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CHAPTER XI
AT two o'clock in the morning the freckled boy from
Creston stopped his sleepy horse at the door of the red
house, and Charity got out. Harney had taken leave of
her at Creston River, charging the boy to drive her
home. Her mind was still in a fog of misery, and she
did not remember very clearly what had happened, or
what they said to each other, during the interminable
interval since their departure from Nettleton; but the
secretive instinct of the animal in pain was so strong
in her that she had a sense of relief when Harney got
out and she drove on alone.
The full moon hung over North Dormer, whitening the
mist that filled the hollows between the hills and
floated transparently above the fields. Charity stood
a moment at the gate, looking out into the waning
night. She watched the boy drive off, his horse's head
wagging heavily to and fro; then she went around to the
kitchen door and felt under the mat for the key. She
found it, unlocked the door and went in. The
kitchen was dark, but she discovered a box of matches,
lit a candle and went upstairs. Mr. Royall's door,
opposite hers, stood open on his unlit room; evidently
he had not come back. She went into her room, bolted
her door and began slowly to untie the ribbon about her
waist, and to take off her dress. Under the bed she
saw the paper bag in which she had hidden her new hat
from inquisitive eyes....
She lay for a long time sleepless on her bed, staring
up at the moonlight on the low ceiling; dawn was in the
sky when she fell asleep, and when she woke the sun was
on her face.
She dressed and went down to the kitchen. Verena was
there alone: she glanced at Charity tranquilly, with
her old deaf-looking eyes. There was no sign of Mr.
Royall about the house and the hours passed without his
reappearing. Charity had gone up to her room, and sat
there listlessly, her hands on her lap. Puffs of
sultry air fanned her dimity window curtains and flies
buzzed stiflingly against the bluish panes.
At one o'clock Verena hobbled up to see if she were not
coming down to dinner; but she shook her head, and
the old woman went away, saying: "I'll cover up, then."
The sun turned and left her room, and Charity seated
herself in the window, gazing down the village street
through the half-opened shutters. Not a thought was in
her mind; it was just a dark whirlpool of crowding
images; and she watched the people passing along the
street, Dan Targatt's team hauling a load of pine-
trunks down to Hepburn, the sexton's old white horse
grazing on the bank across the way, as if she looked at
these familiar sights from the other side of the grave.
She was roused from her apathy by seeing Ally Hawes
come out of the Frys' gate and walk slowly toward the
red house with her uneven limping step. At the sight
Charity recovered her severed contact with reality. She
divined that Ally was coming to hear about her day: no
one else was in the secret of the trip to Nettleton,
and it had flattered Ally profoundly to be allowed to
know of it.
At the thought of having to see her, of having to meet
her eyes and answer or evade her questions, the whole
horror of the previous night's adventure rushed back
upon Charity. What had been a feverish nightmare
became a cold and unescapable fact. Poor Ally, at that
moment, represented North Dormer, with all its mean
curiosities, its furtive malice, its sham
unconsciousness of evil. Charity knew that, although
all relations with Julia were supposed to be severed,
the tender-hearted Ally still secretly communicated
with her; and no doubt Julia would exult in the chance
of retailing the scandal of the wharf. The story,
exaggerated and distorted, was probably already on its
way to North Dormer.
Ally's dragging pace had not carried her far from the
Frys' gate when she was stopped by old Mrs. Sollas, who
was a great talker, and spoke very slowly because she
had never been able to get used to her new teeth from
Hepburn. Still, even this respite would not last long;
in another ten minutes Ally would be at the door, and
Charity would hear her greeting Verena in the kitchen,
and then calling up from the foot of the stairs.
Suddenly it became clear that flight, and instant
flight, was the only thing conceivable. The longing to
escape, to get away from familiar faces, from places
where she was known, had always been strong in her in
moments of distress. She had a childish belief in
the miraculous power of strange scenes and new faces to
transform her life and wipe out bitter memories. But
such impulses were mere fleeting whims compared to the
cold resolve which now possessed her. She felt she
could not remain an hour longer under the roof of the
man who had publicly dishonoured her, and face to face
with the people who would presently be gloating over
all the details of her humiliation.
Her passing pity for Mr. Royall had been swallowed up
in loathing: everything in her recoiled from the
disgraceful spectacle of the drunken old man
apostrophizing her in the presence of a band of loafers
and street-walkers. Suddenly, vividly, she relived
again the horrible moment when he had tried to force
himself into her room, and what she had before supposed
to be a mad aberration now appeared to her as a vulgar
incident in a debauched and degraded life.
While these thoughts were hurrying through her she had
dragged out her old canvas school-bag, and was
thrusting into it a few articles of clothing and the
little packet of letters she had received from Harney.
From under her pincushion she took the library key, and
laid it in full view; then she felt at the back of
a drawer for the blue brooch that Harney had given her.
She would not have dared to wear it openly at North
Dormer, but now she fastened it on her bosom as if it
were a talisman to protect her in her flight. These
preparations had taken but a few minutes, and when they
were finished Ally Hawes was still at the Frys' corner
talking to old Mrs. Sollas....
She had said to herself, as she always said in moments
of revolt: "I'll go to the Mountain--I'll go back to my
own folks." She had never really meant it before; but
now, as she considered her case, no other course seemed
open. She had never learned any trade that would have
given her independence in a strange place, and she knew
no one in the big towns of the valley, where she might
have hoped to find employment. Miss Hatchard was still
away; but even had she been at North Dormer she was the
last person to whom Charity would have turned, since
one of the motives urging her to flight was the wish
not to see Lucius Harney. Travelling back from
Nettleton, in the crowded brightly-lit train, all
exchange of confidence between them had been
impossible; but during their drive from Hepburn to
Creston River she had gathered from Harney's snatches
of consolatory talk--again hampered by the freckled
boy's presence--that he intended to see her the next
day. At the moment she had found a vague comfort in
the assurance; but in the desolate lucidity of the
hours that followed she had come to see the
impossibility of meeting him again. Her dream of
comradeship was over; and the scene on the wharf--vile
and disgraceful as it had been--had after all shed the
light of truth on her minute of madness. It was as if
her guardian's words had stripped her bare in the face
of the grinning crowd and proclaimed to the world the
secret admonitions of her conscience.
She did not think these things out clearly; she simply
followed the blind propulsion of her wretchedness. She
did not want, ever again, to see anyone she had known;
above all, she did not want to see Harney....
She climbed the hill-path behind the house and struck
through the woods by a short-cut leading to the Creston
road. A lead-coloured sky hung heavily over the
fields, and in the forest the motionless air was
stifling; but she pushed on, impatient to reach
the road which was the shortest way to the Mountain.
To do so, she had to follow the Creston road for a mile
or two, and go within half a mile of the village; and
she walked quickly, fearing to meet Harney. But there
was no sign of him, and she had almost reached the
branch road when she saw the flanks of a large white
tent projecting through the trees by the roadside. She
supposed that it sheltered a travelling circus which
had come there for the Fourth; but as she drew nearer
she saw, over the folded-back flap, a large sign
bearing the inscription, "Gospel Tent." The interior
seemed to be empty; but a young man in a black alpaca
coat, his lank hair parted over a round white face,
stepped from under the flap and advanced toward her
with a smile.
"Sister, your Saviour knows everything. Won't you come
in and lay your guilt before Him?" he asked
insinuatingly, putting his hand on her arm.
Charity started back and flushed. For a moment she
thought the evangelist must have heard a report of the
scene at Nettleton; then she saw the absurdity of the
supposition.
"I on'y wish't I had any to lay!" she retorted,
with one of her fierce flashes of self-derision;
and the young man murmured, aghast: "Oh, Sister, don't
speak blasphemy...."
But she had jerked her arm out of his hold, and was
running up the branch road, trembling with the fear of
meeting a familiar face. Presently she was out of
sight of the village, and climbing into the heart of
the forest. She could not hope to do the fifteen miles
to the Mountain that afternoon; but she knew of a place
half-way to Hamblin where she could sleep, and where no
one would think of looking for her. It was a little
deserted house on a slope in one of the lonely rifts of
the hills. She had seen it once, years before, when
she had gone on a nutting expedition to the grove of
walnuts below it. The party had taken refuge in the
house from a sudden mountain storm, and she remembered
that Ben Sollas, who liked frightening girls, had told
them that it was said to be haunted.
She was growing faint and tired, for she had eaten
nothing since morning, and was not used to walking so
far. Her head felt light and she sat down for a moment
by the roadside. As she sat there she heard the click
of a bicycle-bell, and started up to plunge back into
the forest; but before she could move the bicycle
had swept around the curve of the road, and Harney,
jumping off, was approaching her with outstretched
arms.
"Charity! What on earth are you doing here?"
She stared as if he were a vision, so startled by the
unexpectedness of his being there that no words came to
her.
"Where were you going? Had you forgotten that I was
coming?" he continued, trying to draw her to him; but
she shrank from his embrace.
"I was going away--I don't want to see you--I want you
should leave me alone," she broke out wildly.
He looked at her and his face grew grave, as though the
shadow of a premonition brushed it.
"Going away--from me, Charity?"
"From everybody. I want you should leave me."
He stood glancing doubtfully up and down the lonely
forest road that stretched away into sun-flecked
distances.
"Where were you going?'
"Home."
"Home--this way?"
She threw her head back defiantly. "To my home--up
yonder: to the Mountain."
As she spoke she became aware of a change in his
face. He was no longer listening to her, he was only
looking at her, with the passionate absorbed expression
she had seen in his eyes after they had kissed on the
stand at Nettleton. He was the new Harney again, the
Harney abruptly revealed in that embrace, who seemed so
penetrated with the joy of her presence that he was
utterly careless of what she was thinking or feeling.
He caught her hands with a laugh. "How do you suppose
I found you?" he said gaily. He drew out the little
packet of his letters and flourished them before her
bewildered eyes.
"You dropped them, you imprudent young person--dropped
them in the middle of the road, not far from here; and
the young man who is running the Gospel tent picked
them up just as I was riding by." He drew back, holding
her at arm's length, and scrutinizing her troubled face
with the minute searching gaze of his short-sighted
eyes.
"Did you really think you could run away from me? You
see you weren't meant to," he said; and before she
could answer he had kissed her again, not vehemently,
but tenderly, almost fraternally, as if he had
guessed her confused pain, and wanted her to know he
understood it. He wound his fingers through hers.
"Come let's walk a little. I want to talk to you.
There's so much to say."
He spoke with a boy's gaiety, carelessly and
confidently, as if nothing had happened that could
shame or embarrass them; and for a moment, in the
sudden relief of her release from lonely pain, she felt
herself yielding to his mood. But he had turned, and
was drawing her back along the road by which she had
come. She stiffened herself and stopped short.
"I won't go back," she said.
They looked at each other a moment in silence; then he
answered gently: "Very well: let's go the other way,
then."
She remained motionless, gazing silently at the ground,
and he went on: "Isn't there a house up here somewhere--
a little abandoned house--you meant to show me some
day?" Still she made no answer, and he continued, in
the same tone of tender reassurance: "Let us go there
now and sit down and talk quietly." He took one of the
hands that hung by her side and pressed his lips to the
palm. "Do you suppose I'm going to let you send
me away? Do you suppose I don't understand?"
The little old house--its wooden walls sun-bleached to
a ghostly gray--stood in an orchard above the road.
The garden palings had fallen, but the broken gate
dangled between its posts, and the path to the house
was marked by rose-bushes run wild and hanging their
small pale blossoms above the crowding grasses.
Slender pilasters and an intricate fan-light framed the
opening where the door had hung; and the door itself
lay rotting in the grass, with an old apple-tree fallen
across it.
Inside, also, wind and weather had blanched everything
to the same wan silvery tint; the house was as dry and
pure as the interior of a long-empty shell. But it
must have been exceptionally well built, for the little
rooms had kept something of their human aspect: the
wooden mantels with their neat classic ornaments were
in place, and the corners of one ceiling retained a
light film of plaster tracery.
Harney had found an old bench at the back door and
dragged it into the house. Charity sat on it,
leaning her head against the wall in a state of
drowsy lassitude. He had guessed that she was hungry
and thirsty, and had brought her some tablets of
chocolate from his bicycle-bag, and filled his
drinking-cup from a spring in the orchard; and now he
sat at her feet, smoking a cigarette, and looking up at
her without speaking. Outside, the afternoon shadows
were lengthening across the grass, and through the
empty window-frame that faced her she saw the Mountain
thrusting its dark mass against a sultry sunset. It
was time to go.
She stood up, and he sprang to his feet also, and
passed his arm through hers with an air of authority.
"Now, Charity, you're coming back with me."
She looked at him and shook her head. "I ain't ever
going back. You don't know."
"What don't I know?" She was silent, and he continued:
"What happened on the wharf was horrible--it's natural
you should feel as you do. But it doesn't make any
real difference: you can't be hurt by such things. You
must try to forget. And you must try to understand
that men...men sometimes..."
"I know about men. That's why."
He coloured a little at the retort, as though it
had touched him in a way she did not suspect.
"Well, then...you must know one has to make
allowances....He'd been drinking...."
"I know all that, too. I've seen him so before. But
he wouldn't have dared speak to me that way if he
hadn't..."
"Hadn't what? What do you mean?"
"Hadn't wanted me to be like those other girls...." She
lowered her voice and looked away from him. "So's 't
he wouldn't have to go out...."
Harney stared at her. For a moment he did not seem to
seize her meaning; then his face grew dark. "The
damned hound! The villainous low hound!" His wrath
blazed up, crimsoning him to the temples. "I never
dreamed--good God, it's too vile," he broke off, as if
his thoughts recoiled from the discovery.
"I won't never go back there," she repeated doggedly.
"No----" he assented.
There was a long interval of silence, during which she
imagined that he was searching her face for more
light on what she had revealed to him; and a flush of
shame swept over her.
"I know the way you must feel about me," she broke out,
"...telling you such things...."
But once more, as she spoke, she became aware that he
was no longer listening. He came close and caught her
to him as if he were snatching her from some imminent
peril: his impetuous eyes were in hers, and she could
feel the hard beat of his heart as he held her against
it.
"Kiss me again--like last night," he said, pushing her
hair back as if to draw her whole face up into his
kiss.
Content of CHAPTER XI [Edith Wharton's novel: Summer]
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