AMY
"If this isn't a lark I never had one," Howard said to Jack, when they
were safely housed and had changed their clothes, not a thread of which
was dry.
Jack, whose luggage had not come, and who was obliged to borrow from
Howard's wardrobe, looked like an overgrown boy in garments too small
for him. But he did not mind it, and with Howard discussed the events of
the evening, as they sat over the fire the latter had lighted in his
room. Naturally Eloise was the subject of their conversation.
"I wrote you I had a presentiment that she was to come into my life in
some way, but I had no idea it was to be this way," Howard said, as he
puffed at his cigar and talked of their adventure and Eloise.
That she was very handsome and had pretty little feet went without
saying, and that both were sorry for her was equally, of course. Jack
was the more so, as his was the more unselfish and sympathetic nature.
"By Jove, didn't she bear the cutting of that boot like a hero, and how
is she ever to get to school with that ankle?" he said; "and I think she
ought to have a doctor to see if any bones are broken. Suppose you get
one in the morning, and tell him not to send his bill to her but to me."
Howard looked up quickly, and Jack went on, "I wrote you that Mrs.
Brown said she was poor, and I should know it by her boots."
"Her boots!" Howard repeated, and Jack continued, "Yes, wet as they were
I noticed they were half-worn, and had been blacked many times. She
can't afford to pay many doctor's bills, and I ask you again, how is she
to get to school?"
Howard did not know, unless they made another chair and carried her.
"I wouldn't mind it much for the sake of her arm around my neck. I can
feel it yet. Can't you?" he said.
Jack could feel it and the little wet hand which once or twice had
touched his face, but something in his nature forbade his talking about
it. It might have been fun for them, but he knew it was like death to
the girl, and that she had shrank from it all, and only submitted
because she could not help it. He was very sorry for her, and thought of
her the last moment before he fell asleep, and the first moment he awoke
with Howard in the room telling him it was after breakfast time, and his
uncle, who did not like to be kept waiting, was already in a temper and
blowing like a northeaster.
The Colonel, who was suffering from an attack of rheumatic gout, was
more irritable than usual. He had not liked having his horses and
carriage go out in the rain, and had sat up waiting for the return of
his nephew, and when Sam came in, telling what had happened to the
carriage and horses, and that he must go back with a lantern to the park
gates and see if the new school mistress was alive, he went into a
terrible passion, swearing at the weather, and the late train, and the
school mistress who he seemed to think was the cause of the accident.
"What business had she in the carriage? Why did she come in such a
storm? Why didn't she take the 'bus, and if the 'bus wasn't there, why
didn't she--?" He didn't know what, and it took all the tact of Peter,
who was still in the family and old like his master, to quiet him.
Then next morning his gout was so bad that he was wheeled into the
dining-room, where he was fast growing angry at the delay of breakfast,
and beginning to swear again when Peter, who knew how to manage him,
went for Amy. Nothing quieted the Colonel like a sight of Amy, with her
sweet face and gentle ways.
"Please come. It's beginning to sizzle," Peter frequently said to her
when a storm was brewing, and Amy always went, and was like oil on the
troubled waters.
"What is it?" she now asked, and the Colonel replied, "What is it! I
should say, what is it! There's the very old Harry to pay. Brutus has a
big hole in his breast, the carriage is smashed, silk cushions all
stained with a girl's blue gown, and that girl the school-teacher I
didn't want; and she's broken her leg or something when they tipped
over, and Howard and his friend carried her to Widow Biggs's, and the
Lord knows what didn't happen!"
Amy had a way of seeming to listen very attentively when the Colonel
talked to her, and always smiled her appreciation and approbation of
what he said. Just how much she really heard or understood was doubtful.
Her mind seemed to run in two channels,--one the present, the other the
past,--and both were blurred and indistinct,--especially the past. She
understood about the young girl, however, and at once expressed her
sympathy, and said, "We must do something for her."
To do something for any one in sickness or trouble was her first
thought, and many a home had been made glad because of her since she
came to Crompton.
"Certainly; do what you like, only don't bring her here," the Colonel
replied, his voice and manner softening, as they always did with Amy.
She was a very handsome woman and looked younger than her years. The
storm which had swept over her had not impaired her physical beauty, but
had touched her mentally in a way very puzzling to those about her, and
rather annoying to the Colonel, who was trying to make amends for the
harshness which had driven her from his home. Sometimes her quiet,
passive manner irritated him, and he felt that he would gladly welcome
the old imperiousness with which she had defied him. But it was gone.
Something had broken her on the wheel, killing her spirit completely, or
smothering it and leaving her a timid, silent woman, who sat for hours
with a sad, far-off expression, as if looking into the past and trying
to gather up the tangled threads which had in a measure obscured her
intellect.
"The Harrises are queer," kept sounding in the Colonel's ears, with a
thought that the taint in the Harris blood was working in Amy's veins,
intensified by some great shock, or series of shocks.
Once, after he brought her home, he questioned her of her life as a
singer, and of the baby, which she occasionally mentioned, but he never
repeated the experiment. There was a fit of nervous trembling,--a look
of terror in her eyes, and a drawn expression on her face, and for a
moment she was like the girl Eudora when roused. Then, putting her hand
before her eyes as if to shut out something hateful to her, she said,
"Oh, don't ask me to bring up a past I can't remember without such a
pain in my head and everywhere, as if I were choking. It was very
dreadful,--with _him_,--not with Adolf,--he was so kind."
"Did he ever beat you?--or what did the wretch do? _Smith_, I mean," the
Colonel asked, and Amy replied, "Oh, no; it wasn't that. It was a
constant grind, grind,--swear, swear,--a breaking of my will, till I had
none left. He never struck me but once, and then it was throwing
something instead of a blow. It hit me here, and it has ached ever
since."
She put her hand to one side of her temple, and went on, "It was the
night I heard baby was dead, and I said I could not sing,--but he made
me, and I broke down, and I don't know much what happened after till you
came. I can't remember."
"Yes, but the baby,--where did it die, and when?" the Colonel asked.
Amy had been getting quiet as she talked, but at the mention of the
baby, she began to tremble again, and beat the air with her hands.
"I don't know, I don't know," she said. "He took her away, and she died.
It is so black when I try to think how it was, and it goes from me. Wait
a bit!" She sat very still a moment, and then in a more natural voice
said, "It may come back sometime, and then I will tell you. It makes me
worse to talk about it now. It's this way: The inside of my head shakes
all over. The doctor said it was like a bottle full of something which
must settle. I _am_ settling here where everybody speaks so low and
kind, but when I am a little clear, with the sediment going down, if you
shake up the bottle, it is thick and muddy again, and I can't remember."
"By Jove!" the Colonel said to himself, "that bottle business isn't a
bad comparison. She is all shaken up, and I'll let her settle."
He did not question her again of her life with Homer Smith, or of the
baby. Both were dead, and he felt that it was just as well that they
were. Homer Smith ought to be dead, and as to the baby it would have
been very upsetting in the house, and might have been queer, like the
Harrises, or worse yet, like its _cuss_ of a father. On the whole, it
was better as it was, although he was sorry for Amy, and would do all he
could to make her happy, and some time, perhaps, she would remember, and
tell him where the baby was buried, and he'd have it brought to
Crompton, and put in the Crompton vault. As for Homer Smith, his carcase
might rot in the desert of Arizona, or anywhere, for aught he cared. He
was very gentle and patient with Amy, and watched the settling of the
bottle with a great deal of interest. Sometimes he wondered how much she
remembered of her Florida life, if anything, and what effect the mention
of Jaky and Mandy Ann would have upon her, and what effect it would have
upon her if he took her to the palmetto clearing, and found the negroes,
if living. But pride still stood in the way. More than thirty-five years
of silence were between him and the past, which to all intents was as
dead as poor Dory; and why should he pull aside the dark curtain, and
let in the public gaze and gossip. He couldn't and he wouldn't. All he
could do for Amy in other ways he would, and for her sake he controlled
himself, mightily, becoming, as Peter said, like a turtle dove compared
to what he once was, when the slightest crossing of his will roused him
into fury.
Harsh, loud tones made Amy shiver, and brought a look into her eyes
which the Colonel did not like to see, and with her he was usually very
docile, or if roused, the touch of her hand and the expression of her
eyes subdued him, as they did now when he told her of his broken
carriage and ruined cushions and the young girl for whom Amy at once
wished to do something.
"Certainly," he had said; "only don't bring her here," and he was
beginning to wonder where Howard was, and to feel irritated at the
delay, when the latter came in with Jack, and found a tolerably urbane
and courteous host.
Naturally the conversation turned upon the storm and accident, the
particulars of which were briefly gone over, while Amy stirred her
coffee listlessly and did not seem to listen. She was very lovely, Jack
thought, with no sign of her mental disorder, except the peculiar
expression of her eyes at times. Her dress was faultless, her manner
perfect, her language good, and her smile the sweetest and saddest he
had ever seen, and Jack watched her curiously, while the conversation
drifted away from Eloise, in whom the Colonel felt no interest. She was
a graduate, and probably knew nothing of what he thought essential for a
teacher to know. She was not rooted and grounded in the fundamentals.
Probably she had never heard of the grindstone, or the sheep, and could
not work out the problems if she had. She was superficial. She belonged
to a new generation which had put him and his theories on the shelf. Her
blue dress had stained the cushions of his carriage, and there was a
puddle of water in the hall where Sam had put down her satchel and hat,
which had been found in the driveway near the stable. They had been
thrown from the carriage, and lain in the rain all night. The hat was
soaked through and through, and the ribbons were limp and faded; but he
did not care a rap what became of them, he said to himself, when Howard
spoke of them and their condition, saying that bad as they were he
presumed she wanted them.
Amy on the contrary was instantly on the alert, and as they passed
through the hall from the dining-room, and she saw the poor crushed hat,
she said to Jack, "Is it hers?"
"Yes, and I'm afraid it is ruined," Jack answered, taking it in his hand
and examining it critically.
"I will fix it," Amy replied, and, carrying it to her room, she tried to
bend it into shape and renovate the bows of ribbon.
But it was beyond her skill.
"She can never wear it. I must send her one of mine," she said,
selecting a hat which she wore when walking in the park. "You must take
it to the young lady at Mrs. Biggs's. What is her name? I don't think I
understood; they were all talking together and confused me so," she said
to her maid, who had heard of the adventure from Sam, but had not caught
the right name.
"It is Louise something. I don't remember what," she replied.
"Louise! That sounds like baby's name, and it makes my head ache to
think of it," Amy said sadly, going to the window, and looking out at
the rain and fog, for the weather had not cleared.
It was a wet morning, and Howard, who liked his ease, shrugged his
shoulders when Jack suggested that they should call upon Miss Smith.
"She ought to have her satchel and her hat," Jack said, and Howard
replied, "Oh, Amy sent Sarah off with a hat half an hour ago. She would
send all her wardrobe if she thought the girl wanted it, and, by George!
why didn't she send a pair of boots? She has dozens of them, I dare
say," he continued, as he recalled the bits of leather they had cut from
Eloise's foot, and left on Mrs. Biggs's floor.
Jack had spoken of her boots, and he readily acceded to Howard's
proposition to ask Amy if she had any cast-offs she thought would fit
Miss Smith. "They must wear about the same size, the girl is so slight,"
Howard said as he went to Amy's room, where he found her still standing
by the window drumming upon the pane as if fingering a piano and humming
softly to herself. She never touched the grand instrument in the
drawing-room, and when asked to do so and sing, she answered, "I can't;
I can't. It would bring it all back and shake up the bottle. I hate the
memory of it when I sang to the crowd and they applauded. I hear them
now; it is baby's death knell. I can never sing again as I did then."
And yet she did sing often to herself, but so low that one could
scarcely understand her words, except to know they were some negro
melody sung evidently as a lullaby to a child. As Howard came up to her
he caught the words, "Mother's lil baby," and knew it was what she
sometimes sang with the red cloak hugged to her bosom.
"Miss Amy," he said, "I wonder if you haven't a pair of half-worn boots
for the young lady at Mrs. Biggs's? We had to cut one of hers off, her
foot was so swollen."
Amy was interested at once, and ordered Sarah, who had returned from
Mrs. Biggs's, to bring out all her boots and slippers, insisting that
several pairs be sent for the girl to choose from. Sarah suggested that
slippers would be better than boots, as the young lady could not wear
the latter in her present condition.
"Yes," Amy said, selecting a pair of white satin slippers, with high
French heels and fanciful rosettes. "I wore them the night he told me
baby was dead. I've never had them on since. I don't want them. Give
them to her. They are hateful to me."
Amy was in a peculiar mood this morning, such as sometimes came upon her
and made Peter say she was a chip of the old block, meaning the Colonel,
who he never for a moment doubted was her father. Sarah's suggestion
that white satin slippers would be out of place made no difference. They
must go. She was more stubborn than usual, and Sarah accounted for it by
saying in a low tone to Howard, "Certain spells of weather always affect
her and send her back to a night when something dreadful must have
happened. Probably the baby she talks about died. She's thinking about
it now. Better take the slippers. I've heard her talk of them before and
threaten to burn them."
"All right," Howard said. "Miss Smith can send them back if she does not
want them."
The slippers were made into a parcel so small that Howard put them in
his pocket and said he was ready. It had stopped raining, and as the
young men preferred to walk they set off through the park, laughing over
their errand and the phase of excitement in which they found themselves.
Jack liked it, and Howard, too, began to like it, or said he should if
the girl proved as good-looking by daylight as she had been in the
night.