Chapter 17

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_ Chapter XVII

When Henry had worked in the shop before Sylvia's inheritance, he had always given her a certain proportion of his wages and himself defrayed their housekeeping bills. He began to do so again, and Sylvia accepted everything without comment. Henry gradually became sure that she did not touch a dollar of her income from her new property for herself. One day he found on the bureau in their bedroom a book on an Alford savings-bank, and discovered that Sylvia had opened an account therein for Rose. Sylvia also began to give Rose expensive gifts. When the girl remonstrated, she seemed so distressed that there was nothing to do but accept them.

Sylvia no longer used any of Abrahama White's clothes for herself. Instead, she begged Rose to take them, and finally induced her to send several old gowns to her dressmaker in New York for renovation. When Rose appeared in these gowns Sylvia's expression of worried secrecy almost vanished.

The time went on, and it was midsummer. Horace was spending his long vacation in East Westland. He had never done so before, and Sylvia was not pleased by it. Day after day she told him that he did not look well, that she thought he needed a change of air. Henry became puzzled. One day he asked Sylvia if she did not want Mr. Allen to stay with them any longer.

"Of course I do," she replied.

"Well, you keep asking him why he doesn't go away, and I began to think you didn't," said Henry.

"I want him to stay," said Sylvia, "but I don't want any foolishness."

"Foolishness?" said Henry, vaguely.

It was a very hot afternoon, but in spite of the heat Rose and Horace were afield. They had been gone ever since dinner. It was Saturday, and Henry had come home early from the shop. The first question he asked had been concerning the whereabouts of the young people. "Off together somewhere," Sylvia had replied. Then the conversation had ensued.

"Yes, foolishness," repeated Sylvia, with a sort of hysterical violence. She sat out on the front porch with some mending, and she sewed feverishly as she spoke.

"I don't know what you mean by foolishness, I guess, Sylvia."

Henry sat on the porch step. He wore a black mohair coat, and his thin hair was well brushed.

"It does seem," said Sylvia, "as if a young man and a young woman might live in the same house and behave themselves."

Henry stared at her. "Why, Sylvia, you don't mean--"

"I mean just what I said--behave themselves. It does seem sometimes as if everything any girl or young man thought of was falling in love and getting married," Sylvia said--"falling in love and getting married," with a bitter and satirical emphasis.

"I don't see," said Henry, "that there is very much against Mr. Allen and Rose's falling in love and getting married. I think he might do worse, and I think she might. Sometimes I've looked at the two of them and wondered if they weren't just made for each other. I can't see quite what you mean, Sylvia? You don't mean to say that you don't want Mr. Allen ever to get married?"

"He can marry whoever he wants to," said Sylvia, "but he sha'n't marry her."

"You don't mean you don't want her ever to get married?"

"Yes, I do mean just that."

"Why, Sylvia, are you crazy?"

"No, I ain't crazy," replied Sylvia, doggedly. "I don't want her to get married, and I'm in the right of it. She's no call to get married."

"I don't see why she 'ain't got a call as well as other girls."

"She 'ain't. Here she's got a good home, and everything she needs, and more, too. She's got money of her own that she had when she come here, plenty of it. I'm going over to Alford to-morrow and see if I can't find some things in the stores there for her that I think she'll like. And I'm going to get Jim Jones--he's a good hand--to see if he can't get a good, safe horse and pretty carriage for her, so she can ride out."

Henry stared. "I dunno as I can take care of a horse, Sylvia," he said, doubtfully.

"Nobody wants you to. I can get Billy Hudson to come. He can sleep in the chamber over the kitchen. I spoke to his mother about it, and she's tickled to pieces. She says he's real handy with horses, and he'll come for fifteen dollars a month and his board. Rose is going to have everything she wants."

"Does she want a horse and carriage?"

"I shouldn't think of it if I didn't s'pose she did."

"What made me ask," said Henry, "was, I'd never heard her speak of it, and I knew she had money enough for anything if she did want it."

"Are you grudging my spending money her own aunt left on her?"

Henry looked reproachfully at his wife. "I didn't quite deserve that from you, Sylvia," he said, slowly.

Sylvia looked at him a moment. Her face worked. Then she glanced around to be sure nobody saw, and leaned over and touched the shoulder of Henry's mohair coat with a little, skinny hand. "Henry," she said, pitifully.

"What, Sylvia?"

"You know I didn't mean anything. You've always been generous about money matters. We 'ain't never had ill feeling about such a thing as that. I shouldn't have spoke that way if I hadn't been all wrought up, and--" Suddenly Sylvia thrust her hand under her white apron and swept it up to her face. She shook convulsively.

"Now, Sylvia, of course you didn't mean a blessed thing. I've known you were all wrought up for a long time, but I haven't known what about. Don't take on so, Sylvia."

A little, hysterical sob came from Sylvia under the apron. Her scissors fell from her lap and struck the stone slab on which Henry was sitting. He picked them up. "Here are your scissors, Sylvia," said he. "Now don't take on so. What is it about? What have you got on your mind? Don't you think it would do you good to tell me?"

"I wish," sobbed Sylvia, "that Abrahama White had left her property where it belonged. I wish we'd never had a cent of it. She didn't do right, and she laid the burden of her wrong-doing onto us when she left us the property."

"Is that what's troubling you, Sylvia?" said Henry, slowly. "If that's all," he continued, "why--"

But Sylvia interrupted him. She swept the apron from her face and showed it grimly set. There was no trace of tears. "That ain't troubling me," said she. "Nothing's troubling me. I'm kind of nervous, that's all, and I hate to set still and see foolishness. I don't often give way, and I 'ain't nothing to give way for. I'm jest all wrought up. I guess there's going to be a thunder-tempest. I've felt jest like it all day. I wish you'd go out in the garden and pick a mess of green corn for supper. If you're a mind to you can husk it, and get that middling-sized kettle out from under the sink and put the water on to boil. I suppose they'll be home before long now. They ain't quite got to going without their victuals."

Henry rose. "I'd admire to get the corn," said he, and went around the house towards the kitchen. Left to herself, Sylvia let her work fall in her lap. She stared at the front yard and the street beyond and the opposite house, dimly seen between waving boughs, and her face was the face of despair. Little, commonplace, elderly countenance that it seemed, it was strengthened into tragedy by the terrible stress of some concealed misery of the spirit. Sylvia sat very stiffly, so stiffly that even the work in her lap, a mass of soft muslin, might have been marble, with its immovable folds. Sylvia herself looked petrified; not a muscle of her face stirred. She was suffering the keenest agony upon earth, that agony of the spirit which strikes it dumb.

She had borne it for months. She had never let slip the slightest hint of it. At times she had managed to quiet it with what she knew to be sophistries. She had been able to imagine herself almost happy with Rose and the new passion for her which had come into her life, but that passion was overgrown by her secret, like some hideous parasite. Even the girl's face, which was so beloved, was not to be seen without a pang to follow upon the happiness. Sylvia showed, however, in spite of her face of utter despair, an odd strength, a courage as if for battle.

After awhile she heard Henry's returning footsteps, and immediately her face and whole body relaxed. She became flesh, and took up her needlework, and Henry found her sewing placidly. The change had been marvellous. Once more Sylvia was a little, commonplace, elderly woman at her commonplace task. Even that subtle expression which at times so puzzled Henry had disappeared. The man had a sensation of relief as he resumed his seat on the stone step. He was very patient with Sylvia. It was his nature to be patient with all women. Without realizing it, he had a tenderness for them which verged on contempt. He loved Sylvia, but he never lost sight of the fact that she was a woman and he a man, and therefore it followed, as a matter of course, that she was by nature weaker and, because of the weakness, had a sweet inferiority. It had never detracted from his love for her; it had increased it. There might not have been any love in the beginning except for that.

Henry was perhaps scarcely capable of loving a woman whom he might be compelled to acknowledge as his superior. This elderly New-Englander had in him none of the spirit of knight-errantry. He had been a good, faithful husband to his wife, but he had never set her on a pedestal, but a trifle below him, and he had loved her there and been patient with her.

But patience must breed a certain sense of superiority. That is inevitable. Henry's tender patience with Sylvia's moods and unreason made him see over her character, as he could see over her physical head. Lately this sense of mystery had increased, in a way, his comprehension of his own stature. The more mysterious Sylvia became, and the more Henry's patience was called into action, the taller he appeared to himself to become.

While he had been getting the corn out in the garden, and preparing it to be cooked, he had reflected upon Sylvia's unaccountable emotion and her assertion that there was no reason for it, and he realized his masculine height. He knew that it would have been impossible for him to lose control of himself and then declare that there was no cause; to sway like a reed driven by the wind.

Henry was rather taken by this idea. When he had returned to his station on the porch he was thinking how women were reeds driven by the winds of their emotions, and really, in a measure, irresponsible. If he had again found Sylvia with her apron over her face, he was quite prepared to be very tender, but he was relieved to see that the paroxysm had passed. He did not smile as he sat down, neither did Sylvia. It was rather unusual for them to smile at each other, but they exchanged looks of peaceful accord, which really meant more than smiles.

"Well," said Henry, "the kettle's on the stove."

"How much corn did you get?"

"Well, I allowed three ears apiece. They're pretty good size. I thought that was about right."

Sylvia nodded.

"The corn's holding out pretty well," said Henry. "That other later kind will be ready by the time the lima beans are ripe."

"That 'll go nice for succotash," said Sylvia, taking another stitch.

"That's what I was thinking," said Henry.

He sat staring out upon the front yard, and he was in reality thinking, with pleasant anticipations, of the succotash. Now that he was back in his old track at the shop, his appetite was better, and he found himself actually dreaming about savory dishes like a boy. Henry's pleasures in life were so few and simple that they had to go a long way, and lap over onto his spiritual needs from his physical ones.

Sylvia broke in upon his visions of succotash. She was straining her eyes to see the road beyond the front yard. "What time is it?" she asked. "Do you know?"

"It was half-past five by the kitchen clock."

"They ain't in sight yet." Sylvia stared and frowned at the distance. "This house does set too far back," she said, impatiently.

"Now, Sylvia, I wouldn't give up a mite of this front yard."

"I'd give it all up if I could see folks go past. A woman wants to see something out of the window and from the doorstep besides flowers and box and trees."

Sylvia glared at the yard, which was beautiful. The box grew lustily, framing beds of flowers and clusters of radiant bushes. There were two perfectly symmetrical horse-chestnut-trees, one on each side of the broad gravel walk. The yard looked like some wonderful map wherein the countries were made of flowers, the design was so charmingly artificial and prim.

"It's awful set, I think," said Sylvia. "I'd rather have flowers growing where they want to instead of where they have to. And I never did like box. Folks say it's unhealthy, too."

"It's been here for years, and the people who belonged here have never been short-lived," said Henry. "I like it."

"I don't," said Sylvia. She looked at the road. "I don't see where they can be."

"Oh, they'll be along soon. Don't worry, Sylvia."

"Well," said Sylvia, in a strident voice, "I'm going in and get supper, and when it's ready we'll set down and eat it. I ain't going to wait one minute. I'm just sick of this kind of work."

Sylvia got up, and her scissors dropped again onto the step. Henry picked them up. "Here are your scissors," said he.

Sylvia took them and went into the house with a flounce. Henry heard a door slam and dishes rattle. "She's all wrought up again," he thought. He felt very tall as he pitied Sylvia. He was sorry for her, but her distress over such a matter as the young folks' being late seemed to him about as much to be taken seriously as the buzzing of a bumblebee over a clump of lilies in the yard.

He was watching the bumblebee when he heard the front gate click, and thought with relief that the wanderers had returned, then Sidney Meeks came into view from between the rows of box. Sidney came up the walk, wiping his forehead with a large red handkerchief, and fanning himself with an obsolete straw hat.

"Hullo," said Henry.

"How are you?" said Meeks. "It's a corking hot day."

"Yes, it is pretty hot, but I think it's a little cooler than it was an hour ago."

"Try walking and you won't think so."

"Set down," said Henry, pointing to the chair Sylvia had just vacated. "Set down and stay to supper."

"I don't say I won't stay to supper, but I've got an errand first. I've struck a new idea about wine. Haven't you got a lot of wild grapes down back here?"

"Yes, back of the orchard."

"Well, I've got an idea. I won't say what it is now. I want to see how it turns out first. Does Sylvia use wild grapes?"

"No, I know she won't. There are going to be bushels of Concords and Delawares."

"Well, I want you to go down with me and let me look at your wild grape-vines. I suppose the grapes must be set long ago. I just want to see how many there are. I suppose I can make a deal with you for some?"

"You can have them, and welcome. I know Sylvia will say so, too."

"Well, come along. We can go around the house."

Henry and Meeks skirted the house and the vegetable garden, then crossed a field, and found themselves at one side of the orchard. It was a noble old orchard. The apple, pear, and peach trees, set in even rows, covered three acres. Between the men and the orchard grew the wild grapes, rioting over an old fence. Henry began to say there was a gap in the fence farther down, but the lawyer's hand gripped his arm with sudden violence, and he stopped short. Then he as well as Meeks heard voices. They heard the tones of a girl, trembling with sweetness and delight, foolish with the blessed folly of life and youth. The voice was so full of joy that at first it sounded no more articulate than a bird's song. It was like a strophe from the primeval language of all languages. Henry and Meeks seemed to understand, finally, what the voice said, more from some inner sympathy, which dated back to their youth and chorded with it, than from any actual comprehension of spoken words.

This was what the sweet, divinely foolish girl-voice said: "I don't know what you can see in me to love."

There was nothing in the words; it was what any girl might say; it was very trite, but it was a song. Celestial modesty and pride were in it, and joy which looked at itself and doubted if it were joy.

Then came the man's voice, and that sang a song also foolish and trite, but divine and triumphant and new as every spring.

Henry and Meeks saw gradually, as they listened, afraid to move lest they be heard. They saw Horace and Rose sitting on the green turf under an apple-tree. They leaned against its trunk, twisted with years of sun and storm, and the green spread of branches was overhead, and they were all dappled with shade and light like the gold bosses of a shield. The man's arm was around the girl, and they were looking at each other and seeing this world and that which is to come.

Suddenly Meeks gave Henry's arm another violent clutch. He pointed. Then they saw another girl standing in the tangle of wild grapes. She wore a green muslin gown, and was so motionless that it was not easy to discern her readily. She was listening and watching the lovers, and her young face was terrible. It was full of an enormous, greedy delight, as of one who eats ravenously, and yet there was malignity and awful misery and unreason in it. Her cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes glittered. It was evident that everything she heard and saw caused her the most horrible agony and a more horrible joy. She was like a fanatic who dances in fire.

Meeks and Henry looked at her for a long minute, then at each other. Henry nodded as if in response to a question. Then the two men, moving by almost imperceptible degrees, keeping the utmost silence, hearing all the time that love duet on the other side of the grape-vines, got behind the girl. She had been so intent that there had been no danger of seeing them. Horace and Rose were also so intent that they were not easily reached by any sight or sound outside themselves.

Meeks noiselessly and firmly clasped one of Lucy Ayres's arms. It was very slender, and pathetically cold through her thin sleeve. Henry grasped the other. She turned her wild young face over her shoulder, and saw them, and yielded. Between them the two men half carried, half led the girl away across the fields to the road. When they were on the road Henry released his grasp of her arm, but Meeks retained his. "Will you go quietly home?" said he, "or shall Mr. Whitman and I go with you?"

"I will go," Lucy replied, in a hoarse whisper.

Meeks looked keenly at her. "Now, Lucy," he said, in a gentle voice, "there's no use; you've got to go home."

"Yes," said Henry. "Go home to your ma, right away, like a good girl."

Lucy remained motionless. Her poor young eyes seemed to see nothing.

"Good Lord!" sighed Meeks, wiping his forehead with his disengaged hand. "Well, come along, Lucy. Now, Lucy, you don't want to make a spectacle of yourself on the street. I think we must go home with you, because I can see right in your eyes that you won't budge a step unless we make you, but we don't want to walk holding on to you. So now you just march along ahead, and we'll keep behind you, and we won't have all the town up in arms."

Lucy said nothing. Meeks wiped his forehead again, freed her, and gave her a gentle shove between her shoulders. "Now, march," said he.

Lucy began to walk; the two men kept behind her. Presently they met a boy, who evidently noticed nothing unusual, for he leaped past, whistling.

"Thank the Lord it isn't far," muttered Meeks, wiping his forehead. "It's d--n hot."

Lucy walked on quite rapidly after awhile. They were nearly in sight of her home when Mrs. Ayres met them. She was almost running, and was pale and out of breath.

"Lucy," she began, "where--?" Then she realized that Meeks and Henry were with the girl.

"Henry, you just keep an eye on her," said Meeks. Then he spoke to Mrs. Ayres with old-fashioned ceremony. "Madam," he said, "will you be so kind as to step aside? I have a word I would like to say to you."

Mrs. Ayres, with a scared glance at Lucy, complied.

"Just this way a moment," he said. "Now, madam, I have a word of advice which you are at liberty to take or not. Your daughter seems to be in a dangerously nervous state. I will tell you plainly where we found her. It seems that Mr. Allen and Miss Fletcher have fallen in love with each other, and have come to an understanding. We happened upon them, sitting together very properly, as lovers should, in the apple orchard back of Mr. Whitman's, and your daughter stood there watching them. She is very nervous. If you take my advice you will lose no time in getting her away."

Mrs. Ayres stood and listened with a cold, pale dignity. She waited until Meeks had entirely finished, then she spoke slowly and evenly.

"Thank you, Mr. Meeks," she said. "Your advice is very good, so good that I have proved it by anticipating you. My daughter is in a very nervous condition. She never fully recovered from a severe attack of the grip."

Mrs. Ayres lied, and Meeks respected her for it.

"We are to start before long for St. Louis, where my brother lives," continued Mrs. Ayres. "I am going to rent my house furnished. My brother is a widower, and wishes us to make our home with him, and we may never return here. I was obliged to go on an errand to the store, and when I came home I missed Lucy and was somewhat anxious. I am very much obliged to you. We are going away, and I have no doubt that an entire change of scene will restore my daughter entirely. Yesterday she had a sick headache, and is still suffering somewhat from it to-day."

"That woman lied like a gentleman," Meeks said to Henry when they were on their way home. "Good Lord! I was thankful to her."

Henry was regarding him with a puzzled look. "Do you think the poor girl is in love with Mr. Allen, too?" he asked.

"I think she is in love with love, and nothing will cure that," said Meeks. _

Read next: Chapter 18

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