"There's a good many things I've wanted to talk over with you, 'Melia,
from time to time. Now there's Arthur."
Amelia nodded.
"He ain't done very well, has he?" she inquired. "I never knew much
about him after he moved away; but seems if I heard he'd took to drink."
"That's it. Arthur was as good a boy as ever stepped, but he got led
away when he wa'n't old enough to know t'other from which. Well, I've
always stood by him, 'Melia. Folks say he's only an adopted brother.
'What you want to hang on to him for, an' send good money after bad?'
That's what they say. Well, what if he is an adopted brother? Father
an' mother set by him, an' I set by him, too."
He had a worried look, and his tone rang fretfully, as if it continued a
line of dreary argument.
"Of course you set by him, Jared," said Amelia, almost indignantly. "I
shouldn't feel the same towards you if you didn't."
Jared was deep in the relief of his pathetic confidences.
"Arthur married young, an' folks said he'd no business to, nothin' to
live on, an' his habits bein' what they were. Well, I couldn't dispute
that. But when he got that fall, so 't he laid there paralyzed, I wanted
to take the cars an' go right on to York State an' see him. I didn't. I
couldn't get away; but I sent him all I could afford to, an' I'm goin'
to keep on sendin' jest as long as I'm above ground. An' I've made my
will an' provided for him."
His voice had a fractious tone, as if he combated an unseen tyrant.
Amelia dared not speak. At a word, she felt, he might say too much. Now
Jared was looking at her in a bright appeal, as if, sure as he was of
her sympathy, he besought the expression of it.
"There ain't a soul but you knows I've made my will, 'Melia," he said.
"There's suthin' in it for you, too."
Amelia shrank, and her eyes betrayed her terror; it was as if she could
carry on their relation together quite happily, but as soon as the
judgment of the world were challenged she must hide it away, like a
treasure in a box.
"No, Jared!" she breathed. "No, oh, no! Don't you do such a thing as
that."
Jared laughed a little, but half sadly.
"Seems kinder queer to me now," he owned, "now I see you settin' here,
only to put out your hand an' take a thing if you want it. Did Rufus
leave a will?"
Amelia shrank still smaller.
"No," she trembled; "no, he didn't leave a will."
"Well, I sha'n't change mine, 'Melia." He spoke with an ostentatious
lightness, but Amelia was aware that his mind labored in heavy seas of
old regret, buoyed by the futile hope of compensating her age for the
joys her youth had lacked. "I guess I'll let it stand as 'tis, an', long
as you don't need what I've left ye, why, you can put it into some kind
o' folderol an' enjoy it. You was always one to enjoy things."
They sat a long time at the table, and Jared took, as he said, more
coffee than was good for him, and praised the making of it. Then he
followed her about as she cleared away, and helped her a little with an
awkward hand. Amelia left the dishes in the sink.
"I won't clear up till night," she said. "We ain't talked out yet."
She led the way into the garden, and under the grape-trellis, where the
tall lilac-hedge shut them from the sight of passers-by, she gave him
old lady Knowles's great armchair, and took the little one that was hers
when she came over to sit a while with her old friend. The talk went
wandering back as if it sought the very sources of youth and life; but
somehow it touched commonplaces only. Yet Amelia had the sense, and she
was sure he had, too, of wandering there hand in hand, of finding no
surprises, but only the old things grown more dear, the old loyalties
the more abiding.
Suddenly he spoke, haltingly, voicing her own conviction.
"Don't seem but a minute, 'Melia, sence we set talkin' things over, much
as we do now. Seems if we hadn't been so fur separated all these years."
"No," said Amelia, with her beautiful sincerity, "I don't believe we
have been, Jared. Maybe that's how it is when folks die. We can't see
'em nor speak to 'em, but maybe they go right along bein' what we like
best. I know 'tis so with mother. Seems if, if she walked in here this
minute, we shouldn't have so very many stitches to take up. Sometimes
I've thought all I should say would be, 'Well, mother, you've got back,
ain't you?' Kinder like that."
The beautiful afternoon light lay on the grass and turned the grapevine
to a tender green. Jared looked upon the land as if he were treasuring
it in his heart for a day of loss. When the sun was low, and green and
red were flaming in the west, he rose.
"Well, 'Melia," he said, "I've seen you. Now I'll go."
Amelia stirred, too, recalled to service.
"I want to make you a cup o' tea," she said. "You get me a pail o' fresh
water, Jared. 'Twon't take but a minute."
He followed her about, this time, while she set the table; and again
they broke bread together. When he rose from his chair now, it was for
good.
"Well, 'Melia," he said; and she gave him her hand.
She went with him to the door, and stood there as he started down the
path. Half-way he hesitated, and then came back to her. His eyes were
soft and kindly.
"'Melia," he said, "I ain't told you the half, an' I dunno 's I can tell
it now. I never knew how things were with you. I've laid awake nights,
wonderin'. You never was very strong. 'Why,' says I to myself many a
night when I'd hear the wind blowin' ag'inst the winder, 'mebbe she's
had to go out to work. Mebbe she ain't got a place to lay her head.'"
He was rushing on in a full tide of confidence, and she recalled him.
She leaned forward to him, out of the doorway of her beautiful house,
and spoke in an assuring tone.
"Don't you worry no more, Jared. I'm safe an' well content, an' you
ain't got nothin' to regret. An' when we meet again,--I guess 'twon't be
here, dear, it'll be t'other side,--why, we'll sit down an' have another
dish o' talk."
Then they shook hands again, and Jared walked away. When he looked back
from the top of Schoolma'am Hill, she was still in the doorway, and she
waved her hand to him.
After that last glimpse of him, Amelia went soberly about the house,
setting it in order. When her dishes were washed and she had fed old
Trot, the cat, forgotten all day, she rolled up the fine tablecloth and
left it behind the porch-door, where she could take it on her way home.
Then she sat down on the front steps and waited for old lady Knowles.
Amelia did not think very much about her day. It was still a possession
to be laid aside and pondered over all the hours and days until she
died. For there would be no other day like it.
The dusk fell and the sounds of night began to rise in their poignant
summoning of memory and hope. The past and the present seemed one to her
in a beautiful dream; yet it was not so much a dream as life itself, a
warm reality. Presently there came the slow thud of horse's feet, and
the chaise turned in at the yard. Old lady Knowles was in it, sitting
prettily erect, as she had driven away, and Ann was peering forward, as
she always did, to see if the house had burned down in their absence.
John Trueman, who lived "down the road," was lounging along behind. They
had called him as they passed, and bade him come to "tend the horse."
Amelia rose and shook herself free from the web of her dream. She
hurried forward and at the horse-block offered old lady Knowles her
hand.
"Anything happened?" asked old Ann, making her way past to the kitchen.
Amelia only smiled at her, but she followed old lady Knowles in at the
porch-door.
"We've had a very enjoyable day, Amelia," said the old lady, untying her
bonnet-strings. "Suppose you lay this on the table. Ann must brush it
before it's put away. What is it? Child, child, what is it?"
Amelia had taken a fold of her old friend's skirt. It would have seemed
to her a liberty to touch her hand.
"Mis' Knowles," she said, "I've had company. 'Twas somebody to see me,
an' I got dinner here, an' supper, too, an' I used your best tablecloth,
an' I'm goin' to do it up so 't Ann won't know. An' I acted for all the
world as if 'twas my own house."
Old lady Knowles laughed a little. She had never been a woman to whom
small things seemed large, and now very few things were of any size at
all.
"Who was it, Amelia?" she asked. "Who was your company?"
There was a moment's silence, and Amelia heard her own heart beat. But
she answered quietly,--
"'Twas Jared Beale."
There was silence again while old lady Knowles thought back over the
years. When she spoke, her voice was very soft and kindly.
"You are a good girl, Amelia. You've always been a good girl. Run home,
child, now, and come to-morrow. Good-night."
Amelia, out in the path a moment afterwards, the tablecloth under her
arm, could hardly believe in what had surely happened to her. Old lady
Knowles had bent forward to her; her soft lips had touched Amelia's
cheek.