Part 36 (1/2)

Araminta was going away--to be married. In spite of her trouble, Miss Mehitable noted the taint of heredity. ”It's in her blood,” she murmured, ”and maybe Minty ain't so much to blame.”

In this crisis, however, Miss Mehitable had the valiant support of her conscience. She had never allowed the child to play with boys--in fact, she had not had any playmates at all. As soon as Araminta was old enough to understand, she was taught that boys and men--indeed all human things that wore trousers, long or short--were rank poison, and were to be steadfastly avoided if a woman desired peace of mind. Miss Mehitable frequently said that she had everything a husband could have given her except a lot of trouble.

Daily, almost hourly, the wisdom of single blessedness had been impressed upon Araminta. Miss Mehitable neglected no ill.u.s.tration calculated to bring the lesson home. She had even taught her that her own mother was an outcast and had brought disgrace upon her family by marrying; she had held aloft her maiden standard and literally compelled Araminta to enlist.

Now, all her work had gone for naught. Nature had triumphantly rea.s.serted itself, and Araminta had fallen in love. The years stretched before Miss Mehitable in a vast and gloomy vista illumined by no light. No soft step upon the stair, no sunny face at her table, no sweet, girlish laugh, no long companionable afternoons with patchwork, while she talked and Araminta listened. At the thought, her stern mouth quivered, ever so slightly, and, all at once, she found the relief of tears.

An hour or so afterward, she went up to the attic, walking with a stealthy, cat-like tread, though there was no one in the house to hear.

In a corner, far back under the eaves, three trunks were piled, one on top of the other. Miss. .h.i.tty lifted off the two top trunks without apparent effort, for her arms were strong, and drew the lowest one out into the path of sunlight that lay upon the floor, maple branches swaying across it in silhouette.

In another corner of the attic, up among the rafters, was a box apparently filled with old newspapers. Miss. .h.i.tty reached down among the newspapers with accustomed fingers and drew out a crumpled wad, tightly wedged into one corner of the box.

She listened carefully at the door, but there was no step in the house.

She was absolutely alone. None the less, she bolted the door of the attic before she picked the crumpled paper apart, and took out the key of the trunk.

The old lock opened readily, and from the trunk came the musty odour of long-dead lavender and rosemary, lemon verbena and rose geranium. On top was Barbara Lee's wedding gown. Miss. .h.i.tty always handled it with reverence not unmixed with awe, never having had a wedding gown herself.

Underneath were the baby clothes which the girl-wife had begun to make when she first knew of her child's coming. The cloth was none too fine and the little garments were awkwardly cut and badly sewn, but every st.i.tch had been guided by a great love.

Araminta's first shoes were there, too--soft, formless things of discoloured white kid. Folded in a yellowed paper was a tiny, golden curl, snipped secretly, and marked on the outside: ”Minty's hair.”

Farther down in the trunk were the few relics of Miss Mehitable's far-away girlhood.

A dog-eared primer, a string of bright b.u.t.tons, a broken slate, a ragged, disreputable doll, and a few blown birds' eggs carefully packed away in a small box of cotton--these were her treasures. There was an old autograph alb.u.m with a gay blue cover which the years in the trunk had not served to fade. Far down in the trunk was a package which Miss Mehitable took out reverently. It was large and flat and tied with heavy string in hard knots. She untied the knots patiently--her mother had taught her never to cut a string.

Underneath was more paper, and more string. It took her half an hour to bring to light the inmost contents of the package, bound in layer after layer of fine muslin, but not tied. She unrolled the yellowed cloth carefully, for it was very frail. At last she took out a photograph--Anthony Dexter at three-and-twenty--and gazed at it long.

On one page of her autograph alb.u.m was written an old rhyme. The ink had faded so that it was scarcely legible, but Miss. .h.i.tty knew it by heart:

”'If you love me as I love you No knife can cut our love in two.'

Your sincere friend, ANTHONY DEXTER.”

Like a tiny sprig of lavender taken from a bush which has never bloomed, this bit of romance lay far back in the secret places of her life. She had a knot of blue ribbon which Anthony Dexter had once given her, a lead pencil which he had gallantly sharpened, and which she had never used.

Her life had been barren--Miss Mehitable knew that, and in her hours of self-a.n.a.lysis, admitted it. She would gladly have taken Evelina's full measure of suffering in exchange for one t.i.the of Araminta's joy.

After Anthony Dexter had turned from her to Evelina, Miss Mehitable had openly scorned him. She had spent the rest of her life, since, in showing him and the rest that men were nothing to her and that he was least of all.

She had hovered near his patients simply for the sake of seeing him--she did not care for them at all. She sat in the front window that she might see him drive by, and counted that day lost which brought her no sight of him. This was her one tenderness, her one vulnerable point.

The afternoon shadows grew long and the maple branches ceased to sway.

Outside a bird crooned a lullaby to his nesting mate. An oriole perched on the topmost twig of an evergreen in a corner of the yard, and opened his golden throat in a rapture of song.

Love was abroad in the world that day. Bees hummed it, birds sang it, roses breathed it. The black and gold messengers of the fields bore velvety pollen from flower to flower, moving lazily on s.h.i.+mmering, gossamer wings. A meadow-lark rose from a distant clover field, dropping exquisite, silvery notes as he flew. The scent of green fields and honeysuckles came in at the open window, mingled inextricably with the croon of the bees, but Miss Mehitable knew only that it was Summer, that the world was young, but she was old and alone and would be alone for the rest of her life.

She leaned forward to look at the picture, and Anthony Dexter smiled back at her, boyish, frank, eager, lovable. A tear dropped on the pictured face--not the first one, for the photograph was blistered oddly here and there.

”I've done all I could,” said Miss Mehitable to herself, as she wrapped it up again in its many yellowed folds of muslin. ”I thought Minty would be happier so, but maybe, after all, G.o.d knows best.”

XXV