But Matilda Markham could not sit down under her weight of conviction
in protracted silence. The winter at last gripped The Hollow, and
doors and windows were closed against the cold and storm. Markham,
Martin, and Sandy were always away together much of the day, but
Matilda sat by her fire, chatted a little with Sally, revelled in
Marcia Lowe's frequent calls, and managed to weave a tender story from
all she heard. She knitted her endless rainbow scarfs and gave them to
the mountain women who received them in stolid amazement and doted upon
them in secret. Once Matilda did a very daring and tremendous thing.
She wrote to Olive Treadwell and asked some pointed and vital questions
about Lansing's wife!
Having sent the letter away impulsively, the poor little lady had a
week of real torture. Daily she walked to the post-office, when no one
was watching, and caused Tod Greeley much amusement by her nervous
anxiety.
"Meaning no offence," he confided to Marcia Lowe, "and respecting her
age and gray hairs, I reckon the old miss is in love. It comes late to
some folks," he sighed pathetically, "and it comes right hard when it
strikes past the time limit, but nothing but love takes it out of folks
like what this old miss is suffering."
At last the answer came and Matilda read it with the door of her
bedroom bolted and the washstand barricading it as well.
Olive Treadwell wrote:
I'm mighty glad to say something about this affair to some one who can
understand me. Imagine my feelings when, out of the blue, as one might
say, Lans brought this girl home and said, "I'm going to leave her with
you, Aunt Olive, until I can see my way clear. I am brother to her and
she is sister to me until--the way's made plain." That was all and
then Lans betook himself to his old quarters and began to work. He's
taken a position on the _Boston Beacon_ and calls, actually _calls_, on
his wife evenings or takes her and me out to theatres and dinners. I'm
supposed to be training this young woman, for what, heaven only knows!
but I have my hands full. Lans was always erratic and poetic, but this
is beyond my comprehension, He has had affairs of the heart, of course,
but this is different. The girl is the strangest creature I ever saw;
she is uncanny. After I got her into proper clothing I saw she had
beauty and charm of a certain kind. She takes to ways and expressions
mighty quick, and she is the sweet appealing kind that attracts even
while one disapproves. I confess I am utterly dumb-founded and if you
can throw any light on this matter, pray do so. The girl seems to me
to be half here and half somewhere else; she isn't unhappy, and she
seems to adore Lans in a detached and pretty childish way, but why did
he marry her and why should he, having married her, regard her in this
platonic fashion?
Of course Matilda could not answer these questions but she cried over
the letter a great deal and brooded over Sandy with all the motherhood
that nature had not legitimately utilized. And then, one night, Sandy
came to her quite simply and directly and claimed, in his great
suffering need, what she alone had to give.
It was the week before Christmas. The cabin was gay and festive, for
Marcia Lowe, in a lavishness of good cheer, had decorated everything
she could command beginning with the little chapel and ending with the
post-office. The County Club sat now 'neath an arbour of greens, and
the lowliest cabin had its spray of pine or holly.
Martin and Levi were bent over a backgammon board in Sandy's study.
Markham had undertaken to correct Morley's neglected education as to
games; and Martin had, after the first week, so outstripped his
instructor that Levi was put upon his mettle and every victory he
wrenched now from Martin gave him a glow of pride he was not slow to
exhibit. Seeing the two men engrossed, Sandy stole to Matilda
Markham's little sitting-room and there found the dear lady asleep
before the fire, her thin white hands sunk in a mass of beautiful
wools. He stood and looked at the quiet, peaceful old face; he
recalled, one by one, her kindnesses to him, her growing pride and love
for him, and presently his eyes grew misty. The frail creature before
him became touched by the magic of his gratitude and need, the most
vital and mighty factor in his life. She, in this hour of his hidden
craving, was the only one to whom he could turn, and right well he knew
that she would stand by him.
Suddenly Matilda Markham opened her eyes and looked directly into
Sandy's. It may have been that some dream had prepared her, God may
have spoken to her in vision; however that may be she said gently:
"Son, you need me? Come, tell me all about it."
Quite naturally Sandy sat down at her feet and looked frankly into the
dear, old face.
"I am going to ask you to do a great thing for me," he said; "I must
ask you to do it without my explaining things to you to any extent--I
want you to do it as a mother might for her son--trusting me if you
can."
"Dear boy, I think I can promise to do what you ask."
Then the thin hands found their way to the bent head, and as they
touched the thick, dark hair a thrill shot to the woman's very heart.
"Mother!" Sandy seemed inspired to meet her soul's longing. "Mother!"
"Son, go on. I am waiting."
"It--it is about the girl--Lansing Treadwell married."
"Yes."
"I must know how things are with her. Our mountain people can be so
lonely and homesick away from the hills. At times nothing, nothing can
take the place of the yearning. I--I can forget everything that has
even been, if I know she is right happy and content--but I must know!"
A fierceness struck through the low-spoken words. "The doubt is--is
killing me."
"Shall I go now, son, or wait until after the holidays?"
"Could you go now--and alone?"
"I can manage Levi, son. Travelling is real easy these days. It will
take management, but I can get what I want."
"You would understand if you saw her."
Sandy's voice trailed off forgetful of the woman at whose knees he
knelt.
"She can smile and make right merry, but you would know and understand.
She is such a pretty, sweet thing, but she has the iron of the hills in
her. She must"--again Sandy's voice shook with passion,--"she must
have happiness! If--if the noise and confusion of the city have
distracted her she must come back to the mountains. Lans will agree to
this--I do not doubt him! She must not--kill herself--you will know
when you see her. You must come back and tell me--you will?"
"I will, son."
Matilda yearned to show him Olive Treadwell's letter, but something
kept her from doing it. She wanted to do what she could for Sandy in
her own way, and suddenly she felt herself a giant of strength and
purpose.
"Travel alone!" she said to Levi later when she had cowed the poor man
by her determination and exactions, "of course I can travel alone. Am
I an idiot, Levi, or a fool? Haven't I a good American tongue to ask
questions with? I remember our mother once told us she would spank us
well if we ever got lost in a place where folks talked the same
language we did. You put me on the train at The Forge with a through
seat in a Pullman, telegraph to Mary Jane to meet me in New York, and I
guess I can manage."
"But, 'Tilda, what on earth has seized you to act so uncertain in the
middle of this visit? What will they think of you and me?"
Then Matilda made her master stroke and, by virtue of her
sex-privilege, completed her triumph over her brother.
"Levi," she said--she was standing before him, her thin hands on his
shoulders--"I ain't ever had what you might call a real fling where my
emotions and sentiments were concerned. Let go of me, just this once,
and trust me! I've always been sort of held back. First it was father
and mother; then Caroline, and lastly you! I ain't never done exactly
what I wanted to do without explaining, and now I want to be left free
even if I die for it!"
"Well, well!" blurted Levi, but he caught the idea. "I guess women do
have a sense of the tight rein now and then; it may lie loose mostly,
but it never is quite laid off. 'Tilda, you may cut and run now, for
all of me. I'll see to what, you may say, are your animal
comforts--parlour car seats, tickets, and some one waiting for you in
town, but you kick the heels of your inclinations good and high for
once and I bet you and me will run the rest of the race together
better, forever after. Whoop it up, 'Tilda, and remember money needn't
be a hold back. You've got a big, fat slice coming to you, old girl."
Now that Levi had dropped the reins, the spirit of adventure possessed
him. He and Sandy saw Matilda off on her journey three days later, in
high spirits.
"I tell you, boy," he confided on the way back to the cabin, "it's a
mighty good sign when a woman wants to jump the traces, and a good man
isn't going to lick her into submission for doing it. The chances are
a woman wouldn't take to kicking if the traces didn't chafe. I've
meant to be kind to Matilda, but kindness can be chafing at times. A
woman like Matilda, a little, self-sacrificing woman, is real
enlightening if you pay attention."
Matilda seemed to develop and expand during that trip North. She
ordered her meals with an abandon that electrified the waiters on the
train, and then her sense of economy demanded that she should eat what
she had ordered. Her tips were dazzling and erratic, but they, and her
quaint personality, won for her great comfort and care. She was in
better condition, physically, than she had been for many a day when,
one golden winter afternoon, she stood in Olive Treadwell's
drawing-room in Boston and waited for Cynthia. Mrs. Treadwell was out,
but the "young lady," the maid said, was in.
"How very fortunate," thought Matilda and then took her rigid stand
across the room. Unconsciously she was waiting to see what Lansing
Treadwell had done to this girl of the hills whom he had so ruthlessly
and breath-takingly borne away. Lans was, unknowingly, before the most
awful bar of judgment he had ever stood--the bar of pure womanhood!
There was a step upon the stairs; a quick, yet faltering step, and then
Cynthia entered the room and came toward Matilda Markham with deep,
questioning eyes and slow smile. The impression the girl made was to
last the rest of Matilda's life. Once, years before, Matilda had seen
a rare and lovely butterfly caught in the meshes of a net, and, oddly
enough, the memory came to her now as she looked at the sweet,
starry-eyed creature advancing. She was as surely caught in an
invisible net of some kind as the long-ago butterfly had been. Matilda
Markham noted the conventional gown of dull blue with silver trimming;
the little slippers to match, and the silken stockings; her eyes rested
upon the string of small silver beads wound around the slim throat;
all, all were but part of the mesh that caught and held the spirit that
had ceased to struggle.
How lovely she was, this Cynthia of Lost Hollow, in spite of the crude
conventions! The frank, waiting eyes were as gray-blue as her mountain
skies; the lips, half-parted, had not forgotten to smile above the hurt
and pain of her tiring days and homesick nights; the smooth braids of
shining hair bound the lifted head just as dear Madam Bubble had
designed them on the morning when the portrait of "The Biggest of Them
All" was hung in the Significant Room.
"You--wanted to see--me?"
The drawl had become sacred to Matilda's ears.
"Yes, my child. I have come from your old home just to see--you."
A faint colour stole into the whiteness of the fair face.
"From Lost Mountain?" Oh! if Sandy could have heard her say that word
how it would have rested his soul! "From Lost Mountain?"
"Yes, my dear. Come and sit here beside me."
Matilda could not stand longer. Her knees shook beneath her for, like
a blinding light, the knowledge came to her that poor Lans, with all
his faults, was exonerated from any wrong to this young girl! The
innocent old eyes and the radiant young ones had no veil between them.
Sitting side by side they smiled bravely at each other and then Cynthia
reached out her hands.
"You are"--she whispered--"you are Sandy Morley's fairy godmother! Oh!
I know all about you. Lans has told me. I am right glad--oh! mighty
glad to see you!"
The voice shook with emotion and Matilda Markham could not answer for a
moment. Never in her life had she been so moved. She longed to take
this girl to her heart and hold her there, but instead she found
herself, presently, telling the homely news of the hills to the hungry
soul whose yearning eyes never fell from her face.
"And the little doctor is my own aunt, you know?"
"Yes, child. They told me all about it."
"It's right good to have one's own--at last;" this was plaintively
whispered; "and my dear, dear father. You know his story, too?"
"Yes. It lives in the hills and speaks for him even to-day."
"They-all say I'm like my father."
"I am sure you must be. You are like Miss Lowe, and I guess one can
always tell which parent a boy or girl is like. I guess Sandy, now, is
like his mother. He doesn't favour his father."
"Yes. I reckon Sandy must be like his mother. I had never thought of
that before."
Cynthia's eyes were fixed and dreamy.
"And you, child, are you happy and content?"--the words of Sandy were
the only ones possible--"I must tell them all about you when I go back."
"You are--going back?" the yearning was unmistakable--"I thought,
maybe, you were going to stay here--I'd be mighty glad to have you
near."
"I'm coming home, to my own home a little later. I'll see you often
then."
Slowly they were advancing and retreating, this woman and girl, but
each venture brought them a little nearer. Like the incoming waters of
a rising tide a slight gain was made, moment by moment. Then suddenly
and unexpectedly a rushing current bore them to the high mark.
"You poor, homesick child! Come cry it out and have done with it!"
It was not like Matilda Markham to so assert herself; it was not like
the dear, brave Madam Bubble to succumb as she now did; but, in another
instant she was kneeling where Sandy had knelt a few nights before, and
clinging to the dear hands which had, then, rested upon his bowed head.
The wall of suppression that Cynthia had raised, during the past weeks,
between her mountain life and this artificial one of the city, crumbled
at the message from the hills. Her part in the strange drama sank to
insignificance, and in her weakness she was able to view it clearly and
dispassionately with this plain little woman who had come to serve her.
"I did not understand," she sobbed; "I was tired--there had been the
night in the storm, you know. I did not want to make trouble and--oh!
how can I tell you, but it was only when the little doctor--my
aunt--explained everything that I saw myself standing alone in the
confusion with something I must say and do! I couldn't let them do my
work for me, dear lady,"--the quaint expression caused Matilda Markham
to draw in her breath sharply--"I was no longer a child and I had to
bear my part. When we-all stood in Sandy's cabin and the truth came to
us-all, at once, I reckon for the first time in my life, I realized I
was a woman. I couldn't take my chance and leave Lans out. They-all
wanted to save me from myself, but they forgot him and then when he
said"--the girl gasped--"that he wanted me--I had to go! I did not go
because any one compelled me--I just had to go! I was led like when I
married Lans. More and more I see it now; I feel it in the night. It
did not _happen_, dear lady; it all leads up to something God wants me
to do; something no one can do as well as I. Sandy had his call--you
know how he responded? Well, I have my leading. We-all, of the hills,
get near God, dear lady. We are lonelier; we need Him more and He
speaks more plainly to us, I reckon."
The superstition and mysticism of Lost Hollow held every thought and
fancy of this girl, but Matilda Markham realized that they gave her
strength and purpose as they had poor Sandy before her.
"Oh! my dear, my dear!" was all she could say, but she freed one of her
cool hands from Cynthia's hot one, and laid it like a benediction on
the girlish head.
"I am waiting, dear lady, for the thing I am to do, and Lans is mighty
kind. He is my big brother and I am his little sister--until I can
read my way plain. You did not know he was so good?"
"I thank God that he is!" breathed Matilda Markham devoutly.
"I wish I could make--Mrs. Treadwell understand. She--laughs!"
Matilda felt her ire rise. The laugh of Olive Treadwell could be
brutal and cruel in its sweetest ripple!
"It seems right long and wearying waiting, waiting for the meaning."
Cynthia's slow words flowed on. She had ceased crying and was looking
up now with brave, clear eyes, "and part of me is there--in Lost
Hollow. That part of me comes to comfort _this_ part of me--can you
understand, dear lady?"
Matilda nodded. She did, indeed, understand.
"And that part of me makes this part of me--stay here! After that
mighty hurry and trouble when Lans and I came away alone I was right
frightened. There was just once--while we stayed a few hours in New
York that I--that something happened. I was in a room, Lans had gone
out to order luncheon and I felt I had to run away! I stood with my
back against the wall when he came in and I reckon I was wild, for he
came close and took my hands this-er-way----" Cynthia was acting the
vivid scene standing now before Matilda Markham and holding her
hands--"and he said slow and firm, 'lil' girl, I'm not going to hurt
you. You and Sandy Morley are not going to see me fail!' And then
that part of me that lives always in Lost Hollow went back mighty safe
and strong. I haven't been afraid, dear lady, since."
Then it was that Miss Markham arose and realized her strength to its
full extent.
"Child," she said, "I've changed my mind about going back to Lost
Hollow to-morrow. I'm going to Bretherton and that is only a half hour
by rail from here. I want you to come to me, there. I must see you
again. I'll explain to Mrs. Treadwell and Lans. I declare I haven't
felt so like my old self for years and years."
"Oh! dear lady!" Cynthia's shining eyes were large and happy; "dear
lady! you mean you will let me see you in your own home?"
"I mean--just that."
"Oh! Oh! why sometimes I think that soon God will say, 'lil' girl,
your task is done. Run back home now! Run back to your hills.' Maybe
I can go back with you!"
A gayety rang in the sweet voice that almost reduced Matilda to tears.
The abandon and inconsequence were so oddly mingled with the strange
determined strength that the elderly woman was confused and irrational.
The wayward, wild creature of the hills, ensnared in the net woven by
Lans's blind passion and irresponsibility, seemed so incapable of
fulfilling any role that demanded the recognition of her as a wife in
this superficial environment that Matilda felt immoral and
sacrilegious. She wanted to say, instead of leaving it to a higher
power, "Your task is done, lil' girl! Run back to your hills!" but
instead she said brokenly:
"You will come to Bretherton?"
"Indeed, yes; dear lady!"
"Perhaps you will go out with me to-morrow if I stay over night in
town?"
"If--oh! if they will let me. But you see, there are a mighty lot of
things to do--I'm learning!"
"Good-bye then, dear child."
And that night, on the paper of a quiet little hotel, Matilda wrote a
brief note to Lost Hollow. She addressed it to Levi.
I'm going to stay on a spell. I never felt better in my life. It was
the thinking that life didn't need me any more, that was running me
down. It's awful foolish for old folks to let go of things. By the
way, I called at Olive Treadwell's to-day and saw Lans's wife. She's
real fascinating and real good looking. Brother, I want you to
reconsider about leaving Lans out of your will. He's coming out real
strong and blood is blood! Tell Sandy this girl, Cynthia, sends kind
regards and is enjoying her stay in Boston better than she expected.
This letter had a marvellous effect upon Levi and Sandy.
"What do you think of that?" Levi exclaimed shaking with laughter. "If
that ain't spunk and real grit."
Sandy was looking out of the study window and did not reply.
"That's the old New England spirit. Never say die and all the rest!"
Levi chuckled.
"Thank God for it!" was all Sandy said in return.