It had been a heavenly picnic the little trio all agreed as to that; and
when Ivory saw the Baxter girls coming up the shady path that led along
the river from the Indian Cellar to the bridge, it was a merry group and
a transfigured Rodman that caught his eye. The boy, trailing on behind
with the baskets and laden with tin dippers and wildflowers, seemed
another creature from the big-eyed, quiet little lad he saw every day.
He had chattered like a magpie, eaten like a bear, is torn his jacket
getting wild columbines for Patty, been nicely darned by Waitstill, and
was in a state of hilarity that rendered him quite unrecognizable.
“We've had a lovely picnic!” called Patty; “I wish you had been with
us!”
“You didn't ask me!” smiled Ivory, picking up Waitstill's mending-basket
from the nook in the trees where she had hidden it for safe-keeping.
“We've played games, Ivory,” cried the boy. “Patty made them up herself.
First we had the 'Landing of the Pilgrims,' and Waitstill made believe
be the figurehead of the Mayflower. She stood on a great boulder and
sang:--
'The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast'--
and, oh! she was splendid! Then Patty was Pocahontas and I was Cap'n
John Smith, and look, we are all dressed up for the Indian wedding!”
Waitstill had on a crown of white birch bark and her braid of hair,
twined with running ever-green, fell to her waist. Patty was wreathed
with columbines and decked with some turkey feathers that she had put
in her basket as too pretty to throw away. Waitstill looked rather
conscious in her unusual finery, but Patty sported it with the reckless
ease and innocent vanity that characterized her.
“I shall have to run into father's store to put myself tidy,” Waitstill
said, “so good-bye, Rodman, we'll have another picnic some day. Patty,
you must do the chores this afternoon, you know, so that I can go to
choir rehearsal.”
Rodman and Patty started up the hill gayly with their burdens, and Ivory
walked by Waitstill's side as she pulled off her birch-bark crown and
twisted her braid around her head with a heightened color at being
watched.
“I'll say good-bye now, Ivory, but I'll see you at the meeting-house,”
she said, as she neared the store. “I'll go in here and brush the pine
needles off, wash my hands, and rest a little before rehearsal. That's a
puzzling anthem we have for to-morrow.”
“I have my horse here; let me drive you up to the church.”
“I can't, Ivory, thank you. Father's orders are against my driving out
with any one, you know.”
“Very well, the road is free, at any rate. I'll hitch my horse down here
in the woods somewhere and when you start to walk I shall follow and
catch up with you. There's luckily only one way to reach the church from
here, and your father can't blame us if we both take it!”
And so it fell out that Ivory and Waitstill walked together in the cool
of the afternoon to the meeting-house on Tory Hill. Waitstill kept the
beaten path on one side and Ivory that on the other, so that the width
of the country road, deep in dust, was between them, yet their nearness
seemed so tangible a thing that each could feel the heart beating in
the other's side. Their talk was only that of tried friends, a talk
interrupted by long beautiful silences; silences that come only to a
man and woman whose understanding of each other is beyond question and
answer. Not a sound broke the stillness, yet the very air, it seemed
to them, was shedding meanings: the flowers were exhaling a love
secret with their fragrances, the birds were singing it boldly from the
tree-tops, yet no word passed the man's lips or the girl's. Patty would
have hung out all sorts of signals and lures to draw the truth from
Ivory and break through the walls of his self-control, but Waitstill,
never; and Ivory Boynton was made of stuff so strong that he would not
speak a syllable of love to a woman unless he could say all. He was only
five-and-twenty, but he had been reared in a rigorous school, and had
learned in its poverty, loneliness, and anxiety lessons of self-denial
and self-control that bore daily fruit now. He knew that Deacon Baxter
would never allow any engagement to exist between Waitstill and himself;
he also knew that Waitstill would never defy and disobey her father if
it meant leaving her younger sister to fight alone a dreary battle for
which she was not fitted. If there was little hope on her side there
seemed even less on his. His mother's mental illness made her peculiarly
dependent upon him, and at the same time held him in such strict bondage
that it was almost impossible for him to get on in the world or even to
give her the comforts she needed. In villages like Riverboro in those
early days there was no putting away, even of men or women so demented
as to be something of a menace to the peace of the household; but Lois
Boynton was so gentle, so fragile, so exquisite a spirit, that she
seemed in her sad aloofness simply a thing to be sheltered and shielded
somehow in her difficult life journey. Ivory often thought how sorely
she needed a daughter in her affliction. If the baby sister had only
lived, the home might have been different; but alas! there was only a
son,--a son who tried to be tender and sympathetic, but after all was
nothing but a big, clumsy, uncomprehending man-creature, who ought to
be felling trees, ploughing, sowing, reaping, or at least studying law,
making his own fortune and that of some future wife. Old Mrs. Mason, a
garrulous, good-hearted grandame, was their only near neighbor, and her
visits always left his mother worse rather than better. How such a girl
as Waitstill would pour comfort and beauty and joy into a lonely house
like his, if only he were weak enough to call upon her strength and put
it to so cruel a test. God help him, he would never do that, especially
as he could not earn enough to keep a larger family, bound down as he
was by inexorable responsibilities. Waitstill, thus far in life, had
suffered many sorrows and enjoyed few pleasures; marriage ought to bring
her freedom and plenty, not carking care and poverty. He stole long
looks at the girl across the separating space that was so helpless to
separate,--feeding his starved heart upon her womanly graces. Her quick,
springing step was in harmony with the fire and courage of her
mien. There was a line or two in her face,--small wonder; but an
“unconquerable soul” shone in her eyes; shone, too, in no uncertain
way, but brightly and steadily, expressing an unshaken joy in living.
Valiant, splendid, indomitable Waitstill! He could never tell her, alas!
but how he gloried in her!
It is needless to say that no woman could be the possessor of such a
love as Ivory Boynton's and not know of its existence. Waitstill never
heard a breath of it from Ivory's lips; even his eyes were under control
and confessed nothing; nor did his hand ever clasp hers, to show by a
tell-tale touch the truth he dared not utter; nevertheless she felt that
she was beloved. She hid the knowledge deep in her heart and covered it
softly from every eye but her own; taking it out in the safe darkness
sometimes to wonder over and adore in secret. Did her love for Ivory
rest partly on a sense of vocation?--a profound, inarticulate divining
of his vast need of her? He was so strong, yet so weak because of the
yoke he bore, so bitterly alone in his desperate struggle with life,
that her heart melted like wax whenever she thought of him. When she
contemplated the hidden mutiny in her own heart, she was awestruck
sometimes at the almost divine patience of Ivory's conduct as a son.
“How is your mother this summer, Ivory?” she asked as they sat down on
the meeting-house steps waiting for Jed Morrill to open the door. “There
is little change in her from year to year, Waitstill.--By the way, why
don't we get out of this afternoon sun and sit in the old graveyard
under the trees? We are early and the choir won't get here for half an
hour.--Dr. Perry says that he does not understand mother's case in the
least, and that no one but some great Boston physician could give a
proper opinion on it; of course, that is impossible at present.”
They sat down on the grass underneath one of the elms and Waitstill took
off her hat and leaned back against the tree-trunk.
“Tell me more,” she said; “it is so long since we talked together
quietly and we have never really spoken of your mother.”
“Of course,” Ivory continued, “the people of the village all think and
speak of mother's illness as religious insanity, but to me it seems
nothing of the sort. I was only a child when father first fell ill with
Jacob Cochrane, but I was twelve when father went away from home on
his 'mission,' and if there was any one suffering from delusions in our
family it was he, not mother. She had altogether given up going to the
Cochrane meetings, and I well remember the scene when my father told her
of the revelation he had received about going through the state and into
New Hampshire in order to convert others and extend the movement. She
had no sympathy with his self-imposed mission, you may be sure, though
now she goes back in her memory to the earlier days of her married life,
when she tried hard, poor soul, to tread the same path that father was
treading, so as to be by his side at every turn of the road.
“I am sure” (here Ivory's tone was somewhat dry and satirical) “that
father's road had many turns, Waitstill! He was a schoolmaster in Saco,
you know, when I was born but he soon turned from teaching to preaching,
and here my mother followed with entire sympathy, for she was intensely,
devoutly religious. I said there was little change in her, but there is
one new symptom. She has ceased to refer to her conversion to Cochranism
as a blessed experience. Her memory of those first days seems to
have faded, As to her sister's death and all the circumstances of her
bringing Rodman home, her mind is a blank. Her expectation of father's
return, on the other hand, is much more intense than ever.”
“She must have loved your father dearly, Ivory, and to lose him in this
terrible way is much worse than death. Uncle Bart says he had a great
gift of language!”
“Yes, and it was that, in my mind, that led him astray. I fear that the
Spirit of God was never so strong in father as the desire to influence
people by his oratory. That was what drew him to preaching in the first
place, and when he found in Jacob Cochrane a man who could move an
audience to frenzy, lift them out of the body, and do with their spirits
as he willed, he acknowledged him as master. Whether his gospel was a
pure and undefiled religion I doubt, but he certainly was a master of
mesmeric control. My mother was beguiled, entranced, even bewitched at
first, I doubt not, for she translated all that Cochrane said into her
own speech, and regarded him as the prophet of a new era. But Cochrane's
last 'revelations' differed from the first, and were of the earth,
earthy. My mother's pure soul must have revolted, but she was not strong
enough to drag father from his allegiance. Mother was of better family
than father, but they were both well educated and had the best schooling
to be had in their day. So far as I can judge, mother always had more
'balance' than father, and much better judgment,--yet look at her now!”
“Then you think it was your father's disappearance that really caused
her mind to waver?” asked Waitstill.
“I do, indeed. I don't know what happened between them in the way of
religious differences, nor how much unhappiness these may have caused. I
remember she had an illness when we first came here to live and I was
a little chap of three or four, but that was caused by the loss of a
child, a girl, who lived only a few weeks. She recovered perfectly, and
her head was as clear as mine for a year or two after father went away.
As his letters grew less frequent, as news of him gradually ceased to
come, she became more and more silent, and retired more completely into
herself. She never went anywhere, nor entertained visitors, because she
did not wish to hear the gossip and speculation that were going on
in the village. Some of it was very hard for a wife to bear, and she
resented it indignantly; yet never received a word from father with
which to refute it. At this time, as nearly as I can judge, she was
a recluse, and subject to periods of profound melancholy, but nothing
worse. Then she took that winter journey to her sister's deathbed,
brought home the boy, and, hastened by exposure and chill and grief, I
suppose, her mind gave way,--that's all!” And Ivory sighed drearily
as he stretched himself on the greensward, and looked off towards the
snow-clad New Hampshire hills. “I've meant to write the story of the
'Cochrane craze' sometime, or such part of it as has to do with my
family history, and you shall read it if you like. I should set down my
child-hood and my boyhood memories, together with such scraps of village
hearsay as seem reliable. You were not so much younger than I, but I
was in the thick of the excitement, and naturally I heard more than
you, having so bitter a reason for being interested. Jacob Cochrane has
altogether disappeared from public view, but there's many a family in
Maine and New Hampshire, yes, and in the far West, that will feel his
influence for years to come.”
“I should like very much to read your account. Aunt Abby's version, for
instance, is so different from Uncle Bart's that one can scarcely find
the truth between the two; and father's bears no relation to that of any
of the others.”
“Some of us see facts and others see visions,” replied Ivory, “and these
differences of opinion crop up in the village every day when anything
noteworthy is discussed. I came upon a quotation in my reading last
evening that described it:
'One said it thundered... another that an angel spake'”
“Do you feel as if your father was dead, Ivory?”
“I can only hope so! That thought brings sadness with it, as one
remembers his disappointment and failure, but if he is alive he is a
traitor.”
There was a long pause and they could see in the distance Humphrey
Barker with his clarionet and Pliny Waterhouse with his bass viol
driving up to the churchyard fence to hitch their horses. The sun was
dipping low and red behind the Town-House Hill on the other side of the
river.
“What makes my father dislike the very mention of yours?” asked
Waitstill. “I know what they say: that it is because the two men had
high words once in a Cochrane meeting, when father tried to interfere
with some of the exercises and was put out of doors. It doesn't seem as
if that grievance, seventeen or eighteen years ago, would influence his
opinion of your mother, or of you.”
“It isn't likely that a man of your father's sort would forget or
forgive what he considered an injury; and in refusing to have anything
to do with the son of a disgraced man and a deranged woman, he is well
within his rights.”
Ivory's cheeks burned red under the tan, and his hand trembled a little
as he plucked bits of clover from the grass and pulled them to pieces
absent-mindedly. “How are you getting on at home these days, Waitstill?”
he asked, as if to turn his own mind and hers from a too painful
subject.
“You have troubles enough of your own without hearing mine, Ivory, and
anyway they are not big afflictions, heavy sorrows, like those you have
to bear. Mine are just petty, nagging, sordid, cheap little miseries,
like gnat-bites;--so petty and so sordid that I can hardly talk to God
about them, much less to a human friend. Patty is my only outlet and
I need others, yet I find it almost impossible to escape from the
narrowness of my life and be of use to any one else.” The girl's
voice quivered and a single tear-drop on her cheek showed that she was
speaking from a full heart. “This afternoon's talk has determined me in
one thing,” she went on. “I am going to see your mother now and then. I
shall have to do it secretly, for your sake, for hers, and for my own,
but if I am found out, then I will go openly. There must be times when
one can break the lower law, and yet keep the higher. Father's law, in
this case, is the lower, and I propose to break it.”
“I can't have you getting into trouble, Waitstill,” Ivory objected.
“You're the one woman I can think of who might help my mother; all the
same, I would not make your life harder; not for worlds!”
“It will not be harder, and even if it was I should 'count it all joy'
to help a woman bear such sorrow as your mother endures patiently day
after day”; and Waitstill rose to her feet and tied on her hat as one
who had made up her mind.
It was almost impossible for Ivory to hold his peace then, so full of
gratitude was his soul and so great his longing to pour out the feeling
that flooded it. He pulled himself together and led the way out of the
churchyard. To look at Waitstill again would be to lose his head, but to
his troubled heart there came a flood of light, a glory from that lamp
that a woman may hold up for a man; a glory that none can take from him,
and none can darken; a light by which he may walk and live and die.