Chapter X: The River Leading to the Sea

If there is one thing a girl loves more than another, it's being a martyr. If there is any such thing as sweet sorrow, that's where it may be found. And of all kinds of martyrdom the love kind is the sweetest. Now in all this a woman is so different from a man. A man enjoys the suffering that comes with love--if some one else does the suffering; but a woman glories in it--if some one else does the loving. And that was pretty much my case.

For I was having lots of love--from Charlie. This was all very well so far as it went; nor can it be denied that it went a considerable way. For every girl prizes a strong man's love, though she return it never so faintly. Like some preachers, she highly esteems a call--even if she has little or no thought of accepting it. But there is nothing, nothing in all the world, so troublesome as love; unless it utterly swamps you--then is the solution simple. But to have just enough to marry on, with no surplus for the years--that's dreadful. That is like launching some mighty ship when the tide is out--and it must be awful to hear the keel grating on the sand.

Yes, that's where the martydom comes in, to recall the noble word with which I began the chapter. And when the Judgment Day shall dawn--concerning which I have no doubt, but much misgiving--the most oft-repeated charge against our poor weak womanhood will be that we sold ourselves for nought. Some of our loveliest will be the first to learn, in that great day, how deadly was the barter of their bodies--and of so much more. I have often heard uncle say that when a horse is sold its halter always goes along--but no one ever told me that when a girl sells her body, that sale includes the soul. Reluctant, protesting, even horrified, it yet must cleave to its tenement of clay and meet the tenant's doom. And what a doom! if it be fitting destiny for those who have bartered the sanctity of life, some for bread, some for home, some for gold, some for fame, some for earthly station; and some, nobler these, for very hungriness of heart, crying out for the nameless something that shall satisfy the soul.

I hardly know just how or when I resigned myself to such a martyrdom. But I did. I decided to marry Charlie, right soon too--despite the defiant vow I had registered in my diary that night. One thing I'm sure of--and that is, that Europe and the yacht had mighty little to do with it. But whether it was because I feared Charlie might throw himself from the deck of the aforesaid yacht if I didn't marry him; or whether I felt it was a matter of honour; or whether I knew it would throw mother's life into eclipse; or whether I agreed with that semi-intelligent philosopher who once said that all life was a gamble in probabilities, or something of that sort, I cannot say. But anyhow, one midnight hour, I drew my pen through the first half of that diary vow, the part which declared I could never marry Charlie, and I left uninjured the savage promise to myself that I would never, never marry the Reverend Gordon Laird.

Besides, he had been horrid. Not in any positive sense, of course, for Mr. Laird was such a perfect gentleman. And yet he was a gentleman after a fashion I had never seen before. He was not in the least like our Southern gallants; he couldn't bow like them, nor make pretty speeches--and he wouldn't jump across the floor to pick up my handkerchief, though I once saw him give Dinah a hand up the back steps with a heavy block of ice that had slipped from her grasp and fallen to the bottom. And he never brought me flowers, or candies, except some wild violets he might sometimes pluck--and once he did give me some molasses taffy, of which his reverence himself partook with almost juvenile enthusiasm.

But he was scrupulously polite, and that's so hard for a girl to stand if she's interested in a man at all. And he seemed so strong, and self-possessed, that he was distant without meaning to be--the distance of a sort of superiority, all the worse because you knew he wasn't trying to make you realize it at all; and I had the intolerable feeling that his world was an altogether different one from mine, and that he was interested in things I didn't know about, yet which I felt might be just as much mine as his if I only had a chance. As it was, however, I was a good deal like a child standing knee high to some man whose face was half hidden by the telescope to his eye; if he knew you were there at all, you felt the very most he'd do would be to pat your head and ask you if you'd lost your ball.

I don't know what finally decided me. But anyhow I wrote Charlie a letter, and told him Yes. "Yes, right away," was the burden of what I said, "as soon as I can get ready." I thought at the time what a cruel term that was, "getting ready"--as if the milliner and dressmaker had any part to play in that. All the world I would have given to have known how to really "get ready" in my inmost heart and life. But I wrote the letter, and sealed it, and kissed it on the outside--which I felt was the proper thing to do--and then I placed it in the Bible on my dressing-table, taking quite a pious satisfaction in the fancy. Then I sat down and cried till my eyes were sore and the Bible all stained with bitter tears. Later on, I told my mother; her joy was quite enough for two, quite too much for me.

And I told Mr. Laird too. Some will ask why, and perhaps make merry over that delicate reserve which Southern women pride themselves upon. But let them ask, and let them make merry as they will. Besides, I had already told Mr. Laird so much that it was surely natural enough for me to tell him this. Moreover, was he not a minister--and what are they for if not to be confided in?

So I told him I was going to post a letter. It was the gathering dusk, for such a letter should never sure be launched in the garish light of day. Then I told him what was in it, or, at least, told him enough to let him know; for he was remarkably "quick in the uptake," to adopt a phrase of his own countrymen; I think I referred, too, to his own counsel in the matter.

He didn't speak for a little, nor could I see his face. But when he did break the silence, it was to say he'd walk to the post-office with me; he added that the exercise would do him good, since he hadn't had much of an appetite for supper--which was, I thought, one of the shabbiest speeches he could have framed. But I let him come.

"Why not row down?" he suddenly suggested as we came to the bend in the road beside the river. Our boat-house, its door wide open, was at the water's edge. "We can land within a square of the office," he enlarged.

I should have refused, I know; for the letter to Charlie was in my hand. But I didn't. And I remember yet the sense of sweet helplessness I felt as he turned and led the way to the boat-house. It all comes back to me again. I stand once more alone, outside, while the tall form disappeared within the low-roofed house. The sound of pushing and rolling I hear again as the boat emerged slowly from its home. The rattle of oars comes back, idly rolling to and fro in the rocking skiff; the metallic chink as they were being adjusted in the iron sockets; and the lapping waves, and the soft breath of evening, and the distant noises of the drowsy town. I remember, too, that there was neither moon nor star, the sky all veiled with the gentle haze that often marks our Southern spring. He rowed; and I sat in the armchair in the stern.

"You're going too far out," I said suddenly, for we were near the middle of the river.

"I want to get a last look at the place," he said, "and one can see better from out here. Doesn't the town look lovely in the dusk?--see all those twinkling lights."

"Yes," I agreed, "it's beautiful. Why do you say that?" I asked, trying to conceal the tremor in my voice.

"Say what?"

"What you said a moment ago--about a last look--why the last?"

"Because it is," he answered slowly, the oars hardly moving now. "I'm going away."

I looked down at the dimpling track my hand was making in the water.

"When?" I said; oh, so carelessly.

"To-morrow."

"Where?" as I caught at the little throb in my voice.

"To Canada--they've got an opening for me there. I'm going to take a mission field."

I made no response. But I knew for the first time, in all this life of mine, what it really meant to have a heart on fire. He was not looking, so he could not see the quick rise and fall of my bosom as I looked out through the deepening darkness towards the twinkling shore. I could see the dim outline of a few tall elms on the bank; and muffled sounds floated towards us across the darkling water. But what I remember most was the wonderful stillness that reigned without, while the first real heart-storm I had ever known raged deep within.

One hand was in the water, troubling the unconscious element; in the other I still held the letter I had written Charlie. And I leaned far out over the edge of the boat, withdrawing my gaze from the shore; but the silent river gave back nothing except murky blankness. Life had the selfsame colour to me then, poor child and changeling that I was. Suddenly I felt that his eyes were on me, though the gloom was deepening--and I trembled, actually trembled; if I had been alone with him in mid-ocean I could not have trembled more. Perhaps I glanced down the sullen river and remembered that its home was the far waiting sea.

Then he moved--and towards me. If there had been a mile between us, instead of a few paltry feet, I could not have been more conscious of his coming. For he never spoke, and I neither spoke nor stirred. In a moment he was beside me, or at my feet, or both. And such a transformation I had never seen. His voice was low and unsteady, choking almost, and I could catch the wonderful fire of his eyes as they were fastened on me in the gloom.

"Don't," I said faintly, "please don't--let us row in--we'll miss the mail."

But he made no movement, never even glancing at one of the oars which had been lifted from its socket and slipped with a little splash into the stream. The other sulked alone in the darkly dimpling water.

"Oh! Helen," he said in an altered voice, such a voice as I had never heard before, "you know--you know all I want to say."

He had hold of my hand, the one that held the letter. And still I did not move or speak. But a swift thought flashed through my mind; it was of another day, when another man had thus laid siege to me--and I knew now what life's real passion meant. Yes, I will tell it--and they may smile who will--my whole soul leaped in silent ecstasy, and triumph, and hope. But the greatest of these was hope. I knew, at long last, what it meant to love and to be loved--and no queen ever gloried in the hour of her coronation as I silently rejoiced in mine. I forgot that he was stronger than I, and greater, and nobler; forgot all about the strength of intellect that I had felt as a gulf between us; all the difference, too, of life's aim and purpose was sunk and forgotten now. I even forgot that he was a minister at all, set apart for life to duties and sacrifices for which I had neither gift nor inclination. I only knew I loved him, and that we were alone together--and that he was at my feet.

"Helen," he began again, "I'm going away--and you'll forget all about me, won't you, Helen?"

It was sweet to hear him speak my name. And his words would mean, of course, that he wanted me to forget--but I knew what they really meant, and I held every tone sacred to my heart.

Then I said, and the words were soft as the breeze about us: "I won't."

I knew it was wrong--for Charlie's letter was still in the hand he held. But it was glorious. Oh, how I revelled in the words I spoke! They were simple and insignificant, I know,--but the wild breath of a new-born love pulsed through them, and I could see by the kindled face, though the dark was round about us, how his heart had leaped to recognize their meaning. And then his own soul poured itself out in a great gust of passion, pure and holy and resistless and triumphant; all the strength and silentness and self-control that had provoked my wonder through the days seemed now to be turned to leaping flame as he told me--oh, so eloquently and yet so brokenly--of such a love as I had never dreamed could be offered any maiden's heart.

"Can you see that steeple there?" he said, his voice hoarse with feeling as he pointed to the distant town; "no, it's too dark--but I can see it. I see it even in my dreams. It was under its shadow I met you first, when your uncle and I were coming from the train. And I knew then, Helen--in that instant I knew, and have known ever since, that there was only one love for me--and it was you, my darling. And I knew, I knew, who put the roses in that attic room of mine--and they made the place like heaven to me ever since. And give me this, Helen--surrender it to me," he went on passionately, his fingers closing stealthily around the letter in my hand.

"I cannot," I cried, protesting, summoning what strength I might. "Oh, I cannot--that's my letter to Charlie."

His clasp relaxed a little. "I know," he said; "that's why I want it--and you cannot, you must not, send it now."

"But you told me, you told me more than once," I pleaded; "you said how true I ought to be--you know you did," and I trembled lest his own counsel should prevail.

He seemed to sink back a little--and awful silence reigned a moment. "But I didn't know," he soon began, new earnestness in his voice, "I only knew then that I loved you--and I could have given you up, I really could--but I didn't know then that you belonged to me--to me, my darling," his voice rising to the masterful with the words; "I didn't know then that God meant you for me, and that that was why He led my steps across the sea. I could have given you up--I swear I could," he cried almost fiercely, "if it had meant nothing but a wounded life for me--but when it's you--oh, when it's you, my darling, when your life would be wounded and broken too. For you love me, my own," and his voice had the tenderest strain that ever filled woman's heart with rapture; "don't you, Helen?" he went pleadingly on; "oh, say you do--or tell me, tell me, Helen, if you don't."

Then the silence of death reigned about us both, though heaven knows I tried my best to break it, but could make no sound. And then, then--with all the stealth of love and of a strong man's will--he gently drew the letter from my hand, my heart fluttering till it hurt, and without a word he tore it up, slowly, noiselessly, almost reverently, into a hundred pieces, and a moment later they fluttered through the dark out onto the bosom of the silent river.

I was like one in a dream, unspeaking still. Perhaps I had a great sense of weakness, even of wrong. But I do not think so. I only knew that life was changed to me in that wonderful hour, and that I cared nothing for the future, all that it might bring, all my unfitness for it. I only knew that I had found at last what my poor, tired, frivolous heart had been seeking in alien ways for long. And I knew that love's great lie, so desperately cherished, had retreated before Love's great Reality. And when he took me in his arms, so strong, so tight, I shut my eyes and rested there; and when he kissed me--only once--I prayed, a swift, wonderful prayer. And I knew at last that love was holy, stainless, and that God was good.