_ Chapter XVIII
Henry looked more and more disturbed as they went down the street. "I declare, I don't know what Sylvia will say," he remarked, moodily.
"You mean about the pretty little love-affair?" said Meeks, walking along fanning himself with his hat.
"Yes, she'll be dreadful upset."
"Upset; why?"
"It beats me to know why. Who ever does know the why of a woman?"
"What in creation is the fellow, anyhow?" said Meeks, with a laugh. "Are all the women going daft over him? He isn't half bad looking, and he's a good sort, but I'm hanged if I can see why he should upset every woman who looks at him. Here we've just escorted that poor Ayres girl home. I declare, her face made me shiver. I was glad there wasn't any pond handy for her. But if you mean to say that your good, sensible old wife--"
"Get out! You know better," cried Henry, impatiently. "You know Sylvia better than that. She sets a lot by Mr. Allen; I do myself; but, as far as that goes, she'd give her blessing if he'd marry any girl but Rose. That's where the hitch comes in. She doesn't want him to marry her."
"Thinks he isn't good enough?"
"I don't believe it's that. I don't know what it is. She says she don't want Rose to marry anybody."
"Good Lord! Sylvia doesn't expect a girl with a face like that, and money to boot, to be an old maid! My only wonder is that she hasn't been snapped up before now."
"I guess Rose has had chances."
"If she hasn't, all the men who have seen her have been stone blind."
"I don't know what has got into Sylvia, and that's the truth," Henry said. "I never saw her act the way she does lately. I can't imagine what has got into her head about Rose that she thinks she mustn't get married."
"Maybe Sylvia is in love with the girl," said Meeks, shrewdly.
"I know she is," said Henry. "Poor Sylvia loves her as if she was her own daughter, but I have always understood that mothers were crazy to have their daughters married."
"So have I, but these popular ideas are sometimes nonsense. I have always heard that myself."
"Sylvia and I have been happy enough together," said Henry. "It can't be that her own life as a married woman makes her think it a better plan to remain single."
"That's stuff."
"It seems so to me. Well, all the reason I can think of is, Sylvia has come to set so much by the girl that she's actually jealous of her."
"Do you suppose they'll tell her to-night?" asked Meeks.
Henry regarded him with an expression of actual terror. "Seems as if they might wait, and let Sylvia have her night's sleep," he muttered.
"I guess I won't stay to supper," said Meeks.
"Stay, for the Lord's sake."
Meeks laughed. "I believe you are afraid, Henry."
"I hate to see a woman upset over anything."
"So do I, for that matter. Do you think my staying might make it any better?"
"Yes, it might. Here we are in sight of the house. You ain't going to back out?"
Meeks laughed again, although rather uneasily. "All right," he said.
When he and Henry entered they found Sylvia moving nervously about the sitting-room. She was scowling, and her starched apron-strings were rampant at her slim back.
"Well," she said, with a snap, "I'm glad somebody has come. Supper's been ready for the last quarter of an hour, and I don't know but the corn is spoiled. How do you do, Mr. Meeks? I'll be glad to have you stay to supper, but I don't know as there's a thing fit to eat."
"Oh, I'll risk it," Sidney said. "You can't have anything worse than I've got at home. I had to go to Alford about that confounded Ames case. I had a dinner there that wasn't fit for a dog to eat, and I'm down to baker's bread and cheese."
"Where have _you_ been?" demanded Sylvia of Henry. He cast an appealing glance at Meeks. The two men stood shoulder to shoulder, as if confronted by a common foe of nervous and exasperated feminity.
"I'm to blame for that," said Meeks. "I wanted to see if you had any wild grapes to spare, and I asked Henry to go down to the orchard with me. I suppose you can spare me some of those wild grapes?"
"Take all you want, and welcome," said Sylvia. "Now, I'll put supper on the table, and we'll eat it. I ain't going to wait any longer for anybody."
After Sylvia had gone, with a jerk, out of the room, the two men looked at each other. "Couldn't you give Allen a hint to lay low to-night, anyhow?" whispered Meeks.
Henry shook his head. "They'll be sure to show it some way," he replied. "I don't know what's got into Sylvia."
"It seems a pretty good sort of match, to me."
"So it does to me. Of course Rose has got more money, and I know as well as I want to that Horace has felt a little awkward about that; but lately he's been earning extra writing for papers and magazines, and it was only last Monday he told me he'd got a steady job for a New York paper that wouldn't interfere with his teaching. He seemed mighty tickled about it, and I guess he made up his mind then to go ahead and get married."
"Come to supper," cried Sylvia, in a harsh voice, from the next room, and the two men went out at once and took their seats at the table. Rose's and Horace's places were vacant. "I'd like to know what they think," said Sylvia, dishing up the baked beans. "They can eat the corn cold. It's just as good cold as it is all dried up. Here it is six o'clock and they ain't come yet."
"These are baked beans that are baked beans," said Meeks.
"Yes, I always have said that Sylvia knows just how to bake beans," said Henry. "I go to church suppers, and eat other folks' baked beans, but they 'ain't got the knack of seasoning, or something."
"It's partly the seasoning and partly the cooking," said Sylvia, in a somewhat appeased voice.
"This is brown bread, too," said Meeks. His flattering tone was almost fulsome.
Henry echoed him eagerly. "Yes, I always feel just the same about the brown bread that Sylvia makes," he said.
But the brown bread touched a discordant tone.
Sylvia frowned. "Mr. Allen always wants it hot," said she, "and it 'll be stone cold. I don't see where they went to."
"Here they are now," said Henry. He and Meeks cast an apprehensive glance at each other. Voices were heard, and Horace and Rose entered.
"Are we late?" asked Rose. She smiled and blushed, and cast her eyes down before Sylvia's look of sharp inquiry. There was a wonderful new beauty about the girl. She fairly glowed with it. She was a rose indeed, full of sunlight and dew, and holding herself, over her golden heart of joy, with a divine grace and modesty.
Horace did not betray himself as much. He had an expression of subdued triumph, but his face, less mobile than the girl's, was under better control. He took his place at the table and unfolded his napkin.
"I am awfully sorry if we have kept you waiting, Mrs. Whitman," he said, lightly, as if it did not make the slightest difference if she had been kept waiting.
Sylvia had already served Rose with baked beans. Now she spoke to Horace. "Pass your plate up, if you please, Mr. Allen," she said. "Henry, hand Mr. Allen the brown bread. I expect it's stone cold."
"I like it better cold," said Horace, cheerfully.
Sylvia stared at him, then she turned to Rose. "Where on earth have you been?" she demanded.
Horace answered for her. "We went to walk, and sat down under a tree in the orchard and talked; and we hadn't any idea how the time was passing," he said.
Henry and Meeks cast a relieved glance at each other. It did not appear that an announcement was to be made that night. After supper, when Meeks left, Henry strolled down the street a little way with him.
"I'm thankful to have it put off to-night, anyhow," he said. "Sylvia was all wrought up about their being late to supper, and she wouldn't have got a mite of sleep."
"You don't think anything will be said to-night?"
"No, I guess not. I heard Sylvia tell Rose she'd better go to bed right after supper, and Rose said, 'Very well, Aunt Sylvia,' in that way she has. I never saw a human being who seems to take other people's orders as Rose does."
"Allen told me he'd got to sit up till midnight over some writing," said Meeks. "That may have made a difference to the girl. Reckon she knew spooning was over for to-day."
Henry looked back at the house. There were two lighted windows on the second floor. "Rose is going to bed," he said. "That light's in her room."
"She looked happy enough to dazzle one when she came in, poor little thing," said Meeks. In his voice was an odd mixture of tenderness, admiration, and regret. "You've got your wife," he said, "but I wonder if you know how lonely an old fellow like me feels sometimes, when he thinks of how he's lived and what he's missed. To think of a girl having a face like that for a man. Good Lord!"
"You might have got married if you'd wanted to," said Henry.
"Of course; could get married now if I wanted to, but that isn't the question. I don't know what I'm such a d--n fool as to tell you for, only it's like ancient history, and no harm that I can see for either the living or the dead. There was a time when, if Abrahama White had worn a face like that for me--well--Poor girl, she got her heart turned the way it wasn't meant to go. She had a mean, lonesome life of it. Sometimes now, when I go into that house where she lived so many years, I declare, the weight of the burden she had to bear seems to be on me. It was a cruel life for a woman, and here's your wife wanting that girl to live the same way."
"Wouldn't she have you after Susy got married?" asked Henry. The words sounded blunt, but his voice was tender.
"Didn't ask her. I don't think so. She wasn't that kind of woman. It was what she wanted or nothing with her, always was. Guess that was why I felt the way I did about her."
"She was a handsome girl."
"Handsome! This girl you've got is pretty enough, but there never was such a beauty as Abrahama. Sometimes when I call her face back before my eyes, I declare it sounds like women's nonsense, but I wonder if I haven't done better losing such a woman as that than marrying any other."
"She was handsome," Henry said again, in his tone of futile, wondering sympathy.
When Henry had left Sidney and returned home, he found, to his horror, that Sylvia was not down-stairs. "She's up there with the girl, and Rose 'll tell her," he thought, uneasily. "She can't keep it to herself if she's alone with another woman."
He was right. Sylvia had followed the girl to her room. She was still angry with Rose, and filled with a vague suspicion, but she adored her. She was hungry for the pleasure of unfastening her gown, of seeing the last of her for the day. When she entered she found Rose seated beside the window. The lamp was not lit.
Sylvia stood in the doorway looking into the shadowy room. "Are you here?" she asked. She meant her voice to be harsh, but it rang sweet with tenderness.
"Yes, Aunt Sylvia."
"Where are you?"
"Over here beside the window."
"What on earth are you setting in the dark for?"
"Oh, I just thought I'd sit down here a few minutes. I was going to light the lamp soon."
Sylvia groped her way to the mantel-shelf, found the china match-box, and struck a match. Then she lit the lamp on the bureau and looked at the girl. Rose held her face a little averted. The lighting of the room had blotted out for her the soft indeterminateness of the summer night outside, and she was a little afraid to look at Sylvia with the glare of the lamp full upon her face.
"You'll get cold setting there," said Sylvia; "besides, folks can look right in. Get up and I'll unhook your dress."
Rose got up. Sylvia lowered the white window-shade and Rose stood about for her gown to be unfastened. She still kept her face away from the older woman. Sylvia unfastened the muslin bodice. She looked fondly at the soft, girlish neck when it was exposed. Her lips fairly tingled to kiss it, but she put the impulse sternly from her.
"What were you and Mr. Allen talking about so long down in the orchard?" said she.
"A good many things--ever so many things," said Rose, evasively.
Sylvia saw the lovely, slender neck grow crimson. She turned the girl around with a sudden twist at the shoulders, and saw the face flushing sweetly under its mist of hair. She saw the pouting lips and the downcast eyes.
"Why don't you look at me?" she said, in a hard whisper.
Rose remained motionless.
"Look at me."
Rose raised her eyelids, gave one glance at Sylvia, then she dropped them again. She was all one soft, rosy flush. She smiled a smile which she could not control--a smile of ecstasy.
Sylvia turned deadly pale. She gasped, and held the girl from her, looking at her pitilessly. "You don't mean it?" she exclaimed.
Then Rose spoke with a sudden burst of emotion. "Oh, Aunt Sylvia," she said, "I thought I wouldn't tell you to-night. I made him promise not to tell to-night, because I was afraid you wouldn't like it, but I've got to. I don't feel right to go to bed and not let you know."
"Then it's so?"
Rose gave her a glance of ineffable happiness and appeal for sympathy.
"You and him are planning to get married?"
"Not for a year; not for a whole year. He's absurdly proud because he's poor, and he wants to make sure that he can earn more than his teacher's salary. Not for a whole year."
"You and him are planning to get married?"
"I wasn't sure till this afternoon," Rose whispered. She put her arms around Sylvia, and tried to nestle against her flat bosom with a cuddling movement of her head, like a baby. "I wasn't sure," she whispered, "but he--told me, and--now I am sure."
Then Rose wept a little, softly, against Sylvia's thin breast. Sylvia stood like a stone. "Haven't you had all you wanted here?" she asked.
"Oh, Aunt Sylvia, you know I have. You've been so good to me."
"I had got my plans made to put in a bath-room," said Sylvia. "I've got the carpenters engaged, and the plumber. They are going to begin next week."
"You've been as good as can be to me, Aunt Sylvia."
"And I'm on the lookout for a carriage and horse you can drive, and I've been planning to have some parties for you. I've tried to think of everything that would make you feel happy and contented and at home."
"Oh, you have; I know you have, dear Aunt Sylvia," murmured Rose.
"I have done all I knew how," repeated Sylvia, in a stony fashion. She put the girl gently away and turned to go, but Rose caught her arm.
"Aunt Sylvia, you aren't going like this!" she cried. "I was afraid you wouldn't like it, though I don't know why. It does seem that Horace is all you could ask, if I were your very own daughter."
"You are like my very own daughter," said Sylvia, stiffly.
"Then why don't you like Horace?"
"I never said anything against him."
"Then why do you look so?"
Sylvia stood silent.
"You won't go without kissing me, anyway, will you?" sobbed Rose.
This time she really wept with genuine hurt and bewilderment.
Sylvia bent and touched her thin, very cold lips to Rose's. "Now go to bed," she said, and moved away, and was out of the room in spite of Rose's piteous cry to her to come back.
Henry, after he had entered the house and discovered that Sylvia was up-stairs with Rose, sat down to his evening paper. He tried to read, but could not get further than the glaring headlines about a kidnapping case. He was listening always for Sylvia's step on the stair.
At last he heard it. He turned the paper, with a loud rustle, to the continuation of the kidnapping case as she entered the room. He did not even look up. He appeared to be absorbed in the paper.
Sylvia closed the hall door behind her noiselessly; then she crossed the room and closed the door leading into the dining-room. Henry watched her with furtive eyes. He was horribly dismayed without knowing why. When Sylvia had the room completely closed she came close to him. She extended her right hand, and he saw that it contained a little sheaf of yellowed newspaper clippings pinned together.
"Henry Whitman," said she.
"Sylvia, you are as white as a sheet. What on earth ails you?"
"Do you know what has happened?"
Henry's eyes fell before her wretched, questioning ones. "What do you mean, Sylvia?" he said, in a faint voice.
"Do you know that Mr. Allen and Rose have come to an understanding and are going to get married?"
Henry stared at her.
"She has just told me," said Sylvia. "Here I have done everything in the world I could for her to make her contented."
"Sylvia, what on earth makes you feel so? She is only going to do what every girl who has a good chance does--what you did yourself."
"Look at here," said Sylvia, in an awful voice.
"What are they?"
"I found them in a box up in the garret. They were cut from newspapers years ago, when Rose was nothing but a child, just after her mother died."
"What are they? Don't look so, Sylvia."
"Here," said Sylvia, and Henry took the little yellow sheaf of newspaper clippings, adjusted his spectacles, moved the lamp nearer, and began to read.
He read one, then he looked at Sylvia, and his face was as white as hers. "Good God!" he said.
Sylvia stood beside him, and their eyes remained fixed on each other's white face. "I suppose the others are the same," Henry said, hoarsely.
Sylvia nodded. "Only from different papers. It's terrible how alike they are."
"So you've had this on your mind?"
Sylvia nodded grimly.
"When did you find them?"
"We'd been living here a few days. I was up in the garret. There was a box."
Henry remained motionless for a few moments. Then he sighed heavily, rose, and took Sylvia by the hand. "Come," he said.
"What are you going to do?"
"Come."
Sylvia followed, dragging back a little at her husband's leading hand, like a child. They passed through the dining-room into the kitchen. "There's a fire in the stove, ain't there?" said Henry, as they went.
Sylvia nodded again. She did not seem to have many words for this exigency.
Out in the kitchen Henry moved a lid from the stove, and put the little sheaf of newspaper clippings, which seemed somehow to have a sinister aspect of its own, on the bed of live coals. They leaped into a snarl of vicious flame. Henry and Sylvia stood hand in hand, watching, until nothing but a feathery heap of ashes remained on top of the coals. Then he replaced the lid and looked at Sylvia.
"Have you got any reason to believe that any living person besides you and I knows anything about this?" he asked.
Sylvia shook her head.
"Do you think Miss Farrel knew?"
Sylvia shook her head again.
"Do you think that lawyer out West, who takes care of her money, knows?"
"No." Sylvia spoke in a thin, strained voice. "This must be what she is always afraid of remembering," she said.
"Pray God she never does remember," Henry said. "Poor little thing! Here she is carrying a load on her back, and if she did but once turn her head far enough to get a glimpse of it she would die of it. It's lucky we can't see the other side of the moon, and I guess it's lucky we haven't got eyes in the backs of our heads."
"You wondered why I didn't want her to get married to him," said Sylvia.
Henry made an impatient motion. "Look here, Sylvia," he said. "I love that young man like my own son, and your feeling about it is rank idiocy."
"And I love her like my own daughter!" cried Sylvia, passionately. "And I don't want to feel that she's marrying and keeping anything back."
"Now, look here, Sylvia, here are you and I. We've got this secret betwixt us, and we've got to carry it betwixt us, and never let any living mortal see it as long as we both live; and the one that outlives the other has got to bear it alone, like a sacred trust."
Sylvia nodded. Henry put out the kitchen lamp, and the two left the room, moving side by side, and it was to each of them as if they were in reality carrying with their united strength the heavy, dead weight of the secret. _