第87章 PROBLEM IX(2)

"I had a talk with father this morning. He came to my room, and--and it was very near being serious. Someone had told him I was doing things on the sly which he had better look into; and of course he asked questions and--and I answered them. He wasn't pleased--in fact he was very displeased,--I don't think we can blame him for that--but we had no open break for I love him dearly, for all my opposing ways, and he saw that, and it helped, though he did say after I had given my promise to stop where Iwas and never to take up such work again, that--" here she stole a shy look at the face bent so eagerly towards her--"that I had lost my social status and need never hope now for the attentions of--of--well, of such men as he admires and puts faith in. So you see," her dimples all showing, "that I am not such a very good match for an Upjohn of Massachusetts, even if he has a reputation to recover and an honourable name to achieve. The scale hangs more evenly than you think.""Violet!"

A mutual look, a moment of perfect silence, then a low whisper, airy as the breath of flowers rising from the garden below: "Ihave never known what happiness was till this moment. If you will take me with my story untold--""Take you! take you!" The man's whole yearning heart, the loss and bitterness of years, the hope and promise of the future, all spoke in that low, half-smothered exclamation. Violet's blushes faded under its fervency, and only her spirit spoke, as leaning towards him, she laid her two hands in his, and said with all a woman's earnestness:

"I do not forget little Roger, or the father who I hope may have many more days before him in which to bid good-night to the sea.

Such union as ours must be hallowed, because we have so many persons to make happy besides ourselves."The evening before their marriage, Violet put a dozen folded sheets of closely written paper in his hand. They contained her story; let us read it with him.

DEAR ROGER,--I could not have been more than seven years old, when one night Iwoke up shivering, at the sound of angry voices. A conversation which no child should ever have heard, was going on in the room where I lay. My father was talking to my sister-- perhaps, you do not know that I have a sister; few of my personal friends do,--and the terror she evinced I could well understand but not his words nor the real cause of his displeasure.

There are times even yet when the picture, forced upon my infantile consciousness at that moment of first awakening, comes back to me with all its original vividness. There was no light in the room save such as the moon made; but that was enough to reveal the passion burningly alive in either face, as, bending towards each other, she in supplication and he in a tempest of wrath which knew no bounds, he uttered and she listened to what Inow know to have been a terrible arraignment.

I may have an interesting countenance; you have told me so sometimes; but she--she was beautiful. My elder by ten years, she had stood in my mother's stead to me for almost as long as Icould remember, and as I saw her lovely features contorted with pain and her hands extended in a desperate plea to one who had never shown me anything but love, my throat closed sharply and Icould not cry out though I wanted to, nor move head or foot though I longed with all my heart to bury myself in the pillows.

For the words I heard were terrifying, little as I comprehended their full purport. He had surprised her talking from her window to someone down below, and after saying cruel things about that, he shouted out: "You have disgraced me, you have disgraced yourself, you have disgraced your brother and your little sister.

Was it not enough that you should refuse to marry the good man Ihad picked out for you, that you should stoop to this low-down scoundrel--this--" I did not hear what else he called him, I was wondering so to whom she had been stooping; I had never seen her stoop except to tie my little shoes.

But when she cried out as she did after an interval, "I love him!

I love him!" then I listened again, for she spoke as though she were in dreadful pain, and I did not know that loving made one ill and unhappy. "And I am going to marry him," I heard her add, standing up, as she said it, very straight and tall.

Marry! I knew what that meant. A long aisle in a church; women in white and big music in the air behind. I had been flower-girl at a wedding once and had not forgotten. We had had ice cream and cake and--But my childish thoughts stopped short at the answer she received and all the words which followed--words which burned their way into my infantile brain and left scorched places in my memory which will never be eradicated. He spoke them--spoke them all;she never answered again after that once, and when he was gone did not move for a long time and when she did it was to lie down, stiff and straight, just as she had stood, on her bed alongside mine.

I was frightened; so frightened, my little brass bed rattled under me. I wonder she did not hear it. But she heard nothing;and after awhile she was so still I fell asleep. But I woke again. Something hot had fallen on my cheek. I put up my hand to brush it away and did not know even when I felt my fingers wet that it was a tear from my sister-mother's eye.

For she was kneeling then; kneeling close beside me and her arm was over my small body; and the bed was shaking again but not this time with my tremors only. And I was sorry and cried too until I dropped off to sleep again with her arm still passionately embracing me.

In the morning, she was gone.