By the Light of the Soul Part 44

"Oh, I don't care if I do!" Lily said, in her hysterical voice, which had now a certain tone of comfort.

Maria considered again how much she despised and hated her, and again Lily shook with a long tremor. Maria got up and tiptoed over to her closet, where she kept a little bottle of wine which the doctor had ordered when she first came to Amity. It was not half emptied. A winegla.s.s stood on the mantel-shelf, and Maria filled it with the wine by the light of the moon. Then she returned to Lily.

"Here," she said, still in the same cruel voice. "Sit up and drink this."

"What is it?" moaned Lily.

"Never mind what it is. Sit up and drink it."

Lily sat up and obediently drank the wine, every drop.

"Now lie down and keep still, and go to sleep, and behave yourself,"

said Maria.

Lily tried to say something, but Maria would not listen to her.

"Don't you speak another word," said she. "Keep still, or Aunt Maria will be up. Lie still and go to sleep."

It was not long before, warmed by the wine and comforted by Maria's a.s.sertion that she was never going to marry George Ramsey, that Lily fell asleep. Maria lay awake hearing her long, even breaths, and she felt how she hated her, how she hated herself, how she hated life.

There was no sleep for her. Just before dawn she woke Lily, bundled her up in some extra clothing, and went with her across the yard, home.

"Now go up to your own room just as still as you can," said she, and her voice sounded terrible even in her own ears. She waited until she heard the key softly turn in the door of the Merrill house. Then she sped home and up to her own room. Then she lay down in bed again and waited for broad daylight.

Chapter XXI

When Maria dressed herself the next morning, she had an odd, shamed expression as she looked at herself in her gla.s.s while braiding her hair. It actually seemed to her as if she herself, and not Lily Merrill, had so betrayed herself and given way to an unsought love.

She felt as if she saw Lily instead of herself, and she was at once humiliated and angered. She had to pa.s.s Lily's house on her way to school, and she did not once look up, although she had a conviction that Lily was watching her from one of the sitting-room windows. It was a wild winter day, with frequent gusts of wind swaying the trees to the breaking of the softer branches, and flurries of snow. It was hard work to keep the school-house warm. Maria, in the midst of her perturbation, had a comforted feeling at seeing Jessy Ramsey in her warm clothing. She pa.s.sed her arm around the little girl at recess; it was so cold that only a few of the boys went outside.

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

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

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

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

"Haven't any," corrected Maria.

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

"That something," said Maria.

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

"Them."

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

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

The other children did not seem to be noticing them. Suddenly Maria, who still had her arm around the thin shoulders of the little girl, stooped and kissed her rather grimy but soft little cheek. As she did so, she experienced the same feeling which she used to have when caressing her little sister Evelyn. It was a sort of rapture of tenderness and protection. It was the maternal instinct glorified and rendered spiritual by maidenhood, and its timid desires. Jessy Ramsey's eyes looked up into Maria's like blue violets, and Maria noticed with a sudden throb that they were like George Ramsey's.

Jessy, coming as she did from a degenerate, unbeautiful branch of the family-tree, had yet some of the true Ramsey features, and, among others, she had the true Ramsey eyes. They were large and very dark blue, and they were set in deep, pathetic hollows. As she looked up at Maria, it was exactly as if George were looking at her with pleading and timid love. Maria took her arm sudden away from the child.

"Be you mad?" asked Jessy, humbly.

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

"Yes'm," said Jessy Ramsey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maria did not see her. She in reality lingered a little over some exercises in the school-house before she started on her way home. It was snowing quite steadily, and the wind still blew. The snow made the wind seem as evident as the wings of a bird. Maria hurried along.

When she reached the bridge across the Ramsey River she saw a girl standing as if waiting for her. The girl was all powdered with snow and she had on a thick veil, but Maria immediately knew that she was Lily Merrill. Lily came up to her as she reached her with almost an abject motion. She had her veiled face lowered before the storm, and she carried herself as if her spirit also was lowered before some wind of fate. She pressed timidly close to Maria when she reached her.

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

"Have you?" returned Maria, coldly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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