The Story of a Whim (12 page)

"Forgive me!" he pleaded. "It need not hurt you. I knew that love was not really mine. It was given to the girl you thought I was. I knew without ever having seen you that you would sooner have cut out your tongue than write anything like that to a strange man. I ought to have seen at once that I was stealing something that did not belong to me in appropriating that love.
”

"Perhaps I would not have put it from me even if I had seen it. For
that love was very dear to me. Remember I had never been loved in the whole of my life by anyone but a mother who had been gone such years! Remember there was no one else to claim that love from you.”

"And remember I thought that you would never need to know. I never dreamed that you would try to search me out. Your friendship was too dear to me for me to dare to try; and,
too, I knew you would consider me far beneath you. I could never hope to have you for the most distant friend, even if you had known all about me from childhood.”

"My hope for your help and comfort and friendship was in letting you suppose me a lonely old maid. Remember you said it yourself. I simply did not tell you what I was.
”

"But I do not take one bit of blame from myself. I see now that I ought to have been a good enough man to
have told you at once. I should have missed a great deal, perhaps, as human vision sees it, have missed even heaven itself, unless the very giving up of heaven for right had gained heaven for me.”

"I can see it was all wrong. The Father even then had spoken to my heart. He would have found me in some other way, perhaps; and it would have been your doing all the same, and I should have had the joy of thanking you even so for my salvation.
But I did not, and now my punishment is that I have brought this suffering and disappointment and chagrin upon you. And if I could I would now be willing to wipe out of my life all the joy that has come to me through companionship with you by letters, if by so doing I might save you from this annoyance.”

"For I have one more thing to tell you, and I will ask you to remember that I have never but once, in so many words, dared to tell you this in writing, and then only in a hidden way, because I thought if you knew all about me you would wish me not to say it.
But now I must tell it. The punishment to me is very great, not only that you suffer, but that I have merited your scorn—for I love you! I love you with every bit of unused love from all my childhood days, in addition to all the love that a man's heart has to give. I have loved you ever since the night I read from your letter that you loved me—a poor, forlorn, homely girl as you thought—and that you thought I loved you too; and I knew at once that it was so.”

“I
want you to know that since that night I have had it ever before me to be a person worthy of loving you. I never dared put it 'worthy of your love,' because I knew that could never be for me. But I have tried to make myself a man such as you would not be ashamed to have love you, even though you could never think of loving in return. And I have fallen short in your eyes, I know. But in what you did not know of my life I have been true.”

"Can you, knowing all this, forgive me? Then I shall go out and try to live my life as you and God would have me do, and remember the
joy which was not mine. But you gave me one joy that you cannot take away. Jesus Christ is my Friend.”

"Now I have said all there is to say, and I must go away and let you rest. Can you find it in your heart to say you forgive me?"

Christie rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, and dropped his head on his hand, while the firelight flickered and glowed among the waves of ruddy hair again. He had said all there was to say, and he felt he had no hope. Now he must go forth. The strength seemed suddenly to have left him.

It was very still in the room for a moment. They could hear each other breathe. At
last Hazel's little white hand fluttered timidly out toward him, and rested like a rose-leaf among the dark curls.

It was his benediction, he thought, his dream come true. It was her forgiveness. He held his breath, and dared not stir.

And then, more timidly still. Hazel herself slipped softly from her chair to her knees before him. The other hand shyly stole to his shoulder, and she whispered: "Christie, forgive me, I—love—you."

Then Hazel's courage gave way, and she hid her blushing face against his sleeve.

Christie's heart leaped forth in all its manhood. He arose and drew her to her feet tenderly, and, folding his arms about her as one might infold an angel come for shelter, he bent his tall head over till his face touched her lily face, and he felt that all his desolation was healed.

There were steps along the hall that instant, lingering noisily about the door, and a hand rattling the door-knob, while Victoria's voice, unnecessarily loud from Ruth's point of view, called: "Is that you, Ruth? Are the others through dinner yet? Would you mind stepping back to the office and getting the evening paper for me? I want to look at something."

Then the door opened, and Victoria came smiling in. “Time's up," she said playfully. "The invalid must not talk another word tonight."

Indeed, Victoria was most relieved that the time was up, and she looked anxiously from Hazel to Christie to see whether she had done more harm than good; but Hazel leaned back smiling and flushed in her chair, and Christie, standing tall and grave with an uplifted look upon his face, reassured her.

She led him away by another hall than that the family would come up by, and was in so much hurry to get him away without being seen that she scarcely said a word to him. However, he did not know it.

"Well, it
it all right?" she laughed nervously as they reached the side doorway.

"It is all right," he said with a joyous ring in his voice.

Through the hall, out the door, and down the steps went Christie Bailey, his hat in his hand, his face exalted, the moonlight "laying on his head a kingly crown." He felt that he had been crowned that night, crowned with a woman's love.

"He looks as if he had seen a vision," thought Victoria as she sped back to "view the ruins," as she expressed it to herself.

But Christie went on, his hat in his hand, down the long white road, looking up to the stars among the pines, wondering at the greatness of the world and the graciousness of God, on to his little cabin no longer filled with loneliness, and knelt before the pictured Christ and cried, "O my Father, I thank Thee."

Quite early in the morning Hazel requested a private interview with her father.

Now it was a well-acknowledged fact that Judge Winship was completely under his daughter's thumb; and, as the interview was a prolonged one, it was regarded as quite possible by the rest of the family party that there might be almost anything, from the endowment of a college settlement to a trip to Africa, in process of preparation; and all awaited the result with some restlessness.

But
after dinner there were no developments. Hazel seemed bright and ready to sit on the piazza and be read to. Judge Winship took his umbrella and sauntered out for a walk, having declined the company of the various members of his family. Mother Winship calmed her anxieties, and concluded to take a nap.

Christie had gone
about his morning tasks joyously. Now and again his heart questioned what he had to hope for in the future, poor as he was; but he put this resolutely down. He would rejoice in the knowledge of Hazel's forgiveness and her love, even though it never brought him anything else than that joy of knowledge.

In this frame of mind he looked forward exultantly to the Sunday-school hour. The young men when they came in wondered what had come over him, and the scholars greeted their superintendent with furtive nods and smiles.

During the opening of the Sunday school there came in an elderly gentleman of fine presence with iron-gray hair and keen blue eyes that looked piercingly out from under black brows. Christie had been praying when he came in. Christie's prayers were an index to his life. During the singing of the next hymn the superintendent came back to the door to give a book to the stranger, and, pausing in hesitation a moment, asked half shyly, "Will you say a few words to us, or pray?"

"Go on with your regular lesson, young man.
I'm not prepared to speak. I'll pray at the close if you wish me to," said the stranger; and Christie went back to his place, somewhat puzzled and embarrassed by the unexpected guest.

He lingered after all were gone, having asked that he might have a few words with Christie alone. Christie noticed that Mortimer had bowed to him in going out, and that he looked back curiously once or twice.

"My name is Winship," said the Judge brusquely. "I understand, young man, that you have told my daughter that you love her."

The color softly rose in Christie's temples
till it flooded his whole face, but a light of love and of daring came into his eyes as he answered the unexpected challenge gravely, "I do, sir."

"Am I to understand, sir, by
that, that you wish to marry her?"

Christie caught his breath. Hope and pain came quickly to defy one another. He stood still, not knowing what to say. He realized his helplessness, his unfitness for the love of Hazel
Winship.

"Because," went on the relentless Judge, "in my day it was considered a very dishonorable thing to tell a young woman you loved her unless you wished to marry her; and, if you do not, I wish to know at once."

Christie was white now and humiliated.

"Sir," he said st
ernly, "I mean nothing dishonorable. I honor and reverence your daughter, yes, and love her, next to Jesus Christ," and involuntarily his eyes met those of the picture on the wall, "whom she has taught me to love. But, as your daughter has told you of my love, she must have also made you acquainted with the circumstances under which I told it to her. Had I not been trying to clear myself from a charge of deceit in her eyes, I should never have let her know the deep love I have for her; for I have nothing to offer her but my love. Judge Winship, is this the kind of home to offer to your daughter? It is all I have."

There was something pathetic, almost tragic, in the wave of Christie's hand as he looked around the cabin.

"Well, young man, ifs a more comfortable place than my daughter's father was born in. There are worse homes than this. But perhaps you are not aware that my daughter will have enough of her own for two."

Christie threw his head back proudly, his eyes flashing bravely, though his voice was sad: "Sir, I will never be supported by my wife. If she comes to me, she comes to the home I can offer her; and it would have to be here, now, until I can do better."

"As you please, young man," answered the Judge shortly; but there was a grim smile upon his lips, and his eyes twinkled as if he were pleased. "I like your spirit. From all I hear of you you are quite worthy of her. She thinks so, anyway, which is more to the point. Have you enough to keep her from starving if she did come?"

"O, yes," Christie almost laughed in his eagerness. "Do you think—O, it cannot be—that she would come?"

"She will have to settle that question," said her father, rising. "You have my permission to talk with her about it. As far as I can judge, she seems to have a fondness for logs with the bark on them. Good afternoon, Mr. Bailey. I am glad to have met you. You had a good Sunday school, and I respect you."

Christie gripped his hand until the old man almost cried out with the pain; but he bore it, grimly smiling, and went on his way.

And Christie, left alone in his little, glorified room, knelt once more, and called joyously: “My Father! My Father!"

"This is perfectly ridiculous," said Ruth Summers looking dismally out of the fast-flying car-window at the vanishing oaks and pines.
"The wedding guests going off on the bridal tour, and the bride and bridegroom staying behind. I can't think whatever has possessed Hazel. Married in white cashmere under a tree, and not a single thing belonging to a wedding, not even a wedding breakfast—"

"You forget the wedding march," said Victoria, a vision of the organist's fine head coming to her, "and the strawberries for breakfast."

"A wedding march on that old organ," sneered Ruth, "with a row of black children for audience, and white sand for a background. Well, Hazel was original, to say the least. I hope she'll settle down now, and do as other people do."

"She won't," said Victoria positively. "She'll keep on having a perfectly lovely time all her life. Do you remember how she once said she was going to take Christie Bailey to Europe? Well, I reminded her of it this morning, and she laughed, and said she had not forgotten it; it was one thing she married him for, and he looked down at her wonderingly and asked what
was that. How he does worship her!"

"Yes, and she's perfectly infatuated with him.
I'm sure one would have to be, to live in a shanty. I don't believe I could love any man enough for that," she said reflectively, studying the back of Tom Winship's well-trimmed head in the next seat.

"Then you'd better not get married," said Victoria. She looked dreamily out of the window at the hurrying palmettos and
added: "One might—if one loved enough;" and then she was silent, thinking of a promise that had been made her, a promise of better things, signed by a true look from a pair of handsome, courageous eyes.