Books: A Modern Cinderella
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Louisa May Alcott >> A Modern Cinderella
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"Ah, I had forgotten that; but you may claim
[text missing in original copy]
do something more to give you pleasure;" and
Debby looked up into the withered face which
had grown familiar to her, with kind eyes, full
of pity and respect.
Her manner touched the old man very much;
he bent his gray head before her, saying,
gratefully,--
"My child, I am not good enough to salute
these blooming checks; but I shall pray the Virgin
to reward you for the compassion you bestow on
the poor exile, and I shall keep your memory very
green through all my life."
He kissed her hand, as if it were a queen's,
and went on his way, thinking of the little daughter
whose death left him childless in a foreign land.
Debby softly began to sing, "Oh, come unto
the yellow sands! " but stopped in the middle of
a line, to say,--
"Shall I tell you why I did what Aunt Pen
would call a very unladylike and improper thing,
Mr. Evans? "
"If you will be so kind;" and her companion
looked delighted at the confidence about to be
reposed in him.
"Somewhere across this great wide sea I hope
I have a brother," Debby said, with softened voice
and a wistful look into the dim horizon." Five
years ago he left us, and we have never heard
from him since, except to know that he landed
safely in Australia. People tell us he is dead; but
I believe he will yet come home; and so I love to
help and pity any man who needs it, rich or poor,
young or old, hoping that as I do by them some
tender-hearted woman far away will do by Brother
Will."
As Debby spoke, across Frank Evan's face
there passed the look that seldom comes but once
to any young man's countenance; for suddenly
the moment dawned when love asserted its supremacy,
and putting pride, doubt, and fear underneath
its feet, ruled the strong heart royally and bent it
to its will. Debby's thoughts had floated across
the sea; but they came swiftly back when her
companion spoke again, steadily and slow, but
with a subtile change in tone and manner which
arrested them at once.
"Miss Dora, if you should meet a man who
had known a laborious youth, a solitary manhood,
who had no sweet domestic ties to make home
beautiful and keep his nature warm, who longed
most ardently to be so blessed, and made it the aim
of his life to grow more worthy the good gift,
should it ever come,--if you should learn that you
possessed the power to make this fellow-creature's
happiness, could you find it in your gentle heart
to take compassion on him for the love of 'Brother
Will'?"
Debby was silent, wondering why heart and
nerves and brain were stirred by such a sudden
thrill, why she dared not look up, and why, when
she desired so much to speak, she could only
answer, in a voice that sounded strange to her own
ears,--
"I cannot tell."
Still, steadily and slow, with strong emotion
deepening and softening his voice, the lover at her
side went on,--
"Will you ask yourself this question in some quiet
hour? For such a man has lived in the sunshine of
your presence for eight happy weeks, and
now, when his holiday is done, he finds that the
old solitude will be more sorrowful than ever,
unless he can discover whether his summer dream
will change into a beautiful reality. Miss Dora,
I have very little to offer you; a faithful heart to
cherish you, a strong arm to work for you, an
honest name to give into your keeping,--these are
all; but if they have any worth in your eyes, they
are most truly yours forever."
Debby was steadying her voice to reply, when
a troop of bathers came shouting down the bank,
and she took flight into her dressing-room, there
to sit staring at the wall, till the advent of Aunt
Pen forced her to resume the business of the hour
by assuming her aquatic attire and stealing shyly
down into the surf.
Frank Evan, still pacing in the footprints they
had lately made, watched the lithe figure tripping
to and fro, and, as he looked, murmured to himself
the last line of a ballad Debby sometimes sang,--
"Dance light! for my heart it lies under your feet, love!"
Presently a great wave swept Debby up, and
stranded her very near him, much to her confusion
and his satisfaction. Shaking the spray out of her
eyes, she was hurrying away, when Frank said,--
"You will trip, Miss Dora; let me tie these
strings for you;" and, suiting the action to the
word, he knelt down and began to fasten the cords
of her bathing shoe.
Debby stood Looking down at the tall head bent
before her, with a curious sense of wonder that a
look from her could make a strong man flush and
pale, as he had done; and she was trying to concoct
some friendly speech, when Frank, still fumbling
at the knots, said, very earnestly and low,--
"Forgive me, if I am selfish in pressing for an
answer; but I must go to-morrow, and a single
word will change my whole future for the better
or the worse. Won't you speak it, Dora?"
If they had been alone, Debby would have put
her arms about his neck, and said it with all her
heart; but she had a presentiment that she should
cry, if her love found vent; and here forty pairs
of eyes were on them, and salt water seemed
superfluous. Besides, Debby had not breathed the air
of coquetry so long without a touch of the infection;
and the love of power, that lies dormant in
the meekest woman's breast, suddenly awoke and
tempted her.
"If you catch me before I reach that rock,
perhaps I will say 'Yes,'" was her unexpected
answer; and before her lover caught her meaning,
she was floating leisurely away.
Frank was not in bathing-costume, and Debby
never dreamed that he would take her at her
word; but she did not know the man she had to
deal with; for, taking no second thought, he flung
hat and coat away, and dashed into the sea. This
gave a serious aspect to Debby's foolish jest. A
feeling of dismay seized her, when she saw a
resolute face dividing the waves behind her, and
thought of the rash challenge she had given; but
she had a spirit of her own, and had profited well
by Mr. Joe's instructions: so she drew a long
breath, and swam as if for life, instead of love.
Evan was incumbered by his clothing, and Debby
had much the start of him; but, like a second
Leander, he hoped to win his Hero, and, lending
every muscle to the work, gained rapidly upon
the little hat which was his beacon through the
foam. Debby heard the deep breathing drawing
nearer and nearer, as her pursuer's strong arms
cleft the water and sent it rippling past her lips,
something like terror took possession of her; for
the strength seemed going out of her limbs, and
the rock appeared to recede before her; but the
unconquerable blood of the Pilgrims was in her
veins, and "Nil desperandum" her motto; so,
setting her teeth, she muttered, defiantly,--
"I'll not be beaten, if I go to the bottom!"
A great splashing arose, and when Evan recovered
the use of his eyes, the pagoda-hat had
taken a sudden turn, and seemed making for the
farthest point of the goal. "I am sure of her
now," thought Frank; and, like a gallant seagod,
he bore down upon his prize, clutching it with a
shout of triumph. But the hat was empty, and like
a mocking echo came Debby's laugh, as she
climbed, exhausted, to a cranny in the rock.
"A very neat thing, by Jove! Deuse take me
if you a'n't 'an honor to your teacher, and a terror
to the foe,' Miss Wilder," cried Mr. Joe, as he
came up from a solitary cruise and dropped anchor
at her side. "Here, bring along the hat, Evan;
I'm going to crown the victor with apropriate
what-d'ye-call-'ems," he continued, pulling a handful
of sea-weed that looked like well-boiled greens.
Frank came up, smiling; but his lips were white,
and in his eye a look Debby could not meet; so,
being full of remorse, she naturally assumed an air
of gayety, and began to sing the merriest air she
knew, merely because she longed to throw herself
upon the stones and cry violently.
"It was 'most as exciting as a regatta, and you
pulled well, Evan; but you had too much ballast
aboard, and Miss Wilder ran up false colors just
in time to save her ship. What was the wager?"
asked the lively Joseph, complacently surveying
his marine millinery, which would have scandalized
a fashionable mermaid.
"Only a trifle," answered Debby, knotting up
her braids with a revengeful jerk.
"It's taken the wind out of your sails, I fancy,
Evan, for you look immensely Byronic with the
starch minus in your collar and your hair in a
poetic toss. Come, I'll try a race with you; and
Miss Wilder will dance all the evening with the
winner. Bless the man, what's he doing down
there? Burying sunfish, hey?"
Frank had been sitting below them on a narrow
strip of sand, absently piling up a little mound
that bore some likeness to a grave. As his
companion spoke, he looked at it, and a sudden flush
of feeling swept across his face, as he replied,--
"No, only a dead hope."
"Deuse take it, yes, a good many of that sort
of craft founder in these waters, as I know to my
sorrow;" and, sighing tragically. Mr. Joe turned
to help Debby from her perch, but she had glided
silently into the sea, and was gone.
For the next four hours the poor girl suffered
the sharpest pain she had ever known; for now
she clearly saw the strait her folly had betrayed
her into. Frank Evan was a proud man, and
would not ask her love again, believing she had
tacitly refused it; and how could she tell him that
she had trifled with the heart she wholly loved and
longed to make her own? She could not confide
in Aunt Pen, for that worldly lady would have
no sympathy to bestow. She longed for her
mother; but there was no time to write, for Frank
was going on the morrow, --might even then be
gone; and as this fear came over her, she covered
up her face and wished that she were dead. Poor
Debby! her last mistake was sadder than her first,
and she was reaping a bitter harvest from her summer's
sowing. She sat and thought till her cheeks
burned and her temples throbbed; but she dared
not ease her pain with tears. The gong sounded
like a Judgment-Day trump of doom, and she
trembled at the idea of confronting many eyes with
such a telltale face; but she could not stay behind,
for Aunt Pen must know the cause. She tried to
play her hard part well; but wherever she looked,
some fresh anxiety appeared, as if every fault and
folly of those months had blossomed suddenly
within the hour. She saw Frank Evan more
sombre and more solitary than when she met him
first, and cried regretfully within herself, "How
could I so forget the truth I owed him? -- She
saw Clara West watching with eager eyes for the
coming of young Leavenworth, and sighed, -- "This
is the fruit of my wicked vanity!" She saw Aunt
Pen regarded her with an anxious face, and longed
to say, "Forgive me, for I have not been sincere!"
At last, as her trouble grew, she resolved to go
away and have a quiet "think,"--a remedy which
had served her in many a lesser perplexity; so,
stealing out, she went to a grove of cedars usually
deserted at that hour. But in ten minutes Joe
Leavenworth appeared at the door of the summer
house, and, looking in, said, with a well-acted
start of pleasure and surprise,--
"Beg pardon, I thought there was no one here,
My dear Miss Wilder, you look contemplative;
but I fancy it wouldn't do to ask the subject of
your meditations, would it?"
He paused with such an evident intention of
remaining that Debby resolved to make use of the
moment, and ease her conscience of one care that
burdened it; therefore she answered his question
with her usual directness,--
"My meditations were partly about you."
Mr. Joe was guilty of the weakness of blushing
violently and looking immensely gratified; but
his rapture was of short duration, for Debby went
on very earnestly,--
"I believe I am going to do what you may
consider a very impertinent thing; but I would
rather be unmannerly than unjust to others or
untrue to my own sense of right. Mr. Leavenworth,
if you were an older man, I should not dare to say
this to you; but I have brothers of my own, and,
remembering how many unkind things they do for
want of thought, I venture to remind you that a
woman's heart is a perilous plaything, and too tender
to be used for a selfish purpose or an hour's
pleasure. I know this kind of amusement is not
considered wrong; but it is wrong, and I cannot
shut my eyes to the fact, or sit silent while another
woman is allowed to deceive herself and wound
the heart that trusts her. Oh, if you love your
own sisters, be generous, be just, and do not
destroy that poor girl's happiness, but go away
before your sport becomes a bitter pain to her!"
Joe Leavenworth had stood staring at Debby
with a troubled countenance, feeling as if all the
misdemeanors of his life were about to be paraded
before him; but, as he listened to her plea, the
womanly spirit that prompted it appealed more
loudly than her words, and in his really generous
heart he felt regret for what had never seemed
a fault before. Shallow as he was, nature was
stronger than education, and he admired and
accepted what many a wiser, worldlier man would
have resented with anger or contempt. He loved
Debby with all his little might; he meant to tell
her so, and graciously present his fortune and
himself for her acceptance; but now, when the
moment came, the well-turned speech he had prepared
vanished from his memory, and with the
better eloquence of feeling he blundered out his
passion like a very boy.
"Miss Dora, I never meant to make trouble between
Clara and her lover; upon my soul, I didn't,
and wish Seguin had not put the notion into my
head, since it has given you pain. I only tried to
pique you into showing some regret, when I
neglected you; but you didn't, and then I got
desperate and didn't care what became of any one.
Oh, Dora, if you knew how much I loved you, I
am sure you'd forgive it, and let me prove my
repentance by giving up everything that you dislike.
I mean what I say; upon my life I do; and I'll
keep my word, if you will only let me hope."
If Debby had wanted a proof of her love for
Frank Evan, she might have found it in the fact
that she had words enough at her command now,
and no difficulty in being sisterly pitiful toward
her second suitor.
"Please get up," she said; for Mr. Joe, feeling
very humble and very earnest, had gone down
upon his knees, and sat there entirely regardless
of his personal apearance.
He obeyed; and Debby stood looking up at
him with her kindest aspect, as she said, more
tenderly than she had ever spoken to him before,--
"Thank you for the affection you offer me, but
I cannot accept it, for I have nothing to give you
in return but the friendliest regard, the most sincere
good-will. I know you will forgive me, and do
for your own sake the good things you would have
done for mine, that I may add to my esteem a real
respect for one who has been very kind to me."
"I'll try,--indeed, I will, Miss Dora, though
it will be powerful hard without yourself for a
help and a reward."
Poor Joe choked a little, but called up an
unexpected manliness, and added, stoutly,--
"Don't think I shall be offended at your speaking
so or saying 'No' to me,--not a bit; it's all
right, and I'm much obliged to you. I might have
known you couldn't care for such a fellow as I am,
and don't blame you, for nobody in the world
is good enough for you. I'll go away at once,
I'll try to keep my promise, and I hope you'll be
very happy all your life."
He shook Debby's bands heartily, and hurried
down the steps, but at the bottom paused and
looked back. Debby stood upon the threshold
with sunshine dancing on her winsome face, and
kind words trembling on her lips; for the moment
it seemed impossible to part, and, with an
impetuous gesture, he cried to her,--
"Oh, Dora, let me stay and try to win you!
for everything is possible to love, and I never
knew how dear you were to me till now!"
There were sudden tears in the young man's
eyes, the flush of a genuine emotion on his cheek,
the tremor of an ardent longing in his voice, and,
for the first time, a very true affection strengthened
his whole countenance. Debby's heart was full of
penitence; she had given so much pain to more than
one that she longed to atone for it--longed to do
some very friendly thing, and soothe some trouble
such as she herself had known. She looked into
the eager face uplifted to her own and thought
of Will, then stooped and touched her lover's
forehead with the lips that softly whispered, "No."
If she had cared for him, she never would
have done it; poor Joe knew that, and murmuring
an incoherent "Thank you!" he rushed away,
feeling very much as he remembered to have felt
when his baby sister died and he wept his grief
away upon his mother's neck. He began his
preparations for departure at once, in a burst of
virtuous energy quite refreshing to behold, thinking
within himself, as he flung his cigar-case into the
grate, kicked a billiard-ball into a corner, and
suppressed his favorite allusion to the Devil,--
"This is a new sort of thing to me, but I can
bear it, and upon my life I think I feel the better
for it already."
And so he did; for though he was no Augustine
to turn in an hour from worldly hopes and climb
to sainthood through long years of inward strife,
yet in aftertimes no one knew how many false
steps had been saved, how many small sins repented
of, through the power of the memory that
far away a generous woman waited to respect him,
and in his secret soul he owned that one of the best
moments of his life was that in which little Debby
Wilder whispered "No," and kissed him.
As he passed from sight, the girl leaned her
head upon her hand, thinking sorrowfully to herself,--
"What right had I to censure him, when my
own actions are so far from true? I have done a
wicked thing, and as an honest girl I should undo
it, if I can. I have broken through the rules of a
false propriety for Clara's sake; can I not do as
much for Frank's? I will. I'll find him, if I
search the house,--and tell him all, though I never
dare to look him in the face again, and Aunt Pen
sends me home to-morrow."
Full of zeal and courage, Debby caught up her
hat and ran down the steps, but, as she saw Frank
Evan coming up the path, a sudden panic fell
upon her, and she could only stand mutely waiting
his approach.
It is asserted that Love is blind; and on the
strength of that popular delusion novel heroes and
heroines go blundering through three volumes of
despair with the plain truth directly under their
absurd noses: but in real life this theory is not
supported; for to a living man the countenance of a
loving woman is more eloquent than any language,
more trustworthy than a world of proverbs, more
beautiful than the sweetest love-lay ever sung.
Frank looked at Debby, and "all her heart
stood up in her eyes," as she stretched her hands
to him, though her lips only whispered very
low,--
"Forgive me, and let me say the 'Yes' I
should have said so long ago."
Had she required any assurance of her lover's
truth, or any reward for her own, she would have
found it in the change that dawned so swiftly in
his face, smoothing the lines upon his forehead,
lighting the gloom of his eye, stirring his firm lips
with a sudden tremor, and making his touch as soft
as it was strong. For a moment both stood very
still, while Debby's tears streamed down like
summer rain; then Frank drew her into the green
shadow of the grove, and its peace soothed her
like a mother's voice, till she looked up smiling
with a shy delight her glance had never known
before. The slant sunbeams dropped a benediction
on their heads, the robins peeped, and the
cedars whispered, but no rumor of what further
passed ever went beyond the precincts of the
wood; for such hours are sacred, and Nature
guards the first blossoms of a human love as
tenderly as she nurses May-flowers underneath
the leaves.
Mrs. Carroll had retired to her bed with a
nervous headache, leaving Debby to the watch
and ward of friendly Mrs. Earle, who performed
her office finely by letting her charge entirely alone.
In her dreams Aunt Pen was just imbibing a copious
draught of champagne at the wedding-breakfast of
her niece, "Mrs. Joseph Leavenworth,"
when she was roused by the bride elect, who
passed through the room with a lamp and a shawl
in her hand.
"What time is it, and where are you going,
dear?" she asked, dozily wondering if the carriage
for the wedding-tour was at the door so soon.
"It's only nine, and I am going for a sail, Aunt
Pen."
As Debby spoke, the light flashed full into her
face, and a sudden thought into Mrs. Carroll's
mind. She rose up from her pillow, looking as
stately in her night-cap as Maria Theresa is said
to have done in like unassuming head-gear.
"Something has happened, Dora! What have
you done? What have you said? I insist upon
knowing immediately," she demanded, with somewhat
startling brevity.
"I have said 'No' to Mr. Leavenworth and 'Yes' to
Mr. Evan; and I should like to go home to-morrow,
if you please," was the equally concise reply.
Mrs. Carroll fell flat in her bed, and lay
there stiff and rigid as Morlena Kenwigs. Debby
gently drew the curtains, and stole away leaving
Aunt Pen's wrath to effervesce before morning.
The moon was hanging luminous and large on
the horizon's edge, sending shafts of light before
her till the melancholy ocean seemed to smile, and
along that shining pathway happy Debby and her
lover floated into that new world where all things
seem divine.
THE BROTHERS.
Doctor Franck came in as I sat sewing up the
rents in an old shirt, that Tom might go tidily to his
grave. New shirts were needed for the living, and
there was no wife or mother to "dress him handsome
when he went to meet the Lord," as one
woman said, describing the fine funeral she had
pinched herself to give her son.
"Miss Dane, I'm in a quandary," began the
Doctor, with that expression of countenance which
says as plainly as words, "I want to ask a favor,
but I wish you'd save me the trouble."
"Can I help you out of it?
"Faith! I don't like to propose it. but you
certainly can, if you please."
"Then give it a name, I beg."
"You see a Reb has just been brought in crazy
with typhoid; a bad case every way; a drunken,
rascally little captain somebody took the trouble
to capture, but whom nobody wants to take the
trouble to cure. The wards are full, the ladies
worked to death, and willing to be for our own
boys, but rather slow to risk their lives for a Reb.
Now you've had the fever, you like queer patients,
your mate will see to your ward for a while, and I
will find you a good attendant. The fellow won't
last long, I fancy; but he can't die without some
sort of care, you know. I've put him in the fourth
story of the west wing, away from the rest. It is
airy, quiet, and comfortable there. I'm on that
ward, and will do my best for you in every way.
Now, then, will you go?"
"Of course I will, out of perversity, if not common
charity; for some of these people think that
because I'm an abolitionist I am also a heathen,
and I should rather like to show them, that, though
I cannot quite love my enemies, I am willing to
take care of them."
"Very good; I thought you'd go; and speaking
of abolition reminds me that you can have a contraband
for servant, if you like. It is that fine
mulatto fellow who was found burying his Rebel
master after the fight, and, being badly cut over
the head, our boys brought him along. Will you
have him?"
"By all means,--for I'll stand to my guns on
that point, as on the other; these black boys are
far more faithful and handy than some of the white
scamps given me to serve, instead of being served
by. But is this man well enough?"
"Yes, for that sort of work, and I think you'll
like him. He must have been a handsome fellow
before he got his face slashed; not much darker
than myself; his master's son, I dare say, and the
white blood makes him rather high and haughty
about some things. He was in a bad way when
he came in, but vowed he'd die in the street rather
than turn in with the black fellows below; so I
put him up in the west wing, to be out of the way,
and he's seen to the captain all the morning.
When can you go up?"
"As soon as Tom is laid out, Skinner moved,
Haywood washed, Marble dressed, Charley
rubbed, Downs taken up, Upham laid down, and
the whole forty fed."
We both laughed, though the Doctor was on
his way to the dead-house and I held a shroud on
my lap. But in a hospital one learns that cheerfulness
is one's salvation; for, in an atmosphere of
suffering and death, heaviness of heart would soon
paralyze usefulness of hand, if the blessed gift of
smiles had been denied us.
In an hour I took possession of my new charge,
finding a dissipated-looking boy of nineteen or
twenty raving in the solitary little room, with no
one near him but the contraband in the room adjoining.
Feeling decidedly more interest in the
black man than in the white, yet remembering the
Doctor's hint of his being "high and haughty," I
glanced furtively at him as I scattered chloride of
lime about the room to purify the air, and settled
matters to suit myself. I had seen many contrabands,
but never one so attractive as this. All
colored men are called "boys," even if their heads
are white; this boy was five-and-twenty at least,
strong-limbed and manly, and had the look of one
who never had been cowed by abuse or worn with
oppressive labor. He sat on his bed doing nothing;
no book, no pipe, no pen or paper anywhere
appeared, yet anything less indolent or listless than
his attitude and expression I never saw. Erect he
sat with a hand on either knee, and eyes fixed on
the bare wall opposite, so rapt in some absorbing
thought as to be unconscious of my presence,
though the door stood wide open and my movements
were by no means noiseless. His face was
half averted, but I instantly approved the Doctor's
taste, for the profile which I saw possessed all the
attributes of comeliness belonging to his mixed race.
He was more quadroon than mulatto, with Saxon
features, Spanish complexion darkened by exposure,
color in lips and cheek, waving hair, and
an eye full of the passionate melancholy which in
such men always seems to utter a mute protest
against the broken law that doomed them at their
birth. What could he be thinking of? The sick
boy cursed and raved, I rustled to and fro, steps
passed the door, bells rang, and the steady rumble
of army-wagons came up from the street, still he
never stirred. I had seen colored people in what
they call "the black sulks," when, for days, they
neither smiled nor spoke, and scarcely ate. But
this was something more than that; for the man
was not dully brooding over some small grievance,--
he seemed to see an all-absorbing fact or fancy
recorded on the wall, which was a blank to me.
I wondered if it were some deep wrong or sorrow,
kept alive by memory and impotent regret; if he
mourned for the dead master to whom he had been
faithful to the end; or if the liberty now his were
robbed of half its sweetness by the knowledge that
some one near and dear to him still languished in
the hell from which he had escaped. My heart
quite warmed to him at that idea; I wanted to
know and comfort him; and, following the impulse
of the moment, I went in and touched him on the
shoulder.
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