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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
barer 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 laboured 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 and the industrious Ally
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 apostrophized 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. Royall had
said in telling her story to Lucius Harney: "Yes, there
was a mother; but she was glad to have the child go.
She'd have 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 dawn threw a cold
blue beam into the room. She lay in her corner staring
at the dirty floor, the clothes-line 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.
Vague 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 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 Ally 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-flecked 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 tumble-down 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 song-sparrow 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 Hamblin, 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 as 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 thistledown 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 pine-wood 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 under 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. Royall 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 Hamblin. Charity sat speechless, staring
straight ahead of her, and Mr. Royall occasionally
uttered a word of encouragement to the horse: "Get
along there, Dan....I gave him a rest at Hamblin; 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 travelled steadily but for the halt at Hamblin;
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 dunno's 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.
"Ho, there, 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 Hamblin, and Mr. Royall did not speak
again till they reached the outskirts of the village.
Then he let the reins droop on the dashboard and drew
out his watch.
"Charity," he said, "you look fair done up, and North
Dormer's a goodish way off. I've figured out 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. Royall, 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. Royall 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. Royall 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. Royall 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. Royall."
His voice had the grave persuasive accent that had
moved his hearers at the Home Week festival; she had a
sense of depths 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. Royall 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 he
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.
Royall 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 cluck. When they
reached the end of the village he turned the horse's
head toward Creston.
Content of CHAPTER XVII [Edith Wharton's novel: Summer]
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