ONE afternoon toward the end of August a group of girlssat in a room at Miss Hatchard's in a gay confusion offlags, turkey-red, blue and white paper muslin, harvestsheaves and illuminated scrolls.
North Dormer was preparing for its Old Home Week. Thatform of sentimental decentralization was still in itsearly stages, and, precedents being few, and the desireto set an example contagious, the matter had become asubject of prolonged and passionate discussion underMiss Hatchard's roof. The incentive to the celebrationhad come rather from those who had left North Dormerthan from those who had been obliged to stay there, andthere was some difficulty in rousing the village to theproper state of enthusiasm. But Miss Hatchard's paleprim drawing-room was the centre of constant comingsand goings from Hepburn, Nettleton, Springfield andeven more distant cities; and whenever a visitorarrived he was led across the hall, and treated toa glimpse of the group of girls deep in their prettypreparations.
"All the old names...all the old names...." MissHatchard would be heard, tapping across the hall on hercrutches. "Targatt...Sollas...Fry: this is Miss OrmaFry sewing the stars on the drapery for the organ-loft.
Don't move, girls....and this is Miss Ally Hawes, ourcleverest needle-woman...and Miss Charity Royall makingour garlands of evergreen....I like the idea of its allbeing homemade, don't you? We haven't had to call inany foreign talent: my young cousin Lucius Harney, thearchitect--you know he's up here preparing a book onColonial houses--he's taken the whole thing in hand socleverly; but you must come and see his sketch for thestage we're going to put up in the Town Hall."One of the first results of the Old Home Week agitationhad, in fact, been the reappearance of Lucius Harney inthe village street. He had been vaguely spoken of asbeing not far off, but for some weeks past no one hadseen him at North Dormer, and there was a recent reportof his having left Creston River, where he was said tohave been staying, and gone away from the neighbourhoodfor good. Soon after Miss Hatchard's return,however, he came back to his old quarters in her house,and began to take a leading part in the planning of thefestivities. He threw himself into the idea withextraordinary good-humour, and was so prodigal ofsketches, and so inexhaustible in devices, that he gavean immediate impetus to the rather languid movement,and infected the whole village with his enthusiasm.
"Lucius has such a feeling for the past that he hasroused us all to a sense of our privileges," MissHatchard would say, lingering on the last word, whichwas a favourite one. And before leading her visitorback to the drawing-room she would repeat, for thehundredth time, that she supposed he thought it verybold of little North Dormer to start up and have a HomeWeek of its own, when so many bigger places hadn'tthought of it yet; but that, after all, Associationscounted more than the size of the population, didn'tthey? And of course North Dormer was so full ofAssociations...historic, literary (here a filial sighfor Honorius) and ecclesiastical...he knew about theold pewter communion service imported from England in1769, she supposed? And it was so important, in awealthy materialistic age, to set the example ofreverting to the old ideals, the family and thehomestead, and so on. This peroration usually carriedher half-way back across the hall, leaving the girls toreturn to their interrupted activities.
The day on which Charity Royall was weaving hemlockgarlands for the procession was the last before thecelebration. When Miss Hatchard called upon the NorthDormer maidenhood to collaborate in the festalpreparations Charity had at first held aloof; but ithad been made clear to her that her non-appearancemight excite conjecture, and, reluctantly, she hadjoined the other workers. The girls, at first shy andembarrassed, and puzzled as to the exact nature of theprojected commemoration, had soon become interested inthe amusing details of their task, and excited by thenotice they received. They would not for the worldhave missed their afternoons at Miss Hatchard's, and,while they cut out and sewed and draped and pasted,their tongues kept up such an accompaniment to thesewing-machine that Charity's silence sheltered itselfunperceived under their chatter.
In spirit she was still almost unconscious of thepleasant stir about her. Since her return to thered house, on the evening of the day when Harney hadovertaken her on her way to the Mountain, she had livedat North Dormer as if she were suspended in the void.
She had come back there because Harney, after appearingto agree to the impossibility of her doing so, hadended by persuading her that any other course would bemadness. She had nothing further to fear from Mr.
Royall. Of this she had declared herself sure, thoughshe had failed to add, in his exoneration, that he hadtwice offered to make her his wife. Her hatred of himmade it impossible, at the moment, for her to sayanything that might partly excuse him in Harney's eyes.
Harney, however, once satisfied of her security, hadfound plenty of reasons for urging her to return. Thefirst, and the most unanswerable, was that she hadnowhere else to go. But the one on which he laid thegreatest stress was that flight would be equivalent toavowal. If--as was almost inevitable--rumours of thescandalous scene at Nettleton should reach NorthDormer, how else would her disappearance beinterpreted? Her guardian had publicly taken away hercharacter, and she immediately vanished from hishouse. Seekers after motives could hardly fail todraw an unkind conclusion. But if she came back atonce, and was seen leading her usual life, the incidentwas reduced to its true proportions, as the outbreak ofa drunken old man furious at being surprised indisreputable company. People would say that Mr. Royallhad insulted his ward to justify himself, and thesordid tale would fall into its place in the chronicleof his obscure debaucheries.
Charity saw the force of the argument; but if sheacquiesced it was not so much because of that asbecause it was Harney's wish. Since that evening inthe deserted house she could imagine no reason fordoing or not doing anything except the fact that Harneywished or did not wish it. All her tossingcontradictory impulses were merged in a fatalisticacceptance of his will. It was not that she felt inhim any ascendancy of character--there were momentsalready when she knew she was the stronger--but thatall the rest of life had become a mere cloudy rim aboutthe central glory of their passion. Whenever shestopped thinking about that for a moment she felt asshe sometimes did after lying on the grass and staringup too long at the sky; her eyes were so full oflight that everything about her was a blur.
Each time that Miss Hatchard, in the course of herperiodical incursions into the work-room, dropped anallusion to her young cousin, the architect, the effectwas the same on Charity. The hemlock garland she waswearing fell to her knees and she sat in a kind oftrance. It was so manifestly absurd that Miss Hatchardshould talk of Harney in that familiar possessive way,as if she had any claim on him, or knew anything abouthim. She, Charity Royall, was the only being on earthwho really knew him, knew him from the soles of hisfeet to the rumpled crest of his hair, knew theshifting lights in his eyes, and the inflexions of hisvoice, and the things he liked and disliked, andeverything there was to know about him, as minutely andyet unconsciously as a child knows the walls of theroom it wakes up in every morning. It was this fact,which nobody about her guessed, or would haveunderstood, that made her life something apart andinviolable, as if nothing had any power to hurt ordisturb her as long as her secret was safe.
The room in which the girls sat was the one which hadbeen Harney's bedroom. He had been sent upstairs,to make room for the Home Week workers; but thefurniture had not been moved, and as Charity sat thereshe had perpetually before her the vision she hadlooked in on from the midnight garden. The table atwhich Harney had sat was the one about which the girlswere gathered; and her own seat was near the bed onwhich she had seen him lying. Sometimes, when theothers were not looking, she bent over as if to pick upsomething, and laid her cheek for a moment against thepillow.
Toward sunset the girls disbanded. Their work wasdone, and the next morning at daylight the draperiesand garlands were to be nailed up, and the illuminatedscrolls put in place in the Town Hall. The firstguests were to drive over from Hepburn in time for themidday banquet under a tent in Miss Hatchard's field;and after that the ceremonies were to begin. MissHatchard, pale with fatigue and excitement, thanked heryoung assistants, and stood in the porch, leaning onher crutches and waving a farewell as she watched themtroop away down the street.
Charity had slipped off among the first; but at thegate she heard Ally Hawes calling after her, andreluctantly turned.
"Will you come over now and try on your dress?"Ally asked, looking at her with wistful admiration. "Iwant to be sure the sleeves don't ruck up the same asthey did yesterday."Charity gazed at her with dazzled eyes. "Oh, it'slovely," she said, and hastened away without listeningto Ally's protest. She wanted her dress to be aspretty as the other girls'--wanted it, in fact, tooutshine the rest, since she was to take part in the"exercises"--but she had no time just then to fix hermind on such matters....
She sped up the street to the library, of which she hadthe key about her neck. From the passage at the backshe dragged forth a bicycle, and guided it to the edgeof the street. She looked about to see if any of thegirls were approaching; but they had drifted awaytogether toward the Town Hall, and she sprang into thesaddle and turned toward the Creston road. There wasan almost continual descent to Creston, and with herfeet against the pedals she floated through the stillevening air like one of the hawks she had often watchedslanting downward on motionless wings. Twenty minutesfrom the time when she had left Miss Hatchard's doorshe was turning up the wood-road on which Harneyhad overtaken her on the day of her flight; and a fewminutes afterward she had jumped from her bicycle atthe gate of the deserted house.
In the gold-powdered sunset it looked more than everlike some frail shell dried and washed by many seasons;but at the back, whither Charity advanced, drawing herbicycle after her, there were signs of recenthabitation. A rough door made of boards hung in thekitchen doorway, and pushing it open she entered a roomfurnished in primitive camping fashion. In the windowwas a table, also made of boards, with an earthenwarejar holding a big bunch of wild asters, two canvaschairs stood near by, and in one corner was a mattresswith a Mexican blanket over it.
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