Margret Howth, a Story of To-day Part 20

Now that they were alone they gathered close about the fire, while the day without grew gray and colder,--Margret in her old place by her father's knee. Some dim instinct had troubled the old man all day; it did now: whenever Margret spoke, he listened eagerly, and forgot to answer sometimes, he was so lost in thought. At last he put his hand on her head, and whispered, "What ails my little girl?" And then his little girl sobbed and cried, as she had been ready to do all day, and kissed his trembling hand, and went and hid on her mother's neck, and left Stephen to say everything for her. And I think you and I had better come away.

It was quite dark before they had done talking,--quite dark; the wood-fire had charred down into a great bed of crimson; the tea stood till it grew cold, and no one drank it.

The old man got up at last, and Holmes led him to the library, where he smoked every evening. He held Maggie, as he called her, in his arms a long time, and wrung Holmes's hand. "G.o.d bless you, Stephen!" he said,--"this is a very happy Christmas-day to me." And yet, sitting alone, the tears ran over his wrinkled face as he smoked; and when his pipe went out, he did not know it, but sat motionless. Mrs. Howth, fairly confounded by the shock, went up-stairs, and stayed there a long time. When she came down, the old lady's blue eyes were tenderer, if that were possible, and her face very pale. She went into the library and asked her husband if she didn't prophesy this two years ago, and he said she did, and after a while asked her if she remembered the barbecue-night at Judge Clapp's thirty years ago. She blushed at that, and then went up and kissed him. She had heard Joel's horse clattering up to the kitchen-door, so concluded she would go out and scold him.

Under the circ.u.mstances it would be a relief.

If Mrs. Howth's nerves had been weak, she might have supposed that free-born serving-man seized with sudden insanity, from the sight that met her, going into the kitchen. His dinner, set on the dresser, was flung contemptuously on the ashes; a horrible cloud of burning grease rushed from a dirty pint-pot on the table, and before this Joel was capering and snorting like some red-headed Hottentot before his fetich, occasionally sticking his fingers into the nauseous stuff, and snuffing it up as if it were roses. He was a church-member: he could NOT be drunk? At the sight of her, he tried to regain the austere dignity usual to him when women were concerned, but lapsed into an occasional giggle, which spoiled the effect.

"Where have you been," she inquired, severely, "scouring the country like a heathen on this blessed day? And what is that you have burning?

You're disgracing the house, and strangers in it."

Joel's good-humour was proof against even this.

"I've scoured to some purpose, then. Dun't tell the mester: it'll muddle his brains t'-night. Wait till mornin'. Squire More'll be down his-self t' 'xplain."

He rubbed the greasy fingers into his hair, while Mrs. Howth's eyes were fixed in dumb perplexity.

"Ye see,"--slowly, determined to make it clear to her now and forever,--"it's water: no, t' a'n't water: it's troubled me an' Mester Howth some time in Poke Run, atop o' 't. I hed my suspicions,--so'd he; lay low, though, frum all women-folks. So 's I tuk a bottle down, unbeknown, to Squire More, an' it's oil!"--jumping like a wild Indian,--"thank the Lord fur his marcies, it's oil!"

"Well, Joel," she said, calmly, "very disagreeably smelling oil it is, I must say."

"Good save the woman!" he broke out, sotto voce, "she's a born natural!

Did ye never hear of a shaft? or millions o' gallons a day? It's better nor a California ranch, I tell ye. Mebbe," charitably, "ye didn't know Poke Run's the mester's?"

"I certainly do. But I do not see what this green ditch-water is to me. And I think, Joel,"----

"It's more to ye nor all yer States'-rights as I'm sick o' hearin' of.

It's carpets, an' bunnets, an' slithers of railroad-stock, an' some colour on Margot's cheeks,--ye 'ed best think o' that! That's what it is to ye! I'm goin' to take stock myself. I'm glad that gell 'll git rest frum her mills an' her Houses o' Deviltry,--she's got gumption fur a dozen women."

He went on muttering, as he gathered up his pint-pot and bottle,--

"I'm goin' to send my Tim to college soon's the thing's in runnin'

order. Lord! what a lawyer that boy'll make!"

Mrs. Howth's brain was still muddled.

"You are better pleased than you were at Lincoln's election," she observed, placidly.

"Lincoln be darned!" he broke out, forgetting the teachings of Mr.

Clinche. "Now, Mem, dun't ye muddle the mester's brain t'-night wi'

't, I say. I'm goin' t' 'xperiment myself a bit."

Which he did, accordingly,--shutting himself up in the smoke-house and burning the compound in divers sconces and Wide-Awake torches, giving up the entire night to his diabolical orgies.

Mrs. Howth did not tell the master; for one reason: it took a long time for so stupendous an idea to penetrate the good lady's brain; and for another: her motherly heart was touched by another story than this Aladdin's lamp of Joel's wherein burned petroleum. She watched from her window until she saw Holmes crossing the icy road: there was a little bitterness, I confess, in the thought that he had taken her child from her; but the prayer that rose for them both took her whole woman's heart with it.

The road was rough over the hills; the wind that struck Holmes's face bitingly keen: perhaps the life coming for him would be as cold a struggle, having not only poverty to conquer, but himself. But he is a strong man,--no stronger puts his foot down with cool, resolute tread; and to-night there is a thrill on his lips that never rested there before,--a kiss, dewy and warm. Something, some new belief, too, stirs in his heart, like a subtile atom of pure fire, that he hugs closely,--his for all time. No poverty or death shall ever drive it away. Perhaps he entertains an angel unaware.

After that night Lois never left her little shanty. The days that followed were like one long Christmas; for her poor neighbors, black and white, had some plot among themselves, and worked zealously to make them seem so to her. It was easy to make these last days happy for the simple little soul who had always gathered up every fragment of pleasure in her featureless life, and made much of it, and rejoiced over it. She grew bewildered, sometimes, lying on her wooden settle by the fire; people lead always been friendly, taken care of her, but now they were eager in their kindness, as though the time were short. She did not understand the reason, at first; she did not want to die: yet if it hurt her, when it grew clear at last, no one knew it; it was not her way to speak of pain. Only, as she grew weaker, day by day, she began to set her house in order, as one might say, in a quaint, almost comical fas.h.i.+on, giving away everything she owned, down to her treasures of colored bottles and needle-books, mending her father's clothes, and laying them out in her drawers; lastly, she had Barney brought in from the country, and every day would creep to the window to see him fed and chirrup to him, whereat the poor old beast would look up with his dim eye, and try to neigh a feeble answer. Kitts used to come every day to see her, though he never said much when he was there: he lugged his great copy of the Venus del Pardo along with him one day, and left it, thinking she would like to look at it; Knowles called it trash, when he came. The Doctor came always in the morning; he told her he would read to her one day, and did it always afterwards, putting on his horn spectacles, and holding her old Bible close up to his rugged, anxious face. He used to read most from the Gospel of St.

John. She liked better to hear him than any of the others, even than Margret, whose voice was so low and tender: something in the man's half-savage nature was akin to the child's.

As the day drew near when she was to go, every pleasant trifle seemed to gather a deeper, solemn meaning. Jenny b.a.l.l.s came in one night, and old Mrs. Polston.

"We thought you'd like to see her weddin'-dress, Lois," said the old woman, taking off Jenny's cloak, "seein' as the weddin' was to hev been to-morrow, and was put off on 'count of you."

Lois did like to see it; sat up, her face quite flushed to see how nicely it fitted, and stroked back Jenny's soft hair under the veil.

And Jenny, being a warm-hearted little thing, broke into a sobbing fit, saying that it spoiled it all to have Lois gone.

"Don't muss your veil, child," said Mrs. Polston.

But Jenny cried on, hiding her face in Lois's skinny hand, until Sam Polston came in, when she grew quiet and shy. The poor deformed girl lay watching them, as they talked. Very pretty Jenny looked, with her blue eyes and damp pink cheeks; and it was a manly, grave love in Sam's face, when it turned to her. A different love from any she had known: better, she thought. It could not be helped; but it WAS better.

After they were gone, she lay a long time quiet, with her hand over her eyes. Forgive her! she, too, was a woman. Ah, it may be there are more wrongs that shall be righted yonder in the To-Morrow than are set down in your theology!

And so it was, that, as she drew nearer to this To-Morrow, the brain of the girl grew clearer,--struggling, one would think, to shake off whatever weight had been put on it by blood or vice or poverty, and become itself again. Perhaps, even in her cheerful, patient life, there had been hours when she had known the wrongs that had been done her, known how cruelly the world had thwarted her; her very keen insight into whatever was beautiful or helpful may have made her see her own mischance, the blank she had drawn in life, more bitterly. She did not see it bitterly now. Death is honest; all things grew clear to her, going down into the valley of the shadow; so, wakening to the consciousness of stifled powers and ungiven happiness, she saw that the fault was not hers, nor His who had appointed her lot; He had helped her to bear it,--bearing worse himself. She did not say once, "I might have been," but day by day, more surely, "I shall be." There was not a tear on the homely faces turning from her bed, not a tint of colour in the flowers they brought her, not a s.h.i.+ver of light in the ashy sky, that did not make her more sure of that which was to come. More loving she grew, as she went away from them, the touch of her hand more pitiful, her voice more tender, if such a thing could be,--with a look in her eyes never seen there before. Old Yare pointed it out to Mrs.

Polston one day.

"My girl's far off frum us," he said, sobbing in the kitchen,--"my girl's far off now."

It was the last night of the year that she died. She was so much better that they all were quite cheerful. Kitts went away as it grew dark, and she bade him wrap up his throat with such a motherly dogmatism that they all laughed at her; she, too, with the rest.

"I'll make you a New-Year's call," he said, going out; and she called out that she should be sure to expect him.

She seemed so strong that Holmes and Mrs. Polston and Margret, who were there, were going home; besides, old Yare said, "I'd like to take care o' my girl alone to-night, ef yoh'd let me,"--for they had not trusted him before. But Lois asked them not to go until the Old Year was over; so they waited down-stairs.

The old man fell asleep, and it was near midnight when he wakened with a cold touch on his hand.

"It's come, father!"

He started up with a cry, looking at the new smile in her eyes, grown strangely still.

"Call them all, quick, father!"

Whatever was the mystery of death that met her now, her heart clung to the old love that had been true to her so long.

He did not move.

"Let me hev yoh to myself, Lo, 't th' last; yoh're all I hev; let me hev yoh 't th' last."

It was a bitter disappointment, but she roused herself even then to smile, and tell him yes, cheerfully. You call it a trifle, nothing? It may be; yet I think the angels looking down had tears in their eyes, when they saw the last trial of the unselfish, solitary heart, and kept for her a different crown from his who conquers a city.

The fire-light grew warmer and redder; her eyes followed it, as if all that had been bright and kindly in her life were coming back in it.

She put her hand on her father, trying vainly to smooth his gray hair.

The old man's heart smote him for something, for his sobs grew louder, and he left her a moment; then she saw them all, faces very dear to her even then. She laughed and nodded to them all in the old childish way; then her lips moved. "It's come right!" she tried to say; but the weak voice would never speak again on earth.

"It's the turn o' the night," said Mrs. Polston, solemnly; "lift her head; the Old Year's 'goin' out."