第26章 GOLD AND PINCHBECK(2)

"He has closed all the blinds and hung a 'To Let' sign on the large elm at the gate. Stephen never was spiteful in his life, but this looks a little like spite. Perhaps he only wanted to save his self-respect and let people know, that everything between you was over forever. Perhaps he thought it would stop talk once and for all. But you won't mind, you lucky girl, staying nearly three months in Boston! [So Almira purled on in violet ink, with shaded letters.] How I wish it had come my way, though I'm not good at rubbing rheumatic patients, even when they are his aunt. Is he as devoted as ever?And when will it be? How do you like thetheatre?Mother thinks you won't attend; but, by what he used to say, I am sure church members in Boston always go to amusements.

"Your loving friend, "Almira Shapley.

"P.S. They say Rufus's doctor's bills here, and the operation and hospital expenses in Portland, will mount up to five hundred dollars. Of course Stephen will be dreadfully hampered by the loss of his barn, and maybe he wants to let your house that was to be, because he really needs money. In that case the dooryard won't be very attractive to tenants, with corn planted right up to the steps--and no path left! It's two feet tall now, and by August (just when you were intending to move in) it will hide the front windows. Not that you'll care, with a diamond on your engagement finger!"The letter was more than flesh and blood could stand, and Rose flung herself on her bed to think and regret and repent, and, if possible, to sob herself to sleep.

She knew now that she had never admired and respected Stephen so much as at the moment when, under the reproach of his eyes, she had given him back his ring. When she left Edgewood and parted with him forever she had really loved him better than when she had promised to marry him.

Claude Merrill, on his native Boston heath, did not appear the romantic, inspiring figure he had once been in her eyes. A week ago she distrusted him; to-night she despised him.

What had happened to Rose was the dilation of her vision. She saw things under a wider sky and in a clearer light. Above all, her heart was wrung with pity for Stephen--Stephen, with no comforting woman's hand to help him in his sore trouble; Stephen, bearing his losses alone, his burdens and anxieties alone, his nursing and daily work alone. Oh, how she felt herself needed! Needed! that was the magic word that unlocked her better nature. "Darkness is the time for making roots and establishing plants, whether of the soil or of the soul," and all at once Rose had become a woman: a little one, perhaps, but a whole woman--and a bit of an angel, too, with healing in her wings.When and how had this metamorphosiscome about? Last summer the fragile brier-rose had hung over the river and looked at its pretty reflection in the placid surface of the water. Its few buds and blossoms were so lovely, it sighed for nothing more. The changes in the plant had been wrought secretly and silently. In some mysterious way, as common to soul as to plant life, the roots had gathered in more nourishment from the earth, they had stored up strength and force, and all at once there was a marvelous fructifying of the plant, hardiness of stalk, new shoots everywhere, vigorous leafage, and a shower of blossoms.

But everything was awry: Boston was a failure; Claude was a weakling and a flirt; her turquoise ring was lying on the riverbank; Stephen did not love her any longer; her flower-beds were plowed up and planted in corn; and the cottage that Stephen had built and she had furnished, that beloved cottage, was to let.

She was in Boston; but what did that amount to, after all? What was the State House to a bleeding heart, or the Old South Church to a pride wounded like hers?

At last she fell asleep, but it was only by stopping her ears to the noises of the city streets and making herself imagine the sound of the river rippling under her bedroom windows at home. The back yards of Boston faded, and in their place came the banks of the Saco, strewn with pine needles, fragrant with wild flowers. Then there was the bit of sunny beach, where Stephen moored his boat. She could hear the sound of his paddle. Boston lovers came a-courting in the horse-cars, but hers had floated down stream to her just at dusk in a birch-bark canoe, or sometimes, in the moonlight, on a couple of logs rafted together.

But it was all over now, and she could see only Stephen's stern face as he flung the despised turquoise ring down the river bank.