Early the following afternoon Anna Miller made her way to the parsonage.
She announced the fact immediately that she couldn’t stay long to-day.
For already the clever girl had, as she put it, ‘sized up’ the lady
of the parsonage and knew better than to wait until later and then
‘spring’ the unwelcome fact upon her.
“O Anna, with all the long week, counting Sunday, and with a long
forenoon on Saturday, it seems as if you might spare me Saturday
afternoon,” protested the invalid.
“I can usually, Mrs. Langley, but you see I am going away Monday
morning early and there’s my packing and ever so many things to
attend to besides going over home, as I always do on Saturday, to
see if ma’s clothes and pa’s ties and shirts and the boys’ are in
Sunday-go-to-meeting shape,” Anna explained.
She waited for Mrs. Langley to ask where she was going or to evince
some interest in her journey. Not that she was the sort of person to
crave such attention. But the more she saw of Mrs. Langley, the more
she realized how self-centered her life had made her. In a certain
sense, it wasn’t her fault. But for the sake of Mr. Langley, his wife
must somehow be induced to think of other folk or other concerns than
herself, her dead baby, and the baby’s tombstone. And in that the only
person she really had anything to do with was Anna it would have been
encouraging to have her show some faint interest in her comings and
goings when they did not lead to the parsonage, or the cemetery on
yonder hillside.
But Mrs. Langley’s only concern was for her precious Saturday.
“But you will surely be back before the end of the week, Anna?” she
asked.
“I suppose I shall,” said Anna soberly. “But I may not be able to come
here for a fortnight. I shall have a lot of studying to do to make up
my work at school.”
“Isn’t Mr. Langley on the school committee?” demanded his wife.
Wondering at her acquaintance with even so little of current history,
Anna told her that he was chairman.
“Very well. Then he can arrange so that you needn’t make up the time
and you can come here just the same.”
“O Mrs. Langley, I don’t think he could or would do that, and anyhow I
wouldn’t have him,” Anna protested. “For after all, I’m really crazy
about school. I believe I like it all the better for knowing the world
a bit. As a matter of fact, you know, I could give Mr. Phillips points.
And I couldn’t _not_ make up certain things. For example, there’s the
Peloponnesian War. The plague began yesterday and,--O dear, like as
not when I get back I shall find the whole bunch stark dead. And then
there are those poor Helvetians all packed up and ready to hike with
their babies and cattle and pups and duds and all,--and those blooming
Roman soldiers ready to drive ’em straight back. I’ve simply _got_ to
see what happened to them. They had pluck--and yet, I can’t for the
life of me understand how they had the heart to burn down their houses
and their fields of grain. I dare say it showed their faith in God, but
they might have wanted to show their grandchildren years afterwards
where they had lived.”
“I don’t remember ever hearing about them. Are they in the Bible,
Anna?” Mrs. Langley asked, and before Anna could answer, bade her tell
their tale.
Surprised and delighted, the girl complied. Not at all a scholar, Anna
Miller nevertheless gleaned all sorts of riches from text books that
are desert wastes to the majority of young folk. And now, relating the
history of the Helvetians so far as she had followed it, in the graphic
account Julius Caesar gives of the unhappy impulse towards migration of
these people pent up in an inland island, she made it as interesting as
a fairy tale to a child. Mrs. Langley listened spell-bound. And though
Anna was disappointed to have her hark back to her usual subject, even
the momentary interest in something foreign to it counted for something.
“It must have been hardest of all for them to leave their graveyards
behind them,” she murmured, “for mothers to leave their babies’ graves.”
“And widows their husbands’,” Anna added. “And yet, Mrs. Langley,
there’s worse than that. Now my friend that I am going back to the city
to see lost her husband in the summer and now she’s sick herself, and
there’s her baby. If she should--well, it must be no end harder for one
to think of dying and leaving one’s baby alone in the world than to
move away from somewhere and leave the grave of a baby whose soul is
all safe.”
“Your friend must be older than you, Anna,” Mrs. Langley observed
irrelevantly.
“Two years, but we were the best of friends. She was at the ribbons
with me at Mason and Martin’s and Joe was at the soda fountain. He was
the nicest boy--and the thinnest! My goodness! Matches would seem as
big as the pillars of the Squire Bennet place at Wenham compared with
his legs. He and Bessy were married and went to housekeeping in two
rooms and were happy as kings. Joe was sick after a while and Bessy
came back to work beside me. Then the baby came and Joe went back to
work before he was able. He looked so bum they wouldn’t have him at the
soda fountain but put him in the stock-room where his poor phiz, that
looked for all the world like an interrogation point, wouldn’t queer
the whole concern. It must have been awfully hard for him there, but he
stuck it out until last August when he died. And now poor Bessy thinks
she’s dying and wants to see me.”
“I hate to have you go,” said the invalid with some warmth, and even
thought to ask who was going with her.
“O, I’m going by my lone. I’m good for it. But I think I will put up my
hair so as to look more responsible.”
“O Anna, don’t do that. I wouldn’t have you do that for the world!”
cried Mrs. Langley. “I like it just as it is. You see it is just the
colour my baby’s would have been and I was in hopes hers would be
curly, too. I should never have braided hers, though.”
Anna forgot that she ought to be on her way home and pulled her braid
over her shoulder and looked at it admiringly.
“I wish you would undo it and let me see it all spread out,” Mrs.
Langley said almost eagerly. And Anna was more than ready to gratify
her curiosity.
Untying the bow at the end of the long, heavy, wavy plait, she loosed
the strands and spread out the silky yellow mass until it enveloped
her like a golden mantle. Mrs. Langley leaned towards her, gazing on
the splendour in fascination, reaching out presently to stroke it with
her lean witch’s fingers. And whenever Anna made a move to gather it
in she uttered a cry of protest. And the vain girl yielded and forgot
everything except to wish that there were a mirror in the room.
But when the clock struck five, she started, quite aghast. Seizing her
hat and jacket, she said an hasty farewell and fled, the cloud of her
hair all about her.
As she went, people rushed to their windows to see the girl’s wonderful
hair, gazing spell-bound until she was out of sight. Afterwards, when
they got their breath, some said the other Miller girl had assurance to
flaunt her single charm thus boldly. But no one so took the matter to
heart as the Reverend Russell Langley, who met her as he returned from
a call at the Hollow.
Anna hadn’t time even to pause, and Mr. Langley thought she was ashamed
to do so. He took it for granted that the girl had set out from home
with this almost immodest splendour of yellow tresses all about her
simply to display it, and he felt bewildered and ashamed and grieved.
He shook his head sadly. He had known that Anna was vain--everyone knew
it. But her vanity had always seemed innocent and harmless, a part
of her droll charm. The girl had seemed too unselfish, too eagerly
active in behalf of others, to have leisure or desire for deliberate
advertising of her own beauty. She was, he had to acknowledge now,
quite different from Rusty. He began to understand why people referred
to her as the other Miller girl.
Reaching home, he found, after much searching, a sermon on humility
he had preached fifteen years before. Putting aside the sermon he had
ready for the morrow, he began to revise this. Revision turned out to
mean re-writing practically the whole discourse, and it was midnight
before he rose from his desk. The new sermon was less severe and
dogmatic than the one of the man of thirty which it replaced, but its
tone was wholesome and effective. And though the preached hoped that
Anna Miller would not realise that her vanity had been the occasion of
it, he trusted that she would nevertheless take the precepts to heart.
As it was, Anna listened gravely, as she almost invariably did, to
every word of the sermon. But she did not forget to flop her yellow
braid over her shoulder and as the choir rose to sing, and her sweet,
true voice rang out, the girl was not unaware that she was conspicuous
for that as well as for her personal appearance.
But she had forgotten all that when she went in to see Mrs. Lorraine
that afternoon to thank her for allowing Alice to make it possible
for her to go to her friend. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Lorraine had
been shocked when Alice came home Friday evening and told her of the
offer she had made to take Anna’s place at Miss Penny’s while she was
away. She declared that Alice should not do it. The bitterness which
had seemed to disappear had come back, and Alice had been greatly
disturbed. Mrs. Lorraine had finally yielded grudgingly, but she felt
hurt and injured and there had been a perceptible coolness between
mother and daughter since. They had never been close together, but of
late they had been nearer to one another than ever before. The more
Alice associated with Anna and Miss Penny, the more yearningly her
heart went out towards her mother, and this coldness that was almost
estrangement hurt her keenly.
She was grateful that Anna did not feel any want of cordiality in
her mother. Mrs. Lorraine received her thanks quietly and when
Anna explained the situation listened intently and questioned her
sympathetically. And she asked, almost impulsively, if Anna wasn’t
tired out.
“It’s just that I seem pulled so many ways at once, Mrs. Lorraine,”
Anna said. “Really, I ought not to be at Miss Penny’s. With Rusty at
college, I ought to be at home. Ma and pa need a daughter there the
worst way. I get over all I can, but they’re so glad to see me and so
sorry to have me go just across the street that it breaks my heart. But
someone has to be with Miss Penny. She was goodness itself to Rusty and
to the whole family, and I love her as if she were my favorite aunt
of all and just love to be with her. And now there’s Mrs. Langley.
She’s queer. Dick’s hatband had nothing on her when it comes to being
odd. And yet I take to her and would enjoy sort of mothering her if it
didn’t take me away from Miss Penny and my own family. And then again,
there’s Mr. Langley.”
On a sudden, tears filled the girl’s eyes. But she smiled through them.
“It’s rum to be so popular, isn’t it Alice?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you
think I was Brother Atlas or Father Time? The fact is, I’m only the
other Miller girl trying to pretend I’m Charley-on-the-spot.”
Mrs. Lorraine bent and kissed her. “You are a dear, absurd, unselfish
child!” she cried warmly. “And if ever there’s anything Alice or I can
do to help you out in any way, you must come straight to us. Mustn’t
she, Alice?”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Alice with shining eyes, and coming to her mother
kissed her shyly.
Both girls would have thought that Mrs. Lorraine had unbent as far as
possible. But she was to go yet further. On the afternoon of the first
day Alice spent with her, Miss Penny had Frank Miller drive her over to
Farleigh with the fat pony. She returned with Mrs. Lorraine, whom she
had persuaded to visit her as long as Alice stayed. Mrs. Lorraine was
as much surprised as her daughter, but somehow, there was no resisting
Miss Penny.
She expected to spend the greater part of her time in her chamber,
but she did no such thing though she was left free. The housework was
inconsiderable. Alice, who took to it strangely, loved to help Miss
Penny, who wasn’t willing to relinquish the whole. But Mrs. Lorraine
found herself wishing to be near the centre of things in the kitchen or
living-room and drifted thither before the first forenoon was over. It
seemed to her that the very thing her sore heart and worn nerves had
craved was to bask in the homely warmth of this simple, cosy household.
For the first day she sat in an arm chair with Silvertoes, who had
been included in the invitation, in her lap. But on the second, she
felt, after another wonderful night, so much alive that she wished
to be active. She said to Miss Penny that she should like to learn
to cook--to complete an education in domestic matters begun in her
childhood and interrupted by the receipt of a large inheritance which
drove her family off the farm. Wherefore, at Miss Penny’s suggestion,
Alice was sent off nutting, and the two women had a long, happy morning
together.
An inborn taste for the domestic and a really good foundation made Mrs.
Lorraine a still readier pupil than her daughter had been. Miss Penny’s
surprise at her skill drew forth a longer account of Mrs. Lorraine’s
early life. Miss Penny spoke of her own girlhood and other forgotten
details came back to her guest. And when Alice returned at noon of the
second day, she could scarcely credit what she saw and felt. Her mother
and Miss Penny appeared to be warm friends.
Anna had already taught Alice to love the out-of-doors, and though it
was less pleasant alone, she took advantage of her opportunity and
remained out all that she could, believing that her mother and Miss
Penny’s friendship would progress the more rapidly in her absence. Mr.
Langley called one day, and Mrs. Lorraine saw him and liked him. She
told her daughter what he had said of Richard Cartwright, the man who
had built their cottage, and expressed apprehension that he might find
a bare-looking place when he should call. Whereupon it came to Alice
that she might do something to make it look more attractive before they
returned to it.
She went over next day. As she sauntered towards Farleigh, she thought
of the man who had died before he had attained his heart’s desire. She
did not think of him as Reuben’s father except to wish that everyone
wouldn’t dwell so constantly upon the son as never to drop any hint to
gratify her hungry, rather mournful curiosity concerning the father.
He and Mr. Langley had been intimate friends, so that Mr. Langley
would be able to tell one all about him. Alice was pleased to reflect
that since her mother had met and liked Mr. Langley there was no bar
against her becoming more friendly with him. She wondered how long
she must wait before she should feel free to question him concerning
Richard Cartwright. The girl sighed as it came to her that he, too,
would most likely insist upon talking about Reuben instead. She would
probably hear the famous tale of the cat in the primeval pine tree
again and other less familiar incidents connected with the model youth;
but surely after he had exhausted the list--and she would be patience
itself--he would be ready to speak of the older and more interesting
Cartwright.
The outline of the cottage was charmingly picturesque. As Alice turned
into the lane to-day it struck her afresh and more strongly than ever.
As a matter of fact, it was the first time she had approached it
when her heart had not been burdened with the sense of her mother’s
unhappiness. Relieved of that burden, dimly aware, indeed, of her
mother’s very pleasant preoccupation and quite forgetting her father,
who had always been a stranger to her, Alice saw with new eyes and sped
on with a light step and a sense of well-being that she had never known
before.
The little porch with settees built in invited the comer to pause to
contemplate the outlook. Alice had never before had leisure to heed
or even to feel the invitation, but to-day she accepted gratefully.
Throwing herself down, she gazed happily out through a break in the
wall of foliage bordering the lane to the distant hills. But very
shortly, content changed to vague melancholy which became poignant.
The lilac and blue of those lovely folded hills convinced her that
Dick Cartwright had had even that in mind when he planned this cottage
and this porch. And he must have sat here where she was sitting now
on many a day at sunset and in the early dusk and under the evening
stars thinking of the organ, which must have seemed to come nearer and
nearer, and dreaming out melodies to play thereon.
The girl clasped her hands. How terribly sad his fate had been! He had
lost everything and died and been forgotten. Perhaps if he had had
the organ to comfort him, he wouldn’t have felt the death of his wife
so desperately, and wouldn’t have taken to drink and met his death.
If only someone had given it to him! There were so many people in the
world to whom the cost of a pipe organ would have meant little or
nothing. Why, once her own father could have given away any number of
them easier than she and her mother could dispense coppers to-day. She
could have done it herself.
Well, there was nothing to do now except to make some atonement for
the cruel fate that had come upon Richard Cartwright. It wasn’t her
fault, but it might have been, and the least she could do would be to
make whatever amends might be possible now. Being the daughter of a
convict, she would of course never marry, and she would devote her life
to the memory of this genius who had died betimes. She would fulfil her
duty to her mother but all her leisure thought and time and money (she
would earn some in a manner to be determined later) would go towards
reviving his memory and keeping it green. She would build the organ
just as he had planned and then--why not turn the cottage into a sort
of museum--the Richard Cartwright Memorial? Or perhaps better than a
museum, it might be a kind of musical centre where famous organists
would give concerts in his memory to the people of the countryside who
hadn’t appreciated him in life and where poor young men might come to
practise and improvise.
Immensely cheered, Alice took the keys from the pocket of her jacket
to enter the cottage and see if the whole lower floor could be made
into one apartment. But in her eagerness, she put the wrong key in the
lock. The second key, marked _Shop_ opened a small separate building
hidden in the shrubbery in the rear. There was a shop at Miss Penny’s
too, and she had said every house had had one in her girlhood, and this
one, which did not match the cottage, evidently belonged to an earlier
dwelling. It occurred suddenly to Alice that she might find something
there belonging to Dick Cartwright, some memorials to be put behind
glass in a cabinet near the organ.
The sun had dropped below the horizon, but the girl felt she could
make an hurried survey before dusk--indeed, she must. She ran quickly
through the thicket to the door of the shop and succeeded in turning
the key in the rusty lock. She stole softly in, awe rather than dread
hushing her steps.
The first view was disappointing. The place was piled full of old
boxes and crates and stacks of yellowed newspapers. But in the corner
she caught glimpses of odd chairs and stands and bits of furniture
which might prove of interest if one could ever get at them. A narrow
stairway with ladder-like ascent told her what a more observant person
would have implied from the window in the gable above the door--that
there was a second storey.
Catching her skirts in her hand, Alice climbed up. Her spirits rose
the moment her head cleared the railing above. She stepped directly
into a little chamber which had not been converted into a store room or
dumping ground and stood still to gaze about. It must have been left as
it was when Dick Cartwright went away.
There was a long carpenter’s bench with an iron contrivance fastened
at the end on one long side, and a smaller table opposite containing
rusty tins with a swinging shelf above holding buckets that had once
contained paint. A stand and a rocking chair stood near the window at
the further end and a dark bench or couch was drawn into the shadow
of the rafters. A secretary with drawers below the writing shelf and
shelves above with glass doors stood near the other window which looked
towards the house. A chair stood before it--how many years had it stood
there?--and careless of dust, Alice seated herself in it.
The glass doors were open. A few old, mildewed books stood on the
shelves. They might form a nucleus of the memorial library, but
Alice Lorraine sighed. For the nonce she had forgotten that Dick
Cartwright was dead. Half mechanically she pulled out one of the little
drawers below. A pile of letters met her view. The uppermost bore a
superscription. Either dusk or faded ink made it very faint, but the
girl read it--Mr. Richard Cartwright, Farleigh. They seemed to her the
saddest words she had ever read.
Forgetting everything else, the girl sat by the desk while the shadows
in the corners increased, encroaching more and more upon her island
of twilight. Then on a sudden, strange, nameless terror seized upon
her. She felt as she had once or twice felt in the night upon awaking
without apparent cause from sound sleep. Her hair seemed to rise from
her head and cold drops stood out on her brow and lips.
There was someone else in the room! For some seconds the girl sat
motionless, fearing to stir, to draw breath. Then she turned her head
ever so slightly and cautiously to see how near she was to the stair.
Two steps would bring her thither. She gazed as in fascination upon the
space for some moments, then slowly, breathlessly turned her head in
the opposite direction.
Nothing met her gaze and she grew bolder--or at least less fearful.
Turning about in the chair, though noiselessly, she surveyed the room.
There was nothing to be seen. She peered in every direction. The
corners were dark but not suspiciously so. It seemed as if there were
something odd about the look of the couch, but she could reach the
stairway, rush down and be out of the door before anyone or anything
could reach her thence. She rose softly to her feet.
For a little she stood still. Then she tiptoed quietly towards the dark
bench or couch beneath the rafters, peering before her all the while.
Suddenly she paused.
Her horror-stricken eyes made out the outlines of a dark figure on the
couch, an human being, a man who looked to her frightened gaze of giant
size. His eyes were closed. He was asleep--or dead?
Alice Lorraine stood still trying to think. If the man were asleep, he
was a drunken tramp and she must flee. If he were dead--O, so much more
must she fly! Not for the world would she be alone with a dead man, a
corpse. She must----
On a sudden the figure moved. The man’s eyes opened wide.