A Tangled Web (34 page)

Sim Dark, of whom he inquired timidly, told him he had seen some young beasts down on the shore road leading to Little Friday Cove. Sim felt an impulse of pity for young Brian as he drove away. The child looked as if he didn't get half enough to eat. And that thin sweater was not enough for a cold fall night. The Duncan Darks ought to be ashamed of themselves. After which, Sim went home to his excellent supper and well-dressed family and forgot all about Brian.

Brian trudged down the long grassy road to Little Friday Cove. It was getting very dark, and he was frightened. Little Sam's light gleamed cheerily through the blur of rain that was beginning to fall. Brian went to the house and asked him if he had seen the calves. Little Sam had not, but he made Brian go in and have supper with him. Brian knew he ought not to go in, with the calves yet unfound, but the smell of Little Sam's chowder was too tempting. And it was so warm and cozy in Little Sam's living-room. Besides, he liked Little Sam. Little Sam had once taken him out for a row one evening when the gulf had been like rippled satin and there was a little new moon in the west. It was one of the few beautiful memories in Brian's life.

“We're in for a rain,” said Little Sam, ladling out the chowder generously. “My shin's been aching scandalously for two days.” Little Sam sighed. “I'm beginning to feel my years,” he said.

By the time supper was over, the rain was pouring down. Little Sam insisted that Brian stay all night with him.

“It ain't fit for you to go out a night like this. Listen to that wind getting up. Stay here where you're comfortable and have a look round in the morning for your calves. Likely you'll find 'em over in Jake Harmer's wood-lot. His fences are disgraceful. “

Brian yielded. He was afraid to go home in the dark. And it was so warm and pleasant here. To be sure, he thought uneasily of Cricket. But if Cricket came he would likely just curl up on Brian's bed and be quite comfortable. No harm would come to him.

Brian spent the pleasantest evening he had known for a long time, sitting by Little Sam's blazing fire, petting Mustard—who was a very nice old cat, though not to be compared to Cricket—and listening to Little Sam's hair-raising ghost stories. It did not occur to Little Sam that he should not tell ghost stories to Brian. It was a long time since he had had anybody to listen to his tales. Little Sam had already spent many lonely evenings this fall. He dreaded another winter like the last. But he did not mention Big Sam. The Sams had at last given up talking about one another. Little Sam only pointed Aurora proudly out to Brian and asked him if he didn't think her pretty. Brian did think so. There was something in the white, poised figure that made him think of music in moonlight and coral clouds in a morning sky and all the bits of remembered beauty that sometimes—when he wasn't too tired and hungry—made a harmony in his soul.

It was a long time before Brian could sleep, curled up in the bunk that had once been Big Sam's. The wind roared at the window and the rain streamed down on the rocks outside. The wind was offshore and the waves were not high, but they made a strange, sobbing, lonely sound. Brian wondered if his aunt and uncle would be very cross with him for staying away and if Cricket would miss him.

When he finally fell asleep he had a dreadful dream. He was standing alone on a great, far-reaching plain of moonlit snow. Right before him was a huge creature—a creature like the wolf in the pictures of Red Riding Hood, but ten times bigger than any wolf could be, with snarling, slavering jaws and malignant, flaming eyes. Such hate—such hellish hate—looked out of those eyes that Brian screamed with terror and wakened.

The room was filled with a dim grayness of dawn. Little Sam was still snoring peacefully, with Mustard curled up on his stomach. The wind and rain had ceased and a peep from the window showed Brian a world wrapped in gray fog. But the horror of his dream was still on him. Somehow—he could not have told how or why—he felt sure it had something to do with Cricket. Softly he slipped out of bed and into his ragged clothes—softly slipped out of the house and latched the door behind him. An hour later he reached home. Nobody was up. There was a strange car in the garage. Brian tiptoed across the kitchen and climbed the ladder to the loft. His heart was beating painfully. He prayed desperately that he might find Cricket there, warm and furry and purring.

What Brian saw was his Uncle Duncan asleep on his bed. There was no sign of Cricket anywhere. Brian sat down on the floor, with a sick feeling coming over him. He knew what must have happened—what had happened once before. Visitors had come—more visitors than there were beds for. His uncle had given up his own bed and come to the loft.

Had Cricket come? And if so, had he gone away safely? Brian was asking these questions of himself over and over when his uncle woke, stretched, sat up, and looked at him.

“Find the cattle?” he said.

“No-o-o, but Little Sam says he thinks they're in Jake Harmer's wood-lot. I'll go right away and get them.”

Brian voice shook beyond control but it was not with fear about the cattle. What—oh, what was the truth about Cricket?

Duncan Dark yawned.

“You'd better. And where'd that cat come from that woke me up pawing at my face? You bin having cats here, youngster?”

“No-o-o, only one—it came sometimes at nights,” gasped Brian. It seemed that his very soul grew cold within him.

“Well it won't come again. I wrung its neck. Now, you hustle off after them cows. You've plenty of time before breakfast.”

Later on, Brian found the poor dead body of his little pet among the burdocks under the window. Brian felt that his heart was breaking as he gathered Cricket up in his arms and tried to close the glazed eyes. He felt so helpless—so alone. The only thing that loved him in the world was dead—murdered. Never again would he hear the pad-pad of little feet on the porch roof—never again would a soft paw touch his face in the darkness—never again would a purring thing snuggle against him lovingly. There was no God. Not even a young careless God could have let a thing like this happen.

When night came Brian felt that he could not—
could
not
—go to his bed in the loft. He could not lie there alone, waiting for Cricket, who could never come again—Cricket lying cold and stiff in the little grave Brian had dug for him under the wild cherry tree. In his despair the child rushed away from the house and along the twilit road. He hardly knew where he was going. By some blind instinct rather than design, his feet bore him to the Rose River graveyard and his mother's neglected grave. He cast himself down upon it, sobbing terribly.

“Oh, Mother—Mother. I wish I was dead—with you. Mother—Mother—take me—I can't live any longer—I can't—I can't.
Please,
Mother.”

Margaret Penhallow stood looking down at him. She had been down to Artemas Dark's with a dress for May Dark and had taken a short cut through the graveyard on her way back, walking slowly because she rather enjoyed being in this dreamy spot where so many of her kindred slept and where the crisp, frosty west wind was blowing over old graves. Was this poor Laura Dark's boy? And what was his trouble?

She bent down and touched him gently.

“Brian—what is the matter, dear?”

Brian started convulsively and got up, shrinking into himself. His painful little sobs ceased.

“Brian—tell me, dear.”

Brian had thought he could never tell anybody. But Margaret's soft gray-blue eyes were so tender and pitiful. He found himself telling her. He sobbed out the story of poor Cricket.

“It was all I had to love—and nobody but Cricket ever loved me.”

Margaret stood very still for a few moments, patting Brian's head. In those few moments the dream of the golden-haired baby vanished forever from her heart. She knew what she must do—what she
wanted
to do.

“Brian, would you like to come and live with me—down at Whispering Winds? I'm moving there next week. You will be
my
little boy—and I will love you—I loved your mother, dear, when we were girls together.”

Brian stopped sobbing and looked at her incredulously.

“Oh, Miss Penhallow—do you mean it? Can I really live with you? And will—will Uncle Duncan let me?”

“Yes, I do mean it. And I don't think there's much doubt that your uncle will be glad to get—to let you come to me. Don't cry any more, dear. Run right home—it's too cold for you to be here like this. Next week we'll arrange it all. And will you call me Aunt Margaret?”

“Oh, Aunt Margaret,”—Brian caught her hand—her pretty slender hand that had so kindly touched his hair—“I—I—oh, I'm afraid you won't love me when you know all about me. I'm—I'm not good, Aunt Margaret. Aunt Alethea says so. And she's—she's right. I didn't want to go to church, Aunt Margaret, because my clothes were so shabby. I know that was wicked. And I—I had such dreadful thoughts when Uncle Duncan told me he'd killed Cricket. Oh, Aunt Margaret, I wouldn't want you to be disappointed in me when you found out I wasn't a good boy.”

Margaret smiled and put her arm around him. How thin his poor little body was.

“We'll both be bad and wicked together then, Brian. Come, dear, I'll walk part of the way home with you. You're cold—you're shivering. You shouldn't be out without a jacket on a night like this.”

They went over the graveyard past Aunt Becky's grave and gleaming monument and down the road, hand in hand. They were both suddenly very happy. They knew they belonged to each other. Brian fell asleep that night with tears on his lashes for poor Cricket but with a warm feeling of being lapped round with love—such as he had never known before. Margaret lay blissfully awake. Whispering Winds was hers and a little lonely creature to love and cherish. She asked for nothing more—not even for Aunt Becky's jug.

Finally, Brethren

1

The clan had hardly got its second wind after the reconciliation of Hugh and Joscelyn when the last day of October loomed near—the day when it should be known who was to get Aunt Becky's jug. The earlier excitement, which had waned a little, especially in view of all the approaching weddings—“a lot of marrying this year,” as Uncle Pippin said—blazed up again fiercely, coupled with anxious speculations as to what had caused the change in Dandy.

For Dandy was changed. Nobody could deny that. He had become furtive, morose, unfriendly, absentminded. He snapped at people. He went to church regularly but he never lingered to talk with folks after the service. Assemblies at the blacksmith's forge knew him not. Town on Saturday night knew him not. Some thought it was because of the fire but the majority refused that opinion. Dandy had lost practically nothing by the fire, except his spare-room furniture. He was well insured and had an old house on his lower farm to move into temporarily. It must be something connected with the jug. Did Dandy really have to decide who was to get it and was afraid of the consequences? “Looks like a man with something on his conscience,” said Stanton Grundy.

“Can't be that,” said Uncle Pippin. “Dandy never had any conscience to speak of.”

“Then he must have nervous prostration,” said Grundy.

“I shouldn't wonder,” agreed Uncle Pippin. “Having that jug for a whole year and mebbe having to settle who's to get it'd be hard on anybody's nerves.”

“Do you suppose,” suggested Sim Dark horribly, “that Mrs. Dandy has smashed the jug?”

The tension grew as the last of October approached. Drowned John and Titus Dark both reflected that, jug or no jug, they could let themselves go in another week. William Y. had bought a new mahogany table in Charlottetown, and gossip said he meant it as a stand for the jug. Old Miller Dark was holding the final chapter of his history open until he could include the lucky name. Chris Penhallow was looking lovingly at his dear neglected fiddle. Mrs. Allan Dark, whose spirit and determination had so far kept her alive, reflected with a tired sigh that she could die in peace after the thirty-first of October.

“And here's Edith going to have a baby that very week,” wailed Mrs. Sim Dark.

It was just like Edith to have a baby at such an inconvenient time. Really, her mother thought vexedly, she might have planned things better than that.

The day came at last. A gray day with a gray wind. Autumn groves that had been an enchantment of gold and spruce-green were leaflessly gray now. Red-ribbed fields on the Treewoofe hill testified to many a glad day'-s work on Hugh's part. A great pyramid of pumpkins shone goldenly in Homer Penhallow's yard. The gulf was dark blue and the pasture fields adream.

Everybody was at Dandy's, except poor Mrs. Sim—Edith had run true to form—and the Jim Trents, who were quarantined for measles and were at home bitterly wondering if they had served God for naught. Dandy's bulldog, Alphonso, sat on his haunches at the front door as if he never expected to do anything but sit.

“On the whole you are the ugliest brute I ever saw,” Peter told him—which didn't hurt the dog's feelings any. He simply made a blood-curdling sound that gave Mrs. Toynbee a spasm.

“Going to give us anything to eat, Dandy?” whispered Uncle Pippin.

“The wife has prepared refreshments, I believe,” said Dandy nervously. He didn't think anybody would have much appetite after they heard what he had to say.

Murray Dark sat and watched Thora as usual—with this difference: that he was wondering how soon it would be decent to begin courting her. If Chris had died a natural death Murray would have waited only three months. But as things were, he thought he'd better make it six. Margaret wore an exceedingly pretty gray silk dress—it had been intended for her wedding one—and looked so young and dainty and happy that Penny felt another dreadful qualm and Stanton Grundy wondered if it mightn't be wise to marry again after all. There must be a good bit of that ten thousand left, in spite of her foolish purchase of that tumbledown little place and all the new furniture they said she had put in it. Stanton determined to think it over. Eventually he decided not to. Which was just as well because Margaret had no longer any hankerings for marriage. She had Whispering Winds and Brian and she was perfectly happy. She no longer even cared about the jug.

Donna still cared a little, but not so greatly. After all, you could not take a jug like that to Africa. She was thinking more of the wedding-breakfast and the decorations of the church. For Peter, who was one of the born wanderers of the earth, found himself roped in for a conventional wedding with all the fuss and frills possible. Drowned John was determined on it. He loved a big colorful wedding, in keeping with the traditions of the clan. He had been cheated out of it on Donna's hurried war bridal with Barry but by—goodness, he wasn't going to be cheated out of it the second time. And thank heaven decent dresses were in again! Donna's wedding-dress, Drowned John decided, should sweep the floor. Donna didn't care. Where she was going with Peter she would wear nothing but knickerbockers. Luckily Drowned John knew nothing of this. It would have seemed more outrageous to him than the lions.

Roger sat and worshiped Gay openly and shamelessly—her shining hair, her marigold eyes, the charming gestures of her wonderful hands. He looked so happy that he made some of them feel a bit uneasy, as if it were flying in the face of Providence.

Nan was there, darting the mockery of her green eyes over everything, although she rather avoided looking at Gay. Thomas Ashley and his wife, of Halifax, were there, though the clan thought they hadn't any business to be. They were no relations, although they were visiting the William Y.'s. Nobody, looking at Thomas's moon face, pursy old mouth and tortoise-shell glasses, would have dreamed that he came there fired by a romantic memory. He wanted to see Mrs. Clifford Penhallow again. He had been wildly in love with her when he was young and, as his wife knew bitterly, had never wholly got over it. Thomas was looking furtively at all the women in the room. Mrs. Clifford had not come yet. He wondered who the grim, homely woman under the mantelpiece was.

Hugh and Joscelyn were there, although Joscelyn would rather have been home, painting the woodwork in the spare room at Treewoofe. Rachel Penhallow was there, as happy as it was possible for her to be. Penny Dark had heard that her bottle of Jordan water had been spilled and he promptly sent her his, glad to get the absurd thing out of the house. Rachel had gone off her milk diet at once. Kate and Frank and their baby were there. The baby cried a great deal and Stanton Grundy glared at it. Tempest Dark was there. Lawson and Naomi Dark were there. Naomi looked a little older and tireder and more hopeless. David Dark was there, comfortably sure that Dandy at any rate, would not ask him to open with prayer. Uncle Pippin was there, wondering why, in spite of all the repressed excitement, everything seemed a little flat. Not much like Aunt Becky's levees. Uncle Pippin decided it was because everyone was too polite. Things weren't interesting when people were too polite. Aunt Becky had never been too polite. That was why her levees had been so interesting.

2

The crucial moment had arrived. Dandy had come in and stood before the stove, his back to the mantelpiece. He was deathly pale and it was observed that his hands were trembling. The strain suddenly became almost unbearable. Artemas Dark tried to steady his nerves by counting the roses on the wallpaper. Rachel Penhallow immediately had a feeling that something was going to happen. Mrs. Howard reflected with a gasp that the windows in that house couldn't have been opened for a hundred years. Why had Mrs. Dandy put such a roaring fire in the stove, even on a chilly October day? But she was always a little mad, anyway.

Dandy had once looked forward to this moment, when, clothed with authority, he should stand up before them all and announce Aunt Becky's decision. And now he wished himself dead. He turned suddenly on Percy Dark.

“Would you mind stopping that everlasting drumming on the table?” he asked irritably.

Percy jumped and stopped. He started to say something but Drowned John nudged him fiercely.

“Dry up,” said Drowned John.

Percy dried up.

“Come, come, Dandy,” said William Y. impatiently. “Step on the juice. We've had enough of suspense. Tell us who's to get it and have it over.”

“I—I can't,” said Dandy, moistening his lips.

“Can't
what
?”

“Can't tell you who's to get the jug. I—I—don't know. Nobody ever will know—now.”

“Look here, Dandy—” William Y. rose threateningly. “What does this mean?”

“It means”—the worst was out and Dandy had a little more courage—“I've lost the letter Aunt Becky gave me—the letter with the name in it. There
was
a name in it—she told me so much.”

“Lost it! Where did you lose it?”

“I'm—not sure,” hesitated the wretched Dandy. “That is—I'm almost sure it fell into the pig-pen. I always carried it round in a folder in my breast pocket. I never let it out of my possession. One day, some two months ago, I was up in the barn loft forking down straw. You know the flooring is just poles—there was gaps between them. I took off my coat when I got warm working and put it on again when I finished. When I went back to the house I—I missed the folder. I hunted everywhere—
everywhere.
It must have fallen into the pig-pen—the pig-pen is right under the loft, and the pigs must have et it altogether, letter and folder and all.”

For a few minutes everybody said nothing very rapidly. Then—

“Damn it!” exploded Drowned John. All the repression of months was in his ejaculation. Everybody forgave him. Titus Dark looked envious. He had got so out of the habit of swearing he was afraid he could never get into it again. Even his horses had learned to understand a milder vocabulary. And a fat lot of good it had done!

Tom Dark remembered he had seen a black cat run across the road on his way to Dandy's. William Y. looked around on the circle of outraged faces. This was what you might call a hellish discovery. The situation demanded careful handling and he felt that he, William Y., was the man to handle it.

“Are you sure you had it in your pocket when you went up into the loft—sure it hadn't dropped out before?”

“Almost sure,” stammered the miserable Dandy, who couldn't feel sure even of his own name just then. “I searched everywhere. It's been wearing me to a shadow. The wife said to pray about it. Dang it, I've prayed till I was black in the face.”

“And you've no idea what name was in the envelope?''

It seemed incredible that Dandy didn't know
that.

“I ain't got the least idea,” said Dandy. “It was sealed—I never saw so much sealing-wax on the back of any letter. And Aunt Becky made me swear I wouldn't tamper with it.”

Drowned John determined to take a hand. William Y. wasn't going to be let run things.

“We'll have to draw lots for it,” he said.

“That isn't a Christian way to decide it,” said William Y. “Anybody got any other suggestion?”

“Let's vote who's to have it—secret ballot,” said Junius Penhallow.

“With everybody putting his own name in the ballot,” remarked William Y., with a smile of icy contempt for such a suggestion. “No;
I'll
tell you what should be done—”

“Here's the Moon Man running across the yard,” interrupted Uncle Pippin. “He seems in a mighty hurry.”

Those who could look out of the window did so. They saw the Moon Man with his long black coat streaming out behind him in the wind like the mantle of a prophet of old. In a few seconds he had reached the house, crossed the hall and was standing breathlessly in the doorway of the room. The whole clan realized that the Moon Man had one of his really crazy fits on.

“I heard the devil cackling as I came down by the barn,” said the Moon Man. “He was in glee over this unholy gathering where envy and all uncharitableness prevail.”

His look scorched everybody and left them feeling like cinders.

“It has been revealed to me what I should do.”

The Moon Man strode to the table between the two windows—he snatched up Aunt Becky's jug—he hurled it furiously at the mantelpiece. Roger, realizing before anyone else, but just too late, what the Moon Man meant to do, sprang up and caught at his arm. He could not save the jug but he deflected slightly the Moon Man's aim. The jug hurtled through the air at Lawson Dark. And Lawson Dark, who had not stood or walked for eleven years, saw it coming and sprang to his feet to avoid it. The jug struck him squarely on the head, crashed like an egg-shell, slid off against the stove and fell on the floor in hundreds of tiny fragments. Harriet Dark perhaps turned over in her grave. Possibly Aunt Becky did, too. But Lawson Dark, with blood trickling from a cut on his forehead, had turned dazedly to his wife.

“Naomi!” he cried, holding out his hands to her. “Oh, Naomi.”

3

“Don't it beat hell?” said Sim Dark.

“And we won't ever know who should have had the pieces,” said William Y. disconsolately, as they lingered in the yard, after Roger had taken charge of Lawson and carried him and Naomi off home.

The clan were not inclined to discuss what had happened to Lawson. It savored too strongly of something miraculous and unclan-like. The jug was a safer topic—now.

“That doesn't matter much,” said David Dark. “There's thousands of 'em—they could never be stuck together.”

“Anyhow, if anybody had got it I reckon he'd never have got home alive,'' said Stanton Grundy. Tom Dark, who had never cried in his life, was crying because he hadn't got the jug. His wife dragged him hastily off to his car to hide his shame. Joscelyn and Hugh went away together very silently, thinking only of the look on Naomi Dark's face when Lawson had turned to her with his glad cry of recognition. Mrs. Alpheus was furious with both the Moon Man and Dandy. Something—she wasn't quite clear what—ought to be done to both of them. Homer Penhallow and Palmer Dark passed each other without recognition. It was very satisfying to be enemies again. Life had been so darned dull when they had to be friendly. David and Percy Dark nodded shamefacedly to each other and mentioned the weather. The graveyard fracas was forgotten.