Oldfield Part 13

That ended Sidney's interest in the programme, but the negro boy was still curious, so that he took the jug into the middle of the big road to pour out its contents, and he was much gratified, with the cruelty of his age and s.e.x, to find something like a quart of boiled b.u.mblebees.

Sidney, free now from pressing domestic affairs, bustled into the room where Doris sat undisturbed, singing softly over her sewing.

"I must go by Tom Watson's the first thing," Sidney said, putting on her bonnet, settling her ball of yarn under her left arm, and beginning to knit. "Anne seems to be at the end of her row, poor soul. I don't believe that Tom notices anybody's coming or going. I'm sure he doesn't mine. He just sits there with his awful eyes wandering up and down the big road. But if it comforts Anne the least bit to have me go, I'm perfectly willing to keep on trying. Anyway, I'll look in there a moment before starting out on my regular round."

"I hope you can get home early," said Doris, shyly. "Mr. Gordon spoke of coming again to-day, in the cool of the evening, to look at the moonflowers."

Sidney stopped suddenly in the middle of the floor, just as she had done earlier in the morning, and looked at Doris without making an immediate reply. She took off her bonnet and shook her hair down, twisting it up again with extreme tightness.

"Well! I reckon he, or anybody else, can look at the moonflowers just the same whether I'm here or not," she said, dryly, settling the huge horn comb with emphasis. Putting on her bonnet, she began to make her knitting-needles fly, as she moved toward the door.

"Please, ma'am," pleaded Doris, bashfully. She was smiling, yet quite in earnest, in her request.

"I'll be here in plenty of time," replied Sidney, diplomatically.

She went straight across to the doctor's house, and, calling its mistress to the gate, asked in a low voice if she would be so neighborly as to keep Billy and Kate until bedtime, or until she herself came by for them. Mrs. Alexander was surprised; she had never before known Sidney to ask, or even to accept, any help in the care of her children.

She had always been scrupulously careful to avoid troubling any one with them. For this reason the doctor's wife agreed readily enough to keep Kate and Billy all night, if so doing would oblige Sidney in the slightest. She would have said the same at any time, but she was especially glad to get such an early opportunity to make up the misunderstanding of an hour or two before. So far as she knew, Sidney never had actually fallen out with any one; but Mrs. Alexander had nevertheless no wish to risk such a calamity, knowing full well how dull life in Oldfield would be without a daily chat with Sidney. And then, above all, she really liked and admired and respected her. So that, altogether, she was quite warm and even cordial in her willingness to keep Kate and Billy. She told Sidney that the doctor was away on one of his long trips, and that it would be company to have the children; the obligation would be wholly on her side.

Sidney then went on down the big road well content, her knitting-needles flying faster and faster, as they always were under any unusual stress of thought. She nodded to Anne Watson, calling out as she hurried by, that she would come back to see Tom as soon as she could go to the store to speak to Uncle Watty. She found the old man sitting in his accustomed place on the goods-box at the shady side of the store door. She paused close beside him, fanning herself with her bonnet, after she had taken it off to let down and twist up her hair. For she knew very well that all the tact and art at her command would be needed to persuade Uncle Watty not to come home to supper, and to stay at the store--open and shut--till bedtime. Uncle Watty was never the one to give up his own wishes, if he could help it, or to sacrifice his supper without a struggle.

"But you can have a real good, comfortable supper right here," urged Sidney, lowering her voice, so that Mr. Pettus and his one customer might not hear. "You're mighty fond of cheese and crackers. I'll see that you have as much of both as you can eat." She hesitated, and then, seeing that she was to be pushed to the limit of her resources, and knowing from long experience that Uncle Watty would exact the full pound of flesh, she added; "And I'll tell Mr. Pettus to give you a gla.s.s of apple toddy, too, real strong and piping hot!"

"Till the court-house clock strikes nine, then, and not a minute later,"

growled Uncle Watty.

Sidney was quite satisfied. She was used to getting what she wanted under difficulties. It always made her happy to succeed at all, and it never made her bitter to fail, even after much trying--this real village philosopher. How invincible she was that June day! How her knitting-needles flashed in the sunlight, flying ever faster and faster!

And yet, full as her thoughts were of her own affairs, she did not forget or neglect Tom Watson. Indeed, not one of the day's regular engagements was forgotten or slighted or over-looked. She talked also as usual about almost everything under the shining sun; but her thoughts were always of the moonflowers and of Doris and of old lady Gordon's grandson.

At sundown she went to take supper with Miss Pettus, an agreement to that effect having been entered into upon the day of the truce. But she said as soon as she entered the house, that she must leave immediately after supper, as it was absolutely necessary for her to see Miss Judy before going to bed that night. Miss Pettus, whose curiosity was excessive, did not ask what she must see Miss Judy about. No one ever asked Sidney questions about her own private affairs, freely as everybody always questioned her about public matters. This may perhaps have been one of the secrets of her memorable success. Miss Pettus was merely a little miffed to see how absent-minded Sidney was. What was the use of having cream m.u.f.fins when Sidney hardly noticed what she was eating! Then when Sidney asked to be allowed to leave the basket--which had been well filled for the children and Uncle Watty--till she came for it the next morning, this was such an unheard-of request that Miss Pettus's curiosity could hardly be held in leash; yet Sidney went her way without saying a word in explanation.

Dusk was already falling, and the gathering clouds in the west hastened the gloaming. Sidney pa.s.sed her own house, taking care to walk on the other side of the big road, but she could make out Doris's slim white figure moving among the flowers, and she also recognized the tall, dark form near by, notwithstanding the dim light. The murmur of the gay young voices, too, musically melted into the scented stillness. Sidney did not know that she was smiling as she listened, and went on wondering what they were talking about. And she did not ask herself why she was glad that the honeysuckle smelt so sweet that night, and that so many of the great white moths were fluttering among the moonflowers.

She found Miss Judy sitting in the pa.s.sage with Miss Sophia, as they were always to be found at that time on a warm evening. They were talking to each other as usual; that is to say, Miss Judy was talking of Becky, and Miss Sophia was listening, with the never-flagging interest and complete content which they ever found in one another's conversation and society. Nevertheless, they were heartily pleased to greet Sidney, and Miss Judy was particularly gratified by her coming in just at that moment. The little lady had seen Lynn Gordon pa.s.sing up the big road early in the morning, and--quite in a quiver--had asked Miss Sophia if she thought he was on the way to call on Doris. Of course, she did not dream of asking Sidney anything about it, but she knew that she would tell her without being asked, in the event that he had gone to see Doris. And Sidney did tell her at once, since the telling was precisely what she had come for--that, and a consultation concerning such future steps as Miss Judy might think must needs be taken. Miss Judy hung upon every prosaic word, coloring it with her own romantic fancy, blushing rosily in the sheltering dimness of the pa.s.sage, glowing with the new warmth which was fast gathering around her gentle heart. It was a bit of a disappointment that Sidney did not say what the young gentleman himself had said, or what he did or how he looked while with the dear, dear child. Miss Judy almost asked, she wanted so much to know everything there was to tell. It did not occur to her that Sidney had not been present. It did not occur to Sidney that she could have been--much less that she should have been. So utterly unlike were these two good, honest women, who were giving their whole minds to the happiness and welfare of the girl whom they both loved with their whole hearts. Most of all Miss Judy was longing to know whether Lynn had said anything of making another call. She could tell a good deal from that, she thought guiltily, feeling herself a very Machiavelli. Yet she hesitated to ask. It might possibly seem a little indelicate, a little inconsiderate of Doris, in case the young gentleman had not named another time.

"I don't think it will rain before morning," she said, observing Sidney's glance at the clouds. "Young Mr. Gordon does seem real friendly," she went on tentatively. "Perhaps he will come again--sometime."

"He's there now--twice to-day!" said Sidney, triumphantly. With the training of her profession she had awaited the most impressive moment for this crowning announcement.

Miss Judy was stunned; there was a tremor of alarm in her voice when she spoke, after a momentary silence of frightened bewilderment. "Do you mean to say, Sidney, that Mr. Gordon is at your house--with Doris now--to-night?"

Sidney nodded coolly, trying not to show the complacency which she could not help feeling. "Yes. I saw him in the garden with Doris as I came down the big road--on the other side."

Miss Judy tried to think for a s.p.a.ce. Then she said, delicately but uneasily, "Are you quite sure that Uncle Watty and the children will--will know how to do the honors?"

"Well, they can't do any harm! I've taken care that they couldn't.

They're not there--not a blessed one of 'em! The children are over at the doctor's. Uncle Watty is down at the store, and he'll stay there, too, till bedtime--open or shut!"

As Sidney thus told what she had done, she tossed her yellow head, giving free rein to what she honestly felt to be just pride.

Miss Judy sprang up with a smothered scream. "Sidney _Wendall_! _Do_ you mean to tell me that you have left Doris--that poor, poor child--to receive a perfect stranger entirely alone? Oh--oh--we must run to her.

What will he think now? The other was bad enough, but this can never be made right! Run!"

She sank back in the chair, pressing her hand to her heart, which was fluttering, as it always fluttered under agitation, like some winged thing trying to escape, as perhaps it was.

"You go--don't wait for me," she gasped. "I'll--explain and--and--beg your pardon--when I get my breath. Go--go--_go_!"

Sidney had risen in blank amazement, which swiftly changed to high dudgeon under Miss Judy's incoherent reproaches. From the agitated outburst to the breathless close she had not the vaguest comprehension of the cause of Miss Judy's excitement and distress. But she saw that they were serious, and her anger vanished forthwith. She had long since fallen into the habit of doing whatever Miss Judy wished, even when she could not understand; no matter whether it agreed with her own views or not, and wholly regardless of her own stalwart opinion of that little lady's fastidious ideas, which she thought of as Miss Judy's "pernickety notions." In anything and everything concerning Doris, especially, Sidney always gave way at once without an instant's demur, and she did so now, as soon as she had sufficiently recovered from her amazement to comprehend what it was that Miss Judy wished her to do. Her good humor, too, came back quickly; it was never absent long, and she cheerfully started toward home without more urging. She went at once, stepping out of Miss Judy's sight with long, swinging strides, but soon slacking her pace, unconsciously smiling now as she sauntered. A woman who has been married is apt to smile at an unmarried woman's views of love and courtship and kindred matters. Sidney stood ready to defer to Miss Judy in most things, humbly conscious of her own ignorance and honestly willing at all times to confess it. When, however, it came to men-folks--laughing silently, Sidney loitered on up the big road, knitting much faster than she walked, for her needles flew just as swiftly and surely in the darkness as in the light.

Miss Judy shed a few gentle tears in the gloom of the pa.s.sage. Her first distinct feeling was acute distress for the child of her heart. Then it was a cruel personal disappointment to have her plans for Doris's social advancement so shockingly upset. But presently Miss Judy's cheerful spirits began to rally; the tea might perhaps still place Doris properly before old lady Gordon's grandson, but it would be much harder now, owing to Sidney's distressing thoughtlessness.

"Yet she is not so much to blame, after all, poor thing," said Miss Judy, wiping her eyes, as her heart began to beat more naturally.

"Sidney was not brought up as we were; we are bound in fairness to consider that, sister Sophia," pleaded Miss Judy, as if fearing that Miss Sophia might be too hard on Sidney.

Miss Sophia straightened up and opened her eyes, surprised to find Sidney gone; but she responded as usual with firm promptness. Indeed, when she had thus responded several times, more and more decidedly, as Miss Judy went on arguing with herself and thinking that she was discussing the situation with Miss Sophia, the former came gradually to feel that all would yet be well with Doris--as Miss Sophia believed and said.

The storm-clouds piled higher and blacker, and the lightning flashes lit them now and then; but Miss Judy, looking out the open door of the pa.s.sage, said that she thought the cloud-bank lay too far south for them to get a shower, that it had drifted too far away from the rain quarter.

The darkness deepened fast, however. Sudden gusts of wind stirred the dust of the big road, and set little columns of it whirling along the darkening highway; but there was still nothing to disturb the little sisters, sitting peacefully, contented, close together in their low rocking-chairs. Miss Judy was now chirruping quite like herself, and Miss Sophia listening and nodding alternately in happy content. Nearly asleep, she did not hear the soft rustle of Miss Judy's bombazine skirt as it slipped off in the darkness.

"You don't mind, do you, sister Sophia?" said Miss Judy, feeling, nevertheless, bound to apologize in respect for her sister. "It's too dark for any one pa.s.sing to see. And it does make the back breadths so shiny to sit on them, no matter how lightly you try to sit down," she added, as if she could sit any other way, dear little atom of humanity!

Nine o'clock was their bedtime, winter and summer, although it must be said that Miss Sophia was always perfectly willing to go to bed earlier.

That night they arose, as they always did, on the solemn, lonesome stroke of the court-house clock, and turned up their little rocking-chairs side by side, with the seats to the wall, tilting them so that the cat could not make a bed of the patchwork cushions, and thus be tempted from her plain duty of attending to the mice in the garret and the rats in the kitchen. The chairs being thus settled, as if for the saying of their prayers all night, Miss Judy bent down, and, taking both hands, rolled the cannon-ball out of the hollow which it had worn in the daytime, and sent it rumbling into the hollow which it had worn in the night-time. Shutting the door, she then dropped the wooden bar across it as a mere matter of routine propriety, and, after this was done, the little sisters began to undress with their backs to one another. When they were at last quite ready to retire, when Miss Sophia was in bed and Miss Judy was on the point of ascending by means of the chair, before blowing out the candle, there was some polite discussion and a good deal of hesitation whether or not to close the window at the foot of the bed.

The ultimate decision was to leave it open, Miss Judy thinking this best on account of the night's being so warm, and the clouds having drifted so far round that there appeared little likelihood of rain before morning; and Miss Sophia's thinking that she thought as Miss Judy did, in this as in everything else. The window was accordingly left open, and this final question being settled, the little sisters laid themselves down side by side, and bade one another a formal good night, and wished one another pleasant dreams, and were soon sleeping the sleep of gentle innocence and of sweet peace with the whole world.

But while they slept it happened unluckily that the clouds drifted back to the rain quarter. An ominous murmur arose louder and louder, coming nearer and nearer; the branches of the old elm suddenly swept the mossy old roof, and about midnight the tempest broke in its utmost fury. At the same instant two little nightcaps with wide ruffles lifted themselves from the pillows, unseen and unheard by each other in the darkness of the night and the crash of the storm. Both the little sisters were terrified. They were always very much afraid of a storm, and this one was terrifying indeed. But love gives courage to the most timid. And they were very, very tender of one another, these two gentle, little old sisters. Miss Judy thought of Miss Sophia's rheumatism, with the wind furiously beating the rain clear across the room, almost to the very bed. Miss Sophia thought of Miss Judy's heart trouble, which she had had a touch of that very night, and she dreaded, for her sister's sake, lest the lightning begin to flash, as the thunder boomed nearer and louder. But the loving are the daring, and each forgot her own terror in fear for the other. At precisely the same moment the two little old sisters began to get up and to leave their opposite sides of the high bed. Miss Judy, usually much quicker of movement than Miss Sophia, now moved so slowly in order not to disturb her, that she was longer than ever before in reaching the floor by way of the chair. Miss Sophia, on the other hand, hurried down the dwarf staircase backward, like a fleeing crab, fairly driven by alarm and her loving concern for Miss Judy. So that--still utterly unaware of one another's being awake, much less astir, such was the uproar of the blast and the downpour of the rain--they crept tremblingly round the opposite corners at the foot of the bed, in the blackness of the room, with tightly shut eyes, with outstretched arms guarding their faces, and thus ran into violent collision.

Neither Miss Judy nor Miss Sophia could ever recall very clearly what happened after that. The neighbors remembered only hearing, above the tumult of the tempest, blood-curdling screams and shrieks of fire, and murder, and theft, in tones which none of them recognized. The Oldfield people, men, women, and children, alarmed and panic-stricken, sprang from their beds, and rushed to the rescue through the storm and darkness in their nightclothes. The doctor alone was dressed, as he had not gone to bed, having just got home from the country. It was he--thus already afoot--who led all the rest, catching up his lantern, which was still lighted, and clubbing his umbrella for a weapon as he ran, as much alarmed as any one of all those who were rushing to the rescue. A single kick from his great boot shattered the wooden bar and burst open the front door. The outcry continuing, led him and those who followed close upon his heels to the bedchamber. When he held up the lantern, there stood the little sisters, locked together in a death-grip and quite out of their senses with fright. Their gentle little hands, which had never touched one another nor any living creature save with kindness, were fiercely clutched in each other's gray hair, hooked like bird-claws through the shreds of their tattered nightcaps; their mild eyes, which had seen only love in all their tranquil lives, were still closed against the first horrors which they had ever encountered; their soft voices, which had never before been harsher than the cooing of doves, now shrilled by wordless terror, still pierced the roar of the tempest with ceaseless shrieking. Thus it was that all the horrified neighbors found them. The doctor never knew whether he was laughing or crying when he picked them both up--one on each arm--and put them to bed as though they had been his own babies.

Dear little Miss Judy! Poor little Miss Sophia! That night comes back to most of us with a smile that is tenderly close to tears.

XVII

LOVE'S AWAKENING

But there never was any open smiling over the events of that memorable night. Miss Judy herself regarded what had happened far too gravely to allow of its seeming trivial or amusing to any one else. Indeed, she so plainly shrank from all mention of it that it was rarely spoken of at all. Everybody saw how pale she turned whenever it was mentioned, and how she pressed her little hand to her heart. So that, as no one ever knowingly gave the little lady pain, the memory soon dropped into kind oblivion.

The only reminder of it was the more frequent pressure of Miss Judy's hand to her heart, which had always been a weak, soft, fluttering little thing, and a new paleness of her sweet face which merely made its delicate blushes more lovely. The shock had been very great, there could be no doubt of that, and there was not much likelihood of her forgetting it; but it was ever Miss Judy's way to put painful things behind her as quickly as possible, and to turn her face toward sweetness and peace as naturally as a flower turns toward the sunlight.

And she really was very happy during those first days following the fright. Her happiness always came at second hand, as perhaps the purest happiness always comes. She was happy because Doris was happy--young, beautiful, joyous, sparkling with health and spirits. Seeing this, Miss Judy found nothing lacking in her own life. And then she was so delightfully busy in building air-castles. She was, to be sure, nearly always busy in doing this, but she seemed now to have a firmer foundation to build upon than usually came within her reach. Doris and Lynn met at her house on these bright summer days, almost every day, and sometimes twice a day. Doris came at first oftener than she had ever come before, and stayed longer, on account of her own and her mother's anxiety about the effect of the shock upon Miss Judy's health. They knew how frail was the small tenement housing Miss Judy's quenchless spirit.

They almost held their breath for days after that unmentionable night.

The entire community, indeed, was alarmed; even old lady Gordon thought it worth while to send her grandson to see how Miss Judy was, and to warn him against saying why he came lest he frighten her. Finding Doris with Miss Judy, the young man naturally went again on the next day--and the next and the next--without being sent. Thus gradually it came about in the natural order of events that Doris and Lynn met daily in Miss Judy's house; that she saw them constantly together, and that her greatest, loveliest air-castle thus grew apace. Every day added to its height and its beauty, till its crystal minarets, towering through rainbow clouds, touched at last the sapphire key-stone of the arching heavens.

Doris and Lynn knew nothing of all this. They were merely drifting--as youth usually drifts--with the sweet summertide. In those glowing, fragrant days the season was at its greenest and sweetest. The crystalline freshness of spring still lingered in the dustless air, which was just beginning to gather the full fervor of the summer sunshine. Nature now was at her busiest, her kindest, and her cruelest--glad, blossoming, bewildering, alluring--wreathing her single relentless purpose with gayest flowers and most intoxicating perfume.

The vivid beauty of the full leaf.a.ge, gold-flecked by the glorious flood of sunlight, was not yet dimmed to the browning of a leaf's tip; every emerald blade of gra.s.s held its br.i.m.m.i.n.g measure of sap; the rank gra.s.s under foot, the thick foliage overhead, the earth and the air alike, teemed with life and pulsated with wings. And every living thing, seen or unseen, high or low, was being swept onward by the same resistless power toward the common altar. The lacelike white of the flowering elder covered the whole earth with a delicate bridal veil. Here, there, everywhere, floated the snowy foam of myriad blossoms--the crest of creation's tidal wave.