 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Moving by Robin Cotter. April 2007. Summer by Edith Wharton. CHAPTER XIII. The town hall was crowded and exceedingly hot. As Charity marched into it, third in the white muslin file, headed by Orma Frye, she was conscious mainly of the brilliant effect of the wreathed columns framing the green carpeted stage toward which she was moving, and of the unfamiliar faces turning from the front rows to watch the advance of the procession. But it was all a bewildering blur of eyes and colors till she found herself standing at the back of the stage, her great bunch of asters and golden rod held well in front of her, and answering the nervous glance of Lambert Solis, the organist from Mr. Miles's church who had come up from Nettleton to play the harmonium and sat behind it, his conductor's eye running over the fluttered girls. A moment later Mr. Miles, pink and twinkling, emerged from the background as if buoyed up on his broad white gown and briskly dominated the bowed heads in the front rows. He prayed energetically and briefly and then retired, and a fierce nod from Lambert Solis warned the girls that they were to follow at once with home, sweet home. It was a joy to charity to sing. It seemed as though, for the first time, her secret rapture might burst from her and flash its defiance at the world. All the glow in her blood, the breath of the summer earth, the rustle of the forest, the fresh call of birds at sunrise, and the brooding midday langurs, seemed to pass into her untrained voice, lifted and led by the sustaining chorus. And then suddenly the song was over, and after an uncertain pause, during which Miss Hatchard's pearl-grey gloves started a furtive signalling down the hall, Mr. Royal, emerging in turn, ascended the steps of the stage and appeared behind the flower-wreathed desk. He passed close to charity, and she noticed that his gravely set face were the look of majesty that used to awe and fascinate her childhood. His frockcoat had been carefully brushed and ironed, and the ends of his narrow black tie were so nearly even that the tying must have cost him a protracted struggle. His appearance struck her all the more, because it was the first time she had looked him full in the face since the night at Nettleton, and nothing in his grave and impressive demeanor revealed a trace of the lamentable figure on the wharf. He stood a moment behind the desk, resting his fingertips against it, and bending slightly toward his audience. Then he straightened himself and began. At first she paid no heed to what he was saying, only fragments of sentences, sonorous quotations, allusions to illustrious men, including the obligatory tribute to honorius Hatchard, drifted past her inattentive ears. She was trying to discover Harney among the notable people in the front row, but he was nowhere near Miss Hatchard, who, crowned by a pearl-gray hat that matched her gloves, sat just below the desk, supported by Mrs. Miles, and an important-looking unknown lady. Charity was near one end of the stage, and from where she sat the other end of the first row of seats was cut off by the screen of foliage, masking the harmonium. The effort to see Harney around the corner of the screen, or through its interstices, made her unconscious of everything else, but the effort was unsuccessful, and gradually she found her attention arrested by her guardian's discourse. She had never heard him speak in public before, but she was familiar with the rolling music of his voice when he read aloud, or held forth to the selectmen about the stove at Carrick Frye's. Today his inflections were richer and graver than she had ever known them. He spoke slowly with pauses that seemed to invite his hearers to silent participation in his thought, and Charity perceived a light of response in their faces. He was nearing the end of his address. Most of you, he said, most of you who have returned here today, to take contact with this little place for a brief hour, have come only on a pious pilgrimage, and will go back presently to busy cities and lives full of larger duties. But that is not the only way of coming back to North Dormer. Some of us who went out from here in our youth, went out, like you, to busy cities and larger duties, have come back in another way, come back for good. I am one of those, as many of you know. He paused, and there was a sense of suspense in the listening hall. My history is without interest, but it has its lesson, not so much for those of you who have already made your lives in other places, as for the young men who are perhaps planning even now to leave these quiet hills, and go down into the struggle. Things they cannot foresee may send some of those young men back some day to the little township and the old homestead. They may come back for good. He looked about him, and repeated gravely, for good. There is the point I want to make. North Dormer is a poor little place, almost lost in a mighty landscape. Perhaps by this time it might have been a bigger place, and more in scale with the landscape, if those who had to come back had come with that feeling in their minds, that they wanted to come back for good, and not for bad, or just for indifference. Gentlemen, let us look at things as they are. Some of us have come back to our native town, because we'd failed to get on elsewhere. One way or other, things had gone wrong with us. What we'd dreamed of hadn't come true. But the fact that we'd failed elsewhere is no reason why we should fail here. Our very experiments in larger places, even if they were unsuccessful, ought to have helped us to make North Dormer a larger place. And you, young men who are preparing even now to follow the call of ambition, and turn your back on the old homes, well, let me say this to you, that if ever you do come back to them, it's worthwhile to come back to them for their good. And to do that, you must keep on loving them while you are away from them, and even if you come back against your will, and thinking it's all a bitter mistake of fate or providence, you must try to make the best of it, and to make the best of your old town. And after a while—well, ladies and gentlemen, I give you my recipe for what it's worth. After a while, I believe you'll be able to say, as I can say today, I'm glad I'm here. Believe me, all of you, the best way to help the places we live in is to be glad we live there. He stopped, and a murmur of emotion and surprise ran through the audience. It was not in the least what they had expected, but it moved them more than what they had expected would have moved them. Here, here! a voice cried out in the middle of the hall, an outburst of cheers caught up in the cry, and as they subsided, charity heard Mr. Miles saying to some one near him, that was a man talking. He wiped his spectacles. Mr. Royal had stepped back from the desk, and taken his seat in the row of chairs in front of the harmonium. A dapper, white haired gentleman, a distant hatchard, succeeded him behind the golden rod, and began to say beautiful things about the old oaken bucket, patient white-haired mothers, and where the boys used to go nutting, and charity began again to search for Harney. Suddenly Mr. Royal pushed back his seat, and one of the maple branches in front of the harmonium collapsed with a crash. It uncovered the end of the first row, and in one of the seats charity saw Harney, and in the next a lady whose face was turned toward him, and almost hidden by the brim of her drooping hat. Charity did not need to see the face. She knew at a glance the slim figure, the fair hair heaped up under the hat brim, the long pale wrinkled gloves with bracelets slipping over them. At the fall of the branch Miss Balch turned her head toward the stage, and in her pretty, thin-lipped smile there lingered the reflection of something her neighbor had been whispering to her. Someone came forward to replace the fallen branch, and Miss Balch and Harney were once more hidden, but to charity the vision of their two faces had blotted out everything. In a flash they had shown her the bare reality for a situation. Behind the frail screen if her lover's caresses was the whole inscrutable mystery of his life, his relations with other people, with other women, his opinions, his prejudices, his principles, the net of influences and interests and ambitions in which every man's life is entangled. Of all these she knew nothing, except what he had told her of his architectural aspirations. She had always dimly guessed him to be in touch with important people, involved in complicated relations, but she felt it all to be so far beyond her understanding that the whole subject hung like a luminous mist on the farthest verge of her thoughts. In the foreground hiding all else there was the glow of his presence, the light and shadow of his face, the way his short-sighted eyes at her approach widened and deepened as if to draw her down into them, and above all the flush of youth and tenderness in which his words enclosed her. Now she saw him detached from her, drawn back into the unknown, and whispering to another girl things that provoked the same smile of mischievous complicity he had so often called to her own lips. The feeling possessing her was not one of jealousy, she was too sure of his love, it was rather a terror of the unknown, of all the mysterious attractions that must even now be dragging him away from her, and of her own powerlessness to contend with them. She had given him all she had, but what was it compared to the other gifts life held for him? She understood now the case of girls like herself to whom this kind of thing happened. They gave all they had, but their all was not enough. It could not buy more than a few moments. The heat had grown suffocating. She felt it descend on her in smothering waves, and the faces in the crowded hall began to dance like the pictures flashed on the screen at Neddleton. For an instant Mr. Royal's countenance detached itself from the general blur, he had resumed his place in front of the harmonium and sat close to her, his eyes on her face, and his look seemed to pierce to the very center of her confused sensations. A feeling of physical sickness rushed over her, and then deadly apprehension. The light of the fiery hours in the little house swept back on her in a glare of fear. She forced herself to look away from her guardian, and became aware that the oratory of the hatched cousin had ceased, and that Mr. Miles was again flapping his wings. Fragments of his peroration floated through her bewildered brain. A rich harvest of hallowed memories. A sanctified hour to which, in moments of trial, your thoughts will prayerfully return. And now, O Lord, let us humbly and fervently give thanks for this blessed day of reunion, here in the old home to which we have come back from so far. Preserve it to us, O Lord, in times to come, in all its homely sweetness, in the kindliness and wisdom of its old people, in the courage and industry of its young men, in the piety and purity of this group of innocent girls. He flapped a white wing in their direction, and at the same moment, Lambert Solis, with his fierce nod, struck the opening bars of old Langzine. Charity stared ahead of her, and then, dropping her flowers, fell face downward at Mr. Royle's feet. CHAPTER XIV North Dormer's celebration naturally included the villages attached to its township, and the festivities were to radiate over the whole group, from Dormer, and the two Crestons, to Hamlin, the lonely Hamlet on the north slope of the mountain, where the first snow always fell. On the third day there were speeches and ceremonies at Creston, and Creston River. On the fourth, the principal performers were to be driven in buckboards to Dormer and Hamlin. It was on the fourth day that Charity returned for the first time to the little house. She had not seen Harney alone since they had parted at the wood's edge the night before the celebrations began. In the interval she had passed through many moods, but for the moment the terror which had seized her in the town hall had faded to the edge of consciousness. She had fainted because the hall was stiflingly hot, and because the speakers had gone on and on. Several other people had been affected by the heat, and had had to leave before the exercises were over. There had been thunder in the air all the afternoon, and every one said afterward that something ought to have been done to ventilate the hall. At the dance that evening, where she had gone reluctantly, and only because she feared to stay away, she had sprung back into instant reassurance. As soon as she entered, she had seen Harney waiting for her, and he had come up with kind, gay eyes, and swept her off in a waltz. Her feet were full of music, and though her only training had been with the village youths, she had no difficulty in tuning her steps to his. As they circled about the floor all her vain fears dropped from her, and she even forgot that she was probably dancing in Annabelle Balch's slippers. When the waltz was over, Harney, with the last handclasp, left her to meet Miss Hatchard and Miss Balch, who were just entering. Charity had a moment of anguish as Miss Balch appeared, but it did not last. The triumphant fact of her own greater beauty, and of Harney's sense of it, swept her apprehensions aside. Miss Balch, in an unbecoming dress, looked sallow and pinched, and Charity fancied there was a worried expression in her pale, lashed eyes. She took a seat near Miss Hatchard, and it was presently apparent that she did not mean to dance. Charity did not dance often, either. Harney explained to her that Miss Hatchard had begged him to give each of the other girls a turn, but he went through the form of asking Charity's permission, each time he led one out, and that gave her a sense of secret triumph, even completer, than when she was whirling about the room with him. She was thinking of all this, as she waited for him in the deserted house. The late afternoon was sultry, and she had tossed aside her hat, and stretched herself at full length on the Mexican blanket, because it was cooler indoors than under the trees. She lay with her arms folded beneath her head, gazing out at the shaggy shoulder of the mountain. The sky behind it was full of the splintered glories of the descending sun, and before long she expected to hear Harney's bicycle-bell in the lane. He had bicycled to Hamlin, instead of driving there with his cousin and her friends, so that he might be able to make his escape earlier and stop on the way back at the deserted house, which was on the road to Hamlin. They had smiled together at the joke of hearing the crowded buckboards roll by on the return, while they lay close in their hiding above the road. Such childish triumphs still gave her a sense of reckless security. Nevertheless, she had not wholly forgotten the vision of fear that had opened before her in the town hall. The sense of lastingness was gone from her, and every moment with Harney would now be ringed with doubt. The mountain was turning purple against a fiery sunset from which it seemed to be divided by a knife-edge of quivering light, and above this wall of flame the whole sky was a pure pale green, like some cold mountain lake in shadow, charity lay gazing up at it and watching for the first white star. Her eyes were still fixed on the upper reaches of the sky when she became aware that a shadow had flitted across the glory-flooded room. It must have been Harney passing the window against the sunset. She half raised herself and then dropped back on her folded arms. The combs had slipped from her hair, and it trailed in a rough dark rope across her breast. She lay quite still, a sleepy smile on her lips. Her indolent lids half shut. There was a fumbling at the padlock, and she called out, Have you slipped the chain? The door opened, and Mr. Royal walked into the room. She started up, sitting back against the cushions, and they looked at each other without speaking. Then Mr. Royal closed the door latch, and advanced a few steps. Charity jumped to her feet. What have you come for? She stammered. The last glare of the sunset was on her guardian's face, which looked ash-colored in the yellow radiance. Because I knew you were here, he answered simply. She had become conscious of the hair hanging loose across her breast, and it seemed as though she could not speak to him till she had set herself in order. She groped for her comb, and tried to fasten up the coil. Mr. Royal silently watched her. Charity, he said, he'll be here in a minute. Let me talk to you first. You've got no right to talk to me. I can do what I please. Yes. What is it you mean to do? I needn't answer that, or anything else. He had glanced away, and stood looking curiously about the illuminated room. Purple asters and red maple leaves filled the jar on the table. On a shelf against the wall stood a lamp, the kettle, a little pile of cups and saucers. The canvas chairs were grouped about the table. So this is where you meet, he said. His tone was quiet and controlled, and the fact disconcerted her. She had been ready to give him violence for violence, but this calm acceptance of things as they were left her without a weapon. See here, Charity. You're always telling me I've got no rights over you. There might be two ways of looking at that, but I ain't going to argue it. All I know is I raised you as good as I could, and meant fairly by you, always except once, for a bad half-hour. There's no justice in weighing that half-hour against the rest, and you know it. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have gone on living under my roof. Seems to me the fact of your doing that gives me some sort of a right—the right to try and keep you out of trouble. I'm not asking you to consider any other. She listened in silence, and then gave a slight laugh. Better wait till I'm in trouble, she said. He paused a moment as if weighing her words. Is that all your answer? Yes, that's all. Well, I'll wait. He turned away slowly, but as he did so the thing she had been waiting for happened. The door opened again, and Harney entered. He stopped short with a face of astonishment, and then quickly controlling himself, went up to Mr. Royal with a frank look. Have you come to see me, sir? he said coolly, throwing his cap on the table with an air of proprietorship. Mr. Royal again looked slowly about the room, then his eyes turned to the young man. Is this your house? he inquired. Harney laughed. Well, as much as it's anybodies, I come here to sketch occasionally, and to receive Mr. Royal's visits. When she does me the honour, is this the home you propose to bring her to when you get married? There was an immense and oppressive silence. Charity, quivering with anger, started forward, and then stood silent, too humbled for speech. Harney's eyes had dropped under the old man's gaze, but he raised them presently, and looking steadily at Mr. Royal, said, Miss Royal is not a child. Isn't it rather absurd to talk of her as if she were? I believe she considers herself free to come and go as she pleases, without any questions from any one. He paused, and added, I'm ready to answer any she wishes to ask me. Mr. Royal turned to her. Ask him when he's going to marry you then. There was another silence, and he laughed in his turn, a broken laugh with a scraping sound to it. You darnst! he shouted out with a sudden passion. He went close up to Charity, his right arm lifted, not in menace, but in tragic exhortation. You darnst! and you know it, and you know why. He swung back again upon the young man. And you know why you ain't asked her to marry you, and why you don't mean to. It's because you hadn't need to, nor any other man, either. I'm the only one that was fool enough not to know that, and I guess nobody will repeat my mistake. Not in Eagle County, anyhow. They all know what she is, and what she came from. They all know her mother was a woman of the town from Neddleton, that followed one of those mountain-fellows up to his place, and lived there with him like a heathen. I saw her there sixteen years ago, when I went to bring this child down. I went to save her from the kind of life her mother was leading, but I'd better have left her in the kennel she came from. He paused and stared darkly at the two young people, and out beyond them, at the menacing mountain with its rim of fire. Then he sat down beside the table, on which they had so often spread their rustic supper, and covered his face with his hands. Harney leaned in the window, a frown on his face. He was twirling between his fingers, a small package that dangled from a loop of string. Charity heard Mr. Royal draw a hard breath or two, and his shoulders shook a little. Presently he stood up and walked across the room. He did not look again at the young people. They saw him feel his way to the door, and fumble for the latch. And then he went out into the darkness. After he had gone there was a long silence. Charity waited for Harney to speak, but he seemed at first not to find anything to say. At length he broke out irreverently. I wonder how he found out. She made no answer, and he tossed down the package he had been holding and went up to her. I'm so sorry, dear, that this should have happened. She threw her head back proudly. I ain't ever been sorry. Not a minute. No. She waited to be caught into his arms, but he turned away from her irresolutely. The last glow was gone from behind the mountain. Everything in the room had turned gray and indistinct, and an autumnal dampness crept up from the hollow below the orchard, laying its cold touch on their flushed faces. Harney walked at the length of the room, and then turned back and sat down at the table. Come! he said imperiously. She sat down beside him, and he untied the string about the package and spread out a pile of sandwiches. I stole them from the love-feast at Hamblin. He said with a laugh, pushing them over to her. She laughed too, and took one, and began to eat. Didn't you make the tea? No, she said. I forgot. Oh, well, it's too late to boil the water now. He said nothing more, and sitting opposite to each other, they went on silently eating the sandwiches. Darkness had descended in the little room, and Harney's face was a dim blur to charity. Suddenly he leaned across the table and laid his hand on hers. I shall have to go off for a while, a month or two, perhaps, to arrange some things, and then I'll come back, and we'll get married. His voice seemed like a stranger's. Nothing was left in it of the vibrations she knew. Her hand lay inertly under his, and she left it there, and raised her head, trying to answer him. But the words died in her throat. They sat motionless, in their attitude of confident endearment, as if some strange death had surprised them. At length Harney sprang to his feet with a slight shiver. God! it's damp! We couldn't have come here much longer. He went to the shelf, took down a tin candlestick, and lit the candle. Then he propped an unhinged shutter against the empty window-frame, and put the candle on the table. It threw a queer shadow on his frowning forehead, and made a smile on his lips, a grimace. But it's been good, though, hasn't it, charity? What's the matter? Why do you stand there staring at me? Haven't the days here been good? He went up to her, and caught her to his breast. And there will be others, lots of others, jollier, even jollier. Won't there, darling? He turned her head back, feeling for the curve of her throat, below the ear, and kissing her there, and on the hair, and eyes, and lips. She clung to him desperately, and as he drew her to his knees on the couch, she felt as if they were being sucked down together into some bottomless abyss. CHAPTER XV That night, as usual, they said good-bye at the wood's edge. Harney was to leave the next morning early. He asked charity to say nothing of their plans till his return, and strangely, even to herself, she was glad at the postponement. A leaden weight of shame hung on her, benumbing every other sensation, and she bade him good-bye with hardly a sign of emotion. His reiterated promises to return seemed almost wounding. She had no doubt that he intended to come back. Her doubts were far deeper, and less definable. Since the fanciful vision of the future, that had flitted through her imagination at their first meeting, she had hardly ever thought of his marrying her. She had not had to put the thought from her mind it had not been there. If ever she looked ahead, she felt instinctively that the gulf between them was too deep, and that the bridge their passion had flung across it was as insubstantial as a rainbow. But she seldom looked ahead, each day was so rich that it absorbed her. Now her first feeling was that everything would be different, and that she herself would be a different being to Harney. Instead of remaining separate and absolute, she would be compared with other people, and unknown things would be expected of her. She was too proud to be afraid, but the freedom of her spirit drooped. Harney had not fixed any date for his return. He had said he would have to look about first and settle things. He had promised to write as soon as there was anything definite to say, and had left her his address, and asked her to write also, but the address frightened her. It was in New York, at a club with a long name in Fifth Avenue. It seemed to raise an insurmountable barrier between them. Once or twice, in the first days, she got out a sheet of paper, and sat looking at it, and trying to think what to say. But she had the feeling that her letter would never reach its destination. She had never written to any one farther away than Hepburn. Harney's first letter came after he had been gone about ten days. It was tender, but grave, and bore no resemblance to the gay little notes he had sent her by the freckled boy from Cruston River. He spoke positively of his intention of coming back, but named no date, and reminded charity of their agreement that their plans should not be divulged till he had had time to settle things. When that would be he could not yet foresee, but she could count on his returning as soon as the way was clear. She read the letter with a strange sense of its coming from immeasurable distances, and having lost most of its meaning on the way, and in reply she sent him a colored postcard of Cruston Falls, on which she wrote, with love from charity. She felt the pitiful inadequacy of this, and understood, with a sense of despair, that in her inability to express herself she must give him an impression of coldness and reluctance, but she could not help it. She could not forget that he had never spoken to her of marriage till Mr. Royal had forced the word from his lips. Though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him, she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert. She had not seen Mr. Royal and her return to the Red House. The morning after her parting from Harnie, when she came down from her room, Verena told her that her guardian had gone off to Worcester and Portland. It was the time of year when he usually reported to the insurance agencies he represented, and there was nothing unusual in his departure, except its suddenness. She thought little about him, except to be glad he was not there. She kept to herself for the first days, while North Dormer was recovering from its brief plunge into publicity, and the subsiding agitation left her unnoticed. But the faithful Allie could not be long avoided. For the first few days after the close of the old Home Week festivities, Charity escaped her by roaming the hills all day when she was not at her post in the library. But after that a period of rain set in, and one pouring afternoon, Allie, sure that she would find her friend indoors, came around to the Red House with her sewing. The two girls sat upstairs in Charity's room. Charity, her idle hands and her lap, was sunk in a kind of leaden dream, through which she was only half-conscious of Allie, who sat opposite her in a low, rush-bottom chair, her work pinned to her knee, and her thin lips pursed up as she bent above it. It was my idea of running a ribbon through the gauging. She said proudly, drawing back to contemplate the blouse she was trimming. It's for Miss Balch. She was awfully pleased. She paused and then added, with a queer tremor, in her piping voice. I darenst have told her I got the idea from one I saw in Julia. Charity raised her eyes listlessly. Do you still see Julia sometimes? Allie reddened, as if the illusion had escaped her unintentionally. Oh, it was such a long time ago I seen her with those gaugings. Silence fell again, and Allie presently continued. Miss Balch left me a whole lot of things to do over this time. Why? Has she gone? Charity inquired with an inner start of apprehension. Didn't you know? She went off the morning after they had the celebration at Hamlin. I seen her drive by early with Mr. Harney. There was another silence, measured by the steady take of the rain against the window, and at intervals, by the snipping sound of Allie's scissors. Allie gave a meditative laugh. Do you know what she told me before she went away? She told me she was going to send for me to come over to Springfield, and make some things for her wedding. She again lifted her heavy lids, and stared at Allie's pale, pointed face, which moved to and fro above her moving fingers. Is she going to get married? Allie let the blouse sink to her knee, and sat gazing at it. Her lips seemed suddenly dry, and she moistened them a little with her tongue. Why, I presume so, from what she said. Didn't you know? Why should I know? Allie did not answer. She bent above the blouse, and began picking out a basting thread with the point of the scissors. Why should I know? Charity repeated harshly. I didn't know but what folks here say she's engaged to Mr. Harney. Charity stood up with a laugh, and stretched her arms lazily above her head. If all the people got married that folks say are going to, you'd have your time full making wedding dresses, she said ironically. Why, don't you believe it? Allie ventured. It would not make it true if I did, nor prevent it if I didn't. That's so. I only know I seen her crying the night of the party because her dress didn't set right. That's why she wouldn't dance any. Charity stood absently gazing down at the lacy garment on Allie's knee. Abruptly she stooped, and snatched it up. Well, I guess she won't dance in this either, she said, with sudden violence, and grasping the blouse in her strong young hands, she tore it in two, and flung the tattered bits to the floor. Oh, Charity! Allie cried, springing up. For a long interval the two girls faced each other across the ruined garment. Allie burst into tears. Oh, what'll I say to her? What'll I do? It was real lace! She wailed between her piping sobs. She glared at her unrelentingly. You unto have brought it here, she said, breathing quickly. I hate other people's clothes. It's just as if they were there themselves. The two stared at each other again over this avowal, till Charity brought out in a gasp of anguish. Oh, go, go, go! Or I'll hate you too! When Allie left her she fell sobbing across her bed. The long storm was followed by a northwest gale, and when it was over the hills took on their first umber tints. The sky grew more densely blue, and the big white clouds lay against the hills like snow banks. The first crisp maple leaves began to spin across Miss Hatchard's lawn, and the Virginia creeper on the memorial splashed the white porch with scarlet. It was a golden triumphant September, day by day the flame of the Virginia creeper spread to the hillsides in wider waves of Carmine and Crimson. The larches glowed like the thin yellow halo above a fire. The maples blazed and smoldered, and the black hemlocks turned to indigo against the incandescence of the forest. The nights were cold, with a dry glitter of stars so high up that they seemed smaller and more vivid. Sometimes as Charity lay sleepless on her bed through the long hours she felt as though she were bound to those wheeling fires and swinging with them around the great black vault. At night she planned many things. It was then she wrote to Harnie. But the letters were never put on paper, for she did not know how to express what she wanted to tell him. So she waited. Since her talk with Allie she had felt sure that Harnie was engaged to Annabelle Balch and that the process of settling things would involve the breaking of this tie. For her first rage of jealousy over she felt no fear on this score. She was still sure that Harnie would come back, and she was equally sure that, for the moment at least, it was she whom he loved, and not Miss Balch. Yet the girl, no less, remained a rival, since she represented all the things the Charity felt herself most incapable of understanding or achieving. Annabelle Balch was, if not the girl Harnie ought to marry, at least the kind of girl it would be natural for him to marry. Charity had never been able to picture herself as his wife, had never been able to arrest the vision and follow it out in its daily consequences, but she could perfectly imagine Annabelle Balch in that relation to him. The more she thought of these things, the more the sense of fatality weighed on her. She felt the uselessness of struggling against the circumstances. She had never known how to adapt herself. She can only break and tear and destroy. The scene with Allie had left her stricken with shame at her own childish savagery. What would Harnie have thought if he had witnessed it? But when she turned the incident over in her puzzled mind, she could not imagine what a civilized person would have done in her place. She felt herself too unequally pitted against unknown forces. At length this feeling moved her to sudden action. She took a sheet of letter paper for Mr. Royal's office, and sitting by the kitchen lamp, one night after Verena had gone to bed, began her first letter to Harnie. It was very short. I want you should marry Annabelle Balch if you promised to. I think maybe you were afraid I'd feel too bad about it. I feel I'd rather you acted right. Your loving charity. She posted the letter early the next morning, and for a few days her heart felt strangely light. Then she began to wonder why she received no answer. One day, as she sat alone in the library, pondering these things, the walls of books began to spin around her, and the rosewood desk to rock under her elbows. The dizziness was followed by a wave of nausea, like she had felt on the day of the exercises in the town hall. But the town hall had been crowded and stiflingly hot, and the library was empty, and so chilly that she had kept on her jacket. Five minutes before she had felt perfectly well, and now it seemed as if she were going to die. The bit of lace at which she still languidly worked dropped from her fingers, and the steel crochet hook clattered to the floor. She pressed her temples hard between her damp hands, steadying herself against the desk, while a wave of sickness swept over her. Little by little it subsided, and after a few minutes she stood up, shaken and terrified, groped for her hat, and stumbled out into the air. But the whole sunlit autumn world reeled and roared around her, as she dragged herself along the interminable length of the road home. As she approached the red house she saw a buggy standing at the door, and her heart gave a leap. But it was only Mr. Royal, who got out, his travelling bag in hand. He saw her coming and waited in the porch. She was conscious that he was looking at her intently, as if there was something strange in her appearance, and she threw back her head with a desperate effort at ease. Their eyes met, and she said, "'You back?' as if nothing had happened, and he answered, "'Yes, I'm back.' And walked in ahead of her, pushing open the door of his office. She climbed to her room, every step of the stairs holding her fast, as if her feet were lined with glue. Two days later she descended from the train at Nettleton, and walked out of the station into the dusty square. The brief interval of cold weather was over, and the day was as soft and almost as hot as when she and Harney had emerged on the same scene on the Fourth of July. In the square the same broken-down hacks and carry-alls stood drawn up in a despondent line, and the laying horses with flynets over their withers swayed their heads drearily to and fro. She recognized the staring signs over the eating-houses and billiard saloons, and the long lines of wires on lofty poles tapering down the main street to the park at its other end. Taking the way the wires pointed she went on hastily with bent head till she reached a wide transverse street with a brick building at the corner. She crossed the street and glanced furtively up at the front of the brick building, and entered a door opening on a flight of steep brass-rimmed stairs. On the second landing she rang a bell, and a mulatto girl with a bushy head and a frilled apron led her into a hall where a stuffed fox on its hind legs proffered a brass card tray to visitors. At the back of the hall was a glazed door marked Office. After waiting a few minutes in a handsomely furnished room with plush sofas surmounted by large gold-framed photographs of showy young women, charity was shown into the Office. When she came out of the glazed door Dr. Merkel followed and led her into another room, smaller and still more crowded with plush and gold frames. Dr. Merkel was a plump woman with small bright eyes, an immense mass of black hair coming down low on her forehead and unnaturally white and even teeth. She wore a rich black dress with gold chains and charms hanging from her bosom. Her hands were large and smooth and quick in all their movements, and she smelt of musk and carboleic acid. She smiled on charity with all her faultless teeth. "'Sit down, my dear. Wouldn't you like a little drop of something to pick you up? No? Well, just lay back a minute, then. There's nothing to be done just yet. But in about a month, if you'll step round again, I could take you right into my own house for two or three days, and there wouldn't be a might of trouble, mercy me, the next time you'll know better into fret like this.'" Charity gazed at her with widening eyes. This woman with the false hair, the false teeth, the false murderous smile. What was she offering her but immunity from some unthinkable crime? Charity till then had been conscious only of a vague self-disgust and a frightening physical distress. Now, of a sudden, there came to her the grave surprise of motherhood. She had come to this dreadful place because she knew of no other way of making sure that she was not mistaken about her state, and the woman had taken her for a miserable creature like Julia. The thought was so horrible that she sprang up, white, and shaking, one of her great rushes of anger sweeping over her. Dr. Merkel, still smiling, also rose. Why do you run off in such a hurry? You can stretch out right here on my sofa. She paused, and her smile grew more motherly. Afterwards, if there's been any talk at home and you want to get away for a while, I have a lady friend in Boston who's looking for a companion. You're the very one to suit her, my dear. Charity had reached the door. I don't want to stay. I don't want to come back here. She stammered her hand on the knob, but with a swift movement, Dr. Merkel edged her from the threshold. Oh, very well. Five dollars, please. Charity looked helplessly at the doctor's tight lips and rigid face. Her last savings had gone in repaying Ali for the cost of Miss Balch's ruined blouse, and she had had to borrow four dollars from her friend to pay for her railway ticket and cover the doctor's fee. It had never occurred to her that medical advice could cost more than two dollars. I didn't know. I haven't got that much. She faltered, bursting into tears. Dr. Merkel gave a short laugh which did not show her teeth and inquired with concision if Charity supposed she ran the establishment for her own amusement. She leaned her firm shoulders against the door as she spoke, like a grim jailer making terms with her captive. You say you'll come round and settle later? I've heard that pretty often, too. Give me your address, and if you can't pay me, I'll send the bill to your folks. What? I can't understand what you say. That don't suit you either? My, you're pretty particular for a girl that ain't got enough to settle her own bills. She paused and fixed her eyes on the brooch with the blue stone that Charity had pinned to her blouse. Ain't you ashamed to talk that way to a lady that's got to earn her living when you go about with jewelry like that on you? It ain't in my line, and I do it only as a favour. But if you're a mind to leave that brooch as a pledge, I don't say no. Yes, of course you can get it back when you bring me my money. On the way home she felt an immense and unexpected quietude. It had been horrible to have to leave Harney's gift in the woman's hands, but even at that price the news she brought away had not been too dearly bought. She sat with half-closed eyes as the train rushed through the familiar landscape, and now the memories of her former journey instead of flying before her like dead leaves seemed to be ripening in her blood like sleeping grain. She would never again know what it was to feel herself alone. Everything seemed to have grown suddenly clear and simple. She no longer had any difficulty in picturing herself as Harney's wife now that she was the mother of his child. And compared to her sovereign right, Annabelle Balch's claim seemed no more than a girl's sentimental fancy. That evening at the gate of the Red House she found Allie waiting in the dusk. I was down at the post-office just as they were closing up, and Will Target said there was a letter for you, so I brought it. Allie held out the letter, looking at Charity with piercing sympathy. Since the scene of the torn blouse there had been a new and fearful admiration in the eyes she bent on her friend. Charity snatched the letter with a laugh. Oh, thank you. Good night. She called out over her shoulder as she ran up the path. If she had lingered a moment she knew she would have had Allie at her heels. She hurried upstairs and felt her way into her dark room. Her hands trembled as she groped for the matches and lit her candle. And the flap of the envelope was so closely stuck that she had to find her scissors and slid it open. At length she read, Dear Charity, I have your letter and it touches me more than I can say. Won't you trust me in return to do my best? There are things it is hard to explain, much less to justify, but your generosity makes everything easier. All I can do now is to thank you from my soul for understanding. You're telling me that you wanted me to do right has helped me beyond expression. If ever there is a hope of realizing what we dreamed of you will see me back on the instant, and I haven't yet lost that hope. She read the letter with a rush, then she went over and over it, each time more slowly and painstakingly. It was so beautifully expressed that she found it almost as difficult to understand as the gentleman's explanation of the Bible pictures at Neddleton, but gradually she became aware that the gist of its meaning lay in the last few words. If ever there is a hope of realizing what we dreamed of. But then he wasn't even sure of that. She understood now that every word and every reticence was in a vowel of Annabel Bolch's prior claim. It was true that he was engaged to her, and that he had not yet found a way of breaking his engagement. As she read the letter over, Charity understood what it must have cost him to write it. He was not trying to evade the importunate claim. He was honestly and contritely struggling between opposing duties. She did not even reproach him in her thoughts for having concealed from her that he was not free. She could not see anything more reprehensible in his conduct than in her own. From the first she had needed him more than he had wanted her, and the power that had swept them together had been as far beyond resistance as a great gale loosening the leaves of the forest. Only there stood between them fixed and upright in the general upheaval the indestructible figure of Annabel Bolch. Faced aface with his admission of the fact she sat staring at the letter. A cold tremor ran over her, and the hard sobs struggled up into her throat and shook her from head to foot. For a while she was caught and tossed on great waves of anguish that left her hardly conscious of anything but the blind struggle against their assaults. Then, little by little she began to relive with a dreadful poignancy, each separate stage of her poor romance. Foolish things she had said came back to her. Gay answers Harney had made, his first kiss in the darkness between the fireworks. They're choosing the blue brooch together, the way he had teased her about the letters she had dropped in her flight from the evangelist. All these memories, and a thousand others, hummed through her brain till his nearness grew so vivid that she felt his fingers in her hair and his warm breath on her cheek as he bent her head back like a flower. These things were hers. They had passed into her blood and become a part of her. They were building the child in her womb. It was impossible to tear asunder strands of life so interwoven. The conviction gradually strengthened her, and she began to form in her mind the first words of the letter she meant to write to Harney. She wanted to write it at once, and with feverish hands she began to rummage in her drawer for a sheet of letter paper. But there was none left. She must go downstairs to get it. She had a superstitious feeling that the letter must be written on the instant that setting down her secret in words would bring her reassurance and safety, and taking up her candle she went down to Mr. Royal's office. At that hour she was not likely to find him there. He had probably had his supper and walked over to Carrick Fry's. She pushed open the door of the unlit room and the light of her lifted candle fell on his figure, seated in the darkness in his high-backed chair. His arms lay along the arms of the chair, and his head was bent a little. But he lifted it quickly as charity entered. She started back as their eyes met, remembering that her own were red with weeping and that her face was livid with the fatigue and emotion of her journey. But it was too late to escape, and she stood and looked at him in silence. He had risen from his chair and came toward her without stretched hands. The gesture was so unexpected that she let him take her hands in his, and they stood thus without speaking, till Mr. Royal said gravely, Charity, was you looking for me? She freed herself abruptly and fell back. Me? No. She set down the candle on his desk. I wanted some letter paper. That's all. His face contracted, and the bushy brows jetted forward over his eyes. Without answering he opened the drawer of the desk, took out a sheet of paper and an envelope, and pushed them toward her. Do you want a stamp, too? He asked. She nodded, and he gave her the stamp. As he did so she felt that he was looking at her intently, and she knew that the candlelight flickering up on her white face must be distorting her swollen features and exaggerating the dark rings about her eyes. She snatched up the paper, her reassurance dissolving under his pitiless gaze, in which she seemed to read the grim perception of her state, and the ironic recollection of the day when, in that very room, he had offered to compel Harney to marry her. His look seemed to say that he knew she had taken the paper to write to her lover, who had left her as he had warned her she would be left. She remembered the scorn with which she had turned from him that day, and knew, if he guessed the truth, what a list of old scores it must settle. She turned and fled upstairs, but when she got back to her room all the words that had been waiting had vanished. If she could have gone to Harney it would have been different. She would only have had to show herself to let his memories speak for her. But she had no money left, and there was no one from whom she could have borrowed enough for such a journey. There was nothing to do but to write and to wait his reply. For a long time she sat bent above the blank page, but she found nothing to say that really expressed what she was feeling. Harney had written that she had made it easier for him, and she was glad it was so. She did not want to make things hard. She knew she had it in her power to do that. She held his fate in her hands. All she had to do was to tell him the truth, but that was the very fact that held her back. Her five minutes face to face with Mr. Royal had stripped her of her last illusion, and brought her back to North Dormer's point of view. Distinctly and pitilessly there rose before her the fate of the girl who was married to make things right. She had seen too many village love stories end in that way. Poor Rose Cole's miserable marriage was of the number, and what good had come of it for her or for Halston's Skaff. They had hated each other from the day the minister married them, and whenever old Mrs. Skaff had a fancy to humiliate her daughter-in-law, she had only to say, Who would ever think the baby's only two, and for a seven-month child, ain't it a wonder what a size he is? North Dormer had treasures of indulgence for brands and the burning, but only derision for those who succeeded in getting snatched from it, and charity had always understood Julia Haas's refusal to be snatched. Only was there no alternative but Julius? Her soul recoiled from the vision of the white-faced woman among the plush sofas and gilt frames. In the established order of things, as she knew them, she saw no place for her individual adventure. She sat in her chair without undressing till faint gray streaks began to divide the black slates of the shutters. Then she stood up and pushed them open, letting in the light. The coming of a new day brought a sharper consciousness of ineluctable reality, and with a sense of the need of action, she looked at herself in the glass, and saw her face, white in the autumn dawn, with pinched cheeks and dark-ringed eyes, and all the marks of her state that she herself would never have noticed, but that Dr. Merkel's diagnosis had made plain to her. She could not hope that those signs would escape the watchful village. Even before her figure lost its shape, she knew her face would betray her. Leaning from her window, she looked out on the dark and empty scene, the ash in houses with shuttered windows, the gray road climbing the slope to the hemlock belt above the cemetery, and the heavy mass of the mountain black against a rainy sky. To the east a space of light was broadening above the forest, but over that also the clouds hung. Slowly her gaze travelled across the field to the rugged curve of the hills. She had looked out so often on that lifeless circle, and wondered if anything could ever happen to anyone who was enclosed in it. Almost without conscious thought, her decision had been reached. As her eyes had followed the circle of the hills, her mind had also travelled the old round. She supposed it was something in her blood that made the mountain the only answer to her questioning. The inevitable escape from all that hemmed her in and beset her. At any rate it began to loom against the rainy dawn, and the longer she looked at it, the more clearly she understood that now at last she was really going there. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The rain held off, and an hour later, when she started, wild gleams of sunlight were blowing across the fields. After Harney's departure, she had returned her bicycle to its owner at Creston, and she was not sure of being able to walk all the way to the mountain. The deserted house was on the road, but the idea of spending the night there was un-endurable, and she meant to try to push on to Hamlin, where she could sleep under a woodshed if her strength should fail her. Her preparations had been made with quiet forethought. Before starting she had forced herself to swallow a glass of milk and eat a piece of bread, and she had put in her canvas satchel a little packet of the chocolate that Harney always carried in his bicycle bag. She wanted above all to keep up her strength and reach her destination without attracting notice. Mile by mile she retraced the road over which she had so often flown to her lover. When she reached the turn where the wood road branched off from the Creston Highway, she remembered the gospel tent, long since folded up and transplanted, and her start of involuntary terror when the fat evangelist had said, Your Saviour knows everything, come and confess your guilt. There was no sense of guilt in her now, but only a desperate desire to defend her secret from her reverent eyes, and begin life again among people to whom the harsh code of the village was unknown. The impulse did not shape itself in thought. She only knew she must save her baby, and hide herself with it somewhere where no one would ever come to trouble them. She walked on and on, growing more heavy-footed as the day advanced. It seemed a cruel chance that compelled her to retrace every step of the way to the deserted house, and when she came in sight of the orchard and the silver gray roof slanting crookedly through the laden branches, her strength failed her, and she sat down by the roadside. She sat there a long time trying to gather the courage to start again, and walk past the broken gate and the untrimmed rose-bushes strung with scarlet hips. A few drops of rain were falling, and she thought of the warm evenings when she and Harney had sat embraced in the shadowy room, and the noise of summer showers on the roof had rustled through their kisses. At length she understood that if she stayed any longer the rain might compel her to take shelter in the house overnight, and she got up and walked on, averting her eyes as she came abreast of the white gate and the tangled garden. The hours wore on, and she walked more and more slowly, pausing now and then to rest, and to eat a little bread and an apple picked up from the roadside. Her body seemed to grow heavier with every yard of the way, and she wondered how she would be able to carry her child later, if already he laid such a burden on her. A fresh wind had sprung up, scattering the rain and blowing down keenly from the mountain. Presently the clouds lowered again, and a few white darts struck her in the face. It was the first snow falling over Hamlin. The roofs of the lonely village were only half a mile ahead, and she was resolved to push beyond it, and try to reach the mountain that night. She had no clear plan of action, except that, once in the settlement, she meant to look for Liff Hyatt, and get him to take her to her mother. She herself had been born, as her own baby was going to be born, and whatever her mother's subsequent life had been, she could hardly help remembering the past, and receiving a daughter who was facing the trouble she had known. Suddenly the deadly faintness came over her once more, and she sat down on the bank, and leaned her head against a tree trunk. The long road and the cloudy landscape vanished from her eyes, and for a time she seemed to be circling about in some terrible wheeling darkness. Then that too faded. She opened her eyes and saw a buggy drawn up beside her, and a man who had jumped down from it, and was gazing at her with a puzzled face. Slowly consciousness came back, and she saw that the man was Liff Hyatt. She was dimly aware that he was asking her something, and she looked at him in silence, trying to find the strength to speak, and length her voice stirred in her throat, and she said in a whisper, I'm going up the mountain. Up the mountain! he repeated, drawing aside a little, and as he moved she saw behind him, in the buggy, a heavily coated figure with a familiar pink face, and gold spectacles on the bridge of a Grecian nose. Charity, what on earth are you doing here? Mr. Miles exclaimed, throwing the reins on the horse's back, and scrambling down from the buggy. She lifted her heavy eyes to his. I'm going to see my mother. The two men glanced at each other, and for a moment neither of them spoke. Then Mr. Miles said, You look ill, my dear, and it's a long way. Do you think it's wise? Charity stood up. I've got to go to her. A vague, mirthless grin contracted Liff Hyatt's face, and Mr. Miles again spoke uncertainly. You know then. You'd been told? She stared at him. I don't know what you mean. I want to go to her. Mr. Miles was examining her thoughtfully. She fancied she saw change in his expression, and the blood rushed to her forehead. I just want to go to her, she repeated. He laid his hand on her arm. My child, your mother is dying. Liff Hyatt came down to fetch me. Get in, and come with us. He helped her up to the seat at his side. Liff Hyatt clambered in at the back, and they drove off toward Hamblin. At first Charity had hardly grasped what Mr. Miles was saying. The physical relief of finding herself seated in the buggy, and securely on her road to the mountain, it faced the impression of his words. But as her head cleared, she began to understand. She knew the mountain had but the most infrequent intercourse with the valleys. She had often enough heard it said that no one ever went up there except the minister, when someone was dying, and now it was her mother who was dying, and she would find herself as much alone on the mountain as anywhere else in the world. The sense of unescapable isolation was all she could feel for the moment. Then she began to wonder at the strangeness of its being Mr. Miles who had undertaken to perform this grim errand. He did not seem in the least like the kind of man who would care to go up the mountain, but here he was at her side guiding the horse with a firm hand, and bending on her the kindly gleam of his spectacles as if there were nothing unusual in their being together in such circumstances. For a while she found it impossible to speak, and he seemed to understand this, and made no attempt to question her. But presently she felt her tears rise and flow down over her drawn cheeks, and he must have seen them too, for he laid his hand on hers and said in a low voice, won't you tell me what is troubling you? She shook her head, and he did not insist, but after a while he said, in the same low tone, so that they should not be overheard. Charity, what do you know of your childhood before you came down to North Dormer? She controlled herself and answered, Nothing, only what I heard Mr. Royal say one day. He said he brought me down, because my father went to prison. And you've never been up there since? Never. Mr. Miles was silent again, then he said, I'm glad you're coming with me now. Perhaps we may find your mother alive, and she may know that you have come. They had reached Hamplin, where the snow-flurry had left white patches in the rough grass on the roadside, and in the angles of the roofs facing north. It was a poor, bleak village under the granite flank of the mountain, and as soon as they left it they began to climb. The road was steep and full of ruts, and the horse settled down to a walk, while they mounted and mounted, the world dropping away below them in great, mottled stretches of forest and field, and stormy, dark blue distances. Charity had often had visions of this ascent of the mountain, but she had not known it would reveal so wide a country, and the sight of those strange lands reaching away on every side gave her a new sense of Harney's remoteness. She knew he must be miles and miles beyond the last range of hills that seemed to be the outmost verge of things, and she wondered how she had ever dreamed of going to New York to find him. As the road mounted, the country grew bleaker, and they drove across fields of faded mountain grass, bleached by long months beneath the snow. In the hollows a few white birches trembled, or a mountain ash lit its scarlet clusters, but only a scant growth of pines darkened the granite ledges. The wind was blowing fiercely across the open slopes, the horse faced it with bent head and straining flanks, and now and then the buggy swayed so that charity had to clutch its side. Mr. Miles had not spoken again. He seemed to understand that she wanted to be left alone. After a while the track they were following forked, and he pulled up the horse, as if uncertain of the way. Liff Hyatt craned his head around from the back, and shouted against the wind, Left! and they turned into a stunted pine wood, and began to drive down the other side of the mountain. A mile or two farther on they came out on a clearing, where two or three low houses lay in stony fields, crouching among the rocks as if to brace themselves against the wind. They were hardly more than sheds, built of logs and rough boards, with tin stovepipes sticking out of their roofs. The sun was setting and dusk had already fallen on the lower world, but a yellow glare still lay on the lonely hillside and the crouching houses. The next moment it faded and left the landscape in dark autumn twilight. Over there, Liff called out, stretching his long arm over Mr. Miles' shoulder, the clergyman turned left, across a bit of bare ground, overgrown with docks and nettles, and stopped before the most ruinous of the sheds. A stovepipe reached its crooked arm out of one window, and the broken panes of the other were stuffed with rags and paper. In contrast to such a dwelling, the brown house and the swamp might have stood for the home of plenty. As the buggy drew up, two or three mongrel dogs jumped out of the twilight with a great barking, and a young man slouched to the door and stood there, staring. In the twilight charity saw that his face had the same sodden look as Bash Hyatt's, the day she had seen him sleeping by the stove. He made no effort to silence the dogs, but leaned in the door, as if roused from a drunken lethargy, while Mr. Miles got out of the buggy. Is it here? the clergyman asked Lyff in a low voice, and Lyff nodded. Mr. Miles turned to charity. Just hold the horse a minute, my dear. I'll go in first," he said, putting the reins in her hands. She took them passively, and sat staring straight ahead of her at the darkening scene, while Mr. Miles and Lyff Hyatt went up to the house. They stood a few minutes talking with a man in the door, and then Mr. Miles came back. As he came close, charity saw that his smooth, pink face, or a frightened, solemn look. Your mother is dead, charity. You'd better come with me," he said. She got down and followed him, while Lyff led the horse away. As she approached the door, she said to herself, This is where I was born. This is where I belong. She had said it to herself often enough, as she looked across the sunlit valleys at the mountain. But it had meant nothing then, and now it had become a reality. Mr. Miles took her gently by the arm, and they entered what appeared to be the only room in the house. It was so dark that she could just discern a group of a dozen people sitting or sprawling about a table made of boards, laid across two barrels. They looked up listlessly, as Mr. Miles and charity came in, and a woman's thick voice said, Here's the preacher, but no one moved. Mr. Miles paused and looked about him, then he turned to the young man who had met them at the door. Is the body here? he asked. The young man, instead of answering, turned his head toward the group. Where's the candle? I told her to bring a candle. He said, with sudden harshness, to a girl who was lolling against the table. She did not answer, but another man got up, and took from some corner a candle stuck into a bottle. How light-lighted! The stove's out, the girl grumbled. Mr. Miles fumbled under his heavy wrappings and drew out a matchbox. He held a match to the candle, and in a moment or two a faint circle of light fell on the pale, aguish heads that started out of the shadow like the heads of nocturnal animals. Mary's over there, someone said, and Mr. Miles, taking the bottle in his hand, passed behind the table. Charity followed him, and they stood before a mattress on the floor in a corner of the room. A woman lay on it, but she did not look like a dead woman. She seemed to have fallen across her squalid bed in a drunken sleep, and to have been left lying where she fell, in her ragged, disordered clothes. One arm was flung above her head, one leg drawn up under a torn skirt that left the other bare to the knee, and a swollen, glistening leg with a ragged stocking rolled down about the ankle. The woman lay on her back, her eyes staring up unblinkingly at the candle that trembled in Mr. Miles's hand. She just dropped off, a woman said, over the shoulder of the others, and the young man added, I just come in and found her. An elderly man with lank hair and a feeble grin pushed between them. It was like this. I says to her, only the night before, if you don't take and quit, I says to her. Someone pulled him back and sent him reeling against a bench along the wall, where he dropped down muttering his unheeded narrative. There was a silence, then the young woman who had been lolling against the table suddenly parted the group, and stood in front of Charity. She was healthier and robuster looking than the others, and her weather-beaten face had a certain sullen beauty. Who's the girl? Who brought her here? She said, fixing her eyes mistrustfully on the young man who had rebuked her for not having a candle ready. Mr. Miles spoke. I brought her. She is Mary Hyatt's daughter. What? Her too? The girl sneered, and the young man turned on her with an oath. Shut your mouth, damn you, or get out of here! he said. Then he relapsed into his former apathy, and dropped down on the bench, leaning his head against the wall. Mr. Miles had set the candle on the floor, and taken off his heavy coat. He turned to Charity. Come and help me, he said. He knelt down by the mattress, and pressed the lids over the dead woman's eyes. Charity, trembling and sick, knelt beside him, and tried to compose her mother's body. She drew the stalking over the dreadful, glistening leg, and pulled the skirt down to the battered, upturned boots. As she did so, she looked at her mother's face, thin yet swollen, with the lips parted in a frozen gasp above the broken teeth. There was no sign in it of anything human. She lay there like a dead dog in a ditch. Charity's hands grew cold as they touched her. Mr. Miles drew the woman's arms across her breast, and laid his coat over her. Then he covered her face with his handkerchief, and placed the bottle with the candle in it at her head. Having done this, he stood up. Is there no coffin? he asked, turning to the group behind him. There was a moment of bewildered silence. Then the fierce girl spoke up. You'd oughta brought it with you. Where'd we get one here I'd like to know. Mr. Miles, looking at the others, repeated. Is it possible you have no coffin ready? That's what I say, them that has it sleeps better, an old woman murmured, but then she never had no bed. And the stove weren't hers, said the lank-haired man on the defensive. Mr. Miles turned away from them, and moved a few steps apart. He had drawn a book from his pocket, and after a pause he opened it, and began to read, holding the book at arm's length and low down, so that the pages caught the feeble light. Charity had remained on her knees by the mattress. Now that her mother's face was covered, it was easier to stay near her, and avoid the sight of the living faces, which too horribly showed by what stages hers had lapsed into death. I am the resurrection and the life, Mr. Miles began. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, though after my skin worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. In my flesh shall I see God. Charity thought of the gaping mouth and stony eyes under the handkerchief, and of the glistening leg over which she had drawn the stocking. We brought nothing into this world, and we shall take nothing out of it. There was a sudden muttering at a scuffle at the back of the group. I brought the stove, said the elderly man, with lank-hair, pushing his way between the others. I went down to Creston and bought it, and I got a right to take it out of here, and all like any feller, says I ain't. Sit down, damn you, shuddered the tall youth who had been drowsing on the bench against the wall. For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain. He heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them. Will it are his a woman in the background interjected in a frightened wine? The tall youth staggered to his feet. If you don't hold your mouths, I'll turn you all out of here, the whole lot of you. He cried with many oaths. Guadminister, don't let them phase you. Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For this corruptible must put on in corruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruption shall have put on in corruption, and when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. One by one the mighty words fell on Charity's bowed head, soothing the horror, subduing the tumult, mastering her as they mastered the drink-dazed creatures at her back. Mr. Miles read to the last word, and then closed the book. Is the grave ready? he asked. Liv Hyatt, who had come in while he was reading, nodded a yes, and pushed forward to the side of the mattress. The young man of the bench, who seemed to assert some sort of right of kinship with the dead woman, got to his feet again, and the proprietor of the stove joined him. Between them they raised up the mattress, but their movements were unsteady, and the coat slipped to the floor, revealing the poor body in its helpless misery. Charity, picking up the coat, covered her mother once more. Liv had brought a lantern, and the old woman who had already spoken took it up, and opened the door to let the little procession pass out. The wind had dropped, and the night was very dark and bitterly cold. The old woman walked ahead, the lantern shaking in her hand, and spreading out before her a pale patch of dead grass, and coarse-leaved weeds enclosed in an immensity of blackness. Mr. Miles took charity by the arm, and side by side they walked behind the mattress. At length the old woman with the lantern stopped, and charity saw the light fall on the stooping shoulders of the bearers, and on a ridge of upheaved earth over which they were bending. Mr. Miles released her arm, and approached the hollow on the other side of the ridge, and while the men stooped down, lowering the mattress into the grave, he began to speak again. Man that is born a woman hath put a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down. He fleeth, as it were a shadow. Yet, O Lord God, most holy, O Lord, most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. Easy there, is she down? Pipe the claimant to the stove, and the young man called over his shoulder, lift the light there, can't you? There was a pause, during which the light floated uncertainly over the open grave. Someone bent down, and pulled out Mr. Miles' coat. No, no, leave the handkerchief, he interposed, and then lift high it, coming forward with his spade, began to shovel in the earth. For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed, we therefore commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Lifts gaunt shoulders rose and bent in the lantern light, as he dashed the clods of earth into the grave. God, it's froze already, he muttered, spitting into his palm and passing his ragged shirt sleeve across his perspiring face. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. The last spadeful of earth fell on the vile body of Mary Hyatt, and lift rested on his spade, his shoulder blades still heaving with the effort. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us. Mr. Miles took the lantern from the old woman's hand, and swept its light across the circle of bleared faces. Now kneel down, all of you," he commanded, in a voice of authority the charity had never heard. She knelt down at the edge of the grave, and the others, stiffly and hesitatingly, got to their knees beside her. Mr. Miles knelt too, and now pray with me. You know this prayer," he said, and he began. Our Father, which art in heaven. One or two of the women falteringly took the words up, and when he ended the lank-haired man flung himself on the neck of the tall youth. It was this way," he said. I told her the night before, I says to her. The reminiscence ended in a sob. Mr. Miles had been getting into his coat again. He came up to charity, who had remained passively kneeling by the rough mound of earth. My child, you must come. It's very late. She lifted her eyes to his face. He seemed to speak out of another world. I ain't coming. I'm going to stay here. Here? Where? What do you mean? These are my folks. I'm going to stay with them. Mr. Miles lowered his voice. But it's not possible. You don't know what you are doing. You can't stay among these people. You must come with me. She shook her head, and rose from her knees. The group about the grave had scattered in the darkness, but the old woman with the lantern stood waiting. Her mournful, withered face was not unkind, and charity went up to her. Have you got a place where I can lie down for the night? She asked. Liff came up, leading the buggy out of the night. He looked from one to the other with his feeble smile. She's my mother. She'll take you home, he said, and he added, raising his voice to speak to the old woman. It's the girl from Lawyer Royals, Mary's girl. You remember? The woman nodded and raised her sad old eyes to charities. When Mr. Miles and Liff clambered into the buggy, she went ahead with the lantern to show them the track they were to follow. Then she turned back, and in silence she and charity walked away together through the night. End of CHAPTER XVI This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Robin Cotter April 2007 Summer by Edith Wharton CHAPTER XVII Charity lay on the floor on a mattress as her dead mother's body had lain. The room in which she lay was cold and dark and low-ceilinged, and even poorer and bearer than the scene of Mary Hyatt's earthly pilgrimage. On the other side of the fireless stove, Liff Hyatt's mother slept on a blanket with two children. Her grandchildren, she said, rolled up against her like sleeping puppies. They had their thin clothes spread over them, having given the only other blanket to their guest. Through the small square of glass in the opposite wall, Charity saw a deep funnel of sky, so black, so remote, so palpitating with frosty stars, that her very soul seemed to be sucked into it. Up there, somewhere, she supposed, the God whom Mr. Miles had invoked was waiting for Mary Hyatt to appear. What a long flight it was! And what would she have to say when she reached him? Charity's bewildered brain labored with the attempt to picture her mother's past, and to relate it in any way to the designs of a just but merciful God. But it was impossible to imagine any link between them. She herself felt as remote from the poor creature, she had seen lowered into her hastily dug grave, as if the height of the heavens divided them. She had seen poverty and misfortune in her life. But in a community where poor, thrifty Mrs. Hawes in the industrious alley represented the nearest approach to destitution, there was nothing to suggest the savage misery of the mountain farmers. As she lay there, half stunned by her tragic initiation, Charity vainly tried to think herself into the life about her. But she could not even make out what relationship these people bore to each other, or to her dead mother. They seemed to be herded together in a sort of passive promiscuity, in which their common misery was the strongest link. She tried to picture to herself what her life would have been if she had grown up on the mountain, running wild in rags, sleeping on the floor curled up against her mother, like the pale-faced children huddled against old Mrs. Hyatt, and turning into a fierce bewildered creature, like the girl who had posturized her in such strange words. She was frightened by the secret affinity she had felt with this girl, and by the light it threw on her own beginnings. Then she remembered what Mr. Royal had said in telling her story to Lucius Harney. Yes, there was a mother, but she was glad to have the child go. She had given her to anybody. Well, after all, was her mother so much to blame? Charity, since that day, had always thought of her as destitute of all human feeling. Now she seemed merely pitiful. What mother would not want to save her child from such a life? Charity thought of the future of her own child, and tears welled into her aching eyes, and ran down over her face. If she had been less exhausted, less burdened with his weight, she would have sprung up then and there, and fled away. The grim hours of the night dragged themselves slowly by, and at last the sky paled, and dawned through a cold blue beam into the room. She lay in her corner, staring at the dirty floor. The clothesline hung with decaying rags. The old woman huddled against the cold stove, and the light gradually spreading across the wintry world, and bringing with it a new day in which she would have to live, to choose, to act, to make herself a place among these people, or to go back to the life she had left. A mortal lassitude weighed on her. There were moments when she felt that all she asked was to go on lying there, unnoticed. Then her mind revolted at the thought of becoming one of the miserable herd from which she sprang, and it seemed as though, to save her child from such a fate, she would find strength to travel any distance, and bear any burden life might put on her. Big thoughts of Nettleton flitted through her mind. She said to herself that she would find some quiet place where she could bear her child, and give it to decent people to keep, and then she would go out like Julia Hawes and earn its living and hers. She knew that girls of that kind sometimes made enough to have their children nicely cared for, and every other consideration disappeared in the vision of her baby, cleaned and combed and rosy, and hidden away somewhere where she could run in and kiss it, and bring it to pretty things to wear. Anything, anything was better than to add another life to the nest of misery on the mountain. The old woman and the children were still sleeping when Charity rose from her mattress. Her body was stiff with cold and fatigue, and she moved slowly, lest her heavy steps should rouse them. She was faint with hunger, and had nothing left in her satchel, but on the table she saw the half of a stale loaf. No doubt it was to serve as the breakfast of old Mrs. Hyatt and the children, but Charity did not care. She had her own baby to think of. She broke off a piece of the bread and ate it greedily, then her glance fell on the thin faces of the sleeping children, and filled with compunction she rummaged in her satchel for something with which to pay for what she had taken. She found one of the pretty chemises that Allie had made for her, with a blue ribbon run through its edging. It was one of the dainty things on which she had squandered her savings, and as she looked at it the blood rushed to her forehead. She laid the chemise on the table, and, stealing across the floor, lifted the latch and went out. The morning was icy cold, and a pale sun was just rising above the eastern shoulder of the mountain. The houses scattered on the hillside lay cold and smokeless under the sun-flucked clouds, and not a human being was in sight. Charity paused on the threshold, and tried to discover the road by which she had come the night before. Across the field, surrounding Mrs. Hyatt's shanty, she saw the tumbledown house in which she supposed the funeral service had taken place. The trail ran across the ground between the two houses, and disappeared in the pine wood on the flank of the mountain, and a little way to the right, under a wind-beaten thorn, a mound of fresh earth made a dark spot on the fawn-coloured stubble. Charity walked across the field to the ground, as she approached it. She heard a bird's note in the still air, and, looking up, she saw a brown songsbarrow perched in an upper branch of the thorn above the grave. She stood a minute listening to his small, solitary song. Then she rejoined the trail, and began to mount the hill to the pine wood. Thus far she had been impelled by the blind instinct of flight, but each step seemed to bring her nearer to the realities of which her feverish vigil had given only a shadowy image. Now that she walked again in a daylight world, on the way back to familiar things, her imagination moved more soberly. On one point she was still decided. She could not remain at North Dormer, and the sooner she got away from it the better, but everything beyond was darkness. As she continued to climb the air grew keener, and when she passed from the shelter of the pines to the open grassy roof of the mountain, the cold wind of the night before sprang out on her. She bent her shoulders and struggled on against it for a while, but presently her breath failed, and she sat down under a ledge of rock overhung by shivering birches. From where she sat she saw the trail wandering across the bleached grass in the direction of Hamlin, and the granite wall of the mountain falling away to infinite distances. On that side of the ridge the valleys still lay in wintry shadow, but in the plain beyond the sun was touching village roofs and steeples, and gilding the haze of smoke over far-off, invisible towns. Charity felt herself a mere speck in the lonely circle of the sky. The events of the last two days seemed to have divided her forever from her short dream of bliss. Even Harney's image had been blurred by that crushing experience. She thought of him is so remote from her that he seemed hardly more than a memory. In her fagged and floating mind only one sensation had the weight of reality. It was the bodily burden of her child. But for it she would have felt as rootless as the whiffs of thistle down the wind blew past her. Her child was like a load that held her down, and yet like a hand that pulled her to her feet. She said to herself that she must get up and struggle on. Her eyes turned back to the trail across the top of the mountain, and in the distance she saw a buggy against the sky. She knew its antique outline and the gaunt build of the old horse pressing forward with lowered head, and after a moment she recognized the heavy bulk of the man who held the reins. The buggy was following the trail and making straight for the pinewood through which she had climbed, and she knew at once that the driver was in search of her. Her first impulse was to crouch down into the ledge till he had passed, but the instinct of concealment was overruled by the relief of feeling that someone was near her in the awful emptiness. She stood up and walked toward the buggy. Mr. Royal saw her, and touched the horse with the whip. A minute or two later he was abreast of charity, their eyes met, and without speaking he leaned over and helped her up into the buggy. She tried to speak, to stammer out some explanation, but no words came to her, and as he drew the cover over her knees he simply said, the minister told me he'd left you up here, so I come up for you. He turned the horse's head, and they began to jog back toward Hamlin. Charity sat speechless, staring straight ahead of her, and Mr. Royal occasionally uttered a word of encouragement to the horse. Get along there, Dan. I gave him a rest at Hamlin, but I brought him along pretty quick, and it's a stiff pull up here against the wind. As he spoke, it occurred to her for the first time that to reach the top of the mountain so early he must have left North Dormer at the coldest hour of the night, and have traveled steadily, but for the halt at Hamlin, and she felt a softness at her heart which no act of his had ever produced since he had brought her the crimson rambler because she had given up boarding school to stay with him. After an interval he began again. It was a day just like this, only spitting snow when I come up here for you the first time. Then, as if fearing that she might take his remark as a reminder of past benefits, he added quickly, I don't know, as you think it was such a good job, either. Yes, I do, she murmured, looking straight ahead of her. Well, he said, I tried. He did not finish the sentence, and she could think of nothing more to say. Holder, Dan, step out! he muttered, jerking the bridle. We ain't home yet. You cold? he asked abruptly. She shook her head, but he drew the cover higher up, and stooped to tuck it in about the ankles. She continued to look straight ahead. Tears of weariness and weakness were dimming her eyes, and beginning to run over. But she dared not wipe them away, lest he should observe the gesture. They drove in silence, following the long loops of the descent upon Hamlin, and Mr. Royal did not speak again till they reached the outskirts of the village. Then he let the rain's droop on the dashboard, and drew out his watch. Charity, he said, you look fair done up, and North Dormers a goodish way off. I've figured that we'd do better to stop here long enough for you to get a mouthful of breakfast, and then drive down to Creston, and take the train. She roused herself from her apathetic musing. The train? What train? Mr. Royal, without answering, let the horse jog on till they reached the door of the first house in the village. This is old Mrs. Hobart's place, he said. She'll give us something hot to drink. Charity, half unconsciously, found herself getting out of the buggy, and following him in at the open door. They entered a decent kitchen with a fire crackling in the stove. An old woman with a kindly face was setting out cups and saucers on the table. She looked up and nodded as they came in, and Mr. Royal advanced to the stove, clapping his numb hands together. Well, Mrs. Hobart, you got any breakfast for this young lady? You can see she's cold and hungry. Mrs. Hobart smiled on Charity, and took a tin coffee pot from the fire. My, you do look pretty mean, she said compassionately. Charity reddened and sat down at the table. A feeling of complete passiveness had once more come over her, and she was conscious only of the pleasant animal sensations of warmth and rest. Mrs. Hobart put bread and milk on the table, and then went out of the house. Charity saw her leading the horse away to the barn across the yard. She did not come back, and Mr. Royal and Charity sat alone at the table, with the smoking coffee between them. He poured out a cup for her, and put a piece of bread in the saucer, and she began to eat. As the warmth of the coffee flowed through her veins, her thoughts cleared, and she began to feel like a living being again, but the return to life was so painful that the food choked in her throat, and she sat staring down at the table in silent anguish. After a while Mr. Royal pushed back his chair. Now then, he said, if you're a mind to go along, she did not move, and he continued, we can pick up the noon train for Nettleton, if you say so. The words sent the blood rushing to her face, and she raised her startled eyes to his. He was standing on the other side of the table, looking at her kindly and gravely, and suddenly she understood what he was going to say. She continued to sit motionless, a leaden weight upon her lips. You and me have spoke some hard things to each other in our time, Charity, and there's no good that I can see in any more talking now, but I'll never feel any way but one about you. And if you say so, we'll drive down in time to catch that train, and go straight to the minister's house, and when you come back home, you'll come as Mrs. Royal. His voice had the grave persuasive accent that had moved his hearers at the Home Week Festival. She had a sense of depth of mournful tolerance under that easy tone. Her whole body began to tremble with the dread of her own weakness. Oh, I can't! she burst out desperately. Can't what? She herself did not know. She was not sure if she was rejecting what he offered, or already struggling against the temptation of taking what she no longer had a right to. She stood up, shaking and bewildered, and began to speak. I know I ain't been fair to you always, but I want to be now. I want you to know. I want— Her voice failed her, and she stopped. Mr. Royal leaned against the wall. He was paler than usual, but his face was composed and kindly, and her agitation did not appear to perturb him. What's all this about wanting? he said as she paused. Do you know what you really want? I'll tell you. You want to be took home and took care of, and I guess that's all there is to say. No. It's not all. Ain't it? he looked at his watch. Well, I'll tell you another thing. All I want is to know if you'll marry me. If there was anything else, I'd tell you so. But there ain't. Come to my age a man knows the things that matter and the things that don't. That's about the only good turn life does us. His tone was so strong and resolute that it was like a supporting arm about her. She felt her resistance melting, her strength slipping away from her as she spoke. Don't cry, charity. He exclaimed in a shaken voice. She looked up, startled at his emotion, and their eyes met. See here, he said gently, old Dan's come a long distance, and we've got to let him take it easy the rest of the way. He picked up the cloak that had slipped to her chair and laid it about her shoulders. She followed him out of the house and then walked across the yard to the shed where the horse was tied. Mr. Royal unblanketed him and led him out into the road. Charity got into the buggy, and he drew the cover about her and shook out the reins with a clock. When they reached the end of the village, he turned the horse's head toward Creston. End of Chapter 17