Chapter LVIII: Searching a Heart

After a while Bertha came indoors and ran up to her mother’s room, a little curious to know why Waldon had been summoned to it. Had her mother at last relented? Was the time arranged when she would be Waldon’s wife, and all her weak unrest swept away forever? Had her mother discovered how foolish she was, and how unreasonably she suffered at times? Not often of course; but when Waldon spoke to her friend in that caressing way, and looked at her so, how could any one help feeling it? Being engaged did not make a woman more than human.

Mrs. Canfield was lying on the lounge, with her face to the wall. She shrank together when Bertha came in, and closed her eyes.

Bertha was not surprised by her pallor, nor by this effort to avoid conversation. These things only confirmed the belief that Waldon’s face had impressed on her. She had seen him come out from the interview with bright eyes and a smile of satisfaction on his lips. What could have brought these signs there but the consent he had so often pleaded for?

“Mother, what makes you look so strange? I have not seen you smile in a week. It makes my heart ache. Have I done anything wrong?”

“No, my darling—you never do wrong.”

“Now, that’s just one of your own precious little fibs. Don’t I know that it was awfully wrong to leave you alone, as I did the other morning? And am I ever here only like a humming bird, flying in and out among the flowers, staying nowhere long, because there is so much honey dew about all of them? But, then, _he_ is here, and will be going away soon. There is no use denying it; I cannot stay content even with you when he is about.”

“Do you love him so well—more than your mother, Bertha?”

The pathetic mournfulness of that poor mother’s voice went to the girl’s heart. She kissed her lips and forehead, in mute apology for loving any one but her, then gathered up her courage and said:

“Better than you, mother? No, I cannot say that—not better, but different. It is impossible that I should ever love any one better than my own, own mother.”

“But you do love him?”

“Oh, yes! dearly, mamma; forgive me, indeed I do!”

“But if I were to ask you to give him up, Bertha?”

“Ah, mother dear, I could not do it!”

“Not if your mother’s happiness, forever and ever, depended on it?”

The poor woman could hardly make herself heard, her voice was so hoarse.

“Mother, how can you ask me?”

“But, to save my life—my life—could you give up this man, who was a stranger to us only a few months ago—to save my life?”

“Then, mother, I would give Waldon up, and die in your place.”

“No, no, Bertha; you would not die. It might sadden you for a time—a long, long time, perhaps; but death is not always merciful to the unhappy. I have known people pray on their knees, hours and hours, in darkness and tears, but death would not come to them for praying.”

“That is hard, for so I should pray, mother. What would life be without him?”

“You would have your mother, Bertha.”

“And she would break her own heart in watching mine wither! Dear, sweet mother! why are you questioning me so? Has Waldon done you any wrong? If so, he shall make it up, or I’ll never speak to him again. There now; is not this foolish talk? Never speak to him again! Why, that would kill me! But what has he done?”

“Done—nothing.”

“Then why ask such cruel questions? Is it that you doubt my love for him?”

“Not that, Bertha, but your strength to part with him. Could you find enough for that, if he wished it?”

“If he wished it, mother! Oh, mother! has he wished it?”

“Bertha, Bertha, you frighten me! No—I say he has not wished it; but if he should?”

“Mamma, you are cruel—awfully cruel. I would not have believed it of you. I would not torture any one so. If Waldon were to break with me—but I _cannot_ think of it. Sometimes it has come across my mind when—when it ought not to, for that would be touching his honor. And I have felt as if a snake were coiling about my heart. Mother, if this ever happens, I shall perish, or become a revengeful, wicked woman, whom you would not know for your child. If God would not let me die, then—then—oh, mother! mother! in that case death would be a mercy!”

“But my Bertha used to be proud and strong.”

“That was before I knew him, mother.”

That poor woman was strangely persistent, probing her child’s heart cruelly, as she had never done before in all her gentle life.

“But if he wished it, the old pride would come back?”

“Mother, you make me angry. What has pride to do with love? Nothing, nothing; when a woman talks of that, she only gives selfishness another name. I tell you I love this man, fondly, madly, with my whole being! Now talk to me of parting with him, in this idle way, if you can find the heart to do it!”

“I cannot! I cannot!” answered the wretched mother. “It would be easier to die!”

She sank down upon the couch, that had witnessed so much anguish, after saying this, and turned her face to the wall.

Any one who had seen Bertha Canfield, as she stood in the middle of that room after being so questioned, might well have believed her when she said that desertion would make her a revengeful woman. Her eyes fairly burned, her cheeks turned white, and her mouth quivered with intense passion. So keenly had those questions tortured her that her heart writhed and her bosom panted with the pain of it. She did not heed the dead silence that had fallen upon her mother, or know when Lydia entered the room.

“Please to go out now, if you’ve come near enough to killing her, which you and that cu—excuse me, but I won’t see her murdered yet, being a girl with something besides stones in my bosom.”

Lydia was in solemn earnest. She now considered herself in duty bound to listen, and had heard everything, and understood far more than Bertha dreamed of.

Bertha pushed the girl aside, dashed into the next room, and flinging herself on the bed, burst into a passion of sobs.

“Why did she question me? What good did she find in dragging up those miserable doubts from the bottom of my heart? She might have known—she might have known how I had tried to strangle them.”

“Miss B., your mother is cold as a stone, and you here.”

Bertha flung the hair back from her face, and followed Lydia to the couch, where her mother was lying.

“Oh, mamma, forgive me! forgive me!”

Mrs. Canfield turned slowly, held out her arms, and the two clung together, one weeping passionately and the other still as death.