Chapter XVI Heart’s-Ease
Never was there a quieter, better place to work than at Dr. Gottlieb’s, whither I had gone after Aunt Lucretia and Eloise had left. In a short while I had become reconciled, in my hard work, to my lot; for to live with Dr. Gottlieb meant to work, to classify, to probe into things, and this meant to put aside all else, even for awhile one’s heart’s trouble for the hard mental strain of it. I remember those study nights well and with such pleasure. I can recall the little quiet man with his books, his abstraction, his quaint comments, the learned deductions that fell now and then from his lips as if he were unconscious that he was speaking. From studying the pollen of a flower he would look up abstractedly and drawl, “Ah, Jack; and Miss Lucretia—that most beautiful and charming of women! Did I ever tell you that each of us has our prototype in a plant? And how much to my mind—ah, Jack, and to my heart, how much she resembles the beautiful red wood lily!”
He would put down his book, and look longingly out over the hills. It was the only foolish thing he ever did, I thought, and so I forgave him, knowing that each of us has at least one foolish thought within us.
He always had a smile for me; often he would walk around all the evening thinking abstractedly, or puttering among his books and plants and geographical specimens, and then start into real work at midnight. And I would work with him; for, besides studying my forestry, I was carrying on some experiments, testing the various effects of fertilizers on the soil of The Home Stretch. Dr. Gottlieb would say: “It is not the time, it is the inspiration, Jack; catch it when it comes.”
Exercising Satan daily as I did, I became as attached to the great game fellow as did he to me. He was a singular horse, of a type entirely his own. The harder the ride, the more difficult the feat, the stubborner, gamer he grew. Not every horse is an individual, in fact few are; they are horses merely. But Satan was one, almost human in his idiosyncrasies. If he had been a man he would have been one of the world’s leaders. There was nothing he would not do for me after he learned to love me.
Even in my heartache, in my despair at giving up Eloise, I thought often of Elsie; for, having known her since she was a tot of three years, when she came to live with Tammas and Marget, riding her, a wee girl in front of me on my pony, going with her, a little maid, over the hills to hunt for some Scotch flowers, I had that attachment for her that one has for a little sister. She had developed far more beautifully than I had dreamed of, both spiritually and in body; for the connection between them at last is the same. I had never thought before that there was any mystery about Elsie. Tammas and Marget, with all their apparent frankness, had the greatest inherited trait of their race, a shrewd secretiveness when it was best. Heretofore I had thought of Elsie only as their orphaned grandchild. I supposed her father was some sturdy Scotchman of their own class, who, perhaps, died after his wife, or, if alive, had given her to her grandparents. But now I saw differently; perhaps her beauty, and the romantic turn events had taken; the Juliet outpouring of her own exquisite nature had touched in me some subtle instinct.
It was this affair of Braxton Bragg which worried me most of all. I had not seen him since I returned. I did not want to. There are those born into our lives who seem always to oppose, thwart, counteract what we do. Braxton Bragg had played this part in my life. I could not escape him, try as I would. Even when I was in Germany, with an ocean between us, had he not cheated me of my own birthright? He was with his company in the city of Nashville, where the Tennessee troops were mobilized for the war. They expected orders to sail for the Philippines any day. All his life Braxton Bragg, weak as he was in character and mind, with that conceit which often goes with weakness, had really believed that, after he had acquired The Home Stretch, or a greater military reputation in the army, he would marry Eloise. All his life he had openly proclaimed it. His mentality was not great, and he had not yet learned that in real love monies, farms, reputation, fame, are the least that count.
Goff had won her. Braxton Bragg now knew that. Goff had always befriended him, and bore with him more than anyone else. Goff had confided in him and trusted him. Braxton Bragg was as immoral as he was weak. Therefore I reasoned this matter lay in one of two ways. Either he was recklessly scheming to deceive and ruin Elsie, or else he had found out something that none of us knew and was scheming to marry her on account of it. Besides deceiving my grandsire, as he had all his life, I now learned that he had further deceived him:—that, graduating from West Point, he had been appointed to the army, but even before he went on duty, he had been caught in an act unbecoming a soldier and gentleman, and to escape courtmartial had resigned. My grandfather’s influence had saved him and got him elected captain of a company which my grandsire had himself raised and equipped for the war.
Absorbed in my own affairs, numbed by the wreckage which had come to my soul’s dream, I had neglected Elsie of late. When I realized it, and what it meant to a sensitive nature such as hers, I went over at once, fearing that, since our last meeting she might have misunderstood my absence, and brooded over imaginary wrongs to her own hurt. I found it was high time when I learned the real situation.
Tammas met me, his face weary; for the first time in all our greetings with no broad smile.
“Tammas,” I said, “where is Elsie? I want to see her.”
“Come, Mr. Jack,” said he, taking off his big butter apron; “we’ll gang ben into Marget’s room, for we baith want to talk to you.”
I found Marget quite as troubled as Tammas.
“I feel that I’ve been neglecting you,” I said, trying to talk cheerfully, “but—I have—there have been great changes in my life—I have gone to live with—”
“Ay, we ken aboot it,” said Marget, “and though we didna understand, we thocht ye’d come ower in your ain guid time to tell us.”
“If we can help you, Mr. Jack,” began Tammas quietly, “we will be glad to do it.”
“Thank you, good friends,” I said, taking his hand. “I can’t explain it all now; only this,” I went on, forcing a smile that I did not feel, “there has been scheming against me all around, everywhere, since I left home, and—well,” I smiled, “I’ve been turned out of home, and—and—everything.”
Marget’s eyes flashed: “They’ll no’ turn ye oot o’ onything,” she cried hotly, “no’ as long as we’re here, Tammas an’ me. Ye’ll jist come ower and bide wi’ us. Here’s your room, Mr. Jack. An’ Tammas an’ me—we love ye as much as we dae oor ain bairn. I ken fine wha it is. Tammas, didna I tell ye? It’s juist that Braxton Bragg! He’s been plotting against ye ever since he was a wee bairn, an’ ye’re no’ the only one that he’s mistreating; an’ it breaks ma heart to think that ony man in this country whaur we and oor lassie hae lived so correctly, should be sae bold as to write this, an’ it’s been wanting to see ye we have, an’ to show it to ye. Ye are a’ we hae to protect her, Jack; we are truthful folks, an’ oor lassie is a sweet and pure lass, that has been a’ her life here in this valley, like as to ony lily in it, an’ we dinna think she should be insulted by the like o’ that.”
She had taken a note from her bosom and handed it to me.
“Haud on a wee, afore ye read it,” said Tammas. “Afore ye cam’ hame,” he went on, “I didna like his attention to oor lassie, an’ the untoward way he had o’ trying to meet her secretly gin she but gaed oot o’ oor sicht, an’ ye ken Mr. Jack, hoo fond she was since a bairn, to hunt flo’ers an’ birds on the hills aroun’. Sae very frankly I gaed to him, as I thocht it my duty to do, an I tell’t him we had oor ain plans for the lassie, an that he was in anither class frae her, an’ any attention he showed her wad be to the hurt o’ the lassie, an’ it wad be maist unbecoming in him as a gentleman to persist. Eh, but it maddened me to hear him explain and pass it a’ aff as a joke, an’ the flattery o’ him fair scunnert me, it did. But for a’ I said till him he didna stop it, but kept dogging the steps o’ the lassie an’ writing her love notes. Sae I gaed till him again an’ maist pintedly I made him understaun’, that I wad appeal to his grandfaither for protection. I am a man of peace, but this maitter has reached its leemit, an’ noo we’re gaun to turn it ower to you. Marget an’ masel’ hae thocht it a’ oot, because if ever Elsie had a brither it’s oor Jack,” he added. “There’s only ae thing mair I’ll be asking ye afore ye act, an’ it’s jist this, that seeing the matter’s sae delicate an’ talking aboot it micht injure oor lassie, I’ll jist ask ye to consult wi’ Colonel Goff in the maitter.”
“Ay, an’ ae day ye’ll ken the reason,” said Marget very quietly, nodding approval to Tammas’s remarks.
I never was so angry as when I read the letter. I was fighting mad, no other word will do.
“Where is Elsie?” I asked, controlling myself. “I must talk with our little lassie.”
“Weel, ye see,” said Marget, “Jack, I dinna ken. The puir bairn is a’ but crushed—she’s just like a lily that has grown a’ simmer in the valley, an’ opens for the first time ae morning to find there’s such a thing in God’s worl’ as rain an’ hail.”
Tammas came up to me whispering quietly. “We maun tell ye this, Mr. Jack, it’s only fair that ye should ken. We hae keepit’ oor ain counsel a’ these years about oor lassie, an’ that which we wad like ye to ken aboot her Colonel Goff will tell ye. But this ye maun ken, there is behind her on her faither’s side that verra intensity of nature so highly keyed for joy or sorrow, that it has sent mony o’ her forbears amang the gentle leddies o’ her hoose to early deaths, even to taking their ain lives. Ay, Elsie is jist sae like her faither’s sister, the bonnie ane that suicided for love. Eh, but oor hearts are wae aboot oor bairn. She’s shut hersel’ in her room a’ day, but jist afore ye cam’ she gaed off to the wood ower yonder.”
“Ay, ay, if there’s ony ane in this worl’ that can help us it’s you, as I said to Tammas afore ye cam’. The Lord be thankit for your coming!”
“Ay, but the lassie;—Mr. Jack, would you let them that raised you be plain to your face as becomes honest folks with those they love?”
I nodded. “Then Elsie cares na’ a bawbee for this bold rascallion—it’s you she loves, Mr. Jack, an’ wi’ a’ respect and deference for so delicate a thing, you’ll sune ken that ye hae the love o’ a lassie wham the highest in England and Scotland wad be prood to mate wi’.”
At first I could not find her. She was hidden in her favorite place, a natural arbor of low dogwoods overgrown with a beautiful root of tangled wild-grape.
I was never before more calm, for the seriousness of it all was on me. Not only was her own reputation, her future happiness and life at stake, but that of others also. The hint given me by Marget made things clear. If I ever needed tact I needed it now. I was ready for any concession to save her from the position she was in, even to forget Eloise, if I could.
I decided that it was best that she should not know that I knew anything. My first glance showed me how seriously she was taking her trouble. I had never seen such sorrow in her eyes, eyes which now fought defiantly the gloom that was settling in them, as a child’s when it knows for the first time its mother has died.
I sat down beside her, and without speaking drew her to me. “My little Heart’s-Ease,” I said, “you’ll let your prince help you?” I let her cry on my shoulder until she cared to talk—stroking her hair.
“I thought you had forgotten me,” she said. “Where have you been so long?”
“Oh, I had much to do—to think about—that needed doing quickly. First I had to move and get settled. I live with Dr. Gottlieb now—well—it is a long story, but I’m—I have no home now, Heart’s-Ease.”
“You shall live with us if you wish—if you will—Tammas and Marget and me.”
I laughed boyishly. “I will if it comes to a rub.”
“I am so glad you’ve come. I have been so troubled, Jack. Just before you came I was sitting here, and I thought I saw Ophelia in that pool down there where the spring branch goes into the deep hole under the willows, like my picture in Shakespeare.”
“Nonsense,” I said, drawing her to me. “Tell me what you ate for supper last night? I believe you are in love.”
She turned white, and her lips were drawn.
“No one loves me,” she said, and she blushed crimson, “no one in the right way. It is just like Ophelia, and so I was thinking—”
“No one shall love you any other way,” I said, “unless they first reckon with me, for I love you,” I added tenderly, for I pitied her so much.
She looked up, smiling through her tears.
Then both of her arms were around my neck. “Jack, Jack!”
Her hands were in mine: her eyes, looking up to mine, had tears in them. I saw that she had misunderstood, but I saw that if I were to save her I must save her through love. I felt the hot blood rush, for very shame, into my face, stinging it red for punishment.
“Forgive me, Elsie,” I began, my throat choked with shame, “I can’t explain, I didn’t—”
For answer she kissed me, both arms around my neck, as she said, “Oh, I am so happy.”
She was silent, her hands in mine. They burned me, yet to turn them loose, to tell her truthfully, and she keyed so to the sensitiveness and unthinking romance—I thought of the pool and Ophelia.... She laughed happily: “Tell me, Jack, your Elsie, when did you find that you loved me so? Was it because of my thoughts of you in the horror and folly of my flirtation with Braxton Bragg?”
“Never mind,” I said; “you are never to mention that name to me.”
“Oh, Jack,” she hid her face on my bosom.
“You are not to speak of anything disagreeable. Only we’ll just love each other, Elsie.”
“Oh, please, please, just let me tell you a little, so that you will always understand me—your silly Heart’s-Ease. It was this way, Jack: suppose now, suppose you were placed this way—that you were very lonely—always had lived in a cabin, and so much you wished to see the world—that in you was a strange, queer longing, a feeling that you had been born for higher things—and—all at once right out of the sky—that which you longed for came—the star of your soul.”
She hid her head on my arm. She was weeping.
“Go on, child,” I said; “I am listening.
“And he—he would not tell you he was your prince; then you felt that strange feeling again, only worse—to go away—to leave yourself—well, then another comes—I do not know, only he did—I had only seen him twice, and each time he was very kind, but so fulsome and so bold, that well—I would not meet him again and so he wrote....”
She was silent for a moment and then she spoke suddenly. “Oh, I fear I did wrong to see the other—to answer his note. I was so unhappy then—so wretched then, for I did not know that—that—you loved me—then!”
“Elsie, promise me—” I began.
“Please don’t, Jack, dear Jack, it is all right now. I have written him already. I wrote him I’d never see him again and never to write me.”
“And if he does, will you tell me, turn his note over to me?”
She laughed. “Why, Jack, of course I will.”
The setting sunlight streamed on her hair till it looked like banked western clouds. The very skies of Heaven were in her eyes, and her dignity and poise were like a queen’s.
She took off the heart’s-ease she had pinned on my coat.
“You don’t need this now, my sweet prince.”
“Don’t, Elsie,” I said; “my God, I can’t explain, but, child—I need it now more than I ever did in my life.”
For a moment she looked at me with pretended offended eyes.
“Ay, ay, I see; but you shall have me when you will, and you will need it, my bonny prince, until I am there,” and she pinned it back between hot flushes and tears. “And you will see me soon, Jack, right here in our sweet trysting place?
“Good-by,” she said in time. “You will see me soon, Jack?” Then taking my hand before I could prevent, she pressed it to her bosom, kissing it.
“Elsie, Elsie, don’t—I would die to save you pain! I would die to save you pain! Don’t!”
“I am so happy. Good-by, Jack.”
“Elsie!” I called. “Oh, you misunderstood me—you don’t understand.”
But she only laughed back gladly as a child would, throwing kisses to me as she ran like the doe of her own heather up the hill.
I saw Marget and Tammas at the door, smiling; and I knew that they saw Elsie’s happiness.