He wanted to dig at the text, so that he might refute Nathan; but somehow that night he was too dull to refute anybody, and by-and-by he pushed the black-lettered page aside, and, crouching over the fire, held out his hands to the blaze. He thought, vaguely, of the big fireplace in the old study, and suddenly, in the chilly numbness of his mind, he saw it--with such distinctness that he was startled. Then, a moment later, it changed into the south chamber that had been his mother"s bedroom--he could even detect the faint scent of rose-geranium that always hung about her; he noticed that the green shutters on the west windows were bowed, and from between them a line of sunshine fell across the matting on the floor and touched the four-poster that had a chintz spread and valance. How well he knew the faded roses and the c.o.c.katoos on that old chintz! Over there by the window he had caught her crying that time he had hurt her feelings, "just for his own pleasure"; the old stab of this thought pierced through the feverish mists and touched the quick. He struggled numbly with the visualization of fever, brushing his hot hand across his eyes and trying to see which was real--the geranium-sweet south chamber or the chilly house on Lonely Lake Road. Athalia had given him pain in that same way--just for her own pleasure. Poor little Tay!
He was afraid it would hurt her, some day, when she realized it; well, when she came to herself, when she got through her playing at Shakerism, he must not let her know how great the pain had been; she would suffer too much if she should understand his misery: and Athalia didn"t bear suffering well.... But how long she had been getting over Shakerism! He had thought it would only last six months, and here it was a year! Well, if Nathan"s reading of the Prophecies was right, then Athalia would never get over it. She ought never to get over it. Then what would become of the farm and the sawmill? And instantly everything was unreal again; he could hear the hum of the driving-wheel and the screech of the saw tearing through a log; how fragrant the fresh planks were, and the great heaps of sawdust--but the noise made his head ache; and--and the fire didn"t seem hot....
It was in one of those moments when the mists thinned, and he knew that he was shivering over the stove instead of basking in the sunshine in his mother"s room that smelled of rose-geranium leaves, that Athalia came in. She looked conscious and confused, full of a delightful embarra.s.sment at being for once alone with him. The color was deep on her cheeks, and her eyes were starry.
"Eldress asked me to bring your mail down to you, Brother Lewis," she said.
"Thalia!" he said; "I am so glad to see you, dear; I--I seem to be rather used up, somehow." The mists had quite cleared away, but a violent headache made his words stumble. "I was just wondering, Thalia--don"t you think you might go home now? You"ve had a whole year of it--and I really ought to go home--the mill--"
"Why, Lewis Hall! What do you mean!" she said, forgetting her part in her indignation. "I am a Shakeress. You"ve no right to speak so to me."
He blinked at her through the blur of pain. "I wish you"d stay with me, Athalia, I"ve got a--a sort of--headache. Never mind about being a Shakeress just for to-night. It would be such a comfort to have you."
But Athalia, with a horrified look, had left him. She fled home in the darkness with burning cheeks; she debated with herself whether she should tell Eldress how her husband--no, Brother Lewis--had tried to "tempt" her back to him. In her excitement at this lure of the devil she even wondered whether Lewis had pretended that he was ill, to induce her to stay with him? But even Athalia"s imagination could not compa.s.s such a thought of Lewis for more than a moment, so she only told the Eldress that Brother Lewis had "tried to persuade her to go back to the world with him." The Lord had defended her, she said, excitedly, and she had forbidden him to speak to her!
Eldress Hannah looked perplexed. "That"s not like Lewis. I wonder--"
But she did not say what she wondered. Instead, she went early in the morning down Lonely Lake Road to Lewis"s house. The poor fellow was entirely in the mists by that time, shivering and burning and quite unconscious, saying over and over, "She wouldn"t stay; she wouldn"t stay."
""Lure her back,"" said Eldress Hannah, with a snort. "Poor boy! It"s good riddance for him."
But Eldress Hannah stayed, and Brother Nathan joined her, and for many days the little community was shaken with real anxiety, for they had all come to love the solitary, waiting husband. Athalia, abashed, but still cherishing the dear insult of having been tempted, took what little part Eldress allowed her in the care of the sick man; but in the six or seven weeks of his illness Brother Nathan and the Eldress were his devoted nurses, and by-and-by a genuine friendship grew up between them. Old Eldress Hannah"s shrewd good-humor was as wholesome as a sound winter apple, and Nathan had a gayety Lewis had never suspected. The old man grew very confidential in those days of Lewis"s convalescence; he showed his simple heart with a generosity that made the sick man"s lip tighten once or twice and his eyes blur;--Lewis came to know all about Sister Lydia; indeed, he knew more than the old man knew himself. When the invalid grew stronger, Nathan wrestled with him over the Prophecies, and Lewis studied them and the other foundation-stones of the Shaker faith with a constantly increasing anxiety. "Because," he said, with a nervous blink, "if you ARE right--" But he left the sentence unfinished. Once he said, with a feeble pa.s.sion--for he was still very weak--"I tell you, Nathan, it isn"t human!" and then added, under his breath, "but G.o.d knows whether that"s not in its fa-vor."
When he was quite well again he was plainly preoccupied. He pored over the Prophecies with a concentration that made him blind even to Athalia"s tired looks. Once, when some one said in his presence, "Sister "Thalia is working too hard," he blinked at her in an absent way before the old, anxious attention awoke in his eyes.
Athalia tossed her head and said, "Brother Lewis has his own affairs to think of, I guess!"
And he said, eagerly: "Yes, "Thalia; I have been thinking--Some day I"ll tell you. But not yet."
"Oh, I haven"t time to pry into other people"s thoughts," she said, acidly. And, indeed, just then her time was very full. She was enormously useful to the community that second winter; her young power and strength shone out against the growing weariness of the old sisters.
"Athalia"s capable," Eldress Hannah said, and the other sisters said "Yee," and smiled at one another.
"She IS useful," Sister Jane declared; "do you know, she got through the churning before nine? I"d "a" been at it until eleven!"
"Athalia is like one of those candles that have a streak of soft wax in "em," Eldress Hannah murmured; "but she"s useful, as you say, Jane."
In January, when the Eldress fell ill, Athalia was especially useful.
She nursed her with a pa.s.sion of faithfulness that made the other sisters remonstrate.
"You"ll wear yourself out, Athalia; you haven"t had your clothes off for three days and nights!"
"The Lord has upheld me, and His right hand has sustained me," Athalia quoted, with an uplifted look.
"Yee," old Jane a.s.sented, "but He likes sense, Athalia, and there ain"t any reason why two of us shouldn"t take turns settin" up with her tonight."
"This is my service," Athalia said, smiling joyously.
Eldress Hannah, lying with closed eyes, said, suddenly: "Athalia, don"t be foolish and conceited. You go right along to your bed; Jane and Mary"ll look after me."
It took Athalia a perceptible minute to get herself in hand sufficiently to say, meekly, "Yee, Eldress." When she had shut the door behind her with perhaps something more than Shaker emphasis, the Eldress opened her eyes and smiled at old Jane. "She"s smart," she said.
"Yee," said Sister Jane; and there was a little chuckle.
The sick woman closed her eyes again and sighed. "What a nurse Lydia was!" she said; and added, suddenly: "How is Nathan getting along with Lewis? There isn"t much more time, I guess," she ended, mildly; "she won"t last it out another summer."
"She"s done better than I expected to stay till now," Jane said; and the Eldress nodded.
But it was, perhaps, a natural result of Athalia"s abounding energy that toward the end of that second winter in the Shaker village she should grow irritable. The spring work was very heavy that year. Brother William was too feeble to do even the light, pottering tasks that had been allotted to him, and his vague babblings about the spirits ceased altogether. In April old Jane died, and that put extra burdens on Athalia"s capable shoulders. "But I notice I don"t get anything extra for my work, not even thanks!" she told Lewis, sharply, and forgot to call him "Brother." She had walked down Lonely Lake Road and stopped at his gate. She looked thinner; her forget-me-not eyes were clouded, and there was an impatient line about her lips, instead of the faint, ecstatic smile which was part of her early experience.
"Yes, there"s lots of work to be done," he agreed, "but when people do it together--"
"What do you think?"--she interrupted him, her lip drooping a little in a half-contemptuous smile--"they"ve heard again from that Sister Lydia who ran away! You know who I mean?--Brother Nathan is always talking about her. They think she"ll come back. _I_ should say good riddance!
Though of course if it"s genuine repentance I"ll be glad. Only I don"t think it is."
"How pleased Nathan will be!" Lewis said.
"Oh, he"s pleased; he"s rather too pleased for a Shaker, it strikes me."
Lewis frowned. "There is joy in the presence of the angels," he reminded her, gravely.
"Angels!" she said, with a laugh; "I don"t believe so much in the angels as I did before I knew so much about them. I understand that when this "angel" comes back I am to give up my room to her, if you please, because it used to be hers. Oh, I"m of no importance now--Lewis," she broke off, suddenly, "who has our house this year?"
"Davis; he wants to re-lease it in May."
"He just takes it by the year, doesn"t he?" she asked.
He nodded. "Wants a five-years" lease next time."
"Well, don"t give it to him!" she said; and added, frowning: "You ought to go back yourself, you know. It"s foolish for you to be here. Why, it"s almost two years!"
"Time flies," he said, smiling.
She laughed and sighed. "Yes--I mean yee--indeed, it does! I was just thinking, Lewis, we"ve been married ten years!"
"No, eight years. We were married just eight years," he said, soberly.
The color flew into her face. "Oh, yee; we were married eight years when I came in."
He looked at her with great tenderness. "Athalia, I have to confess to you that when you came I didn"t think it would last with you. I distrusted the Holy Spirit. And I came, myself, against my will, as you know. But now I begin to think you were led--and perhaps you have led me."
Athalia gave a little gasp--"WHAT!"
"I am not sure yet," he said.
"You said Shakerism was unhuman!" Athalia protested, with a thrill of panic in her voice.
"Ah!" he cried, his voice suddenly kindling, "you know what Nathan is always saying?--"That"s not against it"? Athalia, its unhumanness, as you call it, is why I think it may be of G.o.d. The human in us must give way to the divine. "First that which is natural; then that which is spiritual.""
"I--don"t understand," she said, faintly; "you are not a Shaker?"