Chapter XI: The Author’s Story

THE CRISIS.

It came sooner than the two who were watching the progress of affairs expected it, and the two were Kizzy and Dizzy. The first was looking at what she could not help, with a feeling like death in her heart, while the latter felt her youth come back to her as she saw one by one the signs she had once known so well. She knew what Grant’s failure to marry Thea meant to them. But she did not worry about it. With all her fear of Keziah, she had a great respect for and confidence in her, and was sure she would manage somehow, no matter whom Grant married. And so in her white gown and blue ribbons she sat upon the wide piazza day after day, and smiled upon the young people, who, recognizing an ally in her, made her a sort of queen around whose throne they gathered, all longing to tell her their secret, except Doris, who, hearing so often from her Aunt Keziah that she was the cause of all the trouble, was very unhappy, and kept away from Grant as much as possible. But he found her one afternoon in the summer-house looking so inexpressibly sweet, and pathetic, too, with the traces of tears on her face, that, without a thought of the consequences, he sat down beside her, and, putting his arms around her, said:

“My poor little darling, what is the matter, and why do you try to avoid me as you do?”

There was nothing of the coquette about Doris, and at the sound of Grant’s voice speaking to her as he did, and the touch of his hand which had taken hers and was carrying it to his lips, she laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed:

“Oh, Grant, I can’t bear it. Aunt Kizzy scolds me so, and I—I can’t help it, and I’m going to Meadowbrook to teach or do something, where I shall not trouble any one again.”

“No, Doris,” Grant said, in a voice more earnest and decided than any she had ever heard from him. “You are not going away from _me_. You are mine and I intend to keep you. I will play a hypocrite’s part no longer. I love _you_, and I do not love Thea as a man ought to love the girl he makes his wife, nor as she deserves to be loved; and even if you refuse me I shall not marry her. It would be a great sin to take her when my whole soul was longing for another.”

“Grant, are you crazy? Don’t you know you must marry Thea? Have you forgotten the Hepburn line?” Doris said, lifting her head from his shoulder and turning towards him a face which, although bathed in tears, was radiant with the light of a great joy.

Had Grant been in the habit of swearing, he would probably have consigned the Hepburn line to perdition. As it was, he said:

“Confound the Hepburn line! Enough have been made miserable on account of it, and I don’t propose to be added to the number, nor do I believe much in it, either. Aleck does not believe in it at all, and we are going to look up the law without Aunt Kizzy’s knowledge. She is so cursed proud and reticent, too, or she would have found out for herself before this time whether we are likely to be beggared or not. And even if the lease holds good, don’t you suppose that a great strapping fellow like me can take care of himself and four women?”

As he had never yet done anything but spend money, it seemed doubtful to Doris whether he could do anything or not. But she did not care. The fact that he loved her, that he held her in his arms and was covering her face with kisses, was enough for the present, and for a few moments Aunt Kizzy’s wrath and the Hepburn line were forgotten, while she abandoned herself to her great happiness. Then she remembered, and, releasing herself from Grant, stood up before him and told him that it could not be.

“I am not ashamed to confess that I love you,” she said, “and the knowing that you love me will always make me happier. But you are bound to Thea, and I will never separate you from her or bring ruin upon your family. I will go away, as I said, and never come again until you and Thea are married.”

She was backing from the summer-house as she talked, and so absorbed were she and Grant both that neither saw nor heard anything until, having reached the door, Doris backed into Thea’s arms.

“Hello!” was her characteristic exclamation, as she looked curiously at Doris and then at Grant, who, greatly confused, had risen to his feet, “And so I have caught you,” she continued, “and I suppose you think I am angry; but I am not. I am glad, as it makes easier what I am going to tell you. Sit down, Grant, and hear me,” she continued authoritatively, as she saw him moving towards the doorway, opposite to where she stood, still holding Doris tightly. “Sit down, and let’s have it out, like sensible people who have been mistaken and discovered their mistake in time. I know you love Doris, and I know she loves you, and she just suits you, for she is beautiful and sweet and fresh, while I am neither; I am homely, and fast, and slangy, and sometimes loud and forward.”

“Oh, Thea, Thea, you are not all this,” Doris cried.

But Thea went on: “Yes, I am; Aleck says so, and he knows, and that is why I like him so much. He tells me my faults straight out, which Grant never did. He simply endured me because he felt that he must, until he saw you, and then it was not in the nature of things that I could keep him any longer. I have seen it, and so has Aleck; and this morning, under the great elm in the far part of the grounds, we came to an understanding, and I told the great, awkward, ugly Aleck that I loved him better than I ever loved Grant; and I do,—I do!”

She was half crying, and breathing hard, and with each breath was severing some link which had bound her to Grant, who for once felt as awkward as Aleck himself, and stood abashed before the young girl who was so boldly declaring her preference for another. What could he say? he asked himself. He surely could not remonstrate with her, or protest against what would make him so happy, and so he kept silent, while brushing the tears from her eyes, she continued, “I don’t know when it began, or how, only it did begin, and now I don’t care how ugly he is, nor how big his feet and hands are. He is just as good as he can be, and I am going to marry him. There!”

She stopped, quite out of breath, and looked at Doris, whose face was very white, and whose voice trembled as she said:

“But, Thea, have you forgotten the _lease_?”

“The lease!” Thea repeated, bitterly. “I hate the very name. It has worked so much mischief, and all for nothing, Aleck says, and he knows, and don’t believe it would stand a moment, and if it does we have arranged for it, and should the Morton estate ever come to me through Aunt Kizzy’s foolish insistence, I shall deed it straight back to her, or to you and Grant, which will be better. It is time old Amos Hepburn was euchred, and I am glad to do it. Such trouble as he has brought to your grandfather, your father, and to me, thrusting me upon one who did not care a dime for me!”

“Thea, Thea, you are mistaken. I did care for you until I saw Doris, and I care for you yet,” Grant said, and Thea replied:

“In a way, yes. But you were driven to it by Aunt Kizzy, and so was I. Why, I do not remember a time when I did not think I was to marry you, and once I liked the idea, too, and threw myself at your head, and appropriated you in a way which makes me ashamed when I remember it. Aleck has told me, and he knows, and will keep me straight, while you would have let me run wild, and from a bold, pert, slangy girl I should have degenerated into a coarse, second-class woman, with only money and the Morton name to keep me up. You and Doris exactly suit each other, and your lives will glide along without a ripple, while Aleck’s and mine will be stormy at times, for he has a will and I have a temper, but the making up will be grand, and that I should never have known with you. I am going to tell Aunt Kizzy now, and have it over. So, Grant, let’s say good-bye to all there has been between us, and if you want to kiss me once in memory of the past you can do so. Doris will not mind.”

There was something very pathetic in Thea’s manner as she lifted her face for the kiss which was to part her and Grant forever, and for an instant her arms clung tightly around his neck as if the olden love were dying hard in spite of what she had said of Aleck; then without a word she went swiftly up the walk, leaving Grant and Doris alone.