Chapter XIV: Confidences

Agatha had reached the conclusion that Julia was more venal than vain. A full week she had awaited a sign that her ruse had succeeded. For seven creeping days, dry-lipped and with unsteady pulses, she had scanned the mail for a letter directed in Julia's familiar, hateful hand, and in the beginning she could not have told whether there was more of hope or of apprehension in her expectancy.

But now she knew by the way her heart was singing. Her insane attempt to give Forbes the thing he wanted, whatever the consequences, had gloriously failed. She had played a friend's part, if a fool's part, and had not been punished by success. Naturally Forbes' numerous letters had never made the slightest reference to an attractive young girl, who was devoting her summer to rendering his exile tolerable, and such an omission would have awakened doubt in the least suspicious nature. To Agatha, Julia's continued silence, in the face of such facts, was convincing proof that she had thrown up her hand and was out of the game.

Agatha had fought Forbes' depression stubbornly while the week was young, and then as hope strengthened, with an audacious, irresistible gaiety that occasionally swept him off his feet. Never had it seemed so difficult to simulate age. A score of times a day she found it necessary to strangle a peal of girlish laughter, or tone it down to the subdued quaver appropriate to her years. It was incredibly irksome to subject her buoyant feet to the yoke of decorum. Never had she so courted exposure as now when the lightening of her heart impelled her to all sorts of foolish youthful pranks. Miss Finch watched her in dumb fascinated terror. And Forbes despite his abysmal gloom, found himself responding with astonishing frequency to her whirlwind spirits.

She woke early the morning of the eighth day and lay musing, too pleasurably excited to fall asleep again. Julia was out of the way. She had engaged herself deliberately to another man, and now it was not Julia but a radiant memory against which she must pit her wit and beauty. Had Agatha been older she might have questioned whether this were an occasion for self-congratulation, since the unfading, perfect dream has an undeniable advantage over fading and faulty beauty. But thanks to her inexperience, the removal of Julia from her path left her with a reckless confidence in her star. There was a tangled web to be unraveled, to be sure, before matters were established on a satisfactory footing, but her blithe hopefulness hurdled these grim preliminaries, and busied itself with a future all rose-color.

A sound in the next room roused Agatha from her sanguine self-communion, the plaintive little whine of Miss Finch's creaking rocking chair. Agatha sprang out of bed, and carried her watch to the window. The faint light showed the hour hand still plodding on toward four o'clock, no hour surely for Zaida Finch to be indulging her propensity for rocking chairs.

A white-clad figure, censoriously erect, appeared in Miss Finch's doorway. Miss Finch gasped, jumped, and made a rush for her bed, as if with the hope of persuading her youthful visitor that the sound of footsteps had roused her from peaceful slumbers. Then realizing the futility of evasion, she stopped short, and stood with hanging head, her air of confusion together with her diminutive figure, giving her the appearance of a naughty child.

"Fritz," began Agatha impressively, "why on earth aren't you asleep?" As she came closer her judicial air changed to consternation. Miss Finch's pale little eyes showed red even in the dim light. Her small nose was redder still. Her thin cheeks were wet with tears.

"Fritz, dear," cried the girl, her voice vibrant with tenderness, "are you sick? Does your head ache? Get into bed and let me make you comfortable. Why didn't you call me? I've been awake an age."

This affectionate concern was too much for Miss Finch's self-control. As she climbed into bed, she gave way to loud sobs. Agatha hung over her, distressed and vaguely self-reproachful, because she had not discovered earlier the urgent need of her presence.

"Don't cry, Fritzie! Shall I get you the hot water bottle, or is it the camphor that you need? Where does it hurt?" She patted the little sob-shaken figure with a motherly hand. Even when not impersonating her great-aunt, Agatha frequently felt years older than Zaida Finch.

It took a minute to elicit an answer. It came finally in a little sniffly whisper.

"My head's all right, Agatha."

"Probably that short-cake disagreed with you. I wondered at the time, if two helps weren't too many, with the whipped cream."

"My stomach's all right, too," declared Miss Finch, a trifle pettishly.

"Then where's the pain?"

Miss Finch deliberated. Her tears gushed afresh. "I--guess it's in my heart. I'm worried, Agatha."

Agatha sat down on the side of the bed, and sighed remorsefully.

"I know it's been a hard summer for you, Fritz. All this deception is very trying for one of your candid temperament. I should mind it frightfully myself if it wasn't for the fun of the thing. But I adored amateur theatricals when I was in boarding-school, and this is exactly the same, except that you have to make up your part as you go along. I knew that you'd been worrying, but I didn't dream how dreadfully you'd taken it to heart."

Miss Finch opened one swollen eye. She looked rather taken aback.

"I don't deny all this deception has worried me, Agatha. But just now--I was thinking of something else. I'm worried about my own affairs."

For a moment Agatha was nonplused. Miss Finch was one of the people who seem to be without personal "affairs." She had no relatives to die, no money to lose, no friends to disappoint her, no prospects to be overcast. She was painfully immune against loss, by comprehensive lack. Then on Agatha's incredulity flashed the recollection of Deacon Wiggins and James Doolittle. In her absorption with her own concerns she had forgotten that Miss Finch stood at a cross-roads, doubtful which turning to take. "Oh, Fritzie," she cried self-reproachfully, "I hope nothing's gone wrong with your love-affairs."

Miss Finch's grief lost something of its poignancy. Agatha's exclamation seemed to establish her status. It was something to know love's pangs, even though ignorant of its joys. Her husky voice was controlled as she replied, "The trouble is that they haven't gone at all, right or wrong."

"Oh!" Agatha became meditative and Miss Finch's confidences trickled on plaintively, like a sad-hearted brook.

"I got another letter from Deacon Wiggins yesterday. He said he guessed his first must have gone astray since he hadn't heard from me. He went over about the same ground as he did in the first letter and he put in a lot of Scripture. It gives one a feeling that a man can be depended on, when he's got so much of the Bible at his tongue's end."

"Well?" Agatha interrupted hopefully.

"Then I met Mr. Doolittle on the road this afternoon and he looked at me real reproachful, and said he was coming to see me in a day or two. I thought he seemed," faltered Miss Finch in conscience-stricken accents, "kind of thin and pale."

Agatha suppressed a smile. "You're keeping them dangling a rather long time, Fritz. I never suspected you before of being a flirt." Then as Miss Finch groaned aloud, the girl repented of her little witticism and hastened to ask, "Aren't you any nearer to making up your mind?"

"The trouble is, Agatha," sighed Miss Finch, "that there's so many good reasons on both sides, for and against. I've thought and thought till it's seemed as if my head was spinning 'round on my shoulders. You see there was a cousin of my mother's who was a second wife. She married a man named Flagg, and I've heard her tell Ma that she got so sick of hearing about the way the first Mrs. Flagg did things, that if she'd risen up out of her grave, she'd have given her back her husband as quick as she'd have turned her hand over. She said he was always talking about his first wife's mince meat and her mustard pickles and how saving she was, till it seemed as if there wasn't any use in her trying to do things right."

"Well?" Agatha prompted, more to afford Miss Finch the relief of unburdening her mind than because she failed to see the application of the tragedy of the second Mrs. Flagg.

"Deacon Wiggins has been married three times. It's likely that some one of those three women could do pretty near everything better than I can," explained Miss Finch, with characteristic humility. "If it was hard for Cousin Caroline Flagg to have one wife held up to her for an example day and night, I don't know how I'm going to stand three of them."

Agatha patted the limp hand clutching the damp pocket handkerchief. "I'm sure _I_ should find three predecessors a drawback. That's where Mr. Doolittle has the advantage."

"Yes, he seems to have, Agatha. But there's no denying that a man who's lived fifty years without being married to anybody gets dreadfully set in his ways. My father's sister married a man when he was along about fifty, and she was twenty years younger. He was a nice man, but stubborn. For one thing he always kept a pair of extra boots standing under the bed, with the toes sticking out, so he could change quick if he came in. Aunt Hannah was one of the nervous kind and she had looked under the bed for a burglar all her life. When she'd come into the room and see the toes of those boots, it always gave her a turn, and she'd feel sure she'd found him at last. Anybody'd have supposed she'd get used to it after a time, but she never did. She tried her hardest to get him to keep his boots in the closet, and she'd make shoe-bags for him, all bound around with tape and real pretty-looking, but it wasn't any use. He said he'd always kept his boots under the bed, and he'd feel lost if they was anywhere else. Seems as if when a man lives single long enough, he gets to think there ain't but one way of doing things and that's his."

"Deacon Wiggins should be adaptable, then," hazarded Agatha. "He's accommodated himself to the ways of three women."

"There's another thing," Miss Finch continued, ignoring Agatha's tentative encouragement. "And that's the first wife's relations. I remember Cousin Caroline used to say she didn't mind his folks dropping in, and of course she didn't mind her folks, but when his first wife's folks came to Sunday dinner, or to spend the day, she was on pins and needles. And she said if ever the bread wasn't as light as usual, or the roast got overdone, it would be when some of the first Mrs. Flagg's relations stopped for a meal. She'd been a member of the Methodist church from the time she was thirteen, Cousin Caroline had, and she was president of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society, but I've heard her say with my own ears that she'd rather see the devil coming up the walk any day, than one of the Sawyer tribe--the first Mrs. Flagg was a Sawyer. And she had one set of wife's relations to worry her. I--I--if I took Deacon Wiggins, I'd have three."

"If you married James Doolittle," contributed Agatha cheeringly, "you wouldn't be troubled in that way."

"No, I wouldn't. But I'm not sure that too little company wouldn't be worse than too much. Mr. Doolittle ain't ever been what you'd call a social man, and except for that sister of his who lives out west, he hasn't any folks to speak of. And as long as I haven't any, I don't see how between us we could scare up enough mourners for a respectable funeral."

"Oh, come, Fritz, you're talking of weddings, not funerals. It certainly is a pity that these lovers of yours have their advantages--or disadvantages--so evenly balanced. It's like a see-saw, first one's down and then the other, and that makes it hard to come to a decision."

Miss Finch took the banter seriously. "Yes, Agatha, it seems a wicked thing, but I almost wish I'd find out something dreadful about one or the other, like drinking or Sabbath-breaking, and then I'd know what to do. But this weighing things and trying to make up my mind is just wearing me out. Agatha, it ain't what I expected. I supposed it would be an awful pleasant feeling to know that two men wanted you, but the way it's turned out, I don't believe I ever was so worried in my life."

"Perhaps proposals are like wisdom teeth, Fritz, and the slower they are coming, the more trouble they make. But don't forget that you aren't under any obligations to take either of these men. We were getting along fine before they thought of wanting to marry you, and if you say no to both of them, you and I will keep Old Maids' Hall and be happy ever after."

"I don't believe you're likely to remain single," objected Miss Finch with perfect simplicity. "It's a pity that nice Mr. Warren never came again. You could have had that man if you'd tried. Look at the chocolates he sent you, after only seeing you once, and that in your kitchen clothes."

"If my name must be either Kent or Warren, I'll stay an old maid to the end of my days."

"I don't see why you don't like the name Warren, Agatha, and I think Mrs. Ridgeley Warren sounds awfully nice. But you're the one to be pleased. It's a pity Mr. Forbes is so afflicted. If it wasn't for that he'd make a grand husband."

"Mr. Forbes' worst affliction at present," pronounced Agatha tartly, "is being very much in love with an absolutely heartless and generally despicable young woman named Julia."

"My gracious," lamented Miss Finch. "Nice prospect for him, ain't it?"

"Not so bad as you'd think. She's going to marry another man."

"Oh!" Miss Finch's limp hand came suddenly to life, found Agatha's fingers and squeezed them. "Maybe he'll get over it," she hinted.

"Maybe." Something in Agatha's tone suggested she was smiling.

"And then if he'd get his eyesight back, the way he expects to--"

"Then he'd have to be introduced to me all over again. You know he thinks I'm a kittenish old lady of seventy."

"If he doesn't like you better when he finds you're not quite twenty, he's different from most men, that's all." There was a new authority in Miss Finch's pronouncement. She spoke as one who knew the sex, to whom its little idiosyncrasies were an open book. And hardly less significant than the change in herself was the fact that Agatha accepted her altered attitude without surprise.

At the same time the girl's impulsive kiss on her old friend's tear-stained cheek was irrelevantly tender. "I must go back to bed," said Agatha. "It'll soon be time to get up. And don't worry over those adorers of yours. It'll do them good to be kept waiting. Men--most men--need to have the conceit taken out of them."

Though she paused in the doorway to charge Miss Finch to go to sleep immediately, she did not act on her own counsel. Instead she ensconsed herself on the broad sill of the east window and swinging her dangling bare feet, watched the face of the sky slowly brighten, flushing pink at last, like the cheek of a girl. Overhead little rosy clouds floated, like cherubs, listening to the chorus of bird song which grew in volume moment by moment.

Another day was beginning, a good day, Agatha was ready to believe. For though between herself and her heart's desire a tortuous deception lay, to be explained and forgiven, the prospect no longer seemed hopeless. It was an eminently satisfactory world, Agatha decided, with Julia out of the running.