Jerome, A Poor Man Part 45

Then suddenly Jerome, with no stir of awaking, opened his eyes and looked at her. Often, on arousing from a deep sleep, one has a sense of calm and wonderless observation as of a new birth. Jerome looked for a moment at Lucina with no surprise. In a new world all things may be, and impossibilities become commonplaces.

Then he sprang up, and went close to her. "Is it you?" he said, in a sobbing voice.

Lucina looked at him piteously. She wanted to run away, but her limbs trembled, her little hands twitched in the folds of her muslin skirt.

Jerome saw her trembling, and a soft pink suffusing her fair face, even her sweet throat and her arms, under her thin sleeves. He knew, with a sudden leap of tenderness, which would have its way in spite of himself, why she was there. She had wanted to see him so, the dear child, the fair, wonderful lady, that she had come through the heat of this burning afternoon, stealing away alone from all her friends, and even from her own decorous self, for his sake. He pointed to the clear s.p.a.ce under the pine where he had been lying. "Shall we sit down there--a minute?" he stammered.

"I--think I--had better go," said Lucina, faintly, with the quick impulse of maidenhood to flee from that which it has sought.

"Only a few minutes--I have something to tell you."

They sat down, Lucina with her back against the pine-tree, Jerome at her side. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead it widened into a vacuous smile. He looked at Lucina and she at him, then he came closer to her and took her in his arms.

Neither of them spoke. Lucina hid her face on his breast, and he held her so, looking out over her fair head at the wood. His mouth was shut hard, his eyes were full of fierce intent of combat, as if he expected some enemy forth from the trees to tear his love from him.

For the first time in his life he realized the full might of his own natural self. He felt as if he could trample upon the needs of the whole world, and the light of his own soul; to gain this first sweet of existence, whose fragrance was in his face.

The strongest realization of his nature hitherto, that of the outreaching wants of others, weakened. He was filled with the insensate greed of creation for himself. He held Lucina closer, and bent his head down over hers. Then she turned her face a little, and their lips met.

Lucina had never since her childhood kissed any man but her father, and as for Jerome, he had held such things with a shame of scorn.

This meant much to both of them, and the shock of such deep meaning caused them to start apart, as if with fear of each other. Lucina raised her head, and even pushed Jerome away, gently, and he loosened his hold and stood up before her, all pale and trembling.

"You must forgive me--I--forgot myself," he said, with quick gasps for breath, "I won't--sit--down there again." Then he went on, speaking fast: "I have been--wanting to tell you, but there was no chance. I could not come to see you any longer. I could not. I thought a man could go to see a woman when he was in love with her, and could bear it when the love was all on his side, and there was no--chance of marriage. I thought I could bear it if it pleased you, but--I didn't know it would be like this. I was never in love, and I did not know. I could think of nothing but wanting you. It was spoiling me for everything else, and there are other things in the world besides this. If I came much longer I should not be fit to come. I _could_ not come any longer." Jerome looked down at Lucina, with an air of stern, yet wistful, argument. She sat before him with downcast, pale, and sober face, then she rose, and all her girlish irresolution and shame dropped from her, and left for a moment the woman in her unveiled.

"I love you as much as you love me," she said, simply.

Jerome looked at her. "You--don't mean--that?"

"Yes, I suppose I did when you told me first, but I did not know it then. Now I know it. I have been very unhappy because I feared you might be staying away because you thought I did not love you, but I dared not try to see you as I did before, because I had found myself out. To-day I could not help it, whatever you might think of me, or whatever I might think of myself. I could not bear to worry any longer, lest you might be unhappy because you thought I did not love you. I do, and you need not stay away any more for that."

"Lucina--you don't mean--"

"Do you think I would have let you--do as you did a minute ago, if I had not?" said she, and a blush spread over her face and neck.

"I--thought--it was all--me--that--_you_--did not--"

"No, I let you," whispered Lucina.

"Oh, you don't mean that you--like me this same way that I do you--enough to marry me! You don't mean that?"

"Yes, I do," replied Lucina; she looked up at him with a curious solemn steadfastness. She was not blus.h.i.+ng any more.

"I--never thought of this," Jerome said, drawing a long, sobbing breath. He stood looking at her, his face all white and working.

"Lucina," he began, then paused, for he could not speak. He walked a little way down the path, then came back. "Lucina," he said, brokenly, "as G.o.d is my witness--I never thought of this--I never--thought that you--could-- Oh, look at yourself, and look at me! You know that I could not have thought--oh, look at yourself, there was never anybody like you! I did not think that you could--care for or--be hurt by--_me_."

"I have never seen anybody like you, not even father," Lucina said.

She looked at him with the shrinking yet loving faithfulness of a child before emotion which it cannot comprehend. She could not understand why, if Jerome loved her and she him, there was anything to be distressed about. She could not imagine why he was so pale and agitated, why he did not take her in his arms and kiss her again, why they could not both be happy at once.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" cried Jerome, and looked at her in a way which frightened her.

"Don't," she said, softly, shrinking a little.

"Lucina, you know how poor I am," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "You know I--can't--marry."

"I don't need much," said she.

"I couldn't--give you what you need."

"Father would, then."

"No, he would not. I give my wife all or nothing."

Lucina trembled. The same look which she remembered when Jerome would not take her little savings was in his eyes.

"Then--I would not take anything from father," she said, tremulously.

"I wouldn't mind--being--poor."

"I have seen the wives of poor men, and you shall not be made one by me. If I thought I had not strength enough to keep you from that, as far as I was concerned, I would leave you this minute, and throw myself in the pond over there."

"I am not afraid to be the wife of--a poor man--if I love him.

I--could save, and--work," Lucina said, speaking with the necessity of faithfulness upon her, yet timidly, and turning her face aside, for her heart had begun to fear lest Jerome did not really love her nor want her, after all. A woman who would sacrifice herself for love's sake cannot understand the sacrifice, nor the love, which refuses it.

"You shall not be, whether you are afraid or not!" Jerome cried out, fiercely. "Haven't I seen John Upham's wife? Oh, G.o.d!"

Lucina began moving slowly down the path towards the road; Jerome followed her. "I must go," she said, with a gentle dignity, though she trembled in all her limbs. "I came across the fields from Aunt Camilla's. I left her asleep, and she will wake and miss me."

"Oh," cried Jerome, "I wish--" then he stopped himself. "Yes, she will, I suppose," he added, lamely.

"He does not want me to stay," thought Lucina, with a sinking of heart and a rising of maiden pride. She walked a little faster.

Jerome quickened his pace, and touched her shoulder. "You must not think about me--about this," he murmured, hoa.r.s.ely. "_You_ must not be unhappy about it!"

Lucina turned and looked in his face sadly, yet with a soft stateliness. "No," said she, "I will not. I do not see, after all, why I should be unhappy, or you either. Many people do not marry. I dare say they are happier. Aunt Camilla seems happy. I shall be like her. There is nothing to hinder our friends.h.i.+p. We can always be friends, like brothers and sisters even, and you can come to see me--"

"No, I can't," said Jerome, "I can't do that even. I told you I could not."

Lucina said no more. She turned her face and went on. She said good-bye quickly when she reached the road, and was across it and under the bars into the millet.

Jerome did not attempt to follow her; he stood for a moment watching her moving through the millet, as through the brown waves of a shallow sea; then he went back into the woods. When he reached the place where he had sat with Lucina he stopped and spoke, as if she were still there.

"Lucina," he said, "I promise you before G.o.d, that I will never, so long as I live, love or marry any other woman but you. I promise you that I will work as I never did before--my fingers to the bone, my heart to its last drop of blood--to earn enough to marry you. And then, if you are free, I will come to you again. I will fight to win you, with all the strength that is in me, against the whole world, and I will love you forever, forever, but I promise you that I will never say this in your hearing to bind you and make you wait, when I may die and never come."

Chapter x.x.x

Lucina did not go into her aunt Camilla's house again that afternoon.

She crossed the fields--her aunt's garden--skirted the house to the road--thence home.