Rutledge Part 21

"That we should start to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock."

I struggled hard to keep up, under the unexpected blow, and answered, as I bit my lip and choked down the tears:

"Very well, sir, I will try to be ready in time."

"The doctor says it will be perfectly safe," continued Mr. Rutledge, quietly.

"And there is no appeal from his opinion," I interrupted, tartly.

"I am so much better myself," he went on, as if he had not heard me, "that there is no imprudence in my attempting it; and I can see no objection to complying with your aunt's request immediately. Indeed, I feel that I could not do otherwise."

His indifferent way of speaking of what to me was such a vital matter, roused my pride less than it wounded my sensitiveness, and I had much ado to master myself enough to say:

"If you had had the goodness to tell me before, I need not have wasted this evening, but could have spent it in packing."

"You cannot have much to do, I am sure. Kitty can pack everything in the morning, and I thought it was best not to worry you by telling you of it before."

"I must go up immediately, however," I said, rising.

"I cannot let you go yet," he said, detaining me. "Do you remember this is the last evening you are to spend at Rutledge?"

"And what of that?"

"You ought to be sorry."

I shrugged my shoulders, and said, it was a pity I could not gratify his taste for the pathetic.

"Ah, nonsense, child!" he said, with a sudden change of manner, "we have so little time left, it's foolish to waste any of it in idle pretences.

You may as well cry; I know you are sorry enough, I know you can hardly keep back your tears."

That broke down all my self-control; burying my face in my hands, I burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. There was no use in attempting to command myself, and indeed I never thought of it. Mr. Rutledge took my hand, and attempted to draw it away from my face, then suddenly relinquishing it, walked rapidly once or twice across the room, returned, and sat down by me.

"You will make it harder than ever for me to let you go, if you cry so bitterly," he said, after a pause. "You will soon forget your grief, and be as happy in your new home as you have been here, while I shall, for a long while, miss you, and be lonely without you. Do you not see I have the most to regret?"

I shook my head, while the sobs came more chokingly than ever.

"Foolish child!" he said, "this is but a transitory feeling with you; it will vanish in the sunshine of to-morrow. In a week, you will have forgotten all about Rutledge."

Now my anger mastered my tears, and looking up, I exclaimed:

"You are always telling me I am a child! You are always treating me as if I were a senseless plaything! I am tired of it; I could almost hate you for it!"

He looked at my flashing eyes with a strange intentness, as if he would read me through and through. "But you are a child; it would be folly for me to treat you otherwise; how can I know that your affections and sensibilities are other than those of any ardent, impetuous child?"

With an impatient gesture, I interrupted him; and turning away, hid my face on the sofa again.

"That is the way!" he exclaimed. "No child could be more changeable; one moment, I have half a mind to think you are a woman, and the next, you turn away, and pout, and cry."

"You shan't have that to say of me again!" I exclaimed, conquering my tears with a huge effort, and raising my head. "I will be cold enough, if that's what you want. I won't trouble you with my tears again, even if you try to make me cry, as you did a little while ago. I can be as indifferent and unkind as you are yourself, if that will be any proof of my maturity and wisdom."

"Indifferent? Ah, there you show your childishness and ignorance more plainly than you think! Culpably indifferent and unkind!" he said, with a short laugh. "But," with a softening of his voice, "whatever there may have been of neglect or unkindness in my manner, remember, when you think of it hereafter, that there was nothing that answered to it, in my heart; remember that I shall never cease to feel the strongest interest in you, the kindest affection for you; remember, whenever you need a friend, you have promised to appeal to me. And remember, too," he continued, in a lighter tone, "all the rest of the engagements that you entered into, of which that bracelet is to be the souvenir. I have the greatest faith in it; I shall never feel very far separated from you, with this little key so near my heart," he said, touching the trinket on his chain.

"As for me," I exclaimed, bitterly, "I shall have to wear this bracelet as I've promised to; but I shall try my best to forget the giver and all about him! As for the promises, I don't care _that_ for them!" And in emphatic contempt I snapped my fingers.

Mr. Rutledge smiled, as if he knew enough about my indignation to bear up under it, and said, coaxingly and low:

"Ah, surely you're not going to desert me already; my little friend is the one thing in the world I care for, just now; what would be the result, if she were to turn faithless?"

I averted my head. "You should have been prepared for that when you took a child into your friendship."

"Ah! that rankles still, I see. Well, now, turn your face toward me, and look up, while I a.s.sure you, solemnly you know, and most sincerely, that I do not think you are childish in most things, that I do believe you are honest and true, and altogether, excepting a few pardonable caprices, as good a friend as one need desire. Doesn't that satisfy you?

What could I say more flattering?"

"Oh! as to saying, you are unrivalled at that; it's the doing that you are deficient in. It's all very fine for you to call me your friend, and say how lonely you shall be without me, and all that style of thing; and then, in the next breath, tell me to get ready to go away to-morrow, and remark that you cannot see the least objection to my aunt's plan--and look and laugh just as usual. That doesn't seem much like meaning what you say, surely!"

"But what," he said, "would you have me do? If it made me perfectly miserable to part with you, it is still my duty to do it. Tell me any way of getting out of it."

"Let me stay at Rutledge," I exclaimed, turning toward him with pleading eyes; "just let me stay here. I hate New York, I hate society, I don't even know my aunt; and here I am so happy, and I have just got used to it all, and am beginning to feel at home, and it is cruel to take me to another strange place! I will be so good and useful; I will study and improve myself, and help Mrs. Arnold with the school-children and the poor people, and keep Mrs. Roberts' accounts, and read to you, and write your letters, and be just as good and obedient as possible; not in the least self-willed, not a bit unlady-like. Just try," I went on, coaxingly; "you will not know me, I shall be so amiable!"

"But," he said, with a strange mixture of fondness and irony in his tone, "what would _Madame votre tante_ say to such an arrangement?"

"She would say, of course, that if I wanted to, I was very welcome to stay; she has daughters enough already, and not having seen me, she can't be expected to know whether she wants me or not."

"Very well; supposing for a moment, that your aunt had given her consent, and that there was no obstacle in the way of your remaining here, how many weeks do you suppose it would be before you would begin to think regretfully of the gay life you had given up, and the pleasures you had put out of your power, before you would begin to sigh for companions of your own age, and excitements greater than your life here could offer? Believe me, it would not be long before you would be thoroughly 'aweary' of the quiet routine of Rutledge, and thoroughly tired of your bargain."

I protested against this injustice, and exhausted every argument to prove my superiority to such fickleness, but Mr. Rutledge remained unconvinced.

"I do not say you are more fickle than are all other untamed young things of seventeen; it isn't your fault that you are not older and wiser; it is my misfortune. In the nature of things, you cannot stay forever ignorant and innocent, and indifferent to the world--

"'Let the wild falcon soar her swing, She'll stoop when she has tired her wing.'"

"It's very strange," I said, "that you should tell me I must put myself in the way of the very temptations that you were so earnest in cautioning me against not long ago. Why must I go into society, when I don't want it? Why must I try the snares of the world, when, in reality, I am best content away from it?"

"You must first know what it is you renounce, my pretty child; you must first see what other places are like, before you can judge whether Rutledge will content you, and what other friends are like, before you can tell how worthy of your affection this first one is. Wait till you are a little older; wait a year or two, and then if you still turn to Rutledge, it is your home forever."

Wait a year or two! If he had said, "Wait till the early part of the twentieth century," it could hardly have seemed a more insupportable term of banishment.

"Ah!" he said, with a sigh, "a year or two seems an age to you now; when you have pa.s.sed through as many as I have, you'll begin to realize how short they are, how very small a part of a life they form, and how very quickly they pa.s.s."

I shook my head. "They would go soon enough if there was anything pleasant to mark them; but if they are to be pa.s.sed in longing for their end, they will be ages indeed."

"No fear that the next two or three years of your life will be pa.s.sed in that way, my friend. It would be a heavy blow, indeed, that would take the elasticity out of your spirit, and daunt the courage that I know will make your life a worthy one. Be true to yourself; keep your heart pure, and the world will not hurt you; you will only see how far it is from satisfying you."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, "if I might never have to go in it! If I could _only_ stay here. You can't understand how miserable it makes me to go among strangers again. And I am so fond of this place! You need not be afraid that I shall get tired of it; I don't get tired of people and places when once I like them. Do you suppose I ever was tired of my own dear home, or ever would have been, if I had not been taken away from it?"

And at that recollection the tears came blindingly into my eyes.