XII
DECEMBER
December 1. I dreamed last night a dream which affected me so strongly that I can hardly write of it without shivering. I dreamed that George came with Mr. Saychase to remarry, as I thought, Gertrude. When we all stood by the side of her bed, however, George seized my hand, and announced that he had come to marry me, and was resolved to have no other wife. Gertrude fell back on her pillow in a faint. I struggled to pull away the hand George had taken, but I was powerless. I tried to scream, but that horrible paralysis which sometimes affects us in dreams left me speechless. I felt myself helpless while Mr. Saychase went on marrying me to George before the eyes of his own wife, in spite of anything I could do to prevent it. The determination to be free of this bond struggled in me so strongly against the helplessness which held me that I sprang up in bed at last, awake and bursting into hysterical crying.
The strange thing about it all is that I seem to have broken more than the sleep of the body. It is as if all these years I had been in a drowse in my mind, and had suddenly sprung up throbbingly awake. I am as aghast at myself as if I should discover I had unconsciously been walking in the dark on the edge of a ghastly precipice, – yes, a precipice on the edge of a valley full of writhing snakes! My very flesh creeps at the thought that I could by any possibility be made the wife of any man but Tom. I look back to-day over the long years I was engaged, and understand all in a flash how completely George spoke the truth when he used to complain I was an iceberg and did not know what it was to be in love. He was absolutely right; and he was right to leave me. I can only wonder that through those years when I endured his bodily presence because I thought I loved his mental being, he could endure me at all. He could not have borne it, I see now, if he had been really in love with me himself. I am wise with a strange new wisdom; but whence it comes, or why it has opened to me in a single night, from a painful dream, is more than I can say. I understand that George never loved me any more than I did him. He will go back to Gertrude, – indeed I do not believe he has ever ceased to be fond of her, even when he declared he was tired of her and wanted me to take him back. He was angry with her, and no human being understands himself when he is angry.
Last night after I waked I could not reason about things much. I was too panic-stricken. I lay there in the dark actually trembling from the horror of my dream, and realized that from my very childhood Tom has stood between me and every other man. Now at last I, who have been all these years in a dull doze, am awake. I might almost say, without being in the least extravagant, that I am alive who was dead; I, who have thought of love and marriage as I might have thought about a trip abroad, know what love means. My foolish dream has changed me like a vision which changes a mere man into a prophet or a seer.
I cannot bear that Tom should go on suffering. I must somehow let him know. December 2. Fortune was kind to me this morning, and Tom knows. I had to go to take some flannel to old Peggy Cole, and as I crossed the Foot-bridge Tom came out of Deacon Daniel's mill. He flushed a little when he saw me, and half hesitated, as if he were almost inclined to turn back. I did not mean to let him escape, however, and stood still, waiting for him. We shook hands, and I at once told him I had wanted to see him, so that if he were not in a hurry I should be glad if he would walk on with me.
He assented, not very willingly I thought, and we went on over the bridge together. The sun was shining until the snow-edges glistened like live coals, and everywhere one looked the air fairly shimmered with light. The tide was coming up in the river, and the cakes of ice, yellowed in patches by the salt water until they were like unshorn fleeces, were driven against the long sluice-piers, jostling and pushing like sheep frightened into a corner. The piers themselves, and every spar or rock that showed above the water, were as white as snow could make them. It was one of those days when the air is a tonic, so that every breath is a joy; and as Tom and I walked on together I could have laughed aloud just for joy of the beautiful winter day.
"How cold the water looks," Tom said, turning his face away from me and toward the Rim. "It is fairly black with cold."
"Even the ice-cakes seem to be trying to climb out of it," I returned, laughing from nothing but pure delight. "I suppose that is the way you feel about me, Tom. You haven't been near Tomine or me for ten days, and you know you wanted to get away from me this morning."
He did not answer for a minute. Then he said in a strained voice: —
"It's no use, Ruth; I shall have to go away. I can't stand it here. It was bad enough before, but now I simply cannot bear it."
"You mean," I returned, full of fun and mischief, "that the idea of my offering myself to you was too horrible? You had a chance to refuse, Tom; and you took it. I should think I was the one to feel as if it wasn't to be borne."
He stopped in the street and turned to face me.
"Don't, Ruth," he protested in a voice which went straight to my heart. "If you knew how it hurts me you wouldn't joke about it."
I wanted to put my arms about his neck and kiss him as I used to do when we were babies; but that was manifestly not to be thought of, at least not in the street in plain sight of the blacksmith shop.
"It isn't any joke," said I. "Just walk along so the whole town need not talk about us, please."
He walked on, and I tried to think of a sentence which would tell him that I really cared for him, yet which I could say to him there in the open day, with the sun making a peeping eye of every icy crystal on fence or tree-twig.
"Well?" he cried after a moment.
"O Tom," I asked in despair, "why don't you help me? I can't say it. I can't tell you I" —
I did not dare to look at him, and I came to a stop in my speech because I could feel that he was pressing eagerly to my side.
"You what, Ruth?" he demanded, his voice quivering. "Be careful!"
Perhaps his agitation helped me to master mine. Certain it is for the moment I thought only that he must not be kept in suspense, and so I burst out abruptly: —
"Tom, you are horrid! I've offered myself to you once, and now you want me to protest in the open street that I can't live without you! Well, then; I can't!"
"Ruth!"
It was all he said; just my name, which he has said hundreds and hundreds of times ever since he could say anything; but I think I can never hear my name again without remembering the love he put into it. I trembled with happiness, but I would not look at him. I walked on with my eyes fixed on the snowy hills beyond the town, and tried to believe I was acting as if I had said nothing and felt nothing unusual. I remember our words up to this time, but after that it is all a joyful blur. I know Tom walked about and waited for me while I did my errand with Peggy Cole; the droll old creature scolded me because the flannel was not thicker, and I beamed on her as if she were expressing gratitude; then he walked home with me, and couldn't come in because as we turned the corner we saw Aunt Naomi walk into the house.
One thing I do remember of our talk on the way home. Tom said suddenly, and with a solemnity of manner that made me grave at once: —
"There is one thing more, Ruth, we must be frank about now or we shall always have it between us. Can you forgive me for being baby's father?"
He had found just the phrase for that dreadful thing which made it most easy for me to answer.
"Tom, dear," I answered, "it isn't for me to forgive or not to forgive. It is in the past, and I want to help you to forget utterly what cannot now be helped."
"But baby," he began, "she" —
"Baby is ours," I interrupted. "All the rest may go."
He promised to come in to-night, and then I had to face Aunt Naomi. She looked me through and through with eyes that seemed determined to have the very deepest secrets of my soul. Whether I concealed anything from her or not I cannot tell; but after all why should I care? The day has been lived through, and it is time for Tom to come.
December 3. If I could write – But I cannot, I cannot! Ever since Rosa rushed in last night, crying out that Tom was drowned, I have seen nothing but the water black with cold, and the flocks of ice cakes grinding – Oh, why should I torment myself with putting it down?
December 5. We buried him to-day. Cousin Mehitable sent a wreath of ivy. Nobody else knows our secret. If he remembers, it is sweet for him to know.
December 13. The stars are so beautiful to-night they make me remember how Tom and I in our childhood used to play at choosing stars we would visit when we could fly. To-night he may be exploring them, but for me they shine and shine, and my tears blur them, and make them dance and double.
December 19. I have been talking with Deacon Richards and Mr. Turner. They both think I can take Tom's place on the reading-room committee without coming forward too much. Nothing need be said about it, only so I can do most of Tom's work. Of course I cannot go to the room evenings as he did; but Mr. Turner will do that. Tom was so interested in this that I feel as if I were continuing his work and carrying out his plans. I remember all he had told me, and it almost seems like doing it with him. Almost!
December 20. Now I know all about Tom's death that anybody knows. I could not talk about it before. Aunt Naomi and dear Miss Charlotte both tried to tell me, but I would not let them. To-night Mr. Turner came to talk about the library, and before he went away we spoke about Tom. He was so homely in his speech, so honest, so kindly, that I kept on, and could listen to him even when he told how Tom died.
That night Tom had been down on the other side of the river, and was coming up – coming to me – past the Flatiron wharf. Mrs. Brownrig was on the wharf, crazy with drink, and threatening to throw herself overboard. Two or three of the people who live near there, men and women, were trying to get her away, and when Tom appeared they asked him to see what he could do. As he came near her the old woman shrieked out that he had killed her daughter and would murder her; and before they realized what she was doing she had jumped into the water. Tom ran to the edge, unfastening his overcoat as he went, and just paused to tear it off before he leaped in after her. The tide was running out, and the water was full of ice. He had a great bruise on his forehead where he had evidently been struck by a block. Mrs. Brownrig pinioned his arms too, so he had no chance anyway. It was a mercy that the bodies were recovered before the tide drifted them out.
"Tom was an awful good fellow," the blacksmith concluded, "an awful good fellow."
I could not answer him.
December 23. Deacon Webbe has been here to-day. He was so bowed and bent and broken I could hardly talk to him without sobbing; and I had to tell him I was to have been his daughter, and that if he would let me, I would be so still. He was greatly touched, and he will keep our secret.
December 24. More than the death of Father, more, even, than that of Mother who had been my care and comfort so long, the death of Tom seems to leave me alone in a wide, empty universe. I cannot conceive of a future without him; I cannot believe the bonds which bound us are broken. I have his child, and I cannot take baby in my arms without feeling I am coming closer to Tom. All my friends have been very dear. I do not think any one of them, except perhaps Miss Charlotte, suspects how much the loss of Tom means to me, but they at least realize that we were life-long comrades, and that I must feel the death of the father of baby very keenly. However much or little they suspect, no one has betrayed any intimation that Tom and I were more than close friends. Even Aunt Naomi has said nothing to make me shrink. People are so kind in this world, no matter what pessimists may say.
December 31. I have been very busy with all the Christmas work for my poor people, the things Tom wanted done for the reading-room, and the numberless trifles which need to be attended to. To-night I think I am writing in my diary for the last time. The year has been full of wonderful things, some of them terrible to bear, and yet, now I look back, I see it has brought me more than it has taken away. Tom is mine always, everywhere, as long as we two have any existence in all the wide spaces between the stars we used to choose to fly to; and his baby is left to comfort me and to hearten me for the work I have all around me to do. I cannot keep the tears back always, and heartache is not to be cured by any sort of reasoning that I know; yet as long as I have his love, the memory of Father and Mother, and dear baby, I have no right to complain. Just to be in one's place and working, to go on growing, – dying when the time comes, – what a priceless, blessed thing life is!