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The Portion of Labor, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 24 |
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_ Chapter XXIV Ellen had a flower-garden behind the house, and a row of sweet-peas which was her pride. It had occurred to her that she might venture, although Cynthia Lennox had her great garden and conservatories, to carry her a bunch of these sweet-peas. She had asked her mother what she thought about it. "Why, of course, carry her some if you want to," said Fanny. "I don't see why you shouldn't. I dare say she's got sweet-peas, but yours are uncommon handsome, and, anyway, it ought to please her to have some given her. It ain't altogether what's given, it's the giving." So Ellen had cut a great bouquet of the delicate flowers, selecting the shades carefully, and set forth. She was as guiltily conscious as a lover that she was making an excuse to see Miss Lennox. She hurried along in delight and trepidation, her great bouquet shedding a penetrating fragrance around her, her face gleaming white out of the dusk. She had to pass Granville Joy's house on her way, and saw with some dismay, as she drew near, a figure leaning over the gate. He pushed open the gate when she drew near, and stood waiting. "Good-evening, Ellen," he said. He was mindful not to say "Hullo" again. He bowed with a piteous imitation of Robert Lloyd, but Ellen did not notice it. "Good-evening," she returned, rather stiffly, then she added, in a very gentle voice, to make amends, that it was a beautiful night. The young man cast an appreciative glance at the crescent moon in the jewel-like blue overhead, and at the soft shadows of the trees. "Yes, beautiful," he replied, with a sort of gratitude, as if the girl had praised him instead of the night. "May I walk along with you?" he asked, falling into step with her. "I am going to take these sweet-peas to Miss Lennox," said Ellen, without replying directly. She was in terror lest Granville should renew his appeal of a few weeks before, and she was in terror of her own pity for him, and also of that mysterious impulse and longing which sometimes seized her to her own wonder and discomfiture. Sometimes, in thinking of Granville Joy, and his avowal of love, and the touch of his hand on hers, and his lips on hers, she felt, although she knew she did not love him, a softening of her heart and a quickening of her pulse which made her wonder as to her next movement, if it might be something which she had not planned. And always, after thinking of Granville, she thought of Robert Lloyd; some mysterious sequence seemed to be established between the two in the girl's mind, though she was not in love with either. Ellen was just at that period almost helpless before the demands of her own nature. No great stress in her life had occurred to awaken her to a stanchness either of resistance or yielding. She was in the full current of her own emotions, which, added to a goodly flood inherited from the repressed passion of New England ancestors, had a strong pull upon her feet. Sooner or later she would be given that hard shake of life which precipitates and organizes in all strong natures, but just now she was in a ferment. She walked along under the crescent moon, with the young man at her side whose every thought and imagination was dwelling upon her with love. She was conscious of a tendency of her own imagination in his direction, or rather in the direction of the love and passion which he represented, and all the time her heart was filled with the ideal image of another woman. She was prostrated with that hero-worship which belongs to young and virgin souls, and yet she felt the drawing of that other admiration which is more earthly and more fascinating, as it shows the jewel tints in one's own soul as well as in the other. As for Granville Joy, who had scrubbed his hands and face well with scented soap to take away the odor of the leather, and put on a clean shirt and collar, being always prepared for the possibility of meeting this dainty young girl whom he loved, he walked along by her side, casting, from time to time, glances which were pure admiration at the face over the great bunch of sweet-peas. "Don't you want me to carry them for you?" he asked. "No, thank you," replied Ellen. "They are nothing to carry." "They're real pretty flowers," said Granville, timidly. "Yes, I think they are." "Mother planted some, but hers didn't come up. Mother has got some beautiful nasturtiums. Perhaps you would like some," he said, eagerly. "No, thank you, I have some myself," Ellen said, rather coldly. "I'm just as much obliged to you." Granville quivered a little and shrank as a dog might under a blow. He saw this dainty girl-shape floating along at his side in a flutter of wonderful draperies, one hand holding up her skirts with maddening revelations of whiteness. If a lily could hold up her petals out of the dust she might do it in the same fashion as Ellen held her skirts, with no coarse clutching nor crumpling, not immodestly, but rather with disclosures of modesty itself. Ellen's wonderful daintiness was one of her chief charms. There was an immaculateness about her attire and her every motion which seemed to extend to her very soul, and hedged her about with the lure of unapproachableness. It was more that than her beauty which roused the imagination and quickened the pulses of a young man regarding her. Granville Joy did not feel the earth beneath his feet as he walked with Ellen. The scent of the sweet-peas came in his face, he heard the soft rustle of Ellen's skirts and his own heart-beats. She was very silent, since she did not wish him to go with her, though she was all the time reproaching herself for it. Granville kept casting about for something to say which should ingratiate him with her. He was resolved to say nothing of love to her. "It is a beautiful night," he said. "Yes, it is," agreed Ellen, and she looked at the moon. She felt the boy's burning, timid, worshipful eyes on her face. She trembled, and yet she was angry and annoyed. She felt in an undefined fashion that she herself was the summer night and the flowers and the crescent moon, and all that was fair and beautiful in the whole world to this other soul, and shame seized her instead of pride. He seemed to force her to a sight of her own pettiness, as is always the case when love is not fully returned. She made an impatient motion with the shoulder next Granville, and walked faster. "You said you were going to Miss Lennox's," he remarked, anxiously, feeling that in some way he had displeased her. "Yes, to carry her some sweet-peas." "She must have been real good-looking when she was young," Granville said, injudiciously. "When she was young," retorted Ellen, angrily. "She is beautiful now. There is not another woman in Rowe as beautiful as she is." "Well, she is good-looking enough," agreed Granville, with unreasoning jealousy. He had not heard of Ellen's good fortune. His mother had not told him. She was a tenderly sentimental woman, and had always had her fancies with regard to her son and Ellen Brewster. When she heard the news she reflected that it would perhaps remove the girl from her boy immeasurably, that he would be pained, so she said nothing. Every night when he came home she had watched his face to see if he had heard. Now Ellen told him. "You know what Miss Cynthia Lennox is going to do for me," she said, abruptly, almost boastfully, she was so eager in her partisanship of Cynthia. Granville looked at her blankly. They were coming into the crowded, brilliantly lighted main street of the city, and their two faces were quite plain to each other's eyes. "No, I don't," said he. "What is it, Ellen?" "She is going to send me to Vassar College." Granville's face whitened perceptibly. There was a queer sound in his throat. "To Vassar College!" he repeated. "Yes, to Vassar College. Then I shall be able to get a good school, and teach, and help father and mother." Granville continued to look at her, and suddenly an intense pity sprang into life in the girl's heart. She felt as if she were looking at some poor little child, instead of a stalwart young man. "Don't look so, Granville," she said, softly. "Of course I am glad at any good fortune which can come to you, Ellen," Granville said then, huskily. His lips quivered a little, but his eyes on her face were brave and faithful. Suddenly Ellen seemed to see in this young man a counterpart of her own father. Granville had a fine, high forehead and contemplative outlook. He had been a good scholar. Many said that it was a pity he had to leave school and go to work. It had been the same with her father. Andrew had always looked immeasurably above his labor. She seemed to see Granville Joy in the future just such a man, a finer animal harnessed to the task of a lower, and harnessed in part by his own loving faithfulness towards others. Ellen had often reflected that, if it hadn't been for her and her mother, her father would not have been obliged to work so hard. Now in Granville she saw another man whom love would hold to the ploughshare. A great impulse of loyalty as towards her own came over her. "It won't make any difference between me and my old friends if I do go to Vassar College," she said, without reflecting on the dangerous encouragement of it. "You can't get into another track of life without its making a difference," returned Granville, soberly. "But I am glad. God knows I'm glad, Ellen. I dare say it is better for you than if--" He stopped then and seemed all at once to see projected on his mirror of the future this dainty, exquisite girl, with her fine intellect, dragging about a poor house, with wailing children in arm and at heel, and suddenly a great courage of renunciation came over him. "It _is_ better, Ellen," he said, in a loud voice, like a hero's, as if he were cheering his own better impulses on to victory over his own passions. "It is better for a girl like you, than to--" Ellen knew that he meant to say, "to marry a fellow like me." Ellen looked at him, the sturdy backward fling of his head and shoulders, and the honest regard of his pained yet unflinching eyes, and a great weakness of natural longing for that which she was even now deprecating nearly overswept her. She was nearer loving him that moment than ever before. She realized something in him which could command love--the renunciation of love for love's sake. "I shall never forget my old friends, whatever happens," she said, in a trembling voice, and it might have all been different had they not then arrived at Cynthia Lennox's. "Shall I wait and go home with you, Ellen?" Granville asked, timidly. "No, thank you. I don't know how long I shall stay," Ellen replied. "You are real kind, but I am not a bit afraid." "It is sort of lonesome going past the shops." "I can take a car," Ellen said. She extended her hand to Granville, and he grasped it firmly. "Good-night, Ellen; I am always glad of any good fortune that may come to you," he said. But Granville Joy, going alone down the brilliant street, past the blaze of the shop-windows and the knots of loungers on the corners, reflected that he had seen the fiery tip of a cigar on the Lennox veranda, that it might be possible that young Lloyd was there, since Miss Lennox was his aunt, and that possibly the aunt's sending Ellen to Vassar might bring about something in that quarter which would not otherwise have happened, and he writhed at the fancy of that sort of good fortune for Ellen, but held his mind to it resolutely as to some terrible but necessary grindstone for the refinement of spirit. "It would be a heap better for her," he said to himself, quite loud, and two men whom he was passing looked at him curiously. "Drunk," said one to the other. When he was on his homeward way he overtook a slender girl struggling along with a kerosene-can in one hand and a package of sugar in the other, and, seeing that it was Abby Atkins, he possessed himself of both. She only laughed and did not start. Abby Atkins was not of the jumping or screaming kind, her nerves were so finely balanced that they recovered their equilibrium, after surprises, before she had time for manifestations. There was a curious healthfulness about the slender, wiry little creature who was overworked and under-fed, a healthfulness which seemed to result from the action of the mind upon a meagre body. "Hullo, Granville Joy!" she said, in her good-comrade fashion, and the two went on together. Presently Abby looked up in his face. "Know about Ellen?" said she. Granville nodded. "Well, I'm glad of it, aren't you?" Abby said, in a challenging tone. "Yes, I am," replied Granville, meeting her look firmly. Suddenly he felt Abby's little, meagre, bony hand close over the back of his, holding the kerosene-can. "You're a good fellow, Granville Joy," said she. Granville marched on and made no response. He felt his throat fill with sobs, and swallowed convulsively. Along with this womanly compassion came a compassion for himself, so hurt on his little field of battle. He saw his own wounds as one might see a stranger's. "Think of Ellen dogging around to a shoe-shop like me and the other girls," said Abby, "and think of her draggin' around with half a dozen children and no money. Thank the Lord she's lifted out of it. It ain't you nor me that ought to grudge her fortune to her, nor wish her where she might have been otherwise." "That's so," said the young man. Abby's hand tightened over the one on the kerosene-can. "You are a good fellow, Granville Joy," she said again. _ |
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