A Cry in the Wilderness Part 40

"'There may be heaven, there must be h.e.l.l, Meantime there is our earth here--well!'

"Good night, Mrs. Macleod, good night, Boy--Marcia, good night."

He spoke in his usual voice, but with noticeable abruptness.

XXI

So Cale knew. This was my first thought when I found myself alone in my room. Cale, then, was the husband of my mother's sister, Jemima Morey, who died before I was born, whose name I had heard but two or three times. My Aunt Keziah's mind grew dull in the strain of circ.u.mstance; she was never given a full supply of brains, and her memory weakened as she aged. Had she lived,--I shuddered at the thought,--she would have been imbecile like my grandfather and, doubtless, have lived to his age, ninety. In that case there would have been no life for me here.

"But I _am_ here. I am going to remain here till I am sent away.

Nothing that Cale has said shall influence me in this. All that is past--a part of another generation. I have put it all out of my life, once and for all. I live now and here, in Lamoral. I am not my mother; I am Marcia Farrell. I have not her life to answer for, and her life--oh, what she must have suffered!--shall no longer influence mine.

"I am free! I declare myself free from the bondage of past memories, free, and I will to remain so."'

This was my declaration of independence--independence of heredity and its accredited influence; of memories that control the mentality which governs life; freedom from the actuality of past environment. I drew a long free breath. My individual womanhood, this "I" of me, Marcia Farrell, not a composite of ancestral inheritance, a.s.serted itself.

What if my nose resembles my great-grandmother's? I asked, unfurling my revolutionary flag over the moat--untechnically "ditch"--of the stronghold, considered by some impregnable, of present day scientific discovery.

What if I happen to have a temper like my maternal great-aunt's? What if I have a fighting instinct like my paternal ancestors, who may have come over with William the Conqueror as swordsmen or cooks--I don't care which?

What if I handle my crochet needle in a manner very like the brandished spear of Goths, Vandals, and Huns, from all of whom it is perfectly possible that I may count my descent?

What if I show distinctive animal characteristics? Jamie declares I run like a doe and look like a greyhound!

What do I care if, millions of years ago when things on this earth were stickier and hotter than the worst dog-day in New York, this thing that has, in the end, become Marcia Farrell, this half-perfected mechanism of body and mind, had gills like a fish? What do I care if it had?

This "I" of me is distinct from every other "I" on this inhabited globe. This "I" of me has its special work to do, not another's, not my ancestors'. Humble enough it is. It has to feed and clothe my body by labor, the brain regulating the handicraft. It has eyes to see all the beauty, all the ugliness of Life; ears to hear all its harmonies, all its discords; a mind to comprehend how some detail of chaos may find rebirth in order. This "I" of me, my soul, receives through the instruments of the senses, impressions of infinite chaos ordered into laws, not necessarily final, laws beneficial to man and his universe.--Am I to deny the existence of what is called the strange unknown ether, simply because, for ages, the instrument of the wireless was not on hand to give expression to its transmitting power?

I repeated to myself, that I had my own life to live, not my mother's--oh G.o.d, forbid! Not my grandfather's--oh, in mercy not! Not my myriad of ancestors' lives; were this so, the mechanism of the brain would give under the strain. But just my own, mine, Marcia Farrell's, here, from day to day in Lamoral; a life lived in thankfulness of spirit for a shelter that is a home; in thankfulness for the modic.u.m of intellect--with its accompanying physical fitness--that enables me to earn my living; in thankfulness for friends; in thankfulness--yes, I dare say it, even in the shadow of Cale's story of my mother's short life--that I love, that I can love.

This is the full text of my declaration of independence, made at twelve of the clock,--I heard it striking in the kitchen below,--on the night of the twentieth of February, nineteen hundred and ten.

From that hour, I lost all desire to know my parentage, to question Doctor Rugvie, to see the papers; all desire to establish the fact that I was a legitimate child. And I lost it because a greater interest, the dominating interest of love, was claiming all my thoughts, ruling my desires, regulating my wishes. My hour had struck and, knowing it, I regulated my clock by Mr. Ewart's timepiece, which is another way of saying I lived, henceforth, not only in his home, but in him and his interests.

All that Cale told us I had known in part, but never had I known the circ.u.mstances in detail, freed from the acc.u.mulation of gossip. Now, with Delia Beaseley's relation of my birth and its attendant circ.u.mstances, the account, except on two points, seemed complete. On one, I intended to ask explanation from Cale, when an opportunity offered; in the second matter, the ident.i.ty of my father, I took no interest. But to Cale I would speak. Dear old Cale! Had he known me all these months? Why had n't he spoken to me and told me?

As I thought it over, I saw that I had given him no opportunity to question me, or to speak to me, concerning his surmise. He should have it soon--and again look me squarely in the eyes. Dear old Cale!

It was noticeable the next day, that the Doctor was fairly well occupied with his own thoughts. During the hour in which I took my first lesson with skis, I caught him, more than once, looking at me as if searching for enlightenment on some subject, or object, projected, obscure and undefined, from his consciousness. My own high spirits were seemingly inexplicable to him. How could he know that my elation was due to the fact, that the express from Montreal would arrive in eight hours!

"Cale," he said abruptly, while helping me out of some particularly awkward floundering, "when does the mail leave the house for the south bound trains?"

"We cal'late ter get it off 'bout noon; little Pete takes it over."

The Doctor looked at his watch. "Sorry, Marcia, to cut short this fun, especially after my urgent invitation, but I must get some letters off by that mail. We 'll try it again to-morrow."

"Don't mind me, but I don't want to go in; it's great sport, the best yet. Cale, you can stay a little longer, can't you?"

"To be sure; I ain't nothing special on hand fer the rest of the forenoon."

"Then I 'll cut and run," said the Doctor, without ceremony and evidently pressed for time. He "cut" accordingly, his skis carrying him down the incline with what seemed to me dubious velocity.

I turned to Cale and gave him my mittened hand. He guided me well and carefully. I landed, rather to my own surprise, right side up. I was well pleased with this progress; in all conditions of my partial equilibrium, I found the sport exciting.

"You don't look like the same gal I drove up from the steamboat landing thet night four months ago." He looked down at me admiringly from his great height. "Your cheeks are clear pink and white, and your eyes shine; who 'd ever think they was the faded out brown ones, with great black hollers under 'em, thet I see lookin' 'round to find out what kind of a G.o.d's country you was in?"

"I like your compliments. Tell me, Cale,"--I smiled straight up into his rugged face, in order to get a look at the small keen gray eyes beneath the bushy eyebrows--"how did you come to think it was I? Tell me."

The tanned cheeks above the whiskers looked suddenly rather yellow. I could n't see his mouth for the frosted beard, but I saw his eyes fill.

The hand that was still holding mine to help me up the incline, tightened its clasp. He hesitated a moment before he could answer:

"I did n't know, Marcia, not for plumb sure; an' yet I _felt_ sure, for you was the livin' image of Happy Morey."

"Am I so very like her--in all ways?"

"Like her in looks, all but the eyes; they 're different. But you ain't much like her in your ways--she was what you might call winnin'er; you have ways of your own."

"Did you open the windows of your life so wide for us last night, Cale, just to entice me to fly in and find refuge with you?"

"Marcia," his voice trembled slightly, "I stood it jest as long as I could. I knew _you_ did n't know me from Adam; but I felt as if I could n't live another day in the house with you, 'thout makin' myself known ter you; an' I took thet way ter do it an', meanwhile, satisfy somebody's curiosity 'bout me, fer Jamie can't be beat by any woman for _thet_. I did n't go off half-c.o.c.k though, last night, you may bet your life on thet."

"I know you did n't, Cale--and can't we keep this between ourselves?"

"Jest as you say, Marcia. What you say ter me won't go no further.

There ain't no one nigher to me than you in all this world--

"Nor than--" I began. I was about to say, "than you to me"; but I cut short the words that would have perjured the new joy in my heart.

Cale apparently took no notice of the unfinished sentence.

"Sometime I want ter know 'bout your life these last ten years--I can't sorter rest easy till I know."

"There is so little to tell. Aunt Keziah died eight years ago; then I went down to New York to earn my living, and worked there till I came here--on a venture."

"It's the best you ever made," he said emphatically. "Get sick of it there?"

"Yes, I should have died if I 'd stayed in that city any longer; it was too much for me."

I felt his hand grasp mine still more closely.

"So 'twas, so 'twas," he said to himself; then to me:

"Guess we won't lose track of one 'nother again, Marcia."

"Not if I can help it, Cale; it is n't my fault that we see each other for the first time in twenty-six years."