The night before, at supper, Mrs. Dilworth, her hands stumbling among her teacups, said, faintly, "I'm going over to the other side of the river to-morrow to order some chickens from Mrs. Kensy."
"That Kensy house is right by the railroad station," Ned said, scowling; "I don't believe she has any hens."
"Yes, she has, Neddy," said Mrs. Dilworth.
Edwin frowned blackly. "I do wish you wouldn't call me by that absurd name, mother."
"I keep forgetting, Neddy dear."
Edwin held up his hands despairingly.
"What are you two people talking about?" demanded Thomas.
"I'm going to walk over, across the ice, to the Bend, to-morrow," said Milly.
"Walk!" her husband protested. "What do you walk for? It's cold as Greenland on the ice, and, besides, they were cutting at the pool by the Bend; you don't want to go that way, Milly. Take the stage round."
Mrs. Dilworth crumbled a piece of bread with shaking fingers, and said nothing.
"What time are you going, mother?" inquired Edwin.
"In the afternoon, about four."
"Why, you went there only two days ago," Edwin said, irritably. "I saw you on the back road carting a big bundle."
"It would have been more to the point if you'd done the carting for your mother," Tom Dilworth said, sharply.
His wife paled suddenly at that word about a bundle, but the subject was not pursued. Edwin said, grumbling, that he didn't see what possessed his mother to choose such an hour. "It's too dark for a lady to be out," Edwin protested.
"Too dark for a—grandmother!" his father said. "Don't you criticise your mother, young man." And then he added: "Look out for the places where the men were cutting, Milly. It hasn't frozen over yet."
And Mrs. Dilworth said, after a pause, "I know."
That night was a misery of dreams that the deed was done, broken by wakings desperate with the knowledge that it was yet to do. In the morning she seemed to have lost all power of words; she bore her husband's reproaches that Ned was late for breakfast; she went about her household duties; she watched the girls start for school (she did not kiss them; demonstrations of affection had never been possible to this dumb breast; but she stared after them with haggard eyes); and through it all she hardly uttered a word; when she did speak, it seemed as though she had to break, by agonizing effort, some actual lock upon her lips. When the girls had gone she looked about for her eldest; but Ned was not to be found. "I never knew him to go to the store before breakfast," she thought, miserably. His father, pulling on his coat in the hall, said that Ned was getting industrious to go to his work so early! His wife was silent.
When he started, whistling cheerfully,
music fragment
music fragment
she watched him from the window, straining her eyes until he was out of sight. Then she went up-stairs to her bedroom, and, opening his closet door, leaned her head against one of his coats, trembling very much.
Afterwards she wandered about the house in aimless, restless waiting for Ned.
In the course of the morning Tom sent over to inquire why the boy had not come to the store. Milly told the messenger to tell Mr. Dilworth that Mr. Edwin was not at home. "Say I thought he was at the store," she said. "I'll give him his father's message when he comes in to dinner." But he did not come in to dinner; and minute by minute the afternoon ticked itself away. She had said to herself that she must start about four, before Nancy and Mary got home from school. "It must be so that it would be dark when I was coming back," she reminded herself. "If I leave here at four, and get my bundle from Mrs. Kensy at five, it would be pretty dark by the time I would be going home. Mrs. Kensy will tell them that it was dark."
At four Edwin had not appeared; Milly, having no imagination, had no anxiety; she merely gave up, patiently, the hope of a wordless good-bye. But she kept looking for him; and when she finally put on her things, she paused and turned back to the window, to look once more towards Old Chester; but there was no sign of Ned. It did not occur to her to postpone her plan; her mind, run into the mould of sacrifice, had hardened into rigidity. So at last, miserably, the tears running down her face, she stepped out into the cold and went down through the garden to the river. There she turned and looked back, with dumb passion in her eyes; the firelight was winking from the parlor windows and all the warm commonplace of life seemed to beckon her. She put her muff up to wipe her eyes, but she made no prayer or farewell; her silence had reached her soul by that time.
"THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK""THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK"
"THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK""THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK"
It was very cold; the ice was rough, and the wind had blown the dry snow about in light drifts and ripples, so that walking was not difficult. She trudged out, up towards the Bend, skirting the place where the men had been cutting. They had gone home now, and the ice about the black, open space of water was quite deserted. The wind came keenly down the river, blowing an eddy of snow before it; the bleak sky lay like lead over the woods along the shore. There was not a house in sight. Amelia Dilworth looked furtively about her; then she bent down and scraped at the snow on the edge of the ice, as one might do who, in the water, was struggling for a hold upon it. After that, for a long time, she stood there, looking dumbly at the current running, black and silent, between the edges of the ice. At last, her hand over her mouth to check some inarticulate lament, she stooped again, and put her little black muff on the broken snow close to the water.
When she reached Mrs. Kensy's she was quite calm. She said briefly that she had come to order some chickens; "—and I'll take that bundle I asked you to keep for me."
The woman brought it, and Milly tucked her fingers through the stout strings she had tied so carefully a few days before. When she would open it in the woods, and put on the new dress and shawl and the heavy veil that it held, and then, in the dark, take the half-past-five train, no one would know that Thomas Dilworth's wife had fled away into another State. They would find the muff, and they would think—there would be only one thing to think.
"I want the chickens for Sunday," she said; "please send them over on Saturday." Then it came into her mind with a little gush of happiness that she would pay for them on the spot, instead of having the bill sent to Tom, as was her custom; she had drawn a sum of money from the bank a fortnight ago—a small sum, but her own; now it was all in her purse; she would buy Tom's Sunday dinner out of her little fund. Except to leave him, it was the last thing she would ever do for him.
She put her hand into her pocket—and chilled all over. Then stood blankly looking at the woman; then plunged her hand down again into her pocket; then exclaimed under her breath; then tore her bag open and fumbled distractedly among brushes and night-gown and slippers; then pulled her pocket wrong side out with trembling fingers.
"My purse!" she said, breathlessly. Then she searched everything again.
"It ain't any difference," Mrs. Kensy protested.
"I must have left it at home. I can't go back for it. It is too late."
"What for?" said Mrs. Kensy.
"The—the train."
"Oh, you was going on, was you?" Mrs. Kensy said. "Well, I can let you have the price of a ticket a little ways."
But Mrs. Dilworth, with shaking hands, pulled everything out of her bag, shook her skirts, fumbled in the bosom of her dress, ran out and searched the garden-path, strained her eyes across the snow on the river—all in vain. "Oh, my!" she said, faintly.
"But I can lend you the price of a ticket, ma'am," Mrs. Kensy said again.
"No matter," Mrs. Dilworth said, dully. "I'll go home."
Even as she spoke she heard the train tooting faintly far up the valley. She sat down, feeling suddenly sick.
V
There was nothing to do but to go home. She remembered now how in her agitated watching for her son she had put her purse down on the corner of her bureau—and left it there. Yes; there was nothing to do but go back. "I can start to-morrow," she said to herself. But in the sick reaction of the moment she knew that she could never start again; her purpose had been shattered by the blow. She took her bundle—the bundle that meant flight and disguise and self-sacrifice, and that stood for the shrewdness which is so characteristic of the kind of stupidity which forgets the purse—and went stumbling down in the darkness to the river. She said to herself that she must get her muff; and she thought heavily that it would be pretty hard to carry so many things across the ice. She was numb with the shock of interrupted ecstasy. She could not feel even mortification—only fatigue. She was so tired that, seeing in the darkness a hurrying figure approaching her, she did not recognize her husband until he was almost upon her.
"Milly? My God! Milly!"
He had her muff in his hand, and as he reached her he caught at her shoulder and shook her roughly. "Milly—I thought—I thought—" He stammered with agitation. "I found this muff, and I thought it was yours; and Neddy's gone, too, and I thought—both of you—"
"Neddygone?" she repeated, dully.
She stood still on the ice, trying to get her wits together.
"He's disappeared. He isn't in town. He went out early this morning. To skate, I suppose. Nora saw him from her window; at about six, she says. And this open water"—she felt him quiver at her side—"and then this muff—"
"No!" she said. "I—I made a mistake." She did not take in the words about Ned.
"But where is he? Nobody's seen him. I suppose I'm a fool, but I'm uneasy. I came to meet you because I thought you might know. But when I saw this muff—it is yours, Milly, isn't it?—I got into a panic about you, too."
"Why," she said—"it's mine; yes. I—I left it—I suppose. Neddy wasn't with me. Did you think he was with me? I don't understand," she ended, bewildered.
"He hasn't been at home all day," her husband said, "nor in town, either." And then he repeated the story, while she looked at him, slow understanding dawning in her eyes.
"Neddy—gone! Where?"
"But that's what I don't know," the father said.
And his wife, dazed still, but awake to the trouble in his voice, began to comfort him, alarm rising slowly in her own heart like an icy wave.
"Maybe he went to see somebody in Upper Chester?"
"But he doesn't know anybody at Upper Chester. Of course it's possible. Only—you gave me such a fright, Milly!" Mrs. Dilworth put her hand over her mouth and trembled. "However, I guess he's all right, as you say. I guess we'll find him at home when we get back. It's lucky I came to meet you, because I can lug your things for you. How did you drop your muff, dear? Here, take it; your hands must be cold. Oh, Milly, you gave me an awful fright—it was right on the very edge of the ice; those confounded cutters hadn't put up any ropes. You do really think there's no reason to be uneasy about Ned?"
"No," she said. Her knees shook; she had to pause to swallow before she spoke. Oh, what if he should find her out? As she trudged along at his side in the cold darkness she said to herself, with a sickening sense of apprehension, that if he found her out she should die. Then as her mind cleared she tried in her brief way to encourage him about their boy; yet, as they drew nearer home and she saw again the firelit windows, she began to awaken to the situation: Neddy had gone out to skate; at six, did Nora say? Of course he might have stopped to see somebody in Upper Chester; only Neddy never went to see anybody anywhere—except (Amelia Dilworth had forgotten her!)—except that Hayes girl—and she wasn't at home. Yes, it was strange; and worrying, perhaps. But she only repeated, as they went hurrying up to the back door, that she was sure Neddy was all right. But she held her breath to listen for his voice haranguing his sisters in the sitting-room. Instead, the two girls came running out to meet them.
"Oh, father, did you find Ned? Oh, here's mother; she'll know where he is."
"Mother, I'm sort of scared about him," Mary whispered.
"He's gone to see some friend," the mother said, and her brevity, so agonizing to her, seemed to reassure the others.
"He hasn't any friend except Miss Helen Hayes," Nancy said, "and she went away last week."
"Maybe he's gone to hunt her up," Mary said, giggling, and her father told her to be quiet.
"It's thoughtless in him to be so late. But your mother isn't worried, so I guess we needn't be. Your mother says there is not the slightest cause for anxiety, and she knows."
"Come to supper," Amelia said, her heart sinking; and the commonplace suggestion cheered them all, although Tom Dilworth did not like to lose the assurance of his wife's presence, even to have her go up-stairs to take off her bonnet, and went with her, saying again, decidedly, that there was, as she said, no possible reason for uneasiness, and that he himself hadn't a particle of anxiety. "But I'll give that boy a piece of my mind for worrying you so. Why, Milly, what a fat pocket-book! Where did you get so much money, my dear? I didn't know the hardware trade was so prosperous. Look here, Milly—it is pretty late, honestly?"
She took her purse out of his hands, her own trembling. For a moment she could not speak, and leaned forward to look into the swinging glass and make pretence of untying a knot in her bonnet-strings. "Oh, he'll come home soon," she said.
In spite of assurances, the tea-table was not very cheerful—the girls stopped short in the middle of a sentence to listen for a step on the porch. Tom got up twice to look out of the window. Mrs. Dilworth thought she heard the gate slam, and held her breath; but no Ned appeared. The evening was endlessly long. Tom pretended to read his newspaper, and kept his eye on one spot for five minutes at a time. At ten he packed the girls off to bed; at eleven he was walking up and down the room; at twelve he told his wife to go to bed; but somehow or other he went himself, while she sat up, "to let the boy in."
You can make excuses for this sort of lateness up to a certain point; but it is curious that at about 2.30 in the morning the excuses all give out. Tom Dilworth got up and dressed. "Something has happened, Milly," he said, brokenly. His wife put her arms around him, trying to comfort him.
"If Miss Hayes was only at home," she said, "maybe she would have some idea of his plans. He might have told her. And she could tell us what to do."
"Who?" said Tom—"that Hayes girl? Maybe so. I hadn't thought of her. No, I don't believe she'd be any help. She hasn't got much sense in that kind of way."
Such ages and ages was Milly away from her great experience of jealousy that she felt no relief at this bald betrayal. Together they went out onto the porch, listening, and straining their eyes. The moon was just going down; it was very cold; far off a dog barked. But there was no human sound. The two haggard people went shivering back into the hall, where a candle burned dimly in the glass bell hanging at the foot of the stairs.
"Something has certainly happened," Tom said again. "Oh, Milly, you are always so calm and I go all to pieces." He leaned his elbow against the wall and hid his face in his arm. His wife heard him groan.
"And—I've been hard on him sometimes," he said.
She took his hand and kissed it silently.
Poor Tom went to pieces more than once in the days that followed—dreadful days of panic and despair. Old Chester, aroused at daybreak by the terrified father, decided at once that the boy was drowned; but everybody stood ready to help the stricken parents with hopeful words to the contrary, words which rang as hollow to Thomas and his wife as to the well-meaning liars.
It was on Wednesday that he had disappeared. On Friday they dragged the river through the open holes; on Saturday, blew up the ice and dragged all the way down to the second bend. That night Nancy and Mary crept away to cry in their own room; Tom sat with his head buried in his arms; his wife knelt beside him, touching him sometimes with a quiet hand, but never speaking. Dr. Lavendar came in and put his hand on Tom's shoulder for a minute, and then went away. The firelight slipped flickering about the room; sometimes the coal in the grate snapped and chuckled, and a spurt of flame shone on the two suddenly aged faces. And then into the silent room came, with hurried, shamefaced triumph—Edwin.
"I—I'm afraid you've been anxious—"
"He ought to have written," said another voice, breathless and uncertain, and breaking into nervous laughter. "It is naughty in him to have forgotten. I—I told him so."
Thomas Dilworth lifted his head and stared, silently; but his wife broke out into wild laughter and streaming tears; she ran and threw herself on Edwin's breast, her throat strangling with sobs.
"Oh—she's found Neddy! She has brought him back to us!—she has found him! Oh, Miss Hayes, God bless you—God bless you! Oh, where did you find him?"
Miss Hayes opened her lips—then bit the lower one, and stood, scarlet.
"I meant to write," Edwin began to explain—"of course I meant to write, but—"
"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen's fluttering voice took up the excuse, "you must forgive him"—she came as though to put her arms about Ned's mother. "After all, a bridegroom, you know—"
Milly lifted her head from Edwin's shoulder and gaped at her.
"Bridegroom?"
Thomas Dilworth got on his feet and swore. Miss Helen Hayes—or, no; Mrs. Edwin Dilworth—came and hung upon his arm.
"THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE""THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE"
"THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE""THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE"
"You won't mind very much? You'll forgive him? We couldn't tell, because—because papa would have interfered; but I knew your dear, kind heart. Mrs. Dilworth, I have so revered Mr. Dilworth!—that was one reason I saidyes. You'll let me be your little girl, Mr. Dilworth?"
"Little—grandmother!" said Tom Dilworth; and burst into a roar of laughter; then stopped, and said through his set teeth to his son, "You scoundrel!"
"Thomas—don't!" the mother entreated. "He has come back."
"He'd better have stayed away!" Thomas said, furiously, in all the anger of suddenly relieved pain.
"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen murmured, "forgive us! He ought to have written—I ought to have reminded him. But—youunderstand? I know you do. Just these first beautiful days, one forgets everything."
"Well, I tell you I meant to write," Ned persisted, doggedly. "But mother put me all out by going over to the Bend in the afternoon. I was going to take that train, and of course I couldn't; Kensy's house is right there by the station. And I had to take the morning train instead; and it put me all out. I had to get up so early I forgot to take any clothes," he added, resentfully. "It wasn't my fault."
"Not your fault?" his father said, and then turned to his wife, almost with a sob. "Milly, can he be our boy, this sneak?"
"Yes; yes, he is, Tom; indeed he is, dear. And he just forgot; he didn't mean anything wrong." Milly was almost voluble, and she was crying hard. And then she looked at the woman who had brought him back—the faded, anxious, simpering woman, who for once had no words ready. Milly looked at her, and suddenly opened her arms and took her son's elderly wife to her heart. "Oh, you poor woman," she said, "how unhappy you must have been at home!"
Helen looked at her blankly, then dropped her head down on the kind shoulder, and Milly felt her quiver.
"She's fifty!" Tom said, trembling with anger. "How the devil a son of mine can be such a jack—"
"Tom, dear! there now,don't," the mother said; "he's at home. Just think; he's at home! and we thought—we thought—" Her voice broke. "We'll all love you, Miss Hayes—I mean Helen," she whispered to the sobbing woman.
Then, with a sort of gasp, she put her daughter-in-law's arms aside gently, and went over and kissed her husband.
As for Thomas Dilworth, after the first shock of anger and mortification had passed, and the young couple had finally settled themselves upon the disgusted bounty of the respective fathers, he used to whistle incessantly a certain song much in vogue at the time:
"I hankerTo spank her,Now I'm her papa!"
"AN EXCEEDING HIGH MOUNTAIN"
I
Robert Gray's first wife, Alys (Old Chester had hard work to swallow her name; "but it's better than any of your silly 'ie's,'" said Old Chester)—this first Mrs. Gray was a good deal of a trial to everybody. She was not only "new," but foreign; not only foreign, but indifferent to Old Chester. Indeed, it took all Old Chester's politeness and Christian forbearance to invite Mrs. Robert Gray to tea—with the certainty that the invitation would be declined. She was an English girl whom Robert met somewhere in Switzerland—a heavy-eyed, silent creature, certainly a very beautiful woman, but most inefficient and sickly; and there were so many nice, sensible girls in Old Chester! (However, there is no use saying things like that: as if a man ever married a girl because she was sensible!)
Yet young Gray certainly needed a sensible wife; his wealth was limited to character and good manners, plus a slender income as tutor in the Female Academy in Upper Chester. Excellent things, all; but a wife with sense (and money) would have been an agreeable addition to his circumstances. Whereas, this very beautiful English girl was a penniless governess, left stranded in Germany by an employer, who had, apparently, got tired of her. Robert Gray had met the poor, frightened creature, who was taking her wandering way back to England, and married her, frantic with rage at the way she had been treated. When he brought her home, he was so madly in love that he probably did not half appreciate Old Chester's patience with her queer ways. But the fact was, that for the few months she lived, she was so miserable that Old Chester could not help being patient, and forgiving her her half-sullen indifference, and her silence, and her distaste for life—even in Old Chester!
For in spite of Robert's adoration, in spite of all the ready friendliness about her, in spite of the birth of a baby girl, she seemed, as it were, to turn her face to the wall. She died when the child was about a week old. Died, the doctor said, only because, so far as he could see, she did not care to live.
"You ought to try to get better for the baby's sake," said Miss Rebecca Jones, who had come in to help nurse her. And the poor girl frowned and shook her head, the heavy, white lids falling over her dark eyes.
"I don't like it."
And Rebecca (who had too much good sense to be shocked by the vagaries of a sick woman) said, decidedly: "Oh, you'll learn to like her. Come, now, just try!"
But she did not seem to try; even though Robert, kneeling with his arm under her pillow, holding her languid hand to his lips, said, sobbing, "Oh, Alys, Alys—for God's sake—don't leave me—"
Then she opened her beautiful eyes and looked at him solemnly. "Robert," she said, "I am sorry. I am—sorry. I—am—"
"What for, precious?" he entreated; "sorry for what? to leave me? Oh, Alys, then live, live, dear!"
"I—am—" she began; and then her voice trailed into eternity.
Miss Rebecca Jones hung about the house for a few days, to make the poor gentleman comfortable; then he was left alone with the child (purchased at so dreadful a cost) and one servant, and his daily work of teaching the polite languages at the Female Academy. Miss Rebecca's hard face softened whenever she thought of him; but all she could do for him was to go often to see the poor seven-months baby—which seemed for a time inclined to follow its mother.
Now it must be understood at once that Rebecca Jones was not a schemer, or a mean or vulgar woman. She was merely a hard-headed, honest-hearted product of years of public-school teaching, with a passion for truth and no grace in telling it. She was sorry for Mr. Gray, and sorry for the poor baby, who was being allowed, she said to herself, to grow up every which way; and sorry for the comfortless house left to the care of what she called "an uneducated servant-girl." So, after school, and on Saturday mornings, she used to go over to Mr. Gray's house and bustle about to the bettering of several things. Indeed, old Mr. Jones told her more than once that he didn't know what that there widower would do without her. And Rebecca said, truthfully enough, that she didn't know, either. And when she said it her heart warmed with something more than pity.
As for Robert Gray, dazed and absent, trying to do his duty at the Academy during the day, and coming home at night to look blankly at his child, he, too, did not know what he would have done that first year without Miss Rebecca's efficient kindness. He was so centred in his grief, and also of so gentle a nature, that he took the kindness as simply as a child might have done. Like many another sweet-minded man, he had not the dimmest idea of the possible effect of his rather courtly manner and his very delicate courtesy upon a woman of slightly different class, whose life had been starved of everything romantic or beautiful. He became to sharp-tongued Miss Rebecca Jones a vision of romance; and, somehow, quite suddenly, about eighteen months after his wife's death, he discovered that he was going to marry her. In his startled astonishment, he realized that he had himself led up to her avowal of willingness by some talk about her kindness. Perhaps she had misunderstood his words; if she had, Robert Gray was not the man to offer an explanation.... However, after the first shock of being accepted, he was gently explicit:
"I realize that the child ought to have the care of a good woman, and therefore I—"
"I'll do my duty by her," Rebecca said.
"I want her brought up to love and reverence her mother. I want her brought up to be like her. It is for the child's sake that I—I marry again. I speak thus frankly, Miss Rebecca, because I so entirely respect you that I could not be anything but frank."
Rebecca's square face flushed over the high cheek-bones to the gaunt forehead and the sparse hair; then her eyes looked passionately into his. "I understand. Yes; I understand. And I will be good to your child, Mr. Gray."
And so he married her; and, when you come to think of it, it was a very sensible thing to do. Even Old Chester said he was very sensible. A man of thirty, with a baby—of course he ought to marry again! "But why on earth," said Old Chester, "when there are so many girls of his own class!—not but what Rebecca Jones is a very worthy person."
Meanwhile, Rebecca, with hard conscientiousness, set herself to bring the child up. She trained her, and disciplined her, and made a painful point of talking to her about the first Mrs. Gray, according to her promise to teach her to "love and reverence her mother." The discipline sometimes made Robert Gray wince; but it was wise, and never unkind; so he never interfered;—but he left the room when it was going on. Once he said, nervously:
"I scarcely think, Mrs. Gray, that it is necessary to be quite so severe?"
"She must be made a good child," Rebecca answered.
"I am not afraid that she will not be a good child," Robert Gray said; "she is her mother's daughter."
"Well, she is her father's daughter, too," Rebecca declared, briefly. And her husband, shrinking, said:
"Light is stronger than darkness; Alice's mother was a creature of light. I am not afraid of her inheritance of darkness."
As for Rebecca, she went away and shut herself up in the garret. "'Creature of light!'" she said, sitting on the floor under the rafters, and leaning her head on an old horsehair-covered trunk wherein were packed away Mr. Gray's winter flannels—"well, I am a good wife to him, if I ain't a 'creature of light.'"
Yes, she was a good wife.... How carefully she put his flannels away in May; how prudently she planned his food; how she managed to make the two ends of his little income meet—yes, and lap over, so that every summer he could go away from her for a two months' vacation in the woods! Not once did he find a button lacking; not once had he put on a clean pair of stockings and then pulled them off because of a hole in the heel. Can our lords say as much, my mistresses? I trow not! Yes, a good wife: that lovely being who left the world with a faint, unfinished regret upon her pitiful lips could never have made him so comfortable.
Indeed, the whole household revolved upon Robert's comfort. Every domestic arrangement had reference to his well-being. That he did not become intolerably selfish was not Rebecca's fault, for, like many good wives, she was absolutely without conscience in the matter of self-sacrifice; but Robert escaped spiritual corruption, thanks to his own very gentle nature and his absolute unconsciousness of the situation. Perhaps, too, Rebecca's tongue mitigated the spoiling process. She never spared him what she considered to be the truth about himself or Alice. But her truthfulness stopped here; she spared the dead, perforce. For what could she say ill of that beautiful creature whose only wrong-doing lay in dying? But she knew, with shame, that she would have liked to speak ill of her—in which reprehensible impulse to remove a fellow-being from a pedestal, Rebecca showed herself singularly like the rest of us.
In this bleak air of unselfishness and truth-telling, Robert Gray became more and more aloof. Gradually he retreated quite into his past, doing his daily work at the Academy—where successive classes of young ladies adored him for his gentle manners and his mild, brown eyes—and living very harmlessly with his memories, which he kept fresh and fragrant by sharing them with Alys's daughter, who, it must be admitted, being young and human, was not always intensely interested; but Rebecca had trained her too well for Alice ever to show any weariness. Robert kept his little collection of pictures and photographs of his first wife shut behind the curtained doors of an old secretary. If his second wife found him standing, his hands clasped behind him, his eyes wandering from one lovely presentment to another, he never displayed an embarrassed consciousness, but he shut the doors. He accepted Rebecca's devotion respectfully; he was never impolite, still less unkind; in fact, in all their married life he had never, she used to tell herself, spoken unkindly save once; and then his words were nothing more dreadful than, "We will not discuss it, if you please, Mrs. Gray." At first he had, very gently, made some grammatical suggestions; and she had profited by them, though, being a true Pennsylvanian, she never mastered "shall" and "will," nor did she lose the Pennsylvania love for the word 'just'; to the end of her days, Rebecca was 'just tired out'; or 'just real glad'; or 'just as busy as could be.' Grammar, however, was as far as Robert Gray went in any personal relation. He addressed her, in his courteous voice (always a little timidly), as "Mrs. Gray"; and he kept as much as possible out of her way. Meantime, Rebecca (remembering why he had married her) did her duty by the child, and never failed to mention, in her hard voice, that Alice must try to grow up like her mother.
"Make me a good girl," Alice used to say in her sleepy prayers every night—"make me a good girl, like my dear mother." Once, of her own accord, the child added, "And make me pretty like her, too." Rebecca, listening to the little figure at her knee, said, sternly, when Alice got up and began to climb into the big four-poster:
"Don't be vain. Don't ask God for foolish things. Beauty is foolish and favor is deceitful. Just ask Him to make you as good as your mother was."
And, indeed, it must be admitted that the child did not inherit her mother's wonderful beauty. At first her father had expected it; he used to take liberties with his Horace, and say:
"O filia pulchra matre pulchriore."
But as Alice grew older, Robert Gray had to admit that the dead woman had taken her beauty away with her. The child had just a pleasant face; eyes that were gray or blue, as it happened; a commonplace nose, and uncompromisingly red hair. In those days red hair was thought to be a mortifying affliction, and poor, plain Alice shed many tears over the rough, handsome shock of hair that broke into curls about her forehead and all around the nape of her pretty, white neck.
II
But in spite of red hair, and what Old Chester religiously believed to be its accompanying temper, Alice Gray was a lovable girl, and at twenty, behold, she had a lover; indeed, she had more than one (not counting Dr. Lavendar); but Alice never gave a thought to anybody but Luther Metcalf. Luther was a good boy, Old Chester said; but added that he would never set the river on fire.
Certainly he did not use his incendiary opportunity; he had a small printing-office, and he owned and edited Old Chester's weekly newspaper, theGlobe; but neither the news nor the editorial page ever startled or displeased the oldest or the youngest inhabitant. TheGlobeconfined itself to carefully accredited cuttings from exchanges; it had a Poet's Corner, and it gave, politely, any Old Chester news that could be found; besides this, it devoted the inner sheet to discreet advertisements, widely spaced to take up room. All Old Chester subscribed for it, and spoke of it respectfully, because it was a newspaper; and snubbed its editor, because he was one of its own boys—and without snubbing boys are so apt to put on airs! Poor Luther was never tempted to put on airs; he was too hard-worked and too anxious about his prospects. He and Alice were to get married when he and theGlobewere out of debt; for his father had left him a mortgage on the office building, as well as an unpaid-for press. When Luther was particularly low-spirited, he used to tell Alice it would take him five years to pay his debts; and, to tell the truth, that was an optimistic estimate, for theGlobeand the printing-office together did very little more than pay the interest on the notes and Luther's board.
So, when they became engaged, waiting was what they looked forward to, for, of course, Robert Gray could not help them; it was all Rebecca could do to stretch his salary to cover the expenses of their own household. But the two young people were happy enough, except when Luther talked about five years of waiting.
"We've been engaged two years already," he said, moodily; "I don't want to be another case of Andrew Steele."
"I'm not afraid," Alice said. "Why, if you get the new job press, and get that Mercer work, think how much that will help!"
"Well," Luther said, "yes; but if I get the press, there's another debt. And if I don't get it, I can't get the work; so there it is. A vicious circle."
This question of the purchase of a new press, before the old press had been paid for, was a very serious and anxious one. "I wish father could help," Alice said—they were walking home from Wednesday-evening lecture, loitering in the moonlight, and wishing the way were twice as long.
"Oh, I wouldn't think of such a thing," the young man declared; "we'll pull out somehow. He's gone off to the woods, hasn't he?"
"Yes, he went this morning; he's so pleased to get away! He won't be back till the Academy opens."
"I suppose he hates to leave you, though," Lute said.
"Yes, but I can see that the getting away is a great relief. I keep his pictures dusted, and take the flowers up to the cemetery for him; so he knows things are not neglected."
"But," Luther said, thoughtfully, "I think she's sorry to have him go?"
"Oh yes; sorry, I suppose," Alice admitted. "She's fond of him—in her way."
"Then why—" Luther began.
"My dear, she'sjealousof my mother."
"Oh, Alice!"
"Well, you know," Alice explained, "my mother was so beautiful—and poor Mrs. Gray! But I must say, Lute, she's the justest person I know. She's always told me that my mother was perfect. And of course she was; but when you're jealous, it isn't so easy to acknowledge things like that."
"But I don't see how you can be jealous of the dead," Luther ruminated.
"Oh,Ido! I could be jealous of some girl who was dead, if you'd loved her, Lute." And then the boy put his arm round her, and they kissed each other there in the shadows of the locust-trees overhanging a garden wall. "I'm so glad there isn't anybody, dead or alive," Alice said, happily; "though I'd rather have her alive than dead. If she were alive, you'd have quarrelled with her, and stopped loving her. But if she were dead, she would keep on being perfect. Yes; I'd rather marry a man who had been—beendivorced," said Alice, lowering her voice, because the word was hardly considered proper in Old Chester, "than a man whose wife was dead, because he would always be thinking what an angel she was and what a sinner I was."
"He would think you were an angel," the boy told her, blushing at his own fervency.
But the fervency died on his ardent young lips when they got into the house and sat decorously in the parlor with Mrs. Gray. Rebecca was sewing, her hard, square face a little harder than usual. Mr. Gray had gone away on that annual fishing-trip—gone, with a look of relief growing in his eyes even as he stepped into the stage and pulled the door to behind him; pulled it hurriedly, as though he feared she would follow. Then, baring his head politely, he had looked out of the window and said:
"Good-bye. You will send for me should you, by any chance, need me. I trust you will be very well."
"I don't know that I have ever had to interrupt your fishing-trip with any of my needs," Rebecca had answered, briefly. She spoke only the truth; she never had interfered with any pleasure of his; and yet Robert Gray had winced, as if he had not liked her words. Now, alone, in the parlor, darning his stockings, she wondered why. She never said anything but the simple truth; but he looked at her sometimes as a dog looks who expects a blow. He was truthful himself, but he never seemed to care much to hear the truth, she thought, heavily. Once he told her that truth was something more than a statement of fact. The statement of a fact may be a lie, he had said, smiling whimsically; and Rebecca used to wonder how a fact could be a lie? She recalled the time when, with brief accuracy, she had mentioned to him in what condition of ragged neglect she had found his wardrobe after the "creature of light" had left him; and how he had seemed to shrink not from the shiftless dead, but from her. And she remembered painfully that one unkindness: She had told him that, to her mind, not even the weakness of death was quite an excuse for saying you didn't like your own baby; and he had said, with a terrible look, "We will not discuss it, if you please, Mrs. Gray." She had never spoken of it again; but his look had burned into her poor, narrow, sore mind; she thought of it now, moodily, as she sat alone, her heart following him on his journey. If his first wife had only not been so perfect, she said to herself, she could have borne it better; if she had had a bad temper, even, it would have been something. But she had often heard Robert tell Alice that her mother had an "angelic temper." Rebecca wished humbly she herself could be pleasanter. "I don't feel unpleasant inside; but I seem to talk so," she thought, helplessly. She was thinking of this when the two young people came in; and looking up over her spectacles, she said, coldly:
"Did you remember to wipe your feet, Luther? You are careless about that. Alice, I found a flower on my daphne; you can carry the pot up to the cemetery when you go."
"Yes, ma'am," Alice said. She took up her sewing (for Rebecca would not have idle hands about); sometimes she glanced at Luther, sitting primly in the corner of the sofa, and once caught his eye and smiled; but there were no sheep's-eyes or sweet speeches. They were Old Chester young people, and such things would have been considered improper; just as sitting by themselves would have been thought not only indecorous, but selfish.
"Oh, Alice," Luther said, suddenly, "I meant to ask you; wasn't your mother's name spelled 'Alys'?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Well, it's such an unusual name that it struck my attention when I saw it in the paper."
"What about it?" Alice asked. "Oh, dear, why didn't father spell me 'Alys' instead of 'Alice'? It's so much prettier!"
"Prettiness isn't everything; and 'Alice' is a sensible name," Rebecca said. "Don't criticise your father."
"It was an advertisement in one of theGlobe'sexchanges," Luther explained. "I was scissoring things, and the name caught my eye. It was information wanted. Of course it's just a coincidence, but it's queer, because—here it is," said the editor of theGlobe, fumbling in his pocket. "I cut it out and meant to show it to you, but I forgot." Then he read, slowly, "Information wanted of one Alys Winton—"
"Why, but Winton was my mother's name!" cried Alice.
"—one Alys Winton, who married sometime in 1845; husband thought to be an American, name unknown. She (or a child of hers, born in 1846) is requested to communicate with Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law," etc.
Alice stared, open-mouthed. "Why, Lute!" she said—"why, but that must be my mother!"
Lute shook his head. "I don't think there's anything in it. Do you, Mrs. Gray?"
"Might be," she said, briefly.
Alice took the crumpled cutting, and holding it under the lamp, read it through to herself. "But, Lute, really and truly," she said, "it is queer. Perhaps some of my mother's rich relations have left her a fortune! Then we could pay off the mortgage. Only I'm afraid my mother hadn't any rich relations—or poor ones, either. I never heard of any. Did you, Mrs. Gray?"
"No," Rebecca said.
"She was a governess, you know, Lute, in some horrid English family; the wife didn't like her, and she discharged my poor little mother; then the family went off and left her all alone in Germany. Perfectly abominable!"
"Don't be unjust, Alice; you don't know anything about it," Mrs. Gray said. "She was very young. Perhaps she couldn't teach the children to suit their parents. Though it was unkind to leave her unprovided for," she added, with painful fairness.
"I guess it was!" cried Alice. "Oh, how angry father gets when he talks about it! He says she was in such terror, poor little thing, when he met her. And yet she was very forgiving, father says. He says she wrote and told the gentleman that she was married.Iwouldn't have. I'd have let him think I'd starved, so he would have suffered remorse—the wretch!"
"I hope you would not have been so foolish or so selfish," her step-mother said.
"You see, she had no relations to turn to," Alice explained to Luther; "if father hadn't come, dear knows what would have become of her."
"I suppose she could have earned an honest living, like anybody else," Mrs. Gray said.
"Well, anyway," Alice said, thoughtfully, "this advertisement is queer. She had no relations that father ever heard of; but there might be some one. What do you think, Mrs. Gray?"
"There might be," Rebecca said. She thought to herself that it was very probable; that first wife had brought Robert Gray beauty and love; it only needed that she should bring him money to make it all perfect. In her bleak mind a window of imagination suddenly opened, and she had a vision of what wealth would mean to her husband, coming as a gift from those dead hands. She set her lips, and said: "Better find out about it, Luther. Write to the man and say that a person of that name before her marriage, died here in Old Chester, leaving a child—and don't keep your hands in your pockets; it's bad manners."
"Do you really think it is worth while, ma'am?" Luther said, incredulously.
"Of course it is," said Alice. "Suppose it should be some inheritance? Such things do happen."
"In story-books," Lute said.
"Well, then I'd like to be in a story-book," Alice said, sighing. "Just think, Lute, we might pay for the press and pay off the mortgage!"
"Golly!" said Lute.
Then they fell to making all sorts of plans, gayly, each tripping the other up with the prosaic reminder of improbability.
"Or, if itshouldbe anything," Luther said, "it won't be more than $100."
"Well, that's something; it will meet two monthly payments on the press."
"It will pay for a diamond-ring for you," Lute said.
"Nonsense! We'll buy father a horse."
"And who will buy the oats?" Rebecca said.
"I could give you a big oleander, Mrs. Gray," Alice told her, smiling.
"You could put the money in the bank, like a sensible girl," Rebecca said, severely. "Don't speak of this outside, either of you. Mr. Gray wouldn't wish his wife's name talked about."
"And don't let's write anything about it to him," Alice said; "let's have it a surprise!—if there is anything in it; only, of course, there isn't anything," she ended, sighing. "But you might write to the man, Lute."
"Of course there isn't anything," Lute agreed, sensibly. "I'll write if you want me to; but I wouldn't build on it, Ally," he said, as he got up to go. And when he paused a minute in the darkness on the porch, he added, softly, "If you get rich, maybe you won't want a poor printer?"
And she laughed, and said, "Maybe I won't!"
Then he kissed her just under her left ear, and said, "Money isn't everything, Ally."