Chapter LIV: The Mother’s Struggle

Waldon slept at Willow Bend that night—have I told you that such was the name of Mr. Noel’s place—and stayed there a day or two, loitering around the verandas in snow-white garments, and slowly recovering from the effect of an accident that had threatened his life. The young men came up from Hyde’s plantation and made hospitable efforts to win him back to them, but he still claimed to be an invalid, and would not go.

He spent half the time swinging lazily in a hammock, reading to the girls, or reciting poetry—sometimes his own—in a deep, rich voice that disturbed more hearts than the one that loved him. Sometimes Bertha would spend hours with her mother, who saw that she was unhappy, and reproached herself as the cause. During these filial visits, Waldon kept on reading, and Mary Noel listened, feeling strangely guilty all the time. Sometimes he lay idly looking at her, while she was busy with her dainty attempts at work, and his glance made her cheeks hot, as sunshine forces a flower into blossom. At such times she thought of Bertha, who had saved her life and his, almost with dread, wondering why that dear school-friend would not let her speak all the gratitude she felt.

As for Waldon, his pride was hurt that a woman, born, as he solemnly thought, to worship him, and him alone, should have saved his life. It wounded his self-love; but he wrote an exquisite poem on the subject, in which he alluded, in faultless measure, to something far more precious than his own existence, saved to him by her heroic conduct. Was it her love that he held so priceless? Bertha buried the poem in her bosom as something too precious and sacred for the knowledge of any one out of Heaven, but Waldon had read it to Mary with an emphasis which brought the blush of incipient treason all over her shy countenance.

One morning Bertha left the poem under her pillow. Lydia, who acted as ladies’ maid to the mother and daughter, found it, and having no scruples on the subject, read it more than once. Now, Lydia, looking two ways, seemed to see double, but even she did not discover the subtle underdrift which gave this poem a distinct meaning for two persons. To her it was brimful of gratitude and impatient love.

“I will lay it where she can’t help but read it. If that don’t spur her on to set the day, I’ll give her up. What is she a putting it off for? All the things bought and made, it could be done in no time, but she won’t come up to the scratch. He’s got mad, I reckon, and won’t ask again, and Bertha is just pining away like—like—no matter about that. She’s pining, and that’s enough. There she’s sure to find it.”

Lydia dropped Waldon’s poem by the dressing-table, where Mrs. Canfield found it ten minutes after, and read it through with a wildly beating heart and shuddering nerves.

“He loves her! he loves her! and it is only I who stand in the way!” she cried, wringing her little white hands, that seemed too childish for such agony of motion. “My Bertha is miserable, and I am killing her! To hold back longer is worse than cowardice. What am I that her heart should break while I tremble upon the verge?”

While the poor woman was pacing the floor, like a leopard in its cage, her eyes wild with a painful resolution, her delicate lips set firmly to stop their craven tremor, Lydia came into the room, and began to look up and down the floor. Mrs. Canfield stopped short in her walk, and spoke sharply:

“What are you doing here? Who said I wanted you?”

“Nothing and nobody,” answered the girl, taking her mistress in with a sharp cross-fire of the eyes. “Only I dropped a paper, and want to put it under Miss Bertha’s pillow afore she misses it. Meant to give it to her with my own hands, and after hunting her all over the house, haven’t got the confound—I beg sixteen hundred and two pardons—but I’m bound to find that paper, or catch it.”

“Is this the paper?” said Mrs. Canfield, holding out the folded poem with a shaking hand.

“Is it? I should think so! Miss Bertha has been a reading it over and over, in corners and places, ever since day before yesterday; so I reckon she prizes it considerably. I’ll tuck it back again under her pillow, and no harm done.”

Mrs. Canfield did not hear her. She had begun to pace the floor again, clenching and unclenching her hand, while drops of strong agony came out and stood, trembling, on her white forehead, which was clouded and deeply wrinkled between the eyes—a sign of unusual perturbation in the little woman.

At last she turned, missed Lydia, and drew a deep breath, thankful for the reprieve of one little minute. She would do the thing at once, for her daughter’s sake—for the sake of that man who loved her so fondly, so proudly that he would forgive anything; but oh, it was hard! How could her lips ever frame what she had to say?

In a minute Lydia came back again.

“Cruel!” thought the unhappy woman. “Could she not have given me ten minutes?”

No; the girl was relentless. She glided up to her mistress, and said, in a low, confidential voice:

“Didn’t you want me to do something or other?”

Mrs. Canfield stood still, looking at the girl with her quailing eyes.

What good or evil spirit had sent the girl there to hound on her purpose?

“Yes,” she answered, in a hoarse undertone. “Where is Mr. Waldon?”

“Swinging in one of them ham—hammocks, ma’am, reading with all his might out of a poetry book, with pictures in it.”

“Are the young ladies with him?”

“Yes’m; both listening.”

“Tell Mr. Waldon that I wish to speak with him, here in my room.”

“Yes’m,” answered Lydia, darting off like a lapwing.

Mrs. Canfield stood still, listening, as a condemned criminal listens for his executioner.

“I must—I will!” she muttered. “While there was a doubt of his devotion—of his entire devotion—it was different; but after that poem I need not fear—”

A knock at the door made her start like a shot animal. She tried to say, “Come in,” but no sound came. Then the latch turned, and Waldon entered.