"No."
"Mary she ran down after supper, and she said a strange lady was there.
I wondered who it was."
"I didn't see her," he said, dully, as though he spoke from the midst
of some absorbing thought; then he got up and walked away. "You better
go in and light the lamp if you want to sew," he said, roughly.
Calista took her things and went at once, looking as though she were so
well satisfied that she could afford to be amused.
Though in the next two weeks she had plenty of company Conrad never
joined them: he spent the evenings with John Albrecht, drove to
Bernville, or went to bed early. He worked much harder than usual, and
his cheeks grew thin under his stubble of black beard. Calista did not
trouble him with conversation.
"Don't you feel good?" she once asked, and when he gave a surly answer
she said, carelessly, "You better get something from the doctor," and
began to sing immediately afterwards. But she knew how he looked even
when her back was turned, and she often stared at Mary in a meditative
way as though the child were the doubtful quantity in an important
calculation.
She was watching her so one day, when little John Albrecht and his
sister had come over and the three were very busy on the grass near the
kitchen window with two dolls and the old tiger-cat. In the afternoon
silence their little voices sounded clear and sweet. The cat escaped to
a cherry-tree and they chased him gayly, but he went to sleep in an
insulting way in spite of the lilac switch that John flourished.
"Look out!" Mary called.
John looked around and said, "For what?" and she went over to him.
There was a conversation which Calista could not hear; Mary pointed
several times to a spot in the sunny grass; then he went running down
the road and Katie followed, looking as though she would cry when she
had time, and leaving her doll behind her.
Calista went out. "What did you say to John to make them run off?" she
asked.
"I told him to look out, he would hit the lady with the switch."
"What lady?"
"She was there."
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know."
"Can't you see her?"
"No, ma'am."
Calista looked all about. Not a soul was in sight on the road; in the
orchard and the fields nothing moved but the wind; the yard was empty
except for the cat slipping round the corner with his mottled coat
shining. "Now listen," she said, not unkindly. "I saw you out of the
window, and there was no lady here. Why do you tell a story like that?"
The child looked at her in a preoccupied way and did not answer.
"I can't have you say things that are not so, Mary. If you do it again,
I have to whip you. Now pick up your doll-baby and come in."
She spoke of it to Conrad that evening, but he did not pay much
attention.
"I don't know if there is something wrong with Mary or, if she does see
some one, who it is," she said. "Do you know if there are gipsies
around?" He scarcely answered, and in a few minutes she heard him drive
down the road. She smiled to herself as she hurried through her work.
Then she put Mary to bed, though it was much earlier than usual, and
began to dress, while the little girl lay watching from among the
pillows.
Calista enjoyed the water like a sleek creature of two elements; her
white skirts crackled and flared; her hair hid her waist. When she had
finished her green dimity looked like foliage around a flower, and her
hazel eyes turned green to match it.
"I'm going on the front porch," she said. "You go to sleep like a good
girl."
She had sat with Mary in the evening as long as she could do so without
inconvenience. Now she saw no reason for continuing it. She had not
imagination enough to know what she was inflicting. Mary gazed after her
as a shipwrecked woman might watch a plank drifting out of reach, but
she said nothing; she shut her eyes and lay still for many minutes. She
was a timid child but not cowardly, and such tangible things as a cross
dog, a tramp, and a blacksnake in the orchard she had faced bravely, but
her terror of the dark was indefinite and unendurable. She opened her
eyes, shut them, and opened them again, looking for something dreadful.
The furniture was shapeless, the bedclothes dimly white, and each time
she looked it was darker. She did not know what she expected, and to see
nothing was almost worse. A carriage going down the road comforted her
as long as she could hear it, but it left a thicker silence. She pressed
her lids together, breathing quickly,--to move was like inviting
something to spring on her,--then she slid out of bed and ran down the
stairs, gave a frightened glance at the front door behind which sat her
aunt, who would send her up again, and slipped across the back porch
into the orchard.
Calista heard nothing. In the hot June evening she was fresh and cool
enough to be akin to the rejoicing fields, a nymph of beech or willow.
Now and then she looked down the road and saw no one, but she did not
seem disappointed. It was quite dark and the fireflies were trailing up
and down when wheels stopped at the gate, and she drew back behind a
lilac-bush that screened the porch, and sat still.
Conrad, striding up the path, started when he saw her. "Oh, it's you!"
he said, coldly. She gave a short answer, and he stood frowning at
nothing and looking very tall and black. "Want to take a little ride?"
he asked.
"No, I guess not."
"You stay at home too much," he said, presently. "You haven't been off
the place since Aunt Hannah left."
"I don't care to go. I can't leave Mary here all alone. It wouldn't be
safe."
She stayed silently in her corner as though waiting for him to leave--a
white shadow beside the black mass of the lilac-bush. Dolly at the gate
tossed her head until the reins scraped on the gate-post. Down in the
orchard a whippoorwill cried.
He was like a horse that takes the bit and the driver was his own
will--his own self. She made no resistance when he threw himself down
beside her: she was pliant, her cheek cool, she even looked at him
haughtily. He did not know that she slipped out of his arms just before
he would have released her, nor that she was all one flame of triumphant
happiness. She seemed as untouched as the starlight.
"Calista," he stammered, "I hope you overlook it."
"What about my sister Mary?" she asked, dryly. "I thought you didn't
look to any one else."
"I didn't. I tell you the truth. I was unwilling. I fought it off all I
could, but now I give in. I can do no more."
"So you think you like me as well as you like her?"
"Calista, I would ask you if Mary stood here and heard us."
The woman seemed to bloom like an opening rose. She looked at him, but
it was as though she saw some vision of success that she was just about
to grasp. "I am satisfied," she said.
There was a sound on the walk, and they lifted their heads; then they
were scarcely conscious of each other's presence. Up from the gate, her
nightdress hanging about her feet, her hair pale in the dim light, came
the little girl. She climbed the steps and passed fearlessly into the
dark house, smiling at the two with the radiant content of happy
childhood, soothed and petted,--her small right hand held up as if in
the clasp of another hand.
* * * * *
Calista would have chosen to clean the whole house or do a harvest-time
baking rather than write one letter, so she asked most of the guests
verbally and put off the others as long as she could. Conrad had taken
Hannah to Bernville to have a new silk dress fitted and buy colored
sugar for the wedding-cakes when she began the invitations. By three
o'clock they were finished, and she counted them and laid them beside
the inkstand. Then she washed her hands, spread a sheet on the floor,
and got out a pile of soft white stuff, all puffs and lace and
ruffles--the work of weeks.
She sewed happily, looking out now and then at the trees, which tossed
like green waves under the roaring August rain. Sometimes a gust drove a
shower down the chimney and made the logs hiss. The room was warm and
still; in the interval of work it seemed to have paused and be
sleeping. The tiger-cat, with his paws folded under him, lay beside the
hearth, and Mary on her little bench nursed her doll peacefully. Calista
began to sing a German hymn; the words were awful, but their very
solemnity made her happier by contrast:
"Wer weiss wie nahe mir mein Ende!
Hin geht die Zeit, her kommt der Tod.
"Look here, Mary," she said. "Isn't this pretty?" The child came, and
Calista held up the soft stuff around her; it made the little face look
beautifully pink and white. She touched it lightly, smiling, then she
wandered over to the window with her doll and looked out into the rain.
"Es kann vor Nacht leicht anders werden,
Als es am frühen Morgen war,"
Calista sang.
Five minutes later she asked, good-naturedly, "What are you looking at?"
Mary did not answer. "Didn't you hear what I said? What's going on out
there?" Calista repeated.
"You said I shouldn't say it," the child whispered.
"Say what?"
"When I see the lady."
"Where do you see her?"
"Coming out of the orchard."
Certain old stories returning to Calista's mind made her look at Mary
for a minute as though the child had manifested strange powers. She went
to the window and her thimble clicked on the sill as she leaned forward;
then she touched her cheek. "Do you feel good?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
She looked out again. "I want you to know for sure that no one is
there," she said, earnestly. "Now tell me: do you see a lady?"
"Yes, ma'am. She is coming up here."
Calista was very sober. "If your aunt Hannah doesn't teach you not to
tell stories, then I must," she said. "I can't have you like this. Soon
I can't believe you anything. Come here." Mary came as if pulled. "Now
mind, I do this so that you don't say what isn't so again." She gave the
child two good slaps on the mouth with her strong hand.
The inherited spirit of resistance to coercion, that had made pioneers
and martyrs of Mary Rhein's ancestors, was let loose too soon: it made
an imp of her. She darted silently like an insect from under Calista's
hand, seized the inkstand, and threw it with all her might at the
beautiful white gown. The ink poured out, dripping from fold to fold,
and the stand thudded on the sheet and scattered the last drops. Mary
gave one look and ran across the porch and out to the road in the rain.
Calista sat still for a moment, then she got up weakly. "Doesn't look
much like a wedding-dress now," she murmured. "It's no use doing
anything to it. It's done for." She wiped the inkstand on a stained
flounce before setting it on the table. "_Now_," she said, as though
some one were present who would disapprove, "I give it to her good. I
better fetch her in and have it done before they get back."
The sky was low but the rain was gentle when she started down the road,
and her shawl made a bright spot between the fields, green as chromos.
Mary had gone toward the creek, and she followed as far as the bridge;
then, as there was no one in sight, she turned up-stream. It was deep
just there and very full, carrying leaves and twigs so that it was like
a little flood, and the water caught the dipping branches of the willows
and swept them along. The shellbarks looked forlorn in the rain, and
the ground was so soft that it gave under her feet. Her skirts and shoes
were heavy with wet before she saw Mary.
The child looked as though she were being crowded out of life. She was
crying, with small weak sounds like a wretched little animal, her hair
was dark with water, and the rain drove across her face. At the sight of
Calista she began to run slowly with much stumbling; her crying mixed
with the sound of the stream. Calista followed as fast as she could.
A little way up the creek was a log bridge without a rail. Conrad had
put it up for his own convenience, and Calista never tried to cross it.
"Ach!" she thought, "I don't hope she runs out there!" Then she began to
call, but Mary did not look back. She fell over a root, picked herself
up, and went on, with her knees shaking.
Suddenly she began to cry very loud, as a child does when it sees
comfort, and went on much faster, making for the bridge. As she ran
along the log her arms were out to meet some one.
Calista stared for a couple of seconds, then she raced like a savage
down to the first bend, her red shawl flying behind her.
It lay in a pool on the kitchen floor when Conrad and Hannah came in; it
was the first thing they saw, and their voices stopped as though a hand
had been laid upon their mouths. Mary was lying on the settle and
Calista was doubled up against it with her face hidden.
"What's wrong?" Conrad asked. She said nothing, and when he tried to
lift her she writhed away from him. Hannah ran to Mary. The blankets
were warm, but the small creature was quite cold.
"Now it is time you say what has happened," she said, and Conrad stood
silently by.
Calista sat up, looking deadly sick. The story came out in fragments,
and at the end she bowed her head, shivering and staring at nothing.
"Did she say this before?" Hannah asked.
Calista told wearily, and the old woman listened, a spectator of strange
things to which she alone had the clue.
"Is that all?"
"Ach, yes! I can't remember any more. Now do what you want to do."
Hannah spoke like a judge sentencing a criminal: "So you thought she
told lies and you whipped her--that little thing! Now I tell you
something, Calista Yohe. That night she was born I said to Mary--your
sister Mary!--that once she came on Christmas she would be lucky and see
more than we see, and Mary was glad, and the last thing she said was: 'I
look after her. I take care of her.' And they say one that dies and
leaves something unfinished must come back to finish it up. I guess Mary
knew when to come.
"And you are glad. I don't say you just wished this to her, but you
thought would be fine not to have her around once you got married to
Conrad. She was lucky not to be here till you got a good hold of her.
"You might have thought whether I would let her with you that didn't
want her, to be in the way. But I am old. It is a good thing Mary
fetched her. Now I see to her myself. Don't you dare touch her."
Conrad had been perfectly still, with the face of a man in a nightmare,
but now he went to the shaking woman and lifted her in his arms. Hannah
looked at them for a moment. Then she set a great kettle of water to
heat, took up the child and went out, leaving them alone together, and
they heard her footsteps in the room above as she went back and forth,
getting what she needed.