and now we shall pass over an interval of eight years in the history of “gunn's.” for it is only the “strange history” of eben and hetty that was to be told in this story, and in these years' history was nothing strange; unless, indeed, it might be said that they were strangely happy years. the household remained unchanged, except that there were three more babies in mike's cottage, and hetty had been obliged to build on another room for him. old nan and cæsar still reigned. cæsar's head was as white and tight-curled as the fleece of a pet lamb. he was now a shining light in the methodist meeting; but he had not yet broken himself of his oaths. “damn—bress de lord” was still heard on occasion: but everybody, even nan, had grown so used to it that it did not pass for an oath; and, no doubt, even the recording angel had long since ceased to put it down. james little and his wife were now as much a part of the family as if they had had the old squire's blood in their veins; and nobody thought about the old time of their disgrace,—nobody but jim and sally themselves. from their thoughts it was never absent, when they looked on the beautiful, joyous face of raby. he had grown beyond his years, and looked like a boy of twelve. he was manly, frank, impulsive; a child after hetty's own heart, and much more like her than he was like his father or his mother. it was a question, also, if he did not love her more than he loved either of his parents: all his hours with her were unclouded; over his intercourse with them, there always hung the undefined cloud of an unexpressed sadness.
hetty was changed. her hair was gray; her fair skin weather-beaten; and the fine wrinkles around the corners of her merry eyes radiated like the spokes of a wheel. she had looked young at thirty-seven; she looked old at forty-five. the phlegmatic and lazy sometimes seem to keep their youth better than the sanguine and active. it is a cruel thing that laughter should age a woman's face almost as much as weeping; but it does. sunny as hetty's face was, it had come to have a look older than it ought, simply because the kindly eyes had so often twinkled and half closed in merry laughter.
time had dealt more kindly with doctor eben. he was a handsomer man at forty-one than he had been at thirty-three: the eight years had left no other trace upon him. face, figure, step, all were as full of youth and vigor as upon the day when hetty first met him walking down the pine-shaded road. the precise moment when the first pang of consciousness of the discrepancy between her husband's looks and her own entered hetty's mind would be hard to determine. it began probably in some thoughtless jest of her own, or even of his; for, in his absolute loyalty of love, his unquestioning and long-established acceptance of their relation as a perfect one, it would never have crossed doctor eben's mind that hetty could possibly care whether she looked older or younger than he. he never thought about her age at all: in fact, he could not have told either her age or his own with exactness; he was curiously forgetful of such matters. he did not see the wrinkles around her eyes. he did not know that her skin was weather-beaten, her figure less graceful, her hair fast turning gray. to him she was simply “hetty:” the word meant as it always had meant, fulness of love, delight, life. doctor eben was a man of that fine fibre of organic loyalty, to which there is not possible, even a temptation to forsake or remove from its object. men having this kind of uprightness and loyalty, rarely are much given to words or demonstrations of affection. to them love takes its place, side by side with the common air, the course of the sun, the succession of days and nights, and all other unquestioned and unalterable things in the world. to suggest to such a man the possibility of lessening in his allegiance to a wife, is like proposing to him to overthrow the whole course of nature. he simply cannot conceive of such a thing; and he has no tolerance for it. he is by the very virtue of his organic structure incapable of charity for men who sin in that way. there are not many such men, but the type exists; and well may any woman felicitate herself to whom it is given to rest her life on such sure foundations. if there be some lack of the daily manifestations of tenderness, the ready word, the ever-present caress, she may recollect that these are often the first fruits of a passion whose early way-side harvest will be scorched and shrivelled as soon as the sun is high; while the seed which bringeth forth a hundred, nay a thousand fold, of true grain, sleeps in long silence, and grows up noiseless and slow.
doctor eben did not know that he was in many small ways an unloverlike husband. he did not know that his absorption in his professional studies made him often seem unaware of hetty's presence for hours together, when she was watching and waiting for a word. he did not know that he sometimes did not hear when she spoke, and did not answer when he heard. he did not know a hundred things which he would have known, if he had been a less upright and loyal man, and if hetty had been a less unselfish woman. neither did hetty know any of these things, or note them, until the poisoned consciousness awoke in her mind that she was fast growing old, and her face was growing less lovely. this was the first germ of hetty's unhappiness. it had been very hard for her in the beginning to believe herself loved: now all her old incredulity returned with fourfold strength; and now it was not met as then by constant and vehement evidence to conquer it. here again, had hetty been like other women, she might have been spared her suffering. had it been possible for her to demand, to even invite, she would have won from her husband, at any instant, all that her anxiety could have asked; but it was not possible. she simply went on silently, day after day, watching her husband more intently; keeping record, in her morbid feeling, of every moment, every look, every word which she misapprehended. beyond this morbidness of misapprehension, there was no other morbidness in hetty's state. she did not pine or grieve; she only began slowly to wonder what she could do for eben now. her sense of loss and disappointment, in that she had borne him no children, began to weigh more heavily upon her. “if i were mother of his children,” she said to herself, “it would not make so much difference if i did grow old and ugly. he would have the children to give him pleasure.” “i don't see what there is left for me to do,” she said again and again. sometimes she made pathetic attempts to change the simplicity of her dress. “perhaps if i wore better clothes, i should look younger,” she thought. but the result was not satisfactory. her severe style had always been so essentially her own that any departure from it only made her look still more altered. all this undercurrent of annoyance and distress added continually to the change in her face: gradually its expression grew more grave; she smiled less frequently; had fits of abstraction and reverie, which she had never been known to have before.
in a vague way, doctor eben observed these, and wondered what hetty was thinking about; but he never asked. often they drove for a whole day together, without a dozen words being spoken; but the doctor was buried in meditations upon his patients, and did not dislike the silence. hetty did not realize that the change here was more in her than in him: in the old days it had been she who talked, not the doctor; now that she was silent, he went on with his trains of thought undisturbed, and was as content as before, for she was by his side. he felt her presence perpetually, even when he gave no sign of doing so.
many months went by in this way, a summer, a winter, part of a spring, and hetty's forty-fifth birthday came, and found her a seriously unhappy woman. yet, strange to say, nobody dreamed of it. so unchanged was the external current of her life: such magnificent self-control had she, and such absolute disinterestedness. little raby was the only one who ever had a consciousness that things were not right. he was hetty's closest comrade and companion now. all the hours that she did not spend driving with the doctor (and she drove with him less now than had been her custom) she spent with raby. they took long rambles together, and long rides, raby being already an accomplished and fearless little rider. by the subtle instinct of a loving child, raby knew that “aunt hetty” was changed. a certain something was gone out of the delight they used to take together. once, as they were riding, he exclaimed:
“aunt hetty, you haven't spoken for ever so long! what's the matter? you don't talk half so much as you used to.”
and hetty, conscience-stricken, thought to herself: “dear me, how selfish it makes one to be unhappy! here i am, letting it fall on this dear, innocent darling. i ought to be ashamed.” but she answered gayly:
“oh, raby! aunty is growing old and stupid, isn't she? she must look out, or you'll get tired of her.”
“i shan't either: you're the nicest aunty in the whole world,” cried raby. “you ain't a bit old; but i wish you'd talk.”
then and there, hetty resolved that never again should raby have occasion to think thus; and he never did. before long he had forgotten all about this conversation, and all was as before. this was in may. one day, in the following june, as hetty and the doctor were driving through springton, he said suddenly:
“oh, hetty! i want you to come in with me at one place this morning. there is the most perfectly beautiful creature there i ever saw,—the oldest daughter of a methodist minister who has just come here to preach. poor child! she cannot sit up, or turn herself in bed; but she is an angel, and has the face of one, if ever a human creature had. they are very poor and we must help them all we can. i have great hopes of curing the child, if she can be well fed. it is a serious spinal disease, but i believe it can be cured.”
when hetty first looked on the face of rachel barlow, she said in her heart: “eben was right. it is the face of an angel;” and when she heard rachel's voice, she added, “and the voice also.” some types of spinal disease seem to have a marvellously refining effect on the countenance; producing an ethereal clearness of skin, and brightness of eye, and a spiritual expression, which are seen on no other faces. rachel barlow was a striking instance of this almost abnormal beauty. as her fair face looked up at you from her pillow, your impulse was to fall on your knees. not till she smiled did you feel sure she was human; but when she smiled, the smile was so winningly warm, you forgot you had thought her an angel. for two years she had not moved from her bed, except as she was lifted in the strong arms of her father. for two years she had not been free from pain for a moment. often the pain was so severe that she fainted. and yet her brow was placid, unmarked by a line, and her face in repose as serene as a happy child's.
doctor eben and hetty sat together by the bed.
“rachel,” said the doctor, “i have brought my wife to help cure you. she is as good a doctor as i am.” and he turned proudly to hetty.
rachel gazed at her earnestly, but did not speak. hetty felt herself singularly embarrassed by the gaze.
“i wish i could help you,” she said; “but i think my husband will make you well.”
rachel colored.
“i never permit myself to hope for it,” she replied. “if i did, i should be discontented at once.”
“why! are you contented as it is?” exclaimed hetty impetuously.
“oh, yes!” said rachel. “i enjoy every minute, except when the pain is too hard: you don't know what a beautiful thing life seems to me. i always have the sky you know” (glancing at the window), “and that is enough for a lifetime. every day birds fly by too; and every day my father reads to me at least two hours. so i have great deal to think about.”
“miss barlow, i envy you,” said hetty in a tone which startled even herself. again rachel bent on her the same clairvoyant gaze which had so embarrassed her before. hetty shrank from it still more than at first, and left the room, saying to her husband: “i will wait for you outside.”
as they drove away, hetty said:
“eben, what is it in her look which makes me so uneasy? i don't like to have her look at me.”
“now that is strange,” replied the doctor. “after you had left the room, the child said to me: 'what is the matter with your wife? she is not well,' and i laughed at the idea, and told her i never knew any woman half so well or strong. rachel is a sort of clairvoyant, as persons in her condition are so apt to be; but she made a wrong guess this time, didn't she?”
hetty did not answer; and the doctor turning towards her saw that her eyes were fixed on the sky with a dreamy expression.
“why, hetty!” he exclaimed. “why do you look so? you are perfectly well, are you not, dear?”
“oh, yes! oh, yes!” hetty answered, quickly rousing herself. “i am perfectly well; and always have been, ever since i can remember.”
after this, hetty went no more with her husband to see rachel. when he asked her, she said: “no, eben: i am going to see her alone. i will not go with you again. she makes me uncomfortable. if she makes me feel so, when i am alone with her, i shall not go at all. i don't like clairvoyants.”
“why, what a queer notion that is for you, wife!” laughed the doctor, and thought no more of it.
hetty's first interview with rachel was a constrained one. nothing in hetty's life had prepared her for intercourse with so finely organized a creature: she felt afraid to speak, lest she should wound her; her own habits of thought and subjects of interest seemed too earthy to be mentioned in this presence; she was vaguely conscious that all rachel's being was set to finer issues than her own. she found in this an unspeakable attraction; and yet it also withheld her at every point and made her dumb. in spite of these conflicting emotions, she wanted to love rachel, to help her, to be near her; and she went again and again, until the constraint wore off, and a very genuine affection grew up between them. never, after the first day, had she felt any peculiar embarrassment under rachel's gaze, and her memory of it had nearly died away, when one day, late in the autumn, it was suddenly revived with added intensity. it was a day on which hetty had been feeling unusually sad. even by rachel's bedside she could not quite throw off the sadness. unconsciously, she had been sitting for a long time silent. as she looked up, she met rachel's eyes fixed full on hers, with the same penetrating gaze which had so disturbed her in their first interview. rachel did not withdraw her gaze, but continued to look into hetty's eyes, steadily, piercingly, with an expression which held hetty spell-bound. presently she said:
“dear mrs. williams, you are thinking something which is not true. do not let it stay with you.”
“what do you mean, rachel?” asked hetty, resentfully. “no one can read another person's thoughts.”
“not exactly,” replied rachel, in a timid voice, “but very nearly. since i have been ill, i have had a strange power of telling what people were thinking about: i can sometimes tell the exact words. i cannot tell how it is. i seem to read them in the air, or to hear them spoken. and i can always tell if a person is thinking either wicked thoughts or untrue ones. a wicked person always looks to me like a person in a fog. there have been some people in this room that my father thought very good; but i knew they were very bad. i could hardly see their faces clear. when a person is thinking mistaken or untrue thoughts, i see something like a shimmer of light all around them: it comes and goes, like a flicker from a candle. when you first came in to see me, you looked so.”
“pshaw, rachel,” said hetty, resolutely. “that is all nonsense. it is just the nervous fancy of a sick girl. you mustn't give way to it.”
“i should think so too,” replied rachel, meekly. “if it did not so often come exactly true. my father will tell you how often we have tried it.”
“well, then, tell me what i was thinking just now,” laughed hetty.
rachel colored. “i would rather not,” she replied, in an earnest tone.
“oh! you're afraid it won't prove true,” said hetty. “i'll take the risk, if you will.”
rachel hesitated, but finally repeated her first answer. “i would rather not.”
hetty persisted, and rachel, with great reluctance, answered her as follows:
“you were thinking about yourself: you were dissatisfied about something in yourself; you are not happy, and you ought to be; you are so good.”
hetty listened with a wonder-struck face. she disliked this more than she had ever in her life disliked any thing which had happened to her. she did not speak.
“do not be angry,” said rachel. “you made me tell you.”
“oh! i am not angry,” said hetty. “i'm not so stupid as that; but it's the most disagreeable thing, i ever knew. can you help seeing these things, if you try?”
“yes, i suppose i might,” said rachel. “i never try. it interests me to see what people are thinking about.”
“humph!” said hetty, sarcastically. “i should think so. you might make your fortune as a detective, if you were well enough to go about in the world.”
“if i were that, i should lose the power,” replied rachel. “the doctors say it is part of the disease.”
“rachel,” exclaimed hetty, vehemently, “i'll never come near you again, if you don't promise not to use this power of yours upon me. i should never feel comfortable one minute where you are, if i thought you were reading my thoughts. not that i have any special secrets,” added hetty, with a guilty consciousness; “but i suppose everybody thinks thoughts he would rather not have read.”
“i'll promise you, indeed i will, dear mrs. williams,” cried rachel, much distressed. “i never have read you, except that first day. it seemed forced upon me then, and to-day too. but i promise you, i will not do it again.”
“i suppose i shouldn't know if you were doing it, unless you told me,” said hetty, reflectively.
“i think you would,” answered rachel. “do i not look peculiarly? my father tells me that i do.”
“yes, you do,” replied hetty, recollecting that, in each of these instances, she had been much disturbed by rachel's look. “i will trust you, then, seeing that you probably can't deceive me.”
when hetty told the doctor of this, expecting that he would dismiss it as unworthy of attention, she was much surprised at the interest he showed in the account. he questioned her closely as to the expression of rachel's face, her tones of voice, during the interval.
“and was it true, hetty?” he asked; “was what she said true? were you thinking of something in yourself which troubled you?”
“yes, i was,” said hetty, in a low voice, fearing that her husband would ask her what; but he was only studying the incident from professional curiosity.
“you are sure of that, are you?” he asked.
“yes, very sure,” replied hetty.
“extraordinary! 'pon my word extraordinary!” ejaculated the doctor. “i have read of such cases, but i have never more than half believed them. i'd give my right hand to cure that girl.”
“your right hand is not yours to give,” said hetty, playfully. the doctor made no reply. he was deep in meditation on rachel's clairvoyance. hetty looked at him for some moments, as earnestly as rachel had looked at her. “oh if i could only have that power rachel has!” she thought.
“eben,” she said, “is it impossible for a healthy person to be a clairvoyant?”
“quite,” answered the doctor, with a sudden instinct of what hetty meant. “no chance for you, dear. you'll never get at any of my secrets that way. you might as well try to make yourself rachel's age as to acquire this mysterious power she has.”
unlucky words! hetty bore them about with her. “that showed that he feels that i am old,” she said, as often as she recalled them.
a month later, as she was sitting with rachel one morning, there was a knock at the door. hetty was sitting in such a position that she could not be seen from the door, but could see, in the looking-glass at the foot of rachel's bed, any person entering the room. as the door opened, she looked up, and, to her unspeakable surprise, saw her husband coming in; saw, in the same swift second's glance, the look of gladness and welcome on his face, and heard him say, in tones of great tenderness:
“how are you to-day, precious child?” in the next instant, he had seen his wife, and was, in his turn, so much astonished, that the look of glad welcome which he had bent upon rachel, was instantaneously succeeded by one of blank surprise, bent upon hetty; surprise, and nothing else, but so great surprise that it looked almost like dismay and confusion. “why, hetty!” he said, “i did not expect to see you here.”
“nor i you,” said hetty, lightly; but the lightness of tone had a certain something of constraint in it. this incident was one of those inexplicably perverse acts of fate which make one almost believe sometimes in the depravity of spirits, if not in that of men. when dr. eben had left home that morning, hetty had said to him:
“are you going to springton, to-day?”
“no, not to-day,” was the reply.
“i am very sorry,” answered hetty. “i wanted to send some jelly to rachel.”
“can't go to-day, possibly,” the doctor had said. “i have to go the other way.”
but later in the morning he had met a messenger from springton, riding post-haste, with an imperative call which could not be deferred. and, as he was in the village, he very naturally stopped to see rachel. all of this he explained with some confusion; feeling, for the first time in his long married life, that it was awkward for a man to have to account for his presence in any particular spot at any particular time. hetty betrayed no annoyance or incredulity: she felt none. she was too sensible and reasonable a woman to have felt either, even if it had been simply a change of purpose on the doctor's own part which had brought him to springton. the thing which had lent the shade of constraint to hetty's voice, and which lay like an icy mountain on hetty's heart, was the look which she had seen on his face, the tone which she had heard in his voice, as he greeted rachel. in that instant was planted the second germ of unhappiness in hetty's bosom. of jealousy, in the ordinary acceptation of the term; of its caprices, suspicions, subterfuges; and, above all, of its resentments,—hetty was totally incapable. if it had been made evident to her in any one moment, that her husband loved another woman, her first distinct thoughts would have been of sorrow for him rather than for herself, and of perplexity as to what could be done to make him happy again. at this moment, however, nothing took distinct shape in hetty's mind. it was merely the vague pain of a loving woman's sensitive heart, surprised by the sight of tender looks and tones given by her husband to another woman. it was wholly a vague pain, but it was the germ of a great one; and, falling as it did on hetty's already morbid consciousness of her own loss of youth and beauty and attractiveness, it fell into soil where such germs ripen as in a hot-bed. in a less noble nature than hetty's there would have grown up side by side with this pain a hatred of rachel, or, at least, an antagonism towards her. in the fine equilibrium of hetty's moral nature, such a thing was impossible. she felt from that day a new interest in rachel. she looked at her, often scrutinizingly, and thought: “ah, if she were but well, what a sweet young wife she might make! i wish eben could have had such a wife! how much better it would have been for him than having me!” she began now to go oftener with her husband to visit rachel. closely, but with no sinister motive, no trace of ill-feeling, she listened to all which they said. she observed the peculiar gentleness with which the doctor spoke, and the docility with which rachel listened; and she said to herself: “that is quite unlike eben's manner to me, or mine to him. i wonder if that is not more nearly the way it ought to be between husbands and wives. the wife ought to look up to her husband as a little child does.” now, much as hetty loved dr. eben, passionately as her whole life centred around him, there had never been such a feeling as this: they were the heartiest of comrades, but each life was on a plane of absolute independence. hetty pondered much on this.
