Читать книгу The Greatest Romance Novels of Grace Livingston Hill - Grace Livingston Hill - Страница 99

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For the next few years after his father's marriage to Maria Bent young Nathan Whitney lived two distinct lives. One, in the village and the red school-house, where he was rated the very worst boy in the town, all the more despised and hunted by every one in authority because he was bright enough to be better; the other in the company of Miranda and little Rose, out in the woods and fields, down by the trout brook fishing, or roaming through the hills watching birds and creeping things; and sometimes sitting at the feet of little Mother Marcia as she told beautiful stories to Nate and Rose, while she held in her arms the sleeping baby brother of little Rose. Here he was a different being. Every hard handsome feature of his face softened into gentleness and set with purpose. All the stubbornness and native error melted away, and his great brown eyes seemed to be seeing things too high for an ordinary boy to comprehend. One could be sure he almost worshipped Mother Marcia, the girl-wife of David Spafford, and looked into her madonna face as she talked or sang softly to her baby, with a fore-shadowing of the look that the man he was to be would have some day for the mother of his children.

As for little Rose she was his comrade and pet. With her, always accompanied by Miranda carrying a generous lunch basket, he roamed all the region round about on pleasant holidays. He taught her to fish in the brook, to jump and climb like any boy and to race over the hills with him. Miranda, well pleased, would stray behind and catch up with them now and then, or sit and wait till they chose to race back to her. Rose thought Nathan the strongest and the best boy in all the town, or the wide world for that matter. He was her devoted slave when she demanded flowers or a high branch of red leaves from the tall maple. It was for her sake he applied himself to his lessons as he had never done in his life before, because the first day of her advent in school he had found her with red eyes and nose weeping her heart out at the reprimand he had received for not knowing his spelling lesson. Spelling was his weakest point, but after that he scarcely ever missed a word. His school life became decidedly better so far as knowing his lessons was concerned; though his pranks still kept up. Rose, in truly feminine fashion, rather admired his pranks, and he knew it; though he had always tried to keep them under control since the day when the teacher started to whip him and Rose walked up the aisle with flashing eyes and cheeks like two flames, and said in a brave little voice:

"Teacher, Nate didn't throw that apple core at all. It was Wallie Eggleston. I saw him myself!" And then her lip trembled and she broke down in tears. Nate's face turned crimson and he hung his head, ashamed. It was true that he had not thrown the apple core, but he had done enough to deserve the whipping and he knew it. From that day he refrained from over-torment the teacher and kept his daring feats for out of school. Also he taught Rose by that unspoken art of a boy, never to "tell on" another boy again.

Mother Marcia watched the intimacy of the little girl and big boy with favor. She felt it was good for Rose, and good for the boy also. Always Miranda or herself was at hand, and never had either of them had reason to doubt the wisdom of the comradeship that had grown between the two children.

But matters were not likely to continue long in this way without the interference of some one. Nathan Whitney got into too many scrapes and slid out of their consequences with a too exasperating skill to have many friends in town. His impudence was unrivalled and his daring was equalled only by his indifference to public opinion. Such a state of things naturally did not tend to make him liked or understood. No one but the three, Rose, her mother and Miranda, ever saw the gentle look of holy reverence on his handsome face, or heard the occasional brief utterances which showed his thoughts were tending toward higher ambitions and finer principles. No others saw the rare smile which glorified his face by a gleam of the real soul of the boy. In after years Marcia often recalled the beautiful youth seated on a low stool holding her baby boy carefully, his face filled with deep pleasure at the privilege, his whole spirit sitting in his eyes in wonder, awe and gentleness as he looked at the little living creature in his arms, or handled it shyly, with rarely tender touch, while Rose sat close beside him well content. At such times the boy seemed almost transfigured. Neither Marcia nor Miranda knew the Nathan who broke windows, threw stones, tied old Mr. Smiles' office door shut while he was dozing over his desk one afternoon; and who filed a bolt, letting out a young scapegrace from the village lockup and helping him to escape from justice and an unappreciative neighborhood into the wide world. They saw only the angelic side to Nathan, the side that nobody else in the wide world dreamed that he possessed.

Nathan spent little time in his home. Shelter during his sleeping hours, and food enough to keep him alive was all he required of it, and more and more the home and the presiding genius there learned to require less of him; knowing that she did not possess the power to make him do what she required. Nathan would not perform any duties about the house or yard unless some one stood over him and kept him at it. If his step-mother attempted to make him rake the leaves in the yard and took her eyes from him a minute he was gone, and would not return until sometime the next day. An appeal to his father brought little but a cold response. Nathan Whitney senior was not calculated by nature to deal with his alert temperamental son and he knew it. He informed his wife concisely that that was what he had married her for, or words to that effect, and she appealed no more. Gradually Nathan Whitney, Jr. had his way and was let alone, for what could she do? When she attempted to discipline him he was not there, neither would he return for hours, sometimes even days afterward, until she would become alarmed lest he had run away like his older and she might be blamed for it. She found that her husband was not as easily ruled as she had supposed, and that her famous discipline of school-day times must be limited to the little girls and baby Samuel. Nathan seemed to know by instinct just when it was safe to return and drop into family life as if nothing had happened, and be let alone. One word or look and he was off again, staying in the woods for days, and knowing wild things, trees and brooks as some men know books. He could always earn a few pennies doing odd jobs for men in the village, for he was smart and handy, and with what he earned kept himself comfortably during his temporary absences from the family board. As for sleeping, he well knew and loved the luxury of a couch on the pine needles under the singing, sighing boughs, or tucked under the sheltering ledge of a rock on a stormy night. His brooding young soul watched storm and lightning with wide eyes that held strange fancies, and thought much about the world and its ways. Now and again the result of these thoughts would come out in a single wise sentence to Miranda or little Rose; rarely, but sometimes, to Mrs. Marcia, always with shyness and as if he had been, surprised out of his natural reserve.

Nathan made no display of his intimacy at the Spaffords. When he went there it was usually just at dusk, unobtrusively slipping around to Miranda at the back door. When they went a-roaming on the hills, or fishing, he never started out with them. He always appeared in the woods just as they were beginning to think he had forgotten. He usually dropped off their path on the way home by going across lots before they reached the village, having a fine instinct that it might bring criticism upon them if they were seen with him. And thus, because of his carefulness, the beautiful friendship of Rose and the boy went on for some years and no one thought anything about it. Nathan never attempted to walk home from school with Rose as other boys did with the girls they admired. Once or twice when an unexpected rain came on before school closed he slid out of his last class and whirled away through the rain to get her cloak and umbrella, returning just as school “let out,” drenched and shamefaced; but he let the little girl think her father had brought them and asked him to give them to her.

One unlucky day, toward evening, Nathan slipped in at the side gate and brought a great bag of chestnuts for Rose, while Mr. David's two prim maiden aunts, Miss Amelia and Miss Hortense Spafford, were tying on their bonnets preparatory to going home after an afternoon call. When Nathan perceived the guests his face grew dark and he backed away toward the door, holding out the bag of nuts toward Rose, and murmuring that he must go at once. By some slip the bag fell between the two and the nuts rolled out in a brown rustling shower over the floor. The boy and girl stooped in quick unison to pick them up, their golden and brown curly heads striking together in a sounding crack, making both forget the presence of their elders and break forth into merry laughter, as they ruefully rubbed their heads and began to gather up the nuts. Nathan was his gentle best self for three or four whole minutes while he picked up nuts and made comical remarks in a low tone to Rose, unconscious of the grim visages of the two aunts in the background, who paused with horrified astonishment in their tying of bonnet strings, to observe the evident intimacy between their grand-niece and a dreadful boy whom they recognized as that scapegrace son of Nathan Whitney's.

Marcia did not notice their expressions at first. She was standing close by with her eyes on the graceful girl and alert boy as they struggled playfully for the nuts she liked to see the two together in the entire unconsciousness of youth playing like children.

But Nathan, sensitive almost to a fault, was quick to feel the antagonistic atmosphere, and suddenly looked up to meet those two keen old pairs of eyes focussed on him in disapproval. He colored all over his handsome face, then grew white and sullen as he rose suddenly to his feet and flashed his defiant habitual attitude, never before worn in the Spafford house.

Standing there for an instant, white with anger, his brows drawn low over his fine dark eyes, his chin raised slightly in defiance (or was it only haughtiness and pride?) his shoulders thrown back, his hands unconsciously clenched down at his sides, and looking straight back into those two pairs of condemning, disapproving eyes, he seemed the very embodiment of the modern poem Invictus, and if he had been a picture it should have borne the inscription, "Every man's hand is against me."

There was utter silence in the room, while four eyes condemned and two eyes defied—offending anew by their defiance. The atmosphere of the room seemed charged with lightning, and oppression sat sudden upon the hearts of the mother and daughter who stood by, oppression and growing indignation. What right had the aunts to look that way at Nathan in the house of his friends?

In vain did Rose summon a merry laugh, and Mrs. Marcia tried to say something pleasant to Nathan about the nuts. It was as if they had not spoken. They were not even heard. The contest was between the aunts and the boy, and in the eyes of the two who watched the boy came off victor.

"What right have you to look at me like that? What right have you to condemn me unheard, and wish me off the face of the earth? What right have you to resent my friendship with your relatives?" That was what the boy's eyes said; and the two narrow-minded little old ladies, red with indignation, cold with pride and prejudice, declined to look honestly at the question, but let their eyes continue to condemn merely for the joy of having a chance to condemn him whom they had always condemned.

The boy's haughty undaunted look held them at bay for several seconds, before he turned coolly away and with a bow of real grace to Marcia and Rose he went out of the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

There was silence in the room. The tenseness in all faces remained until they heard him walk across the kitchen entry and close the outside door, heard his quick, clean step on the flag-stones that led around the house; and then heard the side gate click. He was gone out of hearing and Rose drew a quick involuntary sigh. He was safe, and the storm had not broken in time for him to hear. But it broke now in low oncoming threats of look and tone. Rose was shriveled to misery by the contemptuous glances of her aunts, coming as they did in unison, and meaning but one thing, that she was to blame in some way for this terrible disgrace to the family. Having disposed of Rose to their satisfaction they turned to her mother.

"I must say I'm surprised, Marcia." It was Aunt Amelia as usual who opened up the first gun, "In fact, to be plain, I'm deeply shocked! Living as you have in this town for thirteen and a half years now—(Aunt Amelia always aimed to be exact)—you cannot fail to have known what a reputation that boy has. There is no worse in the county, I believe. And you, the mother of a sweet daughter just budding into womanhood (Rose was at that time nearly eleven), should be so unwise, nay even wicked and thoughtless, as to allow a person of the character of Nathan Whitney to enter your house intimately. I observed that he entered the back door unannounced—and to present your daughter with a gift! I am shocked beyond words to express—" and Aunt Amelia paused impressively and stood looking steadily at the indignant Marcia, shaking her head slightly as if the offense were too great to be quite comprehended in a breath.

Then Aunt Hortense took up the condemnation.

"Yes, Marcia, I am deeply grieved," she spoke weepily, "to think that our beloved nephew's wife, who has become one of our own family, should so forget herself and her position, and the rights of her family, as to allow that scoundrel to enter her doors, and to speak to her child. It is beyond belief! You cannot be ignorant of his character, my dear! You must know that all the outrages that have been committed in this town have been either perpetrated by him, or he has been their instigator, which in my mind is even worse, because it shows cowardice in not being willing to bear the penalty himself——”

At this point Rose, with flashing blue eyes and cheeks as red as the flowers she was named after, stepped indignantly forward.

"Aunt Amelia, Nathan isn't a coward! He isn't afraid of anything in the whole world! He's brave and splendid!”

Miss Amelia turned shocked eyes upon her grand-niece; and Miss Hortense, chin up, fairly snuffed the air:

"In my day little girls did not speak until they were spoken to, and never were allowed to put in when their elders were speaking!" "Yes, Marcia," put in Miss Hortense getting out her handkerchief and wiping her eyes offendedly, "you see what your headstrong ideas have brought upon you already. You cannot expect to have a well-behaved child if you allow her to associate with rough boys, and especially when you pick out the lowest in the village, the vilest of the vile!"

Miss Hortense had the fire of eloquence in her eyes, and it was plain there was more to follow. The bad boys of the village were her especial hobby, and since ten years back she had held a grudge against Nathan on account of her pet cat.

Marcia, cool, controlled, tried to interrupt. She was feeling very angry both on her own account and for the boy's sake, but she knew she could do nothing to pour oil on the troubled waters if she lost her temper.

"I think you have made a mistake, Aunt Hortense," she said gently, "Nathan isn't a bad boy. I've known him a good many years and he has some beautiful qualities. He has been over here playing with Rose a great deal and I have never seen him do a mean or selfish thing. I am, in fact, very fond of him, and he has made a good playmate for Rose. He is a little mischievous of course, most boys are, but there is no real badness in him I am sure."

Rose looked at her mother with shining gratitude, but the two old ladies stiffened visibly in their wrath.

"I am mistaken, am I?" sniffed Miss Hortense. "Yes, I suppose young folks always think they know more than their experienced elders. I have to expect that, but I must do my duty. I shall feel obliged to report this to my nephew and he must deal with it as he sees fit. But whether you think I am mistaken or not, I know that you are, and you will sadly rue the day when you let that young emissary of Satan darken your door."

Miss Hortense retired into the folds of her handkerchief, but Miss Amelia at this juncture swelled forth in denunciation.

"You are quite wrong, Marcia, in thinking my sister mistaken," she said severely. "You forget yourself when you attempt to tell your elders that they are mistaken. However, you are excited, you are young (as if that were the worst offence in the category). My sister and I have had serious cause to know of what we speak. Our fine pet cat, Matthew, you will perhaps remember him as being still with us when you came to live here, he died about five years ago you know—who was as inoffensive and kind an animal as one could have about a house, was put to terrible torture before our very eves by this same paragon of a boy whom you are attempting to uphold. My dear, (here she lowered her voice sepulchrally and hissed out the words vindictively with her thin lips) that dreadful boy tied a tin can filled with pebbles to our poor dear Matthew's tail: think of it! His tail! that he always kept so beautifully clean and tucked around him so tidily! We always had a silk patchwork cushion for him to lie on by the fire and he never presumed upon his privileges; and then for him to be so outraged! My dear, it was more than human nature could bear. Poor Matthew was frantic with fear and mortification. He was a dignified cat and had always been treated with consideration, and of course he did not know what to make of it. He attempted to break away from his tormentors but could not; and the tin can came after him, hitting his poor little heels. Oh, I cannot describe to you the awful scene! Poor Hortense and I stood on the stoop and fairly implored that little imp to release poor Matthew, but he went after him all the harder—the vile little wretch—and poor Matthew did not return to the house until after dark. For days he sat licking his poor disfigured tail from which the beautiful fur had all been rubbed, and looking reproachfully at us,—his best friends. He lived for four years after that, but he never was the same cat! Poor Matthew! And I always thought that was the cause of his death! Now do you understand, Marcia?"

“But Aunt Amelia," broke in Marcia gently, trying not to smile, "that was nine years ago, and Nathan has grown up now. He was only five or six years old then, and had run wild since his mother's death. He is almost sixteen now, and very much changed in a great many ways—”

The two old ladies brought severity to bear upon her at once in frowns of differing magnitudes.

"If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" quoted Aunt Amelia solemnly. "No, Marcia, you are mistaken. The boy was bad from his birth. We are not the only ones who have suffered. He has tied strings across the sidewalk many a dark night to trip people. I have heard of hundreds of his pranks, and now that he is older he doubtless carries his accomplishments into deeper crime. I have heard that he does nothing but hang around the stores and post-office. He is a loafer, nothing short of it, and as for honesty, there isn't an orchard in the neighborhood that is safe. If he'll steal apples, he'll do worse when he gets the chance—and he'll make the chance, you may depend upon it. Boys like that always do. You have taken a great risk in letting him into your house. You have fine old silver that has been in the family for years, and many other valuable things. He may take advantage of his knowledge of the place to rob you some dark night. And as for your child, you cannot tell what awful things he may have taught her. I have often watched his face in church and thought how utterly bad and without moral principle he looks. I should not be in the least surprised if he turned out one day to be a murderer!"

Miss Amelia's tones had been gradually rising as she came to this climax, and as she spoke the word murderer she threw the whole fervor of her intense and narrow nature into her speech, coming to an eloquent and dramatic pause which was well calculated to impress her audience. But suddenly, like a flash of a glittering sword in air, a piercing scream arose. As she might have screamed if some one had struck her, Rose uttered her furious young protest against injustice. Her beautiful little face, flushed with outraged innocence and glorious in its righteous wrath, shone through the gathering dusk in the room and fairly blazing at her startled aunts, who jumped as if she had been some wild animal suddenly let loose upon them. The scream cut through the space of the little room seeming to pierce every one in it, and quickly upon it came another.

"Stop! Stop!" she cried as if they were still going on, "you shall not say those things! You are bad, wicked women! You shall not say my Nathan is a murderer. You are a murderer yourself if you say so. The Bible says he that hateth his brother is a murderer and you hate him or you would not say such wicked things that are not true. You shall not speak them any more. My Nathan is a good boy and I love him. Don't you dare talk like that again." Another scream pointed the sentence and Rose burst into a furious fit of tears and flew across the room, fairly flinging herself into her mother's arms, and sobbing as if her heart would break.

Into this scene of tumult came a calm, strong voice:

“Why, what does all this mean?”