Tessa Wadsworth

“ A serious voice arrested the willow switch: “I didn’t like to be scolded when I was a little girl, it used to make me cry.”
The willow switch dropped; the various recitations came to a sudden pause. “But she is such a dreadful bad girl,” urged the teacher.
Tessa Wadsworth lingered with her reticule, three parcels, a parasol, and Sartor Resartus in her hands. ”

“ Tessa liked to watch the motion of his fingers; his hands were small, shapely, and every movement of them struck her as an apt quotation. She was learning as much of himself from his hands as from his face.
“Now I must go and scold Felix Harrison,” he said rising. “A teaspoonful in a wineglass of water three times a day, Mrs. Wadsworth! He had an attack last night and cheated me out of my dreams. Do you know him, Mystic? If he do not leave off brain work he will make a fool of himself. A gold spoon would not have hurt him.” ”

“ Miss Jewett was never too tired or too busy to live again her young life. Sue Greyson was sure that she had broken somebody’s heart, else she never was so eloquent in warning her about Stacey Rheid. Laura Harrison had decided that she had once lived in constant dread of having a step-mother. Mary Sherwood wondered if she had ever been a busybody, and in that experience had learned to warn her to keep quiet her busy tongue; and Tessa Wadsworth knew that she must have learned her one word of advice: “Wait,” through years that she would not talk about. ”

“ Mr. Wadsworth arose and stood behind his chair, “to judge people by themselves and not by myself.”
“Oh, the heartaches that would save,” thought Tessa. At the hour when she was walking slowly towards Felix, her black dress brushing the grass, her eyes upon the harvested fields lying warm in the mellow sunlight, and on her lips the sorrowful wonder, he was sitting alone in the summer-house, his head dropped within his hands. He was wondering, too, as all his being leaped forward at the thought of her coming, and battling with the strong love that was too strong for his feeble strength. ”

“ 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) ”

“ Tessa was tasting the peaches, her throat so full of sobs that she swallowed the fruit with pain.
“No, of course not. I told Miss Jewett to tell her any thing, but be sure to keep her up. He won’t die. Why should he? It will come gradually to her. The very saddest case I know. And to think that it might have been avoided. I didn’t tell his father that, though. Felix has no one but himself to thank. I warned him a year ago. Brains without common sense is a very poor commodity. What did the minister tell you Miss Tessa? I haven’t been to church since Sue was a baby.” ”

“ I have found my choice,’ when my whole soul protests, knowing that it is a lie. I can wait.”
“Oh, Tessa!” laughed Sue. “Doesn’t she talk like a book? I never half know what she means when she goes into such hysterics. Do you expect to get all your good things?”
“All my good things! Yes, every single one; it is only a question of time. God can not forget, nor can He die. I shall not be discouraged until I am sure that He is dead.”
“O, Tessa, you are wicked,” cried Sue.
“You remind me of something,” said Miss Jewett. ”

“ Tessa Wadsworth was the elected one.
“Mrs. Towne has every thing so delicious,” Sue was rattling on; “such perfumes and such silks and such jewels. Oh, how Old Place makes my mouth water! I wish you could go over the place, Tessa; you were never even through the grounds, were you? Mr. Ralph takes great pride in keeping it nice; of course, it is really his. I’d marry any body to live there and have plenty of money and do just as I please; not that Mr. Ralph isn’t something out of the common, though. People say that he never means any thing by his attentions ”

“ Towne had brought her home, and witnessed their parting at the gate, how could she divine that “definitely learned that she does not think of me,” had referred to her?
Mr. Wadsworth had listened in utter bewilderment, recalling Tessa’s repeated declaration that it was Dinah. “I am in my dotage,” he thought; “for I certainly understood that he said Tessa.”
“My wish was with your wish,” he said.
“She will be better satisfied,” Mr. Hammerton answered in his most abrupt tone. “He is a fine man; I can understand his attraction for her.” ”

“ Miss Sarepta told Tessa that while knowing that good things were laid up for her, she had no thought that such a good thing as Tessa Wadsworth was laid up for this winter’s enjoyment and employment.
It may be that the strain of the day’s living added to the feverishness of the night’s yearnings ”

“ Tessa mentally decided that he was more original than the Professor; the Professor’s questions were good, but no one in all her world could reply like Gus Hammerton; she was proud of him to-night with a feeling of ownership; in loving Dine, had he not become as near as a brother to her?
This feeling of ownership was decidedly pleasant; with it came a safe, warm feeling that she was taken care of; that she had a right to be taken care of and to be proud of him. No one in the world, the most keen-eyed student of human nature, could ever have guessed that he was suffering from a heartache ”

“ At the beginning of the third week, she took herself to hand; with a figurative and merciless 365 gripe upon each shoulder she thus addressed herself: “Now, Tessa Wadsworth, you and I have had enough of this; we have had enough of freaks and whims for one lifetime; you are to behave and go to sleep.”
Behaving and going to sleep took until midnight with the first attempt, and she dreamed of Dr. Lake and awoke crying. Was Sue crying, too? Sue had loved her husband, his influence would color all her life, she might yet become her ideal of a woman; womanly. Sue’s hand had been in his life ”

“ How could she be a student of human nature if she understood nothing but truth?
She was in a bitter mood to-night, not sparing Ralph Towne as she would not have spared herself. The crimson and gold faded! the gray shut down over her world: “How alone I shall be to live in a year without him!”
“O, Tessa! Tessa!” cried Dinah, running up-stairs, “here’s Gus, and he has brought us something good and funny I know, for he’s so provokingly cool.” ”

“ Ralph Towne would have been pleased with the intentness of Tessa’s eyes and the softening of her lips.
“You dear Naughty Nan,” cried Tessa, as the book fell from the reader’s hands.
“Then you do not blame me so much?”
“It is only a mistake. Who does not make a mistake? ”

“ Tessa met her at the head of the stairs.
“I’ve come to stay all night. Do you want me?”
“I want you more than I want any one in the world.”
“That’s refreshing. I wanted to see you and that’s why I came. Norah Bird said that Dine was to stay all night with her and I knew I should have you all to myself. Dr. Lake brought me. I believe that he wanted me to come. What do you stay up here for? It’s lovely down-stairs with your father and mother; she is sewing and he is reading to her. Put away that great pile of foolscap and talk to me; I’m as full of talk as an egg is full of meat.” ”

“ Tessa wrote and walked; gave two afternoons each week to Mrs. Towne, sometimes in Dunellen and sometimes at Old Place; ran in, as of old, for a helpful talk with Miss Jewett, not forgetting that she must be, what Dr. Lake had said,—a good friend to his wife. These were the busy hours; in the still hours,—but who can know for another the still hours?
Mr. Hammerton and Mr. Lewis Gesner proved themselves to be invaluable friends; Tessa’s warm regard for Mr. Gesner, even with the shock that came to her afterward, never became less; he ever remained her ideal of the rock in the weary land. ”

“ Towne came to the 337 threshold, his eyes filled as he stood, he closed the door and went down-stairs; he opened the front parlor door, thinking of the two as they stood there together such a little time since, and thinking of Tessa’s face as he saw it that morning. “She will love him always if he leaves her now,” he said to himself; “when she is old, she will look back and grieve for him. Tessa would, but Sue—there’s no reckoning upon her. Why are not all women like Tessa and my mother?” ”

“ Tessa was sitting on the carpet in Miss Jewett’s little parlor with her head in Miss Jewett’s lap; Miss Jewett had been smoothing the girl’s hair for several minutes, neither speaking.
“I have lost something; I don’t dare try to find it for fear that God has taken it away from me.”
“How did you lose it?”
Tessa raised her head, paused, then spoke impressively: “I lost it through carefulness.”
“Ah! I have heard of such a thing before.”
“Oh, have you? Is any one in the world like me? I thought that no one ever made such mistakes as I do, or needed the discipline that I need!” ”

“ Lake was suffering and Sue frightened.
The gentlemen’s faces she did not scan; it was fair, matured women like Mrs. Towne and Miss Jewett, and sprightly, sweet girls like Nan Gerard that she loved.
Dr. Towne was hedged in a corner, behind a chair, conversing or seeming to converse with a gentleman; he was not a lady’s man, he could not be himself in the presence of a third or fourth person, that is himself, socially; he could be himself professionally under the gaze of the multitude. Tessa smiled, thinking how uncomfortable he must be and how he must wish himself at home. ”

“ John Gesner owns it; he will make his own price if he sees that I want it, I suppose. I do want it. There are not many things that I desire more. You and I will have a green old age at Old Place.”
“You forget that I am thirty years older than you, my son.”
By accident, one day, Mrs. Towne had come across, in one of the drawers of her son’s writing-table, a large photograph of Tessa Wadsworth, a vignette, and she had gazed long upon her; the face was not beautiful, one would not even think of it as pretty, but it was fine, intellectual, sensitive, and sweet. ”

“ Tessa thought that no one in the world moved so gently or touched her so lightly as Ralph Towne. He stood an instant beside her before she stirred, then she raised her head slowly, ashamed of her 285 flushed, wet cheeks. She could not hide from the moon.
“Well?” she said, thinking of her eyes and cheeks.
“Are you dreaming dreams alone, here in the dark?”
“I’m afraid so; I dream too many dreams; I want something real; I do not like the stuff that dreams are made of.”
“You are real enough.” He leaned against the low mantel with one elbow resting upon it; she did not lift her eyes ”

“ I am always afraid of a leap into the dark, and I am always jumping into dark places.”
“It is a leap for him, too, Sue; you seem to forget that,” suggested Tessa.
“You always think of him, you never think of me.”
“It is a pity for no one to think of him; if I were to be married to-morrow, I should cry all night, out of pity for the hapless bridegroom.”
“Tessa, you ridiculous child,” exclaimed Miss Jewett.
“In books,” Sue went on, still with her face turned from them, “girls choose the one they are to marry out of all the world. Why don’t we?”
“We do,” said Tessa. ”

“ Wadsworth did not compare to her own advantage with her womanly daughter. Mrs. Towne looked at Tessa and thought of the picture that she had seen; it was certainly excellent only that the picture was rather too intellectual; in the picture she might have written “Mechanism of the Heavens” but sitting there in the crimson velvet chair with a pale blue bow among her braids and her soft gray veil shading her cheek she was more like the daughter that she had ever dreamed of—simple, sweet, and thoroughly lovable Mrs. Towne was a trifle afraid of a woman who looked too intellectual. ”

“ Wadsworth gently.
“He’ll never have the honor,” said Dine. “Mr. Lewis Gesner is the gentleman; I have always admired him. Haven’t you, Tessa?”
“Yes; I like to shake hands with him; he has a trustworthy face.”
“So much for the mothers of Dunellen, Tessa; how about the fathers? Would the girls like to have Miss Jewett for a father, too?”
“Oh, the fathers have the bread-winning to do. ”

“ Laugh, can’t you? If it is something terrible, it isn’t happening to you.”
“The things that happen to me are the easiest to bear.”
Sue crossed over to the planks and went on pondering this, then gave it up to wonder how she would wear her hair on her wedding morning; Tessa would make it look pretty any way, for she was born a hair-dresser.
And Tessa went in and up-stairs, thinking of a remark of Miss Jewett’s: “I should not understand my life at all, it would be all in a tangle, if it were not for my prayers.” ”

“ The next night by sheer force of will she was asleep before the clock struck eleven, and did not dream of home or once awake until Hilda, the Swedish servant, passed her door at dawn.
Her letters through this time were radiant, of course. Mrs. Towne only, with her perfect understanding of Tessa, detected the homesickness, or heartsickness. Tessa was wading in deep waters; she did not need her, else she would have come to her. She had learned that it was her characteristic to fight out her battles alone. ”