"Truly," nodded Ralph.
"Would--would--" hesitated Araminta--"would it be any more than four dollars and a half if you brought me the little cat? Because if it is, I can"t----"
"It wouldn"t," interrupted Ralph. "On any bill over a dollar and a quarter, I always throw in a kitten. Didn"t you know that?"
"No," answered Araminta, with a happy little laugh. How kind he was, eyen though he was a man! Perhaps, if he knew how wicked her mother had been, he would not be so kind to her. The stern Puritan conscience rose up and demanded explanation.
"I--I--must tell you," she said, "before you bring me the little cat.
My mother--she--" here Araminta turned her crimson face away. She swallowed a lump in her throat, then said, bravely: "My mother was married!"
Doctor Ralph Dexter laughed--a deep, hearty, boyish laugh that rang cheerfully through the empty house. "I"ll tell you something," he said. He leaned over and whispered in her ear; "So was mine!"
Araminta"s tell-tale face betrayed her relief. He knew the worst now--and he was similarly branded. His mother, too, had been an outcast, beyond Aunt Hitty"s pale. There was comfort in the thought, though Araminta had been taught not to rejoice at another"s misfortune.
Ralph strolled off down the hill, his hands in his pockets, for the moment totally forgetting the promised kitten. "The little saint," he mused, "she"s been kept in a cage all her life. She doesn"t know anything except what the dragon has taught her. She looks at life with the dragon"s sidewise squint. I"ll open the door for her," he continued, mentally, "for I think she"s worth saving. Hope to Moses and the prophets I don"t forget that cat."
No suspicion that he could forget penetrated Araminta"s consciousness.
It had been pleasant to have Doctor Ralph sit there and wash her face, talking to her meanwhile, even though he was a man, and men were poison. Like a strong, sure bond between them, Araminta felt their common disgrace.
"His mother was married," she thought, drowsily, "and so was mine.
Neither of them knew any better. Oh, Lord," prayed Araminta, with renewed vigour, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy sake. Amen."
XI
The Loose Link
Seated primly on a chair in Miss Evelina"s kitchen, Miss Mehitable gave a full account of her sentiments toward Doctor Ralph Dexter. She began with his birth and remarked that he was a puny infant, and, for a time, it was feared that he was "light headed."
"He got his senses after a while, though," she continued, grudgingly, "that is, such as they are."
She proceeded through his school-days, repeated unflattering opinions which his teachers had expressed to her, gave an elaborate description of the conflict that ensued when she caught him stealing green apples from her incipient, though highly promising, orchard, alluded darkly to his tendency to fight with his schoolmates, suggested that certain thefts of chickens ten years and more ago could, if the truth were known, safely be attributed to Ralph Dexter, and speculated upon the trials and tribulations a scapegrace son might cause an upright and respected father.
All the dead and buried crimes of the small boys of the village were excavated from the past and charged to Ralph Dexter. Miss Mehitable brought the record fully up to the time he left Rushton for college, having been prepared for entrance by his father. Then she began with Araminta.
First upon the schedule were Miss Mehitable"s painful emotions when Barbara Smith had married Henry Lee. She croaked anew all her raven-like prophecies of misfortune which had added excitement to the wedding, and brought forth the birth of Araminta in full proof. Full details of Barbara"s death were given, and the highly magnified events which had led to her adoption of the child. Condescending for a moment to speak of the domestic virtues, Miss Mehitable explained, with proper pride, how she had "brought up" Araminta. The child had been kept close at the side of her guardian angel, never had been to school, had been carefully taught at home, had not been allowed to play with other children; in short, save at extremely rare intervals, Araminta had seen no one unless in the watchful presence of her counsellor.
"And if you don"t think that"s work," observed Miss. .h.i.tty, piously, "you just keep tied to one person for almost nineteen years, day and night, never lettin" "em out of your sight, and layin" the foundation of their manners and morals and education, and see how you"ll feel when a blackmailing sprig of a play-doctor threatens to collect a hundred dollars from you if you dast to nurse your own niece!"
Miss Evelina, silent as always, was moving restlessly about the kitchen. Unaccustomed since her girlhood to activity of any description, she found her new tasks hard. Muscles, long unused, ached miserably from exertion. Yet Araminta had to be taken care of and her room kept clean.
The daily visits of Doctor Ralph, who was almost painfully neat, had made Miss Evelina ashamed of her house, though he had not appeared to notice that anything was wrong. She avoided him when she could, but it was not always possible, for directions had to be given and reports made. Miss Evelina never looked at him directly. One look into his eyes, so like his father"s, had made her so faint that she would have fallen, had not Doctor Ralph steadied her with his strong arm.
To her, he was Anthony Dexter in the days of his youth, though she continually wondered to find it so. She remembered a story she had read, a long time ago, of a young woman who lost her husband of a few weeks in a singularly pathetic manner. In exploring a mountain, he fell into a creva.s.se, and his body could not be recovered. Scientists calculated that, at the rate the glacier was moving, his body might be expected to appear at the foot of the mountain in about twenty-three years; so, grimly, the young bride set herself to wait.
At the appointed time, the glacier gave up its dead, in perfect preservation, owing to the intense cold. But the woman who had waited for her husband thus was twenty-three years older; she had aged, and he was still young. In some such way had Anthony Dexter come back to her; eager, boyish, knowing none of life except its joy, while she, a quarter of a century older, had borne incredible griefs, been wasted by long vigils, and now stood, desolate, at the tomb of a love which was not dead, but continually tore at its winding sheet and prayed for release.
To Evelina, at times, the past twenty-five years seemed like a long nightmare. This was Anthony Dexter--this boy with the quick, light step, the ringing laugh, the broad shoulders and clear, true eyes. No terror lay between them, all was straight and right; yet the realisation still enshrouded her like a black cloud.
"And," said Miss. .h.i.tty, mournfully, "after ail my patience and hard work in bringing up Araminta as a lady should be brought up, and having taught her to beware of men and even of boys, she"s took away from me when she"s sick, and n.o.body allowed to see her except a blackmailing play-doctor, who is putting Heaven knows what devilment into her head.
I suppose there"s nothing to prevent me from finishing the housecleaning, if I don"t speak to my own niece as I pa.s.s her door?"
She spoke inquiringly, but Miss Evelina did not reply.
"Most folks," continued Miss. .h.i.tty, with asperity, "is pleased enough to have their houses cleaned for "em to say "thank you," but I"m some accustomed to ingrat.i.tude. What I do now in the way of cleanin" will be payin" for the nursin" of Araminta."
Still Miss Evelina did not answer, her thoughts being far away.
"Maybe I did speak cross to Minty," admitted Miss. .h.i.tty, grudgingly, "at a time when I had no business to. If I did, I"m willin" to tell her so, but not that blackmailing play-doctor with a hundred-dollar bill for a club. I was clean out of patience with Minty for falling off the ladder, but I guess, as he says, she didn"t go for to do it.
"T ain"t in reason for folks to step off ladders or out of windows unless they"re walkin" in their sleep, and I"ve never let Minty sleep in the daytime."
Unceasingly, Miss Mehitable prattled on. Reminiscence, anecdote, and philosophical observations succeeded one another with startling rapidity, ending always in vituperation and epithet directed toward Araminta"s physician. Dark allusions to the base ingrat.i.tude of everybody with whom Miss. .h.i.tty had ever been concerned alternately c.u.mbered her speech. At length the persistent sound wore upon Miss Evelina, much as the vibration of sound may distress one totally deaf.
The kitchen door was open and Miss Evelina went outdoors. Miss Mehitable continued to converse, then shortly perceived that she was alone. "Well, I never!" she gasped. "Guess I"ll go home!"
Her back was very stiff and straight when she marched downhill, firmly determined to abandon Evelina, scorn Doctor Ralph Dexter, and leave Araminta to her well-deserved fate. One thought and one only illuminated her gloom. "He ain"t got his four dollars and a half, yet," she chuckled, craftily. "Mebbe he"ll get it and mebbe he won"t.
We"ll see."
While straying about the garden. Miss Evelina saw her unwelcome guest take her militant departure, and reproached herself for her lack of hospitality. Miss Mehitable had been very kind to her and deserved only kindness in return. She had acted upon impulse and was ashamed.
Miss Evelina meditated calling her back, but the long years of self-effacement and inactivity had left her inert, with capacity only for suffering. That very suffering to which she had become accustomed had of late a.s.sumed fresh phases. She was hurt continually in new ways, yet, after the first shock of returning to her old home, not so much as she had expected. It is a way of life, and one of its inmost compensations--this finding of a reality so much easier than our fears.
April had come over the hills, singing, with a tinkle of rain and a rush of warm winds, and yet the Piper had not returned. His tools were in the shed, and the mountain of rubbish was still in the road in front of the house. Half of the garden had not been touched. On one side of the house was the bare brown earth, with tiny green shoots springing up through it, and on the other was a twenty-five years" growth of weeds.
Miss Evelina reflected that the place was not unlike her own life; half of it full of promise, a forbidding wreck in the midst of it, and, beyond it, desolation, ended only by a stone wall.
"Did you think," asked a cheerful voice at her elbow, "that I was never coming back to finish my job?"
Miss Evelina started, and gazed into the round, smiling face of Piper Tom, who was accompanied, as always, by his faithful dog.
""T is not our way," he went on, including the yellow mongrel in the p.r.o.noun, "to leave undone what we"ve set our hands and paws to do, eh, Laddie?"
He waited a moment, but Miss Evelina did not speak.
"I got some seeds for my garden," he continued, taking bulging parcels from the pockets of his short, s.h.a.ggy coat. "The year"s sorrow is at an end."
"Sorrow never comes to an end," she cried, bitterly.
"Doesn"t it," he asked. "How old is yours?"
"Twenty-five years," she answered, choking. The horror of it was pressing heavily upon her.
"Then," said the Piper, very gently, "I"m thinking there is something wrong. No sorrow should last more than a year--"t is written all around us so."
"Written? I have never seen it written."
"No," returned the Piper, kindly, "but "t is because you have not looked to see. Have you ever known a tree that failed to put out its green leaves in the Spring, unless it had died from lightning or old age? When a rose blossoms, then goes to sleep, does it wait for more than a year before it blooms again? Is it more than a year from bud to bud, from flower to flower, from fruit to fruit? "T is G.o.d"s way of showing that a year of darkness is enough,--at a time."