David slowly recovered his poise. Faced by that terrible, impenetrable
wall of impossibility he stood helpless, his misery eating in upon his
soul, but there still remained the fact that there was nothing, absolutely
nothing, which he could possibly do. At times the truth rose to the
surface, the wretched truth, that Kate was at fault, that having done the
deed she should abide by it, and not try to keep a hold upon him, but it
was not often he was able to think in this way. Most of the time he
mourned over and for the lovely girl he had lost.
As for Marcia, she came and went unobtrusively, making quiet comfort for
David which he scarcely noticed. At times he roused himself to be polite
to her, and made a labored effort to do something to amuse her, just as if
she had been visiting him as a favor and he felt in duty bound to make the
time pass pleasantly, but she troubled him so little with herself, that
nearly always he forgot her. Whenever there was any public function to
which they were bidden he always told her apologetically, as though it
must be as much of a bore to her as to him, and he regretted that it was
necessary to go in order to carry out their mutual agreement. Marcia,
hailing with delight every chance to go out in search of something which
would keep her from thinking the new thoughts which had come to her,
demurely covered her pleasure and dressed herself dutifully in the robes
made for her sister, hating them secretly the while, and was always ready
when he came for her. David had nothing to complain of in his wife, so far
as outward duty was concerned, but he was too busy with his own heart’s
bitterness to even recognize it.
One afternoon, of a day when David had gone out of town not expecting to
return until late in the evening, there came a knock at the door.
There was something womanish in the knock, Marcia thought, as she hastened
to answer it, and she wondered, hurriedly smoothing her shining hair, if
it could be the aunts come to make their fortnightly-afternoon penance
visit. She gave a hasty glance into the parlor hoping all was right, and
was relieved to make sure she had closed the piano. The aunts would
consider it a great breach of housewifely decorum to allow a moment’s dust
to settle upon its sacred keys.
But it was not the aunts who stood upon the stoop, smiling and bowing with
a handsome assurance of his own welcome. It was Harry Temple.
Marcia was not glad to see him. A sudden feeling of unreasoning alarm took
possession of her.
“You’re all alone this time, sweet lady, aren’t you?” he asked with easy
nonchalance, as he lounged into the hall without waiting her bidding.
“Sir!” said Marcia, half frightened, half wondering.
But he smiled reassuringly down upon her and took the door knob in his own
hands to close the door.
“Your good man is out this time, isn’t he?” he smiled again most
delightfully. His face was very handsome when he smiled. He knew this fact
well.
Marcia did not smile. Why did he speak as if he knew where David was, and
seemed to be pleased that he was away?
“My husband is not in at present,” she said guardedly, her innocent eyes
searching his face, “did you wish to see him?”
She was beautiful as she stood there in the wide hall, with only the light
from the high transom over the door, shedding an afternoon glow through
its pleated Swiss oval. She looked more sweet and little-girlish than
ever, and he felt a strong desire to take her in his arms and tell her so,
only he feared, from something he saw in those wide, sweet eyes, that she
might take alarm and run away too soon, so he only smiled and said that
his business with her husband could wait until another time, and meantime
he had called to fulfil his promise to play for her.
She took him into the darkened parlor, gave him the stiffest and
stateliest hair-cloth chair; but he walked straight over to the
instrument, and with not at all the reverence she liked to treat it, flung
back the coverings, threw the lid open, and sat down.
He had white fingers, and he ran them over the keys with an air of being
at home among them, light little airs dripping from his touch like dew
from a glistening grass blade. Marcia felt there were butterflies in the
air, and buzzing bees, and fairy flowers dancing on the slightest of
stems, with a sky so blue it seemed to be filled with the sound of lily
bells. The music he played was of the nature of what would be styled
to-day “popular,” for this man was master of nothing but having a good
time. Quick music with a jingle he played, that to the puritanic-bred girl
suggested nothing but a heart bubbling over with gladness, but he meant it
should make her heart flutter and her foot beat time to the tripping
measure. In his world feet were attuned to gay music. But Marcia stood
with quiet dignity a little away from the instrument, her lips parted, her
eyes bright with the pleasure of the melody, her hands clasped, and her
breath coming quickly. She was all absorbed with the music. All
unknowingly Marcia had placed herself where the light from the window fell
full across her face, and every flitting expression as she followed the
undulant sounds was visible. The young man gazed, almost as much pleased
with the lovely face as Marcia was with the music.
At last he drew a chair quite near his own seat.
“Come and sit down,” he said, “and I will sing to you. You did not know I
could sing, too, did you? Oh, I can. But you must sit down for I couldn’t
sing right when you are standing.”
He ended with his fascinating smile, and Marcia shyly sat down, though she
drew the chair a bit back from where he had placed it and sat up quite
straight and stiff with her shoulders erect and her head up. She had
forgotten her distrust of the man in what seemed to her his wonderful
music. It was all new and strange to her, and she could not know how
little there really was to it. She had decided as he played that she liked
the kind best that made her think of the birds and the sunny sky, rather
than the wild whirlly kind that seemed all a mad scramble. She meant to
ask him to play over again what he played at the beginning, but he struck
into a Scotch love ballad. The melody intoxicated her fancy, and her face
shone with pleasure. She had not noticed the words particularly, save that
they were of love, and she thought with pain of David and Kate, and how
the pleading tenderness might have been his heart calling to hers not to
forget his love for her. But Harry Temple mistook her expression for one
of interest in himself. With his eyes still upon hers, as a cat might
mesmerize a bird, he changed into a minor wail of heart-broken love, whose
sadness brought great tears to Marcia’s eyes, and deep color to her
already burning cheeks, while the music throbbed out her own half-realized
loneliness and sorrow. It was as if the sounds painted for her a picture
of what she had missed out of love, and set her sorrow flowing tangibly.
The last note died away in an impressive diminuendo, and the young man
turned toward her. His eyes were languishing, his voice gentle,
persuasive, as though it had but been the song come a little nearer.
“And that is the way I feel toward you, dear,” he said, and reached out
his white hands to where hers lay forgotten in her lap.
But his hands had scarcely touched hers, before Marcia sprang back, in her
haste knocking over the chair.
Erect, her hands snatched behind her, frightened, alert, she stood a
moment bewildered, all her fears to the front.
Ah! but he was used to shy maidens. He was not to be baffled thus. A
little coaxing, a little gentle persuasion, a little boldness—that was all
he needed. He had conquered hearts before, why should he not this
unsophisticated one?
“Don’t be afraid, dear; there is no one about. And surely there is no harm
in telling you I love you, and letting you comfort my poor broken heart to
think that I have found you too late—”
He had arisen and with a passionate gesture put his arms about Marcia and
before she could know what was coming had pressed a kiss upon her lips.
But she was aroused now. Every angry force within her was fully awake.
Every sense of right and justice inherited and taught came flocking
forward. Horror unspeakable filled her, and wrath, that such a dreadful
thing should come to her. There was no time to think. She brought her two
strong supple hands up and beat him in the face, mouth, cheeks, and eyes,
with all her might, until he turned blinded; and then she struggled away
crying, “You are a wicked man!” and fled from the room.
Out through the hall she sped to the kitchen, and flinging wide the door
before her, the nearest one at hand, she fairly flew down the garden walk,
past the nodding dahlias, past the basking pumpkins, past the whispering
corn, down through the berry bushes, at the lower end of the lot, and
behind the currant bushes. She crouched a moment looking back to see if
she were pursued. Then imagining she heard a noise from the open door, she
scrambled over the low back fence, the high comb with which her hair was
fastened falling out unheeded behind her, and all her dark waves of hair
coming about her shoulders in wild disarray.
She was in a field of wheat now, and the tall shocks were like waves all
about her, thick and close, kissing her as she passed with their bended
stalks. Ahead of her it looked like an endless sea to cross before she
could reach another fence, and a bare field, and then another fence and
the woods. She knew not that in her wake she left a track as clear as if
she had set up signals all along the way. She felt that the kind wheat
would flow back like real waves and hide the way she had passed over. She
only sped on, to the woods. In all the wide world there seemed no refuge
but the woods. The woods were home to her. She loved the tall shadows, the
whispering music in the upper branches, the quiet places underneath, the
hushed silence like a city of refuge with cool wings whereunder to hide.
And to it, as her only friend, she was hastening. She went to the woods as
she would have flown to the minister’s wife at home, if she only had been
near, and buried her face in her lap and sobbed out her horror and shame.
Breathless she sped, without looking once behind her, now over the next
fence and still another. They were nothing to her. She forgot that she was
wearing Kate’s special sprigged muslin, and that it might tear on the
rough fences. She forgot that she was a matron and must not run wild
through strange fields. She forgot that some one might be watching her.
She forgot everything save that she must get away and hide her poor shamed
face.
At last she reached the shelter of the woods, and, with one wild furtive
look behind her to assure herself that she was not pursued, she flung
herself into the lap of mother earth, and buried her face in the soft moss
at the foot of a tree. There she sobbed out her horror and sorrow and
loneliness, sobbed until it seemed to her that her heart had gone out with
great shudders. Sobbed and sobbed and sobbed! For a time she could not
even think clearly. Her brain was confused with the magnitude of what had
come to her. She tried to go over the whole happening that afternoon and
see if she might have prevented anything. She blamed herself most
unmercifully for listening to the foolish music and, too, after her own
suspicions had been aroused, though how could she dream any man in his
senses would do a thing like that! Not even Captain Leavenworth would
stoop to that, she thought. Poor child! She knew so little of the world,
and her world had been kept so sweet and pure and free from contamination.
She turned cold at the thought of her father’s anger if he should hear
about this strange young man. She felt sure he would blame her for
allowing it. He had tried to teach his girls that they must exercise
judgment and discretion, and surely, surely, she must have failed in both
or this would not have happened. Oh, why had not the aunts come that
afternoon! Why had they not arrived before this man came! And yet, oh,
horror! if they had come after he was there! How disgusting he seemed to
her with his smirky smile, and slim white fingers! How utterly unfit
beside David did he seem to breathe the same air even. David, her
David—no, Kate’s David! Oh, pity! What a pain the world was!
There was nowhere to turn that she might find a trace of comfort. For what
would David say, and how could she ever tell him? Would he find it out if
she did not? What would he think of her? Would he blame her? Oh, the agony
of it all! What would the aunts think of her! Ah! that was worse than all,
for even now she could see the tilt of Aunt Hortense’s head, and the purse
of Aunt Amelia’s lips. How dreadful if they should have to know of it.
They would not believe her, unless perhaps Aunt Clarinda might. She did
not look wise, but she seemed kind and loving. If it had not been for the
other two she might have fled to Aunt Clarinda. Oh, if she might but flee
home to her father’s house! How could she ever go back to David’s house!
How could she ever play on that dreadful piano again? She would always see
that hateful, smiling face sitting there and think how he had looked at
her. Then she shuddered and sobbed harder than ever. And mother earth,
true to all her children, received the poor child with open arms. There
she lay upon the resinous pine needles, at the foot of the tall trees, and
the trees looked down tenderly upon her and consulted in whispers with
their heads bent together. The winds blew sweetness from the buckwheat
fields in the valley about her, murmuring delicious music in the air above
her, and even the birds hushed their loud voices and peeped curiously at
the tired, sorrowful creature of another kind that had come among them.
Marcia’s overwrought nerves were having their revenge. Tears had their way
until she was worn out, and then the angel of sleep came down upon her.
There upon the pine-needle bed, with tear-wet cheeks she lay, and slept
like a tired child come home to its mother from the tumult of the world.
Harry Temple, recovering from his rebuff, and left alone in the parlor,
looked about him with surprise. Never before in all his short and
brilliant career as a heart breaker had he met with the like, and this
from a mere child! He could not believe his senses! She must have been in
play. He would sit still and presently she would come back with eyes full
of mischief and beg his pardon. But even as he sat down to wait her
coming, something told him he was mistaken and that she would not come.
There had been something beside mischief in the smart raps whose tingle
even now his cheeks and lips felt. The house, too, had grown strangely
hushed as though no one else besides himself were in it. She must have
gone out. Perhaps she had been really frightened and would tell somebody!
How awkward if she should presently return with one of those grim aunts,
or that solemn puritan-like husband of hers. Perhaps he had better decamp
while the coast was still clear. She did not seem to be returning and
there was no telling what the little fool might do.
With a deliberation which suddenly became feverish in his haste to be
away, he compelled himself to walk slowly, nonchalantly out through the
hall. Still as a thief he opened and closed the front door and got himself
down the front steps, but not so still but that a quick ear caught the
sound of the latch as it flew back into place, and the scrape of a boot on
the path; and not so invisibly nor so quickly but that a pair of keen eyes
saw him.
When Harry Temple had made his way toward the Spafford house that
afternoon, with his dauntless front and conceited smile, Miranda had been
sent out to pick raspberries along the fence that separated the Heath
garden from the Spafford garden.
Harry Temple was too new in the town not to excite comment among the young
girls wherever he might go, and Miranda was always having her eye out for
anything new. Not for herself! Bless you! no! Miranda never expected
anything from a young man for herself, but she was keenly interested in
what befell other girls.
So Miranda, crouched behind the berry bushes, watched Harry Temple saunter
down the street and saw with surprise that he stopped at the house of her
new admiration. Now, although Marcia was a married woman, Miranda felt
pleased that she should have the attention of others, and a feeling of
pride in her idol, and of triumph over her cousin Hannah that he had not
stopped to see her, swelled in her brown calico breast.
She managed to bring her picking as near to the region of the Spafford
parlor windows as possible, and much did her ravished ear delight itself
in the music that tinkled through the green shaded window, for Miranda had
tastes that were greatly appealed to by the gay dance music. She fancied
that her idol was the player. But then she heard a man’s voice, and her
picking stopped short insomuch that her grandmother’s strident tones
mingled with the liquid tenor of Mr. Temple, calling to Miranda to “be
spry there or the sun’ll catch you ’fore you get a quart.” All at once the
music ceased, and then in a minute or two Miranda heard the Spafford
kitchen door thrown violently open and saw Marcia rush forth.
She gazed in astonishment, too surprised to call out to her, or to
remember to keep on picking for a moment. She watched her as she fairly
flew down between the rows of currant bushes, saw the comb fly from her
hair, saw the glow of excitement on her cheek, and the fire in her eye,
saw her mount the first fence. Then suddenly a feeling of protection arose
within her, and, with a hasty glance toward her grandmother’s window to
satisfy herself that no one else saw the flying figure, she fell to
picking with all her might, but what went into her pail, whether
raspberries or green leaves or briars, she did not know. Her eyes were on
the flying figure through the wheat, and she progressed in her picking
very fast toward the lower end of the lot where nothing but runty old sour
berries ever grew, if any at all. Once hidden behind the tall corn that
grew between her and her grandmother’s vigilant gaze, she hastened to the
end of the lot and watched Marcia; watched her as she climbed the fences,
held her breath at the daring leaps from the top rails, expecting to see
the delicate muslin catch on the rough fence and send the flying figure to
the ground senseless perhaps. It was like a theatre to Miranda, this
watching the beautiful girl in her flight, the long dark hair in the wind,
the graceful untrammeled bounds. Miranda watched with unveiled admiration
until the dark of the green-blue wood had swallowed her up, then slowly
her eyes traveled back over the path which Marcia had taken, back through
the meadow and the wheat, to the kitchen door left standing wide. Slowly,
painfully, Miranda set herself to understand it. Something had happened!
That was flight with fear behind it, fear that left everything else
forgotten. What had happened?
Miranda was wiser in her generation than Marcia. She began to put two and
two together. Her brows darkened, and a look of cunning came into her
honest blue eyes. Stealthily she crept with cat-like quickness along the
fence near to the front, and there she stood like a red-haired Nemesis in
a sunbonnet, with irate red face, confronting the unsuspecting man as he
sauntered forth from the unwelcoming roof where he had whiled away a
mistaken hour.
“What you ben sayin’ to her?”
It was as if a serpent had stung him, so unexpected, so direct. He jumped
aside and turned deadly pale. She knew her chance arrow had struck the
truth. But he recovered himself almost immediately when he saw what a
harmless looking creature had attacked him.
“Why, my dear girl,” he said patronizingly, “you quite startled me! I’m
sure you must have made some mistake!”
“I ain’t your girl, thank goodness!” snapped Miranda, “and I guess by your
looks there ain’t anybody ‘dear’ to you but yourself. But I ain’t made a
mistake. It’s you I was asking. _What you bin in there for?_” There was a
blaze of defiance in Miranda’s eyes, and her stubby forefinger pointed at
him like a shotgun. Before her the bold black eyes quailed for an instant.
The young man’s hand sought his pocket, brought out a piece of money and
extended it.
“Look here, my friend,” he said trying another line, “you take this and
say nothing more about it. That’s a good girl. No harm’s been done.”
Miranda looked him in the face with noble scorn, and with a sudden motion
of her brown hand sent the coin flying on the stone pavement.
“I tell you I’m not your friend, and I don’t want your money. I wouldn’t
trust its goodness any more than your face. As fer keepin’ still I’ll do
as I see fit about it. I intend to know what this means, and if you’ve
made _her_ any trouble you’d better leave this town, for I’ll make it too
unpleasant fer you to stay here!”
With a stealthy glance about him, cautious, concerned, the young man
suddenly hurried down the street. He wanted no more parley with this
loud-voiced avenging maiden. His fear came back upon him in double force,
and he was seen to glance at his watch and quicken his pace almost to a
run as though a forgotten engagement had suddenly come to mind. Miranda,
scowling, stood and watched him disappear around the corner, then she
turned back and began to pick raspberries with a diligence that would have
astonished her grandmother had she not been for the last hour engaged with
a calling neighbor in the room at the other side of the house, where they
were overhauling the character of a fellow church member.
Miranda picked on, and thought on, and could not make up her mind what she
ought to do. From time to time she glanced anxiously toward the woods, and
then at the lowering sun in the West, and half meditated going after
Marcia, but a wholesome fear of her grandmother held her hesitating.
At length she heard a firm step coming down the street. Could it be? Yes,
it was David Spafford. How was it he happened to come home so soon?
Miranda had heard in a round-about-way, as neighbors hear and know these
things, that David had taken the stage that morning, presumably on
business to New York, and was hardly expected to return for several days.
She had wondered if Marcia would stay all night alone in the house or if
she would go to the aunts. But now here was David!
Miranda looked again over the wheat, half expecting to see the flying
figure returning in haste, but the parted wheat waved on and sang its song
of the harvest, unmindful and alone, with only a fluttering butterfly to
give life to the landscape. A little rusty-throated cricket piped a
doleful sentence now and then between the silences.
David Spafford let himself in at his own door, and went in search of
Marcia.
He wanted to find Marcia for a purpose. The business which had taken him
away in the morning, and which he had hardly expected to accomplish before
late that night, had been partly transacted at a little tavern where the
coach horses had been changed that morning, and where he had met most
unexpectedly the two men whom he had been going to see, who were coming
straight to his town. So he turned him back with them and came home, and
they were at this minute attending to some other business in the town,
while he had come home to announce to Marcia that they would take supper
with him and perhaps spend the night.
Marcia was nowhere to be found. He went upstairs and timidly knocked at
her door, but no answer came. Then he thought she might be asleep and
knocked louder, but only the humming-bird in the honeysuckle outside her
window sent back a little humming answer through the latch-hole. Finally
he ventured to open the door and peep in, but he saw that quiet loneliness
reigned there.
He went downstairs again and searched in the pantry and kitchen and then
stood still. The back door was stretched open as though it had been thrown
back in haste. He followed its suggestion and went out, looking down the
little brick path that led to the garden. Ah! what was that? Something
gleamed in the sun with a spot of blue behind it. The bit of blue ribbon
she had worn at her throat, with a tiny gold brooch unclasped sticking in.
Miranda caught sight of him coming, and crouched behind the currants.
David came on searching the path on every side. A bit of a branch had been
torn from a succulent, tender plant that leaned over the path and was
lying in the way. It seemed another blaze along the trail. Further down
where the bushes almost met a single fragment of a thread waved on a thorn
as though it had snatched for more in the passing and had caught only
this. David hardly knew whether he was following these little things or
not, but at any rate they were apparently not leading him anywhere for he
stopped abruptly in front of the fence and looked both ways behind the
bushes that grew along in front of it. Then he turned to go back again.
Miranda held her breath. Something touched David’s foot in turning, and,
looking down, he saw Marcia’s large shell comb lying there in the grass.
Curiously he picked it up and examined it. It was like finding fragments
of a wreck along the sand.
All at once Miranda arose from her hiding place and confronted him
timidly. She was not the same Miranda who came down upon Harry Temple,
however.
“She ain’t in the house,” she said hoarsely. “She’s gone over there!”
David Spafford turned surprised.
“Is that you, Miranda? Oh, thank you! Where do you say she has gone?
Where?”
“Through there, don’t you see?” and again the stubby forefinger pointed to
the rift in the wheat.
David gazed stupidly at the path in the wheat, but gradually it began to
dawn upon him that there was a distinct line through it where some one
must have gone.
“Yes, I see,” he said thinking aloud, “but why should she have gone there?
There is nothing over there.”
“She went on further, she went to the woods,” said Miranda, looking
fearfully around lest even now her grandmother might be upon her, “and she
was scared, I guess. She looked it. Her hair all come tumblin’ down when
she clum the fence, an’ she just went flyin’ over like some bird, didn’t
care a feather if she did fall, an’ she never oncet looked behind her till
she come to the woods.”
David’s bewilderment was growing uncomfortable. There was a shade of alarm
in his face and of the embarrassment one feels when a neighbor divulges
news about a member of one’s own household.
“Why, surely, Miranda, you must be mistaken. Maybe it was some one else
you saw. I do not think Mrs. Spafford would be likely to run over there
that way, and what in the world would she have to be frightened at?”
“No, I ain’t mistaken,” said Miranda half sullenly, nettled at his
unbelief. “It was her all right. She came flyin’ out the kitchen door when
I was picking raspberries, and down that path to the fence, and never
stopped fer fence ner wheat, ner medder lot, but went into them woods
there, right up to the left of them tall pines, and she,—she looked plum
scared to death ’s if a whole circus menagerie was after her, lions and
’nelefunts an’ all. An’ I guess she had plenty to be scared at ef I ain’t
mistaken. That dandy Temple feller went there to call on her, an’ I heard
him tinklin’ that music box, and its my opinion he needs a wallupin’! You
better go after her! It’s gettin’ late and you’ll have hard times finding
her in the dark. Just you foller her path in the wheat, and then make fer
them pines. I’d a gone after her myself only grandma’d make sech a fuss,
and hev to know it all. You needn’t be afraid o’ me. I’ll keep still.”
By this time David was thoroughly alive to the situation and much alarmed.
He mounted the fence with alacrity, gave one glance with “thank you” at
Miranda, and disappeared through the wheat, Miranda watched him till she
was sure he was making for the right spot, then with a sigh of relief she
hastened into the house with her now brimming pail of berries.