Lavender and Old Lace Part 3

There was another gown, much worn, of soft blue cashmere, some sea-sh.e.l.ls, a necklace of uncut turquoises, the colour changed to green, a prayer-book, a little hymnal, and a bundle of letters, tied with a faded blue ribbon, which she did not touch. There was but one picture--an ambrotype, in an ornate case, of a handsome young man, with that dashing, dare-devil look in his eyes which has ever been attractive to women.

Ruth smiled as she put the treasures away, thinking that, had Fate thrown the dice another way, the young man might have been her esteemed and respected uncle. Then, all at once, it came to her that she had unthinkingly stumbled upon her aunt's romance.

She was not a woman to pry into others' secrets, and felt guilty as she fled from the attic, taking the lamp with her. Afterward, as she sat on the narrow piazza, basking in the warm Spring sunshine, she pieced out the love affair of Jane Hathaway's early girlhood after her own fashion.

She could see it all plainly. Aunt Jane had expected to be married to the dashing young man and had had her trousseau in readiness, when something happened. The folded paper would indicate that he was Charles Winfield, who had married some one else, but whether Aunt Jane had broken her engagement, or the possible Uncle Charles had simply taken a mate without any such formality, was a subject of conjecture.

Still, if the recreant lover had married another, would Aunt Jane have kept her treasure chest and her wedding gown? Ruth knew that she herself would not, but she understood that aunts were in a cla.s.s by themselves.

It was possible that Charles Winfield was an earlier lover, and she had kept the paper without any special motive, or, perhaps, for "auld lang syne."

Probably the letters would have disclosed the mystery, and the newspaper instinct, on the trail of a "story," was struggling with her sense of honour, but not for the world, now that she knew, would Ruth have read the yellowed pages, which doubtless held faded roses pressed between them.

The strings of sea-sh.e.l.ls, and the larger ones, which could have come only from foreign sh.o.r.es, together with the light in the window, gave her a sudden clew. Aunt Jane was waiting for her lover and the lamp was a signal. If his name was Charles Winfield, the other woman was dead, and if not, the marriage notice was that of a friend or an earlier lover.

The explanation was reasonable, clear, and concise--what woman could ask for more? Yet there was something beyond it which was out of Miss Thorne's grasp--a tantalising something, which would not be allayed.

Then she reflected that the Summer was before tier, and, in reality, now that she was off the paper, she had no business with other people's affairs.

The sun was hidden by gathering clouds and the air was damp before Ruth missed the bright warmth on the piazza, and began to walk back and forth by way of keeping warm. A gravelled path led to the gate and on either side was a row of lilac bushes, the bare stalks tipped with green. A white picket fence surrounded the yard, except at the back, where the edge of the precipice made it useless. The place was small and well kept, but there were no flower beds except at the front of the house, and there were only two or three trees.

She walked around the vegetable garden at the back of the house, where a portion of her Summer sustenance was planted, and discovered an unused gate at the side, which swung back and forth, idly, without latching.

She was looking over the fence and down the steep hillside, when a sharp voice at her elbow made her jump.

"Sech as wants dinner can come in and get it," announced Hepsey, sourly.

"I've yelled and yelled till I've most bust my throat and I ain't a-goin' to yell no more."

She returned to the house, a picture of offended dignity, but carefully left the door ajar for Ruth, who discovered, upon this rude awakening from her reverie, that she was very hungry.

In the afternoon, the chill fog made it impossible to go out, for the wind had risen from the sea and driven the salt mist inland. Miss Hathaway's library was meagre and uninteresting, Hepsey was busy in the kitchen, and Ruth was frankly bored. Reduced at last to the desperate strait of putting all her belongings in irreproachable order, she found herself, at four o'clock, without occupation. The temptation in the attic wrestled strongly with her, but she would not go.

It seemed an age until six o'clock. "This won't do," she said to herself; "I'll have to learn how to sew, or crochet, or make tatting. At last, I am to be domesticated. I used to wonder how women had time for the endless fancy work, but I see, now."

She was accustomed to self a.n.a.lysis and introspection, and began to consider what she could get out of the next six months in the way of gain. Physical strength, certainly, but what else? The prospect was gloomy just then.

"It's goin' to rain, Miss Thorne," said Hepsey, at the door. "Is all the winders shut?"

"Yes, I think so," she answered.

"Supper's ready any time you want it."

"Very well, I will come now."

When she sat down in the parlour, after doing scant justice to Hepsey's cooking, it was with a grim resignation, of the Puritan sort which, supposedly, went with the house. There was but one place in all the world where she would like to be, and she was afraid to trust herself in the attic.

By an elaborate mental process, she convinced herself that the cedar chest and the old trunks did not concern her in the least, and tried to develop a feminine fear of mice, which was not natural to her. She had just placed herself loftily above all mundane things, when Hepsey marched into the room, and placed the attic lamp, newly filled, upon the marble table.

Here was a manifest duty confronting a very superior person and, as she went upstairs, she determined to come back immediately, but when she had put the light in the seaward window, she lingered, under the spell of the room.

The rain beat steadily upon the roof and dripped from the eaves. The light made distorted shadows upon the wall and floor, while the bunches of herbs, hanging from the rafters, swung lightly back and forth when the wind rattled the windows and shook the old house.

The room seemed peopled by the previous generation, that had slept in the ma.s.sive mahogany bed, rocked in the chairs, with sewing or gossip, and stood before the old dresser on tiptoe, peering eagerly into the mirror which probably had hung above it. It was as if Memory sat at the spinning-wheel, idly twisting the thread, and bringing visions of the years gone by.

A cracked mirror hung against the wall and Ruth saw her reflection dimly, as if she, too, belonged to the ghosts of the attic. She was not vain, but she was satisfied with her eyes and hair, her white skin, impervious to tan or burn, and the shape of her mouth. The saucy little upward tilt at the end of her nose was a great cross to her, however, because it was at variance with the dignified bearing which she chose to maintain. As she looked, she wondered, vaguely, if she, like Aunt Jane, would grow to a loveless old age. It seemed probable, for, at twenty-five, The Prince had not appeared. She had her work and was happy; yet unceasingly, behind those dark eyes, Ruth's soul kept maidenly match for its mate.

When she turned to go downstairs, a folded newspaper on the floor attracted her attention. It was near one of the trunks which she had opened and must have fallen out. She picked it up, to replace it, but it proved to be another paper dated a year later than the first one. There was no marked paragraph, but she soon discovered the death notice of "Abigail Winfield, nee Weatherby, aged twenty-two." She put it into the trunk out of which she knew it must have fallen, and stood there, thinking. Those faded letters, hidden under Aunt Jane's wedding gown, were tempting her with their mute secret as never before. She hesitated, took three steps toward the cedar chest, then fled ingloriously from the field.

Whoever Charles Winfeld was, he was free to love and marry again.

Perhaps there had been an estrangement and it was he for whom Aunt Jane was waiting, since sometimes, out of bitterness, the years distil forgiveness. She wondered at the nature which was tender enough to keep the wedding gown and the pathetic little treasures, brave enough to keep the paper, with its evidence of falseness, and great enough to forgive.

Yet, what right had she to suppose Aunt Jane was waiting? Had she gone abroad to seek him and win his recreant heart again? Or was Abigail Weatherby her girlhood friend, who had married unhappily, and then died?

Somewhere in Aunt Jane's fifty-five years there was a romance, but, after all, it was not her niece's business. "I'm an imaginative goose," Ruth said to herself. "I'm asked to keep a light in the window, presumably as an incipient lighthouse, and I've found some old clothes and two old papers in the attic--that's all--and I've constructed a tragedy."

She resolutely put the whole matter aside, as she sat in her room, rocking pensively. Her own lamp had not been filled and was burning dimly, so she put it out and sat in the darkness, listening to the rain.

She had not closed the shutters and did not care to lean out in the storm, and so it was that, when the whistle of the ten o'clock train sounded hoa.r.s.ely, she saw the little glimmer of light from Miss Ainslie's window, making a faint circle in the darkness.

Half an hour later, as before, it was taken away. The scent of lavender and sweet clover clung to Miss Hathaway's linen, and, insensibly soothed, Ruth went to sleep. After hours of dreamless slumber, she thought she heard a voice calling her and telling her not to forget the light. It was so real that she started to her feet, half expecting to find some one standing beside her.

The rain had ceased, and two or three stars, like timid children, were peeping at the world from behind the threatening cloud. It was that mystical moment which no one may place--the turning of night to day. Far down the hill, ghostly, but not forbidding, was Miss Ainslie's house, the garden around it lying whitely beneath the dews of dawn, and up in the attic window the light still shone, like unfounded hope in a woman's soul, harking across distant seas of misunderstanding and gloom, with its pitiful "All Hail!"

III. Miss Ainslie

Ruth began to feel a lively interest in her Aunt Jane, and to regret that she had not arrived in time to make her acquaintance. She knew that Miss Hathaway was three or four years younger than Mrs. Thorne would have been, had she lived, and that a legacy had recently come to her from an old friend, but that was all, aside from the discoveries in the attic.

She contemplated the crayon portraits in the parlour and hoped she was not related to any of them. In the family alb.u.m she found no woman whom she would have liked for an aunt, but was determined to know the worst.

"Is Miss Hathaway's picture here, Hepsey?" she asked.

"No'm. Miss Hathaway, she wouldn't have her picter in the parlour, nohow. Some folks does, but Miss Hathaway says't'aint modest."

"I think she's right, Hepsey," laughed Ruth, "though I never thought of it in just that way. I'll have to wait until she comes home."

In the afternoon she donned the short skirt and heavy shoes of her "office rig," and started down hill to explore the village. It was a day to tempt one out of doors,--cool and bright, with that indefinable crispness which belongs to Spring.

The hill rose sheer from the highlands, which sloped to the river on the left, as she went down, and on the right to the forest. A side path into the woods made her hesitate for a moment, but she went straight on.

It was the usual small town, which nestles at the foot of a hill and eventually climbs over it, through the enterprise of its wealthier residents, but, save for Miss Hathaway's house, the enterprise had not, as yet, become evident. At the foot of the hill, on the left, was Miss Ainslie's house and garden, and directly opposite, with the width of the hill between them, was a brown house, with a lawn, but no garden except that devoted to vegetables.

As she walked through the village, stopping to look at the display of merchandise in the window of the single shop, which was also post-office and grocery, she attracted a great deal of respectful attention, for, in this community, strangers were an event. Ruth reflected that the shop had only to grow to about fifty times its present size in order to become a full-fledged department store and bring upon the town the rank and dignity of a metropolis.

When she turned her face homeward, she had reached the foot of the hill before she realised that the first long walk over country roads was hard for one accustomed to city pavements. A broad, flat stone offered an inviting resting-place, and she sat down, in the shadow of Miss Ainslie's hedge, hoping Joe would pa.s.s in time to take her to the top of the hill. The hedge was high and except for the gate the garden was secluded.

"I seem to get more tired every minute," she thought. "I wonder if I've got the rheumatism."

She scanned the horizon eagerly for the dilapidated conveyance which she had once both feared and scorned. No sound could have been more welcome than the rumble of those creaking wheels, nor any sight more pleasing than the conflicting expressions in "Mamie's" single useful eye. She sat there a long time, waiting for deliverance, but it did not come.