor; and threw both his arms around her, and this time Hetty did not struggle.

When Welbury heard that Hetty Gunn was to marry Doctor Ebenezer Williams, there was a fine hubbub of talk. There was no half-way opinion in anybody's mind on the question. Everybody was vehement, one way or the other. All Doctor Eben's friends were hilarious; and the greater part of Hetty's were gloomy. They said, he was marrying her for her money; that Hetty was too old, and too independent in all her ways, to be married at all; that they would be sure to fall out quickly; and a hundred other things equally meddlesome and silly. But n.o.body so disapproved of the match that he stayed away from the wedding, which was the largest and the gayest wedding Welbury had ever seen. It went sorely against the grain with Hetty to invite Mrs. Deacon Little, but Sally entreated for it so earnestly that she gave way.

"I think if she once sees me with Raby in my arms, may be she'll feel kinder," said Sally. James Little had carried the beautiful boy, and laid him in his grandmother's arms many times; but, although she showed great tenderness toward the child, she had never yet made any allusion to Sally; and James, who had the same odd combination of weakness and tenacity which his mother had, had never broken the resolution which he had taken years ago: not to mention his wife's name in his mother's presence. Mrs. Little had almost as great a struggle with herself before accepting the invitation, as Hetty had had before giving it. Only her husband's earnest remonstrances decided her wavering will.

"It's only once, Mrs. Little," he said, "and there'll be such a crowd there that very likely you won't come near Sally at all. It don't look right for you to stay away. You don't know how much folks think of Sally now. She's been asked to the minister's to tea, she and James, with Hetty and the doctor, several times."

"She hain't, has she?" exclaimed Mrs. Little, quite thrown off her balance by this unexpected piece of news, which the wary deacon had been holding in reserve, as a good general holds his biggest guns, for some special occasion. "You don't tell me so! Well, well, folks must do as they like. For my part, I call that downright countenancing of iniquity.

And I don't know how she could have the face to go, either. I must say, I have some curiosity to see how she behaves among folks."

"She's as modest and pretty in her ways as ever a girl could be,"

replied the deacon, who had learned during the past year to love his son's wife; "you won't have any call to be ashamed of her. I can tell you that much beforehand."

When Mrs. Little's eyes first fell upon her daughter-in-law, she gave an involuntary start. In the two years during which Mrs. Little had not seen her, Sally had changed from a timid, nervous, restless woman to a calm and dignified one. Very much of her old girlish beauty had returned to her, with an added sweetness from her sorrow. As she moved among the guests, speaking with gentle greeting to each, all eyes followed her with evident pleasure and interest. She wore a soft gray gown, which clung closely to her graceful figure: one pale pink carnation at her throat, and one in her hair, were her only ornaments. When Raby, with his white frock and blue ribbons, was in her arms, the picture was one which would have delighted an artist's eye. Mrs. Little felt a strange mingling of pride and irritation at what she saw. Very keenly James watched her: he hovered near her continually, ready to forestall any thing unpleasant or to a.s.sist any reconciliation. She observed this; observed, also, how his gaze followed each movement of Sally's: she understood it.

"You needn't hang round so, Jim," she said: "I can see for myself. If it's any comfort to you, I'll say that your wife's the most improved woman I ever saw; and I'm very glad on't. But I ain't going to speak to her: I've said I won't, and I won't. People must lie on their beds as they make 'em."

James made no reply, but walked away. It seemed to him that, at that instant, a chord in his filial love snapped, and was for ever lost.

Moment by moment, Sally watched and waited for the recognition which never came. Bearing Raby in her arms, she pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, drawing as near Mrs. Little as she dared. "Surely she must see that n.o.body else here wholly despises me," thought the poor woman; and, whenever any one spoke with especial kindness to her, she glanced involuntarily to see if her mother-in-law were observing it. But all in vain. Mrs. Little's pale and weak blue eyes roamed everywhere, but never seemed to rest on Sally for a second. Gradually Sally comprehended that all her hopes had been unfounded, and a deep sadness settled on her expressive face. "It's no use," she thought, "she'll never speak to me in the world, if she won't to-night."

Even during the moments of the marriage ceremony, Hetty observed the woe on Sally's countenance; and, strange as it may seem,--or would seem in any one but Hetty,--while the minister was making his most impressive addresses and pet.i.tions, she was thinking to herself: "The hard-hearted old woman! She hasn't spoken to Sally. I wish I hadn't asked her. I'll pay her off yet, before the evening is over."

After the ceremony was done, and the guests were crowding up to congratulate Hetty, she whispered to James:

"Bring Sally up here."