Phoebe Deane (35 page)

She looked at him with piteous pleading in her beautiful eyes, and he had to turn his own eyes away to hide their wavering. He could not see how this sweet girl could have gone wrong, and yet—there was the evidence!

" You do," said Phoebe. " Albert, you do! You believe all this awful story about me! I never thought you would believe it. But Albert, listen! I will never marry Hiram Green! You may kill me or send me away, or anything you like, but you cannot make me marry him!"

Albert turned his eyes away from the pitiful figure of the pleading girl and set his lips firmly.

" I'm sorry Phoebe, but it's got to be done," he said, sorrowfully. " I can't have this talk go on. I'll give you a little more time to get used to it, but you can't have much, for this story has got to be stopped. We'll say a week. One week from to-day you'll have to marry Hiram Green, or I'll be forced to turn you out of my house. And you know what that means. I couldn't allow any respectable person to harbor you. You've disgraced us all. But if you marry Hiram it'll be all right presently. Marriage covers up gossip. Why, Phoebe, think of my little girl Alma. If this goes on everybody'll point their fingers at her and say her auntie was a bad girl and brought dishonor on the family, and Alma'll grow up without any friends. I've got to look out for my little girl as well as you, Phoebe, and you must believe me, I'm doing the very best for you I know."

Phoebe sat down weakly on the edge of her bed and stared wildly at him. She could not believe that Albert would talk to her so. She could not think of anything to say in answer. She could only stare blankly at him as if he were a terrible apparition.

Albert thought she was quieting down and going to be reasonable, and with a few kind words he backed out of the room. Phoebe dropped back upon her pillow in a frenzy of horror and grief. Wild plans of running away rushed through her brain, which was after all utterly futile, because her limbs seemed suddenly to have grown too feeble to carry her. Her brain refused to think, or to take in any facts except the great horror of scandal that had risen about her and was threatening to overwhelm her.

Emmeline declined to take any dinner up to her. She said if Phoebe wanted anything to eat she might come down and get it, she wasn't going to wait on a girl like that any longer. Albert fixed a nice plate of dinner and carried it up, but Phoebe lay motionless with open eyes turned toward the wall and refused to speak. He put the plate on a chair beside her and went sadly down again. Phoebe wondered how long it would take one to die, and why God had not let her die when she had the fever. What had there been to live for, anyway? One short bright month of happiness!

The memory of it gripped her heart anew with shame and horror. What would they say, all those kind friends? Mrs. Spafford and her husband, Miranda, and Nathaniel Graham ? Would they believe it, too? Of course they would, if her own household turned against her. She was defenseless in a desolate world. She would never more have friends and smiles and comfort. She could not go away to school now, for what good would an education be to her with such a disgrace clinging to her name and following her wherever she went? It would be of no use to run away. She might better stay here and die. They could not marry her to Hiram Green if she was dead. Could one die in a week by just lying still?

So the horror in her brain raged over and over, each time bringing some new phase of grief. And now it was a question if her friends would desert her; and now it was the haughty expression on Janet Bristol's face that day she carried the letter to Nathaniel; and now it was the leer on Hiram's face as he put his arm about her on that terrible drive; and now it was the thought that she would have no more of Nathaniel's long, delightful letters.

All day long she lay in this state, and when the darkness fell a half delirious sleep came upon her, which carried the fears and thoughts of the day into its unresting slumber. The morning broke into the sorrow of yesterday, and Phoebe, weak and sick, arose with one thought in her mind; that she must write at once to Nathaniel Graham and tell him all. She must not be a disgrace to him.

With trembling hands, and eyes filled with tears, she wrote:

" Dear Mr. Graham :

" I am writing to you for the last time. A terrible thing has happened. Some one has been telling awful stories about me and I am in disgrace. I want you to know that these things are not true. I do not even know how they started, for there has never been any foundation for them. But everybody believes them, and I will not disgrace you by writing to you any more. You will probably be told the worst that is said, and perhaps you will believe them as others do. I shall not blame you if you do, for it seems as if even God believed them. I do not know how to prove my innocence, nor what the end of this is to be. I only know that it is not right to keep you in ignorance of my shame, and to let you write any longer to one whose name is held in dishonor. I thank you for all the beautiful times you have put into my life, and I must say good-by forever. "

Gratefully,

" Phoebe Deane."

The letter was blistered with tears before it was finished. She addressed it and hid it in her frock, for she began to wonder how it would get to the mail. Probably Miranda would never come near her again, and she could not be seen in the village. She dared not ask any one else to mail the letter lest it would never reach its destination.

She spent the rest of the day in quietly putting to rights her little belongings, unpacking and gathering together things she would like to have destroyed if anything should happen to her. She felt weak and dizzy, and the food that Albert continued to bring her seemed nauseous. She could not bring herself to taste a mouthful. It was so useless to eat. One only ate to live, and living had been finished for her, it appeared. It was not that she had resolved to make away with herself by starvation. She was too right-minded for that. She was simply stunned by the calamity that had befallen her, and was waiting for the outcome.

Sometimes as she stood at the window looking out across the fields which had been familiar to her since her childhood she had a feeling that she was going away from them all soon. She wondered if it meant that she was going to die. She wondered if her mother felt so before she died. Then she wondered why she did not run away; but always when she thought that, something seemed holding her back, for how could she run far when she could not keep up about her room but a few minutes at a time for dizziness and faintness! And how could she run fast enough to run away from shame? It could not be done. Whenever in her dreams she started to run away she always stumbled and fell and then seemed suddenly struck blind and unable to move further; and all the village came crowding about her and mocking her like a great company of cawing crows met around a poor dead thing.

Late Tuesday afternoon Miranda came out to see her. Emmeline opened the door and her countenance grew black when she recognized the visitor.

" Now, you ken just turn right around and march home," she commanded. " We don't want no folks around. Phcsbe Deane's in tumble disgrace, an' you've hed your part in it ef I don't miss my guess. No, you ain't goin' to see her. She's up in her room, and ben shut up there ever since she heard how folks hes found out 'bout her capers. You an' yer Mis' Spafford can keep yer pryin' meddlin' fingers out o' this an' let Phoebe Deane alone from now on. We don't want to see yeh any more. Yer spoilin' an pettin' has only hastened the disgrace."

The door slammed in Miranda's indignant face and Emmeline went back to her work.

" She needs a good shakin'," remarked Miranda, indignantly to herself, " but it might tire me, an' besides I've got other fish to fry."

Undaunted she marched to the back shed and mounted to Phoebe's window, entering as if it had been always the common mode of ingress.

" Wai, fer the land, Phoebe Deane, what's ben a happenin' now ? " she asked, mildly, surveying Phoebe, who lay white and weak upon her bed, with her untasted dinner beside her.

" Oh, don't you know all about it, Miranda ? " Phoebe began to sob.

" No, I don't know a thing. I ben shet up in the house cookin' fer two men Mr. David brung home last night, an they et an' et till I thought there wouldn't be nothin' left fer the family. They was railroad men er somthin'. No, 1 guess 'twas bankin' men. I fergit what. But they could eat if they did wear their best clothes every day. But say, ef I was you, I wouldn't talk very loud fer the lady down stairs wasn't real glad to see me this time, an' she might invite me to leave rather suddint ef she 'spicioned I was up here."

But Phoebe did not laugh as Miranda had hoped. She only looked at her guest with hungry, hopeless eyes, and it was a long time before Miranda could find out the whole miserable story.

" And Miranda, I've written Mr. Graham a note telling him about it. Of course I couldn't disgrace him by continuing to write any longer, so I've said good-by to him. Will you do me one last kindness? Will you mail it for me ?" Phoebe’s whisper was tragic. It brought tears to Miranda's well-fortified eyes.

"'Course I'll mail it fer yeh, child, ef yeh want me to, but 'tein't the last kindness I'll do fer yeh by a long run. Shucks! D'you think I'm goin' to give in this easy an' see you sucked under? Not by a jugful. Now look-a-here, child; ef the hull fool world goes against yeh, I ain't a goin', ner my Mrs. Marcia ain't, neither, I'm plumb sure o' that. But ef she did I'd stick anyhow, so there! Cross my heart ef I don't! Now. D'yeh b'lieve me ? An' I'll find a way out o' this, somehow. I ain't thought it out yet, but don't you worry. You set up 'n' eat that there piece o' bread an' butter. Never mind ef yeh don't feel like it, you eat it fer me. I can't do nothin' ef yeh don't keep yer strength up. Now you do your part an' we'll get out o' this pickle es good es we did out o' the other one. I ain't goin' to hev all my nursin' wasted. Will yeh be good?"

Phoebe promised meekly. She could not smile. She could only press Miranda's hand, while great tears welled through the long lashes on her cheeks.

" So that old serpent thinks he's got you fast, does he ? Well, he'll find himself mistaken yet, ef I don't miss my guess. The game ain't all played out by a long shot. Marry you next week, will he? Well, we'll see! I may dance at your weddin' yet, but there won't be no Hiram Green as bridegroom. I'd marry him myself 'fore I'd let him hev you, you poor little white dove." And Miranda pressed a great impulsive kiss upon Phoebe's white lips and stole out of the window.

As she hurried along down the road the waving grain in the fields on either side reminded her of whispered gossip. She seemed to see a harvest of scandal ripening all about the poor stricken girl whom she loved, and in her ignorant and original phraseology she murmured to herself the thought of the words of old, " Lo, an enemy hath done this." Miranda felt that she knew pretty well who the enemy was.

CHAPTER XXVII

" I Hev a notion I'd like to go to New York," said Miranda, bouncing in on Marcia.

" Well," said Marcia, " I think you would enjoy the trip sometime. We might keep a lookout for somebody going who would be company. Or perhaps Mr. Spafford will be going again soon and he would have time to look after you."

" 'Fraid I can't wait that long," said Miranda. " I've took a great notion I'd like to have a balzarine frock, an' ef I'm goin' to hev it I'd best get it straight off an' git more good out of it. I look at it this way. I ain't goin' to be young but once, an' time 's gettin' on. Ef you don't get balzarine frocks when you're young you most likely won't git 'em 't all, 'cause you'll think 'tain't wuth while. I've got a good bit of money laid by, an' ef you've no 'bjections, an' think you ken spare me fer a couple o' days I think I'd like to go down to New York an' git it. I don't need no lookin' after, so you needn't worry 'bout that. Nobody steals me, an' es long es I got a tongue I ken ast my way 'round New York es well es I can 'round Fundy er any other place."

"Why, of course I can spare you, Miranda, and I suppose you'd be perfectly safe, only I thought you'd enjoy it more if you had good company. When did you think you'd like to go?"

" Well, I've been plannin' it all out comin' up the street. I've baked, an' washed, an' the sweepin' ain't much to do. Ef you don't mind I think I'll go to-morrer mornin'."

" What in the world makes you want to go in such a hurry?"

" Oh, I've just took the notion," said Miranda, smiling. " Maybe I'll tell yeh when I get back. I shan't be gone more'n a year."

Mania was a little worried at this sudden turn of affairs. It was not like Miranda to hide things from her. Yet she had such confidence in her that she finally settled down to the thought that it was only a whim and perhaps a good night's sleep would overcome it. But the next morning she found the table fully set for breakfast, and the meal prepared and keeping warm. Beside her plate a scrawled note lay:

" Mrs. Marcia, deer. I'll liklie be bak tomorer nite er next, but donte worrie. I got biznes to tend to an I'll tel you bout it wen i get home.

" yours til deth, respectfuly,

" Miranda Griscom.

" P. S. you mite praye ef your a mind. Tak keer uf Feby ef I dont git bak."

Before Marcia could get time to run up and see Phoebe, for she somehow felt that Miranda's sudden departure to New York had to do with her visit to Phoebe the day before, Miss Hortense arrived, with her most commandatory air.

" Marcia, I came on a very especial errand," she began, primly. " I was down on Monday, but you were away." There was reproach in the tone.