Chapter XVI: The Engagement

_Extract from Dora’s Diary._

“Is it _I_? _Is_ it I? Oh, IS IT I, sitting here to-night with this pressure on my brain, this tightness about my eyes, this anguish in my heart, this feeling of desperation urging me on to meet anything, everything, even death itself? If he received Jessie’s letter, he did mine, of course, for they went together; and why not answer me, instead of sending that cold, mocking message? If people ever die of shame surely I ought to die, for did I not almost beg of him to say again what he said at Anna’s grave,—to tell me that he loved me and would save me? Yes, it all comes to me now,—all that I wrote and what it meant. And he does not respond. If he ever cared, he does not now, and he spurns my offered love. He wishes me happiness; aye, and why should I not be happy? Many a woman would gladly be the mother of Margaret’s six children; and shall I, her sister, who promised so solemnly, refuse? No, John; no, Johnnie; no, Margaret; I will grant your wish. Dr. West, when he comes home, shall have no reason to believe that Dora Freeman ever thought of him, or spoke of him, except in the ‘crisp, cross manner’ which Jessie has described. John must wait a year from the time Margaret died, but I can give him my decision now, and I will then go to Bell and Jessie, and ask them to be my bridesmaids.”

There was a pause made in the diary, and leaning her aching head upon her hands, Dora thought and thought until the hardness softened, when, resuming her pen, she wrote as follows:

“I believe it is my duty to be John’s wife, and the mother of Margaret’s children. It is true I did not so understand her, but that was what she meant, and I promised solemnly. I can love John, or at least I can keep myself from hating him, knowing how happy I make him, and I do love his children, especially Johnnie. O Johnnie, I should die if it were not for you!”

The pen dropped from the trembling fingers, and again the face was buried in the hands, while Dora nerved herself to do what she vainly imagined was her duty. Squire Russell she knew was in the library, Bell and Jessie in their room, Johnnie in the street, and the other children in bed. There was nothing in the way, and she would go at once, so that the worst might be over as soon as possible. Without a moment longer in which to consider, she rose, and gliding down the stairs, knocked at the library door.

“Come in,” the Squire said, his voice and manner changing at once when he saw who his visitor was.

“O Dora, is it you?” he said, rising to his feet, while his face glowed with pleasure.

“Yes, John,” and Dora spoke hurriedly. “It is most seven weeks since I said you must wait for my answer. I can give it now as well as any time. I will be your wife.”

Not a muscle changed as she said this, neither did her voice tremble, but rang out clear and decided, and it may be a little sharp and unnatural. Dora was very calm, far more so than the Squire, who, taken by surprise, started, and trembled, and blushed, and stammered like some guilty school-boy. This state of things, however, lasted only for a moment, and then rousing himself, Squire Russell drew the unresisting girl to his side, and kissing her forehead, said tenderly:

“God bless you, Dora. You have made me very happy. I was beginning to think it could not be, and was learning to live without you, but that makes my joy the greater. God bless my Dora, and show me how to make her happy!”

Had the Squire followed the promptings of his nature he would have caressed her lovingly, just as he did Margaret when she stood thus beside him; but remembering Johnnie’s warnings, he desisted, and it was well he did, else Dora had hated him. Now she suffered him to wind his arms around her, while he told her again how happy she had made him, and blessed her for it.

“Dora,” he said, and now he smoothed her hair, “a man of forty is not called old, and I am only that, but I am fourteen years your senior, while my six children make me seem older still, but my heart is young, and I will try so hard to stay with you till you too are old. I’ll go with you wherever you wish to go, do anything you like, and never frown upon the things which I know young girls love. I will not be an ogre guarding my girlish wife, but a proud, happy husband, doing that wife’s bidding.”

Dora could not repress her tears, he spoke so kindly, so earnestly, and she knew he meant all he was saying, while she was deceiving him. She did not think either that she was doing very wrong in thus deceiving him. It was her duty to be his wife, and it was not her duty to analyze her feelings in his sight, unless he asked her for such analysis, which he was not likely to do, for his was not a mind quick to perceive, while suspicion was something to which he was a total stranger. He had always admired Dora, and latterly he had learned to love her devotedly, feeling now that his affection was in part returned, else she had not deliberately come to him and said, “I will be your wife.” It made him very happy to know she had said so, and in his happiness he failed to notice the pallor of her face, the drooping of her swollen eyelids, and her apparent wish to get as far from him as possible. Margaret had never been demonstrative, and he hardly expected Dora to be different, so the poor, deluded man was satisfied, and when Dora, who would have everything settled at once, said to him:

“We will wait a year,—till next autumn,” he knew what she meant, and answered readily.

“Yes, if you like, though Margaret said it did not matter how soon, the earlier the better for the children’s sake.”

“I’d rather it should be a year,” was Dora’s quiet reply, to which the Squire assented, and then, though he so much wished her to stay, he opened the door for her to pass out, as he saw that she desired it.

Half an hour later and Bell Verner, who was just falling to sleep, was startled by a knock, and Dora asked permission to enter.

“What is it? Who’s come?” Jessie asked in a dreamy tone, lifting her curly head from the pillow, just as Bell unlocked the door, and Dora stepped into the room.

She was very calm now and decided. The matter was fixed now beyond recall, and she felt a great deal better. Sitting down upon the foot of the bed, she said to Bell and Jessie:

“I could not let you go home without telling you something which may perhaps surprise you.”

“Oh, I know. I can guess. You are going to marry Mr. Russell,” Jessie cried, and Dora answered:

“Yes. It was Margaret’s wish, expressed to both of us, but that is nothing. I begin to feel old; oh, _so_ old,” and Dora shuddered as she said it. “John is good and will make me a kind husband. It is true that once, when a very young girl like Jessie, I had in my mind another idea for a husband. All girls do in their teens, I guess, but when we get to be twenty-six we begin to lose the fancy man and look for something solid.”

This she said to Bell, as if expecting her concurrence rather than that of madcap Jessie. But the contrary was the fact, for Jessie approved the match far more than her sister. Squire Russell was splendid, she said, and would let a body do just as she had a mind, which was a great deal nicer than a dictatorial, overbearing fellow of twenty-eight. Yes, she’d give her consent, and she began to whistle, “Come haste to the wedding,” as she nestled back among the pillows, wondering how she should feel to be engaged to Squire Russell. Bell on the contrary saw things in their true light, and she merely replied:

“I am somewhat surprised, I will acknowledge, but if you love him that is all that is necessary.”

She was looking directly at Dora, but in the dim moonlight the white, haggard face was not plainly discerned, and Bell continued:

“I did think you liked Dr. West, and was positive he liked you.”

“Oh, fie,” and Jessie sprang up again, “Dora hates him, while he,—well, I guess he likes all the girls,—that is, likes to talk with and flatter them; any way, he has said a great many complimentary things to me, and I knew he meant nothing. They say his heart is buried in that grave in Morrisville. I picked him out for Dora once, you know, and that’s all the good it did. Marry the Squire, and let me be bridesmaid.”

“Will you?” Dora asked. “Will you and Bell both officiate?”

Jessie assented eagerly, but Bell hesitated. She could not make it seem real that Dora Freeman was to become the wife of Squire Russell. Something would prevent it. At last, however, as Dora urged a reply, she said:

“Perhaps I will, if when the time arrives you still wish for two.”

The clock was striking eleven when Dora quitted the apartment of the Misses Verner, but late as it was Johnnie was waiting for her by her door. He had heard the glad news from his father, and he caught Dora round the neck, exclaiming:

“I know, I’ve heard,—the governor told me. You are,—you are my mother. I never was so happy in my life, was you?”

They were now in Dora’s room, where the gas was burning, disclosing to Johnnie a face which made him start with fear, it was so unnaturally white.

“Auntie,” he exclaimed, bending over her, as, reclining upon the bed, she buried her head in the pillows, “what makes you so white, when I’m so glad, and father, too? I never saw him so pleased. Why, the tears danced in his eyes as he told me, while I blubbered like a calf; and you are crying, too, but not as father did, or I. O my! what is it? This is so different. Auntie, Auntie, you are in a fit!” and Johnnie gazed awe-struck upon the little form which shook convulsively as Dora tried to smother her deep sobs. “I’ll go for father,” Johnnie continued, and then Dora looked up, telling him to stay there where he was.

“But, Auntie, what is the matter?” he asked. “Do girls always cry so when they are engaged? What makes your tears run so like rivers, and so big? It must hurt awfully to be engaged. O dear, dear! I am crying, too!” and then the excited boy wound both arms around Dora’s neck and drew her head upon his shoulder, where it lay, while Dora’s tears literally ran in rivers down her cheeks.

But the weeping did her good, and she grew very quiet at last, and listened while Johnnie told her how good he was going to be, and how he would influence the others to be good, too.

“We will all be so happy,” he said, “that mother, if she could look at us, would be so glad. Father will read to us winter nights, or you’ll play chess with him and sing to us youngsters, and summers we’ll go to lots of places, and you shall have heaps of handsome dresses. You’re not so tall as mother, and it won’t take so many yards, so you can have more. I mean to buy _one_ anyhow, with some money I’ve laid up. I guess it will be red silk, like Jessie’s, and you’ll have it made low-neck, like hers, with little short sleeves. You’ve got nice, pretty arms, whiter than Jessie’s.”

Remembering how much his mother had thought of dress, Johnnie naturally concluded it to be the _Open Sesame_ to every woman’s heart, and so talked on until she sent him away, for she would rather be alone with her own tumultuous thoughts.