Ariel Custer (13 page)

“Oh, well, that won’t stop her,” declared Rebecca wisely. “She’s the most uncalled person I know, Harriet is.”

Emily’s eyes twinkled.

“Well, she’ll never know,” she soothed coaxingly, “for the other one’s made almost exactly the same, pocket and all. That pocket’s nice and handy, too. I always like a pocket. Take it, Becky. I’d like to have you have it.”

The other woman laid down her iron and took the coveted garment eagerly, running an admiring finger down inside the pocket.

“Land sake, Em’ly, you’ve left some money in here,” she said, preparing to extract it.

“That’s all right, Becky; keep it for good luck!”

She looked almost a girl, so slim and little in her little black sateen petticoat and her neat buttoned shoes; prim and sweet and lovable. One could hardly think of her as an old maid, nor yet as even an elderly person. There were lines of youth about her, youth held in abeyance like a bud that has waited a long time to bloom.

A knock at the front door sent her scuttling up the back stairs to get another skirt, and Rebecca Ford grim and inquisitive to the hall to answer the knock. It was only a delivery wagon come to the wrong house, and Rebecca quickly sent it on its way. Back in the kitchen again, she tried on the skirt and went to the dining-room sideboard to get a glimpse of herself.

“Fits like the paper on the wall,” she said, with a note of grim hilarity in her voice as Emily came down the back stairs again neat and trim once more in another black serge skirt. “But I could never look like you; I stoop too much. You’re straight as a pipe stem and walk like a robin. Anybody’d know me from my walk. Well, I guess I’ll be wrapping it up before old Hawkeye gets back. It’s near time for her to appear. What’s the matter with the car? Why don’t she ride it in this hot weather?”

“Well, you know she never learned to drive it herself, and I—well, I didn’t feel like learning. I’m sure I should run into somebody. Besides, I thought it was better not to mix things. Of course I went out in it now and then when Jud was here, but Harriet hasn’t been out in it much since Jud left home.”

“Where’s that short-haired, outlandish Boggs girl? I thought she could always be depended on to be on tap any time when wanted.”

Emily’s eyes twinkled again, but she answered demurely, “I believe she’s gone to the shore with her aunt for a short time.”

“Hmm! Well, I thought she’d vanish when Jud went away. With all her softness, I thought Harriet would find out she wasn’t so fond of just
her
as she thought. Well, Em’ly, I guess I must be gettin’ along. I don’t guess we’ll see each other much more this side the grave. I’m not one to talk a lot, but you certainly have been a bright spot in my life. If I could just leave it here and walk out into the other, I’d be satisfied; but I do hate like pizen this next part, goin’ to live with my daughter-in-law and bein’ took care of. It may not last long, to be sure, and then again it may; but all I’ve got to say is, Emily Dillon, when you get up there in your Methodist heaven, just you wait around near the door for me, for you’ll see me comin’ waitin’ to take care o’ you. We been separated a lot these last years, but I got faith to b’lieve that the Lord that made you can save me, too, and won’t let us be so fur apart up there. Now, don’t you look like that. If Harriet ever gets married, I’ll come an’ take care o’ you again. I b’lieve ‘twould cure my heart-trouble just to be gettin’ your meals.”

“But, Becky!” cried Emily Dillon in distress. “It’s dreadful for you to be going away where you don’t want to go. Just you be patient. I’ve always thought things would come around our way, and you keep up heart a little while longer.”

Her eyes were starry with hope, and the other woman laughed wistfully: “All right, Em’ly, you keep on havin’ faith, and I’ll try to remember what you say and keep on havin’ it, too.
There
she comes! Well, I’ll say good-bye. If you ever come Mercer-way, you’ll stop and see me, won’t you? I expect Tom to come after me day after tomorrow.”

The two women clasped each other’s hands tensely for a moment with tears in their eyes, while heavy steps were coming steadily up the walk to the front porch. Then Emily pushed a little soft gray roll into the other woman’s hand, whispering, “It’s just a gray veil for you, Becky. I bought it the other day. Oh, Becky, I shall
miss
you! You’ve been almost like a mother to me many a time, and I shall
miss
you!”

She put her hands on Rebecca Ford’s shoulders and drew her face close to hers, pressing the other woman’s lips with her own in a quick, fervent kiss, and then, as the screen door of the hall opened, she slipped noiselessly up the back stairs to her room.

T
he relentless footsteps came straight on to the kitchen, stalked about a bit; the sound of the back door key turning in its lock, and then Harriet Granniss came upstairs and knocked at Emily’s door.

“I thought I heard someone in the kitchen as I came in,” she said accusingly. “That lazy woman hasn’t been here all this time, has she? She had only a half dozen pieces to iron when I left. I went and counted them. What did you pay her? Any more than the usual amount?”

“Oh no,” said Emily, breathing freely. “Just the usual amount.”

Harriet eyed her intently.

“Well, if she’s been here all this time, she must have been ironing some of her own clothes and using our gas and our time. They do that, you know. You’ve got to watch everything! I heard of a good woman we could get today if you weren’t so sentimental about this lazy good-for-nothing. I’m sure I heard someone in the kitchen when I came in, and she hasn’t ironed my robe. She didn’t put away the ironing board, either.”

Emily gave her a vague, faraway smile. She had found this the most effective mode of stopping the flow of such language that was gall and wormwood to her sweet and loving soul. It also helped her to hold in her wrath, if she could force a smile. So she smiled. There really was nothing Harriet Granniss could say to that smile, so she strode heavily into her own room and began to remove her best new voile preparatory to getting supper. It was her business to get supper that night, and she always did her duty thoroughly and well, even though she often had items on her menu that she knew Emily Dillon did not eat. But then she
ought
to have liked them, and Harriet felt she was serving a good purpose when she thus forced them on her. If in return Emily had chosen to serve on her nights any article of diet that Harriet had listed as taboo, Emily would never have heard the last of it.

But tonight Emily Dillon was not thinking of menus, and she accepted a little of everything that was on the table and smiled as she listened to the town gossip from the Congregational porch meeting. Betty Champion was going to marry Norman Hunger and take care of his seven children. An awful fool Harriet thought she was, as if women weren’t better off unmarried! They said coal was going to be very scarce and high the next year or two, and the Undikes were going to burn wood and nothing else. They had a fireplace in every room in the house and a lot of trees around their place. That oldest child of the postmaster’s was going blind, they said; and little Nellie Smiley had run away to New York to work. There was going to be a big parade on Labor Day and she had promised to bake some devil’s food for the dinner in the Borough Hall, and a rice pudding for the Poor Picnic.

Emily smiled and said “Yes” and “No” in the proper places and ate a mincing supper, but there was a light in her eyes that made the hawk-eyed one watch her closely.

“You don’t act as if you heard a word I said, Emily Dillon,” said Harriet unpleasantly, rising and beginning to clear away the dishes. “I declare, I’d think you’d want to know a little of what was going on in the world.”

“Why, yes,” said Emily pleasantly, “it’s interesting, of course.”

Harriet sighed ponderously. She was just aching for a fight, and Emily never would fight. Harriet was bored.

“Well, I’m going to prayer meeting tonight!” she declared. “What about you?”

“I think I’ll just stay on the porch,” said Emily. “I’ve sort of felt the heat today.”

“Well, I do my duty in spite of the heat,” snapped Harriet, filling her mouth copiously from the last piece of cake on the plate, thus saving herself a trip to the cake box.

Harriet washed her dishes noisily and locked up the kitchen. She ascended the stairs creakingly and put on her hat. Emily sat behind the honeysuckle vines and watched her go away in the early twilight.

It was just ten minutes to nine when a slight figure stole in at a parting of the hedge around at the side of the house and paused beside the honeysuckle end of the porch.

“Miss Emily, are you there?” whispered Ariel’s soft voice.

“Yes, dear; come up and tell me all about it.”

Ariel slipped under the vine and curled up by Emily Dillon’s feet.

“We had a wonderful day,” she said eagerly, “and we stayed so late that I was almost afraid to come. Isn’t it time for Mrs. Granniss to be home from prayer meeting? I wouldn’t come till I was sure there was no light in the house.”

“She won’t be home for ten minutes or so. Tell me, did you like my creek?”

“Oh, glorious! We went in a canoe all the way up to the rocks and past the swimming hole, and we had our dinner on a great flat rock with moss on it. There were birds singing high above our heads, and little pinecones dropped into the water down below, and there were stones with the water babbling over them!”

“Oh, my dear! I know! I’ve waded there in that very spot, and fell in once—and—But tell me, did you talk about the little house and get everything all fixed up?”

There was a catch in Ariel’s voice like a sob, and she gripped Emily’s hand that she held in a close, convulsive fashion.

“Yes, we talked about the little house, but we didn’t plan, because—well—because the thing we hoped didn’t happen, and we can’t buy it yet, Miss Emily. That is, we can’t buy it at all, I suppose, not that one, because it’s going to be sold right away. We only had the option on it till tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, because someone else is looking at it, and Mr. Packard said he positively couldn’t wait another minute. But—we’re going to be brave—”

“He oughtn’t to run over the hour on such a hot night!” declared Harriet Granniss’s voice coming suddenly out of the darkness, with a clarion ring, talking to a fussy little neighbor who lived farther on. “No minister has a right to hold people in a hot room on a night like this longer than is advertised. I shall tell him what I think about it the next time I see him. He was so busy with those strangers I couldn’t get within earshot of him tonight. But it isn’t right, and we ought to make him understand it.”

Ariel was gone like a breath, slipping behind the honeysuckles, with a light touch of her hand on Emily’s as she passed and a mere ripple of perfume as she slid through the vines and disappeared around the house.

Harriet lumbered heavily up the steps, puffing with every breath, and scanned the porch sharply.

“Is that you, Emily? Are you all alone? Didn’t I hear somebody out there in the side yard? Seems to me as if I did. I suppose it was a cat, but I don’t think you ought to sit out here alone when all the neighbors are gone away. Here, there wasn’t a soul around this end of the street. It’s all dark next door, and over to Joneses. Someday something will happen to you.”

“I’m not afraid, Harriet. But now you’ve come, I guess I’ll go to bed.”

“Well, just as you please,” sniffed Harriet offendedly. She loved to have an audience after she had been out anywhere. Half the fun of going was in describing it afterward. But Emily never had cared to listen to her. “I should think you’d like to know a little about the meeting,” she flung after her when she was halfway up the stairs. “You go out so little one would think you’d care to keep up with the times. But I suppose being it wasn’t a Methodist prayer meeting, you don’t care anything about it.”

“Oh!” Emily paused and looked over the handrail. “Did you have a good meeting?” in her sweet, polite voice, with that low, unprovoked modulation that seemed unaware of any offense. “Were there many out? It was such a nice night.”

“Yes, there were a lot out for summer considering the most important people of course are away at the seashore and mountains. But there were visitors, I’m glad to say. Two from the inn, and three from Major Pettlebee’s, and your cousin Julia Dillon. She stopped me and asked how you were and said it was such a pity you weren’t a Congregationalist like the rest of the family, so you and I could come together, and she supposed you were at your own church. I had to say no, you weren’t feeling so well. So you can see how you’re making me lie to save your face, Emily Dillon. For I couldn’t bear to tell her you were just home sitting on your porch on a church night. Your cousin seemed real pleasant, and anxious about you. Said she wished you’d come up tomorrow and take lunch with her.”

“Yes? And did your own minister speak in the meeting, or is he away on his vacation?” asked Emily sweetly.

“Oh, he’s away, but he left a real good man in his place. I declare, his talk was just heavenly. Byers’ kitten came in the church and kind of upset things for a while, making the Hillier twins giggle, and scooting under pews when Elder Dart tried to catch her, but the minister just gave out a hymn and never seemed to see it at all. Helena Boggs played the organ, and she played it real well, too. That girl is a wonder. She just got back from the seashore this afternoon, and yet she came to prayer meeting. She’s spending a couple of days with Hattie Riggs. She’ll be back here tomorrow sometime. I suppose she thought maybe Jud would be there with me and she’d get a chance to see him. I can’t think what that boy means acting—”

“Well, good night, Harriet, I seem to be sleepy,” said Emily and suddenly fled from the voluble tongue.

Up in her own room she pattered around in her bedroom slippers, putting her hair in order for the night, arranging the bedcovers, reading her bit of verse, and kneeling white and still by the plump four-poster bed after the light was put out, with her small feet in a bar of moonlight on the old ingrain carpet, and then stealing softly over to the big calico-covered chair by the window.

A long time she sat there looking out into the dewy, moonlit night, in her little white homemade cambric nightgown edged with tatting, long-sleeved and buttoned up to her soft white throat just as she used to wear them long ago when her mother made them for her. The maple tree by her window threw little flickering shadows over the wire window screen and played over her quiet face, while she sat there far into the night, looking out. Once a little wild rabbit whisked across the grass and sat posed with ears alert and trembling nose in a splash of moonlight. Emily Dillon saw it and smiled to herself in the darkness with a happy smile. The world was still mystical with moonlight when at last she crept silently into her bed, and Harriet was noisily enjoying her rest.

“I’m going into the city this morning,” Emily announced quietly enough at the breakfast table. “Is there anything you’d like me to get for you?”

Harriet sniffed and eyed her curiously. Wasn’t that just like Emily Dillon, not to say what she was going for? Emily almost never went to the city. What on earth could she be going to do? And why didn’t she ask her to go along?

“I’d thought we’d put up those tomatoes,” she said discontentedly. “It’s sinful to let them rot on the vines.”

“Well, the tomatoes can wait. I was looking at them yesterday. It’s a beautiful day, and I’ve got my plans all made to go. I thought I’d take a little of your advice and get out.”

She smiled sweetly and finished her coffee.

Harriet opened her lips to say she would go with her and then shut them with a click. No, she would never crawl after Emily Dillon for company. Emily was too closemouthed, and she could find her own company. Very likely she was going to visit some orphan asylum or old ladies’ home and take them flowers. She did that sometimes, and Harriet had no taste for such a form of amusement. A sinful waste to spend money for flowers when the heathen needed it all. She picked up her plate and carried it to the kitchen in offended silence. Emily gathered her dishes and washed them quickly in the sink then dried them and put them away.

“Then you don’t want any errands done?” she asked pleasantly.

“No, I don’t!” snapped Harriet. “If I did I could do them myself. I go to the city now and then, you know.”