INTO THE DARK
During the week of the greenest Christmas that had been known at
Harley's Mills for years, sudden and bitter cold turned a heavy rain to
an ice-storm that locked village and country-side, laying low great
trees by the clinging weight of icicles, freezing outright more than one
veteran crow in the roost on Cedar Hill, and making prisoners of the
ruffed grouse and bob-whites in their shelter of hemlock and juniper in
the river woods.
In two nights Moosatuck became a vast mirror, in which the figures of
the skaters by daylight and torchlight were reflected, framed by
wonderful prismatic colors. Below the falls, however, the water,
tempered by the breath of the sea, bedded the wild fowl, repulsed by the
ice-pointed reed bayonets from their usual shelter.
From all the bordering towns the people gathered along the banks this
particular Wednesday afternoon in a spirit of holiday festivity, whether
they took the part of actors or spectators. Contrary to the custom of
years, the Feltons and Mr. Esterbrook had returned to Quality Hill for
the week, though quite against the wishes of Miss Elizabeth, who
insisted that for Miss Emmy, with her sensitive lungs, the tropic
atmosphere of a steam-heated New York house, with double windows to
prevent even a breath of fresh air from entering unduly, was the only
place. Miss Emmy, however, had rebelled, and seemed bent upon following
the advice of a young practitioner, who had for two years been
propounding the radical doctrine that fresh, cool air was the natural
cure. The absurdity of his theory was on every tongue, even though he
was backed by a few women of the progressive sort, who are always said
by others to fly in the face of Providence.
Be this as it may, a quaint old push-sled that had belonged to Madam
Harley, and been many years in the loft at the Mills, presently appeared
on the ice, propelled by Patrick, somewhat indignant at his descent from
the thronelike box of the carriage. When above a mass of fur robes Miss
Emmy's eager face appeared, framed in a chinchilla hood tied with wide
rose-colored ribbons, she was quickly surrounded, even before she had
time to shrug her shoulders free and draw one hand from the depths of
her great muff, extending it toward a young girl who had come toward her
with the grace of a swallow skimming the air, bending to kiss her almost
before she had paused, saying in the same breath: "Oh, Miss Emmy, I'm so
glad that you've come out; I was afraid that we had missed you, and I
must be going soon, for I promised Daddy that I would be home by four.
No, it's not cold if you keep moving, but it will never do for you to
sit stock-still. Please let Hugh push and I will skate beside you, and
Patrick can wait in that old shed yonder, back of the bonfire the boys
have made.
"We've been pushing Philip Angus all the afternoon. His tutor is ill,
and the man that brought him out only stood about stamping his feet and
beating his hands. It must be hard enough not to be able to skate, for
there's nothing like flying down with the wind and fighting your way
back in spite of it, without having to be stuck in one spot like a snow
man. So we simply made Philip fly along, until he said that he really,
truly felt as if the runners were on his feet instead of on the sleigh,
and his cheeks grew red and his big gray eyes shone so. He is such a
dear little fellow, Miss Emmy, and so clever at making pictures and
images of anything he sees. Last summer he made Mack's head out of pond
clay and baked it in the sun, and it was ever so much like Mack when he
holds one ear up to listen, you know. Then he tried to do a head of Aunt
Satira, but it wasn't so good; the nose and bob of hair behind looked
too much alike. But then he coaxed Mack up through one of the parapet
holes into his garden, but he had to look over at aunty where she sits
to sew or shell peas under the first apple tree. You see, Philip and I
can't visit to and fro like other people, because his father is angry
with Daddy about something that isn't Daddy's fault, but we love each
other over the parapet just the same, so now I have two make-believe
brothers, little Philip and big Hugh."
Poppea had chattered on without a break in obedience to a signal from
Miss Emmy, who, putting her muff to her face, indicated that the young
girl must carry on the conversation, as she did not think it wise to
talk in the face of the wind. Then looking about for Hugh Oldys, Poppea
saw that he was evidently searching for her in the zigzag line of
skaters near the opposite bank, and as a wave of her scarlet muffler did
not attract his attention, she started in pursuit, still with the grace
of birdlike flight that makes of motion an embodied thought rather than
a muscular action.
As she glanced after the girl, Miss Emmy seemed to see as a panorama all
the years between the time that she had first found the lady baby in the
post-office house, with Hughey Oldys giving her his beloved tin soldier
and the present, nearly thirteen years. Poppea, now at the crisis of her
girlhood, Hugh in his first college year. Did she realize the lapse of
time? In some ways not at all. Mr. Esterbrook was as courteous and
precise as ever; if his morning walk was a little shorter and his
before-dinner nap a little longer, the change was imperceptible to any
outsider.
But it was through her interest in Poppea that Miss Emmy knew that time
was passing, and yet the same interest kept middle age from laying hold
upon her, either physically or mentally; Poppea, whom Miss Felton had
from the beginning called Julia as a matter of principle, the second
name having too theatrical a flavor to suit her. At first it had been
the little child of five, coming to take her lesson in needlework on
squares of dainty patchwork, one white, the alternate sprigged with blue
forget-me-nots. The tiny silver thimble and work-box as a reward when
the doll's bed-quilt was completed. With this came almost unconscious
teaching of pretty manners, rising when some one enters the room,
standing until all are seated.
Next came the discovery that Poppea was all music and rhythmic motion to
her toe tips. At one of the summer afternoon concerts for which Felton
Manor was famous, Louis Moreau Gottschalk had been the soloist, playing
some of his Cuban dances, when to the surprise of all, the child of
seven, who had been sitting on the porch steps listening intently, got
up and, creeping inside the window of the music room, began to dance,
suiting her steps to the music, now slow, now rapid, perfectly
unconscious that any one was present, until the great emotional pianist,
glancing up, finished abruptly, pausing to applaud, and Poppea, brought
suddenly to herself and covered with confusion, fled out into the
shrubbery, where, her face hidden in Mack's soft neck, she cried out her
excitement. Then followed the music lessons, Poppea's legs dangling from
the high piano-stool as Miss Emmy leaned over her, repeating the
ceaseless, "one-two-three (thumb under) four-five-six-seven-eight" of
the scale of C for the right hand.
Now, born of the last Christmas, a small upright piano stood in the
foreroom of the post-office house, the room being further transformed by
frilled draperies, flowery paper, and a few good prints, while in
another year, Poppea would, if Oliver Gilbert could bring his mind to
allow it, go away to school to have the necessary companionship of girls
of her own age; not that she had the slightest feeling of aloofness or
did not mingle with the village young people in the simplest way. It was
the village people themselves, not Poppea, who seemed to hold aloof, as
if they did not know how to place the girl, who, though belonging at the
post-office, had the freedom of the Felton home, calling the ladies
"aunt." Gilbert could not realize this, and a possible parting put him
in a state of panic, not only for himself, but for her. What questions
might be asked her? What doubts raised?
The Misses Felton and Mr. Esterbrook, on this topic being united, said,
"Farmington, of course!" Yet they had to confess that there were certain
difficulties in the way, and were oftentimes inclined to agree with Hugh
Oldys's mother, who said in her gentle way, "You may be right, cousins
Felton, but my feeling would be to keep the dear child here close
amongst us, Stephen Latimer helping, so that when the time comes when
she must realize her natural loneliness, she need never otherwise feel
alone."
Miss Emmy's momentary fit of retrospection was broken by the return of
Poppea and Hugh, skating "cross-hands," and in a moment Miss Emmy was
whirling over the ice until she began to feel, like Philip Angus, that
the runners were on her own feet.
After a mile of this exhilaration, Hugh pushed the sled into a little
cove, to the shelter of the high bank and a hemlock tree combined, that
he might ease his numb hands and give Poppea a chance to collect her
straggling hair.
"How do you like that, cousin Emmy?" he cried. "If it wasn't that
gripping that confounded handle bar paralyzes my hands, I could push
you clear up to Kirby; the mischief of it would be coming down again.
Face the wind, Poppy, then your hair will blow back so you can grab it."
Hugh, of man's strength and stature, was still a boy in the joy of life
that was stamped in every line of his frank, well-featured, dark face.
His hair, tousled by a fur cap, had a wave above the forehead; his
almost black eyes looked straight at you without boldness. The corners
of both nostrils and mouth had a firmness of curve that might either
develop to a keen expression of humor or the power of holding his
emotions in check.
As he looked at Poppea who, having taken off her red woollen hood, was
struggling to rebraid her long hair that had escaped from its ribbon,
his expression was of the affectionate regard of a boy for his sister,
who is also his chum, and so much a part of his normal life that it
never occurs to him to analyze their relations.
"Here's your ribbon," he said, tossing it to her at the moment she
reached the end of the strand. "It blew into my hands a quarter of a
mile back. You tie and I'll hold; I never could manage a bow."
"Put on your hood quick or you'll lose that too," laughed Miss Emmy,
revelling in the youth and freshness of the pair before her. So Poppea
tied tight the ample head-gear crocheted by Satira Pegrim's generous, if
not artistic hands, and in so doing, hid her thick, long mane of golden
brown, with the tints of copper and ash that painters love. Beautiful as
her hair was, the great charm of her face lay in her eyes. These, a
casual observer might say, were hazel, but at times they held slanting
glints of gold and green, like the poppy's heart, shaded by dark lashes,
and all the opal colors: yes, even the fire opal.
Sometimes as they looked out from under the straight, dark brows, their
expression would have been wistful, almost sad, had it not been for the
upward curve of the lips and tip tilt of the straight nose that
separated them, the sort of a nose that in a child is termed kissable.
"Once more up to the turn," said Hugh, "and then home. I'm afraid it
will snow to-night and spoil the skating."
"No, home now; that is, for me," answered Poppea, looking for a hump
where she could take off her skates. "Daddy hasn't been feeling quite
well for a few days and he likes me to look over the mail after he has
tied up the packages. You see, he mismarked one, day before yesterday.
Quarter of four already? Then I shall be late."
"Not if we take a short cut across the fields and go down the hill
through the cemetery. There's no snow to speak of, and it will be easier
walking that way than over the icy main roads. Yes, I'm going back with
you; I've got to, anyway, for father told me to go to the express office
and also buy a lot of stamps, and I forgot both this noon.
"Bah! How cold my hands are! I wonder if, by any chance, Mrs. Pegrim
would give a couple of tramps a cup of tea and a doughnut."
"Not tea, Hugh, chocolate with whipped cream on top, and I'll make it.
I've learned up at the Feltons'; the aunties have it every afternoon,
and it's delicious."
In this mood, the girl and man tramped over the brown-and-white meadows
with their tumbledown stone fences, until in the high pickets of the
graveyard fence they met the first real obstruction, which they avoided
by going around to the north gate that opened above Oliver Gilbert's
plot.
"I hope the ice hasn't broken the young dogwoods," said Poppea; "they
were growing so nicely. No, but they are bending. Stop one minute, Hugh,
and help me break off the biggest icicles that are weighing down these
branches until they will snap.
"Oh, look! the ice and wind have torn all the vines from Mother's stone
and Daddy will feel dreadfully; he's trained it so as to make a frame
and he would never let me touch even a leaf. I wonder if we can put it
back? No," and she stooped to lift the vine; "the ice is too heavy."
As Poppea bent over she suddenly slipped to her knees before the stone,
her eyes fixed upon it with an intensity amounting to terror. Hugh,
close behind her, followed her glance. For a second, neither moved or
spoke, then turning toward him, her hands outstretched and pleading, she
cried:--
"Look, Hugh! look quick, and tell me if the snow has blinded me, or are
those numbers 1851?"
He stooped and looked intently before he answered what he already knew,
had known, these half dozen years; then said, "It is 1851, Poppea."
"But it must be a mistake then of the stone-cutters, that we've never
noticed before because of the vines; it should be 18_6_1, the year that
I was born and Mother died, so that I never saw her.
"Don't you think that is the way of it, Hugh? Why don't you speak? What
ails you?"
Again she turned from the stone to look him in the face. Something she
saw there struck a chill into her more penetrating than the icy ground
on which she continued to kneel.
Poor Hugh Oldys! What avail was his athletic strength or moral courage?
If his playmate had been drowning, burning, or in any other form of
physical peril, he could have dashed through anything, or even killed
men to rescue her from harm, but now--He stood facing the intangible,
with bent head, helplessly groping for some way of escape, not so much
for himself as for Poppea. The truth lay bare before them, and he knew
that it could no longer be veiled. The protective instinct of manhood
told him to get her home quickly and under cover, that the blow need not
seem so brutal as in the open cold. While he was trying to collect
himself and form a plan, Poppea's intuition, keyed almost to second
sight, was reading his mind through his eyes.
"You do not think the date is a mistake, but you don't know what to
say!"
The words came out so slowly that her lips hardly seemed to form them;
then Poppea faced the stone once more, her hands pressed to the sides of
her face.
"If 1851 is right, then '_Mary, beloved wife of Oliver G. Gilbert_'
can't be my mother. Do you understand, Hugh? Not my mother. Why don't
you speak? Oh, do say something, Hugh; that is, if you understand!"
Stumbling to her feet, Poppea went to the little stone and, pulling away
the vine, exposed the other date, 1852!
"Then Marygold isn't my sister either! Who was my mother, Hugh? And
Daddy--isn't Daddy my father? Tell me, you must!"
Grasping Hugh by the shoulders, half to steady herself, half in frenzy,
she shook him as she swayed to and fro.
"Come home, Poppea, and ask Daddy himself; he is the one to tell you all
about it," the lump in Hugh's throat almost stopping his voice, as he
took her arm and tried, without force, to turn her homeward. But Poppea
was at bay. Still holding fast and looking in his face, she gasped:--
"What were my mother's and father's names? Tell me that _now_! Where did
Daddy get me? Tell me that!"
Unconsciously Hugh shook his head, at the same time his lips said, "This
also you must ask Daddy."
"That means that no one knows; that I'm not anybody, not anybody," she
repeated with a moan. "Did Miss Emmy and Mr. Esterbrook and 'Lisha and
Aunt Satira and everybody know but me? Does little Philip know? Take
your hand off my arm, Hugh. I'm not going home any more; how can I, when
I haven't a home or even a _dead_ mother or a Daddy, and every one has
deceived me?"
The poor young fellow, meanwhile, was trying to lead her toward the
highway gate in the hope that a team might pass so that they could beg a
ride, for heavy snow clouds were hastening the dark, and even he began
to feel the chill of it through his pea-jacket, while Poppea was
colorless and rigid as one of the icicles that hung from the trees.
Could this be the same being who, less than an hour before, joyous and
radiant, was skating up the river holding Miss Emmy by the hand? If she
had cried, ever so passionately, it would have reassured him.
"If you don't want to go back, you must go over to my mother or Miss
Emmy," he said, as she again halted outside the gate in sight of the
cross-roads. "Listen, I hear a wagon in the turnpike; wait a moment
while I stop it and beg a ride down; you are trembling all over, and if
you stay here any longer, you'll be very ill maybe."
Hugh ran down the side road to the turnpike in time to stop the team, a
wave of relief sweeping over him when he saw that it was 'Lisha Potts
taking his evening milk down to the centre. ('Lisha, who was still
courting Satira Pegrim.)
To 'Lisha no explanation was needed save the fact of the discovery of
the date and the need of getting Poppea home.
"Great snakes!" he ejaculated, closing his jaw with the snap of a steel
trap. "So it's come at last! At the very first I rather sided with
Gilbert's keeping the thing dark from her, but Satiry had the common
sense,--'It's got to come,' says she, 'so why not let her grow up with
an aunty and uncle and fetch up to it drop by drop instead of gettin'
the whole thing some day like a pail of cold water on the head that may
jar the brain.' Now it seems the cold water's come. Go back and fetch
her, Hughey man, I'll wait; but I can't turn this long wagon on a hill
noway, nohow."
Hugh hurried back, calling Poppea's name as he went, but when he reached
the gate, she was gone.
Rushing frantically to and fro, he looked back into the graveyard and
behind the long line of stone fence opposite that the night was fast
blending with its other shadows, but Poppea was nowhere to be seen.
"She would ha' passed this way if she'd gone down home," said 'Lisha,
now thoroughly startled at Hugh's drawn face and hurried words of what
had happened. "I can see almost all the way down the other road, and she
ain't on that. 'Tain't like she'd take to the hill-country this time o'
night. Anyway, it isn't no use trying to track her; the ground's froze
so hard it doesn't take a hoof print. Well, come to think of it, if that
isn't darned queer! It was froze jest like this the night she was left
at Gilbert's! Best come down to the centre and I'll drop this milk and
borrer a buggy and you and me'll do some tall searchin'. It does look
some as if the Lord had meant I was to be sort of trackin' of the little
gall from the beginnin'. But mebbe it's jest because I'm a good deal
round about and keep my eyes open.
"You'll best tell Gilbert, but make him stay to hum, and we'll do the
searchin'. It's no fit night for his lame leg; jest say 'Lisha Potts's
going on the trail and he'll trust me, and mention to Satiry that the
coffee-pot on the back of the stove'll make a nice picture for us when
we get back."
Meanwhile, the long-legged horses were making good time toward the
village, and presently, as Hugh entered the post-office, he could see
Oliver Gilbert's face looking anxiously up the road through the window
by the beehive, for the Binks boy had already come for the mail-bag.
"Where's Poppy? Has anything happened? Don't say she's fell through the
ice and drowned!" Gilbert said almost in a whisper.
"No, no, she's safe enough," and Hugh paused, realizing that even these
words might not be true.
"Sit down, Daddy" (Hugh had fallen into using Poppea's epithets). "I
must tell you something."
Hugh told all as it had happened, repeating Poppea's broken sentences
word for word with unconscious emphasis and pathos. Then, after giving
'Lisha's message, he stopped short and, still standing, looked at the
old man, who was sitting motionless.
Gilbert arose with difficulty, steadying himself by the table corner.
"Go, Hugh, and do you and 'Lisha do the best you can. She--she came to
me in the night, and in the darkness she has gone from me," and hiding
his face in his arm he left the office and, stumbling across the passage
to the house, passed through the kitchen and entered his bedroom, where
he closed and locked the door.
Hugh followed to say a few words to Satira, and remind her of the
deserted post-office. She, overcoming her desire to set forth the
fulfilment of her prediction in all its details, sat down suddenly in
the rocker, head between her hands, until the honest tears spattered
both on the floor and on the coat of old Mack, who, gray and rheumatic,
still kept the place, half under the stove, that he had first chosen
almost thirteen years before.
Oliver Gilbert meanwhile paced up and down the inner room, the irregular
tapping of his heels telling its own story to Satira Pegrim, though she
could not see the pitiful working of his face or the nervous clenching
of his long, thin hands. Presently he paused by the hooded cradle that
stood as of old between the bed and wall. Lighting a candle, he set it
upon the chest of drawers, where its rays fell upon the cradle. Upon the
white counterpane was a little bouquet of Prince's pine, wintergreen
berries, and holly ferns that Poppea had placed there on Christmas eve.
Stiffly Gilbert dropped to his knees, his arms clasped about the cradle
as on that first night.--"God keep her and lead her in somewhere out of
the cold and harm. Oh, Lord! I've been short-sighted and selfish. I
wanted her for my very own so bad that I've lived out a lie rather than
have the truth come between ever so little. Now she is suffering for it
when it should only be me. I was puffed up and said to myself in my
pride,--'A wrong has been laid at my door because the Lord knew that I
would right it,'--but instead I have added to it. Oh, Lord! have pity;
keep her away from the river and the railroad and Brook's pea-brush
swamp until she gets time to think."