The Diary of a Saint. Bates Arlo
relief that the heavy duty was done with for another twelvemonth. She assured me she should still pray for me, and if I do not suppose that there is any great efficacy in her petition, I am at least glad that she should feel like doing her best in my behalf. Mother declares that she is always offended when a person offers to pray for her. She looks at it as dreadfully condescending and patronizing, as if the petitioner had an intimate personal hold upon the Almighty, and was willing to exert his influence in your behalf. But I hardly think she means it. She never fails to see when a thing is kindly meant, even if she has a keen sense of the ludicrous. At any rate, it does us no harm that kindly petitions are offered for us, even if they may go out into an unregarding void; and I am not sure that they do.
January 2. Kathie is delighted with the skates, and she does not think that her father will object to her having them; so there is at least one point gained.
We have had such a lovely sunset! I do not see how there can be a doubter in a world where there are so many beautiful things. The whole west, through the leafless branches of the elms on the south lawn, was one gorgeous mass of splendid color. I hope George saw it. It is almost time for him to be here, and I have caught myself humming over and over his favorite tunes as I waited. Mother has had a day of uneasiness, so that I could not leave her much, but rubbing her side for an hour or two relieved her. It has cramped my fingers a little, so that I write a funny, stiff hand. Poor Mother! It made me ashamed to be so glad in my heart as I saw how brave and quiet she was, with the lines of pain round her dear mouth.
Later. "How long is it that we have been engaged?"
That is what George asked me, and out of all the long talk we had this evening this is the one thing which I keep hearing over and over. Why should it tease me so? It is certainly a simple question, and when two persons have been engaged six years there need no longer be any false sensitiveness about things of this sort. About what sort? Do I mean that the time has come when George would not mind hurting my feelings? It may as well come out. As Father used to say: "You cannot balance the books until the account is set down in full." Well, then, I mean that there is a frankness about a long engagement which may not be in a short one, so that when George and I meet after a separation it is natural that almost the first question should be, —
"How long is it that we have been engaged?"
The question is certainly an innocent one, – although one would think George might have answered it himself. How much did the fact that he talked afterward so eagerly about the Miss West he met while at his aunt's, and of how pretty she is, have to do with the pain which the question gave me? At my age one might think that I was beyond the jealousies of a school-girl.
We have been engaged six years and four months and five days. It is not half the time that Jacob served for Rachel, although it is almost the time he bowed his neck to the yoke for Leah, and I am afraid lest I am nearer to being like the latter than the former. I always pitied Leah, for she must have understood she had not her husband's love; any woman would perceive that. Six years – and life is so short! Poor George, it has not been easy for him! He has not even been able to wish that the obstacle between us was removed, since that obstacle is Mother. Surely she is my first duty; and since she needs me day and night, I cannot divide my life; but I do pity George. He is wearing out his youth with that old frump of a housekeeper, who makes him uncomfortable with an ingenuity that seems to show intellectual force not to be suspected from anything else. But she is a faithful old soul, and it is not kind to abuse her.
"How long is it that we have been engaged?"
I have a tendency to keep on writing that over and over all down the page as if this were the copy-book of a child at school. How Tom used to admire my writing-books in our school-days! His were always smudged and blotted. He is too big-souled and manly to niggle over little things; and he laughed at the pains I took, turning every corner with absurd care. He was so strong and splendid on the ice when we went skating over on Getchell's Pond; and how often and often he has drawn me all the way home on my sled!
But all that was ages and ages ago, and long before I even knew George. It never occurred to me until to-night, but I am really growing old. The birthdays that Tom remembered, and on which he sent me little bunches of Mayflowers, have not in the least troubled me or seemed too many. I have not thought much of birthdays of late years, but to-night I realize that I am twenty-nine, and that George has asked me, —
"How long is it that we have been engaged?"
January 7. Sackcloth and ashes have been my portion for days, and if I could by tearing from my diary the last leaves blot out of remembrance the foolish things I have written, it would be quickly done. My New Year's resolutions were even less lasting than are those in the jokes of the comic papers; and I am ashamed all through and through. I have tried to reason myself into something resembling common sense, but I am much afraid I have not yet entirely accomplished it. I have said to myself over and over that it would be the best thing for George if he did fall in love with that girl he saw at Franklin, and go his way without wasting more time waiting for me. He has wasted years enough, and it is time for him to be happy. But then – has he not been happy? Or is it that I have been so happy myself I have not realized how the long engagement was wearying him? He must have wearied, or he could never have asked me —
No, I will not write it!
January 8. George came over last night, and was so loving and tender that I was thoroughly ashamed of all the wicked suspicions I have had. After all, what was there to suspect? I almost confessed to him what a miserable little doubter I had been; but I knew that confession would only be relieving my soul at the expense of making him uncomfortable. I hated to have him think me better than I am; but this, I suppose, is part of the penalty I ought to pay for having been so weak.
Besides, – probably it was only my weakness in another form, the petty jealousy of a small soul and a morbid fancy, – he seemed somehow more remote than I have ever known him, and I could not have told him if I would. We did not seem to be entirely frank with each other, but as if each were trying to make the other feel at ease when it was not really possible. Of course I was only attributing my own feelings to him, for he was dearly good.
He told me more about his visit to Franklin, and he seems to have seen Miss West a good deal. She is a sort of cousin of the Watsons, he says, and so they had a common ground. When she found that he lived so near to the Watsons she asked him all kinds of questions. She has never seen them, having lived in the West most of her life, and was naturally much interested in hearing about her relatives. I found myself leading him on to talk of her. I cannot see why I should care about this stranger. Generally I deal very little in gossip. Father trained me to be interested in real things, and meaningless details about people never attracted me. Yet this girl sticks in my mind, and I am tormented to know all about her. It cannot be anything he said; though he did say that she is very pretty. Perhaps it was the way in which he said it. He seemed to my sick fancy to like to talk of her. She must be a charming creature.
January 9. Why should he not like to talk of a pretty girl? I hope I am not of the women who cannot bear to have a man use his eyes except to see their graces. It is pitiful to be so small and mean. I certainly want George to admire goodness and beauty, and to be by his very affection for me the more sensitive to whatever is admirable in others. If I am to be worthy of being his wife, I must be noble enough to be glad at whatever there is for him to rejoice in because of its loveliness: and yet as I write down all these fine sentiments I feel my heart like lead! Oh, I am so ashamed of myself!
January 10. Miss Charlotte came in this afternoon, looking so thin, and cold, and tall, that I have been rather sober ever since.
"I wish I had on shoes with higher heels," I said to her as we shook hands; "then perhaps I shouldn't feel so insignificant down here."
She looked down at me, laughing that rich, throaty laugh of hers.
"Mother always used to say she knew the Kendalls couldn't have been drowned in the Flood," she answered, "for they must all have been tall enough to wade to Mt. Ararat."
"You know the genealogy so far back that you must be able to tell whether she was right."
"I don't go quite so far as that," she said, sitting down by the fire, "but I know that my great-great-grandfather married