Читать книгу The Greatest Romance Novels of Grace Livingston Hill - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 68

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The rage and sorrow that seethed in Phoebe's soul were such as in some passionate hearts have led to deeds of desperation. And indeed she did feel desperate as she fled along the road, pursued by the thought of her sister-in-law's angry words.

To have such awful words spoken to her, and on her birthday; to feel so cornered and badgered, and to have no home where one was welcome, save that hateful alternative of going to Hiram Green's house! Oh, why was it that one had to live when life had become a torture?

She had gone a long distance before her mind cleared sufficiently to think where she was going. The sight of a distant red farm-house made her pause in her wild walk. If she went on she would be seen from the well-watched windows of that red house, and the two women who lived there were noted alike for their curiosity and for their ability to impart news.

In a sudden panic Phoebe climbed a fence and struck out across the field toward Chestnut Edge, a small hill rising to the left of the village. There she might hope to be alone a little while and think it out, and perhaps creep close to her mother once more through the letter which she pressed against her heart. She hurried over the rough stubble of the field, gathering her buff garments with the other hand to hold them from any detaining briars. She seemed like some bright golden leaf blowing across the pasture to frolic with the other leaves on the nut-crowned hillside.

Breathless at last she reached the hill and found a great log where she sat down to read her letter.

"My dear little grown-up girl,"it began, and as Phoebe read the precious words again the tears burst from her smarting eyes, welling up from her aching heart, and she buried her face in the letter and stained it with her tears.

It was some time before she could conquer herself and read farther.

"This is your eighteenth birthday, dear child, and I have thought so much about you and how you will be when you are a young woman, that I want to be with you a little while on your birthday and let you know how much, how very much, I love you. I cannot look forward into your life and see how it will be with you. I do not know whether you will have had sad years or bright ones between the time when I said good-by to you and now when you are reading this. I could not plan positively, dear little girl, to have them bright ones, else you surely know I would. I had to leave you in God's care, and I know you will be taken care of, whatever comes. If there have been trials, somehow, Phoebe, little girl, they must have been good for you. Sometime you will learn why, perhaps, and sometime there will be a way out. Never forget that. God has His brightness ready somewhere for you if you are true to Him and brave. Somehow I am afraid that there will have been trials, perhaps very heavy ones, for you were always such a sensitive little soul, and you are going among people who may not understand.

"In thinking about your life I have been afraid for you that you would be tempted because of unhappiness to take some rash impulsive step before God is ready to show you His plan for your life. I would like to give you a little warning through the years, and tell you to be careful.

"You have entered young womanhood, and will perhaps be asked to give your life into the keeping of some man. If I were going to live I would try to train you through the years for this great crisis of your life. But when it comes, remember that I have thought about you and longed for you that you may find another soul who will love you better than himself, and whom you can love better than you love anything else in the world, and who will be grand and noble in every way. Dear child, hear your mother's voice, and don't take anything less. It will not matter so much if he is poor, if only he loves you better than himself and is worthy of your love. Never marry anyone for a home, or a chance to have your own way, or freedom from good honest work. There will be no happiness in it. Trust your mother, for she knows. Do not marry anyone to whom you cannot look up and give honor next to God. Unless you can marry such a man it is better not to marry at all, believe your mother, child. I say it lovingly, for I have seen much sorrow and would protect you.

"And now, my sweet child, with a face like the dawn of the morning, and eyes so untroubled, if when you read this anything has come into your life to make you unhappy, just try to lay it all down for a little while and feel your mother's love about you. See, I have made this bright sunny dress for you, every stitch set with love, and I want you to wear it on your birthday to remind you of me. It is yellow, because that is the glory color, the color of the sunshine I have always loved so much. I want you to think of me in a bright, sunny, happy way, and as in a glory of happiness, waiting for you; not as dead, and lying in the grave. Think of my love for you as a joy, and not a lost one, either, for I am sure that where I am going I shall love you just the same, and more.

"I am very tired and must not write any more, for there are other letters yet to write and much to do before I can feel ready to go and leave you, but as I am writing this birthday letter for you I am praying God that He will bring some brightness into your life, the beginning of some great joy, on this your eighteenth birthday, that shall be His blessing, and my birthday gift to my child. I put a kiss here where I write my name and give you with it more love than you can ever understand.

"Your Mother."

The tears rained down upon her hands as she held the letter, and when it was finished she put her head down on her lap and cried as she had not cried since her mother died. It seemed as if her head were once more upon that dear mother's lap and she could feel the smooth, gentle touch of her mother's hand passing over her hair and her hot temples as when she was a little child.

The sunlight sifted softly down between the yellowed chestnut leaves, sprinkling gold upon the golden hem of her gown, and glinting on her shining hair. The brown nuts dropped now and then about her, reverently, as if they would not disturb her if they could help it, and the fat gray squirrels silently regarded her, pausing in their work of gathering in the winter's store, then whisked noiselessly away. It was all quite still in the woods except for the occasional falling of a nut, or the stir of a leaf, or the skitter of a squirrel, for Phoebe did not sob aloud. Her grief was deeper than that. Her soul was crying out to one who was far away and yet who seemed so near to her that nothing else mattered for the time.

She was thinking over all her sad little life, telling it to her mother in imagination, trying to draw comfort from the letter, and to reconcile the realities with what her mother had said. Would her mother have been just as sure that it would all come out right if she had known the real facts? Would she have given the same advice? Carefully she thought it over, washing the anger away in her tears. Yes, she felt sure if her mother had known all she could not have written more truly than she had done. She would have had her say "No "to Hiram, just as she had done, and would have exhorted to patience with Emmeline, and to trust that brightness would sometime come.

She thought of her mother's prayer for her, and almost smiled through her tears to think how impossible that could be. Yet—the day was not done—perhaps there might be some little pleasant thing yet, that she might consider as a blessing and her mother's gift. She would look and wait for it and perhaps it would come. It might be Albert would be kind—he was, sometimes—or if it were not too late she might go down to the village and make her call on Mrs. Spafford. That might be a beautiful thing and the beginning of a joy—but no, that was too far away and her eyes were red with weeping. She must just take this quiet hour in the woods as her blessing and be glad over it because her mother and God had sent it to her to help her bear the rest of the days. She lifted her tear-wet face to look around on the golden autumn world, and the sun caught the tears on her lashes and turned them into flashing jewels, till the sweet, sad face looked like a tired flower with the dew upon it.

Then quite suddenly she knew she was not alone.

A young man stood in the shadow of the tallest chestnut- tree, regarding her with troubled gaze. His hat was in his hand and his head slightly bowed in deference, as if in the presence of something holy.

He was tall, well-formed, and his face fine and handsome. His eyes were deep and brown, with lights in them like those on the shadowed depths of a quiet woodland stream. His heavy dark hair was tossed back from a white forehead that had not been exposed to the summer sun of the hay- field, one could see at a glance, and the hand that held the hat was white and smooth also. There was a grace about his attitude that reminded Phoebe of David Spafford, who had seemed to her the ideal of a gentleman. He was dressed in dark brown and his black silk stock set off a finely cut, clean-shaven chin of unusual strength and firmness. If it had not been for the lights in his eyes, and the hint of a smile behind the almost tender strength of the lips, Phoebe would have been afraid of him as she lifted shy, ashamed eyes to the intruder's face.

"I beg your pardon, I did not mean to intrude,"he said, apologetically, "but a party of young people are coining up the hill. They will be here in a moment, and I thought perhaps you would not care to meet them. You seem to be in trouble."

"Oh, thank you! "said Phoebe, arising in sudden panic and dropping her mother's letter at her feet. She stooped to pick it up, but the young man had reached it first and their fingers met for one brief instant over the letter of the dead. In her confusion Phoebe did not know what to say but "Thank you,"and then felt like a parrot repeating the same phrase.

Voices were distinctly audible now and the girl turned to flee, but ahead and around there seemed nowhere to go for hiding except a dense growth of mountain laurel that still stood green and shining amid the autumn brown. She looked for a way around it, but the young man caught her thought, and reaching forward with a quick motion of his arms he parted the strong branches and made a way for her.

"Here, jump right in there! So nobody will see you. Hurry, they are almost here!"he whispered, kindly.

The girl sprang quickly on the log, paused just an instant to gather her golden draperies about her, and then fluttered into the green hiding-place and settled down like a drift of yellow leaves.

The laurel swung back into place, nodding quite as if it understood the secret. The young man stooped and she saw him deliberately take from his pocket a letter and put it down behind the log that lay across her hiding-place.

The letter settled softly into place and looked at her knowingly as if it, too, were in the secret and were there to help her. For even a letter has an expression if one has but eyes to see and understand.

Up the hill-side came a troop of young people. Phoebe could not see them, for the growth of laurel was very dense, but she could hear their voices.

"Oh, Janet Bristol, how fast you go! I'm all out of breath. Why do you hurry so? The nuts will keep till we get there, and we have all the afternoon before us."

"Go slow as you like, Caroline,"said a sweet, imperious voice; "when I start anywhere I like to get there. I wonder where Nathaniel can be. It is fully five minutes since he went out of sight, and he promised to hail us at once and tell us the best way to go."

"Oh, Nathaniel isn't lost,"said another girl's voice crossly; "he'll take care of himself likely. Don't hurry so, Janet. Maria is all out of breath."

"Hullo! Nathaniel! Nathaniel Graham, where are you!"called a chorus of male voices.

Then from a few paces in front of the laurel hiding- place came the voice that Phoebe had heard but a moment before:

"Aye, aye, sir! That way! "it called. "There are plenty of nuts up there!"He stood with his back toward her hiding-place, and pointed farther up the hill. Then, laughing, scrambling over slippery leaves and protruding logs the gay company frolicked past, and Phoebe was left, undiscovered, alone with the letter that smiled back at her in a friendly way.

She stooped a little to look at it and read the address, "Nathaniel Graham, Esq.,"written in a fine commanding hand, a chirography that gave the impression of honoring the name it wrote.

The girl studied the beautiful name, till every turn of the pen was graven on her mind, the fine, even clearness of the small letters, the bold downward stroke in the capitals. It was unusual writing of an unusual name and the girl felt that it belonged to an unusual man.

Then all of a sudden, while she waited and listened to the happy jingle of voices, like bells of different tones, exclaiming over rich finds in nuts, the barren loneliness of her own life came over her and brought a rush of tears. Why was she here in hiding from those girls and boys that should have been her companions ? Why did she shrink from meeting Janet Bristol, the sweetly haughty beauty of the village? Why was she never invited to their pleasant tea-drinkings, and their berry and nut gatherings? She saw them in church, and that was all. They never seemed to see her. True, she had not been brought up from childhood among them, but she had lived there long enough to have known them intimately if her life had not always been so full of care. Janet Bristol had gone away to school for several years, and was only at home in summer when Phoebe's life was full of farm work—cooking for the hands, and for the harvesters. But Maria Finch and Caroline Penfield had gone to school with Phoebe. She felt a bitterness that they were in these good times and she was not. They were not to blame, perhaps, for she had always avoided them, keeping much to herself and her studies in school, and hurrying home at Emmeline's strict command. They had never attracted her as had the tall, fair Janet, in the few summer glimpses she had had of her. Yet she would never likely know Janet Bristol or come any nearer to her than she was now, hidden behind God's screen of laurel on the hill-side, while the gay company gathered nuts a few rods away. The young man with the beautiful face and the kind ways would forget her and leave her to scramble out of her hiding place as best she could while he helped Janet Bristol over the stile and carried her basket of nuts home for her. He would not cross her path again. Nevertheless she was glad he had met her this once, and she could know there was in the world one so kind and noble; it was a beautiful thing to have come into her life. She would stay here till they were all out of hearing, and then creep out and steal away as she had come. Her sad life and its annoyances, forgotten for the moment, settled down upon her, but with this change. They now seemed possible to bear. She could go back to Albert's house, to Emmeline where she was unwelcome, and work her way twice over. She could doff the golden garments, and take up her daily toil, even patiently perhaps, and bear Emmeline's hateful insinuations, Alma's impudence, the disagreeable attentions of Hank and the hateful presence of Hiram Green, but never again would she be troubled with the horrible thought that perhaps after all she was wrong and ought to accept the home that Hiram Green was offering her. Never, for now she had seen a man, who had looked at her as she felt sure God meant a man to look at a woman, with honor, and respect, and gentle helpfulness, and deference.

All at once she knew that her mother's prayer had been answered and that something beautiful had come into her life. It would not stay and grow as her mother had hoped. This stranger could be nothing to her, but the memory of his helpfulness and the smile of sympathy that had lighted his eyes would remain with her, a beautiful joy, always. It was something that had come to save her at the moment of her utter despair.

Meantime, under the chestnut-trees but a few rods away the baskets were being filled rapidly, for the nuts were many and the squirrels had been idle, thinking they owned them all. Nathaniel Graham helped each girl impartially, and seemed to be especially successful in finding the largest and shiniest nuts. The laughing and joking went on, but Nathaniel said little. Phoebe, from her covert could watch them, and felt that the young man would soon pilot them farther away. She could hear bits of their talk.

"What's the matter with Nathaniel ?"said Caroline Penfield. "He's hardly said a word since we started. What deep subject is your massive mind engaged upon, young man?"

"Oh, Nate is thinking about Texas,"said Daniel West- gate, flippantly. "He has no thoughts or words for anything but setting Texas free. We'll hear of him joining the volunteers to help them fight Mexico the next thing. I wouldn't be one bit surprised.

"Don't, Daniel,"said Janet Bristol, sharply. "Nathaniel has far more sense than that."

"I should hope so! "echoed Maria Finch. "Nathaniel isn't a hot-headed fanatic."

"Don't you be too sure!"said the irrepressible Daniel. "If you'd heard the fine heroics he was getting off to David Spafford yesterday you wouldn't be surprised at anything. Speak up, Nate, and tell them whether you are going or not."

"Perhaps,"said Nathaniel, lifting pleasant eyes of amusement towards the company."

"Nonsense! "said Janet, sharply. "As if he would think of such a thing! Daniel, you ought to be ashamed to spoil the lovely afternoon with talk of politics. Come, let us move on to that next clump of trees. See, it is just loaded, and the nuts are falling with every breath of wind."

"Just look at that squirrel, leaning against his tail as if it were the back of an easy chair. He is mincing away at that nut as daintily as any lady,"called Caroline.

The merry company picked up baskets and began to move out of sight, but the young man Nathaniel stood still thoughtfully and felt in his pockets, until Phoebe, from her hiding- place, could see none of the others. Then she heard him call in a pleasant voice, "Janet, I have dropped a letter. It cannot be far away. Go on without me for a moment. I will be with you right away."

Then came Janet's sweet, vexed tones:

"Oh, Nathaniel! How tiresome! Can't you let it go ? Was it of any consequence? Shall we come and help you find it?"

"No, Janet, thank you. I know just where I dropped it, and I will be with you again before you have missed me. Keep right on."

Then he turned, swiftly, and came back to the laurel, before the startled Phoebe, who had intended running away at once, could realize that he was coming.

She sprang up with the instinct of fleeing from him, but as if the laurel were loath to part with her, it reached out detaining fingers and caught her by the strands of her fine brown hair; and down came the soft, shining waves of hair, in shameless, lovely disorder about the flushed face, and rippling far below the waist of the buff frock. The sun caught it and kissed it into a thousand lights and shadows of brown and red and purple and gold. A strand here and there clung to the laurel as if the charm were mutual, and made a fine veil of spun gold before her face. Thus she stood abashed, with her hair unbound before the stranger, her face in a beautiful confusion.

Now this young man had gazed upon many a maiden's hair with entire indifference. In the days of his boyhood he had even dared to attach a paper kite to the yellow braids of a girl who sat in front of him in school, and laughed with the rest at recess, as after carefully following her with hidden kite and wound-up cord they had succeeded in launching the paper thing in the breeze till it lifted the astonished victim's yellow plaits high in air and she cried out angrily upon them. He had even pulled many a girl's hair. He had watched his cousin Janet brush and plait and curl her abundant locks into the various changing fashions, and criticized the effect freely. He had once untied a hard knot in a bonnet string among a mass of golden curls without a thrill. Why therefore did he feel such awe as he approached in deep embarrassment to offer his assistance! Why did his fingers tremble as he laid them reverently upon a strand of hair that had tangled itself in the laurel? Why did it bring a fine ecstasy into his being as the wind blew it across his face? Did all hair have that delicate, indescribable perfume about it?

When he had set her free from the entangling bushes, he marveled at the dexterity with which she reduced the flying hair to order and imprisoned it meekly. It seemed like magic.

Then, before she had time to spring out of her covert, he took her hands, firmly, reverently, without undue familiarity, and helped her to the top of the log and thence to the ground. She liked him for the way he did it, so different from the way the other men she knew would have done it. She shuddered to think if it had been Hank, or Hiram Green.

"Come this way, it is nearer to the road,"he said, quietly, parting the branches at his right to let her pass, and when she had gone a few steps, behold, not two rods below lay the cross road, which met the highway by which she had come, a quarter of a mile farther on.

"But you have forgotten your letter,"she turned to say, as they came out of the woods and began to descend the hill; "and I can get out quite well now. You have been very kind——"

"I will get the letter presently,"he said, with a smile. "Just let me help you over the fence. I want to ask your pardon for my intrusion. I did not see you at first, the woods were so quiet, and you looked so much like the yellow leaves that lay all about—"and his eyes cast an admiring glance at the buff merino.

"Oh, it was not an intrusion,"she exclaimed, her cheeks rosy with the remembrance, "and I am so grateful to you for telling me they were coming. I would not have liked to be found there—so."She looked shyly up. "I thank you very much!"

He saw that her eyes were beautiful, with ripples of laughter and shadows of sorrow in their glance. He experienced a deep and unnecessary satisfaction that his first impression of her face was verified, and he stood looking down upon her as if she were something he was proud of having discovered and rescued from an unpleasant fate.

Phoebe felt a warm glow like sunshine breaking over her in the kindness of his look.

"Don't thank me,"he said. "I felt like a criminal, intruding so upon your trouble."

"But you must not feel so. It was only that I had been reading a letter from my mother, and it made me feel so lonely that I cried."

"That is trouble enough,"he said, with quick sympathy. "Is your mother away from home, or are you? "

"My mother is dead. She has been gone a good many years,"she said, with quivering lips. "She wrote this letter long ago for me to read to-day, and I came away here by myself to read it. Now, you will understand."

He had helped her over the rail fence that separated the field from the road, and they were standing she on the road side, he on the field side of the fence as they talked. Neither of them saw a farm wagon coming down the road over the brow of the hill, a mere speck against the autumn sky when they came out of the woods. The young man's face kindled as he answered:

"Thank you for telling me. Yes, now I will understand. My mother has been gone a long time, too. I wish she had written me a letter to read to-day."

Then, as if he knew he must not stay longer, he lifted his hat, smiled, and walked quickly up the hill, while Phoebe sped swiftly down the road, not noticing the glories of the day, nor thinking so much of her own troubles, but marveling at what had happened and living it all over once more in imagination. She knew without thinking that a wagon was rumbling nearer and nearer, but she gave it no heed.

Nathaniel Graham, when he reached the edge of the wood, turned and looked back down the road; saw the girl in her yellow draperies moving in the autumn sunshine, and watched her intently. The driver of the farm wagon, now almost opposite to him, watched glumly from behind his bags of wheat, high piled, sneered under his breath at the fine attire, half guessed who he was; then wondered who the girl was who kept tryst so far from any houses, and with a last glance at the man just vanishing into the woods he whipped up his team, resolved to find out.