Book: Flower of the Dusk

M >> Myrtle Reed >> Flower of the Dusk




Shaken like an aspen in a storm, Miriam lighted her candle and stared
into the shadows. Nothing was there. The clock ticked steadily--almost
maddeningly. It was just four o'clock.

She, too, opened the lower drawer of the dresser and thrust her hand
under the clothing. The letters were still there. She drew them out, her
hands trembling, and read the superscriptions with difficulty, for the
words danced, and made themselves almost illegible.

Constance was coming back for the letters, then? That was out of
Miriam's power to prevent, but she would keep the knowledge of their
contents--at least of one. She thrust aside contemptuously the letter to
Barbara--she cared nothing for that.

[Sidenote: The Seal Broken]

Taking the one addressed to "Mr. Laurence Austin; Kindness of Miss
Leonard," she went back to bed, taking her candle to the small table
that stood at the head of the bed. With forced calmness, she broke the
seal which the dead fingers had made so long ago, opened it shamelessly,
and read it.

"You who have loved me since the beginning of
time," the letter began, "will understand and
forgive me for what I do to-day. I do it because
I am not strong enough to go on and do my duty by
those who need me.

"If there should be meeting past the grave, some
day you and I shall come together again with no
barrier between us. I take with me the knowledge
of your love, which has sheltered and strengthened
and sustained me since the day we first met, and
which must make even a grave warm and sweet.

"And, remember this--dead though I am, I love you
still; you and my little lame baby who needs me so
and whom I must leave because I am not strong
enough to stay.

"Through life and in death and eternally,

"Yours,

"CONSTANCE."

In the letter was enclosed a long, silken tress of golden hair. It
curled around Miriam's fingers as though it were alive, and she thrust
it from her. It was cold and smooth and sinuous, like a snake. She
folded up the letter, put it back in the envelope with the lock of hair,
then returned it to its old hiding-place, with Barbara's.

"So, Constance," she said to herself, "you came for the letters? Come
and take them when you like--I do not fear you now."

[Sidenote: The Evidence]

All of her suspicions were crystallised into certainty by this one page
of proof. Constance might not have violated the letter of her marriage
vow--very probably had not even dreamed of it--but in spirit, she had
been false.

"Come, Constance," said Miriam, aloud; "come and take your letters.
When the hour comes, I shall tell him, and you cannot keep me from it."

[Sidenote: Triumph]

She was curiously at peace, now, and no longer afraid. Her dark eyes
blazed with triumph as she lay there in the candle light. The tension
within her had snapped when suspicion gave way to absolute knowledge.
Thwarted and denied and pushed aside all her life by Constance and her
memory, at last she had come to her own.




XIII

"Woman Suffrage"


There was a shuffling step on the stairway, accompanied by spasmodic
shrieks and an occasional "ouch." Roger looked up from his book in
surprise as Miss Mattie made her painful way into the room.

"Why, Mother. What's the matter?"

[Sidenote: Miss Mattie's Back]

Miss Mattie sat down in the chair she had made out of a flour barrel and
screamed as she did so. "What is it?" he demanded. "Are you ill?"

"Roger," she replied, "my back is either busted, or the hinge in it is
rusty from overwork. I stooped over to open the lower drawer in my
bureau, and when I come to rise up, I couldn't. I've been over half an
hour comin' downstairs. I called you twice, but you didn't hear me, and
I knowed you was readin', so I thought I might better save my voice to
yell with."

"I'm sorry," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"About the first thing to do, I take it, is to put down that book. Now,
if you'll put on your hat, you can go and get that new-fangled doctor
from the city. The postmaster's wife told me yesterday that he'd sent
Barbara one of them souverine postal cards and said on it he'd be down
last night. As you go, you might stop and tell the Norths that he's
comin', for they don't go after their mail much and most likely it's
still there in the box. Tell Barbara that the card has a picture of a
terrible high buildin' on it and the street is full of carriages, both
horsed and unhorsed. If he can make the lame walk and the blind see,
I reckon he can fix my back. I'll set here."

"Shan't I get someone to stay with you while I'm gone, Mother? I don't
like to leave you here alone. Miss Miriam would----"

"Miss Miriam," interrupted his mother, "ain't fit company for a horse or
cow, let alone a sufferin' woman. She just sets and stares and never
says nothin'. I have to do all the talkin' and I'm in no condition to
talk. You run along and let me set here in peace. It don't hurt so much
when I set still."

[Sidenote: Roger's Errand]

Roger obediently started on his errand, but met Doctor Conrad half-way.
The two had never been formally introduced, but Roger knew him, and the
Doctor remembered Roger as "the nice boy" who was with Ambrose North
and Eloise when he went over to tell them that Barbara was all right.

"Why, yes," said Allan. "If it's an emergency case, I'll come there
first. After I see what's the matter, I'll go over to North's and then
come back. I seem to be getting quite a practice in Riverdale."

When they went in, Roger introduced Doctor Conrad to the patient.
"You'll excuse my not gettin' up," said Miss Mattie, "for it's about the
gettin' up that I wanted to see you. Roger, you run away. It ain't
proper for boys to be standin' around listenin' when woman suffrage is
bein' discussed by the only people havin' any right to talk of it--women
and doctors."

Roger coloured to his temples as he took his hat and hurried out. With
an effort Doctor Conrad kept his face straight, but his eyes were
laughing.

[Sidenote: What's Wrong?]

"Now, what's wrong?" asked Allan, briefly, as Roger closed the door.

"It's my back," explained the patient. "It's busted. It busted all of a
sudden."

"Was it when you were stooping over, perhaps to pick up something?"

Miss Mattie stared at him in astonishment. "Are you a mind-reader, or
did Roger tell you?"

"Neither," smiled Allan. "Did a sharp pain come in the lumbar region
when you attempted to straighten up?"

"'Twan't the lumber room. I ain't been in the attic for weeks, though I
expect it needs straightenin'. It was in my bedroom. I was stoopin' over
to open a bureau drawer, and when I riz up, I found my back was busted."

[Sidenote: The Prescription]

"I see," said Allan. He was already writing a prescription. "If your son
will go down and get this filled, you will have no more trouble. Take
two every four hours."

Miss Mattie took the bit of paper anxiously. "No surgical operation?"
she asked.

"No," laughed Allan.

"No mortar piled up on me and left to set? No striped nurses?"

"No plaster cast," Allan assured her, "and no striped nurses."

"I reckon it ain't none of my business," remarked Miss Mattie, "but why
didn't you do somethin' like this for Barbara instead of cuttin' her up?
I'm worse off than she ever was, because she could walk right spry with
crutches, and crutches wouldn't have helped me none when I was risin' up
from the bureau drawer."

"Barbara's case is different. She had a congenital dislocation of the
femur."

Miss Mattie's jaw dropped, but she quickly recovered herself. "And what
have I got?"

"Lumbago."

"My disease is shorter," she commented, after a moment of reflection,
"but I'll bet it feels worse."

"I'll ask your son to come in if I see him," said Doctor Conrad,
reaching for his hat, "and if you don't get well immediately, let me
know. Good-bye."

Roger was nowhere in sight, but he was watching the two houses, and as
soon as he saw Doctor Conrad go into North's, he went back to his
mother.

[Sidenote: Miss Mattie's "Disease"]

"Barbara's disease has three words in it, Roger," she explained, "and
mine has only one, but it's more painful. You're to go immediately with
this piece of paper and get it full of the medicine he's written on it.
I've been lookin' at it, but I don't get no sense out of it. He said to
take two every four hours--two what?"

"Pills, probably, or capsules."

"Pills? Now, Roger, you know that no pill small enough to swallow could
cure a big pain like this in my back. The postmaster's wife had the
rheumatiz last Winter, and she took over five quarts of Old Doctor
Jameson's Pain Killer, and it never did her a mite of good. What do you
think a paper that size, full of pills, can do for a person that ain't
able to stand up without screechin'?"

"Well, we'll try it anyway, Mother. Just sit still until I come back
with the medicine."

He went out and returned, presently, with a red box containing forty or
fifty capsules. Miss Mattie took it from him and studied it carefully.
"This box ain't more'n a tenth as big as the pain," she observed
critically.

Roger brought a glass of water and took out two of the capsules. "Take
these," he said, "and at half past two, take two more. Let's give Doctor
Conrad a fair trial. It's probably a more powerful medicine than it
seems to be."

[Sidenote: A Difficulty]

Miss Mattie had some difficulty at first, as she insisted on taking both
capsules at once, but when she was persuaded to swallow one after the
other, all went well. "I suppose," she remarked, "that these long narrow
pills have to be took endways. If a person went to swallow 'em
crossways, they'd choke to death. I was careful how I took 'em, but
other people might not be, and I think, myself, that round pills are
safer."

"I went to the office," said Roger, "and told the Judge I wouldn't be
down to-day. I have some work I can do at home, and I'd rather not leave
you."

"It's just come to my mind now," mused Miss Mattie, ignoring his
thoughtfulness, "about the minister's sermon Sunday. He said that
everything that came to us might teach us something if we only looked
for it. I've been thinkin' as I set here, what a heap I've learned about
my back this mornin'. I never sensed, until now, that it was used in
walkin'. I reckoned that my back was just kind of a finish to me and
was to keep the dust out of my vital organs more'n anything else. This
mornin' I see that the back is entirely used in walkin'. What gets me is
that Barbara North had to have crutches when her back was all right.
Nothin' was out of kilter but her legs, and only one of 'em at that."

"Here's your paper, Mother." Roger pulled _The Metropolitan Weekly_ out
of his pocket.

"Lay it down on the table, please. It oughtn't to have come until
to-morrow. I ain't got time for it now."

"Why, Mother? Don't you want to read?"

[Sidenote: Proper Care]

The knot of hair on the back of Miss Mattie's head seemed to rise, and
her protruding wire hairpins bristled. "I should think you'd know," she
said, indignantly, "when you've been takin' time from the law to read
your pa's books to Barbara North, that no sick person has got the
strength to read. Even if my disease is only in one word when hers is in
three, I reckon I'm goin' to take proper care of myself."

"But you're sitting up and she can't," explained Roger, kindly.

"Sittin' up or not sittin' up ain't got nothin' to do with it. If my
back was set in mortar as it ought to have been, I wouldn't be settin'
up either. I can't get up without screamin', and as long as I've knowed
Barbara she's never been that bad. That new-fangled doctor hasn't come
out of North's yet, either. How much do you reckon he charges for a
visit?"

"Two or three dollars, I suppose."

Miss Mattie clucked sharply with her false teeth. "'Cordin' to that,"
she calculated, "he was here about twenty cents' worth. But I'm willin'
to give him a quarter--that's a nickel extra for the time he was writin'
out the recipe for them long narrow pills that would choke anybody but a
horse if they happened to go down crossways. There he comes, now. If he
don't come here of his own accord, you go out and get him, Roger. I want
he should finish his visit."

[Sidenote: The Doctor's Visit]

But it was not necessary for Roger to go. "Of his own accord," Doctor
Conrad came across the street and opened the creaky white gate. When he
came in, he brought with him the atmosphere of vitality and good cheer.
He had, too, that gentle sympathy which is the inestimable gift of the
physician, and which requires no words to make itself felt.

His quick eye noted the box of capsules upon the table, as he sat down
and took Miss Mattie's rough, work-worn hand in his. "How is it?" he
asked. "Better?"

"Mebbe," she answered, grudgingly. "No more'n a mite, though."

"That's all we can expect so soon. By to-morrow morning, though, you
should be all right." His manner unconsciously indicated that it would
be the one joy of a hitherto desolate existence if Miss Mattie should be
perfectly well again in the morning.

"How's my fellow sufferer?" she inquired, somewhat mollified.

"Barbara? She's doing very well. She's a brave little thing."

"Which is the sickest--her or me?"

"As regards actual pain," replied Doctor Conrad, tactfully, "you are
probably suffering more than she is at the present moment."

"I knowed it," cried Miss Mattie triumphantly. "Do you hear that,
Roger?"

But Roger had slipped out, remembering that "woman suffrage" was not a
proper subject for discussion in his hearing.

[Sidenote: Wanderin' Fits]

"I reckon he's gone over to North's," grumbled Miss Mattie. "When my eye
ain't on him, he scoots off. His pa was the same way. He was forever
chasin' over there and Roger's inherited it from him. Whenever I've
wanted either of 'em, they've always been took with wanderin' fits."

"You sent him out before," Allan reminded her.

"So I did, but I ain't sent him out now and he's gone just the same.
That's the trouble. After you once get an idea into a man's head, it
stays put. You can't never get it out again. And ideas that other
people puts in is just the same."

"Women change their minds more easily, don't they?" asked Allan. He was
enjoying himself very much.

"Of course. There's nothin' set about a woman unless she's got a busted
back. She ain't carin' to move around much then. The postmaster's wife
was tellin' me about one of the women at the hotel--the one that's
writin' the book. Do you know her?"

"I've probably seen her."

[Sidenote: All a Mistake]

"The postmaster's wife's bunion was a hurtin' her awful one day when
this woman come in after stamps, and she told her to go and help herself
and put the money in the drawer. So she did, and while she was doin' it
she told the postmaster's wife that she didn't have no bunion and no
pain--that it was all a mistake."

"'You wouldn't think so,' says the postmaster's wife, 'if it was your
foot that had the mistake on it.' She was awful mad at first, but, after
she got calmed down, the book-woman told her what she meant."

"'There ain't no pain nor disease in the world,' she says. 'It's all
imagination.'

"'Well,' says the postmaster's wife, 'when the swellin' is so bad, how'm
I to undeceive myself?'

"The book-woman says: 'Just deny it, and affirm the existence of good.
You just set down and say to yourself: "I can't have no bunion cause
there ain't no such thing, and it can't hurt me because there is no such
thing as pain. My foot is perfectly well and strong. I will get right up
and walk."'

"As soon as the woman was gone out with her stamps, the postmaster's
wife tried it and like to have fainted dead away. She said she might
have been able to convince her mind that there wasn't no bunion on her
foot, but she couldn't convince her foot. She said there wasn't no such
thing as pain, and the bunion made it its first business to do a little
denyin' on its own account. You have to be awful careful not to offend a
bunion.

[Sidenote: A Test]

"This mornin', while Roger was gone after them long, narrow pills that
has to be swallowed endways unless you want to choke to death, I
reckoned I'd try it on my back. So I says, right out loud: 'My back
don't hurt me. It is all imagination. I can't have no pain because there
ain't no such thing.' Then I stood up right quick, and--Lord!"

Miss Mattie shook her head sadly at the recollection. "Do you know," she
went on, thoughtfully, "I wish that woman at the hotel had lumbago?"

Doctor Conrad's nice brown eyes twinkled, and his mouth twitched, ever
so slightly. "I'm afraid I do, too," he said.

"If she did, and wanted some of them long narrow pills, would you give
'em to her?"

"Probably, but I'd be strongly tempted not to."

[Sidenote: Surprise]

When he took his leave, Miss Mattie, from force of habit, rose from her
chair. "Ouch!" she said, as she slowly straightened up. "Why, I do
believe it's better. It don't hurt nothin' like so much as it did."

"Your surprise isn't very flattering, Mrs. Austin, but I'll forgive you.
The next time I come up, I'll take another look at you. Good-bye."

Miss Mattie made her way slowly over to the table where the box of
capsules lay, and returned, with some effort, to her chair. She studied
both the box and its contents faithfully, once with her spectacles, and
once without. "You'd never think," she mused, "that a pill of that size
and shape could have any effect on a big pain that's nowheres near your
stomach. He must be a dreadful clever young man, for it sure is a
searchin' medicine."




XIV

Barbara's Birthday


"Fairy Godmother," said Barbara, "I should like a drink."

[Sidenote: Fairy Godchild]

"Fairy Godchild," answered Eloise, "you shall have one. What do you
want--rose-dew, lilac-honey, or a golden lily full of clear, cool
water?"

"I'll take the water, please," laughed Barbara, "but I want more than a
lily full."

Eloise brought a glass of water and managed to give it to Barbara
without spilling more than a third of it upon her. "What a pretty neck
and what glorious shoulders you have," she commented, as she wiped up
the water with her handkerchief. "How lovely you'd look in an evening
gown."

"Don't try to divert me," said Barbara, with affected sternness. "I'm
wet, and I'm likely to take cold and die."

"I'm not afraid of your dying after you've lived through what you have.
Allan says you're the bravest little thing he has ever seen."

The deep colour dyed Barbara's pale face. "I'm not brave," she
whispered; "I was horribly afraid, but I thought that, even if I were,
I could keep people from knowing it."

"If that isn't real courage," Eloise assured her, "it's so good an
imitation that it would take an expert to tell the difference."

"I'm afraid now," continued Barbara. Her colour was almost gone and she
did not look at Eloise. "I'm afraid that, after all, I can never walk."
She indicated the crutches at the foot of her bed by a barely
perceptible nod. "I have Aunt Miriam keep them there so that I won't
forget."

"Nonsense," cried Eloise. "Allan says that you have every possible
chance, so don't be foolish. You're going to walk--you must walk. Why,
you mustn't even think of anything else."

"It would seem strange," sighed Barbara, "after almost twenty-two years,
why--what day of the month is to-day?"

"The sixteenth."

[Sidenote: Twenty-two]

"Then it is twenty-two. This is my birthday--I'm twenty-two years old
to-day."

"Fairy Godchild, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I'd forgotten it myself."

"You're too young to begin to forget your birthdays. I'm past thirty,
but I still 'keep tab' on mine."

"If you're thirty, I must be at least forty, for I'm really much older
than you are. And Roger is an infant in arms compared with me."

"Wise lady, how did you grow so old in so short a time?"

"By working and reading, and thinking--and suffering, I suppose."

"When you're well, dear, I'm going to try to give you some of the
girlhood you've never had. You're entitled to pretty gowns and parties
and beaux, and all the other things that belong to the teens and
twenties. You're coming to town with me, I hope--that's why I'm
staying."

Barbara's blue eyes filled and threatened to overflow. "Oh, Fairy
Godmother, how lovely it would be. But I can't go. I must stay here and
sew and try to make up for lost time. Besides, father would miss me so."

[Sidenote: Wait and See]

Eloise only smiled, for she had plans of her own for father. "We won't
argue," she said, lightly, "we'll wait and see. It's a great mistake to
try to live to-morrow, or even yesterday, to-day."

When Eloise went back to the hotel, her generous heart full of plans for
her protege, Miriam did not hear her go out, and so it happened that
Barbara was alone for some time. Ambrose North had gone for one of his
long walks over the hills and along the shore, expecting to return
before Eloise left Barbara. For some vague reason which he himself could
not have put into words, he did not like to leave her alone with
Miriam.

When Miriam came upstairs, she paused at the door to listen. Hearing no
voices, she peeped within. Barbara lay quietly, looking out of the
window, and dreaming of the day when she could walk freely and joyously,
as did the people who passed and repassed.

Miriam went stealthily to her own room, and took out the letter to
Barbara. She had no curiosity as to its contents. If she had, it would
be an easy matter to open it, and put it into another envelope, without
the address, and explain that it had been merely enclosed with
instructions as to its delivery.

[Sidenote: Miriam Delivers the Letter]

Taking it, she went into the room where Barbara lay--the same room where
the dead Constance had lain so long before.

"Barbara," she said, without emotion, "when your mother died she left
this letter for you, in my care." She put it into the girl's eager,
outstretched hand and left the room, closing the door after her.

With trembling fingers, Barbara broke the seal, and took out the closely
written sheet. All four pages were covered. The ink had faded and the
paper was yellow, but the words were still warm with love and life.

[Sidenote: The Letter]

"Barbara, my darling, my little lame baby," the
letter began. "If you live to receive this
letter, your mother will have been dead for many
years and, perhaps, forgotten. I have chosen your
twenty-second birthday for this because I am
twenty-two now, and, when you are the same age,
you will, perhaps, be better fitted to understand
than at any other time.

"I trust you have not married, because, if you
have, my warning may come too late. Never marry a
man whom you do not know, absolutely, that you
love, and when this knowledge comes to you, if
there are no barriers in the way, do not let
anything on God's earth keep you apart.

"I have made the mistake which many girls make.
I came from school, young, inexperienced, unbalanced,
and eager for admiration. Your father, a brilliant man
of more than twice my age, easily appealed to my fancy.
He was handsome, courteous, distinguished, wealthy, of
fine character and unassailable position. I did not
know, then, that a woman could love love, rather than
the man who gave it to her.

"There is not a word to be said of him that is not
wholly good. He has failed at no point, nor in the
smallest degree. On the contrary, it is I who have
disappointed him, even though I love him dearly
and always have. I have never loved him more than
to-day, when I leave you both forever.

"My feeling for him is unchanged. It is only that
at last I have come face to face with the one man
of all the world--the one God made for me, back in
the beginning. I have known it for a long, long
time, but I did not know that he also loved me
until a few days ago.

"Since then, my world has been chaos, illumined by
this unutterable light. I have been a true wife,
and when I can be true no longer, it is time to
take the one way out. I cannot live here and run
the risk of seeing him constantly, yet trust
myself not to speak; I cannot bear to know that
the little space lying between us is, in reality,
the whole world.

"He is bound, too. He has a wife and a son only a
little older than you are. If I stay, I shall be
false to your father, to you, to him, and even to
myself, because, in my relation to each of you,
I shall be living a lie.

[Sidenote: The Message]

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