They both laughed, and the ice was broken. Dilly got briskly up and gathered a drawer-full of papers into her ap.r.o.n.
"I can"t stop workin"," she said. "I want to fix it so"s not to stay here more"n one night. Now you talk! I know what these are. I can run "em over an" listen too."
"I think"t was real good of you to turn in the place to Tom"s folks,"
said Jethro, also seating himself, and, as Dilly saw with a start, as if it were an omen, in her father"s great chair. "Not that you"ll ever need it, Dilly. You won"t want for a thing. I"ve done real well."
Dilly"s long fingers a.s.sorted papers and laid them at either side, with a neat precision. She looked up at him then, and her eyes had again the quick, inquiring glance of some wild creature in a situation foreign to its habits.
"Well," she said, "well! I guess I don"t resk anything. An" if I did--why, I"d resk it!"
Jethro bent forward a little. He was smiling, and Dilly met the glance, half fascinated. She wondered that she could forget his smile; and yet she had forgotten it. Like running water, it was never twice the same.
"Dilly," said he, much moved, "you"ll have a good time from this out, if ever a woman did. You"ll keep house in a brick block, where the cars run by your door, and you can hire two girls."
"Oh, my!" breathed Dilly. A quick look of trouble darkened her face, as a shadow sweeps across the field.
"What is it?" asked Jethro, in some alarm. "Don"t you like what I said?"
Dilly smiled, though her eyes were still apprehensive.
"It ain"t that," she answered slowly, striving in her turn to be kind.
"Only I guess I never happened to think before just how"t would be. I never spec"lated much on keepin" house."
"But somebody"d have to keep it," said Jethro good-naturedly, smiling on her. "We can get good help. You"ll like to have a real home table, and you can invite company every day, if you say so. I never was close, Dilly,--you know that. I sha"n"t make you account for things."
Dilly got up, and, still holding her papers in her ap.r.o.n, walked swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the orchard, where the gra.s.s lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees.
Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all.
That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was the Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew the August sweet. Life out there looked so still and sane and homely. She knew no city streets,--yet the thought of them sounded like a pursuit.
She turned about, and came back to her chair.
"I guess I never dreamt how you lived, Jethro," she said gently. "But it don"t make no matter. You"re contented with it."
"I ain"t a rich man," said Jethro, with some quiet pride; "but I"ve got enough. Yes, I like my business; and city life suits me. You"ll fall in with it, too."
Then silence settled between them; but that never troubled Dilly. She was used to long musings on her walks to and from her patients, and in her watching beside their beds. Conversation seemed to her a very spurious thing when there is nothing to say.
"What you thinking about?" he asked suddenly.
Dilly looked up at him with her bright, truth-telling glance. "I was thinkin"," she answered, with a clarity never ruthless, because it was so sweet,--"I was thinkin" you make me homesick, somehow or another."
Jethro looked at her doubtfully, and then, as she smiled at him, he smiled also.
"I don"t believe it"s me," he said, confidently. "It"s because you"re going over things here. It"s the old house."
"Maybe," said Dilly, nodding and tying her last bundle of papers. "But I don"t know. I never had quite such feelin"s before. It"s the nearest to bein" afraid of anything I"ve come acrost. I guess I shall have to run out into the lot an" take my bearin"s."
Jethro got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room.
He was very gentle, but he did at heart cherish the masculine theory that the unusual in woman is never to be judged by rules.
"But it is a queer kind of a day," owned Dilly, pushing in the last drawer. "Why, Jethro!" She faced him, and her voice broke in excitement.
"You don"t know, I ain"t begun to tell you, how queer it seems to me.
Why, I"ve dreaded this day for weeks! but when it come nigh, it begun to seem to me like a joyful thing. I felt as if they all knew of it: them that was gone. It seemed as if they stood "round me, ready to uphold me in what I was doin". I shouldn"t be surprised if they were all here now.
I don"t feel a mite alone."
Her voice shook with excitement; her eyes were big and black. Jethro came up to her, and laid a kindly hand on her shoulder. It was a fine hand, long and shapely, and Dilly, looking down at it, remembered, with a strange regretfulness, how she had once loved its lines.
"There, poor girl!" he said, "you"re tired thinking about it. No wonder you"ve got fancies. I guess the ghosts won"t trouble us. There"s nothing here worse than ourselves." And again, in spite of the Joyces, Dilly felt homesick and alone.
There came a soft thudding sound upon the kitchen floor, and she turned, alert, to listen. This was Mrs. Eli Pike in her carpet slippers; she had stood so much over soap-making that week that her feet had taken to swelling. She was no older than Dilly, but she had seemed matronly in her teens. She looked very large, as she padded forward through the doorway, and her pink face and double chin seemed to exude kindliness as she came.
"There, Dilly Joyce! if this ain"t jest like you!" she exclaimed. "Creep in here an" not let anybody know! Why, Jethro, that you? Recognize you!
Well, I guess I should!"
She included them both in a neighborly glance, and Dilly was very grateful. Yet it seemed to her that now, at last, she might break down and cry. The tone of olden friendliness was hard to bear, when no other voices answered. She could endure the silent house, but not the intercourse of a life so sadly changed.
"There!" continued Mrs. Pike, with a nod, "I guess I know! You"re tired to pieces with this pickin" and sortin", an" you"re comin" over to dinner, both on ye. Eli"s dressed a hin. I had to wring her neck. _He_ wouldn"t ha" done it; you know that, Dilly! An" I"ve been beatin" up eggs. Now don"t you say one word. You be there by twelve. Jethro, you got a watch? You see "t she starts, now!" And Mrs. Pike marched away victorious, her ap.r.o.n over her head, and waving one hand before her as she went. She had once been stung by bees, on just such a morning as this, and she had a set theory that they infested all strange dooryards.
Dilly felt as if even the Joyces could not save her day in its solemn significance unless, indeed, they should appear in their proper persons.
She thought of her bread and b.u.t.ter and boiled eggs, lying in her little bundle, and the simple meal seemed as unattainable as if it were some banquet dreamed of in delirium. It was of one piece with cars going by the house, and two maid-servants to correct. To Dilly, a car meant a shrieking monster propelled by steam: yet not even that drove her to such insanity of revulsion as the two servants. They alone made her coming life seem like one eternal school, with the committee ever on the platform, and no recess. But she worked very meekly and soberly, and Jethro took off his coat and helped her; then, just before twelve, they washed their hands and went across the orchard to Mrs. Pike"s.
The rest of the day seemed to Dilly like a confused though not an unfamiliar dream. She knew that the dinner was very good, and that it choked her, so that Mrs. Pike, alert in her first pride of housekeeping, was quite cordially harsh with her for not eating more; and that Jethro talked about Chicago; and Eli Pike, older than his wife and graver, said "Do tell!" now and again, and seemed to picture in his mind the outlines of city living. She escaped from the table as soon as possible, under pretext of the work to be done, and slipped back to the empty house; and there Jethro found her, and began helping her again.
The still afternoon settled down in its grooves of beauty, and its very loveliness gave Dilly a pain at the heart. She remembered that this was the hour when her mother used to yawn over her long seam, or her knitting, and fall asleep by the window, while the bees droned outside in the jessamine, and a humming-bird--there had always been one, year after year, and Dilly could never get over the impression that it was the same bird--hovered on his invisible perch and thrilled his wings divinely. Then the day slipped over an unseen height, and fell into a sheltered calm. The work was not done, and they had to go over to Mrs.
Pike"s again to supper, and to spend the night. Dilly longed to stretch herself on the old kitchen lounge in her own home; but Mrs. Pike told her plainly that she was crazy, and Jethro, with a kindly authority, bade her yield. And because words were like weapons that returned upon her to hurt her anew, she did yield, and talked patiently to one and another neighbor as they came in to see Jethro, and to inquire when he meant to be married.
"Soon," said Jethro, with a.s.surance. "As soon as Dilly makes up her mind."
All that evening, Eli Pike sat on the steps, where he could hear the talk in the sitting-room without losing the whippoorwill"s song from the Joyce orchard, and Dilly longed to slip out and sit quietly beside him.
He would know. But she could only be civil and grateful, and when half past eight came, take her lamp and go up to bed. Jethro was given the best chamber, because he had succeeded and came from Chicago; but Dilly had a little room that looked straight out across the treetops down to her own home.
At first, after closing the door behind her, she felt only the great blessedness of being alone. She put out the light and threw herself, as she was, face downwards on the bed. There she lay for long moments, suffering; and this was one of the few times in her life when she was forced to feel that human pain which is like a stab in the heart. For she was one of those wise creatures who give themselves long s.p.a.ces of silence, and so heal them quickly of their wounds, like the sage little animals that slip away from combat, to cure their hurt with leaves.
Presently, a great sense of rest enfolded her, a rest ineffably precious because it was so soon to be over. It was like great riches lent only for a time. Outside this familiar quiet was the world, thrilled by a terrifying life pressing upon her and calling. She longed to put her hands before her eyes, and shut out the possibility of meeting its garish glory; she did cover her ears, lest its cry should pierce them and she could not resist. And so she lay there shivering, until a strange inviting that was peace and not commotion seemed to approach her from another side, and her inner self became conscious of unheard voices. They were not clamorous, but sweet, and they drowned her will, and drew her to themselves. She got softly up, and, going to the darkened window, looked out across the orchard. There, in the greenness, lay the old house. It called on her to come. It seemed to Dilly that she could not make haste enough to be there. She slipped softly down the narrow stairway, and across the kitchen, where the shadows of the moonlit windows lay upon the floor. A great excitement thrilled her blood; and though quite safe from discovery, she was not wholly at ease until she had entered the orchard path, and knew her feet were wet with dew, and heard the whippoorwill, so near now that she might have startled him from his neighboring tree. No other bird note could have fitted her mood so well. The wild melancholy of his tone, his home in the night, and the omens blended with his song seemed to remove him from the world as she herself was removed; and she hastened on with a fine exaltation, fitted her key again in the lock, and shut the door behind her.
As soon as Dilly had entered the sitting-room, where the old desk stood in its place, and the clock was ticking, she felt as if all her confusion and trouble were over. She smiled to herself in the darkness.
She had come home, and it was very good. They had begun with the attic, in their rearranging, and this room remained unchanged. It had been her wish to keep it, in its sweet familiarity, unaltered till the last. She drew forward her father"s chair, and sat down in it, with luxurious abandonment, to rest. Her mother"s little cricket was by her side, and she put her feet on it and exhaled a long sigh of content. Her eyes rested on the dark cavern which was the fireplace; and there fell upon her a sweet sense of completed bliss, as if it were alight and she could watch the dancing flames. And suddenly Dilly was aware that the Joyces were all about her.
She had been sure, in her coming through the woods, that they knew and cared; now she was certain that, in some fashion, they recognized their bondage and loyalty to the place, as she recognized her own, and that they upheld her to her task. She thought them over, as she sat there, and saw their souls more keenly than if she had met them, men and women, face to face. There was the shoe-maker among them, who, generations back, was sitting on his bench when news came of the battle of Lexington, and who threw down hammer and last, and ran wildly out into the woods, where he stayed three days and nights, calling with a loud voice upon Almighty G.o.d to save him from ill-doing. Then he had drowned himself in a little brook too shallow for the death of any but a desperate man. He had been the disgrace of the Joyces; they dared not think of him, and they know, even to this day, that he is remembered among their townsmen as the Joyce who was a coward, and killed himself rather than go to war. But here he stood--was it the man, or some secret intelligence of him?--and Dilly, out of all his race, was the one to comprehend him. She saw, with a thrill of pa.s.sionate sympathy, how he had believed with all his soul in the wickedness of war, and how the wound to his country so roused in him the desire of blood that he fled away and prayed his G.o.d to save him from mortal guilt,--and how, finding that he saw with an overwhelming delight the red of antic.i.p.ated slaughter, and knew his traitorous feet were bearing him to the ranks, he chose the death of the body rather than sin against the soul. And Dilly was glad; the blood in her own veins ran purer for his sake.
There was old Delilah Joyce, who went into a decline for love, and wasted quite away. She had been one of those tragic fugitives on the island of being, driven out into the storm of public sympathy to be beaten and undone; for she was left on her wedding day by her lover, who vowed he loved her no more. But now Dilly saw her without the pathetic bravery of her silken gown which was never worn, and knew her for a woman serene and glad. That very day she had unfolded the gown in the attic, where it had lain, year upon year, wrapped about by the poignant sympathy of her kin, a perpetual reminder of the hurts and faithlessness of life. It had become a relic, set aside from modern use. She felt now as if she could even wear it herself, though silk was not for her, or deck some little child in its shot and shimmering gayety. For it came to her, with a glad rush of acquiescent joy, that all his life, the man, though blinded by illusion, had been true to her whom he had left; and that, instead of being poor, she was very rich. It was from that moment that Dilly began to understand that the soul does not altogether weld its own bonds, but that they lie in the secret core of things, as the planet rushes on its appointed way.
There was Annette Joyce, who married a Stackpole, and, to the disgust of her kin, clung to him through one debauch after another, until the world found out that Annette "couldn"t have much sense of decency herself, or she wouldn"t put up with such things." But on this one night Dilly found out that Annette"s life had been a continual laying hold of Eternal Being, not for herself, but for the creature she loved; that she had shown the insolence and audacity of a thousand spirits in one, besieging high heaven and crying in the ear of G.o.d: "I demand of Thee this soul that Thou hast made." And somehow Dilly knew now that she was of those who overcome.
So the line stretched on, until she was aware of souls of which she had never heard; and she knew that, faulty as their deeds might be, they had striven, and the strife was not in vain. She felt herself to be one drop in a mighty river, flowing into the water which is the sum of life; and she was content to be absorbed in that great stream. There was human comfort in the moment, too; for all about her were those whom she had seen with her bodily eyes, and their presence brought an infinite cheer and rest. Dilly felt the safety of the universe; she smiled lovingly over the preciousness of all its homely ways. She thought of the twilights when she had sat on the doorstone, eating huckleberries and milk, and seeing the sun drop down the west; she remembered one night when her little cat came home, after it had been lost, and felt the warm touch of its fur against her hand. She saw how the great chain of things is held by such slender links, and how there is nothing that is not most sacred and most good. The hum of summer life outside the window seemed to her the life in her own veins, and she knew that nothing dwells apart from anything else, and that, whether we wot of it or not, we are of one blood.
The night went on to that solemn hush that comes before the dawn. Dilly felt the presence of the day, and what it would demand of her; but now she did not fear. For Jethro, too, had been with her; and at last she understood his power over her and could lay it away like a jewel in a case, a precious thing, and yet not to be worn. She saw him, also, in his stream of being, as she was swept along through hers, and knew how that old race had given him a beauty which was not his, but theirs,--and how, in the melancholy of his eyes, she loved a soul long pa.s.sed, and in the wonder of his hand the tender lines of other hands, waving to fiery action. He was an inheritor; and she had loved, not him, but his inheritance.
Now it was the later dusk of night, and the c.o.c.ks crowed loudly in a clear diminuendo, dying far away. Dilly pressed her hands upon her eyes, and came awake to the outer world. She looked about the room with a warm smile, and reviewed, in feeling, her happy night. It was no longer hard to dismantle the place. The room, the house, the race were hers forever; she had learned the abidingness of what is real. When she closed the door behind her, she touched the casing as if she loved it, and, crossing the orchard, she felt as if all the trees could say: "We know, you and we!"