Phoebe Deane (6 page)

Carefully she lifted out the treasures in the trunk until she reached the box, then drew it forth, and placing the other things back closed the trunk and locked it. Then she took the box to her bed and untied it. Her heart was beating so fast she felt almost as if she had been running. She lifted the cover. There lay the buff merino in all its beauty, complete even to the brown knot for the hair, and the locket which had been her mother's at eighteen. And there on the top lay a letter in her mother's handwriting. Ah! This was what she had hoped for—a real word from her mother which should be a guide to her in this grown-up life that was so lonely and different from the life she had lived with her mother. She hugged the letter to her heart and cried over it and kissed it. She felt that she was nestling her head in her dear mother's lap as she cried, and it gave her aching, longing heart a rest just to think so.

But there were sounds of stirring in the house, and Phoebe knew that she would be expected in the kitchen before long, so she dried her tears and read her letter.

Before it was half done the clatter in the kitchen had begun, and Emmeline's strident voice was calling up the stairway: " Phoebe! Phoebe! Are you going to stay up there all day?"

Phoebe had cast a wistful look at the rest of her letter, patted the soft folds of her merino tenderly, swept it out of sight into her closet, and answered Emmeline pleasantly, " Yes, I'm coming!" Not even the interruption could quite dim her pleasure on this day of days. She sprang up conscience stricken. She had not meant to be so late.

It did not take long to dress, and with the letter tucked in with the key against her heart she hurried down, only to meet Emmeline's frowning words, and be ordered around like a little child. Emmeline had been very disagreeable ever since Hiram Green had proposed to Phoebe.

The morning had been crowded full of work and the letter had had no chance, except to crackle lovingly against the blue homespun.

The thought of the buff merino upstairs made her thrill with pleasure, and the morning passed away happily in spite of Emmeline and hard work. Words from her mother's hastily read letter came floating to her, and calling. She longed to pull it out and read once more to be sure just how they had been phrased. But there was no time.

After dinner, however, as soon as she had finished the dishes, and while Emmeline was looking after something in the wood-shed, she slipped away upstairs, without, as usual, asking if there was anything else to be done. She had decided that she would put on her new frock, for it had been her mother's wish in the letter, and go down to the village and call on that sweet-faced Mrs. Spafford. It was two years since Mrs. Spafford had invited her to spend the afternoon, and she had never plucked up the courage to go, for Emmeline always had something ready for her to do. But she felt that she had a right to a little time to herself on her birthday, and she meant to slip away without Emmeline seeing, if she could. She took her letter out, intending to read it quietly first before she dressed, but a sudden thought of Emmeline and her ability to break in upon her quietness made her decide instead to dress and start, stopping in a maple grove on the way to the village to read her letter undisturbed ; so with all haste she smoothed her hair, fastened in the velvet knot, and put on the pretty frock. For just a moment she paused in front of the glass and looked at herself, thrilling with the thought that this dress was planned by her dear mother, and that the loved hand had set every perfect stitch in its place. And this girl in the glass was the daughter her mother had wished her to be, at least in outward appearance. Was she also in heart life ? She looked earnestly at the face in the glass, longing to ask herself many questions, and unable to answer. Then with the letter safely hidden she hurried down.

But her conscience would not let her go out the front door unobserved as she had planned. It seemed a mean, sneaking thing to do on her birthday. She would be open and frank. She would step into the kitchen and tell Emmeline that she was going out for the afternoon. That would be the way her mother would desire her to do. So, though much against her own desire, she went.

And there sat Emmeline with a large basket of dried beans to be shelled and put away for the winter. Phoebe stood aghast, and hesitated.

" Well, really!" said Emmeline, looking up severely at the apparition in buff that stood in the doorway. " Are you going to play the fine lady while I shell beans? It seems to me that's rather taking a high hand for one who's dependent on her relatives for every mouthful she eats, and seems to be likely to be for the rest of her days. That's gratitude, that is. But I take notice you eat the beans— oh, yes! the beans that Albert provides, and I shell, while you gallivant round in party clothes."

The hateful speech brought the color to Phoebe’s cheeks.

" Emmeline," she broke in, " you know I didn't know you wanted those beans shelled to-day. I would have done them this morning between times if you had said so."

" You didn't know," sniffed Emmeline. " You knew the beans was to shell, and you knew this was the first chance to do it. Besides, there wasn't any between times this morning. You didn't get up till most noon. Everything was clear put back, and now you wash your white hands and dress up, no matter what the folks that keeps you have to do. That wasn't the way I was brought up, if I didn't have a fine lady mother like yours. My mother taught me gratitude."

Phoebe reflected on the long hard days of work she had done for Emmeline without a word of praise or thanks, work as hard, and harder than any wage-earner in the house in the some position would have been expected to do. She had earned her board and more, and she knew it. Her clothes she made altogether from the stores her mother had left for her. She had not cost Albert a cent in that way. Nevertheless, her conscience hurt her because of the late hour of her coming down that morning. With one desperate glance at the size of the bean-basket, and a rapid calculation how long it would take her to finish them, she seized her clean apron that hung behind the door, and enveloped herself in it.

" I have wanted to go out for a little while this afternoon. I have been wanting to go for a long time, but if those beans have got to be done this afternoon I can do them first."

She said it calmly, and went at the beans with determined fingers, that fairly made the beans shiver as they hustled out of their resisting withered pods.

Emmeline sniffed.

"You're a pretty figure shellin' beans it that rig. I s'pose that's one of your ma's contoguments, but if she had any sense at all she wouldn't want you to put it on. It ain't fit for ordinary life. It might do to have your picture took in, or go to a weddin', but you do look like a fool in it now. Besides, if it's worth anything, an' it looks like there was good stuff in it, you'll spoil it shellin' beans."

Phoebe shelled away feverishly and said not a word. Her eyes looked as though there might be anything behind their lowered lashes, from tears to fire-flashes. Emmeline surveyed her angrily. Her wrath was on the boiling point and she felt the time had come to let it boil.

A little bird, perched on the roof of the barn, piped out: " Phoe-bee! Phoe-bee! " The girl lifted her head toward the outside door and listened. The bird seemed to be a reminder that there were other things in the world worth while besides having one's own way even on one's birthday. The paper in her bosom crackled, and Emmeline eyed her suspiciously, but the swift fingers shelled on unremittingly.

" I think the time has come to have an understandin'," said Emmeline, raising her voice harshly. " If you won't talk to me, Albert'll have to tend to you, but I'm the proper one to speak, and I'm goin' to do it. I won't have this sort of thing goin' on in my house. It's a disgrace. I'd like to know what you mean, treatin' Hiram Green in this way? He's a respectable man, and you've no call to keep him danglin' after you forever. People'll talk about you, and I won't have it! "

There was an angry flash in Emmeline's eyes. She had made up her mind to have her say.

Phoebe raised astonished eyes to her sister-in-law's excited face.

" I don't know what you mean, Emmeline. I have nothing whatever to do with Hiram Green. I can't prevent him coming to my brother's house. I'm sure I wish I could, for it's most unpleasant to have him around continually."

The lofty air and cool words angered Emmeline beyond expression. She almost always lost her temper at once when she began to talk with Phoebe. Her most violent effort seemed at once so futile, and the girl was so provokingly calm, that it was out of the question to keep one's temper.

" You don't know what I mean!" mocked Emmeline. "No, of course not. You don't know who he comes here to see. You think, I suppose, that he comes to see Albert and me perhaps. Well, you're not so much of a little fool as you want to pretend. You know well enough Hiram Green is just waitin' round on your whims, and I say it's high time you stopped this nonsense, keepin' a respectable man danglin' after you forever just to show off your power over him, and when all the time he needs a housekeeper, and his children are runnin' wild. You'll get your pay, miss, when you do marry him. Those young ones will be so wild you'll never get 'em tamed. They'll lead you a life of it. It's a strange way for any decent girl to act. If it's a new house you're waitin' on I guess you can have your way at once by just sayin' so. And I think it's time for you to speak, for I tell you plainly it ain't likely another such good chance'll come your way ever, and I don't suppose you want to be a hanger-on all your life on people that can't afford to keep you."

Phoebe's fingers were still shelling beans rapidly, but her eyes were on Emmeline's angry face.

" I thought I had told you," she said, and her voice was steady, " that I would never marry Hiram Green. Nothing and nobody on earth could make me marry him. I despise him. You know perfectly well that the things you are saying are wrong. It is not my fault that he comes here. I do not want him to come and he knows it. I have told him I will never marry him. I do not want him to build a house nor do anything else, for nothing that he could do would make any difference."

" You certainly are a little fool!" screamed Emmeline, " to let such a chance go. If he wasn't entirely daft about you he'd give you up at once. Well, what are you intendin' to do then? Answer me that! Are you layin' out to live on Albert the rest of your life? Ifs best to know what to expect and be prepared. Answer me!" she demanded again, as Phoebe dropped her eyes to hide the sudden tears that threatened to overwhelm her calm.

" I don't know." The girl tried to say it quietly, but the angry woman snatched the words from her lips and tossed them back:

" You don't know! You don't know! Well, you better know! I can tell you right now that there's goin' to be a new order of things. If you stay here any longer you've got to do as / say. You're not goin' on your high and mighty way doin' as you please an hour longer. And to begin with you can march up stairs and take off that ridiculous rig of your foolish mother's "

Phoebe shoved the kitchen chair back with a sharp noise on the bare floor, and stood up, her face white with anger.

" Emmeline," said she, and her voice was low and controlled, but reminded Emmeline somehow of the first low rumbling of a storm, and when she looked at Phoebe's white face she fancied a flash like livid lightning passed over it. " Emmeline, don't you dare to speak my mother's name in that way! I will not listen to you! "

Then in the pause of the clashing voices the little bird from the weathervane on the barn called out again: " Phoe- bee! Phoe-bee! "

And it was then that Phoebe cast her apron from her and went out through the kitchen door, into the golden glorious October afternoon, away from the pitiless tongue, and the endless beans, and the sorrow of her life.

The little bird on the weathervane left his perch and flew along from tree to tree, calling joyously, " Phoe-bee! Phoe- bee!" as she went down the road. He seemed as glad as though she were a comrade come to roam the woods with him. The sunlight lingered lovingly on the buff merino, as though it were a piece of itself come out to meet it, and she flitted breathlessly down the way, she knew not whither, only to get out and away.

Queer, wintry-looking worms crawled lazily to their homes across the long white road, woolly caterpillars in early fur overcoats. Large leaves floated solemnly down to their long home. Patches of rank grass rose green and pert, passionately pretending that summer was not done, scorning the deadness all about them. All the air was filled with a golden haze and Phoebe in her golden, sunlit garments, seemed a part of it.

CHAPTER V

The rage and sorrow that seethed in Phoebe's soul were such as in some passionate hearts have led to deeds of desperation. And indeed she did feel desperate as she fled along the road, pursued by the thought of her sister-in-law's angry words.

To have such awful words spoken to her, and on her birthday; to feel so cornered and badgered, and to have no home where one was welcome, save that hateful alternative of going to Hiram Green's house! Oh, why was it that one had to live when life had become a torture?

She had gone a long distance before her mind cleared sufficiently to think where she was going. The sight of a distant red farm-house made her pause in her wild walk. If she went on she would be seen from the well-watched windows of that red house, and the two women who lived there were noted alike for their curiosity and for their ability to impart news.