University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
IN THE GARDEN.

Rachel Miller was not a woman to do a thing by halves.
As soon as the question was settled, she gave her heart and
mind to the necessary preparations. There might have been
a little surprise in some quarters, when the fact became
known in the neighborhood through Joseph's invitation, but
no expression of it reached the Asten place. Mrs. Warriner,
Anna's mother, called to inquire if she could be of service,
and also to suggest, indirectly, her plan of entertaining company.
Rachel detected the latter purpose, and was a little
more acquiescent than could have been justified to her own
conscience, seeing that at the very moment when she was
listening with much apparent meekness, she was mentally
occupied with plans for outdoing Mrs. Warriner. Moreover,
the Rev. Mr. Chaffinch had graciously signified his willingness
to be present, and the stamp of strictest orthodoxy was
thus set upon the entertainment. She was both assured and
stimulated, as the time drew near, and even surprised Joseph
by saying: “If I was better acquainted with Miss Blessing,
she might help me a good deal in fixing everything just as it
should be. There are times, it seems, when it 's an advantage
to know something of the world.”

“I'll ask her!” Joseph exclaimed.

“You! And a mess you'd make of it, very likely; men
think they've only to agree to invite a company, and that's
all! There's a hundred things to be thought of that women

must look to; you couldn't even understand 'dm. As for
speaking to her,—she's one of the invites, and it would never
do in the world.”

Joseph said no more, but he silently determined to ask
Miss Blessing on her arrival; there would still be time.
She, with her wonderful instinct, her power of accommodating
people to each other, and the influence which she had
already acquired with his aunt, would certainly see at a
glance how the current was setting, and guide it in the
proper direction.

But, as the day drew near, he grew so restless and
uneasy that there seemed nothing better to do than to ride
over to Warriner's in the hope of catching a moment's conference
with her, in advance of the occasion.

He was entirely fortunate. Anna was apparently very
busy with household duties, and after the first greetings left
him alone with Miss Blessing. He had anticipated a little
difficulty in making his message known, and was therefore
much relieved when she said: “Now, Mr. Asten, I see by
your face that you have something particular to say. It's
about to-morrow night, isn't it? You must let me help you,
if I can, because I am afraid I have been, without exactly
intending it, the cause of so much trouble to you and your
aunt.”

Joseph opened his heart at once. All that he had meant
to say came easily and naturally to his lips, because Miss
Blessing seemed to feel and understand the situation, and
met him half-way in her bright, cheerful acquiescence.
Almost before he knew it, he had made her acquainted with
what had been said and done at home. How easily she
solved the absurd doubts and difficulties which had so unnecessarily
tormented him! How clearly, through her fine

female instinct, she grasped little peculiarities of his aunt's
nature, which he, after years of close companionship, had
failed to define! Miss Rachel, she said, was both shy and
inexperienced, and it was only the struggle to conceal these
conscious defects which made her seem—not unamiable,
exactly, but irregular in her manner. Her age, and her
character in the neighborhood, did not permit her to appear
incompetent to any emergency; it was a very natural pride,
and must be treated very delicately and tenderly.

Would Joseph trust the matter entirely to her, Miss
Blessing? It was a great deal to ask, she knew, comparative
stranger as she was; but she believed that a
woman, when her nature had not been distorted by the conventionalities
of life, had a natural talent for smoothing difficulties,
and removing obstacles for others. Her friends had
told her that she possessed this power; and it was a great
happiness to think so. In the present case, she was sure she
should make no mistake. She would endeavor not to seem
to suggest anything, but merely to assist in such a way that
Miss Rachel would of herself see what else was necessary to
be done.

“Now,” she remarked, in conclusion, “this sounds like
vanity in me; but I really hope it is not. You must remember
that in the city we are obliged to know all the little
social arts,—and artifices, I am afraid. It is not always to
our credit, but then, the heart may be kept fresh and uncorrupted.”

She sighed, and cast down her eyes. Joseph felt the increasing
charm of a nature so frank and so trustful, constantly
luring to the surface the maiden secrets of his own.
The confidence already established between them was wholly
delightful, because their sense of reciprocity increased as it

deepened. He felt so free to speak that he could not
measure the fitness of his words, but exclaimed, without a
pause for thought:—

“Tell me, Miss Julia, did you not suggest this party to
Aunt Rachel?”

“Don't give me too much credit!” she answered; “it
was talked about, and I couldn't help saying Ay. I longed
so much to see you—all—again before I go away.”

“And Lucy Henderson objected to it?”

“Lucy, I think, wanted to save your aunt trouble. Perhaps
she did not guess that the real objection was inexperience,
and not want of will to entertain company. And
very likely she helped to bring it about, by seeming to
oppose it; so you must not be angry with Lucy,—promise
me!”

She looked at him with an irresistibly entreating expression,
and extended her hand, which he seized so warmly as to
give her pain. But she returned the pressure, and there was
a moment's silence, which Anna Warriner interrupted at the
right time.

The next day, on the Asten farm, all the preparations
were quietly and successfully made long in advance of the
first arrivals. The Rev. Mr. Chaffinch and a few other
specially chosen guests made their appearance in the afternoon.
To Joseph's surprise, the Warriners and Miss Blessing
speedily joined them. It was, in reality, a private arrangement
which his aunt had made, in order to secure at
the start the very assistance which he had been plotting to
render. One half the secret of the ease and harmony
which he felt was established was thus unknown to him. He
looked for hints or indications of management on Miss
Blessing's part, but saw none. The two women, meeting

each other half-way, needed no words in order to understand
each other, and Miss Rachel, gradually made secure in her
part of hostess, experienced a most unaccustomed sense of
triumph.

At the supper-table Mr. Chaffinch asked a blessing with
fervor; a great, balmy dish of chickens stewed in cream was
smoking before his nostrils, and his fourth cup of tea made
Rachel Miller supremely happy. The meal was honored in
silence, as is the case where there is much to eat and a
proper desire and capacity to do it; only towards its close
were the tongues of the guests loosened, and content made
them cheerful.

“You have entertained us almost too sumptuously, Miss
Miller,” said the clergyman. “And now let us go out
on the portico, and welcome the young people as they arrive.”

“I need hardly ask you, then, Mr. Chaffinch,” said she,
“whether you think it right for them to come together in
this way.”

“Decidedly!” he answered; “that is, so long as their
conversation is modest and becoming. It is easy for the
vanities of the world to slip in, but we must watch,—we
must watch.”

Rachel Miller took a seat near him, beholding the gates
of perfect enjoyment opened to her mind. Dress, the
opera, the race-course, literature, stocks, politics, have their
fascination for so many several classes of the human race;
but to her there was nothing on this earth so delightful
as to be told of temptation and backsliding and sin, and to
feel that she was still secure. The fact that there was
always danger added a zest to the feeling; she gave herself
credit for a vigilance which had really not been exercised.

The older guests moved their chairs nearer, and listened,
forgetting the sweetness of sunset which lay upon the hills
down the valley. Anna Warriner laid her arm around Miss
Chaffinch's waist, and drew her towards the mown field beyond
the barn; and presently, by a natural chance, as it
seemed, Joseph found himself beside Miss Blessing, at the
bottom of the lawn.

All the western hills were covered with one cool, broad
shadow. A rich orange flush touched the tops of the woods
to the eastward, and brightened as the sky above them
deepened into the violet-gray of coming dusk. The moist,
delicious freshness which filled the bed of the valley slowly
crept up the branching glen, and already tempered the air
about them. Now and then a bird chirped happily from a
neighboring bush, or the low of cattle was heard from the
pasture-fields.

“Ah!” sighed Miss Blessing, “this is too sweet to last:
I must learn to do without it.”

She looked at him swiftly, and then glanced away. It
seemed that there were tears in her eyes.

Joseph was about to speak, but she laid her hand on his
arm. “Hush!” she said; “let us wait until the light has
faded.”

The glow had withdrawn to the summits of the distant
hills, fringing them with a thin, wonderful radiance. But it
was only momentary. The next moment it broke on the irregular
topmost boughs, and then disappeared, as if blown
out by a breeze which came with the sudden lifting of the sky.
She turned away in silence, and they walked slowly together
towards the house. At the garden gate she paused.

“That superb avenue of box!” she exclaimed; “I must
see it again, if only to say farewell.”

They entered the garden, and in a moment the dense green
wall, breathing an odor seductive to heart and senses, had
hidden them from the sight—and almost from the hearing—of
the guests on the portico. Looking down through
the southern opening of the avenue, they seemed alone in
the evening valley.

Joseph's heart was beating fast and strong; he was conscious
of a wild fear, so interfused with pleasure, that it
was impossible to separate the sensations. Miss Blessing's
hand was on his arm, and he fancied that it trembled.

“If life were as beautiful and peaceful as this,” she
whispered, at last, “we should not need to seek for truth
and—and—sympathy: we should find them everywhere.”

“Do you not think they are to be found?” he asked.

“O, in how few hearts! I can say it to you, and you
will not misunderstand me. Until lately I was satisfied with
life as I found it: I thought it meant diversion, and dress,
and gossip, and common daily duties, but now—now I see
that it is the union of kindred souls!”

She clasped both her hands over his arm as she spoke, and
leaned slightly towards him, as if drawing away from the
dreary, homeless world. Joseph felt all that the action expressed,
and answered in an unsteady voice:—

“And yet—with a nature like yours—you must surely
find them.”

She shook her head sadly, and answered: “Ah, a woman
cannot seek. I never thought I should be able to say—to
any human being—that I have sought, or waited for recognition.
I do not know why I should say it now. I try to be myself—my
true self—with all persons; but it seems impossible:
my nature shrinks from some and is drawn towards others.
Why is this? What is the mystery that surrounds us?”

“Do you believe,” Joseph asked, “that two souls may be
so united that they shall dare to surrender all knowledge of
themselves to each other, as we do, helplessly, before God?”

“O,” she murmured, “it is my dream! I thought I was
alone in cherishing it! Can it ever be realized?”

Joseph's brain grew hot: the release he had invoked
sprang to life and urged him forward. Words came to his
lips, he knew not how.

“If it is my dream and yours,—if we both have come to
the faith and the hope we find in no others, and which alone
will satisfy our lives, is it not a sign that the dream is over
and the reality has begun?”

She hid her face in her hands. “Do not tempt me with
what I had given up, unless you can teach me to believe
again?” she cried.

“I do not tempt you,” he answered breathlessly. “I
tempt myself. I believe.”

She turned suddenly, laid a hand upon his shoulder, lifted
her face and looked into his eyes with an expression of
passionate eagerness and joy. All her attitude breathed of
the pause of the wave that only seems to hesitate an instant
before throwing itself upon the waiting strand. Joseph had
no defence, knew of none, dreamed of none. The pale-brown
eyes, now dark, deep, and almost tearful, drew him
with irresistible force: the sense of his own shy reticent
self was lost, dissolved in the strength of an instinct which
possessed him body and soul,—which bent him nearer to the
slight form, which stretched his arms to answer its appeal,
and left him, after one dizzy moment, with Miss Blessing's
head upon his breast.

“I should like to die now,” she murmured: “I never can
be so happy again.”

“No, no,” said he, bending over her; “live for me!”

She raised herself, and kissed him again and again, and
this frank, almost childlike betrayal of her heart seemed to
claim from Joseph the full surrender of his own. He returned
her caresses with equal warmth, and the twilight
deepened around them as they stood, still half-embracing.

“Can I make you happy, Joseph?”

“Julia, I am already happier than I ever thought it possible
to be.”

With a sudden impulse she drew away from him.
“Joseph!” she whispered, “will you always bear in mind
what a cold, selfish, worldly life mine has been? You do
not know me; you cannot understand the school in which I
have been taught. I tell you, now, that I have had to learn
cunning and artifice and equivocation. I am dark beside a
nature so pure and good as yours! If you must ever learn
to hate me, begin now! Take back your love: I have lived
so long without the love of a noble human heart, that I can
live so to the end!”

She again covered her face with her hands, and her frame
shrank, as if dreading a mortal blow. But Joseph caught
her back to his breast, touched and even humiliated by such
sharp self-accusation. Presently she looked up: her eyes
were wet, and she said, with a pitiful smile:—

“I believe you do love me.”

“And I will not give you up,” said Joseph, “though you
should be full of evil as I am, myself.”

She laughed, and patted his cheek: all her frank, bright,
winning manner returned at once. Then commenced those
reciprocal expressions of bliss, which are so inexhaustibly
fresh to lovers, so endlessly monotonous to everybody else;
and Joseph, lost to time, place, and circumstance, would

have prolonged them far into the night, but for Miss Julia's
returning self-possession.

“I hear wheels,” she warned; “the evening guests are
coming, and they will expect you to receive them, Joseph.
And your dear, good old aunt will be looking for me. O,
the world, the world! We must give ourselves up to it, and
be as if we had never found each other. I shall be wild unless
you set me an example of self-control. Let me look at
you once,—one full, precious, perfect look, to carry in my
heart through the evening!”

Then they looked in each other's faces; and looking was
not enough; and their lips, without the use of words, said
the temporary farewell. While Joseph hurried across the
bottom of the lawn, to meet the stream of approaching
guests which filled the lane, Miss Julia, at the top of the
garden, plucked amaranth leaves for a wreath which would
look well upon her dark hair, and sang, in a voice loud
enough to be heard from the portico:—

Everybody who had been invited—and quite a number
who had not been, availing themselves of the easy habits
of country society—came to the Asten farm that evening.
Joseph, as host, seemed at times a little confused and
flurried, but his face bloomed, his blue eyes sparkled,
and even his nearest acquaintances were astonished at
the courage and cordiality with which he performed his
duties. The presence of Mr. Chaffinch kept the gayety of
the company within decorous bounds; perhaps the number
of detached groups appeared to form too many separate
circles, or atmospheres of talk, but they easily dissolved, or
gave to and took from each other. Rachel Miller was not

inclined to act the part of a moral detective in the house
which she managed; she saw nothing which the strictest
sense of propriety could condemn.

Early in the evening, Joseph met Lucy Henderson in the
hall. He could not see the graver change in her face;
he only noticed that her manner was not so quietly attractive
as usual. Yet on meeting her eyes he felt the absurd blood
rushing to his cheeks and brow, and his tongue hesitated and
stammered. This want of self-possession vexed him; he could
not account for it; and he cut short the interview by moving
abruptly away.

Lucy half turned, and looked after him, with an expression
rather of surprise than of pain. As she did so she felt
that there was an eye upon her, and by a strong effort
entered the room without encountering the face of Elwood
Withers.

When the company broke up, Miss Blessing, who was
obliged to leave with the Warriners, found an opportunity to
whisper to Joseph: “Come soon!” There was a long, fervent
clasp of hands under her shawl, and then the carriage
drove away. He could not see how the hand was transferred
to that of Anna Warriner, which received from it a
squeeze conveying an entire narrative to that young lady's
mind.

Joseph's duties to his many guests prevented him from
seeing much of Elwood during the evening; but, when the
last were preparing to leave, he turned to the latter, conscious
of a tenderer feeling of friendship than he had ever
before felt, and begged him to stay for the night. Elwood
held up the lantern, with which he had been examining the
harness of a carriage that had just rolled away, and let its
light fall upon Joseph's face.

“Do you really mean it?” he then asked.

“I don't understand you, Elwood.”

“Perhaps I don't understand myself.” But the next moment
he laughed, and then added, in his usual tone: “Never
mind; I'll stay.”

They occupied the same room; and neither seemed inclined
to sleep. After the company had been discussed, in a
way which both felt to be awkward and mechanical, Elwood
said: “Do you know anything more about love, by this
time?”

Joseph was silent, debating with himself whether he should
confide the wonderful secret. Elwood suddenly rose up in
his bed, leaned forward, and whispered: “I see,—you need
not answer. But tell me this one thing: is it Lucy Henderson?”

“No; O, no!”

“Does she know of it? Your face told some sort of a
tale when you met her to-night.”

“Not to her,—surely not to her!” Joseph exclaimed.

“I hope not,” Elwood quietly said: “I love her.”

With a bound Joseph crossed the room and sat down on
the edge of his friend's bed. “Elwood!” he cried; “and
you are happy, too! O, now I can tell you all,—it is Julia
Blessing!”

“Ha! ha!” Elwood laughed,—a short, bitter laugh,
which seemed to signify anything but happiness. “Forgive
me, Joseph!” he presently added, “but there's a deal of difference
between a mitten and a ring. You will have one
and I have the other. I did think for a little while that you
stood between Lucy and me; but I suppose disappointment
makes men fools.”

Something in Joseph's breast seemed to stop the warm

flood of his feelings. He could only stammer, after a long
pause: “But I am not in your way.”

“So I see,—and perhaps nobody is, except myself. We
won't talk of this any more; there's many a roundabout
road that comes out into the straight one at last. But you,
—I can't understand the thing at all. How did she—did
you come to love her?”

“I don't know; I hardly guessed it until this evening.”

“Then, Joseph, go slowly, and feel your way. I'm not
the one to advise, after what has happened to me; but maybe
I know a little more of womankind than you. It's best to
have a longer acquaintance than yours has been; a fellow
can't always tell a sudden fancy from a love that has the grip
of death.”

“Now I might turn your own words against you, Elwood,
for you tried to tell me what love is.”

“I did; and before I knew the half. But come, Joseph:
promise me that you won't let Miss Blessing know how much
you feel until—”

“Elwood,” Joseph breathlessly interrupted, “she knows
it now! We were together this evening.”

Elwood fell back on the pillow with a groan. “I'm a
poor friend to you,” he said: “I want to wish you joy, but
I can't,— not to-night. The way things are fixed in this
world stumps me, out and out. Nothing fits as it ought, and
if I didn't take my head in my own hands and hold it towards
the light by main force, I'd only see blackness, and death,
and hell.”

Joseph stole back to his bed, and lay there silently. There
was a subtle chill in the heart of his happiness, which all the
remembered glow of that tender scene in the garden could
not thaw.