Rainbow Valley
places, but none seemed to find favour in the eyes of the West girls,
who drifted slowly out of youth and bellehood without any seeming
regret. They were devoted to their mother, who was a chronic invalid.
The three had a little circle of home interests—books and pets and
flowers—which made them happy and contented.
Mrs. West’s death, which occurred on Rosemary’s twenty-fifth birthday,
was a bitter grief to them. At first they were intolerably lonely.
Ellen, especially, continued to grieve and brood, her long, moody
musings broken only by fits of stormy, passionate weeping. The old
Lowbridge doctor told Rosemary that he feared permanent melancholy or
worse.
Once, when Ellen had sat all day, refusing either to speak or eat,
Rosemary had flung herself on her knees by her sister’s side.
“Oh, Ellen, you have me yet,” she said imploringly. “Am I nothing to
you? We have always loved each other so.”
“I won’t have you always,” Ellen had said, breaking her silence with
harsh intensity. “You will marry and leave me. I shall be left all
alone. I cannot bear the thought—I _cannot_. I would rather die.”
“I will never marry,” said Rosemary, “never, Ellen.”
Ellen bent forward and looked searchingly into Rosemary’s eyes.
“Will you promise me that solemnly?” she said. “Promise it on mother’s
Bible.”
Rosemary assented at once, quite willing to humour Ellen. What did it
matter? She knew quite well she would never want to marry any one. Her
love had gone down with Martin Crawford to the deeps of the sea; and
without love she could not marry any one. So she promised readily,
though Ellen made rather a fearsome rite of it. They clasped hands over
the Bible, in their mother’s vacant room, and both vowed to each other
that they would never marry and would always live together.
Ellen’s condition improved from that hour. She soon regained her normal
cheery poise. For ten years she and Rosemary lived in the old house
happily, undisturbed by any thought of marrying or giving in marriage.
Their promise sat very lightly on them. Ellen never failed to remind
her sister of it whenever any eligible male creature crossed their
paths, but she had never been really alarmed until John Meredith came
home that night with Rosemary. As for Rosemary, Ellen’s obsession
regarding that promise had always been a little matter of mirth to
her—until lately. Now, it was a merciless fetter, self-imposed but
never to be shaken off. Because of it to-night she must turn her face
from happiness.
It was true that the shy, sweet, rosebud love she had given to her
boy-lover she could never give to another. But she knew now that she
could give to John Meredith a love richer and more womanly. She knew
that he touched deeps in her nature that Martin had never touched—that
had not, perhaps, been in the girl of seventeen to touch. And she must
send him away to-night—send him back to his lonely hearth and his empty
life and his heart-breaking problems, because she had promised Ellen,
ten years before, on their mother’s Bible, that she would never marry.
John Meredith did not immediately grasp his opportunity. On the
contrary, he talked for two good hours on the least lover-like of
subjects. He even tried politics, though politics always bored
Rosemary. The latter began to think that she had been altogether
mistaken, and her fears and expectations suddenly seemed to her
grotesque. She felt flat and foolish. The glow went out of her face and
the lustre out of her eyes. John Meredith had not the slightest
intention of asking her to marry him.
And then, quite suddenly, he rose, came across the room, and standing
by her chair, he asked it. The room had grown terribly still. Even St.
George ceased to purr. Rosemary heard her own heart beating and was
sure John Meredith must hear it too.
Now was the time for her to say no, gently but firmly. She had been
ready for days with her stilted, regretful little formula. And now the
words of it had completely vanished from her mind. She had to say
no—and she suddenly found she could not say it. It was the impossible
word. She knew now that it was not that she _could_ have loved John
Meredith, but that she _did_ love him. The thought of putting him from
her life was agony.
She must say _something;_ she lifted her bowed golden head and asked
him stammeringly to give her a few days for—for consideration.
John Meredith was a little surprised. He was not vainer than any man
has a right to be, but he had expected that Rosemary West would say
yes. He had been tolerably sure she cared for him. Then why this
doubt—this hesitation? She was not a school girl to be uncertain as to
her own mind. He felt an ugly shock of disappointment and dismay. But
he assented to her request with his unfailing gentle courtesy and went
away at once.
“I will tell you in a few days,” said Rosemary, with downcast eyes and
burning face.
When the door shut behind him she went back into the room and wrung her
hands.
CHAPTER XXII.
ST. GEORGE KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT
At midnight Ellen West was walking home from the Pollock silver
wedding. She had stayed a little while after the other guests had gone,
to help the gray-haired bride wash the dishes. The distance between the
two houses was not far and the road good, so that Ellen was enjoying
the walk back home in the moonlight.
The evening had been a pleasant one. Ellen, who had not been to a party
for years, found it very pleasant. All the guests had been members of
her old set and there was no intrusive youth to spoil the flavour, for
the only son of the bride and groom was far away at college and could
not be present. Norman Douglas had been there and they had met socially
for the first time in years, though she had seen him once or twice in
church that winter. Not the least sentiment was awakened in Ellen’s
heart by their meeting. She was accustomed to wonder, when she thought
about it at all, how she could ever have fancied him or felt so badly
over his sudden marriage. But she had rather liked meeting him again.
She had forgotten how bracing and stimulating he could be. No gathering
was ever stagnant when Norman Douglas was present. Everybody had been
surprised when Norman came. It was well known he never went anywhere.
The Pollocks had invited him because he had been one of the original
guests, but they never thought he would come. He had taken his second
cousin, Amy Annetta Douglas, out to supper and seemed rather attentive
to her. But Ellen sat across the table from him and had a spirited
argument with him—an argument during which all his shouting and banter
could not fluster her and in which she came off best, flooring Norman
so composedly and so completely that he was silent for ten minutes. At
the end of which time he had muttered in his ruddy beard—“spunky as
ever—spunky as ever”—and began to hector Amy Annetta, who giggled
foolishly over his sallies where Ellen would have retorted bitingly.
Ellen thought these things over as she walked home, tasting them with
reminiscent relish. The moonlit air sparkled with frost. The snow
crisped under her feet. Below her lay the Glen with the white harbour
beyond. There was a light in the manse study. So John Meredith had gone
home. Had he asked Rosemary to marry him? And after what fashion had
she made her refusal known? Ellen felt that she would never know this,
though she was quite curious. She was sure Rosemary would never tell
her anything about it and she would not dare to ask. She must just be
content with the fact of the refusal. After all, that was the only
thing that really mattered.
“I hope he’ll have sense enough to come back once in a while and be
friendly,” she said to herself. She disliked so much to be alone that
thinking aloud was one of her devices for circumventing unwelcome
solitude. “It’s awful never to have a man-body with some brains to talk
to once in a while. And like as not he’ll never come near the house
again. There’s Norman Douglas, too—I like that man, and I’d like to
have a good rousing argument with him now and then. But he’d never dare
come up for fear people would think he was courting me again—for fear
_I’d_ think it, too, most likely—though he’s more a stranger to me now
than John Meredith. It seems like a dream that we could ever have been
beaus. But there it is—there’s only two men in the Glen I’d ever want
to talk to—and what with gossip and this wretched love-making business
it’s not likely I’ll ever see either of them again. I could,” said
Ellen, addressing the unmoved stars with a spiteful emphasis, “I could
have made a better world myself.”
She paused at her gate with a sudden vague feeling of alarm. There was
still a light in the living-room and to and fro across the
window-shades went the shadow of a woman walking restlessly up and
down. What was Rosemary doing up at this hour of the night? And why was
she striding about like a lunatic?
Ellen went softly in. As she opened the hall door Rosemary came out of
the room. She was flushed and breathless. An atmosphere of stress and
passion hung about her like a garment.
“Why aren’t you in bed, Rosemary?” demanded Ellen.
“Come in here,” said Rosemary intensely. “I want to tell you
something.”
Ellen composedly removed her wraps and overshoes, and followed her
sister into the warm, fire-lighted room. She stood with her hand on the
table and waited. She was looking very handsome herself, in her own
grim, black-browed style. The new black velvet dress, with its train
and V-neck, which she had made purposely for the party, became her
stately, massive figure. She wore coiled around her neck the rich heavy
necklace of amber beads which was a family heirloom. Her walk in the
frosty air had stung her cheeks into a glowing scarlet. But her
steel-blue eyes were as icy and unyielding as the sky of the winter
night. She stood waiting in a silence which Rosemary could break only
by a convulsive effort.
“Ellen, Mr. Meredith was here this evening.”
“Yes?”
“And—and—he asked me to marry him.”
“So I expected. Of course, you refused him?”
“No.”
“Rosemary.” Ellen clenched her hands and took an involuntary step
forward. “Do you mean to tell me that you accepted him?”
“No—no.”
Ellen recovered her self-command.
“What _did_ you do then?”
“I—I asked him to give me a few days to think it over.”
“I hardly see why that was necessary,” said Ellen, coldly contemptuous,
“when there is only the one answer you can make him.”
Rosemary held out her hands beseechingly.
“Ellen,” she said desperately, “I love John Meredith—I want to be his
wife. Will you set me free from that promise?”
“No,” said Ellen, merciless, because she was sick from fear.
“Ellen—Ellen—”
“Listen,” interrupted Ellen. “I did not ask you for that promise. You
offered it.”
“I know—I know. But I did not think then that I could ever care for
anyone again.”
“You offered it,” went on Ellen unmovably. “You promised it over our
mother’s Bible. It was more than a promise—it was an oath. Now you want
to break it.”
“I only asked you to set me free from it, Ellen.”
“I will not do it. A promise is a promise in my eyes. I will not do it.
Break your promise—be forsworn if you will—but it shall not be with any
assent of mine.”
“You are very hard on me, Ellen.”
“Hard on you! And what of me? Have you ever given a thought to what my
loneliness would be here if you left me? I could not bear it—I would go
crazy. I _cannot_ live alone. Haven’t I been a good sister to you? Have
I ever opposed any wish of yours? Haven’t I indulged you in
everything?”
“Yes—yes.”
“Then why do you want to leave me for this man whom you hadn’t seen a
year ago?”
“I love him, Ellen.”
“Love! You talk like a school miss instead of a middle-aged woman. He