Erda Shepherd stood in her bedroom, under the wood-shingled house at Herrnhut, looking at a heap of white muslin and delicate embroideries which lay upon her bed.
It was the wedding dress. She had just unpacked it; partly because she felt décœuvré, partly in the hope that the sight of it, ready to be worn so soon, would still the vague disquiet of which she was conscious. Yet if anyone had ventured to suggest, when she had said good-by to Lance Carlyon the evening before,--said good-by almost carelessly, by reason of the fervid enthusiasm which absorbed her,--that within twenty-four hours the wisdom of the farewell should seem logically doubtful, she would have been desperately angry.
But she was too honest to deny that the doubt had come. Come in a moment, wildly, passionately, when they had thwarted her desire of joining in the crusade over the other side of the river along the pilgrims' road. She had meant to go with David, who was to take up his position at a camping-ground some six miles off, and she had fought hard for the privilege. But they had quoted Scripture at her to prove that a wife, or a wife to be, must needs hamper a man more than any other woman, even his sister. David had been kind about it, almost too kind. She flushed a little at the recollection of his words, his look; for that sort of thing had scarcely come into her calculations. But Dr. Campbell had pompously reminded her that her future profession would be wife, caretaker, sympathizer, and general bolsterer--up to a worker. Nor need she think the task small; it was the noblest one a woman could have. He had gone on to comfort her with instances of such general support from his own life and those of his friends, until, with a flash, that unexpected questioning had come to the girl's mind. She had asked herself what difference there was in the nobility of being one man's wife or another's--provided the man was worthy and his work in the world good?
Father Ninian's words, "I can wish no better wish for you and for the world," had come back to her then, as if in answer to her questioning.
And, even now, they echoed in her heart. The house was very quiet, very shadowy, for the sun left the little oasis of valley set in its circling wilderness of hill, long before a fraction of light faded from the sky above it. She could hear Mrs. Campbell's voice down the little ladder-like stairs, conferring with the cook over the wedding cake, and, in a side-issue, exhorting him to be sure and have the soup hot in case the workers might return exhausted, and require something to eat the moment they arrived.
Erda sat down on the bed beside the white muslin, and fingered the quaint little cap idly, as she told herself that such things would be a part of her duties in the future.
But only a part. Life was no unknown country to this girl, who had spent years in a medical mission. She was no ignorant baby, standing, in a fashion happily past, on the verge of she knew not what. She looked ahead calmly, taking the world as the Creator made it. She thought, without a flush, as good women do, of the children she hoped might come; and as she thought, she frowned, not from any revolt of her spiritual or physical nature, but because, once more, the question arose: "Was not Lance right? Was not this the essence? Was it not everything to be sure of the inheritance?"
She started up at the sound of her aunt calling her, glad of the interruption.
Had she not better, the good lady suggested, try on the dress, now she was about it, since if there was anything amiss, the sooner the tailor set to work to rectify it the better.
Undoubtedly. Besides, she told herself, the mere putting on of this, the sign of her new profession, would be healthful. It would give her the feeling of being set apart for the life which she had chosen deliberately, chosen with her eyes open, though, maybe, focussed too much on that mental companionship. Too much? Impossible! Lance was wrong. That was the crowning glory of marriage; and even if it seemed hard to have to stand aside from actually fighting the good fight, the victory would be hers--hers almost more than her husband's, since the effort would be greater, the work more against the grain.