TESSIBEL’S SECRET
Tessibel Skinner had been married
to Frederick Graves for six long weeks: She had
become somewhat accustomed to the deception practiced
on Daddy Skinner, and Frederick was constantly allaying
her fears and misgivings by telling her that she belonged
to him now; that she was his darling, his joy, the
better part of his life. Many times he assured
her between kisses that it wouldn’t be necessary
to keep the marriage secret long. Each day, each
hour, each minute, the girl-wife basked in the thought
of her young husband’s love. She unfolded
the hidden beauties of her nature to him as spontaneously
as the opening flower responds to the genial warmth
of the rising sun.
Early one morning Tessibel arose,
a new light shining in her eyes. Because Daddy
Skinner was still abed, she started to the shore for
water. It was a glad, shining, diamond-studded
earth that greeted the view of the expectant girl;
there was wonderful stillness everywhere, and for
some minutes she stood contemplating the scene before
her. South from the Hog Hole to the northern
curve at Lansing, the lake was dappled, its surface
broken here and there by little capfuls of breeze,
which dimpled in the light, while the smooth spots
reflected the blazing glory of the morning sun.
The leaves of the weeping willow tree swept the rapt,
upraised face, and Tess drew down about her head and
shoulders one of the thickest branches. These
century-old trees were really a vital part of her
life old loves to Tessibel, loves that had
kept watch over her since the day of her birth in
the shanty.
A brilliant flame flooded her face....
Frederick stood with her in spirit nearness.
What she would tell him that evening would be whispered
so low that not even the nesting birds could hear.
She imagined the tenderness with which he’d
clasp her in his arms, and thrilled, visualizing the
darkening of his eyes. Tessibel was painting
pictures her exalted soul running the gamut
of joy.
What a wonder-world it was! What
a glad, peaceful, new day, her first real day of living the
beginning of life itself; Frederick’s life and
her life! Now, of course, he would tell his mother
they were married would take her to Daddy
Skinner, and and She could plan
no farther just then. Her whole being was God-lifted.
Even the waves lapping at her feet seemed to speak
the language of a world to come.
She dipped the pail into the lake
slowly, filling it with water. Then with a last
sweeping glance over the golden-tinted waves, she returned
to the shanty. Daddy Skinner by this time was
seated in his chair, his grey face wearing an expression
of misery.
“Ye air sicker this morning,
honey, huh?” asked Tess anxiously, lifting the
pail to the table.
“Yep, brat, awful sick, but
mebbe I’ll feel better after a while.”
“Yer coffee’ll be ready
quicker’n scat, dear,” said the girl.
“Flop on my bed an’ stretch out a minute.
Tessibel’ll get her daddy’s breakfast.”
Five minutes later she had fried the
fish and made the coffee.
“I air goin’ to give Daddy
his eatin’s first, Andy,” she called up
through the hole in the ceiling.
“All right; sure, do, kid,” assented the
dwarf.
Daddy Skinner gradually felt better,
and during the morning Tessibel’s youthful spirits
rose by leaps and bounds. All through the day
she warbled out her happiness, lovingly bantering
the two crippled men. Thus the minutes crept
on to eventide, to that hour on the ragged rocks with
Frederick.
She left the shanty early, that she
might commune undisturbed for a time with her dear
wild world. Through the gloaming the dull sound
of the cow bells came distinctly from Kennedy’s
farm. The roosters were crowing a last good-night
to the sun. The monstrous shadows of the great
forest trees were going to sleep in the earth for
another night. While the daylight was fading,
the girl sat relaxed against the rocks, her unfathomable
eyes contemplating the purple-spanned lake. She
had drifted into a reverie ... blissfully dreaming,
with Frederick the foremost figure of her dreams.
The solemn descent of night ever signified the mystery
of his love to her. Now, from the fullness of
her unalloyed joy, she glanced up at the sky and blessed
the whole world. In imagination she deciphered
the words the stars were forming. Stretched from
pole to pole, they lettered the heavens with the wonders
of infinitude. In a diadem of gold, “God
is love” was written; from the unsearchable north
to the south where in their turn the slender rimming
clouds sent it on to the world beyond. “God
is love,” whispered the swaying trees, and “God
is love” came softly to the ear of the sensitive
girl, as an echo is flung back from the rocks and
is sent home to its maker.
And even as Tess dreamed, the passion
stars in their invisible courses bent toward her.
Impulsively she lifted her arms upward toward those
twinkling participants of her secret, emblems of the
immeasurable glory of her love for Frederick.
By a simple turn, she could see the tree of her old-time
fancies, the familiar figure in the tall pine, with
swaying, majestic head and beckoning arms.
At that moment, she perceived Frederick
making his way along the ragged rocks. She could
hear her heart’s blood pulsing madly, striking
at her wrists, throbbing at her temples, making a
race the length of her quivering body. Now, she
could see him plainly in the dim light, and a smile
deepened the dimple at each corner of her mouth.
An indefinable shyness kept her from running to him
to tell her glad tidings. But what made him walk
so slowly and with hanging head? It wasn’t
like Frederick. Something unusual had happened
or he would not lag so in coming to her.
She was even more mystified at the
peculiarity of his greeting. With nerves as tautly
drawn as fiddle strings, she remained very still.
In his own time he would tell her all about it.
She lifted her arms, but Frederick, unheeding, sank
to the rocks beside her. She laid her hand on
his, expressing her love to him by the simple contact.
“Don’t!” he said
shortly. He drew away from the caressing fingers
impatiently. “I’ve come to tell you
something.”
“Well, here I air,” answered Tess, quietly.
There was an exquisite tenderness
in the young voice. In the white light of the
early evening Tessibel could see Frederick’s
brows fiercely drawn together. Probably his mother
was worse and that accounted for the change in him.
She became instantly all devotion.
“Air ye goin’ to tell
me about it, honey?” she entreated softly.
“It’ll make ye feel better.... Tell
Tessibel.”
He turned away, and moved nervously
until his shoulders were fitted into a rock cavity;
then, he dropped his head back with a prolonged sigh.
It was even more difficult than he had imagined.
“Of course I needn’t tell
you ... that I love you, need I, Tess?” he stammered,
after a while.
He could not assure her too many times
of his affection. She leaned against him, adoring,
wrapped in the delight of his love as a water lily
is wrapped in its green sepals.
“I know it, dearest!”
she murmured, much moved. “Ye tell me that
every day. But what else air ye ”
“You’ll forgive me, and
not be ... too unhappy?” Frederick interrupted
her anxiously.
Unhappy, while her whole being was
transfused with ecstasy! Unhappy, when his life
and hers intermingled in one glad, glorious song of
inseparable unity! There never could be a diminution
of her joy. Frederick loved her! That was
enough.
“There ain’t nothin’
I wouldn’t forgive,” she vowed, misty-eyed.
“But, Tess, I feel as though
you won’t forgive me this,” sighed Frederick.
“But if you’ll promise me ”
“I do I will,”
she interjected, sitting up. “Why, of course,
I’d forgive ye anything.”
Frederick dared not look at her.
Even in the twilight he could feel her eyes searching
his face for an explanation.
“I need you to help me, Tessibel,” he
said at length.
Help him! Hadn’t she ever
been ready to help him? He had but to ask her.
She dropped her head against his arm again.
“Tell Tessibel,” she urged, smiling.
One slender, girlish arm slipped lovingly
about him. A set of small fingers took his cold
hand in a firm grasp.
“Tess loves ye, dear,”
came soothingly. “Now tell ‘er, an’
then ye’ll be happier.”
Shame rose rampant in the boy’s breast.
“I can’t do it,” he muttered under
his breath.
But he knew all the time he would.
The events of yesterday, culminating with Waldstricker’s
brilliant offer, closed every other path. He
groaned, catching his lips tensely between his teeth.
Some one had to suffer, but the sacrifice must not
touch his mother nor estrange the Waldstrickers.
That Madelene would be wronged by his action gave him
little concern. But at that moment to hurt the
girl at his side; oh, how he hated the bitter necessity!
Conscious of the despicable part he was playing, but
having really decided, he drew himself from the girl’s
arms. To gain a little more time, he thrust his
fingers several times through his damp hair.
“Tess,” he hesitated,
“you’ve promised you’d never tell
about our being married.”
An encouraging touch turned the boy’s
twitching face to hers.
“An’ I ain’t never
goin’ to till ye let me,” she asserted
soothingly. “Ye ain’t lettin’
that worry ye, darlin’, eh?”
She encouraged him to answer by the
tender cadence on the end of her question.
“No, no, Tess!” Then desperately,
“Oh, in God’s name, how am I ever going
to get it out?”
Tessibel became suddenly terror-stricken.
It must be something very serious to force from him
such language in such heart-rending tones. She
shivered nervously.
“You mustn’t think for
a moment, Tess,” the boy burst forth, with renewed
courage, “that I don’t love you! I
shall love you always, always.”
“Always,” echoed Tess,
reassured. If Frederick loved her, nothing else
mattered. Perhaps his mother was Her
thought snapped in two at an ejaculation from Frederick.
“And what I do is because well,
because I must,” he stammered.
“You understand that, don’t you, sweetheart?”
“Sure,” agreed Tess, puzzled.
“And nothing will ever be changed between you
and me ”
“Nothin’ can ever hurt us, Frederick,”
she interrupted quickly.
And Tess believed this to be the eternal
truth. Faith the size of a grain of mustard seed
had piloted her through severe storms. Since Daddy
Skinner had been restored to her, that faith had grown
to the size of the mountain itself.
“I won’t let it,”
went on the student, swiftly. “Neither must
you. You must trust me you must believe!
No, don’t put your arms around my neck till
I’ve finished!... And then, oh, my little
girl, I shan’t let you out of my arms, ever!
ever!”
Greatly moved, he suddenly reached
forth and drew her unresistingly to him, smothering
her hair, her eyes with kisses, clinging to her, as
if he would never, never let her go.
Her heart beat wildly against his....
And she loved him more than all the world, and loved
God more because of him.
But he released her almost immediately,
and Tessibel sank back, sighing. She was no longer
nervously eager to divulge her secret. She waited
almost mechanically, as one waits for an advancing
joy as a hungry man watches abundant preparation
for the appeasing of his hunger. Hearing him
groan, she turned troubled eyes up to his.
“Daddy always says for to tell bad things quick!”
But this only served to call forth
another deep breath of misery. After a lapse
of what seemed ages to the waiting girl, Frederick
gathered courage, and began,
“Tess, I’ve told you how
very ill my mother is, haven’t I?”
“Yes, an’ I air awful sorry, dearie,”
she murmured.
The compassion he aroused subdued her voice to a whisper.
“And she’s asked me to
do something for her and I’ve got
to do it, Tessibel,” faltered Frederick.
“Sure ye have,” Tess agreed.
“I didn’t decide to do
it, honey,” Frederick was avoiding
the vital part “until I saw how I
could not let it make any difference to us. It
won’t make any difference, dear heart!”
And Tess, already living in some distant
day with full heart and full arms, breathed.
“No, darlin’, no difference to us....
’Course not!”
“Oh, I’m glad, so glad
to hear you say that!” said Frederick, relief
in his voice. “It won’t be so dreadful,
my sweet, if you trust me. And it won’t
be long perhaps a year, perhaps two years ”
Tessibel’s muscles grew suddenly rigid.
“Years, ye say?” she repeated, stupefied.
“What years? Why years?”
The resigned and submissive Tess changed
instantly to an intense, resolute woman, with compelling,
fear-clouded eyes. Frederick, alarmed, hastened
to explain.
“You remember Madelene Waldstricker, don’t
you?”
Did she remember Madelene Waldstricker?
Would she ever forget that one night when he had treated
her, his own wife, as though she were a stranger?
“Sure, I remember ’er,” she admitted,
flushing. “What about ’er?”
Before replying, Frederick snatched her hand and kissed
it.
“My mother.... Oh, Tessibel,
it’ll be all right ” He paused,
then finished despairingly, “My mother wants
me to marry her!”
Tess caught the picture his words
suggested; then recoiled as if death in monstrous
guise had appeared before her, open-armed. Incredulous
horror leapt alive in her eyes. He had said, “My
mother wants me to marry Madelene Waldstricker.”
But even though his mother had demanded it, he couldn’t!
He wouldn’t.... But he’d said he must!
Tess clenched her hands until the
nails pressed into the flesh of her palms. Her
throat refused to yield a speaking voice, but something
screamed aloud within her as if a giant hand had clutched
and torn her soul.
“But ye air married to me,”
she got out at last, piteously.
Frederick put his arms about her.
“I know it, girlie dear!...
I’m not denying that, but no one knows it but
us, just you and me, and I’m afraid ...
I’ve got to do ... this ... Mother ...”
“Oh, God, no!” shuddered Tess.
Oh, he couldn’t mean to desert
her now when she needed him so needed him
more than she had even in those days when the shadow
of the hateful rope hung over her beloved father;
even when Teola’s child had been thrust upon
her, and Ben Letts had daily menaced her desolate life.
She was still for so long a time Frederick
feared she’d fainted.
“Tess!” he spoke sharply.
“What?”
But it didn’t sound like Tessibel’s voice
answering.
“Will you hear me out, dearest?”
he pleaded. “Oh, won’t you listen
to me?”
Surely she was listening intently.
He had never spoken when she had not given loving
heed, if she were within the sound of his voice.
Frederick attempted to raise her face to his, but
with a pathetic little word of protest, she slipped
from his arms, and fell face downward to the rocks.
The tortured boy would rather have had her scream,
strike at him, anything, than sink into that accusing,
forlorn prostration!
“Tessibel! Tess!”
he cried. “Whatever I do can’t separate
you and me. It can’t! I swear not
to let it!”
He stooped and drew her gently to a sitting posture.
“No, I won’t let it!”
he reiterated excitedly. “I won’t!
No other woman could ever take your place.
Can’t you see, Tessibel? Can’t you
understand what I’m telling you?”
“Nope,” whispered Tess.
“I ain’t able to understand. Oh ”
She lifted a white, twitching face. “Oh,
don’t go ‘way an’ leave me!
Not now not just yet!”
“But you said,” he entreated,
“you’ve always said, honey, you’d
stand by me, and you will, won’t you? This
is the only way you can help. You will, dear,
please!”
“I ’spose I air got to,”
she stammered, shivering. “Course I do
everything ye want me to. But but tell
me ... why.”
“It’s just like this,”
Frederick explained reluctantly. “My mother
needs money. She’s got to have
it. She’s already borrowed a lot of Waldstricker
and ... even our lake place is mortgaged to him.
His sister loves me ”
The speaker felt the slender body recoil as from a
blow.
“Tess!” he cried, “I
don’t love her. Oh, can’t I get you
to understand anything? If you tremble that way,
you’ll drive me mad. I’m only going
to marry her.... Well, to pay the money, that’s
all.”
He cut and clipped the words as though
he hated them, yet finished his explanation determinedly.
As keenly as a darting flame, it burned into Tessibel’s
soul.
“Tell me ... more,” she breathed dizzily.
“It’ll only mean you and
I will be apart for a little while, Tess,” stated
Frederick. “When I get back home, I’m
coming straight to you, and ”
“She air lovin’ ye, ye said?” interrupted
Tess, huskily.
“But I don’t love her,
Tess!... I love only you!... You know that,
sweetheart!... You hear me, darling?”
“Yep, I hear,” whispered the girl.
Frederick settled back against the rocks, drawing
her into his arms.
“My father,” he proceeded
more calmly, “left us without any money.
I suppose I didn’t realize how hard it’s
been for mother. She’s only just told me
she’d mortgaged the lake place to Waldstricker
and had borrowed money from him. In a way I’ve
been awfully selfish.... I’ve only thought
of you, dear.”
Of course, now she couldn’t
tell him that intimate secret! If he knew, he
couldn’t, he just couldn’t do the thing
his mother demanded; and she had promised to help
him. He had said it was the only way she could
be of any service, and her great love rose up and
demanded the sacrifice. Tess scarcely recognized
her own voice when she next spoke.
“Did ye tell Madelene I
mean Miss Waldstricker ye’d marry
her?” she asked.
“Well ... yes,” stammered Frederick.
“And ye ye ye
kissed ’er?... Oh, say ye didn’t kiss
’er!... Ye didn’t, did ye?”
It was a plea to which Frederick would
have given worlds to truthfuly answer, “No.”
But his conscience, evidently sensitive in small matters,
compelled an almost inaudible, “Yes.”
Raging jealousy, unendurable pain, arose within her.
“But ye couldn’t be
married to ’er, Frederick. It
ain’t possible, it ain’t!”
“I know I’m married to
you,” the boy assured her, swiftly. “I’d
only be married to her in the eyes of the world!”
The eyes of the world, the world through
which she had so far walked with proudly lifted head!
Her dearly cherished love seemed to be tumbling in
ignominious ruins, and that very love had left her
defenseless. No one would ever know he belonged
to her; that she belonged to him. She would have
to creep with bowed head in assumed shame and disgrace
even among the squatters.
“I’ll die,” she shivered, thinking
of the coming spring.
His burning kisses stung her lips,
through which his words tumbled one over the other.
“You can’t!... You
shan’t die!... Tess, you shan’t!
I’m only going away for a little while....
You’re mine, Tess, do you hear?... You’ve
got to live and love me always! You’re
mine! Oh, my love! Don’t cry like
that!...”
The crushing strength of his arms
hurt her. Suddenly another picture shot across
her brain, like a searing rocket. She clung to
his arm as if she feared that minute would snatch
him from her. Then suppliantly she lifted not
only her face, but also her hands.
“Oh, she won’t be like I air been to ye like like ”
Frederick heard the anguish in the agonized, girlish
voice.
“Not like not like
I air been to ye, darlin’. Oh, God, not
that!” she cried again.
She waited in panting suspense for
a fierce denial. Then she struggled frantically
in his embrace. All that was alive within her all
the super-vitalized part of her soul seemed
scorched by the picture his significant silence had
painted.
“Let me go!” she demanded.
Frederick tightened his arms about her.
“Not yet, not yet! Stay here, rest here,
my sweet.”
But again seeing that image of the
small woman in her place, Tess struggled and freed
herself.
“I air goin’ to Daddy
now,” she whispered. “An’ you
can go home too, please.”
But he caught her again to his breast.
“You belong to me!” he
cried intensely. “I won’t go! I’m
going to stay, Tessibel! I will I
will stay!”
Tess wrenched herself free.
“Ye c’n come again,” she promised.
“Some other time afore ”
Frederick caught her broken sentence and finished
it.
“Yes, yes, Tessibel,” he exclaimed.
“I’ll come back soon, very soon!”
“Sure, soon,” quivered Tess, swaying,
“go on, please!”
She flung up her hands, crying low
in suppressed agony, as Frederick whirled from her
and walked rapidly away. He had not taken ten
steps before he was moved to go back, to take her
again in his arms, but thinking over all that had
happened, of how hard it had been to flounder through
his explanation, he shut his teeth and went on.
With super-hearing, Tess listened
until the sound of his footsteps died in the lane.
He had gone Frederick her
husband! Gone to another woman! No, that
couldn’t be! He was hers always and forever.
She sank down on the rocks on the dear,
ragged rocks, where she had watched for him and prayed
for him, where life had been at its highest and best.
She tried to recall all he had said.
Oh, yes, he was coming back. What did he mean
by coming back? When? She dully wondered
if it would be tomorrow, or the day after, or the
day after that. Three days, perhaps, three long,
interminable days to think of him and to long for him.
Could she live three days? She sprang to her
feet. She must see him again now this
minute; hear him unsay that awful thing. Why,
he couldn’t belong to Madelene Waldstricker!
Like a deer, Tess sped along the rocks in the direction
of the lane. A night bird brushed a slender wing
against her curls as he shot by her. To him she
paid no heed save to swerve a little.
Wildly, twice, three times she cried, “Frederick!”
An owl hooted a mocking response from the willow tree
nearby.
“Frederick! Frederick!”
rang through the night, out over the lake, unanswered.
He was gone! The realization of this brought the
girl crouching, shivering to the shore, where her
feet were lapped by the incoming waves. And there
she lay, until as in a dream, a bewildered dream,
she heard Daddy Skinner’s voice calling her.
By a supreme effort she gathered her senses together.
“I air comin’, Daddy.”
She stumbled through the night back
to the shanty, her secret locked in her breast.