“Oh, no. I’m all right now,” he replied, stroking my hand. “The next
time it gets dark Mammy says she will come back and finish her story.”
“And I am next door,” I said. “Whenever you begin to feel frightened you
can come and sleep on the big couch by the window.”
“By the window,” he repeated eagerly, “where Mammy’s wrens are under the
eaves. That would be fun.”
Then, as I arranged the bedclothes over him, he turned his cheek to the
pillow, and settled himself for the night. A moment later, when I went
out of the room, I began wondering again about the old negress. Was she
a faithful servant who had sacrificed her superstition to her affection
for Clarissa’s child, and had stayed on at Whispering Leaves when the
other negroes had gone away? In the morning I would make some inquiries.
Meanwhile I liked to remember the glory—there is no other word to
describe it—that I had seen in her dark face when she bent over the boy.
In the morning, when I came out of doors, it was into a world of
maize-coloured sunshine. There was new green on the cedars, and the
little blue flowers in the grass looked as formal as the blossoms in a
Gothic tapestry. Suddenly a harsh scream sounded a little way to the
right, and a peacock, with flaunting plumage, marched across the lawn,
through the sunlight and shadow. As I stood there, entranced by the
colour of the morning, it seemed to me that this circle of sunlight and
shadow became alive with the quiver of innumerable gauzy wings, the
bright ghosts of all the birds that had ever sung in this place.
When, presently, I turned in the direction of the garden, I saw that
Pell was playing in a row of flowering quince near the stile. He was on
his knees, building a castle of rocks, which he had brought in a little
wagon from the road in the pasture; and while I approached, I observed
that he was talking aloud to himself as children talk in their play.
Then, before I reached him, I found my gaze arrested by a glimmer of red
amid the smoke-gray boughs of a crêpe myrtle tree; and it seemed to my
startled fancy that I made out the figure of the old negress. But the
next minute a scarlet tanager flashed out of the branches, and the image
proved to be one of those grotesque shapes which crêpe myrtle bushes,
like ancient olive trees, frequently assume.
The child was playing happily by himself.
When my shadow fell over him, he looked up with his expression of secret
wisdom. Kneeling there, with his red curls and his blue-green eyes
enkindled by the sunshine, he reminded me of some unearthly flower of
light.
“It will be a fine castle,” I said.
He glanced hastily over his shoulder; and I noticed that his manner was
shy and furtive, though it expressed also a childish pleasure that was
very appealing.
“I’ve got something better than a castle,” he answered. “I found it
yesterday down by the ice pond. Will you promise not to tell if I let
you look?”
“I promise,” I assured him gravely; and, with another suspicious glance
in the direction of the house, he sprang to his feet and caught me by
the hand. Leading me round the shrubbery and over the stile, he showed
me a hollow he had made in the tall grasses beneath a cluster of lilac
bushes. Lying there on a bed of dry fern I saw a black and white mongrel
puppy, a delightful, audacious, independent puppy, half terrier and half
unknown, with an engaging personality and a waggish black ear that
dropped over one sparkling eye. Fastened securely by a strip of red
cotton to the shrub, beside a partly gnawed bone and a saucer of water,
he sat surveying me with an expectant, inquisitive look.
“Isn’t he a beauty?” asked Pell, enraptured, as he went down on his
knees and flung his arms about the puppy.
“A beauty,” I repeated; and I also went down on my knees to embrace boy
and dog.
“He hadn’t had anything to eat for ever so long when I found him. Martha
gives me scraps for him, and William lets him sleep in the stable.” Then
he looked straight into my eyes. “You won’t tell?” he pleaded. “She
wouldn’t let him stay if she knew. She doesn’t like dogs.”
Of course she didn’t like dogs. Hadn’t I felt from the first that she
wouldn’t? Why, there wasn’t a dog on the place, except the two black and
yellow hounds I had seen half a mile away in the cornfield, and they
belonged doubtless to one of the negroes.
“No, I won’t tell,” I promised. “I’ll help you take care of him.”
His eyes shone. “Can you teach him to do tricks? He knows how to beg
already. Mammy taught him.”
I released the child quickly and rose to my feet. “Where is your Mammy,
Pell?”
His rapid glance flew down the garden walk, and across the narcissi, to
the twisted pear tree. “She’s just gone,” he answered. “She went when
she saw you coming.”
“Where does she live?”
At this he broke into a laugh. “Oh, she lives away, way over yonder,” he
responded, with a sweep of his hand.
For the next week Pell and I were cheerful conspirators. When I look
back on it now, after so many years, I can still recall those cautious
trips to the barn or the little bed of ferns under the lilacs. We fed
Wop, that was the name we chose at last, until he grew as round as a
ball; and he was just passing into the second stage of his education
when Mrs. Blanton discovered his presence, as I was sure that she would
be obliged to do sooner or later.
I had been away for the afternoon to visit some relatives at a distance;
and as we drove home about sunset, we passed on the road the old
coloured woman whom Pell had called Mammy. I could not be mistaken, I
told myself. I should have recognized her anywhere, not only by the
quaint turban she wore bound about her head, but by that indescribable
light which shone in her face.
At the time we were driving through a stretch of burned pines, and when
I first noticed her she had stopped to rest and was sitting on a charred
stump by the roadside, with the red disc of the sun at her back. The
light was in my eyes; but, as I leaned out and smiled at her, she gave
me again that long deep look so filled with inarticulate yearning. I
knew then, as I had known the first afternoon, that she was trying to
make me understand, that she was charged with some message she could not
utter. While her eyes met mine I was smitten—that is the only word for
the sensation—into silence; but after we had driven on, I recovered
myself sufficiently to say to the cousin who was taking me home:
“If she is going a long way, don’t you think we might give her a lift?”
My cousin, an obtuse young man, gazed at me vacantly. “If who is going a
long way?”
“The old coloured woman by the roadside. Didn’t you see her?”
He shook his head. “No, I wasn’t looking. I didn’t see anybody.”
While he was still speaking, I leaned out with an exclamation of
surprise. “Why, there she is now in front of us! She must have run ahead
of us through the pines. She is waiting by the dead tree at the fork of
the road.”
My cousin was laughing now. “The sunset makes you see double. There
isn’t anybody there. Can you see anything except the blasted oak at the
fork of the road, Jacob?”
A few minutes later, when we reached the place where the road branched,
I saw that it was deserted. The red blaze of the sun could play tricks
with one’s vision, I knew; but it was odd that on both occasions, at
precisely the same hour, I should be visited by this hallucination. That
it was an hallucination, I no longer doubted when, looking up a short
while afterward, I saw again the old woman’s figure ahead of me. This
time, however, I kept silent, for the first thing one learns from such
visitations is the danger of talking to people of things which they
cannot understand. But I drove on with my heart in my throat. In front
of me in the blue air was that vision; and in my mind there was a
voiceless apprehension. Then, as we reached the lawn, the old woman
vanished, and a moment later the sound of a child’s crying fell on my
ears.
Alone on the front steps. Pell sat weeping inconsolably, with his face
hidden in his thin little hands. When I sprang from the carriage, he
rushed into my arms.
“She has sent him away! She has sent him away to be drowned!” he cried
in a heartbreaking voice.
As I drew him close, the door opened, and Mrs. Blanton looked out.
“Come in, Pell,” she called, not unkindly, but unseeingly. “You will
fret yourself into a fever. The circus is coming next week, and if you
make yourself sick, you won’t be able to go to it.”
At this Pell turned on her a white and quivering face. “I don’t want to
go to the circus,” he said. “I don’t want any supper. I want Wop, and I
wish you were dead!”
“Pell, dear!” I cried, but Mrs. Blanton only laughed good-naturedly, a
laugh that was as common as her features.
“He’s got his mother’s temper all right,” she remarked to me over the
child’s head. “If you don’t want any supper,” she added, dragging him
indoors, while he struggled to free himself from the grasp of her large
firm hand which seemed as inexorable as her purpose, “you must go
straight upstairs to bed.”
When we had entered the house the boy broke away from her, and marched,
without a tremor of hesitation, across the hall and into the thick dusk
of the staircase.
“Let me go after him,” I said. “He is so afraid of the dark, and the
candles are not lighted upstairs.”
Mrs. Blanton detained me by a gesture. “He is the sort of child you have
to be firm with,” she returned, and then immediately, “Mr. Blanton”—she
always addressed her husband as “Mr. Blanton”—“is waiting for us in the
dining room. It frets him to be kept waiting.”
After this there was nothing to do but follow her, with a heavy heart,
into the room, where Cousin Pelham stood, ponderously frowning at the
door. I could not this evening meet his annoyance with my usual playful
apology; and a little later, when the excellent supper was served, I
found that I was unable to swallow a morsel. The fact that I was leaving
the next day, that I should, perhaps, not see Pell again for years, had
turned my heart to lead.
When supper was over I escaped as soon as I could and ran upstairs to
the room where Pell slept. A candle was burning by his bed, and to my
amazement the child was sleeping peacefully, with a smile on his face
where the traces of tears were scarcely dried. While I looked down on
him, he stirred and opened his eyes.
“I thought you were Mammy,” he murmured, with a drowsy laugh.
“Has Mammy been here?” I asked.
He was so sleepy that he could barely answer; but, as he nestled down
into the middle of the feather bed, he replied without the faintest sign
of his recent distress:
“She was here when I came up. She told me it was all right about Wop.
Uncle Moab is keeping him for me.”
“Uncle Moab is keeping him?” I pressed my hand on his forehead under the
vivid hair; but there was no hint of fever.
“She says she gave Wop to Uncle Moab. Mammy wouldn’t let anybody hurt
him.”
Then his eyes closed while the smile quivered on his lips. “Mammy says
you must take me with you when you go away,” he murmured. His face
changed to an almost unearthly loveliness, and before I could answer,
before I could even take in the words he had spoken, he had fallen
asleep.
For a minute I stood looking down on him. Then leaving the candle still
burning, I went out, closing the door softly, and ran against the maid,
a young Irish woman, whose face I liked.
“I was just going to see if Pell had fallen asleep,” she explained a
little nervously. “I have a message for him. You won’t tell Mrs. Blanton
I brought it?”
“No. I won’t tell Mrs. Blanton.”
For an instant the girl hesitated. “She is so strict,” she blurted out,
and then more guardedly, “William wouldn’t have drowned the child’s
puppy. He just took it away and gave it to Uncle Moab who was going
along the road.”
“I am glad,” I said eagerly. “Uncle Moab will look after it?”
“He sent Pell a message not to worry. I was going in to tell him.”
“But he knows it already,” I replied indiscreetly. “Somebody told him.”
A puzzled look came into her face. “But nobody knew. William just came
back a minute ago, and there hasn’t been another soul on the place this
afternoon.”
I saw my slip at once and hastened to remedy it. “Then I was mistaken of
course. The child must have imagined it.”
“Yes, he does imagine things,” she responded readily; and after a word
of good-night, she turned back to the stairs while I crossed the hall to
my room.
There, as soon as I had closed the door, I put down my candle, and
turned to the open window to think over what I had heard. There was
nothing really strange, I told myself, in the incident of the puppy and
Uncle Moab. It was natural enough that William should have refused to
obey an order he thought cruel; it was natural enough also that Uncle
Moab should have been going by in the road at that hour. Everything was
easily explained except the singular change in the child, and the happy
smile on his little tear-stained face when he murmured, “Mammy says you
must take me with you when you go away.” Over and over again I heard
those words as I sat there by the window. So insistent was the
repetition that I might have deluded myself into the belief that they
were spoken aloud in the darkness outside. How could I take the child
away with me? I asked at last, as if I were disputing with some
invisible presence at my side. What room was there for a child in my
active life? I loved Pell; I hated to leave him; but how could I
possibly take him with me when I went away in the morning? Yet, even
after I had undressed, climbed into the canopied bed, and blown out my
candle, I still heard that phrase again and again in my mind. I was
still hearing it hours afterward when I fell asleep and dreamed of the
old coloured woman sitting on the charred stump by the roadside.
Dreams. The old coloured woman by the roadside. The song of far-off
birds coming nearer. The jade-green mist of the twilight changing
suddenly to opal. Light growing out of darkness. Light turning from
clear gold to flame colour. Still the song of birds that became so loud
it was like the torrent of waters—or of fire. Dreams. Dreams. Nothing
more....
Starting awake, I was aware first of that opal-coloured light; then of
the fact that I was stifling, that a gray cloud had swept in from the
open window, or the open door, and enveloped me. The next instant, with
a cry, I sprang up and caught at the dressing-gown on a chair by my bed.
From outside, mingled with that dream of singing birds and rushing
torrents, the sound of voices was reaching me. The words I could not
hear, but I needed no words to tell me that these were voices of
warning. Whispering Leaves was burning while I dreamed. Whispering
Leaves was burning, and I must fight my way to safety through the smoke
that rushed in at my open door!
“Pell!” I called in terror, as I ran out into the hall. But there was no
answer to my cry, and the next minute, when I looked into the child’s
room, I saw that the bed was empty. They had saved him and forgotten me.
Well, at least they had saved him!
Of the next few minutes, which seemed an eternity of terror, I can
recall nothing now except a struggle for air. I must have fought my way
through the smoke upstairs. I must have passed that savage light so
close that it scorched my face, which was blistered afterward, though I
felt no pain at the moment. I must have heard that rush of flames so
near that it deafened me; but of this I can remember nothing to-day. Yet
I can still feel the air blowing in my face on the lawn outside. I can
still see the little green leaves on the cedars standing out illuminated
in that terrible glow. I can still hear the cry that rang out:
“Pell! Where is Pell? Didn’t you bring Pell with you?”
Fifteen years ago. Fire and ashes, pain and happiness, have passed and
are forgotten; but that question, as I heard it then, still sounds in my
ears.
“Where is Pell? Didn’t you bring Pell with you?”
“I thought he was safe,” my voice was so thick that the words were
scarcely articulate. “His room was empty.”
“He isn’t with the other children. We thought he had gone to you.” The
speaker I have forgotten—Cousin Pelham or his wife, or the nurse, it is
no matter—but the words are still living.
“I will go back.” This was Cousin Pelham, I knew, for he had turned to
enter the burning house.
“It is too late now.” This was not one, but several voices together. As
they spoke the windows of the house shone like the sunrise while a
torrent of flame swept through the hall.
“Oh, Pell! Pell!” I cried out in agony. “Cannot you come to me?”
For a minute—it was scarcely longer—after I called, there was no answer.
We stood in that red glare, and round us and beyond us closed the
mysterious penumbra of the darkness. Without the circle, where we clung
together in our horror, there was the freshness and the sweetness of the
spring, and all the little quiet stirs that birds make when they nest at
night. And it was out of this bird-haunted darkness that a shape moved
suddenly past me into the flames, a shape which as the light edged it
round I saw to be that of the old negress.
“She is looking for him,” I cried now. “Oh, don’t you see her?”
They gathered anxiously round me. “The fire has blinded her,” I heard
them say. “She is looking straight at the flames.”
Yes, I was looking straight at the flames, for beyond the flames, past
the unburned wing of the house, from the window of an old storeroom,
which was never opened, they had told me, I saw the shape of the old
negress pass again like a shadow. The next instant my heart melted with
joy, for I saw that she was bringing the child in her arms. The little
face was pale as death; the red curls were singed to black; but it was
the child that she held. Even the unperceiving eyes about me, though
they could see only material things, knew that Pell had come unharmed
out of the fire. To them it was merely a shadow, a veil of smoke, which
surrounded him. I alone saw the dark arms that enfolded him. I alone,
among all those standing there in that awful light, recognized that dark
compassionate face.
Her eyes found me at last, and I knew, in that moment of vision, what
the message was that she had for me. Without a word I stepped forward,
and held out my arms. As I did so, I saw a glory break in the dim
features. Then, even while I gave my voiceless answer, the face melted
from me into spirals of smoke. Was it a dream, after all? Was the only
reality the fact that I held the child safe and unharmed in my arms?