Mrs. Maturin sat very still. Something closed in her throat, preventing her immediate reply.
"I, too, had a child, my dear," she answered. "I lost her." She felt the girl"s clasp tighten on her fingers.
"But you--you had a right to it--you were married. Children are sacred things," said Augusta Maturin.
"Sacred! Could it be that a woman like Mrs. Maturity thought that this child which was coming to her was sacred, too?
"However they come?" asked Janet. "Oh, I tried to believe that, too! At first--at first I didn"t want it, and when I knew it was coming I was driven almost crazy. And then, all at once, when I was walking in the rain, I knew I wanted it to have--to keep all to myself. You understand?"
Augusta Maturity inclined her head.
"But the father?" she managed to ask, after a moment. "I don"t wish to pry, my dear, but does he--does he realize? Can"t he help you?"
"It was Mr. Ditmar."
"Perhaps it will help you to tell me about it, Janet."
"I"d--I"d like to. I"ve been so unhappy since you told me he was dead--and I felt like a cheat. You see, he promised to marry me, and I know now that he loved me, that he really wanted to marry me, but something happened to make me believe he wasn"t going to, I saw--another girl who"d got into trouble, and then I thought he"d only been playing with me, and I couldn"t stand it. I joined the strikers--I just had to do something."
Augusta Maturity nodded, and waited.
"I was only a stenographer, and we were very poor, and he was rich and lived in a big house, the most important man in Hampton. It seemed too good to be true--I suppose I never really thought it could happen.
Please don"t think I"m putting all the blame on him, Mrs. Maturity--it was my fault just as much as his. I ought to have gone away from Hampton, but I didn"t have the strength. And I shouldn"t have--" Janet stopped.
"But--you loved him?"
"Yes, I did. For a long time, after I left him, I thought I didn"t, I thought I hated him, and when I found out what had happened to me--that night I came to you--I got my father"s pistol and went to the mill to shoot him. I was going to shoot myself, too."
"Oh!" Mrs. Maturity gasped. She gave a quick glance of sheer amazement at Janet, who did not seem to notice it; who was speaking objectively, apparently with no sense of the drama in her announcement.
"But I couldn"t," she went on. "At the time I didn"t know why I couldn"t, but when I went out I understood it was because I wanted the child, because it was his child. And though he was almost out of his head, he seemed so glad because I"d come back to him, and said he"d marry me right away."
"And you refused!" exclaimed Mrs. Maturity.
"Well, you see, I was out of my head, too, I still thought I hated him--but I"d loved him all the time. It was funny! He had lots of faults, and he didn"t seem to understand or care much about how poor people feel, though he was kind to them in the mills. He might have come to understand--I don"t know--it wasn"t because he didn"t want to, but because he was so separated from them, I guess, and he was so interested in what he was doing. He had ambition, he thought everything of that mill, he"d made it. I don"t know why I loved him, it wasn"t because he was fine, like Mr. Insall, but he was strong and brave, and he needed me and just took me."
"One never knows!" Augusta Maturity murmured.
"I went back that night to tell him I"d marry him--and he"d gone. Then I came to you, to the soup kitchen. I didn"t mean to bother you, I"ve never quite understood how I got there. I don"t care so much what happens to me, now that I"ve told you," Janet added. "It was mean, not to tell you, but I"d never had anything like this--what you were giving me--and I wanted all I could get."
"I"m thankful you did come to us!" Augusta Maturin managed to reply.
"You mean--?" Janet exclaimed.
"I mean, that we who have been more--fortunate don"t look at these things quite as we used to, that the world is less censorious, is growing to understand situations it formerly condemned. And--I don"t know what kind of a monster you supposed me to be, Janet."
"Oh, Mrs. Maturin!"
"I mean that I"m a woman, too, my dear, although my life has been sheltered. Otherwise, what has happened to you might have happened to me. And besides, I am what is called unconventional, I have little theories of my own about life, and now that you have told me everything I understand you and love you even more than I did before."
Save that her breath came fast, Janet lay still against the cushions of the armchair. She was striving to grasp the momentous and unlooked-for fact of her friend"s unchanged att.i.tude. Then she asked:--"Mrs. Maturin, do you believe in G.o.d?"
Augusta Maturin was startled by the question. "I like to think of Him as light, Janet, and that we are plants seeking to grow toward Him--no matter from what dark crevice we may spring. Even in our mistakes and sins we are seeking Him, for these are ignorances, and as the world learns more, we shall know Him better and better. It is natural to long for happiness, and happiness is self-realization, and self-realization is knowledge and light."
"That is beautiful," said Janet at length.
"It is all we can know about G.o.d," said Mrs. Maturin, "but it is enough." She had been thinking rapidly. "And now," she went on, "we shall have to consider what is to be done. I don"t pretend that the future will be easy, but it will not be nearly as hard for you as it might have been, since I am your friend, and I do not intend to desert you. I"m sure you will not let it crush you. In the first place, you will have something to go on with--mental resources, I mean, for which you have a natural craving, books and art and nature, the best thoughts and the best interpretations. We can give you these. And you will have your child, and work to do, for I"m sure you"re industrious. And of course I"ll keep your secret, my dear."
"But--how?" Janet exclaimed.
"I"ve arranged it all. You"ll stay here this spring, you"ll come to my house on Monday, just as we planned, and later on you may go to Mrs.
Case"s, if it will make you feel more independent, and do typewriting until the spring term is over. I"ve told you about my little camp away up in Canada, in the heart of the wilderness, where I go in summer.
We"ll stay there until the autumn, until your baby comes, and, after that, I know it won"t be difficult to get you a position in the west, where you can gain your living and have your child. I have a good friend in California who I"m sure will help you. And even if your secret should eventually be discovered--which is not probable--you will have earned respect, and society is not as stern as it used to be. And you will always have me for a friend. There, that"s the bright side of it. Of course it isn"t a bed of roses, but I"ve lived long enough to observe that the people who lie on roses don"t always have the happiest lives.
Whenever you want help and advice, I shall always be here, and from time to time I"ll be seeing you. Isn"t that sensible?"
"Oh, Mrs. Maturin--if you really want me--still?"
"I do want you, Janet, even more than I did--before, because you need me more," Mrs. Maturin replied, with a sincerity that could not fail to bring conviction....
CHAPTER XXI
As the spring progressed, Janet grew stronger, became well again, and through the kindness of Dr. Ledyard, the princ.i.p.al, was presently installed with a typewriter in a little room in an old building belonging to the Academy in what was called Bramble Street, and not far from the Common. Here, during the day, she industriously copied ma.n.u.scripts" or, from her notebook, letters dictated by various members of the faculty. And she was pleased when they exclaimed delightedly at the flawless copies and failed to suspect her of frequent pilgrimages to the dictionary in the library in order to familiarize herself with the meaning and manner of spelling various academic words. At first it was almost bewildering to find herself in some degree thus sharing the Silliston community life; and an unpremeditated att.i.tude toward these learned ones, high priests of the muses she had so long ignorantly worshipped, accounted perhaps for a great deal in their att.i.tude toward her. Her fervour, repressed yet palpable, was like a flame burning before their altars--a flattery to which the learned, being human, are quick to respond. Besides, something of her history was known, and she was of a type to incite a certain amount of interest amongst these discerning ones. Often, after she had taken their dictation, or brought their ma.n.u.scripts home, they detained her in conversation. In short, Silliston gave its approval to this particular experiment of Augusta Maturin. As for Mrs. Maturin herself, her feeling was one of controlled pride not unmixed with concern, always conscious as she was of the hidden element of tragedy in the play she had so lovingly staged.
Not that she had any compunction in keeping Janet"s secret, even from Insall; but sometimes as she contemplated it the strings of her heart grew tight. Silliston was so obviously where Janet belonged, she could not bear the thought of the girl going out again from this sheltered spot into a chaotic world of smoke and struggle.
Janet"s own feelings were a medley. It was not, of course, contentment she knew continually, nor even peace, although there were moments when these stole over her. There were moments, despite her incredible good fortune, of apprehension when she shrank from the future, when fear a.s.sailed her; moments of intense sadness at the thought of leaving her friends, of leaving this enchanted place now that miraculously she had found it; moments of stimulation, of exaltation, when she forgot. Her prevailing sense, as she found herself again, was of thankfulness and grat.i.tude, of determination to take advantage of, to drink in all of this wonderful experience, lest any precious memory be lost.
Like a jewel gleaming with many facets, each sunny day was stored and treasured. As she went from Mrs. Case"s boarding-house forth to her work, the sweet, sharp air of these spring mornings was filled with delicious smells of new things, of new flowers and new gra.s.s and tender, new leaves of myriad shades, bronze and crimson, fuzzy white, primrose, and emerald green. And sometimes it seemed as though the pink and white clouds of the little orchards were wafted into swooning scents. She loved best the moment when the Common came in view, when through the rows of elms the lineaments of those old houses rose before her, lineaments seemingly long familiar, as of old and trusted friends, and yet ever stirring new harmonies and new visions. Here, in their midst, she belonged, and here, had the world been otherwise ordained, she might have lived on in one continuous, shining spring. At the corner of the Common, foursquare, ample, painted a straw colour trimmed with white, with its high chimneys and fan-shaped stairway window, its bal.u.s.traded terrace porch open to the sky, was the eighteenth century mansion occupied by Dr. Ledyard. What was the secret of its flavour? And how account for the sense of harmony inspired by another dwelling, built during the term of the second Adams, set in a frame of maples and shining white in the morning sun? Its curved portico was capped by a wrought-iron railing, its long windows were touched with purple, and its low garret--set like a deckhouse on the wide roof--suggested hidden secrets of the past. Here a Motley or a Longfellow might have dwelt, a Bryant penned his "Thanatopsis." Farther on, chequered by shade, stood the quaint brick row of professors" houses, with sloping eaves and recessed entrances of granite--a subject for an old English print....
Along the border of the Common were interspersed among the ancient dormitories and halls the new and dignified buildings of plum-coloured brick that still preserved the soul of Silliston. And to it the soul of Janet responded.
In the late afternoon, when her tasks were finished, Janet would cross the Common to Mrs. Maturin"s--a dwelling typical of the New England of the past, with the dimensions of a cottage and something of the dignity of a mansion. Fluted white pilasters adorned the corners, the windows were protected by tiny eaves, the roof was guarded by a rail; the cla.s.sically porched entrance was approached by a path between high clipped hedges of hemlock; and through the library, on the right, you reached the flagged terrace beside a garden, rioting in the carnival colours of spring. By September it would have changed. For there is one glory of the hyacinth, of the tulip and narcissus and the jonquil, and another of the Michaelmas daisy and the aster.
Insall was often there, and on Sat.u.r.days and Sundays he took Mrs.
Maturin and Janet on long walks into the country. There were afternoons when the world was flooded with silver light, when the fields were lucent in the sun; and afternoons stained with blue,--the landscape like a tapestry woven in delicate grins on a ground of indigo. The arbutus, all aglow and fragrant beneath its leaves, the purple fringed polygala were past, but they found the pale gold lily of the bellwort, the rust-red bloom of the ginger. In the open s.p.a.ces under the sky were clouds of bluets, wild violets, and white strawberry flowers cl.u.s.tering beside the star moss all a-shimmer with new green. The Canada Mayflower spread a carpet under the pines; and in the hollows where the mists settled, where the brooks flowed, where the air was heavy with the damp, ineffable odour of growing things, they gathered drooping adder"s-tongues, white-starred bloodroots and foam-flowers. From Insall"s quick eye nothing seemed to escape. He would point out to them the humming-bird that hovered, a bright blur, above the columbine, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r glued to the trunk of a maple high above their heads, the red gleam of a tanager flashing through sunlit foliage, the oriole and vireo where they hid. And his was the ear that first caught the exquisite, distant note of the hermit. Once he stopped them, startled, to listen to the c.o.c.k partridge drumming to its mate....
Sometimes, of an evening, when Janet was helping Mrs. Maturin in her planting or weeding, Insall would join them, rolling up the sleeves of his flannel shirt and kneeling beside them in the garden paths. Mrs.
Maturin was forever asking his advice, though she did not always follow it.
"Now, Brooks," she would say, "you"ve just got to suggest something to put in that border to replace the hyacinths."
"I had larkspur last year--you remember--and it looked like a chromo in a railroad folder."
"Let me see--did I advise larkspur?" he would ask.
"Oh, I"m sure you must have--I always do what you tell me. It seems to me I"ve thought of every possible flower in the catalogue. You know, too, only you"re so afraid of committing yourself."
Insall"s comic spirit, betrayed by his expressions, by the quizzical intonations of his voice, never failed to fill Janet with joy, while it was somehow suggestive, too, of the vast fund of his resource. Mrs.