The Deliverance Part 38

"Oh, yes; bring it in. There, put it on the bureau and sit down by the fire, for I want to talk to you. No, I'm not a bit tired; I am only trying to fit myself again in this room. Why, I don't believe you've changed a pin in the pincus.h.i.+on since I went away."

Miss Saidie dusted the top of the bureau with her ap.r.o.n before she placed the tall gla.s.s lamp upon it.

"Thar warn't anybody to stay in it," she answered, as she sat down in a deep, cretonne-covered chair and pushed back the hickory log with her foot. "I declare, Maria, I don't see what you want to traipse around with that little poor-folksy yaller dog for. He puts me in mind of the one that old blind n.i.g.g.e.r up the road used to have."

"Does he?" asked Maria absently, in the voice of one whose thoughts are hopelessly astray.

She was standing by the window, holding aside the curtain of flowered chintz, and after a moment she added curiously: "There's a light in the fields, Aunt Saidie. What does it mean?"

Crossing the room, Miss Saidie followed the gesture with which Maria pointed into the night.

"That's on the Blake place," she said; "it must be Mr.

Christopher moving about with his lantern."

"You call him Mr. Christopher?"

"Oh, it slipped out. His father's name was Christopher before him, and I used to open the gate for him when I was a child. Many and many a time the old gentleman's given me candy out of his pocket, or a quarter to buy a present, and one Christmas he brought me a real wax doll from the city. He wasn't old then, I can tell you, and he was as handsome as if he had stepped out of a fas.h.i.+on plate. Why, young Mr. Christopher can't hold a candle to him for looks."

"He was a gentleman, then? I mean the old man."

"Who? Mr. Christopher's father? I don't reckon thar was a freer or a finer between here and London."

Maria's gaze was still on the point of light which twinkled faintly here and there in the distant field.

"Then how, in heaven's name, did he come to this?" she asked, in a voice that was hardly louder than a whisper.

"I never knew; I never knew," protested Miss Saidie, going back to her chair beside the hearth. "Brother Bill and he hate each other worse than death, and it was Will's fancy for Mr.

Christopher that brought on this awful trouble. For a time, I declare it looked as if the boy was really bewitched, and they were together morning, noon, and night. Your grandpa never got over it, and I believe he blames Mr. Christopher for every last thing that's happened--Molly Peterkin and all."

"Molly Peterkin?" repeated Maria inquiringly. "Why, how absurd!

And, after all, what is the matter with the girl?" Dropping the curtain, she came over to the fire, and sat listening attentively while Miss Saidie told, in spasmodic jerks and pauses, the foolish story of Will's marriage.

"Your grandpa will never forgive him--never, never. He has turned him out for good and all, and he talks now of leaving every cent of his money to foreign missions."

"Well, we'll see," said Maria soothingly. "I'll go over there to- morrow and talk with Will, and then I'll try to bring grandfather to some kind of reason. He can't let them starve, rich as he is, there's no sense in that--and if the worst comes, I can at least share the little I have with them. It may supply them with bread, if Molly will undertake to churn her own b.u.t.ter."

"Then your money went, too?"

"The greater part of it. Jack was fond of wild schemes, you know.

I left it in his hands." She had p.r.o.nounced the dead man's name so composedly that Miss Saidie, after an instant's hesitation, brought herself to an allusion to the girl's loss.

"How you must miss him, dear," she ventured timidly; "even if he wasn't everything he should have been to you, he was still your husband."

"Yes, he was my husband," a.s.sented Maria quietly.

"You were so brave and so patient, and you stuck by him to the last, as a wife ought to do. Then thar's not even a child left to you now."

Maria turned slowly toward her and then looked away again into the fire. The charred end of a lightwood knot had fallen on the stones, and, picking it up, she threw it back into the flames.

"For a year before his death his mind was quite gone," she said in a voice that quivered slightly; "he had to be taken to an asylum, but I went with him and nursed him till he died. There were times when he would allow no one else to enter his room or even bring him his meals. I have sat by him for two days and nights without sleeping, and though he did not recognise me, he would not let me stir from my place."

"And yet he treated you very badly--even his family said so."

"That is all over now, and we were both to blame. I owed him reparation, and I made it, thank G.o.d, at the last."

As she raised her bare arms to the cus.h.i.+oned back of her chair Miss Saidie caught a glimpse of a deep white scar which ran in a jagged line above her elbow.

"Oh, it is nothing, nothing," said Maria hastily, clasping her hands again upon her knees. "That part of my life is over and done with and may rest in peace. I forgave him then, and he forgives me now. One always forgives when one understands, you know, and we both understand to-day--he no less than I. The chief thing was that we made a huge, irretrievable mistake--the mistake that two people make when they think that love can be coddled and nursed like a domestic pet--when they forget that it goes wild and free and comes at no man's call. Folly like that is its own punishment, I suppose."

"My dear, my dear," gasped Miss Saidie, in awe-stricken sympathy before the wild remorse in Maria's voice.

"I did my duty, as you call it; I even clung to it desperately, and, much as I hated it, I never rebelled for a single instant.

The nearest I came to loving him, I think, was when, after our terrible life together, he lay helpless for a year and I was with him day and night. If I could have given him my strength then, brain and body, I would have done it gladly, and that agonised compa.s.sion was the strongest feeling I ever had for him." She broke off for a long breath, and sat looking earnestly at the amazed little woman across from her. "You could never understand!" she exclaimed impetuously, "but I must tell you--I must tell you because I can't live with you day after day and know that there is an old dead lie between us. I hate lies, I have had so many of them, and I shall speak the truth hereafter, no matter what comes of it. Anything is better than a long, wearing falsehood, or than those hideous little shams that we were always afraid to touch for fear they would melt and show us our own nakedness. That is what I loathe about my life, and that is what I've done with now forever. I am myself now for the first time since I was born, and at last I shall let my own nature teach me how to live."

Her intense pallor was illumined suddenly by a white flame, whether from the leaping of some inner emotion or from the sinking firelight which blazed up fitfully Miss Saidie could not tell. As she turned her head with an impatient movement her black hair slipped its heavy coil and spread in a shadowy ma.s.s upon her bared shoulders.

"I'm sure I don't know how it is," said Miss Saidie, wiping her eyes. "But I can't see that it makes any difference whether you were what they call in love or not, so long as you were a good, well-behaved wife. I don't think a man troubles himself much about a woman's heart after he's put his wedding ring on her finger; and though I know, of course, that thar's a lot of nonsense spoken in courts.h.i.+p, it seems to me they mostly take it out in talking. The wives that I've seen are generally as anxious about thar setting hens as they are about thar husband's hearts, and I reckon things are mighty near the same the world over."

Without noticing her, Maria went on feverishly, speaking so low at times that the other almost lost the words.

"It is such a relief to let it all out," she said, with a long, sighing breath, "and oh! if I had loved him it would have been so different--so different. Then I might have saved him; for what evil is strong enough to contend against a love which would have borne all things, have covered all things?"

Rising from her chair, she walked rapidly up and down, and pausing at last beside the window, lifted the curtain and looked out into the night.

"I might have saved him; I know it now," she repeated slowly: "or had it been otherwise, even in madness I would not have loosened my arms, and my service would have been the one pa.s.sionate delight left in my life. They could never have torn him from my bosom then, and yet as it was--as it was--" She turned quickly, and, coming back, laid her hand on Miss Saidie's arm. "It is such a comfort to talk, dear Aunt Saidie," she added, "even though you don't understand half that I say. But you are good--so good; and now if you'll lend me a nightgown I'll go to bed and sleep until my trunks come in the morning." Her voice had regained its old composure, and Miss Saidie, looking back as she went for the gown, saw that she had begun quietly to braid her hair.

CHAPTER III. The Day Afterward

When Maria awoke, the sun was full in her eyes, and somewhere on the lawn outside the first bluebird was whistling. With a start, she sprang out of bed and dressed quickly by the wood fire which Malindy had lighted. Then, before going downstairs, she raised the window and leaned out into the freshness of the morning, where a white mist glimmered in the hollows of the March landscape. In the distance she saw the smoking chimneys of the Blake cottage, very faint among the leafless trees, and nearer at hand men were moving back and forth in her grandfather's fields.

Six years ago she would have found little beauty in so grave and colourless a scene, but to-day as she looked upon it a peace such as she had never known possessed her thoughts. The wisdom of experience was hers now, and with it she had gained something of the deeper insight into nature which comes to the soul that is reconciled with the unknown laws which it obeys.

Going down a few moments later, she found that breakfast was already over, and that Miss Saidie was was.h.i.+ng the tea things at the head of the bared table.

"Why, it seems but a moment since I fell asleep," said Maria, as she drew back her chair. "How long has grandfather been up?"

"Since before daybreak. He is just starting to town, and he's in a terrible temper because the last batch of b.u.t.ter ain't up to the mark, he says. I'm sure I don't see why it ain't, for I worked every pound of it with my own hands--but thar ain't no rule for pleasing men, and never will be till G.o.d Almighty sets the universe rolling upside down. That's the wagon you hear now.

Thank heaven, he won't be back till after dark."

With a gesture of relief Maria applied herself to the b.u.t.tered waffles before her, prepared evidently in her honour, and then after a short silence, in which she appeared to weigh carefully her unuttered words, she announced her intention of paying immediately her visit to Will and Molly.

"Oh, you can't, you can't," groaned Miss Saidie, nervously mopping out the inside of a cup. "For heaven's sake, don't raise another cloud of dust jest as we're beginning to see clear again."

"Now don't tell me I can't when I must," responded Maria, pus.h.i.+ng away her plate and rising from the table; "there's no such word as 'can't' when one has to, you know. I'll be back in two hours at the most, and oh! with so much to tell you!"

After tying on her hat in the hall, she looked in again to lighten Miss Saidie's foreboding by a tempting bait of news; but when she had descended the steps and walked slowly along the drive under the oaks, the a.s.sumed brightness of her look faded as rapidly as the morning suns.h.i.+ne on the clay road before her. It was almost with dismay that she found herself covering the ground between the Hall and Will's home and saw the shaded lane stretching to the little farm adjoining Sol Peterkin's.

As she pa.s.sed the store, Mrs. Spade, who was selling white china b.u.t.tons to Eliza Field, leaned over the counter and stared in amazement through the open window.