THE TURNING
When one has spent the early morning hours of a journey, in which no
steps may be retraced, in following a fairly straight and level path
through a familiar wood, hindered only by a few briers, with sheltering
trees above, pleasant vistas on every side, and in friendly company,
hope rises high and straightway trusts the path ahead. But when an
abrupt turn shows there is a steep to climb, the pathway itself becomes
confused, indefinite, treacherous, and the guiding voices have
scattered, some going one way and some another, what must one do?
Hesitate? sit down to think it out? or still walk on foot-length by
foot-length, trusting to circumstance for keeping the course that one
may not divine?
It was at the turn of such a road as this that Poppea found herself; she
could not go back if she would, and friendly voices called in opposite
directions from her own instinct. Of one thing only she was quite sure,
she must go on without a pause lest in it she lose courage; she must
climb on her hands and knees even, if necessary. The only mistake she
made was in thinking, as we all have done at times since the days of the
self-gratulatory St. Paul enumerating his trials, that she had reached
the turning alone.
If she had but realized it, Oliver Gilbert, near the end of his journey
and travelling in the opposite direction, was confronted by the same
sharp turn and the same barrier, that to each this bore the same
name--The Future!
If Poppea had been pondering how she could help her Daddy and lead him
naturally toward the resigning of his office, Gilbert was conscious of a
like necessity, but this was nothing compared to the appalling
realization of Poppea's womanhood that had suddenly confronted him.
In Gilbert's simple mind, when a girl crossed the boundary of the
twentieth year, the mating time was at hand, and each year after that
she remained unbespoken if not married, reflected in some way either
upon her good looks, disposition, or opportunities. As in all rural
districts, there were many long courtships in Newfield County lasting
from half a dozen to even a dozen years, but after the serious
intentions of the man were recognized, and the woman was spoken of as
"his intended," then the couple passed from the interest of the
match-makers into a sort of intermediate state, wherein they were both
supposed to be working for a common end and the duration of which was
considered purely their own business.
As Oliver Gilbert looked about at the eligible male population of the
country-side, his perplexity increased; many were prosperous after their
own standards, and some were even ambitious, but which one of them was
fit to mate with Poppea? Moreover, such an idea had never seemed to
occur to any of them. The only youths, who, dressed in their best, had
come of a Saturday evening to lean on the little shelf before the window
of the beehive and cast boldly admiring glances and random and
irrelevant remarks at the postmistress, were of the verdant and
irrepressible sort that Gilbert would not have tolerated for a moment,
and that Poppea had effectually withered by giving absolutely no more
heed to their pleasantries than to the wind muttering about the windows.
The matter that had brought Gilbert face to face with the rock behind
which lay the pathway to futurity, was a call from a prosperous
manufacturer of Bridgeton, a clean, well-built man of five and thirty,
self-made and commercially intelligent, if lacking the culture that
marks the man of real education. He had met Poppea at the church, where
she had sung for several months the previous winter, and was sincere and
outspoken in his admiration of her.
In a straightforward way he had come to the point and, with
old-fashioned courtesy, asked Gilbert for permission to court his
daughter, stipulating that he wished no influence brought to bear upon
her, only leave to make his own way if he might.
The whole thing was so sudden, and came from a sky so wholly cloudless,
that Gilbert had difficulty at first in keeping down a choking
resentment at the man's presumption, while, at the same time, these
feelings were checked by the realization that as the world measures,
the man who owned a well-equipped factory, and had half a hundred men on
his pay-roll, was the one who was condescending. These mixed feelings
caused Gilbert to hesitate, begin a sentence only to break it off, and
finally, flushed and perspiring, say, "I'm afraid that you don't
understand; it isn't all just what I've got to say about it nor Poppy,
either, sir."
Then very quietly and with a good deal of dignity, this man had drawn
near to Gilbert, and, lowering his voice, said: "That's what I do
understand; I know that she isn't your own born, for I was a lad driving
for the Westboro stables the time that she came here. Fifteen years
before that, I was left the same way at Deacon Tilley's in North
Bridgeton, so there's no need of explanations between Miss Gilbert and
myself; neither will have aught to hold against the other in family
matters."
A groan had escaped Gilbert, before he could control himself
sufficiently to say briefly that Poppea, being of age, was her own
mistress. But after the man had gone, he paced up and down the shop, his
hands working nervously, until at last big tears rolled down his cheeks,
and, sitting at his desk, head on his arms, he said aloud: "The lady
baby as good as asked in marriage by a boy left on old Tilley's steps,
and then driving teams for Beers, and nothing for either to throw at the
other! Well, why not old Gilbert's steps as well as old Tilley's? What
can I say? I _feel_ the difference, but that isn't proving it!
"I wonder what you'd have done, if you'd been cornered this way," he
continued, looking up at the portrait of Lincoln, that hung in the same
place as on the night of Poppea's coming. But now, a well-grown ivy
plant was wreathed about it, growing from a pot that stood on the window
ledge in a spot that the sun visited daily throughout the year, showing
that a woman's affection had been added to that of the old man's
hero-worship.
"Would you have stopped still just long enough to tell a story to make
folks laugh, and then gone straight on and walked over or out of the
trouble? Could you have done that if you'd had a more than daughter that
was too good for any man and yet a nameless man asked for her on equal
terms just because she _wasn't_ your daughter?"
As the incoherence of his speech dawned upon him, he threw back his head
and laughed aloud, then stopped short, calmed and steady of hand, as if
there had been something almost prophetic in the sound.
This had happened on the day of Poppea's visit to the Mill House and
Hugh Oldys's return. A week afterward, Poppea, very quietly and with
some hesitation, broached the subject of singing in New York and of its
possibilities, together with her intention of taking lessons of a famous
teacher, who had been an opera singer, was a friend of the Feltons, and
feeling the need of rest, was to spend the month of August with them on
the hill.
Instead of the opposition that she had expected, both on the ground of
Gilbert's seeing neither the necessity of self-support nor of her
partial separation from him, he not only gave a cheerful assent, but a
look as of a weight having been lifted from him crossed his face, and he
broke into what was for him voluble conversation about the virtue of
having something to do and doing it "up brown"; for this move of
Poppea's told the old man what he most wished to know, that either the
Bridgeton admirer had altered his intentions or been repulsed.
Then drawing from his pocket a letter that had come by the milkman and
not the post, Gilbert said: "Come to speaking of winter, Poppy, there's
something that I've had it on my mind to tell you, but I couldn't see my
way clear of it until to-day, and I didn't want to hamper you ahead.
Mrs. Shandy has set her mind on going back to the old country next fall,
as there's less and less likelihood of her seeing Philip, and she says
the living so near is only an aggravation. Now to-day comes a letter
from sister Satira Potts. She writes that 'Lisha has a chance to get the
contract for cutting all the grown chestnut timber from the Stryker
Hollow tract that lies along Moosatuck, to the west side, about twenty
miles to the north of Bridgeton. If he takes it, and it will advantage
them greatly if he does, he will have to stay in the camp all week and
only come home for Sundays, Satiry thereby being left lonesome. So the
pith of her letter is, that she's sort of feeling 'round to see if there
is any chance of her being wanted down here for the winter, as it is
handier for 'Lisha to come here from Bridgeton than to take the drive
round about home. I reckon it'll seem good to me to have sister Satiry
Potts back here. Mrs. Shandy's strong in British ways of toast and tea,
boiling green peas and mint together, and having a forceful way of
_looking_ me into a clean collar at meal times when I've chanced to lay
mine by for comfort. But for coffee and pancakes, brown bread and beans
that's cooked until they're swelled to burst, but daresn't, being
checked at just the moment, give me Satiry, who also speaks right out
about my collar and such, without ado.
"So you see, child, that old Daddy'll be well cared for, and you'll have
a ready listener to tell all about the city doings to when you come
back; for if they fancy you down there, there'll be a great to do; most
likely you'll have flowers thrown at you; I've read about its being done
for opery singers in the paper, and if they, why not you? Though likely,
if you're singing in folks' houses, they'll hand the posies to you,
instead of throwin', as being more polite and safer for the mantel
ornaments and mottoes on the wall.
"Oh, child, child," he continued, as, leaning over his chair in her
old-time way, Poppea had laid her soft cheek against his grizzled beard,
and at the contact the mental vision of each grew clearer, "a couple of
weeks ago, all at once, things fell into a sort of heaviness, and as
late as yesterday I couldn't seem to see the way ahead. But now I think
the corner's sort of swinging to the turning, and pretty soon we may
come to another good stretch of road, and if the Lord hasn't other
plans, mebbe he'll let me walk beside you on it for a little piece yet,
until younger company comes up that's spryer, Poppy. And when they do,
remember one thing, honey-clover, don't let old Daddy hold you
backward; step right off brisk. Daddy'll be content to stop behind, so
long as he sees you on before."
"Don't, Daddy, don't," she whispered, putting her hand over his mouth to
stop him. "Nobody else is going to walk beside me; it's either you or
loneliness, so never speak of falling back." She did not repeat the
reason that she had given Hugh Oldys, but Gilbert quickly divined it
from the tension of her arm, and the momentary joy that he had felt was
stifled in a sigh as though self merged in super-self.
* * * * *
In early autumn, Hugh Oldys went to his work, and though he usually
returned for Sunday, it was not always possible. To his mother the break
seemed more complete and of a different quality than the separation
either of his college life or his travels; these had been tentative, the
last final. It was the first independent stepping out of the only one,
upon the way that leads from home, not toward it, even by an indirect
circuit.
Almost at the same time, Philip had returned, and had taken up his work
anew at Howell's studio at Westboro. Physically, he looked much
improved; his skin was sun-browned with sometimes a dash of color, he
weighed more, and his face had gained in strength and resolution. But
when he had been at work a month with the master, Howell saw that what
he was gaining in accuracy and flexibility was more than discounted by a
total lack of inspiration.
"Where is she? What has become of the young woman who is not a model or
to be had for the asking? Why not try the head once more from memory?"
Howell asked abruptly one day, after his pupil had worked for an entire
morning with the listless accuracy that is almost infuriating to the
real artist.
Taken off his guard, Philip cried out:--
"She is dead! My father murdered her and threw the pieces out of the
window."
For a moment Howell was startled. Then, as he looked at the face turned
toward him, proud yet quivering at a wound, he read therein a tragedy
whose underlying principles were greater than mere murder.
"Come and tell me about it, or you will let it kill your work and you
also," he said, fastening his eyes upon Philip in compelling sympathy,
at the same time stretching out his hand with a gesture wholly
compassionate, and motioning him to follow to an inner room beyond the
studio, where strangers never entered.
It was quite an hour before the pair returned, the master's arm resting
on Philip's shoulder.
"Now," he said, "we will make alive again, for that is the sculptor's
trade. This is my studio, and what I tell my pupils to do, they obey if
they are able, and it is the concern of no one outside. But this time
make her joyous and not pensive, in love with life; make her look up;
part her lips as though she were about to sing; twine poppies in her
hair to carry out her name; a butterfly on her shoulder, the Greek
emblem of immortality. Then she shall live here with us, and you can
look at her when you see nothing but bone and muscles in the lump of
clay you are working."
So Philip went to work once more, buoyed up in that some one understood
and did not scoff, and that some one was the master, who knew. But he
saw the real Poppea only once to speak to her, at Stephen Latimer's,
before the time when the Felton ladies bore her with them to New York
for her musical début, in that season of social introduction that is
crowded between Thanksgiving and Christmastide. She was cordial and the
very same when looked at from a distance, but when Philip stood before
her, he was conscious of a subtle change, a certain veiling and holding
back of self, where all had been spontaneous and freely given before,
yet, as a woman, this added distinctly to her charm.
"Can she know about my father; is it turning her away from me?" was his
constant thought, finally to be banished by the impossibility of such a
thing being the case, for the studio walls had no ears, and violent as
John Angus was in private, Philip well knew from his summer's experience
that it was no part of his father's policy to hold up his dislikes or
grievances for the public to peck at.
The next time that he saw Poppea it was through the doorway of a
flower-trimmed room, where she had been singing. During the intermission
a stringed quartet was playing Mendelssohn's _Songs without Words_ from
behind a screen of palms. In the circle that surrounded her, to which
she was in course of being presented by Miss Emmy, the evening gowns of
women were equally mingled with the black coats of the men, while the
figure nearest to her, holding her bouquet of Maréchal Neil roses and
ferns, was that of Bradish Winslow.
As Philip gazed hesitant about entering alone and yet wishing to, he
stepped backward, and in so doing jostled some one who was looking over
his shoulder. Turning, he saw that it was Hugh Oldys.
"Are you going to speak to her?" Philip asked eagerly after the first
words of greeting.
"Yes, surely, I am only waiting for the crowd to thin a little; I think,
Philip, that she will be glad to see some home faces among all these
strangers."
As they waited, Caleb came through the wide hall with an envelope in his
hand, peering anxiously into every masculine face. When he caught sight
of Hugh, he drew close to him, standing on tiptoe the better to reach
his ear.
"This here's a telegraph despatch fo' you, Marsa Hugh, and de boy what
brings it says it's a 'mergency and wants to be opened spry. Doan yo'
want to step in the little 'ception room and circumnavigate it private
like? Dem 'mergency despatches is terrible unsettlin', sah!"
Hugh seized the envelope, opening it with a nervous twist as he crossed
the hall to the room indicated by Caleb where there was a drop-light,
Philip following close.
"Your father has had a serious accident. Your mother unstrung. Bring
up MacLane or Grahammond, to-night, if possible. STEPHEN LATIMER."
Hugh dropped into a chair, and spreading the paper on the table, read
it a second time, motioning Philip to do likewise.
"MacLane and Grahammond are both brain specialists, I think; it must be
that the accident is to his head. I wonder where they live," he said,
half to himself and half aloud. Then turning to Caleb, who stood at a
respectful distance, the embodiment of discreet curiosity, he asked him
if there was a city directory in the house.
"Not jest that big ornery volume what dey keeps in drug stores, Marsa
Hugh, but Miss Emmy, she's got de little Blue Book on her desk, what
records all de quality, sah, and guarantees 'em true, and I'll fotch it
right away."
Hugh jotted the two addresses on a card, then rising, shook himself as
though to be sure he was awake. At this moment the tones of a clear
mezzo-soprano voice floated across the hall.
"What's this dull town to me? Robin's not here!"
Poppea was singing _Robin Adair_. Hugh listened until the verse was
ended, his face white and drawn with contending emotions. Then turning
abruptly to Philip and reading both comprehension and sympathy in his
glance, he said abruptly:--
"Tell her that I've been here, but was called away by bad news from
home. No--not that, it might spoil her evening. Only say that I could
not wait," and taking his hat and coat that Caleb was holding, he went
out.
By the time Poppea had answered the last encore that her strength would
allow, a Creole folk-song ending in the minor key, Philip had made his
way through the throng that surrounded the girl, who was radiant with a
success that must appeal to her artistic sense, if her natural woman's
love of approbation was in the background. When she saw Philip, her
whole expression changed and softened, while the lips that had been
parted in laughing repartee drooped to wistfulness.
Bradish Winslow, who still kept his post, noticed the change at once,
and, following her eyes for the cause, was surprised at his own feeling
of relief upon discovering Philip.
Poppea came forward and, refraining from putting her hand upon his
shoulder in the old way that marked his boyishness, greeted him as she
would any other young fellow of nineteen, drawing him into a little
group back of the long piano where he saw Miss Emmy and half a dozen of
the Quality Hill colony. At the same time, he was conscious that her
eyes were looking over his head in a rapid search for something or some
one that she did not see, which reminded him of the message.
"Hugh Oldys has been here," he said, "and was very sorry that he could
not wait to see you."
"Then he has gone? Why could he not wait?"
Philip, who read Poppea's moods with mercurial swiftness, was tempted to
add some words of explanation, but Winslow, hearing Poppea's question,
intervened, saying, to her ear alone:--
"Now you have earned a rest in cooler air where you can enjoy the
reflection of the pleasure you have given. Miss Emmy has a surprise for
you; Capoul, the most expressive emotional tenor of a decade, is coming
in from the opera where he is singing Wilhelm Meister in _Mignon_. You
have never heard it? Ah, there is so much music that I wish to hear
again for the first time through watching you hear it."
The next morning Poppea slept late, owing to the fact that Nora had
slipped in and closed the shutters fast. She had intended taking the
early train for home, as three days would elapse before she was to sing
at an afternoon concert given for the benefit of a fashionable charity.
When Nora finally judged that it was proper for the household protégée,
in whom she took no small pride, to awake, and brought her coffee and
rolls to her room, after the Feltons' winter custom, Poppea found
herself undergoing a sort of nervous reaction caused by the excitement
of the night before and the lack of air in the shuttered room. Twelve
o'clock was the next train possible, and entering the library to make
positive her going, she found Stephen Latimer standing before the fire,
while the ladies and Mr. Esterbrook sat opposite him in benumbed
silence, Miss Emmy having her handkerchief pressed to her eyes.
Miss Felton motioned Poppea to the lounge beside her: "Mr. Latimer has
brought us dreadful news! Please tell her, Stephen."
For a moment Poppea thought that she would suffocate; suppose that Daddy
was dead and she away! Then she found herself listening as through
rushing water to the story of how Mr. Oldys, when superintending the
placing of a heavy piece of the new machinery, had been instantly killed
by its fall.
The mill hands, becoming demoralized in their wild rush to get a
physician, had broken the news abruptly to Madam Oldys, which at first
she did not believe. But later, when they brought her husband home and
Dr. Morewood was sitting by watching for a heart collapse, her mind, not
her body, had suddenly given way--not weakly or plaintively, but
violently, in a manner that no one who had witnessed her frailty would
have deemed possible, so that restraint was imperative.
Hugh had been sent for the previous evening, and two specialists were
even then on their way to Harley's Mills for consultation. Latimer
himself had come down to inform Hugh's new employers, as well as to do
some friendly acts of necessity.
"I am going home at noon," was Poppea's spoken answer to Latimer, but
between the brief words he read much besides.
"I expected that you would, and told Oliver Gilbert so in passing," was
his reply.
"How is Hugh?" was her first question, when after the bustle of transit
they were seated in the train with no other passengers in their
immediate vicinity.
"Perfectly quiet, but as one stunned; his sorrow for his father is deep
enough, but his anguish at his mother's condition is heartrending."
"Is there--do you think that there is anything I could do if I should go
there?" she faltered.
"Not now, my child; it is a time when no friend and not even a man's
wife must come between him and his sorrow, his thoughts are only for the
eye of God. Such help as Charlotte needs below stairs is being given by
Jeanne and Satira Potts."
"And the funeral?"
"Will be from St. Luke's to-morrow."
The next day Poppea and Oliver Gilbert followed with the rest, the
Feltons, Mr. Esterbrook, and half the summer colony. She only caught a
glimpse of Hugh, who, tearless, looking neither to the right or left,
seemed hewn from marble.
How could she go back to town, Poppea thought, and wreathe her hair and
sing? If only she knew, if she could comfort Hugh in anyway; but he saw
no one but Stephen Latimer. She had set her feet on the path of
self-support and could not leave it now; there was nothing to do but
wait.
Two weeks passed and public interest in Hugh Oldys's affairs had reached
a high pitch. Were the Mills to be abandoned? What would become of the
expectant men? Then it was whispered, though not maliciously, that Mr.
Oldys's affairs were seriously involved, and that a strong, alert man
with a keen business head would be required to save the property.
Poppea being at home one morning within the month of Mr. Oldys's death,
Stephen Latimer came to the post-office house, and being as usual
questioned as to whether there was any improvement in Mrs. Oldys's
condition, said, almost as though he were giving a requested message.--
"No, there is none, nor ever likely to be; the specialists gave this as
their decision yesterday and advised that she be sent at once to a
trustworthy asylum, because the strain of her care, even if competent
nurses came between, would be too much for any one person."
"Will Hugh let her be taken away?" asked Poppea, with dilating eyes and
hands tightly clasped.
"No, never! He says that from now on he will, if necessary, withdraw
from everything else to care for her and keep the home intact, in case
that she comes to herself, and missing something, wonders.
"This is not all," Latimer continued. "In order to have the money to
care for her, his father's funds being all placed in this new venture,
he must leave his profession, assume immediate control of the Mills, and
fight it out to a finish. But in this forced work lies his salvation.
When I saw him to-day, I marvelled at the new nobility of his face.
Resolution has always been its chief characteristic, now resignation is
blended with it. God grant that hope, born of the two, may presently
soften its set lines."
That Hugh had wholly put away his need of her was the meaning that
Poppea took from Latimer's words. Then she, too, would lose herself in
work, and the next day that she went to the city to sing, she let Miss
Emmy persuade her that she owed it to her art to tarry between times and
take the lessons that Tostelli was so eager to give her. When once hard
at work, with the best music to be heard by way of relaxation, small
wonder if the days were winged to Poppea, and at times disappointment
and responsibility alike seemed the unreal things of life; she would
have been less than a woman had it been otherwise.