Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline A Story of the Development of a Young Girl's Life

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Title: Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline

A Story of the Development of a Young Girl's Life

Author: Jennie M. Drinkwater

Release Date: August 7, 2011 [EBook #37003]

Language: English

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Nan drew Tessa’s cheek down to her lips. (Page 329)

Tessa Wadsworth’s

Discipline

A Story of the Development of a Young Girl’s Life

By Jennie M. Drinkwater

Author of Growing Up, Bek’s First Corner,

Miss Prudence, etc., etc.

"The people that stood below

She knew but little about;

And this story’s a moral, I know,

If you’ll try to find it out."

A. L. Burt Company, Publishers

New York

Copyright 1879,

By Robert Carter & Brothers.

Dedication.

TO

MY FRIEND

Mary V. Childs.

CONTENTS

TESSA WADSWORTH’S DISCIPLINE.

I.—HEARTS THAT SEEMED TO DIFFER.

She was standing one afternoon on the broad piazza, leaning against the railing, with color enough in her usually colorless cheeks as she watched the tall figure passing through the low gateway; he turned towards the watching eyes, smiled, and touched his hat.

You will be in again this week, she said coaxingly, you can give me ten minutes out of your busy-ness.

Twice ten, perhaps.

The light that flashed into her eyes was her only reply; she stood leaning forward, playing with the oleander blossoms under her hand until he had seated himself in his carriage and driven away; not until the brown head and straw hat had disappeared behind the clump of willows at the corner did she stir or move her eyes, then the happy feet in the bronze slippers tripped up-stairs to her own chamber. Dinah had left her slate on a chair, and dropped her algebra on the carpet, at the sound of Norah’s voice below the window.

Tessa was glad to be alone; she was always glad to be alone after Ralph Towne had left her, to think over all that he had said, and to feel again the warm shining of his brown eyes; to thank God with a few, low, joyful exclamations that He had brought this friend into her life; and then, as foolish women will, she must look into her own face and try to see it as he saw it,—cheeks aglow, tremulous lips, and such a light in the blue eyes!

She did not know that her eyes could look like that. She had thought them pale, cold, meaningless, and now they were like no eyes that she had ever looked into; a dancing, tender, blue delight.

Had he read her secret in them?

Her enthusiasm with its newness, sweetness, and freshness,—for it was as fresh as her heart was pure,—was moulding all her thoughts, strengthening her desire to become in all things true and womanly, and making her as blithe all day long as the birds that twittered in the apple-tree near her chamber window.

It mattered not how her hands were busied so long as her heart could be full of him. And he, Ralph Towne, blind and obtuse as any man would be who lived among books and not in the world at all, and more than a trifle selfish, as men sometimes find themselves to be, little thinking of the effect of his chance visits and fitful attentions, had in the last two months come to a knowledge that grieved him; for he was an honorable man, he loved God and reverenced womankind. He had not time now to think of any thing but the book for which he was collecting material. It was something in the natural history line, he had once told her, but he never cared to speak of it; indeed Ralph Towne cared to talk but of few things; but she loved to talk and he loved to listen. He loved to listen to her, but he did not love her (so he assured himself), he only loved her presence, as he loved the sunshine, and he did not love the sunshine well enough to fret when the day was gloomy; in these days he did not love any body or any thing but himself, his books, and his mother.

Dunellen said that he was proud of his money and proud of a great-great-grandmother who had been cousin to one of the president’s wives; but Tessa knew that he was not proud of any thing but his beautiful white-haired mother.

Not understanding the signs of love, how could he know that Tessa Wadsworth was growing to love him; he had never thought of himself as particularly worth loving. Surely she knew a dozen men who were handsomer (if that were what she cared for), and another dozen who could talk and tell stories and say pretty things to women (if that were what attracted her); still he knew to-day that his presence and light talk (he did not remember that he had said any thing to be treasured) had moved her beyond her wont. She was usually only self-contained and dignified; but to-day there must have been some adequate cause for her changing color, for the lighting and deepening of her eyes as they met his so frankly; he was sure to-day of what he had only surmised before,—that this sensitive, high-spirited, pure-hearted woman loved him as it had never entered his preoccupied mind or selfish heart to love her or indeed any human being.

I have been a fool! he ejaculated. "Well, it is done, and, with a woman like her, it can not be undone! Miserable bungler that I am, I have been trying to make matters better, and I have made them a thousand times worse! Why did I promise to call again this week? Why did I give her a right to ask me? I wish that I had never seen her! God knows,—she would never have forgotten his eyes could she have seen them at this instant, penitent and self-reproachful,—that I did not mean to trifle with her."

Meanwhile, resting in Dinah’s chair, with the algebra and slate at her feet, she was thinking over and over the words he had spoken that afternoon; very few they were, but simple and sincere; at least so they sounded to her. She smiled as "I do care very much" repeated itself to her, with the tone and the raising of the eyes.

Very much! as much as she did? It was about a trifle, some little thing that she had put into rhyme for him; how many rhymes she had written for him this summer! He so often said, Write this up for me, and she had so intensely enjoyed the doing it, and so intensely enjoyed his appreciation—his over-appreciation, she always thought.

O, Tessa, Tessa, pick up that algebra, and go to work with it. Life’s problems are too complex for your unworldliness.

She stooped to pick up Dinah’s slate, and, instead of finishing the work upon it, she wrote out rapidly a thought that had tinged her cheeks while Ralph Towne had been with her. The silent side she called it. Was it the silent side? If it were, how was it that he understood? She knew that he understood; she knew that he had understood when he answered, Twice ten, perhaps.

Her mother’s voice below broke in upon her reverie; fancy, sentiment, or delicate feeling of any kind died a hard and sudden death under Mrs. Wadsworth’s influence, yet she read more novels than did either of her daughters, and would cry her lovely eyes red and swollen over a story that Tessa would not deign to skip through. It was one of her mother’s plaints that Tessa had no feeling.

Ralph Towne did not give the promised twice ten minutes that week, nor for weeks afterward; she met him several times driving with his mother, or with his mother and Sue Greyson: her glad, quick look of recognition was acknowledged by a lifting of the hat and a good afternoon, Miss Tessa. Once she met him alone with Sue Greyson. Sue’s saucy, self-congratulatory toss of the head stung her so that she could have cried out. I am ashamed—no, I am not ashamed to tell you that she cried herself to sleep that night, as she asked God to bless Ralph Towne and make him happy and good. She could not have loved Ralph Towne if she might not have prayed for him. Her mother would have been inexpressibly shocked at such a mixture of love and religion.

How long have you loved Christ? asked the minister, when Tessa was examined for admission to the church.

Ever since I have known Him, was the timid reply.

And Ralph Towne, in these miserable days, for he was miserable, as miserable in his fashion as she was in hers, was blaming her and excusing himself. What had he ever said to her? Was every one of a man’s words to be counted? There was Sue Greyson, why didn’t she turn sentimental about him? True, he had said one day when they were talking about friendship—what had he said that day? Was she remembering that? If she had studied his words—but of course, she had forgotten! What had possessed him to say such things? But how could he look at her and not feel impelled to say something warm? It could not be his fault; it must be hers, for leading him on and for remembering every trivial word. And of that she was equally sure, for how could he do any man or any woman wrong, this sincere and honorable Christian gentleman?

In her imagination there was no one in a book or out of a book like Ralph Towne. Gus Hammerton was a scholar and a gentleman, but she had known him all her life; Felix Harrison was gracious and good, but he was not like Ralph Towne. Ralph Towne was not her ideal, he was something infinitely better than she could think; how beautiful it was to find some one nobler and grander than her ideal! Far away in some wonderful, unknown region he had grown up and had been made ready for her, and now he had come to meet her; bewildered and grateful, she had loved him and believed in him—almost as if that unknown region were heaven.

It was her wildest dream come true; that is, it had come true, until lately. Some strange thing was happening; it was happening and almost breaking her heart.

Tessa, you look horrid nowadays, exclaimed Dinah, one afternoon, as Tessa came up on the piazza, returning from her usual walk. You are white, and purple, and all colors, and you never sing about the house or talk to me or to any body. You actually ran away while Mrs. Bird was over here yesterday, and you don’t even go to see Miss Jewett! She asked me yesterday if you had gone away. When Laura was talking to you yesterday, you looked as if you did not hear one word she said.

I was listening.

And you used to have such fun talking to Gus; I believe that you went up-stairs while he was here last night.

I had a headache; I excused myself.

You always go down the road. Why don’t you go through Dunellen?

I want to get into the country; I never walk through a street simply for the pleasure of it. I like to be alone.

Do you ever walk as far as Old Place?

That isn’t far, only three miles; sometimes I go to Mayfield, that is a mile beyond Old Place.

Isn’t Old Place splendid? Next to Mr. Gesner’s it is the handsomest place around.

It is more home-like than Mr. Gesner’s.

Sue likes Mr. Gesner’s better. I told her that I would take Old Place and she could have Mr. Gesner’s. Mr. Gesner’s is stone; Old Place is all wood. Do you ever see any of the Townes?

There are not many to be seen.

Counting Sue, there are three. Sue thinks that she is stylish, driving around with Mrs. Towne. She stayed a week with Miss Gesner once, too. Why don’t you and I get invited around to such places? Mrs. Towne ought to invite you. Mr. Towne used to come here often enough.

Used to come! Tessa shivered standing in the sunlight. Yes, it was ‘used to come,’ she was thinking. I have been dreaming, now I am awake. I wish that I had died while I was dreaming.

Now you look pale again! I guess you are growing up, laughed unconscious Dinah; it’s hateful and horrid to grow up; I never shall. Remember that I am always to be fifteen.

I hope that you never will grow up, said Tessa, earnestly, every thing is just as bad as you can dream.

Mr. Towne has given Sue coral ear-rings, Dinah ran on. Tessa had gone down to her flower-bed to pull a few weeds that had pushed themselves in among her pansies. He gave his mother several groups in stone for the dining-room; they are all funny, Sue says. In one, some children are playing doctor; in another, they are playing school. He gave his cousin a silk dress, and he bought himself a set of books for his birthday; he was thirty-two. Did you think he was so old?

Yes.

I say, Tessa, Sue thinks that she is going to marry him.

Does she? The voice was away down in the flowers.

You are always among those flowers. Don’t you wish that we had a conservatory? They have a grand one at Old Place. I wonder why they have so little company.

Mrs. Towne is feeble; she likes a quiet house.

"Yes, Sue says that. But Grace Geer, his cousin, is there! Mrs. Towne is to give Old Place and all its treasures to Mr. Towne upon his wedding-day; she wants a daughter more than any thing, Sue says. I wish she would take me. Sue thinks that she will take her. Every other word that she speaks is ‘Mr. Ralph.’ She talks about him everywhere. Do you believe it?"

Believe what?

Tessa had returned to the piazza with a bunch of pansies.

Believe that she will marry him! She has real pretty manners when she is with them, and really tries not to talk slang. But I don’t believe it. He treats her as he would treat any one else; I have seen them together.

Perhaps she will. People say so, said Tessa.

Poor motherless, sisterless Sue! Was she making a disappointment for herself out of nothing? Or was it out of a something like hers?

It was certainly true that Sue Greyson had taken a summer tour with Mrs. Towne and Mr. Ralph Towne, and that she had spent more of her time during the last year at Old Place than in her own small, unlovely home. She loved her father well enough, she would have told you; but after the months at Old Place, she found the cottage in Dunellen a stale and prosaic affair; her father had old Aunt Jane to keep house for him, why did he need her? He would have to do without her some day. Doctor Lake was great fun, why could he not be interested in him?

He is a stranger, not my only daughter, her father had once replied.

Your father will be glad enough and proud enough that he let you come to Old Place, comforted Grace Geer, when Sue told her that he missed her at home. Ralph Towne’s wife will be a happy woman for more reasons than one; and he is interested in you, as one can see at a glance. He told his mother to-day that he should always be glad that they had come to Old Place.

II.—THE SILENT SIDE.

It was nearly six weeks after the day that she had watched him as far as the clump of willows that he came again. Sue Greyson had driven him into Dunellen that morning and had stopped at the gate on her return to tell her about her grand splendid, delightful times at Old Place.

Cousin Grace has gone away; how we miss her music! Mr. Ralph did not care for it, but Mrs. Towne and I cared. Mrs. Towne says that I ought to have a music teacher; but I never did practice when I had one. I can’t apply my mind to any thing; Mr. Ralph says that I learn by observation. I wonder why wise men choose silly wives always, she added consciously, playing with the reins.

Do they? asked Tessa, picking a lilac leaf from the shrubbery.

Is not this what we usually call the Indian summer?

said Tessa, as she extended her hand.

"Cousin Grace says so. I wish I knew what ails Mr. Ralph. His mother says that he is having a worry; she always knows when he is having a worry by his eyes; they do look very melancholy, and last night I overheard him say to Mrs. Towne, ‘A man has to keep his eyes pretty wide open not to step on peoples’ toes.’ I didn’t think much of that, but he said afterward, ‘A man may do in an hour what he can’t undo in a lifetime.’ He never talks much, so I know that something is on his mind, or he would not have talked so long. She said that he must be patient and do right."

Why, Sue, you did not listen!

"Of course not. They were in the library, and I was on the balcony outside the window. I heard his voice—he was walking up and down, and, I confess, I did want to know what it was all about! I thought that it might be about me, you know. But I can’t stay here all day; Mrs. Towne is to take me to spend the day with the Gesners. It is splendid there. Mr. John Gesner I don’t like, but Mr. Lewis Gesner treats me so respectfully and talks to me as if he liked to hear me talk. And Miss Gesner is loveliness personified! Mr. Towne said that he had a call to make this afternoon, and would walk home. He will be up in the four o’clock train."

A call to make!

The words were in her ears all day; she dressed for her walk, then concluded to stay at home. How could he undo what he had so thoughtlessly, so mercilessly, done? Would he come and talk to her as he had talked to his mother? Would he say, I am sorry that you have misinterpreted my words? Misinterpreted! Did they not both speak English? Sincere, straightforward, frank English? It was the only language that she knew. In what tongue had he spoken to her?

Her fluttering reverie was brought to a sudden and giddy end; the sound of a firm tread on the dried leaves under the maple-trees outside the gate, a tall figure in plain, elegant black,—the startled color in her eyes told the rest; she sprang to her feet, dropped her long, white work, shook off all outward nervousness, brushed her hair, fastened a bow of blue ribbon down low on her braids, questioned her eyes and lips to ascertain if they were safe, and then passed down the stair-way with a light, sure tread, and stood on the piazza to welcome Ralph Towne; her own composed, womanly self, rather more self-repressed than usual, and with a slight stateliness that she had never assumed with him. But he only noted that she appeared well and radiant; he understood her no more—than he understood several other things. Ralph Towne had been called slow from his babyhood.

Is not this what we usually call the Indian summer? We have not had frost yet, I think, she said easily.

His dark face crimsoned, he answered briefly, and dropped her hand.

If he had ever prided himself upon his tact, he was aware that to-day it would be a most miserable failure. How could he say, You have misunderstood me, when perhaps it was he who had misunderstood her? He had come to her to-day by sheer force of will, not daring to stay away longer—and what had he come for? To assure her—perhaps he did not intend to assure her any thing; perhaps it was not necessary to assure her any thing. Not very long ago he had assured her that he could become to her her ideal of a friend, if she would show him how. Poor Tessa! This showing him how was weary work. Yes, he replied, wheeling a chair nearer the open window, the country is beautiful.

That look about her flexible lips was telling its own story; she was just the woman, he reasoned, to break her heart about such a fellow as he was.

I have very little time for any thing outside my work, he said, running on with his mental comments. All a man had to do to make himself a hero was to let a woman like this fall in love with him.

"What have you been doing?" he asked in his tone of sincere interest.

All my own doings, she said lightly. Mr. Hammerton and I have been writing a criticism upon a novel and comparing notes, and I have sewed, as all ladies do, and walked.

You are an English girl about walking.

"I know every step of the way between Dunellen and Mayfield. Do you walk?"

No, I drive. My life has a lack. My book is falling through. I do not find much in life.

Our best things are nearest to us, close about our feet, she answered.

He did not reply. Ralph Towne never replied unless he chose.

He opened his watch; he had been with her exactly ten minutes.

I have an engagement at six, he said.

The flexible lips stiffened. Do not let me detain you.

He was regarding her with a smile in his eyes that she could not interpret; her graceful head was thrown back against the mass of fluffy white upon the chair, the white softening the outlines of a face that surely needed not softening; the clear, unshrinking eyes meeting his with all her truth in them; the blue ribbon at her throat, the gray cashmere falling around her, touched him with a sense of fitness; the slight hands clasping each other in her lap, slight even with their strength, partly annoyed, partly baffled him. Mr. Hammerton had told her that she had wilful hands.

Regarding Tessa Wadsworth as regarding some other things, Ralph Towne thought because he felt; he could not think any further than he thought to-day, because he had not felt any further.

There was another friend in her life who with Tessa Wadsworth as with some other things felt because he thought, and he could not feel any further than he felt to-day because he had not thought any further.

For the first time since she had known Ralph Towne, she was wishing that he were like Gus Hammerton. It had never occurred to her before to wish that he would change.

Each smiled under the survey. He was thinking, I wish I loved you. She was thinking, You are a dear, big boy; I wish you were more manly.

You did not send me the poem you promised.

You said you would come soon.

Did you expect me?

Had I any reason to doubt your word?

You must not take literally all I say, he answered with irritation.

I have learned that. I have studied the world’s arithmetic, but I do not use it to solve any word of yours, any more than I have supposed that you would use it to find the meaning of any problem you might discover in my attitude towards you.

It is best not to dig and delve for a meaning, Miss Tessa; society sanctions many phrases that you would not speak in sincerity.

Society! she repeated in a tone that brought the color to his forehead. Is society my law-giver?

It was very pleasant to be loved by a woman like this woman; he could not understand her, but she touched him like the perfume of the white rose, or the note of the thrush. His next words were sincere and abrupt. You asked me some time since to burn the package of poems you have written for me. If I had done as much for you, would you destroy them?

A flush, a dropping of the eyes, and a low laugh answered him.

He arose quickly, with a motion of tossing off an ugly sensation. I am very much engaged; I do not know when I can come again. We are going west for the winter.

She could not lift her eyes, or speak, or catch her breath. She arose, slowly, as if the movement were almost too great an effort, and stood leaning against the tall chair, her fingers fumbling with the fringe of the tidy; the room had become so darkened that the white fringe was but a dark outline of something that she could feel.

Sue Greyson is to accompany my mother; I shall be much away, and I do not like to leave her with strangers.

Sue is pleasant and lively. She had spoken, and now she could, not quite clearly yet, but a glance revealed the blood surging to his forehead, the veins swollen in his temples, even through the heavy mustache she discerned the twitching of his lips. The pain in her heart had opened her eyes wide. Had he come to make the parting final? What had she done that he should thus thrust her away outside of all the interests in his life? Did he know how she cared, and was he so sorry? Was he trying to be patient, as his mother had advised—patient with her for taking him at his word?

Dunellen had called her proud; this instant she was as humble as a child.

Slowly and sorrowfully she said, Come again—some time.

Yes, he said, as slowly and as sorrowfully, I will.

He was very sorry for this woman who had been so foolish as to think that his words had meant so much.

She had closed the street door and was on the first step of the stairs when her mother called to her from the sitting-room.

What did Sir Dignified Undemonstrative have to say for himself?

He does not talk about himself.

It is your turn to get tea! It is Bridget’s afternoon out.

Mrs. Wadsworth was a little lady something less than five feet in height, as slight as a girl of twelve, and prettier than either of her daughters; with brown hair, brown eyes, and the sprightliest manner possible.

Young enough to be Tessa’s sister, Dunellen declared.

But she was neither sister nor mother as her elder daughter defined the words.

If you get him, Tessa, you’ll get a catch, remarked Mrs. Wadsworth watching the effect of her words.

The first sound of her mother’s voice had brought her to herself, her self-contained, cautious and, oftentimes, sarcastic self.

Have you any order about tea?

Her studied respect toward her mother, was pitiful sometimes. It was hard that she could not attain somewhat of her ideal of daughterhood.

No, but I want you to do an errand for me after tea. I forgot to ask Dine to do it on her way from school.

Very well, she assented obediently.

She stumbled on the basement stairs, and found the kitchen so dark that she groped her way to a chair and sank into it, dropping her head on the table. She could hear