Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Pembroke

M >> Mary E. Wilkins Freeman >> Pembroke

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And Sylvia laid her head on Richard's shoulder. She felt as if she
were dreaming of a dream.

Chapter XIII

When Richard Alger went home he wore an old brown shawl of Sylvia's
over his shoulders. He had demurred a little. "I can't go down the
street with your shawl on, Sylvia," he had pleaded, but Sylvia
insisted.

"You'll catch your death of cold, goin' home in your shirt-sleeves,"
she said. "They won't know it's my shawl. Men wear shawls."

"You've worn this ever since I've known you, Sylvia, an' I ain't
given to catchin' cold easy," said Richard almost pitifully. But he
stood still and let Sylvia pin the shawl around his neck. Sylvia
seemed to have suddenly acquired a curious maternal authority over
him, and he submitted to it as if it were merely natural that he
should.

Richard Alger went meekly down the road, wearing the old brown shawl
that had often draped Sylvia Crane's slender feminine shoulders when
she walked abroad, since she was a young girl. Sylvia had always worn
it corner-wise, but she had folded it square for him as making it
more of a masculine garment. Two corners waved out stiffly from his
square shoulders. He tried to swing his arms unconcernedly under it;
once the fringe hit his hand and he jumped.

He was shame-faced when he struck out into the main road, but he did
not dream of taking off the shawl. A very passion of obedience and
loyalty to Sylvia had taken possession of him. With every submission
after long persistency, there is a strong reverse action, as from the
sudden cessation of any motion. Richard now yielded in more marked
measure than he had opposed. He had borne with his whimsical will
against all his sweetheart's dearest wishes during the better part of
her life; now he would wear any insignia of bondage if she bade him.

He had gone a short distance on the main road when he met Hannah
Berry. She was hurrying along, her face was quite red, and he could
hear her pant as she drew near. She looked at him sharply, she fairly
narrowed her eyes over the shawl. "Good-mornin'," said she.

Richard said "Good-morning," gruffly. The shawl blew out against
Hannah's shoulder as she passed him. She turned about and stared
after him, and he knew it. He went on with dogged chin in the folds
of the shawl.

Hannah Berry hurried along to Sylvia Crane's. When she opened the
door Sylvia was just coming out of the parlor, and the two sisters
met in the entry with a kind of shock.

"Oh, it's you," murmured Sylvia. Sylvia cast down her eyes before her
sister. She tried not to smile. Her hair was tumbled and there were
red spots on her cheeks.

"Has he been here all this time?" demanded Hannah.

"He's just gone."

"I met him out here. What in creation did you rig him up in your old
shawl for, Sylvy Crane?"

"He was in his shirt-sleeves, an' I wasn't goin' to have him catch
his death of cold," replied Sylvia with dignity.

"In his shirt-sleeves!"

"Yes, he run out just as he was."

"Land sakes!" said Hannah. The two women looked at each other.
Suddenly Hannah threw out her arms from under her shawl, and clasped
Sylvia. "Oh, Sylvy," she sobbed out, "to think you was settin' out
for the poor-house this mornin', an' we havin' a weddin' last night,
an' never knowin' it! Why didn't you say anythin' about it, why
didn't you, Sylvy?"

"I knew you couldn't do anything, Hannah."

"Knew I couldn't do anything! Do you suppose me or Sarah would have
let all the sister we've got go to the poor-house whilst we had a
roof over our heads? We'd took you right in, either one of us."

"I was afraid Silas an' Cephas wouldn't be willin'."

"I guess they'd had to be willin'. I told Silas just now that if
Richard Alger didn't come forward like a man, you was comin' to my
house, an' have the best we've got as long as you lived. Silas, he
said he thought you'd ought to earn your own livin', an' I told him
there wa'n't any chance for a woman like you to earn your livin' in
Pembroke, that you could earn your livin' enough livin' at your own
sister's. Oh, Sylvy, I can't stand it, when I think of your startin'
out that way, an' never sayin' a word." Hannah sobbed convulsively on
her sister's shoulder. There were tears in Sylvia's eyes, but her
face above her sister's head was radiant. "Don't, Hannah," she said.
"It's all over now, you know."

"Is he--goin' to have you now--Sylvy?"

"I guess so, maybe," said Sylvia.

"I suppose you'll go to his house, this is so run down."

"He's goin' to fix this one up."

"You think you'd rather live here, then? Well, I s'pose I should. I
s'pose he's goin' to buy it. The town hadn't ought to ask much. Sylvy
Crane, I can't get it through my head, nohow."

"What?" said Sylvia.

"How you run out this nice place so quick. I thought an' Sarah
thought you'd got enough to last you jest as long as you lived, an'
have some left to leave then."

Hannah stood back and looked at her sister sharply.

"I've always been as savin' as I knew how," said Sylvia.

"Well, I dunno but you have. You got that sofa, that cost
considerable. I shouldn't have thought you'd got that, if you'd known
how things were, Sylvy."

"I kinder felt as if I needed it."

"Well, I guess you might have got along without that, anyhow.
Richard's got one, ain't he?"

"Yes, he says he has."

"I thought I remembered his mother's buyin' one just before his
father died. Well, you'll have his sofa, then; if I remember right,
it's a better one than yours that you give Rose. Now, Sylvy Crane,
you jest put on your hood an' shawl, an' come home with me, an' have
some dinner. Have you got anything in the house to eat?"

"I've got a few things," replied Sylvia, evasively.

"What?"

"Some potatoes an' apples."

"Potatoes an' apples!" Hannah began to sob again. "To think of your
comin' to this," she wailed. "My own sister not havin' anything in
the house to eat, an' settin' out for the poor-house, an' everybody
in town knowin' it."

"Don't feel bad about it, Hannah; it's all over now," said Sylvia.

"Don't feel bad about it! I guess you'd feel bad about it if you was
in my place," returned Hannah. "I s'pose you think now you've got
Richard Alger that there's nothin' else makes any odds. I guess I've
got some feelin's. Get your hood and shawl, now do; dinner was all
ready when I come away."

"I guess I'd better not, Hannah," said Sylvia. It seemed to her that
she never would want anything to eat again. She wanted to be alone in
her old house, and hug her happiness to her heart, whose starvation
had caused her more agony than any other. Now that was appeased she
cared for nothing else.

"You come right along," said Hannah. "I've got a nice roast spare-rib
an' turnip an' squash, an' you're goin' to come an' have some of it."

When Hannah and Sylvia got out on the main road, they heard Sarah
Barnard's voice calling them. She was hurrying down the hill. Cephas
had just come home with the news. Jonathan Leavitt had spread it over
the village from the nucleus of the store where he had stopped on his
way home.

Sarah Barnard sat down on the snowy stone-wall among the last year's
blackberry vines, and cried as if her heart would break. Finally
Hannah, after joining with her awhile, turned to and comforted her.

"Land sake, don't take on so, Sarah Barnard!" said she; "it's all
over now. Sylvy's goin' to marry Richard Alger, an' there ain't a man
in Pembroke any better off, unless it's Squire Payne. She's goin' to
have him right off, an' he's goin' to buy the house an' fix it up,
an' she's goin' to have all his mother's nice things, an' she's
comin' home with me now, an' have some nice roast spare-rib an'
turnip. There ain't nothin' to take on about."

Hannah fairly pulled Sarah off the stone-wall. "Sylvy an' me have got
to go," said she. "You come down this afternoon, an' we'll all go
over to her house, an' talk it over. I s'pose Richard will come
to-night. I hope he'll shave first, an' put on his coat. I never see
such a lookin' sight as he was when I met him jest now."

"I didn't see as he looked very bad," said Sylvia, with dignity.

"It seems as if it would kill me jest to think of it," sobbed Sarah
Barnard, turning tremulously away.

"Don't you feel bad about it any longer, Sarah," Sylvia said, half
absently. Her hair blew out wildly from under her hood over her
flushed cheeks; she smiled as if at something visible, past her
sister, and past everything around her.

"I tell you there ain't nothin' to be killed about!" Hannah called
after Sarah; she caught hold of Sylvia's arm. "Sarah always was kind
of hystericky," said she. "That spare-rib will be all dried up, an' I
wouldn't give a cent for it, if you don't come along."

Richard Alger and Sylvia Crane were married very soon. There was no
wedding, and people were disappointed about that. Hannah Berry tried
to persuade Sylvia to have one. "I'm willin' to make the cake," said
she. "I've jest been through one weddin', but I'll do it. If I'd been
goin' with a feller as long as you have with him, I wouldn't get
cheated out of a weddin', anyhow. I'd have a weddin' an' I'd have
cake, an' I'd ask folks, especially after what's happened. I'd let
'em see I wa'n't quite so far gone, if I had set out for the
poor-house once. I'd have a weddin'. Richard's got money enough. I
had real good-luck with Rose's cake, an' I ain't afraid to try yours.
I guess I should make it a little mite stiffer than I did hers."

But Sylvia was obdurate. She did not say much, but she went her own
way. She had gained a certain quiet decision and dignity which
bewildered everybody. Her sisters had dimly realized that there was
something about her out of plumb, as it were. Her nature had been
warped to one side by one concentrated and unsatisfied desire. "Seems
to me, sometimes, as if Sylvy was kind of queer," Hannah Berry often
said. "I dunno but she's kinder turned on Richard Alger," Sarah would
respond. Now she seemed suddenly to have regained her equilibrium,
and no longer slanted doubtfully across her sisters' mental horizons.

She and Richard went to the minister's house early one Sabbath
morning, and were married. Then they went to meeting, Sylvia on
Richard's arm. They sat side by side in the Alger pew; it was on the
opposite side of the meeting-house from Sylvia's old pew. It seemed
to her as if she would see her old self sitting there alone, as of
old, if she looked across. She fixed her eyes straight ahead, and
never glanced at Richard by her side. She held her white-bonneted
head up like some gentle flower which had sprung back to itself after
a hard wind. She had a new white bridal bonnet, as Richard had
wished; it was trimmed with white plumes and ribbons, and she wore a
long white-worked veil over her face. The wrought net-work, as
delicate as frost, softened all the hard lines and fixed tints, and
gave to her face an illusion of girlhood. She wore the two curls over
her cheeks. Richard had asked her why she didn't curl her hair as she
used to do.

All the people saw Sylvia's white bonnet; it seemed to turn their
eyes like a brilliant white spot, which reflected all the light in
the meeting-house. But there were a few women who eyed more sharply
Sylvia's wedding-gown and mantilla, for she wore the very ones which
poor Charlotte Barnard had made ready for her own bridal. Sylvia was
just about her niece's height; the gown had needed a little taking in
to fit her thinner form, and that was all.

Charlotte's mother had brought them over to Sylvia's one night, all
nicely folded in white linen towels.

"Charlotte wants you to have 'em; she says she won't ever need 'em,
poor child!" she said, in response to Sylvia's remonstrances. Mrs.
Barnard's eyes were red, as if she had been crying. It had apparently
been harder for her to give up the poor slighted wedding-clothes than
for her daughter. Charlotte had not shed a tear when she took them
out of the chest and shook off the sprigs of lavender which she had
laid over them; but it seemed to her that she could smell that faint
elusive breath of lavender across the meeting-house when Sylvia came
in, and the rustle of her bridal-gown was as loud in her ears as if
she herself wore it.

"Somebody might just as well have them, and have some good of them,"
she had told her mother, and she spoke as if they were the garments
of some one who was dead.

"Seems to me, as much as they cost, you'd ought to wear 'em
yourself," said her mother.

"I never shall," Charlotte said, firmly; "and they might just as well
do somebody some good." Charlotte's New England thrift and practical
sense stretched her sentiment on the rack, and she never made a
sound.

Barney, watching out from his window that Sunday, caught a flash of
green and purple from Sylvia's silken skirt as she turned the corner
of the old road with Richard. "She's got on Charlotte's
wedding-dress. She's--given it to her," he said, with a gasp. He had
never forgotten it since the day Charlotte had shown it to him. He
had pictured her in it, hundreds of times, to his own delight and
torment. He had a fierce impulse to rush out and strip his
Charlotte's wedding-clothes from this other bride's back.

"She's gone and given it away, and she hasn't got a good silk dress
herself; she's wearing her old cloak to meeting," he half sobbed to
himself. He wondered piteously, thinking of his savings and of his
property since his father's death, if he might not, at least, buy
Charlotte a new silk dress and a mantilla. "I don't believe she'd be
mad," he said; "but I'm afraid her father wouldn't let her wear it."

The more he thought of it the more it seemed as if he could not bear
it, unless he could buy Charlotte the silk dress. "Her clothes ain't
as good as mine," he said, and he thought of his best blue broadcloth
suit, and his flowered vest and silk hat. It seemed to him that with
all the terrible injury he was doing Charlotte, he also injured her
by having better clothes than she, and that that was something which
might be set right.

As Barney sat by his window that Sunday afternoon he saw a man coming
down the hill. He watched him idly, then his heart leaped and he
leaned forward. The man advanced with a careless, stately swing, his
head was thrown back, his mulberry-colored coat had a sheen like a
leaf in the sun. The man was Thomas Payne. Barney turned white as he
watched him. He had not known he was in town, and his jealous heart
at once whispered that he had come to see Charlotte. Thomas Payne
came opposite the house, then passed out of sight. Barney sat with
staring eyes full of miserable questioning upon the road. Had he been
to see Charlotte? he speculated. He had come from that direction; but
Barney remembered, with a sigh of hope, that Squire Payne had a
sister, an old maiden lady, who lived a half-mile beyond Charlotte.
Perhaps Thomas Payne had been to see his aunt.

[Illustration: "Thomas Payne advanced with a careless, stately
swing"]

All the rest of the day Barney was in an agony of doubt and unrest
over the unsettled question. He had been living lately in a sort of
wretched peace of remorse and misery; now it was rudely shaken. He
walked the floor; at night he could not sleep. He seemed to be in a
very torture-chamber of his own making, and the tortures were worse
than any enemies could have devised. Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting
up with Charlotte this Sunday night. Once he thought, wildly, of
going up the hill to see if there was a light in her parlor, but it
seemed to him as if the doubt was more endurable than the certainty
might be. Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting up with Charlotte; he
called to mind all her sweet ways. Suppose she was looking and
speaking to Thomas Payne in this way or that way; his imagination
threw out pictures before him upon which he could not close his eyes.
He saw Thomas Payne's face all glowing with triumph, he saw
Charlotte's with the old look that she had worn for him. Charlotte's
caresses had been few and maidenly; they all came into his mind like
stings. He knew just how she would put her tender arm around this
other man's neck, how she would lift grave, willing lips to his. He
wished that they had never been for him, for all they seemed worth to
him now was this bitter knowledge. His fancy led him on and on to his
own torment. There was a bridal mist around Charlotte. He followed
the old courses of his own dreams, after his memories were passed,
and they caused him worse agony.

The next morning Barney went to the store. It was absolutely
necessary for him to go, but he shunned everybody. He had a horrible
fear lest somebody should say, "Hallo, Barney, know Thomas Payne's
goin' to marry your old girl?" He had planned the very words, and the
leer of sly exultation that would accompany it.

But he made his purchase and went out, and nobody spoke to him. He
had not seen Thomas Payne in the back part of the store behind the
stove. Presently Thomas got up and lounged leisurely out through the
store, exchanging a word with one and another on his way. When he got
out Barney was going down the road quite a way ahead of him. Thomas
Payne kept on in his tracks. There was another man coming towards
him, and presently he stood aside to let him pass. "Good-day, Royal,"
said Thomas Payne.

"Good-day, Thomas," returned the other. "When d'ye get home?"

"Day before yesterday. How are you this winter, Royal?"

"Well, I'm pretty fair to middlin'." The man's face, sunken in his
feeble chest far below the level of Thomas's eyes, looked up at him
with a sort of whimsical patience. His back was bent like a bow; he
had had curvature of the spine for years, from a fall when a young
man.

"Glad to hear that," returned Thomas. The man passed him, walking as
if he were vainly trying to straighten himself at every step. He held
his knees stiff and threw his elbows back, but his back still curved
pitifully, although it seemed as if he were half cheating himself
into the belief that he was walking as straight as other men.

Thomas walked on rapidly, lessening the distance between himself and
Barney. As he went on he began to have a curious fancy, which he
could hardly persuade himself was a fancy. It seemed to him that
Barney Thayer was walking like the man whom he had just met, that his
back had that same terrible curve.

Thomas Payne stared in strange bewilderment at Barney's back. "It
can't be that he has spine disease, that he has got hurt in any way,"
he thought to himself. The purpose with which he had started out
rather paled in his mind. He walked more rapidly. It certainly seemed
to him that Barney's back was bent. He got within hailing distance
and called out.

"Hallo!" cried Thomas Payne.

Barney turned around, and it seemed as if he turned with the feeble,
crooked motion of the other man. He saw Thomas Payne, and his face
was ghastly white, but he stood still and waited.

"How are you?" Thomas said, gruffly, as he came up.

"How are you, Thomas?" returned Barney. He looked at Thomas with a
dogged expectancy. He thought he was going to tell him that he was to
marry Charlotte.

But Thomas was surveying him still in that strange bewilderment.
"Look here, Barney," said he, bluntly, "have you been sick? I haven't
heard of it."

"No, I haven't," replied Barney, wonderingly.

Thomas's eyes were fixed upon his back. "I didn't know but you had
got hurt or something," said he.

Barney shook his head. Thomas thought to himself that his back was
certainly curved. "I guess I'll walk along with you a little way,"
said he; "I've got something I wanted to say. For God's sake, Barney,
you are sick!"

"No, I ain't sick."

"You are white as death."

"There's nothing the matter with me," Barney half gasped. He turned
and walked on, and his back still bent like a bow to Thomas Payne's
eyes.

Thomas went on silently until they had passed a house just beyond.
Then he stopped again. "Look here, Barney," said he.

"Well," said Barney. He stopped, but he did not turn or face Thomas.
He only presented to him that curved, or semblance of a curved, back.

"I want to speak to you about Charlotte Barnard," said Thomas Payne,
abruptly. Barney waited without a word.

"I suppose you'll think it's none of my business, and in one way it
isn't," said Thomas, "but I am going to say it for her sake; I have
made up my mind to. It seems to me it's time, if anybody cares
anything about her. What are you treating Charlotte Barnard so for,
Barnabas Thayer? It's time you gave an account to somebody, and you
can give it to me."

Barney did not answer.

"Speak, you miserable coward!" shouted Thomas Payne, with a sudden
threatening motion of his right arm.

Then Barney turned, and Thomas started back at the sight of his face.
"I can't help it," he said.

"Can't help it, you--"

"I can't, before God, Thomas."

"Why not?"

Barney raised his right hand and pointed past Thomas.
"You--met--Royal Bennet just--now," he gasped, hoarsely.

Thomas nodded.

"You--saw--his--back?"

"Yes."

"Well, something like that ails me. I--can't help it--before God."

"You don't mean--" Thomas said, and stopped, looking at Barney's
back.

"I mean that's why I can't--help it."

"Have you hurt your back?" Thomas asked, in a subdued tone.

"I've hurt my soul," said Barney. "It happened that Sunday night
years ago. I--can't get over it. I am bent like his back."

"I should think you'd better get over it, then, if that's all,"
Thomas Payne said, roughly.

"I--can't, any more than he can."

"Do you mean your back's hurt? For God's sake talk sense, Barney!"
Thomas cried out, in bewilderment.

"It's more than my back; it's me."

Thomas stared at Barney; a horror as of something uncanny and
abnormal stole over him. Was the man's back curved, or had he by some
subtle vision a perception of some terrible spiritual deformity, only
symbolized by a curved spine? In a minute he gave an impatient stamp,
and tried to shake himself free from the vague pity and horror which
the other had aroused.

"Do you know that you are ruining the life of the best woman that
ever lived?" he demanded, fiercely.

Barney looked at him, and suddenly there was a flash as of something
noble in his face.

"Look here, Thomas," he said, brokenly, in hoarse gasps. "Last night
I--went mad, almost, because--I thought--maybe you'd been to
see--her. I--saw you coming down the hill. I thought--I'd die
thinking of--you--with her. I can't tell you--what I've been through,
what I've suffered, and--what I suffer right along. I know I ain't to
be pitied. I know--there ain't any pity--anywhere for anything--like
this. I don't pity--myself. But it's awful. If you could get a sight
of it, you'd know."

Again to Thomas Payne, looking at the other, it was as if he saw a
pale agonized face staring up at him from the midst of a curved mass
of deformity. He shuddered.

"I don't know what to make of you, Barney Thayer," he said, looking
away.

"There's one thing--I want to say," Barney went on. "I think there's
enough of a man left in me--I--think I've got strength enough to say
it. She--ought to be happy. I don't want her--wasting her whole
life--God knows--I don't--no matter what it does--to me. I--wish--
See here, Thomas. I know you--like her. Maybe she'll--turn to you. It
seems as if she must. I hope you will--oh, for God's sake, be--good
to her, Thomas!"

Thomas Payne's face was as white as Barney's. He turned to go.
"There's no use talking this way. You know Charlotte Barnard as well
as I do," he said. "You know she's one of the women that never love
any man but one. I don't want another man's wife, if she'd have me."
Suddenly he faced Barney again. "For God's sake, Barney," he cried
out, "be a man and go back to her, and marry her!"

Barney shook his head; with a kind of a sob he turned around and went
his way without another word. Thomas Payne said no more; he stared
after Barney's retreating figure, and again the look of bewilderment
and horror was in his face.

That afternoon he asked his father, with a casual air, if he had
heard anything about Barney Thayer getting his back injured in any
way.

"Why, no, I can't say as I have," returned the squire.

"I saw him this morning, and I thought his back looked as if it was
growing like Royal Bennet's. I dare say I imagined it," said Thomas.
Then he went out of the room whistling.

But, during his few weeks' stay in Pembroke, he put the same question
to one and another, with varying results. Some said at once, with a
sudden look of vague horror, that it was so. That Barney Thayer was
indeed growing deformed; that they had noticed it. Others scouted the
idea. "Saw him this morning, and he's as straight as he ever was,"
they said.

Whether Barney Thayer's back was, indeed, bowed into that terrible
spinal curve or not, Thomas Payne could not tell by any agreement of
witnesses. If some, gifted with acute spiritual insight, really
perceived that dreadful warping of a diseased will, and clothed it
with a material image for their own grosser senses; or if Barney,
through dwelling upon his own real but hidden infirmity, had actually
come unconsciously to give it a physical expression, and walked at
times through the village with his back bent like his spirit,
although not diseased, Thomas Payne could only speculate. He finally
began to adopt the latter belief, as he himself, sometimes on meeting
Barney, thought that he walked as erect as he ever had.

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