“You could spend the night here,” I ventured. “There are rooms for college guests. And then I could take you back in the morning. We could send a messenger to your uncle and aunt so that they won’t worry. A boy will have an easier time of it in the snow than we.”
“I would not send a boy out in this blizzard on my account,” she said. “No, I must go. I don’t have my things.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, reluctantly standing with her.
Our cloaks and mufflers had been dried next to the fire by a college servant. I tipped the fellow and inquired about a sleigh, and one was fetched for us. During the journey to her uncle’s house, Etna and I held a blanket above our heads, wrapping ourselves in a kind of tent. I could feel warm breath all about my face. At her door, she invited me in, but I had sympathy for the boy and the horses with the sleigh, and could now see what I had not been able to before: there were large drifts in which even a sleigh might be lost.
“I’ll call on Tuesday, then,” I said at her door.
She nodded, but she seemed distracted. I could not let her stand in the snow a moment longer.
“Go inside,” I said.
She nodded again, and she stepped into the house. She glanced once at me before she shut the door. I walked back to the sleigh, suddenly painfully aware of the snow, which was now considerably higher than my boots.
As it happened, Etna became ill with fever the next day, a development for which I chastised myself unmercifully. Had I warned her sufficiently of the perils of the storm — as any decent man would have done — she would not have taken sick. (Although it did occur to me that the preternatural flush I had seen upon her cheeks in the Bliss vestibule might have been due to incipient fever, but never mind.) I did not discover this until Tuesday, when I called at the accustomed hour and was told so by Mrs. Bliss, after which it was necessary to endure an interminable cup of tea and an intolerable conversation in the parlor (in which I must say Mrs. Bliss seemed to thrive like a rare tropical flower, or was she, too, coming down with the fever?). I could think of little but the fact that Etna might be lying in her bed not ten feet from my head. She was sick for a week, after which she was able to come down into the parlor for brief intervals, the evidence of the contagion in her cough and reddened nose. On my visits, I brought sweets from the baker and hothouse flowers and, on one occasion, a rare orchid from the college greenhouse that the Biology Professor, Everett Tucker, had given me. And, of course, I brought books for Etna to read. Despite these gifts, our conversations in that parlor (Etna settled in a chaise, myself sweating profusely beneath my suit jacket and waistcoat) were always desultory and unconvincing — and whether this was a result of our confinement in that dreadful room or of the unfortunate contrast to the brisk animation we had known together in the college dining room, I could not tell. Needless to say, it was with a feeling of tremendous relief that Etna determined she was well enough to again venture forth.
During our courtship, I was generous with my gifts, most of which I purchased at Johnston & Herrick’s in Hanover. I remember a pair of topaz earrings Etna particularly liked. (Have I said how much Etna attended to her dress and accessories? In a modest way, of course, but with an arresting mix of artfulness and taste.) I also gave her a moonstone necklace, and even now I cannot forget the pleasure of fastening the clasp at the back of her neck. Was I wrong to imagine that if I offered these gifts (a jet brooch, a tourmaline comb), and she accepted them, she was accepting me and my attentions, each present given and received an entry to my credit in the ledger of our courtship? And so I had hope, even some confidence, and began to think about a proper occasion on which to ask her to marry me.
It happened on a mild afternoon in March. It was unseasonably warm, the first good day we had had in weeks. The college had paths for walking that prior to that afternoon had been covered with snow and shortly after would be too muddy to negotiate, but on that day, betwixt the winter and the spring, the ground was hard enough for travel.
We left the Bliss household, and I led Etna to the head of the college paths, a walk already longer than any we had taken together. I was in a state of considerable anxiety, as any suitor about to make a petition will be, but I took heart from the fact that Etna did not demur at the entrance to the meadows. Indeed, I think she hardly noted it, so great was her restlessness, as if her limbs were suffused with the very fluid that was rising in the maples all around us. The path we embarked upon kept to the water’s edge, the river boisterous that day with early freshets. Not only was the air mild, but so also were the colors — the sky muted to a milky blue, the sharp outlines of the trees blurred by the soft air. Etna held her skirts as she walked, but even so, her hem was soon soaked. She seemed not to mind at all. In fact, she walked at some speed, as though she had a destination. She wore that day a blue and gray and brown plaid skirt that had a short matching cape with a gray rabbit’s-fur collar. When she lifted her skirt, I would sometimes catch a glimpse of layers of heavy cream-colored petticoats.