Just Sixteen.

by Susan Coolidge

  THE SORROWS OF FELICIA.

  It was a pretty chamber, full of evidences of taste and loving care.White curtains draped the windows and the looking-glass. There was anice writing-table, set where the light fell upon it exactly as itshould for convenience to the writer. There was a book-shelf full ofgayly bound books, a pretty blue carpet, photographs on the faintlytinted blue wall,--somebody had evidently taken pains to make the roomcharming, and just as evidently to make it charming for the use of agirl. And there lay the girl on the sofa,--Felicia, or, in schoolroomparlance, Felie Bliss. Was she basking in the comfort and tastefulnessof her room? Not at all! A volume of "In Memoriam" was in her hand. Herface was profoundly long and dismal. She murmured mournful lines over toherself, only pausing now and then to reach out her hand and fill atumbler from a big jug of lemonade which stood on a little table besideher. Felie always provided herself with lemonade when she retired to herbedroom to enjoy the pleasures of woe for a season.

  From the door, which was locked, sounded a chorus of knocks andirreverent voices.

  "Sister, are you in there?" demanded one.

  "Are you thinking about Life, sister?" asked another.

  "Have you got your sharp-pointed scissors with you?" cried the firstvoice. "Oh, Felie, Felie, stay your rash hand."

  "We like lemonade just as much as you," chimed in Dimple, the youngestof the four.

  "Let us in. We are very thirsty, and we long to comfort you," said voicethe second, with a stifled giggle.

  Felicia paid no attention whatever to these observations, only murmuredto herself,--

  "But what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? To her perpetual maidenhood--"

  "Who is 'her'?" demanded that bad Jenny through the door. "If you meanMrs. Carrington, you are all wrong. May Curtis says her engagement isannounced to Mr. Collins."

  "Oh, children, do go away!" cried Felie in a despairing tone.

  "Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confessions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in Thy wisdom make me wise."

  "Hear her!" said Betty outside. "She's having it very badly to-day. Iwish I knew Tennyson. I should like to tell him what I think of hiswriting a horrid, melancholy, caterwauling book, and making the Blissfamily miserable. Felie, if you've drunk up all your lemonade, you mightat least lend us the pitcher."

  It was no use. Felicia either did not, or would not, hear. So, with alast thump on the panels of the long-suffering door, the trio departedin search of another pitcher.

  If anybody had told Felie Bliss, at seventeen, that she really had nota grief in the world worthy of the name, she would have resented itdeeply. She was a tall girl, whose bones and frame were meant for theuse of a large woman, when their owner should have arrived at all thatnature meant her to be, but who at this period of her life was almoststartlingly long and thin. She had "outgrown her strength," as peoplesay, which was Felie's only excuse for the almost tragic enjoymentwhich she took in mournful things. She was in fair health, and hadan excellent appetite, and a real school-girl love for raisins,stick-cinnamon, sugar-plums, and soda-water; tastes which werehighly at variance with the role which she wished to play,--that of asweetly-resigned and long-suffering being, whose hopes had faded fromearth, into the distant heaven toward which she was hastening. Felie'ssweet-tooth was quite a trial to her; but she struggled with it, andresisted enjoyment as far as was possible with her naturally cheerfuldisposition.

  She was an interesting perplexity to her family, who were contented,reasonable folk, of the sort which, happily for the world, is calledcommonplace. To her younger sisters, especially, Felicia was anever-failing and exciting conundrum, the answer to which they werealways guessing, but never could find out. For days together she wouldbe as cheerful as possible, full of fun and contrivance, and the life ofthe house; then, all of a sudden, gloom would envelop her like a softfog, and she would retire to her room with "In Memoriam," or some otherintrospective volume, and the fat jug of lemonade, lock the door, andjust "drink and weep for hours together," as her sister Jenny expressedit. It was really unaccountable.

  All her books were deeply scored with lines against the woful passages,and such pencilled remarks as "Alas!" and "All too true!" She sat inchurch with a carefully arranged sad smile on her face; but this, asunsuitable to her natural expression, was not always a success. Feliewas much aggrieved one day at being told, by an indiscriminating friend,that her face "seemed made to laugh,--no one could imagine it anythingbut bright." This, for a girl who was posing for "Patience on a monumentsmiling at grief," was rather a trial; but then the friend had neverseen her reading "King John," and murmuring,--

  "Here I and sorrow sit--"

  with a long brown stick of cinnamon, in process of crunch, occupying theother corner of her mouth. But perhaps the friend might have found eventhis funny,--there are such unfeeling people in the world!

  Felie's letters were rather dull reading, because she told so little ofwhat she had said or done, and hinted so liberally at her own achingheart and thwarted hopes. But her correspondents, who were mostly jollyschool-girls, knew her pretty well, and dismissed these jeremiads as,"Just Felie's way. She does love to be miserable, you know, but nobodyis better fun than she when she doesn't think it her duty to beunhappy."

  Felie didn't come down to tea on the evening of the day on which ourstory opens. An afternoon of lemonade had dampened her appetite, but atbedtime she stole out in her dressing-gown and slippers, helped herselfto a handful of freshly baked cookies and a large green cucumber pickle,and, by the aid of these refreshments, contrived to stave off the pangsof hunger till next morning, when she appeared at breakfast cheerful andsmiling, with no sign upon her spirits of the eclipse of the day before.Her family made no allusion to that melancholy episode,--they were usedto such,--only Mr. Bliss asked, between two mouthfuls of toast, "Wherewere you gadding to last night, child? I didn't hear you come home."

  "I was not out. I didn't feel very--very bright, and went to bed early."

  "Oh!"--Mr. Bliss understood.

  "He who makes truth unlovely commits high treason against virtue," saysan old writer; but he who simulates grief, and makes it ridiculous,commits an almost equal crime against true feeling. Felie had beenplaying at sorrow where no sorrow was. That very day a real sorrow came,and she woke up to find her world all changed into a reality of pain andpuzzle and bewilderment, which was very different from the fictitiousloss and the sham suffering which she had found so much to her mind.

  She had no idea, as she watched her father and mother drive off thatafternoon, that anything terrible was about to happen. Only the "seers"of the Scotch legends could see the shroud drawn up over the breast ofthose who are "appointed to die" suddenly; the rest of us see nothing.The horse which Mr. Bliss drove was badly broken, but he had often goneout before and come back safely. It was only on this particular day thatthe combination of circumstances occurred which made the risky horsedangerous,--the shriek of the railroad-whistle, the sharp turn in theroad, the heap of stones. There was a runaway, an overset, and two hoursfrom the time when the youthful sisters, unexpectant of misfortune, hadwatched their parents off, they were brought back, Mr. Bliss dead, Mrs.Bliss with a broken arm, and injuries to the spine so severe that therewas little chance of her ever being able to leave her bed again. So muchcan be done in one fatal moment.

  It is at such dark, dark times that real character shows itself. Felie'slittle affectations, her morbid musings and fancies, fell from her likesome light, fantastic drapery, which is shrivelled in sudden heat. Herreal self--hopeful, self-reliant, optimistic--rose into action as soonas the first paralyzing shock of pain was past, and she had taken in thereality of this new and strange thing. All the cares of the house, themanagement of affairs, the daily wear and tear of life, which has to beborne by _some one_, fell upon her inexperienced hands. Her mother wastoo shaken and ill to be consulted, the younger girls instinctivelyleaned
on what they felt to be a strength superior to their own. It wasa heavy load for young shoulders, and Felie was not yet eighteen!

  She made mistakes of course,--mistakes repented of with bitter cryingand urgent resolutions. She was often tried, often discouraged; thingsdid not smooth themselves easily, or the world go much out of its usualcourse, because Felie Bliss was perplexed and in trouble. There were nomornings to spare for tragedy, or Tennyson. Felie's eyeballs oftenlonged for the relief of a good fit of tears; that troublesome littlelump would come into her throat which is the price of tears resolutelyheld back, but there was too much to do to allow of such a weakeningself-indulgence. Mother must be cared for, the house must be lookedafter, people on business must be seen, the "children," as she calledher sisters, must not be suffered to be too sad. And then, again, "InMemoriam," beautiful as it is, and full of sweet and true and tenderfeeling, did not satisfy Felie now as it had done when she was forced tocultivate an artificial emotion outside of herself.

  "If I had time and knew how to write poetry, I could say a great manythings that Tennyson never thought of," she told Jenny, one day. It isso with all who suffer. No poet ever voiced the full and completeexpression of our own personal pain. There is always somethingbeyond,--an individual pang recognized and understood only by ourselves.

  So the years went on, as years do even when their wheels seem weightedwith lead. The first sharpness of their loss abated. They became used tothe sight of their father's empty chair, of his closed desk; they ceasedto listen for the sound of his step on the porch, his key in the door.Mrs. Bliss gradually regained a more comfortable measure of health, butshe remained an invalid, the chief variation in her life being when shewas lifted from bed to sofa, and back again from sofa to bed. Felie wastwenty-four, and the younger ones were no longer children, though shestill called them so. Even Dimple wore long dresses, and had set upsomething very like a lover, though Felie sternly refused to have himcalled so till Dimple was older. Felie was equally severe with Dr.Ernest Allen, on her own account. "She was a great deal too busy tothink of such a thing," she declared; but Dr. Allen, who had faith intime, simply declared that he "didn't mind waiting," and continued tohang his hat on the hat-tree in the Bliss's entry three times a week.

  Indeed, looking at Felicia Bliss, now that she had rounded physicallyand mentally into what she was meant to become, you would not wonderthat any man should be willing to wait a while in hope of winning such aprize. A certain bright cheer and helpfulness was her charm. "The roomgrew pleasanter as soon as she came into it," Dimple declared. CertainlyDr. Allen thought so; and as a man may willingly put off building ahouse till he can afford to have one which fronts the sun, so heconsidered it worth while to delay, for a few years, even, if need be,and secure for life a daily shining which should make all lifepleasanter. He had never known Felie in her morbid days, and she couldnever make him quite believe her when she tried to tell of that pastphase of her girlhood.

  "It is simply impossible. You must exaggerate, if you have not dreamedit," he said.

  "Not a bit. Ask Dimple,--ask any of them."

  "I prefer to ask my own eyes, my own convictions," declared the lover."You are the most 'wholesome' woman, through and through, that I everknew. A doctor argues from present indications to past conditions. I amsure you are mistaken about yourself. If I can detect with thestethoscope the spot in your lungs where five years back pneumonia lefta trace, surely I ought to be able to make out a similar spot in yournervous temperament. The idea is opposed to all that you are."

  "But not to all that I was. Really and truly, Dr. Allen, I used to bethe most absurd girl in the world. If you could have seen me!"

  "But what cured you in this radical and surprising manner?"

  "Well," said Felie, demurely, "I suppose the remedy was what you wouldcall homeopathic. I had revelled in a sort of imaginary sorrowfulness,but when that dreadful time came, and I tasted real sorrow, I found thatit took all my strength to meet it, and I was glad enough of everythingbright and cheering that I could get at to help me through.

  "I wonder if there are many girls in the world who are nursing imaginarymiseries as I used to do," she went on. "If there are, I should like totell them how foolish it is, and how bad for them. But, dear me, thereare so many girls and one can't get at them! I suppose each must learnthe lesson for herself and fight her fight out somehow, and I hope theywill all get through safely, and learn, as I have, that happiness is themost precious thing in the world, and that it is so, _so_ foolish not toenjoy and make the most of it while we have it. Because, you know,_some_ day trouble must come to everybody. And it is such a pity to haveto look back and know that you have wasted a chance."