Chapter 35. Mr. Dimmerly Concludes To "Meddle"

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_ CHAPTER XXXV. MR. DIMMERLY CONCLUDES TO "MEDDLE"

Hemstead found some solace, during the next two days, in the selection of books for his library. He did not expect to visit the East again for many years, and made all his arrangements accordingly. He wrote Mr. and Miss Martell a letter, which they regarded as a model in its expression of delicate appreciation and manly modesty.

Towards the end of the week he returned to Mrs. Marchmont's, by no means sure whether he would find Lottie there or not, and quite certain that the less he saw of her the better.

He walked from the depot, and went around by the way of the pond. His resolution almost failed him, as he looked at the "fallen tree," especially as he believed he saw evidence, from traces in the snow, that Lottie had visited the place in his absence.

Lottie looked forward with a strange blending of hope and fear to the meeting with him, and had portrayed to herself every possible way in which she imagined it could take place. But it happened, as such things usually do, after the most prosaic fashion possible. They were all sitting in the parlor, after dinner, and Hemstead opened the door and walked in.

Her face became scarlet, but his was so pale as to remind her of the time when he had carried Miss Martell into that room. It was, indeed, the pallor of one who was making a desperate moral effort. But he was successful, and spoke to her, giving his hand, in almost the same manner as to his aunt. His bearing towards even De Forrest was most courteous. He then sat down composedly, and began to talk on ordinary topics.

Lottie's heart failed her. This was entirely different from what she had expected. His manner was not in the least cold or resentful, but his words seemed to come from a great distance, and his eyes no longer sought her face, as if she only had for him the true sunlight. Their old, quick, subtile interchange of sympathy and thought appeared lost as completely as if a thick wall rose between them. The warm-hearted girl could not act his part. She was silent, and her head bent low over her work.

Mrs. Marchmont and Bel were greatly pleased, and gave Hemstead credit for being a "very sensible young man, who, having been shown his folly, could act like a gentleman and not make a fuss."

Even De Forrest looked at the student approvingly, especially as he had been to a city tailor and was clothed in taste and harmony with his manly proportions. No amount of grace and virtue could find recognition in De Forrest's eyes, unless dressed in the latest mode.

Mr. Dimmerly, from behind his newspaper, stared for a long time at Lottie and his nephew, and then snarled abruptly: "It's getting deuced cold. The brook will stop running down hill to-night, I'm a-thinking,--freeze up"; and he stirred the fire as if he had a spite against it.

Lottie's head bent lower. She was beginning to understand her crotchety uncle. She, too, thought that it was getting very "cold."

After a while Hemstead quietly left them, went to his room, and did not appear again till they were all at supper. He then, with a simple, yet quiet, high-bred ease,--the bearing of a natural gentleman,--gave sketches of what he had seen in New York, and the latest literary gossip. His manner towards Lottie was, as nearly as possible, the same as towards Bel and his cousin. He so completely ignored all that had happened--all that had passed between them--that Lottie almost feared to give him the note she had written. She could not rally, but grew more and more depressed and silent, a fact which De Forrest and her aunt marked uneasily.

After supper he remarked that he would go over and say good-by to Mr. and Miss Martell and Harcourt.

With what a foreboding chill Lottie heard that word "good-by"! Would he, indeed, go away without giving her a chance to say one word of explanation? She could endure it no longer. In accordance with her impulsive nature, she went straight to him, and said in a low tone, "Mr. Hemstead, will you please read that?"

He trembled, but took the note, and said, after a moment, "Certainly," and was gone.

An hour passed, and another; still he did not return. Lottie's head bent lower and lower over her work. Mr. Dimmerly never played a more wretched game of whist. At last he quite startled them all by throwing down the cards and saying, in the most snappish of tones, "I wish the blockhead would come home."

"Why, brother, what is the matter?" asked Mrs. Marchmont, in a tone of surprise.

"I want to lock up," said the old gentleman, in some confusion.

"It's not late, yet."

"Well, it ought to be. I never knew such an eternally long evening. The clocks are all wrong, and everything is wrong."

"There, there, you have had bad luck over your whist."

Lottie, however, knew what was the matter, and she gave him a shy, grateful look. But the old man was still more incensed when he saw that there were tears in her eyes, and he shuffled away, muttering something that sounded a little profane.

Lottie, soon after, left the room also, but as she was passing through the hall she met Hemstead, who had come in at a side door. He took her hand in both of his, and said, gently, "I do forgive you, fully and completely, and I have your forgiveness to ask for my hasty judgment."

"And will you be my friend again?" she asked, timidly, and in a way that taxed his resolution sorely.

"You have no truer friend," he said, after a moment.

"I think it was a little cruel, in so true a friend, to leave me all this desperately long evening."

"You are mistaken," he said, abruptly, and passed hastily up to his room. She did not see him again that night.

What could he mean? Had he recognized her love, and, not being able to return it fully, did he thus avoid her and hasten through his visit? The bare thought crimsoned her cheek. But she felt that this could not be true. She knew he had loved her, and he could not have changed so soon. It was more probable that he believed her to be totally unfit to share in his sacred work,--that he feared she would be a hindrance,--and, therefore, he was shunning, and seeking to escape from one who might dim the lustre of his spiritual life and work. In some respects she had grown very humble of late, and feared that he might be correct, and that she was indeed utterly unfit to share in his high calling.

"But if he only knew how hard I would try!" she said, with a touch of pathos in her tone which would have settled matters if he had heard it.

That he was sacrificing himself rather than ask her to share in his life's privation, did not occur to her.

Restless and unhappy, she wandered into the dining-room, where she found Mr. Dimmerly standing on the hearth-rug, and staring at the fire in a fit of the deepest abstraction. Lottie was so depressed as to feel that even a little comfort from him would be welcome; so she stole to his side and took his arm. He stroked her head with a gentleness quite unusual with him. Finally he said, in a voice that he meant to be very harsh and matter of fact, "Hasn't that nephew of mine got home yet? I feel as if I could break his head."

"And I feel," said Lottie, hiding her face on his shoulder, "as if he would break my heart, and you are the only one in the house who understands me or cares."

"Well, well," said the old gentleman, after a little, "others have been meddling; I think I will meddle a little."

Lottie started up in a way that surprised him, and with eyes flashing through her tears said, "Not a word to him, as you value my love."

"Hold on," said the little man, half breathlessly. "What's the matter? You go off like a keg of powder."

"I wouldn't sue for the hand of a king," said Lottie, heroically.

"Bless you, child, he isn't a king. He's only Frank Hemstead, my nephew,--bound to be a forlorn home missionary, he says."

"Well, then," she said, drawing a long breath, "if he can't see for himself, let him marry a pious Western giantess, who will go with him for the sake of the cause instead of himself."

"In the mean time," suggested Mr. Dimmerly, "we will go back to New York and have a good time as before."

This speech brought to the warm-hearted girl another revulsion of feeling, and, again hiding her face on her uncle's shoulder, she sobbed, "I would rather be his slave on a desert island than marry the richest man in New York."

"And my wise and prudent sister thought it could be 'stopped,'" chuckled Mr. Dimmerly.

"But remember, uncle, not a word of this to him, or I will refuse him though my heart break a thousand times. If he does not love me well enough to ask me of his own accord, or if he does not think I am fit to go with him, I would rather die than thrust myself upon him."

"Bless me, what a queer compound a woman is! It won't do for you to go West. You will set the prairies on fire. There, there, now don't be afraid. If you think I can say anything to my nephew--the thick-headed blunderbuss--which will prevent his getting down on his knees to ask for what he'll never deserve, you don't know the Dimmerly blood. Trust to the wisdom of my gray hairs and go to bed."

"But, uncle, I would rather you wouldn't say anything at all," persisted Lottie.

"Well, I won't, about you," said her uncle, in assumed irritability. "I can get the big ostrich to pull his head out of the sand and speak for himself, I suppose. He's my nephew, and I'm going to have a talk with him before he leaves for the West. So be off; I'm getting cross."

But Lottie gave him a kiss that stirred even his withered old heart.

"O, good gracious!" he groaned after she was gone, "why was I ever 'stopped'?"

The next morning Hemstead appeared at breakfast as calm, pale, and resolute as ever. His manner seemed to say plainly to Lottie, "Our old folly is at an end. I have remembered the nature of my calling, and I know only too well that you are unfitted to share in it."

She was all the more desponding as she remembered how conscientious he was.

"If he thinks it's wrong, there's no hope," she thought, drearily.

After breakfast Mr. Dimmerly said, "Nephew, I wish you would do a little writing for me; my hand isn't as steady as it was"; and he took the student off to his private study.

After the writing was finished, Mr. Dimmerly gave a few awkward preliminary ahems, and then said, "So you go West next Monday?"

"Yes. I wish to get off on the first train."

"You seem very anxious to get away."

"I am sorry, now, I ever came," the young man said, in tones of the deepest sadness.

"Thank you."

"O, it's no fault of yours. You and aunt have been very kind, but--"

"But you are thinking of the 'noblest and most beautiful being in existence,' as you once said, referring to my pretty little niece. You have evidently changed your mind. Did you see some one in New York you liked better?"

"I have not changed my mind. I have only learned too well what my mind is. I wish that I had learned it sooner. There is one thing that troubles me greatly, uncle. I cannot speak of it to aunt, because--Well, I can't. Do you think that Miss Marsden cares much for me? She will surely forget me, will she not, in the excitement of her city life? I do hope she has no such feeling as I have."

Mr. Dimmerly stared at his nephew as if he thought him demented.

"Well," said he, "I think you have been 'enchanted, and are no longer yourself.' You now out-Bottom old Bottom himself. Do you mean to say that you love such a gem of a girl as Lottie, and yet hope she does not love you, and will soon forget you?"

"Certainly I do. If I had my will, she would not have another unhappy hour in her life."

"Well, if you have the faintest notion that she has any regard for you, why don't you get down on your marrow-bones and plead for a chance to make her happy? If I were in your place, and there was half a chance to win a Lottie Marsden, I would sigh like a dozen furnaces, and swear more oaths than were heard in Flanders, if it would help matters along any."

"But would you ask her to leave a home of luxury, her kindred, and every surrounding of culture and refinement, to go out on a rude frontier, and to share in the sternest poverty and the most wearing of work?"

"O--h--h, that is the hitch, is it?"

"Yes. Before I was aware, I had learned to love her. I trust she will never know how deeply; for if she had half a woman's heart, she would be sad from very pity. If, unconsciously to herself, some regard for me has grown during our visit, it would be a mean and unmanly thing to take advantage of it to inveigle her into a life that would be a painful contrast to all that she had known before. It would be like a soldier asking a woman to share all the hardships and dangers of a campaign."

Mr. Dimmerly stroked his chin thoughtfully, while he regarded his nephew with a shrewd, sidelong glance. "Well," said he, suggestively, "there is force in what you say. But is there any necessity of your being a home missionary, and living out among the 'border ruffians,' as Lottie used to call them? There are plenty of churches at the East. Dr. Beams is old and sick: there may be a vacancy here before long."

"No, uncle," said Hemstead, firmly, "I fought that fight out in New York, and it was a hard one. I have felt for years that I must be a missionary, and shall be true to my vocation. It's duty"; and he brought his clenched hand down heavily on the table.

"My good gracious!" ejaculated Mr. Dimmerly, giving a nervous hop in the air. "Between the two, what will become of me? Yes, yes; I see. You are like your mother. If she took it into her head that anything was 'duty,' all the world couldn't change her. So, rather than give up being a missionary, you will sacrifice yourself and Lottie too?"

"I should have no hesitation in making the sacrifice myself, but it would more than double my pain if I knew she suffered. And it is this that troubles me. But I must obey my orders, whatever happens."

"Well," said Mr. Dimmerly, dryly, and with a queer little twinkle in his eyes, "I cannot give you much aid and comfort. I never meddle in such matters. A third party never can. Of course you can sacrifice yourself and your own happiness if you choose. That is your own affair. But when it comes to sacrificing another, that is very different. Lottie is a warm-hearted girl with all her faults, and if she ever does love, it will be no half-way business with her. So be careful what you do. Sacrificing her happiness is a very different thing from sacrificing your own."

"But do you think there is any danger of such a thing?" asked Hemstead, in a tone of the deepest distress.

"Bless me, boy! how should I know?" said his uncle, in seeming irritability. "Do you think that I am a go-between for you two? Why don't you go and ask her, like a man? How do you know but she has a vocation to be a missionary as well as yourself?"

Hemstead strode up and down the room, the picture of perplexity. "Was ever a man placed in so cruel a position?" he groaned. But after a moment he became quiet and said, "When a thing is settled, let it stay settled; my course is the only right and manly one"; and he left the room saying he would be out for a walk till dinner.

But as he entered the hall Addie cried, "Frank, you must go; we won't take no for an answer."

"Go where?"

"To West Point. It's a glorious day. We want one more sleigh-ride before we break up,--one that shall exceed all the others. There is going to be a cadet hop over there this afternoon, in the dancing-hall, and a friend has sent for us to come. I've set my heart on going, and so have Bel and Lottie. Mother says that we can go, if you will go with us and drive, for the coachman is ill. You will see lots of grand scenery, and all that kind of thing, which you like so much."

"And have you set your heart on the 'cadet hop' also?" asked Hemstead of Lottie.

"I think I should appreciate scenery more at present," she said, with a quick blush.

"You'll go; say you'll go. He'll go, mother. It's all settled. Let us have some lunch, and we'll start at once;" and the spoiled little beauty already anticipated the conquest of a cadet or two as a holiday episode.

So, in a single breezy moment, it was arranged, Hemstead scarcely having a voice in the matter. As he mounted to his room, reason told him that this long drive in the society of the one whom he believed he should avoid, for her sake as well as his own, was anything but wise. But he tried to satisfy himself with the thought that at no time would he be alone with her; and his heart craved this one more day of companionship, before a lifetime of separation.

As Lottie was about to ascend the stairs, she heard, for the first time since that wretched Monday, Mr. Dimmerly's odd, chuckling laugh. She looked into the parlor, and, seeing that he was alone, went straight to him, and said, "Now! what do you mean by that queer little laugh of yours?"

"Why do you think I mean anything?" he said, staring at the ceiling.

"Because I haven't heard it since that dreadful Monday, and before I always heard it when something nice had happened between me and--and--"

"Some one told me last night to mind my own business."

"Now, uncle, you know something."

"I should hope so, at my years,--enough not to meddle." And he still stared high over her head.

"There," said Lottie with tears in her eyes, "everybody in the house is against me now."

The old man's eyes dropped to her flushed, disappointed face, and his features became almost noble in their expression of tender sympathy. In a grave, gentle tone, such as she never had heard him use before, he said, "Lottie, come to my private study, before you go."

While the others were at lunch, she glided, unseen, to the little study, that she might receive some comfort to sustain her fainting heart. Her uncle's first words, however, seemed prosaic, indeed, and very different from what she had expected.

"How old are you, Lottie?"

"I was twenty-one last June," she said, a little proudly.

"So you are a June blossom, eh? Well, you look like it." But he puzzled her by his long, searching glance into her face.

"Why do you ask?" she said.

"I want to be sure that you are old and mature enough to decide a very important question."

"Well," said Lottie, her breath coming quick, "I intend to decide all questions which relate to my own life and well-being."

"Be careful, young woman. You had better follow the advice of old and wise heads like your aunt's and mother's."

"Uncle, what do you mean?" said she, impatiently.

"Well," said Mr. Dimmerly, deliberately, looking searchingly into her face all the time, "I have sounded that thick-headed nephew of mine--there, you needn't start so: do you suppose a Dimmerly would betray a woman's secret?--and what do you think he most dreads to discover as true?--that you love him a little."

"It's something he never shall discover," said Lottie, almost harshly, springing up with flashing eyes and scarlet face. "I will not go on this ride, and he shall have no trouble in escaping my society."

"Hold on, now," expostulated Mr. Dimmerly. "Nitroglycerine doesn't go off half so quick as you of late. I haven't told you why he is afraid you love him."

"What other reason can he have save that he doesn't love me, or thinks I am unfit to be a clergyman's wife?"

"He has another reason,--one that will devolve upon you the necessity of deciding some very important questions. Are you old and mature enough?"

"O uncle!" exclaimed Lottie, impatiently tapping the floor with her foot. "You ought to be made Grand Inquisitor General. You have kept me upon the rack of suspense--it seems an hour."

"Hold on, little firebrand. Questions concerning a lifetime should not be decided in a moment. You had better take a few years--certainly, a few months--to think over what I am going to tell you. Frank worships the ground you tread on. He does not give you the little remnant of a heart that has been left after dozens of flirtations with other girls. You have the whole of his big, unworldly heart, and from what I know of him, or, rather, his mother, you always will; but he is so unselfish--so unlike the rest of us--that he won't ask you to exchange your life of wealth and luxury for his life of toil, poverty, and comparative exile. So, while I believe he will idolize your memory all his days, he is hoping that you won't suffer any, but will soon be able to forget him. Of course I feigned profound ignorance as to your feelings, and left him in a pitiable state of distress. But he finally concluded that, even if you did love him a little, it would be very unmanly to take advantage of your feelings to get you into the awful scrape of a home missionary's life."

As Mr. Dimmerly proceeded in this last speech, joy came into Lottie's face like the dawn of a June morning. Tears gathered slowly in her eyes, but their source was happiness, not sorrow. By the time he concluded, she had buried her burning face in her hands.

"Well," said her uncle, after a moment, "what's to be done I hardly know. He is just like his mother. If he thinks it isn't right to speak, tortures could not wring a word out of him. I don't see but you will have to propose yourself--"

"Propose myself! Never," said she, springing to her feet.

"What will you do, then?--sit and look at each other, and fade away like two dying swans?"

"No, indeed," said Lottie, dancing about the room, and brushing the tears from her face, like spray. "He shall propose to me, and very humbly, too. I have the key to the problem, now. My hand is now on the helm of this big ship of war, and you shall see how I will manage. He shall do just what I want him to, without knowing it. He shall--"

"But, hold on," said Mr. Dimmerly, breathlessly. "You look like a rainbow run wild. Listen to reason. O my good gracious! the idea of her being a home missionary!"

"That is just what I am going to be,--a home missionary, in his home; and all the principalities and powers of earth shall not prevent it. And now, you dear, precious, old meddler, good-by. You shall, one day, sit in the snuggest corner of as cosy a little home in the West as was ever made in the East;" and she vanished, leaving the old gentleman chuckling to himself, "It doesn't look as if it would be 'stopped' after all. Perhaps sister will find out that I know how to meddle a trifle better than she does." _

Read next: Chapter 36. A Night In The Snow

Read previous: Chapter 34. Loyal

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