Читать книгу A Son of the Hills - Harriet T. Comstock - Страница 5

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It was something of a jog to The Hollow people to find Miss Lowe actually settled at Trouble Neck. They had looked upon the possibility of her coming as an evil which threatened but might be averted. She had come, however; had actually bought the cabin from Smith Crothers, and fitted it up in a manner never known to cabin folks before.

Through all the pleasant summer days the broad door of the little house stood invitingly open and flowers had grown up as if by magic in the tiny front yard. A few choice hens and roosters strutted around the rear of the cabin quite at home, and a bright yellow cat purred and dozed on the tiny porch by day and slept in the lean-to bedroom by night.

"She takes a mighty heap of trouble to hide her tracks," Norman Teale confided to Tansey Moore; "but spy is writ large and plain all over her. I put it to you, Moore, would any one that didn't have to, come to Trouble Neck?"

Tansey thought not, decidedly.

"And did you ever hear on a woman doctor?"

Again Tansey shook his head.

"That woman's bent on mischief," Teale went on. "I got chivalry and I've got honour for womanhood in my nater when womanhood keeps to its place, but I tell you, Moore, right here and now, if that young person from Trouble Neck comes loitering 'round my business, I'm going to treat her like what I would a man. No better; no worse."

Moore considered this a very broad and charitable way of looking upon what was, at best, a doubtful business.

But Marcia Lowe did not seek Teale out, and if his affairs interested her, she hid her sentiments in a charming manner. Her aim, apparently, was to reach the women and children. To her door she won Sandy Morley with the lure of money for his wares. The second time Sandy called he told her of his ambitions and she fired him to greater effort by telling him of her home state, Massachusetts.

"Why, Sandy," she explained, "when you are ready, do go there. In exchange for certain work they will make it possible for you to get an education. I know plenty of boys who have worked their way through college with less than you have to offer. Get a little more money and learning, and then go direct to Massachusetts!"

Sandy's breath came quick and fast. Work was part of his daily life, but that it and education could be combined he had not considered. From that time on his aim became localized and vital.

"Perhaps I can help you a bit?" Miss Lowe had suggested. She was often so lonely that the idea of having this bright, interesting boy with her at times was delightful.

"I'll—I'll bring all your vegetables to you if you will," Sandy panted. "I'll dig your garden and weed it. I'll——"

"Stop! stop! Sandy." Miss Lowe laughed, delighted. "If you offer so much in Massachusetts they will give you two educations. They're terribly honest folks and cannot abide being under obligations."

So Sandy came; did certain chores and was given glimpses of fields of learning that filled him at first with alternate despair and exultation. He confided his new opportunity to Cynthia Walden and to his amazement that young woman greeted his success with anything but joy.

"I thought you'd be right glad," said Sandy, somewhat dashed. "I thought you wanted me to learn and get on."

"So I do," Cynthia admitted, "but I wanted to do it all for you, until you went away."

"What's the difference?" argued poor Sandy.

It was middle August before Marcia Lowe took her courage in her hands and went to see Miss Ann Walden. With city ways still asserting themselves now and again in her thought, she had waited for Miss Walden to call, but, apparently, no such intention was in the mind of the mistress of Stoneledge.

"Perhaps after a bit she will write and invite me up there," Marcia Lowe then pondered. But no invitation came, and finally the little doctor's temper rose.

"Very well," she concluded, "I'll go to her and have it out. I'm not a bit afraid, and, besides, Uncle Theodore's business is too important to delay any longer. She doesn't know, but she must know."

So upon a fine afternoon Marcia Lowe set forth. Grim determination made her face stern, and she looked older than she really was. When she passed the Morleys' cabin she smiled up at Mary, who was standing near by, but the amiable mistress ran in and slammed the door upon the passerby. A little farther on she came to Andrew Townley's home and she paused there to speak to the old man sunning himself by the doorway.

"You certainly do favour your uncle, Miss Marching," Andrew mumbled; he had heard the stranger's claim of relationship and trustingly accepted it; but her name was too much for him.

"Since you come I git to thinking more and more of Parson Starr. He was the pleasantest thing that ever happened to us-all."

"Oh! thank you, Mr. Townley!"

So lonely and homesick was the little doctor that any word of friendliness and good-will drew the tears to her eyes. They talked a little more of Theodore Starr and then the walk to Stoneledge was continued.

Marcia Lowe had never seen any of the family except from a distance, and she dreaded, more than she cared to own, the meeting now. Still she had come to set right, as far as in her lay, a bitter wrong and injustice, and she was not one to spare herself.

Her advance had been watched ever since she left Andrew Townley's cabin, but in reply to her timid knock on the front door, Lily Ivy responded with such an air of polite surprise that no one could have suspected her of deceit.

"Certainly, ma'am, Miss Ann is to home. She am receiving in the libr'y. Rest your umbril' on the table, ma'am, and take a char. I'll go and 'nounce you to Miss Ann."

Left alone, Marcia did not know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. The brave attempt at grand manner in the half-ruined house was pitiful as well as amusing.

"This way, ma'am. My mistress done say she'll receive you in the libr'y."

And there, in solemn state, sat the mistress of the Great House. She, too, had had time to prepare for the meeting, and she was sitting gauntly by the west window awaiting her guest.

"It was right kind of you to overlook my neglect," Miss Walden began, pointing to a low chair near her own, "but I never leave home and I am an old woman."

The soft drawl did not utterly hide the tone of reflection on the caller's audacity in presuming to enter a home where she was not wanted.

The window was almost covered by a honeysuckle vine and a tall yellow rose bush; the afternoon breeze came into the room heavy with the rare, spicy fragrance, and after a moment's resentment at the measured welcome, Marcia said cheerfully:

"You see—I had to come, Miss Walden. I've only waited until I could become less a shock to you. You believe I am Theodore Starr's niece, do you not? I know there are all sorts of silly ideas floating around concerning me, but I need not prove my identity to you, need I?"

The winning charm of the plain little visitor only served to brace Miss Walden to greater sternness.

"I have no doubt about you. You are very like your uncle, Theodore Starr."

"Then let me tell you what I must, quickly. It is very hard for me to say; the hardest thing I ever had to do—but I must do it!"

Ann Walden sank back in her stiff armchair.

"Go on," she said, and her eyes fastened themselves on the visitor. She wanted to look away, but she could not. She was more alive and alert than she had been in many a year—but the reawakening was painful.

"I only knew—the truth after mother died. I found a letter among her things. Why she acted as she did I can never know, for she was a good woman, Miss Walden, and a just one in everything else. You may not understand; we New Englanders are said to love money, but we must have it clean. I am sure mother meant nothing dishonest—we had our own little income from my father and—the other was not used to any extent—I have made it all up."

"I—do not understand you!"

This was partly true, but the suffering woman knew enough to guide her and put her on the defence.

"There was a will made before my uncle came here—in that he left everything to mother and me in case of his death, but the letter changed all that—he wanted you to have the money!"

"Your mother was quite right!" the sternness was over-powering now; "the will was the only thing to carry out. I could not possibly accept any money from Theodore Starr nor his people."

For a moment Marcia Lowe felt the shrinking a less confident person feels in the presence of one in full command of the situation. She paused and trembled, but in a moment her sense of right and determination came to her aid. Her eyes flashed, and with some spirit she said:

"You are only speaking for yourself now."

"For whom else is there to speak?"

"The child!"

Had Marcia dealt Ann Walden a physical blow the result could not have been different. Horrified and appalled, the older woman gasped:

"What child?"

"My uncle's and your sister's! Miss Walden, you could not expect me to believe the story that the people tell around here. You perhaps think your sister was not married to my uncle—but I trust him. I think you and I, no matter what has passed, owe it to this little girl to do the best we can for her. I have left my home to help; I have no one besides her in the world—please consider this and be forgiving and generous. Oh! what is the matter?"

For Ann Walden had risen and stood facing Marcia with such trembling anger that the younger woman quailed.

"I wish you to leave my house!"—the words came through clenched teeth—"leave it and never return."

"If you resist me in this way," anger met anger now, "I will have to consult a lawyer. I mean to carry out my uncle's desires; I will not be party to any fraud where his child is concerned. I hoped that you and I might do this together for her—but if I have to do it alone I am prepared to do so. I have brought the letter I found among my mother's things—may I read it to you?"

"No!" Ann Walden stared blankly at the firm face almost on a level with her own, for Marcia Lowe had risen also.

"You—you cannot forgive us for the long silence? But at least do me this justice: I came when I could—as soon as possible. I was ill—oh! Miss Walden can you not understand how hard this is for me to do? Think how I must put my own mother at your mercy—my own, dear mother!"

Only one thought held Ann Walden—would her visitor never go? The few moments were like agonized hours; the shock she had received had been so fearful that for a moment she was stunned, and before the true significance overwhelmed her she must be alone!

"I—have nothing to forgive. You and yours, Miss Lowe, have nothing to do with me and mine—you must indeed—go! I cannot talk of—the past to you. You—have made a great mistake—a fearful mistake. My sister has—has nothing——"

The stern young eyes compelled silence.

"I—I wish you would let me help you—for the love you once had for Uncle Theodore," said Marcia Lowe; "you must have forgiven your sister when she told you; can you not forgive him?"

"Stop! You do not know what you are talking about——" Vainly, almost roughly, the older woman strove to push the knife away that the ruthless, misunderstanding young hands were plunging deeper and deeper into the suddenly opened wound.

"Oh! yes, Miss Walden, I know—here's the letter!"

She held it out frankly as if it must, at least, be the tie to bind them.

"I spoke perhaps too quickly, too unexpectedly; but it is as hard for me as it is for you. I thought you would know that. I could not talk of little things when this big thing lay between us. It is our—duty."

Pleadingly, pitifully, the words were spoken, but they did not move the listener. Hurriedly, as if all but spent, Ann Walden panted:

"I reckon it is because you are young you cannot understand how impossible it is for you and me to—be friends. You must forgive me—and you must go!"

"But the money!"

"What money?" Something bitterer and crueller than the money had taken the memory of that away.

"Uncle Theodore's money. You see it is not mine—neither you nor I should keep it from Uncle Theodore's——"

"Oh! go, go; I cannot talk to you now. I will see you again—some other day—go!"

At last the look in Ann Walden's face attracted and held Marcia Lowe's mercy. She forgot her own trouble and mission; her impetuosity died before the dumb misery of the woman near her. Realizing that she could gain nothing more at present by staying, she placed the letter upon the table as she passed out of the room and the house.

For a few moments Ann Walden stood and looked at the vacant spot whence the blow had come. The restraint she had put upon herself in Marcia Lowe's presence faded gradually; but presently a sensation of faintness warned the awakening senses of self-preservation. Slowly she reached for the letter which lay near—no one must ever see that! She would not read it, but it must be destroyed. And even as she argued, Ann Walden's hot, keen eyes were scanning the pages that unconsciously she had taken from the envelope.

The date recalled to her the time and place—it had been written that summer when Theodore Starr had gone to the plague-stricken people back in the hills; after he had told her they, he and she, could never marry; that it had all been a mistake. How deadly kind he had been; how grieved and—honest! Yes, that was it; he had seemed so honest that the woman who listened and from whose life he was taking the only beautiful thing that had ever been purely her own, struggled to hide her suffering, and even in that humiliating hour had sought to help him. But—if what had been said were true, Theodore Starr had not been honest with her; even that comfort was to be dashed from her after all these years. She remembered that he had said that while he lived he would always honour her, but that love had overcome him and conquered him. Queenie had always seemed a child to him, he had told her, until the coming of Hertford, and the sudden unfolding of the child into the woman. He could no longer conceal the truth—in his concealment danger lay for them all, and his life's work as well. When he came back—they would all understand each other better! But he had not come back and then, when she had discovered poor Queenie's state, it was for Starr as well as herself that she sternly followed the course she had. She struck a blow for him who no longer could speak for himself—for he had died among his people.

"I loved him better than life," those were the words Ann Walden had spoken to her sister in that very room twelve years ago. The air seemed ringing with them still; "loved him as you never could have; but he loved you; he told me so, and because of my love for him—I hid what I felt. I could have died to make him happy, but you—why, you were another man's idle fancy while you lured Theodore Starr to his doom. The only thing you have left me for comfort and solace is this: I can now keep his dear, pure memory for my own, and love it to the day of my death."

Ann Walden looked quickly toward the chimney-place. There Queenie had stood shrinking before her like a little guilty ghost. She seemed to be standing there still listening to the truth, and avenging herself at last.

"Hertford is the father of your unborn child. You——"

And then it was that Queenie had fallen! had hit her head against the andirons and was never again to suffer sanely. After that there were the dreary weeks when the changed girl had paced the upper balcony with her poor, vacant face set toward the hills. The pitiful story of her weak lungs was started, the journey to the far away sanatorium, which really ended in the cabin of a one-time slave of the family twenty miles away! The hideous secret; the journeys by night and that last terrible scene when the blank mind refused to interpret the agony of the riven body and the wild screams and moans rang through the cabin chamber. Alone, the old black woman and Ann Walden had witnessed the struggle of life and death, which ended in the birth of Cynthia and the release of Queenie Walden.

The four following years were nightmares of torture to Ann Walden. After bringing her sister's body home from the supposed sanatorium she lived a double life. As often as she dared she went to that cabin in the far woods. She carried clothes and food to her old servant and the little secreted child. She watched with fear-filled eyes the baby's development, and to her great relief she knew at last that no mark of mental evil had touched her! Then, when the old black woman died she brought the baby thing home; had explained it according to her knowledge of the people; they would believe what she told them—but this stranger who had left the letter—she had not been deceived for one moment!

The letter! While she had been reliving the past the words were entering her consciousness. What she knew she passed unheedingly; what she was yet to know rose as if to strike her by its force.

"I had believed that love," so Starr had written to his sister, "as men know it, was not for me; my work, my joy in the service had always seemed my recompense. I had asked Ann Walden to marry me because I felt sure of myself, and in this lonely place I needed the companionship, the wisdom and the social position her presence would give to this great work of lifting up those worthy of recognition. Then came the day when I saw the little sister—Ann Walden's and mine, for we had always called her that—a woman! She cast her childhood off like a disguise—I saw another man look at her and I saw her look at him! Something was born in me then after all the slow, sombre years—and I wanted—love! I think a madness overcame me, for, blinded and almost beside myself—I spoke to her—that child-woman, and told her how it was with me. She is the sort that wins your heart secrets by a glance of her tender eyes. And then——" Then came sharp words; disconnected and flashing like flame; but Ann Walden read on while her brain beat and ached.

"It was I she loved. I had aroused her—she saw only one man in the world—me!

"She lay in my arms—I kissed her.

"I took her with me on a long drive through the mountains—there was a dying woman and my dear love carried the poor soul unto the parting of the ways with such divine tenderness as I had never before beheld. She sang and almost played with her until the sad creature forgot her death pangs. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw—that dying hour was perhaps the only joyous hour the woman ever had known—and my sun-touched darling gave it to her!

"We were married on our way home. I wanted to speak at once, but Queenie pleaded. She did not wish, just in her own first moment of joy, to hurt the sister who was mother to her as well as sister. I listened, but I realized that my child-wife was afraid! That was it. With all her brave, splendid characteristics, Ann Walden is one to call forth fear. I felt myself shrinking hourly from confession. She is all judge; she can be just, but she cannot, I think, be merciful. Hers it is to carry out the law, not sympathize with those who fall under the law. She makes cowards of us all! She is too detached to reach humanity, or for humanity, erring, sinning humanity, to reach her.

"The call came—I had to come to the sick and dying. I made half peace with myself by telling Ann Walden that I could not carry out our compact. I told her, what is the hardest thing for any man to tell a woman—that I did not love her. I could not love her! and that it was her sister I loved. I meant to explain everything later and confess—I expected to be back in a day or so—but I am here still and the chances are I must stay on for a long time, and I may lose my life; conditions are terrible, and only once a week a doctor comes!

"She, Ann Walden, is not the hard judge alone. I must not give you a wrong impression. When I told her, she shielded me against myself; would not let me suffer as I should—she excused me. She, to excuse me! But if anything happens to me—I want all my money to go to Ann Walden. By this act she will understand my trust in her and, accepting it, she will do for Queenie what otherwise she could not do—and do it more wisely than my darling could for herself. It must be the common tie, this little fortune.

"I am feeling very ill.

"I fear—my time—has come!

"I recall—there was no marriage certificate, but the service was performed by——"

Ann Walden dropped the blurred sheet and steadied herself against the window. Evidently Theodore Starr had forgotten the name, or perhaps the deadly dizziness of the disease had overcome him. It did not matter. Ann Walden, like Marcia Lowe, had no doubts—but his sister evidently had had, and suddenly a bitter hatred filled Ann Walden's soul toward the dead woman she had never known.

"She who should have known him best," Ann Walden's thoughts ran burningly on—"she to doubt him and let all the years of injustice go on!"

And then the eyes of the tormented woman turned fearfully toward the far side of the room. The late afternoon was turning into twilight and the corner by the chimney was dim and full of shadow.

"And I—who should have trusted Queenie—I who knew her best of all—I let her suffer——"

The wraith by the hearth had her full revenge at that hour, for Ann Walden bowed beneath the memories that crowded upon her; the vivid, torturing memories. That last night—when the moans and calls of the dumb mind strove to express the agony of the poor body! The solemn hour when God entrusted a living soul to a mother incapable of realizing anything but the mortal pangs that were costing her her life!

The child dishonoured, shamed and hidden because of—misunderstanding. Humbly Ann Walden confessed that Theodore Starr's sister was no more to blame than she herself.

Outside a sudden shower had come over Lost Mountain; the room in which Ann Walden stood became dark and still, then a sharp crash shook the house—something white fell upon the hearth; ashes, long dead ashes were blown hither and yon by a rising wind. With a wild cry of—"My God!" Ann Walden sank in a chair. Wornout nerves could stand no more.

When she recovered consciousness she was lying upon the old horsehair sofa in the library. Ivy had gone on an errand, but Cynthia stood over her and the girl's face shocked the reviving woman into alertness. Familiarity had dulled her in the past, but now she saw the expression and outline of Theodore Starr's features bending near her.

"Oh!" she moaned shudderingly. "Oh! oh!"

"Aunt Ann, it is little Cyn! The tree by the smoke-house was struck, but we-all are safe."

"I must be alone!" Then gropingly and tremblingly Ann Walden got upon her feet.

"The letter," she panted, "the letter."

"Here it is—I found it on the floor where you fell."

At the time Cynthia was too distressed to attach any importance to the matter, but she recalled the incident later.

"Yes, yes!" Ann Walden gripped the closely written sheets; "and now I—I want to be alone!"