Miriam glanced up at him sharply but furtively, and then looked away. Was it possible that Andrew was still ignorant of what was almost common gossip these days? Miriam thoughtfully put back her blowing hair, and frowned to herself. She, for one then, would not under any circumstances tell Andrew this piece of scandal, if, indeed, in the case of Melissa, it could possibly be a scandal. Scandal and Melissa simply could never come into juxtaposition, no matter how hard gossipers might try.
“Melissa,” said Miriam carefully, “takes long walks—by herself, I understand. She walked frequently with your father, if I remember, and so I suppose she haunts the places where they used to wander and discuss the Universe. I understand that she has almost finished one of his books now, and is working steadily on it.”
Andrew said, with more gloom: “I thought marriage might rid Melissa of all that. But it seems I was mistaken. But tell me: how does she seem?”
“Rather too silent,” admitted Miriam. “But then, we hardly know each other, and, as you know, she has never accepted our invitations to come here. We have nothing in common. She is very polite now, but still stares at me distrustfully, and with a kind of bitterness. She asked about you, and listened eagerly, and when I told her you were happy and busy she looked at me as if she ‘knew’ I was lying. Then, too, she is rather pale and still and very abstracted, and keeps turning her head as if she were listening or waiting for someone. I should say she is tired. But very elegant in all those fine silks and satins and laces and ribbons, and her hair so smooth. I never knew Melissa was so handsome.”
Andrew sighed impatiently. He said: “I’d like to kick Dunham. What is wrong with him? Melissa is his wife, but he shows no interest in her, from what I hear. He comes home hardly twice a month now. I saw him last six weeks ago, when Phoebe was married.”
He remembered Phoebe’s marriage. Phoebe, when she had married her Johnnie Barrett from Judge Farrell’s house, had been all pink smiles and dimples. It had been a small and pleasant wedding, with Phoebe in white satin and veiling, supplied by Andrew, and with a small string of real pearls given her by Geoffrey Dunham in the name of himself and the bride’s sister. Geoffrey had attended, but not Melissa, a fact which was well-noted and commented upon throughout the countryside.
Miriam was, in turn, remembering Melissa as she had been today, with such a thin sad face and mournful eyes. She had sat with her hands folded in her lap listlessly. She had worn d very splendid suit of pearl-colored poplin, with a vest of magenta silk, the skirt trimmed with rows of magenta velvet, and her hair had been rolled back from her face and caught in a net trimmed with magenta ribbon. Cerise jewels had glittered in her ears, and her slippers had been tied with magenta ribbon to match the ones in the net. Melissa had entertained her guest in the small sitting-room beyond the drawing-rooms, and the walls of soft yellow and gray, the carpet of pale magenta and yellow and blue, had set off her costume and had made her hair brighter. Yet, in spite of all this splendor and beauty, Miriam had sensed the sadness in her husband’s sister, her abstraction and remoteness. The hard clean angles of her face were so sharp and prominent, and her eyes, never of too intense a blue, had appeared faded and dead.
Miriam had commented delicately on the beauty of Melissa’s costume, and for the first time Melissa had shown some faint animation. “Geoffrey chose it,” she said, and then she had colored. She smoothed a row of magenta velvet with a finger-tip, then subsided again. “I wore it last Saturday,” she remarked. “We expected him to come home. But he did not. He wrote that he might come home today, and that is why I am wearing it now.” Her voice sank. “But it is almost six o’clock and, had he arrived at Midfield, he would have been home by this time. Unless,” and she regarded Miriam anxiously, “the train is late? You do not know whether the train is late?”
Miriam remembered hearing the train just before arriving at this house, and so she regretfully shook her head. Melissa had made no comment. The tea-tray had arrived then, and Melissa had conducted herself quite adequately during the serving. She betrayed no animosity towards the girl who had seduced her brother from the study of law, but she had displayed no interest either. It was evident that, to her, Miriam was a nonentity, one to be treated politely but certainly not with warmth or solicitude. Miriam was not at all important, not a dependent to be instructed, not a woman with whom to converse, and decidedly not a friend.
Miriam confided part of this to Andrew, who bent, picked up a stone, and threw it into the moonlit water. “Just like Melly,” he commented. “She can show less interest in other human beings than anyone else alive. Sometimes I wonder whether she really is alive. It’s not just Father’s death. She was always like that. No one else but Father and herself existed in all the world, which to her was just a sprawling mass of soulless maggots.”
He threw another stone. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “It seems hopeless. It is too lonely up there, with old Arabella. And Melly is incapable of making friends. She sees no one, and won’t visit anyone. And I thought there would be a change.”
Miriam watched the moon dissolving in the black water. She said, carefully: “The only visitors they have are Arabella’s two or three friends in Midfield, and they are too old for Melissa and doubtless as little interested in her as she in them. The only one who could possibly amuse her is that very handsome Mr. Littlefield who took the old Kenfrew house for the summer, where, I understand, he is writing reams of poetry.”
“Oh, Melissa would not be interested, even casually, in such a popinjay,” said Andrew. “I am sure he isn’t what she would call a ‘serious’ poet. He is too strong on the haberdashery, and uses scent, I have heard, and, besides, he doesn’t look like Papa.”
“But he does visit the Dunham house quite often, for tea, and sometimes dines with the ladies,” said Miriam, cautiously. She glanced up at her husband’s face, which expressed nothing but dissatisfaction with his sister. “I hear, too, that he and Melissa sometimes walk together along the river, and have been seen, even after dark, wandering around the country-side.”
Andrew appeared a little interested now, then became gloomy again. “I doubt it. Nothing could stir up Melissa or make her look at another human being as if he were alive. If those two do talk, it’s doubtless about Papa’s books, and that would be very dull for an elegant jackanapes like Littlefield, if what I’ve seen of him is any indication.”
There is more than one innocent in the Upjohn family, reflected Miriam. She pressed her cheek against her husband’s arm and laughed a little. “Just imagine a scandal about Melissa and Mr. Littlefield!” she said. “Wouldn’t that be delightful?”
“It would be impossible,” replied Andrew, laughing in return.
They walked slowly home together. They found old Judge Farrell reading under a lamp in the small library of the ancient house.
CHAPTER 39
“Hallo! hallo!” said the Judge, putting aside his Farm Journal and giving his granddaughter and Andrew an affectionate grin. “How’s the mare?”
“I think she will live. The sores on her leg seem to be healing,” replied Andrew. He sat down near the Judge, and the old chair groaned and shivered under his huge bulk. He pulled out his pipe and filled it, and, as he did so, he glanced around the great shabby room. Yes, he reflected, as he had often reflected before, it was shabby, much shabbier than the interior of his old home and had none of the mouldering treasures of his mother’s “parlor.” Yet it had a casualness, this room, a warmth, a blowsiness, a haphazard grouping for comfort, a kind of peacefulness and homely ugliness which had endeared itself to the young and lonely man. Judge Farrell was a rich man, yet no imported rug lay on the polished maple flooring, which had been laid for strength rather than grace; the planks were thin, wide, short or long, as the carpenter had sawed them, but they gave a charm to the room. Here and there colorful rag-rugs had been scattered, of various shapes and sizes. All the furniture was home-made and of maple: rockers, square, round or octagon tables, sofas and foo
t-stools, these boasted no padding save the chintz cushions Miriam had made for them, chintz so faded that their pattern was a blurred tint of mingled green and brown. The Judge, himself, had lined the knotted pine walls with book-shelves, and all were bulging with scores of volumes well-worn and unmatched. The small-paned little windows had been hung with the same chintz that covered the cushions, and every table had its brass or china lamp, or, quite often, a plain, glass, ungarnished lamp ordinarily used in kitchens. The immense fieldstone fire-place was cold now, but heaps of ashes still lay there, “to make a bed for the fire in winter,” as the Judge said. Over it were crossed two of the Judge’s pet guns. The room was bare of ornament which served no purpose, yet in some manner it managed to be delightful.
All the rest of the house was furnished in a similar manner. It certainly had no elegance, no treasures, no real beauties. Yet Andrew thought it the most beautiful house in the world, for here were always laughter, good-temper, kindness, hearty food and vigorous voices. Here for the first time in his life, he felt he had a home.
Judge Farrell, that astute old man, watched Andrew as the younger man’s slow, heavy gaze of content wandered about the room. He then glanced at Miriam, who had settled down to knitting nearby, and the two, who loved each other with much devotion, smiled with affectionate understanding and significance.
The Judge said: “No regrets, eh, Andy? Still find farming what you wanted?”
Andrew replied, with quiet but almost vehement firmness: “It is, indeed, Judge. I never knew, before, what it was to be happy. I always wanted to farm. It isn’t just the farming, though. It is something else. In a way, I suppose, I have found myself.” He was not a young man given to rhetoric, and he flushed at what he considered his extravagance of language.
The Judge nodded thoughtfully, and sucked on his pipe. They all listened to the shrilling of crickets under the moon. The Judge said: “Hot again, tomorrow. The crickets always know.” Then he added: “There’s something about the land which makes a man stand honestly on his own feet. Maybe it’s because he’s alone. There’s nothing so bad for cluttering up a man’s thoughts as having his fellow-man around all the time. Not being able to get away from him. Mind, I’m not saying that every man should be a solitary, or a monk, and that that’s the only way to his own salvation. But he’s got to breathe air some other man isn’t breathing at the same time if he’s to be a prideful soul on his own, full of dignity and integrity.”
“I know,” said Andrew, in a low voice. He looked steadfastly at his old friend, and waited. The Judge refilled his pipe, with deep thoughtfulness.
“The trouble is, when a lot of men get together, and make a city, they begin to interfere with one another. That’s natural. There’s nothing else for them to do! They violate, cajole and support one another, because they’ve got to do something to fill in the time. So, either out of boredom, or with the best intentions in the world, they deprive one another of freedom. Eventually, such big conglomerations of men destroy liberty for other men; they can’t help it. They’ve got to have law, and there was never a law passed that didn’t deprive someone of liberty. A free world begins with each individual, but that individual can’t be free if when he’s getting around he keeps stumbling all over other men, or if he never gets away from the sound of their voices. If the world is to be free, it must be free for every man, free for himself and in himself.”
Andrew said nothing. But he thought: That was the trouble with Melissa and me. We had no freedom. No one could give it to us, though someone had deprived us of it. I had to free myself. Melly has to free herself. Yes, men can deprive other men of freedom, but only a man, himself, can give himself liberty.
The Judge chuckled. “Man is a dangerous animal. My God, they call the rattlesnake dangerous, and the tiger, and the wolf. But folks are a combination of them all, with a few brains thrown in to help them make the most of their endowments! But when a man is out on the land he is less dangerous than he is anywhere else. He’s usually kind of religious, too, and that helps keep down his natural instincts. I’ve always thought that the function of religion is to make man harmless; and it works, in the country. But the city, as far as I can see, doesn’t seem very keen on religion. So, in the city, where God isn’t much at home, the function of law is to compel man to remain harmless. And because men naturally don’t like laws imposed from outside by other men, city folk are more dangerous than country-folk, who usually have their consciences in good repair.”
They listened for a while to the crickets and the frogs and the warm wind in the trees outside. Then the Judge said softly: “It was country-folk who discovered God, and it was shepherds on the hill-side who saw the angels. But city folk substitute men for God, and theories for men. And somehow, if a man comes to believe in his own theories very hard, he comes to hate other men who don’t share them, and plots how to kill them for being so ornery and stubborn. Theories don’t grow on the land. They grow only in the cities.”
The sprightly Miriam stood up, and kissed her grandfather soundly. She looked at the faces of the two men, and laughed a little. “Oh, don’t look so sober and gloomy, my dears. It is so peaceful here. We have just had an awful war, and we shan’t have another very soon, I am sure, in spite of the nasty cities.”
The Judge returned her kiss fondly, and tried to smile. “My dear, I’m not afraid for you, or even for Andrew. But I am afraid for your children’s children, and their children. Don’t smile. No, I am wrong. Smile, my love. And keep your children on the land, if you can.”
CHAPTER 40
The late July day steamed and fumed in heat. There was no escape from it, either under the trees or in the darkened house. There was no escape in the gardens, the long halls, the shuttered library. A hot and invisible vapor seemed to rise from the bronzed earth and exhale from the fluttering dusty rags of the bent trees.
To the weary Melissa, July was like a young thin man with a bold smile and hot eyes, wandering over the earth in the heat of the sun. He was a vagabond, sometimes noisy in thunder, with rages both brief and violent. He raised dust at his passing, and everything withered and choked at his touch. He turned the grass brown, and dried up the little brooks, leaving gravel and stone behind. He breathed his blasting breath over the hills, and burnished them. His shadow quivered in waves of heat over the fields and stood against the sky like a flame. He struck at unwary heads with the flat of his smoldering sword, and drove dogs, panting, into violet shadows. He scattered the heavy dust on the trees, and made them droop before him. He ran before August like a sheet of fire.
Never had she known so weary and hopeless a July as this, and so empty and purposeless a one, in spite of the progress she was making on her father’s manuscript. Nevertheless, she was incapable of halting what she had once begun. The days were empty, yes, and the nights were sleepless with the amorphous pain that always dogged her now, yet never had she had so few free moments she could call her own, and never had life seemed so pointless and arid. Her father had said that work was the cure for all evil and all misery, and that the busy man whose mind was occupied was the healthy and contented man. If so, Melissa would reflect, she ought to be the happiest of women instead of the most wretched. A vast uneasiness seemed to be part of her, and all about her, and no amount of work and occupation could drive it away. Work aggravated it for her, enhanced her suffering. Sometimes she thought: If only I had a little time to sit down and think, and be alone, without work!
Each afternoon, Arabella gave her a lesson in etiquette and deportment. The lessons sometimes took hours. It appeared to Melissa that the more tired she was, the more harried and exhausted, the longer the lessons. This afternoon, for instance, Arabella had been drilling the girl on the proper manner for a hostess who is receiving guests. A heavy book had been placed on her head, in order that she learn to walk stiffly, erectly, and with majestic care. Then, with this impediment, Melissa must move across the long floor of the library, stop at the door, extend her hand, sm
ile carefully, and say: “How delightful that you could come, Mrs. Smith! I welcome you to our home.”
The library shutters and the closed draperies could not keep the heat from the library. The leather chairs had been shrouded in muslin; the crimson, blue and brown of the books were only a dim glimmer in the dusk. The rugs had been rolled up for the summer, and the floor, in spite of the half-twilight, ached glitteringly in Melissa’s throbbing eyes. Arabella reclined on a muslin-covered sofa, while Ellis sat beside her, moving a palm-leaf fan slowly back and forth over her mistress’ painted face, and occasionally dropping a little eau de cologne on a fresh kerchief for Arabella’s refreshment. The heavy lemonish odor sickened Melissa, whose own face was wet and deathly pale with heat and exhaustion. There was little fresh air in the great library; little thin pencils of burning light somehow escaped through the shutters and draperies and stuck on Melissa’s eyes like visible streaks of pain. She could not avoid them. Sometimes she closed her eyes in momentary protection, but she saw the streaks change to burning green and blue against the darkness of her lids.
“Dear me, Melissa,” sighed Arabella, with an eloquently despairing look at Ellis, “I am afraid you will never eliminate that jerky stride. Perhaps there is something wrong with your—limbs. A certain impossible length, quite unfeminine, I am afraid. And gentlemen, I have discovered, do like petite females. It is so disconcerting,” she continued, when Melissa stopped half way across the floor, and turned her head in Arabella’s direction, “for a gentleman to find himself looking directly into a lady’s eyes, instead of onto properly downcast lids several inches below him.”
“I am not as tall as Geoffrey,” said Melissa, in a dull voice. “Nor as tall as Mr. Littlefield.”
Arabella glanced at Ellis, who smirked. Arabella moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and her eyes gleamed. “But there are not many gentlemen as tall as Geoffrey and Ravel,” remarked Arabella. “And few women as tall as you. Well, we must accept the defects of nature as we humbly accept her gifts. We might mourn our fate, and long for beauty and charm and manner, but if we do not have them we must cultivate, instead, more subdued advantages.” Melissa lifted the book from her head, stood in silence in the middle of the room, holding the book in her hand. She opened it lifelessly, glanced at its pages without seeing them. Then she closed it, let her arm drop heavily. She was very thin now. The white dimity dress, embroidered in blue pansies and tied with blue ribbons, was limp and crushed, for she could not learn to sit neatly and carefully. Her hair was damp; a long lock lay wetly across her forehead. Even her eyes seemed to have faded, become quite colorless, and her mouth had no color at all. Her facial bones, always flaring and sharp and angular, had become more pronounced, so that in repose her face resembled a mask of dull tragedy, fleshless and petrified.
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