Читать книгу: «The Loves of Ambrose», страница 9
CHAPTER XXI
"I SHALL WANT MY EM'LY."
On that same night Uncle Ambrose suffered a relapse and remained in bed for another week; however, he had already got sufficiently rested from his previous laying up and, besides, even at seventy-six he had not yet come to evading an issue. He was merely taking time to think.
One evening just as the lamps in his room were being lighted he called Elizabeth to his bed. "I'm goin' to git up to-morrow, 'Lizabeth, and stay up; I'm 'bout as well now as I'm ever goin' to be, seein' as I'm gittin' older each day 'stid of younger," he said with the gentle firmness that had always come to him in big moments.
With a nervous trembling Elizabeth smoothed the old man's pillows, tucking his blankets in more closely about him. "I'm reel glad fer you, Uncle Ambrose; then you won't be needin' me much longer."
But the old man shook his head. "Set down, 'Lizabeth, I want to talk to you; I don't want my supper, leastways not yet."
But when Elizabeth had seated herself by the side of his bed for a time he continued silent while his glance wandered from the spot where his daguerreotype hung alongside the wall to the figure of the elderly worried spinster, and once catching a reflection of himself in the looking glass with a night cap tied under his chin and then a vision of Elizabeth, suddenly his blue eyes under their overhanging brows brimmed over.
"'Lizabeth," he inquired at length, "did I ever show you the picture of my Em'ly?"
"You ain't exactly showed it to me," she replied kindly, "but I been seein' it every day when I come in here to clean; she's got a kind of different face; it's a pity she had to leave you."
Uncle Ambrose only cleared his throat a trifle more huskily. "You're a good woman, too, 'Lizabeth, and so was little Sarah and Peachy Tarwater, and you're makin' my declinin' days peacefuller, givin' me a chance to relish things that is past, and to hope fer things to come. Not that I kin say you're one mortal bit like Em'ly, cause you ain't, but all women 'a' got different ways, fer which the Lord be praised. I been lyin' here thinkin' a darn sight lately; ain't had much else to do." But if Uncle Ambrose expected a look of understanding in his companion's face at this he was disappointed. "I know I got to vacate this earthly tenement pretty soon, and though I've had good times and sorry in the building I ain't objectin' to quit. Seems like a new dwellin' house 'll give us more light and space. It's many times I've wondered ef mebbe the spirits of them that love us ain't always hoverin' close, ef only we had the right kind of windows to look out at 'em with. Why, child, there's certainly been times when I've felt my Em'ly's arms a-holdin' me up and her wings brushin' my face. She's done been helpin' me about you lately; 'cause you see I know she'd always want me to do anything that'd make me comfortable and – "
But Elizabeth was not listening to the old man's soliloquy. She was thinking of herself, trying to tear out the tendrils that had grown so close about Uncle Ambrose's house, which had lately come to seem so like her own. So finally when she could bear the pain no longer she rose and started stumbling from the room.
Uncle Ambrose called out after her. "Don't go, 'Lizabeth, and don't try to stop cryin'. Tears is nachural to some women and you sure are one of 'em. I ought to be used to 'em by now. 'Lizabeth, I don't want you to leave me; I want you to stay by me till my trumpet sounds." Elizabeth shook her head.
"Think you got to go 'cause of what Susan Jr. said?" Uncle Ambrose's long nose twitched between amusement and scorn. "Good Lord! why is it the good women that is so afeard of talk?" he muttered to himself. "But thinkin' it all out kireful, 'Lizabeth, I ain't able to let you go. I can't stan' livin' 'thout female aid, and there ain't no use me tryin'. So now you listen to me. When I'm out o' this bed, and it'll be to-morrow, do you think you could bring yourself to marry me?" Uncle Ambrose laughed. "Don't git scaired, child; ef you ain't heard them words before it ain't the first time I've said 'em. But don't you answer me too quick; think it over and when you come back after fixin' my supper 's time enough, for I ain't yet told you all I been steddyin' over, believin' the rest 'd come in better later on."
Then while Elizabeth was away this lover of many women lay with his dim old eyes still steadfast upon the picture of her who after all was "the only woman." "You feel I'm doin' what's best, don't you, honey?" he said with the completeness of a perfect union. "She's poor and lonesome and homely, but I've worked it out so it'll be all right."
Afterward, when Uncle Ambrose discovered that his supper tray held all the dishes he most liked, he did not let his expression betray him, but ate his well-cooked meal peaceably and enjoyably until Elizabeth came to take away his tray, when his feeble hand caught hold of her hard one, trying to give it the rightful pressure.
"I can't," the old maid answered sorrowfully; "it's only because you are sorry for me."
And Uncle Ambrose hesitated. To tell any woman he did not love her, here at the end of his seventy-six years! "I'm growin' powerful fond of you, 'Lizabeth Horton," he hedged, "but ef I'm sorry too, what's the odds? I reckon I'm sorry fer myself and been sorry fer most everybody I've knowed in this world one time or another. But mebbe you kin see things better like this. I'm more'n anxious fer you to look after me till I die and keep me from gittin' too darned lonesome and, moreover, I want to leave you this here cottage when I go away. See here, 'Lizabeth, I've done had some experience with women and I've been thinkin' a lot on what you said to me that evenin' you come over here to dry your tears. I kin see there are some women who kin live 'thout husbands and some that's just got to live 'thout children, but there's some women that ain't able to live 'thout homes of their own. Why, you poor old 'Lizabeth, you'd just pine away and die ef the time ever come when you didn't have a house to keep: it would be worse 'n food starvin', 'cause it would last longer. I ain't no children of my own" – and even now Uncle Ambrose winced at saying it – "and what with selling my interest in the store when Miner went and a remembrance from Peachy I got a tidy sum of money in the bank. So I've got no special call to leave my money to nobody, but I know Pennyrile, and she sure would make it warm fer you ef I willed you my property 'thout makin' you my wife. Give me my answer, 'Lizabeth; I ain't tryin' to bribe you, though I want you to stay by me, but I'm gittin' kind er tired and I ain't said all I've got to say yet."
And here Uncle Ambrose turned his eyes for another time toward Emily's picture with their familiar appeal for light in dark places.
"There is one more request I'm bound to make, but it ain't goin' to hurt you or any female to be sensible."
"Uncle Ambrose," the old maid faltered, her yellow cheeks flushing palely, "ef you're sure you want to marry me I shall be plumb glad. I like to stay here and take care of you, and I don't want to leave you or this house. I'll try my best to do my part."
"Then you listen to me," said the old man, speaking like a grown-up person to a confused child, "and you remember I don't want to hurt your feelin's, but whatsomever cometh I've got to git this out of me."
"What is it, Uncle Ambrose?" Elizabeth inquired anxiously. "I told you I was hopeful to do my part."
Before replying the old face set into beautiful lines of dignity and untarnished faith. "Do you recollect, 'Lizabeth, I told you once that when I died and crossed over the Jerden I was hopin' to spend the life eternal with Em'ly. T'ain't nothin' against little Sarah or Peachy, but you see I married Sarah 'fore I'd met up with Em'ly, and then Peachy she'd kind er staked out an original claim. It won't matter nothin' to Em'ly, but ef the truth be known I ain't no ways easy in my mind 'bout that Bible text I was a-repeatin' over to you. It may be I ain't got the Lord's meanin' exactly clear, whether the marriages made on this earth are goin' to hold good in heaven, so you kin surely see, 'Lizabeth, that there ain't no use in me addin' complications to the future at my time of life."
And here reaching under his pillow Uncle Ambrose drew forth a crumpled sheet of paper torn from a book which deeded his cottage to Elizabeth Horton and five thousand dollars in bank in the event of her becoming his wife.
"I know this document ain't legal," he explained, "but I'll have it writ out fair and square by a lawyer and sign it soon as ever I can ef you'll only give me a little slip of paper in return with a few easy words written on it."
The woman waited a moment puzzled. "I don't quite understand you, Uncle Ambrose," she returned.
"No, of course you don't, child. I just want to know ef you feel willin' to write down these here words: 'I, Elizabeth Horton, bein' fourth wife to Ambrose Thompson, do hereby relinquish all claim to him come the time when I shall meet him in heaven.' You see how 'tis, 'Lizabeth," Uncle Ambrose argued wistfully. "I wisht I'd thought to make some such plan with Peachy 'fore she died; not that I'm at all certain she'd 'a' done it," he added truthfully, "but it would 'a' eased my mind consid'ble in these last childish days ef I only had little gentle Sarah to explain things to on the other side. I don't want there should be any argufyin' or confusion just when Em'ly and me are tryin' to git off quiet to ourselves and talk things over."
Elizabeth did not answer at once, for her vision did not naturally travel beyond the confines of this world, but other women before this old maid had travelled far in this now old man's leading. So she did not feel his request to be either childish or unreasonable, only she too wanted time to think. For after a while with her eyes resting affectionately upon the old face now lying so quiet on the pillow, and at the still beautiful and once so strong hands clasped together outside the counterpane, she leaned over toward him and whispered.
"I'll give you that paper you want, Uncle Ambrose, and I'll write on it same as you wish me to, for I shall have the home, and somehow I feel it will be only right that you and Em'ly should have each other."
"Amen!" whispered Uncle Ambrose.
