The promise was given hesitatingly, doubtingly, more to get rid of the subject than from any conviction of its wisdom.
But a promise is a promise, and next morning Bessie wrote the letter, not because she wished to, but because she must; and a very dry, cold letter it was. She was a little helped to the writing of it by the pleasant prospect of carrying it to mail. That would give her a long, solitary walk and a whole afternoon quite to herself; for the post-office was in a desk, in a corner of the sitting-room of a farm-house four miles distant. This house was at the end of postal and stage accommodations in that direction. Three times a week a double-seated open wagon was driven there from a seaport town thirty miles to the southward, passing through several small villages on its way. This stage had brought Bessie up, and was to return the next morning.
She set out on her walk soon after their early dinner, and reached the post-office just at the high tide of that country afternoon leisure, when, their noon dinner quite cleared away, the women of the house are ordinarily free from everything that they would call labor. At this time the housewife smooths her hair and ties on a clean apron. One hears the snap of knitting-needles through the silence, or the drowsy hum of the spinning-wheel, or the sound of the loom where the deep-blue woollen web grows, thread by thread, while the weaver tosses her shuttle to and fro.
Bessie had dreaded the gossip which she must expect to encounter; but, as she approached, the sight of blue and pink sun-bonnets out in the field, where the women were raking, hay, relieved her fear. Not a soul was in the house. The watch-dog, recollecting her, gave no alarm, only walked gravely by her side, and looked on while she slipped her letter into the bag left to receive the mail. All the doors and windows stood open, and the sunshine lay bright and clear on the white bare floors. Large, stupid flies bumped their heads against the panes of glass, and a bumble-bee flew in at the front door, wandered noisily about the rooms, and out again by the back door. The painted wooden chairs stood straightly against the yellow-washed walls, and a large rocking-chair, with a chintz cushion, occupied one corner. A braided cloth mat covered the hearth, and the fireplace was filled with cedar boughs, through which glittered the brass andirons. On the high mantel-piece stood a pair of brass candlesticks, and a tumbler filled with wild roses.
Bessie glanced hurriedly about, then stole out, trembling lest she should be discovered and pounced upon by some loud-voiced man or woman from whom escape would be impossible. But no one appeared, and in a few minutes she was out of sight of the house.
Loud would be their exclamations of wonder and regret when they should discover that letter, knowing who must have brought it. How curiously would they handle it over, [pg 341] and examine it, and try to peep into it while they speculated and guessed concerning its contents!
“One comfort,” said Bessie to herself, as she glanced over her shoulder, and saw the last sun-bonnet disappear, “I sealed it so that not even a particle of air could get in; and they can't see a word without committing felony.”
The June day was passing away in a soft glory. All the world was green, all the sky was blue, and all the air was golden. But the green was so various, from a verdant blackness, through many tints, to a vivid green that was almost yellow, it seemed many-colored as it was many-shaped. There was every shape and size, from the graceful plume of ferns to the square-topped oak with its sturdy, horizontal branches. Through it all wound the narrow brown road, with a line of grass in the middle between the wagon-wheels where the horses feet spared it. The birds were singing their evening song, and a brook at the roadside lisped faintly here and there, then lay still and shone, then suddenly laughed outright.
On such an evening one does long to be happy; and, if happy, then one feels that it is not enough. Bessie walked on slowly, taking long breaths of the clear, perfumed air that had now an evening coolness. She would fain have stayed out till night fell. The house was near, so she stepped aside, sat down on a mossy rock, and looked at the sunset. The last, thin, shining cloud there melted in the fervid light, grew faint, and disappeared. Bessie's eyes, so tearful that all this universe of green and gold swam before them, were fixed on the sky, and she thought over, with a clearer mind now, the last feverish, miserable years of her life.
It seemed to her that, if she had been less exclusively devoted to her husband, and had interested herself in other people and in the events of the day, she would have been wiser and happier. She had made herself as a slave, and had received a slave's portion. It would be better to stand on a more equal footing, and, since works of supererogation, instead of winning his gratitude and affection, only fostered his selfishness and lowered her, to confine herself to the duties she was bound to perform.