"You always meant ... but then how did you make them stop?"
"I told the man I had to, and then he had to, too. There were four others who got off and went across the tracks, but we are not obliged to consider them."
"From that," I said, "I would think it _is_ you, if I didn"t know it couldn"t possibly be!"
Then I hurried into some recital about the Topladys, whose big barn and little house were lined faintly out as if something were making them feel hushed; and about Friendship, hidden in the valley as if it were suddenly of lesser import--how strange that these things should be there as they were an hour ago. And so we came to Oldmoxon House and went up the walk in silence save that, at the steps, "How long shall I tell them to boil your eggs?" I asked desperately, to still the quite ridiculous singing of the known world. But then the singing took one voice, a voice whose firmness made it almost hard, save that deep within it something was beating....
"You know," said the voice simply, "if I come in now, I come to stay.
You _do_ know?"
"You come to breakfast...." I tried it.
"I come to stay."
"You mean--"
"I come to stay."
I rather hoped to affirm something gracious, and masterful of myself--not to say of him; but suddenly that whole lonely year was back again, most of it in my throat. And though I gave up saying anything at all, I cannot have been unintelligible. Indeed, I know that I was not unintelligible, for when, in a little while, Calliope, who was still with me, opened my front door and emerged briskly to the veranda, she seems to have understood in a minute.
"Well said!" Calliope cried, and made a little swoop down from the threshold and stood before us, one hand in mine and one outstretched for his; "I knew, as soon as I woke up this morning, I felt special. I thought it was my soul, sittin" up in my chest, an" wantin" me to spry round with it some, like it does. But I guess now it was this. Oh, this!" she said. "Oh, I sp"ose I"d rilly ought to hev an introduction before I jump up an" down, hadn"t I?"
"No need in the world, Calliope," he told her; "come on. I"ll jump, too."
And that was an added joy--that he had read and re-read that one Friendship letter of mine, written on the night of Delia More"s return, until it was as if he, too, knew Calliope. But before all things was the wonder of the justice and the grace which had made the letter of that night, when I, too, "took stock," yield such return.
It was Calliope who led the way indoors at last, and he and I who followed like her guests. From the edges of consciousness I finally drew some discernment of the place of coffee and rolls in a beneficent universe, and presently we three sat at his breakfast table. And not until then did Calliope remember her other news.
"Land, land," she said, "I like to forgot. Who do you s"pose I had a telephone from just before you come? Delia. She"d just got home this morning on the Fast Mail. An" the Proudfits"ll be here, noon train."
Delia indeed had come on the same glorified train that Abel and I had seen stop at the draw, only she had alighted at Friendship station and had hurried up to the Proudfits" to make ready for their home-coming.
And since those whom we know best never come to Friendship without a welcome, it was instantly inc.u.mbent on us all to be what Calliope called "up in arms an" flyin" round."
As soon as we were alone:--
"I"ve planned noon lunch for "em," Calliope told me; "I"m goin" to see to the meat--leg o" lamb, sissin" hot, an" a big bowl o" mint. Mis"
Holcomb"s got to freeze a freezer o" her lemon ice--she gets it smooth as a mud pie. Mis" Toplady, she"ll come in on the baked stuff--raised rolls an" a big devil"s food. An"--I"d kind o" meant to look to you for the salad, but I s"pose you won"t want to bother now...." And when I had hastened to a.s.sume the salad, "Well, I _am_ glad," she owned, with a relieved sigh. "The Proudfit salads they can"t a soul tell what ingredients is in "em, chew high though we may. I know you know about them queer organs an" canned sea reptiles they use now in cookin". I"ve come to the solemn conclusion I ain"t studied physiology an" the animal sciences close enough myself to make a rill up-to-date salad."
Before noon we were all at Proudfit House--to which I had taken care to leave word for Abel to follow me--and we were letting in the sun, making ready the table, filling the vases with garden roses; and in the library Calliope laid a fire "in case they get chilly, travellin" so," she said, but I think rather it was in longing somehow to summon a secret agency to that place where Linda Proudfit"s portrait hung. For we had long been agreed that, as soon as she was at home again, Linda"s mother must be told all that we knew of Linda. Thus, to Calliope and me, the time held a tragic meaning beneath the exterior of our simple cheer. But the time held many meanings, as a time will hold them; and the Voice of its new meaning said to me, as we all waited on the Proudfit veranda with its vines and its climbing rose and its canaries:--
"I marvel, I _marvel_ at your bad taste. How can you leave the dear place and the dear people for me?"
I love to recall the bustle of that arriving and how, as the motor came up the drive, Mis" Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss and Mis" Amanda ran down on the gravel and waved their ap.r.o.ns; and how Mis" Postmaster Sykes and Mis" Mayor Uppers and Mis" Photographer Sturgis, having heard the machine pa.s.s their doors, had issued forth and followed it and arrived at the Proudfits" with:
"I was right in the midst of a basque, cuttin" over an old lining, but I told Liddy Ember: "You rip on. I"ve _got_ to run over." Excuse my looks.
Well said! Back!"
And, "Got here, did you? My, my, all tired out, I expect. Well, mebbe you think we won"t feel relieved to see the house open again an" folks in it flyin" round. An" you look as natural as the first thunder-storm in the spring o" the year!"
And, "Every day for two weeks," Mis" Sturgis said, "I"ve said to Jimmy: "Proudfits back?" "No, sir," s"he, "not back yet." An" so it went. Could you sleep any on the sleeper?"
Then Calliope and Mis" Toplady and Mis" Holcomb and the three newcomers hurried all but abreast to the kitchen to "see what they could find"; and when Mis" Proudfit and Miss Clementina and Delia More had taken their places at the burdened table, we all sat about the edge of the room--no one would share in the feast, every one having to "get right back"--and asked of the journey, and gave news of Friendship Village in the long absence. I love to remember it all, but I think that I love best to remember their delicate acceptance of what that day had brought to me. Of this no one said a word, nor did they ask me anything, or seem to observe, far less to wonder. But when they pa.s.sed me, one and another and another squeezed my hand or patted my arm or gave me their unwonted "dear."
"What gentlefolk they are," my stranger said.
"Noon lunch" was finished, and I had seen Calliope go with Madame Proudfit to the library and close the door, and we were all gathered in the hall, where Miss Clementina had opened a trunk and was showing us some pretty things, when some one else crossed the veranda and appeared in the doorway. And there was Abel, come with my wild roses.
I do not think, however, that it can have occurred to Abel that I was in the room. Nor that any of the others were there, intent on the pretty things of Miss Clementina"s trunk. But, his face shining, he went straight to Delia More; and he laid my roses in her arms, looking at her the while with a look which was like a pa.s.sionate recognition of one not met for many years.
I have said nothing of Delia More as she seemed to me that day of her return, for indeed I do not well know how to tell of her. But as he looked at her, it was all in Abel"s eyes. I do not know whether it was that her spirit having been long "packed down in her," as Calliope had said, was at last loosed by the mysterious ministry of distance and the touch of far places, or whether, over there nearer Tempe, she had held converse with Daphne herself, who, for the sake of the Friendship bond between them, had taken for her own all that was wild and strange in the girl"s nature. But this I know: that Delia More had come back among us a new creature, simple, gentle, humble as before, and yet somehow quickened, invested with the dignity of personality which, long ago, she had lost. And now she stood looking at Abel as he was looking at her.
"Delia!" he said, and took her hand, and, "I brought you some wild roses to tell you we"re glad you"re back," said he, disposing of my hedge spoils as coolly as if I were not.
"That"s nice of you, Abel," she replied simply, "but it"s nicer to think you came."
"Why," Abel said, "you couldn"t have kept me away. You couldn"t have kept me away, Delia."
He could not have done looking at her. And even after we had closed in before them and had gone on with our talk about the tray of the trunk, I think that we were all conscious, as one is conscious of a light in the room, that to Delia and Abel had come again the immemorial wonder.
When the library door opened and Madame Proudfit and Calliope came out, a little hush fell upon us, even though none but I knew what that interval held for Linda"s mother. Her face was tranquil--indeed, I think it was almost as if its ancient fear had forever left it and had given place to the blessed relief of mere sorrow. She stood for a moment--looking at them all, and looking, as if she were thankful for their presence. Then she saw Abel and held out both hands.
"Abel!" she said, "Abel! I had your letter in Lucerne. I meant to talk it over with you--but now I know, I know. You shall have your little chapel in the hills. We will build it together--you and I--for Linda."
But then, because Abel turned joyously and naturally to Delia to share with her the tidings, Madame Proudfit looked at Delia too, and saw her eyes. And,
"You and Delia and I," she added gently.
On which, with the kindliest intent, the happiness of us all overflowed in speech about the common-place, the trivial, the irrelevant, and we all fell talking at once there in the hall, and told one another things which we knew perfectly already, and we listened, nodding, and laughed a great deal at nothing in the world--save that life is good.
We three walked home together in the afternoon sunshine--the man who, through all this time in Friendship, had been dear, and Calliope and I.
I thought that Daphne Street had never looked so beautiful. The tulip beds on the lawns had been re-filled for summer, a touch of bonfire smoke hung in the air, Eppleby Holcomb was mending his picket gate, and over many magic thresholds of the cool walks were lintels of the boughs.
Down town Abigail Arnold was laying cream puffs in the home bakery window; at the Helmans" Mis" Doctor Helman, wound in a shawl and a fascinator, was training her matrimony vine; the Liberty sisters had let out their chickens and, posted in a great triangle, were keeping them well within Liberty lawn confines; Doctor June was working in his garden and he waved his hat at us like a boy. ("It"s a year ago now they give him his benefit," Calliope remembered; "ice-cream an" strawberries an"
cake. An" every soul that come in he treated, one after another. An"
when they got hold of him an" told him what that was doin" to the benefit box, he wanted to know whose benefit it was, anyway. An" he kep"
on treatin" folks up to the last spoonful o" cream. He said he never had such a good time since he was born. I donno but he showed us _how_ to give a benefit, too.")
We were crossing the lawn to Oldmoxon House when I said to Calliope what it had been decided that day that I should say:--
"Calliope," I asked, "could you be ready in a month or two to leave Friendship for good, and come to us in town, and live with us for always?"
She looked up at one and the other of us, with her little embarra.s.sed laugh.
"You"re makin" fun o" me," she said.
But when we had explained that we were wholly serious, she stopped and leaned against one of the great trees before the house; and it was at Oldmoxon House rather than at us that she looked as she answered:--
"I couldn"t," she said quickly, and with a manner of breathlessness, "I couldn"t. You know how I"ve wanted to leave Friendship, too, you know that. An" I want to yet, as far as wantin" goes. But wantin" to mustn"t be enough to make you do things."