A Tangled Web

  “Got your history finished yet, Miller?” asked Aunt Becky.

  Old Miller Dark looked foolish. He had been talking for years of writing a history of the clan but had never got started. It didn’t do to hurry these things. The longer he waited the more history there would be. These women were always in such a confounded hurry. He thankfully made way for Palmer Dark, who was known as the man who was proud of his wife.

  “Looks as young as ever, doesn’t she?” he demanded beamingly of Aunt Becky.

  “Yes—if it’s any good to look young when you’re not—” conceded Aunt Becky, adding by way of a grace note, “Got the beginnings of a dowager’s cushion, I see. It’s a long time since I saw you, Palmer. But you’re just the same, only more so. Well, well, and here’s Mrs. Denzil Penhallow. Looking fine and dandy, too. I’ve always heard a fruit diet was healthy. I’m told you ate all the fruit folks sent in for Denzil when he was sick last winter.”

  “Well, what of it? He couldn’t eat it. Was it to be wasted?” retorted Mrs. Denzil. Jug or no jug, she wasn’t going to be insulted by Aunt Becky.

  Two widows came in together—Mrs. Toynbee Dark, who had had her mourning all ready when her third and last husband had died, and Virginia Powell, whose husband had been dead eight years and who was young and tolerably beautiful but who still wore her black and had vowed, it was well known, never to marry again. Not, as Uncle Pippin remarked, that any one was known to have asked her.

  Aunt Becky let Mrs. Toynbee off with a coldly civil greeting. Mrs. Toynbee had been known to go into hysterics when snubbed or crossed, and Aunt Becky did not intend to let anyone else usurp the limelight at her last levee. But she gave poor Virginia a jab.

  “Is your heart dug up yet?”

  Virginia had once said sentimentally, “My heart is buried in Rose River churchyard,” and Aunt Becky never let her forget it.

  “Any of that jam left yet?” asked Aunt Becky slyly of Mrs. Titus Dark, who had once gathered blueberries that grew in the graveyard and preserved them. Lawyer Tom Penhallow, who had been found guilty of appropriating his clients’ money, was counted less of a clan disgrace. Mrs. Titus always considered herself an ill-used woman. Fruit had been scarce that year—she had five men to cater for who didn’t like butter—and all those big luscious blueberries going to waste in the lower corner of the Bay Silver graveyard. There were very few graves there; it was not the fashionable part of the graveyard.

  “And how’s your namesake?” Aunt Becky was asking Mrs. Emily Frost. Kennedy Penhallow, who had been jilted by his cousin, Emily, sixty-five years before, had called his old spavined mare after her to insult her. Kennedy, happily married for many years to Julia Dark, had forgotten all about it, but Emily Frost, née Penhallow, had never forgotten or forgiven.

  “Hello, Margaret; going to write a poem about this? ‘Weary and worn and sad the train rattled on,’” Aunt Becky went off into a cackle of laughter and Margaret Penhallow, her thin, sensitive face flushing pitifully and her peculiarly large, soft, gray-blue eyes filling with tears, went blindly to the first vacant chair. Once she had written rather awful little poems for a Summerside paper, but never after a conscienceless printer had deleted her punctuation marks, producing that terrible line which haunted the clan forever afterwards like an unquiet ghost which refused to be laid. Margaret could never feel safe from hearing it quoted somewhere with a snicker or a bellow. Even here at Aunt Becky’s death-bed levee it must be dragged up. Perhaps Margaret still wrote poems. A little shell-covered box in her trunk might know something about that. But the public press knew them no more, much to the clan’s thankfulness.

  “What’s the matter with you, Penny? You’re not as good-looking as you generally believe you are.”

  “Stung on the eye by a bee,” said Pennycuik Dark sulkily. He was a fat, tubby little fellow with a curly gray beard and none-too-plentiful curly hair. As usual, he was as well-groomed as a cat. He still considered himself a gay young wag, and felt that nothing but the jug could have lured him into a public appearance under the circumstances. Just like this devilish old woman to call the attention of the world to his eye. But he was her oldest nephew and he had a right to the jug which he would maintain, eye or no eye. He always felt that his branch of the family had been unjustly done out of it two generations back. In his annoyance and excitement he sat down on the first vacant chair he spied, and then to his dismay discovered that he was sitting beside Mrs. William Y., of whom he had the liveliest terror ever since she had asked him what to do for a child who had worms. As if he, Pennycuik Dark, confirmed bachelor, knew anything about either children or worms.

  “Go and sit in that far corner by the door so that I can’t smell that damn’ perfume. Even a poor old nonentity like myself has a right to pure air,” Aunt Becky was telling poor Mrs. Artemas Dark, whose taste in perfumes had always annoyed Aunt Becky. Mrs. Artemas did use them somewhat too lavishly, but even so, the clan reflected as a unit, Aunt Becky was employing rather strong language for a woman—especially on her death-bed. The Darks and the Penhallows prided themselves on keeping up with the times, but they were not so far advanced as to condone profanity in a woman. That was still taboo. The joke of it was that Aunt Becky herself had always been down on swearing and was supposed to hold in special disfavor the two clansmen who habitually swore—Titus Dark because he couldn’t help it and Drowned John Penhallow, who could help it but didn’t want to.

  The arrival of Mrs. Alpheus Penhallow and her daughter created a sensation. Mrs. Alpheus lived in St. John and happened to be visiting her old home in Rose River when Aunt Becky’s levee was announced. She was an enormously fat woman with a rather deplorable penchant for wearing bright colors and over-rich materials, who had been very slim and beautiful in a youth during which she had been no great favorite with Aunt Becky. Mrs. Alpheus expected some unpleasant greeting from Aunt Becky and meant to take it with a smile, for she wanted badly to get the jug, and the walnut bed into the bargain, if the fates were propitious. But Aunt Becky, though she said to herself that Annabel Penhallow’s dress was worth more than her carcass, let her off very leniently with,

  “Humph! Smooth as a cat’s ear, just as always,” and looked past her at Nan Penhallow, about whom clan gossip had been very busy ever since her arrival in Rose River. It was whispered breathlessly that she wore pajamas and smoked cigarettes. It was well known that she had plucked eyebrows and wore breeches when she rode or “hiked,” but even Rose River was resigned to that. Aunt Becky saw a snakey hipless thing with a shingle bob and long barbaric earrings. A silky, sophisticated creature in a smart black satin dress who instantly made every other girl in the room seem outmoded and Victorian. But Aunt Becky took her measure on the spot.

  “So this is Hannah,” she remarked, hitting instinctively on Nan’s sore spot. Nan would rather have been slapped than called Hannah. “Well—well—well!” Aunt Becky’s “wells” were a crescendo of contempt mingled with pity. “I understand you consider yourself a modern. Well, there were girls that chased the boys in my time, too. It’s only names that change. Your mouth looks as if you’d been making a meal of blood, my dear. But see what time does to us. When you’re forty you’ll be exactly like this”—with a gesture toward Mrs. Alpheus’ avoirdupois.

  Nan was determined she wouldn’t let this frumpy old harridan put her out. Besides, she had her own hankerings after the jug.

  “Oh, no, Aunt Becky darling. I take after father’s people. They stay thin, you know.”

  Aunt Becky did not like being “darlinged.”

  “Go upstairs and wash that stuff off your lips and cheeks,” she said. “I won’t have any painted snips around here.”

  “You—why, you’ve got rouge on yourself,” cried Nan, despite her mother’s piteous nudge.

  “And who are you to say I should not?” demanded Aunt Becky. “Now, never mind standing there switching your tail at me. Go and do as you’re tol
d or else go home.”

  Nan was minded to do the latter. But Mrs. Alpheus was whispering agitatedly at her neck,

  “Go, darling, go—do exactly as she tells you—or—or—”

  “Or you’ll stand no chance of getting the jug,” chuckled Aunt Becky, who at eighty-five had ears that could hear the grass grow.

  Nan went, sulky and contemptuous, determined that she would get even with somebody for her manhandling by this cantankerous old despot. Perhaps it was at this moment, when Gay Penhallow was entering the room in a yellow dress that seemed woven out of sunshine, that Nan made up her mind to capture Noel Gibson. It was intolerable that Gay of all people should be a witness of her discomfiture.

  “Green-eyed girls for trouble,” said Uncle Pippin.

  “She’s a man-eater, I reckon,” agreed Stanton Grundy.

  Gay Penhallow, a slight, blossom-like girl whom only the Family Bible knew as Gabrielle Alexandrina, was shaking Aunt Becky’s hand but would not bend down to kiss her as Aunt Becky expected.

  “Hey, hey, what’s the matter?” demanded Aunt Becky. “Some boy been kissing you? And you don’t want to spoil the flavor, hey?”

  Gay fled to a corner and sat down, it was true. But how did Aunt Becky know it? Noel had kissed her the evening before—Gay’s first kiss in all her eighteen years—Nan would have hooted over that! An exquisite fleeting kiss under a golden June moon. Gay felt that she could not kiss any one, especially dreadful old Aunt Becky, after that. Never mind if Aunt Becky wouldn’t give her the jug. What difference did it make about her old jug, anyway? What difference did anything make in the whole wide beautiful world except that Noel loved her and she loved him?

  But something seemed to have come into the now crowded room with the arrival of Gay—something like a sudden quick-passing breeze on a sultry day—something as indescribably sweet and elusive as the fragrance of a forest flower—something of youth and love and hope. Everybody felt inexplicably happier—more charitable—more courageous. Stanton Grundy’s lantern-jaws looked less grim and Uncle Pippin momentarily felt that, after all, Grundy had undoubtedly married a Dark and so had a right to be where he was. Miller Dark thought he really would get started on his history next week—Margaret had an inspiration for a new poem—Penny Dark reflected that he was only fifty-two, after all—William Y. forgot that he had a bald spot—Curtis Dark, who had the reputation of being an incurably disagreeable husband, thought his wife’s new hat became her and that he would tell her so on the way home. Even Aunt Becky grew less inhuman and, although she had several more shots in her locker and hated to miss the fun of firing them, allowed the remainder of her guests to pass to their seats without insult or innuendo, except that she asked old Cousin Skilly Penhallow how his brother Angus was. All the assembly laughed and Cousin Skilly smiled amiably. Aunt Becky couldn’t put him out. He knew the whole clan quoted his Spoonerisms and that the one about his brother Angus, now dead for thirty years, never failed to evoke hilarity. The minister had come along that windy morning long ago, after Angus Penhallow’s mill-dam had been swept away in the March flood, and had been greeted excitedly by Skilly.

  “We’re all upset here today, Mr. MacPherson—ye’ll kindly excuse us—my dam brother Angus burst in the night.”

  “Well, I think everybody is here at last,” said Aunt Becky—“everybody I expected, at least, and some I didn’t. I don’t see Peter Penhallow or the Moon Man, but I suppose one couldn’t expect either of them to behave like rational beings.”

  “Peter is here,” said his sister Nancy Dark eagerly.

  “He’s out on the veranda. You know Peter hates to be cooped up in a room. He’s so accustomed to—to—”

  “The great open spaces of God’s outdoors,” murmured Aunt Becky ironically.

  “Yes, that’s it—that’s what I mean—that’s what I meant to say. Peter is just as interested in you as any of us, dear Aunt.”

  “I daresay—if that means much. Or in the jug.”

  “No, Peter doesn’t care a particle about the jug,” said Nancy Dark, thankful to find solid ground under her feet in this at least.

  “The Moon Man’s here, too,” said William Y. “I can see him sitting on the steps of the veranda. He’s been away for weeks—just turned up today. Queer how he always seems to get wind of things.”

  “He was back yesterday evening. I heard him yelping to the moon all last night down at his shanty,” boomed Drowned John. “He ought to be locked up. It’s a family disgrace the way he carries on, wandering over the whole Island bareheaded and in rags, as if he hadn’t a friend in the world to care for him. I don’t care if he isn’t mad enough for the asylum. He should be under some restraint.”

  Pounce went Aunt Becky.

  “So should most of you. Leave Oswald Dark alone. He’s perfectly happy on nights when there’s a moon, anyhow, and who among us can say that. If we’re perfectly happy for an hour or two at a time, it’s as much as the gods will do for us. Oswald’s in luck. Ambrosine, here’s the key of my brass-bound trunk. Go up to the attic and bring down Harriet Dark’s jug.”

  3

  While Ambrosine Winkworth has gone for the jug and a hush of excitement and suspense has fallen over the assembled clan, let us look at them a little more closely, partly through Aunt Becky’s eyes and partly through our own, and get better acquainted with them, especially with those whose lives were to be more or less affected and altered by the jug. There were all kinds of people there with their family secrets and their personal secrets, their outer lives of which everything—nearly—was known, and their inner lives of which nothing was known—not even to lean, lank Mercy Penhallow, whose lankness and leanness were attributed to the chronic curiosity about everyone which gave her no rest day or night. Most of them looked like the dull, sedate folks they were but some of them had had shocking adventures. Some of them were very beautiful; some were very funny; some were clever; some were mean; some were happy; some were not; some were liked by everybody and some were liked by nobody; some had reached the stodgy plane where nothing more was to be expected from life; and some were still adventurous and expectant, cherishing secret, unsatisfied dreams.

  Margaret Penhallow, for instance—dreamy, poetical Margaret Penhallow, who was the clan dressmaker and lived with her brother, Denzil Penhallow, in Bay Silver. Always overworked and snubbed and patronized. She spent her life making pretty clothes for other people and never had any for herself. Yet she took an artist’s pride in her work and something in her starved soul sprang into sudden transforming bloom when a pretty girl floated into church in a gown of her making. She had a part in creating that beauty. That slim vision of loveliness owed something of its loveliness to her, “old Margaret Penhallow.”

  Margaret loved beauty; and there was so little of it in her life. She had no beauty herself, save in her overlarge, strangely lustrous eyes, and her slender hands—the beautiful hands of an old portrait. Yet there was a certain attractiveness about her that had not been dependent on youth and had not left her with the years. Stanton Grundy, looking at her, was thinking that she was more ladylike than any other woman of her age in the room and that, if he were looking for a second wife—which, thank god, he wasn’t—Margaret would be the one he’d pick.

  Margaret would have been a little fluttered had she known he was thinking even this much. The truth was, though Margaret would have died any horrible death you could devise before she admitted it, she longed to be married. If you were married you were somebody. If not, you were nobody. In the Dark and Penhallow clan, anyhow

  She wanted a dear little homey place to call her own; and she wanted to adopt a baby. She knew the very kind of baby she wanted—a baby with golden hair and great blue eyes, dimples and creases and adorable chubby knees. And sweet sleepy little kisses. Margaret’s bones seemed to melt in her body as water when she thought of it. Margaret had never cared for the pack of young demons D
enzil called his family. They were saucy and unattractive youngsters who made fun of her. All her love was centered in her imaginary baby and her imaginary little house—which was not quite as imaginary as the baby, if truth were known. Yet she had no real hope of ever owning the house, while, if she could get married, she might be able to adopt a baby.

  Margaret also wanted very much to get the Dark jug. She wanted it for the sake of that far-off unknown Harriet Dark concerning whom she had always had a strange feeling, half pity, half envy. Harriet Dark had been loved; the jug was the visible and tangible proof of that, outlasting the love by a hundred years. And what if her lover had been drowned! At least, she had had a lover.

  Besides, the jug would give her a certain importance. She had never been of any importance to anyone. She was only “old Margaret Penhallow,” with fifty drab, snubbed years behind her and nothing ahead of her but drab snubbed old age. And why should she not have the jug? She was a real niece. A Penhallow, to be sure, but her mother had been a Dark. Of course Aunt Becky didn’t like her, but then whom did Aunt Becky like? Margaret felt that she ought to have the jug—must have the jug. Momentarily, she hated every other claimant in the room. She knew if she had the jug she could make Mrs. Denzil give her a room to herself in return for the concession of allowing the jug to be put on the parlor mantelpiece. A room to herself! it sounded heavenly. She knew she could never have her little dream-house or her blue-eyed, golden baby, but surely she might have a room to herself—a room where Gladys Penhallow and her shrieking chums could never come—girls who thought there was no fun in having a beau unless you could tell the world all about him and what he did and what he said—girls who always made her feel old and silly and dowdy. Margaret sighed and looked at the great sheaf of mauve and yellow iris Mrs. William Y. had brought up for Aunt Becky, who had never cared for flowers. If their delicate, exotic beauty was wasted on Aunt Becky, it was not lost on Margaret. While she gazed at them she was happy. There was a neglected clump of mauve iris in the garden of “her” house.