A few days after Deborah's funeral Charlotte had an errand at the
store after supper. When she went down the hill the sun had quite
set, but there was a clear green light. The sky gave it out, and
there seemed to be also a green glow from the earth. Charlotte went
down the hill with the evening air fresh and damp in her face. Lilacs
were in blossom all about, and their fragrance was so vital and
intense that it seemed almost like a wide presence in the green
twilight.
She reached Barney's house, and passed it; then she came to the
Thayer house. Before that lay the garden. The ranks of pease and
beans were in white blossom, and there was a pale shimmer as of a
cobweb veil over it.
Charlotte had passed the garden when she heard a voice behind her:
"Charlotte!"
She stopped, and Barney came up.
"Good-evening," said he.
"Good-evening," said Charlotte.
"I saw you going by," said Barney. Then he paused again, and
Charlotte waited.
"I saw you going by," he repeated, "and--I thought I'd like to speak
to you. I wanted to thank you for what you did--about mother."
"You're very welcome," replied Charlotte.
Barney ground a stone beneath his heel. "I sha'n't ever forget it,
and--father won't, either," he said. His voice trembled, and yet
there was a certain doggedness in it.
Charlotte stood waiting. Barney turned slowly away. "Good-night," he
said.
"Good-night," returned Charlotte, quickly, and she fairly sprang away
from him and down the road. Her limbs trembled, but she held her head
up proudly. She understood it all perfectly. Barney had meant to
inform her that his behavior towards her on the day his mother died
had been due to a momentary weakness; that she was to expect nothing
further. She went on to the store and did her errand, then went home.
As she entered the kitchen her mother came through from the front
room. She had been sitting at a window watching for Charlotte to
return; she thought Barney might be with her.
"Well, you've got home," said she, and it sounded like a question.
"Yes," said Charlotte. She laid her parcels on the table. "I guess
I'll go to bed," she added.
"Why, it's dreadful early to go to bed, ain't it?"
"Well, I'm tired; I guess I'll go."
The candle-light was dim in the room, but Sarah eyed her daughter
sharply. She thought she looked pale.
"Did you meet anybody?" she asked.
"I don't know; there wasn't many folks out."
"You didn't see Barney, did you?"
"Yes, I met him."
Charlotte lighted another candle, and opened the door.
"Look here," said her mother.
"Well?" replied Charlotte, with a sort of despairing patience.
"What did he say to you? I want to know."
"He didn't say much of anything. He thanked me for what I did about
his mother."
"Didn't he say anything about anything else?"
"No, he didn't." Charlotte went out, shielding her candle.
"You don't mean that he didn't say anything, after the way he acted
that day his mother died?"
"I didn't expect him to say anything."
"He's treated you mean, Charlotte," her mother cried out, with a half
sob. "He'd ought to be strung up after he acted so, huggin' an'
kissin' you right before folk's face and eyes."
"It was more my fault than 'twas his," returned Charlotte; and she
shut the door.
"Then I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself," Sarah called
after her, but Charlotte did not seem to hear.
"I never see such work, for my part," Sarah wailed out to herself.
"Mother, you come in here a minute," Cephas called out of the
bedroom. He had gone to bed soon after supper.
"Anythin' new about Barney?" he asked, when his wife stood beside
him.
"Barney ain't no more notion of comin' back than he had before, in
spite of all the talk. I never see such work," replied Sarah, in a
voice strained high with tears.
"I call it pretty doin's," assented Cephas. His pale face, with its
venerable beard, was closely set about with his white nightcap. He
lay staring straight before him with a solemnly reflective air.
"I wish you hadn't brought up 'lection that time, father," ventured
Sarah, with a piteous sniff.
"If the Democratic party had only lived different, an' hadn't eat so
much meat, there wouldn't have been any trouble," returned Cephas,
magisterially. "If you go far enough, you'll always get back to that.
A man is what he puts into his mouth. Meat victuals is at the bottom
of democracy. If there wa'n't any meat eat there wouldn't be any
Democratic party, an' there wouldn't be any wranglin' in the state.
There'd be one party, jest as there'd ought to be."
"I wish you hadn't brought it up, father," Sarah lamented again;
"it's most killin' me."
"If we hadn't both of us been eatin' so much animal food there
wouldn't have been any trouble," repeated Cephas.
"Well, I dunno much about animal food, but I know I'm about
discouraged," said Sarah. And she went back to the kitchen, and sat
down in the rocking-chair and cried a long time, with her apron over
her face. Her heartache was nearly as sore as her daughter's
up-stairs.
Charlotte did not speak to Barney again all summer--indeed, she
scarcely ever saw him. She had an occasional half-averted glimpse of
his figure across the fields, and that was all. Barney had gone back
to the old house to live with his father, and remained there through
the summer and fall; but Caleb died in November. He had never been
the same since Deborah's death; whether, like an old tree whose roots
are no longer so firm in the earth that they can withstand every wind
of affliction, the shock itself had shaken him to his fall, or the
lack of that strange wontedness which takes the place of early love
and passion had enfeebled him, no one could tell. He had seemed to
simply stare at life from a sunny place on a stone-wall or a
door-step all summer.
When the autumn set in he sat in his old chair by the fire. Caleb had
always felt cold since Deborah died. When the bell tolled off his
years, one morning in November, nobody felt surprised. People had
said to each other for some time that Caleb Thayer was failing.
Barney, after his father died, went back to his own forlorn new house
to live, and his sister Rebecca and her husband came to live in the
old one. Rebecca went to meeting now every Sunday, wearing her
mother's black shawl and a black ribbon on her bonnet, and sitting in
her mother's place in the Thayer pew. She never went anywhere else,
her rosy color had gone, and she looked old and haggard.
Barney went into his sister's now and then of a Sunday night, and sat
with her and William an hour or so. He and William would sometimes
warm into quite an animated discussion over politics or theology,
while Rebecca sat silently by. Barney went nowhere else, not even to
meeting. Sundays he used to watch furtively for Charlotte to go past
with her father and mother. Quite often Sylvia Crane used to appear
from her road and join them, and walk along with Charlotte. Barney
used to look at her moving down the road at Charlotte's side, as at
the merest supernumerary on his own tragic stage. But every tragedy
has its multiplying glass to infinity, and every actor has his own
tragedy. Sylvia Crane that winter, all secretly and silently, was
acting her own principal rôle in hers. She had quite come to the end
of her small resources, and nobody, except the selectmen of Pembroke,
knew it. They were three saturnine, phlegmatic, elderly men, old
Squire Payne being the chairman, and they kept her secret well.
Sylvia waylaid them in by-places, she stole around to the back door
of Squire Payne's house by night, she conducted herself as if it were
a guilty intrigue, and all to keep her poverty hid as long as may be.
Old Squire Payne was a widower, a grave old man of few words. He
advanced poor Sylvia meagre moneys on her little lands, and he told
nobody. There came a day when he gave her the last dollar upon her
New England soil, full of old plough-ridges and dried weeds and
stones.
Sylvia went home with it in the pocket of her quilted petticoat under
her dress skirt. She kept feeling of it to see if it were safe as she
walked along. The snow was quite deep, the road was not well broken
out, and she plodded forward with bent head, her black skirt
gathering a crusty border of snow.
She had to pass Richard Alger's house, but she never looked up. It
was six o'clock, and quite dark; it had been dark when she set out at
five. The housewives were preparing supper; there was a smell of
burning pine-wood in the air, and now and then a savory scent of
frying meat. Sylvia had smelled brewing tea and baking bread in
Squire Payne's house, and she had heard old Margaret, the Scotch
woman who had lived with the squire's family ever since she could
remember, stepping around in another room. Old Margaret was almost
the only servant, the only regular and permanent servant, in
Pembroke, and she enjoyed a curious sort of menial distinction: she
dressed well, wore a handsome cashmere shawl which had come from
Scotland, and held her head high in the squire's pew. People saluted
her with respect, and her isolation of inequality gave her a reversed
dignity.
Sylvia had hoped Margaret would not come in while she sat with the
squire. She was afraid of her eyes, which flashed keen like a man's
under shaggy brows. She did not want her to see the squire counting
out the money from his leather purse, although she knew that Margaret
would keep her own counsel.
She had been glad enough to escape and not see her appear behind the
bulk of the squire in the doorway. Squire Payne was full of laborious
courtesy, and always himself aided Sylvia to the door when she came
for money, and that always alarmed her. She would drop a meek
courtesy on trembling knees and hurry away.
Sylvia had almost reached the old road leading to her own house, when
she saw a figure advancing towards her through the dusk. She saw it
was a woman by the wide swing of the skirts, and trembled. She felt a
presentiment as to who it was. She held her head down and well to one
side, she bent over and tried to hurry past, but the figure stopped.
"Is that you, Sylvy Crane?" said her sister, Hannah Berry.
Sylvia did not stop. "Yes, it's me," she stammered. "Good-evenin',
Hannah."
She tried to pass, but Hannah stood in her way. "What you hurryin' so
for?" she asked, sharply; "where you been?"
"Where _you_ been?" returned Sylvia, trembling.
"Up to Sarah's. Charlotte, she's gone down to Rebecca's. She's
terrible thick with Rebecca. Well, I've been to see Rebecca; an'
Rose, she's been, an' I ain't nothin' to say. William has got her for
a wife, an' we've got to hold up our heads before folks; an' when it
comes right down to it, there's a good many folks can't say much. If
Charlotte Barnard wants to be thick with Rebecca, she can. Her mother
won't say nothin'. She always was as easy as old Tilly; an' as for
Cephas, he's either eatin' grass, or he ain't eatin' grass, an'
that's all he cares about, unless he gets stirred up about politics,
the way he did with Barney Thayer. I dunno but Charlotte thinks
she'll get him back again goin' to see Rebecca. I miss my guess but
what she sees him there sometimes. I wouldn't have a daughter of mine
chasin' a fellar that had give her the mitten; but Charlotte ain't
got no pride, nor her mother, neither. Where did you say you'd been,
trapesin' through the snow?"
"Has Rose got her things most done?" asked Sylvia, desperately.
Distress was awakening duplicity in her simple, straightforward
heart. All Hannah Berry's thought slid, as it were, in well-greased
grooves; only give one a starting push and it went on indefinitely
and left all others behind, and her sister Sylvia knew it.
"Well, she's got 'em pretty near done," replied Hannah Berry. "Her
underclothes are all done, an' the quilts; the weddin'-dress ain't
bought yet, an' she's got to have a mantilla. Do you know Charlotte
ain't never wore that handsome mantilla she had when she was
expectin' to marry Barney?"
"Ain't she?"
"No, she ain't, nor her silk gown neither. I said all I darsed to. I
thought mebbe she or Sarah would offer; they both of 'em know how
hard it is to get anything out of Silas; but they didn't, an' I
wa'n't goin' to ask, nohow. I shall get a new silk an' a mantilla for
Rose, an' not be beholden to nobody, if I have to sell the spoons I
had when I was married."
"I don't s'pose they have much to do with," said Sylvia. She began to
gradually edge past her sister.
"Of course they haven't; I know that jest as well as you do. But if
Charlotte ain't goin' to get married she don't want any weddin'-gown
an' mantilla, an' she won't ever get married. She let Thomas Payne
slip, an' there ain't nobody else I can think of for her. If she
ain't goin' to want weddin'-clothes, I don't see why she an' her
mother would be any poorer for givin' hers away. 'Twouldn't cost 'em
any more than to let 'em lay in the chest. Well, I've got to go home;
it's supper-time. Where did you say you'd been, Sylvy?"
Sylvia was well past her sister; she pretended not to hear. "You
ain't been over for quite a spell," she called back, faintly.
"I know I ain't," returned Hannah. "I've been tellin' Rose we'd come
over to tea some afternoon before she was married."
"Do," said Sylvia, but the cordiality in her voice seemed to
overweigh it.
"Well, mebbe we'll come over to-morrow," said Hannah. "We've got some
pillow-slips to trim, an' we can bring them. You'd better ask Sarah
an' Charlotte, if she can stay away from Rebecca Thayer's long
enough."
"Yes, I will," said Sylvia, feebly, over her shoulder.
"We'll come early," said Hannah. Then the sisters sped apart through
the early winter darkness. Poor Sylvia fairly groaned out loud when
her sister was out of hearing and she had turned the corner of the
old road.
"What shall I do? what shall I do?" she muttered.
Her sisters to tea meant hot biscuits and plum sauce and pie and
pound-cake and tea. Sylvia had yet a little damson sauce at the
bottom of a jar, although she had not preserved last year, for lack
of sugar; but hot biscuits and pie, the pound-cake and tea would have
to be provided.
She felt again of the little money-store in her pocket; that was all
that stood between her and the poor-house; every penny was a barrier
and had its carefully calculated value. This outlay would reduce
terribly her little period of respite and independence; yet she
hesitated as little as Fouquet planning the splendid entertainment,
which would ruin him, for Louis XIII.
Her sisters and nieces must come to tea; and all the food, which was
the village fashion and as absolute in its way as court etiquette,
must be provided.
"They'll suspect if I don't," said Sylvia Crane.
She rolled away the stone from the door and entered her solitary
house. She lighted her candle and prepared for bed. She did not get
any supper. She said to herself with a sudden fierceness, which came
over her at times--a mild impulse of rebellion which indicated
perhaps some strain from far-off, untempered ancestors, which had
survived New England generations--that she did not care if she never
ate supper again.
"They're all comin' troopin' in here to-morrow, an' it's goin' to
take about all the little I've got left to get victuals for 'em, an'
I've got to go without to-night if I starve!" she cried out quite
loud and defiantly, as if her hard providence lurked within hearing
in some dark recess of the room.
She raked ashes over the coals in the fireplace. "I'll go to bed an'
save the fire, too," she said; "it'll take about all the wood I've
got left to-morrow. I've got to heat the oven. Might as well go to
bed, an' lay there forever, anyway. If I stayed up till doomsday
nobody'd come."
Sylvia set the shovel back with a vicious clatter; then she struck
out--like a wilful child who hurts itself because of its rage and
impotent helplessness to hurt aught else--her thin, red hand against
the bricks of the chimney. She looked at the bruises on it with
bitter exultation, as if she saw in them some evidence of her own
freedom and power, even to her own hurt.
When she went to bed she stowed away her money under the feather-bed.
She could not go to sleep. Some time in the night a shutter in
another room up-stairs banged. She got up, lighted the candle, and
trod over the icy floors to the room relentlessly with her bare feet.
There was a pane of glass broken behind the shutter, and the wind had
loosened the fastening. Sylvia forced the shutter back; in a strange
rage she heard another pane of glass crack. "I don't care if every
pane of glass in the window is broken," she muttered, as she hooked
the fastening with angry, trembling fingers.
Her thin body in its cotton night-gown, cramped with long rigors of
cold, her delicate face reddened as if before a fire, her jaws felt
almost locked as she went through the deadly cold of the lonely house
back to bed; but that strange rage in her heart enabled her to defy
it, and awakened within her something like blasphemy against life and
all the conditions thereof, but never against Richard Alger. She
never felt one throb of resentment against him. She even wondered,
when she was back in bed, if he had bedclothing enough, if the quilts
and bed-puffs that his mother had left were not worn out; her own
were very thin.
The next day Sylvia heated her brick oven; she went to the store and
bought materials, and made pound-cake and pies. While they were
baking she ran over and invited Charlotte and her mother. She did not
see Cephas; he had gone to draw some wood.
"I'd like to have him come, too," she said, as she went out; "but I
dunno as he'd eat anything I've got for tea."
"Land! he eats anything when he goes out anywhere to tea," replied
Mrs. Barnard. "He was over to Hannah's a while ago, an' he eat
everything. He eats pie-crust with shortenin' now, anyway. He got so
he couldn't stan' it without. I guess he'd like to come. He'll have
to draw wood some this afternoon, but he can come in time for tea.
I'll lay out his clothes on the bed for him."
"Well, have him come, then," said Sylvia. Sylvia was nearly out of
the yard when Charlotte called after her: "Don't you want me to come
over and help you, Aunt Sylvia?" she called out. She stood in the
door with her apron flying out in the wind like a blue flag.
"No, I guess not," replied Sylvia; "I don't need any help. I ain't
got much to do."
"I think Aunt Sylvia looks sick," Charlotte said to her mother when
she went in.
"I thought she looked kind of peaked," said Sarah. But neither of
them dreamed of the true state of affairs: how poor Sylvia Crane,
half-starved and half-frozen in heart and stomach, was on the verge
of bankruptcy of all her little worldly possessions.
Sylvia's sisters, practical enough in other respects, were singularly
ignorant and incompetent concerning any property except the few
dollars and cents in their own purses.
They had always supposed Sylvia had enough to live on, as long as she
lived at all. They had a comfortable sense of generosity and
self-sacrifice, since they had let her have all the old homestead
after her mother's death without a word, and even against covert
remonstrances on the parts of their husbands.
Silas Berry had once said out quite openly to his wife and Sarah
Barnard: "That will had ought to be broke, accordin' to my way of
thinkin'," and Hannah had returned with spirit: "It won't ever be
broke unless it's against my will, Silas Berry. I know it seems
considerable for Sylvy to have it all, but she's took care of mother
all those years, an' I don't begrutch it to her, an' she's a-goin' to
have it. I don't much believe Richard Alger will ever have her now
she's got so old, an' she'd ought to have enough to live on the rest
of her life an' keep her comfortable."
Therefore Sylvia's sisters had a conviction that she was comfortably
provided with worldly gear. Mrs. Berry was even speculating upon the
probability of her giving Rose something wherewith to begin
house-keeping when her marriage with Tommy Ray took place.
The two sisters, with their daughters, came early that afternoon.
Mrs. Berry and Rose sewed knitted lace on pillow-slips; Mrs. Barnard
and Charlotte were making new shirts for Cephas; Charlotte sat by the
window and set beautiful stitches in her father's linen shirt-bosoms,
while her aunt Hannah's tongue pricked her ceaselessly as with small
goading thorns.
"I s'pose this seems kind of natural to you, don't it, Charlotte,
gettin' pillow-slips ready?" said Mrs. Berry.
"I don't know but it does," answered Charlotte, never raising her
eyes from her work. Her mother flushed angrily. She opened her mouth
as if to speak, then she shut it again hard.
"Let me see, how many did you make?" asked Mrs. Berry.
"She made two dozen pair," Charlotte's mother answered for her.
"An' you've got 'em all laid away, yellowin'?"
"I guess they ain't yellowed much," said Sarah Barnard.
"I don't see when you're ever goin' to use 'em."
"Mebbe there'd be chances enough to use 'em if some folks was as
crazy to take up with 'em as some other folks," returned Sarah
Barnard.
"I'd like to know what you mean?"
"Oh, nothin'. If folks want chances to make pillow-slips bad enough
there's generally poor tools enough layin' 'round, that's all."
"I'd like to know what you mean, Sarah Barnard."
"Oh, I don't mean nothin'," answered Sarah Barnard. She glanced at
her daughter Charlotte and smiled slyly, but Charlotte never returned
the glance and smile. She sewed steadily. Rose colored, but she said
nothing. She looked very pretty and happy, as she sat there, sewing
knitted lace on her wedding-pillows; and she really was happy. Her
passionate heart had really satisfied itself with the boyish lover
whom she would have despised except for lack of a better. She was and
would be happy enough; it was only a question of deterioration of
character, and the nobility of applying to the need of love the rules
of ordinary hunger and thirst, and eating contentedly the crust when
one could not get the pie, of drinking the water when one could not
get the wine. Contentment may be sometimes a degradation; but she was
happier than she had ever been in her life, although she had a little
sense of humiliation when she reflected that Tommy Ray, younger than
herself, tending store under her brother, was not exactly a brilliant
match for her, and that everybody in the village would think so. So
she colored angrily when her aunt Sarah spoke as she did, although
she said nothing. But her mother, although she had rebelled in
private bitterly against her daughter's choice, was ready enough to
take up the cudgels for her in public.
"Well," said Hannah Berry, "two old maids in the family is about
enough, accordin' to my way of thinkin'."
"It's better to be an old maid than to marry somebody you don't want,
jest for the sake of bein' married," retorted Sarah Barnard,
fiercely.
The two sisters clashed like two thorny bushes of one family in a
gale the whole afternoon. The two daughters sewed silently, and
Sylvia knitted a stocking with scarcely a word until she arose to get
tea.
Cephas and Silas both came to tea, which was served in state, with a
fine linen table-cloth, and Sylvia's mother's green and white
sprigged china. Nobody suspected, as they tasted the damson sauce
with the thin silver spoons, as they tilted the green and white
teacups to their lips, and ate the rich pound-cake and pie, what a
very feast of renunciation and tragedy this was to poor Sylvia Crane.
Cephas and Silas, indeed, knew that money had been advanced her by
the town upon her estate, but they were far from suspecting, and,
indeed, were unwilling to suspect, how nearly it was exhausted and
the property lived out. It was only a meagre estimate that the town
of Pembroke had made of the Crane ancestral acres. If Silas and
Cephas had ever known what it was, they had dismissed it from their
minds, they were interested in not knowing. Suppose their wives
should want to give her a home and support.
The women knew nothing whatever.
When they went home, an hour after tea, Hannah Berry turned to Sylvia
in the doorway. "I suppose you know the weddin' is comin' off pretty
soon now," said she.
"Yes, I s'posed 'twas," answered Sylvia, trying to smile.
"Well, I thought I'd jest mention it, so you could get your present
ready," said Hannah. She nudged Rose violently as she spoke.
"I don't care; I meant to give her a hint," she said, chuckling, when
they were outside. "She can give you something jest as well as not;
she might give you some silver teaspoons, or a table, or sofa. There!
she bought that handsome sofa for herself a few years ago, an' she
didn't need it more'n nothin' at all. I suppose she thought Richard
Alger was comin' steady, but now he's stopped."
Rose was married in a few weeks. The morning of the wedding-day
Sylvia went into Berry's store and called William aside.
"If you can, I wish you'd come 'round by-an'-by with your horse an'
your wood-sled," said she.
"Yes, guess I can; what is it you want?" asked William, eying her
curiously. She was very pale; there were red circles around her eyes,
and her mouth trembled.
"Oh, it ain't anything, only a little present I wanted to send to
Rose," replied Sylvia.
"Well," said William, "I'll be along by-an'-by." He looked after her
in a perplexed way as she went out.
Silas was in the back of the store, and presently he came forward.
"What she want you to do?" he inquired of his son.
William told him. The old man chuckled. "Hannah give her a hint
'tother day, an' I guess she took it," he said.
"I thought she looked pretty poorly," said William--"looked as if
she'd been crying or something. How do you suppose that property
holds out, father? I heard the town was allowing her on it."
"Oh, I guess it'll last her as long as she lives," replied Silas,
gruffly. "Your mother had ought to had her thirds in it."
"I don't know about that," said William. "Aunt Sylvy had a hard time
takin' care of grandmother."
"She was paid for 't," returned Silas.
"Richard Alger treated her mean."
"Guess he sat out considerable firewood an' candle-grease," assented
the old man.
A customer came in then, and Ezra Ray sprang forward. He was all
excited over his brother's wedding, and was tending store in his
place that day. His mother was making him a new suit to wear to the
wedding, and he felt as if the whole affair hung, as it were, upon
the buttons of his new jacket and the straps of his new trousers.
"Guess I might as well go over to Aunt Sylvy's now as any time," said
William.
"Don't see what she wanted you to fetch the horse an' sled for,"
ruminated Silas. "Mother thought most likely she'd give some silver
teaspoons if she give anything."
William went out to the barn, put the horse in the sled, and drove
down the hill towards Sylvia's. When he returned the old thin silver
teaspoons of the Crane family were in his coat-pocket, and Sylvia's
dearly beloved and fondly cherished hair-cloth sofa was on the sled
behind him.
"What in creation did she send them old teaspoons and that old sofa
for?" his mother asked, disgustedly.
"I don't know," replied William, soberly; "but I do know one thing: I
hated to take them bad enough. She acted all upset over it. I think
she'd better have kept her sofa and teaspoons as long as she lived."
"Course she was upset givin' away anything," scolded his mother. "It
was jest like her, givin' away a passel of old truck ruther than
spend any money. Well, I s'pose you may as well set that sofa in the
parlor. It ain't hurt much, anyway."
Rose and her husband were to live with her parents for the present.
She was married that evening. She wore a blue silk dress, and some
rose-geranium blossoms and leaves in her hair. Tommy Ray sat by her
side on Sylvia's sofa until the company and the minister were all
there. Then they stood up and were married.
Sylvia came to the wedding in her best silk gown; she had trembled
lest Richard Alger should be there, but he had not been invited.
Hannah Berry cherished a deep resentment against him.
"I ain't goin' to have any man that's treated one of my folks as mean
as he has set foot in my house to a weddin', not if I know it," she
told Rose.
After the marriage-cake and cider were passed around, the old people
sat solemnly around the borders of the rooms, and the young people
played games. William and his wife were not there. Hannah had not
dared to slight them, but William could not prevail upon Rebecca to
go.
Barney, also, had not been invited to the wedding. Mrs. Berry had an
open grudge against him on her niece's account, and a covert one on
her daughter's. Hannah Berry had a species of loyalty in her nature,
inasmuch as she would tolerate ill-treatment of her kin from nobody
but her own self.
Charlotte Barnard came with her father and mother, and sat quietly
with them all the evening. She was beginning insensibly to rather
hold herself aloof from the young people, and avoid joining in their
games. She felt older. People had wondered if she would not wear the
dress she had had made for her own wedding, but she did not. She wore
her old purple silk, which had been made over from one of her
mother's, and a freshly-starched muslin collar. The air was full of
the rich sweetness of cake; there was a loud discord of laughter and
high shrill voices, through which yet ran a subtle harmony of mirth.
Laughing faces nodded and uplifted like flowers in the merry romping
throngs in the middle of the room, while the sober ones against the
walls watched with grave, elderly, retrospective eyes.
As soon as she could, Sylvia Crane stole into her sister's bedroom,
where the women's outside garments were heaped high on the bed, got
her own, opened the side door softly, and went home. The next day she
was going to the poor-house, and nobody but the three selectmen of
Pembroke knew it. She had begged them, almost on her knees, to tell
nobody until she was there.
That night she rolled away the guardian stone from before the door
with the feeling that it was for the last time. All that night she
worked. She could not go to bed, she could not sleep, and she had
gone beyond any frenzy of sorrow and tears. All her blind and
helpless rage against life and the obdurately beneficent force, which
had been her conception of Providence, was gone. When the battle is
over there is no more need for the fury of combat. Sylvia felt her
battle was over, and she felt the peace of defeat.
She was to take a few necessaries to the poor-house with her; she had
them to pack, and she also had some cleaning to do.
She had a vague idea that the town, which seemed to loom over her
like some dreadful shadowy giant of a child's story, would sell the
house, and it must be left in neat order for the inspection of seller
and buyer. "I ain't goin' to have the town lookin' over the house an'
sayin' it ain't kept decent," she said. So she worked hard all night,
and her candle lit up first one window, then another, moving all over
the house like a will-o'-the-wisp.
The man who had charge of the poor-house came for her the next
morning at ten o'clock. Sylvia was all ready. At quarter past ten he
drove out of the old road where the Crane house stood and down the
village street. The man's name was Jonathan Leavitt. He was quite old
but hearty, with a stubbly fringe of white beard around a ruddy face.
He had come on a wood-sled for the greater convenience of bringing
Sylvia's goods. There were a feather-bed, bolster, and pillows, tied
up in an old homespun blanket, on the rear of the sled; there was
also a red chest, and a great bundle of bedclothing. Sylvia sat in
her best rocking-chair just behind Jonathan Leavitt, who drove
standing.
"It's a pleasant day for this time of year," he observed to Sylvia
when they started. Sylvia nodded assent.
Jonathan Leavitt had had a fear lest Sylvia might make a disturbance
about going. Many a time had it taken hours for him to induce a poor
woman to leave her own door-stone; and when at length they had set
forth, it was to an accompaniment of shrill, piteous lamentations, so
strained and persistent that they seemed scarcely human, and more
like the cries of a scared cat being hauled away from her home.
Everybody on the road had turned to look after the sled, and Jonathan
Leavitt had driven on, looking straight ahead, his face screwed hard,
lashing now and then his old horse, with a gruff shout. Now he felt
relieved and grateful to Sylvia for going so quietly. He was disposed
to be very friendly to her.
"You'd better keep your rockin'-chair kind of stiddy," he said, when
they turned the corner into the new road, and the chair oscillated
like an uneasy berth at sea.
Sylvia sat up straight in the chair. She had on her best bonnet and
shawl, and her worked lace veil over her face. Her poor blue eyes
stared out between the black silk leaves and roses. If she had been a
dead woman and riding to her grave, and it had been possible for her
to see as she was borne along the familiar road, she would have
regarded everything in much the same fashion that she did now. She
looked at everything--every tree, every house and wall--with a pang
of parting forever. She felt as if she should never see them again in
their old light.
The poor-house was three miles out of the village; the road lay past
Richard Alger's house. When they drew near it Sylvia bent her head
low and averted her face; she shut her eyes behind the black roses.
She did not want to know when she passed the house. An awful shame
that Richard should see her riding past to the poor-house seized upon
her.
The wood-sled went grating on, a chain rattled; she calculated that
they were nearly past when there was a jerk, and Jonathan Leavitt
cried "Hullo!"
"Where are you going?" shouted another voice. Sylvia knew it. Her
heart pounded. She turned her face farther to one side, and did not
open her eyes.
Richard Alger came plunging down out of his yard. His handsome face
was quite pale under a slight grizzle of beard, he was in his
shirt-sleeves, he had on no dicky or stock, and his sinewy throat
showed.
"Where you goin'?" he gasped out again, as he came up to the sled.
"I'm a takin' Sylvy home. Why?" inquired Jonathan Leavitt, with a
dazed look.
"Home? What are you headed this way for? What are all those things on
the sled?"
"She's lived out her place, an' the town's jest took it; guess you
didn't know, Richard," said Jonathan Leavitt. His eyes upon the other
man were half shrewdly inquiring, half bewildered.
Sylvia never turned her head. She sat with her eyes closed behind her
veil.
[Illustration: "Sylvia never turned her head"]
"Just turn that sled 'round," said Richard Alger.
"Turn the sled 'round?"
"Yes, turn it 'round!" Richard himself grasped the bay horse by the
bit as he spoke. "Back, back!" he shouted.
"What are you doin' on, Richard?" cried the old man; but he pulled
his right rein mechanically, and the sled slewed slowly and safely
around.
Richard jumped on and stood just beside Sylvia, holding to a stake.
"Where d'ye want to go?" asked the old man.
"Back."
"But the town--"
"I'll take care of the town."
Jonathan Leavitt drove back. Sylvia opened her eyes a little way, and
saw Richard's back. "You'll catch cold without your coat," she half
gasped.
"No, I sha'n't," returned Richard, but he did not turn his head.
Sylvia did not say any more. She was trembling so that her very
thoughts seemed to waver. They turned the corner of the old road, and
drove up to her old house. Richard stepped off the sled, and held out
his hands to Sylvia. "Come, get off," said he.
"I dunno about this," said Jonathan Leavitt. "I'm willin' as far as
I'm concerned, Richard, but I've had my instructions."
"I tell you I'll take care of it," said Richard Alger. "I'll settle
all the damages with the town. Come, Sylvia, get off."
And Sylvia Crane stepped weakly off the wood-sled, and Richard Alger
helped her into the house. "Why, you can't hardly walk," said he, and
Sylvia had never heard anything like the tenderness in his tone. He
bent down and rolled away the stone. Sylvia had rolled it in front of
the door herself, when she went out, as she supposed, for the last
time. Then he opened the door, and took hold of her slender shawled
arm, and half lifted her in.
"Go in an' sit down," said he, "while we get the things in."
Sylvia went mechanically into her clean, fireless parlor; it was the
room where she had always received Richard. She sat down in a
flag-bottomed chair and waited.
Richard and Jonathan Leavitt came into the house tugging the
feather-bed between them. "We'll put it in the kitchen," she heard
Richard say. They brought in the chest and the bundle of bedding.
Then Richard came into the parlor carrying the rocking-chair before
him. "You want this in here, don't you?" he said.
"It belongs here," said Sylvia, faintly. Jonathan Leavitt gathered up
his reins and drove out of the yard.
Richard set down the chair; then he went and stood before Sylvia.
"Look here, Sylvia," said he. Then he stopped and put his hands over
his face. His whole frame shook. Sylvia stood up. "Don't, Richard,"
she said.
"I never had any idea of this," said Richard Alger, with a great
groaning sob.
"Don't you feel so bad, Richard," said Sylvia.
Suddenly Richard put is arm around Sylvia, and pulled her close to
him. "I'll look out and do better by you the rest of your life,
anyhow," he said. He took hold of Sylvia's veil and pulled it back.
Her pale face drooped before him.
"You look--half--starved," he groaned. Sylvia looked up and saw tears
on his rough cheeks.
"Don't you feel bad, Richard," she said again.
"I'd ought to feel bad," said Richard, fiercely.
"I couldn't help it, that night you come an' found me gone. It was
that night Charlotte had the trouble with Barney. Sarah, she wouldn't
let me come home any sooner. I was dreadful upset about it."
"I've been meaner than sin, an' I don't know as it makes it any
better, because I couldn't seem to help it," said Richard Alger. "I
didn't forget you a single minute, Sylvia, an' I was awful sorry for
you, an' there wasn't a Sabbath night that I didn't want to come more
than I wanted to go to Heaven! But I couldn't, I couldn't nohow. I've
always had to travel in tracks, an' no man livin' knows how deep a
track he's in till he gets jolted out of it an' can't get back. But
I've got into a track now, an' I'll die before I get out of it. There
ain't any use in your lookin' at me, Sylvia, but if you can make up
your mind to have me, I'll try my best, an' do all I can to make it
all up to you in the time that's left."
"I'm afraid you've had a dreadful hard time, livin' alone so long,
an' tryin' to do for yourself," said Sylvia, pitifully.
"I'm glad I have," replied Richard, grimly.
He clasped Sylvia closer; her best bonnet was all crushed against his
breast. He looked around over her head, as if searching for
something.
"Where's the sofa gone?" he asked.
"I gave it to Rose for a weddin' present. I thought I shouldn't ever
need it," Sylvia murmured.
"Well, I've got one, it ain't any matter," said Richard.
He moved towards the rocking-chair, drawing Sylvia gently along with
him.
"Sit down, Sylvia," said he, softly.
"No, you sit down in the rocking-chair, Richard," said Sylvia. She
reached out and pulled a flag-bottomed chair close and sat down
herself. Richard sat in the rocking-chair.
Sylvia untied her bonnet, took it off, and straightened it. Richard
watched her. "I want you to have a white bonnet," said he.
"I'm too old, Richard," Sylvia replied, blushing.
"No, you ain't," he said, defiantly; "you've got to have a white
bonnet."
Sylvia looked in his face--and indeed hers looked young enough for a
white bonnet; it flushed and lit up, like an old flower revived in a
new spring.
Richard leaned over towards her, and the two old lovers kissed each
other. Richard moved his chair close to hers, and Sylvia felt his arm
coming around her waist. She sat still. "Put your head down on my
shoulder," whispered Richard.
And Sylvia laid her head on Richard's shoulder. She felt as if she
were dreaming of a dream.