XVIII
IN THE WILDERNESS A CEDAR
In answer to my summons Liddy Ember appeared before me one morning and outspread a Vienna book of coloured fashion-plates.
"Dressmakin' 'd be a real drudgery for me," she said, "if it wasn't for havin' the colour plates an' makin' what I can to look like 'em. Sometimes I get a collar or a cuff that seems almost like the picture. There's always somethin' in the way of a cedar," she added blithely.
"A cedar?" I repeated.
She nodded, her plain face lighting. "That's what Calliope use' to call 'em," she explained; "'I will plant in the wilderness the cedar,' you know – in the Bible." And I did recall the phrase on Calliope's lips, as if it were the theme of her.
From this one and that one, and now and then from her herself, I had heard something of Calliope's love story. Indeed, all Friendship knew it and spoke of it with no possibility of gossip or speculation, but with a kind of genius for consideration. I did not know, however, that it was of this that Liddy meant to speak, for she began her story far afield, with some talk of Oldmoxon house, in which I lived, and of its former tenants.
"Right here in this house is mixed up in it," she said; "I been thinkin' about it all the way up. Not very many have lived here in the Oldmoxon house, and the folks that lived here the year I mean come so quiet nobody knew it until they was here – an' that ain't easy to do in Friendship. First we knew they was in an' housekeepin'. Their accounts was in the name of a Mis' Morgan. We see her now an' then on the street – trim an' elderly an' no airs excep' she wouldn't open up a conversation an' she wouldn't return her calls. 'Most everybody called on her inside the two weeks, but the woman was never home an' she never paid any attention. She didn't seem to have no men folks, an' she settled her bills with checks, like she didn't have any ready money. Little by little we all dropped her, which she ought to of expected. Even when it got around that there was sickness in the house, nobody went near, we feelin' as if we knew as good as the best what dignity calls for.
"But Calliope didn't feel the same about it. Calliope hardly ever felt the same about anything. That is, if it meant feelin' mean. She was a woman that worked, like me, but yet she was wonderful differ'nt. That was when we had our shop together in the house where we lived with the boy – I'll come to him in a minute or two. Besides lace-makin', Calliope had a piano an' taught in the fittin'-room – that was the same as the dinin'-room. Six scholars took. Sometimes I think it was her knowin' music that made her differ'nt.
"We two was sittin' on our porch that night in the first dark. I know a full moon was up back o' the hollyhocks an' makin' its odd little shadows up an' down the yard, an' we could smell the savoury bed. 'Every time I breathe in, somethin' pleasant seems goin' on inside my head,' I rec'lect Calliope's sayin'. But most o' the time we was still an' set watchin' the house on the corner where the New People lived. They had a hard French name an' so we kep' on callin' 'em just the 'New People.' He was youngish an' she was younger an' – she wasn't goin' out anywheres that summer. She was settin' on the porch that night waitin' for him to come home. Before it got dark we'd noticed she had on a pretty white dress an' a flower or two. It seemed sort o' nice —that bein' so, an' her waitin' there dressed so pretty. An' we sort o' set there waitin' for him, too – like you will, you know.
"The boy was in the bed. He wa'n't no relation of Calliope's if you're as strict as some, but accordin' to my idea he was closer than that – closer than kin. He was the grandchild of the man Calliope had been goin' to marry forty-some years before, when she was twenty-odd. Calvert Oldmoxon he was – born an' bred up in this very house. He was quite well off an' – barrin' he was always heathen selfish – it was a splendid match for Calliope, but I never see a girl care so next to nothin' about that. She was sheer crazy about him, an' he seemed just as much so about her. An' then when everything was ready – Calliope's dress done an' layin' on their best-room bed, the minister stayin' home from conference to perform the ceremony, even the white cake made – off goes Calvert Oldmoxon with Martha Boughton, a little high-fly that had just moved to town. A new girl can marry anything she wants in Friendship if she does it quick. So Calliope had to put up from Martha Boughton with just what Jennie Crapwell had to take from Delia, more'n twenty-five years afterwards.
"It was near thirty years before we see either of 'em again. Then, just a little before I'm tellin' you about, a strange woman come here to town one night with a little boy; an' she goes to the hotel, sick, an' sends for Calliope. An' when Calliope gets to the hotel the woman was about breathin' her last. An' it was Mis' Oldmoxon – Martha Boughton, if you please, an' dyin' on the trip she'd made to ask Calliope to forgive her for what she done.
"An' Calliope forgive her, but I don't imagine Calliope was thinkin' much about her at the time. Hangin' round the bed was a little boy – the livin', breathin' image of Calvert Oldmoxon himself. Calliope was mad-daft over children anyway, though she was always kind o' shy o' showin' it, like a good many women are that ain't married. I've seen her pick one up an' gentle it close to her, but let anybody besides me come in the room an' see her an' she'd turn a regular guilt-red. Calliope never was one to let on. But I s'pose seein' that little boy there at the hotel look so much like him was kind o' unbalancin'. So what does she do when Mis' Oldmoxon was cryin' about forgiveness but up an' ask her what was goin' to be done with the boy after she was dead. Calliope would be one to bring the word 'dead' right out, too, an' let the room ring with it – though that ain't the custom in society. Now'days they lie everybody 'way into the grave, givin' 'em to understand that their recovery is certain, till there must be a lots o' dumfounded dead, shot into the next world – you might say unbeknownst. But Calliope wasn't mincin' matters. An' when it come out that the dyin' woman hadn't seen Calvert Oldmoxon for thirty years an' didn't know where he was, an' that the child was an orphan an' would go to collateral kin or some such folks, Calliope plumps out to her to give her the child. The forgiveness Calliope sort o' took for granted – like you will as you get older. An' Mis' Oldmoxon seemed real willin' she should have him. So when Calliope come home from the funeral – she'd rode alone with the little boy for mourners – she just went to work an' lived for that child.
"'"In the wilderness the cedar," Liddy,' she says to me. 'More than one of 'em. I've had 'em right along. My music scholars an' my lace-makin' customers an' all. An', Liddy,' she says to me sort o' shy, 'ain't you noticed,' she says, 'how many neighbours we've had move in an out that's had children? So many o' the little things right around us! Seems like they'd almost been born to me when they come acrost the street, so. An' I've always thought o' that – "In the wilderness the cedar"' she says, 'an' they's always somethin' to be a cedar for me, seems though.'
"'Well,' says I, sort o' sceptical, 'mebbe that's because you always plant 'em,' I says. 'I think it means that, too,' I told her. An' I knew well enough Calliope was one to plant her cedars herself. Cedars o' comfort, you know.
"I've seen a good many kinds o' mother-love – you do when you go round to houses like I do. But I never see anything like Calliope. Seems though she breathed that child for air. She always was one to pretend to herself, an' I knew well enough she'd figured it out as if this was their child that might 'a' been, long ago. She sort o' played mother – like you will; an' she lived her play. He was a real sweet little fellow, too. He was one o' them big-eyed kind that don't laugh easy, an' he was well-spoken, an' wonderful self-settled for a child o' seven. He was always findin' time for you when you thought he was doin' somethin' else – slidin' up to you an' puttin' up his hand in yours when you thought he was playin' or asleep. An' that was what he done that night when we set on the porch – comes slippin' out of his little bed an' sets down between us on the top step, in his little night-things.
"'Calvert, honey,' Calliope says, 'you must run back an' play dreams. Mother wants you to.'
"She'd taught him to call her mother – she'd had him about six months then – an' some thought that was queer to do, seein' Calliope was her age an' all. But I thought it was wonderful right.
"'I did play,' he says to her – he had a nice little way o' pressin' down hard with his voice on one word an' lettin' the next run off his tongue – 'I did play dreams,' I rec'lect he says; 'I dreamed 'bout robbers. Ain't robbers distinct?' he says.
"I didn't know what he meant till Calliope laughs an' says, 'Oh, distinctly extinct!' I remembered it by the way the words kind o' crackled.
"By then he was lookin' up to the stars – his little mind always lit here an' there, like a grasshopper.
"'How can heaven begin,' he says, 'till everybody gets there?'
"Yes, he was a dear little chap. I like to think about him. An' I know when he says that, Calliope just put her arms around him, an' her head down, an' set sort o' rockin' back an' forth. An' she says: —
"'Oh, but I think it begins when we don't know.'
"After a while she took him back to bed, little round face lookin' over her shoulder an' big, wide-apart, lonesome eyes an' little sort o' crooked frown, for all the world like the other Calvert Oldmoxon. Just as she come out an' set down again, we heard the click o' the gate acrost at the corner house where the New People lived, an' it was the New Husband got home. We see his wife's white dress get up to meet him, an' they went in the house together, an' we see 'em standin' by the lamp, lookin' at things. Seems though the whole night was sort o' – gentle.
"All of a sudden Calliope unties her apron.
"'Let's dress up,' she says.
"'Dress up!' I says, laughin' some. 'Why, it must be goin' on half-past eight,' I told her.
"'I don't care if it is,' she says; 'I'm goin' to dress up. It seems as though I must.'
"She went inside, an' I followed her. Calliope an' I hadn't no men folks to dress for, but, bein' dressmakers an' lace folks, we had good things to wear. She put on the best thin dress she had – a gray book-muslin; an' I took down a black lawn o' mine. It was such a beautiful night that I 'most knew what she meant. Sometimes you can't do much but fit yourself in the scenery. But I always thought Calliope fit in no matter what she had on. She was so little an' rosy, an' she always kep' her head up like she was singin'.
"'Now what?' I says. For when you dress up, you can't set home. An' then she says slow – an' you could 'a' knocked me over while I listened: —
"'I've been thinkin',' she says, 'that we ought to go up to Oldmoxon house an see that sick person.'
"'Calliope!' I says, 'for the land. You don't want to be refused in!'
"'I don't know as I do an' I don't know but I do,' she answers me. 'I feel like I wanted to be doin' somethin'.'
"With that she out in the kitchen an' begins to fill a basket. Calliope's music didn't prevent her cookin' good, as it does some. She put in I don't know what all good, an' she had me pick some hollyhocks to take along. An' before I knew it, I was out on Daphne Street in the moonlight headin' for Oldmoxon house here that no foot in Friendship had stepped or set inside of in 'most six months.
"'They won't let us in,' I says, pos'tive.
"'Well,' Calliope says, 'seems though I'd like to walk up there a night like this, anyway.'
"An' I wasn't the one to stop her, bein' I sort o' guessed that what started her off was the New People. Those two livin' so near by – lookin' forward to what they was lookin' forward to – so soon after the boy had come to Calliope, an' all, had took hold of her terrible. She'd spent hours handmakin' the little baby-bonnet she was goin' to give 'em. An' then mebbe it was the night some, too, that made her want to come up around this house – because you could 'most 'a' cut the moonlight with a knife.
"They wa'n't any light in the big hall here when we rung the bell, but they lit up an' let us in. Yes, they actually let us in. Mis' Morgan come to the door herself.
"'Come right in,' she says, cordial. 'Come right upstairs.'
"Calliope says somethin' about our bein' glad they could see us.
"'Oh,' says Mis' Morgan, 'I had orders quite a while ago to let in whoever asked. An' you're the first,' she says. 'You're the first.'
"An' then it come to us that this Mis' Morgan we'd all been tryin' to call on was only what you might name the housekeeper. An' so it turned out she was.
"The whole upper hall was dark, like puttin' a black skirt on over your head. But the room we went in was cheerful, with a fire burnin' up. Only it was awful littered up – old newspapers layin' round, used glasses settin' here an' there, water-pitcher empty, an' the lamp-chimney was smoked up, even. The woman said somethin' about us an' went out an' left us with somebody settin' in a big chair by the fire, sick an' wrapped up. An' when we looked over there, Calliope an' I stopped still. It was a man.
"If it'd been me, I'd 'a' turned round an' got out. But Calliope was as brave as two, an' she spoke up.
"'This must be the invalid,' she says, cheerful. 'We hope we see you at the best.'
"The man stirs some an' looks over at us kind o' eager – he was oldish, an' the firelight bein' in his eyes, he couldn't see us.
"'It isn't anybody to see me, is it?' he asks.
"At that Calliope steps forward – I remember how she looked in her pretty gray dress with some light thing over her head, an' her starched white skirts was rustlin' along under, soundin' so genteel she seemed to me like strangers do. When he see her, the man made to get up, but he was too weak for it.
"'Why, yes,' she answers him, 'if you're well enough to see anybody.'
"An' at that the man put his hands on his knees an' leaned sort o' hunchin' forward.
"'Calliope!' he says.
"It was him, sure enough – Calvert Oldmoxon. Same big, wide-apart, lonesome eyes an' kind o' crooked frown. His hair was gray, an' so was his pointed beard, an' he was crool thin. But I'd 'a' known him anywheres.
"Calliope, she just stood still. But when he reached out his hand, his lips parted some like a child's an' his eyes lookin' up at her, she went an' stood near him, by the table, an' she set her basket there an' leaned down on the handle, like her strength was gone.
"'I never knew it was you here,' she says. 'Nobody knows,' she told him.
"'No,' he says, 'I've done my best they shouldn't know. Up till I got sick. Since then – I – wanted folks,' he says.
"I kep' back by the door, an' I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He was older than Calliope, but he had a young air. Like you don't have when you stay in Friendship. An' he seemed to know how to be easy, sick as he was. An' that ain't like Friendship, either. He an' Calliope had growed opposite ways, seems though.
"'I'll go now,' says Calliope, not lookin' at him. 'I brought up some things I baked. I didn't know but they'd taste good to whoever was sick here.'
"With that he covers one hand over his eyes.
"'No,' he says, 'no, no, Calliope – don't go yet. It's you I come here to Friendship to see,' he told her.
"'What could you have to say to me?' asks Calliope – dry as a bone in her voice, but I see her eyes wasn't so dry. Leastwise, it may not have been her eyes, but it was her look.
"Then he straightens up some. He was still good-lookin'. When you was with him it use' to be that you sort o' wanted to stay – an' it seemed the same way now. He was that kind.
"'Don't you think,' he says to her – an' it was like he was humble, but it was like he was proud, too – 'don't you think,' he says, 'that I ever dreamed you could forgive me. I knew better than that,' he told her. 'It's what you must think o' me that's kep' me from sayin' to you what I come here to say. But I'll tell you now,' he says, 'I'm sick an' alone an' done for. An' what I come to see you about – is the boy.'
"'The boy,' Calliope says over, not understandin'; 'the boy.'
"'My God, yes,' says he. 'He's all I've got left in the world. Calliope – I need the boy. I need him!'
"I rec'lect Calliope puttin' back that light thing from her head like it smothered her. He laid back in his chair for a minute, white an' still. An' then he says – only of course his words didn't sound the way mine do: —
"'I robbed your life, Cally, an' I robbed my own. As soon as I knew it an' couldn't bear it any longer, I went away alone – an' I've lived alone all exceptin' since the little boy come. His mother, my son's wife, died; an' I all but brought him up. I loved him as I never loved anybody – but you,' he says, simple. 'But when his father died, of course I hadn't any claim on the little fellow, I felt, when I'd been away from the rest so long. She took him with her. An' when I knew she'd left him here I couldn't have kep' away,' he says, 'I couldn't. He's all I've got left in the world. I all but brought him up. I must have him, Cally – don't you see I must have him?' he says.
"Calliope looks down at him, wonderful calm an' still.
"'You've had your own child,' she told him slow; 'you've had a real life. I'm just gettin' to mine – since I had the boy.'
"'But, good God,' he says, starin' up at her, 'you're a woman. An' one child is the same as another to you, so be that it ain't your own.'
"Calliope looked almost as if he had struck at her, though he'd only spoke a kind o' general male idea, an' he couldn't help bein' a male. An' she says back at him: —
"'But you're a man. An' bein' alive is one thing to you an' another thing to me. Never let any man forget that,' she says, like I never heard her speak before.
"Then I see the tears shinin' on his face. He was terrible weak. He slips down in his chair an' sets starin' at the fire, his hands hangin' limp over the arms like there wasn't none of him left. His face looked tired to death, an' yet there was that somethin' about him like you didn't want to leave him. I see Calliope lookin' at him – an' all of a sudden it come to me that if I'd 'a' loved him as she use' to, I'd 'a' walked over there an' then, an' sort o' gentled his hair, no matter what.
"But Calliope, she turned sharp away from him an' begun lookin' around the room, like she see it for the first time – smoky lamp-chimney, old newspapers layin' 'round, used-up glasses, an' such like. The room was one o' the kind when they ain't no women or children. An' then, when she see all that, pretty soon she looked back at him, layin' sick in his chair, alone an' done for, like he said. An' I see her take her arms in her hands an' kind o' rock.
"'Ain't the little fellow a care to you, Cally?' he says then, wistful.
"She went over towards him, an' I see her pick up his pillow an' smooth it some an' make to fix it better.
"'Yes,' she says then, 'you're right. He is a care. An' he's your grandchild. You must take him with you just as soon as you're well enough,' she says.
"He broke clear down then, an' he caught her hands an' laid his face on 'em. She stood wonderful calm, lookin' down at him – an' lookin'. An' I laid the hollyhocks down on the rug or anywheres, an' somehow I got out o' the room an' down the stairs. An' I set there in the lower hall an' waited.
"She come herself in a minute. The big outside door was standin' open, an' when I heard her step on the stairs I went on ahead out to the porch, feelin' kind o' strange – like you will. But when Calliope come up to me she was just the same as she always was, an' I might 'a' known she would be. She isn't easy to understand – she's differ'nt – but when you once get to expectin' folks to be differ'nt, you can depend on 'em some that way, too.
"The moon was noon-high by then an' filterin' down through the leaves wonderful soft, an' things was still – I remember thinkin' it was like the hushin'-up before a bride comes in, but there wasn't any bride.
"When we come to our house – just as we begun to smell the savoury bed clear out there on the walk – we heard something … a little bit of a noise that I couldn't put a name to, first. But, bless you, Calliope could. She stopped short by the gate an' stood lookin' acrost the road to the corner house where the New People lived. It was late for Friendship, but upstairs in that house a lamp was burnin'. An' that room was where the little noise come from – a little new cry.
"'Oh, Liddy,' Calliope says – her head up like she was singin' – 'Oh, Liddy – the New People have got their little child.'
"An' I see, though of course she didn't anywheres near realize it then, that she was plantin' herself another cedar."