Evelina's Garden
Page 6
Evelinawalked as it were over a silver dapple, which her light gown seemedto brush away and dispel for a moment. The bushes stood in sweetmysterious clumps of shadow.
Evelina had almost reached the house, and was close to the greatalthea bush, which cast a wide circle of shadow, when it seemedsuddenly to separate and move into life.
The elder Evelina stepped out from the shadow of the bush. "Is thatyou, Evelina?" she said, in her soft, melancholy voice, which had init a nervous vibration.
"Yes, Cousin Evelina."
The elder Evelina's pale face, drooped about with gray curls, had anunfamiliar, almost uncanny, look in the moonlight, and might havebeen the sorrowful visage of some marble nymph, lovelorn, withunceasing grace. "Who--was with you?" she asked.
"The minister," replied young Evelina.
"Did he meet you?"
"He met me in the lane, Cousin Evelina."
"And he walked home with you across the field?"
"Yes, Cousin Evelina."
Then the two entered the house, and nothing more was said about thematter. Young Evelina and Thomas Merriam agreed that their affectionwas to be kept a secret for a while. "For," said young Evelina, "Icannot leave Cousin Evelina yet a while, and I cannot have herpestered with thinking about it, at least before another spring, whenshe has the garden fairly growing again."
"That is nearly a whole year; it is August now," said Thomas, halfreproachfully, and he tightened his clasp of Evelina's slenderfingers.
"I cannot help that," replied Evelina. "It is for you to showChristian patience more than I, Thomas. If you could have seen poorCousin Evelina, as I have seen her, through the long winter days,when her garden is dead, and she has only the few plants in herwindow left! When she is not watering and tending them she sits allday in the window and looks out over the garden and the naked bushesand the withered flower-stalks. She used not to be so, but would readher Bible and good books, and busy herself somewhat over fineneedle-work, and at one time she was compiling a little floral book,giving a list of the flowers, and poetical selections and sentimentsappropriate to each. That was her pastime for three winters, and itis now nearly done; but she has given that up, and all the rest, andsits there in the window and grows older and feebler until spring. Itis only I who can divert her mind, by reading aloud to her andsinging; and sometimes I paint the flowers she loves the best oncard-board with water-colors. I have a poor skill in it, but CousinEvelina can tell which flower I have tried to represent, and itpleases her greatly. I have even seen her smile. No, I cannot leaveher, nor even pester her with telling her before another spring, andyou must wait, Thomas," said young Evelina.
And Thomas agreed, as he was likely to do to all which she proposedwhich touched not his own sense of right and honor. Young Evelinagave Thomas one more kiss for his earnest pleading, and that nightwrote out the tale in her journal. "It may be that I overstepped thebounds of maidenly decorum," wrote Evelina, "but my heart did soentreat me," and no blame whatever did she lay upon Thomas.
Young Evelina opened her heart only to her journal, and her cousinwas told nothing, and had little cause for suspicion. Thomas Merriamnever came to the house to see his sweetheart; he never walked homewith her from meeting. Both were anxious to avoid village gossip,until the elder Evelina could be told.
Often in the summer evenings the lovers met, and strolled hand inhand across the fields, and parted at the garden gate with the onekiss which Evelina allowed, and that was all.
Sometimes when young Evelina came in with her lover's kiss still warmupon her lips the elder Evelina looked at her wistfully, with astrange retrospective expression in her blue eyes, as if she werestriving to remember something that the girl's face called to mind.And yet she could have had nothing to remember except dreams.
And once, when young Evelina sat sewing through a long summerafternoon and thinking about her lover, the elder Evelina, who wasstoring rose leaves mixed with sweet spices in a jar, said, suddenly,"He looks as his father used to."
Young Evelina started. "Whom do you mean, Cousin Evelina?" she asked,wonderingly; for the elder Evelina had not glanced at her, nor evenseemed to address her at all.
"Nothing," said the elder Evelina, and a soft flush stole over herwithered face and neck, and she sprinkled more cassia on the roseleaves in the jar.
Young Evelina said no more; but she wondered, partly because Thomaswas always in her mind, and it seemed to her naturally that nearlyeverything must have a savor of meaning of him, if her cousin Evelinacould possibly have referred to him and his likeness to his father.For it was commonly said that Thomas looked very like his father,although his figure was different. The young man was taller and morefirmly built, and he had not the meek forward curve of shoulder whichhad grown upon his father of late years.
When the frosty nights came Thomas and Evelina could not meet andwalk hand in hand over the fields behind the Squire's house, and theyvery seldom could speak to each other. It was nothing except a"good-day" on the street, and a stolen glance, which set them botha-trembling lest all the congregation had noticed, in themeeting-house. When the winter set fairly in they met no more, forthe elder Evelina was taken ill, and her young cousin did not leaveher even to go to meeting. People said they guessed it was EvelinaAdams's last sickness, and they furthermore guessed that she woulddivide her property between her cousin Martha Loomis and her twogirls and Evelina Leonard, and that Evelina would have the house asher share.
Thomas Merriam heard this last with a satisfaction which he did nottry to disguise from himself, because he never dreamed of there beingany selfish element in it. It was all for Evelina. Many a time he hadlooked about the humble house where he had been born, and where hewould have to take Evelina after he had married her, and striven tosee its poor features with her eyes--not with his, for whichfamiliarity had tempered them. Often, as he sat with his parents inthe old sitting-room, in which he had kept so far an unquestioningbelief, as in a friend of his childhood, the scales of his ownpersonality would fall suddenly from his eyes. Then he would see, asEvelina, the poor, worn, humble face of his home, and his heart wouldsink. "I don't see how I ever can bring her here," he thought. Hebegan to save, a few cents at a time, out of his pitiful salary, toat least beautify his own chamber a little when Evelina should come.He made up his mind that she should have a little dressing-table,with an oval mirror, and a white muslin frill around it, like one hehad seen in Boston. "She shall have that to sit before while shecombs her hair," he thought, with defiant tenderness, when he stowedaway another shilling in a little box in his trunk. It was moneywhich he ordinarily bestowed upon foreign missions; but his Evelinahad come between him and the heathen. To procure some daintyfurnishings for her bridal-chamber he took away a good half of histithes for the spread of the gospel in the dark lands. Now and thenhis conscience smote him, he felt shamefaced before his deacons, butEvelina kept her first claim. He resolved that another year he wouldhire a piece of land, and combine farming with his ministerial work,and so try to eke out his salary, and get a little more money tobeautify his poor home for his bride.
Now if Evelina Adams had come to the appointed time for the closingof her solitary life, and if her young cousin should inherit a shareof her goodly property and the fine old mansion-house, all necessityfor anxiety of this kind was over. Young Evelina would not need to betaken away, for the sake of her love, from all these comforts andluxuries. Thomas Merriam rejoiced innocently, without a thought forhimself.
In the course of the winter he confided in his father; he couldn'tkeep it to himself any longer. Then there was another reason. SeeingEvelina so little made him at times almost doubt the reality of itall. There were days when he was depressed, and inclined to askhimself if he had not dreamed it. Telling somebody gave it substance.
His father listened soberly when he told him; he had grown old oflate.
"Well," said he, "she 'ain't been used to living the way you have,though you have had advantages that none of your folks ever had; butif she lik
es you, that's all there is to it, I s'pose."
The old man sighed wearily. He sat in his arm-chair at the kitchenfireplace; his wife had gone in to one of the neighbors, and the twowere alone.
"Of course," said Thomas, simply, "if Evelina Adams shouldn't live,the chances are that I shouldn't have to bring her here. She wouldn'thave to give up anything on my account--you know that, father."
Then the young man started, for his father turned suddenly on himwith a pale, wrathful face. "You ain't countin' on that!" he shouted."You ain't countin' on that--a son of mine countin' on anything likethat!"
Thomas colored. "Why, father," he stammered, "you don't think--youknow, it's all for _her_--and they say she