He quivered with despair. Twice he went himself to Mr. Ferguson's house. The first time Miss White welcomed him warmly, and scuttled up-stairs saying she would "tell Elizabeth." She came down again, very soberly. "Elizabeth is busy, Blair, and she says she can't see you." The next time he called he was told at the door that "Miss Elizabeth asks to be excused." Then he wrote to her: "All I ask is that you shall see me, so that I can implore you to pardon me."
Elizabeth tore the letter up and threw it into the fire. But she softened a little. "Poor Blair," she said to herself, "but of course I shall never forgive him."
She had not told David what Blair had done. "He would be furious," she thought. "I'll tell him later—when we are married"; at the word, the warm, beautiful wave of young love rose in her heart; "later, when I belong to him, I will tell him everything!" She would tell him everything just as she would give him everything; not that she had much to give him—only herself and her little money. That blessed money, on which he and she could live for two years,—she was going to give him that! For she and Nannie and Cherry-pie had decided that if the money were his, by a gift, then David, who was perfectly crazy and noble about independence, would feel that he and Elizabeth were living on his money, not hers. It was an artless and very feminine distinction, but serious enough to the three women who were all so young—Elizabeth, in fact, being the oldest, and Cherry-pie, at sixty-three, the youngest. And not only had they discovered this way of overcoming David's scruples about a shorter engagement, but Elizabeth had had another inspiration: why not be married on the very day that the money came into her possession? "Oh, splendid!" said Nannie; but she spoke with an effort, remembering Blair. A little timidly, Elizabeth had told her uncle of this wonderful plan about the money. He snorted with amusement at her way of whipping the devil round the stump by a "gift" to David; but after a rather startled moment, although he would not commit himself to a date, he was inclined to think an earlier marriage practicable. We are selfish creatures at best, all of us: Elizabeth's way of being happy herself opened a possibility of happiness for her uncle. "Mrs. Richie can't make David an excuse for saying 'no,' if the boy gets a home of his own," he thought; and added to himself, "of course, when the child's money is used up, I'll help them out." But to his niece he only barked warningly: "Well, let's hear what David has to say; he has some sense."
"Do you think there's much doubt as to what he'll say?" Elizabeth said; and the dimple deepened so entrancingly that Robert Ferguson gave her a meager kiss. After securing this somewhat tentative consent, Elizabeth and Cherry-pie decided that the next thing to do was to "make David write to uncle, and simply insist that the wedding shall be next month!" Her plan was very simple: when David came to Mercer to spend her birthday, he should receive, at the same moment, her money and herself.
That future time of sacramental giving and of complete taking was in her thoughts with tenderness and shame and glory, as it is in the thought of every woman who loves and forgets herself. Yes, he could have her now; but he must take her money! That was the price he had to pay—the taking of her money. That it would be a high price to a man with his peculiarly intense feeling about independence, Elizabeth knew; but he would be willing to pay it! Elizabeth could not doubt that. No price could be too high, he loved her so! She shivered with happiness at the thought of how he loved her; some soft impulse of passion made her lift her round wrist,—that bitten wrist! to her mouth, and kiss it, hard. David had kissed it, many times! Yes; she was his if he would pay the price! She was going to tell him so, and then wait, glowing, and shrinking, and eager, for him to come and "take her."
It was so true, so limpid, this noble flame that burned in her, that she almost forgot Blair's behavior; the only thing she thought of was her plan, and the difficulty of putting it into the cold limits of pen and ink! But with much joyous underlining of important words she did succeed in stating it to him. She told him, not only the practical details, but with a lovely, untrammelled outpouring of her soul which was sacrificial, she told him that she wanted to be his wife. She had no reserves; it was an elemental moment, and the matter of what is called modesty had no place in her ardent purity. It rarely has a place in organic impulses. In connection with death, or birth, or love, modesty is only a rather puerile self-consciousness. So Elizabeth, who had never been self-conscious in her life, told David, with perfect simplicity, that she "wanted to be married." She said she had "worked the money part of it out," and according to her latest estimate of how much, or rather how little, they could live on, it was possible. "You will say, we haven't even as much as this," she wrote, after she had stated what seemed to be the minimum income; then, triumphantly: "we have! the money Uncle is going to give me on my birthday! If we live on it, instead of hoarding it up, it will last at least two years! I've talked to Uncle about it, and I'm pretty sure he will consent; but you'd better write and urge him,—just insist!" Then she approached the really difficult matter of making David agree to live on money that was not his. She admitted that she knew how he felt on such matters. "And you are all wrong," she declared candidly, "wrong, and a goose. But, so long as you do feel so, why, you needn't any longer. For I am going to give the money to you. It is to be yours, not mine. You can't refuse to use the money that is yours, that comes to you as a 'gift'? It will be as much yours as if somebody left it to you in their will, and you can burn it up, if you want to!" And when "business" had been written out, her heart spoke:
"Dear" (she stopped to kiss the paper), "dear, I hope you won't burn it up, because I am tired of waiting, and I hope you are too;"—when she wrote those last words, she was suddenly shy; "Uncle is to give me the money on my birthday—let us be married that day. I want to be married. I am all yours, David, all my soul, and all my mind, and all my body. I have nothing that is not yours to take; so the money is yours. No, I will not even give it to you! it belongs to you already—as I do. Dear, come and take it—and me. I love you—love you—love you. I want you to take me. I want to be your wife. Do you understand? I want to belong to you. I am yours."
So she tried, this untutored creature, to put her soul and body into words, to write the thing that cannot even be spoken, whose utterance is silence. The mailing of the letter was a rite in itself; in the dusk, as she held the green lip of the post-box open, she kissed the envelope, as she had kissed the glowing sheet an hour before. She said to herself that she was "too happy to live!" As she said it, a wave of pity blotted out her usual shamed resentment at that poor mother of hers who had not been happy;—and whose lack of self-control was, Elizabeth believed, her legacy to her child. But her gravity was only for a moment; forgetting Blair, and the possible chance of meeting him, she flew down to Nannie's to tell her that the die had been cast—the letter had been written! Nannie, sitting by herself in the parlor, brooding over her brother's troubles, was trying to draw; but Elizabeth brushed aside pencils and crusts of bread and india-rubbers, and flung her arms about her, pressing her face against hers and pouring the happy secret into her ear:
"Oh, Nannie—I've told him! We'll be married on my birthday. Go ahead and get your dress!" she said, breathlessly, and Nannie tried her best to be happy, too.
For the next three days Elizabeth moved about in a half-dream, sometimes reddening suddenly; sometimes breathing a little quickly, with a faint fright in her eyes,—had she said too much? would he understand? Then a gush of confident love filled her like music. "I couldn't say too much! I want him to know that I feel—that way."