By the end of the week a long rain had set in, and while it
lasted Christopher took down the tobacco hanging in the roof of
the log barn and laid it in smooth piles, pressed down by boards
on the ground. The tobacco was still soft from the moist season
when Jim Weatherby, who had sold his earlier in the year, came
over to help pack the large casks for market, bringing at the
same time a piece of news concerning Bill Fletcher.
"It seems Will met the old man somewhere on the road and they
came to downright blows," he said. "Fletcher broke a hickory
stick over the boy's shoulders."
Christopher carefully sorted a pile of plants, and then,
selecting the finest six leaves, wrapped them together by means
of a smaller one which he twisted tightly about the stems.
"Ah, is that so?" he returned, with a troubled look.
"It's a pretty kettle of fish, sure enough," pursued Jim. "Of
course, Will has made a fool of himself, and gone to the dogs and
all that, but I must say it does seem a shame, when you think
that old Fletcher can't take his money with him to the next
world. As for pure stinginess, I don't believe he'd find his
match if he scoured the country. Why, they say his granddaughter
barely gets enough to eat. Look here! What are you putting in
that bad leaf for. It's worm-eaten all over."
"So it is," admitted Christopher, examining it with a laugh. "My
eyesight must be failing me. But what good under heaven does his
money do Fletcher, after all?"
"Oh, he's saving it up to leave to foreign missions, Tom Spade
says. Mr. Carraway is coming down next week to draw up a new
will."
"And his grandchildren come in for nothing?"
"It looks that way--but you can't see through Bill Fletcher, so
nobody knows. The funny part is that he has taken rather a liking
to Mrs. Wyndham, I hear, and she has even persuaded him to raise
the wages of his hands. It's a pity she can't patch up a peace
with Will--the quarrel seems to distress her very much."
"You have seen her, then?"
"Yesterday, for a minute. She stopped me near the store and asked
for news of Will. There was nothing I could tell her except that
they dragged along somehow with Sol Peterkin's help. That's a
fine woman, Fletcher or no Fletcher."
"Well, she can't help that--it's merely a question of name.
There's Cynthia calling us to dinner. We'll have to fill the
hogsheads later on."
But when the meal was over and he was returning to his work,
Cynthia followed him with a message from his mother.
"She has asked for you all the morning, Christopher; there's
something on her mind, though she seems quite herself and in a
very lively humour. It is impossible to get her away from the
subject of marriage--she harps on it continually."
He had turned to enter the house at her first words, but now his
face clouded, and he hung back before the door.
"Do you think I'd better go in?" he asked, hesitating.
"There's no getting out of it without making her feel neglected,
and perhaps your visit may divert her thoughts. I'm sure I don't
see what she has left to say on the subject."
"All right, I'll go," he said cheerfully; "but for heaven's sake,
help me drum up some fresh topics."
Mrs. Blake was sitting up in bed, sipping a glass of port wine,
and at Christopher's step she turned her groping gaze helplessly
in his direction.
"What a heavy tramp you have, my son; you must be almost as large
as your father."
Crossing the room as lightly as his rude boots permitted,
Christopher stooped to kiss the cheek she held toward him. The
old lady had wasted gradually to the shadow of herself, and the
firelight from the hearth shone through the unearthly pallor of
her face and hands. Her beautiful white hair was still arranged,
over a high cushion, in an elaborate fashion, and her gown of
fine embroidered linen was pinned together with a delicate cameo
brooch.
"I have been talking very seriously to Lila," she began at once,
as he sat down by the bedside. "My age is great, you know, and it
is hardly probable that the good Lord will see fit to leave me
much longer to enjoy the pleasures of this world. Now, what
troubles me more than all else is that I am to die feeling that
the family will pass utterly away. Is it possible that both Lila
and yourself persist in your absurd and selfish determination to
remain unmarried?"
"Oh, mother! mother!" groaned Lila from the fireplace.
"You needn't interrupt me, Lila; you know quite well that a
family is looked at askance when all of its members remain
single. Surely one old maid--and I am quite reconciled to poor
Cynthia's spinsterhood--is enough to leaven things, as your
father used to say--"
Her memory slipped from her for a moment; she caught at it
painfully, and a peevish expression crossed her face.
"What was I saying, Lila? I grow so forgetful."
"About father, dear."
"No, no; I remember now--it was about your marrying. Well, well,
as I said before, I fear your attitude is the result of some
sentimental fancies you have found in books. My child, there was
never a book yet that held a sensible view of love, and I hope
you will pay no attention to what they say. As for waiting until
you can't live without a man before you marry him--tut-tut! the
only necessary question is to ascertain if you can possibly live
with him. There is a great deal of sentiment talked in life, my
dear, and very little lived--and my experience of the world has
shown me that one man is likely to make quite as good a husband
as another--provided he remains a gentleman and you don't expect
him to become a saint. I've had a long marriage, my children, and
a happy one. Your father fell in love with me at his first
glance, and he did not hate me at his last, though the period
covered an association of thirty years. We were an ideal couple,
all things considered, and he was a very devoted husband; but to
this day I have not ceased to be thankful that he was never
placed in the position where he had to choose between me and his
dinner. Honestly, I may as well confess among us three, it makes
me nervous when I think of the result of such a pass."
"Oh, mother," protested Lila reproachfully; "if I listened to you
I should never want to marry any man."
"I'm sure I don't see why, my dear. I have always urged it as a
duty, not advised it as a pleasure. As far as that goes, I hold
to this day the highest opinion of matrimony and of men, though I
admit, when I consider the attention they require, I sometimes
feel that women might select a better object. When the last word
is said, a man is not half so satisfactory a domestic pet as a
cat, and far less neat in his habits. Your poor father would
throw his cigar ashes on the floor to the day of his death, and I
could never persuade him to use an ash-tray, though I gave him
one regularly every Christmas that he lived. Do you smoke cigars,
Christopher? I detect a strong odour of tobacco about you, and I
hope you haven't let Tucker persuade you into using anything so
vulgar as a pipe. The worst effect of a war, I am inclined to
believe, is the excuse it offers every man who fought in it to
fall into bad habits."
"Oh, it's Uncle Tucker's pipe you smell," replied Christopher,
with a laugh, as he rose from his chair. "I detest the stuff and
always did."
"I suppose I ought to be thankful for it," said Mrs. Blake,
detaining him by a gesture, "but I can't help recalling a speech
of Micajah Blair's, who said that a woman who didn't flirt and a
man who didn't smoke were unsexed creatures. It is a commendable
eccentricity, I suppose, but an eccentricity, good or bad, is
equally to be deplored. Your grandfather always said that the man
who was better than his neighbours was quite as unfortunate as
the man who was worse. Who knows but that your dislike of tobacco
and your aversion to marriage may result from the same peculiar
quirk in your brain?"
"Well, it's there and I can't alter it, even to please you,
mother," declared Christopher from the door. "I've set my face
square against them both, and there it stands."
He went out laughing, and Mrs. Blake resigned herself with a sigh
to her old port.
The rain fell heavily, whipping up foaming puddles in the muddy
road and beating down the old rosebushes in the yard.
As Christopher paused for a moment in the doorway before going to
the barn he drew with delight the taste of the dampness into his
mouth and the odour of the moist earth into his nostrils. The
world had taken on a new and appealing beauty, and yet the
colourless landscape was touched with a sadness which he had
never seen in external things until to-day.
His ears were now opened suddenly, his eyes unbandaged, and he
heard the rhythmical fall of the rain and saw the charm of the
brown fields with a vividness that he had never found in his
enjoyment of a summer's day. Human life also moved him to
responsive sympathy, and he felt a great aching tenderness for
his blind mother and for his sisters, with their narrowed and
empty lives. His own share in the world, he realised, was but
that of a small, insignificant failure; he had been crushed down
like a weed in his tobacco field, and for a new springing-up he
found neither place nor purpose. The facts of his own life were
not altered by so much as a shadow, yet on the outside life that
was not his own he beheld a wonderful illumination.
His powerful figure filled the doorway, and Cynthia, coming up
behind him, raised herself on tiptoe to touch his bared head.
"Your hair is quite wet, Christopher; be sure to put on your hat
and fasten the oilcloth over your shoulders when you go back to
the barn. You are so reckless that you make me uneasy. Why, the
rain has soaked entirely through your shirt."
"Oh, I'm a pine knot; you needn't worry."
She sighed impatiently and went back to the kitchen, while his
gaze travelled slowly along the wet gray road to the abandoned
ice-pond, and he thought of his meeting with Maria in the
darkness and of the light of the lantern shining on her face. He
remembered her white hands against her black dress, her fervent
eyes under the grave pallor of her brow, her passionate, kind
voice, and her mouth with the faint smile which seemed never to
fade utterly away. Love, which is revealed usually as a pleasant
disturbing sentiment resulting from the ordinary purposes of
life, had come to him in the form of a great regenerating force,
destroying but that it might rebuild anew.