Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - By the Light of the Soul

M >> Mary E. Wilkins Freeman >> By the Light of the Soul

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Maria replied, unguardedly, that she intended to take them after
supper that night. "Then she will have them all ready for Monday,"
she said.

"Then let me go with you and carry the parcels," George Ramsey said,
eagerly.

Maria stiffened. "Thank you," she said, "but Uncle Henry is going
with me, and there is no need."

Maria felt her aunt Eunice give a sudden start and make an
inarticulate murmur of remonstrance, then she checked herself. Maria
knew that her uncle walked a mile from his factory to save car-fare;
she knew also that she was telling what was practically an untruth,
since she had made no agreement with her uncle to accompany her.

"I should be happy to go with you," said George Ramsey, in a boyish,
abashed voice.

Maria said nothing more. She looked past her aunt out of the window.
The full moon was rising, and all at once all the girl's sweet light
of youthful romance appeared again above her mental horizon. She felt
that it would be almost heaven to walk with George Ramsey in that
delicious moonlight, in the clear, frosty air, and take little Jessy
Ramsey her gifts. Maria was of an almost abnormal emotional nature,
although there was little that was material about the emotion. She
dreamed of that walk as she might have dreamed of a walk with a fairy
prince through fairy-land, and her dream was as innocent, but it
unnerved her. She said again, in a tremulous voice, that she was very
much obliged, and murmured something again about her uncle Henry; and
George Ramsey replied, with a certain sober dignity, that he should
have been very happy.

Soon after that the car stopped to let off some passengers, and
George moved to a vacant seat in front. He did not turn around again.
Maria looked at his square shoulders and again gazed past her aunt at
the full orb of the moon rising with crystalline splendor in the pale
amber of the east. There was a clear gold sunset which sent its
reflection over the whole sky.

Presently, Eunice spoke in her little, deprecating voice, which had a
slight squeak.

"Did you speak to your uncle Henry about going with you this
evening?" she asked.

"No, I didn't," admitted Maria, reddening, "but I knew he would be
willing."

"I suppose he will be," said Eunice. "But he does get home awful
tuckered out Saturday nights, and he always takes his bath Saturday
nights, too."

Eunice looked out of the window with a slight frown. She adored her
husband, and the thought of that long walk for him on his weary
Saturday evening, and the possible foregoing of his bath, troubled
her.

"I don't believe George Ramsey liked it," she whispered, after a
little.

"I can't help it if he didn't," replied Maria. "I can't go with him,
Aunt Eunice."

As they jolted along, Maria made up her mind that she would not ask
her uncle to go with her at all; that she would slip out unknown to
Aunt Maria and ask the girl who lived in the house on the other side,
Lily Merrill, to go with her. She thought that two girls need not be
afraid, and she could start early.

As she parted from her aunt Eunice at the door of the house, after
they had left the car (Eunice's door was on the side where the
Ramseys lived, and Maria's on the Merrill side), she told her of her
resolution.

"Don't say anything to Uncle Henry about going with me," said she.

"Why, what are you going to do?"

"I'll get Lily Merrill. I know she won't mind."

Maria and Lily Merrill had been together frequently since Maria had
come to Amity, and Eunice accounted them as intimate. She looked
hesitatingly a second at her niece, then she said, with an evident
air of relief:

"Well, I don't know but you can. It's bright moonlight, and it's late
in the season for tramps. I don't see why you two girls can't go
together, if you start early."

"We'll start right after supper," said Maria.

"I would," said Eunice, still with an air of relief.

Maria took her aunt's fish-net bag, as well as her own parcels, and
carried them around to her aunt Maria's side of the house, and
deposited them on the door-step. There was a light in the kitchen,
and she could see her aunt Maria's shadow moving behind the curtain,
preparing supper. Then she ran across the yard, over the frozen
furrows of a last year's garden, and knocked at the side-door of the
Merrill house.

Lily herself opened the door, and gave a little, loving cry of
surprise. "Why, is it you, dear?" she said.

"Yes. I want to know if you can go over the river with me to-night on
an errand?"

"Over the river? Where?"

"Oh, only to Jessy Ramsey's. Aunt Eunice and I have been to
Westbridge and bought these things for her, and I want to carry them
to her to-night. I thought maybe you would go with me."

Lily hesitated. "It's a pretty lonesome walk," said she, "and there
are an awful set of people on the other side of the river."

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Maria. "You aren't afraid--we two together--and
it's bright moonlight, as bright as day."

"Yes, I know it is," replied Lily, gazing out at the silver light
which flooded everything, but she still hesitated. A light in the
house behind gave her a background of light. She was a beautiful
girl, prettier than Maria, taller, and with a timid, pliant grace.
Her brown hair tossed softly over her big, brown eyes, which were
surmounted by strongly curved eyebrows, her nose was small, and her
mouth, and she had a fascinating little way of holding her lips
slightly parted, as if ready for a loving word or a kiss. Everybody
said that Lily Merrill had a beautiful disposition, albeit some
claimed that she lacked force. Maria dominated her, although she did
not herself know it. Lily continued to hesitate with her beautiful,
startled brown eyes on Maria's face.

"Aren't you afraid?" she said.

"Afraid? No. What should I be afraid of? Why, it's bright moonlight!
I would just as soon go at night as in the daytime when the moon is
bright."

"That is an awful man who lives at the Ramseys'!"

"Nonsense! I guess if he tried to bother us, Mrs. Ramsey would take
care of him," said Maria. "Come along, Lily. I would ask Uncle Henry,
but it is the night when he takes his bath, and he comes home tired."

"Well, I'll go if mother will let me," said Lily.

Then Lily called to her mother, who came to the sitting-room door in
response.

"Mother," said Lily, "Maria wants me to go over to the Ramseys',
those on the other side of the river, after supper, and carry these
things to Jessy."

"Aren't you afraid?" asked Lily's mother, as Lily herself had done.
She was a faded but still pretty woman who had looked like her
daughter in her youth. She was a widow with some property, enough for
her Lily and herself to live on in comfort.

"Why, it's bright moonlight, Mrs. Merrill," said Maria, "and the
Ramseys live just the other side of the river."

"Well, if Lily isn't afraid, I don't care," said Mrs. Merrill. She
had an ulterior motive for her consent, of which neither of the two
girls suspected her. She was smartly dressed, and her hair was
carefully crimped, and she had, as always in the evening, hopes that
a certain widower, the resident physician of Amity, Dr. Ellridge,
might call. He had noticed her several times at church suppers, and
once had walked home with her from an evening meeting. Lily never
dreamed that her mother had aspirations towards a second husband. Her
father had been dead ten years; the possibility of any one in his
place had never occurred to her; then, too, she looked upon her
mother as entirely too old for thoughts of that kind. But Mrs.
Merrill had her own views, which she kept concealed behind her
pretty, placid exterior. She always welcomed the opportunity of being
left alone of an evening, because she realized the very serious
drawback that the persistent presence of a pretty, well-grown
daughter might be if a wooer would wish to woo. She knew perfectly
well that if Dr. Ellridge called, Lily would wonder why he called,
and would sit all the evening in the same room with her fancy-work,
entirely unsuspicious. Lily might even think he came to see her. Mrs.
Merrill had a measure of slyness and secrecy which her daughter did
not inherit. Lily was not brilliant, but she was as entirely sweet
and open as the flower for which she was named. She was emotional,
too, with an innocent emotionlessness, and very affectionate. Mrs.
Merrill made almost no objection to Lily's going with Maria, but
merely told her to wrap up warmly when she went out. Lily looked
charming, with a great fur boa around her long, slender throat, and
red velvet roses nestling under the brim of her black hat against the
soft puff of her brown hair. She bent over her mother and kissed her.

"I hope you won't be very lonesome, mother dear," she said.

Mrs. Merrill blushed a little. To-night she had confident hopes of
the doctor's calling; she had even resolved upon a coup. "Oh no, I
shall not be lonesome," she replied. "Norah isn't going out, you
know."

"We shall not be gone long, anyway," Lily said, as she went out. She
had not even noticed her mother's blush. She was not very acute. She
ran across the yard, the dry grass of which shone like a carpet of
crisp silver in the moonlight, and knocked on Maria's door. Maria
answered her knock. She was all ready, and she had her aunt Eunice's
fish-net bag and her armful of parcels.

"Here, let me take some of them, dear," said Lily, in her cooing
voice, and she gathered up some of the parcels under her long, supple
arm.

Maria's aunt Maria followed her to the door. "Now, mind you don't go
into that house," said she. "Just leave the things and run right
home; and if you see anybody who looks suspicious, go right up to a
house and knock. I don't feel any too safe about you two girls going,
anyway."

Aunt Maria spoke in a harsh, croaking voice; she had a cold. Maria
seized her by the shoulders and pushed her back, laughingly.

"You go straight in the house," said she. "And don't you worry. Lily
and I both have hat-pins, and we can both run, and there's nothing to
be afraid of, anyway."

"Well, I don't half like the idea," croaked Aunt Maria, retreating.

Lily and Maria went on their way. Lily looked affectionately at her
companion, whose pretty face gained a singular purity of beauty from
the moonlight.

"How good you are, dear," she said.

"Nonsense!" replied Maria. Somehow all at once the consciousness of
her secret, which was always with her, like some hidden wound, stung
her anew. She thought suddenly how Lily would not think her good at
all if she knew what an enormous secret she was hiding from her, of
what duplicity she was guilty.

"Yes, you are good," said Lily, "to take all this trouble to get that
poor little thing clothes."

"Oh, as for that," said Maria, "Mr. George Ramsey is the one to be
thanked. It was his money that bought the things, you know."

"He is good, too," said Lily, and her voice was like a song with
cadences of tenderness.

Maria started and glanced at her, then looked away again. A qualm of
jealousy, of which she was ashamed, seized her. She gave her head a
toss, and repeated, with a sort of defiance, "Yes, he is good enough,
I suppose."

"I think you are real sweet," said Lily, "and I do think George
Ramsey is splendid."

"I don't see anything very remarkable about him," said Maria.

"Don't you think he is handsome?"

"I don't know. I don't suppose I ever think much about a man being
handsome. I don't like handsome men, anyway. I don't like men,
anyway, when it comes to that."

"George Ramsey is very nice," said Lily, and there was an accent in
her speech which made the other girl glance at her. Lily's face was
turned aside, although she was clinging close to Maria's arm, for she
was in reality afraid of being out in the night with another girl.

They walked along in silence after that. When they came to the
covered bridge which crossed the river, Lily forced Maria into a run
until they reached the other side.

"It is awful in here," she said, in a fearful whisper.

Maria laughed. She herself did not feel the least fear, although she
was more imaginative than the other girl. At that time a kind of rage
against life itself possessed her which made her insensible to
ordinary fear. She felt that she had been hardly used, and she was,
in a measure, at bay. She knew that she could fight anything until
she died, and beyond that there was nothing certainly to fear. She
had become abnormal because of her strained situation as regarded
society. However, she ran because Lily wished her to do so, and they
soon emerged from the dusty tunnel of the bridge, with its strong
odor of horses, and glimpses between the sides of the silver current
of the river, into the moon-flooded road.

After the bridge came the school-house, then, a half-mile beyond
that, the Ramsey house. The front windows were blazing with light,
and the sound of a loud, drunken voice came from within.

Lily shrank and clung closely to Maria.

"Oh, Maria, I am awfully afraid to go to the door," she whispered.
"Just hear that. Eugene Ramsey must be home drunk, and--and perhaps
the other man, too. I am afraid. Don't let's go there."

Maria looked about her. "You see that board fence, then?" she said to
Lily, and as she spoke she pointed to a high board fence on the other
side of the street, which was completely in shadow.

"Yes."

"Well, if you are afraid, just go and stand straight against the
fence. You will be in shadow, and if you don't move nobody can
possibly see you. Then I will go to the door and leave the things."

"Oh, Maria, aren't you afraid?"

"No, I am not a bit afraid."

"You won't go in, honest?"

"No, I won't go in. Run right over there."

Lily released her hold of Maria's arm and made a fluttering break for
the fence, against which she shrank and became actually invisible as
a shadow. Maria marched up to the Ramsey door and knocked loudly.
Mrs. Ramsey came to the door, and Maria thrust the parcels into her
hands and began pulling them rapidly out of the fish-net bag. Mrs.
Ramsey cast a glance behind her at the lighted room, through which
was visible the same man whom Maria had seen before, and also
another, and swung the door rapidly together, so that she stood in
the dark entry, only partly lighted by the moonlight.

"I have brought some things for Jessy to wear to school, Mrs.
Ramsey," said Maria.

"Thank you," Mrs. Ramsey mumbled, doubtfully, with still another
glance at the closed door, through which shone lines and chinks of
light.

"There are enough for her to be warmly clothed, and you will see to
it that she has them on, won't you?" said Maria. Her voice was quite
sweet and ingratiating, and not at all patronizing.

Suddenly the woman made a clutch at her arm. "You are a good young
one, doin' so much for my young one," she whispered. "Now you'd
better git up and git. They've been drinkin'. Git!"

"You will see that Jessy has the things to wear Monday, won't you?"
said Maria.

"Sure." Suddenly the woman wiped her eyes and gave a maudlin sob.
"You're a good young one," she whimpered. "Now, git."

Maria ran across the road as the door closed after her. She did not
know that Mrs. Ramsey had given the parcels which she had brought a
toss into another room, and when she entered the room in which the
men were carousing and was asked who had come to the door, had
replied, "The butcher for his bill," to be greeted with roars of
laughter. She did, indeed, hear the roars of laughter. Lily slunk
along swiftly beside the fence by her side. Maria caught her by the
arm. Curiously enough, while she was not afraid for herself, she did
feel a little fear now for her companion. The two girls hurried until
they reached the bridge, and ran the whole length. On the other side,
coming into the lighted main street of Amity, they felt quite safe.

"Did you see any of those dreadful men?" gasped Lily.

"I just caught a glimpse of them, then Mrs. Ramsey shut the door,"
said Maria.

"They were drunk, weren't they?"

"I shouldn't wonder."

"I do think it was an awful place to go to," said Lily, with a little
sigh of relief that she was out of it.

The girls went along the street until they reached the Ramsey house,
next the one where Maria lived. Suddenly a man's figure appeared from
the gate. It was almost as if he had been watching.

"Good-evening," he said, and the girls saw that he was George Ramsey.

"Good-evening, Mr. Ramsey," responded Maria. She felt Lily's arm
tremble in hers. George walked along with them. "I have been to carry
the presents which I bought with your money," said Maria.

"Good heavens! You don't mean that you two girls have been all alone
up there?" said George.

"Why, yes," said Maria. "Why not?"

"Weren't you afraid?"

"Maria isn't afraid of anything," Lily's sweet, little, tremulous
voice piped on the other side.

George was walking next Maria. There was a slight and very gentle
accusation in the voice.

"It wasn't safe," said George, soberly, "and I should have been glad
to go with you."

Maria laughed. "Well, here we are, safe and sound," she said. "I
didn't see anything to be much afraid of."

"All the same, they are an awful set there," said George. They had
reached Maria's door, and he added, "Suppose you walk along with me,
Miss Edgham, and I will see Lily home." George had been to school
with Lily, and had always called her by her first name.

Maria again felt that little tremor of Lily's arm in hers, and did
not understand it. "All right," she said.

The three walked to Lily's door, and had said good-night, when Lily,
who was, after all, the daughter of her mother, although her little
artifices were few and innocent, had an inspiration. She discovered
that she had lost her handkerchief.

"I think I took it out when we reached your gate, Mr. Ramsey," she
said, timidly, for she felt guilty.

It was quite true that the handkerchief was not in her muff, in which
she had carried it, but there was a pocket in her coat which she did
not investigate.

They turned back, looking along the frozen ground.

"Never mind," Lily said, cheerfully, when they had reached the Ramsey
gate and returned to the Edgham's, and the handkerchief was not
forthcoming, "it was an old one, anyway. Good-night."

She knew quite well that George Edgham would do what he did--walk
home with her the few steps between her house and Maria's, and that
Maria would not hesitate to say good-night and enter her own door.

"I guess I had better go right in," said Maria. "Aunt Maria has a
cold, and she may worry and be staying up."

Lily was entirely happy at walking those few steps with George
Ramsey. He had pulled her little hand through his arm in a school-boy
sort of fashion. He left her at the door with a friendly good-night,
but she had got what she wanted. He had not gone those few steps
alone with Maria. Lily loved Maria, but she did not want George
Ramsey to love her.

When Lily entered the house, to her great astonishment she found Dr.
Ellridge there. He was seated beside her mother, who was lying on the
sofa.

"Why, mother, what is it--are you sick?" Lily cried, anxiously, while
the doctor looked with admiration at her face, glowing with the cold.

"I had one of my attacks after supper, and sent Norah for Dr.
Ellridge. I thought I had better," Mrs. Merrill explained, feebly.
She sighed and looked at the doctor, who understood perfectly, but
did not betray himself. He was, in fact, rather flattered.

"Yes, your mother has been feeling quite badly, but she will be all
right now," he said to Lily.

"I am sorry you did not feel well, mother," Lily said, sweetly. Then
she got her fancy-work from her little silk bag on the table and
seated herself, after removing her wraps.

Her mother sighed. The doctor's mouth assumed a little, humorous
pucker.

Lily looked at her mother with affectionate interest. She was quite
accustomed to slight attacks of indigestion which her mother often
had, and was not much alarmed, still she felt a little anxious. "You
are sure you are better, mother?" she said.

"Oh yes, she is much better," the doctor answered for her. "There is
nothing for you to be alarmed about."

"I am so glad," said Lily.

She took another stitch in her fancy-work, and her beautiful face
took on an almost seraphic expression; she was thinking of George
Ramsey. She hardly noticed when the doctor took his leave, and she
did not in the least understand her mother's sigh when the door
closed. For her the gates of love were wide open, but she had no
conception that for her mother they were not shut until she should go
to heaven to join her father.

Chapter XX

The next evening Maria, as usual, went to church with her two aunts.
Henry Stillman remained at home reading the Sunday paper. He took a
certain delight in so doing, although he knew, in the depths of his
soul, that his delight was absurd. He knew perfectly well that it did
not make a feather's weight of difference in the universal scheme of
things that he, Henry Stillman, should remain at home and read the
columns of scandal and politics in that paper, instead of going to
church, and yet he liked to think that his small individuality and
its revolt because of its injuries at the hands of fate had its
weight, and was at least a small sting of revenge.

He watched his wife adjust her bonnet before the looking-glass in the
sitting-room, and arrange carefully the bow beneath her withered
chin, and a great pity for her, because she was no longer as she had
been, but was so heavily marked by time, and a great jealousy that
she should not lose the greatest of all things, which he himself had
lost, came over him. As she--a little, prim, mild woman, in her
old-fashioned winter cape and her bonnet, with its stiff tuft of
velvet pansies--passed him, he caught her thin, black-gloved hand and
drew her close to him.

"I'm glad you are going to church, Eunice," he said.

Eunice colored, and regarded him with a kind of abashed wonder.

"Why don't you come, too, Henry?" she said, timidly.

"No, I've quit," replied Henry. "I've quit begging where I don't get
any alms; but as for you, if you get anything that satisfies your
soul, for God's sake hold on to it, Eunice, and don't let it go."
Then he pulled her bonneted head down and kissed her thin lips, with
a kind of tenderness which was surprising. "You've been a good wife,
Eunice," he said.

Eunice laid her hand on his shoulder and looked at him a second. She
was almost frightened. Outward evidences of affection had not been
frequent between them of late years, or indeed ever. They were
New-Englanders to the marrow of their bones. Anything like an
outburst of feeling or sentiment, unless in case of death or
disaster, seemed abnormal. Henry realized his wife's feeling, and he
smiled up at her.

"We are getting to be old folks," he said, "and we've had more bitter
than sweet in life, and we have neither of us ever said much as to
how we felt to each other, but--I never loved you as much as I love
you now, Eunice, and I've taken it into my head to say it."

Eunice's lips quivered a little and her eyes reddened. "There ain't a
woman in Amity who has had so good a husband as I have all these
years, if you don't go to meeting," she replied. Then she added,
after a second's pause: "I didn't know as you did feel just as you
used to, Henry. I didn't know as any man did. I know I've lost my
looks, and--"

"I can seem to see your looks, brighter than ever they were, in your
heart," said Henry. He colored himself a little at his own sentiment.
Then he pulled her face down to his again and gave her a second kiss.
"Now run along to your meeting," he said. "Have you got enough on?
The wind sounds cold."

"Yes," replied Eunice. "This cape's real thick. I put a new lining in
it this winter, you know, and, besides, I've got my crocheted jacket
under it. I'm as warm as toast."

Eunice, after she had gone out in the keen night air with her
sister-in-law and her niece, reflected with more uneasiness than
pleasure upon her husband's unwonted behavior.

"Does it seem to you that Henry looks well lately?" she asked the
elder Maria, as they hurried along.

"Yes; why not?" returned Maria.

"I don't know. It seems to me he's been losing flesh."

"Nonsense!" said Maria. "I never saw him looking better than he does
now. I was thinking only this morning that he was making a better,
healthier old man than he was as a young man. But I do wish he would
go to meeting. I don't think his mind is right about some things.
Suppose folks do have troubles. They ought to be led to the Lord by
them, instead of pulling back. Henry hasn't had anything more to
worry him, nor half as much, as most men. He don't take things right.
He ought to go to meeting."

"I guess he's just as good as a good many who do go to meeting,"
returned Eunice, with unwonted spirit.

"I don't feel competent to judge as to that," replied Maria, with a
tone of aggravating superiority. Then she added, "'By their works ye
shall know them.'"

"I would give full as much for Henry's chances as for some who go to
meeting every Sunday of their lives," said Eunice, with still more
spirit. "And as for trials, they weigh heavier on some than on
others."

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