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

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Then young Maria, who had been listening uneasily, broke in. She felt
herself a strong partisan of her Aunt Eunice, for she adored her
uncle, but she merely said that she thought Uncle Henry did look a
little thin, and she supposed he was tired Sunday, and it was the
only day he had to rest; then she abruptly changed the whole subject
by wondering if the Ramseys across the river would let Jessy go to
church if she trimmed a hat for her with some red velvet and a
feather which she had in her possession.

"No, they wouldn't!" replied her aunt Maria, sharply, at once
diverted. "I can tell you just exactly what they would do, if you
were to trim up a hat with that red velvet and that feather and give
it to that young one. Her good-for-nothing mother would have it on
her own head in no time, and go flaunting out in it with that man
that boards there."

Nothing could excel the acrimonious accent with which Aunt Maria
weighed down the "man who boards there," and the acrimony was
heightened by the hoarseness of her voice. Her cold was still far
from well, but Aunt Maria stayed at home from church for nothing
short of pneumonia.

The church was about half a mile distant. The meeting was held in a
little chapel built out like an architectural excrescence at the side
of the great, oblong, wooden structure, with its piercing steeple.
The chapel windows blazed with light. People were flocking in. As
they entered, a young lady began to play on an out-of-tune piano,
which Judge Josiah Saunders had presented to the church. She played a
Moody-and-Sankey hymn as a sort of prologue, although nobody sang it.
It was a curious custom which prevailed in the Amity church. A
Moody-and-Sankey hymn was always played in evening meetings instead
of the morning voluntary on the great organ.

Maria and her two aunts moved forward and seated themselves. Maria
looked absently at the smooth expanse of hair which showed below the
hat of the girl who was playing. The air was played very slowly,
otherwise the little audience might have danced a jig to it. Maria
thought of the meetings which she used to attend in Edgham, and how
she used to listen to the plaint of the whippoorwill on the
river-bank while the little organ gave out its rich, husky drone.
This, somehow, did not seem so religious to her. She remembered how
she had used to be conscious of Wollaston Lee's presence, and how she
had hoped he would walk home with her, and she reflected with what
shame and vague terror she now held him constantly in mind. Then she
thought of George Ramsey, and directly, without seeing him, she
became aware that he was seated on her right and was furtively
glancing at her. A wild despair seized her at the thought that he
might offer to accompany her home, and how she must not allow it, and
how she wanted him to do so. She kept her head steadfastly averted.
The meeting dragged on. Men rose and spoke and prayed, at intervals
the out-of-tune piano was invoked. A woman behind Maria sang
contralto with a curious effect, as if her head were in a tin-pail.
There were odd, dull, metallic echoes about it which filled the whole
chapel. The woman's daughter had some cheap perfume on her
handkerchief, and she was incessantly removing it from her muff. A
man at the left coughed a good deal. Maria saw in front of her Lily
Merrill's graceful brown head, in a charming hat with red roses under
the brim, and a long, soft, brown feather. Lily's mother was not with
her. Dr. Ellridge did not attend evening meetings, and Mrs. Merrill
always remained at home in the hope that he might call.

After church was over, Maria stuck closely to her aunts. She even
pushed herself between them, but they did not abet her. Both Eunice
and Aunt Maria had seen George Ramsey, and they had their own views.
Maria could not tell how it happened, but at the door of the chapel
she found herself separated from both her aunts, and George Ramsey
was asking if he might accompany her home. Maria obeyed her
instincts, although the next moment she could have killed herself for
it. She smiled, and bowed, and tucked her little hand into the crook
of the young man's offered arm. She did not see her aunts exchanging
glances of satisfaction.

"It will be a real good chance for her," said Eunice.

"Hush, or somebody will hear you," said Maria, in a sharp, pleased
tone, as she and her sister-in-law walked together down the moonlit
street.

Maria did not see Lily Merrill's start and look of piteous despair as
she took George's arm. Lily was just behind her. Maria, in fact, saw
nothing. She might have been walking in a vacuum of emotion.

"It is a beautiful evening," said George Ramsey, and his voice
trembled a little.

"Yes, beautiful," replied Maria.

Afterwards, thinking over their conversation, she could not remember
that they had talked about anything else except the beauty of the
evening, but had dwelt incessantly upon it, like the theme of a song.

The aunts lagged behind purposely, and Maria went in Eunice's door.
She thought that her niece would ask George to come in and she would
not be in the way. Henry looked inquiringly at the two women, who had
an air of mystery, and Maria responded at once to his unspoken
question.

"George Ramsey is seeing her home," she said, "and the front-door key
is under the mat, and I thought Maria could ask him in, and I would
go home through the cellar, and not be in the way. Three is a
company." Maria said the last platitude with a silly simper.

"I never saw anything like you women," said Henry, with a look of
incredulous amusement. "I suppose you both of you have been making
her wedding-dress, and setting her up house-keeping, instead of
listening to the meeting."

"I heard every word," returned Maria, with dignity, "and it was a
very edifying meeting. It would have done some other folks good if
they had gone, and as for Maria, she can't teach school all her days,
and here is her father with a second wife."

"Well, you women do beat the Dutch," said her brother, with a
tenderly indulgent air, as if he were addressing children.

Aunt Maria lingered in her brother's side of the house, talking about
various topics. She hesitated even about her stealthy going through
the cellar, lest she should disturb Maria and her possible lover. Now
and then she listened. She stood close to the wall. Finally she said,
with a puzzled look to Eunice, who was smoothing out her
bonnet-strings, "It's queer, but I can't hear them talking."

"Maybe he didn't come in," said Eunice.

"If they are in the parlor, you couldn't hear them," said Henry,
still with his half-quizzical, half-pitying air.

"She would have taken him in the parlor--I should think she would
have known enough to," said Eunice; "and you can't always hear
talking in the parlor in this room."

Maria made a move towards her brother's parlor, on the other side of
the tiny hall.

"I guess you are right," said she, "and I know she would have taken
him in there. I started a fire in there on purpose before I went to
meeting. It was borne in upon me that somebody might come home with
her."

Maria tiptoed into the parlor, with Eunice, still smoothing her
bonnet-strings, at her heels. Both women stood close to the wall,
papered with white-and-gold paper, and listened.

"I can't hear a single thing," said Maria.

"I can't either," said Eunice. "I don't believe he did come in."

"It's dreadful queer, if he didn't," said Maria, "after the way he
eyed her in meeting."

"Suppose you go home through the cellar, and see," said Eunice.

"I guess I will," said Maria. "I'll knock low on the wall when I get
home, if he isn't there."

The cellar stairs connected with the kitchen on either side of the
Stillman house. Both women flew out into the kitchen, and Maria
disappeared down the cellar stairs, with a little lamp which Eunice
lit for her. Then Eunice waited. Presently there came a muffled knock
on the wall.

"No, he didn't come in," Eunice said to her husband, as she
re-entered the sitting-room.

Suddenly Eunice pressed her ear close to the sitting-room wall. Two
treble voices were audible on the other side, but not a word of their
conversation. "Maria and she are talking," said Eunice.

What Aunt Maria was saying was this, in a tone of sharp wonder:

"Where is he?"

"Who?" responded Maria.

"Why, you know as well as I do--George Ramsey." Aunt Maria looked
sharply at her niece. "I hope you asked him in, Maria Edgham?" said
she.

"No, I didn't," said Maria.

"Why didn't you?"

"I was tired, and I wanted to go to bed."

"Wanted to go to bed? Why, it's only a little after nine o'clock!"

"Well, I can't help it, I'm tired." Maria spoke with a weariness
which was unmistakable. She looked away from her aunt with a sort of
blank despair.

Aunt Maria continued to regard her. "You do act the queerest of any
girl I ever saw," said she. "There was a nice fire in the parlor, and
I thought you could offer him some refreshments. There is some of
that nice cake, and some oranges, and I would have made some cocoa."

"I didn't feel as if I could sit up," Maria said again, in her weary,
hopeless voice. She went out into the kitchen, got a little lamp, and
returned. "Good-night," she said to her aunt.

"Good-night," replied Aunt Maria. "You are a queer girl. I don't see
what you think."

Maria went up-stairs, undressed, and went to bed. After she was in
bed she could see the reflection of her aunt's sitting-room lamp on
the ground outside, in a slanting shaft of light. Then it went out,
and Maria knew that her aunt was also in bed in her little room out
of the sitting-room. Maria could not go to sleep. She heard the clock
strike ten, then eleven. Shortly after eleven she heard a queer
sound, as of small stones or gravel thrown on her window. Maria was a
brave girl. Her first sensation was one of anger.

"What is any one doing such a thing as that for?" she asked herself.
She rose, threw a shawl over her shoulders, and went straight to the
window next the Merrill house, whence the sound had come. She opened
it cautiously and peered out. Down on the ground below stood a long,
triangle-shaped figure, like a night-moth.

"Who is it?" Maria called, in a soft voice. She was afraid, for some
reason which she could not define, of awakening her aunt. She was
more afraid of that than anything else.

A little moan answered her; the figure moved as if in distress.

"Who is it? What do you want?" Maria asked again.

A weak voice answered her then, "It's I."

"Who's I? Lily?"

"Yes. Oh, do let me in, Maria." Lily's voice ended in a little,
hysterical sob.

"Hush," said Maria, "or Aunt Maria will hear you. Wait a minute."
Maria unlocked her door with the greatest caution, opened it, and
crept down-stairs. Then she unlocked and opened the front door.
Luckily Aunt Maria's room was some feet in the rear. "Come quick,"
Maria whispered, and Lily came running up to her. Then Maria closed
and locked the front door, while Lily stood trembling and waiting.
Then she led her up-stairs in the dark. Lily's slender fingers closed
upon her with a grasp of ice. When they were once in Maria's room,
with the door closed and locked, Maria took hold of Lily violently by
the shoulders. She felt at once rage and pity for her.

"What on earth is the matter, Lily Merrill, that you come over here
this time of night?" she asked. Then she added, in a tone of horror,
"Lily Merrill, you haven't a thing on but a skirt and your night-gown
under your shawl. Have you got anything on your feet?"

"Slippers," answered Lily, meekly. Then she clung to Maria and began
to sob hysterically.

"Come, Lily Merrill, you just stop this and get into bed," said
Maria. She unwound Lily's shawl, pulled off her skirt, and fairly
forced her into bed. Then she got in beside her. "What on earth is
the matter?" she asked again.

Lily's arm came stealing around her and Lily's cold, wet cheek
touched her face. "Oh, Maria!" she sobbed, under her breath.

"Well, what is it all about?"

"Oh, Maria, are--are you--"

"Am I what?"

"Are you going with him?"

"With whom?"

"With George--with George Ramsey?" A long, trembling sob shook Lily.

"I am going with nobody," answered Maria, in a hard voice.

"But he came home with you. I saw him; I did, Maria." Lily sobbed
again.

"Well, what of it?" asked Maria, impatiently. "I didn't care anything
about his going home with me."

"Didn't he come in?"

"No, he didn't."

"Didn't you--ask him?"

"No, I didn't."

"Maria."

"Well, what?"

"Maria, aren't you going to marry him if he asks you?"

"No," said Maria, "I am never going to marry him, if that is what you
want to know. I am never going to marry George Ramsey."

Lily sobbed.

"I should think you would be ashamed of yourself. I should think any
girl would, acting so," said Maria. Her voice was a mere whisper, but
it was cruel. She felt that she hated Lily. Then she realized how icy
cold the girl was and how she trembled from head to feet in a nervous
chill. "You'll catch your death," she said.

"Oh, I don't care if I do!" Lily said, in her hysterical voice, which
had now a certain tone of comfort.

Maria considered again how much she despised and hated her, and again
Lily shook with a long tremor. Maria got up and tiptoed over to her
closet, where she kept a little bottle of wine which the doctor had
ordered when she first came to Amity. It was not half emptied. A
wineglass stood on the mantel-shelf, and Maria filled it with the
wine by the light of the moon. Then she returned to Lily.

"Here," she said, still in the same cruel voice. "Sit up and drink
this."

"What is it?" moaned Lily.

"Never mind what it is. Sit up and drink it."

Lily sat up and obediently drank the wine, every drop.

"Now lie down and keep still, and go to sleep, and behave yourself,"
said Maria.

Lily tried to say something, but Maria would not listen to her.

"Don't you speak another word," said she. "Keep still, or Aunt Maria
will be up. Lie still and go to sleep."

It was not long before, warmed by the wine and comforted by Maria's
assertion that she was never going to marry George Ramsey, that Lily
fell asleep. Maria lay awake hearing her long, even breaths, and she
felt how she hated her, how she hated herself, how she hated life.
There was no sleep for her. Just before dawn she woke Lily, bundled
her up in some extra clothing, and went with her across the yard,
home.

"Now go up to your own room just as still as you can," said she, and
her voice sounded terrible even in her own ears. She waited until she
heard the key softly turn in the door of the Merrill house. Then she
sped home and up to her own room. Then she lay down in bed again and
waited for broad daylight.

Chapter XXI

When Maria dressed herself the next morning, she had an odd, shamed
expression as she looked at herself in her glass while braiding her
hair. It actually seemed to her as if she herself, and not Lily
Merrill, had so betrayed herself and given way to an unsought love.
She felt as if she saw Lily instead of herself, and she was at once
humiliated and angered. She had to pass Lily's house on her way to
school, and she did not once look up, although she had a conviction
that Lily was watching her from one of the sitting-room windows. It
was a wild winter day, with frequent gusts of wind swaying the trees
to the breaking of the softer branches, and flurries of snow. It was
hard work to keep the school-house warm. Maria, in the midst of her
perturbation, had a comforted feeling at seeing Jessy Ramsey in her
warm clothing. She passed her arm around the little girl at recess;
it was so cold that only a few of the boys went outside.

"Have you got them on, dear?" she whispered.

"Yes'm," said Jessy. Then, to Maria's consternation, she caught her
hand and kissed it, and began sobbing. "They're awful warm," sobbed
Jessy Ramsey, looking at Maria with her little, convulsed face.

"Hush, child," said Maria. "There's nothing to cry about. Mind you
keep them nice. Have you got a bureau-drawer you can put them
in?--those you haven't on? Don't cry. That's silly."

"I 'ain't got no bureau," sobbed Jessy. "But--"

"Haven't any," corrected Maria.

"Haven't any bureau-drawer," said the child. "But I got a box what
somethin'--"

"That something," said Maria.

"That something came from the store in, an' I've got 'em--"

"Them."

"Them all packed away. They're awful warm."

"Don't cry, dear," said Maria.

The other children did not seem to be noticing them. Suddenly Maria,
who still had her arm around the thin shoulders of the little girl,
stooped and kissed her rather grimy but soft little cheek. As she did
so, she experienced the same feeling which she used to have when
caressing her little sister Evelyn. It was a sort of rapture of
tenderness and protection. It was the maternal instinct glorified and
rendered spiritual by maidenhood, and its timid desires. Jessy
Ramsey's eyes looked up into Maria's like blue violets, and Maria
noticed with a sudden throb that they were like George Ramsey's.
Jessy, coming as she did from a degenerate, unbeautiful branch of the
family-tree, had yet some of the true Ramsey features, and, among
others, she had the true Ramsey eyes. They were large and very dark
blue, and they were set in deep, pathetic hollows. As she looked up
at Maria, it was exactly as if George were looking at her with
pleading and timid love. Maria took her arm sudden away from the
child.

"Be you mad?" asked Jessy, humbly.

"No, I am not," replied Maria. "But you should not say 'be you mad';
you should say are you angry."

"Yes'm," said Jessy Ramsey.

Jessy withdrew, still with timid eyes of devotion fixed upon her
teacher, and Maria seated herself behind her desk, took out some
paper, and began to write an exercise for the children to copy upon
the black-board. She was trembling from head to foot. She felt
exactly as if George Ramsey had been looking at her with eyes of
love, and she remembered that she was married, and it seemed to her
that she was horribly guilty.

Maria never once looked again at Jessy Ramsey, at least not fully in
the eyes, during the day. The child's mouth began to assume a piteous
expression. After school that afternoon she lingered, as usual, to
walk the little way before their roads separated, so to speak, in her
beloved teacher's train. But Maria spoke quite sharply to her.

"You had better run right home, Jessy," she said. "It is snowing, and
you will get cold. I have a few things to see to before I go. Run
right home."

Poor little Jessy Ramsey, who was as honestly in love with her
teacher as she would ever be with any one in her life, turned
obediently and went away. Maria's heart smote her.

"Jessy," she called after her, and the child turned back half
frightened, half radiant. Maria put her arm around her and kissed
her. "Wash your face before you come to school to-morrow, dear," she
said. "Now, good-bye."

"Yes'm," said Jessy, and she skipped away quite happy. She thought
teacher had rebuffed her because her face was not washed, and that
did not trouble her in the least. Lack of cleanliness or lack of
morals, when brought home to them, could hardly sting any scion of
that branch of the Ramseys. Lack of affection could, however, and
Jessy was quite happy in thinking that teacher loved her, and was
only vexed because her face was dirty. Jessy had not gone a dozen
paces from the school-house before she stopped, scooped up some snow
in a little, grimy hand, and rubbed her cheeks violently. Then she
wiped them on her new petticoat. Her cheeks tingled frightfully, but
she felt that she was obeying a mandate of love.

Maria did not see her. She in reality lingered a little over some
exercises in the school-house before she started on her way home. It
was snowing quite steadily, and the wind still blew. The snow made
the wind seem as evident as the wings of a bird. Maria hurried along.
When she reached the bridge across the Ramsey River she saw a girl
standing as if waiting for her. The girl was all powdered with snow
and she had on a thick veil, but Maria immediately knew that she was
Lily Merrill. Lily came up to her as she reached her with almost an
abject motion. She had her veiled face lowered before the storm, and
she carried herself as if her spirit also was lowered before some
wind of fate. She pressed timidly close to Maria when she reached her.

"I've been waiting for you, Maria," she said.

"Have you?" returned Maria, coldly.

"Yes, I wanted to see you, and I didn't know as I could, unless I met
you. I didn't know whether you would have a fire in your room
to-night, and I thought your aunt would be in the sitting-room, and I
thought you wouldn't be apt to come over to my house, it storms so."

"No, I shouldn't," Maria said, shortly.

Then Lily burst out in a piteous low wail, a human wail piercing the
wail of the storm. The two girls were quite alone on the bridge.

"Oh, Maria," said Lily, "I did want you to know how dreadfully
ashamed I was of what I did last night."

"I should think you would be," Maria said, pitilessly. She walked on
ahead, with her mouth in a straight line, and did not look at the
other girl.

Lily came closer to her and passed one of her arms through Maria's
and pressed against her softly. "I wanted to tell you, too," she
said, "that I made an excuse about--that handkerchief the other
night. I thought it was in my coat-pocket all the time. I did it just
so he would go home with me last."

Maria looked at her. "I never saw such a girl as you are, Lily
Merrill," she said, contemptuously, but in spite of herself there was
a soft accent in her voice. It was not in Maria's nature to be hard
upon a repentant sinner.

Lily leaned her face against Maria's snow-powdered shoulder. "I was
dreadfully ashamed of it," said she, "and I thought I must tell you,
Maria. You don't think so very badly of me, do you? I know I was
awful." The longing for affection and approbation in Lily's voice
gave it almost a singing quality. She was so fond of love and
approval that the withdrawal of it smote her like a frost of the
spirit.

"I think it was terribly bold of you, if you want to know just what I
think," Maria said; "and I think you were very deceitful. Before I
would do such a thing to get a young man to go home with me, I
would--" Maria paused. Suddenly she remembered that she had her
secret, and she felt humbled before this other girl whom she was
judging. She became conscious to such an extent of the beam in her
own eye that she was too blinded to see the mote in that of poor
Lily, who, indeed, was not to blame, being simply helpless before her
own temperament and her own emotions.

"I know I did do a dreadful thing," moaned Lily.

Then Maria pressed the clinging arm under her own.

"Well," said she, as she might have spoken to a child, "if I were you
I would not think any more about it, Lily, I would put it out of my
mind. Only, I would not, if I were you, and really wanted a young man
to care for me, let him think I was running after him."

As she said the last, Maria paled. She glanced at Lily's beautiful
face under the veil, and realized that it might be very easy for any
young man to care for such a girl, who had, in reality, a sweet
nature, besides beauty, if she only adopted the proper course to win
him, and that it was obviously her (Maria's) duty to teach her to win
him.

"I know it. I won't again," Lily said, humbly.

The two girls walked on; they had crossed the bridge. Suddenly Lily
plucked up a little spirit.

"Say, Maria," said she.

"What is it, dear?"

"I just happened to think. Mother was asked to tea to Mrs. Ralph
Wright's to-night, but she isn't going. Is your aunt going?"

"Yes, I believe she is," said Maria.

"She won't be home before eight o'clock, will she?"

"No, I don't suppose she will. They are to have tea at six, I
believe."

"Then I am coming over after mother and I have tea. I have something
I want to tell you."

"All right, dear," replied Maria, hesitatingly.

When Maria got home she found her aunt Maria all dressed, except for
her collar-fastening. She was waiting for Maria to attend to that.
Her thin gray-blond hair was beautifully crimped, and she wore her
best black silk dress. She was standing by the sitting-room window
when Maria entered.

"I am glad you have come, Maria," said she. "I have been standing
quite awhile. You are late."

"Yes, I am rather late," replied Maria. "But why on earth didn't you
sit down?"

"Do you suppose I am going to sit down more than I can help in this
dress?" said her aunt. "There is nothing hurts a silk dress more than
sitting down in it. Now if you will hook my collar, Maria. I can do
it, but I don't like to strain the seams by reaching round, and I
didn't want to trail this dress down the cellar stairs to get Eunice
to fasten it up." Aunt Maria bewailed the weather in a deprecating
fashion while Maria was fastening the collar at the back of her
skinny neck. "I never want to find fault with the weather," said she,
"because, of course, the weather is regulated by Something higher
than we are, and it must be for our best good, but I do hate to wear
this dress out in such a storm, and I don't dare wear my cashmere.
Mrs. Ralph Wright is so particular she would be sure to think I
didn't pay her proper respect."

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