Chapter 21

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_ Chapter XXI

When Maria dressed herself the next morning, she had an odd, shamed expression as she looked at herself in her glass while braiding her hair. It actually seemed to her as if she herself, and not Lily Merrill, had so betrayed herself and given way to an unsought love. She felt as if she saw Lily instead of herself, and she was at once humiliated and angered. She had to pass Lily's house on her way to school, and she did not once look up, although she had a conviction that Lily was watching her from one of the sitting-room windows. It was a wild winter day, with frequent gusts of wind swaying the trees to the breaking of the softer branches, and flurries of snow. It was hard work to keep the school-house warm. Maria, in the midst of her perturbation, had a comforted feeling at seeing Jessy Ramsey in her warm clothing. She passed her arm around the little girl at recess; it was so cold that only a few of the boys went outside.

"Have you got them on, dear?" she whispered.

"Yes'm," said Jessy. Then, to Maria's consternation, she caught her hand and kissed it, and began sobbing. "They're awful warm," sobbed Jessy Ramsey, looking at Maria with her little, convulsed face.

"Hush, child," said Maria. "There's nothing to cry about. Mind you keep them nice. Have you got a bureau-drawer you can put them in?--those you haven't on? Don't cry. That's silly."

"I 'ain't got no bureau," sobbed Jessy. "But--"

"Haven't any," corrected Maria.

"Haven't any bureau-drawer," said the child. "But I got a box what somethin'--"

"That something," said Maria.

"That something came from the store in, an' I've got 'em--"

"Them."

"Them all packed away. They're awful warm."

"Don't cry, dear," said Maria.

The other children did not seem to be noticing them. Suddenly Maria, who still had her arm around the thin shoulders of the little girl, stooped and kissed her rather grimy but soft little cheek. As she did so, she experienced the same feeling which she used to have when caressing her little sister Evelyn. It was a sort of rapture of tenderness and protection. It was the maternal instinct glorified and rendered spiritual by maidenhood, and its timid desires. Jessy Ramsey's eyes looked up into Maria's like blue violets, and Maria noticed with a sudden throb that they were like George Ramsey's. Jessy, coming as she did from a degenerate, unbeautiful branch of the family-tree, had yet some of the true Ramsey features, and, among others, she had the true Ramsey eyes. They were large and very dark blue, and they were set in deep, pathetic hollows. As she looked up at Maria, it was exactly as if George were looking at her with pleading and timid love. Maria took her arm sudden away from the child.

"Be you mad?" asked Jessy, humbly.

"No, I am not," replied Maria. "But you should not say 'be you mad'; you should say are you angry."

"Yes'm," said Jessy Ramsey.

Jessy withdrew, still with timid eyes of devotion fixed upon her teacher, and Maria seated herself behind her desk, took out some paper, and began to write an exercise for the children to copy upon the black-board. She was trembling from head to foot. She felt exactly as if George Ramsey had been looking at her with eyes of love, and she remembered that she was married, and it seemed to her that she was horribly guilty.

Maria never once looked again at Jessy Ramsey, at least not fully in the eyes, during the day. The child's mouth began to assume a piteous expression. After school that afternoon she lingered, as usual, to walk the little way before their roads separated, so to speak, in her beloved teacher's train. But Maria spoke quite sharply to her.

"You had better run right home, Jessy," she said. "It is snowing, and you will get cold. I have a few things to see to before I go. Run right home."

Poor little Jessy Ramsey, who was as honestly in love with her teacher as she would ever be with any one in her life, turned obediently and went away. Maria's heart smote her.

"Jessy," she called after her, and the child turned back half frightened, half radiant. Maria put her arm around her and kissed her. "Wash your face before you come to school to-morrow, dear," she said. "Now, good-bye."

"Yes'm," said Jessy, and she skipped away quite happy. She thought teacher had rebuffed her because her face was not washed, and that did not trouble her in the least. Lack of cleanliness or lack of morals, when brought home to them, could hardly sting any scion of that branch of the Ramseys. Lack of affection could, however, and Jessy was quite happy in thinking that teacher loved her, and was only vexed because her face was dirty. Jessy had not gone a dozen paces from the school-house before she stopped, scooped up some snow in a little, grimy hand, and rubbed her cheeks violently. Then she wiped them on her new petticoat. Her cheeks tingled frightfully, but she felt that she was obeying a mandate of love.

Maria did not see her. She in reality lingered a little over some exercises in the school-house before she started on her way home. It was snowing quite steadily, and the wind still blew. The snow made the wind seem as evident as the wings of a bird. Maria hurried along. When she reached the bridge across the Ramsey River she saw a girl standing as if waiting for her. The girl was all powdered with snow and she had on a thick veil, but Maria immediately knew that she was Lily Merrill. Lily came up to her as she reached her with almost an abject motion. She had her veiled face lowered before the storm, and she carried herself as if her spirit also was lowered before some wind of fate. She pressed timidly close to Maria when she reached her.

"I've been waiting for you, Maria," she said.

"Have you?" returned Maria, coldly.

"Yes, I wanted to see you, and I didn't know as I could, unless I met you. I didn't know whether you would have a fire in your room to-night, and I thought your aunt would be in the sitting-room, and I thought you wouldn't be apt to come over to my house, it storms so."

"No, I shouldn't," Maria said, shortly.

Then Lily burst out in a piteous low wail, a human wail piercing the wail of the storm. The two girls were quite alone on the bridge.

"Oh, Maria," said Lily, "I did want you to know how dreadfully ashamed I was of what I did last night."

"I should think you would be," Maria said, pitilessly. She walked on ahead, with her mouth in a straight line, and did not look at the other girl.

Lily came closer to her and passed one of her arms through Maria's and pressed against her softly. "I wanted to tell you, too," she said, "that I made an excuse about--that handkerchief the other night. I thought it was in my coat-pocket all the time. I did it just so he would go home with me last."

Maria looked at her. "I never saw such a girl as you are, Lily Merrill," she said, contemptuously, but in spite of herself there was a soft accent in her voice. It was not in Maria's nature to be hard upon a repentant sinner.

Lily leaned her face against Maria's snow-powdered shoulder. "I was dreadfully ashamed of it," said she, "and I thought I must tell you, Maria. You don't think so very badly of me, do you? I know I was awful." The longing for affection and approbation in Lily's voice gave it almost a singing quality. She was so fond of love and approval that the withdrawal of it smote her like a frost of the spirit.

"I think it was terribly bold of you, if you want to know just what I think," Maria said; "and I think you were very deceitful. Before I would do such a thing to get a young man to go home with me, I would--" Maria paused. Suddenly she remembered that she had her secret, and she felt humbled before this other girl whom she was judging. She became conscious to such an extent of the beam in her own eye that she was too blinded to see the mote in that of poor Lily, who, indeed, was not to blame, being simply helpless before her own temperament and her own emotions.

"I know I did do a dreadful thing," moaned Lily.

Then Maria pressed the clinging arm under her own.

"Well," said she, as she might have spoken to a child, "if I were you I would not think any more about it, Lily, I would put it out of my mind. Only, I would not, if I were you, and really wanted a young man to care for me, let him think I was running after him."

As she said the last, Maria paled. She glanced at Lily's beautiful face under the veil, and realized that it might be very easy for any young man to care for such a girl, who had, in reality, a sweet nature, besides beauty, if she only adopted the proper course to win him, and that it was obviously her (Maria's) duty to teach her to win him.

"I know it. I won't again," Lily said, humbly.

The two girls walked on; they had crossed the bridge. Suddenly Lily plucked up a little spirit.

"Say, Maria," said she.

"What is it, dear?"

"I just happened to think. Mother was asked to tea to Mrs. Ralph Wright's to-night, but she isn't going. Is your aunt going?"

"Yes, I believe she is," said Maria.

"She won't be home before eight o'clock, will she?"

"No, I don't suppose she will. They are to have tea at six, I believe."

"Then I am coming over after mother and I have tea. I have something I want to tell you."

"All right, dear," replied Maria, hesitatingly.

When Maria got home she found her aunt Maria all dressed, except for her collar-fastening. She was waiting for Maria to attend to that. Her thin gray-blond hair was beautifully crimped, and she wore her best black silk dress. She was standing by the sitting-room window when Maria entered.

"I am glad you have come, Maria," said she. "I have been standing quite awhile. You are late."

"Yes, I am rather late," replied Maria. "But why on earth didn't you sit down?"

"Do you suppose I am going to sit down more than I can help in this dress?" said her aunt. "There is nothing hurts a silk dress more than sitting down in it. Now if you will hook my collar, Maria. I can do it, but I don't like to strain the seams by reaching round, and I didn't want to trail this dress down the cellar stairs to get Eunice to fasten it up." Aunt Maria bewailed the weather in a deprecating fashion while Maria was fastening the collar at the back of her skinny neck. "I never want to find fault with the weather," said she, "because, of course, the weather is regulated by Something higher than we are, and it must be for our best good, but I do hate to wear this dress out in such a storm, and I don't dare wear my cashmere. Mrs. Ralph Wright is so particular she would be sure to think I didn't pay her proper respect."

"You can wear my water-proof," said Maria. "I didn't wear it to-day, you know. I didn't think the snow would do this dress any harm. The water-proof will cover you all up."

"Well, I suppose I can, and can pin my skirt up," said Aunt Maria, in a resigned tone. "I don't want to find fault with the weather, but I do hate to pin up a black silk skirt."

"You can turn it right up around your waist, and fasten the braid to your belt, and then it won't hurt it," said Maria, consolingly.

"Well, I suppose I can. Your supper is all ready, Maria. There's bread and butter, and chocolate cake, and some oysters. I thought you wouldn't mind making yourself a little stew. I couldn't make it before you came, because it wouldn't be fit to eat. You know how. Be sure the milk is hot before you put the oysters in. There is a good fire."

"Oh yes, I know how. Don't you worry about me," said Maria, turning up her aunt's creaseless black silk skirt gingerly. It was rather incomprehensible to her that anybody should care so much whether a black silk skirt was creased or not, when the terrible undertone of emotions which underline the world, and are its creative motive, were in existence, but Maria was learning gradually to be patient with the small worries of others which seemed large to them, and upon which she herself could not place much stress. She stood at the window, when her aunt at last emerged from the house, and picked her way through the light snow, and her mouth twitched a little at the absurd, shapeless figure. Her Aunt Eunice had joined her, and she was not so shapeless. She held up her dress quite fashionably on one side, with a rather generous display of slender legs. Aunt Maria did not consider that her sister-in-law was quite careful enough of her clothes. "Henry won't always be earning," she often said to Maria. To-day she had eyed with disapproval Eunice's best black silk trailing from under her cape, when she entered the sitting-room. She had come through the cellar.

"Are you going that way, in such a storm, in your best black silk?" she inquired.

"I haven't any water-proof," replied Eunice, "and I don't see what else I can do."

"You might wear my old shawl spread out."

"I wouldn't go through the street cutting such a figure," said Eunice, with one of her occasional bursts of spirit. She was delighted to go. Nobody knew how this meek, elderly woman loved a little excitement. There were red spots on her thin cheeks, and she looked almost as if she had used rouge. Her eyes snapped.

"I should think you would turn your skirt up, anyway," said Aunt Maria. "You've got your black petticoat on, haven't you?"

"Yes," replied Eunice. "But if you think I am going right through the Main Street in my petticoat, you are mistaken. Snow won't hurt the silk any. It's a dry snow, and it will shake right off."

So Eunice, at the side of Aunt Maria, went with her dress kilted high, and looked as preternaturally slim as her sister-in-law looked stout. Maria, watching them, thought how funny they were. She herself was elemental, and they, in their desires and interests, were like motes floating on the face of the waters. Maria, while she had always like pretty clothes, had come to a pass wherein she relegated them to their proper place. She recognized many things as externals which she had heretofore considered as essentials. She had developed wonderfully in a few months. As she turned away from the window she caught a glimpse of Lily Merrill's lovely face in a window of the opposite house, above a mass of potted geraniums. Lily nodded, and smiled, and Maria nodded back again. Her heart sank at the idea of Lily's coming that evening, a sickening jealous dread of the confidence which she was to make to her was over her, and yet she said to herself that she had no right to have this dread. She prepared her supper and ate it, and had hardly cleared away the table and washed the dishes before Lily came flying across the yard before the storm-wind. Maria hurried to the door to let her in.

"Your aunt went, didn't she?" said Lily, entering, and shaking the flakes of snow from her skirts.

"Yes."

"I don't see why mother wouldn't go. Mother never goes out anywhere, and she isn't nearly as old as your aunts."

Lily and Maria seated themselves in the sitting-room before the stove. Lily looked at Maria, and a faint red overspread her cheeks. She began to speak, then she hesitated, and evidently said something which she had not intended.

"How pretty that is!" she said, pointing to a great oleander-tree in flower, which was Aunt Maria's pride.

"Yes, I think it is pretty."

"Lovely. The very prettiest one I ever saw." Lily hesitated again, but at last she began to speak, with the red on her cheeks brighter and her eyes turned away from Maria. "I wanted to tell you something, Maria," said she.

"Well?" said Maria. Her own face was quite pale and motionless. She was doing some fancy-work, embroidering a centre-piece, and she continued to take careful stitches.

"I know you thought I was awful, doing the way I did last night," said Lily, in her sweet murmur. She drooped her head, and the flush on her oval cheeks was like the flush on a wild rose. Lily wore a green house-dress, which set her off as the leaves and stem set off a flower. It was of some soft material which clung about her and displayed her tender curves. She wore at her throat an old cameo brooch which had belonged to her grandmother, and which had upon its onyx background an ivory head as graceful as her own. Maria, beside Lily, although she herself was very pretty, looked ordinary in her flannel blouse and black skirt, which was her school costume.

Maria continued taking careful stitches in the petals of a daisy which she was embroidering. "I think we have talked enough about it," she said.

"But I want to tell you something."

"Why don't you tell it, then?"

"I know you thought I did something awful, running across the yard and coming here in the night the way I did, and showing you that I--I, well, that I minded George Ramsey's coming home with you; but--look here, Maria, I--had a little reason."

Maria paled perceptibly, but she kept on steadily with her work.

Lily flushed more deeply. "George Ramsey has been home with me from evening meeting quite a number of times," she said.

"Has he?" said Maria.

"Yes. Of course we were walking the same way. He may not really have meant to see me home." There was a sort of innate honesty in Lily which always led her to retrieve the lapses from the strict truth when in her favor. "Maybe he didn't really mean to see me home, and sometimes he didn't offer me his arm," she added, with a childlike wistfulness, as if she desired Maria to reassure her.

"I dare say he meant to see you home," said Maria, rather shortly.

"I am not quite sure," said Lily. "But he did walk home with me quite a number of times, first and last, and you know we used to go to the same school, and a number of times then, when we were a good deal younger, he really did see me home, and--he kissed me good-night then. Of course he hasn't done that lately, because we were older."

"I should think not, unless you were engaged," said Maria.

"Of course not, but he has said several things to me. Maybe he didn't mean anything, but they sounded--I thought I would like to tell you, Maria. I have never told anybody, not even mother. Once he said my name just suited me, and once he asked me if I thought married people were happier, and once he said he thought it was a doubtful experiment for a man to marry and try to live either with his wife's mother or his own. You know, if he married me, it would have to be one way or the other. Do you think he meant anything, Maria?"

"I don't know," said Maria. "I didn't hear him."

"Well, I thought he spoke as if he meant it, but, of course, a girl can never be sure. I suppose men do say so many things they don't mean. Don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose they do."

"Do you think he did, Maria?" asked Lily, piteously.

"My dear child, I told you I didn't hear him, and I don't see how I can tell," repeated Maria, with a little impatience. It did seem hard to her that she should be so forced into a confidence of this kind, but an odd feeling of protective tenderness for Lily was stealing over her. She reached a certain height of nobility which she had never reached before, through this feeling.

"I know men so often say things when they mean nothing at all," Lily said again. "Perhaps he didn't mean anything. I know he has gone home with Agnes Sears several times, and he has talked to her a good deal when we have been at parties. Do you think she is pretty, Maria?"

"Yes, I think she is quite pretty," replied Maria.

"Do you think--she is better-looking than--I am?" asked Lily, feebly.

"No, of course I don't," said Maria. "You are a perfect beauty."

"Oh, Maria, do you think so?"

"Of course I do! You know it yourself as well as I do."

"No, honest, I am never quite sure, Maria. Sometimes it does seem to me when I am dressed up that I am really better-looking than some girls, but I am never quite sure that it isn't because it is I who am looking at myself. A girl wants to think she is pretty, you know, Maria, especially if she wants anybody to like her, and I can't ever tell."

"Well, you can rest easy about that," said Maria. "You are a perfect beauty. There isn't a girl in Amity to compare with you. You needn't have any doubt at all."

An expression of quite innocent and naive vanity overspread Lily's charming face. She cast a glance at herself in a glass which hung on the opposite wall, and smiled as a child might have done at her own reflection. "Do you think this green dress is becoming to me?" said she.

"Very."

"But, Maria, do you suppose George Ramsey thinks I am so pretty?"

"I should think he must, if he has eyes in his head," replied Maria.

"But you are pretty yourself, Maria," said Lily, with the most open jealousy and anxiety, "and you are smarter than I am, and he is so smart. I do think he cares a great deal more for you than for me. I think he must, Maria."

"Nonsense!" said Maria. "Just because a young man walks home with me once you think he is in love with me." Maria tried to speak lightly and scornfully, but in spite of herself there was an accent of gratification in her tone. In spite of herself she forgot for the moment.

"I think he does, all the same," said Lily, dejectedly.

"Nonsense! He doesn't; and if he did, he would have to take it out in caring."

"Then you were in earnest about what you said last night?" said Lily, eagerly. "You really mean you wouldn't have George Ramsey if he asked you?"

"Not if he asked every day in the year for a hundred years."

"I guess you must have seen somebody else whom you liked," said Lily, and Maria colored furiously. Then Lily laughed. "Oh, you have!" she cried, with sudden glee. "You are blushing like anything. Do tell me, Maria."

"I have nothing to tell."

"Maria Edgham, you don't dare tell me you are not in love with anybody?"

"I should not answer a question of that kind to any other girl, anyway," Maria replied, angrily.

"You are. I know it," said Lily. "Don't be angry, dear. I am real glad."

"I didn't say I was in love, and there is nothing for you to be glad about," returned Maria, fairly scarlet with shame and rage. She tangled the silk with which she was working, and broke it short off. Maria was as yet not wholly controlled by herself.

"Why, you'll spoil that daisy," Lily said, wonderingly. She herself was incapable of any such retaliation upon inanimate objects. She would have carefully untangled her silk, no matter how deeply she suffered.

"I don't care if I do!" cried Maria.

"Why, Maria!"

"Well, I don't care. I am fairly sick of so much talk and thinking about love and getting married, as if there were nothing else."

"Maybe you are different, Maria," admitted Lily, in a humiliated fashion.

"I don't want to hear any more about it," Maria said, taking a fresh thread from her skein of white silk.

"But do you mean what you said?"

"Yes, I do, once for all. That settles it."

Lily looked at her wistfully. She did not find Maria as sympathetic as she wished. Then she glanced at her beautiful visage in the glass, and remembered what the other girl had said about her beauty, and again she smiled her childlike smile of gratified vanity and pleasure. Then suddenly the door-bell rang.

Lily gave a great start, and turned white as she looked at Maria. "It's George Ramsey," she whispered.

"Nonsense! How do you know?" asked Maria, laying her work on the table beside the lamp, and rising.

"I don't know. I do know."

"Nonsense!" Still Maria stood looking irresolutely at Lily.

"I know," said Lily, and she trembled perceptibly.

"I don't see how you can tell," said Maria. She made a step towards the door.

Lily sprang up. "I am going home," said she.

"Going home? Why?"

"He has come to see you, and I won't stay. I won't. I know you despised me for what I did the other night, and I won't do such a thing as to stay when he has come to see another girl. I am not quite as bad as that." Lily started towards her cloak, which lay over a chair.

Maria seized her by the shoulders with a nervous grip of her little hands. "Lily Merrill," said she, "if you stir, if you dare to stir to go home, I will not go to the door at all!"

Lily gasped and looked at her.

"I won't!" said Maria.

The bell rang a second time.

"You have got to go to the door," said Maria, with a sudden impulse.

Lily quivered under her hands.

"Why? Oh, Maria!"

"Yes, you have. You go to the door, and I will run up-stairs the back way to my room. I don't feel well to-night, anyway. I have an awful headache. You go to the door, and if it is--George Ramsey, you tell him I have gone to bed with a headache, and you have come over to stay with me because Aunt Maria has gone away. Then you can ask him in."

A flush of incredulous joy came over Lily's face.

"You don't mean it, Maria?" she whispered, faintly.

"Yes, I do. Hurry, or he'll go away."

"Have you got a headache, honest?"

"Yes, I have. Hurry, quick! If it is anybody else do as you like about asking him in. Hurry!"

With that Maria was gone, scudding up the back stairs which led out of the adjoining room. She gained her chamber as noiselessly as a shadow. The room was very dark except for a faint gleam on one wall from a neighbor's lamp. Maria stood still, listening, in the middle of the floor. She heard the front door opened, then she heard voices. She heard steps. The steps entered the sitting-room. Then she heard the voices in a steady flow. One of them was undoubtedly a man's. The bass resonances were unmistakable. A peal of girlish laughter rang out. Maria noiselessly groped her way to her bed, threw herself upon it, face down, and lay there shaking with silent sobs. _

Read next: Chapter 22

Read previous: Chapter 20

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