Book: A Spinner in the Sun

M >> Myrtle Reed >> A Spinner in the Sun




"They are," grunted Doctor Dexter, "but Miss Mehitable isn't 'people.'
She goes by herself, and isn't afraid of man or devil. If I had horns
and a barbed tail and breathed smoke, I couldn't scare her. The
patient's family, being more afraid of her than of me, invariably give
her free access to the sick-room."

"I don't want her to worry Araminta," said Ralph.

"If you don't want Araminta worried," replied Doctor Dexter,
conclusively, "you'd better put a few things into your suit case, and
move up there until she walks."

"All right," said Ralph. "I'm here to rout your malign influence.
It's me to sit by Araminta's crib and scare the old girl off. I'll bet
I can fix her."

"If you can," returned Doctor Dexter, "you are considerably more
intelligent than I take you to be."

With the welfare of his young patient very earnestly at heart, Ralph
went up the hill. Miss Evelina admitted him, and Ralph drew her into
the dusty parlour. "Can you take care of anybody?" he inquired,
without preliminary. "Can you follow directions?"

"I--think so."

"Then," Ralph went on, "I turn Araminta over to you. Miss Mehitable
has nothing to do with the case from this moment. Araminta is in your
care and mine. You take directions from me and from nobody else. Do
you understand?"

"Yes," whispered Miss Evelina, "but Mehitable won't--won't let me."

"Won't let you nothing," said Ralph, scornfully. "She's to be kept
out."

"She--she--" stammered Miss Evelina, "she's up there now."

Ralph started upstairs. Half-way up, he heard the murmur of voices,
and went up more quietly. He stepped lightly along the hall and stood
just outside Araminta's door, shamelessly listening.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said an indignant feminine
voice. "The idea of a big girl like you not bein' able to stand on a
ladder without fallin' off. It's your mother's foolishness cropping
out in you, after all I've done for you. I've stood on ladders all my
life and never so much as slipped. I believe you did it a purpose,
though what you thought you'd get for doin' it puzzles me some. P'raps
you thought you'd get out of the housecleanin' but you won't. When it
comes time for the Fall cleanin,' you'll do every stroke yourself, to
pay for all this trouble and expense. Do you know what it's costin'?
Four dollars and a half of good money! I should think you'd be
ashamed!"

"But, Aunt Hitty--" began the girl, pleadingly.

"Stop! Don't you 'Aunt Hitty' me," continued the angry voice. "You
needn't tell me you didn't fall off that ladder a purpose. Four
dollars and a half and all the trouble besides! I hope you'll think of
that while you're laying here like a lady and your poor old aunt is
slavin' for you, workin' her fingers to the bone."

"If I can ever get the four dollars and a half," cried Araminta, with
tears in her voice, "I will give it back to you--oh, indeed I will!"

At this point, Doctor Ralph Dexter entered the room, his eyes snapping
dangerously.

"Miss Mehitable," he said with forced calmness, "will you kindly come
downstairs a moment? I wish to speak to you."

Dazed and startled, Miss Mehitable rose from her chair and followed
him. There was in Ralph's voice a quality which literally compelled
obedience. He drew her into the dusty parlour and closed all the doors
carefully. Miss Evelina was nowhere to be seen.

"I was standing in the hall," said Ralph, coolly, "and I heard every
word you said to that poor, helpless child. You ought to know, if you
know anything at all, that nobody ever fell off a step-ladder on
purpose. She's hurt, and she's badly hurt, and she's not in any way to
blame for it, and I positively forbid you ever to enter that room
again."

"Forbid!" bristled Aunt Hitty. "Who are you?" she demanded
sarcastically, "to 'forbid' me from nursing my own niece!"

"I am the attending physician," returned Ralph, calmly. "It is my
case, and nobody else is going to manage it. I have already arranged
with--the lady who lives here--to take care of Araminta, and----"

"Arrange no such thing," interrupted Miss Hitty, violently. Her temper
was getting away from her.

"One moment," interrupted Ralph. "If I hear of your entering that room
again before I say Araminta is cured, I will charge you just exactly
one hundred dollars for my services, and collect it by law."

Miss Hitty's lower jaw dropped, her strong, body shook. She gazed at
Ralph as one might look at an intimate friend gone suddenly daft. She
had heard of people who lost their reason without warning. Was it
possible that she was in the room with a lunatic?

She edged toward the door, keeping her eyes on Ralph.

He anticipated her, and opened it with a polite flourish. "Remember,"
he warned her. "One step into Araminta's room, one word addressed to
her, and it costs you just exactly one hundred dollars." He opened the
other door and pointed suggestively down the hill, She lost no time in
obeying the gesture, but scudded down the road as though His Satanic
Majesty himself was in her wake.

Ralph laughed to himself all the way upstairs but in the hall he paused
and his face grew grave again. From Araminta's room came the sound of
sobbing.

She did not see him enter, for her face was hidden in her pillow.
"Araminta!" said Ralph, tenderly, "You poor child."

Touched by the unexpected sympathy, Araminta raised her head to look at
him. "Oh Doctor--" she began,

"Doctor Ralph," said the young man, sitting down on the bed beside her.
"My father is Doctor Dexter and I am Doctor Ralph."

"I'm ashamed of myself for being such a baby," sobbed Araminta. "I
didn't mean to cry."

"You're not a baby at all," said Doctor Ralph, soothingly, taking her
hot hand in his. "You're hurt, and you've been bothered, and if you
want to cry, you can. Here's my handkerchief."

After a little, her sobs ceased. Doctor Ralph still sat there,
regarding her with a sort of questioning tenderness which was entirely
outside of Araminta's brief experience.

"You're not to be bothered any more," he said. "I've seen your aunt,
and she's not to set foot in this room again until you get well. If
she even speaks to you from the hall, you're to tell me."

Araminta gazed at him, wide-eyed and troubled. "I can't take care of
myself," she said, with a pathetic little smile.

"You're not going to. The lady who lives here is going to take care of
you."

"Miss Evelina? She got burned because she was bad and she has to wear
a veil all the time."

"How was she bad?" asked Ralph.

"I don't just know," whispered Araminta, cautiously. "Aunt Hitty
didn't know, or else she wouldn't tell me, but she was bad. She went
to a man's house. She----"

Then Araminta remembered that it was Doctor Dexter's house to which
Miss Evelina had gone. In shame and terror, she hid her face again.

"I don't believe anybody ever got burned just for being bad," Ralph was
saying, "but your face is hot and I'm going to cool it for you."

He brought a bowl of cold water, and with his handkerchief bathed
Araminta's flushed face and her hot hands. "Doesn't that feel good?"
he asked, when the traces of tears had been practically removed.

"Yes," sighed Araminta, gratefully, "but I've always washed my own face
before. I saw a cat once," she continued. "He was washing his
children's faces."

"Must have been a lady cat," observed Ralph, with a smile.

"The little cats," pursued Araminta, "looked to be very soft. I think
they liked it."

"They are soft," admitted Ralph. "Don't you think so?"

"I don't know. I never had a little cat."

"Never had a kitten?" cried Ralph. "You poor, defrauded child! What
kind of a kitten would you like best?"

"A little grey cat," said Araminta, seriously, "a little grey cat with
blue eyes, but Aunt Hitty would never let me have one."

"See here," said Ralph. "Aunt Hitty isn't running this show. I'm
stage manager and ticket taker and advance man and everything else, all
rolled into one. I can't promise positively, because I'm not posted on
the cat supply around here, but if I can find one, you shall have a
grey kitten with blue eyes, and you shall have some kind of a kitten,
anyhow."

"Oh!" cried Araminta, her eyes shining. "Truly?"

"Truly," nodded Ralph.

"Would--would--" hesitated Araminta--"would it be any more than four
dollars and a half if you brought me the little cat? Because if it is,
I can't----"

"It wouldn't," interrupted Ralph. "On any bill over a dollar and a
quarter, I always throw in a kitten. Didn't you know that?"

"No," answered Araminta, with a happy little laugh. How kind he was,
eyen though he was a man! Perhaps, if he knew how wicked her mother
had been, he would not be so kind to her. The stern Puritan conscience
rose up and demanded explanation.

"I--I--must tell you," she said, "before you bring me the little cat.
My mother--she--" here Araminta turned her crimson face away. She
swallowed a lump in her throat, then said, bravely: "My mother was
married!"

Doctor Ralph Dexter laughed--a deep, hearty, boyish laugh that rang
cheerfully through the empty house. "I'll tell you something," he
said. He leaned over and whispered in her ear; "So was mine!"

Araminta's tell-tale face betrayed her relief. He knew the worst
now--and he was similarly branded. His mother, too, had been an
outcast, beyond Aunt Hitty's pale. There was comfort in the thought,
though Araminta had been taught not to rejoice at another's misfortune.

Ralph strolled off down the hill, his hands in his pockets, for the
moment totally forgetting the promised kitten. "The little saint," he
mused, "she's been kept in a cage all her life. She doesn't know
anything except what the dragon has taught her. She looks at life with
the dragon's sidewise squint. I'll open the door for her," he
continued, mentally, "for I think she's worth saving. Hope to Moses
and the prophets I don't forget that cat."

No suspicion that he could forget penetrated Araminta's consciousness.
It had been pleasant to have Doctor Ralph sit there and wash her face,
talking to her meanwhile, even though he was a man, and men were
poison. Like a strong, sure bond between them, Araminta felt their
common disgrace.

"His mother was married," she thought, drowsily, "and so was mine.
Neither of them knew any better. Oh, Lord," prayed Araminta, with
renewed vigour, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy
sake. Amen."




XI

The Loose Link

Seated primly on a chair in Miss Evelina's kitchen, Miss Mehitable gave
a full account of her sentiments toward Doctor Ralph Dexter. She began
with his birth and remarked that he was a puny infant, and, for a time,
it was feared that he was "light headed."

"He got his senses after a while, though," she continued, grudgingly,
"that is, such as they are."

She proceeded through his school-days, repeated unflattering opinions
which his teachers had expressed to her, gave an elaborate description
of the conflict that ensued when she caught him stealing green apples
from her incipient, though highly promising, orchard, alluded darkly to
his tendency to fight with his schoolmates, suggested that certain
thefts of chickens ten years and more ago could, if the truth were
known, safely be attributed to Ralph Dexter, and speculated upon the
trials and tribulations a scapegrace son might cause an upright and
respected father.

All the dead and buried crimes of the small boys of the village were
excavated from the past and charged to Ralph Dexter. Miss Mehitable
brought the record fully up to the time he left Rushton for college,
having been prepared for entrance by his father. Then she began with
Araminta.

First upon the schedule were Miss Mehitable's painful emotions when
Barbara Smith had married Henry Lee. She croaked anew all her
raven-like prophecies of misfortune which had added excitement to the
wedding, and brought forth the birth of Araminta in full proof. Full
details of Barbara's death were given, and the highly magnified events
which had led to her adoption of the child. Condescending for a moment
to speak of the domestic virtues, Miss Mehitable explained, with proper
pride, how she had "brought up" Araminta. The child had been kept
close at the side of her guardian angel, never had been to school, had
been carefully taught at home, had not been allowed to play with other
children; in short, save at extremely rare intervals, Araminta had seen
no one unless in the watchful presence of her counsellor.

"And if you don't think that's work," observed Miss Hitty, piously,
"you just keep tied to one person for almost nineteen years, day and
night, never lettin' 'em out of your sight, and layin' the foundation
of their manners and morals and education, and see how you'll feel when
a blackmailing sprig of a play-doctor threatens to collect a hundred
dollars from you if you dast to nurse your own niece!"

Miss Evelina, silent as always, was moving restlessly about the
kitchen. Unaccustomed since her girlhood to activity of any
description, she found her new tasks hard. Muscles, long unused, ached
miserably from exertion. Yet Araminta had to be taken care of and her
room kept clean.

The daily visits of Doctor Ralph, who was almost painfully neat, had
made Miss Evelina ashamed of her house, though he had not appeared to
notice that anything was wrong. She avoided him when she could, but it
was not always possible, for directions had to be given and reports
made. Miss Evelina never looked at him directly. One look into his
eyes, so like his father's, had made her so faint that she would have
fallen, had not Doctor Ralph steadied her with his strong arm.

To her, he was Anthony Dexter in the days of his youth, though she
continually wondered to find it so. She remembered a story she had
read, a long time ago, of a young woman who lost her husband of a few
weeks in a singularly pathetic manner. In exploring a mountain, he
fell into a crevasse, and his body could not be recovered. Scientists
calculated that, at the rate the glacier was moving, his body might be
expected to appear at the foot of the mountain in about twenty-three
years; so, grimly, the young bride set herself to wait.

At the appointed time, the glacier gave up its dead, in perfect
preservation, owing to the intense cold. But the woman who had waited
for her husband thus was twenty-three years older; she had aged, and he
was still young. In some such way had Anthony Dexter come back to her;
eager, boyish, knowing none of life except its joy, while she, a
quarter of a century older, had borne incredible griefs, been wasted by
long vigils, and now stood, desolate, at the tomb of a love which was
not dead, but continually tore at its winding sheet and prayed for
release.

To Evelina, at times, the past twenty-five years seemed like a long
nightmare. This was Anthony Dexter--this boy with the quick, light
step, the ringing laugh, the broad shoulders and clear, true eyes. No
terror lay between them, all was straight and right; yet the
realisation still enshrouded her like a black cloud.

"And," said Miss Hitty, mournfully, "after ail my patience and hard
work in bringing up Araminta as a lady should be brought up, and having
taught her to beware of men and even of boys, she's took away from me
when she's sick, and nobody allowed to see her except a blackmailing
play-doctor, who is putting Heaven knows what devilment into her head.
I suppose there's nothing to prevent me from finishing the
housecleaning, if I don't speak to my own niece as I pass her door?"

She spoke inquiringly, but Miss Evelina did not reply.

"Most folks," continued Miss Hitty, with asperity, "is pleased enough
to have their houses cleaned for 'em to say 'thank you,' but I'm some
accustomed to ingratitude. What I do now in the way of cleanin' will
be payin' for the nursin' of Araminta."

Still Miss Evelina did not answer, her thoughts being far away.

"Maybe I did speak cross to Minty," admitted Miss Hitty, grudgingly,
"at a time when I had no business to. If I did, I'm willin' to tell
her so, but not that blackmailing play-doctor with a hundred-dollar
bill for a club. I was clean out of patience with Minty for falling
off the ladder, but I guess, as he says, she didn't go for to do it.
'T ain't in reason for folks to step off ladders or out of windows
unless they're walkin' in their sleep, and I've never let Minty sleep
in the daytime."

Unceasingly, Miss Mehitable prattled on. Reminiscence, anecdote, and
philosophical observations succeeded one another with startling
rapidity, ending always in vituperation and epithet directed toward
Araminta's physician. Dark allusions to the base ingratitude of
everybody with whom Miss Hitty had ever been concerned alternately
cumbered her speech. At length the persistent sound wore upon Miss
Evelina, much as the vibration of sound may distress one totally deaf.

The kitchen door was open and Miss Evelina went outdoors. Miss
Mehitable continued to converse, then shortly perceived that she was
alone. "Well, I never!" she gasped. "Guess I'll go home!"

Her back was very stiff and straight when she marched downhill, firmly
determined to abandon Evelina, scorn Doctor Ralph Dexter, and leave
Araminta to her well-deserved fate. One thought and one only
illuminated her gloom. "He ain't got his four dollars and a half,
yet," she chuckled, craftily. "Mebbe he'll get it and mebbe he won't.
We'll see."

While straying about the garden. Miss Evelina saw her unwelcome guest
take her militant departure, and reproached herself for her lack of
hospitality. Miss Mehitable had been very kind to her and deserved
only kindness in return. She had acted upon impulse and was ashamed.

Miss Evelina meditated calling her back, but the long years of
self-effacement and inactivity had left her inert, with capacity only
for suffering. That very suffering to which she had become accustomed
had of late assumed fresh phases. She was hurt continually in new
ways, yet, after the first shock of returning to her old home, not so
much as she had expected. It is a way of life, and one of its inmost
compensations--this finding of a reality so much easier than our fears.

April had come over the hills, singing, with a tinkle of rain and a
rush of warm winds, and yet the Piper had not returned. His tools were
in the shed, and the mountain of rubbish was still in the road in front
of the house. Half of the garden had not been touched. On one side of
the house was the bare brown earth, with tiny green shoots springing up
through it, and on the other was a twenty-five years' growth of weeds.
Miss Evelina reflected that the place was not unlike her own life; half
of it full of promise, a forbidding wreck in the midst of it, and,
beyond it, desolation, ended only by a stone wall.

"Did you think," asked a cheerful voice at her elbow, "that I was never
coming back to finish my job?"

Miss Evelina started, and gazed into the round, smiling face of Piper
Tom, who was accompanied, as always, by his faithful dog.

"'T is not our way," he went on, including the yellow mongrel in the
pronoun, "to leave undone what we've set our hands and paws to do, eh,
Laddie?"

He waited a moment, but Miss Evelina did not speak.

"I got some seeds for my garden," he continued, taking bulging parcels
from the pockets of his short, shaggy coat. "The year's sorrow is at
an end."

"Sorrow never comes to an end," she cried, bitterly.

"Doesn't it," he asked. "How old is yours?"

"Twenty-five years," she answered, choking. The horror of it was
pressing heavily upon her.

"Then," said the Piper, very gently, "I'm thinking there is something
wrong. No sorrow should last more than a year--'t is written all
around us so."

"Written? I have never seen it written."

"No," returned the Piper, kindly, "but 't is because you have not
looked to see. Have you ever known a tree that failed to put out its
green leaves in the Spring, unless it had died from lightning or old
age? When a rose blossoms, then goes to sleep, does it wait for more
than a year before it blooms again? Is it more than a year from bud to
bud, from flower to flower, from fruit to fruit? 'T is God's way of
showing that a year of darkness is enough,--at a time."

The Piper's voice was very tender; the little dog lay still at his
feet. She leaned against the crumbling wall, and turned her veiled
face away.

"'T is not for us to be happy without trying," continued the Piper,
"any more than it is for a tree to bear fruit without effort. All the
beauty and joy in the world are the result of work--work for each other
and in ourselves. When you see a butterfly over a field of clover, 't
is because he has worked to get out of his chrysalis. He was not
content to abide within his veil."

"Suppose," said Miss Evelina, in a voice that was scarcely audible,
"that he couldn't get out?"

"Ah, but he could," answered the Piper. "We can get out of anything,
if we try. I'm not meaning by escape, but by growth. You put an acorn
into a crevice in a rock. It has no wings, it cannot fly out, nobody
will lift it out. But it grows, and the oak splits the rock; even
takes from the rock nourishment for its root."

"People are not like acorns and butterflies," she stammered. "We are
not subject to the same laws."

"Why not?" asked the Piper. "God made us all, and I'm thinking we're
all brothers, having, in a way, the same Father. 'T is not for me to
hold myself above Laddie here, though he's a dog and I'm a man. 'T is
not for me to say that men are better than dogs; that they're more
honest, more true, more kind. The seed that I have in my hand, here,
I'm thinking 't is my brother, too. If I plant it, water it, and keep
the weeds away from it, 't will give me back a blossom. 'T is service
binds us all into the brotherhood."

"Did you never," asked Evelina, thickly, "hear of chains?"

"Aye," said the Piper, "chains of our own making. 'T is like the
ancient people in one of my ragged books. When one man killed another,
they chained the dead man to the living one, so that he was forever
dragging his own sin. When he struck the blow, he made his own chain."

"I am chained," cried Evelina, piteously, "but not to my own sin."

"'T is wrong," said the Piper; "I'm thinking there's a loose link
somewhere that can be slipped off."

"I cannot find it," she sobbed; "I've hunted for it in the dark for
twenty-five years."

"Poor soul," said the Piper, softly. "'T is because of the darkness,
I'm thinking. From the distaff of Eternity, you take the thread of
your life, but you're sitting in the night, and God meant you to be a
spinner in the sun. When the day breaks for you, you'll be finding the
loose link to set yourself free."

"When the day breaks," repeated Evelina, in a whisper. "There is no
day."

"There is day. I've come to lead you to it. We'll find the light
together and set the thread to going right again."

"Who are you?" cried Evelina, suddenly terror stricken.

The Piper laughed, a low, deep friendly laugh. Then he doffed his grey
hat and bowed, sweeping the earth with the red feather, in cavalier
fashion. "Tom Barnaby, at your service, but most folks call me Piper
Tom. 'T is the flute, you know," he continued in explanation, "that
I'm forever playing on in the woods, having no knowledge of the
instrument, but sort of liking the sound."

Miss Evelina turned and went into the house, shaken to her inmost soul.
More than ever, she felt the chains that bound her. Straining against
her bonds, she felt them cutting deep into her flesh. Anthony Dexter
had bound her; he alone could set her free. From this there seemed no
possible appeal.

Meanwhile the Piper mowed down the weeds in the garden, whistling
cheerily. He burned the rubbish in the road, and the smoke made a blue
haze on the hill. He spaded and raked and found new stones for the
broken wall, and kept up a constant conversation with the dog.

It was twilight long before he got ready to make the flower beds, so he
carried the tools back into the shed and safely stored away the seeds.
Miss Evelina watched him from the grimy front window as he started
downhill, but he did not once look back.

There was something jaunty in the Piper's manner, aside from the
drooping red feather which bobbed rakishly as he went home, whistling.
When he was no longer to be seen, Miss Evelina sighed. Something
seemed to have gone out of her life, like a sunbeam which has suddenly
faded. In a safe shadow of the house, she raised her veil, and wiped
away a tear.

When out of sight and hearing, the Piper stopped his whistling. "'T is
no need to be cheerful, Laddie," he explained to the dog, "when there's
none to be saddened if you're not. We don't know about the loose link,
and perhaps we can never find it, but we're going to try. We'll take
off the chain and put the poor soul in the sun again before we go away,
if we can learn how to do it, but I'm thinking 't is a heavy chain and
the sun has long since ceased to shine."

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