“I can do it all, but I must write while I am fresh.”
The first hour she wrote wearily; then she lost the small struggles in her own life and became comforted through the comfort wherewith she comforted others. Not one thing was forgotten, not one household duty shirked, the jelly was made to perfection, the button-holes worked while her mother was taking her afternoon nap, the calls were pushed through, and then Mrs. Wadsworth proposed a call upon Mrs. Towne.
“I promised your Aunt Dinah that I would call.”
Tessa demurred although she remembered her promise; she much preferred calling some time when Aunt Dinah should be with her; Mrs. Wadsworth insisted and Tessa yielded more graciously in manner than in mind.
Mrs. Towne received them most cordially and gracefully; an expression flitted over her eyes as Tessa looked up into them that she never forgot; it touched her as Dr. Lake’s eyes did, sometimes; what could this beautiful old mother need in her? Whatever it might be, she felt fully prepared to give it.
Mrs. Wadsworth was as effusively talkative as usual; Tessa replied when spoken to; lively, fussy, pretty little Mrs. Wadsworth did not compare to her own advantage with her womanly daughter. Mrs. Towne looked at Tessa and thought of the picture that she had seen; it was certainly excellent only that the picture was rather too intellectual; in the picture she might have written “Mechanism of the Heavens” but sitting there in the crimson velvet chair with a pale blue bow among her braids and her soft gray veil shading her cheek she was more like the daughter that she had ever dreamed of—simple, sweet, and thoroughly lovable Mrs. Towne was a trifle afraid of a woman who looked too intellectual. Would she forgive Ralph and trust him again? She was sure that she would until Tessa unbuttoned her glove and drew it off; the slight, strong hand was a revelation; the girl had a will of her own. But might not her will be towards him? “I wish that I knew nothing,” thought the mother, “the suspense will weary me, the disappointment will be nearly as much for me as for the boy.”
Meanwhile, unconscious Tessa, with the glove in her fingers, was far away in the Milan cathedral on the wall opposite her, looking into the arches of the choir, feeling the sunlight through the glimmering painted windows, thinking about the procession of the scarlet-robed priests, and wondering about the hidden chancel; if the picture were upon her wall how it would glow and become alive in the western light, the drooping banners would stir with the breath of the evening, the censers would swing and the notes of the organ would bear her up and away. Away! Where? Was not all her world in this little Dunellen?
“My son is always busy; he rushes into every thing that he undertakes.”
The mother had a voice like the son’s; the soul of sincerity was in it; the sincere, sympathetic voice, the rush of feeling, love, regret, and sense of loss that it brought filled her eyes too full to be raised. At that instant Mrs. Towne was observing her; her heart grew lighter, hoping for the thing that might be.
Mrs. Towne held Tessa’s hand at parting. “I am an old woman, so I may ask a favor of a young one, will you come soon again?”