IV
IN April the Cabots took their trip to Daleford and found it even more inviting than Mr. Fettiplace had promised. The spacious house among the elms, with its quaint old flower-garden, the air, the hills, the restful beauty of the country, were temptations not to be resisted, and within another month they were comfortably adjusted and felt at home.
The house, which had formerly belonged to Mr. Morton Judd, stood several hundred feet from the road at the end of an avenue of wide-spreading maples. This avenue was the continuation of another and a similar avenue extending to the house of Josiah Judd, directly opposite, and the same distance from the highway. As you stood at either end it was an unbroken arch from one residence to the other. When Mr. Morton Judd was married, some fifty years ago, his father had erected this abodefor him, but the young man soon after went to India, where as a merchant and a financier he achieved success, and where both he and his wife now lay at rest. Although covering as much ground, the house was less imposing than the more venerable mansion at the other end of the avenue.
The journey beneath the maples proved such a pleasant one and was so easily made as to invite a certain familiarity of intercourse that the Cabots saw no good reason to discourage. Mrs. Judd, a strong-framed woman with a heavy chin, whose failing memory seemed her only weakness, was now about eighty years of age, and generally sat by a sunny window in the big dining-room, where she rocked and knitted from morning till night, paying little attention to what went on about her. If Amos had been her own son she could not have loved him more, and this affection was returned in full with an unceasing thoughtfulnessand care. Both Molly and her father were gratified at finding in this young man a neighbor whose society it seemed safe to encourage. He proved a sensible, unpretending person, fond of fun and pleasure, but with plenty of convictions; these convictions, however, while a source of amusement to Mr. Cabot, were not always accepted by the daughter. They were often startling departures from his education and environment, and showed little respect for conventionalities. He never attended church, but owned a pew in each of the five temples at Daleford, and to each of these societies he was a constant and liberal contributor. For three of them he had given parsonages that were ornaments to the village, and as the sectarian spirit in that locality was alive and hot these generous gifts had produced alternating outbursts of thankfulness and rage, all of which apparently caused neither surprise nor annoyance to the young philosopher. WhenMolly Cabot told him, after learning this, that it would indicate a more serious Christian spirit if he paid for but a single pew and sat in it, he answered:
“But that spirit is just the evil I try to escape, for your good Christian is a hot sectarian. It is the one thing in his religion he will fight and die for, and it seems to me the one thing he ought to be ashamed of. If any one sect is right and the others wrong it is all a hideous joke on the majority, and a proper respect for the Creator prevents my believing in any such favoritism.”
Occasionally the memory of his offensive title obtruded itself as a bar to that confidence which is the foundation of friendship, but as she knew him better it became more difficult to believe that he could ever have been, in its coarser sense, what that title signified. As regarded herself, there was never on his part the faintest suggestion of anythingthat could be interpreted as love-making, or even as the mildest attempt at a flirtation. She found him under all conditions simple and unassuming, and, she was forced to admit, with no visible tokens of that personal vanity with which she had so lavishly endowed him. His serious business in life was the management of the Judd farm, and although the care and development of his animals was more of a recreation than a rigid necessity he wasted little money in unsuccessful experiments. Mr. Cabot soon discovered that he was far more practical and business-like than his leisurely manners seemed to indicate. The fondness for animals that seemed one of his strongest characteristics was more an innate affection than a breeder’s fancy. Every animal on his place, from the thoroughbred horses to the last litter of pups, he regarded more as personal friends than as objects of commercial value.
When Mr. Cabot and Molly made their first visit to the farm, they noticed in the corner of a field a number of dejected horses huddled solemnly together. Most of them were well beyond middle age and bore the clearest indications of a future that was devoid of promise. They gazed at the visitors with listless eyes, and as a congregation seemed burdened with most of the physical imperfections of extreme antiquity.
“What on earth are those?” asked Mr. Cabot. “Revolutionary relics? They are too fat for invalids.”
“A few friends of my youth.”
“I should think from the number you have here that you never disposed of your old friends,” said Mr. Cabot.
“Only when life is a burden.”
“Well, I am glad to see them,” said Molly, as she patted one or two of the noses that were thrust toward her. “It does you credit.I think it is horrid to sell a horse that has used himself up in your service.”
As the father and daughter walked homeward along the avenue of maples, Mr. Cabot spoke of the pleasure the young man derived from his animals, and the good sense he displayed in the management of his farm.
“Yes,” said Molly, “and he seems too boyish and full of fun for anything very weird or uncanny. But Mr. Fettiplace certainly believed in something of that kind, didn’t he?”
“Of course, or he wouldn’t be Fettiplace. That sort of thing is always interesting, and the world is full of people who can believe anything if they once put their minds on it. Who is that in our yard?”
“Deacon White, I think. He has come to train up some plants for me.” A moment later she took her father’s arm and asked, with affected humility: “Jimsey, will you do something?”
“No, for it’s sure to be foolish.”
“Well, you are right, but you can do it so much better than I. Deacon White has probably known Mr. Judd ever since he was a little boy, and he would be glad of an opportunity to tell what he knows and give us all the town talk besides. I do wish you would just start him off.”
“Start him off! On what? Judd’s private history? On the delicate matters he doesn’t wish advertised?”
“No, no! Of course not, papa! How unpleasant you are! I only want him to throw some light on the mysterious things Mr. Fettiplace alluded to.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind. If you really have a thirst for that sort of knowledge, get a copy of Hans Andersen. He has a better style than Deacon White.”
A few moments later, when Molly and the Deacon were alone in the old garden, her desirefor information was gratified to an unhoped-for extent, and the information was of a more detailed and astonishing character than she would have presumed to ask for. The Deacon, a little, round-shouldered, narrow-chested man of seventy, with a sun-dried face, an enormous nose, and a long receding chin with a white beard beneath, possessed a pair of wide-awake eyes that seemed many years younger than himself.
“I never have anything to do with roses without thinkin’ of Amos. Did you ever notice his?”
“Yes; they are splendid ones.”
“Ain’t they! Well, one mornin’, when he was a little boy, I was helpin’ him set out roses along the side of the house where the big trellis is, and he said he wanted red ones, not yellow ones. I said: ‘These are red ones. They are cut from the same slip as the others, and they’ve got to be red whether they wantto or not.’ Pretty soon Josiah came out, and Amos said to him that he could see ’em next spring and they would all be yellow. And what took me all aback was that Josiah believed it, and tried to persuade him that he might like yellow ones for a change. And I tell you,” said the Deacon, as he fixed his little young eyes on her face to watch his effect, “I just stood with my mouth open one mornin’, a year after, when I saw those roses, that oughter been red, just come out into a yeller. Of course it was a mistake in the bushes, but how did he know?”
“It might have been a coincidence.”
“Yes, it might have been a coincidence. But when a boy’s life is made up of just those things you begin to suspect after a while that perhaps they are too everlastingly reliable for coincidences. You can’t always bet on coincidences, but you can bet every time on Amos. My daughter Phœbe kept school down in thevillage for a spell when Amos was about ten years old. There was another boy, Billy Hines, who never missed a lesson. Phœbe knew he was a dull boy and that he always tried to give larnin’ the whole road whenever he saw it comin’, and it kinder surprised her to have him stand at the head of his class all the time and make better recitations than smarter boys who worked hard. But he always knew everything and never missed a question. He and Amos were great friends, more because Amos felt sorry for him, I guess, than anything else. Billy used to stand up and shine every day, when she knew mighty well he was the slowest chap in the whole school and hadn’t studied his lessons neither. Well, one day Amos got hove about twenty feet by a colt he was tryin’ to ride and he stayed in bed a few weeks. Durin’ that time Billy Hines couldn’t answer a question. Not a question. He and arithmetic were strangers. Also geography,history, and everything else that he’d been intimate with. He jest stopped shinin’, like a candle with a stopper on it. The amount of it was she found that Amos had always told him ahead the questions he was goin’ to be asked, and Billy learned the answers just before he stood up to recite.”
“Why, how did Amos—how did Mr. Judd know what questions would be asked?”
“I guess ’twas just a series of coincidences that happened to last all winter.”
Molly laughed. “How unforgiving you are, Mr. White! But did Amos Judd explain it?”
“He didn’t. He was too young then to do it to anybody’s satisfaction, and now that he’s older he won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, he’s kind of sensitive about it. Never talks of those things, and don’t like to have other folks.”
Molly stood looking over toward the Juddhouse, wondering how much of the Deacon’s tale was truth, and how much was village gossip exaggerated by repetition.
“Did you ever hear about Josiah’s death?”
Molly shook her head.
“’Twas to him that Amos was fetched from India. One mornin’ Josiah and I were standin’ in the doorway of his barn talkin’. The old barn used to be closer to the house, but Amos tore it down after he built that big new one. Josiah and I stood in the doorway talkin’ about a new yoke of oxen; nothin’ excitin’, for there wasn’t any cause for it. We stood in the doorway, both facin’ out, when Josiah, without givin’ any notice, sort of pitched forward and fell face down in the snow. I turned him over and tried to lift him up, but when I saw his face I was scared. Just at that particular minute the doctor, with Amos sittin’ in the sleigh beside him, drove into the avenue and hurried along as if he knew there was trouble. Wecarried Josiah into the house, but ’twa’n’t any use. He was dead before we got him there. It was heart disease. At the funeral I said to the doctor it was lucky he happened along just then, even if he couldn’t save him, and I found there was no happen about it; that Amos had run to his house just as he was starting off somewheres else, and told him Josiah was dyin’ and to get there as fast as he could.”
“That’s very strange,” Molly said, in a low voice. She had listened to this story with a feeling of awe, for she believed the Deacon to be a truthful man, and this was an experience of his own. “This mysterious faculty,” she said, “whatever it was, did he realize it fully himself?”
“I guess he did!” and the Deacon chuckled as he went on with his work. “And he used to play tricks with it. I tell you he was a handful.”
“Did you say he lost it as he grew up?”
The Deacon turned about and answered, ina serious tone: “No. But he wants folks to think so. All the same, there’s something between Amos and the Almighty that the rest of us ain’t into.”
One Monday morning, toward the last of June, Molly left Daleford for a two weeks’ visit at the seashore. Her absence caused a void that extended from the Cabot household over to the big white mansion at the further end of the maples. This emptiness and desolation drove the young man to frequent visits upon Mr. Cabot, who, in his turn, found a pleasant relief in the companionship of his neighbor, and he had no suspicion of the solace this visitor derived from sitting upon the piazza so lately honored by the absent girl. The eminent lawyer was not aware that he himself, apart from all personal merit, was the object of an ardent affection from his relationship to his own daughter. For the first twenty-four hours the two disconsolates kept in theirown preserves to a reasonable extent, but on Tuesday they took a fishing trip, followed in the evening by a long talk on the Cabot piazza. During this conversation the lawyer realized more fully than ever the courageous ignorance of his neighbor in all matters that had failed to interest him. On the other hand, he was impressed by the young man’s clear, comprehensive, and detailed knowledge upon certain unfamiliar subjects. In spite of his college education and a very considerable knowledge of the world he was, mentally, something of a spoiled child; yet from his good sense, originality, and moral courage he was always interesting.
Wednesday, the third day, brought a northeast gale that swept the hills and valleys of Daleford with a drenching rain. Trees, bushes, flowers, and blades of grass dripping with water, bent and quivered before the wind. Mr. Cabot spent the morning among his booksand papers, writing letters and doing some work which the pleasant weather had caused him to defer. For such labors this day seemed especially designed. In the afternoon, about two o’clock, he stood looking out upon the storm from his library window, which was at the corner of the house and commanded the long avenue toward the road. The tempest seemed to rage more viciously than ever. Bounding across the country in sheets of blinding rain, it beat savagely against the glass, then poured in unceasing torrents down the window-panes. The ground was soaked and spongy with tempestuous little puddles in every hollow of the surface. In the distance, under the tossing maples, he espied a figure coming along the driveway in a waterproof and rubber boots. He recognized Amos, his head to one side to keep his hat on, gently trotting before the gale, as the mighty force against his back rendered a certain degree of speed perfunctory.Mr. Cabot had begun to weary of solitude, and saw with satisfaction that Amos crossed the road and continued along the avenue. Beneath his waterproof was something large and bulging, of which he seemed very careful. With a smiling salutation he splashed by the window toward the side door, laid off his outer coat and wiped his ponderous boots in the hall, then came into the library bearing an enormous bunch of magnificent yellow roses. Mr. Cabot recognized them as coming from a bush in which its owner took the greatest pride, and in a moment their fragrance filled the room.
“What beauties!” he exclaimed. “But are you sure they are for me?”
“If she decides to give them to you, sir.”
“She? Who? Bridget or Maggie?”
“Neither. They belong to the lady who is now absent; whose soul is the Flower of Truth, and whose beauty is the Glory of the Morning.” Then he added, with a gesture of humility,“That is, of course, if she will deign to accept them.”
“But, my well-meaning young friend, were you gifted with less poetry and more experience you would know that these roses will be faded and decaying memories long before the recipient returns. And you a farmer!”
Amos looked at the clock. “You seem to have precious little confidence in my flowers, sir. They are good for three hours, I think.”
“Three hours! Yes, but to-day is Wednesday and it is many times three hours before next Monday afternoon.”
A look of such complete surprise came into Amos’s face that Mr. Cabot smiled as he asked, “Didn’t you know her visit was to last a fortnight?”
The young man made no answer to this, but looked first at his questioner and then at his roses with an air that struck Mr. Cabot at the moment as one of embarrassment. As herecalled it afterward, however, he gave it a different significance. With his eyes still on the flowers Amos, in a lower voice, said, “Don’t you know that she is coming to-day?”
“No. Do you?”
The idea of a secret correspondence between these two was not a pleasant surprise; and the fact that he had been successfully kept in ignorance of an event of such importance irritated him more than he cared to show. He asked, somewhat dryly: “Have you heard from her?”
“No, sir, not a word,” and as their eyes met Mr. Cabot felt it was a truthful answer.
“Then why do you think she is coming?”
Amos looked at the clock and then at his watch. “Has no one gone to the station for her?”
“No one,” replied Mr. Cabot, as he turned away and seated himself at his desk. “Why should they?”
Then, in a tone which struck its hearer asbeing somewhat more melancholy than the situation demanded, the young man replied: “I will explain all this to-morrow, or whenever you wish, Mr. Cabot. It is a long story, but if she does come to-day she will be at the station in about fifty minutes. You know what sort of a vehicle the stage is. May I drive over for her?”
“Certainly, if you wish.”
The young man lingered a moment as if there was something more he wished to add, but left the room without saying it. A minute later he was running as fast as the gale would let him along the avenue toward his own house, and in a very short time Mr. Cabot saw a pair of horses with a covered buggy, its leather apron well up in front, come dashing down the avenue from the opposite house. Amid fountains of mud the little horses wheeled into the road, trotted swiftly toward the village and out of sight.
An hour and a half later the same horses,bespattered and dripping, drew up at the door. Amos got out first, and holding the reins with one hand, assisted Molly with the other. From the expression on the two faces it was evident their cheerfulness was more than a match for the fiercest weather. Mr. Cabot might perhaps have been ashamed to confess it, but his was a state of mind in which this excess of felicity annoyed him. He felt a touch of resentment that another, however youthful and attractive, should have been taken into her confidence, while he was not even notified of her arrival. But she received a hearty welcome, and her impulsive, joyful embrace almost restored him to a normal condition.
A few minutes later they were sitting in the library, she upon his lap recounting the events that caused her unexpected return. Ned Elliott was quite ill when she got there, and last night the doctor pronounced it typhoid fever; that of course upset the wholehouse, and she, knowing her room was needed, decided during the night to come home this morning. Such was the substance of the narrative, but told in many words, with every detail that occurred to her, and with frequent ramifications; for the busy lawyer had always made a point of taking a very serious interest in whatever his only child saw fit to tell him. And this had resulted in an intimacy and a reliance upon each other which was very dear to both. As Molly was telling her story Maggie came in from the kitchen and handed her father a telegram, saying Joe had just brought it from the post-office. Mr. Cabot felt for his glasses and then remembered they were over on his desk. So Molly tore it open and read the message aloud.
Hon. James Cabot, Daleford, Conn.I leave for home this afternoon by the one-forty train.Mary Cabot.
Hon. James Cabot, Daleford, Conn.
I leave for home this afternoon by the one-forty train.
Mary Cabot.
“Why, papa, it is my telegram! How slow it has been!”
“When did you send it?”
“I gave it to Sam Elliott about nine o’clock this morning, and it wouldn’t be like him to forget it.”
“No, and probably he did not forget it. It only waited at the Bingham station a few hours to get its breath before starting on a six-mile walk.”
But he was glad to know she had sent the message. Suddenly she wheeled about on his knee and inserted her fingers between his collar and his neck, an old trick of her childhood and still employed when the closest attention was required. “But how did you know I was coming?”
“I did not.”
“But you sent for me.”
“No, Amos went for you of his own accord.”
“Well, how did he know I was coming?”
Mr. Cabot raised his eyebrows. “I have no idea, unless you sent him word.”
“Of course I didn’t send him word. What an idea! Why don’t you tell me how you knew?” and the honest eyes were fixed upon his own in stern disapproval. He smiled and said it was evidently a mysterious case; that she must cross-examine the prophet. He then told her of the roses and of his interview with Amos. She was mystified, and also a little excited as she recalled the stories of Deacon White, but knowing her father would only laugh at them, contented herself with exacting the promise of an immediate explanation from Mr. Judd.