VII
SINCE her reinstatement in Miss Hatchard's favour Charity had not daredto curtail by a moment her hours of attendance at the library. Sheeven made a point of arriving before the time, and showed a laudableindignation when the youngest Targatt girl, who had been engaged to helpin the cleaning and rearranging of the books, came trailing in lateand neglected her task to peer through the window at the Sollas boy.Nevertheless, "library days" seemed more than ever irksome to Charityafter her vivid hours of liberty; and she would have found it hard toset a good example to her subordinate if Lucius Harney had not beencommissioned, before Miss Hatchard's departure, to examine with thelocal carpenter the best means of ventilating the "Memorial."
He was careful to prosecute this inquiry on the days when the librarywas open to the public; and Charity was therefore sure of spending partof the afternoon in his company. The Targatt girl's presence, and therisk of being interrupted by some passer-by suddenly smitten with athirst for letters, restricted their intercourse to the exchange ofcommonplaces; but there was a fascination to Charity in the contrastbetween these public civilities and their secret intimacy.
The day after their drive to the brown house was "library day," andshe sat at her desk working at the revised catalogue, while the Targattgirl, one eye on the window, chanted out the titles of a pile of books.Charity's thoughts were far away, in the dismal house by the swamp, andunder the twilight sky during the long drive home, when Lucius Harneyhad consoled her with endearing words. That day, for the first timesince he had been boarding with them, he had failed to appear as usualat the midday meal. No message had come to explain his absence, and Mr.Royall, who was more than usually taciturn, had betrayed no surprise,and made no comment. In itself this indifference was not particularlysignificant, for Mr. Royall, in common with most of his fellow-citizens,had a way of accepting events passively, as if he had long since cometo the conclusion that no one who lived in North Dormer could hope tomodify them. But to Charity, in the reaction from her mood of passionateexaltation, there was something disquieting in his silence. It wasalmost as if Lucius Harney had never had a part in their lives: Mr.Royall's imperturbable indifference seemed to relegate him to the domainof unreality.
As she sat at work, she tried to shake off her disappointment atHarney's non-appearing. Some trifling incident had probably kept himfrom joining them at midday; but she was sure he must be eager to seeher again, and that he would not want to wait till they met at supper,between Mr. Royall and Verena. She was wondering what his first wordswould be, and trying to devise a way of getting rid of the Targatt girlbefore he came, when she heard steps outside, and he walked up the pathwith Mr. Miles.
The clergyman from Hepburn seldom came to North Dormer except when hedrove over to officiate at the old white church which, by an unusualchance, happened to belong to the Episcopal communion. He was a briskaffable man, eager to make the most of the fact that a little nucleus of"church-people" had survived in the sectarian wilderness, and resolvedto undermine the influence of the ginger-bread-coloured Baptist chapelat the other end of the village; but he was kept busy by parochial workat Hepburn, where there were paper-mills and saloons, and it was notoften that he could spare time for North Dormer.
Charity, who went to the white church (like all the best people in NorthDormer), admired Mr. Miles, and had even, during the memorable trip toNettleton, imagined herself married to a man who had such a straightnose and such a beautiful way of speaking, and who lived in abrown-stone rectory covered with Virginia creeper. It had been a shockto discover that the privilege was already enjoyed by a lady withcrimped hair and a large baby; but the arrival of Lucius Harney had longsince banished Mr. Miles from Charity's dreams, and as he walked up thepath at Harney's side she saw him as he really was: a fat middle-agedman with a baldness showing under his clerical hat, and spectacles onhis Grecian nose. She wondered what had called him to North Dormer on aweekday, and felt a little hurt that Harney should have brought him tothe library.
It presently appeared that his presence there was due to Miss Hatchard.He had been spending a few days at Springfield, to fill a friend'spulpit, and had been consulted by Miss Hatchard as to young Harney'splan for ventilating the "Memorial." To lay hands on the Hatchard arkwas a grave matter, and Miss Hatchard, always full of scruples about herscruples (it was Harney's phrase), wished to have Mr. Miles's opinionbefore deciding.
"I couldn't," Mr. Miles explained, "quite make out from your cousin whatchanges you wanted to make, and as the other trustees did not understandeither I thought I had better drive over and take a look--though I'msure," he added, turning his friendly spectacles on the young man, "thatno one could be more competent--but of course this spot has its peculiarsanctity!"
"I hope a little fresh air won't desecrate it," Harney laughinglyrejoined; and they walked to the other end of the library while he setforth his idea to the Rector.
Mr. Miles had greeted the two girls with his usual friendliness, butCharity saw that he was occupied with other things, and she presentlybecame aware, by the scraps of conversation drifting over to her, thathe was still under the charm of his visit to Springfield, which appearedto have been full of agreeable incidents.
"Ah, the Coopersons... yes, you know them, of course," she heard. "That'sa fine old house! And Ned Cooperson has collected some really remarkableimpressionist pictures...." The names he cited were unknown to Charity."Yes; yes; the Schaefer quartette played at Lyric Hall on Saturdayevening; and on Monday I had the privilege of hearing them again at theTowers. Beautifully done... Bach and Beethoven... a lawn-partyfirst... I saw Miss Balch several times, by the way... looking extremelyhandsome...."
Charity dropped her pencil and forgot to listen to the Targatt girl'ssing-song. Why had Mr. Miles suddenly brought up Annabel Balch's name?
"Oh, really?" she heard Harney rejoin; and, raising his stick, hepursued: "You see, my plan is to move these shelves away, and open around window in this wall, on the axis of the one under the pediment."
"I suppose she'll be coming up here later to stay with Miss Hatchard?"Mr. Miles went on, following on his train of thought; then, spinningabout and tilting his head back: "Yes, yes, I see--I understand: thatwill give a draught without materially altering the look of things. Ican see no objection."
The discussion went on for some minutes, and gradually the two men movedback toward the desk. Mr. Miles stopped again and looked thoughtfully atCharity. "Aren't you a little pale, my dear? Not overworking? Mr. Harneytells me you and Mamie are giving the library a thorough overhauling."He was always careful to remember his parishioners' Christian names,and at the right moment he bent his benignant spectacles on the Targattgirl.
Then he turned to Charity. "Don't take things hard, my dear; don't takethings hard. Come down and see Mrs. Miles and me some day at Hepburn,"he said, pressing her hand and waving a farewell to Mamie Targatt. Hewent out of the library, and Harney followed him.
Charity thought she detected a look of constraint in Harney's eyes. Shefancied he did not want to be alone with her; and with a sudden pang shewondered if he repented the tender things he had said to her the nightbefore. His words had been more fraternal than lover-like; but she hadlost their exact sense in the caressing warmth of his voice. He had madeher feel that the fact of her being a waif from the Mountain was onlyanother reason for holding her close and soothing her with consolatorymurmurs; and when the drive was over, and she got out of the buggy,tired, cold, and aching with emotion, she stepped as if the ground werea sunlit wave and she the spray on its crest.
Why, then, had his manner suddenly changed, and why did he leave thelibrary with Mr. Miles? Her restless imagination fastened on the nameof Annabel Balch: from the moment it had been mentioned she fanciedthat Harney's expression had altered. Annabel Balch at a garden-party atSpringfield, looking "extremely handsome"... perhaps Mr. Miles had seenher there at the very moment when Charity and Harney were sitting in theHyatts' hovel, between a drunkard and a half-witted old woma
n! Charitydid not know exactly what a garden-party was, but her glimpse of theflower-edged lawns of Nettleton helped her to visualize the scene, andenvious recollections of the "old things" which Miss Balch avowedly"wore out" when she came to North Dormer made it only too easy topicture her in her splendour. Charity understood what associations thename must have called up, and felt the uselessness of struggling againstthe unseen influences in Harney's life.
When she came down from her room for supper he was not there; and whileshe waited in the porch she recalled the tone in which Mr. Royall hadcommented the day before on their early start. Mr. Royall sat at herside, his chair tilted back, his broad black boots with side-elasticsresting against the lower bar of the railings. His rumpled grey hairstood up above his forehead like the crest of an angry bird, and theleather-brown of his veined cheeks was blotched with red. Charity knewthat those red spots were the signs of a coming explosion.
Suddenly he said: "Where's supper? Has Verena Marsh slipped up again onher soda-biscuits?"
Charity threw a startled glance at him. "I presume she's waiting for Mr.Harney."
"Mr. Harney, is she? She'd better dish up, then. He ain't coming." Hestood up, walked to the door, and called out, in the pitch necessary topenetrate the old woman's tympanum: "Get along with the supper, Verena."
Charity was trembling with apprehension. Something had happened--she wassure of it now--and Mr. Royall knew what it was. But not for the worldwould she have gratified him by showing her anxiety. She took her usualplace, and he seated himself opposite, and poured out a strong cup oftea before passing her the tea-pot. Verena brought some scrambled eggs,and he piled his plate with them. "Ain't you going to take any?" heasked. Charity roused herself and began to eat.
The tone with which Mr. Royall had said "He's not coming" seemed to herfull of an ominous satisfaction. She saw that he had suddenly begun tohate Lucius Harney, and guessed herself to be the cause of this changeof feeling. But she had no means of finding out whether some act ofhostility on his part had made the young man stay away, or whether hesimply wished to avoid seeing her again after their drive back from thebrown house. She ate her supper with a studied show of indifference, butshe knew that Mr. Royall was watching her and that her agitation did notescape him.
After supper she went up to her room. She heard Mr. Royall cross thepassage, and presently the sounds below her window showed that hehad returned to the porch. She seated herself on her bed and began tostruggle against the desire to go down and ask him what had happened."I'd rather die than do it," she muttered to herself. With a word hecould have relieved her uncertainty: but never would she gratify him bysaying it.
She rose and leaned out of the window. The twilight had deepened intonight, and she watched the frail curve of the young moon dropping tothe edge of the hills. Through the darkness she saw one or two figuresmoving down the road; but the evening was too cold for loitering, andpresently the strollers disappeared. Lamps were beginning to show hereand there in the windows. A bar of light brought out the whiteness of aclump of lilies in the Hawes's yard: and farther down the street CarrickFry's Rochester lamp cast its bold illumination on the rustic flower-tubin the middle of his grass-plot.
For a long time she continued to lean in the window. But a fever ofunrest consumed her, and finally she went downstairs, took her hatfrom its hook, and swung out of the house. Mr. Royall sat in the porch,Verena beside him, her old hands crossed on her patched skirt. AsCharity went down the steps Mr. Royall called after her: "Where yougoing?" She could easily have answered: "To Orma's," or "Down to theTargatts'"; and either answer might have been true, for she had nopurpose. But she swept on in silence, determined not to recognize hisright to question her.
At the gate she paused and looked up and down the road. The darknessdrew her, and she thought of climbing the hill and plunging intothe depths of the larch-wood above the pasture. Then she glancedirresolutely along the street, and as she did so a gleam appearedthrough the spruces at Miss Hatchard's gate. Lucius Harney was there,then--he had not gone down to Hepburn with Mr. Miles, as she had atfirst imagined. But where had he taken his evening meal, and what hadcaused him to stay away from Mr. Royall's? The light was positive proofof his presence, for Miss Hatchard's servants were away on a holiday,and her farmer's wife came only in the mornings, to make the young man'sbed and prepare his coffee. Beside that lamp he was doubtless sitting atthis moment. To know the truth Charity had only to walk half the lengthof the village, and knock at the lighted window. She hesitated a minuteor two longer, and then turned toward Miss Hatchard's.
She walked quickly, straining her eyes to detect anyone who might becoming along the street; and before reaching the Frys' she crossed overto avoid the light from their window. Whenever she was unhappy shefelt herself at bay against a pitiless world, and a kind of animalsecretiveness possessed her. But the street was empty, and she passedunnoticed through the gate and up the path to the house. Its white frontglimmered indistinctly through the trees, showing only one oblong oflight on the lower floor. She had supposed that the lamp was in MissHatchard's sitting-room; but she now saw that it shone through a windowat the farther corner of the house. She did not know the room to whichthis window belonged, and she paused under the trees, checked by a senseof strangeness. Then she moved on, treading softly on the short grass,and keeping so close to the house that whoever was in the room, even ifroused by her approach, would not be able to see her.
The window opened on a narrow verandah with a trellised arch. She leanedclose to the trellis, and parting the sprays of clematis that covered itlooked into a corner of the room. She saw the foot of a mahogany bed,an engraving on the wall, a wash-stand on which a towel had been tossed,and one end of the green-covered table which held the lamp. Half ofthe lampshade projected into her field of vision, and just under it twosmooth sunburnt hands, one holding a pencil and the other a ruler, weremoving to and fro over a drawing-board.
Her heart jumped and then stood still. He was there, a few feet away;and while her soul was tossing on seas of woe he had been quietlysitting at his drawing-board. The sight of those two hands, moving withtheir usual skill and precision, woke her out of her dream. Her eyeswere opened to the disproportion between what she had felt and the causeof her agitation and she was turning away from the window when one handabruptly pushed aside the drawing-board and the other flung down thepencil.
Charity had often noticed Harney's loving care of his drawings, and theneatness and method with which he carried on and concluded each task.The impatient sweeping aside of the drawing-board seemed to reveal a newmood. The gesture suggested sudden discouragement, or distaste for hiswork and she wondered if he too were agitated by secret perplexities.Her impulse of flight was checked; she stepped up on the verandah andlooked into the room.
Harney had put his elbows on the table and was resting his chin on hislocked hands. He had taken off his coat and waistcoat, and unbuttonedthe low collar of his flannel shirt; she saw the vigorous lines of hisyoung throat, and the root of the muscles where they joined thechest. He sat staring straight ahead of him, a look of weariness andself-disgust on his face: it was almost as if he had been gazing at adistorted reflection of his own features. For a moment Charity looked athim with a kind of terror, as if he had been a stranger under familiarlineaments; then she glanced past him and saw on the floor an openportmanteau half full of clothes. She understood that he was preparingto leave, and that he had probably decided to go without seeing her. Shesaw that the decision, from whatever cause it was taken, had disturbedhim deeply; and she immediately concluded that his change of plan wasdue to some surreptitious interference of Mr. Royall's. All her oldresentments and rebellions flamed up, confusedly mingled with theyearning roused by Harney's nearness. Only a few hours earlier shehad felt secure in his comprehending pity; now she was flung back onherself, doubly alone after that moment of communion.
Harney was still unaware of her presence. He sat without moving, moodilystaring before him at the s
ame spot in the wall-paper. He had not evenhad the energy to finish his packing, and his clothes and papers lay onthe floor about the portmanteau. Presently he unlocked his clasped handsand stood up; and Charity, drawing back hastily, sank down on the stepof the verandah. The night was so dark that there was not much chanceof his seeing her unless he opened the window and before that she wouldhave time to slip away and be lost in the shadow of the trees. He stoodfor a minute or two looking around the room with the same expression ofself-disgust, as if he hated himself and everything about him; thenhe sat down again at the table, drew a few more strokes, and threwhis pencil aside. Finally he walked across the floor, kicking theportmanteau out of his way, and lay down on the bed, folding his armsunder his head, and staring up morosely at the ceiling. Just so, Charityhad seen him at her side on the grass or the pine-needles, his eyesfixed on the sky, and pleasure flashing over his face like the flickersof sun the branches shed on it. But now the face was so changed that shehardly knew it; and grief at his grief gathered in her throat, rose toher eyes and ran over.
She continued to crouch on the steps, holding her breath and stiffeningherself into complete immobility. One motion of her hand, one tap onthe pane, and she could picture the sudden change in his face. In everypulse of her rigid body she was aware of the welcome his eyes and lipswould give her; but something kept her from moving. It was not thefear of any sanction, human or heavenly; she had never in her life beenafraid. It was simply that she had suddenly understood what would happenif she went in. It was the thing that did happen between young men andgirls, and that North Dormer ignored in public and snickered over on thesly. It was what Miss Hatchard was still ignorant of, but every girlof Charity's class knew about before she left school. It was what hadhappened to Ally Hawes's sister Julia, and had ended in her going toNettleton, and in people's never mentioning her name.
It did not, of course, always end so sensationally; nor, perhaps, on thewhole, so untragically. Charity had always suspected that the shunnedJulia's fate might have its compensations. There were others, worseendings that the village knew of, mean, miserable, unconfessed; otherlives that went on drearily, without visible change, in the same crampedsetting of hypocrisy. But these were not the reasons that held herback. Since the day before, she had known exactly what she would feelif Harney should take her in his arms: the melting of palm into palm andmouth on mouth, and the long flame burning her from head to foot. Butmixed with this feeling was another: the wondering pride in his likingfor her, the startled softness that his sympathy had put into her heart.Sometimes, when her youth flushed up in her, she had imagined yieldinglike other girls to furtive caresses in the twilight; but she could notso cheapen herself to Harney. She did not know why he was going; butsince he was going she felt she must do nothing to deface the image ofher that he carried away. If he wanted her he must seek her: he must notbe surprised into taking her as girls like Julia Hawes were taken....
No sound came from the sleeping village, and in the deep darkness ofthe garden she heard now and then a secret rustle of branches, as thoughsome night-bird brushed them. Once a footfall passed the gate, andshe shrank back into her corner; but the steps died away and left aprofounder quiet. Her eyes were still on Harney's tormented face: shefelt she could not move till he moved. But she was beginning to grownumb from her constrained position, and at times her thoughts were soindistinct that she seemed to be held there only by a vague weight ofweariness.
A long time passed in this strange vigil. Harney still lay on the bed,motionless and with fixed eyes, as though following his vision to itsbitter end. At last he stirred and changed his attitude slightly, andCharity's heart began to tremble. But he only flung out his arms andsank back into his former position. With a deep sigh he tossed the hairfrom his forehead; then his whole body relaxed, his head turnedsideways on the pillow, and she saw that he had fallen asleep. The sweetexpression came back to his lips, and the haggardness faded from hisface, leaving it as fresh as a boy's.
She rose and crept away.
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