The Wall Between Part 29

She closed her eyes, and Lucy saw her face first harden into a rebellious frown, then relax into sleep. As soon as the girl was quite sure she would not be heard, she went to the window and, drawing aside the curtain, waved her handkerchief.

Evidently Martin Howe was awaiting the signal, for on receiving it he sprang up from the chopping block where he was sitting and, returning the salute, disappeared into the barn from which he presently emerged with his surrey and bay mare.

Lucy lingered to see him rattle out of the yard and pa.s.s over the crest of the hill. Then with a strange sense of comfort and companions.h.i.+p she went back to her aunt's room. She sat there until dusk, watching the sleeping woman upon the bed.

Then Melvina arrived. She proved to be a large, placid-faced woman with a countenance from which every human emotion had been eliminated until it was as expressionless as a bronze Buddha. If she had ever known sorrow, delight, affection, surprise, it was so long ago that her reactionary system had forgotten how to reflect these sensations. It was obvious that nothing concerned her outside her immediate calling and that she accepted this with a stoical immovability which was neither to be diverted nor influenced.

Taking Lucy's hand in a loose, pudgy grasp she remarked:

"A shock?"

"Yes, you see, my aunt----"

"How old is she?"

"A little over seventy-five. I was away and when I----"

"First shock?"

"Yes."

"Where is she?"

"Upstairs. But before you see her I want to explain that she is a little--well, peculiar. You may find that she----"

"I shan't pay no attention," replied Melvina indifferently. "I've seen all sorts--fretters, groaners, whiners, scolders; they're all one to me. So you needn't give yourself any uneasiness."

She spoke in a voice as humdrum and colorless as was her round, flabby face, and Lucy smiled in spite of herself.

"I fancy it isn't really necessary for me to tell you anything then," she answered good-humoredly. "Of course you have had a wonderful chance to study personalities."

"I never had a chance to study anything," responded Melvina in a matter-of-fact manner. "All I know I've picked up as I went along."

"By study I mean that you have had a wide opportunity to observe human nature," explained Lucy.

"If by human nature you mean folks, I have," Melvina said in her habitual monotone.

After answering the remark, however, she made no further attempt at conversation but lapsed into a patient silence, regarding Lucy with her big, faded blue eyes. As she stood there, one gained an impression that she could have stood thus for an indefinite length of time--forever, if necessary. Not once did her gaze wander to her surroundings, and when Lucy conducted her to the room that had been a.s.signed her she entered it without curiosity.

"I hope you will be comfortable here," the girl murmured with a hostess's solicitude.

"I shall be."

"And if there is anything you want----"

"I'll ask for it."

Although there was no rebuke in the utterance, before this monument of composure, Lucy, like David Copperfield in the presence of the waiter, suddenly felt very young.

"Thank you; I wish you would," she managed to stammer, hastily closing the door.

She reflected with amus.e.m.e.nt, as she made her retreat, that there were several things she had intended to caution the new nurse not to mention, one being that it was Martin Howe who had brought her hither. But after having once seen Melvina Grey, such warnings became superfluous and absurd. There was no more probability of Melvina's imparting to Ellen the circ.u.mstances of her coming than there was of the rocks on the mountain side breaking into speech and voicing their past history. Therefore she crept downstairs to the kitchen to prepare supper, pondering as she went as to how Ellen and this strangely stolid attendant would get on together.

"It will be like a storm das.h.i.+ng against granite cliffs," she thought whimsically. "Well, there is one merciful thing about it--I shall not have to worry about Melviny gossiping or telling tales."

In this a.s.sumption Lucy was quite right. Melvina Grey proved not only to be as dumb as an oyster but even more uncommunicative than that traditionally self-contained bivalve. Notwithstanding her cheery conversation about the weather, the crops, Sefton Falls, the scenery, she never trespa.s.sed upon personalities, or offered an observation concerning her immediate environment; nor could she be beguiled into narrating what old Herman Cole died of, or whether he liked his son's wife or not. This was aggravating, for Melvina had been two years a nurse in the Cole family and was well qualified to clear up these vexed questions. Equally futile, too, were Ellen's attempts to wring from her lips any confidential information about the Hoyles' financial tangles, despite the fact that she had been in the house during the tragedy of Samuel Hoyle's failure and had welcomed the Hoyle baby into the world.

"Why, the woman's a clam--that's what she is!" announced the exasperated patient. "You can get nothin' out of her. She might as well not know anything if she's going to be that close-mouthed. I don't believe hot irons would drag the words out of her. Anyhow, she won't go retailin' our affairs all over town after she goes from here; that's one comfort!"

Lucy endorsed the observation with enthusiasm. It was indeed just as well that Melvina did not report in the sick room all that went on downstairs.

What, for example, would have been Ellen's feeling had she known that every morning some one of the Howe sisters came stealing across the fields to help with the Webster housework? And what would she have said on discovering that it was her hereditary enemy Martin himself who not only directed the cultivation of her garden but a.s.sumed much of its actual work.

Ah, Ellen would have writhed in her bed had such tidings been borne to her. She would, in truth, probably have done far more than writhe had she been cognizant that every evening this same Mr. Martin Howe, arrayed with scrupulous care, leaped the historic wall and came to sit on the Webster doorstep and discuss problems relative to plowing and planting. And if, as frequently happened, the talk wandered off from cabbages and turnips to sunsets and moon glades, and if sometimes there were conscious intervals when there was no talk at all, who was the wiser? Certainly not Ellen, who in her dim chamber little suspected that the pair who whispered beneath her window had long since become as oblivious to the fact that they were Howe and Webster as were Romeo and Juliet that they were Montague and Capulet.

No, the weeks pa.s.sed, and Ellen lay in blissful ignorance that the shuttle of Fate, ever speeding to and fro, was subtly entangling in its delicate meshes these heirs of an inherited hatred.

Martin's sisters saw the romance and rejoiced; and although she gave no sign, Melvina Grey must also have seen it.

As for the man and his beloved, they dwelt apart in an ephemeral world where only the prosaic hours when they were separated were unreal. Their realities were smiles, sighs, glances,--the thousand and one nothings that make up the joys and agonies of a lover's existence. Thus the weeks pa.s.sed.

In the meanwhile, as a result of rest and good care, Ellen steadily became stronger and soon reached a point where it was no empty plat.i.tude to a.s.sure her that she was really better.

"I do believe we shall have you downstairs yet, Aunt Ellen," said Lucy gaily. "You are gaining every minute."

"It's time I gained," Ellen retorted with acidity.

"You're gainin' all right," echoed Melvina. "I plan to have you settin' up soon. Sometime, when you're havin' a good day an' feel real spry, I mean to hist you into a chair an' let you take a look at the view."

The date for this innovation came sooner than either Lucy or the optimistic nurse foresaw, for Ellen continued to mend so rapidly that one afternoon, when twilight was deepening into purple, Melvina proposed to attempt the experiment of moving the invalid.

"How'd you like to try settin' up a spell to-night?" she inquired without preamble. "I'll get a chair ready, and fix you in it, an' shove you over to the window so'st you can look out. There ain't much to see, to be sure; still the change will rest you, an' mebbe you'll sleep better after it."

Ellen did not demur. Melvina had proved herself a trustworthy pilot and demonstrated that her suggestions were worth considering.

"All right," she replied. "Only hadn't you better call Lucy?"

"What for?"

"To help you."

A contemptuous smile curled Melvina's lips.

"Bless your soul an' body, I've no need of help," was her answer. "You don't weigh nothin', an' even if you did, I've moved so many folks that I wouldn't hesitate. You ain't afraid, are you?"

"Mercy, no."

"There's no cause for you to be," went on the nurse rea.s.suringly. "I know what I'm about. All you've got to do is to mind what I tell you."