"I thank you," said Miss Evelina, coldly, "but nothing can be done."
The door closed behind him with a portentous suggestion of finality.
As he went down the path, Ralph felt himself shut out from love and from all human service. He did not look back to the upper window, where Araminta was watching, her face stained with tears.
As he went out of the gate, she, too, felt shut out from something strangely new and sweet, but her conscience rigidly approved, none the less. Against Aunt Hitty"s moral precepts, Araminta leaned securely, and she was sure that she had done right.
The Maltese kitten was purring upon a cushion, the loved story book lay on the table nearby. Doctor Ralph was going down the road, his head bowed. They would never see each other again--never in all the world.
She would not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had asked her to marry him; she would shield him, even though he had insulted her. She would not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had kissed her, as the man in the story book had kissed the lady who came back to him. She would not tell anybody. "Never in all the world," thought Araminta. "We shall never see each other again."
Doctor Ralph was out of sight, now, and she could never watch for him any more. He had gone away forever, and she had broken his heart. For the moment, Araminta straightened herself proudly, for she had been taught that it did not matter whether one"s heart broke or not--one must always do what was right. And Aunt Hitty knew what was right.
Suddenly, she sank on her knees beside her bed, burying her face in the pillow, for her heart was breaking, too. "Oh, Lord," she prayed, sobbing wildly, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy sake. Amen."
The door opened silently, a soft, slow step came near. The pillow was drawn away and a cool hand was laid upon Araminta"s burning cheek.
"Child," said Miss Evelina, "what is wrong?"
Araminta had not meant to tell, but she did. She sobbed out, in disjointed fragments, all the sorry tale. Wisely, Miss Evelina waited until the storm had spent itself, secretly wishing that she, too, might know the relief of tears.
"I knew," said Miss Evelina, her cool, quiet hand still upon Araminta"s face. "Doctor Ralph told me before he went home."
"Oh," cried Araminta, "does he hate me?"
"Hate you?" repeated Miss Evelina. "Dear child, no. He loves you.
Would you believe me, Araminta, if I told you that it was not wrong to be married--that there was no reason in the world why you should not marry the man who loves you?"
"Not wrong!" exclaimed Araminta, incredulously. "Aunt Hitty says it is. My mother was married!"
"Yes," said Miss Evelina, "and so was mine. Aunt Hitty"s mother was married, too."
"Are you sure?" demanded Araminta. "She never told me so. If her mother was married, why didn"t she tell me?"
"I don"t know, dear," returned Miss Evelina, truthfully. "Mehitable"s ways are strange." Had she been asked to choose, at the moment, between Araminta"s dense ignorance and all of her own knowledge, embracing, as it did, a world of pain, she would have chosen gladly, the fuller life.
The door-bell below rang loudly, defiantly. It was the kind of a ring which might impel the dead to answer it. Miss Evelina fairly ran downstairs.
Outside stood Miss Mehitable. Unwillingly, in her wake, had come the Reverend Austin Thorpe. Under Miss Mehitable"s capable and constant direction, he had made a stretcher out of the clothes poles and a sheet. He was jaded in spirit beyond all words to express, but he had come, as Roman captives came, chained to the chariot wheels of the conqueror.
"Me and the minister," announced Miss Mehitable, imperiously, "have come to take Minty home!"
XIX
In the Shadow of the Cypress
The house seemed lonely without Araminta. Miss Evelina missed the child more than she had supposed she could ever miss any one. She had grown to love her, and, too, she missed the work.
Miss Evelina"s house was clean, now, and most of the necessary labour had been performed by her own frail hands. The care of Araminta had been an added burden, which she had borne because it had been forced upon her. Slowly, but surely, she had been compelled to take thought for others.
The promise of Spring had come to beautiful fulfilment, and the world was all abloom. Faint mists of May were rising from the earth, and filmy clouds half veiled the moon. The loneliness of the house was unbearable, so Miss Evelina went out into the garden, her veil fluttering, moth-like, about her head.
The old pain was still at her heart, yet, in a way, it was changed.
She had come again into the field of service. Miss Mehitable had been kind to her, indeed, more than kind. The Piper had made her a garden, and she had taken care of Araminta. Doctor Ralph, meaning to be wholly kind, had offered to help her, if he could, and she had been on the point of doing a small service for him, when Fate, in the person of Miss Mehitable, intervened. And over and above and beyond all, Anthony Dexter had come back, to offer her tardy reparation.
That hour was continually present with her. She could not forget his tortured face when she had thrown back her veil. What if she had taken him at his word, and gone with him, to be, as he said, a mother to his son? Miss Evelina laughed bitterly.
The beauty of the night brought her no peace as she wandered about the garden. Without knowing it, she longed for human companionship. Piper Tom had finished his work. Doctor Ralph would come no more, Araminta had gone, and Miss Mehitable offered little comfort.
She went to the gate and leaned upon it, looking down the road. Thus she had watched for Anthony Dexter in years gone by. Memories, mercilessly keen, returned to her. As though it were yesterday, she remembered the moonlit night of their betrothal, felt his eager arms about her and his bearded cheek pressed close to hers. She heard again the music of his voice as he whispered, pa.s.sionately: "I love you, oh, I love you--for life, for death, for all eternity!"
The rose-bush had been carefully pruned and tied up, but it promised little, at best. The cypress had grown steadily, and, at times, its long shadow reached through the door and into the house. Heavily, too, upon her heart, the shadow of the cypress lay, for sorrow seems so much deeper than joy.
A figure came up the road, and she turned away, intending to go into the house. Then she perceived that it was Piper Tom, and, drawing down her veil, turned back to wait for him. He had never come at night before.
Even in the darkness, she noted a change in him; the atmosphere of youth was all gone. He walked slowly, as though he had aged, and the red feather no longer bobbed in his hat.
He went past her silently, and sat down on the steps.
"Will you come in?" asked Evelina.
"No," answered the Piper, sadly, "I"ll not be coming in. "T is selfish of me, perhaps, but I came to you because I had sorrow of my own."
Miss Evelina sat down on the step beside him, and waited for him to speak.
""T is a small sorrow, perhaps, you"ll be thinking," he said, at last.
"I"m not knowing what great ones you have seen, face to face, but "t is so ordered That all sorrows are not the same. "T is all in the heart that bears them. I told you I had known them all, and at the time, I was thinking I spoke the truth. A woman never loved me, and so I have lost the love of no woman, but," he went on with difficulty, "no one had ever killed my dog."
"How?" asked Miss Evelina, dully. It seemed a matter of small moment to her.
"I"ll not be paining you with that," the Piper answered, "At the last, "t was I who killed him to save him from further hurt. "T was the best I could do for the little lad, and I"m thinking he"d take it from me rather than from any one else. I"m missing his cheerful bark and his pleasant ways, but I"ve taken him away for ever from Doctor Dexter and his kind."
"Doctor Dexter!" Evelina sprang to her feet, her body tense and quivering.
"Aye, Doctor Dexter--not the young man, but the old one."
A deep-drawn breath was her only answer, but the Piper looked up, startled. Slowly he rose to his feet and leaned toward her intently, as though to see her face behind her veil.
"Spinner in the Shadow," he said, with infinite tenderness, "I"m thinking "t was he who hurt you, too!"
Evelina"s head drooped, she swayed, and would have fallen, had he not put his arm around her. She sat down on the step again, and hid her veiled face in her hands.
""T was that, I"m thinking, that brought me to you," he went on. "I knew you did not care much for the little lad--he was naught to any one but me. "T is this that binds us together--you and I."
The moon climbed higher into the heavens and the clouds were blown away. The shadow of the cypress was thrown toward them, and the dense night of it concealed the half-open door.