Hetty's Strange History Part 18

"She is French, I suppose," said the doctor; thinking to himself, "Some adventuress, doubtless."

"Ay, sir, I think so," answered the lad; "but I must not stay to speak any more, for the mistress waits for this balm to make tea for the cook Jean, who is like to have a fever;" and the lad disappeared under the low archway of the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Dr. Eben walked back and forth in front of the inn, still crus.h.i.+ng in his fingers the lavender flowers and inhaling their fragrance. Idly he watched "Tantibba's" figure till it disappeared in the distance.

"This is just the sort of place for a tricky old French woman to make a fortune in," he said to himself: "these people are simple enough to believe any thing;" and Dr. Eben went to his room, and tossed the lavender blossoms down on his pillow.

When he waked in the morning, his first thoughts were bewildered: nothing in nature is so powerful in a.s.sociation as a perfume. A sound, a sight, is feeble in comparison; the senses are ever alert, and the mind is accustomed always to act promptly on their evidence. But a subtle perfume, which has been a.s.sociated with a person, a place, a scene, can ever afterward arrest us; can take us unawares, and hold us spell-bound, while both memory and knowledge are drugged by its charm.

Dr. Eben did not open his eyes. In an ecstasy of half consciousness he murmured, "Hetty." As he stirred, his hand came in contact with the withered flowers. Touch was more potent than smell. He roused, lifted his head, saw the little blossoms now faded and gray lying near his cheek; and saying, "Oh, I remember," sank back again into a few moments'

drowsy reverie.

The morning was clear and cool, one window of the doctor's room looked east; the splendor of the sunrise shone in and illuminated the whole place. While he was dressing, he found himself persistently thinking of the strange name, "Tantibba." "It is odd how that name haunts me," he thought. "I wish I could see it written: I haven't the least idea how it is spelled. I wonder if she is an impostor. Her garden didn't look like it." Presently he sauntered out: the morning stir was just beginning in the village. The child to whom he had spoken at "Tantibba's" gate, the night before, came up, driving the same flock of goats. The little fellow, as he pa.s.sed, pulled the ragged ta.s.sel of his cap in token of recognition of the stranger who had accosted him. Without any definite purpose, Dr. Eben followed slowly on, watching a pair of young kids, who fell behind the flock, frolicking and half-fighting in antics so grotesque that they looked more like gigantic gra.s.shoppers than like goats. Before he knew how far he had walked, he suddenly perceived that he was very near "Tantibba's" house.

"I'll walk on and steal another handful of the lavender," he thought; "and if the old woman's up, perhaps I'll get a sight of her. I'd like to see what sort of a face answers to that outlandish name."

As the doctor leaned over the paling, and looked again at Hetty's garden, he saw something which had escaped his notice before, and at which he started again, and muttered--this time aloud, and with an expression almost of terror,--"Good Heavens, if there isn't a chrysanthemum bed too, exactly like ours! what does this mean?" Hetty had little thought when she was laying out her garden, as nearly as possible like the garden she had left behind her, that she was writing a record which any eye but her own would note.

"I believe I'll go in and see this old French woman," he thought: "it is such a strange thing that she should have just the same flowers Hetty had. I don't believe she's an adventuress, after all."

Dr. Eben had his hand on the latch of the gate. At that instant, the cottage door opened, and "Tantibba," in her white cap and gray gown, and with her scarlet basket on her arm, appeared on the threshold. Dr. Eben lifted his hat courteously, and advanced.

"I was just about to take the liberty of knocking at your door, madame,"

he said, "to ask if you would give me a few of your lavender blossoms."

As he began to speak, "Tantibba's" basket fell from her hand. As he advanced towards her, her eyes grew large with terror, and all color left her cheeks.

"Why do I terrify her so?" thought Dr. Eben, quickening his steps, and hastening to rea.s.sure her, by saying still more gently:

"Pray forgive me for intruding. I"--the words died on his lips: he stood like one stricken by paralysis; his hands falling helplessly by his side, and his eyes fixed in almost ghastly dread on this gray-haired woman, from whose white lips came, in Hetty's voice, the cry:

"Eben! oh! Eben!"

Hetty was the first to recover herself. Seeing with terror how rigid and pale her husband's face had become; how motionless, like one turned to stone, he stood--she hastened down the steps, and, taking him by the hand, said, in a trembling whisper:

"Oh, come into the house, Eben."

Mechanically he followed her; she still leading him by the hand, like a child. Like a child, or rather like a blind man, he sat down in the chair which she placed for him. His eyes did not move from her face; but they looked almost like sightless eyes. Hetty stood before him, with her hands clasped tight. Neither spoke. At last Dr. Eben said feebly:

"Are you Hetty?"

"Yes, Eben," answered Hetty, with a tearless sob. He did not speak again: still with a strange unseeing look, his eyes roved over her face, her figure. Then he reached out one hand and touched her gown; curiously, he lifted the soft gray serge, and fingered it; then he said again:

"Are you Hetty?"

"Oh, Eben! dear Eben! indeed I am," broke forth Hetty. "Do forgive me.

Can't you?"

"Forgive you?" repeated Dr. Eben, helplessly. "What for?"

"Oh, my G.o.d! he thinks we are both dead: what shall I do to rouse him?"

thought Hetty, all the nurse in her coming to the rescue of the woman and wife.

"For going away and leaving you, Eben," she said in a clear resolute voice. "I wasn't drowned. I came away."

Dr. Eben smiled; a smile which terrified Hetty more than his look or voice or words had done.

"Eben! Eben!" she cried, putting both her hands on his shoulders, and bringing her face close to his. "Don't look like that. I tell you I wasn't drowned. I am alive: feel me! feel me! I am Hetty;" and she knelt before him, and laid her arms across his knees. The touch, the grasp, the warmth of her strong flesh, penetrated his inmost consciousness, and brought back the tottering senses. His eyes lost their terrifying and ghastly expression, and took on one searching and half-stern.

"You were not drowned!" he said. "You have not been dead all these years! You went away! You are not Hetty!" and he pushed her arms rudely from his knees. Then, in the next second, he had clasped her fiercely in his arms, crying aloud:

"You are Hetty! I feel you! I know you! Oh Hetty, Hetty, wife, what does this all mean? Who took you away from me?" And tears, blessed saving tears, filled Dr. Eben's eyes.

Now began the retribution of Hetty's mistake. In this moment, with her husband's arms around her, his eyes fixed on hers, the whole cloud of misapprehension under which she had acted was revealed to her as by a beam of divine light from heaven. Smitten to the heart by a sudden and overwhelming remorse, Hetty was speechless. She could only look pleadingly into his face, and murmur:

"Oh, Eben! Eben!"

He repeated his questions, growing calmer with each word, and with each moment's increasing realization of Hetty's presence.

"Who took you away?"

"n.o.body," answered Hetty. "I came alone."

"Did you not love me, Hetty?" said Dr. Eben in sad tones, struck by a new fear.

This question unsealed Hetty's lips.

"Love you!" she exclaimed in a piercing voice. "Love you! oh, Eben!" and then she poured out, without reserves or disguises, the whole story of her convictions, her decision, and her flight. Her husband did not interrupt her by word or gesture. As she proceeded with her narrative, he slowly withdrew his eyes from her face, and fixed them on the floor.

It was harder for her to speak when he thus looked away from her.

Timidly she said:

"Do not turn your eyes away from me, Eben. It makes me afraid. I cannot tell you the rest, if you look so."

With an evident effort, he raised his eyes again, and again met her earnest gaze. But it was only for a few seconds. Again his eyes drooped, evaded hers, and rested on the floor. Again Hetty paused; and said still more pleadingly:

"Please look at me, Eben. Indeed I can't talk to you if you do not."

Like one stung suddenly by some insupportable pain, he wrenched her hands from his knees, sprang to his feet, and walked swiftly back and forth. She remained kneeling by the chair, looking up at him with a most piteous face.

"Hetty," he exclaimed, "you must be patient with me. Try and imagine what it is to have believed for ten years that you were dead; to have mourned you as dead; to have spent ten whole years of weary, comfortless days; and then to find suddenly that you have been all this time living,--voluntarily hiding yourself from me; needlessly torturing me!

Why, Hetty! Hetty! you must have been mad. You must be mad now, I think, to kneel there and tell me all these details so calmly, and in such a matter-of-fact way. Do you realize what a monstrous thing you have been doing?" And Dr. Eben's eyes blazed with a pa.s.sionate indignation, as he stopped short in his excited walk and looked down upon Hetty. Then, in the next second, touched by the look on her uplifted face, so n.o.ble, so pure, so benevolent, he forgot all his resentment, all his perplexity, all his pain; and, stooping over her, he lifted her from her knees, and, folding her close to his bosom, exclaimed:

"Oh, my Hetty, my own; forgive me. I am the one that is mad. How can I think of any thing except the joy of having found you again? No wonder I thought at first we were both dead. Oh, my precious wife, is it really you? Are you sure we are alive?" And he kissed her again and again,--hair, brow, eyes, lips,--with a solemn rapture.

A great silence fell upon them: there seemed no more to say. Suddenly, Dr. Eben exclaimed:

"Rachel said she did not believe you were dead."

At mention of Rachel's name, a spasm crossed Hetty's face. In the excitement of her mingled terror and joy, she had not yet thought of Rachel.