Mell

“ How little you know about me, Mell!”
“That is true,” responded Mell, promptly, adding, with that lively turn of expression which gave such zest to her conversation, “very little, and that little nothing to your credit!”
Jerome was amused. He laughed and stopped, and forthwith laughed again.
“Ah, Melville, you charm me afresh at every meeting. Where do you get all your sauce piquant? Beside you for life, that old meddling busy-body, ennui, will never get a single chance at a fellow. Your name ought to be Infinite Variety.” ”

“ If Jerome really loved Mell.
“If, Si, Wenn, Se!” vociferated Mell, stamping her fiery little foot. “Why was it ever put into articulate speech?”
She knew it, this highly educated girl, in so many languages, and could not blot it out in a single one of them! Is not mere human knowledge a kind of blunt tool?
But she was ready, bright and early, the next morning, so promptly ready that Miss Josey commended her in unstinted terms. ”

“ There are so many things all around and about us which we do not hear and see, because we are intent upon other matters, and are not looking for them. With such feelings, in that dreadful moment Mell would rather have submitted to a dozen stripes from Jerome, than one single caress from Rube—her future husband, bear you in mind! the being by whose side she expected to pass the rest of her days. Poor Mell! If getting up in the world requires self-torture, self-immolation such as this, wouldn’t it be better, think you, not to get up? ”

“ Amid all the darkness she could see but one ray of light.
“But if I do my duty—” began Mell.
“A woman’s first duty to her husband is to love him,” said Jerome, gravely; “failing in that, she fails in all else.”
“But love comes with the doing of duty, everybody says. I must do my duty by Rube.”
“Very well. Do your duty, Mell, but do it now. That is all I ask. Manifestly it is not your duty to marry him. With every throb of your heart pulsating for me, you will not be worth one dollar to Rube in the capacity of a wife. He would tell you so, if he knew. Can’t you see that, Mell?” ”

“ Mell had scarcely moved from the spot where Rube left her. She had 280 had some time for reflection, and had profited by it, to such an extent, that she now felt quite miserable. That was the way with Mell, and continues to be the way with Mell’s kind. They make a practice of hitching together the cart of Unthought and the sure-footed beast Think-twice; the cart in front, the horse in the rear; and if, under such circumstances the poor brute, nine times out of ten, lands his living freight into very hot water, too hot for their tender feelings, who is to blame for it? ”

“ One hour—two hours—three hours—and not a sign of her truant lover.
Mell burst into an agony of tears.
“I am no match for him,” she sobbed. “He is heartless and cynical, and imperious and selfish. He does not care in the very least bit for me and I”—springing to her feet, and dashing away her tears—“I do not know, at this moment, Jerome Devonhough, whether I most love or hate you!” ”

“ The dumbness of Dieffenbachia lay upon Mell’s tongue.
“I see how it is,” said Rube, turning to go.
“No, you don’t!” exclaimed Mell, pulling him back. She was now desperate. Her tear-stained face broke into April sunshine. “I do not care for that other. How could you think so? Once I thought so myself; it was a delusion. A woman cannot love a selfish, tyrannical, overbearing creature like that!—not really, though she may think so for a time; but you, Rube, you are the quintessence of goodness! you are worth a dozen such men as he!”
“So it’s me!” ejaculated Rube. “I am the lucky dog! ”

“ The words pierced Mell to the very soul, and, combined with the blackness of his countenance, filled her with indefinable, but very horrible imaginings. He had almost reached the door, when with a smothered cry of pain, she followed him.
As irresistibly as ever he drew her.
“Jerome! Jerome! Where are you going?”
“To ruin!” exclaimed he, turning upon her with that barbaric fierceness which seems to underlie everything strong in nature—“to ruin, where you women without principle, have sent many a better man! To ruin, and to hell, if I choose,” he added, with fearful emphasis. ”

“ And so, through all my anger and all my sorrow and all my wounded affection, I have made excuses in my heart for my pretty Mell, my faithless Mell, whom I still love in spite of all her weakness; who in that weakness could find no other way of escape from a poor, bald, common-place, distasteful life, except through the crucifixion of her own heart, the ruin of her own happiness. Weak, you are nevertheless far dearer to me than the strongest-minded of your sex; false in act but not at heart, you are still the sweetest to me of all sweet womanhood ”

“ At all events, although Mell’s thoughts were heavy, and her soul stirred within her, and her thick breathing almost stifled in a painful sense of guilt, she did not say a word. Feeling that Rube’s eyes were fixed upon her, she raised to him her own, suffused in tears; an answer which fully satisfied her companion. From which it will appear that a woman may weep for the man she takes in—weep, and yet keep on taking him in.
And what can a man do? ”

“ The things unknown, which loom up so temptingly into sight upon the brink of the Untried, look far more desirable, infinitely more tempting, than all the known blessings of the past. And so Mell sighed—but lifted not a finger to save herself.
She went back into the little parlor to finish packing some favorite trifles in a box to be sent to the Bigge House ere she returned—school friend’s mementoes and some of Rube’s presents. ”

“ Then down to meet him came Mell the Hen-wife's son, his sword in his hand. He and the Red Champion saluted each other and then they fought together trampling over the beach, making the soft places hard and the hard places soft with the dint of their trampling. "A good champion, by my faith you are," said the Red Champion to Mell, when three-quarters of the day had been spent in fighting. And after that the Red Champion tried only to guard himself from the thrusts and the strokes of Mell's sword. He drew away from Mell and towards his boat. ”

“ And still Rube saw nothing.
“He’s real cut up,” said the sympathetic Rube, looking commiseratingly after the friend of his bosom. “And all for what? Because a woman never seems certain of her own mind. When judgment overtakes you women what is to become of you all, anyhow—eh, Mell?”
Mell could hardly say; and Rube, dismissing Jerome from his mind for the present, found other occupation. He had never seen Mell before in full dress. ”

“ Mell did not belong to this small minority; she was completely subdued. Contrite, and submissive, she now approached her audacious antagonist; approached him timidly, where he stood a little apart, and with his back turned to her, feeling, as we have said, quite ashamed of himself, and said gently:
“Jerome, I will break with Rube if you will break with Clara.”
“An honorable man cannot leave a woman in the lurch,” answered he, in a manner indicative of a strong protest under the existing law.
“And how about an honorable woman?” interrogated Mell. ”

“ This interesting little ceremony seemed to dissipate all the underlying displeasure at Rube’s choice in his mother’s mind.
She watched the girl closely during the interview which followed. Many girls are pretty and lady-like, not many are to be found as well educated as Mell Creecy, or as thoroughly equipped by both nature and education to entertain, to amuse, to fascinate. This was that part of Mell which “tuck arter her ole daddy,” as old Jacob was wont to say. ”

“ Then why didn’t you tell us?”
“Wife!” remonstrated the old farmer, “you is sartingly loss yo’ senses! Don’t ye know, when Mell’s fine friends comes er long, we’s expected ter run inter er rat-hole or some udder hole? All the use chillun has fer parients these days is ter keep ’em er going. Onst Mrs. Rullan’, Mell aint gwine ter know us by site! She aint no chile er mine, no how, Mell aint!”
“Wall, now, she is yourn, I kin tell ye,” cried Mrs. Creecy, flaring up, very much to the enjoyment of her liege lord. ”

“ In the windings of green valleys yellow leaves and red play fast and loose amid the green, and go fluttering to the ground; the deer stalks abroad; glad hunters blow their horns, and the unleashed hounds are joyful at the scent of noble prey.
Twice has the moon changed, and Mell is still at the Bigge House, showing up amid its polished refinements, as a choice bit of Corian faïence contrasted with cut-glass. Every day she spoke of going, but every day there was some reason why she should not go and should stay. ”

“ He wants to make a fool of her! That’s what a man generally has in view when he runs after a woman. But, I am a thinking, that chap won’t make no fool out of Mell, for Mell’s got a long head, like her old daddy, and a tongue of learning to back it! Just you keep on a saying nothing. You never missed getting things into a mess yet, as I knows on, ’cept when you let ’em alone. I’ll shut down on him right away, and then I’ll be blarsted if Mell can’t take care of herself! Don’t be nowise uneasy, Alvirey. Mell takes after her old dad. ”

“ And when Mell took the jewel from her, the Fairy Woman, carrying the green mantle, went into the green rath.
Then Mell took his goat by the horns and turned towards his hut. And there, outside the gate of the Castle he saw the King's daughter, Princess Bright Brow. She was watching the falconer training the young hawks and the grooms and the riders of the Castle were behind her. When she saw Mell with his hands on the goat's horns she grew high in rage and she turned to the grooms to give an order that he be beaten with the whips they held. ”

“ Who but a blundering man, like dear honest Rube, would have so completely let the domestic cat out of the bag?
No need for Mell to be the most wide-awake creature in existence to understand on the spot, the real status of affairs, as concerned herself, at the Bigge House. ”

“ If I win, Melville——”
“Yes,” said Mell, hurriedly.
“But if I fail.”
“You cannot fail, not if you love me!” She spoke impatiently, and with flashing eyes. “A one-legged man could not, if he loved me! Love finds a way, and love which cannot find a way is not love.”
“Enough,” said Rube, below his breath. “You will know whether I love you or not.”
Their hands were still clasped together in bond, until, perceiving they had become a subject of curiosity to those about them, Rube at length allowed Mell to withdraw hers, whereupon he turned off with a light laugh ”

“ That young man with her can beat all of our boys, and he’s going to crown her.”
“Is he?” ejaculated Mell.
Let him dare to do it! Before Jerome Devonhough should place a victor’s crown on Clara Rutland’s head, she would—well, what would she do? “Anything!” muttered Mell, between her teeth.
Poor Mell! She had been to such an expensive school and learned so many things, and not one of them was of the slightest use to her in this sore strait. Could there not be established a new school for girls, differing materially from the old ”

“ And Jerome expected her to give all this up—did he? And to give it up whether he gave up Clara, or not? Jerome was simply crazy—and she would be a good deal crazier herself before he caught her doing it! Mell still has an eye to the main chance. Mell still “tuck arter her ole daddy!”
The summer wanes. The ripened grain is harvested and the chaff falling from the sheaves on the threshing floor; the patient teams sniff the first cool breeze and put their shoulders to the wheel; the wagons are heaped in corn; the fields grow white for the picking. ”

“ At the end of this speech, Mell was doubly anxious to know Jerome’s real opinion of Clara Rutland. It seemed to her that the question was more open at both ends than it ever had been before.
Jerome patted his horse’s head, told him to “Be quiet, sir!” and resumed the threads of discourse.
“What was I saying? Oh, yes! We live out of doors at the Bigge House. There wouldn’t be any use for a house there at all, if it wasn’t for bad weather. Those girls try their best to be agreeable, but none of them are provoquante and charming, like you, Mell. ”

“ You are as 302 white as a sheet, you are quivering like a leaf, your hands are icy cold, and what is it all about?”
“I told you never, never to do that!” cried out Mell, in an agony of passionate protest.
Even the most cold-blooded among mortals finds the caress of a person not dear to them offensive; but take the woman of emotional nature, exquisitely sensitive in all matters of feeling, and to such the touch of unloved lips is worse than a plague spot. ”

“ She’s down in the meadow.”
“And where’s Mell?”
“Down there, too. They ain’t nobody else to keep Sukey out the corn.”
“Ain’t, hey? Ha! ha! ha! That’s all you know about it! Where does you keep your senses, anyhow, Alvirey? Out o’ doors? Because, I ain’t never had the good luck to find any of ’em at home, yet, as often as I’ve called! This very minute there’s somebody else down in the meadow long side o’ Mell.” ”

“ I do not deserve a single kind word from you. I am unworthy your regard. I am a weak woman, and a wicked one. Oh, Rube! I have not treated you right. That day at the picnic I was angry with some one else; I was piqued; I did not feel as I made you think I felt. I—that is—”
Here Mell broke down completely in her disjointed arraignment of self, thoroughly disconcerted by the young man’s change of countenance. His breath came quick, a dark cloud overspread his features, and he lost somewhat of his ruddy color. ”

“ Jerome, tell me your difficulties.”
“And by so doing increase them? No. My hands are full enough as it is, and to have you incessantly fretting and fuming about little crooked things which all the fretting in creation won’t straighten out, would be more than I could stand. Melville, you must really consent to be guided blindly by my judgment in this matter. I have studied the subject carefully, and it is only for a little while, sweet. We are young, we can afford to take things easy.”
“Men of pluck,” exclaimed Mell, with spirit, “don’t take things easy! ”