 | IV. My third book |  |
4. IV.
The next morning Elinor was with her grandparents
in the little summer parlor. When the elder had read
a chapter in the Bible, as was his wont, and finished
his accustomed prayer, she said, timidly,
“Dear grandpa, I would like to speak to you a moment.”
She had settled it with her lover that she should be
the first to communicate to the grave old man the news
of her betrothal. This was her own desire. She had
thought it would be best so. She feared nothing more
than that he might object to her extreme youth, and
she hoped much from the strong esteem in which she
knew he held their young minister.
Falteringly she told her story, and the old man listened
in silence.
He did not answer her for some moments, but he
was evidently deeply moved. Elinor was frightened
at the convulsive workings of his face, and the tears
that coursed like rain down her grandmother's withered
cheeks. At length he spoke.
“God forgive me, I have done great wrong. I never
thought of this. You were so young. Elinor, you
can not marry this man. No, not to save your own
life. Do you hear? I forbid it. It shall not be.”
Elinor rose and stood before him. She was not
Margaret's child merely—the old Trumbull blood fired
her glance. Her face was as resolute, her tone as firm
as Moses Grant's own.
“Grandfather,” she said, “I love Walter Fairfield
—he loves me. We are more than life to each other,
and this question shall not be decided so. If you will
separate us, I must know the reason, or, God helping
me, I will go and pray him on my bended knees to
take me away from you and make me his wife.”
There was no pity in the elder's face now for the
young creature who had dared to resist his decree, to
rise up in the might of her love and oppose him. His
face grew livid with rage.
“You must know my secret, then, young madam,”
he said, in the fierce tones of passion. “Well, mark
it: you have no right even to the name you bear.
Your mother, my child though she was, was not your
father's wife. Don't you think Walter Fairfield, a
minister of the Gospel, would be proud to marry you
in disgrace?”
But the last taunting question fell on ears that could
had heard the fatal truth, scorching her for the first
time with its blight, and then she heard no more.
Gradually she had sunk lower and lower at the old
man's feet, until now she lay upon the floor, her white,
death-like face cold as her young mother's under the
June roses.
“Go into the kitchen, father,” said Mary Grant,
“for it'll throw her back again into her swoon to see
you when she comes to.”
The elder obeyed, and then his wife quietly busied
herself in bringing back consciousness to Elinor. It
was no very difficult task. The girl was young, and
even so great a shock could not overcome her utterly.
In a few moments she was able to sit down in an easy-chair
by the open window, and the balmy air of the
summer morning stole over her senses like a new life-draught.
Her face was very white and rigid still, and Mary
Grant put back her soft hair and looked pityingly into
her troubled eyes.
“Oh, my darling!” she murmured, “my poor darling!
to think that your first sorrow should darken
all your life!” But the voice was calm that answered
her.
“It will not darken it, grandmother. I have full
faith in Walter. He loves me, and he will not give
me up, even because of this great shame. I shall tell
him all, and I know he will marry me.”
“God grant it, darling!” and the old woman dropped
on the white, earnest face a very tender kiss.
“You sit quietly here. I want to go and speak to
your grandfather.”
Moses Grant was sitting, though it was June, by the
fireside, in the very spot where he had sat before, one
memorable night. Absorbed in surging, bitter, tumultuous
thought, he was indifferent to heat or cold,
or any outward surrounding whatsoever. His wife
went up to him; she knelt down by his side; she
clasped her hands across his knee, and then she plead
with him even as she had plead with him on a wild,
wet night, more than sixteen years before—the night
on which, amid storm and tempest, and the wail of
restless winds, Elinor Trumbull's dawn of life was
ushered in.
“Oh, father,” she said, “she is all we have left.
We are old now, and she is young; do not break her
heart.”
“Woman,” said the elder's stern tones, “tempt me
not. The minister shall not be deceived. I will not
do this great sin against God.”
“But you can let her tell him. She says he loves
her, and she knows he will marry her, in spite of all.
Let her tell him: only leave her this one hope.”
Then the elder's wrath rose to a white heat.
“Yes, I have no doubt you would approve of that.
Her mother did not shame me enough; you would
bring another into this secret. Elinor!” he cried, with
raised tones, and forth from the inner room the young
girl tottered. Moses Grant's face was terrible to look
upon in his rage, but Elinor confronted him calmly,
though she was obliged to cling to the table for support.
“I have told you all; what do you propose to do
now?” he asked, in tones of forced composure.
“There is but one thing, grandfather. I should feel
made me strong to bear any thing. I will tell him
what you have told me. I would not deceive him
any more than you would; but I will tell him all, and
he will but love me the better because I need his pity.
Oh, you don't know Walter. He has such a great
heart. He will not care for the world. He fears
nothing but sin. He will make me his wife.”
The old man was silent for a moment. The girl's
face beamed like one inspired. It awed him, it was
so full of deathless, triumphant love and faith. But
this emotion passed, and his tone, when he answered
her, was firm as ever.
“Elinor, you shall not tell him this secret. I, your
grandfather, forbid it. He himself would be the first
one to say it was your duty to obey me. If you tell
him, I will curse you; do you hear me? curse you
with a curse that shall cling to you all your life. You
shall not tell him. I bear a humble name, but an
honorable one. Only this one shadow of disgrace has
fallen on it. As God hears me, you shall not spread
the shameful secret. Tell your lover that you can
not marry him—that I forbid it. If he wants to know
why, he can come to me.”
Elinor had heard this outburst silently, growing
stronger, as it seemed, under every stern, cruel word
which fell on her ear, slaying her lifetime hope, blotting
all the brightness out of her existence. When
the last word, swift, crushing, remorseless, had died on
his lips, she answered in such tones as he had never
dreamed she could utter, so cold were they, so passionless.
“Give yourself no trouble, grandfather: I shall
I deceive Walter. Thank God, the time comes when
you and I will go before Him together, and the wrongs
of earth shall be righted by the immaculate justice of
Heaven.”
Mary Grant would fain have soothed her, but she
seemed sufficient unto herself. Calmly she walked
into the parlor and took her seat by the open window,
where she could watch the road leading down the hill.
Soon she saw him coming—the young lover who
could remain away from his betrothed no longer.
Joyously he walked, with quick step and erect head.
Hope was holding a cup to his lips beaded to the brim
with bubbling drops of joy. She must dash it from
them—she who loved him best, whom he best loved.
She clasped her hands over her eyes, and prayed—a
short, silent prayer which Heaven would answer. She
heard his step upon the door-stone. He opened the
little front door without knocking. He came to her
side. He drew her close, close, as one who had a right
to hold her on his heart forever, and she was silent:
she could not break the spell.
At last she started from his arms—she stood before
him with her white face and gleaming eyes.
“Walter!” she cried, eagerly, “you know I love
you. You never can doubt that. I am very young;
I have had no other fancies, no other dreams. You
won all my heart. Hear me, Walter! I am yours—I
will be yours till I die. Never shall any other man
speak words of love to Elinor Trumbull. I give you
all. I am yours—yours—yours—on earth and in
heaven. But I can not be your wife. My grandfather
has forbidden it. You yourself will counsel
You have the great world to flee to—your high calling
to follow. I must stay here—here, where light,
and hope, and love came to my life—where they will
go out, and leave me alone in the darkness. God forgive
me, Walter, but death were better.”
She had spoken with wild energy. She sank back
exhausted now in her chair. Walter Fairfield stood
struck dumb for the moment with sheer wonder. At
length he faltered,
“You can not mean it; you do not know what you
are saying, Elinor. Your grandfather may object to
our marrying while you are still so young, but he can
not mean that you must never be my wife.”
The door had been open all this time between the
parlor and the kitchen, and now Moses Grant himself
came forward. The anger had passed away from his
face, leaving a look of pity blent with stern resolve.
He said gravely,
“I like you, Mr. Fairfield. I had not thought any
one else could so fill Parson Blake's place in my love
as you have filled it. If I could, Heaven knows I
would gladly give you this girl, but it can not be. In
all truthfulness, you must not marry her—you must
never marry her. I, her grandfather, forbid it before
the God whose servant you are. You will not dare
to disobey me. It will go hard with you both; but
if you knew the reason, you would thank me. It is
my fault. I should not have put you in each other's
way; but I thought she was only a child.”
“Elder Grant,” the young man said, respectfully,
“will you come out of doors with me? I would like
to speak to you for a few moments quite alone.”
The particulars of that interview were never known,
but the result was decisive. In a little while the
young man came alone into the room where Elinor
still sat by the open window. He closed the door.
He went up to her and took her, for the last time, in
his arms.
“The hand of God is in it, Elinor, as it is in every
earthly thing, though we can not see it now. We
must submit. Thank God, my beloved, that after life
comes death, and after death heaven. And yet, how
can I give you up, my poor, innocent darling—my one
love?” And his voice broke down into low, agonized
sobs—a strong man's sobs, very pitiful to hear.
That last half hour of love, and torture, and despair
—that parting which they both felt was eternal—I
may not dwell on it. When Walter Fairfield passed
out of the wicket gate and walked up the hill along
the winding road, Elinor Trumbull watched him with
eyes in which there were no tears, with a pale face on
which shone a hope purer than earthly love, holier
than earthly happiness—a hope born in tears, in anguish,
in desolation—of a meeting where all that remains
of sorrow is the wings by which it has borne
the soul upward—in the city without foundation, eternal
in the heavens.
They parted on Saturday, and the next day more
than one strong heart in Mayfield was moved to tears
as the young minister read his mysterious, unexplained
resignation of the pastoral charge. He had become
strangely dear to them, this young man, whose coming
had seemed such a doubtful experiment. He was not
their father in the Lord as Parson Blake had been,
but they cherished him equally in another way. He
They were to him almost like a first love, the parish
in whose service he had been first installed into the
ministry. They had hoped he would live and die
among them, and now they must give him up. There
was scarcely a dry eye among the many which rested
upon his face this last Sunday. Moses Grant sat, with
sorrowful yet composed mien, in his accustomed seat,
with his quiet old wife by his side, but Elinor's voice
did not flood the church with its melody; Walter
Fairfield preached his last sermon in Mayfield without
the silent encouragement of her eyes.
The next morning, when he rode by the red house
in the hollow on his way to take the stage at Cornwall,
he gazed in vain at the windows. No small
hand fluttered among the roses, no gentle face looked
out from between the muslin curtains. It cost him
much then not to spring from the wagon and seek one
last farewell, one more blessing; but, for her sake he
rode on and made no sign.
And where was Elinor? Looking forth, herself
unseen, from her chamber window, straining her eyes
to catch one last glimpse of his too dear face, praying
for him in her self-abnegation, praying that his life
might be very full of joy, though over her own, with
all the promised hopes of its future, rose, like the lettering
on a monument, the one sorrowful inscription
—“Never more.”
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