When the furniture Calvin had ordered through the catalogue at Priest's
store arrived by mountain wagon he placed it in the room beside the
kitchen that was to have been Hannah's and his. Hannah had gone three
weeks before with Phebe. This done he sat for a long while on the
portico of his house, facing the rich bottom pasturage and high verdant
range beyond. It was late afternoon and the rift was filling with a
golden haze from a sun veiled in watery late-spring vapors. An old apple
tree by the road was flushed with pink blossoms and a mocking bird was
whistling with piercing sweetness.
Soon it would be evening and the frogs would begin again, the frogs
and whippoorwills. The valley, just as Hannah had said, was lonely.
He stirred and later found himself some supper--in the kitchen where
everything was new.
On the following morning he left the Greenstream settlement; it
was Friday, and Monday he returned with Ettie, his sister. She was
remarkably like him--tall and angular, with a gaunt face and steady blue
eyes. Older than Calvin, she had settled into a complete acquiescence
with whatever life brought; no more for her than the keeping of her
brother's house. Calvin, noting the efficient manner in which she
ordered their material affairs, wondered at the fact that she had not
been married. Men were unaccountable, but none more than himself, with
his unquenchable longing for Hannah.
This retreated to the back of his being. He never spoke of her. Indeed
he tried to put her from his thoughts, and with a measure of success.
But it never occurred to him to consider any other girl; that
possibility was closed. Those he saw--and they were uniformly kind, even
inviting--were dull after Hannah.
Instead he devoted himself to the equivalent, in his undertakings,
of Ettie's quiet capability. The following year a small number of the
steers grazing beyond the road were his; in two years more Senator
Alderwith died, and there was a division of his estate, in which Calvin
assumed large liabilities, paying them as he had contracted. The timber
in Sugarloaf Valley drew speculators--he sold options and bought a place
in the logging development.
It seemed to him that he grew older, in appearance anyhow, with
exceptional rapidity; his face grew leaner and his beard, which he
continued to shave, was soiled with gray hair.
He avoided the Braleys and their clearing; and when circumstance drew
him into conversation with Richmond or Hosmer he studiously spoke of
indifferent things. He heard nothing of Hannah. Yet he learned in the
various channels of communication common to remote localities that
Richmond Braley was doing badly. Hosmer went to bank in one of the
newly prosperous towns of West Virginia and apparently left all
family obligations behind; Susan died of lung fever; and then, at the
post-office, Calvin was told that Richmond himself was dangerously sick.
He left the mail with Ettie at his door and rode on, turning for the
first time in nine years into the narrow valley of the Braleys' home.
The place had been neglected until it was hardly distinguishable from
the surrounding tangled wild. Such sheep as he saw were in wretched
condition, wild and massed with filth and burrs.
Mrs. Braley was filling a large glass flask with hot water for her
husband; and to Calvin's surprise a child with a quantity of straight
pale-brown hair and wide-opened hazel-brown eyes was seated in the
kitchen watching her.
“How is Richmond?” he asked, his gaze straying involuntarily to the
girl.
“Kingdom Come's how he is,” Lucy Braley replied. “Yes, and the poorhouse
will end us unless Hosmer has a spark of good feeling. I sent him
a postal card to come a long while back, but he hasn't so much as
answered. Here, Lucy”--she turned to the child--“run up with this.”
“Lucy?” Calvin Stammark asked when they were alone.
“Been here two weeks,” Mrs. Braley told him. “What will become of her's
beyond me. She is Hannah's daughter, and Hannah is dead.”
There was a sharp constriction of Calvin's heart. Hannah's daughter, and
Hannah was dead!
“As far as I know,” the other continued in a strained metallic voice,
“the child's got no father you could fix. Her mother wrote the name was
Lucy Vibard, and she'd called her after me. But when I asked her she
didn't seem to know anything about it.
“Hannah was alone and dog poor when she died, that's certain. Like
everything else I can lay mind on she came to a bad end--Lord reckons
where Phebe is. I always thought you were weak fingered to let Hannah
go--with that house built and all. I suppose maybe you weren't, though;
well out of a slack bargain.”
Calvin Stammark scarcely heard her; his being was possessed by the
pitiable image of Hannah dying alone and dog poor. He had always
pictured her--except in the fleet vision of debasement--as young and
graceful and disturbing. Without further speech he left the kitchen and
crossed the house to the shut parlor. It was screened against the day,
dim and musty and damp. The orange plush of the chairs and the narrow
uncomfortable sofa, carefully dusted, was as bright as it had been when
he had last seen it--was it ten years ago?
Here she had stood, her fingers tapping on the table, when he had made
the unfortunate remark about Phebe; the lamplight had illuminated her
right cheek. Here she had proclaimed her impatience with Greenstream,
with its loneliness, her hunger for life. Here he had lost her. A
sudden need to see Hannah's daughter invaded him and he returned to the
kitchen.
The child was present, silent; she had Hannah's eyes, Hannah's hair.
Seated by Richmond Braley's bed he realized instantly that the old man
was dying; and mentally he composed the urgent message to be sent to
Hosmer. But that failed to settle the problem of Lucy's safety--Hannah's
Lucy, who might have been his too. The solution of that difficulty
slowly took form in his thoughts. There was no need to discuss it with
Ettie--his duty, yes, and his desire was clear.
He took her home directly after Richmond's funeral, an erratic wind
blowing her soft loose hair against his face as he drove.