saw a sudden tender light tremble over its sweetness as dawning sunbeams
run over rippling water, and--startled, fascinated, awed--he watched its
deepening wonder, its growing radiance, its wondrous illumination, as
the white curtain fell away from the lighted shrine of a spotless soul.
There now followed an instant's tense waiting, with the girl's rose-red
lips apart and a-quiver; with the starry darkness of her eyes softly
aglow, as the evening star glows through the warm twilight; with her
exquisite face sensitively alight, as the spring's tender new leaves
stir, and dimple, and shimmer under a sudden shower of golden
sunlight,--and then swiftly a shadow fell, as a wind-swept cloud covers
the sun, sweeping all the quivering sunbeams out of sight.
Unexpectedly as a swallow darts downward, Doris bent to gather up the
forgotten braid of long green grass. Lifting it with a queer little
laugh, she held it out to him with a movement which was almost mocking
and wholly unlike her gentle self. Her dark eyes, grown suddenly very
bright, seemed actually to be laughing at him.
"Is this the kind of braids that the mermaids wear hanging down their
backs?" she said, lightly. "No, I remember that their locks of seaweed
flow loose, but I am sure that they are no greener than this."
He took the braid and stared at it unseeingly, as if it had been in
truth some such marvel as a mermaid's hair. He did not see that she
hardly knew what she was saying. In a crisis such as this it is nearly
always the woman who first recovers herself, no matter how young and
innocent she may be, nor how wise the man in the ways of the world. And
Lynn Gordon was young, too, and far from being wise--almost as far as
Doris Wendall was. He knew little of women; he had not had experience to
teach him the subtlety of the simplest feminine creature; he had
forgotten for the moment that even the dove is artful enough to lure
danger away from her love secret.
He himself was agitated, confused, perplexed, and, most distinctly and
painfully of all, he was wounded by a vague sense of injury--really hurt
by a feeling that Doris had trifled with him, that she had not met his
sincerity with the earnestness which he felt that he had a right to
expect. He had spoken from his very heart; he had meant every word that
he had said,--meant it as tenderly and as truly as the fondest, most
faithful of elder brothers could speak to the most well-beloved of
sisters. And yet Doris had turned from him carelessly, almost
floutingly, with this light, meaningless talk about the mermaid's hair.
In offended, wounded silence he gave the braided grass again into her
hand, and she took it laughingly, and looked at it absently for a
moment,--at this long, long, green, green grass springing from human
dust,--and then she tossed it into the air so that the wind caught it,
bore it a little way, and, tiring, softly laid it down on a tombstone,
thus giving back its own to the dead.
Doris stood up, and the breeze bent the faded muslin about her slender
young body in longer and more enchanting curves. She pointed, still
smiling, to the purple clouds now pinnacling the west, and said that it
was time to be going homeward. As they went down the grassy path which
wound around the hillside, she talked quietly of indifferent things,
much as she always did, somewhat less at random, perhaps, yet with all
the accustomed gentleness and kindness and brightness and sweetness.
So that, although Lynn had little to say in response, his composure came
back and his feeling of injury went away. By the time they had reached
the silver poplars, dulled under the falling dusk, the chill had
entirely passed, and happiness again warmed his honest heart. For such
is the foolishness of love that knoweth not itself. For such a dull
fellow is this giant Ambition, who must ever be vanquished by Love, the
boy.
XVIII
AN EMBARRASSING ACCIDENT
The fluttering of Miss Judy's heart still kept her from fixing a day for
the tea-party, anxious as she was to do so. Certain small domestic
irregularities also interfered with her plan. For some time past she had
been much disturbed and perplexed by Merica's disappearing at unusual
hours and in a most unaccountable manner, so that her simple and
methodical household affairs had lately become gravely disordered.
On the morning after she had seen Doris and Lynn returning through the
fragrant dusk from their visit to the graveyard, she felt so happy and
strong that she resolved to give the tea-party on the following day, no
matter how her heart might misbehave. It was really silly, as she said
to Miss Sophia, to give up important things merely because your heart
tried, every now and then, to jump out of your mouth and sometimes would
hardly beat at all. It was so silly that she did not intend to do it any
longer. But on going to the kitchen, in order to put her plans in motion
at once, she was dismayed to find Merica missing, as she had been very
often of late. Miss Judy saw, too, that the fire had not been kindled
behind the gooseberry bushes; that not a single spiral of blue smoke
arose above the thick green screen. She consequently began worrying in
her mild way, wondering where Merica could be, and what the girl could
mean by such unheard-of neglect of duty, especially on Monday morning.
Hurrying around the house, the little lady went to the gate and looked
anxiously up and down the big road. No one was in sight except Tom
Watson, sitting in his accustomed place; but the sight of him always
brought Miss Judy to an humble and almost frightened sense of her own
mercies. She shook her head, and then bent it reverently, making with
her little hand an unconscious gesture, which called up thoughts of the
sign of the cross.
Ashamed to be worrying over such a small matter with Tom Watson's
affliction in view, she forgot all about Merica, and, following her
instinct to do something for those who were suffering, she went into the
house to hold a consultation with Miss Sophia as to whether they had
anything which they might send to Tom Watson, since they could do
nothing else for him.
"There's that pretty tender little head of late lettuce," said Miss
Judy, tentatively. "I am afraid, though, that Tom won't care much about
it, but I can't think of anything else. And it's only to show our
sympathy, anyway," she pleaded, seeing the reluctance in Miss Sophia's
face and misunderstanding its meaning. "It would really make quite a
picture if we were to put it on mother's best china plate, the one with
the wreath of roses. And it would please poor Anne, whether poor Tom
notice or not."
So busy was Miss Judy by this time, bustling about, preparing the little
offering, that she hardly observed Merica's sudden reappearance, and did
not think to hold her to an accounting for her absence. Merely telling
her to make haste in starting the fire behind the gooseberry bushes, so
that she might run across the big road with the plate of lettuce as soon
as possible, Miss Judy thought only of giving pleasure to her neighbors.
When the rose-wreathed green gift was ready the girl said, rather
sullenly, that she did not see how she could be taking things to
everybody all over the neighborhood and watching the boiling of the
clothes at the same time, Miss Judy replied gently, though with a vivid
blush, that she herself would watch the wash-kettle. This was an
unpleasant task which the little lady had rarely attempted, but now she
bravely entered upon it without flinching.
The white mysteries of the wash-kettle were by this time thickly veiled
by a snowy cloud of steam. Its contents, boiling furiously, lifted big
bubbles dangerously close to the dry, hot edge of the great black
kettle. Miss Judy gingerly took up the wet stick which Merica had laid
down, and timidly tried to push the bubbles away; but the harder her
weak little hand pushed, the higher and bigger the bubbles arose.
Frightened, and not knowing what else to do, Miss Judy knelt beside the
steaming caldron, looking amid the smoke and steam like some pretty
little witch working some good incantation, and tremblingly drew one of
the blazing brands from beneath the kettle. As she moved the brand, a
fountain of sparks from it shot upward, to come showering down, and one
of these fell upon the biggest and whitest of the bubbles. Miss Judy saw
this as it settled, and, although the kettle's contents were an
indistinguishable, foaming mass, she knew instinctively that it was not
one of Miss Sophia's or one of her own garments, which had been burned.
She sank down on Merica's stool, near the gray border of spice pinks,
with her limbs shaking so that she could not stand, and her heart
beating as it had never beaten before or since the night of the fright.
When she could move to get up, she crept over to the kettle and firmly
pushed the black spot out of sight. But she said nothing to Merica about
it, when the maid returned, more sour and sullen than she had gone away.
In silence and dejection Miss Judy went back to the house, and tried to
think what was best to do. Ordinarily she turned to Miss Sophia for
advice in trouble or perplexity, resting with perfect trust upon the
counsel which she thought she received. But this serious accident, which
must distress her sister, she now locked in her own bosom. Had Lynn
Gordon's shirts been ordinary shirts she felt that the matter would have
been very much simpler. By severer economy, she thought that she might
possibly have been able to buy him a new garment; although it was hard
even for Miss Judy to see how the economy which they practised could be
severer than it always was. But the little pension for their father's
military services would not be due for another six months, and,
moreover, Miss Judy would not have known where or how to get the costly,
mysterious garment had she had the money, or how to find the fine tucks
and the finer embroidery, which she had admired so greatly, though
secretly, of course. She knew how fine the needle-work was, because she
herself had been an expert needle-woman in the days when her blue eyes
were stronger. For a moment a wild hope of copying the burned shirt, of
working the same little rim of delicate tracery around the button holes,
darted thrillingly across her troubled mind; but in another instant it
was dismissed--wholly gone--with a sigh. She remembered, blushingly,
that she had once heard Sidney say that the Queen of Sheba could not
make a shirt that the King of Sheba would wear. Miss Judy did not
remember ever having read in the Scriptures anything about the King of
Sheba, but she had confidence in Sidney's opinions of a good many
matters which she felt herself to be no judge of. No, there was plainly
nothing to be done, except to darn the hole as neatly as possible, and
to tell Lynn the simple truth. Luckily, Miss Judy had reason to believe
that the injury had not been to the splendid, embroidered, tucked, and
ruffled bosom. She blushed again more vividly--and then she turned very
white as a sudden thought stabbed her like a dagger. Ah, the poor little
heart! It was fluttering indeed now, and beating its soft wings like a
caged wild bird.
The effect of the accident upon Doris's prospects--that was the dread
which suddenly struck terror to Miss Judy's heart! What would the young
gentleman and his worldly, critical grandmother think, when they thus
knew that she and Miss Sophia were aware of what was going on behind the
gooseberry bushes? Up to this crisis the means by which Merica earned
the larger portion of her wages had seemed so distinctly apart from Miss
Judy's own affairs, that she had felt no personal concern about it,
beyond an occasional and passing embarrassment. Now, however, the matter
became, all at once, widely different. How could she offer Doris the
disrespect of making an explanation? Come what would that must be
avoided, for Doris's dear sake, let the cost be what it may. A few
gentle tears trickled down Miss Judy's cheeks as she sat patiently
darning Miss Sophia's stockings, while the latter rocked and nodded,
observing nothing unusual.
Many fanciful, impractical schemes flitted through Miss Judy's mind,
rather sadly at first, but gradually turning toward her natural
hopefulness. The end of her thoughts now, as always, was self-sacrifice,
and the sparing of others, her sister and Doris above all. If the worst
came to the worst, she could get the doctor to buy a new garment; he
would know what to get and where to get it,--he would even loan her the
money if she were forced to borrow. Meantime, with innate optimism, she
was hoping for the best, relying upon being able to mend the burned
hole, which might not be so large or so black, after all. Miss Judy's
cheerful spirit could no more be held down by ill luck than an
unweighted cork can be kept under water. When she laid her little head
beside Miss Sophia's that night, her brain was still busily turning ways
and means. If the severest economy became necessary, her sister still
need not know. Once before (when their father's funeral expenses were to
be met), she had been entirely successful in keeping the straits to
which they were reduced from Miss Sophia's knowledge. Fortunately that
hard time had come in the winter, and a turkey sent them by Colonel
Fielding as a Christmas present stayed hard frozen, except as it was
cooked, a piece at a time, for Miss Sophia, till the whole immense
turkey had been eaten in sections by that unsuspecting lady. Miss Judy
chuckled in triumph, lying there in the darkness, remembering how artful
she had been in keeping Miss Sophia from observing that she herself had
not tasted the turkey, and of her deep diplomacy in merely allowing Miss
Sophia to think it a fresh one, every now and then, without telling an
actual fib. It was warm weather now, to be sure, which made a
difference--and poor Colonel Fielding could send no more presents, but
the way would open nevertheless, somehow; dear Miss Judy was always sure
that the way would open. No matter how severely they might have to
economize in order to spare Doris a great mortification, Miss Sophia
need not be deprived of her few comforts. And it was for this, to spare
her sister, that Miss Judy resolved to remain silent, much as she valued
Miss Sophia's advice. In the darkness of the big old room a little thin
hand reached out and softly patted Miss Sophia's broad back with a
protecting tenderness, full of the true mother-love.
At midnight Miss Judy arose, and creeping cautiously from her sister's
side, noiselessly crossed the big, dark room, a ghostly little white
figure. It was not hard to find her thimble, needles and thread, and her
father's near-by spectacles, even in the darkness, since everything in
that orderly old house was always in the same place; and when she had
found them, she softly took up the candle and matches from the chair
beside the pillow, and with her trembling hands thus filled, she stole
across the passage toward the parlor. She opened the door as stealthily
as any expert burglar, and closed it behind her without the faintest
creak. Then, softly putting down the other things, she lighted the
candle, and shading it with a shaking hand, looked around for the basket
of rough-dry clothes, which, for privacy more than for any other reason,
was always put in the parlor over night between washing and ironing. The
stiffness with which some of the well-starched garments asserted
themselves rather daunted Miss Judy when she first caught sight of them.
Nevertheless, she went resolutely on, and soon found what she sought.
She blushed as she gingerly drew it from among the rest, the delicate
color tinting her whole sweet face, from its pretty chin to its silver
frame of flossy curls. Turning the shirt over, she gave an unconscious
sigh of relief to find how small the burned place really was. Burned it
was, however, and she threaded her smallest needle with her finest
thread and set about darning it then and there, with infinite patience
and exquisite skill. As she worked, sitting on a low footstool beside
the great basket, with the candle flickering upon a chair (such a
pretty, pathetic little figure!) her thread involuntarily wrought
delicate embroidery. While she thus wrought, she wished that she knew
where gentlemen usually had their monograms embroidered on garments of
this description. She could not remember ever having seen any on her
father's--and she had never seen anybody else's, she remembered,
suddenly blushing again. Yet she could not help feeling a little bashful
pride in her handiwork. She even held it up and looked at it critically,
with her curly head in its quaint little nightcap on one side,--like a
bird listening to its own song,--before putting the garment back in the
basket exactly where she had found it, as a measure of precaution
against Merica's observing any change and gossiping about it. Every care
must be taken on Doris's account. And then this being secure, Miss Judy
blew out the candle and stole like a shadow back to her place by her
sleeping sister, and lay down with a last sigh of relief; feeling to
have done the best she could for her, for Doris, and for Lynn. She did
not think of herself.
With her mind thus temporarily at rest, she soon fell asleep and dreamed
a radiant vision of Doris. There was some new and wondrous glory around
the girl's beautiful head, but Miss Judy could not make out what it was,
though she gazed through the sweet mist of her soft dream with all her
loving heart in her eager eyes. There also seemed to be some wonderful
little white thing in Doris's lovely arms, resting on her breast as a
bud rests against a rose; and as the light shone brighter and brighter
over the rose-clouds of the silvery dream, Miss Judy saw that the rays
about the girl's head were the aureole of motherhood.
"How strange our dreams are," she said to Miss Sophia, smiling and
blushing, while they were engaged in the usual polite conversation over
their frugal breakfast. "We dream of things we never thought of."
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, who never dreamt at all
unless she had the nightmare.
But the feeling of causeless happiness with which Miss Judy awakened on
that morning passed by degrees into a renewed sense of uneasiness. The
sound of Merica's irons banging in the kitchen appeared to arouse
scruples which had merely slumbered through the night. Was it, after
all, ever right to do wrong to one person in order to benefit another,
even though the injured might never know of the injury? So she wondered
in new alarm. It was the first time in Miss Judy's simple, gentle,
unselfish life that she had been fronted by this common question, which
fronts most of us sooner or later and more or less often; and she knew
even less how to meet it than do those who meet it more frequently.
Deeply troubled, hopelessly perplexed, she silently debated the right
and the wrong of what she had done and was doing, through all the long
hours of that peaceful summer day. It would have comforted her greatly
to have asked Miss Sophia's advice, but she felt that any knowledge of
the accident, however remote, must be distressing, and she still spared
her in this as in everything else.
"Don't you think, sister Sophia, that many of poor Becky's mistakes came
from not knowing just what was right? It isn't always easy for any of us
to tell. We can't be so much to blame--when we are unable to see our
way," she said, after a long silence, hanging wistfully upon Miss
Sophia's reply.
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with such decisive
firmness as made Miss Judy feel for the moment that there could be no
uncertainty; that it surely must be as Miss Sophia said.
But the sight of Doris and Lynn strolling by on their daily walk set the
balance wavering again. She felt the constraint in her own manner while
she chatted with them over the gate. She saw the wondering and somewhat
anxious gaze which Doris fixed upon her, and she tried to laugh and
speak naturally. But in spite of all that she could do, the uneasy sense
of wrong-doing grew steadily. She had not before fully realized how fine
the young man's linen was--till she guiltily regarded it over the gate.
Its very fineness and the number of its tucks filled her with a
conviction of guilt toward him. She was strongly tempted to call the
young couple back and make a clean breast of it. Then the fear of some
possible humiliation of Doris held her from it. So that she went on,
sorely troubled, still turning the matter this way and that, till a
sudden thought gave her a fresh shock of fear. When the young man saw
the darned place, as he was bound to do some time or other, he would be
sure to think it Merica's doing. There could be no two sides to the
right or wrong of allowing _that_ to happen. Quite in a panic now,
fairly driven into a corner, from which there was no escape, Miss Judy
sprang up, and rushed out to stop the doctor, who chanced to be passing
at that very moment.
He got down from his horse and came up to the fence, throwing the bridle
over his arm, always willing and glad to have a word with Miss Judy, no
matter how weary he might be. He saw at once that she was deeply
agitated, and that her blue eyes were full of tears. A country doctor of
the noblest type--as this one was--is the tower of strength on which
many a community leans. He touches most of the phases of life, perhaps;
certainly he comes in contact with every phase of his own environment.
He is, therefore, seldom to be taken completely by surprise, however
strange a story he may hear. Yet Dr. Alexander now looked at Miss Judy
for a moment in utter bewilderment after she had poured out hers; his
thoughts--astonishment, amusement, sympathy, understanding, and, above
all, affection--coming out by turns on his rugged, open face, like rough
writing on parchment.
"God bless my soul!" he said. "Who ever heard of such a thing! My dear,
dear little lady! Why, you'd do that young jackanapes the honor of his
life if you burnt his shirt off his back!"
Miss Judy blushed and showed how shocked she was at such loud and
indelicate mention of such an intimate article of clothing.
"But I am really in great trouble," she urged gently, her eyes filling
again. "If you would only tell Lynn, doctor. It seems an indelicate
thing for a lady to speak of to a gentleman. If you would only break it
to him, and explain to him how it happened, and that Merica was not to
blame--and--and that Doris knew nothing--nothing in the world--about
Merica's business."
"Of course I'll tell him," the doctor agreed heartily. "I'll tell him
every word that you've told me," he said, mounting his tired old horse,
which was almost as tired as he was himself. "And let the young rascal
so much as crack a single smile, if he dares;" the doctor added to
himself, as he rode off, looking back and carrying his shabby hat in his
big hand, as long as he could see the quaint, pathetic little figure
standing at the gate.
XIX
INVOKING THE LAW
That night the little lady slept the sweet sleep of a tender conscience,
set wholly at rest by a full confession. Old lady Gordon also rested
well, after having taken some drops out of the bag hanging at the head
of her bed, thus settling an uncommonly hearty supper. So that neither
of the ladies either heard or dreamed of a drama which was being enacted
that same night under the dark of the moon, and which threatened to turn
into a tragedy with the light of the next morning.
It was true--as has been said before--that old lady Gordon had known all
along of the trouble brewing between her own cook and Miss Judy's maid
of all work. She had also observed the growing fierceness of their
rivalry for the heart and hand of her gardener and coachman, Enoch
Cotton, but she had not, even yet, thought of interfering, since the
affair had progressed without the slightest interference with her own
comfort. She had merely laughed a little, as she always did at any
candid display of the weakness of human nature; though she had
incidentally given Eunice a characteristic word of advice.
"Don't make any more of a fool of yourself than you can help, Eunice,"
old lady Gordon said, with careless scorn. "You're going about this
matter in the wrong way. Stop all this foolery, all this quarrelling and
fighting, and stop it now--right off the reel, too. And I'll give you a
big red feather for your hat. One red feather is worth more than any
number of fights,--for getting a man back."