"So you've come home to be fed, eh?"
Martin Morley slunk into a chair and eyed the woman by the cook-stove ingratiatingly.
"I sho' have," he replied; "it smells like ash cakes, and I've brought a bucket of buttermilk from ole Mis' Walden's place. She certainly is a techersome woman but a powerful good manager."
"Where's the buttermilk?"
"Outside the do'!"
"Run and fetch it, Molly."
The child, glaring at Martin, sprang to do her mother's bidding and as she passed Morley he seemed to note, for the first time in his life, her fantastic beauty. And then Morley stared after her—she looked likehismother! With the thought a blush of shame rose to his thin, sallow face.
His mother! Between his mother and him lay a black abyss. What right had anything, holding part in that shadow, to look like his mother? He arose and almost snatched from the child the pail she had brought in.
"Hyar!" he cried, "let me take that, you're slopping it over the floor. Whar's yo' brother?"
With this Mary Morley turned from her task with hot, blazing face? She had been handsome once—but the fleeting beauty was gone.
"Sho'!whar'sthat blessed son of yours?" Mary screamed. "You better go and find out. Do you know what the brat has been doing all these years? Years, I say! While we-all have been slaving and starving he's been saving up; cheating us-all out of his earnings. Eating us-all out of house and home while he—saved and glutted!"
Martin stared at the woman as if she were speaking a foreign language.
"Who—tole yo?" he asked vaguely, hoping by the question to clarify the moment's confusion.
"Molly, she don' keep her eye on him fo' years! It's under a stone beyond the Branch—dollars and dollars while we-all done without."
"Whar did he—get it?"
"He only gave us part of what he earned—he made us-all fools while he hid the rest."
This was too bewildering for Martin and he looked helplessly at the girl who had been informer. The bold little face of Molly confronted him with something like fear in it.
"He'll sho' kill me!" she whined, "him and that—that Cynthia Walden."
This latter betrayal was new to Mary Morley and she came forward angrily.
"None of your lying!" she commanded—"nobody's going to hurt you so long as you tell the truth. What has the Walden girl got to do with the stolen money?"
"She watched it! She licked me right smart once because I—tried to find out how much there was. She told me she'd kill me sho' if I let on and I ain't till to-day when ma said she'd send me down to Miss Lowe's to larn things if she only had money to buy me some shoes. Why should Sandy have that money and me no shoes?"
Why he yearned to lay the lash on the girl before him, Martin could not tell, but she filled him with savage anger. She looked so mean, so hard and—young! Then he tried to think it was Sandy with whom he was angered. He had left the boy to his own devices, to be sure, but—hidden money and the Walden girl aroused a sudden hot fear in him.
"You lie!" he cried in a tone that for many a day Mary, with her growing power over him, had not heard. "You-all lie; you're a lying lot. I'll find the boy——" Martin reached up and took down a lash whip which hung beneath an old rusted sword on the wall. "I'll find the boy and the truth, and by heaven! the sneak and liar, whoever he may be, will get a taste of this!" He snapped the lash sharply.
Molly shrank from his path and Mary gazed after him in sullen amazement. Led by some intuition, Martin strode down the path leading to the Branch and, just as he crossed the almost-dry stream bed, he saw, on the hill opposite, Sandy coming toward him. The boy stopped as he caught sight of his father and waited at the edge of the woods. His brief rest had refreshed him and the cool evening breeze, bearing a shower in its keeping, calmed his aching head and feverish body. Martin noticed how white and haggard the boy looked and some instinct warned him to hide the whip behind his back. When he reached Sandy the two stepped back to where a log lay across the path and upon that Martin dropped, while Sandy braced against a tree.
"Whar was yo' going?" asked Morley.
"Home, Dad. I wanted to see you—and then——"
"Well——"
"I'm going away!"
"Going away?"
"Come, too, Dad! Come and let us fight it out together. She——" The boy's eyes, haunted and fierce, turned toward the home place. "She don't belong to us or with us. I don't know how better to say it—but she don't. She won't mind; no one will mind after the first. I've got to go and—I want you! I've been saving and saving little by little for years—there's enough now and we can go to-night. Out beyond—somewhere—Dad, there's something better for us than—this. By and by we'll come back. We'll come and help——" and a sob choked the words; "we'll come and help all Lost Hollow. Somehow I feel—called!"
Martin Morley stared at the boy before him as though he saw a ghost. And indeed a ghost of the grim past did confront him. He saw himself as he once was ere his Inheritance was downed forever. He, too, had wanted to break away; get out to the free chance and the new hope.
"You can't do it!" he said in a faint voice to that ghost of himself standing opposite in the darkening shadows. "There's something as allus holds us-all from getting away. It began back there in grandfather's day—it's settled on us-all like a death grip."
Sandy listened as if already he was far and apart from all the sordid, little hampering things that made up the life of Lost Hollow.
"What did—grandfather do?" he asked, like one who had no special interest in the matter.
"It was my grandfather, he was the friend of Lansing Hertford. They said he betrayed his friend—but they-all lied. First it was a whisper, then in your grandfather's time they-all spoke louder. The lie took away the faith of men from us-all and—that ended it! The lie slinks low till some Morley raises his head and then it springs up and strikes him down."
"It will not strike me down!" Sandy, weak and forlorn, straightened against the tree with the darkness almost blotting him from the eyes fastened tenderly on his face, spoke firmly. "I'll kill the lie whatever it was! What did they say, Dad?"
Never before had Sandy cared. He knew there was something lurking in the past that caused his father to slink from the mountain people, caused the men and women to avoid and shun him, but it had always existed. It was part of Lost Hollow and the Morley fate.
Then, alone with the last of his race, Martin Morley told the old story that had sapped the vitality of his family. Such a small, mean thing it seemed to have downed the once good stock! But in a place where tradition thrives on starvation, lack of ambition and misunderstanding, it had done its work. As Morley drawled the ancient wrong to light, as he eased his soul of the burden and so shared it with his boy, his eye brightened and he sat straighter upon the fallen log for—at its completion—Sandy laughed!
"It was this—er—way. In them days us-all and the Hertfords was equals. The plantation lying off to the east of the old Hertford home place belonged to us-all"—many and many were the quarts of berries and bushels of nuts Sandy had gathered from there!—"but it slipped away—it's all gone years past. My grandfather and Lansing Hertford was close friends—none closer. They fought and loved side by side till Hertford—he got some kind of government order to go to furrin' parts a mighty distance from Lost Hollow. Some time after he went my grandfather followed on a pleasure trip—a pleasure trip, Sandy, think of that! He went away for pleasure! His pockets full of money and him right well fixed! On his travels he stopped and called on Hertford in them furrin' parts and Hertford he gave to grandfather a mighty precious bottle of stuff to bring back home to a big merchant down Lynchburg way. What happened the Lord only knows, Sandy, but when the merchant opened the bottle there wasn't nothing but water in it! No one ever spoke out in grandfather's day—they dassent. He was a mighty proud and upperty man, but a whisper and a nudge can do the work, and little by little grandfather was pushed down and out. In my father's time they spoke louder—they don' said how grandfather had sold the precious stuff before he came back; Lord, Sandy, I leave it to you, son, would he have come if he had done that low-down, mean trick?"
"No!" Sandy breathed the word like a hiss, and in the darkness and his weakness he felt the poison of the lie stealing into his thought, but he flung his head up proudly. "No! No!" he repeated clearly and defiantly; "No!"
"But they-all never trusted none of us again."
Sandy recalled his first visit to the Walden back door and his courage rose—they had learned to trust him even in Lost Hollow!
"Grandfather tried to rise up and failed. Father had his hope, but it was killed; I strove, Sandy, I sho' did, God knows! but you see how it has been with me. There's no use, son, we-all is damned!"
"I am—going to succeed!"
Sandy's voice struck through the gloom and stillness like a tangible blow. Martin started and gave a nervous laugh.
"Come home!" he said; "come home and bring your money with you. It will buy peace and pardon—them's better than any fool idees. And just remember this, Sandy Morley, we-all may be dastards and hard drinkers and what not, but we sho' don't desert women and children. They, down there, belong to us, son, and I expect you and me belong to them!"
Martin rose hurriedly and dropped the whip in the underbrush.
"Come on home, son!"
But Sandy did not move.
"It's come with me or I go alone, Dad."
The child was master of the man!
"You mean it? You mean you dare to disobey—me?"
"I'm going to—take my chance, Dad, out among—folks!"
"You—will—obey—me!" But even as the words were spoken, Martin felt how impotent they were.
"It's good-bye, Dad?"
It was good-bye. Both man and boy realized it. The night closed them in and the protecting trees sheltered them for a moment more.
"You po' little lad! you mean it?"
"Yes, Dad. Will you come?"
Martin turned one glance to where the light from his cabin door shone; then he groaned and said:
"No! God knows they do belong to me and I'm too old, too broken. The curse will get the best of you, boy, and you'll come trailing home. I'll be here—then! But——" And now Martin came closer and held him by the thin, trembling shoulders.
"Grandfather never done it! It was one man's word agin another's and the Hertfords have the luck—they allus had. Onct one of them come back"—and here Morley came closer to Sandy—"it was back in ole Miss Ann Walden's early days—he came back and something happened!" The whisper made Sandy creep with chill.
"What?" he asked, hoarsely.
"He done a mighty wrong to—Miss Ann's little sister, her that was called Queenie and looked it! We-all knew, but we-all stood by Miss Ann, even such as me stood by her! it was the only thing we-all could do for her. He got away! Then that po' chile took to watching from the balcony for him who never come—and then she went away—and by and by—the baby come home!"
"The baby?"
Sandy trembled and grew faint. He had eaten little and the burden being laid upon him was more than his strength could bear.
"Cynthia—the lil' girl with the face of Queenie, her mother?"
"No! No!" What he feared and abhorred the boy could not tell, but every instinct in him rose to do battle for the child—friend of his starved and empty life.
"It's your part, son, to stand by and never let on! We-all have done it; we-all took what Miss Ann said for gospel truth—and so must you!"
Then it was that Sandy laughed! The sound startled and shocked Martin and he almost reeled from before it, but strangely enough it seemed to brighten the heavy darkness.
"I don't believe it!" said Sandy between his bursts of laughter. "It's a bad dream—we-all must wake up."
"We can't fight them, Sandy!"
The poor legacy of hatred, wrong, loyalty, and despair was all that Martin Morley had to offer his boy as a weapon in the coming fight. The uselessness and weakness of it struck Sandy even then as he stood on the threshold of the new life. What did it matter? But it was the small thing, the old past that made up the shabby present of The Hollow. He was going to leave everything—even the old grudge—already the wider thought called him and gave a touch of daring to his laugh.
"Good-bye, Dad!"
And then Morley staggered toward Sandy and stretched his arms out to him. There was one thing more he had to offer!
"I—I want to tell you 'bout—yo' mother, Sandy—and me! No one ain't all bad; she was all good and yo' must lay hold o' the good. It will help if yo' can cling fast enough."
Oddly enough Sandy found himself against his father's breast without a sense of strangeness. Long years ago he had so lain in the strong arms—the recollection brought others in its wake; memories of safe, happy days—before Mary had come into their lives.
"I was older then her!" Martin spoke as if confessing to one who demanded the best and the truth at last. It was as though he felt that with the neglect and injustice he had of late shown the boy, there had been the holding back of his just due. "Yo' mother came from The Forge, she left a good home for me because she believed in me—she was terrible young and trusting and she didn't live to—find out! I was old enough to be her father, and I tried. God help me! I tried, but it was the old curse and not even the love I had for her could keep me up. But while she lived—it was better. The cabin was clean and tidy and she always sang about her work. She only stopped singing toward the last—when she got thinking about you she got solemner and stiller and then—you came! She—died the day after, and the blackness of it has shut the sunlight out of my life ever since, Sandy. I ought to have took my pay and made no fuss, and for a time I did. You and me lived on in the cabin with a woman's hand to help at the pinch, and for years I kept my head and yours above water. But when yo' are a man, son, you'll think kinder o' me than what yo' do to-day; a man's a man, and a lonely man is the worst of all—and so"—Martin's grizzly head was pressed against Sandy's—"and so—Mary came! She didn't ask much; she only wanted to live along with us-all in the cabin, but——" The dreary years seemed to spread before both man and boy in the silence which followed.
"Good-bye, Sandy, good-bye!" Martin choked and held the boy off at arm's length. "Yo' great-grandfather's name was Sandford Morley. I gave you the name for good luck—maybe it—will help. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye—dear old Dad!"
The one-time trust and affection flooded the moment and place. Quite simply and naturally they kissed and fell apart.
"Yo' go first, lad—yo' ain't got nothing to take?" Sandy shook his head.
"No, Dad. Good-bye. The money will help me on. Some day I'm coming back, Dad, coming back to help! Wait for me, Dad, and hold tight for me—so I'll be glad. Dear, dear, old Dad!"
Then Sandy turned and set his face toward The Appointed Way. It had been hard to see Cynthia flee from him, leaving him lonely and forsaken; but it was harder now to leave the sad, broken father in the desolate blackness of night—and enter the new, hard life alone! But with never a backward look Sandford Morley went to meet his fate.
Martin stood and listened until the last sound dropped into silence. Then he went back. It was pitchy dark when he reached the cabin. There were mutterings of thunder in the distance again, and the odour of scorched meal in the air. Mary, with Molly hanging to her, stood by the rough table in the middle of the room.
"Did you find him?" she asked.
"Yes."
"And you——"
Martin turned and the look on his face silenced the woman.
"That boy," he said slowly, "belongs to me, do you understand? Keep your tongue off him—your hands will never touch him again. He's mine and God Almighty's from now on. You've starve him and beat him for the last time and now—never speak his name again. He's mine and God's—and his mother's!"
Martin was spent. He dropped into a chair and, folding his arms upon the back, bent his head upon them.
Then Mary's wrath broke.
"He's yours, is he?" she sneered, shaking her child off and striding toward the bowed figure—"he's yours and God's and his mother's! He belongs to a fine lot, doesn't he, the ungrateful little beast? And I'm to keep my tongue off him, eh? Ain't I good enough for him and you and the high company you belong to?"
Resentment old and rankling rose fiercely. What ever she had been and was, Mary clung to Morley faithfully according to her light and she writhed under the sting of the implied insult hurled at her now.
Morley did not move. A sense of desolation swept over him. He was following the trail of the lonely boy in the dark and the woman's infuriated words meant no more to him than the rumbling thunder.
"Who do I and mine belong to?" the tense voice went on; "to the devil I suppose! Well, then, Mart Morley, you listen to me now. This child"—she turned fiercely toward Molly—"is yours, mine and the devil's. You're a lazy lot that left us to starve or live as we could, but the devil has taken a hand in the game, do you hear? I reckon he'll see us through and no thanks to you! From now on you take what you can get and keep your mouth shut or—the devil and I will know why."
And then Morley lifted his head. The look of misery on his pinched face should have moved one to pity, but it did not move the heart of Mary Morley.
"What do you mean?" he asked wonderingly. "I—I—didn't follow all—you said."
"And there's to be no questioning," the voice had grown louder. "No questions—just take or leave what's offered; go or stay as you please, but if that brat of yours, God's and his mother's, ever shows his face near me or mine—I'll"—she laughed hoarsely—"I'll make him a discredit to you all! Come move up and eat the food I provided and drink the sour milk that was given you!"
Morley rose unsteadily. He tried to speak and command the situation that in some subtle way had escaped his control, but he felt bereft and desperate. Now that Sandy was quite beyond recall, to whom could he turn? His strength and spirit were crushed and degraded—he moved up and sullenly took the plate and cup that were pushed toward him! Once he glanced at Molly. She leered at him over the edge of her mug and her eyes were hard and cruel.
Martin Morley pushed the untouched food from him and strode to the door of the cabin. The storm was coming up fast now. The lightning flashed and the thunder shook the house. Morley's heart ached for the boy struggling alone and defenceless through the night, but he was glad he was gone! Whatever lay before of defeat or victory—he thanked God that the last of his race had had courage at least to make an attempt for freedom.
The house grew very quiet; Mary had taken Molly to the loft overhead, and presently Martin heard her deep breathing and the nestling of the little girl in the straw mattress. The storm passed at last and above Lost Mountain a bright and glowing star showed through the parting clouds.
Cautiously Martin whistled and then waited. Night after night this was his habit. When the others had departed he called Sandy's dog, fed it from the scraps he could gather, and comforted himself with the companionship of the faithful collie that was too wise to tempt Providence when Mary was around.
Martin whistled a second time and then called softly: "Bob! oh—Bob!"
There was no response. Again the man spoke drawlingly and fondly: "Bob! oh, Bob!" Then he went to the shed near the cabin and looked in. That had been Sandy's bed-chamber since the rule of Mary had begun—how terribly empty and lonely it looked now! How afraid the boy must have been when at first he was driven from the home place to the deserted outhouse! He had never whimpered nor complained. "Poor little lad!" breathed Martin, and leaned against the doorway of the wretched room. There was the ragged mattress and the little nest where the slight boyish body had so often rested after the day's cheerless toil. On the wall were pinned two or three bright pictures that had drifted somehow to the barren place; there was a pitiful little frayed jacket hanging on a nail and a pair of sadly torn shoes in one corner.
The objects caused Martin to groan as he beheld them. He suffered as he had not suffered since Sandy's mother died in his arms! Like a drowning man he relived the years—the hard years when he cared for and loved the baby-child alone in the cabin. He recalled the boy's sunny ways and sweet confidence, until the Woman Mary entered their life. He had been miserable, his lower nature craved its own, and Mary came! He had accepted and he had lost his self-respect; everything! There was nothing left; there would be nothing more until—the end came, unless Sandy succeeded. Just then the moon came over a bank of black clouds and lit The Hollow. It shone full on Lost Mountain and into the deserted shed where but lately Sandy had suffered and slept.
Martin Morley dropped on his knees and turned his haggard, pain-racked face upward. He had once been a religious man; had once been a leader in the little church at The Forge before he gave up hope and ambition. His prayers had been the pride and boast of the mountainside, but that was long ago, and his lips with difficulty formed, now, the sacred words.
"God-a'mighty!" he breathed, "take care of that lil' boy out there alone on The Way. Don't fail him on the big road; keep him to the end! I ain't asking You to do anything more for me; I've give up; but he's just started forth! Watch him; keep him; don't let the sins of his fathers or his enemies tech him. Amen!"
There was a note of command in the prayer. A demand for justice and protection for one who could not defend himself. Having worded his appeal, Martin rose stiffly from his knees and closed the door of the shed after him.
He had done what he could; he must bear the agony and remorse silently from now on. The old laziness and indifference returned slowly as he retraced his steps, and when he entered the silent cabin again he went naturally to the crooked stairs leading up to the loft. The door was closed and locked! Mary had, in this final fashion, proclaimed her independence.
Martin made no effort to force his way or question the proceedings; with a weary sigh he looked about, then went quietly to an old settle by the hearth. Taking off his wet and ragged coat he rolled it up and placed it for a pillow. Finally he stretched his aching body upon the improvised bed and fell into a restless slumber.
The hot, breathless morning followed the storm through which Sandy departed, and fell like a moist blanket over Lost Hollow. Even up at Stoneledge the vapour rose and settled depressingly. Every door and window in the livable part of the house was set wide to any chance stirring of the dead air. Ann Walden in the sitting-room, old Lily Ivy in the kitchen, and the child Cynthia in the dim, shadowy library, in the unlivable part of the house, were listless and indolent. Presently the black woman, having completed the preparations of vegetables for the simple mid-day meal, came to the sitting-room door and contemplated her mistress with respectful eyes. Ivy was fully seventy years old, but she was straight and strong as a woman of fifty and as keen and capable. She had been carefully reared as a house servant in the days of slavery, and she had followed the downward fortunes of the Waldens with dignity and courage worthy a more glorious cause. Her spotless but much patched gown was almost covered by a huge white apron. She wore a kerchief and a turban-like head covering.
"Miss Ann, honey, a leak done sprung in the roof over the west chamber las' night. The rain am permeated through the flo' and marked the ceiling in de libr'y."
Cynthia, lying on the horsehair sofa of the dim room across the hall, looked up and saw the new and ugly spot over her head.
"Well, Ivy, shut the west chamber off from the rest of the house. We have far too much space to care for as it is. When I reconstruct Stoneledge it will be time enough to reopen the disused rooms."
Ivy bowed her head complacently. It had always been the same since the war. One room after another had been shut off until the wide halls dividing the house, the living-room, dining-room, kitchen and three upper bedrooms were all that were left for family use.
"Yes, chile." Then after a pause: "I don' hear how dat wretch, Black Jim, was stricken, by God-a'mighty's justice, on The Way, las' night. He was found plumb dead under a tree whar de lightnin' felled him."
Miss Ann raised her spectacled eyes with something like interest.
"We-all will be safer," she said quietly. "A darky like Jim, who gets a twist in his head about freedom and license, is a mighty dangerous creature."
"Yes, chile, dat's plain truth."
Cynthia held her breath. Sandy had been on The Way—what had God-a'mighty's justice done to him? Surely if any evil had befallen him Ivy would know. By some intangible current the gossip and news of the hills travelled rapidly and more or less accurately.
"Dat boy of Morley's has runned away from home!"
At this Ann Walden took off her spectacles and made no pretence of indifference.
"Run away?" she said. "I didn't know a Morley had spirit enough to do that even with conditions as they must be along of that woman of Martin's in the cabin. Where has he gone?"
"Nobody ain't knowing exactly—just gone! I expect he'll turn up again when his stomick done clutch him. Dat chile never done us-all no 'commodation job, but he was too good to live up to that cabin in de Holler. If I knowed whar he done hide himself, I clar I'd fotch him some victuals even if hewassharp as a sarpint's tooth in a bargain."
"If you hear of him, let me know," Ann Walden said quietly; "he's too good, as you say, to be left to that evil woman Martin lives with. I've had the boy on my mind for some time. He has the mark of cruelty and neglect; he' been mighty silent too, about it all—he resembles his grandfather."
And now Cynthia breathed again freely and happily. A breath of air stole through the window and across the room—the atmosphere was clearing.
"Whar's lil' Miss?"
"Lying down across in the library. Go close the door softly, Ivy, and come back. I have something to say to you about her."
The child upon the sofa wished to be alone with herself, so she shut her eyes and pretended sleep when the lean, black hand reached into the room and drew to the door. Cynthia wanted to think about Sandy; she wanted to follow him, in fancy, after her own fashion, and above all else she wanted to be with him in the Significant Room.
Once the door secured her from intrusion she arose from the sofa and locked it quietly; then she set the window wider to the summer day. The casement was choked with the yellow rosebush and heavy honeysuckle; the fragrance was almost stifling, but Cynthia heeded it not.
"Now," she whispered, with the slow smile coming to her lips, "now, Sandy Morley, I'm going to hang your picture in its place!"
The large gray eyes fastened upon the empty space near the chimney, the space where, when the afternoon was fair and clear, the western sun poured its light through the tangle of vines at the window and fell full upon it.
"The man who cut his way through his enemies." Cynthia knew her "Pilgrim's Progress" as many children know their nursery rhymes. It was her only guide to life, but she interpreted it for herself. "The Biggest of Them All." And then the girl laughed her rich, rippling laugh.
It was Madam Bubble now who stood before the fireplace, a gentle creature with little head bent forward in listening attitude and a waiting, pleading look in the fine eyes. A bit too tall and thin was she for grace, but Time would take care of that—and, fortunately, Cynthia was many-sided. The dull, monotonous life of Stoneledge had retarded development. Never having mingled with children, she was untested and untried along certain lines. Poor, shabby Sandy Morley had been and was her only interpretation of youth as it had touched her personally—he and her ungoverned imagination had supplied the motive power, so far, for the foundation of her emotions.
"I—helped you!" she said softly to "The Biggest of Them All"—"I. And wherever you are you will remember that."
There was an old, cracked, dimmed mirror between the chimney-place and the window, and tiptoeing to that, Cynthia viewed herself as if for the first time in her life. The image was strange to her; confusing and half fearsome. It was not the reflection of the awkward, thin Cynthia Walden that she saw; Cynthia of the long braids of hair and short patched gingham gown of irregular length—owing to many washings and shrinkings. It was the reflection of something Cynthia was to be some day who looked back at the questioning girl. Slowly the colour rose to the pale face and the big eyes flinched.
"Stand straighter!" commanded the inquisitor before the mirror. The shoulders braced, but too long had the slender neck bent forward to obey the sudden exertion now. Cynthia would always carry that waiting pose!
The ugly checked gown next caught the critical eyes and the impotent hands pulled it down at the waist, while a sense of its unloveliness brought a quiver to the sensitive mouth. "Hateful!" was the verdict.
Then with fumbling, unpractised hands Cynthia gathered her two long shining braids and bound them around her head—somewhere she had seen the fashion, and a feminine instinct appropriated it. Next she stepped quietly to the window and broke off a deep yellow rose and a delicate trailing bit of honeysuckle rich with bloom; these she wound with intuitive skill in her twisted braids, the rose nestled close to the left ear. Thus adorned she tested the mirror again. Gone now was the ugly gown; gone was the awkward pose—the face that smiled out at the young judge was a wonderful face with its secret promise of by and by.
"Oh! you pretty honey-girl!" There was absolute detachment and lack of vanity in the words. The woman-nature of Cynthia was simply giving homage to a young creature worthy its admiration. "Oh! I want to kiss you and love you! I want you to kiss and love me!" And then the denied craving for affection and fondling rose supreme. "I want to cuddle you, honey—you are mighty sweet!"
The slow smile touched the lips of the reflection—the dear, slow smile of Madam Bubble.
Cynthia pressed close to the old mirror and laid her lips to that alluring creature she was some time to be!
"Honey!" she whispered, "dear, pretty honey-girl!" The tears clouded the love-filled eyes; a sense of loneliness drove the rapture away, and the hands fell limply.
Going to the window, Cynthia knelt down and, resting her arms upon the sill, laid her pretty head upon them.
She was never to be wholly a child again. Never was she to let her hair fall in the little-girl fashion. Something had happened to her, and tracing the something back she realized that it had been done when Sandy kissed her good-bye!
Vivid was the red now in the girl's face. Her South had brought the bloom forth early, and she was unprepared and unlearned in its demands.
"I want—some one to love me!" No words formed the thought. "I want——" Then all the ties of her barren young life were reviewed and found inadequate. Presently the yearning eyes rested upon the old painting of Queenie Walden. It was a miserable piece of work; an indefinite likeness, but it held the gaze and the fancy of the girl upon the floor. "I want—my mother!" The hunger and longing brought fresh tears to the aching eyes. "Mother!" She had always known the relationship, and had always guarded it as a sacred secret. The flood of repression and denial came in full force now.
"I want to know all!" That was the demand, and straightway Cynthia sprang to her feet and ran from the room. She was still running when she came into Ann Walden's presence.
"What's the matter, Cynthia?"
"Aunt Ann, tell me about my father and mother!"
The sudden question, the sight of the flower-decked head, set Ann Walden into a trembling fit. Since the day of Marcia Lowe's call she had never been the same. She slept badly, ate poorly, and feared greatly. Day after day she had expected the late visitor to return or send a representative. When she heard that the stranger had gone away she breathed more freely for the respite, but dreaded the reason for the going. She had passed through such torture as she had never known or undergone before. Something, unsuspected, rose and reproved her; pride, self-esteem, and faith had perished when many readings of the letter had driven truth home. Finally nerves refused to suffer longer and a kind of revenge took its place.
"Very well!" she had concluded desperately; "Queenie and I will keep the child—at last! You and yours shall have no part in her or for her."
Thus she had decided regarding Cynthia. She meant to break forever with Theodore Starr and all who were connected with him. She would resent, not only for herself, but for the poor sister who had mistakenly, and for love of her, kept silence and left the memory of Starr unclouded as the only gift she could give the woman they both had wronged!
Yes, Ann Walden had thought it all out. When Marcia Lowe came again she would tell her that she believed there had been no marriage! That would end it. No proof could be found—did not Ann Walden know the shiftless mountain ways? Marcia Lowe would never press dishonour upon them all—and the money was no lure to the proud, poverty-stricken woman. She meant to revenge herself upon Theodore Starr by keeping Cynthia even at the price of proclaiming the girl's dishonour to Starr's niece.
From much thinking through wakeful nights and torturing days Ann Walden had evolved a very sincere hatred and bitter resentment. She almost believed that Starr had betrayed her sister, and poor Cynthia, who had always been a duty—not a joy—was to pay the penalty!
"Tell me about my father and mother!"
The strong young voice repeated the commanding words; the lovely flower-twined head bent forward.
There was no wise person to note and take warning of the strange light in Ann Walden's eyes as she met the question put to her; it was, however, the look of insanity—the insanity which feeds upon hallucination; the kind that evolves from isolated repression and the abnormal introspection of the self-cultured.
"When you are older, Cynthia."
"No, now, Aunt Ann. I must know. My mother's picture hangs in the library, but my father's is not there and no one ever speaks of my father."
How could one fling into the simple innocence demanding knowledge, the bare, bold truth? But Ann Walden, driven at bay, worn, embittered and touched already by her doom, answered slowly:
"Your—father was—a bad man! that is why no one speaks of him; why his picture does not hang near your mother's."
"A bad man? What did he do, Aunt Ann?" A childish fear shook Cynthia's face. Bad, to her, was such a crude, primitive thing; "was he bad like—like the men here who drink and beat their women?"
"Worse than that!"
"Worse, Aunt Ann? Did he—beat my mother?'"
The horror, instead of calming Ann Walden, spurred her on.
"He—he killed her!"
"Killed her!" And with that Cynthia dropped beside her aunt and clung desperately to her hand, which lay idle in her lap. "Oh! is—is—he dead? Can he come to hurt us?"
Then Ann Walden laughed such a laugh as Cynthia had never heard before, but with which she was to become familiar.
"He's dead. He cannot hurt us any more. He did his worst—before you were born."
A sigh of relief escaped the girl as she listened and her tense face relaxed.
"But we would not touch his money, would we, Cynthia? nor have anything to do with any kin of his, would we?"
"No, no, Aunt Ann."
"Then——" and now Ann Walden bent close and whispered: "then have nothing to do with her—at Trouble Neck! She comes with money; with a hope of forgiveness—but we do not forgive such things, do we, Cynthia, and we Waldens cannot be bought?"
"No, no!"
"When you see her, tell her so! Tell her to keep away—we do not believe her; we do not want her!"
The flowers on the pretty girlish head were already wilted in the heat of the morning and something more vital and spiritual had faded and drooped in Cynthia Walden's soul. She looked old and haggard as she rose up and drew a long breath like one who had drunk a deep draught too hastily. Even the yearning for love had departed—unless God were good to her she would sink rapidly down, from now on, to the common level.
"I'll tell her, Aunt Ann," she said nonchalantly. "I'm right glad you let me know." Then she wandered aimlessly back to the library and over to the fireplace. Dejected and shrinking, she raised her eyes humbly to her "Biggest of Them All" and deep in her soul sank the truth that she, Cynthia Walden, once so gay and proud, was not the equal of Sandy Morley! If he were brave and fine enough he might help her from very pity—but if she were worthy, she must not permit him to do so.
Then it was that the first wave of actual soul-loneliness enveloped the girl, and when youth recognizes such desolation something overpowers it that no older person can ever understand.
And that very afternoon the great storm came that swept away so much and opened the way to more.
It was four o'clock on that same day that Liza Hope passed Stoneledge on the way down to the store. Liza was always just getting over having a baby or just about to have one and her condition was now of the latter character. Poor, misshapen, down-trodden creature! She accepted her fate indifferently, not because she was hard or bitter, but because she had never had a vision of anything else.
She paused near the chicken house where old Lily Ivy was hovering over a belated brood whose erratic mother had mistaken the season of the year.
"Howdy, Ivy! You-all has a right smart lot of fowls—but ain't it a mighty bad time to hatch?"
"Dis yere hen allus was a fool hen," Ivy vouchsafed, "givin' trouble an' agony to us-all."
"Does you-all like her the best?"
This question brought Ivy to her feet with a stare.
"The little doctor she done say as how we-all loves best the baby-things what be right techersome. She be right, too, I reckon. Them babies o' mine what died, and po' lil' Sammy what ain't clear in his mind, is mighty nigh to me. I ain't never thought 'bout sich till she cum. She steps up to my cabin now an' again an' her and me talks. The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady I calls her, an' nights I lie an' think on her, an' she comes an' brings my daid babies to me in dreams-like, an' then I reach out for Sammy, an' I feel right comforted."
Ivy came close to her caller now and looked into the weary, sunken eyes compassionately. Her contempt of the po' white trash faded before the pathetic desolateness of Liza's glance.
"Liza Hope," she said, fixing the roving stare by her tone, "how be you going to face this winter? You be as fool-like as dis yere old hen-hussy. All your chillens was born during respectable times o' year. What you-all goin' to do wid no wood-pile, no nothin', an' a baby comin' long in the black time of winter?"
Liza faced her accuser blankly as if she had nothing whatever to do with the matter.
"I ain't no wise 'sponsible," she faltered; "de good Lord He knows I ain't hankerin' after no mo' calls and troubles. But the Cup-o'-Water Lady don' promise to come to me in my hour an' bide till I pass through my trial. Seems like I can bear it now when I think o' that. Some say they-all don't believe her is kin to Parson Starr as was, but I does. The Lord He don't make two sich-like less He uses the same mixin's. I knows, I do!"
Ivy started back. Oddly enough this was the first time she had heard the connection between Starr and the newcomer. She had taken for granted the rumour that had reached her concerning Marcia Lowe, and she had disapproved keenly of the call that young woman had made upon her mistress recently, but now, as Liza spoke, sudden recollection startled her. If the stranger were what Liza suggested, why then Ann Walden's condition might be accounted for! The surprise of this new thought turned Ivy giddy, but it also caused her to change the subject of conversation.
"When yo' come back from de sto'," she said with frigid dignity, "stop to de' rear do'. I has some corn bread an' bacon what you can carry 'long wid yo', an' an ole ironin' blanket fo' coverin'."
Liza muttered her thanks and shuffled on, her distorted figure casting a weird shadow as the blazing sun struck across her path as she entered The Way.
It was five o'clock when the reddish sunlight suddenly was blotted out by a huge black cloud. An ominous hush came with the shadows, and with instinctive fear and caution Ann Walden, in the living-room, closed the windows and doors. Cynthia, who was passing through the hall, ran upstairs to do the same, and then returned and stood listlessly by her aunt near the window looking out over the garden place, the little brook, which divided it from the pasture lot below, and the two cows huddling under a clump of trees beside the tiny bridge which spanned the stream.
"I—don't like the look of the sky," Ann Walden murmured; "I reckon it's going to be a mighty bad storm. Seems like the seasons get twisted these-er-days. Now if it was spring——" She did not finish her sentence, for a wave of wind brought the lagging storm on its breast; a blinding flash of lightning and a crash of thunder set it free and then the deluge descended. A wall, seemingly tangible, descended from the clouds to the earth—everything was blotted out.
"Good Lord-a'mighty!" Ivy dashed in from the kitchen, a grayness showing through the black of her skin; "I mus' save dem cows. I jes' mus'—God help me!" She ran through the room to the front hall, pulling her skirt over her head as she ran.
"Ivy, I forbid you leaving the house!"
The black woman paused, for even in that moment of excitement tradition held her—the servant was stopped by the mistress' voice, but too long had Ivy stood for higher things to renounce them now. She had stood between her loved ones and starvation; she had always kept the worst from them and she must continue to do so.
"Miss Ann, honey," she said in her soft, old drawl, "dem cattle down by de Branch is all that stan's 'twixt us-all and we-all becoming white trash! I jis' got-ter go, chile!"
Then before Ann Walden could speak again the woman was gone! They watched her beating her way through the wall of rain, without speaking; with every emotion gripped and silenced by fear and horror the two at the living-room window waited. They saw her reach the little foot-bridge; they saw her pause and hold to the railing as if for breath and then—there was nothing! The place where old Ivy had stood was empty. The cows, too, were going fast and helplessly away on a sea of troubled water.
Shock numbs the brain and stays suffering, but presently, like a frightened child rousing from sleep, Ann Walden turned to Cynthia.
"Ivy," she panted. "Ivy, where is she?"
Cynthia could not answer. She tried, but speech failed her. With large, fixed eyes she continued to stare at the blank space where once the little bridge had stood. What had happened was too awful for her comprehension. Then in the drear dimness of the room a hideous laugh rang out.
"Don't! don't, Aunt Ann!" Words came desperately now to the child; "oh! I'm so afraid!"
But again and again the laugh sounded.
"We-all are poor white trash! poor white trash! ha! ha! ha!"
Cynthia shrank from Ann Walden. What had happened she could not know, but of a sudden the old woman became a stranger, a stranger to be cared for and guarded—one to defend.
"Come," whispered Cynthia, "come away—dear—it's all right! Come, come!"
Alternately laughing and sobbing, Ann Walden followed the guiding of the hand upon her arm; she permitted herself to be placed on the ragged sofa on the opposite side of the room.
"Poor white trash!"
And there Tod Greeley and Liza Hope found them hours after. Cynthia, beside the prostrate woman, was crooning as to a baby, and over and over the desperate old voice wailed:
"We-all are poor white trash!"