At Last: Six Days in the Life of an Ex-Teacher/Chapter 6

ISS BROWN," said Frank Wayne, quickly recovering his self-possession, though, from old acquaintance, I would not have imagined he had lost it, "I'm more thankful than I can tell, that my daughter has found so good a friend."

I did not for a moment doubt that he fully meant what he said; whatever his faults, he always had been absolutely truthful; nevertheless, I quickly replied,—

"She never would have found me had I imagined that—that"

"That she was my daughter?"

"She said her name was Alice Hope; I never heard her called by any other name."

"I am very glad," said he, raising his hat,—"I am very glad, for her sake, that you were kept in ignorance. She was christened Alice Hope, and seldom thinks of her family name. Perhaps," he continued, with a frank old-time smile which I never had forgotten, "you'll pardon me if I'm a little glad for your sake too? It is true that she is my daughter, yet every one who has met her seems to think her well worth knowing."

"I should be the last one to dispute it," said I, looking down at the child, who stood motionless as a statue, except that her eyes, larger than ever before, wandered rapidly from her father to me, and from me back to her father. "But I never imagined who was her father, or that his home was anywhere near."

"I'm very sure you did not," said he, all vestige of his smile disappearing. Then came an awkward pause. I wished he would have tact enough to take himself away, even if he took my little friend with him,—take himself rudely if necessary, rather than prolong my discomfort.

"I declare," exclaimed Alice Hope at last, finding her tongue, "I do b'lieve you bofe knowed each uvver, an' I didn't know noffin' about it."

"You're quite right, my darling," said Frank. "I was acquainted with Ruth—with Miss Brown before there was any such little girl as you, and I found her the best woman in the world."

I was unable to make a similar speech in reply, but, for fear the child would ask some question that would make the situation more unpleasant, I said, quickly,—

"Yes, Alice, your father called at our house sometimes, and, besides, we met at church."

"Where are you stopping? I suppose you are passing the summer here?" asked Frank, wisely hurrying to commonplace.

"I am here only for this week," said I, quickly.

"She's over at Miss Dorcas's and Mistress Drusilla's," said the child; "but, oh, dear"

"Then we are all on the way home. Shall we walk along, and get out of this hot sun?" said Frank.

He took a step or two forward, leading the child; I stood an instant trying hard to frame an excuse to return to one of the farm-houses we had passed, but Alice, looking back, returned, took my hand, and said,—

"Come along, teacher."

There was nothing else to be done. Fortunately, I saw my boarding-house on the hill nearly a mile in front of us; I could soon make an excuse to leave the couple and go home by the shortest route, across the fields. So we walked along together, we three. Meanwhile, there was one of us who did not take part in the discomfort of the others.

"I hope, little darling," said Frank to his child,—something had to be said to lessen embarrassment,—"that you haven't made yourself troublesome in any way to Miss Brown? I would like her to think you the best little girl in all the world."

"I's sure," was the reply, "dat I's been as good as pie. I hasn't cried,—not much, anyway,—an' I's showed her all my doll-babies, an' she's been awful good to me, too; she's 'mused me rainy days, an' talked to me lots, an' tried to teach me lots of fings. She made me lots of paper dolls yesterday, an', oh, what do you fink? She drawed"

I gave her arm a quick, savage shake. She looked up inquiringly, and I gave her a warning look in return. Then I said, quickly,—

"You should tell your father, Alice, how you were a good Samaritan yesterday."

"Oh, yes; and I'll show him de kittie when he gets home."

"Another cat in the house?" said her father. "I'm afraid we shall have to go into the menagerie business, if you continue to collect unfortunate birds and animals."

We were near the place where I should be able to free myself. Oh that the few remaining steps might be quickly taken! Soon we reached a field through which a path led towards my boarding-house.

"Alice," said I, stopping, "I'll say good-by now, and hurry home, so as not to keep dinner waiting."

"What makes you call me 'Alice' so much?" she asked. "You 'most always calls me 'dear;' an' it's a good deal nicer."

"Good-by, dear," said I, offering her my right hand. She took it, took the other also, and attempted to drag me down to her upturned lips. I raised her, kissed her, once, and whimpered, softly,—

"Remember your promise: not a word about that picture."

"What did you say?" she asked, as I placed her on the ground again.

"Nothing of any consequence," said I, turning away.—"Good-day, Mr. Wayne."

"Good-day, Miss Brown."

I hurried along the path through the field as if I were trying to escape a pursuer. I felt my face ablaze and my heart in a tumult. Had ever woman found herself in a position so uncomfortable, through no fault of her own? I was indignant at fate and at Frank Wayne. Of one thing I was certain: the first train for New York should carry me away from the scene of such humiliation.

Mistress Drusilla met me at the door, and asked for Alice; I said she had gone home,—that we had separated at the foot of the hill. Then I hurried to my room and began to pack my trunks, but within half an hour I had such a headache that I was obliged to lie down; an hour later the pain was so intense that I was obliged to abandon my plan of starting for home that day.

"May I come in, my dear?" softly spoke Mistress Drusilla outside my door the next morning.

"Yes," said I, faintly.

"I hope you're better this morning," said the old woman, standing at my bedside and regarding me tenderly. "Hadn't I better send for our doctor? I did so hope you'd be feeling your very best to-day and to-morrow, for—for it's so distressing to feel poorly Sundays, you know. There's a full day before Sunday, though, and we ought to be able to nurse you into feeling all right by that time. 'Twould be a real pity to disappoint folks that'll be going to church for the purpose of seeing you. They've heard so much about you, you know, my dear."

"Heard so much? About me? From whom?" I asked, rapidly, wondering if I were really awake or only dreaming. How could any one have heard anything about me, when I had met absolutely no one but my landladies and Alice Hope? Could it be that that innocent child—she could not be other than innocent, bless her!—was so confirmed in the gossiping habit peculiar to small communities that she had visited all the other houses near by and talked about me? But, even were this true, what could she have said? During our several chance meetings I bad said nothing about myself, or anything else in particular; the child had done nearly all the talking.

"Well, I'm sure I don't know, my dear," said Mistress Drusilla. "I suppose they just heard it from one another. I never said a word, neither did Miss Dorcas, except to mention your name when folks found we had a boarder and asked who it was. They'd all heard of you before, so I suppose they"

"Heard of me before?" I echoed, raising my head from my pillow in such haste that Mistress Drusilla retreated towards the door.

"Don't get excited, my dear: it's dreadful bad for headaches," said she, venturing to approach me after recovering from her scare. "You see, after Mr. Wayne married Alice Hope—the daughter is named after her—and came down her to live, some of his friends came here summers to board, and one of them married a gal, like Frank's own wife, who'd been born and brought up here, and he told his wife about Frank's first sweetheart, and so when you came, and they heard your name, they couldn't help putting two and two together."

I covered my face with a palm-leaf fan, and wished that darkness might cover me as a pavilion. Mistress Drusilla continued:

"He said Frank's friends never could understand it, for you were a woman of a million,—those were exactly his words, my dear, according to that man's wife,—a woman of a million, and nobody could understand why he had changed his heart to a girl like Alice. She's dead and gone now, dear soul; I've not a word to say against her, for she was as sweet and bright and cheery as a lark on a May morning; but—you'll excuse me for saying it to your face, I don't understand it myself, now I've come to know you. And Frank Wayne has always seemed such a good, affectionate, loyal man: there's no young man in this country who's more respected."

In a moment the silence became oppressive. I was thinking rapidly, for the old woman's remarks had led me, from a sense of humiliation at being an object of village gossip, to reviewing old times. I don't know how it happened; I suppose I merely thought aloud, when I finally said,—

"It wasn't his fault. I gave him no encouragement. I did not think I loved him."

"So we heard afterwards, my dear, through another friend of his, who said you were a prize worth any man's winning, but that Frank had too much of the soul of a gentleman to force himself upon anybody that didn't want him, and I've always said—for I've watched young men in my time—that if his heart was hungering for love that it hadn't got, 'twas no wonder he took Alice Hope in a hurry, for she was the sweetest thing, as I've said before, and I don't see how any man could be near her for a little while and not fall in love with her. She'd refused a dozen likely young fellows, some of them very well-to-do, before he came along. But I'm glad everything is fixed between you now."

Again I started from my pillow, and again Mistress Drusilla retreated to the door, as I exclaimed,—

"Everything fixed? What do you mean?"

"Why, my dear, only what I've heard. I don't know where folks found it out, but they do say—I've heard it from several—that you and he had made up, and your coming here just now, seeing he's going to begin his summer vacation next week, made me suppose it was so. I haven't asked any questions of his mother-in-law, old Mrs. Hope, and those that have didn't get much consolation, for the old lady said she didn't know anything about it,—that she never meddled with Frank's private affairs, and was perfectly willing to wait until he should tell her."

Again I dropped my head upon the pillow and buried my face. This, then, was the meaning of the remarks that had been made to little Alice the day before about the possibility of a new mother,—the meaning, too, of the curious looks that had been fastened upon me, which I had attributed to rural curiosity about strangers! To this I must attribute the kiss given me by the old lady at whose house we had taken cider and cake! Oh, it was dreadful!—dreadful!

"I haven't meddled in the matter in any way, my dear, I give you my word," resumed Mistress Drusilla, "except, as I supposed the story was true, hearing it from so many, I tried to bring you and little Alice together and have you like her. I thought that if you were to be that youngster's new mother you had a right to know her as soon as possible, for nobody comes to know that child without feeling it a loss that they didn't know her before."

"Mistress Drusilla," said I, "I must go away at once; and I beg of you, as a true woman, who can imagine how another woman in such a position would feel, to explain when I am gone, for my sake as well as his, that all this gossiping story is a dreadful mistake. I have not seen Frank Wayne since his marriage; I have not heard from him, or known anything about him. If I had known he lived here I would not have come here for worlds. I selected your house merely through your advertisement in a New York newspaper."

"Mercy on us!" gasped Mistress Drusilla.

"You will do as I have asked, won't you?" I asked, earnestly.

"Indeed I will, my dear; I will do it carefully as if you were my own daughter, though it'll be with a sore heart. I supposed it all true, and I hoped" Here Mistress Drusilla burst into tears and hurried from the room. As she went out, in bounced little Alice Hope.

"Hello, teacher," she shouted, as if I were half a mile away. "Ain't you up yet?"

"I am feeling very poorly this morning, dear," said I, faintly, as she kissed me several times.

"Well, well, I wonder whevver it's de change of wevver? Gran'ma says she finks dat's what's de matter wiff my fahver, 'cause she guesses he didn't sleep much last night, 'cause she heard him walkin' in his room all sorts of times in de night."

I did not reply. Suddenly the child astonished me with a peal of laughter. I looked up inquiringly,—indignantly, I fear.

"De funniest fing!" she exclaimed. "Gran'ma tole me I mustn't disturb him dis mornin', 'cause he was quiet an' she guessed he was asleep. But I didn't believe just one kiss would disturb him, so I went in ever so softly, an' he was layin' on de lounge, just de way he come in de house. I wanted to kiss him on de mouf, 'cause his mouf is so sweet, but his hand was dere, so I pulled it away a little bit, an' dere was a card in it, an' what do you fink was on de card? Why, your picture! I never heard of such a funny fing in my life."

Bless the receptive depths of my pillow!

"Say, teacher," continued the child, after another laugh, "can't you get well right away somehow? 'Cause soon as my fahver wakes up we'll go off on anuvver 'scursion,—I don't know where, but he don't ever stay in de house days like dis, an' he's just de nicest person to go on a 'scursion wiff dat you ever saw."

"I hope you will have a real pleasant time, my dear, but I can't go. I am suddenly obliged to return to New York."

"Oh, teacher!" was the reply, in pitiful tones. I was sorry for the child, but my heart warmed at the thought that she—she, the dear little thing—would be sorry at my departure. I released my face from the hospitable pillow and looked at her: I saw tears coursing down her chubby cheeks, and a most forlorn expression on the little face which usually was so happy. Then I felt tears coming to my own eyes as I realized that I was about to lose my little friend,—the first and only friend I had made in years.

"Alice, dear," said I, "come here."

The child sprang upon the bed beside me, smothered me with kisses, and finally pillowed her cheek, as soft and warm as a rose, upon mine. I returned her caresses with all my heart She was his child, but she was my friend; how much she had been to me during the past few days I had not fully realized until now. "Blessings brighten as they take their flight." The child finally concluded the interview by saying,—

"I wish I could stay longer, but I must be home when my fahver wakes up; I'm always de first fing he asks for when he's home."

"Good-by, blessed little girl," said I: "don't ever forget me, I beg of you."

"I don't ever forget anybody," said she, wriggling off the bed and hurrying away.

This breaking of my only tie to the place I was in brought me to my senses and gave me command of myself. Quickly dressing, and completing my packing, I presented myself to my landladies with as composed a face, I fancy, as I ever wore in my life. I asked Mistress Drusilla to find me some one to take my trunks to the station; I even ate a very hearty breakfast, and shamefully snubbed both landladies when they attempted to express sympathy in ways which were extremely creditable to their womanly sense of delicacy.

After breakfast I had nothing to do, so I strolled in the garden. A temptation to go to the pines and recover my hammock was quickly put down. Little Alice might see me there: I had learned that through a rift in the trees a person there could be seen from the garden around her own home. One parting with that child was suffering enough: I could not endure another. Besides, it seemed to me, though the old-fashioned mirror in the hall showed me otherwise, that my face was ablaze, and only the fresh air out of doors could cool it.

I went from one old-fashioned flower-bed to another, picking flowers. My landladies had always told me to clip as freely as I liked, but I had responded only to the extent of a rose or two or a cluster of mignonette. Now, however, as I thought of the heat and solid walls of New York, I wanted to carry with me all possible natural recollections of the country, which never seemed more beautiful than that morning. Mistress Drusilla also was in the garden, hovering about me like a protecting angel,—the blessed old blunderer. She passed me occasionally, apparently to give me a chance to speak if I chose, but I kept silence: the subject of our morning's conversation should not again be alluded to if I could help it.

Slowly I filled my left hand, then my arm, with roses, pinks, phloxes, branches of geranium, sprays of southernwood, and branches of lemon verbena. Then I stooped over a plant of forget-me-nots; it was the only one in the garden, so approaching footsteps prompted me not to take much, under the eyes of the owner. As I arose I heard,—

"You have very little of it, but can't you spare a single sprig?"

I looked up: the voice was not that of Mistress Drusilla, but of Frank Wayne.

"Certainly," said I, as carelessly, I flatter myself, as if speaking merely to an ordinary acquaintance. Indeed, what else was he, after what had happened? I laid the little cluster in my left hand, select a blossom, and gave it to him.

"A thousand thanks," said he, placing the flower in his breast instead of his button-hole. Then he seized my hand and said, very fast,—

"Ruth Brown, my daughter says you are going away to-day; and I am sure I am the cause of your sudden departure. I came over to say that I would not have come home had I known you were here, and that it will be far better for me to go at once and leave you to continue your stay. I hear that you came for your health's sake, and I feel like a felon at having disturbed you."

"You are very thoughtful," I replied, "but really I must return to the city at once." At the same time I tried to disengage my hand, but it was impossible. Frank had always been an amateur gymnast.

"Then," said he, "let me say one thing more. You are the noblest woman alive; I thought so when I first knew you, and I never changed my opinion: so I can't bear to have you think ill of me in any way."

"I don't," said I: "I never did."

"I feared otherwise," said he. "At least I beg you to forgive me for anything I ever said or did that pained you. I had a most unformed, aggressive nature in old times; I have seen it plainly in later years, and blamed myself a thousand times for words which I am sure must have offended you. I beg you to believe that they were not intended as they sounded. Ruth,—let me call you by the old name once more,—Ruth, you were my God, and I was merely laying my heart bare before you."

"No one could refuse such a complimentary apology," said I, with a smile. I was anxious to end the scene, for scene I was sure it was: unless my landladies had suddenly changed their natures, those two estimable women were undoubtedly looking from windows commanding that portion of the garden. Again I attempted to release my hand, and I am glad to say I succeed. Then I turned with great interest to a rose-bush at my left and selected a fine blossom.

"Allow me," said he. "Roses have thorns. Perhaps I know their ways better than you." Then he cut the stem with his pocket-knife and proceeded to remove the thorns, saying, as he did so, "Won't you allow me once more to be numbered among your friends? I took myself away only when in a period of self-examination I believed I was more annoying than pleasing to you. Will you believe me?"

"I never could doubt your word," I replied. "I never did."

"Heaven bless you!" said he. "Then you believed"

"Please cut me some of these yellow roses," said I: "their stems are a mass of thorns, you see."

"You haven't answered my first question," he replied, attacking the spiny Persian roses. "I asked you to let me be numbered once more among your friends. I know, as I have said, that I was not entirely an agreeable companion in old times, but I beg you won't think me conceited if I say I am now a better man. I have cultivated the virtue of patience, and I abominate men who insist upon arguing about everything."

"What a remarkable change!" said I, extending my hand for the roses.

"Thank you," said he: "no one has a better right to recognize it." He cut another stem of yellow roses, and, as his knife rapidly broke away the thorns, he continued,—

"I've treated every roughness of my nature as mercilessly as I am treating these thorns. But may I remind you once more that you have not answered my first question?"

"Mr. Wayne," said I, "you know I always liked you—as a friend. The break in our acquaintance was not of my making; you simply ceased to call; then I heard"

"Ruth," said he: then he began to pour forth his story: how one evening, after leaving me, his conscience took him severely to task and convinced him that he was altogether too rugged and self-assertive of nature to be a fit mate for a woman like me, so had hurried away from the city to try to forget his presumption, and the consequent sorrow. He had gone with a party of friends to the country,—just where I had chanced to come for my outing,—and met a girl of whom he soon became very fond, and who seemed to like him. What had followed I already knew, but he assured me with the utmost earnestness that his married life had been very happy, and that among his recollections of his wife not one was unpleasant except that of having lost her. I was glad he was unable to see with what satisfaction I listened to this part of his story, for I feared a resemblance to what I had seen in some novels, about interviews somewhat similar.

When Frank Wayne ceased talking it was not easy for me to reply. I could only tell him, which I did in entire honesty, that I was very sorry for his misfortune, and that I was very glad that he could find so much consolation by turning to his memory.

"Besides," said I, turning from one of the flower-bushes over which I had leaned while he talked,—"besides, you still have your child, and she ought to be enough in herself to make any one happy for a life-time."

"I am so glad to hear you say so!" said he. "I sometimes fear that I estimate her too highly,—her character, I mean: as for herself, as my daughter she would be dear to me were she a helpless idiot But she is a constant stimulation to my heart and head; she always needs something, always wants to know something, always is so trustful, and affectionate, and sympathizing, and relies upon me, when I am at home, so entirely for everything, that I feel that I have more than any other man to live for. I have unmade and remade myself for that child's sake, and the task has never been hard or unpleasing. Do you know that if that child continues as she has begun, and reaches womanhood with healthy mind and physique, I shall think that I have really been good for something in this world?"

"You will be quite justifiable in such case," said I. He stood so manly, earnest, noble-looking, and modest, that I could not help admiring him, and wondering why he could not have had a similar face years before,

"Fahver? Fahver?"

Both of us looked in the direction from which the voice came, and we saw little Alice in the edge of the pine grove.

"Teacher? Tea—cher?"

"She wants both of us," said Frank, turning half away, but looking backward at me. "Won't you come?"

To see the child, even afar off, was to break my resolution not to see her again: so I followed the broad-shouldered fellow in front of me, though I could not keep pace with his rapid stride.

"Fahver," said little Alice, who as we approached her got into my hammock, "here's teacher's hammock, an' I want you to swing me in it. Teacher, you get in too; my fahver's strong enough to swing two people."

"Thank you, dear, but I'd rather look at you, I think."

"Oh, come on!"

"You haven't the heart to disappoint a child, have you?" said Frank, with a mock-solemn look which I remembered very well.

"Come on," repeated the child, looking towards me and holding up a doll. "Besides, I's brought Agonies over for you to see before you go, 'cause you said you liked her best of all my dolls. You can hold her in your lap if you want to."

Compliance was easier than continued refusal, so I seated myself in the hammock beside the child, and the dreadful doll was dropped in my lap by way of reward. As the hammock moved to and fro, the child began her familiar song,—

"Say, fahver," little Alice suddenly shouted, "is you gettin' up a s'prise for me?"

"A surprise?" said Frank from behind us, as he gave the hammock another push. "That's hardly a fair question, darling, and so near your birthday, too. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I fought maybe you was; dat's all," said the child, drawing back some flying locks from the brow of Agonies.

"Christmas is a good way off, and your birthday is not long past," said the father, as he continued to swing the hammock. "So I scarcely think surprises in order. What have you got into your little rattle-trap of a head?"

"I hasn't got anyfin' dere; somebody else put it dere," was the reply. "A lot of folks has been wantin' to know if I was goin' to have a new muvver, an' I fought mebbe you was gettin' up dat kind of s'prise for me."

The hammock began to move more rapidly and higher; at least it seemed so to me, for I began to feel dizzy. Any confidences that might ensue were not for me to hear. Then I rapidly recalled the remarks I had heard the day before and what Mistress Drusilla had said to me, and I felt dizzier.

"Stop the hammock please," said I. "It is too much for my head."

A strong hand on the cords stopped the hammock in an instant, and I got out so quickly that the motion threw little Alice forward to the ground, the first result of which was a long howl. I was on my knees in an instant, and had the child in my arms, trying to console her. Her father attempted to take her, but she clung tightly to me, as I passed my hand frequently across her forehead and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Ground is so awful hard when you lays down on it when you don't mean to!" said she,

"Indeed it is, poor little darling!" said her father. "Don't you want me to carry you right home and bind a wet handkerchief on your forehead, as grandma does when you tumble down?"

"No, I guess not," was the reply. "Teacher's hand comforts my head lots."

"Bless the teacher's hand!" said the father.

"Say, fahver!" said the child, a moment later, "if you is gettin' up a s'prise for me,—dat kind of a s'prise I told you about, you know, about gettin' me a new muvver,—I fink I'd like it to be teacher."

My hand dropped from Alice's forehead; my left arm, with its wealth of flowers, fell by my side. But the child did not fall; she only clung the tighter to me. From the silence that followed I indulged a wild hope that her father had been frightened away. But in a moment I felt warm breath on my cheek, and then a low voice said,—

"Ruth, I, alone, am not worthy of you, but could you consent to be this dear child's mother?"

"Do it! Do it!" exclaimed little Alice, suddenly forgetting her pain and looking into my face with dancing eyes.

What could I do? Only what I did. I arose, took the child in my arms, and kissed her. Seeing this, Frank Wayne put his arms around us, and kissed us both,—kissed us repeatedly.

When finally I placed the child on her feet again, it was for an excuse to cast my eyes downward. As for little Alice, she immediately looked up at her father and said,—

"Fahver, ain't I a good guesser?"

"I suppose so, darling; but why do you ask?"

"'Cause I guessed right about the s'prise,—about de new muvver. I just knowed who it was goin' to be."

"Indeed! How did you come to guess it, I should like to know?"

"'Cause I saw you kissin' her picture dis mornin' when you was asleep on de lounge."

"Alice—darling!"

"I did, sure's I'm alive. Anyway, it was in your hand, an' your hand was right against your mouf. I told gran'ma about it, just before I come over here, an' she said she guessed it was a sure sign."

Then it was Frank's turn to look down and flush, so I felt encouraged to look up: seeing his embarrassment, I found courage enough to laugh. He raised his head quickly with the rarest smile I ever saw on a human face, and said,—

"I'll be glad to be laughed at to all eternity, if you'll do the laughing, Ruth—darling."

I went to New York that afternoon: happy though I was, and strong enough to meet whatever the world might thereafter have in store for me, I could not let the village gossips see me again and whisper to one another, "I told you so. But first, three people sat in that hammock and talked rapidly and cheerily of the future: the smallest of the three did the most talking, but whenever her father attempted to restrain her I stopped him, reminding him that I had promised only to be Alice Hope's mother, so she was the person most concerned.

All this occurred more than a year ago, yet none of the parties concerned seem to have any cause for regret. The only notable change—except that I am the happiest woman who ever lived—is in Alice Hope: her dolls, or "babies," as she persisted in calling them, are entirely neglected; even Agonies, whom she most pitied, departed unmourned in an ash-barrel. The child spends all her waking moments in as close proximity as possible to a tiny being whom she calls "Buvver."