University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
TWO MISTAKES.

AT the singing-school and at the church August
waited as impatiently as possible for some sign
of recognition from Julia. He little knew the
fear that beset her. Having seen her hysterical
mother prostrated for weeks by the excitement
of a dispute with her father, it seemed to her that if she turned
one look of love and longing toward young Wehle, whose
sweet German voice rang out above the rest in the hymns, she
might kill her mother as quickly as by plunging a knife into
her heart. The steam-doctor, who was the family physician, had
warned her and her father separately of the danger of exciting
Mrs. Anderson's most excitable temper, and now Julia was the
slave of her mother's disease. That lucky hysteria, which the
steam-doctor thought a fearful heart-disease, had given Mrs.
Abigail the whip-hand of husband and daughter, and she was
not slow to know her advantage, using her heart in a most
heartless way.

August could not blame Julia for not writing, for he had
tried to break the blockade by a letter sent through Jonas and
Cynthy Ann, but the latter had found herself so well watched
that the note oppressed her conscience and gave a hangdog
look to her face for two weeks before she got it out of her
pocket, and then she put it under the pillow of Julia's bed, and
had reason to believe that the suspicious Mrs. Anderson confiscated
it within five minutes. For the severity of maternal
government was visibly increased thereafter, and Julia received
many reminders of her ingratitude and of her determination to
kill her self-sacrificing mother by her stubbernness.

“Well,” Mrs. Anderson would say, “it's all one to me
whether the world comes to an end or not. I should like to
live to see the day of judgment. But I shan't. No affectionate
mother can stand such treatment as I receive from my own
daughter. If Norman was only at home!”

It is proper to explain here that Norman was her son, in
whom she took a great deal of comfort when he was away, and
whom she would have utterly spoiled by indulgence if he had
not been born past spoiling. He was the only person to whom
she was indulgent, and she was indulgent to him chiefly because
he was so weak of will that there was not much glory
in conquering him, and because her indulgence to him was a
rod of affliction to the rest of her family.

Failing to open communication through Jonas and Cynthy
Ann, August found himself in a desperate strait, and with an
impatience common to young men he unhappily had recourse to
Betsey Malcolm. She often visited Julia, and twice, when Julia
was not at meeting, he went home with the ingenuous Betsey,
who always pretended to have something to tell him “about

Jule,” and who yet, for the pure love of mischief-making, tried
to make him think as poorly as possible of Julia's sincerity,
and who, from pure love of flirtation, puckered her red lips,
and flashed at him with her sensuous eyes, and sighed and
blushed, or rather flushed, while she sympathized with him in
a way that might have been perilous if he had been an American
instead of a constant-hearted “Dutchman,” wholly absorbed
with the image of Julia. But, so far as carrying messages
was concerned, Betsey was certainly a non-conductor.
She professed never to be able to run the blockade with any
communication of his. She said to herself that she wasn't
going to help Jule Anderson to keep all the beaus. She meant
to capture one or the other of them if she could. And,
indeed, she did not dream how grievous was the wrong she
did. For she could appreciate no other feeling in the matter
than vanity, and she could not see any particular harm in
“taking Jule Anderson down a peg.” And so she assured the
anxious and already suspicious August that if she was in his
place she should want that singing-master out of the way.
“Some girls can't stand people that wear jewelry and mustaches
and straps and such things. And Mr. Humphreys is
very careful of her, won't let her sit too late on the porch, and
is very comforting in his way of talking to her. And she
seems to like it. I tell you what it is, Gus”—and she looked
at him so bewitchingly that the pure and sensitive August
blushed, he could hardly tell why—“I tell you Jule's a nice
girl, and got a nice property back of her, and I hope she
won't act like her mother. And, indeed, I can't hardly believe
she will, though the way she eyes that Humphreys makes me
mad.” She had suggested the old doubt. A doubt is dangerous
when its face grows familiar, and one recognizes the “Monsieur
Tonson come again.”

And all the message the disinterested and benevolent Betsey
bore to Julia was to tell her exultingly that Gus had twice
walked home with her. And they had had such a nice time!
And Julia, girl that she was, declared indignantly that she didn't
care whom he went with; though she did care, and her eyes
and face said so. Thus the tongue sometimes lies—or seems
to lie—when the whole person is telling the truth. The only
excuse for the tongue is that it will not be believed, and it
knows that it will not be believed! It only speaks diplomatically,
maybe. But diplomatic talking is bad. Better the
truth. If Jule had known that her words would be reported
to August, she would have bitten out her tongue rather than
to have let it utter words that were only the cry of her
wounded pride. Of course Betsey met August in the road
the next morning, in a quiet hollow by the brook, and told him
sympathizingly, almost affectionately, that she had begun to
talk to Julia about him, and that Jule had said she didn't care.
So while Julia uttered a lie she spoke the truth, and while
Betsey uttered the truth she spoke a lie, willful, malicious, and
wicked.

Now, in the mean time, Julia, on her side, had tried to open
communication through the only channel that offered itself. She
did not attempt it by means of Betsey, because, being a woman,
she felt instinctively that Betsey was not to be trusted. But
there was only one other to whom she was allowed to speak,
except under a supervision as complete as it was unacknowledged.
That other was Mr. Humphreys. He evinced a constant
interest in her affairs, avowing that he always did have

a romantic desire to effect the union of suitable people, even
though it might pain his heart a little to see another more
fortunate than himself. Julia had given up all hope of communicating
by letter, and she could not bring herself to make
any confessions to a man who had such a smile and such eyes,
but to a generous proposition of Mr. Humphreys that he should
see August and open the way for any communication between
them, she consented, scarcely concealing her eagerness.

August was not in a mood to receive Humphreys kindly. He
hated him by intuition, and a liking for him had not been
begotten by Betsey's assurances that he was making headway
with Julia. August was riding astride a bag of corn on his
way to mill, when Humphreys, taking a walk, met him.

“A pleasant day, Mr. Wehle!”

“Yes,” said August, with a courtesy as mechanical as Humphreys's
smile.

The singing-master was rather pleased than otherwise to see
that August disliked him. It suited his purpose just now to
gall Wehle into saying what he would not otherwise have said.

“I hear you are in trouble,” he proceeded

“How so?”

“Oh! I hear that Mrs. Anderson doesn't like Dutchmen.”
The smile now seemed to have something of a sneer in it.

“I don't know that that is your affair,” said August, all
his suspicions, by a sort of “resolution of force,” changing into
anger.

“Oh! I beg pardon,” with a tone half-mocking. “I did
not know but I might help settle matters. I think I have
Mrs. Anderson's confidence, and I know that I have Miss
Anderson's confidence in an unusual degree. I think a great

deal of her. And she thinks me her friend at least. I thought
that there might be some little matters yet unsettled between
you two, and she suggested that maybe there might be something
you would like to say, and that if you would say it to
me, it would be all the same as if it were said to her. She
considers that in the relation I bear to her and the family,
a message delivered to me is the same in effect as if given to
her. I told her I did not think you would, as a gentleman,
wish to hold her to any promises that might be irksome to her
now.”

These words were spoken with a coolness and maliciousness
of good-nature quite devilish, and August's fist involuntarily
doubled itself to strike him, if only to make him cease
smiling in that villainous rectangular way. But he checked
himself

“You are a puppy. Tell that to Jule, if you choose. I shall
send her a release from all obligations, but not by the hand
of a rascal!”

Like all desperadoes, Humphreys was a coward. He could
shoot, but he could not fight, and just now he was affecting
the pious or at least the high moral rôle, and had left his
pistols, brandy-flasks, and the other necessary appurtenances
of a gentleman, locked in his trunk. Besides it would not at
all have suited his purpose to shoot. So in lieu of shooting he
only smiled, as August rode off, that same old geometric smile,
the elements of which were all calculated. He seemed incapable
of any other facial contortion. It expressed one emotion,
indeed, about as well as another, and was therefore as
convenient as those pocket-knives which affect to contain a chest
of tools in one.

Julia was already stung to jealousy by Betsey Malcolm's
mischief-making, and it did not require much more to put her
into a frenzy. As they walked home from meeting the next
night — they had meeting all nights now, the world would
soon end and there was so much to be done—as they walked
home Humphreys contrived to separate Julia from the rest,
and to tell her that he had had a conversation with young
Wehle.

“It was painful, very painful,” he said, “I think I had
better not say any more about it.”

“Why?” asked Julia in terror.

“Well, I feel that your grief is mine. I have never felt
so much interest in any one before, and I must say that I was
grievously disappointed. This young man is not at all worthy
of you.”

“What do you mean?” And there was a trace of indignation
in her tone.

“It does seem to me that the man who has your love
should be the happiest in the world; but he refused to send
you any message, and says that he will soon send you an entire
release from all engagement to him. He showed no tenderness
and made no inquiry.”

The weakest woman and the strongest can faint. It is
a woman's last resort. When all else is gone, that remains.
Julia drew a sharp quick breath, and was just about to become
unconscious. Humphreys stretched his arms to catch
her, but the sudden recollection that in case she fainted he
would carry her into the house, produced a reaction. She
released herself from his grasp, and hurried in alone, locking
her door, and refusing admittance to her mother. From

Humphreys, who had put himself into a delicate minor key,
Mrs. Anderson got such an account of the conversation as he
thought best to give. She then opened and read a note placed
into her hand by a neighbor as she came out from meeting.
It was addressed to Julia, and ran:

Mrs. Anderson had no pity. She hesitated not an instant.
Julia's door was fast. But she went out upon the front
upper porch, and pushing up the window of her daughter's
room as remorselessly as she had committed the burglary on her
private letter, she looked at her a moment, sobbing on the bed,
and then threw the letter into the room, saying: “It's good for
you. Read that, and see what a fellow your Dutchman is.”

Then Mrs. Anderson sought her couch, and slept with a
serene sense of having done her duty as a mother, whatever
might be the result.