A Song of a Single Note: A Love Story

Very frequently, however, this tearful mood gave place to indignation against her friends in general, and Agnes in particular. For she still held steadily to the opinion that all the trouble had arisen from her selfishness and inability to remember any one's desires but her own. And so, in plaintive or passionate wandering from one wrong to another, she passed some very miserable days. Finally, Neil persuaded her to go and see Agnes. He said, "Even the walk may do you good; and Agnes is certain to have some comforting words to say."

Maria doubted both assertions. She could not see what good it could do her to go from one wretched house to another even more wretched, and Neil's assurances that John Bradley was better and able to go to his shop did not give her any more eager desire to try the suggested change. Yet to please Neil she went, though very reluctantly; and Madame sympathized with this reluctance. She thought it was Agnes Bradley's place to come and make some acknowledgment of the sorrow and loss her family had brought upon the Semples; and she recalled the innate aversion the Elder had always felt for the Bradley family.

"The soul kens which way trouble can come," she said. "But what is the good o' its warnings? Nobody heeds them."

"I never heard any warning, grandmother."

"There's nane so deaf as those who won't hear; but go your ways to your friend Agnes! I'll warrant she would rather you would bide at hame."

The morning was cold and damp and inexpressibly depressing, but Maria was in that mood which defies anything to be of consequence. She put on her hat and cloak and walked silently by her uncle's side until they came to the Bradley cottage. All the prettiness of its summer and autumn surroundings was blighted or dead; the door shut, the window covered, the whole place infected by the sorrow which had visited it. Agnes opened the door. She was wan and looked physically ill and weary, but she smiled brightly at her visitor, and kissed her as she crossed the threshold.

"My father has been very ill, Maria, or I should have been to see you before this," she said; "but he has gone to the shop this morning. I fear he ought not."

"My grandfather has been very ill and is still unable to leave his room," replied Maria. "My dear grandmother also! As for myself – but that is of little importance, only I must say that it has been a dreadful thing to happen to us, a cruel thing!"

"It was a wrong thing to begin with. That is where all the trouble sprang from. I see it now Maria."

"Of course! You ought not to have deceived your father, Agnes."

"I was to blame in that, very much to blame. I have nearly broken my heart over the sin and its consequences."

"Consequences! Yes, for they fell upon the innocent – that is what you ought to be sorry for – my grandfather and grandmother, my Uncle Neil, and even myself."

"But as for yourself, Maria, you also were to blame. If you would have been content with seeing Harry here – "

"Oh, indeed! You did not permit me to see Harry here, or even to bid him good-bye that night. If you had – "

"It would have made no difference. Harry as well as you seemed willing to run all risks to meet – elsewhere."

"I never thought of meeting Harry elsewhere. I have told you this fact before."

"If you had not done so, if Harry had not known you would do so again, he would not have asked you."

"This is the last time I will condescend to tell you, Agnes, that I never once met Harry by appointment; much less, at nine o'clock at night. Please remember this!"

"It is, then, very strange, that Harry should have asked you that night."

"Not only very strange, but very impertinent. Why should he suppose Maria Semple would obey such a command? For it was a command. And it was a further impertinence to send me this command on a bit of common paper, wrapped around a stone and thrown at me through a window. It was a vulgar thing to do, also, and I never gave Harry Bradley the smallest right to order me to meet him anywhere."

"Oh, if you look at things that way! But why did he ask you? That is a question hard to answer."

"Not at all. He was jealous of Macpherson and wished to show off his familiarity with me and make Macpherson jealous. Under this distracting passion he forgot, or he did not care, for the risk. It was your selfishness put the idea into his head, and it was his selfishness that carried it out, regardless of the consequences."

"And your selfishness, Maria, what of it?"

"I was not selfish at all. I knew nothing about it. If I had received the note, I should not have answered it in any way."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Absolutely sure. It angered me, humiliated me, wronged me beyond words. And to have it read in the Police Court! How would you feel, Agnes? It has ruined my life."

"Poor Harry!"

"Oh, but poor Maria! All this misery was brought to me without my knowledge and without any desert on my part. And don't you suppose I love my grandparents and Uncle Neil? Think what I have suffered when I saw them dragged to prison, tried, fined and disgraced, and all for a scribble of presumptuous words that Harry Bradley ought to have been ashamed to write. It was very thoughtless, it was very cruel."

"Harry suffered for his presumption; and as for the fine, my father will repay it to your grandfather. He said so this morning; said it would only be just; and I think so, too."

"The fine is the least part of the wrong. Who can repay grandfather and uncle for the loss of their good name and their honorable record? Who can give uncle his business back again? These are wrongs that cannot be put right with money. You know that, Agnes."

"Do not quarrel with me, Maria. I am not able to bear your reproaches. Let us at least be thankful that Harry's life is spared. When the war is over you may yet be happy together."

Then Maria burst into passionate weeping. "You know nothing Agnes! You know nothing!" she cried. "I can never see Harry again! Never, never! Not even if he was in this house, now. How do you suppose he was saved?"

"Father has a great deal of influence, and he used it." Her calm, sad face, with its settled conviction of her father's power, irritated Maria almost beyond endurance. For a moment she thought she would tell her the truth, and then that proud, "not-caring," never far away from a noble nature stayed such a petty retaliation. She dried her eyes, wrapped her cloak around her, and said she "must not stop longer; there was trouble and sorrow at home and she was needed."

Agnes did not urge her to remain, yet she could not bear her to leave in a mood so unfriendly, and so despairing. "Forgive me, dear Maria," she whispered. "I have been wrong and perhaps unkind. I fear you are right in blaming me. Forgive me! I cannot part in such misunderstanding. If you knew all – "

"Oh, yes! And if you knew all."

"But forgive me! God knows I have suffered for my fault."

"And I also."

"Put your arms around my neck and kiss me. I cannot let you go feeling so unkindly to me. Do you hear, little one? I am sorry, indeed I am. Maria! Maria!"

Then they wept a little in each other's arms, and Maria, tear stained and heavy hearted, left her friend. Was she happier? More satisfied? More hopeful, for the interview? No. There had been no real confidence. And what is forgiveness under any circumstances? Only incomplete understanding; a resolution to be satisfied with the wrong acknowledged and the pain suffered, and to let things go.

Certainly, nothing was changed by the apparent reconciliation; for as Maria sat by the fire that night she said to herself, "It is her fault. If she had given Harry five minutes, only five minutes, that night he never would have written that shameful note. It came of her delay and his hurry. I do not forgive her, and I will not forgive her! Besides, in her heart I know she blames me; I, who am perfectly innocent! She has ruined my life, and she looked as injured as if it was I who had ruined her life. I was not to blame at all, and I will not take any blame, and I will not forgive her!"

Maria's divination in the matter was clearly right. Agnes did blame her. She was sure Harry would not have written the note he did write unless he had received previous encouragement. "There must have been meetings in the Semples's garden before," she mused. "Oh, there must have been, or else Harry's note was inexcusable, it was impertinence, it was vulgarity. All the same, she need not have said these words to me."

So the reconciliation was only a truce; the heart-wound in both girls was unhealed; and if it were healed would not the scar remain forever?

Three or four days after this unsatisfactory meeting Neil came home in the afternoon just as the family were sitting down to the tea-table. "It is cruelly cold, mother," he said. "I will be grateful for a cup. I am shivering at my very heart." Then he gave his father a business-like paper, saying, "I found it at my office this morning, sir."

"What is it Neil? What is it? More trouble?"

"No, sir. It is a deed making over to you the property in which Mr. Bradley has his shop and workrooms. He says in a letter to me that 'he feels this deed to be your right and his duty.' You are to hold the property as security until he pays you three hundred pounds with interest; and if you are not paid within three years you are to sell the property and satisfy yourself."

"You can give Mr. Bradley his deed back again, my lad. I can pay my own fines; or if I can't, I can go to prison. I'll not be indebted to him."

"You mistake, sir. This is a moral obligation, and quite as binding as a legal one to Mr. Bradley."

"Take the paper, Alexander," said Madame, "and be thankfu' to save so much out o' the wreck o' things. We havena the means nor the right, these days, to fling awa' siller in order to flatter our pride. In my opinion, it was as little as Bradley could do."

"I went at once to his shop to see him," continued Neil, "but he was not there. In the afternoon I called again, and found he had been absent all day. Fearing he was sick, I stopped at his house on my way home. A strange woman opened the door. She said Mr. Bradley and his daughter had gone away."

"Gone away!" cried Maria. "Where have they gone? Agnes said nothing to me about going away."