Araminta
"Araminta," said Miss Mehitable, "go and get your sewing and do your stent."
"Yes, Aunt Hitty," answered the girl, obediently.
Each year, Araminta made a new patchwork quilt. Seven were neatly folded and put away in an old trunk in the attic. The eighth was progressing well, but the young seamstress was becoming sated with quilts. She had never been to school, but Miss Mehitable had taught her all she knew. Unkind critics might have intimated that Araminta had not been taught much, but she could sew nicely, keep house neatly, and write a stilted letter in a queer, old-fashioned hand almost exactly like Miss Mehitable's.
That valiant dame saw no practical use in further knowledge. She was concerned with no books except the Bible and the ancient ledger in which, with painstaking exactness, she kept her household accounts. She deemed it wise, moreover, that Araminta should not know too much.
From a drawer in the high, black-walnut bureau in the upper hall, Araminta drew forth an assortment of red, white, and blue cotton squares and diamonds. This was to be a "patriotic" quilt, made after a famous old pattern which Miss Hitty had selfishly refused to give to any one else, though she had often been asked for it by contemporary ladies of similar interests.
The younger generation was inclined to scout at quilt-making, and needlework heresy was rampant in the neighbourhood. Tatting, crocheting, and knitting were on the wane. An "advanced" woman who had once spent a Summer in the village had spread abroad the delights of Battenberg and raised embroidery. At all of these, Miss Hitty sniffed contemptuously.
"Quilt makin' was good enough for their mas and their grandmas," she said scornfully, "and I reckon it's good enough for anybody else. I've no patience with such things."
Araminta knew that. She had never forgotten the vial of wrath which broke upon her luckless head the day she had timorously suggested making lace as a pleasing change from unending quilts.
She sat now, in a low rocker by the window, with one foot upon a wobbly stool. A marvellous cover, of Aunt Hitty's making, which dated back to her frivolous and girlish days, was underneath. Nobody ever saw it, however, and the gaudy woollen roses blushed unseen. A white linen cover, severely plain, was put upon the footstool every Wednesday and every Saturday, year in and year out.
Unlike most good housewives, Miss Mehitable used her parlour every day in the week. She was obliged to, in fact, for it was the only room in her house, except Mr. Thorpe's, which commanded an unobstructed view of the crossroads. A cover of brown denim protected the carpet, and the chairs were shrouded in shapeless habiliments of cambric and calico. For the rest, however, the room was mildly cheerful, and had a habitable look which was distinctly uncommon in village parlours.
There was a fireplace, which was dusted and scrubbed at intervals, but never, under any circumstances, profaned by a fire. It was curtained by a gay remnant of figured plush, however, so nobody missed the fire. White and gold china vases stood on the mantel, and a little china dog, who would never have dared to bark had he been alive, so chaste and humble of countenance was he, sat forever between the two vases, keeping faithful guard over Miss Mehitable's treasures.
The silver coffin plates of the Smiths, matted with black, and deeply framed, occupied the place of honour over the mantel. On the marble-topped table in the exact centre of the room was a basket of wax flowers and fruit, covered by a bell-shaped glass shade. Miss Hitty's album and her Bible were placed near it with mathematical precision. On the opposite wall was a hair wreath, made from the shorn locks of departed Smiths by Miss Hitty's mother. The proud possessor felt a covert reproach in the fact that she herself was unable to make hair wreaths. It was a talent for which she had great admiration.
Araminta rocked back and forth in her low chair by the window. She hummed a bit of "Sweet Bye and Bye" to herself, for hymns were the only songs she knew. She could play some of them, with one hand, on the melodeon in the corner, but she dared not touch the yellow keys of the venerated instrument except when Miss Hitty was out.
The sunlight shone lovingly on Araminta's brown hair, tightly combed back, braided, and pinned up, but rippling riotously, none the less. Her deep, thoughtful eyes were grey and her nose turned up coquettishly. To a guardian of greater penetration, Araminta's mouth would have given deep concern. It was a demure, rosy mouth, warning and tantalising by turns. Mischievous little dimples lurked in the corners of it, and even Aunt Hitty was not proof against the magic of Araminta's smile. The girl's face had the creamy softness of a white rose petal, but her cheeks bloomed with the flush of health and she had a most disconcerting trick of blushing. With Spartan thoroughness, Miss Mehitable constantly strove to cure Araminta of this distressing fault, but as yet she had not succeeded.
The pretty child had grown into an exquisitely lovely woman, to her stern guardian's secret uneasiness. "It's goin' to be harder to keep Minty right than 't would be if she was plain," mused Miss Hitty, "but t guess I'll be given strength to do it. I've done well by her so far."
"In the Sweet Bye and Bye," sang Araminta, in a piping, girlish soprano, "we shall meet on that beautiful shore."
"Maybe we shall and maybe we sha'n't," said Miss Hitty, grimly. "Some folks 'll never see the beautiful shore. They'll go to the bad place."
Araminta lifted her great, grey, questioning eyes. "Why?" she asked, simply.
"Because they've been bad," answered Miss Hitty, defiantly.
"But if they didn't know any better?" queried Araminta, threading her needle. "Would they go to the bad place just because they didn't know?"
Miss Mehitable squirmed in her chair, for never before had Araminta spoken thus. "There's no excuse for their not knowin'," she said, sharply.
"Perhaps not," sighed Araminta, "but it seems dreadful to think of people being burned up just for ignorance. Do you think I'll be burned up, Aunt Hitty?" she continued, anxiously. "There's so many things I don't know!"
Miss Mehitable set herself firmly to her task. "Araminta Lee," she said, harshly, "don't get to bothering about what you don't know. That's the sure way to perdition. I've told you time and time again what's right for you to believe and what's right for you to do. You walk in that path and turn neither to the right nor the left, and you won't have no trouble—here or anywheres else."
"Yes, Aunt Hitty," said the girl, dutifully. "It must be awful to be burned."
Miss Mehitable looked about her furtively, then drew her chair closer to Araminta's. "That brings to my mind something I wanted to speak to you about, and I don't know but what this is as good a chance as any. You know where I told you to go the other day with the tray, and to set it down at the back door, and rap, and run?"
"Yes." Araminta's eyes were wide open now. She had wondered much at her mysterious errand, but had not dared to ask questions.
"Well," continued Aunt Hitty, after an aggravating pause, "the woman that lives in that house has been burnt."
Araminta gasped. "Oh, Aunt Hitty, was she bad? What did she do and how did she get burned before she was dead?"
Miss Mehitable brushed aside the question as though it were an annoying fly. "I don't want it talked of," she said, severely. "Evelina Grey was a friend of mine, and she is yet. If there's anything on earth I despise, it's a gossip. People who haven't anything better to do than to go around prying into other folks's affairs are better off dead, I take it. My mother never permitted me to gossip, and I've held true to her teachin'." Aunt Hitty smoothed her skirts with superior virtue and tied a knot in her thread.
"How did she get burned?" asked Araminta, eagerly.
"Gossip," said Miss Mehitable, sententiously, "does a lot of harm and makes a lot of folks miserable. It's a good thing to keep away from, and if I ever hear of your gossiping about anybody, I'll shut you up in your room for two weeks and keep you on bread and water."
Araminta trembled. "What is gossiping, Aunt Hitty?" she asked in a timid, awe-struck tone.
"Talking about folks," explained Miss Hitty. "Tellin' things about 'em they wouldn't tell themselves."
It occurred to Araminta that much of the conversation at the crossroads might appropriately be classed under that head, but, of course, Aunt Hitty knew what she was talking about. She remembered the last quilting Aunt Hitty had given, when the Ladies' Aid Society had been invited, en masse, to finish off the quilt Araminta's rebellious fingers had just completed. One of the ladies had been obliged to leave earlier than the rest, and——
"I don't believe," thought Araminta, "that Mrs. Gardner would have told how her son ran away from home, nor that she didn't dust her bed slats except at house-cleaning time, nor that they ate things other people would give to the pigs."
"I expect there'll be a lot of questions asked about Evelina," observed Miss Mehitable, breaking in rudely upon Araminta's train of thought, "as soon 's folks finds out she's come back to live here, and that she has to wear a veil all the time, even when she doesn't wear her hat. What I'm telling you for is to show you what happens to women that haven't sense enough to keep away from men. If Evelina 'd kept away from Doctor Dexter, she wouldn't have got burnt."
"Did Doctor Dexter burn her?" asked Araminta, breathlessly. "I thought it was God."
At the psychological moment, Doctor Dexter drove by, bowing to Miss Mehitable as he passed. Araminta had observed that this particular event always flustered her aunt.
"Maybe, it was God and maybe it was Doctor Dexter," answered Miss Mehitable, quickly. "That's something there don't nobody know except Evelina and Doctor Dexter, and it's not for me to ask either one of 'em, though I don't doubt some of the sewin' society 'll make an errand to Evelina's to find out. I've got to keep 'em off 'n her, if I can, and that's a big job for one woman to tackle.
"Anyhow, she got burnt and got burnt awful, and it was at his house that it happened. It was shameless, the way Evelina carried on. Why, if you'll believe me, she'd actually go to his house when there wa'n't no need of it—nobody sick, nor no medicine to be bought, nor anything. Some said they was goin' to be married."
The scorn which Miss Mehitable managed to throw into the word "married" indicated that the state was the crowning ignominy of the race. The girl's cheek flamed into crimson, for her own mother had been married, and everybody knew it. Sometimes the deep disgrace seemed almost too much for Araminta to endure.
"That's what comes of it," explained Miss Hitty, patiently, as a teacher might point to a demonstration clearly made out on a blackboard for an eager class. "If she'd stayed at home as a girl should stay, and hadn't gone to Doctor Dexter's, she wouldn't have got burnt. Anybody can see that.
"There was so much goin' on at the time that I sorter lost track of everything, otherwise I'd have known more about it, but I guess I know as much as anybody ever knew. Evelina was to Doctor Dexter's—shameless hussy that she was—and she got burnt. She was there all the afternoon and they took her to the hospital in the city on the night train and she stayed there until she was well, but she never came back here until just now. Her mother went with her to take care of her and before Evelina came out of the hospital, her mother keeled over and died. Sarah Grey always had a weak heart and a weak head to match it. If she hadn't have had, she'd have brought up Evelina different,
"Neither of 'em was ever in the house again. Neither one ever came back, even for their clothes. They had plenty of money, then, and they just bought new ones. When the word come that Evelina was burnt, Sarah Grey just put on her hat and locked her doors and run up to Doctor Dexter's. Nobody ever heard from them again until Jim Gardner's second cousin on his father's side sent a paper with Sarah Grey's obituary in it. And now, after twenty-five years, Evelina's come back.
"The poor soul's just sittin' there, in all the dust and cobwebs. When I get time, I aim to go over there and clean up the house for her—'t ain't decent for a body to live like that. I'll take you with me, to help scrub, and what I'm telling you all this for is so 's you won't ask any questions, nor act as if you thought it was queer for a woman to wear a white veil all the time. You'll have to act as if nothing was out of the way at all, and not look at her any more than you can help. Just pretend it's the style to wear a veil pinned to your hair all the time, and you've been wearin' one right along and have forgot and left it to home. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Aunt Hitty."
"And when people come here to find out about it, you're not to say anything. Leave it all to me. 'T ain't necessary for you to lie, but you can keep your mouth shut. And I hope you see now what it means to a woman to walk straight on her own path that the Lord has laid out for her, and to let men alone. They're pizen, every one of 'em."
Nun-like, Araminta sat in her chair and sewed steadily at her dainty seam, but, none the less, she was deeply stirred with pity for women who so forgot themselves—who had not Aunt Hitty's superior wisdom. At the end of the prayer which Miss Mehitable had taught the child, and which the woman still repeated in her nightly devotions, was this eloquent passage:
"And, Oh Lord, keep me from the contamination of marriage. For Thy sake. Amen."
"Araminta," said Aunt Hitty, severely, "cover up your foot!" Modestly, Araminta drew down her skirt. One foot was on the immaculate footstool and her ankle was exposed to view—a lovely ankle, in spite of the broad-soled, common-sense shoes which she always wore.
"How often have I told you to keep your ankles covered ?" demandedMiss Mehitable. "Suppose the minister had come in suddenly!Suppose—upon my word! Speakin' of angels—if there ain't theminister now!"
The Reverend Austin Thorpe came slowly up the brick-bordered path, his head bowed in thought. He was painfully near-sighted, but he refused to wear glasses. On the doorstep he paused and wiped his feet upon the corn-husk mat until even Miss Mehitable, beaming at him through the window, thought he was overdoing it. Unconsciously, she took credit to herself for the minister's neatness.
Stepping carefully, lest he profane the hall carpet by wandering off the rug, the minister entered the parlour, having first taken off his coat and hat and hung them upon their appointed hooks in the hall. It was cold, and the cheery warmth of the room beckoned him in. He did not know that he tried Miss Hitty by trespassing, so to speak, upon her preserves. She would have been better pleased if he remained in his room when he was not at the table or out, but, to do him justice, the reverend gentleman did not often offend her thus.
Araminta, blushing, took her foot from the footstool and pulled feverishly at her skirts. As Mr. Thorpe entered the room, she did not look up, but kept her eyes modestly upon her work.
"There ain't no need to tear out the gathers," Miss Hitty said, in a warning undertone, referring to Aramlnta's skirts. "Why, Mr. Thorpe! How you surprised me! Come in and set a spell," she added, grudgingly.
Steering well away from the centre-table with its highly prized ornament, Thorpe gained the chair in which, if he did not lean against the tidy, he was permitted to sit. He held himself bolt upright and warmed his hands at the stove. "It is good to be out," he said, cheerfully, "and good to come in again. A day like this makes one appreciate the blessing of a home."
Miss Hitty watched the white-haired, inoffensive old man with the keen scrutiny of an eagle guarding its nest. He did not lean upon the tidy, nor rest his elbows upon the crocheted mats which protected the arms of the chair. In short, he conducted himself as a gentleman should when in the parlour of a lady.
His blue, near-sighted eyes rested approvingly upon Araminta. "How the child grows!" he said, with a friendly smile upon his kindly old face. "Soon we shall have a young lady on our hands."
Araminta coloured and bent more closely to her sewing.
"I hope I'm not annoying you?" questioned the minister, after an interval.
"Not at all," said Miss Mehitable, politely.
"I wanted to ask about some one," pursued the Reverend Mr. Thorpe. "It seems that there is a new tenant in the old house on the hill that has been empty for so long—the one the village people say is haunted. It seems a woman is living there, quite alone; and she always wears a veil, on account of some—some disfigurement."
Miss Hitty's false teeth clicked, sharply, but there was no other sound except the clock, which, in the pause, struck four. "I thought—" continued the minister, with a rising inflection.
Hitherto, he had found his hostess of invaluable assistance in his parish work. It had been necessary to mention only the name. As upon the turning of a faucet a stream of information gushed forth from the fountain of her knowledge. Age, date and place of birth, ancestry on both sides three generations back, with complete and illuminating biographical details of ancestry and individual; education, financial standing, manner of living, illnesses in the family, including dates and durations of said illnesses, accidents, if any, medical attendance, marriages, births, deaths, opinions, reverses, present locations and various careers of descendants, list of misfortunes, festivities, entertainments, church affiliation past and present, political leanings, and a vast amount of other personal data had been immediately forthcoming. Tagged to it, like the postscript of a woman's letter, was Miss Hitty's own concise, permanent, neatly labelled opinion of the family or individual, the latter thrown in without extra charge.
"Perhaps you didn't know," remarked the minister, "that such a woman had come." His tone was inquiring. It seemed to him that something must be wrong if she did not know.
"Minty," said Miss Hitty, abruptly, "leave the room!"
Araminta rose, gathered up her patchwork, and went out, carefully closing the door. It was only in moments of great tenderness that her aunt called her "Minty."
The light footsteps died away upon the stairs. Tactlessly, the minister persisted. "Don't you know?" he asked.
Miss Mehitable turned upon him. "If I did," she replied, hotly, "I wouldn't tell any prying, gossiping man. I never knew before it was part of a minister's business to meddle in folks' private affairs. You'd better be writing your sermon and studyin' up on hell."
"I—I—" stammered the minister, taken wholly by surprise, "I only hoped to give her the consolation of the church."
"Consolation nothing!" snorted Miss Hitty. "Let her alone!" She went out of the room and slammed the door furiously, leaving the Reverend Austin Thorpe overcome with deep and lasting amazement.
Pipes o' Pan
Sleet had fallen in the night, but at sunrise, the storm ceased. Miss Evelina had gone to sleep, lulled into a sense of security by the icy fingers tapping at her cobwebbed window pane. She awoke in a transfigured world. Every branch and twig was encased in crystal, upon which the sun was dazzling. Jewels, poised in midair, twinkled with the colours of the rainbow. On the tip of the cypress at the gate was a ruby, a sapphire gleamed from the rose-bush, and everywhere were diamonds and pearls.
Frosty vapour veiled the spaces between the trees and javelins of sunlight pierced it here and there. Beyond, there were glimpses of blue sky, and drops of water, falling from the trees, made a musical, cadence upon the earth beneath.
Miss Evelina opened her window still more. The air was peculiarly soft and sweet. It had the fragrance of opening buds and growing things and still had not lost the tang of the frost.
She drew a long breath of it and straightway was uplifted, though seemingly against her will. Spring was stirring at the heart of the world, sending new currents of sap into the veins of the trees, new aspirations into dead roots and fibres, fresh hopes of bloom into every sleeping rose. Life incarnate knocked at the wintry tomb; eager, unseen hands were rolling away the stone. The tide of the year was rising, soon to break into the wonder of green boughs and violets, shimmering wings and singing winds.
The cold hand that clutched her heart took a firmer hold. With acute self-pity, she perceived her isolation. Of all the world, she alone was set apart; branded, scarred, locked in a prison house that had no door. The one release was denied her until she could get away.
Poverty had driven her back. Circumstances outside her control had pushed her through the door she had thought never to enter again. Through all the five-and-twenty years, she had thought of the house with a shudder, peopling it with a thousand terrors, not knowing that there was no terror save her own fear.
Sorrow had put its chains upon her suddenly, at a time when she had not the strength to break the bond. At first she had struggled; then ceased. Since then, her faculties had been in suspense, as it were. She had forgotten laughter, veiled herself from joy, and walked hand in hand with the grisly phantom of her own conjuring.
Behind the shelter of her veil she had mutely prayed for peace—she dared not ask for more. And peace had never come. Her crowning humiliation would be to meet Anthony Dexter face to face—to know him, and to have him know her. Not knowing where he was, she had travelled far to avoid him. Now, seeking the last refuge, the one place on earth where he could not be, she found herself separated from him by less than a mile. More than that, she had gone to his house, as she had gone on the fateful day a quarter of a century ago. She had taken back the pearls, and had not died in doing it. Strangely enough, it had given her a vague relief.
Miss Evelina's mind had paused at twenty; she had not grown. The acute suffering of Youth was still upon her, a woman of forty-five. It was as though a clock had gone on ticking and the hands had never moved; the dial of her being was held at that dread hour, while her broken heart beat on.
She had not discovered that secret compensation which clings to the commonest affairs of life. One sees before him a mountain of toil, an apparently endless drudgery from which there is no escape. Having once begun it, an interest appears unexpectedly; new forces ally themselves with the fumbling hands. Misfortunes come, "not singly, but in battalions." After the first shock of realisation, one perceives through the darkness that the strength to bear them has come also, like some good angel.
A lover shudders at the thought of Death, yet knows that some day, on the road they walk together, the Grey Angel with the white poppies will surely take one of them by the hand. The road winds through shadows, past many strange and difficult places, and wrecks are strewn all along the way. They laugh at the storms that beat upon them, take no reck of bruised feet nor stumbling, for, behold, they are together, and in that one word lies all.
Sometimes, in the mist ahead, which, as they enter it, is seen to be wholly of tears, the road forks blindly, and there is nothing but night ahead for each. The Grey Angel with the unfathomable eyes approaches slowly, with no sound save the hushed murmur of wings. The dread white poppies are in his outstretched hand—the great, nodding white poppies which have come from the dank places and have never known the sun.
There is no possible denial. At first, one knows only that the faithful hand has grown cold, then, that it has unclasped. In the intolerable darkness, one fares forth alone on the other fork of the road, too stricken for tears.
At length there is a change. Memories troop from the shadow to whisper consolation, to say that Death himself is powerless against Love, when a heart is deep enough to hold a grave. The clouds lift, and through the night comes some stray gleam of dawn. No longer cold, the dear hand nestles once more into the one that held it so long. Not as an uncertain presence but as a loved reality, that other abides with him still.
Shut out forever from the possibility of estrangement, for there is always that drop of bitterness in the cup of Life and Love; eternally beyond the reach of misunderstanding or change, spared the pitfalls and disasters of the way ahead, blinded no longer by the mists of earth, but immortally and unchangeably his, that other fares with him, though unseen, upon the selfsame road.
From the broken night comes singing, for the white poppies have also brought balm. Step by step, his Sorrow has become his friend, and at the last, when the old feet are weary and the steep road has grown still more steep, the Grey Angel comes once more.
Past the mist of tears in which he once was shrouded, the face of the Grey Angel is seen to be wondrously kind. By his mysterious alchemy, he has crystallised the doubtful waters, which once were in the cup of Life and Love, into a jewel which has no flaw. He has kept the child forever a child, caught the maiden at the noon of her beauty to enshrine her thus for always in the heart that loved her most; made the true and loving comrade a comrade always, though on the highways of the vast Unknown.
It is seen now that the road has many windings and that, unconsciously, the wayfarer has turned back. Eagerly the trembling hands reach forward to take the white poppies, and the tired eyes close as though the silken petals had already fluttered downward on the lids, for, radiant past all believing, the Grey Angel still holds the Best Beloved by the hand, and the roads that long ago had forked in darkness, have come together, in more than mortal dawn, at the selfsame place.
Upon the beauty of the crystalline March morning, the memory of the Winter sorrow still lay. The bare, brown earth was not wholly hidden by the mantle of sleet and snow, yet there was some intangible Easter close at hand. Miss Evelina felt it, stricken though she was.
From a distant thicket came a robin's cheery call, a glimmer of blue wings flashed across the desolate garden, a south wind stirred the bending, icy branches to a tinkling music, and she knew that Spring had come to all but her.
Some indefinite impulse sent her outdoors. Closely veiled, she started off down the road, looking neither to the right nor the left. Miss Hitty saw her pass, but graciously forbore to call to her; Araminta looked up enquiringly from her sewing, but the question died on her lips.
Down through the village she went, across the tracks, and up to the river road. It had been a favourite walk of hers in her girlhood. Then she had gone with a quick, light step; now she went slowly, like one grown old.
Yet, all unconsciously, life was quickening in her pulses; the old magic of Spring was stirring in her, too. Dark and deep, the waters of the river rolled dreamily by, waiting for the impulse which should send the shallows singing to the sea, and stir the depths to a low, murmurous symphony.
Upon the left, as she walked, the road was bordered with elms and maples, stretching far back to the hills. The woods were full of unsuspected ravines and hollows, queer winding paths, great rocks, and tiny streams. The children had called it the enchanted forest, and played that a fairy prince and princess dwelt therein.
The childhood memories came back to Evelina with a pang. She stopped to wipe away the tears beneath her veil, to choke back a sob that tightened her throat. Suddenly, she felt a presentiment of oncoming evil, a rushing destiny that could not be swerved aside. Frightened, she turned to go back; then stopped again.
From above, on the upper part of the road, came the tread of horse's feet and the murmur of wheels. Her face paled to marble, her feet refused to move. The heart within her stood portentously still. With downcast eyes she stood there, petrified, motionless, like a woman carved in stone and clothed in black, veiled impenetrably in chiffon.
At a furious pace, Anthony Dexter dashed by, his face as white as her chiffon. She had known unerringly who was coming; and had felt the searing consciousness of his single glance before, with a muttered oath, he had lashed his horse to a gallop. This, then, was the last; there was nothing more.
The sound of the wheels died away in the distance. He had the pearls, he had seen her, he knew that she had come back. And still she lived.
Clear and high, like a bugle call, a strain of wild music came from the enchanted forest. Evelina threw back her head, gasping for breath; her sluggish feet stirred forward. Some forgotten valour of her spirit leaped to answer the summons, as a soldier, wounded unto death, turns to follow the singing trumpets that lead the charge.
Strangely soft and tender, the strain came again, less militant, less challenging. Swiftly upon its echo breathed another, hinting of peace. Shaken to her inmost soul by agony, she took heed of the music with the precise consciousness one gives to trifles at moments of unendurable stress. Blindly she turned into the forest.
"What was it?" she asked herself, repeatedly, wondering that she could even hear at a time like this. A bird? No, there was never a bird to sing like that. Almost it might be Pan himself with his syrinx, walking abroad on the first day of Spring.
The fancy appealed to her strongly, her swirling senses having become exquisitely acute. "Pipes o' Pan," she whispered, "I will find and follow you." To see the face of Pan meant death, according to the old Greek legend, but death was something of which she was not afraid.
Lyric, tremulous, softly appealing, the music came again. The bare boughs bent with their chiming crystal, and a twig fell at her feet, Sunlight starred the misty distance with pearl; shining branches swayed to meet her as she passed.
Farther in the wood, she turned, unconsciously in pursuit of that will-o'-the-wisp of sound. Here and there out of the silence, it came to startle her; to fill her with strange forebodings which were not wholly of pain.
Some subliminal self guided her, for heart and soul were merged in a quivering ecstasy of torture which throbbed and thundered and overflowed. "He saw me! He saw me! He saw me! He knew me! He knew me! He knew me!" In a triple rhythm the words vibrated back and forth unceasingly, as though upon a weaver's shuttle.
For nearly an hour she went blindly in search of the music, pausing now and then to listen intently, at times disheartened enough to turn back. She had a mad fancy that Death was calling her, from some far height, because Anthony Dexter had passed her on the road.
Now trumpet-like and commanding, now tender and appealing, the mystic music danced about her capriciously. Her feet grew weary, but the blood and the love of life had begun to move in her, too, when her whole nature was unspeakably stirred. She paused and leaned against a tree, to listen for the pipes o' Pan. But all was silent; the white stillness of the enchanted forest was like that of another world. With a sigh, she turned to the left, reflecting that a long walk straight through the woods would bring her out on the other road at a point near her own home.
Exquisitely faint and tender, the call rang out again. It was like some far flute of April blown in a March dawn. "Oh, pipes o' Pan," breathed Evelina, behind her shielding veil; "I pray you find me! I pray you, give me joy—or death!"
Swiftly the music answered, like a trumpet chanting from a height. Scarcely knowing what she did, she began to climb the hill. It was a more difficult way, but a nearer one, for just beyond the hill was her house.
Half-way up the ascent, the hill sloped back. There was a small level place where one might rest before going on to the summit. It was not more than a little nook, surrounded by pines. As she came to it, there was a frightened chirp, and a flock of birds fluttered up from her feet, leaving a generous supply of crumbs and grain spread upon the earth.
Against a great tree leaned a man, so brown and shaggy in his short coat that he seemed like part of the tree trunk. He was of medium height, wore high leather gaiters, and a grey felt hat with a long red quill thrust rakishly through the band. His face was round and rosy and the kindest eyes in the world twinkled at Evelina from beneath his bushy eyebrows. At his feet, quietly happy, was a bright-eyed, yellow mongrel with a stubby tail which wagged violently as Evelina approached. Slung over the man's shoulder by a cord was a silver-mounted flute.
From his elevated position, he must have seen her when she entered the wood, and had glimpses of her at intervals ever since. It was evident that he thoroughly enjoyed the musical hide-and-seek he had forced her to play while he was feeding the birds. His eyes laughed and there were mischievous dimples in his round, rosy cheeks.
"Oh," cried Evelina, in a tone of dull disappointment.
"I called you," said the Piper, gently, "and you came."
She turned on her heel and walked swiftly away. She went downhill with more haste than dignity, turned to her right, and struck out through the woods for the main road.
The Piper watched her until she was lost among the trees. The birds came back for their crumbs and grain and he stood patiently until his feathered pensioners had finished and flown away, chirping with satisfaction. Then he stooped to pat the yellow mongrel.
"Laddie," he said, "I'm thinking there's no more gypsying for us just now. To-morrow, we will not pack our shop upon our back and march on, as we had thought to do. Some one needs us here, eh, Laddie?"
The dog capered about his master's feet as if he understood and fully agreed. He was a pitiful sort, even for a mongrel. One of his legs had been broken and unskilfully set, so he did not run quite like other dogs.
"'T isn't a very good leg, Laddie," the Piper observed, "but I'm thinking 't is better than none. Anyway, I did my best with it, and now we'll push on a bit. It's our turn to follow, and we 're fain, Laddie, you and I, to see where she lives."
Bidding the dog stay at heel, the Piper followed Miss Evelina's track. By dint of rapid walking, he reached the main road shortly after she did. Keeping a respectful distance, and walking at the side of the road, he watched her as she went home. From the safe shelter of a clump of alders just below Miss Mehitable's he saw the veiled figure enter the broken gate.
"'T is the old house, Laddie," he said to the dog; "the very one we were thinking of taking ourselves. Come on, now; we'll be going. Down, sir! Home!"
"The Honour of the Spoken Word"
Anthony Dexter sat in his library, alone, as usual. Under the lamp,Ralph's letters were spread out before him, but he was not reading.Indeed, he knew every line of them by heart, but he could not keep hismind upon the letters.
Between his eyes and the written pages there came persistently a veiled figure, clothed shabbily in sombre black. Continually he fancied the horror the veil concealed; continually, out of the past, his cowardice and his shirking arose to confront him.
A photograph of his wife, who had died soon after Ralph was born, had been taken from the drawer. "A pretty, sweet woman," he mused. "A good wife and a good mother." He told himself again that he had loved her—that he loved her still.
Yet behind his thought was sure knowledge. The woman who had entered the secret fastnesses of his soul, and before whom he had trembled, was the one whom he had seen in the dead garden, frail as a ghost, and again on the road that morning.
Dimly, and now for the first time, there came to his perception that recognition of his mate which each man carries in his secret heart when he has found his mate at all. Past the anguish that lay between them like a two-edged sword, and through the mists of the estranging years, Evelina had come back to claim her own.
He saw that they were bound together, scarred in body or scarred in soul; crippled, mutilated, or maimed though either or both might be, the one significant fact was not altered.
He knew now that his wife and the mother of his child had stood outside, as all women but the one must ever stand. Nor did he guess that she had known it from the first and that heart-hunger had hastened her death.
Aside from a very deep-seated gratitude to her for his son, Anthony Dexter cherished no emotion for the sake of his dead wife. She had come and gone across his existence as a butterfly crosses a field, touching lightly here and there, but lingering not at all. Except for Ralph, it was as though she had never been, so little did she now exist for him.
Yet Evelina was vital, alive, and out of the horror she had come back. To him? He did not believe that she had come definitely to seek him—he knew her pride too well for that. His mind strove to grasp the reason of her coming, but it eluded him; evaded him at every point. She had not forgotten; if she had, she would not have given back that sinuous necklace of discoloured pearls.
By the way, what had he done with the necklace? He remembered now. He had thrown it far into the shrubbery, for the pearls were dead and the love was dead.
"First from the depths of the sea and then from the depths of my love." The mocking words, written in faded ink on the yellowed slip of paper, danced impishly across the pages of Ralph's letters. He had a curious fancy that if his love had been deep enough the pearls would not have turned black.
Impatiently, he rose from the table and paced back and forth restlessly across the library. "I'm a fool," he growled; "a doddering old fool. No, that's not it—I've worked too hard."
Valiantly he strove to dispel the phantoms that clustered about him. A light step behind him chimed in with his as he walked and he feared to look around, not knowing it was but the echo of his own.
He went to a desk in the corner of the room and opened a secret drawer that had not been opened for a long time. He took out a photograph, wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, and went back to the table. He unwrapped it, his blunt white fingers trembling ever so slightly, and sat down.
A face of surpassing loveliness looked back at him. It was Evelina, at the noon of her girlish beauty, her face alight with love. Anthony Dexter looked long at the perfect features, the warm, sweet, tempting mouth, the great, trusting eyes, and the brown hair that waved so softly back from her face; the all-pervading and abiding womanliness. There was strength as well as beauty; tenderness, courage, charm.
"Mate for a man," said Dexter, aloud. For such women as Evelina, the knights of old did battle, and men of other centuries fought with their own temptations and weaknesses. It was such as she who led men to the heights, and pointed them to heights yet farther on.
Insensibly, he compared Ralph's mother with Evelina. The two women stood as far apart as a little, meaningless song stands from a great symphony. One would fire a man with high ambition, exalt him with noble striving—ah, but had she? Was it Evelina's fault that Anthony Dexter was a coward and a shirk? Cravenly, he began to blame the woman, to lay the burden of his own shortcomings at Evelina's door.
Yet still the face stirred him. There was life in those walled fastnesses of his nature which long ago he had denied. Self-knowledge at last confronted him, and would not be put away.
"And so, Evelina," he said aloud, "you have come back. And what do you want? What can I do for you?"
The bell rang sharply, as if answering his question. He started from his chair, having heard no approaching footsteps. He covered the photograph of Evelina with Ralph's letters, but the sweet face of the boy's mother still looked out at him from its gilt frame.
The old housekeeper went to the door with the utmost leisure. It seemed to him an eternity before the door was opened. He stood there, waiting, summoning his faculties of calmness and his powers of control, to meet Evelina—to have out, at last, all the shame of the years.
But it was not Evelina. The Reverend Austin Thorpe was wiping his feet carefully upon the door-mat, and asking in deep, vibrant tones: "Is the Doctor in?"
Anthony Dexter could have cried out from relief. When the white-haired old man came in, floundering helplessly among the furniture, as a near-sighted person does, he greeted him with a cordiality that warmed his heart.
"I am glad," said the minister, "to find you in. Sometimes I am not so fortunate. I came late, for that reason."
"I've been busy," returned the Doctor. "Sit down."
The minister sank into an easy chair and leaned toward the light. "I wish I could have a lamp like this in my room," he remarked. "It gives a good light."
"You can have this one," returned Dexter, with an hysterical laugh,
"I was not begging," said Mr. Thorpe, with dignity. "Miss Mehitable's lamps are all small. Some of them give no more light than a candle."
"'How far that little candle throws its beams,'" quoted Dexter. "'So shines a good deed in a naughty world.'"
There was a long interval of silence. Sometimes Thorpe and Doctor Dexter would sit for an entire evening with less than a dozen words spoken on either side, yet feeling the comfort of human companionship.
"I was thinking," said, Thorpe, finally, "of the supreme isolation of the human soul. You and I sit here, talking or not, as the mood strikes us, and yet, what does speech matter? You know no more of me than I choose to give you, nor I of you."
"No," responded Dexter, "that is quite true." He did not realise whatThorpe had just said, but he felt that it was safe to agree.
"One grows morbid in thinking of it," pursued Thorpe, screening his blue eyes from the light with his hand. "We are like a vast plain of mountain peaks. Some of us have our heads in the clouds always, up among the eternal snows. Thunders boom about us, lightning rives us, storm and sleet beat upon us. There is a rumbling on some distant peak and we know that it rains there, too. That is all we ever know. We are not quite sure when our neighbours are happy or when they are troubled; when there is sun and when there is storm. The secret forces in the interior of the mountain work on unceasingly. The distance hides it all. We never get near enough to another peak to see the scars upon its surface, to know of the dead timber and the dried streams, the marks of avalanches and glacial drift, the precipices and pitfalls, the barren wastes. In blue, shimmering distance, the peaks are veiled and all seem fair but our own."
At the word "veiled," Dexter shuddered. "Very pretty," he said, with a forced laugh which sounded flat. "Why don't you put it into a sermon?"
Thorpe's face became troubled. "My sermons do not please," he answered, with touching simplicity. "They say there is not enough of hell."
"I'm satisfied," commented the Doctor, in a grating voice. "I think there's plenty of hell."
"You never come to church," remarked the minister, not seeing the point.
"There's hell enough outside—for any reasonable mortal," returned Dexter. He was keyed to a high pitch. He felt that, at any instant, something might snap and leave him inert.
Thorpe sighed. His wrinkled old hand strayed out across the papers and turned the face of Ralph's mother toward him. He studied it closely, not having seen it before. Then he looked up at the Doctor, whose face was again like a mask.
"Your—?" A lift of the eyebrows finished the question.
Dexter nodded, with assumed carelessness. There was another long pause.
"Sometimes I envy you," said Thorpe, laying the picture down carefully, "you have had so much of life and joy. I think it is better for you to have had her and lost her than not to have had her at all," he continued, unconsciously paraphrasing. "Even in your loneliness, you have the comfort of memory, and your boy—I have wondered what a son might mean to me, now, in my old age. Dead though she is, you know she still loves you; that somewhere she is waiting to take your hand in hers."
"Don't!" cried Dexter. The strain was well-nigh insupportable.
"Forgive me, my friend," returned Thorpe, quickly. "I—" Then he paused. "As I was saying," he went on, after a little, "I have often envied you."
"Don't," said Dexter, again. "As you were also saying, distance hides the peak and you do not see the scars."
Thorpe's eyes sought the picture of Dexter's wife with an evident tenderness, mingled with yearning. "I often think," he sighed, "that in Heaven we may have a chance to pay our debt to woman. Through woman's agony we come into the world, by woman's care we are nourished, by woman's wisdom we are taught, by woman's love we are sheltered, and, at the last, it is a woman who closes our eyes. At every crisis of a man's life, a woman is always waiting, to help him if she may, and I have seen that at any crisis in a woman's life, we are apt to draw back and shirk. She helps us bear our difficulties; she faces hers alone."
Dexter turned uneasily in his chair. His face was inscrutable. The silent moment cried out for speech—for anything to relieve the tension. Through Ralph's letters Evelina's eyes seemed to be upon him, beseeching him to speak.
"I knew a man,", said Anthony Dexter, hoarsely, "who unintentionally contracted quite an unusual debt to a woman."
"Yes?" returned, Thorpe, inquiringly. He was interested.
"He was a friend of mine," the Doctor continued, with difficulty, "or rather a classmate. I knew him best at college and afterward—only slightly."
"The debt," Thorpe reminded him, after a pause. "You were speaking, of his debt to a woman."
Dexter turned his face away from Thorpe and from the accusing eyes beneath Ralph's letters. "She was a very beautiful girl," he went on, carefully choosing his words, "and they loved each other as people love but once. My—my friend was much absorbed in chemistry and had a fondness for original experiment. She—the girl, you know—used to study with him. He was teaching her and she often helped him in the laboratory.
"They were to be married," continued Dexter. "The day before they were to be married, he went to her house and invited her to come to the laboratory to see an experiment which he was trying for the first time and which promised to be unusually interesting. I need not explain the experiment—you would not understand.
"On the way to the laboratory, they were talking, as lovers will. She asked him if he loved her because she was herself; because, of all the women in the world, she was the one God meant for him, or if he loved her because he thought her beautiful.
"He said that he loved her because she was herself, and, most of all, because she was his. 'Then,' she asked, timidly, 'when I am old and all the beauty has gone, you will love me still? It will be the same, even when I am no longer lovely?'
"He answered her as any man would, never dreaming how soon he was to be tested.
"In the laboratory, they were quite alone. He began the experiment, explaining as he went, and she watched it as eagerly as he. He turned away for a moment, to get another chemical. As he leaned over the retort to put it in, he heard it seethe. With all her strength, she pushed him away instantly. There was an explosion which shook the walls of the laboratory, a quantity of deadly gas was released, and, in the fumes, they both fainted.
"When he came to his senses, he learned that she had been terribly burned, and had been taken on the train to the hospital. He was the one physician in the place and it was the only thing to be done.
"As soon as he could, he went to the hospital. They told him there that her life would be saved and they hoped for her eyesight, but that she would be permanently and horribly disfigured. All of her features were destroyed, they said—she would be only a pitiful wreck of a woman."
Thorpe was silent. His blue eyes were dim with pity. Dexter rose and stood in front of him. "Do you understand?" he asked, in a voice that was almost unrecognisable. "His face was close to the retort when she pushed him away. She saved his life and he went away—he never saw her again. He left her without so much as a word."
"He went away?" asked the minister, incredulously. "Went away and left her when she had so much to bear? Deserted her when she needed him to help her bear it, and when she had saved him from death, or worse?"
"You would not believe it possible?" queried Dexter, endeavouring to make his voice even.
"Of a cur, yes," said the minister, his voice trembling with indignation, "but of a man, no."
Anthony Dexter shrank back within himself. He was breathing heavily, but his companion did not notice.
"It was long ago," the Doctor continued, when he had partially regained his composure. He dared not tell Thorpe that the man had married in the meantime, lest he should guess too much. "The woman still lives, and my—friend lives also. He has never felt right about it. What should he do?"
"The honour of the spoken word still holds him," said Thorpe, evenly. "As I understand, he asked her to marry him and she consented. He was never released from his promise—did not even ask for it. He slunk away like a cur. In the sight of God he is bound to her by his own word still. He should go to her and either fulfil his promise or ask for release. The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only atonement he could make."
The midnight train came in and stopped, but neither heard it.
"It would be very difficult," Thorpe was saying, "to retain any shred of respect for a man like that. It shows your broad charity when you call him 'friend.' I myself have not so much grace."
Anthony Dexter's breath came painfully. He tightened his fingers on the arm of the chair and said nothing.
"It is a peculiar coincidence," mused Thorpe, He was thinking aloud now. "In the old house just beyond Miss Mehitable's, farther up, you know, a woman has just come to live who seems to have passed through something like that. It would be strange, would it not, if she were the one whom your—friend—had wronged?"
"Very," answered Dexter, in a voice the other scarcely heard.
"Perhaps, in this way, we may bring them together again. If the woman is here, and you can find your friend, we may help him to wash the stain of cowardice off his soul. Sometimes," cried Thorpe passionately, "I think there is no sin but shirking. I can excuse a liar, I can pardon a thief, I can pity a murderer, but a shirk—no!" His voice broke and his wrinkled old hands trembled.
"My—my friend," lied Anthony Dexter, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, "lives abroad. I have no way of finding him."
"It is a pity," returned Thorpe. "Think of a man meeting his God like that! It tempts one to believe in a veritable hell!"
"I think there is a veritable hell," said Dexter, with a laugh which was not good to hear. "I think, by this time, my friend must believe in it as well. I remember that he did not, before the—it, I mean, happened."
Far from feeling relief, Anthony Dexter was scourged anew. A thousand demons leaped from the silence to mock him; the earth rolled beneath his feet. The impulse of confession was strong upon him, even in the face of Thorpe's scorn. He wondered why only one church saw the need of the confessional, why he could not go, even to Thorpe, and share the burden that oppressed his guilty soul.
The silence was not to be borne. The walls of the room swayed back and forth, as though they were of fabric and stirred by all the winds of hell. The floor undulated; his chair sank dizzily beneath him.
Dexter struggled to his feet, clutching convulsively at the table. His lips were parched and his tongue clung to the roof of his mouth. "Thorpe," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "I——"
The minister raised his hand. "Listen! I thought I heard——"
A whistle sounded outside, the gate clanged shut. A quick, light step ran up the walk, the door opened noisily, and a man rushed in. He seemed to bring into that hopeless place all the freshness of immortal Youth.
Blinded, Dexter moved forward, his hands outstretched to meet that eager clasp.
"Father! Father!" cried Ralph, joyously; "I've come home!"
Piper Tom
"Laddie," said the Piper to the yellow mongrel, "we'll be having breakfast now."
The dog answered with a joyous yelp. "You talk too much," observed his master, in affectionate reproof; "'t is fitting that small yellow dogs should be seen and not heard."
It was scarcely sunrise, but the Piper's day began—and ended—early. He had a roaring fire in the tiny stove which warmed his shop, and the tea-kettle hummed cheerily. All about him was the atmosphere of immaculate neatness. It was not merely the lack of dust and dirt, but a positive cleanliness.
His beardless face was youthful, but the Piper's hair was tinged with grey at the temples. One judged him to be well past forty, yet fully to have retained his youth. His round, rosy mouth was puckered in a whistle as he moved about the shop and spread the tiny table with a clean cloth.
Ranged about him in orderly rows was his merchandise. Tom Barnaby never bothered with fixtures and showcases. Chairs, drygoods boxes, rough shelves of his own making, and a few baskets sufficed him.
In the waterproof pedler's pack which he carried on his back when his shop was in transit, he had only the smaller articles which women continually need. Calico, mosquito netting, buttons, needles, thread, tape, ribbons, stationery, hooks and eyes, elastic, shoe laces, sewing silk, darning cotton, pins, skirt binding, and a few small frivolities in the way of neckwear, veils, and belts—these formed Piper Tom's stock in trade. By dint of close packing, he wedged an astonishing number of things into a small space, and was not too heavily laden when, with his dog and his flute, he set forth upon the highway to establish his shop in the next place that seemed promising.
"All unknowing, Laddie," he said to the dog, as he sat down to his simple breakfast, "we've come into competition with a woman who keeps a shop like ours, which we didn't mean to do. It's for this that we were making a new set of price tags all day of yesterday, which happened to be the Sabbath. It wouldn't be becoming of us to charge less than she and take her trade away from her, so we've started out on an even basis.
"Poor lady," laughed the Piper, "she was not willing for us to know her prices, thinking we were going to sell cheaper than she. 'T is a hard world for women, Laddie. I'm thinking 'tis no wonder they grow suspicious at times."
The dog sat patiently till Piper Tom finished his breakfast, well knowing that a generous share would be given him outside. While the dog ate, his master put the shop into the most perfect order, removing every particle of dust, and whistling meanwhile.
When the weather permitted, the shop was often left to keep itself, the door being hospitably propped open with a brick, while the dog and his master went gypsying. With a ragged, well-worn book in one pocket, a parcel of bread and cheese in another, and his flute slung over his shoulder, the Piper was prepared to spend the day abroad. He carried, too, a bone for the dog, well wrapped in newspaper, and an old silver cup to drink from.
Having finished his breakfast, the dog scampered about eagerly, indicating, by many leaps and barks, that it was time to travel, but the Piper raised his hand.
"Not to-day, Laddie," he said. "If we travel to-day, we'll not be going far. Have you forgotten that 't was only day before yesterday we found our work? Come here."
The dog seated himself before the Piper, his stubby tail wagging impatiently.
"She's a poor soul, Laddie," sighed the Piper, at length. "I'm thinking she's seen Sorrow face to face and has never had the courage to turn away. She was walking in the woods, trying to find the strange music, and was disappointed when she saw 't was only us. We must make her glad 't was us."
After a long time, the Piper spoke again, with a lingering tenderness. "She must be very beautiful, I'm thinking, Laddie; else she would not hide her face. Very beautiful and very sad."
When the sun was high, Piper Tom climbed the hill, followed by his faithful dog. On his shoulder he bore a scythe and under the other arm was a spade. He entered Miss Evelina's gate without ceremony and made a wry face as he looked about him. He scarcely knew where to begin.
The sound of the wide, even strokes roused Miss Evelina from her lethargy, and she went to the window, veiled. At first she was frightened when she saw the queer man whom she had met in the woods hard at work in her garden.
The red feather in his hat bobbed cheerfully up and down, the little yellow dog ran about busily, and the Piper was whistling lustily an old, half-forgotten tune.
She watched him for some time, then a new thought frightened her again. She had no money with which to pay him for clearing out her garden, and he would undoubtedly expect payment. She must go out and tell him not to work any more; that she did not wish to have the weeds removed.
Cringing before the necessity, she went out. The Piper did not see her until she was very near him, then, startled in his turn, he said, "Oh!" and took off his hat.
"Good-morning, madam," he went on, making a low bow. She noted that the tip of his red feather brushed the ground. "What can I do for you, more than I'm doing now?"
"It is about that," stammered Evelina, "that I came. You must not work in my garden."
"Surely," said the Piper, "you don't mean that! Would you have it all weeds? And 't is hard work for such as you."
"I—I—" answered Miss Evelina, almost in a whisper; "I have no money."
The Piper laughed heartily and put on his hat again. "Neither have I," he said, between bursts of seemingly uncalled-for merriment, "and probably I'm the only man in these parts who's not looking for it. Did you think I'd ask for pay for working in the garden?"
His tone made her feel that she had misjudged him and she did not know what to say in reply.
"Laddie and I have no garden of our own," he explained, "and so we're digging in yours. The place wants cleaning, for 't is a long time since any one cared enough for it to dig. I was passing, and I saw a place I thought I could make more pleasant. Have I your leave to try?"
"Why—why, yes," returned Miss Evelina, slowly. "If you'd like to, I don't mind."
He dismissed her airily, with a wave of his hand, and she went back into the house, never once turning her head.
"She's our work, Laddie," said the Piper, "and I'm thinking we've begun in the right way. All the old sadness is piled up in the garden, and I'm thinking there's weeds in her life, too, that it's our business to take out. At any rate, we'll begin here and do this first. One step at a time, Laddie—one step at a time. That's all we have to take, fortunately. When we can't see ahead, it's because we can't look around a corner."
All that day from behind her cobwebbed windows, Miss Evelina watched the Piper and his dog. Weeds and thistles fell like magic before his strong, sure strokes. He carried out armful after armful of rubbish and made a small-sized mountain in the road, confining it with stray boards and broken branches, as it was too wet to be burned.
Wherever she went, in the empty house, she heard that cheery, persistent whistle. As usual, Miss Hitty left a tray on her doorstep, laden with warm, wholesome food. Since that first day, she had made no attempt to see Miss Evelina. She brought her tray, rapped, and went away quietly, exchanging it for another when it was time for the next meal.
Meanwhile, Miss Evelina's starved body was responding, slowly but surely, to the simple, well-cooked food. Hitherto, she had not cared to eat and scarcely knew what she was eating. Now she had learned to discriminate between hot rolls and baking-powder biscuit, between thick soups and thin broths, custards and jellies.
Miss Evelina had wound one of the clocks, setting it by the midnight train, and loosening the machinery by a few drops of oil which she had found in an old bottle, securely corked. At eight, at one, and at six, Miss Hitty's tray was left at her back door—there had not been the variation of a minute since the first day. Preoccupied though she was, Evelina was not insensible of the kindness, nor of the fact that she was stronger, physically, than she had been for years.
And now in the desolate garden, there was visible evidence of more kindness. Perhaps the world was not wholly a place of grief and tears. Out there among the weeds a man laboured cheerfully—a man of whom she had no knowledge and upon whom she had no claim.
He sang and whistled as he strove mightily with the weeds. Now and then, he sharpened his scythe with his whetstone and attacked the dense undergrowth with yet more vigour. The little yellow mongrel capered joyfully and unceasingly, affecting to hide amidst the mass of rubbish, scrambling out with sharp, eager barks when his master playfully buried him, and retreating hastily before the oncoming scythe.
Miss Evelina could not hear, but she knew that the man was talking to the dog in the pauses of his whistling. She knew also that the dog liked it, even if he did not understand. She observed that the dog was not beautiful—could not be called so by any stretch of the imagination—and yet the man talked to him, made a friend of him, loved him.
At noon, the Piper laid down his scythe, clambered up on the crumbling stone wall, and ate his bread and cheese, while the dog nibbled at his bone. From behind a shutter in an upper room, Miss Evelina noted that the dog also had bread and cheese, sharing equally with his master.
The Piper went to the well, near the kitchen door, and drank copiously of the cool, clear water from his silver cup. Then he went back to work again.
Out in the road, the rubbish accumulated. When the Piper stood behind it. Miss Evelina could barely see the tip of the red feather that bobbed rakishly in his hat. Once he disappeared, leaving the dog to keep a reluctant guard over the spade and scythe. When he came back, he had a rake and a large basket, which made the collection of rubbish easier.
Safe in her house, Miss Evelina watched him idly. Her thought was taken from herself for the first time in all the five-and-twenty years. She contemplated anew the willing service of Miss Mehitable, who asked nothing of her except the privilege of leaving daily sustenance at her barred and forbidding door. "Truly," said Miss Evelina to herself, "it is a strange world."
The personality of the Piper affected her in a way she could not analyse. He did not attract her, neither was he wholly repellent. She did not feel friendly toward him, yet she could not turn wholly aside. There had been something strangely alluring in his music, which haunted her even now, though she resented his making game of her and leading her through the woods as he had.
Over and above and beyond all, she remembered the encounter upon the road, always with a keen, remorseless pain which cut at her heart like a knife. Miss Evelina thought she was familiar with knives, but this one hurt in a new way and cut, seemingly, at a place which had not been touched before.
Since the "white night" which had turned her hair to lustreless snow, nothing had hurt her so much. Her coming to the empty house, driven, as she was, by poverty—entering alone into a tomb of memories and dead happiness,—had not stabbed so deeply or so surely. She saw herself first on one peak and then on another, a valley of humiliation and suffering between which it had taken twenty-five years to cross. From the greatest hurt at the beginning to the greatest hurt—at the end? Miss Evelina started from her chair, her hands upon her leaping heart. The end? Ah, dear God, no! There was no end to grief like hers!
Insistently, through her memory, sounded the pipes o' Pan—the wild, sweet, tremulous strain which had led her away from the road where she had been splashed with the mud from Anthony Dexter's carriage wheels. The man with the red feather in his hat had called her, and she had come. Now he was digging in her garden, making the desolate place clean, if not cheerful.
Conscious of an unfamiliar detachment, Miss Evelina settled herself to think. The first hurt and the long pain which followed it, the blurred agony of remembrance when she had come back to the empty house, then the sharp, clean-cut stroke when she stood on the road, her eyes downcast, and heard the wheels rush by, then clear and challenging, the pipes o' Pan.
"'There is a divinity that shapes our ends,'" she thought, "'rough-hew them how we may.'" Where had she heard that before? She remembered, now—it was a favourite quotation of Anthony Dexter's.
Her lip curled scornfully. Was she never to be free from Anthony Dexter? Was she always to be confronted with his cowardice, his shirking, his spoken and written thoughts? Was she always to see his face as she had seen it last, his great love for her shining in his eyes for all the world to read? Was she to see forever his pearl necklace, discoloured, snaky, and cold, as meaningless as the yellow slip of paper that had come with it?
Where was the divinity that had shaped her course hither? Why had she been driven back to the place of her crucifixion, to stand veiled in the road while he drove by and splashed her with mud from his wheels?
Out in the garden, the Piper still strove with the weeds. He had the place nearly half cleared now. The space on the other side of the house was, as yet, untouched, and the trees and shrubbery all needed trimming. The wall was broken in places, earth had drifted upon it, and grass and weeds had taken root in the crevices.