Phoebe Deane (26 page)

The fields behind Granny Me Vane's were very miry. Three times she fell, and the last time almost lay still, but some stirring of brain and conscience helped her up and on again, across the last hillock, over the last fence, through the garden and up to the back door of her home.

There was a light inside, but she was too far gone to think about it now. She tried to open the door but the latch was heavy and would not lift. She fumbled and almost gave it up, but then it was opened sharply by Emmeline with her hair in a hard knot, and old lines under her eyes.

She wore a wrapper over her night robe, and a blanket around her shoulders. Her feet were thrust into an old pair of Albert's carpet slippers. She held a candle high above her head, and looked out shrewdly into the night. It was plain she was just awake and fretted at the unusual disturbance.

" Fer pity's sake, Phoebe! Is that you ? Where on earth hev you ben? You've hed us all upside down huntin' fer yeh, an' Albert ain't got home yet. I toP him 'twas no use, you'd mos' likely gone in somewheres out o' the storm, an' you'd be home all right in the mornin', but it's just like your crazy ways to come home in the middle o' th' night. Fer goodness sake, what a sight yeh are! You ain't comin' in the house like that! Why, there'll be mud to clean fer a week. Stop there till I get some water an' a broom."

But Phoebe, with deathly white face, and eyes that saw not, stumbled past her without a word, the water and mud oozing out of her shoes at every step, and dripping from her garments; her sodden bonnet dejectedly upon her shoulders, her hair one long drenched mantle of darkness. Emme- line, half awed by the sight, stood still in the doorway and watched her go up stairs, realizing that the girl did not know what she was doing. Then she shut the door sharply as she had opened it, and followed Phoebe upstairs.

Phoebe held out until she reached her own door, and opened it. Then she sank without a sound upon the floor and lay there as if dead. All breath and consciousness had fluttered out, it seemed, with that last effort.

Emmeline set the candle down with a sudden, startled exclamation and went to her. She felt her hands so cold, like ice, and her face like wet marble, and hard as she was she was frightened. Her conscience, so long enjoying a vacation, leaped into new life and became active. What part had she borne in this that seemed as if it might yet be a tragedy ?

She unlaced the clodded shoes, untied the soaked bonnet, pulled off the wet garments one by one and wrapped the girl in thick warm blankets, dragging her light weight to the bed; but still no sign of consciousness had come. She felt her heart and listened for a breath, but she could not tell yet if she were alive or not. Then she went downstairs with hurried steps, flapping over the kitchen floor in the large carpet slippers, and stirred up the fire that had been banked down, putting the kettle over it to heat. In a little while she had plenty of hot water, and various remedies applied, but life seemed scarcely yet to have crept back to her, only a flutter of the eyelids now and then or a fleeting breath like a sigh. The dawn was coming on and Albert's voice in low strained tones could be heard outside:

" No, I'm not going to stop for anything to eat, Hiram, you may if you like, but I shall not stop till I find her. It's been a real bad night, an' to think of that little girl out in it, I can't bear it!" There seemed to be something like a sob in Albert's last words.

" Well, suit yerself," answered Hiram, gruffly. " I'm pretty well played out. I'll go home an' get a bite, an' then I'll come on an' meet yeh. You'll likely find her back at Woodbury's I reckon. She wanted to go back, I mind now. We'd ought to 'a' gone there in the first place."

The voices were under her window. Phoebe slowly opened her eyes and shuddering grasped Emmeline's hands so tightly that it hurt her.

" Oh, don't let him come; don't let him come!" she pleaded, and sank away into unconsciousness again.

It was a long time before they could rouse her, and when she finally opened her eyes she did not know them. A fierce and terrible fever had flamed up in her veins, till her face was brilliant with color, and her long dark hair was scorched dry again in its fires.

Granny McVane came quietly over the next day and offered to nurse her. Then the long blank days of fever stretched themselves out for the unconscious girl, and a fight between life and death began.

Now, it happened that on that very afternoon of the barn- raising, Mistress Janet Bristol, in all the bravery of her pink and white frills and furbelows, with a bunch of pink moss-roses at her breast, and her haughtiest air, drove over to the Deanes to call upon Phoebe, in long-delayed response to her cousin Nathaniel's most cousinly letter requesting her to do so. She had parleyed long with herself whether she would go or not, but at last curiosity to see what there was in this country girl to attract her handsome, brilliant cousin, led her to go.

One can scarcely conjecture what Emmeline would have said and thought if she had seen the grand carriage drive up before her door, with its colored coachman and footman in livery. But no one was at home to tell the tale save the white lilacs on the great bush near the front gate, who waved a welcome rich with fragrance. Perhaps they sent the essence of the welcome Phoebe would have gladly given to this favored girl whom she admired.

So half petulant at this reception when she had condescended to come, she scanned the house for some trace of the life of this unknown girl, and drove away with the memory of lilac fragrance floating about a dull and commonplace house. She drove away half determined she would tell her cousin she had done her best, and would not go again. There was no sign left behind to tell this other girl of the lost call. It is doubtful, if Janet had been able to carry out her purpose that afternoon and make her call upon Phoebe, whether either of the two would have been able to find and understand the other at that time.

Janet drove back to her own world again, and the door between the two closed. That very evening's mail brought a brief letter from Nathaniel, saying his dear friend and chum, Martin Van Rensselaer, would be coming North now in a few days, and he desired Janet to invite him to spend a little time in the old home. He would try and arrange to get away from his work and run up for a few days, and they would all have a good time together. So while this other girl, whose unsheltered life had been so full of sorrow, was plodding her way through the darkness and rain alone in the night with fear, Janet Bristol sat in her stately parlor, where a bright hearth-fire cast rosy lights over her white frock, and planned pretty wiles for the beguiling of the young theologian.

CHAPTER XX

Miranda was out in the flower-bed by the side gate. She had gathered her hands full of spicy grey-green Southern wood and was standing by the fence looking wistfully down the street. The afternoon coach was in and she was idly watching to see who came in it, but not with her usual vim. The specter of the shadow of death was hovering too near to Phoebe for Miranda to take much interest in things in general.

Three days after Phoebe's midnight walk Miranda had gone out to see her and bring her down to take tea with Mrs. Spafford. What was her dismay to find that she was refused admittance, and that too very shortly.

" Phoebe's sick abed! " snapped Emmeline. She had been tried beyond measure over all the extra work that was thrown on her hands by Phoebe's illness, and she had no time for buttered words. " No, she can't see you to-day nor next day. She's got a fever an' she don't know nobody. The doctor says she mus' be kep' quiet. No, I can't tell yeh how she got it. The land only knows! Ef she ever gits well mebbe she ken tell herself, but I doubt it. She'll uv forgot by that time. What she does know she forgets mostly. No, you can't go an' take care of her. She's got folks 'nough to do that now, more'n she needs. There ain't a livin' thing to do but let her alone till she comes out of it. You don't suppose you c'd take care o' her, do yeh? II'm! Wai, I ain't got time to talk," and the door was shut in her face.

Miranda, however, was not to be turned aside thus easily. With real concern in her face she marched around the woodshed to the place under the little window of the kitchen chamber that she knew was Phoebe's room.

"Phoebe!" she called, softly; "Phoe-bee!"

And the sick girl tossing on her bed of fever called wildly, " Don't you hear that Phoebe-bird calling, mother! Oh, mother! It's calling me from the top of the barn. It says, ' Phoebe, I'm here! Don't be afraid!' " and the voice trailed off into incoherence again.

Granny McVane hobbled to the window, perplexed, for she too had heard the soft sound.

" Oh, is that you, Granny ? " whispered Miranda. " Say, what's the matter with Phoebe ? Is she bad ? "

" Yes, real bad," whispered back Granny. " She don't know a soul, poor little thing. She thinks her mother's here with her. I don't know much about how it happened. There was an accident and the horse ran away. She was out in that awful storm the other night. She's calling and I must go back to her."

In much dismay Miranda had hurried back to the village. She besieged the doctor's house until he came home, and could get only gravity and shakings of the head. " She may pull

through, she may " the old doctor would say, doubtfully.

" She's young and strong, and it might be—but there's been a great shock to the system, and she doesn't respond to my medicines. I can't tell."

Every day the story was the same, though David and Marcia had gone themselves; and though Miranda travelled the mile-and-a-half every afternoon after her work was done, out to the Deane farm, there had been no change. The fever raged on, nor stayed one whit in its course. The faithful heart of Miranda was as near to discouragement as it had ever come in its dauntless life.

And now this afternoon she had just returned from a particularly fruitless journey to* the farm. She had been unable to get sight or sound of any one but Emmeline, who slammed the door in her face as usual after telling her she wished she would mind her own business and let folks alone that weren't troubling her, and Miranda felt as she trudged back to the village with tears in her homely eyes, as if she must cry out or do something. She had never quite come to a place before where her wits could not plan out some help for those she loved. Death was different. One could not outwit death.

Then, like a slowly dawning hope, she saw Nathaniel Graham coming up the street with his carpet-bag in his hand.

Nathaniel had come up for a day to tell his uncle and cousin all about this dear friend of his whom he so much desired to have made welcome for a week or two for his sake. He had been made junior partner in a law firm, the senior partner being an old friend of Judge Bristol's, and his work would be strenuous, else he would probably have planned to be at the old home all summer himself. As it was, he could hope for but a few days now and then when he could be spared.

Nathaniel came to a halt with his pleasant smile as he recognized Miranda.

" How do you do, Miss Miranda ? Are all your folks well? Are Mr. and Mrs. Spafford at home? I must try to run over and see them before I go back. I'm only here on a brief visit, must return to-morrow? How is the place getting on? All the old friends just the same? Do you ever see Miss Deane? She's well, I hope."

Nathaniel was running through these sentences pleasantly, as one will who has been away from a town for a time, and he did not note the replies carefully, as he thought he knew pretty well what they would be, having heard from home but a day or two before. He was just going on when something deep and different in Miranda's tone and clouded eyes made him pause and listen:

" No, she ain't well, Phoebe Deane ain't. She's way down sick, an' they don't nobody think she's goin' to get well, I'm sure o' that!" Then the unexpected happened. Two big tears welled up and rolled down the two dauntless, freckled cheeks. Nobody had ever seen Miranda Griscom cry before.

A sudden nameless fear gripped Nathaniel's heart. Phoebe Deane sick! Near to death! All at once the day seemed to have clouded over for him.

" Tell me, Miranda," he said, gently, " she is my friend, too, I think. I did not know—I had not heard. Has she been ill long? What was the cause?"

" 'Bout two weeks," said Miranda, mopping her face with the corner of her clean apron, " an' I can't find out what made her sick, but it's my 'pinion she's bein' tormented to death by that long-legged blatherskite of a Hiram Green. He ain't nothin' but a big bully, fer he's really a coward at heart, an' what's more, folks 'll find it out some day ef I don't miss my guess. But he ken git up the low-downdest, pin-prickenist, soul-shakenest tormentin's that ever a saint hed to bear. An' ef Phcebe Deane ain't a saint I don't know who is 'cept my Mis' Spafford. Them two 's ez much alike 's two pease—sweet-pease, I mean, pink an' white ones in blow."

Nathaniel warmed to Miranda's eloquence and kindled to her poetry. He felt that here was something that must be investigated.

" I believe that man is a scoundrel!" said Nathaniel, earnestly. " Do you say he really dares to annoy Miss Deane?"

" Well, I rather guess you'd think so! She can't stir without he's at her side, tendin' like he b'longs there. She can't bear the sight o' him, an' he struts up to her at the church door like he owned her, an' ef 'twant fer me an Eose an' Mis' Spafford she couldn't get red of 'im. She can't go to the post-office any more 'thout he hants the very road, though she's told him up 'n down she won't hev a thing to do 'ith him. I hev to go after her an' take her home when she comes to see us, fear he'll dog her steps, an' he's scared her most to death twice now, chasin' after her, once at night when she was comin' down to your house to bring some letter she'd found."