"Sylvia Gray," said Crooked Jack.
The Old Lady"s heart gave another great bound. But she had known it--she had known that girl with Leslie Gray"s hair and eyes and laugh must be Leslie Gray"s daughter.
Crooked Jack spat on his hand and resumed his work, but his tongue went faster than his spade, and the Old Lady listened greedily. For the first time she enjoyed and blessed Crooked Jack"s garrulity and gossip. Every word he uttered was as an apple of gold in a picture of silver to her.
He had been working at William Spencer"s the day the new music teacher had come, and what Crooked Jack couldn"t find out about any person in one whole day--at least as far as outward life went--was hardly worth finding out. Next to discovering things did he love telling them, and it would be hard to say which enjoyed that ensuing half-hour more--Crooked Jack or the Old Lady.
Crooked Jack"s account, boiled down, amounted to this; both Miss Gray"s parents had died when she was a baby, she had been brought up by an aunt, she was very poor and very ambitious.
"Wants a moosical eddication," finished up Crooked Jack, "and, by jingo, she orter have it, for anything like the voice of her I never heerd.
She sung for us that evening after supper and I thought "twas an angel singing. It just went through me like a shaft o" light. The Spencer young ones are crazy over her already. She"s got twenty pupils around here and in Grafton and Avonlea."
When the Old Lady had found out everything Crooked Jack could tell her, she went into the house and sat down by the window of her little sitting-room to think it all over. She was tingling from head to foot with excitement.
Leslie"s daughter! This Old Lady had had her romance once. Long ago--forty years ago--she had been engaged to Leslie Gray, a young college student who taught in Spencervale for the summer term one year--the golden summer of Margaret Lloyd"s life. Leslie had been a shy, dreamy, handsome fellow with literary ambitions, which, as he and Margaret both firmly believed, would one day bring him fame and fortune.
Then there had been a foolish, bitter quarrel at the end of that golden summer. Leslie had gone away in anger, afterwards he had written, but Margaret Lloyd, still in the grasp of her pride and resentment, had sent a harsh answer. No more letters came; Leslie Gray never returned; and one day Margaret wakened to the realization that she had put love out of her life for ever. She knew it would never be hers again; and from that moment her feet were turned from youth to walk down the valley of shadow to a lonely, eccentric age.
Many years later she heard of Leslie"s marriage; then came news of his death, after a life that had not fulfilled his dreams for him. Nothing more she had heard or known--nothing to this day, when she had seen his daughter pa.s.s her by unseeing in the beech hollow.
"His daughter! And she might have been MY daughter," murmured the Old Lady. "Oh, if I could only know her and love her--and perhaps win her love in return! But I cannot. I could not have Leslie Gray"s daughter know how poor I am--how low I have been brought. I could not bear that.
And to think she is living so near me, the darling--just up the lane and over the hill. I can see her go by every day--I can have that dear pleasure, at least. But oh, if I could only do something for her--give her some little pleasure! It would be such a delight."
When the Old Lady happened to go into her spare room that evening, she saw from it a light shining through a gap in the trees on the hill. She knew that it shone from the Spencers" spare room. So it was Sylvia"s light. The Old Lady stood in the darkness and watched it until it went out--watched it with a great sweetness breathing in her heart, such as risen from old rose-leaves when they are stirred. She fancied Sylvia moving about her room, brushing and braiding her long, glistening hair--laying aside her little trinkets and girlish adornments--making her simple preparations for sleep. When the light went out the Old Lady pictured a slight white figure kneeling by the window in the soft starshine, and the Old Lady knelt down then and there and said her own prayers in fellowship. She said the simple form of words she had always used; but a new spirit seemed to inspire them; and she finished with a new pet.i.tion--"Let me think of something I can do for her, dear Father--some little, little thing that I can do for her."
The Old Lady had slept in the same room all her life--the one looking north into the spruces--and loved it; but the next day she moved into the spare room without a regret. It was to be her room after this; she must be where she could see Sylvia"s light, she put the bed where she could lie in it and look at that earth star which had suddenly shone across the twilight shadows of her heart. She felt very happy, she had not felt happy for many years; but now a strange, new, dream-like interest, remote from the harsh realities of her existence, but none the less comforting and alluring, had entered into her life. Besides, she had thought of something she could do for Sylvia--"a little, little thing" that might give her pleasure.
Spencervale people were wont to say regretfully that there were no Mayflowers in Spencervale; the Spencervale young fry, when they wanted Mayflowers, thought they had to go over to the barrens at Avonlea, six miles away, for them. Old Lady Lloyd knew better. In her many long, solitary rambles, she had discovered a little clearing far back in the woods--a southward-sloping, sandy hill on a tract of woodland belonging to a man who lived in town--which in spring was starred over with the pink and white of arbutus.
To this clearing the Old Lady betook herself that afternoon, walking through wood lanes and under dim spruce arches like a woman with a glad purpose. All at once the spring was dear and beautiful to her once more; for love had entered again into her heart, and her starved soul was feasting on its divine nourishment.
Old Lady Lloyd found a wealth of Mayflowers on the sandy hill. She filled her basket with them, gloating over the loveliness which was to give pleasure to Sylvia. When she got home she wrote on a slip of paper, "For Sylvia." It was not likely anyone in Spencervale would know her handwriting, but, to make sure, she disguised it, writing in round, big letters like a child"s. She carried her Mayflowers down to the hollow and heaped them in a recess between the big roots of the old beech, with the little note thrust through a stem on top.
Then the Old Lady deliberately hid behind the spruce clump. She had put on her dark green silk on purpose for hiding. She had not long to wait. Soon Sylvia Gray came down the hill with Mattie Spencer. When she reached the bridge she saw the Mayflowers and gave an exclamation of delight. Then she saw her name and her expression changed to wonder.
The Old Lady, peering through the boughs, could have laughed for very pleasure over the success of her little plot.
"For me!" said Sylvia, lifting the flowers. "CAN they really be for me, Mattie? Who could have left them here?"
Mattie giggled.
"I believe it was Chris Stewart," she said. "I know he was over at Avonlea last night. And ma says he"s taken a notion to you--she knows by the way he looked at you when you were singing night before last. It would be just like him to do something queer like this--he"s such a shy fellow with the girls."
Sylvia frowned a little. She did not like Mattie"s expressions, but she did like Mayflowers, and she did not dislike Chris Stewart, who had seemed to her merely a nice, modest, country boy. She lifted the flowers and buried her face in them.
"Anyway, I"m much obliged to the giver, whoever he or she is," she said merrily. "There"s nothing I love like Mayflowers. Oh, how sweet they are!"
When they had pa.s.sed the Old Lady emerged from her lurking place, flushed with triumph. It did not vex her that Sylvia should think Chris Stewart had given her the flowers; nay, it was all the better, since she would be the less likely to suspect the real donor. The main thing was that Sylvia should have the delight of them. That quite satisfied the Old Lady, who went back to her lonely house with the c.o.c.kles of her heart all in a glow.
It soon was a matter of gossip in Spencervale that Chris Stewart was leaving Mayflowers at the beech hollow for the music teacher every other day. Chris himself denied it, but he was not believed. Firstly, there were no Mayflowers in Spencervale; secondly, Chris had to go to Carmody every other day to haul milk to the b.u.t.ter factory, and Mayflowers grew in Carmody, and, thirdly, the Stewarts always had a romantic streak in them. Was not that enough circ.u.mstantial evidence for anybody?
As for Sylvia, she did not mind if Chris had a boyish admiration for her and expressed it thus delicately. She thought it very nice of him, indeed, when he did not vex her with any other advances, and she was quite content to enjoy his Mayflowers.
Old Lady Lloyd heard all the gossip about it from the egg pedlar, and listened to him with laughter glimmering far down in her eyes. The egg pedlar went away and vowed he"d never seen the Old Lady so spry as she was this spring; she seemed real interested in the young folk"s doings.
The Old Lady kept her secret and grew young in it. She walked back to the Mayflower hill as long as the Mayflowers lasted; and she always hid in the spruces to see Sylvia Gray go by. Every day she loved her more, and yearned after her more deeply. All the long repressed tenderness of her nature overflowed to this girl who was unconscious of it. She was proud of Sylvia"s grace and beauty, and sweetness of voice and laughter.
She began to like the Spencer children because they worshipped Sylvia; she envied Mrs. Spencer because the latter could minister to Sylvia"s needs. Even the egg pedlar seemed a delightful person because he brought news of Sylvia--her social popularity, her professional success, the love and admiration she had won already.
The Old Lady never dreamed of revealing herself to Sylvia. That, in her poverty, was not to be thought of for a moment. It would have been very sweet to know her--sweet to have her come to the old house--sweet to talk to her--to enter into her life. But it might not be. The Old Lady"s pride was still far stronger than her love. It was the one thing she had never sacrificed and never--so she believed--could sacrifice.
II. The June Chapter
There were no Mayflowers in June; but now the Old Lady"s garden was full of blossoms and every morning Sylvia found a bouquet of them by the beech--the perfumed ivory of white narcissus, the flame of tulips, the fairy branches of bleeding-heart, the pink-and-snow of little, th.o.r.n.y, single, sweetbreathed early roses. The Old Lady had no fear of discovery, for the flowers that grew in her garden grew in every other Spencervale garden as well, including the Stewart garden. Chris Stewart, when he was teased about the music teacher, merely smiled and held his peace. Chris knew perfectly well who was the real giver of those flowers. He had made it his business to find out when the Mayflower gossip started. But since it was evident Old Lady Lloyd did not wish it to be known, Chris told no one. Chris had always liked Old Lady Lloyd ever since the day, ten years before, when she had found him crying in the woods with a cut foot and had taken him into her house, and bathed and bound the wound, and given him ten cents to buy candy at the store.
The Old Lady went without supper that night because of it, but Chris never knew that.
The Old Lady thought it a most beautiful June. She no longer hated the new days; on the contrary, she welcomed them.
"Every day is an uncommon day now," she said jubilantly to herself--for did not almost every day bring her a glimpse of Sylvia? Even on rainy days the Old Lady gallantly braved rheumatism to hide behind her clump of dripping spruces and watch Sylvia pa.s.s. The only days she could not see her were Sundays; and no Sundays had ever seemed so long to Old Lady Lloyd as those June Sundays did.
One day the egg pedlar had news for her.
"The music teacher is going to sing a solo for a collection piece to-morrow," he told her.
The Old Lady"s black eyes flashed with interest.
"I didn"t know Miss Gray was a member of the choir," she said.
"Jined two Sundays ago. I tell you, our music is something worth listening to now. The church"ll be packed to-morrow, I reckon--her name"s gone all over the country for singing. You ought to come and hear it, Miss Lloyd."
The pedlar said this out of bravado, merely to show he wasn"t scared of the Old Lady, for all her grand airs. The Old Lady made no answer, and he thought he had offended her. He went away, wishing he hadn"t said it.
Had he but known it, the Old Lady had forgotten the existence of all and any egg pedlars. He had blotted himself and his insignificance out of her consciousness by his last sentence. All her thoughts, feelings, and wishes were submerged in a very whirlpool of desire to hear Sylvia sing that solo. She went into the house in a tumult and tried to conquer that desire. She could not do it, even thought she summoned all her pride to her aid. Pride said:
"You will have to go to church to hear her. You haven"t fit clothes to go to church in. Think what a figure you will make before them all."
But, for the first time, a more insistent voice than pride spoke to her soul--and, for the first time, the Old Lady listened to it. It was too true that she had never gone to church since the day on which she had to begin wearing her mother"s silk dresses. The Old Lady herself thought that this was very wicked; and she tried to atone by keeping Sunday very strictly, and always having a little service of her own, morning and evening. She sang three hymns in her cracked voice, prayed aloud, and read a sermon. But she could not bring herself to go to church in her out-of-date clothes--she, who had once set the fashions in Spencervale, and the longer she stayed away, the more impossible it seemed that she should ever again go. Now the impossible had become, not only possible, but insistent. She must go to church and hear Sylvia sing, no matter how ridiculous she appeared, no matter how people talked and laughed at her.
Spencervale congregation had a mild sensation the next afternoon. Just before the opening of service Old Lady Lloyd walked up the aisle and sat down in the long-unoccupied Lloyd pew, in front of the pulpit.
The Old Lady"s very soul was writhing within her. She recalled the reflection she had seen in her mirror before she left--the old black silk in the mode of thirty years agone and the queer little bonnet of shirred black satin. She thought how absurd she must look in the eyes of her world.
As a matter of fact, she did not look in the least absurd. Some women might have; but the Old Lady"s stately distinction of carriage and figure was so subtly commanding that it did away with the consideration of garmenting altogether.
The Old Lady did not know this. But she did know that Mrs. Kimball, the storekeeper"s wife, presently rustled into the next pew in the very latest fashion of fabric and mode; she and Mrs. Kimball were the same age, and there had been a time when the latter had been content to imitate Margaret Lloyd"s costumes at a humble distance. But the storekeeper had proposed, and things were changed now; and there sat poor Old Lady Lloyd, feeling the change bitterly, and half wishing she had not come to church at all.
Then all at once the Angel of Love touched these foolish thoughts, born of vanity and morbid pride, and they melted away as if they had never been. Sylvia Gray had come into the choir, and was sitting just where the afternoon sunshine fell over her beautiful hair like a halo. The Old Lady looked at her in a rapture of satisfied longing and thenceforth the service was blessed to her, as anything is blessed which comes through the medium of unselfish love, whether human or divine. Nay, are they not one and the same, differing in degree only, not in kind?
The Old Lady had never had such a good, satisfying look at Sylvia before. All her former glimpses had been stolen and fleeting. Now she sat and gazed upon her to her hungry heart"s content, lingering delightedly over every little charm and loveliness--the way Sylvia"s shining hair rippled back from her forehead, the sweet little trick she had of dropping quickly her long-lashed eyelids when she encountered too bold or curious a glance, and the slender, beautifully modelled hands--so like Leslie Gray"s hands--that held her hymn book. She was dressed very plainly in a black skirt and a white shirtwaist; but none of the other girls in the choir, with all their fine feathers, could hold a candle to her--as the egg pedlar said to his wife, going home from church.