Ariel Custer

  Harriet washed her dishes noisily and locked up the kitchen. She ascended the stairs creakingly and put on her hat. Emily sat behind the honeysuckle vines and watched her go away in the early twilight.

  It was just ten minutes to nine when a slight figure stole in at a parting of the hedge around at the side of the house and paused beside the honeysuckle end of the porch.

  “Miss Emily, are you there?” whispered Ariel’s soft voice.

  “Yes, dear; come up and tell me all about it.”

  Ariel slipped under the vine and curled up by Emily Dillon’s feet.

  “We had a wonderful day,” she said eagerly, “and we stayed so late that I was almost afraid to come. Isn’t it time for Mrs. Granniss to be home from prayer meeting? I wouldn’t come till I was sure there was no light in the house.”

  “She won’t be home for ten minutes or so. Tell me, did you like my creek?”

  “Oh, glorious! We went in a canoe all the way up to the rocks and past the swimming hole, and we had our dinner on a great flat rock with moss on it. There were birds singing high above our heads, and little pinecones dropped into the water down below, and there were stones with the water babbling over them!”

  “Oh, my dear! I know! I’ve waded there in that very spot, and fell in once—and—But tell me, did you talk about the little house and get everything all fixed up?”

  There was a catch in Ariel’s voice like a sob, and she gripped Emily’s hand that she held in a close, convulsive fashion.

  “Yes, we talked about the little house, but we didn’t plan, because—well—because the thing we hoped didn’t happen, and we can’t buy it yet, Miss Emily. That is, we can’t buy it at all, I suppose, not that one, because it’s going to be sold right away. We only had the option on it till tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, because someone else is looking at it, and Mr. Packard said he positively couldn’t wait another minute. But—we’re going to be brave—”

  “He oughtn’t to run over the hour on such a hot night!” declared Harriet Granniss’s voice coming suddenly out of the darkness, with a clarion ring, talking to a fussy little neighbor who lived farther on. “No minister has a right to hold people in a hot room on a night like this longer than is advertised. I shall tell him what I think about it the next time I see him. He was so busy with those strangers I couldn’t get within earshot of him tonight. But it isn’t right, and we ought to make him understand it.”

  Ariel was gone like a breath, slipping behind the honeysuckles, with a light touch of her hand on Emily’s as she passed and a mere ripple of perfume as she slid through the vines and disappeared around the house.

  Harriet lumbered heavily up the steps, puffing with every breath, and scanned the porch sharply.

  “Is that you, Emily? Are you all alone? Didn’t I hear somebody out there in the side yard? Seems to me as if I did. I suppose it was a cat, but I don’t think you ought to sit out here alone when all the neighbors are gone away. Here, there wasn’t a soul around this end of the street. It’s all dark next door, and over to Joneses. Someday something will happen to you.”

  “I’m not afraid, Harriet. But now you’ve come, I guess I’ll go to bed.”

  “Well, just as you please,” sniffed Harriet offendedly. She loved to have an audience after she had been out anywhere. Half the fun of going was in describing it afterward. But Emily never had cared to listen to her. “I should think you’d like to know a little about the meeting,” she flung after her when she was halfway up the stairs. “You go out so little one would think you’d care to keep up with the times. But I suppose being it wasn’t a Methodist prayer meeting, you don’t care anything about it.”

  “Oh!” Emily paused and looked over the handrail. “Did you have a good meeting?” in her sweet, polite voice, with that low, unprovoked modulation that seemed unaware of any offense. “Were there many out? It was such a nice night.”

  “Yes, there were a lot out for summer considering the most important people of course are away at the seashore and mountains. But there were visitors, I’m glad to say. Two from the inn, and three from Major Pettlebee’s, and your cousin Julia Dillon. She stopped me and asked how you were and said it was such a pity you weren’t a Congregationalist like the rest of the family, so you and I could come together, and she supposed you were at your own church. I had to say no, you weren’t feeling so well. So you can see how you’re making me lie to save your face, Emily Dillon. For I couldn’t bear to tell her you were just home sitting on your porch on a church night. Your cousin seemed real pleasant, and anxious about you. Said she wished you’d come up tomorrow and take lunch with her.”

  “Yes? And did your own minister speak in the meeting, or is he away on his vacation?” asked Emily sweetly.

  “Oh, he’s away, but he left a real good man in his place. I declare, his talk was just heavenly. Byers’ kitten came in the church and kind of upset things for a while, making the Hillier twins giggle, and scooting under pews when Elder Dart tried to catch her, but the minister just gave out a hymn and never seemed to see it at all. Helena Boggs played the organ, and she played it real well, too. That girl is a wonder. She just got back from the seashore this afternoon, and yet she came to prayer meeting. She’s spending a couple of days with Hattie Riggs. She’ll be back here tomorrow sometime. I suppose she thought maybe Jud would be there with me and she’d get a chance to see him. I can’t think what that boy means acting—”

  “Well, good night, Harriet, I seem to be sleepy,” said Emily and suddenly fled from the voluble tongue.

  Up in her own room she pattered around in her bedroom slippers, putting her hair in order for the night, arranging the bedcovers, reading her bit of verse, and kneeling white and still by the plump four-poster bed after the light was put out, with her small feet in a bar of moonlight on the old ingrain carpet, and then stealing softly over to the big calico-covered chair by the window.

  A long time she sat there looking out into the dewy, moonlit night, in her little white homemade cambric nightgown edged with tatting, long-sleeved and buttoned up to her soft white throat just as she used to wear them long ago when her mother made them for her. The maple tree by her window threw little flickering shadows over the wire window screen and played over her quiet face, while she sat there far into the night, looking out. Once a little wild rabbit whisked across the grass and sat posed with ears alert and trembling nose in a splash of moonlight. Emily Dillon saw it and smiled to herself in the darkness with a happy smile. The world was still mystical with moonlight when at last she crept silently into her bed, and Harriet was noisily enjoying her rest.

  “I’m going into the city this morning,” Emily announced quietly enough at the breakfast table. “Is there anything you’d like me to get for you?”

  Harriet sniffed and eyed her curiously. Wasn’t that just like Emily Dillon, not to say what she was going for? Emily almost never went to the city. What on earth could she be going to do? And why didn’t she ask her to go along?

  “I’d thought we’d put up those tomatoes,” she said discontentedly. “It’s sinful to let them rot on the vines.”

  “Well, the tomatoes can wait. I was looking at them yesterday. It’s a beautiful day, and I’ve got my plans all made to go. I thought I’d take a little of your advice and get out.”

  She smiled sweetly and finished her coffee.

  Harriet opened her lips to say she would go with her and then shut them with a click. No, she would never crawl after Emily Dillon for company. Emily was too closemouthed, and she could find her own company. Very likely she was going to visit some orphan asylum or old ladies’ home and take them flowers. She did that sometimes, and Harriet had no taste for such a form of amusement. A sinful waste to spend money for flowers when the heathen needed it all. She picked up her plate and carried it to the kitchen in offended silence. Emily gathered her dishes and washed them quickly in the sink then dried them and put them away.

  “Then you don’t want any errands
done?” she asked pleasantly.

  “No, I don’t!” snapped Harriet. “If I did I could do them myself. I go to the city now and then, you know.”

  Emily Dillon went straight to her lawyer’s office in the city.

  “I want you to buy a house for me,” she said. “It’s a little bungalow in Glenside belonging to S. S. Packard, and his telephone number is 774W. I think you’ll find him there now. Could you call up and arrange about the purchase without his knowing who bought it?”

  “Oh yes, Miss Dillon, that can be arranged. The firm can buy it, you know. Did you wish to pay cash for it?”

  “Yes, I’d like you to use some of those last bonds you bought for me. It’s only a small bungalow, and the price is seventy-five hundred.”

  “Very well, I’ll call him at once.”

  He reached for the telephone.

  “I’d like to get it all fixed up today,” she said nervously. “Could it be done as soon as that?”

  “Why, if there are no complications. Possibly we could get the deed ready this afternoon. You will want the title searched, of course.”

  “Whatever is necessary, of course, but I want the property anyway, and I want it fixed up as soon as possible. You see, there are some young people who want it very much, and they’ve had to give up the option on it because they couldn’t get the money to make a payment on it. This is their address. I’d like you to write them at once and say that your client who has purchased the bungalow understands that they have been interested in it and that it is for rent. Then find out what they are willing to pay and rent it to them no matter how low the rent is. You understand, I want them to have it no matter how little I get from it.”

  “I understand, Miss Dillon,” said the lawyer, with a pleasant sparkle in his eyes. “I’ll try to carry out your wishes.”

  “There’s another thing. Mr. Bonsall, I’d like to make a change in my will to include this purchase.”

  “Certainly,” said the lawyer. “I’ll send for the will, and as soon as we have the details we can fix that up.” He touched a button and a boy appeared. “Bring the box containing Miss Dillon’s papers,” he said and went at once to the telephone.

  In a few minutes more Emily Dillon was back in the city street again with the day before her. It was understood that she was to return about five o’clock to get the matter of the will fixed up. Harriet Granniss would think it very odd that she stayed away so long without explanation, but it couldn’t be helped, and she felt an intense satisfaction in the thought that she was prolonging her stay not from foolish desire of her own to play around in her favorite orphan asylums and hospitals but from a real sense of duty toward business matters. It gave her as it were a feeling that this day had just dropped down at her feet like a gift that she might do with as she pleased and not feel any compunctions of conscience. Emily Dillon’s conscience was well developed and always on the job.

  She took a few steps out into the hot morning sunshine and paused, wondering what she should do first. She had a vague idea in the back of her mind of doing some frivolous shopping, buying something that Harriet would consider extravagant, something that perhaps she never would really feel like wearing in Glenside—and she rarely went elsewhere. She had no definite plan other than to satisfy a craving for something beautiful that had previously been without the pale of things that were really necessary. She cast her eyes up and down the street, hesitating between two of the big department stores for her first wild venture, when the label on an approaching trolley car caught her attention. That was the car that went to Copple’s Crossing! A sudden keen longing seized her to take it and spend the day in her childhood’s haunts.

  It was a long time since she had been in Mercer, and longer still since she had been at the old farmhouse and wandered through the fields and woods down to the creek where she and Rebecca Ford used to play. Their talk of yesterday came back to her vividly about wading in the creek and how delightful it would be to go there again and just see the dear old spot! If she had only thought of it in time she would have taken Rebecca, and they could have had a happy day together far from Harriet’s prying eye. But it was too late to call her up, for she would by this time have gone to give the last cleaning to the schoolhouse, and besides, perhaps even Rebecca with all her understanding might think it foolish for a woman of her maturity to waste a whole day going to the woods. But there was nothing to hinder her going by herself, and no one would ever be the wiser.

  She had plenty of time to go and return before five o’clock, and why should she not take this little bit of pleasuring?

  With a quick little birdlike motion of determination, Emily turned and went a few steps down the block to a large fancy grocery where she purchased a couple of sandwiches, a small bag of chocolates, and two luscious Bartlett pears. Her heart beat rapidly as she did it, and her cheeks grew pretty and pink like a wild rose. She felt dreadfully selfish, somehow, but quite determined. She marched out joyously with her bits of packages and boarded the next car for Copple’s Crossing.

  It was a long ride, haltingly through the lingering city and almost endless suburbs until the wide country was reached, but Emily Dillon enjoyed every instant of it, sitting serenely with a smile on her face like her little-girl self when she was allowed some unusual pleasure.

  Visions of her sweet-faced mother and her faraway childhood began to come to her as she got away from the city. The wall that had been made by years of self-denial, disappointment, and pain seemed to melt away and be for the time forgotten, and her face was bright with the thoughts of happiness that might have been, some that had been, as if it were today. The smile on her face, and the dreamy look of visions in her eyes, caused more than one fellow passenger to look at her tenderly, she had so well kept her look of a little child in her mature face, that kingdom-of-heaven look.

  At Copple’s Crossing there were two other passengers to get out, a man and a little boy. She was glad that she knew neither of them. She did not want to be watched nor interrupted. Someday, soon perhaps, she would go on to Mercer and look up some of her old friends. There was no real reason why she should not have done it sooner, only that Harriet would have wanted to go along, and she shrank from taking Harriet into the atmosphere of things she loved, because she generally managed to spoil everything with her cynicism. But today she wanted to have all to herself. One day out of a whole lifetime to talk alone with her own soul and see some things face-to-face, things that she had never dared admit to herself. Why should she not have it?

  So she hurried on ahead with her little tripping walk and did not even look behind at the man and boy who plodded after her. At the turn of the road she slipped between the trees and was lost to sight when the two came around the curve. She did not even know that they stood in curious wonderment to see how she had disappeared, and talked of it several times, looking back and guessing who she was.

  Chapter 14

  Up she climbed by a road that was now overgrown with huckleberry and fern and laurel, and discernible as a trail only to the feet of memory. Rough branches reached out and caught at her trim little black toque, tore her veil, and snatched at her prim white shirtwaist, but she climbed breathlessly, buoyantly, like one who has just drunk of the spring of youth. Her face was flushed, her toque was jostled to one side, her veil was shredded and floating triumphantly, her neat black kid glove was split from wrist to finger where she had caught at a branch to steady herself, but she was happy, breathlessly happy, and once she laughed aloud as the underbrush caught her foot and almost threw her down. It seemed to her that she was just beginning to live.

  She reached the crest of the hill, where the old chestnut trees still stood, although a blight had struck them and there were no mossy burrs littering the ground as in the old days. She paused to look up and remember Nate Barrett’s smiling face as it looked that day he climbed the tree to shake down more nuts for her. It was almost as if his spirit had come back, too, to wander with her in their old haunts, where
they had not met since the day her angry father threw his gift of an orange in his face and ordered him from the porch. She had thought, then, that her life was ended, and for many long nights her pillow had been wet with bitter tears; but submission and patience had wrought their sweet work in her heart and taken the sting from her trouble. Nate Barrett knew it was not her fault. He had been young then, very young, with all his way to make in the world, and she scarcely more than a child, though even then keeping house for her father, who had never loved her enough to keep from drinking and disgracing her. There had never been any romance between them before the episode of the orange, only good friendship. But when her father threw that luscious orange straight into his face with a drunken force that sent its rich juice smashing through the golden rind, Nathan Barrett stood still, wiped the drops from his forehead, and looked the angry man straight in the face: “My father was just as good as you are, Jake Dillon, and my family have always been honorable and clean if they weren’t high and mighty. I can’t do anything about it now; but believe me, I’m going to show you that I’m good enough to associate with your daughter, if she is the finest of the fine, and don’t you forget it!” Then, turning to the distressed girl, he had said, “Emily, there’ll never be anybody like you in my life, and I guess you know that, though I’ve not said such a word to you before. I’m going away and I’m going to be somebody you won’t be ashamed of, and if you ever feel free, you have just to let me know, for I’ll always be waiting for you.”

  Then he had turned on his heel and gone down the path to the gate, head up, shoulders square and determined, and gone out of her life. The years had come and gone, full of homely duties and monotony, full of angry complaining from her father, and sprees that grew longer and closer together, full of a steady attempt on her part to be a good daughter and fulfill the last request of her dying mother, “Take care of Father, Mother’s little girl. You know he needs it.” Her one comfort had been that Nathan knew of her promise whispered into the dying ear, and Nathan would not expect her to leave her post of duty. But why in all the years had Nathan never written? That question had troubled her for years, because she had felt sure that he would have found a way to communicate if he had tried. And yet, perhaps he would not feel it honorable after having been forbidden by her father to have anything to do with her. And of course in all that time he might have changed. He might have forgotten. Men were that way, people told her. She had no intimate knowledge of such things herself, save as she judged by her father. So the raw sorrow had burned itself into her soul and purified her until submission had come to smooth the pain away and bring the peace and the young look back into her eyes. As she grew older and saw the sorrows of some of her young companions, married to the young men of their choice but many of them cast aside after a few months or years like an old coat, or tortured by neglect, or actually sinned against, having to toil so hard and receiving nothing in return but hard words and cruel treatment, she came to think her lot was tolerable, even lovely in comparison. For had she not Nate’s word that she was all in all to him, that there would never be another in his life? True, he had been only a boy and he might have changed, but as she did not know it, why torment herself by thinking so? He had never written. His mother and he had dropped as it were out of the universe. Perhaps he was dead. That had been her thought. But still she had life, and love had been hers, a love that she might keep forever bright and clear in her heart. And so she had endured and made her desert blossom with loveliness because of that brief, sweet, hurried word he had said at parting.