Opening a Chestnut Burr Part 40

To Gregory's unfeigned sorrow Mr. Walton was not well enough to appear at the breakfast-table the following morning. Annie was flitting in and out with a grave and troubled face. But by ten o'clock he seemed better and fell asleep. Leaving Miss Eulie watching beside him, she came and said, "Now, Mr. Gregory, I can keep my promise in part, and take a short walk with you. You can well understand why I cannot be away long."

"Please do not feel that you must go," he said. "However great the disappointment, I could not ask you to leave your father if he needs you."

"You may rest a.s.sured that nothing would tempt me from father if he needed me. But I think the worst is now over. He is sleeping quietly. I can trust aunty even better than myself. Besides, I want to go. I need the fresh air, and I wish to see more of you before you leave us."

He cordially thanked her and said, "I shall wait for you on the piazza."

They went down across the lawn through the garden. The sun was shining brightly, though occasionally obscured by clouds.

"How beautiful everything is," said Annie, "even now, when the leaves are half off the trees and falling fast! At any season, the moment I get out of doors I feel new life and hope."

"What nature does for you, Miss Annie, you seem to do for others. I feel 'new life and hope' the moment I am with you."

She looked at him quickly, for she did not quite like his tone and manner. But she only said, "You must believe, as I do, in a power behind nature."

"But even you believe He works through human agencies."

"Yes, up to a certain point."

"But who can say where that point is in any experience? Miss Walton,"

he continued, in grave earnestness, stopping and pointing to the rustic seat where, on the previous Sabbath, he had revealed to her his evil life, "that place is sacred to me. No hallowed spot of earth to which pilgrimages are made can compare with it. You know that in some places in Europe they raise a rude cross by the roadside where a man has been murdered. Should there not be a monument where one was given life?"

As they resumed their walk, he said in a low, meaning tone, "Do you remember old Daddy Tuggar's words--'You could take the wickedest man living straight to heaven if you'd stay right by him?'"

"But he was wrong," she replied.

"Pardon me if I differ with you, and agree with him. Miss Walton, I've been in your society scarcely three weeks. You know what I was when I came. I make no great claims now, but surely if tendencies, wishes, purposes count for anything, I am very different. How can you argue me out of the consciousness that I owe it all to you?"

"You will one day understand," she answered, earnestly, "that G.o.d has helped us both, and how futile my efforts would have been without such help. But, Mr. Gregory," she continued, looking frankly into his flushed face (for she was beginning to suspect now something of his drift, and instinctively sought to ward off words which might disturb their pleasant relations), "I do not intend to give you up from this day forth. As our quaint old friend suggests, I do mean to stand right by you as far as circ.u.mstances will allow me. I recognize how isolated and lonely you are, and I feel almost a _sister_'s interest in you."

"You emphasize the word 'sister.' I suppose I ought to be more than satisfied. Believe me I am very grateful that you can so speak. But suppose the frankness I promised compels me to say that it does not, and never can satisfy?"

"Then I shall think you very unreasonable. You have no right to ask more than one has the power to give," she answered, with a look and manner that were full of pain. "But surely, Mr. Gregory, we do not understand each other."

"But I want you to understand me," he exclaimed, earnestly. "If you had the vanity and worldly experience of most women, you would have known before this that I love you."

Tears rushed into Annie's eyes, and for a few moments she walked on in utter silence. This was so different an ending from what she had expected! She felt that she must be very careful or she would undo all she had attempted. She now dreaded utter failure, utter estrangement, and how to avoid these was her chief thought.

They had reached the cedar thicket near which they had first met, and she sat down upon the rock where she had found Gregory. Her whole aim was to end this unfortunate matter so that they might still continue friends. And yet the task seemed wellnigh impossible, for if he felt as he said, how could she tell him about Hunting without increasing alienation? But her impression was strong that he was acting under an exaggerated sense of her services and under a mistaken belief that she was essential to him. Therefore she tried at first to turn the matter off lightly by saying, "Mr. Gregory, you are the most grateful man I ever heard of. You need not think you must reward my slight services by marrying me."

"Now you greatly wrong me," he answered. "Did I not say I loved you?

How deeply and truly you can never know. I cannot reward you. I did not dream of such a thing. My best hope was that some time in the future, when by long and patient effort I had become truly a man, you might learn to think of me in the way I wish."

"Mr. Gregory," said she, in a voice full of trouble, "has my manner or words led you to hope this? If so, I can never forgive myself."

"You have no cause for self-reproaches," he said, earnestly. "Though my suit should ever prove hopeless, in the depths of my heart I will acquit you of all blame. You have been what you promised--a true friend, nothing more. But please understand me. I ask nothing now, I am not worthy. Perhaps I never shall be. If so, I will not bind you to me with even a gossamer thread. I have too deep a respect for you. But I am so self-distrustful! I know my weakness better than you can. Still I am confident that if _you_ could 'reward' me, and give the hope that you would crown the victory with yourself, I could do anything. In loving me, you would save me."

"Pardon me, but you are all wrong. I'm only an oar, but you look upon me as the lifeboat itself. In that you persist in looking to me, a weak, sinful creature, instead of to Him who alone 'taketh away the sin of the world,' you discourage me utterly."

"I will look to Him, but I want you to lead me to Him, and keep me at His side."

"I can do that just as well by being your friend."

"I can never think so. I shall go away from this place utterly disheartened unless you give me some hope, no matter how faint, that I shall not have to struggle alone."

She sprung up quickly, for he incensed her, while at the same time she pitied him. She could not understand how he had so soon learned to love her "deeply and truly." It rather appeared true that he had formed the mistaken opinion that she was essential to his success, and that he was bent upon bolstering himself up in his weakness, and sought to place her as a barrier between him and his old evil life; and she felt that he might need some wholesome truth rather than tender sympathy. At any rate her womanly nature took offence at his apparent motive, as she understood it--a motive that appeared more selfish and unworthy every moment. He was asking what he had no right to expect of any one. But she would not misunderstand him, and therefore said with a grave, searching look, "Only then as I give you the hope you ask for, will you make the effort you have promised to make?"

"Only then can I make it," he replied, in some confusion. "Can effort of any kind be asked of one utterly disabled?"

Sudden fire leaped into her dark eyes, but she said, with dignity, "Mr.

Gregory, you disappoint me greatly. You a.s.sume a weakness--a disability--which does not and cannot exist under the circ.u.mstances.

You made me a promise, but now impose a new condition which I did not dream of at the time, and which I cannot accept. You are asking more than you have a right to ask. However imperfect my efforts have been in your behalf, they were at least sincere and unselfish, and I was beginning to have a warm regard for you as a friend. I tell you frankly that I am most anxious that we should remain friends as before. If so, this kind of folly must cease now and forever. I have no right to listen to such words at all, and would not but for your sake, and in the hope of removing from your mind a very mistaken and unworthy idea.

You are entirely wrong in thinking that your future depends solely upon me. It cannot--it ought not. It rests between you and G.o.d, and you cannot shift the responsibility. I am willing to do all you can ask of a sister, but no more. Do you think I have no needs, no weakness, myself? In a husband I want a man I can lean upon as well as help. I wish to marry one with a higher moral character than mine, to whom I can look up. There is the widest difference in the world between giving help, and even sincere affection to those who win it, and giving one's self away. Simple justice requires that my happiness and feelings be considered also. It is selfish in you to ask of me this useless sacrifice of myself."

Annie's quick, pa.s.sionate nature was getting the better of her. It seemed in a certain sense disloyalty to Hunting to have listened thus long to Gregory. Moreover, not believing in nor understanding the latter's love for her, she was indignant that he should seek to employ her as a sort of stepping-stone into heaven. She would despise the man who sought her merely to advance his earthly interests, and she was growing honestly angry at Gregory, who, it seemed, wanted her only as a guide and staff in his pilgrimage--justly angry, too, if she were right.

Gregory became very pale as her words quivered in his heart like arrows, but in the consciousness of a true and unselfish love, he looked at her unfalteringly to the last, and said, "In justice to myself I might again urge that you misunderstand me. I asked for nothing now, only a hope for the future based on what I possibly might become. But, as you say, I now know I asked too much--more than I had a right to. You can never look up to me, and with a sadness you will never understand, I admit myself answered finally. But there is one imputation in your words that I cannot rest under. I solemnly a.s.sert before G.o.d, and in the name of my mother, that my love for you is as strong, pure, and unselfish as can exist in my half-wrecked nature."

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Annie, in a tone of mingled vexation and distress, "why has it all turned out so miserably? I'm so sorry, so very sorry; but in kindness I must show you how hopeless it all is. I am the same as engaged to another."

Gregory started violently. His despairing words had been not quite despairing. But now a chill like death settled about his heart. He was well satisfied that she was one who would be true as steel to all such ties, and that no man who had learned to know her would ever prove inconstant. But, with a white face and firmly compressed lips, he still listened quietly.

"I came out this morning hoping to tell you a little secret as I might confide in a brother, and I trusted that your friendship for me would prove strong enough to enable me to make you his friend also. I wanted you to stay a little longer, that you might meet him, and that I might reconcile you, and prepare the way for pleasant companionship in the future. I am expecting Charles Hunting now every--

"What is the matter? What do you mean by that look of horror? What have you against him, that you should show such deep hostility before, and now stare at me in almost terror?"

But he only staggered against a tree for support.

"Speak," cried she, pa.s.sionately seizing his arm. "I will not endure the innuendo of your look and manner."

"I will speak," he answered, in sudden vehemence. "I've lost too much by him. Charles Hunting is--"

But he stopped, clinched his hands, and seemed to make a desperate effort at self-control. She heard him mutter as he turned away a few steps, "Stop! stop! All that is left you now is a little self-respect.

Keep that--keep that."

Annie misunderstood him, and thought he referred to some slander that he had hesitated to utter against his enemy even in his anger and jealousy. With flashing eyes she said, "Let me complete the sentence for you. Charles Hunting is a Christian gentleman. You may well think twice before you speak one word against him in my presence."

"Did I say one word against him?" he asked, eagerly.

"No, but you looked much more than words can express."

"I could not help that. Your revelation was sudden, Miss Walton."

"How could it be otherwise?" she asked, indignantly. "The first evening of your arrival, when his name was mentioned, your face grew as black as night. When I again sought to speak to you of him, you adjured me never to mention his name. You taxed my forbearance severely at that time. But I hoped you would become so changed that such enmity would be impossible."

"I see it all now," he groaned--"the miserable fatality of it all. I must shut off the one way of escape, and then go forward. By my own act, I must destroy my one chance. If I had only known this in time.

And yet it's through my own act that I did not know. Your G.o.d is certainly one of justice. I'm punished now for all the past. But it seems a trifle cruel to show one heaven and then shut the door in one's face. If I had only known!"