Читать книгу The Shield of Silence - Harriet T. Comstock - Страница 7

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"Just as much of doubt as bade us plant a surer foot upon the sun-road."

Doris Fletcher had no turning-back in her nature. She never reached a goal but by patient effort to understand, and she was able to close her eyes to by-paths.

Having adopted the children, having foregone her prejudices—good and evil—having set her feet upon the way, she meant to go unfalteringly on, and because doubts would assail her at times, she held the surer to her task.

She remained a month at Ridge House. She wrote to Thornton and in due time his reply came.

Apparently he had written while bewildered and shocked. The old arrogant tone was gone. He accepted what Doris offered and set aside a generous sum of money for his child's expenses.

It was Sister Angela's suggestion that Mary should become the nurse for the children.

"How much does she know, Sister?"

"Nothing—but what we have permitted her to know. The girl, since knowing of the children, has astonished me by her interest in them. Nothing before has so brought her out of her native reserve. I never suspected it—but the girl has maternal instincts that should not be starved."

But Sister Angela was mistaken. Mary knew more than she had been permitted to know.

A closed door to Mary meant seeking access through other channels. Sister Constance had not screened the windows of the west chamber which opened on the roof of the porch and were next to the window of Mary's small chamber. She had forgotten to ward against the startling sound of a baby's cry. But Mary, the night that Becky had left her burden to the care of Sister Angela, had heard that cry and it reached to the hidden depth of the girl's nature. It chilled her, then set her blood racing hotly. She got up and went to the window—it was moonlight in The Gap and the night was full of a rising wind that rattled the vines and set the leaves swirling.

Covering herself with a dark shawl, she crept from her window and, clinging close to the house, reached the west chamber.

Inside, by the light of a candle, Sister Constance sat, hushing to sleep a little child! The sight was burned upon Mary's consciousness as if Fate pressed every detail there so it might not be forgotten. Mary saw the small, puckered face. It was individual and distinct.

She almost slipped from her place on the roof; her breath came so hard that she feared Sister Constance might hear, and she groped her way back.

All next day Mary worked silently but with such haste that Sister Janice took her sharply to task.

"'Tis the ungodly as leaves the dust under the mats, child," she cautioned.

"Yes, Sister." Mary attacked the mats!

"And a burnt loaf cries for forgiveness."

"Yes, Sister, but the burnt loaf I will myself eat to the last crust."

"Indeed and you shall—for the carelessness that you show."

Somehow Mary lived through the day with her ears strained and a mighty fear in her heart.

It was nearing morning of the following day—that darkest hour—when the girl arose from her sleepless bed and stole forth again.

It was just then that Sister Constance, her face distorted by grief and the play of candlelight upon it, entered the west chamber with a baby in her arms!

Mary gripped the shutters—she felt faint and weak. Suppose she should slip and fall?

And then she saw two children on the bed and Sister Constance—bent in prayer—her cross pressed to her lips.

All this Mary had seen, but when Sister Angela asked her if she would like to go with Miss Fletcher and care for the children, so great was her curiosity that she, mentally, tore her roots from her home hills; let go her clinging to the deserted cabin where she had been born, and almost eagerly replied: "I'd like it powerful."

So Mary took her place.

Doris Fletcher had her plans well laid.

"I must have myself well in hand," she said to Sister Angela, "before I go to New York. There's the little bungalow in California where father took mother before Merry's birth. It happens to be vacant. I will go there and work out my plans."

It seemed a simple solution. The children throve from the start in the sunshine and climate; the peace and detachment acted like charms, and Mary, stifling her soul's homesickness, grew stern as to face, but marvellously tender and capable in her duties. Doris grew accustomed to her silence and reserve after a time, but she never understood Mary, although she grew to depend upon her absolutely. To friends in New York, especially to Doctor David Martin, Doris wrote often. She was never quite sure how the impression was given that Meredith had left twins; certainly she had not said that, but she had spoken of "the children" without laying stress upon the statement, and while debating just what explanation she would make. After all, it was her own affair. Some day she would confide in David, but there were more important details to claim her attention.

The babies were adorable, but in neither could she trace an expression or suggestion of Meredith. Their childish characteristics gave no clue—they were simply healthy, normal creatures full of the charm that all childhood should have in common. And gradually, as time passed, Doris lost herself in their demanding individualities; she became absorbed. Joan was larger, stronger, seemed older. She had brown eyes of that sunny tint which suggest sunshine. Her hair was brown, almost from the first, with gold glints. She was fair, had little colour unless the warm glow that rose and fell so sweetly in her face could be called colour. Excitement brought the flush, disappointment or a chiding word banished it. At other times Joan had the warm, ivory-tinted skin of health, not delicacy. Nancy was, from the first, frankly blonde. She never changed from the lovely, fair promise of her first year. She was the most feminine creature one could imagine; a doll brought the light to her violet eyes.

"She takes that rather than her milk," Mary explained, then gravely: "She'll take her milk if I hold off the doll."

Nature was never quite sure what to do with Joan. She changed with the years in tint, colouring, and character, but Nancy was fair, fine, and delicately poised from her baby days.

Both children worshipped Doris—Auntie Dorrie, they were taught to call her—and it was amusing to watch their relations to her. To please her, to win her approval, were their highest hopes. Mary clearly preferred Nancy and, for that reason, gave more attention to Joan.

When the children were nearly two Doris wrote to David Martin:

"I am coming home. I am glad that I have always kept the house in commission; I feel that I can trust myself there now."

And so the little family travelled east. Mary in trim uniform (and how she silently hated it) of black, with immaculate cuffs, collars, and cap; the babies perfect in every way and Doris, herself, happier than she had ever been in her life—handsomer, too. Her life had developed normally around the children; she felt a wide and deep interest in everything, and always the sense of high adventure, a daring in her relations to the future.

The old Fletcher house set the standard for the others down the long row. It was brick, with heavy oak, brass-bound doors. The marble steps and white trim were spotless and glistening and behind it lay a deep yard hidden by a tall brick wall. The house had reserved, as the family had, the right, once its civic duty was performed, to develop inwardly along its own lines.

The three generations, in turn, had set their marks upon it. The first Fletcher had been a genial soul given to entertaining, and the dining room, back of the drawing room, gave evidence of the old gentleman's taste. It was a stately and beautiful room and each article of furniture had been made to fit into the space and the need by an artist.

Doris's father was not indifferent to his father's tastes, but he was a student at heart and had a vision as to libraries. He encroached upon the ample space back of the house and had built an oval room through whose leaded panes the peach and plum trees could be seen like traceries on the clear glass. Around the walls of this room the book shelves ranged at just the right height, and above them hung pictures that inspired but did not obtrude. The high, carved chimney with its deep, generous hearth was a benediction.

When Doris had come home from St. Mary's she made known a family trait—she voiced what to her seemed an inspiration but which to the father, at first, seemed madness. Still, he complied and spent many happy hours before his death in what he called "Doris's Daring."

"I want the west wall of the library knocked out, Father," she had said, but Mr. Fletcher only stared.

"We can have the books and pictures in my room—my sunken room. There is enough garden to spare and we can save the roses. We'll drop down from the library by a shallow flight of steps; we'll have a little fountain and about a mile of nice low window seats rambling around the room. I don't want nymphs in the fountain but dear, adorable children tossing water at each other.

"We must have birds in cages, and plants and pictures—it must be a room where we can all take what is dearest to us—and live."

Of course it was an expensive and daring conception, but it was carried out by an inspired young architect, and it was Meredith who had posed for the figures in the fountain.

When Doris returned to New York with her children this room became the soul of the house.

The year after Doris's adoption of the children Sister Angela died suddenly. "She simply fell asleep," Sister Constance wrote.

After that the other Sisters could not feel happy and content in the atmosphere of antagonism that Sister Angela had partially overcome, but with which they had no sympathy. They returned to the Middle West and entered a Sisterhood where their duties and environment were more congenial. Ridge House reverted to the Fletcher estate and Uncle Jed was put in charge.

"I may use it later," Doris explained, "or I may turn it over to Father Noble if he ever needs it."

What this all meant to Mary no one ever knew—she saw, now, no return to her hills, and her longing for them grew as the years passed, and her curiosity flattened in the dull round of duties and commonplace routine. Only one emotion largely controlled her thought and that was a dumb gratitude for what she believed she was receiving. She could not agree that her devoted service gave ample return. She was under obligation, and the feeling was blighting to the girl's independence. Work, the necessity for work, was an accepted state of mind to poor Mary. The luxury and consideration that were hers in her present life took from labour, as far as she mentally considered it, all the essential qualities that gave her independence. She was accepting—so she reflected in that proud detached logic of the hills—from outsiders what no mere bodily labour could repay, certainly not such service as she was giving. Just loving and caring for two little children!

With cautious and suspicious watchfulness through the years Mary regarded Doris Fletcher still as "foreign." Foreign to all that was born and bred in the girl's inheritance of mountain aristocracy, but she had been touched by the justice, the unerring kindness of the woman, who, to Mary's wrong ideals, gave and gave and constantly made it impossible for her to make return.

"Some day," the girl vowed, when her manner was most grim and repelling, "some day I'll do something to pay back!" And then she grew bewildered in the maze of wondering if the "quality" so precious to her understanding might not exist in all places? Might it not be?—but here Mary became lost.

When she recalled, as less and less she did, the unlawful spying of hers on the west chamber of Ridge House, she set her lips in a firm line. She had gone far enough on her upward way to detest the cringing, deceitful methods of her childhood and she sternly sought to right herself, with her burdening conscience, by putting away forever what possible significance lay in the strange coming of that first and second child to Ridge House.

"Were they twins? Were—they?" But Mary always was frightened when she got into her mental depths.

Three or four vital and significant events marked the years intervening between Doris's return to New York and the day when Joan and Nancy entered womanhood.

The first incident seemed slight in itself but proved the truth of the need for caution when one is on a blind trail. With all her good intentions and high hopes Doris was bewildered as to her steps. She who had been the soul of frankness and cheerful friendliness was now reticent and reserved.

"It is poor Meredith's business," friend after friend decided. Where little was known, much was suspected. "The Fletchers cannot easily brook that sort of thing."

Just what that "sort" was depended upon the temperament and character of the person speaking.

Then among the first to call after Doris's return was Mrs. Tweksbury, an old and valued family friend, a woman who was worth one's while to gain as friend, for she could be a desperate foe. She had formed all her opinions of Meredith Thornton's tragedy upon what she knew and loved concerning the girl, and what she knew nothing whatever about, concerning Thornton.

To Mrs. Tweksbury he was a black villain who had murdered—there was no other word for it—an innocent young creature who belonged to that class (Mrs. Tweksbury was frank and clear about "class") not supposed to be subject to the coarser dealings of life.

Mrs. Tweksbury relied absolutely upon what she termed her inherited intuition. This was quite outside feminine intuition. The Tweksbury male intellect had been judicial from the first, and "the constant necessity of knowing men and women," as Mrs. Tweksbury often explained, "had left its mark upon the family."

"We know! That is all there is to say. We know!"

So Mrs. Tweksbury "knew" all about everything when she folded Doris in her motherly arms.

"There is no need of a word, my dear," she said, "and you are dealing with the whole thing superbly. Let me see the children. How fortunate that they are twins and girls! Girls may inherit from the father, but thank God! nature saves them from the developing along his line. And being twins certainly modifies what might otherwise be concentrated."

Doris felt her heart beat fast. She was not prepared to confide in Mrs. Tweksbury, certainly not at present. She loved the old woman for her good qualities, but she shrank from putting herself at the mercy of Mrs. Tweksbury's "inherited intuitions!"

So she said nothing, but sent for the children.

Hidden deep in the old woman's heart were all the denied and suppressed yearnings of a love that had escaped fulfilment—a love that had entered in after her marriage to a man utterly without sympathy with her, but which had been rigidly ignored because of the stern moral fibre that marked her. After the death of all those who had been concerned in her secret romance she had taken upon herself the more or less vicarious guardianship of the son of the man she had loved and foregone.

The boy lived with his mother's people, and Mrs. Tweksbury only visited him occasionally; but her proud, stern old heart knew only one undying passion now—her passion for children.

When Nancy and Joan stood before her, she regarded them with almost tragic, and, at the same time, comic expression. The children were frightened at her twitching, wrinkled face and glanced at Doris, who smiled them into calmness.

In Joan, Mrs. Tweksbury saw resemblance to no one she remembered, so she concluded she must be like the father, physically, whom they must all ignore absolutely. Try as she valiantly did, the old lady felt her quick-beating heart falter before Joan's earnest, searching gaze. It was a relief to turn to Nancy and permit her eyes to dim and soften.

"My dear, my dear," she said to Doris, "how like dear Merry the baby is! Just so, I recall—"

Doris's face grew strained and ashy. "Please," she implored, "please, Aunt Emily—don't!"

"Of course, of course, my child. Very indiscreet of me—but I was taken off my guard." Then—"My dears, will you kiss me?" This to the children keeping their courage up by clinging together.

"No," Joan replied in a tone entirely free from bad manners but weighted with simple truth; "Joan likes to kiss Auntie Dorrie." The inference stiffened Mrs. Tweksbury and caused Doris a qualm.

"And you?" The old lady's tone was pathetic in its appeal to Nancy—her "intuition" was at stake.

Nancy drew nearer. She was fascinated, afraid, but guided by a strange impulse. "Nancy will," she panted, "Nancy will kiss you—two times!"

Mrs. Tweksbury's breath caught in her throat—she strangled but controlled herself and bent as a queen might to the sweet uplifted face at her knee.

After that visit Doris would have had a difficult task in stemming a flood that Mrs. Tweksbury directed, having removed the dam. While she fairly grovelled, emotionally, before Nancy, the old lady defended Joan by stern insistence upon traits of nobility unsuspected by others in the child.

"The wretch of a father," she mentally vowed, "shall not have the child if suggestion can prevent."

Spiritually she fell in line with Doris, and where Mrs. Tweksbury led it were wiser and easier to follow than to blaze new trails.

The second event that marked a new epoch was the coming of George Thornton to claim his own.