Phoebe Deane (5 page)

Hiram brightened. If Phoebe had taken interest in his affairs to say all this surely she was not so indifferent after all.

" You don't say! " said Hiram, meditatively. " When did she say that?"

" Just to-day," Emmeline answered.

"Well, if that's the hitch why didn't she say so? She didn't seem shy."

" Maybe she was waitin' for you to ask her what she wanted."

" Well, she didn't wait long. She lit out before I had a chance to half talk things over."

" She's young yet, you know," said Emmeline, in a soothing tone. " Young folks take queer notions. I shouldn't wonder but she hates to go to that house and live way back from the road that way. She ain't much more than a child, anyway, in some things—though she's first class to work."

"Well," said Hiram, reluctantly, "I been thinkin' the house needed fixin' up some. I don't know as I should object to buildin' all new. The old house would come in handy fer the men. Bill would like to have his ma come and keep house right well. It would help me out in one way, for Bill is gettin' uneasy, and I'd rather spare any man I've got than Bill, he works so steady and good. Say, you might mention to Phoebe, if you like, that I'm thinkin' of buildin' a new house. Say I'd thought of the knoll for a location. Think that would ease her up a little?"

"All right, I'll see what can be done," said Emmeline, importantly.

The atmosphere of the kitchen brightened cheerfully as if extra candles had been brought in. Hiram, with the air of having settled to his satisfaction a troublesome bit of business, lighted his pipe and tilted his chair back in bis accustomed fashion, entering into a brisk discussion of politics while Emmeline set the sponge for bread.

Emmeline was going over the line of argument with which she intended to ply Phoebe the next day. She felt triumphant over her. Not every woman and match-maker would have had the grit to tell Hiram just what was wanted. Emmeline felt that she had been entrusted with a commission worthy of her best efforts, and surely Phoebe would listen now.

Up in her kitchen chamber the hum of their conversation came to Phoebe, as she sat with burning cheeks looking widely into the darkness. She did not hear the nightly symphony as it sang on all about the house. She was thinking of what she had been through, and wondering if she had finally freed herself from the hateful attentions of Hiram Green. Would he take her answer as final, or not? She thought not, judging from his nature. He was one of those men who never give up what they have set themselves to get, be it sunny pasture lot, young heifer, or pretty wife. She shuddered at the thought of many more encounters such as she had passed through to-night. It was all dreadful to her. It touched a side of life that jarred her inexpressibly. It made the world seem an intolerable place to her.

She fell to wondering what her life would have been if her mother had lived—a quiet little home, of course, plain and sweet and cozy, with plenty of hard work, but always some one to sympathize. Her frail little mother had not been able to stand the rough world and the hard work, but she had left behind her a memory of gentleness and refinement that could never be wholly crushed out of her young daughter's heart, no matter how much she came in contact with the coarse, rude world. Often the girl in her silent meditations would take her mother into her thoughts and tell her all that had passed in her life that day. But to-night she felt that were her mother here, and helpless to help her, she could not bear to tell her of this torturing experience through which she was passing. She knew instinctively that a living mother such as hers had been would shrink with horror from the thought of seeing her child united to a man like Hiram Green—would rather see her dead than married to him.

Somehow she could not get the comfort from thinking of her mother to-night that she usually could. She wanted some close, tangible help, some one all-wise and powerful; some one that could tell what life meant, and what God meant her particular life to be, and make her sure she was right in her fierce recoil from what life now seemed to be offering. She felt sure she was right, yet she wanted another to say so also, to take her part against the world that was troubling her. There were perhaps people who could do that for her if she only dared to go to them, but what would they think!

Her young pride arose and bore her up. She must tell nobody but God. And so thinking, she knelt timidly down and tried to pour out her proud, hurt spirit in a prayer. She had always prayed, but had never felt that it meant anything to her until to-night; and when she arose, not knowing what she had asked, or if indeed she had asked anything for herself, she yet felt stronger to face her life, which somehow stretched out ahead in one blank of monotonous tortures.

Meantime the man who desired to have her, and the woman who desired to have him have her, were forming their plans for a regular campaign against her.

CHAPTER IV

It was the first day of October, and it was Phoebe's birthday. The sun shone clear and high, the sky overhead was a dazzling blue, and the air was good to breathe. Off in the distance a blue haze lay softly over the horizon, mingling the crimsons and golds of the autumn foliage with the fading greens. It was a perfect day, and Phoebe was out in it.

She walked rapidly and with a purpose, as though it did her good to push the road back under her impatient feet. She was not walking towards the village, but out into the open country, past the farm, where presently the road turned and skirted a maple grove. But she did not pause here, though she dearly loved the crimson maple leaves that carpeted the ground alluringly. On she went, as though her only object was to get away, as though she would like to run if there were not danger she might be seen.

A farm wagon was coming. She strained her eyes ahead to see who was driving. If it should happen to be Hank, and he should stop to talk! Oh! She put her hand on her heart and hurried forward, for she would not go back. She wished she had worn her sunbonnet, for then she might hide her in its depths, but her coming away had been too sudden for that. She had merely untied her large apron, and flung it from her as she started. Even now she knew not whether it hung upon the chair where she had been sitting shelling dried beans, or whether it adorned the rosebush by the kitchen door. She had not looked back to see, and did not care.

No one knew it was her birthday, or, if they knew, they had not remembered. Perhaps that made it harder to stay and shell beans and bear Emmeline's talk.

Matters had been going on in much the way they had gone all summer—that is, outwardly; Hiram Green had spent the evenings regularly talking with Albert, while Emmeline darned stockings, and Phoebe escaped upstairs when she could, and sewed with her back turned to the guest when she could not. Phoebe had taken diligent care that Hiram, should have no more tete-a-tetes with her, even at the expense of having to spend many evenings in her dark room when all outdoors was calling her with the tender lovely sounds of the dying summer. Grimly and silently she went through the days of work.

Emmeline, since the morning she attempted to discuss Hiram's proposed new house and found Phoebe utterly unresponsive, had held her peace. Not that she was by any means vanquished, but as she made so little headway in talking to the girl she concluded that it would be well to let her alone awhile. In fact Albert had advised that line of action in his easy, kindly way, and Emmeline, partly because she did not know how else to move her sister-in-law, shut her lips and went around with an air of offended dignity. She spoke disagreeably whenever it was necessary to speak at all to Phoebe, and whenever the girl came downstairs in other than her working garments she looked her disapproval in unspeakable volumes.

Phoebe went about her daily routine without noticing, much as a bird might whose plumage was being criticised. She could not help putting herself in dainty array, even though the materials at hand might be only a hair brush and a bit of ribbon. Her hair was always waving about her lovely face, softly, and smoothly, and a tiny rim of white collar outlined the throat, even in her homespun morning gown, which sat upon her like a young queen's garment.

It was all hateful to Emmeline—"impudent," she styled it, in speaking to herself. She had tried the phrase once in a confidence to Albert—for Phoebe was only a half sister; why should Albert care ?—but somehow Albert had not understood. He had almost resented it. He said he thought Phoebe always looked " real neat and pretty " and he " liked to see her round." This had fired Emmeline's jealousy, although she would not have owned it. Albert made so many remarks of this sort that Emmeline felt they would spoil his sister and make her unbearable to live with. Albert used to talk like that to her when they were first married, but she told him it was silly for married people to say such things, and he never gave her any more compliments. She had not missed them herself, but it was another thing to find him speaking that way about his sister—so foolish for a grown-up man to care about looks.

But Emmeline continued to meditate upon Phoebe’s " impudent" attire, until this afternoon of her birthday the thoughts had culminated in words.

Phoebe had gone upstairs after the dinner work was done, and had come down arrayed in a gown that Emmeline had never seen. It was of soft buff merino, trimmed with narrow lines of brown velvet ribbon, and a bit of the same velvet around the white throat held a small plain gold locket that nestled in the white hollow of Phoebe's neck as if it loved to be there. The brown hair was dressed in its usual way except for a knot of brown velvet. It was a simple girlish costume, and Phoebe wore it with the same easy grace she wore her homespun, which made it doubly annoying to Emmeline, who felt that Phoebe had no right to act as if she was doing nothing unusual.

Years ago when the child Phoebe had come to live with them she had brought with her some boxes and trunks, and a few pieces of furniture for her own room. They were things of her mother's which she wished to keep. Emmeline had gone carefully over the collection with ruthless hand and critical tongue, casting out what she considered useless, laying aside what she considered unfit for present use, and freely commenting upon all she saw. Phoebe, fresh from her mother's grave, and the memory of that mother's living words, had stood by in stony silence, holding back by main force the angry tears that tried to get their way, and letting none of the storm of passion that surged through her heart be seen. But when Emmeline had reached the large hair- covered trunk and demanded the key, Phoebe had quietly dropped the string that held it round her neck inside her dress, where it lay cold against her little sorrowful heart, and answered decidedly:

" You needn't open that, Emmeline; it holds my mother's dresses that she has put away for me when I grow up."

" Nonsense! " Emmeline had answered, sharply. " I think I'm the best judge of whether it needs to be opened or not. Give me the key at once. I guess I'm not going to have things in my house that I don't know anything about. I've got to see that they are packed away from moth."

Phoebe's lips had trembled, but she continued to talk steadily:

" It is not necessary, Emmeline. My mother packed them all away carefully in lavender and rosemary for me. She did not wish them opened till I got ready to open them myself. I do not want them opened."

Emmeline had been very angry at that, and told the little girl she would not have any such talk around her, and demanded the key at once, but Phoebe said:

" I have told you it is not necessary. These are my things and I will not have any more of them opened, and I will not give you the key."

That was open rebellion and Emmeline carried her in high dudgeon to Albert. Albert had looked at the pitiful little face with its pleading eyes under which dark circles sat mournfully, and—sided with Phoebe. He said that Phoebe was right, the things were hers, and he did not see for his part why Emmeline wanted to open them. From that hour Emmeline had hard work to tolerate her little half-sister- in-law, and the enmity between them had never grown less. Little did Phoebe know, whenever she wore one of the frocks from that unopened trunk, how she roused her sister-in-law's wrath.

The trunk had been stored in the deep closet in Phoebe's room, and the key had never left its resting-place against her heart, night or day. Sometimes Phoebe had unlocked it in the still hours of the early summer mornings when no one else was stirring, and had looked long and lovingly at the garments folded within. It was there she kept the daguerreotype of the mother who was the idol of her child heart. Her father she could not remember, as he died when she was but a year old. In the depths of that trunk were laid several large packages, labeled. The mother had told her about them before she died, and with her own hand had placed the boxes in the bottom of the trunk. The upper one was labeled, " For my dear daughter Phoebe Deane on her eighteenth birthday."

For several days before her birthday Phoebe had felt an undertone of excitement. It was almost time to open the box which had been laid there over eight years ago by that beloved hand. Phoebe did not know what was in that box, but she knew it was something her mother put there for her. It contained her mother's thought for her grown-up daughter. It was like a voice from the grave. It thrilled her to think of it.

On her birthday morning she had awakened with the light, and slipping out of bed had applied the little black key to the keyhole. Her fingers trembled as she turned the lock, and opened the lid, softly lest she should wake some one. She wanted this holy gift all to herself now, this moment when her soul would touch again the soul of the lost mother.