A Spinner in the Sun Part 2

"Barnaby lives with a dog and does for himself, but he's hardly ever in his store. People go there to buy things and find the door propped open with a brick, and a sign says to come in and take what you want.

The price of everything is marked good and plain, and another sign says to put the money in the drawer and make your own change. The blacksmith was at him for doing business so s.h.i.+ftless, and Barnaby laughed and said that if anybody wanted anything he had bad enough to steal it, whoever it was, he was good and welcome to it. That just shows how crazy he is. Most of the time he's roaming around the country, with his yellow dog at his heels, making outlandish noises on some kind of a flute. He can't play a tune, but he keeps trying.

Folks around here call him Piper Tom.

"Of course I wouldn't want Mrs. Allen to know, but I've thought that sometime when he was away and there was n.o.body there to see, I'd just step in for a few minutes and take a look at his goods. Elmiry Jones says his calico is beautiful, and that for her part, she's going to trade there instead of at Allen's. I suppose it is a temptation. I might do it myself, if 't want for my principles."

The speaker paused for breath, but Miss Evelina still sat silently in her chair. "What was it?" thought Miss. .h.i.tty. "I was here, and I knew at the time, but what happened? How did I come to forget? I must be getting old!"

She searched her memory without result. Her house was situated at the crossroads, and, being on higher ground, commanded a good view of the village below. Gradually, her dooryard had become a sort of clearing house for neighbourhood gossip. Travellers going and coming stopped at Miss. .h.i.tty's to drink from the moss-grown well, give their bit of news, and receive, in return, the scandal of the countryside. Had it not been for the faithful and industrious Miss Mehitable, the town might have needed a daily paper.

"Strange I can't think," she said to herself. "I don't doubt it'll come to me, though. Something happened to Evelina, and she went away, and her mother went with her to take care of her, and then her mother died, all at once, of heart failure. It happened the same week old Mis' Hicks had a doctor from the city for an operation, and the Millerses barn was struck by lightning and burnt up, and so I s'pose it's no wonder I've sorter lost track of it."

Miss Evelina's veiled face was wholly averted now, and Miss. .h.i.tty studied her shrewdly. She noted that the black gown was well-worn, and had, indeed, been patched in several places. The shoes which tapped impatiently on the floor were undeniably shabby, though they had been carefully blacked. Against the unrelieved sombreness of her gown.

Miss Evelina's hands were singularly frail and transparent. Every line of her body was eloquent of weakness and well-nigh insupportable grief.

"Well," said Miss. .h.i.tty, again, though she felt that the words were flat; "I'm glad you've come back. It seems like old times for us to be settin' here, talkin', and--" here she laughed shrilly--"we've both been spared marriage."

A small, slender hand clutched convulsively at the arm of the haircloth chair, but Miss Evelina did not speak.

"I see," went on Miss. .h.i.tty, not unkindly, "that you're still in mourning for your mother. You mustn't take it so hard. Sometimes folks get to feeling so sorry about something that they can't never get over it, and they keep on going round and round all the time like a squirrel in a wheel, and keep on getting weaker till it gets to be a kind of disease there ain't no cure for. Leastwise, that's what Doctor Dexter says."

"Doctor Dexter!" With a cry, Miss Evelina sprang to her feet, her hands tightly pressed to her heart.

"The same," nodded Miss. .h.i.tty, overjoyed to discover that at last her hostess was interested. "Doctor Anthony Dexter, our old schoolmate, as had just graduated when you lived here before. He went away for a year and then he came back, bringing a pretty young wife. She's dead, but he has a son, Ralph, who's away studying to be a doctor. He'll graduate this Spring and then he's coming here to help his father with his practice. Doctor Dexter's getting old, like the rest of us, and he don't like the night work. Some folks is inconsiderate enough to get sick in the night. They orter have regular hours for it, same as a doctor has hours for business. Things would fit better.

"Well, I must be going, for I left soup on the stove, and Araminta's likely as not to let it burn. I'm going to send your supper over to you, and next week, if the weather's favourable, we'll clean this house. Goodness knows it needs it. I'd just as soon send over all your meals till you get settled--'t wouldn't be any trouble. Or, you can come over to my house if you wouldn't mind eating with the minister. It seems queer to set down to the table with a man, and not altogether natural, but I'm beginning to get used to it, and it gives us the advantage of a blessing, and, anyway, ministers don't count.

Come over when you can. Goodbye!"

With a rustle of stiffly starched garments Miss Mehitable took her departure, carefully closing the door and avoiding the appearance of haste. This was an effort, for every fibre of her being ached to get back to the clearing house, where she might speculate upon Evelina's return. It was her desire, also, to hunt up the oldest inhabitant before nightfall and correct her pitiful lapse of memory.

At the same time, she was planning to send Araminta over with a nice hot supper, for Miss Evelina seemed to be far from strong, and, even to one lacking in discernment, acutely unhappy.

Down the road she went, her head bowed in deep and fruitless thought.

Swiftly, as in a lightning flash, and without premonition, she remembered.

"Evelina was burnt," she said to herself, triumphantly, "over to Doctor Dexter's, and they took her on the train to the hospital. I guess she wears that veil all the time."

Then Miss. .h.i.tty stopped at her own gate, catching her breath quickly.

"She must have been burnt awful," she thought. "Poor soul!" she murmured, her sharp eyes softening with tears. "Poor soul!"

III

The Pearls

A rap at the door roused Miss Evelina from a deadly stupor which seemed stabbed through with daggers of pain. She sat quite still, determined not to open the door. Presently, she heard the sound of retreating footsteps, and was rea.s.sured. Then she saw a bit of folded paper which had been slipped under the door, and, mechanically, she picked it up.

"Here's your supper," the note read, briefly. "When you get done, leave the tray outside. I'll come and get it. I would like to have you come over if you want to.--Mehitable Smith."

Touched by the unexpected kindness, Miss Evelina took in the tray.

There was a bowl of soup, steaming hot, a baked potato, a bit of thin steak, fried, in country fas.h.i.+on, two crisp, b.u.t.tered rolls, and a pot of tea. Faint and sick of heart, she pushed it aside, then in simple justice to Miss. .h.i.tty, tasted of the soup. A little later, she put the tray out on the doorstep again, having eaten as she had not eaten for months.

She considered the chain of circ.u.mstances that had led her back to Rushton. First, the knowledge that Doctor Dexter had left the place for good. She had heard of that, long ago, but, until now, no one had told her that he had returned. She had thought it impossible for him ever to return--even to think of it again,

Otherwise--here the thread of her thought snapped, and she clutched at the vial of laudanum which, as always, was in the bag at her belt. She perceived that the way of escape was closed to her. Broken in spirit though she was, she was yet too proud to die like a dog at Anthony Dexter's door, even after five-and-twenty years.

Bitterest need alone had driven her to take the step which she so keenly regretted now. The death of her mother, hastened by misfortune, had left her with a small but certain income, paid regularly from two separate sources. One source had failed without warning, and her slender legacy was cut literally in two. Upon the remaining half she must eke out the rest of her existence, if she continued to exist at all. It was absolutely necessary for her to come back to the one shelter which she could call her own.

Weary, despairing, and still in the merciless grip of her obsession, she had come--only to find that Anthony Dexter had long since preceded her. A year afterward, Miss. .h.i.tty said, he had come back, with a pretty young wife. And he had a son.

The new knowledge hurt, and Evelina had fancied that she could be hurt no more, that she had reached the uttermost limits of pain. By a singular irony, the last refuge was denied her at the very moment of her greatest temptation to avail herself of it. Long hours of thought led her invariably to the one possible conclusion--to avoid every one, keep wholly to herself, and, by starvation, if need be, save enough of her insignificant pittance to take her far away. And after that--freedom.

Since the night of full realisation which had turned her brown hair to a dull white she had thought of death in but one way--escape. Set free from the insufferable bondage of earthly existence. Miss Evelina dreamed of peace as a prisoner in a dungeon may dream of green fields.

To sleep and wake no more, never to feel again the cold hand upon her heart that tore persistently at the inmost fibres of it, to forget----

Miss Evelina took the vial from her bag and uncorked it. The incense of the poppies crept subtly through the room, mingling inextricably with the mustiness and the dust. The grey cobwebs swayed at the windows, sunset touching them to iridescence. Conscious that she was the most desolate and lonely thing in all the desolate house, Miss Evelina buried her face in her hands.

The poppies breathed from the vial. In her distorted fancy, she saw vast plains of them, s.h.i.+mmering in the sun--scarlet like the lips of a girl, pink as the flush of dawn upon the eastern sky, blood-red as the pa.s.sionate heart that never dreamed of betrayal.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning on the field of poppies and Miss Evelina walked among them, her face unveiled. Golden ma.s.ses of bloom were spread at her feet, starred here and there by stately blossoms as white as the blown snow. Her ragged garments touched the silken petals, her worn shoes crushed them, bud and blossom alike. Always, the numbing, sleepy odour came from the field. Dew was on the petals of the flowers; their deep cups gathered it and held it, never to be surrendered, since the dew of the poppies was tears.

Like some evil genius rising from the bottle, the Spirit of the Poppies seemed to incarnate itself in the vapour. A woman with a face of deadly white arose to meet Miss Evelina, with outspread arms. In her eyes was Lethe, in her hands was the gift of forgetfulness. She brought pardon for all that was past and to come, eternal healing, unfathomable oblivion. "Come," the drowsy voice seemed to say. "I have waited long and yet you do not come. The peace that pa.s.seth all understanding is mine to give and yours to take. Come--only come!

Come! Come!"

Miss Evelina laughed bitterly. Never in all the years gone by had the Spirit of the Poppies pleaded with her thus. Now, at the hour when surrender meant the complete triumph of her enemy, the ghostly figure came to offer her the last and supreme gift.

The afterglow yet lingered in the west. The grey of a March twilight was in the valley, but it was still late afternoon on the summit of the hill. Miss Evelina drew her veil about her and went out into the garden, the vial in her hand.

Where was it that she had planted the poppies? Through the ma.s.s of undergrowth and brambles, she made scant headway. Thorns pressed forward rudely as if to stab the intruder. Vines, closely matted, forbade her to pa.s.s, yet she kept on until she reached the western slope of the garden.

Here, unshaded, and in the full blaze of the Summer sun, the poppies had spread their brilliant pageantry. In all the village there had been no such poppies as grew in Evelina's garden. Now they were dead and only the overgrown stubble was left.

"Dust to dust, earth to earth, and ashes to ashes." The solemn words of the burial service were chanted in her consciousness as she lifted the vial high and emptied it. She held it steadily until the last drop was drained from it. The poppies had given it and to the poppies she had returned it. She put the cork into the empty vial and flung it far away from her, then turned back to the house.

There was a sound of wheels upon the road. Miss Evelina hastened her steps, but the dense undergrowth made walking difficult. Praying that she might not be seen, she turned her head.

Anthony Dexter, in the doctor's carriage, was travelling at a leisurely pace. As he pa.s.sed the old house, he glanced at it mechanically, from sheer force of habit. Long ago, it had ceased to have any definite meaning for him. Once he had even stripped every white rose from the neglected bush at the gate, to take to his wife, who, that day, for the first time, had held their son in her arms.

Motionless in the wreck of the garden, a veiled figure stood with averted face. Doctor Dexter looked keenly for an instant in the fast gathering twilight, then whipped up his horse, and was swiftly out of sight. Against his better judgment, he was shaken in mind and body.

Could he have seen a ghost? Nonsense! He was tired, he had overworked, he had had an hallucination. His cool, calm, professional sense fought with the insistent idea. It was well that Ralph was coming to relieve his old father of a part of his burden.

Meanwhile, Miss Evelina, her frail body quivering as though under the lash, crept back into the house. With the sure intuition of a woman, she knew who had driven by in the first darkness. That he should dare!

That he should actually trespa.s.s upon her road; take the insolent liberty of looking at her house!

"A pretty young wife," Miss. .h.i.tty had said. Yes, doubtless a pretty one. Anthony Dexter delighted in the beauty of a woman in the same impersonal way that another man would regard a picture. And a son. A straight, tall young fellow, doubtless, with eyes like his father's--eyes that a woman would trust, not dreaming of the false heart and craven soul. Why had she been brought here to suffer this last insult, this last humiliation? Weakly, as many a woman before her, Miss Evelina groped in the maze of Life, searching for some clue to its blind mystery.

Was it possible that she had not suffered enough? If five-and-twenty years of sodden misery were not sufficient for one who had done no wrong, what punishment would be meted out to a sinner by a G.o.d who was always kind? Miss Evelina's lips curled scornfully. She had taken what he should have borne--Anthony Dexter had gone scot free.