Chapter III: After the Storm

All night long the rush and roar of heaving waters filled that old farm-house. The two young girls, who were guests for the time, awoke now and then with a thrill of remembrance, and clung to each other for a while, then whispering that all was safe, dropped to sleep again.

Bertha scarcely closed her eyes. Her body was shaken in every nerve by the peril she had escaped, in a miracle of bravery. Her soul also was in tumults. The refusal with which she had so positively repulsed Fletcher haunted her like a crime; when she thought of it a chill of self-loathing swept through her. Why had she repulsed him so cruelly? How had she dared to wound the man, who, an hour after her cold rebuff, had plunged into the depths of that flood to save her life? Had she parted with him ungratefully at last? Was it her fault that he went away, dripping wet as he was, never once looking back as she sat shuddering with cold on the door-step, giving more pity to the beast that was hurled from under her into the flood than she had bestowed on the man?

Notwithstanding those shoots of vivid sunshine that had heralded the party on to its awful peril, the storm was not over, but raged deep into the night. Little rain fell, but the wind was furious, and with that came the dull hoarse roar of the mustering waters that grew louder and louder as the stillness of night deepened, while the great trees that sheltered that old house writhed and groaned, and beat their gnarled limbs on the roof, as if denouncing her miserable ingratitude. Not a moment of sleep softened the agony of that night’s loneliness. If the storm seemed to hush itself, and give her a moment’s breathing time, before her eyelids closed it would swoop down upon the old house again, and shake it from stepping-stone to chimney, as if a troop of fiends were trying to reach her, and battled furiously with the old trees for guarding her so well. Daybreak found the girl pale as a drenched lily, with all the redness quenched on her lips, and her large eyes looking out from the dusky shadows that had crept around them in the night.

Is it strange that this young girl clasped her hands as the dull light came through the windows, and that tears filled her eyes? True, the storm was hushed, but the trees still moaned over the old house, and blade clouds, broken away from the retreating storm, curtained her windows with gloom.

Bertha slept a few minutes after this, but her sweet face was troubled even in that brief slumber, and when the door opened and a little old woman, in a dove-colored dress, and wearing a cap of soft lise without frill or lace, came softly in, she seemed a little disturbed even by the light footfall which fell like snow on the floor.

“Is thee awake, Bertha? Has sleep done thee good?”

Bertha awoke with a start, and held out her hands.

“Grandmother!”

“Thee trembles, child. Thy hands are cold.”

“Yes, grandmother, I am a little cold. I could not sleep. The storm raged so and that gulf of waters seemed opening under me all night.”

“Yes, yes, that was enough to frighten thee, poor child; but it is over now. Hear how the girls are laughing in their room.”

“They were not so near death,” said Bertha. “They have done nothing to be sorry for.”

“Thee has done nothing, either,” said the old lady, kissing Bertha on the forehead; “but thee is worn out and must have more sleep. I will bring up some breakfast.”

“No, no, grandmother. I am well, nothing is the matter. Besides, I have something which must be done.”

“Well, it is early yet. Sleep a little. By-and-by I will come again.”

There was something so soft and caressing in the old lady’s voice that it almost induced sleep in itself. Bertha closed her eyes, and a faint smile stole across her lips.

“Yes, grandmother, I will sleep.”

The old lady stole out of the room, and knocked softly at the chamber door, through which pleasant laughter still came, and, with a finger on her lips, said to the young girls who answered the knock,

“Bertha has not slept well. It is very early. Let her rest.”

After that the house was still as a deserted bird’s nest, for the old people were in the far off kitchen, and the girls up-stairs talked in whispers and laughed under their breath.

A thin partition only separated them from the room in which that suffering mother slept; they knew that the old lady had gone in there, and, with her gentle voice, was soothing the nervous wakefulness that had risen almost to frenzy while the flood was roaring and the storm raging around her.

After a while they heard Bertha come softly from her room and enter that from which the grandmother had just withdrawn. Her voice was louder and more cheerful than the soothing tones of the sweet old friend.

“Look up, mother,” she said, “all the danger is over. The old bridge has gone, but what of that? They will soon build a new one. See how brightly the sun is shining.”

A faint voice answered this cheery greeting; then Bertha spoke again:

“But the storm is over and the flood is going down. Grandmother has got our breakfast ready. Will you not come? See how the rain drops twinkle and gleam at the window. It shines like silver among the wet leaves. See, I am filling your room with the sweet, fresh air. So you must join us; besides, Clara Anderson is going away.”

Again the faint voice seemed to protest.

After a little, Bertha came out of her mother’s room, threw off her forced cheerfulness, and turned to the girls, that were waiting for her, with tears in her eyes.

“Poor mamma. The terror of this flood has nearly killed her,” she said. “She does not seem to feel that we are all safe yet. She trembles like a leaf, and will not even look out of doors.”

“Oh, this glorious day will soon bring her round,” said Mary Noel. “Come now, let us see what havoc the tempest has made.”

Bertha met this proposal with cheerfulness, and went with her guests to the front door.

Around the old homestead the storm had torn and swept away many dear, familiar things that the girl’s heart yearned over. In the front yard a peach tree, torn up by the roots, lay quivering in all its wet leaves and tender twigs. Across the street a spring of crystalline waters, gurgling through moss and whispering rushes only the day before, had become a turbulent whirl of waters, pouring itself across the highway. The dogwood trees that had sheltered it were twisted off at the stem. Vines that had flung a torrent of foliage down the rock were swept away; a few broken stems alone clung to the rock, where they had basked in the sunshine and trembled in the wind.

Above all this, the storm-clouds rolled back in glorious embankments, softer and more luminous than snow, and, underneath them, all this ruin and waste grew beautiful as paradise.

“How grandly the old mill has withstood the flood!” said Clara Anderson, pointing with her riding-whip to the stone fabric, from whose windows and doors the water was pouring. “I almost feel as if it were human and proud of its victory. Ah, here comes Mr. Fletcher, and I have my breakfast to eat.”

Bertha’s heart gave a great leap as she followed the direction of Clara’s hand, and saw the man who had saved her life approaching. She had a vague knowledge that Clara Anderson had gone down the hall, and that Mary Noel had followed, sending a little ripple of mischievous laughter behind her as she escaped.

No matter what they did, she would remain to receive the man who had saved her from that awful death. Her heart beat loudly, a glow of grateful warmth, such as she had never felt before, pervaded her whole being.

“Surely, surely, this is love,” she thought, with a strange thrill of pleasure. “Yes, yes, this must be love.”

This thought gave bloom to her cheeks, and flooded her eyes with tender light. She stood impatiently while Fletcher fastened his horse and came through the gate. Then she left the door-stone and, with her hands extended, met the young man half way.

A less sensitive man might have taken hope from this, but Fletcher remembered her words, uttered with such earnestness the day before, and refused to deceive himself. Still his hand trembled as it accepted hers, and a grave, sweet smile stole over his mouth.

“I was almost afraid to come,” he said. “It seemed impossible that I should find you able to see any one.”

“I must be ill indeed, not to see you,” said Bertha, with a soft tremor of the voice. “Oh, Mr. Fletcher, how can I ever thank you enough!”

“Thank me for permitting you to run into such awful danger! Why, Miss Canfield, I have spent the night praying God to forgive me for it.”

“And I have prayed him to bless you for it,” said Bertha. “Prayed him to make me worthy of the words you said to me yesterday on the hill road.”

The girl trembled violently now, and intense feeling drove the color from her face. He did not speak, but stood with his eyes bent on her with a strange, wistful expression, while his grasp tightened nervously on her hands.

“Mr. Fletcher,” she said, gratefully, and with gentle firmness that went to his heart, “you have saved my life. It may not be worth much. Will you accept it? Living or dying, I can never do enough to make myself worthy of your love.”

The hands which held hers shook, and the thrill that stirred it reached her heart. For one moment a glow of exquisite hope flooded his fine eyes. Then he slowly dropped her hands and turned his head away.

“You have saved me—you love me!” Bertha exclaimed, clasping the hands he had relinquished.

The young man turned his face full upon her. It was pale as marble.

“I love you better than my life—better than man ever loved woman! But, Bertha Canfield, do you love me?”

His voice shook—she knew that he trembled all over.

“Not twenty-four hours ago,” he continued, more firmly, “you told me that it was impossible.”

“Hours!” repeated Bertha. “It seems like years. That great gulf has been passed since then.”

“Do hearts change so suddenly?”

Bertha cast down her eyes. The earnest question in his made her tremble.

“I see you are grateful for an act which simply proves that I am not quite a coward. You would reward me with a hand that I would give my life to possess a free gift, but will not take as a reward.”

A glow of light flashed over Bertha’s face, her eyes shone with tears. She again laid her hand in the clasp which had dropped it with such pain.

“Are such feelings as these to be rejected,” she said, “because they do not answer the fulness of your desires? I did not know what love was then—now, I could lay my life at your feet!”

“Do not tempt me so—in mercy, do not! It opens a glimpse of happiness that I am almost craven enough to seize upon! But you have mistaken thankfulness for a passion which must last forever, or become worthless.”

Bertha allowed her hand to fall from his clasp a second time. How could she tell, with all the inexperience of untried feelings, that he had not read the emotions of her heart aright? She was only sure of one thing: if that was gratitude, she would ask nothing better than thankfulness all her life.

She said this with a sweet modesty that almost disarmed the man; but he loved that young creature supremely, and, knowing it, would take nothing less than her entire love in return.

“I must not stay here,” he said, with deep feeling. “It were dishonor to accept happiness at the price of yours. Only tell me one thing: has any other person—”

“Do not finish the question,” she replied, quickly; “I have already answered it. No other person has ever spoken to me seriously of love. Remember how recently I left school—how little I have seen.”

“I do remember, and this gives me a little honest hope. But you must not be troubled by the presence of a man who will adore you through all his life. To-night I shall leave this place.”

“You leave us to-night!” said Bertha, reproachfully.

“It is better so; out of your presence I can command myself. Left in this sweet solitude, you will understand your own heart. By-and-by we shall meet again; then I will take my fate. Till then, farewell!”

Before Bertha could answer, Clara Anderson came into the hall with the bloom of fresh country air in her face, and the stately grace of a queen in her bearing; for the long skirt of her habit trailing over the floor gave her an air of courtly dignity that another dress might have lacked.

Bertha breathed quickly, and her face grew anxious.

“This is not a farewell,” she said; “I shall see you again.”

“After you have had time for thought, and I to make myself more worthy,” was the low answer.

Then a single grasp of the hand followed; Clara had drawn close to them, and Fletcher was to escort her home. Directly Mary Noel came from the breakfast-room, and tenderly kissing Clara good-by, stood with Bertha on the door-step till the young people rode away, taking their course down the valley, toward a lower bridge which the flood had spared.

The two girls thus left upon the door-step stood there with clasped hands like sisters that had just parted from a dear friend—which was true; for these three had been intimate beyond all others in their school-days, and fate had dealt hardly with Clara Anderson since then—so hardly that those friends gazed after her, as she rode away, with tears in their eyes.

As she disappeared beyond the old mill, Bertha turned to Mary Noel with a sad smile.

“There she goes back to her toil—which will be all the harder after these few days with us. I never felt so sorry for any one as I do for her. It seems as if some new trouble were about to fall on her!”

Mary Noel was serious for once, as she answered:

“What greater evil than to work for her own living can come to a girl like her? It is a hard, hard lot. I sometimes think it is a pity her father lived to educate her so much above her chances in life.”

“He was a finely-educated man himself,” said Bertha, “and had every prospect of improving her position. It was a great misfortune when he died.”

Mary Noel shook her head.

“I remember it well. She seemed heart-broken when they took her away from school; and well she might, for I am told that she absolutely works with her own hands.”

The patrician young lady shuddered faintly as she spoke.

“At her home in the South she had a hundred slaves to anticipate her wishes, and, in her estimation, work, which is the greatest blessing God ever gave to mankind, was absolute disgrace.”

“She might have gone out as a governess,” answered Bertha, without heeding the shudder; “or have kept school here in the country, but she could not be persuaded to leave her grandmother; so, as you have heard, works night and day with her own hands.”

“Why didn’t she accept that young student from her own town, who was so wildly in love with her, I wonder?” said Mary.

Bertha shook her head.

“She will never marry him; if she wished it, Lane’s family would interfere.”

“Proud, are they? Well, Clara can match them in that; for she was haughty as a duchess at school. Poor girl! It is a cruel lot.”