Miss Primrose Part 22

"What have _I_ done?" asked she.

At meals, especially, we were ill at ease. The very viands, even those famous dishes of Dove's own loving handiwork, met with disfavor instead of praise. Let.i.tia had abandoned meats; now she declined Dove's pies!

Pastry was innutritious, she declared, meats not intended for man at all, and even of green things she ate so mincingly that my little housewife was in despair.

"What can I get for you, dear?" she would ask, anxiously. "What would you like?"

"My love," Let.i.tia would reply, flushing with annoyance, "I am perfectly satisfied."

"But I'll get you anything, Let.i.tia."

"I eat quite enough, my dear," was the usual answer--"quite enough," she would add, firmly, "for any one."

Then Dove would sink back ruefully, and I, pitying my wife--I, rebuked but unabashed and shameless in my gluttony, would pa.s.s my plate again.

"Give me," I would say, cheerfully, "a _third_ piece of that excellent, that altogether heavenly cherry-pie, my dear."

It may sound like triumph, but was not--for Let.i.tia Primrose would ignore me utterly. "Have you read," she would ask, sipping a little water from her gla.s.s, "_New Eden_, by Mrs. Lord?"

We still walked mornings to the school-house, still talked together as we walked, but not as formerly--not of the old subjects, which was less to be wondered at, nor yet of new ones with the old eloquence. I felt constrained. There was a new note in Let.i.tia's comments on the way the world was going, though I could not define its pitch. She spoke, I thought, less frankly than of old, but much more carelessly. She seemed more listless in her att.i.tude towards matters that had roused her, heart and soul, in other days. Me she ignored at pleasure; could it be possible, I wondered, that she was determined to renounce the whole round world as well?

It was I who had first resented this alienation, but it was Dove who could not be reconciled to a change so inscrutable and unkind. Time, I argued, was sufficient reason; age, I reminded her, cast strange shadows before its coming; our friend was growing old--perhaps like her father--before her time. But Dove was alarmed: Let.i.tia was pale, she said; her face was wan--there was a drawn look in the lines of the mouth and eyes; even her walk had lost its buoyancy.

"True," I replied, "but even that is not unnatural, my dear. Besides, she eats nothing; she starves herself."

My wife rose suddenly.

"Bertram," she said, earnestly, "you must stop this folly. I have tried my best to tempt her out of it, but I have failed. It is you she is fondest of. It is you who must speak."

"I fear it will do no good," I answered, "but I will try." I have had use for courage in my lifetime, both as doctor and man, but I here confess to a trembling of the heart-strings, a childish faintness, a lily cowardice in these encounters, these trifling domestic sallies and ambuscades. Nor have I strategy; I know but one method of attack, and its sole merit is the little time it wastes.

"Let.i.tia," I said, next morning, as we walked townward, "you are ill."

"Nonsense, Bertram," she replied.

"You are ill," I replied, firmly. "You are pale as a ghost. Your hands tremble. Your walk--"

"I was never stronger in my life," she interposed, and as if she had long expected this little crisis and was prepared for it. "Never, I think, have I felt so tranquil, so serene. My mind--"

"I am not speaking of your mind," I said. "I am talking of your body."

"Bertram," she said, excitedly, "that is just your error--not yours alone, but the whole world's error. This thinking always of earthly--"

"Now, Let.i.tia," I protested, "I have been a doctor--"

"Illness," she continued, "is a state of mind. To think one is ill, is to be ill, of course, but to think one is well, is to be well, as I am--well, I mean, in a way I never dreamed of!--a way so sure, so beautiful, that I think sometimes I never knew health before."

"Let.i.tia," I said, sharply, "what nonsense is this?"

"It is not nonsense," she retorted. "It is living truth. Oh, how can we be so blind! The body, Bertram--why, the body is nothing!"

"Nothing!" I cried.

"Nothing!" she answered, her face glowing. "The body is nothing; the mind is everything! It is G.o.d's great precious gift! With my mind I can control my body--my life--yes, my very destiny!--if I use G.o.d's gift of Will. It is divine."

"Let.i.tia," I said, sternly, "those are fine words, and well enough in their time and place. I am not a physician of souls. I mend worn bodies, when I can. It is yours I am thinking of--the frail, white, half-starved flesh and blood where your soul is kept."

"Stop!" she cried. "You have no right to speak that way. You mean well, Bertram, but you are wrong. You are mistaken--terribly mistaken," she repeated, earnestly--"terribly mistaken. I am quite, quite able to care for myself. I only ask to be let alone."

She had grown hysterical. Tears were in her eyes.

"See," she said, in a calmer tone, wiping them away, "I have had perfect control till now. This is not weakness merely; it is worse: it is sin.

But I shall show you. I shall show you a great truth, Bertram, if you will let me. Only have patience, that is all."

She smiled and paused in a little common near the school-house where none might hear us.

"I learned it only recently," she told me. "I cannot see how I never thought of it before: this great power mind has over matter--how just by the will which G.o.d has given us in His goodness, we may rise above these petty, earthly things which chain us down. We can rise _here_, Bertram--here on earth, I mean--and when we do, even though our feet be on Gra.s.sy Fordshire ground, we walk in a higher sphere. Ah, can't you see then that nothing can ever touch us?--nothing earthly, however bitter, can ever sadden us or spoil our lives! There will be no such thing as disappointment; no regret, no death--and earth will be Eden come again."

Her eyes were shining.

"Let.i.tia," I said, "it is of another world that you are dreaming."

"No, it is all quite possible here," she said. "It is possible to you, if you only think so. It is possible for me, because I do."

"It seems," I said, "a monstrous selfishness."

"Selfishness!" she said, aghast.

"As long as you have human eyes," I said, "you will see things to make you weep, Let.i.tia."

"But if I shut them--if I rise above these petty--"

"The sound of crying will reach your ears," I said. "How then shall you escape sadness and regret? What right have you to avoid the burdens your fellows bear?--to be in bliss, while they are suffering? It would be monstrous, Let.i.tia Primrose. You would not be woman: You would be a fiend."

She shook her head.

"You don't understand," she said.

"At least," I answered, "I will send you something from the office."

She shut her lips.

"I shall not take it."

"It will make you stronger," I insisted.

"You can do nothing," she answered, coldly, "to make me stronger than I am."