Evelyn was happier in Amity, with Maria and her aunt, than she had
ever been. It took a little while for her to grow accustomed to the
lack of luxury with which she had always been surrounded; then she
did not mind it in the least. Everybody petted her, and she acquired
a sense of importance which was not offensive, because she had also a
sense of the importance of everybody else. She loved everybody. Love
seemed the key-note of her whole nature. It was babyish love as yet,
but there were dangerous possibilities which nobody foresaw, except
Henry Stillman.
"I don't know what will become of that child when she grows up if she
can't have the man she falls in love with," he told Eunice one night,
after Maria and Evelyn, who had been in for a few moments, had gone
home.
Eunice, who was not subtle, looked at him wonderingly, and her
husband replied to her unspoken question.
"That child's going to take everything hard," he said.
"I don't see what makes you think so."
"She is like a harp that's overstrung," said Henry.
"How queer you talk!"
"Well, she is; and if she is now, what is she going to be when she's
older? Well, I hope the Lord will deal gently with her. He's given
her too many feelings, and I hope He will see to it that they ain't
tried too hard." Henry said this last with the half-bitter melancholy
which was growing upon him.
"I guess she will get along all right," said Eunice, comfortably.
"She's a pretty little girl, and her mother has looked out for her
clothes, if she did scoot off and leave her. I wonder how long she's
going to stay in foreign parts?"
Henry shook his head. "Do you want to know how long?" he said.
"Yes. What do you mean, Henry?"
"She's going to stay just as long as she has a good time there. If
she has a good time there she'll stay if it's years."
"You don't mean you think she would go off and leave that darling
little girl a whole year?"
"I said years," replied Henry.
"Land! I don't believe it. You're dreadful hard on women, Henry."
"Wait and see," said Henry.
Time proved that Henry, with his bitter knowledge of the weakness of
human nature, was right. Ida remained abroad. After a year's stay she
wrote Maria, from London, that an eminent physician there said that
he would not answer for her life if she returned to the scene wherein
she had suffered so much. She expressed a great deal of misery at
leaving her precious Evelyn so long, but she did not feel that it was
right for her to throw her life away. In a postscript to this letter
she informed Maria, as if it were an afterthought, that she had let
the house in Edgham furnished. She said it injured a house to remain
unoccupied so long, and she felt that she ought to keep the place up
for her poor father's sake, he had thought so much of it. She added
that the people who rented it had no children except a grown-up
daughter, so that everything would be well cared for. When Maria read
the letter to her aunt the elder woman sniffed.
"H'm," said she. "I ain't surprised, not a mite."
"It keeps us here quartered on you," said Maria.
"So far as that goes, I am tickled to death she has rented the
house," replied Aunt Maria. "I had made up my mind that you would
feel as if you would want to go to Edgham for your summer vacation,
anyway, and I thought I would go with you and keep house, though I
can't say that I hankered after it. The older I grow the more I feel
as if I was best off in my own home, but I would have gone. So far as
I am concerned I am glad she has let the house, but I must say I
ain't surprised. You mark my words, Maria Edgham, and you see if what
I say won't come true."
"What is it?"
"Ida Slome will stay over there, if she has a good time. She's got
money enough with poor Harry's life insurance, and now she will have
her house rent. It don't cost her much to keep Evelyn here, and she's
got enough. I don't mean she's got enough to traipse round with
duchesses and earls and that sort, but she's got enough. Those folks
she went with have settled down there, haven't they?"
"Yes, I believe so," said Maria. "Mr. Voorhees was an Englishman, and
I believe he is in some business in London."
"Well, Ida Slome is going to stay there. I shouldn't be surprised if
Evelyn was grown up before she saw her mother again."
"I can't quite believe that," Maria said.
"When you get to be as old as I am you will believe more," said her
aunt Maria. "You will see that folks' selfishness hides the whole
world besides. Ida Slome is that kind."
"I think she is selfish myself," said Maria, "but I don't believe she
can leave Evelyn as long as that."
"Wait and see," said Aunt Maria, in much the same tone that her
brother had used towards his wife.
Maria Stillman was right. Evelyn remained in Amity. She outgrew
Maria's school, and attended the Normal School in Westbridge. Maria
herself outgrew her little Amity school, and obtained a position as
teacher in one of the departments of the Normal School, and still Ida
had not returned. She wrote often, and in nearly every letter spoke
of the probability of her speedy return, and in the same breath of
her precarious health. She could not, however, avoid telling of her
social triumphs in London. Ida was evidently having an aftermath of
youth in her splendid maturity. She was evidently flattered and
petted, and was thoroughly enjoying herself. Aunt Maria said she
guessed she would marry again.
"She's too old," said Maria.
"Wait till you're old yourself and you won't be so ready to judge,"
said her aunt. "I ain't so sure she won't."
Evelyn was a young lady, and was to graduate the next year, and still
her mother had not returned. She was the sweetest young creature in
the world at that time. She was such a beauty that people used to
turn and stare after her. Evelyn never seemed to notice it, but she
was quite conscious, in a happy, childlike fashion, of her beauty.
She resembled her mother to a certain extent, but she had nothing of
Ida's hardness. Where her mother froze, she flamed. Two-thirds of the
boys in the Normal School were madly in love with her, but Evelyn, in
spite of her temperament, was slow in development as to her emotions.
She was very childish, although she was full of enthusiasms and
nervous energy. Maria had long learned that when Evelyn told her she
was in love, as she frequently did, it did not in the least mean that
she was, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Evelyn was very
imaginative. She loved her dreams, and she often raised, as it were,
a radiance of rainbows about some boy of her acquaintance, but the
brightness vanished the instant the boy made advances. She had an
almost fierce virginity of spirit in spite of her loving heart. She
did not wish to touch her butterflies of life. She used to walk
between her aunt and Maria when they were coming out of church, so
that no boy would ask leave to go home with her. She clung to the
girls in her class for protection when she went to any entertainment.
Consequently her beautiful face, about which clustered her dark, fine
hair like mist, aroused no envy. The other girls said that Evelyn
Edgham was such a beauty and she did not know it. But Evelyn did know
it perfectly, only at that time it filled her with a sort of timidity
and shame. It was as if she held some splendid, heavy sword of
victory which she had not the courage to wield. She loved her sister
better than anybody else. She had no very intimate friend of her own
sex with whom she fell in love, after the fashion of most young
girls. That might have happened had it not been for her sister, whom
Evelyn thought of always as excelling everybody else in beauty and
goodness and general brilliancy. Maria, when nearing thirty, was, in
fact, as handsome as she had ever been. Her self-control had kept
lines from her face. She was naturally healthy, and she, as well as
Evelyn, had by nature a disposition to make the most of herself and a
liking for adornment. Aunt Maria often told Eunice that Maria was
full as good-looking as Evelyn, if she was older, but that was not
quite true. Maria had never had Evelyn's actual beauty, her
perfection as of a perfect flower; still she was charming, and she
had admirers, whom she always checked, although her aunt became more
and more distressed that she did so. Always at the bottom of Maria's
heart lay her secret. It was not a guilty secret. It was savored more
of the absurd of tragedy than anything else. Sometimes Maria herself
fairly laughed at the idea that she was married. All this time she
wondered about Wollaston Lee. She thought, with a sick terror, of the
possibility of his falling in love, and wishing to marry, and trying
to secure a divorce, and the horrible publicity, and what people
would say and do. She knew that a divorce would be necessary,
although the marriage was not in reality a marriage at all. She had
made herself sufficiently acquainted with the law to be sure that a
divorce would be absolutely necessary in order for either herself or
Wollaston Lee to marry again. For herself, she did not wish to marry,
but she did wonder uneasily with regard to him. She was not in the
least jealous; all her old, childish fancy for him had been killed by
that strenuous marriage ceremony, but she dreaded the newspapers and
the notoriety which would inevitably follow any attempt on either
side to obtain a divorce. She dreamed about it often, and woke in
terror, having still before her eyes the great, black letters on the
first pages of city papers. She had never seen Wollaston Lee since
she had lived in Amity. She had never even heard anything about him
except once, when somebody had mentioned his name and spoken of
seeing him at a reception, and that he was a professor in one of the
minor colleges. She did not wish ever to repeat that experience. Her
heart had seemed to stand still, and she had grown so white that a
lady beside her asked her hurriedly if she were faint. Maria had
thrown off the faintness by a sheer effort of will, and the color had
returned to her face, and she had laughingly replied with a denial.
Sometimes she thought uneasily of Gladys Mann. The clergyman who, in
his excess of youthful zeal, had performed the ceremony was dead. She
had seen his obituary notice in a New York paper with a horrible
relief. He had died quite suddenly in one of the pneumonia winters.
But Gladys Mann and her possession of the secret troubled her. Gladys
Mann, as she remembered her, had been such a slight, almost abortive
character. She asked herself if she could keep such a secret, if she
would have sense enough to do so. Gladys had married, too, a man of
her own sort, who worked fitfully, and spent most of his money in
carousing with John Dorsey and her father. Gladys had had a baby a
few months after her marriage, and she had had two more since. The
last time Maria had been in Amity was soon after Gladys's first baby
was born. Maria had met her one day carrying the little thing swathed
in an old shawl, with a pitiful attempt of finery in a white lace
bonnet cocked sidewise on its little head, which waggled over
Gladys's thin shoulder. Gladys, when she saw Maria, had colored and
nodded, and almost run past her without a word.
It was just before the beginning of Evelyn's last year at school when
Maria received a letter from Gladys's mother. It was a curious
composition. Mrs. Mann had never possessed any receptivity for
education. The very chirography gave evidence of a rude, almost
uncivilized mind. Maria got it one night during the last of August.
She had gone to the post-office for the last mail, and all the time
there had been over her a premonition of something unwonted of much
import to her. The very dusty flowers and weeds by the way-side
seemed to cry out to her as she passed them. They seemed no longer
mere flowers and weeds, but hieroglyphics concerning her future,
which she could almost interpret.
"I wonder what is going to happen?" she thought. "Something is going
to happen." She was glad that Evelyn was not with her, as usual, but
had gone for a drive with a young friend who had a pony-carriage. She
felt that she could not have borne her sister's curious glances at
the letter which she was sure would be in the post-office box. It was
there when she entered the dirty little place. She saw one letter
slanted across the dusty glass of the box. It was not a lock box, and
she had to ask the postmaster for the letter.
"Number twenty-four, please," she said.
The postmaster was both bungling and curious. He was a long time
finding the box, then in giving her the letter. Maria felt dizzy.
When at last he handed it to her with an inquisitive glance, she
almost ran out of the office. When she was out-doors she glanced at
the post-mark and saw it was Edgham. When she came to a lonely place
in the road, when she was walking between stone-walls overgrown with
poison-ivy, and meadowsweet, and hardhack, and golden-rod, she opened
the letter. Just as she opened it she heard the sweet call of a robin
in the field on her left, and the low of a cow looking anxiously over
her bars.
The letter was written on soiled paper smelling strongly of tobacco,
and it enclosed another smaller, sealed envelop. Maria read:
"Deer Miss,--I now tak my pen in hand to let you no that Gladys she
is ded. She had a little boy bon, and he and she both died. Gladys
she had been coffin for some time befoar, and jest befor she was took
sick, she give me this letter, and sed for me to send it to you if
ennything happened to her.
"Excuse hast and a bad pen. Mrs. Mann."
Maria trembled so that she could hardly stand. She looked hastily
around; there was no one in sight. She sank down on a large stone
which had fallen from the stone wall on the left. Then she opened the
little, sealed letter. It was very short. It contained only one word,
one word of the vulgar slang to which poor Gladys had become
habituated through her miserable life, and yet this one word of slang
had a meaning of faithfulness and honor which dignified it. Maria
read, "Nit." and she knew that Gladys had died and had not told.