"Somewhere in southern Indiana--a little town called Frithville," a man
answered her.
"If she could stand it to be taken over to the doctor's house--" said
the persistent first speaker.
"I can stand it," she interposed; "take me there quickly."
They improvised a sort of rough litter of mattresses, and carried her
across a field in the open country. The dawn was just breaking, and the
pale moon was slowly fading out of view before the great coming light.
The air was clear, cold, crisp; and, though there had evidently been a
heavy storm during the night, it had cleared completely, and the first
ray of sunlight glittered upon banks of frozen snow. The house before
which they stopped was a plain, two-storied wooden structure, which
seemed at first sight peculiarly barren-looking. Clean white curtains
hung in straight, scant folds at the windows. The door had been drab
in color, but the paint had been so assiduously scrubbed that one
now took its presence on trust. There was a brass knocker and a rush
door-mat, on which lay a large black cat with bristling white whiskers.
The door was opened by a severe Swedish girl, whose starched cap and
apron suggested careful housekeeping, as her suspicious countenance
suggested inhospitality. She made no objections to admitting them,
however, and Margaret was carefully deposited upon a couch in the
sitting-room to wait the coming of the doctor, who, the maid said, had
just left the house to go to the scene of the wreck.
"We'll send him back to you, ma'am, right off," one of the men assured
her. "You ought to be 'tended to first."
"Not if others are suffering and need him more," said Margaret faintly.
The ungenial looking Swede proved herself to be not deficient in
skill, even though sympathy was in a measure lacking. She made her
guest as comfortable as she could. The shoe was cut from the swollen
ankle, which was bathed and bandaged, and the hurts upon the shoulder
and side were pronounced to be only bruises which "Herr doctor would
make-right." And then Margaret was left to herself while the girl
went to make the inevitable "cup of tea," which was to set everything
straight.
At first she lay perfectly still, seeing nothing, and caring for
nothing, her mind full of vexation and impatience over an accident
which must delay the fulfilment of her engagement. It did not occur to
her that it might have been worse; anything was bad enough.
After awhile her eyes began to wander idly around the room. It seemed
half parlor, half study. Folding doors divided it from the office at
the back. There was a book-case, well filled; some good engravings
on the walls; a few easy-chairs covered with raw silk of a dull hue,
much worn; and a writing-table between the windows, half covered with
books and magazines. There was something agreeable to her taste in the
air of the room. She could imagine it the abode of a man whose very
poverty could never become squalid. The great open Franklin stove shone
brightly, and the hearth was scrupulously clean. Upon the mantel were a
bronze clock and a pair of fine vases, dainty in tone and finish; they
were the sole womanly touches about the place. Noting these details
half indifferently, she lay back again and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, they happened to glance directly over to a
corner of the room which had before been dim, but was now illuminated
by a shaft of sunlight. A carved bracket hung there, and on the shelf
lay a singular looking little instrument, shaped like a dagger, of
Moorish device, the handle inlaid with gold, left rough and unpolished.
When Margaret saw this small object, she gave a little cry and tried to
rise, but finding that impossible, she dropped back upon her pillows as
if she had been shot, her eyes fixed upon the little instrument with a
look of recognition that was half pleasure, half alarm. What strange
trick was fate about to play her? How could this thing be possible?
There was a noise: the front door opened, and some one came along the
hall with a firm, measured step. Margaret's heart, that well-regulated
organ, beat to suffocation. She hardly dared listen or look. She
threw her arm up over her forehead, nearly concealing her face. Some
one entered the room and paused beside her. A well-remembered voice,
graver, deeper than of yore, yet with a cheery ring in it, said, "Let
me see what I can do to help you, madam." A chair was drawn up to the
side of the couch, a gentle hand took her own. Her pulse was beating
furiously; the hand was held rather long, as if something perplexed
him. She felt searching eyes bent upon her face, and suddenly threw
down her arm. The doctor drew back, his face paling, and the two looked
at each other for a minute in silence. She spoke first, putting out her
hand timidly.
"Richard, don't you remember me?"
"Remember you? As if I were likely ever to forget you."
She softly touched his empty left sleeve, pinned over his breast, two
tears standing in her eyes.
"At Black Gulch," he said. "I have got over minding it. Don't grieve."
"You left the army?"
"Yes, four years ago. My health gave way. I studied medicine in
Indianapolis, was invited here by an old friend to become his
assistant, and shortly afterward he died. That is all."
"You never--never----"
"Yes; I married."
The words were an unexpected stab. Margaret gasped, amazed that she
should care. Her face suddenly became suffused with color, and she
turned it away.
"She only lived a year--Margaret," said the doctor, bending down to
study the fair, flushed face, suddenly pain-smitten.
"My ankle!" said Margaret faintly, drawing his attention to the lesser
hurt.
He was the doctor again at once, and, for the next half hour all
professional gravity, and as impersonal as the sphinx; yet the woman
felt through every nerve, like a musical vibration, the thrill of his
firm, warm fingers, the scrutiny of his eyes. He was changed, worn
through suffering rather than years, his face lined, his hair grown
gray; with nothing young about him but his eyes, which sparkled with
a cheer and brightness no grief could dim, for they mirrored a mind
above all personal considerations, concerned with those large, loving
interests belonging to humanity.
The woman felt the presence of this spirit, as if something beautiful
and good had settled softly down beside her, and mutely besought her
attention from herself and her narrow world. She struggled against it,
yet it was like a shaft of genial sun heat, entering suddenly some
frozen glen; she felt, in a heart purposely hardened against such
influences, a stir, a thaw; ice was breaking, and the long-stilled
waters of human affection began to flow in gentle currents, inspiring
a sensation of delight that astonished and abashed her.
The doctor came and went quietly, her eyes following him. When he
intercepted the look, she blushed like a schoolgirl. Too busy all that
day to give her more than necessary attention, he yet lost nothing that
passed and she had a sense which was oddly pleasant that he understood
something of what was passing in her mind. It was terrible, too. There
were moments when she wished herself miles away. Besides all the
physical pain which she endured that long day, Margaret's soul was the
battle-ground of a struggle far more exhausting. Ambition, pride, and
love of the world fought hard against a tender, newly-born impulse,
which it seemed that a single breath of reason ought to chill to death.
The coals burned red in the open stove; a little tea-table was set in
the middle of the room, and in the easiest chair in the house, piled
with all the available cushions, the doctor placed Margaret, taking
his position opposite her. The solemn Swedish girl brought in supper,
which was well cooked and served with a scrupulous cleanliness that
almost atoned for the absence of a more dainty service.
The doctor's face shone with satisfaction, but his manner, although
genial, was ceremonious. Margaret felt that, in the few feet
intervening between them, there lay years of care and grief and
disappointment. She felt a yearning to bridge the chasm, to draw nearer
to him, even though she herself had to take the hard steps toward
understanding.
Thought the woman: "Does he love me still?" And thought the man: "Is
she tired of the world, and could she learn to love me now?"
But they spoke of music; of camp-life on the western frontier; of what
they had seen, what they had read. Not a word of what they felt. A few
hours later the doctor stood in his bare little soldier's bedroom, and
looked in his glass. For five minutes he studied himself, and then he
turned away, resolved to let no new hope spring up in his heart. But
Margaret slept to dream of him, woke through the night thinking of him,
as she could not have thought in the old days, when he wooed her in the
confidence of his fresh, hopeful youth.
There was no hotel in the village, and the few scattered houses were
crowded with the wounded passengers, lying over till well enough to
proceed with their journey. Margaret was not sorry that there was
no other place for her than the refuge she had been taken to. "I am
thinking that I am singularly fortunate in being in the doctor's
house, where I get special attention," she said to him, with a little
fluttering smile.
In time these shy looks wrought upon the doctor, and his stern
resolution wavered. He found himself sounding her preferences and
attachments, with the unconfessed design of extracting some unguarded
word that might indicate a change in her old convictions. Carrying on
together these two processes--determination to refrain and resolution
to pursue, which often accompanies some course of action embraced in
accordance with a natural, unworldly judgment, he managed to betray to
the eager girl all he wished to conceal and she wished to know. She had
telegraphed to Baltimore that she would be there in ten days. Four of
them had passed, and she was free from pain and able to put her foot to
the ground. The doctor persisted in helping her from her couch to the
chair and back again.
"But I can walk alone now," she objected.
"We must be careful. Not until to-morrow." She protested with greater
earnestness. "True--I have but one arm," he said, with the first accent
of bitterness she had heard from him. Her lips parted to give utterance
to a sudden rush of words, but she only looked at him, with eyes so
eloquent that he answered the look.
"Margaret, do you care? Dear, I have always loved you, I love you
now,--can you care?"
She drooped her head on his shoulder, but said nothing. The doctor held
her close for a minute, and then, leaving her, began to walk up and
down the room.
"It is impossible!"
"It may be impossible," murmured Margaret with a little blush, "but--it
is true."
"It is cruel of me to ask it, dear. You are young, beautiful,
brilliant--with success at your feet, and I----"
She put up her hand imploringly. It was caught and held. "And I am
poor, obscure and--old," he finished, his eyes upon her face.
"I have come to you, Richard. It seemed strange to me. I cannot explain
it, but it seems as if everything the world has to offer me is nothing
beside----"
"Beside my love?" he bent on one knee beside her chair and put her hand
to his lips.
"I want to share your life," she said, and a new expression grew upon
her face, a high, devoted look which was half heroic, all womanly. "I
want to learn something of the great things, the true things."
"You have had greater things than I can give you. Think of all you are
leaving!"
She made a gesture of renunciation. "It does not seem much to
leave--for you."
"Ah, my darling, I am afraid you will regret it. The work-a-day world
will be a trial to you. And mine is a veritable work-a-day world."
He kept his eyes on her face, half dreading to see her shrink away. But
what woman is not won by an appearance of self-renunciation? Richard
could not have let her go now; at the last instant he would have
snatched her to his breast, had she drawn away. But the misgiving that
rushed over him so fiercely was a real one, a sensible one; he felt
it profoundly, and tried to read in her eyes a shadow of this coming
regret. But her eyes were clear, loving, radiant. She pressed herself
against his breast, and gave him the great gift of her life and her
future. Would the shadow ever come?
The moon looked softly in, an hour later, and finding the lovers in
that delicious dream which once in a lifetime comes to most men and
women, drew over her face a gray cloud-veil and left them to dream
on.
PINK AND BLACK[4]
ONE bright day in early spring, when the children had begun to hunt in
the woods for trailing arbutus, and the Shenandoah River reflected in
its clear depths the outlines of the overlooking mountains, a small,
straight figure, sensibly habited in a short gray gown, made its way
along the single paved street of Bloomdale to the principal store.
Young Heaton Smith, the handsome, blue-eyed son of the proprietor, came
forward with a smiling welcome. After a few minutes' preliminary talk,
Miss Phillida confessed that she had some notion of buying a dress.
He placed a stool in front of the counter extending along that side of
the store which was devoted to dry goods, and, with the air of one who
affords a pleasant surprise, laid before her several rolls of sheer,
silky stuff in dainty colorings; the most conspicuous being that which
bore bunches of deep pink rosebuds on a light brown ground.
"Beautiful!" murmured Miss Phillida, taking hold of the edge with a
delicate, blue-veined hand covered with a network of fine wrinkles.
"How Sister Emma would love this pattern!"
"Here's a blue," said Heaton, laying another before her. "Handsome,
aren't they? They come ten yards to a piece; just enough for a dress.
We only got 'em in yesterday."
"I am mightily taken with this pink, Heaton. But I reckon it's too
young-looking for me."
"You don't think yourself old, ma'am? Mother was saying, only the other
day, that none of the girls could beat you for complexion."
"Just hear the boy! If it was Sister Emma, you might talk so. I do
agree with anybody that calls her a beauty. But I reckon you don't
recollect Sister Emma, Heaton? You was a child when she went away."
"I recollect her, though. It's about ten years now, ain't it? I was
twelve then. I know I haven't forgot that big wedding-cake with the
twelve dozen eggs in it."
"Really, Heaton?" said Miss Phillida, coloring with pleasure. "I
was rather proud of that cake. Emma could make nice cake herself. I
suppose she's had a chance to forget it. Her time's taken up other
ways. Denver's quite a gay place, she says; and of course her husband's
position requires her to go out a great deal."
This was uttered in a tone of proud satisfaction. Everybody in
Bloomdale knew what a comfort it was to the solitary woman to
talk about her sister. The Virginia beauty had married a western
millionaire, and when at the monthly sewing society Miss Phillida read
aloud her last Denver letter, these staid, but pleasure-loving Virginia
matrons listened eagerly.
Young Heaton leaned back against the shelves in an easy,
conversational attitude, and looked politely interested.
"Of course you know she's coming home to make a visit, Heaton?" The
little lady's joy and yearning brimmed over her mild blue eyes, and she
lowered her head, pretending to examine the goods.
"So I heard," said Heaton cordially. "We'll all enjoy seeing her, I'm
shore."
"I expect her to-morrow," Miss Phillida cried excitedly. "By the
morning train."
A vehicle drew up before the long porch, and the little woman
endeavored to seem occupied with her purchase.
"I reckon this black and white'd be more appropriate to my years," she
said in a critical tone. "But somehow I'm awfully in the notion of
taking that pink."
"Take the pink, Miss Phillidy; and if you change your mind, we'll take
it back and give you another in the place of it."
Miss Phillida cast another glance at the black and white, then turned
again to the pink.
"I'll take it then, Heaton. I feel somehow as if it'd please Emma to
have me get a gown that looked cheerful. And I must be getting young
again, for I haven't been so in the notion of dressing up for ages.
But, dear me! if I haven't forgot to ask the price! Maybe it's beyond
my reach."
"No, indeed, Miss Phillidy, it's a bargain. Five dollars for any
pattern. A chance we mayn't be able to offer our customers again."
It was a considerable sum for Miss Phillida to give for a spring
dress. She was deep in calculations when a handsome ruddy man of
about forty-five entered the store, and greeted her with delightful
heartiness.
He called her "Cousin Phillidy," and the cousinship, although very
distant, enabled him to do the little woman many a good turn. In his
heart, Mr. Ned Miller always looked upon her as the woman who might,
but for a chance, have been his sister-in-law. The chance had been
Emma Wood's marriage with another man. But that was not his fault.
Bloomdale said that Ned Miller was of too affectionate a nature to
stay a widower.
As she reflected his sunshiny smile and answered his gay badinage, a
strange idea suddenly entered Miss Phillida's head. It made her get up
in great haste.
"I--I'll take the pink, Heaton," she said quickly. "I'll carry it right
with me."
"My horses air at the door, cousin. Let me drive you up the street."
"It's but a step; I'm obliged to you, Cousin Ned. And it's such a sweet
day, I like to walk."
"Well, I'll see you at preaching Sunday, cousin. And your sister, too,
I hope. But if I'm in town before, I'll just call in--to see if I can
be of any service."
"Thank you," murmured Miss Phillida. "Give my love to all at
Maplegrove," and she hastened homeward, amazed at herself, and inclined
to believe that the Father of Evil had put that startling notion into
her head.
She stopped at the gate of a low, brown house opposite the Methodist
Church, and, going through a garden crowded with sweet, old-fashioned
flowers, opened the side door into a little entry about six feet
square, from which one door on the left led to the sitting-room, and
another on the right into a spare bedroom. The kitchen lay beyond the
sitting room, and thither Miss Phillida directed her steps. A cup of
tea, taken upon the spotless pine table, brought her back to herself.
She had spread out the dress pattern over the back of the settee, to
look at while she ate her dinner; and after washing up the dishes,
she opened a door leading into a chilly bedroom, all dark, rich old
mahogany and white draperies, and carefully laid it away in the lower
drawer of a capacious bureau.
"I reckon it was extravagant of me," she soliloquized. "But I couldn't
shame Emma by appearing out in company with her in old duds."
Emma arrived the next morning. Bloomdale was looking for her when the
train stopped at the dilapidated old shed called a "deep-ho." At first
Bloomdale thought itself disappointed. It had expected a brilliant
young lady accompanied by a quantity of baggage, exhibiting, perhaps,
some of the haughtiness of a person used to the homage paid to rank and
wealth. Instead, there was left upon the platform, besides a small,
plain trunk, a tall woman dressed all in black, her face covered with
a heavy veil. She advanced hesitatingly. Miss Phillida, straining her
eyes to see through that veil, suddenly pressed forward and fell into
her arms.
"It's you, sister! I know you by your walk. Come and get into the
carryall, there's room for the trunk at the back."
Bewildered, but energetic, she steered her sister past the little
crowd and landed her safely in the old carryall, upon the back of
which a strapping negro was already adjusting the trunk. Miss Phillida
recognized him as the coachman of Mr. Ned Miller, and the tears came to
her eyes as he handed her the reins. To her excited sense, it seemed
significant that the first person to show kindness to Emma on her
home-coming should be some one belonging to her old lover.
She talked without knowing what she said. So far, Emma had not spoken,
after the first low murmur of greeting. Emma!--the gay, sparkling girl
whose high spirits and talent for conversation had made her a favorite
in county society. For whom could she be in mourning? Miss Phillida
racked her brain with conjectures.
When they were inside the house Emma lifted her veil, gazing around
like one who had just returned to life from a long trance. Her face,
whose beauty was of a grand type, softened and brightened from its look
of stern repose, as one by one she recognized objects once loved and
familiar.
"Everything is just the same," she said in a low voice, vibrant
with feeling. "Grandfather's and father's swords there on the wall,
the fox-skin rugs, the horse-hair armchairs, and the dear old brass
andirons!--How good of you to have a fire, Phillida, dear! It looks so
cheerful. I haven't seen a wood fire on the hearth since I left home."
"You mean home in Denver?" palpitated Miss Phillida, feeling strangely
awed by this sister with grave manner and pale face.
"No!" The denial was quick and passionate, more like the fervor of the
old Emma. She threw off her bonnet and cloak with rapid movements, and
held out her arms to little Miss Phillida. In a moment all constraint
had melted away between the long-severed sisters. The tongue of the
elder was loosened, and she asked question after question, which,
however, Emma parried.
"I have a long story to tell you, dear; but let us wait till evening.
When the curtains are drawn and the lamps lit, I shall feel better able
to talk. Let me just enjoy being at home, for a little while."
She followed Miss Phillida out to the kitchen and, sitting on a low
chair with the big black cat purring in her lap, watched her fry the
chicken and bake the corn cakes for dinner, talking meanwhile, fluently
and entertainingly, of life in the West, and of the different cities
she had visited. But not a word of herself.
When dinner was over, she insisted upon wiping the dishes; and it was
then that Miss Phillida scrutinized her dress, and saw that it was
rusty, and not of fine material.
"Oh, just a traveling dress," thought the elder sister, who experienced
an odd fluttering of the heart.
The afternoon was consumed in examining the house and garden. Miss
Phillida raised her own vegetables, and kept a few chickens, which
latter amused themselves by scratching up her seeds and pecking her
choicest tomatoes as they ripened. A creek watered the lower end of the
garden, and here a half-dozen ducks disported lazily. Under a spreading
apple tree was a bench covered with an old buffalo robe, upon which she
sat with her sewing on summer afternoons. Surrounded thus by comfort
and peace, the gentle spinster had lived her harmless existence,
conscious of but one ungratified wish: the longing for her sister. And
now that wish was accomplished. With tremors of delight she displayed
everything, confiding all her little plans to affectionate, sympathetic
ears. Each homely detail gave Emma fresh pleasure. She seemed to desire
to penetrate to the heart of this simple home life; to attach herself
to it, like one who thirsted for an intimacy with something genuine and
natural.
Miss Phillida saw with pleasure that clouds were gathering, and that
darkness would come on earlier than usual. Emma became grave again
after supper; and when she seated herself in the big rocking-chair
before the hearth in the sitting-room, the firelight played over
features that wore an expression of noble sadness.
"It is three years since I left Denver," she said, turning her luminous
gray eyes upon her sister's bewildered countenance. "I sent my letters
to a friend there who mailed them to you. It was not necessary for
you to be harassed by a knowledge of my sufferings. You fancied I
was living a happy, care-free life with a rich and generous husband.
Heavens!--How unsophisticated we are, we country folks in Virginia!