Waiting in Hosmer's buggy for the arrival of the Greenstream stage and
Phebe Braley, Calvin was conscious of the persistence of the depression
that had invaded him at the announcement of her visit. He resented,
too, the new element thrust into the Braley household, disrupting the
familiar course of his love. Hannah had been unreasonably distracted by
the actuality of Phebe's return--the Phebe who had gone away from the
mountains and become an actress.
The buggy was drawn to one side of the principal Greenstream road,
at the post-office. Before him the way crossed the valley and lifted
abruptly to the slope of the eastern range. At his back the village--the
brick Methodist church and the white painted Presbyterian church, the
courthouse with its dignified columns, the stores at the corners of the
single crossroads, and varied dwellings--was settling into the elusive
May twilight. The highest peaks in the east were capped with dissolving
rose by the lowering sun, and the sky was a dusty blue.
Calvin Stammark heard the approaching stage before he saw it; then the
long rigid surrey with its spare horses rapidly rolled up over the open
road to the post-office. He got down and moved diffidently forward,
seeing and recognizing Phebe immediately. This was made possible by her
resemblance to Hannah; and yet, Calvin added, no two women could be more
utterly different.
Phebe Braley had a full figure--she was almost stout--a body of the
frankest emphasized curves in a long purple coat with a collar of soiled
white fur. A straw hat with the brim caught by a short purple-dyed
ostrich feather was pinned to a dead-looking crinkled mass of
greenish-gold hair, and her face--the memorable features of Hannah--was
loaded with pink powder.
Calvin said: “You must be Phebe Braley. Well, I'm Calvin Stammark. Your
father or Hosmer couldn't meet the stage and so they had to let me get
you. Where's your bag?”
She adopted at once an air of comfortable familiarity. “I don't remember
your name,” she said, settling beside him in the buggy.
He told her that he had come to this vicinity after she had gone and
that he was about to marry her sister.
“The hell you say!” she replied with cheerful surprise. “Who'd thought
Hannah was old enough to have a fellow!”
They were out of the village now and she produced a paper pack of
cigarettes from a leather hand bag with a florid gilt top. Flooding her
being with smoke she gazed with a shudder at the mountain wall on either
hand, the unbroken greenery sweeping to the sky.
“It's worse than I remembered,” she confided, resting against him. “A
person with any life to them would go dippy here. Say, it's fierce! And
yet, inside of me, I'm kind of glad to see it. I used to dream about the
mountains, and this is like riding in the dream. I'm glad you came for
me and let me down easy into things. I suppose they live in the kitchen
home and pa'd lose a currycomb in his beard. Does Hosmer still beller if
he gets the chicken neck?
“Do you sit in the holy parlor for your courting, and ain't that plush
sofa a God-forsaken perch for two little love birds? It's funny how I
remember this and that. I reckon ma's temper don't improve with age.
They kid me something dreadful about saying 'reckon,' in the talent. But
it's all good and a dam' sight better than 'I guess.' That's all they
get off me.”
Calvin Stammark's vague uneasiness changed to an acute dislike, even a
fear of Phebe. Her freedom of discourse and person, the powdered hard
fare close to his, the reek of scent--all rasped the delicacy of his
love for Hannah. The sisters were utterly different, and yet he
would have realized instantly their relationship. Phebe, too, had the
disturbing quality that made Hannah so appealing. In the former it was
coarsened, almost lost; almost but not quite.
“I'll bet,” she continued, “that I'm the only female prodigal on the
bills. Not that I've been feeding on husks. Not me. Milwaukee lager and
raw beef sandwiches. I have a passion for them after the show. We do
two a day and I want solid refreshment. I wonder if you ever saw me. Of
course you didn't, but you might have. Ned Higmann's Parisian Dainties.
Rose Rayner's what I go by. That's French, but spelled different, and
means brightness. And I'm bright, Casper.
“My, what are you so glum about--the dump you live in or matrimony?
There was a gentleman in an orchestra in Harrisburg wanted to marry
me--he played the oboe--but I declined. Too Bohemian.... This is where
we turn,” she cried instinctively, and they swung into the valley where
the Braleys had their clearing.
Phebe crushed the cigarette in her fingers. Suddenly she was nervous.
“It's natural I have changed a lot,” she said. “If you hear me saying
anything rough pinch me.”
Richmond Braley was standing beside his house in the muddy clothes
in which he had labored on the roads, and Mrs. Braley and Hannah came
eagerly forward. Behind them sounded Susan's racking cough. Sentimental
tears rolled dustily over Phebe's cheeks as she kissed and embraced her
mother and sisters.
“H'y,” Richmond Braley awkwardly saluted her; and “H'y,” she answered in
the local manner.
“Well,” he commented, “you hain't forgotten that anyway.”
Calvin was asked to stay for the supper that had been delayed for
Phebe's return, but when he declined uncertainly he wasn't pressed.
Putting up Hosmer's rig and saddling his own horse he rode slowly and
dejectedly on.
Instead of going directly back to Greenstream he followed the way that
led to his new house. The evening was silvery with a full brilliant
moon, and the fresh paint and bright woodwork were striking against the
dark elevated background of trees. The truck patch would be dug on the
right, the clearing widen rod by rod. From Alderwith's meadows came the
soft blowing of a steer's nostrils, while the persistent piping of the
frogs in the hollows fluctuated in his depressed consciousness.
Calvin had drawn rein and sat on his horse in the road. He was trying to
picture Hannah standing in the door waiting for him, to hear her calling
him from work; but always Phebe intervened with her travesty of Hannah's
clear loveliness.