Poor cousin Holman! she worshipped her husband; and the outward signs of his uneasiness were more patent to her simple heart than were her daughter's.
After a while she could bear it no longer. She got up, and, softly laying her hand on his broad stooping shoulder, she said,--'What is the matter, minister? Has anything gone wrong?'
He started as if from a dream. Phillis hung her head, and caught her breath in terror at the answer she feared. But he, looking round with a sweeping glance, turned his broad, wise face up to his anxious wife, and forced a smile, and took her hand in a reassuring manner.
'I am blaming myself, dear. I have been overcome with anger this afternoon.
I scarcely knew what I was doing, but I turned away Timothy Cooper. He has killed the Ribstone pippin at the corner of the orchard; gone and piled the quicklime for the mortar for the new stable wall against the trunk of the tree--stupid fellow! killed the tree outright--and it loaded with apples!'
'And Ribstone pippins are so scarce,' said sympathetic cousin Holman.
'Aye! But Timothy is but a half-wit; and he has a wife and children.
He had often put me to it sore, with his slothful ways, but I had laid it before the Lord, and striven to bear with him. But I will not stand it any longer, it's past my patience. And he has notice to find another place. Wife, we won't talk more about it.' He took her hand gently off his shoulder, touched it with his lips; but relapsed into a silence as profound, if not quite so morose in appearance, as before. I could not tell why, but this bit of talk between her father and mother seemed to take all the factitious spirits out of Phillis. She did not speak now, but looked out of the open casement at the calm large moon, slowly moving through the twilight sky. Once I thought her eyes were filling with tears; but, if so, she shook them off, and arose with alacrity when her mother, tired and dispirited, proposed to go to bed immediately after prayers.
We all said good-night in our separate ways to the minister, who still sate at the table with the great Bible open before him, not much looking up at any of our salutations, but returning them kindly. But when I, last of all, was on the point of leaving the room, he said, still scarcely looking up,--'Paul, you will oblige me by staying here a few minutes. I would fain have some talk with you.'
I knew what was coming, all in a moment. I carefully shut--to the door, put out my candle, and sate down to my fate. He seemed to find some difficulty in beginning, for, if I had not heard that he wanted to speak to me, I should never have guessed it, he seemed so much absorbed in reading a chapter to the end. Suddenly he lifted his head up and said,--'It is about that friend of yours, Holdsworth! Paul, have you any reason for thinking he has played tricks upon Phillis?'
I saw that his eyes were blazing with such a fire of anger at the bare idea, that I lost all my presence of mind, and only repeated,--'Played tricks on Phillis!'
'Aye! you know what I mean: made love to her, courted her, made her think that he loved her, and then gone away and left her. Put it as you will, only give me an answer of some kind or another--a true answer, I mean--and don't repeat my words, Paul.'
He was shaking all over as he said this. I did not delay a moment in answering him,--'I do not believe that Edward Holdsworth ever played tricks on Phillis, ever made love to her; he never, to my knowledge, made her believe that he loved her.'
I stopped; I wanted to nerve up my courage for a confession, yet I wished to save the secret of Phillis's love for Holdsworth as much as I could; that secret which she had so striven to keep sacred and safe; and I had need of some reflection before I went on with what I had to say.
He began again before I had quite arranged my manner of speech. It was almost as if to himself,--'She is my only child; my little daughter! She is hardly out of childhood; I have thought to gather her under my wings for years to come her mother and I would lay down our lives to keep her from harm and grief.' Then, raising his voice, and looking at me, he said, 'Something has gone wrong with the child; and it seemed to me to date from the time she heard of that marriage. It is hard to think that you may know more of her secret cares and sorrows than I do,--but perhaps you do, Paul, perhaps you do,--only, if it be not a sin, tell me what J can do to make her happy again; tell me.'
'It will not do much good, I am afraid,' said J, 'but I will own how wrong I did; I don't mean wrong in the way of sin, but in the way of judgment.
Holdsworth told me just before he went that he loved Phillis, and hoped to make her his wife, and I told her.'
There! it was out; all my part in it, at least; and I set my lips tight together, and waited for the words to come. I did not see his face; I looked straight at the wall Opposite; but I heard him once begin to speak, and then turn over the leaves in the book before him. How awfully still that room was I The air outside, how still it was! The open windows let in no rustle of leaves, no twitter or movement of birds--no sound whatever. The clock on the stairs-- the minister's hard breathing--was it to go on for ever? Impatient beyond bearing at the deep quiet, I spoke again,--'I did it for the best, as I thought.'
The minister shut the book to hastily, and stood up. Then I saw how angry he was.
'For the best, do you say? It was best, was it, to go and tell a young girl what you never told a word of to her parents, who trusted you like a son of their own?'
He began walking about, up and down the room close under the open windows, churning up his bitter thoughts of me.
'To put such thoughts into the child's head,' continued he; 'to spoil her peaceful maidenhood with talk about another man's love; and such love, too,' he spoke scornfully now--a love that is ready for any young woman.
