"You may be sure I shall never intrude myself on Mr. Hammond's wife or sister, nor upon him, unless he desires it, except, indeed, to wish him happiness."
My unexpected calmness roused her worst feelings, her pride, her jealousy, and, with a woman's keen aim, she sent the next dart home. So calmly she spoke, too, with such command of herself,—with a lady-like self-control that I, alas! knew not how to reach.
"I am happy to hear you say so, for there have been times when your singular manner has made me fear that you nourished some very false and idle dreams,—follies that I have sometimes thought it my duty as a woman to warn you against"; and with one keen look at my burning face, she took up the basket and walked away.
I think at that moment I could have killed her, so bitter was the hatred which I felt towards her; but the next brought its crushing shame, taking away from me all but the desire to hide myself from every eye. Where should I go? Somewhere where nobody could find me, where I could be insured perfect solitude. It was not difficult to bury myself in the forest that pressed around me on every side, and a few minutes saw me struggling with the embarrassments of the tangled vines which obstructed the path up our steepest hill. There was in the very difficulties to be overcome something that seemed to bring me relief; they forced my mind from myself. On, on I went, as if my life depended upon my struggles, till, breathless and utterly exhausted, I had reached the top of the hill, the highest point for miles around.
I sank down on the cool grass, the fresh wind blowing on my face, and, too wearied to think, shut my eyes against the beautiful Nature around me, alive only to my own overpowering misery. How long I lay there I never knew. I was safe and alone. I could be wretched as I pleased, away from Miss Hammond's mocking eye, away from the sight of George Hammond's happiness. But, strangely enough, out of the very freedom to be miserable came at last a sense of relief. I looked my wretchedness full in the face. Could I not bear it? And there rose within me a strength I had not known before. I was young, I had a long life before me; it could not be but that this great sorrow would pass away. At least, I would not nourish it. I would do what I could to help myself. Help myself! For the first time in my life I put up an earnest prayer for help out of myself. The words, coming as such words come but few times in life, out from the very depths of the heart, brought with them their softening influence. The tears sprung forth, those tears which I thought I should never shed again, and I burst into a passionate fit of crying, the passionate crying of a child. It shook me from head to foot with its hysterical convulsions, but it left me at last calmer, soothed into stillness, with only now and then those choking after-sobs which I, child like, sent forth there on the bosom of the only mother I had ever known,—our kindly mother Earth.
The sun was going down when I rose up, soothed and comforted, and strengthened, too, for a time. I would do what I could. I would live down this grief: how I knew not, but the way would come to me. And gathering up my hair, which had fallen around me, I stopped, on my way home, by a running stream, and bathed my eyes and forehead until I was fit to appear before my step-mother. She did not question me; she was too used to my unexplained absences since I had grown out of her control. Sufficient for her that my tasks were always performed; sufficient for her, that, that very evening, I threw myself with an apparently untiring energy into the household work,—that I never rested a moment till she herself closed the house and insisted that I should go to bed. I slept that night,—after such fatigue, it was impossible but that I should,—and woke in the morning with a renewed determination to struggle against my sorrow.
Alas! alas! I thought I had only to resolve. I thought the struggle would be but once. How little I knew of the daily, almost hourly, changes of feeling,—of the despondency, the despair, that would come, I knew not why, directly upon my most earnest resolves, my hardest struggles,—of the weakness that would make me at times give up all struggling as useless,—of the mad hope that would sometimes arise that something, some outward change, I did not dare to say what, would bring me some relief!
I had at least the courage to keep away from the sight of all that was so miserable to me. I did not see George Hammond for weeks, and he—ah! there was the bitterness—he did not miss me.
And so the weary days went on. It is wonderful what endurance there is in a young heart,—for how long a time it can beat off suffering all day by unceasing labor, and lie awake all night with that same suffering for a bedfellow, and still make no sign that a careless eye can see I look at that time now with wonder. How did I bear that constant occupation by day, alternated only with those sleepless nights, without breaking down entirely? The crisis came at last,—a sort of stupor, a cessation of suffering indeed, but a cessation, too, of all feeling. I was frightened at myself. Alas! I had no one to be frightened for me. Could it be that I was going to lose my senses? But no, I passed through that too, and then came a more natural state of mind than any I had known since the blow fell.
My suffering self seemed like something apart from me, which I could pity and help, could counsel and act for, and this one thing became clear to me. Some change of scene was necessary to me. I could never go on so; it was idle to attempt it. I could not live any longer face to face with my grief. There was the whole world before me. Was it not possible to go out into it? I had health, strength, ability, I was sure of it. How often before had I dreamed over the seeking my fortune in that world which looked to me then so full of excitement! Nothing had held me back then but the clinging to home-pleasures, to home-enjoyments, to home-comforts, poor as they were,—nothing but the sense of safety, of protection. What were these to me now? I cared nothing for them. I only asked to be away from all that reminded me of my suffering, to be so forced to struggle with external difficulties as to have no thought for myself. I did not want to love anybody; I would rather have nobody care for me. I would go. The only question was how.