It was Christmas Eve, and Kate Dayton, one of Pomford’s pretty girls,
had found the Little Gray Lady sitting alone before the fire gazing into
the ashes, her small frame almost hidden in the roomy chair. The winter
twilight had long since settled and only the flickering blaze of the
logs and the dim glow from one lone candle illumined the room. This,
strange to say, was placed on a table in a corner where its rays shed
but little light in the room.
“Oh! Cousin Annie,” moaned Kate (everybody in Pomford who got close
enough to touch the Little Gray Lady’s hand called her “Cousin
Annie”--it was only the outside world who knew her by her other
sobriquet), “I didn’t mean anything. Mark came in just at the wrong
minute, and--and--” The poor girl’s tears smothered the rest.
“Don’t let him go, dearie,” came the answer, when she had heard the
whole story, the girl on her knees, her head in her lap, the wee hand
stroking the fluff of golden hair dishevelled in her grief.
“Oh, but he won’t stay!” moaned Kate. “He says he is going to Rio--way
out to South America to join his Uncle Harry.”
“He won’t go, dearie--not if you tell him the truth and make him tell
you the truth. Don’t let your pride come in; don’t beat around the bush
or make believe you are hurt or misunderstood, or that you don’t care.
You do care. Better be a little humble now than humble all your life. It
only takes a word. Hold out your hand and say: ‘I’m sorry, Mark--please
forgive me.’ If he loves you--and he does--”
The girl raised her head: “Oh! Cousin Annie! How do you know?”
She laughed gently. “Because he was here, dearie, half an hour ago
and told me so. He thought you owed him the dance, and he was a little
jealous of Tom.”
“But Tom had asked me--”
“Yes--and so had Mark--”
“Yes--but he had no right--” She was up in arms again: she wouldn’t--she
couldn’t--and again an outburst of tears choked her words.
The Little Gray Lady had known Kate’s mother, now dead, and what might
have happened but for a timely word--and she knew to her own sorrow
what had happened for want of one. Kate and Mark should not repeat that
experience if she could help it. She had saved the mother in the old
days by just such a word. She would save the daughter in the same way.
And the two were much alike--same slight, girlish figure; same blond
hair and blue eyes; same expression, and the same impetuous, high-strung
temperament. “If that child’s own mother walked in this minute I
couldn’t tell ‘em apart, they do favor one another so,” old Margaret
had told her mistress when she opened the door for the girl, and she
was right. Pomford village was full of these hereditary likenesses. Mark
Dab-ney, whom all the present trouble was about, was so like his father
at his age that his Uncle Harry had picked Mark out on a crowded dock
when the lad had visited him in Rio the year before, although he had
not seen the boy’s father for twenty years--so strong was the family
likeness.
If there was to be a quarrel it must not be between the Dabneys and the
Daytons, of all families. There had been suffering enough in the old
days.
“Listen, dearie,” she said in her gentle, crooning tone, patting the
girl’s cheek as she talked. “A quarrel where there is no love is soon
forgotten, but a difference when both love may, if not quickly healed,
leave a scar that will last through life.”
“There are as good fish in the sea as were ever caught,” cried the girl
in sheer bravado, brushing away her tears.
“Don’t believe it, dearie--and don’t ever say it. That has wrecked more
lives than you know. That is what I once knew a girl to say--a girl just
about your age--”
“But she found somebody else, and that’s just what I’m going to do.
I’m not going to have Mark read me a lecture every time I want to do
something he doesn’t like. Didn’t your girl find somebody else?”
“No--never. She is still unmarried.”
“Yes--but it wasn’t her fault, was it?”
“Yes--although she did not know it at the time. She opened a door
suddenly and found her lover alone with another girl. The two had stolen
off together where they would not be interrupted. He was pleading for
his college friend--straightening out just some such foolish quarrel as
you have had with Mark--but the girl would not understand; nor did she
know the truth until a year afterward. Then it was too late.”
The Little Gray Lady stopped, lifted her hand from the girl’s head, and
turned her face toward the now dying fire.
“And what became of him?” asked the girl in a hushed voice, as if she
dared not awaken the memory.
“He went away and she has never seen him since.”
For some minutes there was silence, then Kate said in a braver tone:
“And he married somebody else?”
“No.”
“Well, then, she died?”
“No.”
The Littie Lady had not moved, nor had she taken her eyes from the
blaze. She seemed to be addressing some invisible body who could hear
and understand. The girl felt its influence and a tremor ran through
her. The fitful blaze casting weird shadows helped this feeling. At
last, with an effort, she asked:
“You say you know them both, Cousin Annie?”
“Yes--he was my dear friend. I was just thinking of him when you came
in.”
The charred logs broke into a heap of coals; the blaze flickered and
died. But for the lone candle in the corner the room would have been in
total darkness.
“Shall I light another candle, Cousin Annie?” shivered the girl, “or
bring that one nearer?”
“No, it’s Christmas Eve, and I only light one candle on Christmas Eve.”
“But what’s one candle! Why, father has the whole house as bright as day
and every fire blazing.” The girl sprang to her feet and stepped nearer
the hearth. She would be less nervous, she thought, if she moved about,
and then the warmth of the fire was somehow reassuring. “Please let me
light them all, Cousin Annie,” she pleaded, reaching out her hand toward
a cluster in an old-fashioned candelabra--“and if there aren’t enough
I’ll get more from Margaret.”
“No, no--one will do. It is an old custom of mine; I’ve done it for
twenty years.”
“But don’t you love Christmas?” Kate argued, her nervousness increasing.
The ghostly light and the note of pain in her companion’s voice were
strangely affecting.
The Little Gray Lady leaned forward in her chair and looked long and
steadily at the heap of smouldering ashes; then she answered slowly,
each word vibrating with the memory of some hidden sorrow: “I’ve had
mine, dearie.”
“But you can have some more,” urged Kate.
“Not like those that have gone before, dearie--no, not like those.”
Something in the tones of her voice and quick droop of the dear head
stirred the girl to her depths. Sinking to her knees she hid her face in
the Little Lady’s lap.
“And you sit here in the dark with only one candle?” she whispered.
“Yes, always,” she answered, her fingers stroking the fair hair. “I can
see those I have loved better in the dark. Sometimes the room is full of
people; I have often to strain my eyes to assure myself that the door is
really shut. All sorts of people come--the girls and boys I knew when I
was young. Some are dead; some are far away; some so near that should I
open the window and shout their names many of them could hear. There are
fewer above ground every year--but I welcome all who come. It’s the old
maid’s hour, you know--this twilight hour. The wives are making ready
the supper; the children are romping; lovers are together in the corner
where they can whisper and not be overheard. But none of this disturbs
me--no big man bursts in, letting in the cold. I have my chair, my
candle, my thoughts, and my fire. When you get to be my age, Kate, and
live alone--and you might, dearie, if Mark should leave you--you will
love these twilight hours, too.”
The girl reached up her hands and touched the Little Gray Lady’s cheek,
whispering:
“But aren’t you very, _very_ lonely. Cousin Annie?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
For a moment Kate remained silent, then she asked in a faltering voice
through which ran a note almost of terror:
“Do you think I shall ever be like--like--that is--I shall ever be--all
alone?”
“I don’t know, dearie. No one can ever tell what will happen. I never
thought twenty years ago I should be all alone--but I am.”
The girl raised her head, and with a cry of pain threw her arms around
the Little Gray Lady’s neck:
“Oh, no!--no! I can’t bear it!” she sobbed! “I’ll tell Mark! I’ll send
for him--to-night-before I go to bed!”