CHAPTER XIX
"the trivial round"
I think the next month was the hardest that Kitty had to encounter in what she used afterward to call her Woful Waiting. Of course she missed Miss Johanna—I beg her pardon!—Mrs. Peters, wofully. Ever since she came back (after the first few days, that is) she had had this bright, sharp, cheery person to go to, to talk and take counsel with. I always supposed that one reason for Miss Johanna's taking to her bed was her wish to let Kitty live her own life. Indeed, she said as much one day while I was sitting with her.
"Yes!" she said, with her little brisk snap. "I see just as much of Kitty as she likes. I don't poke about in her house; I wouldn't have anybody poking about in mine. When she wants me, I am here, delighted to see her. When she doesn't—well, I am here just the same, and not downstairs under her feet. Blessings of the Bedridden, my dear. Appreciated by few, but tangible none the less."
My visit in beloved Cyrus had ended long before this, but Kitty had dropped a word now and then in her letters; and Nelly Chanter wrote me that they were all worried about her.
"She is as gay and cheery as ever, but she doesn't look right. I am perfectly sure she has lost pounds, though of course nothing would persuade her to be weighed. You see, that cat Cissy Sharpe got hold of a western paper somehow in Tinkham, with the account of the marriage of Thomas Leigh to a rich widow, millions, marble palaces, that kind of thing. She didn't show Kitty the paper, just told her about it in the street, and she said Kitty went white as milk and didn't say a word, just walked away, looking as if she were blind. Then she—Cissy—came to Lina and me, open-mouthed, as you can imagine: I tell you we gave it to her! And Lina, in her quiet way, cross-examined her and got out of her that it was Leigh and not Lee. Did you ever, Mary? Well, the next time I saw Kitty, I managed to lead up to it—talking about Bobby and Lissy (yes, we are all very fond of Lissy, and it is all right, though, of course, it was a blow at first, after all our hopes; but Bobby is so happy, of course we are too!) well, and so I spoke of the report, about Tom and the different spelling, said I didn't believe it was our Tom at all, and so forth and so on. She just listened, that little quiet way she has when she doesn't agree with you,—you know—her head a little on one side, looking down: and said yes, very likely. That was all I could get out of her; but, Mary, I think she has made up her mind that he isn't coming back; and I think her heart is breaking, and all ours are breaking for her."
This was partly true. Kitty did at this time make up her mind that Tom was not likely to come into her life again; she has told me that since, and that she was very unhappy for a while; but as to breaking her heart—Nelly always was sentimental. Kitty is not. She just looked the thing straight in the face—that reminds me of something she said, that puts it all in a nutshell. It was on my first visit after her marriage, and we were talking over our sewing, sitting on the old leather sofa. She spoke of the Woful Waiting.
"It wasn't really so bad!" she said. "It was—do you remember that verse in the 'Ancient Mariner' that always frightened me so?
"'Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head,
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.'
"That used to come to me in the long passages upstairs, and I would run—oh, how I ran! Well, Mary, it was like that. Ever since I came back and found no word from Tom, I had felt this behind me. I had just seen it over my shoulder and I wouldn't turn round and look at it: I was afraid. But when I heard—that, you know; something definite, whether it was true or not—I turned square round and looked at it, and I found it wasn't so frightful after all. I wanted Tom to be happy, didn't I? I didn't want him back if he didn't want to come. I saw all the dear neighbors, so many of them living single—really most of them, Mary! Cyrus is the most unmarried place that ever was, I do believe! and all so good, and so happy and busy—why, I said, 'Goose! do try to have a little sense!' That helped me ever so much, Mary. I don't say I liked it, you know, but—well, it was easier because it was harder, if you see what I mean. And then—I began to do things, and that helped too."