The quaint old garden had sheltered many pairs of lovers,and seemed expressly made for them,so sunny and secluded was it,with nothing but the tower to overlook them,and the wide lake to carry away the echo of their words,as it rippled by below.For an hour this new pair walked and talked,or rested on the wall,enjoying the sweet influences which gave such a charm to time and place,and when an unromantic dinner bell warned them away,Amy felt as if she left her burden of loneliness and sorrow behind her in the chateau garden.
The moment Mrs. Carrol saw the girl’s altered face,she was illuminated with a new idea,and exclaimed to herself,“Now I understand it all—the child has been pining for young Laurence.Bless my heart, I never thought of such a thing!”
With praiseworthy discretion,the good lady said nothing,and betrayed no sign of enlightenment,but cordially urged Laurie to stay and begged Amy to enjoy his society,for it would do her more good than so much solitude.Amy was a model of docility,and as her aunt was a good deal occupied with Flo,she was left to entertain her friend,and did it with more than her usual success.
At Nice, Laurie had lounged and Amy had scolded.At Vevay, Laurie was never idle, but always walking,riding, boating, or studying in the most energetic manner,while Amy admired everything he did and followed his example as far and as fast as she could. He said the change was owing to the climate, and she did not contradict him, being glad of a like excuse for her own recovered health and spirits.
The invigorating air did them both good,and much exercise worked wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies.They seemed to get clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills. The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look benignly down upon them saying, “Little children, love one another.”
In spite of the new sorrow, it was a very happy time,so happy that Laurie could not bear to disturb it by a word.It took him a little while to recover from his surprise at the cure of his first, and as he had firmly believed, his last and only love. He consoled himself for the seeming disloyalty by the thought that Jo’s sister was almost the same as Jo’s self, and the conviction that it would have been impossible to love any other woman but Amy so soon and so well. His first wooing had been of the tempestuous order, and he looked back upon it as if through a long vista of years with a feeling of compassion blended with regret. He was not ashamed of it, but put it away as one of the bitter-sweet experiences of his life, for which he could be grateful when the pain was over. His second wooing, he resolved, should be as calm and simple as possible. There was no need of having a scene, hardly any need of telling Amy that he loved her, she knew it without words and had given him his answer long ago. It all came about so naturally that no one could complain, and he knew that everybody would be pleased, even Jo. But when our first little passion has been crushed, we are apt to be wary and slow in making a second trial, so Laurie let the days pass, enjoying every hour, and leaving to chance the utterance of the word that would put an end to the first and sweetest part of his new romance.
He had rather imagined that the denoument would take place in the chateau garden by moonlight, and in the most graceful and decorous manner, but it turned out exactly the reverse, for the matter was settled on the lake at noonday in a few blunt words. They had been floating about all the morning, from gloomy St. Gingolf to sunny Montreux, with the Alps of Savoy on one side, Mont St. Bernard and the Dent du Midi on the other, pretty Vevay in the valley, and Lausanne upon the hill beyond, a cloudless blue sky overhead, and the bluer lake below, dotted with the picturesque boats that look like white-winged gulls.
They had been talking of Bonnivard,as they glided past Chillon, and of Rousseau,as they looked up at Clarens,where he wrote his Heloise. Neither had read it,but they knew it was a love story,and each privately wondered if it was half as interesting as their own.Amy had been dabbling her hand in the water during the little pause that fell between them, and when she looked up, Laurie was leaning on his oars with an expression in his eyes that made her say hastily, merely for the sake of saying something...
“You must be tired. Rest a little, and let me row.It will do me good,for since you came I have been altogether lazy and luxurious. ”
“I’m not tired, but you may take an oar, if you like.There’s room enough,though I have to sit nearly in the middle,else the boat won’t trim,” returned Laurie,as if he rather liked the arrangement.
Feeling that she had not mended matters much,Amy took the offered third of a seat,shook her hair over her face, and accepted an oar.She rowed as well as she did many other things,and though she used both hands, and Laurie but one,the oars kept time,and the boat went smoothly through the water.
“How well we pull together, don’t we?” said Amy, who objected to silence just then.
“So well that I wish we might always pull in the same boat. Will you, Amy?” very tenderly.
“Yes, Laurie,” very low.
Then they both stopped rowing,and unconsciously added a pretty little tableau of human love and happiness to the dissolving views reflected in the lake.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO ALL ALONE
It was easy to promise self-abnegation when self was wrapped up in another,and heart and soul were purified by a sweet example.But when the helpful voice was silent,the daily lesson over, the beloved presence gone,and nothing remained but loneliness and grief,then Jo found her promise very hard to keep.How could she ‘comfort Father and Mother’ when her own heart ached with a ceaseless longing for her sister, how could she ‘make the house cheerful’ when all its light and warmth and beauty seemed to have deserted it when Beth left the old home for the new, and where in all the world could she ‘find some useful, happy work to do’, that would take the place of the loving service which had been its own reward?She tried in a blind, hopeless way to do her duty,secretly rebelling against it all the while,for it seemed unjust that her few joys should be lessened,her burdens made heavier,and life get harder and harder as she toiled along.Some people seemed to get all sunshine,and some all shadow. It was not fair,for she tried more than Amy to be good,but never got any reward, only disappointment,trouble and hard work.
Poor Jo, these were dark days to her,for something like despair came over her when she thought of spending all her life in that quiet house, devoted to humdrum cares, a few small pleasures, and the duty that never seemed to grow any easier. “I can’t do it. I wasn’t meant for a life like this, and I know I shall break away and do something desperate if somebody doesn’t come and help me,” she said to herself, when her first efforts failed and she fell into the moody, miserable state of mind which often comes when strong wills have to yield to the inevitable.