XV
That night, as usual, they said good-bye at the wood's edge.
Harney was to leave the next morning early. He asked Charity to saynothing of their plans till his return, and, strangely even to herself,she was glad of the postponement. A leaden weight of shame hung on her,benumbing every other sensation, and she bade him good-bye with hardlya sign of emotion. His reiterated promises to return seemed almostwounding. She had no doubt that he intended to come back; her doubtswere far deeper and less definable.
Since the fanciful vision of the future that had flitted through herimagination at their first meeting she had hardly ever thought of hismarrying her. She had not had to put the thought from her mind; it hadnot been there. If ever she looked ahead she felt instinctively that thegulf between them was too deep, and that the bridge their passion hadflung across it was as insubstantial as a rainbow. But she seldomlooked ahead; each day was so rich that it absorbed her.... Now her firstfeeling was that everything would be different, and that she herselfwould be a different being to Harney. Instead of remaining separate andabsolute, she would be compared with other people, and unknown thingswould be expected of her. She was too proud to be afraid, but thefreedom of her spirit drooped....
Harney had not fixed any date for his return; he had said he would haveto look about first, and settle things. He had promised to write as soonas there was anything definite to say, and had left her his address, andasked her to write also. But the address frightened her. It was in NewYork, at a club with a long name in Fifth Avenue: it seemed to raise aninsurmountable barrier between them. Once or twice, in the first days,she got out a sheet of paper, and sat looking at it, and trying to thinkwhat to say; but she had the feeling that her letter would never reachits destination. She had never written to anyone farther away thanHepburn.
Harney's first letter came after he had been gone about ten days. It wastender but grave, and bore no resemblance to the gay little notes he hadsent her by the freckled boy from Creston River. He spoke positively ofhis intention of coming back, but named no date, and reminded Charity oftheir agreement that their plans should not be divulged till he had hadtime to "settle things." When that would be he could not yet foresee;but she could count on his returning as soon as the way was clear.
She read the letter with a strange sense of its coming from immeasurabledistances and having lost most of its meaning on the way; and in replyshe sent him a coloured postcard of Creston Falls, on which she wrote:"With love from Charity." She felt the pitiful inadequacy of this, andunderstood, with a sense of despair, that in her inability to expressherself she must give him an impression of coldness and reluctance; butshe could not help it. She could not forget that he had never spokento her of marriage till Mr. Royall had forced the word from his lips;though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that boundher to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed toherself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert.
She had not seen Mr. Royall on her return to the red house. The morningafter her parting from Harney, when she came down from her room, Verenatold her that her guardian had gone off to Worcester and Portland. Itwas the time of year when he usually reported to the insurance agencieshe represented, and there was nothing unusual in his departure exceptits suddenness. She thought little about him, except to be glad he wasnot there....
She kept to herself for the first days, while North Dormer wasrecovering from its brief plunge into publicity, and the subsidingagitation left her unnoticed. But the faithful Ally could not be longavoided. For the first few days after the close of the Old Home Weekfestivities Charity escaped her by roaming the hills all day when shewas not at her post in the library; but after that a period of rain setin, and one pouring afternoon, Ally, sure that she would find her friendindoors, came around to the red house with her sewing.
The two girls sat upstairs in Charity's room. Charity, her idle hands inher lap, was sunk in a kind of leaden dream, through which she was onlyhalf-conscious of Ally, who sat opposite her in a low rush-bottomedchair, her work pinned to her knee, and her thin lips pursed up as shebent above it.
"It was my idea running a ribbon through the gauging," she said proudly,drawing back to contemplate the blouse she was trimming. "It's for MissBalch: she was awfully pleased." She paused and then added, with a queertremor in her piping voice: "I darsn't have told her I got the idea fromone I saw on Julia."
Charity raised her eyes listlessly. "Do you still see Julia sometimes?"
Ally reddened, as if the allusion had escaped her unintentionally. "Oh,it was a long time ago I seen her with those gaugings...."
Silence fell again, and Ally presently continued: "Miss Balch left me awhole lot of things to do over this time."
"Why--has she gone?" Charity inquired with an inner start ofapprehension.
"Didn't you know? She went off the morning after they had thecelebration at Hamblin. I seen her drive by early with Mr. Harney."
There was another silence, measured by the steady tick of the rainagainst the window, and, at intervals, by the snipping sound of Ally'sscissors.
Ally gave a meditative laugh. "Do you know what she told me before shewent away? She told me she was going to send for me to come over toSpringfield and make some things for her wedding."
Charity again lifted her heavy lids and stared at Ally's pale pointedface, which moved to and fro above her moving fingers.
"Is she going to get married?"
Ally let the blouse sink to her knee, and sat gazing at it. Her lipsseemed suddenly dry, and she moistened them a little with her tongue.
"Why, I presume so... from what she said.... Didn't you know?"
"Why should I know?"
Ally did not answer. She bent above the blouse, and began picking out abasting thread with the point of the scissors.
"Why should I know?" Charity repeated harshly.
"I didn't know but what... folks here say she's engaged to Mr. Harney."
Charity stood up with a laugh, and stretched her arms lazily above herhead.
"If all the people got married that folks say are going to you'd haveyour time full making wedding-dresses," she said ironically.
"Why--don't you believe it?" Ally ventured.
"It would not make it true if I did--nor prevent it if I didn't."
"That's so.... I only know I seen her crying the night of the partybecause her dress didn't set right. That was why she wouldn't danceany...."
Charity stood absently gazing down at the lacy garment on Ally's knee.Abruptly she stooped and snatched it up.
"Well, I guess she won't dance in this either," she said with suddenviolence; and grasping the blouse in her strong young hands she tore itin two and flung the tattered bits to the floor.
"Oh, Charity----" Ally cried, springing up. For a long interval the twogirls faced each other across the ruined garment. Ally burst into tears.
"Oh, what'll I say to her? What'll I do? It was real lace!" she wailedbetween her piping sobs.
Charity glared at her unrelentingly. "You'd oughtn't to have brought ithere," she said, breathing quickly. "I hate other people's clothes--it'sjust as if they was there themselves." The two stared at each otheragain over this avowal, till Charity brought out, in a gasp of anguish:"Oh, go--go--go--or I'll hate you too...."
When Ally left her, she fell sobbing across her bed.
The long storm was followed by a north-west gale, and when it was over,the hills took on their first umber tints, the sky grew more denselyblue, and the big white clouds lay against the hills like snow-banks.The first crisp maple-leaves began to spin across Miss Hatchard's lawn,and the Virginia creeper on the Memorial splashed the white porch withscarlet. It was a golden triumphant September. Day by day the flame ofthe Virginia creeper spread to the hillsides in wider waves of carmineand crimson, the larches glowed like the thin yellow halo about a fire,the maples blazed and smouldered, and the black hemlocks turned toindigo against the incandescence of the for
est.
The nights were cold, with a dry glitter of stars so high up that theyseemed smaller and more vivid. Sometimes, as Charity lay sleepless onher bed through the long hours, she felt as though she were bound tothose wheeling fires and swinging with them around the great blackvault. At night she planned many things... it was then she wrote toHarney. But the letters were never put on paper, for she did not knowhow to express what she wanted to tell him. So she waited. Since hertalk with Ally she had felt sure that Harney was engaged to AnnabelBalch, and that the process of "settling things" would involve thebreaking of this tie. Her first rage of jealousy over, she felt no fearon this score. She was still sure that Harney would come back, and shewas equally sure that, for the moment at least, it was she whom he lovedand not Miss Balch. Yet the girl, no less, remained a rival, since sherepresented all the things that Charity felt herself most incapable ofunderstanding or achieving. Annabel Balch was, if not the girl Harneyought to marry, at least the kind of girl it would be natural for him tomarry. Charity had never been able to picture herself as his wife; hadnever been able to arrest the vision and follow it out in its dailyconsequences; but she could perfectly imagine Annabel Balch in thatrelation to him.
The more she thought of these things the more the sense of fatalityweighed on her: she felt the uselessness of struggling against thecircumstances. She had never known how to adapt herself; she could onlybreak and tear and destroy. The scene with Ally had left her strickenwith shame at her own childish savagery. What would Harney have thoughtif he had witnessed it? But when she turned the incident over in herpuzzled mind she could not imagine what a civilized person would havedone in her place. She felt herself too unequally pitted against unknownforces....
At length this feeling moved her to sudden action. She took a sheet ofletter paper from Mr. Royall's office, and sitting by the kitchenlamp, one night after Verena had gone to bed, began her first letter toHarney. It was very short:
I want you should marry Annabel Balch if you promised to. I think maybeyou were afraid I'd feel too bad about it. I feel I'd rather you actedright. Your loving CHARITY.
She posted the letter early the next morning, and for a few days herheart felt strangely light. Then she began to wonder why she received noanswer.
One day as she sat alone in the library pondering these things the wallsof books began to spin around her, and the rosewood desk to rock underher elbows. The dizziness was followed by a wave of nausea like that shehad felt on the day of the exercises in the Town Hall. But the Town Hallhad been crowded and stiflingly hot, and the library was empty, and sochilly that she had kept on her jacket. Five minutes before she had feltperfectly well; and now it seemed as if she were going to die. The bitof lace at which she still languidly worked dropped from her fingers,and the steel crochet hook clattered to the floor. She pressed hertemples hard between her damp hands, steadying herself against the deskwhile the wave of sickness swept over her. Little by little it subsided,and after a few minutes she stood up, shaken and terrified, groped forher hat, and stumbled out into the air. But the whole sunlit autumnwhirled, reeled and roared around her as she dragged herself along theinterminable length of the road home.
As she approached the red house she saw a buggy standing at the door,and her heart gave a leap. But it was only Mr. Royall who got out, histravelling-bag in hand. He saw her coming, and waited in the porch.She was conscious that he was looking at her intently, as if there wassomething strange in her appearance, and she threw back her head with adesperate effort at ease. Their eyes met, and she said: "You back?" asif nothing had happened, and he answered: "Yes, I'm back," and walkedin ahead of her, pushing open the door of his office. She climbed toher room, every step of the stairs holding her fast as if her feet werelined with glue.
Two days later, she descended from the train at Nettleton, and walkedout of the station into the dusty square. The brief interval of coldweather was over, and the day was as soft, and almost as hot, as whenshe and Harney had emerged on the same scene on the Fourth of July. Inthe square the same broken-down hacks and carry-alls stood drawn up ina despondent line, and the lank horses with fly-nets over their withersswayed their heads drearily to and fro. She recognized the staring signsover the eating-houses and billiard saloons, and the long lines of wireson lofty poles tapering down the main street to the park at its otherend. Taking the way the wires pointed, she went on hastily, with benthead, till she reached a wide transverse street with a brick buildingat the corner. She crossed this street and glanced furtively up atthe front of the brick building; then she returned, and entered a dooropening on a flight of steep brass-rimmed stairs. On the second landingshe rang a bell, and a mulatto girl with a bushy head and a frilledapron let her into a hall where a stuffed fox on his hind legs proffereda brass card-tray to visitors. At the back of the hall was a glazed doormarked: "Office." After waiting a few minutes in a handsomely furnishedroom, with plush sofas surmounted by large gold-framed photographs ofshowy young women, Charity was shown into the office....
When she came out of the glazed door Dr. Merkle followed, and led herinto another room, smaller, and still more crowded with plush and goldframes. Dr. Merkle was a plump woman with small bright eyes, an immensemass of black hair coming down low on her forehead, and unnaturallywhite and even teeth. She wore a rich black dress, with gold chainsand charms hanging from her bosom. Her hands were large and smooth, andquick in all their movements; and she smelt of musk and carbolic acid.
She smiled on Charity with all her faultless teeth. "Sit down, mydear. Wouldn't you like a little drop of something to pick youup?... No.... Well, just lay back a minute then.... There's nothing tobe done just yet; but in about a month, if you'll step round again... Icould take you right into my own house for two or three days, and therewouldn't be a mite of trouble. Mercy me! The next time you'll knowbetter'n to fret like this...."
Charity gazed at her with widening eyes. This woman with the false hair,the false teeth, the false murderous smile--what was she offering herbut immunity from some unthinkable crime? Charity, till then, hadbeen conscious only of a vague self-disgust and a frightening physicaldistress; now, of a sudden, there came to her the grave surprise ofmotherhood. She had come to this dreadful place because she knew of noother way of making sure that she was not mistaken about her state;and the woman had taken her for a miserable creature like Julia.... Thethought was so horrible that she sprang up, white and shaking, one ofher great rushes of anger sweeping over her.
Dr. Merkle, still smiling, also rose. "Why do you run off in such ahurry? You can stretch out right here on my sofa...." She paused, andher smile grew more motherly. "Afterwards--if there's been any talk athome, and you want to get away for a while... I have a lady friend inBoston who's looking for a companion... you're the very one to suit her,my dear...."
Charity had reached the door. "I don't want to stay. I don't want tocome back here," she stammered, her hand on the knob; but with a swiftmovement, Dr. Merkle edged her from the threshold.
"Oh, very well. Five dollars, please."
Charity looked helplessly at the doctor's tight lips and rigid face.Her last savings had gone in repaying Ally for the cost of Miss Balch'sruined blouse, and she had had to borrow four dollars from her friendto pay for her railway ticket and cover the doctor's fee. It had neveroccurred to her that medical advice could cost more than two dollars.
"I didn't know... I haven't got that much..." she faltered, bursting intotears.
Dr. Merkle gave a short laugh which did not show her teeth, and inquiredwith concision if Charity supposed she ran the establishment for her ownamusement? She leaned her firm shoulders against the door as she spoke,like a grim gaoler making terms with her captive.
"You say you'll come round and settle later? I've heard that prettyoften too. Give me your address, and if you can't pay me I'll send thebill to your folks.... What? I can't understand what you say.... Thatdon't suit you either? My, you're pretty particular for a girl thatain't got enough to settle
her own bills...." She paused, and fixedher eyes on the brooch with a blue stone that Charity had pinned to herblouse.
"Ain't you ashamed to talk that way to a lady that's got to earn herliving, when you go about with jewellery like that on you?... It ain'tin my line, and I do it only as a favour... but if you're a mind to leavethat brooch as a pledge, I don't say no.... Yes, of course, you can getit back when you bring me my money...."
On the way home, she felt an immense and unexpected quietude. It hadbeen horrible to have to leave Harney's gift in the woman's hands, buteven at that price the news she brought away had not been too dearlybought. She sat with half-closed eyes as the train rushed through thefamiliar landscape; and now the memories of her former journey, insteadof flying before her like dead leaves, seemed to be ripening in herblood like sleeping grain. She would never again know what it was tofeel herself alone. Everything seemed to have grown suddenly clearand simple. She no longer had any difficulty in picturing herself asHarney's wife now that she was the mother of his child; and compared toher sovereign right Annabel Balch's claim seemed no more than a girl'ssentimental fancy.
That evening, at the gate of the red house, she found Ally waiting inthe dusk. "I was down at the post-office just as they were closing up,and Will Targatt said there was a letter for you, so I brought it."
Ally held out the letter, looking at Charity with piercing sympathy.Since the scene of the torn blouse there had been a new and fearfuladmiration in the eyes she bent on her friend.
Charity snatched the letter with a laugh. "Oh, thank you--good-night,"she called out over her shoulder as she ran up the path. If she hadlingered a moment she knew she would have had Ally at her heels.
She hurried upstairs and felt her way into her dark room. Her handstrembled as she groped for the matches and lit her candle, and the flapof the envelope was so closely stuck that she had to find her scissorsand slit it open. At length she read:
DEAR CHARITY:
I have your letter, and it touches me more than I can say. Won't youtrust me, in return, to do my best? There are things it is hard toexplain, much less to justify; but your generosity makes everythingeasier. All I can do now is to thank you from my soul for understanding.Your telling me that you wanted me to do right has helped me beyondexpression. If ever there is a hope of realizing what we dreamed of youwill see me back on the instant; and I haven't yet lost that hope.
She read the letter with a rush; then she went over and over it, eachtime more slowly and painstakingly. It was so beautifully expressedthat she found it almost as difficult to understand as the gentleman'sexplanation of the Bible pictures at Nettleton but gradually she becameaware that the gist of its meaning lay in the last few words. "If everthere is a hope of realizing what we dreamed of..."
But then he wasn't even sure of that? She understood now that every wordand every reticence was an avowal of Annabel Balch's prior claim. It wastrue that he was engaged to her, and that he had not yet found a way ofbreaking his engagement.
As she read the letter over Charity understood what it must have costhim to write it. He was not trying to evade an importunate claim; he washonestly and contritely struggling between opposing duties. She did noteven reproach him in her thoughts for having concealed from her thathe was not free: she could not see anything more reprehensible in hisconduct than in her own. From the first she had needed him more than hehad wanted her, and the power that had swept them together had beenas far beyond resistance as a great gale loosening the leaves of theforest.... Only, there stood between them, fixed and upright in thegeneral upheaval, the indestructible figure of Annabel Balch....
Face to face with his admission of the fact, she sat staring at theletter. A cold tremor ran over her, and the hard sobs struggled up intoher throat and shook her from head to foot. For a while she was caughtand tossed on great waves of anguish that left her hardly conscious ofanything but the blind struggle against their assaults. Then, little bylittle, she began to relive, with a dreadful poignancy, each separatestage of her poor romance. Foolish things she had said came back to her,gay answers Harney had made, his first kiss in the darkness betweenthe fireworks, their choosing the blue brooch together, the way he hadteased her about the letters she had dropped in her flight from theevangelist. All these memories, and a thousand others, hummed throughher brain till his nearness grew so vivid that she felt his fingers inher hair, and his warm breath on her cheek as he bent her head back likea flower. These things were hers; they had passed into her blood, andbecome a part of her, they were building the child in her womb; it wasimpossible to tear asunder strands of life so interwoven.
The conviction gradually strengthened her, and she began to form in hermind the first words of the letter she meant to write to Harney. Shewanted to write it at once, and with feverish hands she began to rummagein her drawer for a sheet of letter paper. But there was none left; shemust go downstairs to get it. She had a superstitious feeling that theletter must be written on the instant, that setting down her secret inwords would bring her reassurance and safety; and taking up her candleshe went down to Mr. Royall's office.
At that hour she was not likely to find him there: he had probably hadhis supper and walked over to Carrick Fry's. She pushed open the door ofthe unlit room, and the light of her lifted candle fell on his figure,seated in the darkness in his high-backed chair. His arms lay alongthe arms of the chair, and his head was bent a little; but he liftedit quickly as Charity entered. She started back as their eyes met,remembering that her own were red with weeping, and that her face waslivid with the fatigue and emotion of her journey. But it was too lateto escape, and she stood and looked at him in silence.
He had risen from his chair, and came toward her with outstretchedhands. The gesture was so unexpected that she let him take her hands inhis and they stood thus, without speaking, till Mr. Royall said gravely:"Charity--was you looking for me?"
She freed herself abruptly and fell back. "Me? No----" She set down thecandle on his desk. "I wanted some letter-paper, that's all." His facecontracted, and the bushy brows jutted forward over his eyes. Withoutanswering he opened the drawer of the desk, took out a sheet of paperand an envelope, and pushed them toward her. "Do you want a stamp too?"he asked.
She nodded, and he gave her the stamp. As he did so she felt that he waslooking at her intently, and she knew that the candle light flickeringup on her white face must be distorting her swollen features andexaggerating the dark rings about her eyes. She snatched up the paper,her reassurance dissolving under his pitiless gaze, in which she seemedto read the grim perception of her state, and the ironic recollectionof the day when, in that very room, he had offered to compel Harney tomarry her. His look seemed to say that he knew she had taken the paperto write to her lover, who had left her as he had warned her she wouldbe left. She remembered the scorn with which she had turned from himthat day, and knew, if he guessed the truth, what a list of old scoresit must settle. She turned and fled upstairs; but when she got back toher room all the words that had been waiting had vanished....
If she could have gone to Harney it would have been different; she wouldonly have had to show herself to let his memories speak for her. Butshe had no money left, and there was no one from whom she could haveborrowed enough for such a journey. There was nothing to do but towrite, and await his reply. For a long time she sat bent above the blankpage; but she found nothing to say that really expressed what she wasfeeling....
Harney had written that she had made it easier for him, and she was gladit was so; she did not want to make things hard. She knew she had it inher power to do that; she held his fate in her hands. All she had todo was to tell him the truth; but that was the very fact that held herback.... Her five minutes face to face with Mr. Royall had stripped herof her last illusion, and brought her back to North Dormer's point ofview. Distinctly and pitilessly there rose before her the fate of thegirl who was married "to make things right." She had seen too manyvillage love-stories end in that way. Poor Ro
se Coles's miserablemarriage was of the number; and what good had come of it for her orfor Halston Skeff? They had hated each other from the day the ministermarried them; and whenever old Mrs. Skeff had a fancy to humiliate herdaughter-in-law she had only to say: "Who'd ever think the baby's onlytwo? And for a seven months' child--ain't it a wonder what a size heis?" North Dormer had treasures of indulgence for brands in the burning,but only derision for those who succeeded in getting snatched fromit; and Charity had always understood Julia Hawes's refusal to besnatched....
Only--was there no alternative but Julia's? Her soul recoiled from thevision of the white-faced woman among the plush sofas and gilt frames.In the established order of things as she knew them she saw no place forher individual adventure....
She sat in her chair without undressing till faint grey streaks beganto divide the black slats of the shutters. Then she stood up and pushedthem open, letting in the light. The coming of a new day brought asharper consciousness of ineluctable reality, and with it a sense of theneed of action. She looked at herself in the glass, and saw her face,white in the autumn dawn, with pinched cheeks and dark-ringed eyes, andall the marks of her state that she herself would never have noticed,but that Dr. Merkle's diagnosis had made plain to her. She could nothope that those signs would escape the watchful village; even before herfigure lost its shape she knew her face would betray her.
Leaning from her window she looked out on the dark and empty scene; theashen houses with shuttered windows, the grey road climbing the slope tothe hemlock belt above the cemetery, and the heavy mass of the Mountainblack against a rainy sky. To the east a space of light was broadeningabove the forest; but over that also the clouds hung. Slowly her gazetravelled across the fields to the rugged curve of the hills. She hadlooked out so often on that lifeless circle, and wondered if anythingcould ever happen to anyone who was enclosed in it....
Almost without conscious thought her decision had been reached; as hereyes had followed the circle of the hills her mind had also travelledthe old round. She supposed it was something in her blood that made theMountain the only answer to her questioning, the inevitable escapefrom all that hemmed her in and beset her. At any rate it began to loomagainst the rainy dawn; and the longer she looked at it the more clearlyshe understood that now at last she was really going there.