Lily Pearl and The Mistress of Rosedale Part 6

"What are you thinking about, Phebe? I have watched you ever since we turned the corner down by the big pine tree, and not a muscle of your face has moved, as far as I can discover. Tell Willie, won't you?"

Phebe, thus addressed, drew herself up with a long sigh, and pa.s.sing her hand mechanically across her forehead, replied, while her eyes remained seemingly fixed on some far-off object:

"I do not know. See how the sunshine falls in golden patches on the pond yonder, like what you read about this morning. Willie, I _don't_ want to be _Phebe_--nothing but little Phebe. I--I want to _fly_! See that bird going up, up. He will get away beyond the clouds--far above the top of the mountain yonder. _I_ want to be like him, or something, I do not know what; don't you, Willie?"

"Yes; though ambitions are not for one like me; but you will be something besides 'little Phebe,' by and by. I see it in your beaming face and deep dark eyes; while I must always be 'poor little Willie,'

nothing else. I have for a long time been watching you, and reading my destiny of loneliness and utter dreariness in your strange, mysterious words, and knew that they all came from a heart that would never be satisfied with the plodding life where _I_ must remain. Two paths are open to us, and I can even now see that they must branch off from each other. O Phebe, hard as it is to be as I am, I would not hold you, little bird, from your upward flight; but just think what a terrible night my future will be without my little Phebe! Then I shall have no sweet sister to comfort and cheer me when out of patience with myself and cross because of my infirmity. And I shall not be your own Willie as now. It is wrong, I know, to feel so, but I cannot help it! It is bitter enough to know that I must lose you, but your love, little sister, how can I live without that?"

Phebe was taking a seat beside him, where he had made room for her while speaking. And, without answering his moan of anguish, she clasped her arms about his neck and kissed his pale face over and over again.

"Love you?" she exclaimed. "I shall always love you. I do not believe at all in those paths you have been telling about. What would I want to go off in another for if you could not follow me? No, no, Willie, I would not fly away up into the clouds without you; or be something that I so long to be, for I always want to be your little Phebe--nothing else. I was only thinking while I sat here and saw Rover draw you out of sight, how _I_ wanted to go off somewhere! and then I thought of the _waves_--how they used to talk to me--and just then, Willie, the patches fell down on the water, and a strange feeling came over me; but it is gone now, and I want to stay with you. Did not Mother give you to me and say that I must never leave you? You are my own Willie, just as you always will be." And with one more kiss she took the reins from his hand and gave the order for Rover to proceed.

"Ha! ha! ha!" came to them from the thicket near where they had been sitting, and at the same time two large, wild eyes peered through the opening a pair of thin bony hands had made in the thick foliage.

"It is Crazy Dimis; don't be afraid," said Willie, as his companion gave a startled look; "she has been at our house many times when I was a little boy, and she will not hurt any one. She has escaped from her imprisonment as she used often to do, but they know she is harmless."

The figure of a woman, tall and straight, but very plainly clad, now stood before them.

"It is wonderful sweet to love, isn't it silly children? Kisses are like honey--good on the lips; but they kill sometimes. Ha! ha! Waste them!

throw them away, silly children. They'll be bitter by and by. It's coming--coming! Don't I know it? Kisses are like candy, mustn't eat too much, little fools! Beware! the roses will fade and the thorns are sharp! They'll p.r.i.c.k you! Don't I know? Flowers are not for everybody--plant cabbage! Ha! ha! Crazy, am I? _He_ said so, too. But it was the adder's tongue that poisoned _my_ life. _His_ love--_his_ kiss.

Beware! Remember I tell you, _beware_!" and with a bound she darted again into the thicket and was lost from sight.

Willie had taken the reins from his companion as this unwelcome apparition appeared, but as she vanished Phebe exclaimed:

"What a horrid creature! What makes her talk so strangely? _Who_ is the one she spoke of? Do you know her?"

"Mother said she was once the brightest, prettiest girl anywhere around; but her husband disappointed her, and was unkind. It was this, I believe, that made her what she is. There used to be much good sense in what she said--shrewd, cunning, and not wholly gibberish. But let us hurry home; f.a.n.n.y may want you."

"Flowers are not for everybody. Did she mean me, Willie? Her words make me shiver!"

While yet speaking they came round to the kitchen door, where f.a.n.n.y met them. Something had evidently gone wrong, for she was flushed, and her step was quick and prophetic. She had many cares, and her temper had not grown sweeter by their constant pressure.

"You might as well have staid out the rest of the morning, and let me do everything," was her first exclamation. She was hurrying past, and did not, therefore, wait for a reply.

"Never mind," said Willie, in a low voice, as he saw the flash of anger dart up in his companion's eyes. "Take off Rover's harness and hasten around to help her about the dinner, will you? I will go and read, and perhaps think over what poor old Dimis said until you have got through.

But promise me," he continued, playfully; "don't you think of her or a word she said, for it is not true."

"Perhaps we may better do as f.a.n.n.y suggested, and go out for the rest of the morning. I wish we could." Willie smiled and wheeled himself into the house.

There were busy hands in the kitchen until after the dinner hour that day, but no cheerful word or kindly act were thrown in to lessen its tediousness or lighten the irksome burdens of the unwilling Phebe. The face upon which she looked was cold and hard, and a sort of oppressive bustle seemed to fill the very atmosphere. The knives were to be scoured and the potatoes washed for the noon meal, and her old dislike of this work had in no degree left her since she was the "good-for-nothing child" away in the fisherman's cot by the sea. The departed mother had often laughed at her aversion, and shielded her from its performance, but not so with the thrifty f.a.n.n.y. Indeed, Phebe imagined that these were reserved for her for the reason that she "hated" to do them, and this morning they seemed more distasteful than ever before. It was with no very good grace, therefore, that she went about her task, and as she stood by the window with the unpolished knives beside her, she thought of her who was sleeping below the garden wall, and wondered if "she knew what she was doing, of her impatience and anger." And then the crazy woman's gibberings came back, "Flowers are not for everybody"; and "the thorns are sharp, little fools."

"I hope you will get them done in time to set the table," were the quick, sharp words that broke in upon her reverie, and brought in her gaze from the far-off to the labor before her. The door was open into the sitting room, where Willie was amusing himself with a book, and Phebe called out, "I don't like to scour knives and wash potatoes, and I _won't_, either. Do you remember it, Willie?" she laughed.

"Well, I guess you _will_," retorted f.a.n.n.y. "I'd just like to know how you expect to get a living if you are going to do nothing except what you want to do. You are no better than I am, and I want you to do this every day; so keep to work at it, and not be looking out of the window."

Phebe turned, but caught sight of Willie's uplifted hand of warning just as a bitter retort darted to her lips, and for his sake she smothered her rage and resumed her hated labor. She did not enjoy any kind of work, and never hesitated to express her dislike for it. Perhaps, had circ.u.mstances altogether different from those that had surrounded her brightened up each compulsory service; or a word of love or praise been dropped now and then over the little burdens, it would have been otherwise. But she was a dreamer, a child with inborn fancies, possessing a soul where poetry and beauty reigned as twin sisters, growing and thriving upon each other's life, but she knew it not. She was only sure that her heart bounded in the sunshine of genial a.s.sociations, and sank with equal velocity beneath the clouds of depressing influences. A cold word, a frown, would fill her soul with gloomy shadows for many hours, unless a warm sunbeam from some loving heart came to drive it away. Kind and cheerful as our little heroine usually was, there lay coiled up in her nature a demon of anger which sprang forth at every provocation with the fury of ungoverned pa.s.sion.

Poor child! It had goaded her long for one so young, and many times she had struggled to resist its power, but it proved stronger than her will.

Love alone can subdue such natures, while opposition only feeds and nourishes their faults.

"Get out of my way!" exclaimed f.a.n.n.y, as Rover was leisurely crossing her path, while a sudden movement of her substantial shoe gave a new impetus to his velocity. Phebe saw it, and her heart bounded with indignation. Dropping her work she darted forward, and throwing her arms around the neck of the n.o.ble dog exclaimed vehemently: "Why didn't you bite her, Rover? she shall not kick you!" A blow from the enraged f.a.n.n.y, and a command to return to her work silenced her for a moment, then with the fierceness of a tiger she sprang upon her antagonist and dealt blow after blow upon the astonished f.a.n.n.y before she had time to recover from her surprise, or to use her powers of defence. In a moment more, pale with anger and fright, the child was torn from her position by superior strength, and forced into her own little chamber with the command "not to leave it until she received permission." Here was a new feature in home affairs.

"This child, this _pauper_, shall go where she belongs! The poor-house is good enough for such as she! At any rate I shall not have such a wild-cat beneath _my_ roof a great while!"

Willie listened to the ravings of his sister, while his heart throbbed with unconcealed emotion.

"Yes, and _you_ uphold her no doubt! You pity her and think she has been greatly wronged--but it makes no difference!"

"I _do_ think, Sister, that had you sought for love you would have found it, and love worketh no ill to his neighbor."

"Love! I _don't_ want her love or _her_ either! To confess the truth I am worn out with her and she must leave--that is all!"

"I know very well that you do not like to have me advocate Phebe's cause, but did you ever notice that her exhibitions of anger only seemed to be the echo of your own? I have watched her, Sister, with the most intense interest when laboring under personal difficulties and perplexities, and I have seldom seen her lose her patience under any trial. In all the years we have spent together she has never grieved me by an ill-tempered word or gesture, because _I_ never gave her one."

"So it is all _me_, of course! I must of necessity stand sponsor for my own sins and her's too!"

"No f.a.n.n.y, but I would be plain. You _are_ too stern and cold, and at times unjust! You forget that she is a child."

"I have heard _enough_--she must leave the house!" So saying the enraged f.a.n.n.y left the room, the door closing behind her with a prophetic firmness which Willie well understood.

Phebe sat alone in her chamber until the golden twilight settled down upon the waters of the little lake and tinted the tree tops that cast their long shadows out over its bosom, and watched the "lights and shades" which chased each other down the hillside and over the meadow until they rested on _two_ graves just beyond the garden wall.

"My mother! O, my mother!" gushed up from the overflowing heart. "Would that I were beside you! You did not hate me--you did not make me so wicked!" Tears choked her utterance and blinded her vision. Hours pa.s.sed and then a gentle tap was heard on her door, but she did not move. There had been no steps on the stairs and well did she know who was pleading outside to share her sorrows.

"Phebe, may _I_ come in? It is your own Willie--come and open the door if I may enter!" _That_ voice never pleaded in vain. Now it sank down into the wildly throbbing heart as a soft lullaby, soothing every angry pa.s.sion and illuminating the dark chambers of her soul with the sweet promises of peace.

The door was opened and Phebe returned to her low seat by the window without a word. Willie was soon beside her, sitting, on account of his infirmity, at her feet; his calm blue eyes swimming with tears were fixed intently upon her face, but she apparently did not heed him.

"Will you not speak to me, Phebe? Let me look into your eyes--there is no anger there for _me_! Nothing but love, I am sure of it! I have read it there so many times, but let me read it there once more--may I not?"

The arms of the child were thrown about the suppliant's neck and her tears fell fast as she kissed his pale cheek.

"I am so wicked, Willie! I wish I were good like you and loved everybody. _You_ never make me angry, but f.a.n.n.y always does. I can't help it!"

"Phebe, I love you. What would my life be if you were away? Think how long the days would be with no one to talk to and no one to say 'I am so sorry' when sad. In a few years at most Willie will be out there by the side of Mother, and until then I must creep about just as I always have done; but I can bear it if I have you to cheer me," and clasping her to his heart he was not ashamed that his tears mingled with hers.

"I am so sorry, Willie!" she sobbed at length. "I heard f.a.n.n.y say that 'I should not stay here.' I did not care then, but O, I cannot leave you. O--I will be very good! If Mother was only here I think I could do anything--but I am so wicked!"

Darkness had settled down upon the occupants of that little chamber when f.a.n.n.y called: "Willie, _your_ supper is ready! Come down immediately and let Phebe stay where she is!" The child darted to her feet and hastened to open the door.

"f.a.n.n.y," she said, with a slight hesitation; "I want to stay here, but won't you let me ask you to forgive me? I know I am very wicked but I will try to do better!" The stern, cold f.a.n.n.y hesitated only a moment, and then without a smile of encouragement or a cheering caress _agreed_ to the proposition and promised to let her remain for a while until she had tried her once more. "Now come down to supper," she continued, "for I am in a hurry to get my work done!" Was _this_ forgiveness? A balm to heal the wounds of injury? Poor, sin-sick soul! Did thy heavenly friend ever look so coldly upon thy penitence? When did He ever pour the "gall of bitterness" into the wounds of a humiliated heart? Small would be the reward of "human justice" if the intercessor did not continually stand between us and our pet.i.tion, "forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us."

"You are a n.o.ble girl!" exclaimed Willie as Phebe returned to her seat by the window. "I will leave you now; you may come or stay as you choose--all will yet be right."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII.