PAGE 9
Who Was She?
by
I can conceive of no simpler way to you than the knowledge
of your name and address. I have drawn airy images of you,
but they do not become incarnate, and I am not sure that I
should recognize you in the brief moment of passing. Your
nature is not of those which are instantly legible. As an
abstract power, it has wrought in my life and it continually
moves my heart with desires which are unsatisfactory because
so vague and ignorant. Let me offer you, personally, my
gratitude, my earnest friendship: you would laugh if I were
now to offer more.
Stay! here is another fragment, more reckless in tone:
“I want to find the woman whom I can love–who can love me.
But this is a masquerade where the features are hidden, the
voice disguised, even the hands grotesquely gloved. Come! I
will venture more than I ever thought was possible to me.
You shall know my deepest nature as I myself seem to know
it. Then, give me the commonest chance of learning yours,
through an intercourse which shall leave both free, should
we not feel the closing of the inevitable bond!”
After I had written that, the pages filled rapidly. When the appointed hour arrived, a bulky epistle, in a strong linen envelope, sealed with five wax seals, was waiting on my table. Precisely at six there was an announcement: the door opened, and a little outside, in the shadow, I saw an old woman, in a threadbare dress of rusty black.
“Come in!” I said.
“The letter!” answered a husky voice. She stretched out a bony hand, without moving a step.
“It is for a lady–very important business,” said I, taking up the letter; “are you sure that there is no mistake?”
She drew her hand under the shawl, turned without a word, and moved toward the hall door.
“Stop!” I cried: “I beg a thousand pardons! Take it–take it! You are the right messenger!”
She clutched it, and was instantly gone.
Several days passed, and I gradually became so nervous and uneasy that I was on the point of inserting another “Personal” in the daily papers, when the answer arrived. It was brief and mysterious; you shall hear the whole of it:
“I thank you. Your letter is a sacred confidence which I
pray you never to regret. Your nature is sound and good. You
ask no more than is reasonable, and I have no real right to
refuse. In the one respect which I have hinted, I may have
been unskilful or too narrowly cautious: I must have the
certainty of this. Therefore, as a generous favor, give me
six months more! At the end of that time I will write to you
again. Have patience with these brief lines: another word
might be a word too much.”
You notice the change in her tone? The letter gave me the strongest impression of a new, warm, almost anxious interest on her part. My fancies, as first at Wampsocket, began to play all sorts of singular pranks: sometimes she was rich and of an old family, sometimes moderately poor and obscure, but always the same calm, reposeful face and clear gray eyes. I ceased looking for her in society, quite sure that I should not find her, and nursed a wild expectation of suddenly meeting her, face to face, in the most unlikely places and under startling circumstances. However, the end of it all was patience–patience for six months.
There’s not much more to tell; but this last letter is hard for me to read. It came punctually, to a day. I knew it would, and at the last I began to dread the time, as if a heavy note were falling due, and I had no funds to meet it. My head was in a whirl when I broke the seal. The fact in it stared at me blankly, at once, but it was a long time before the words and sentences became intelligible.