Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

  CHAPTER X

  PHILIP

  When Poppea was nineteen, she became the assistant postmaster atHarley's Mills, with all the legal formality that the name implied, Mr.Oldys having "gone on her bond" as the local saying ran. Not thatGilbert's mental faculties were in any way impaired, but at seventy hewas naturally less alert physically, and the long hours told on him. Atleast Poppea said so, and urged him to spend more time in the gardenduring pleasant weather in company with his pipe and one of hiswell-worn books. These, however, had palled upon him, or, as he oncetold Stephen Latimer, "It seems as if since Poppy grew up and intothings, Mr. Plutarch is rather far back, and I don't any more care ifAlcibiades returned or not, or much about the siege of Troy, thoughthat's livelier. I want something with more up-to-date flesh and bloodin it that'll help me to understand things that come up."

  Latimer had suggested Shakespeare as a remedy, at the same time offeringto lend Gilbert an edition that had clear print, and yet could be keptin the pocket. So from the day that Latimer brought the books, Gilberthad been under a new spell, while at the same period Miss Emmy had givenPoppea the Waverley Novels, which still further changed his emotionalhorizon, and made him the more willing to leave the office in the warmJune days and go to the bench under the widest spreading tree in the oldorchard, with clover all about and the brilliant hues and perfumes ofwhat Poppea called her parapet garden showing between the trees.

  Satira Pegrim and 'Lisha Potts had finally joined names and farms,though the bustling woman had left her post of vantage at the villagewith many regrets. When Mrs. Shandy, Philip Angus's erstwhile nurse, hadbeen obliged to leave him at fifteen altogether in the hands of a tutor,she had gladly, for the sake of being near the boy whom she almostworshipped, slipped into Satira's shoes as general caretaker at thepost-office house, for Poppea's earnings, with her voice and asGilbert's assistant, made such a helper possible.

  No one in the village ever thought it strange that Poppea should fill aposition hitherto occupied by a man. Once Harley's Mills, in the personof its elderly females, would have raised its hands in horror at thethought of a young girl engaging in public business; but the Civil Warhad changed all that by becoming the origin of the general necessity inNorth and South alike for the woman's stepping into the man's emptyshoes, so that the labor horizon for all time widened for all women.

  From John Angus had come the only objection to the innovation. He saidopenly on several occasions that the charge of the United States mailshould not be left in hands that were only fit to tie ribbons or tell afortune with cards. This superficial criticism was attributed to hisold grudge against Gilbert and his evident disgust at not having thechance to dislodge him that a change of postmasters might have renderedeasier. As he took no steps toward doing anything in the matter by theusual method of presenting a petition, it was supposed that he hadforgotten it, especially as immediately after, Angus went to Europe tobe gone six months, on business, his lawyer announced, the truth beingthat the inscrutable man, jarred and rent by many disappointments andhis own unyielding temperament, had received several warnings that heheld life by a rather uncertain thread. Too secretive to confess that hewas not well by calling in local physicians, he had gone abroad to seekadvice under the plea of business.

  The last disappointment that he had forced himself to bear with animmovable exterior was concerning Philip. Never from the day that heknew that his only child had the inexorable disease covered by so shorta name, had he allowed any one to sympathize with him upon the subject,nor had he admitted by any word or sign that the boy was suffering fromany physical limitation. Philip's life was arranged upon the same planas that of normal children, and nothing by way of affectionate regard oradded companionship was allowed to fill the place of all that he mustrefrain from doing.

  Thus the greatest craving that the child had was for the warmth andprotection of affection; he saw the fathers of other boys whom hesometimes visited put their arms about the lads' shoulders, draw them totheir knees, or make room for them in the great easy-chair, whereconfidences about the work and play of the day were exchanged. Not sowith Philip; the little real love that made him hunger for more had comefrom the servants and Mrs. Shandy, when they felt that they were out ofeye- and ear-shot of the master.

  Even this was stopped when Philip was fifteen by Mrs. Shandy's dismissalbecause John Angus deemed that she was retarding his son's developmentand keeping him childish. Henceforward a tutor and various teachers oflanguages were the boy's associates, for Philip must needs go to collegeand become, if not a lawyer, a man of affairs and politics like hisfather.

  Now Philip loved learning, but on its aesthetic rather than positiveside; beauty of form, color, sound, all appealed to him intensely, andthe thought of the beauty shone from his great gray eyes and beautifiedevery feature of his exquisitely modelled face, as though in this Naturehad outdone herself.

  From the time he was a mere baby he had watched every butterfly and birdand tried to copy them in what Mrs. Shandy called his mud pies; whichtaste, as he grew, developed itself into a wonderful ability tocomprehend both the anatomy of things and their spiritual expression.From time to time, during his winter city life, he had bought smallcopies of the great statues, for at least he was never at a lack forspending money, and gazed and gazed at them until he knew every curveand line by heart. In short, as boy and youth, Philip's one desire wasto be a sculptor; but though John Angus never interfered with hismodelling as a recreation, to his appeals to be allowed to enter astudio and study seriously he never made the slightest reply, and thepreparations for college were forced on.

  One day Philip's brain strength had flagged, suddenly, and, as hisfather thought, unaccountably. Once again physicians gathered, and thistime the word came to John Angus, "If you wish your boy to live, hislife must be of the open, and his work, if any, something that he cravesand loves."

  Then again did John Angus shut himself up for a day and night, to emergeas before and accept the inevitable with a denial of any need ofsympathy. In a week he announced that Philip was to study modelling,therefore an outdoor studio was to be built in the garden, and he was tobe under the guidance of Clay Howell, a famous sculptor, who not onlyhad studios in Rome and New York, but also a summer home at Westboro.The latest tutor was retained as a companion, and Angus, more ill thanhe would confess even to himself, set sail at Christmas nominally for asix months' absence.

  Philip had as a child a beautiful soprano voice which, by the time hewas seventeen, had developed a tenor quality without losing any of itsimpersonal boyish sweetness. Stephen Latimer had taken great pains inits training, and in his friendship the boy had found the one soul whoseemed to understand without spoken words. It was through thiscompanionship that he found that other that seemed to him in his darkhours of self abasement and disappointment, the one light that kept hopealive,--this was Poppea.

  As a child he had longed to play with her, and used to watch her by thehour through the port-holes of the parapet, while she was working in thegarden that extended from the treasure-trove bank little by little untilit finally reached the apple trees. That they might not be playmatesMrs. Shandy made plain to him, though never the reason why. Later onthey had met at children's parties at the Feltons' and at the choirpractice at St. Luke's, and Poppea had always so sweet and gentle a waywith him, that when he used to dream of angels or try to think what hismother must have looked like, Poppea's face was always blended in hisvisions, for he never _felt_ the stately portrait by Huntington in thelibrary to be his mother.

  When at last it was decided that he was not to go to college and lifeheld out an olive branch to Philip, Poppea seemed to be the dove thatbrought it; Poppea, for whom Stephen Latimer asked Philip to playaccompaniments when she went of an afternoon to the Rectory for asinging lesson "between mails," and Jeanne Latimer could not be of theparty.

  To Latimer, Philip seemed a mere child; it never occurred to him that hemight be reckoned with emotionally and sentimentally as a man, and
itrejoiced his gentle heart to see the boy so happy.

  Any boy is spiritualized and made better by the sympatheticcompanionship of an older woman if she be of the right mettle, andLatimer believed that this companionship would give Philip the verything, the conception of the essence of woman's sympathy, that he hadlacked all his sad life and that must be realized if he was to grapplesuccessfully with his art. Consequently, he was quite unprepared andalmost angry, when after coming into the room one day while they werepractising, Jeanne had said:--

  "Have a care, Stephen dear, that you do not develop a tragedy in, as yousay, cultivating Philip's artistic perceptions. Will it be well, thinkyou, that he falls entirely in love with Poppea?"

  Even then Latimer would not understand. "There are many kinds of lovethat are far removed from tragedy," he answered.

  "Yes, but to a sensitive dreamer for a woman like Poppea there is butone love," she had replied almost vehemently.

  "You are mistaken, Jeanne, in this. I am with them, and I stand betweentheir thoughts as they pass, and my soul reads them. The safety lies inthat Poppea is what she is."

  "Time will prove," said Jeanne, half sadly. By the very insistence ofcertain word combinations this commonplace saying of his wife refused toleave Latimer's memory, and even though it failed in any way to impresshim, it left an irritation like the prick of an invisible thorn.

  Meanwhile, Poppea and Philip drew nearer together each day.

  Howell was finishing a large and important piece of work at his Westborostudio, and for this reason remained there during the summer, and thereit was that Philip went every day. The master, to test his creativequality, told him to set about the bit of work he felt he would mostlike to do, and that he would help him with the technique. Philip'sresponse had been to bring a rough crayon sketch that he had made ofPoppea's head and shoulders the last summer when he, looking over theparapet, had seen her pick up a little bird that had fallen from thenest and, after holding it in her hand a moment to still itsflutterings, put it back with its brothers. Under the drawing waswritten _Amor Consolatrix_.

  "Who is it?" the sculptor had asked abruptly. "She will make a goodmodel. I will send for her to come up here if she lives in theneighborhood, as I suppose she does."

  "Oh! I couldn't ask her; she isn't a model, but I can remember her faceas well as if she were here. Is it not perfect?"

  "Head is well set on; forehead, eyes, and chin good; nose a bit too muchtipped up for classic proportions." Then, as he saw Philip's face flushand quiver, he added "After all, noses are a matter of taste nowadayswhen we are getting a long way on the road from Greek placidity, that inthe female face expressed little but form, toward the expression oftemperament. She'll do, my lad, she'll do; if for no other reason thanthat you think so.

  "Who is she, that is neither a model nor askable?" he inquired a halfhour later, as he looked over from his work to where Philip waswrestling mentally and physically with the lump of clay of the size fora bust that the attendant had set upon its block.

  "Poppea Gilbert; she lives at the post-office in our town, and there isnobody quite like her," Philip answered, his shyness suddenly rent bythe man's offhand air of comradeship, as well as in response to his ownneed of some one to whom he might speak without restraint.

  Howell seldom took pupils, and the price that John Angus had offered himfor his services would not alone have tempted him, but the boy hadinterested him from the first. Now, as he stood there watching the eagerface, the light in his eyes, the energy with which he was attacking awell-nigh impossible task, he sighed and said to himself: "So long as hebelieves there is no one like _her_, whoever she may be, so long will hebe able to work. Her strength will make up for his lack--but if hisbelief ends--" Here Howell had made an unconscious downward gesture thatin its expression of complete destruction knocked the index finger fromthe outstretched hand of the figure upon which he was impressing thefinal details.

  For Poppea the last year had been rather lonely, so that the post-officework was welcomed as a distraction as much as a necessity. A break hadcome in the one companionship of her life, for after graduation fromcollege and the law school, Hugh Oldys, to carry out the carefully laidplans of his father, was spending a year in foreign travel beforesettling in New York, where a niche was waiting for the young man ofwhose ability and qualities of determination no one who had come incontact with him during his college life had any doubt.

  During all this period Hugh had come home at the week ends, so thatthere had been no absolute break; but when he had finally gone, Poppeafelt herself surrounded by a sort of open space wherein the air blewchilly and nothing offered a satisfactory shelter. She did not fullyconnect cause with effect in all its subtlety, but confessed to herselfa loneliness that came simply from the cutting off of her glimpse of theoutside world that Hugh had given her. His letters came at regularintervals, but they were largely of things, not people, and least of allhimself, so that it was only when she went to see his mother and heardher homely talk that she felt any of the vitality that belonged to thereal Hugh.

  As for Mrs. Oldys, her eagerness to have Poppea with her was almostpathetic. Locked in her heart, where no one suspected its existence, wasthe simple mother-vision that so few cherish in its unselfishperfection: in this lay the future of her boy, spent away from her if itwas best, and her place supplied by a younger woman to whom theknowledge she had held of his innermost thoughts must be transferred.But in this plan of hers for these many years it had been Poppea who wasto be that other woman. Poppea, whom she had watched and brooded overalmost as though she had been her own, and to whom now she revealed dayby day the devotion with which she had surrounded this only childwithout in any way letting it hamper his freedom or his manhood.

  No word or hint was ever dropped by her, and yet her belief in theoutcome was as firmly fixed as if it had been a vital point ofreligion. Would her faith be shattered? Who could tell or count thepulse beats of a man and a maid, that, being good friends, havetemperament and the world before them? Hugh was now trying one with theother. Might it not happen, far away as it seemed, that the change mightalso lie before Poppea?

  It was now May; in August Hugh would return. As for the other travellerfrom Harley's Mills, John Angus, he was due at almost any moment, andthe chill that was settling over his household at the prospect was atribute to the awe in which he was held that, had he been asked, hedoubtless would have preferred to any demonstration of affection.

  Philip alone seemed to look forward with pleasure to seeing his father.He was in love with his work; Howell, seeing genius even in his crudeefforts, had not only written John Angus, but had told the boy himselfall that he dared, knowing that his temperament lay too much on the sideof self-abasement to take undue harm from praise. Moreover, Philip had,with his master's help in technique, the expression being all his own,finished the bust of Poppea and had placed it at the window of hisgarden studio, where the beauty of its modelling was brought out by abackground of living green. Surely John Angus must be pleased; must seeat last that his son had not so much found his calling as that it hadfound him.

  All about the studio were a score of other attempts of Philip's, verycrude, and yet none lacking in a truthful force, and in half of these,what might be called the Poppea motive was visible. This he did notrealize, nor would he have thought it strange if he had. Why should henot worship her?

  His feeling had been the motive of all art in all ages. So had many adreaming monk of old in a cloistered garden wrought his thought into amissal's page, his inspiration coming not from his walled-in self, butfrom the light upon it, shed, it might be, from the ideal of the realVirgin behind her image in the dim-lit shrine.

  It chanced that upon the afternoon of John Angus's unheralded return,Poppea and Philip had been bidden to the church to practise a duet whichthey were to sing on Whitsunday at St. Luke's. This time Stephen Latimeraccompanied them on the organ, and the pair standing side by side in thefront choir stall facing the empty church,
Poppea leaning forwardslightly that she might see the music Philip held, with a tender,protective air, made a picture that would have appealed to any painter.

  Going to his home to find it empty, Angus felt a quickening of theblood, a desire to see his son for his own sake, perhaps for the firsttime. Howell's words had pleased him in spite of himself; the crude,early American idea of material progress was now rapidly making way forthe realm of literature and art. His life abroad had opened his eyes. Tobe the father of a famous sculptor had its mitigations, and then too,narrow though he was, he could not but realize the underlyingcompensation that art deals with the spirit of things and makes asnaught any physical defect in its medium. Philip should also travel; hehimself would take him.

  So on the whole, John Angus was in what might almost be called a genialmood when, on hearing that his son was down at the church with StephenLatimer, he ordered the carriage (he had walked up from the station) andwent to seek him. He also looked in much better physical condition thanwhen he went abroad, and only those who are expert in such matters wouldhave detected the tension at the corners of the nostrils that came fromthe continual apprehension of the heart condition that had been his foryears.

  "They are in the church," Jeanne Latimer said, as he greeted her withthe polished manner for which he was famous on the doorstep of theRectory. Then she had fled indoors with the swift sense of forebodingand desire to reach cover that a bird feels when, on a summer day, thewind suddenly changes and the murmur rises of a thunder cloud that asyet but edges the horizon.

  Angus, hearing music, opened the door and stepped into the shelter ofthe very pew that had shielded Poppea that winter night more than sixyears before. Why he did it he could not have said, but when one iswatchful and suspicious by nature, the habit often becomes the dictator.Having turned aside, he waited until the song ended, waited in acondition of mixed rage and pain that amazed him, feelings stirred inhim which he believed buried; he seemed in some distant place; he couldnot account for himself to himself. Even then he did not move at once;the blending of the voices to any other ear had been uplifting. AsPhilip stepped from the stall to the lower level of the chancel stepsand Poppea laid her hand lightly on his shoulder to steady him, JohnAngus caught the expression of his face, and suspicion, as ever, beinghis interpreter, he gnashed his teeth.

  In another minute he was walking up the aisle masked in the perfectself-control he wore to all outside his household.

  "Philip, I have come for you," he said in clearly modulated tones, notrealizing that a warmer greeting might be expected after five months ofabsence.

  "Some other day, Mr. Latimer; I've only within an hour returned and wishto see my son," without even a hand clasp, was his reply to the rector'soutstretched hand, words of greeting, and invitation to join Mrs.Latimer in a cup of tea in the Rectory.

  To Poppea he did not speak; looking toward her, he swept her with adeliberate stare in which dislike and absolute non-recognition werecuriously blended. She at first had been impelled to look away, butfeeling his glance, she turned and met it proudly, head erect, withouteither contempt or flinching, and even as she stood thus, John Angus,gathering up the boy's music and the cloak he always wore, hurried himfrom the church, without time for a word of explanation or good-by.

  "Poor Philip," said Poppea, lowering her head, while tears filled theeyes she turned toward Latimer.

  "Yes, poor Philip," he echoed; "yet not so poor in any way as JohnAngus."

  * * * * *

  Once in the carriage, the man's self-control seemed to dominate him oncemore. He said nothing about the happenings of the past few minutes, butturned the talk to Philip's work, even before the boy himself hadrecovered from the suddenness of the meeting with its incomprehensiblediscordance. The tutor, who had been in Bridgeton, whither he frequentlywent during Philip's practice afternoons, had returned, and in an agonyof apprehension was superintending the arrangements of the tea things onthe screened veranda overlooking the garden. He need not have trembled,for John Angus paid no heed to him after a formal greeting, but relaxedunusually in his effort to interest Philip and draw him out, and theboy, warming under his father's rare interest, spoke frankly of hishopes and fears.

  "Now will you come to the studio and see it for yourself, father? Ofcourse it's lumpy and out of line in many ways yet, but Howell says thatI can do it over and over until it is right, and then, perhaps, you'dhave it cut in marble, not because it's good, but because it's the firstand I love it so."

  Hand in hand father and son crossed the garden, the maids andmen-servants peeping from their various windows in amazement until thepair disappeared within the studio door.

  "There she is, father. Do you think it is like her?" Philip askedeagerly, pulling the wet cloth from the bust, for every day he saw theneed of an added touch here and there.

  John Angus had seated himself in a high-backed, carved chair and wasgazing at the bust with fierce intensity; whenever he turned his eyesaway, it was to see its lineaments in the crude attempts that filledevery nook in the long room.

  "Like? who is it?" he finally managed to say in well-feigned ignorance.

  "Ah, then it can't be, if you do not know, for you saw her singing withme at the church half an hour ago. It is Poppea Gilbert from thepost-office house. I suppose it was foolish of me to try to make her aslovely as she really is, though Howell sees the likeness, and yet youdid not know."

  "Lovely! Know!" John Angus half shouted, jumping to his feet and goingtoward Philip with an almost threatening gesture. "Do _you_ know whothis woman is, this adventuress? She was a waif left on Oliver Gilbert'sdoorstep; he took her in and bred her up, what for no one knows, unlessto harry me; he who with his paltry four acres of ground and hisdamnable Yankee independence has been the only man who has dared to balkme with success. But now his time has come."

  "I only wish she had been left on _our_ doorstep; how differenteverything might have been," said Philip, who in a moment seemed to havegained bodily height through the sudden development of spirit.

  "Yes, so do I!" shrieked John Angus, "and, as you say, everything wouldhave been different, for I should have sent her to the almhouse!

  "What do you know of those she came from? Tell me that. What do youknow?" continued the man, lashed to frenzy.

  "What do I know of you or you of me, either; what we are or may be?"said Philip, in the accents not only of manhood, but of a champion, thewords coming from lips that once and for all had ceased to tremble. "ButI do know that Poppea is a good woman and that I love her."

  With a word that rang in Philip's ears for many a day and night, JohnAngus turned upon him as if to strike him down, even as long ago he hadstruck his roseleaf wife the day before she left him. Then as aninvisible something stayed his hand, he rushed across the studio, andpicking up a chair, brought it down full upon the bust, crashing itoutward through the window in many fragments.

  For a moment Philip stood with one arm across his eyes as though to shutout what to him seemed murder. Then dropping it to his side, he facedhis father, who, his wrath having reached a climax, had sunk back in hischair, clutching his side, while an awful expression of apprehensioncrossed his face.

  "I cannot tell you to leave the room, for it is yours; but I must go,"Philip said slowly and clearly, then crossed the studio and closed thedoor quietly behind him.

  For two days no one but the tutor saw John Angus, who remained in hisroom, to write important letters, the tutor said. Then word went forththat the house would be closed for the summer, as father and son weregoing yachting for a change of air.