Читать книгу The Heart that Knows - Charles George Douglas Roberts - Страница 9

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On the day after the sailing of the G. G. Goodridge, all Westcock stirred with a pleasurable thrill of anticipation. How was Luella going to take it? And how was she going to explain it? A few, however, ventured to suggest that maybe there wouldn’t be much information coming.

White and quivering from her night of tearless vigil, Luella came down in the early morning to take up the day’s work and face her little world. Her uncle Abner was already in the store, as usual; but when he caught sound of her in the kitchen he came mincing out to the attack, his narrow face sharp with grievance, his sparse side-whiskers bristling forward with resentment because, on his return from church, Luella had disregarded his hammerings at her bedroom door.

“Good morning, Uncle Abner!” said Luella, without looking up. Her supreme effort was to make her voice sound natural. It was not natural; but Abner Baisley was not the man to mark the difference.

“A pretty story, this,” he broke out, in his rasping voice. “A pretty talk to make, a pretty scandal to bring on me! I want to know what it means, right straight.”

The girl’s head drooped a little lower over the kitchen table.

“I ain’t got nothin’ to tell you, Uncle Abner!” she answered, relapsing into the village vernacular, which much visiting at the parsonage had taught her to avoid.

The old storekeeper had never seen her so meek. His courage rose, and his righteous anger with it.

“You’ve got to tell me, an’ tell me this minute. I command you to tell me!” he cried.

“I tell you, uncle, I haven’t got a single thing to say. I just want you to let me be. Oh, I want to be let be!”

Her shoulders sagged forward, till she looked smaller and slighter than he had ever imagined she could look. At the sight his sense of injury and his indignation against her grew yet more fierce.

“You got to tell me! You got to tell me!” he almost shouted, his voice shrilling discordantly. “Think I’m a-goin’ to be disgraced this way, made a fool of before the whole neighbourhood, an’ not know nothin’ about it!”

Luella turned, straightened herself up, and eyed him steadily till he had finished speaking. Something in her gray, cold look pierced his anger and brought him to his senses all at once. This was a woman, not a girl, confronting him,—a woman who had been through the flames of the pit. Her eyes daunted him. But she did not say much. It was only,—after a long pause,—

“You ain’t goin’ to know a thing about it more’n you know already!”

“But hain’t I a right to know, since it teches me so close? Hain’t I a right to know?” he blustered.

“And if you can’t let me be, from this on, Uncle Abner,” she continued, unheeding of his interruption, “I’ll quit this house right now, an’ never set foot in it again!”

This, to the frugal old storekeeper, was a very serious threat. He knew he could get no other housekeeper who could give him so much comfort, and dignity, at so little cost. And much of the furniture of the place, moreover, was Luella’s, left to her by her father and mother, who had gone down together with her father’s ship when she was a child of ten. He forgot even to save his dignity by keeping up a show of anger, but struck his colours at once, and backed away.

“Well, well, Luella, if you feel that strongly about it, why of course I must be a-mindin’ my own business. I jest thought as how it was my duty to you, maybe, to say somethin’—but, there, there, you was always that headstrong. An’ it is your business, of course. ’Tain’t nobody’s else’s.” And with these words he slipped through into the store, softly closing the door behind him. At breakfast, half an hour later, he was genial with conversation about the weather and the crops, seeming to see nothing out of the way in Luella’s half-articulate, wholly irrelevant replies.

A little after breakfast the rector came in to see her. His kind eyes were full of trouble, and met hers searchingly as he took her hand. He had heard, of course, Mary Dugan’s account of her strange interview with Luella at the parsonage gate,—but his first look into the girl’s drawn face told him a different story. Intuitive as a woman, and far more tolerantly tender, he understood how Luella had thought to hide her wound by taking the blame upon herself. Asking no question, he led her into the little sitting-room, sat down beside her on the black haircloth sofa, took her icy hand in both of his, which were warm, and soft, and strong, and looked out of the window across the red creek and green marshes, waiting till her heart should move her to speak.

After a long silence, the spell of his strength and sympathy melted her. She laid her face down on his hands and began to sob convulsively. Then, since he still refrained from questioning her, she tried to tell him.

“Oh, what can it mean?” she gasped. “I can’t think what’s happened. There was never a hard word passed between us, never, never. I’ve never wronged him, not even by a thought. Oh, it ain’t my fault, it ain’t my fault. I don’t see how I ever can go on living. I don’t see how I ever can.”

“I’m very sure it is not your fault, dear,” said the rector, releasing one hand to lay it softly on the girl’s head. “And you must not tell people it is your fault,—as you told Mary Dugan last night. But I cannot easily believe it is Jim’s fault, either. Have you had no word, no sign of any kind, from him? It is not like Jim to treat any living creature that way. I won’t believe it of him.”

At this, which seemed to hint at some hope, Luella’s tears came freely, wildly, breaking the deadly tension of her nerves. But what hope could there be? The ship was gone. Jim was gone. But if the rector could think there might be, then, in some mysterious way, surely there might be hope. At last she found her voice enough to murmur—“No,—I ain’t—had one—single—word.”

“Be brave, dear child,” said the rector. “A letter may come from St. John. He may come to his senses before he gets to St. John. And I will write to him. With this wind holding as it does, my letter would not catch him in St. John, now. I’ll write him at Matanzas, where it cannot miss him if the ship calls there.”

To Luella this was hope indeed, at least for the moment. She clutched his hand with both of hers, afraid to let go lest she should fall back into the abyss of darkness. Then the rector arose.

“I’ll go around and see Mrs. Calder now. She may have had some word.”

At this Luella sat up straight, and stared at him with wet, swollen eyes.

“Would she get word from him, an’ me not?” she demanded. “Oh, how she hates me. How glad she’ll be. Could it be her as got him to do it?”

The rector gave a little sigh of relief. This was more the natural woman, now. He had been afraid, almost, for Luella’s reason, when he saw the grayness of her set face, and the eyes gone far back into her head with anguish. Now, he knew that she would get a grip upon herself, and cherish a hope, however frail and far, and front life with that indomitable spirit which she inherited from her blue-eyed viking of a father.

“No!” he declared, positively. “Mrs. Calder could not do that, if she would. She is hard and bitter, I know. But she is not so bad as that. I’ll go and speak to her, and let you know.”

But from this interview with Mrs. Calder, whose insinuations against Luella he found occasion to rebuke with a sternness that daunted even her unyielding temper, he learned nothing more than that Jim was alive and well, and able to write a letter to his mother. Mrs. Calder would not even say what kind of a letter it was.

Having been thus reanchored, as it were, to sanity and endurance, by the rector’s timely understanding and the touch of his inextinguishable trust, Luella held her head up and her tongue still toward all the inquisition of the countryside. Friends and enemies alike found her impenetrable and repellent if her secret was even approached. Otherwise, only by an infrangible gravity of look and speech, through the trying weeks that followed, did she betray what she was passing through. People agreed, with the fine perspicacity which characterizes the human race in general, and the prosperously good in particular, that she was hard and heartless. They chose to believe those wild words of hers which Mary Dugan, innocently enough, had repeated; and they decided that it was indeed, in some way which they could not yet decide upon, all Luella’s fault. They resented her incommunicativeness; and called her “stuck up,” because she would not bare her heart to the collective village eye. Presently the fickle countryside sentiment went over, almost en masse, to the surprised and unresponsive Mrs. Calder, who, indeed, welcomed it but grimly.

Perhaps among all the good people between Frosty Hollow and Wood Point there were not more than two, besides the rector, toward whom Luella could lower her guard for a moment. These were Mrs. Goodridge and old Sis Bembridge. Even the kindly Mary Dugan was somewhat critical and inquisitive. That meeting with Luella at the parsonage gate had been a great thing for Mary in the village. It had given her a sort of proprietary interest in the affair. It had enabled her to speak with a certain authority about it which no one else possessed. Knowing so much, she felt it her right to know more. If Luella could speak to her about it then, why could she not tell her more about it now? In her first elation at finding herself so distinguished, she very generally and confidently undertook to “git it all out of Luella,” for the general benefit. And when she found herself confronted by Luella’s intimidating reserve, she felt herself injured. In fact, it was largely on her testimony that Luella was adjudged to be “stuck up.” Nevertheless, for all this, Mary Dugan was a well-wisher of Luella’s in the main, and prompt to take up cudgels in her defence against any serious imputation. It was a childish jealousy, merely, and a childish vanity, which made her seem, just now, something less than loyal.

But with Mrs. Goodridge it was very different. That ardent-hearted lady, always audacious and not always incorrect in her conclusions, had boiled over with generous and instant wrath when she found that Jim had gone. Her fair face reddened slowly to the roots of her gold-brown, abundant hair, and her blue eyes flamed through tears.

“It’s all that Melissa Britton,” she declared. “The hussy!”

“What nonsense, Jean!” answered the rector. “It’s outrageous to accuse people in that reckless fashion. You must not do it!”

Mrs. Goodridge had an overwhelming amount of “feelings” to relieve, at the moment, and no one to relieve them upon except her husband. She turned upon him accusingly.

“You know yourself it’s that little red-haired hussy, George! You know it as well as I do. You should never have had her in the choir. You always favoured her over everybody else. If you hadn’t insisted on having her in the choir, all this would never have happened. She’d never have got her nasty little eyes on Jim Calder.”

The rector threw up his hands in despair and turned away. Then, rashly, he turned back to argue the point.

“Why,” he protested in astonishment, “you know you’ve always made a lot of Melissa, yourself, Jean. Much more than I have, always. How can you so turn against the poor child now, merely because your heart is aching for Luella!”

Mrs. Goodridge’s eyes got bigger and bluer, and the tears that had been softening them burned dry.

“Made a lot of her!” she cried. “I! That’s just the way with you, George! I’ve tried to be nice to her for your sake, just because you would force her on me. I always saw through her. I always detested her. And now see what’s come of your dragging her forward, and sticking her up there in the choir, and always making her sing solos, when she has no more voice than a frog. And here you stand, defending her, sticking up for her, while that poor, dear child is down there alone with that narrow old hatchet-faced uncle of hers, crying her dear eyes out, eating her heart out with grief. Oh, it drives me mad to think of it! You’ve always professed to think so much of her. You’re ready enough to think of her when you want the flowers stuck around. You ought to be with her now. That’s your place. Oh, I’ve no patience with you!” And bouncing from her chair, she fell to rearranging things furiously on the study table,—books and papers, which, in their seeming disorder, were really just as the rector needed to have them.

Troubled at this, the rector stepped forward to check the disastrous process; but he checked himself instead, and looked on half-ruefully, half-quizzically.

“Of course,” said he, “that was the first thing I thought of doing. But I concluded that it was better not to.”

“Then I will!” retorted his wife, vehemently. “I don’t care how late it is, or how dark it is, I’ll go alone, since you’re so unfeeling.”

“No, you must not do anything of the sort,” answered her husband, emphatically. “She wouldn’t want to see even you to-night. The only kindness we can do the poor child to-night, I know, is to leave her alone. No one knows better than you, Jean, how my heart aches for her. But she must be let alone.”

“What do you know about what a woman needs? You just don’t want to be dragged out at this time of night. And I’d look nice, tramping away down to the aboi-d’eaux by myself in the dark, wouldn’t I?”

With this last shot Mrs. Goodridge marched from the room, slammed the study door behind her, and fled up-stairs to her bedroom to cry tumultuously. She knew her husband was absolutely right; and she would not have intruded upon Luella that night for worlds. But if she had not been able to ease her heart a little of its hotness, the dammed-up floods of her indignant compassion would have given her a headache to keep her awake all night. As it was, she had the double satisfaction of knowing that the rector was right, and of thinking that she had made him feel that perhaps he was wrong. She wanted him to feel as miserable as she felt herself; and in the belief that she had done so she began to recover her composure. First, however, she called Mary Dugan to the bedroom, and made the girl repeat her story. Then she asked who else had heard the tale. When she learned that Mary had succeeded in telling the Evanses, and the Purdies, and the Ackerleys, and Mrs. Finnimore, and Mrs. Gandy, the flood of her righteous indignation burst all bounds; and the too garrulous Mary was packed off to bed in tears. This accomplished, the storm cleared apace. One hour later she stole down-stairs again in her crocheted blue bedroom slippers, to mix a creamy egg-nog for the rector, and strictly enjoin him to take it before he went to bed. His habit of working at his desk till the small hours was one which she viewed with anxiety.

Toward Luella herself, however, Mrs. Goodridge displayed none of this rather tempestuous partisanship. At the point of real need, her sympathy and tact were unerring. She waited two days before going to see Luella. Then, when the girl stood gravely and silently before her in the little sitting-room,—which had fresh flowers in it, as usual,—she spared her not only questions but even the searching interrogation of her eyes. Catching her to her heart she held her close, and patted her shoulders, and kissed her pale, bright hair, and crooned over her,—inarticulately, indeed, but to Luella most intelligibly. Under this comforting influence Luella gradually let herself go. She did not say anything, but she slipped back into the child, and began to cry with a child’s abandon. Mrs. Goodridge pulled her down brusquely into her strong lap, and let her cry herself out. Then she lifted her up.

“Luella, child,” she said, impressively, “I’m not going to bother you with a lot of talk. Talk doesn’t do any good. But mark my words. This will come out all right some day. Every man is a fool sometimes. But Jim Calder is not the kind of man to be a fool always. He will come back to you on his knees. I know he will.”

“I don’t want Jim on his knees!” she declared, loyally; but she lifted, nevertheless, a swift look of gratitude to her comforter’s face.

“Tut! Tut! You want him anyway you can get him!” averred Mrs. Goodridge. “And now wipe your eyes and put on your sunbonnet, and come right along with me, just as you are. You’re going to stay at the parsonage for a couple of days. Tell your uncle he’ll have to get along alone till Thursday night, the best way he can. You’ll kill yourself, drudging for him the way you do!”

Rather hesitatingly Luella obeyed,—but Mrs. Goodridge was a difficult woman to cross. Mr. Baisley, though he hated being left to get his own meals, and was too “nigh” to hire the work done for him, was amazingly cordial in his manner of receiving Luella’s announcement of her going. He realized to the full the value of the backing of Mrs. Goodridge at this crisis. He would eat “cold victuals” gladly indeed for two days, to be able to answer prying interrogations about Luella’s health and spirits with the careless words—

“Oh, she’s well enough, I calculate. She’s havin’ a gay time, a-stayin’ up to the parsonage, an’ leavin’ her old uncle to do the work.”

This formula he used with effect quite satisfactory to his prestige, till he was so misguided as to try it on old Mrs. Bembridge, when she came hobbling heavily into the store for a half-pound of tea, the morning after Mrs. Goodridge had carried Luella away.