At the Crossroads Part 14

"Old Philander Sniff----" began Noreen's chant as she slipped from her chair intent upon a doll by the hearthside.

Mary-Clare took no notice of her but nodded to Jan-an.

"And then," the girl went on, "I went in to Peneluna and told her and then we et and went to bed. Long about midnight, I guess, there was a yell!" Jan-an lost her breath and paused, then rushed along: "He'd raised his winder and after all the keeping still, he called for Peneluna to come."

Mary-Clare visualized the dramatic scene that poor Jan-an was mumbling monotonously.

"And she went! I just lay there scared stiff hearing things an' seeing 'em! Come morning, in walked Peneluna looking still and high and she didn't say nothing till she'd gone and fetched those togs of hers, black 'uns, you know, that Aunt Polly gave her long back. She put 'em on, bonnet and veil an' everything. Then she took an old red rose out of a box and pinned it on the front of her bonnet--G.o.d! but she did look skeery--and then said to me awful careful, 'Trot on to Mary-Clare, tell her to fotch the marriage service _and_ the funeral one, both!' Jes' like that she said it. Both!"

"This is very strange," Mary-Clare said slowly and got up. "I'm going to the Point, Jan-an, and you will take Noreen to the inn, like a good girl. I'll call for her in the afternoon."

"Take both!" Jan-an was nodding her willingness to obey. And Mary-Clare took her prayer-book with her.

Mary-Clare had the quiet Forest to herself apparently, for on the way to the Point she met no one. On ahead she traced, she believed, Larry's footprints, but when she turned on the trail to the Point, they were not there.

All along her way Mary-Clare went over in her thought the story of Philander Sniff and Peneluna. It was the romance and mystery of the sordid Point.

Years before, when Mary-Clare was a little child, Philander had drifted, from no one knew where, to the mines and the Point. He lived in one of the ramshackle huts; gave promise of paying for it, did, in fact, pay a few dollars to old Doctor Rivers, and then became a squatter. He was injured at the mines and could do no more work and at that juncture Peneluna had arrived upon the scene from the same unknown quarter apparently whence Philander had hailed. She took the empty cottage next Philander's and paid for it by service in Doctor Rivers's home. She was clean, thrifty, and strangely silent. When Philander first beheld her he was shaken, for a moment, out of his glum silence. "G.o.d Almighty!" he confided to Twombly who had worked in the mines with him and had looked after him in his illness; "yer can't shake some women even when it's for their good."

That was all. Through the following years the two shacks became the only clean and orderly ones on the Point. When Philander hobbled from his quarters, Peneluna went in and scrubbed and scoured. After a time she cooked for the old man and left the food on his back steps. He took it in, ate it, and had the grace to wash the dishes before setting them back.

"Some mightn't," poor Peneluna had said to Aunt Polly in defence of Sniff.

As far as any one knew the crabbed old man never spoke to his devoted neighbour, but she had never complained.

"I wonder what happened before they came here?" After all the years of taking the strange condition for granted, it sprang into quickened life. Mary-Clare was soon to know and it had a bearing upon her own highly sensitive state.

She made her way to the far end of the Point, pa.s.sing wide-eyed children at play and curious women in doorways.

"Philander's dead!" The words were like an accompaniment, pa.s.sing from lip to lip. "An' she won't let a soul in." This was added.

"She will presently," Mary-Clare rea.s.sured them. "She'll need you all, later."

There was a little plot of gra.s.s between Peneluna's shack and Philander's and a few scraggy autumn flowers edged a well-worn path from one back door to the other!

At Philander's front door Mary-Clare knocked and Peneluna responded at once. She was dressed as Jan-an had described, and for a moment Mary-Clare had difficulty in stifling her inclination to laugh.

The gaunt old woman was in the rusty black she had kept in readiness for years; she wore gloves and bonnet; the long crepe veil and the absurd red rose wobbled dejectedly as Peneluna moved about.

"Come in, child, and shut the world out." Then, leading the way to an inner room, "Have yer got _both_ services?"

"Yes, Peneluna." Then Mary-Clare started back.

She was in the presence of the dead. He lay rigid and carefully prepared for burial on the narrow bed. He looked decent, at peace, and with that unearthly dignity that death often offers as its first gift.

Peneluna drew two chairs close to the bed; waved Mary-Clare majestically to one and took the other herself. She was going to lay her secrets before the one she had chosen--after that the shut-out world might have its turn.

"I've sent word over to the Post Office," Peneluna began, "and they're going to get folks, the doctor and minister and the rest. Before they get here--" Peneluna paused--"before they get here I want that you should act for the old doctor."

This was the one thing needed to rouse Mary-Clare.

"I'll do my best, Peneluna," she whispered, and clutched the prayer-book.

"The ole doctor, he knew 'bout Philander and me. He said"--Peneluna caught her breath--"he said once as how it was women like me that kept men believing. He said I had a right to hold my tongue--he held his'n."

Mary-Clare nodded. Not even she could ever estimate the secret load of confessions her beloved foster-father bore and covered with his rare smile.

"Mary-Clare, I want yer should read the marriage service over me and him!" Peneluna gravely nodded to her silent dead. "I got this to say: If Philander ain't too far on his journey, I guess he'll look back and understand and then he can go on more cheerful-like and easy. Last night he hadn't more than time to say a few things, but they cleared everything, and if I'm his wife, he can trust me--a wife wouldn't harm a dead husband when she _might_ the man who jilted her." The words came through a hard, dry sob. Mary-Clare felt her eyes fill with hot tears. She looked out through the one open window and felt the warm autumn breeze against her cheek; a bit of sunlight slanted across the room and lay brightly on the quiet man upon the bed. "Read on, Mary-Clare, and then I can speak out."

Opening the book with stiff, cold fingers, Mary-Clare read softly, brokenly, the solemn words.

At the close Peneluna stood up.

"Him and me, Mary-Clare," she said, "'fore G.o.d and you is husband and wife." Then she removed the red rose from her bonnet, laid it upon the folded wrinkled hands of the dead man and drew the sheet over him.

Just then, outside the window, a bird flew past, peeped in, fluttered away, singing.

"Seems like it might be the soul of Philander," Peneluna said--she was crying as the old do, hardly realizing that they are crying. Her tears fell unheeded and Mary-Clare was crying with her, but conscious of every hurting tear.

"In honour bound, though it breaks the heart of me, I'm going to speak, Mary-Clare, then his poor soul can rest in peace.

"The Methodist parson, what comes teetering 'round just so often, always thought Philander was h.e.l.l-bound, Mary-Clare; well, since there ain't anyone but that parson as knows so much about h.e.l.l, to send for, I've sent for him and there's no knowing what he won't feel called upon to say with Philander lying helpless for a text. So now, after I tell you what must be told, I want that you should read the burial service over Philander and then that parson can do his worst--my ears will be deaf to him and Philander can't hear."

There was a heavy pause while Mary-Clare waited.

"h.e.l.l don't scare me nohow," Peneluna went on; "seems like the most interesting folks is headed for it and I'll take good company every time to what some church folks hands out. And, too, h.e.l.l can't be half bad if you have them you love with you. So the parson can do his worst. Philander and me won't mind now.

"Back of the time we came here"--Peneluna was picking her words as a child does its blocks, carefully in order to form the right word--"me and Philander was promised."

Drifting about in Mary-Clare's thought a sc.r.a.p of old scandal stirred, but it had little to feed on and pa.s.sed.

"Then a woman got mixed up 'twixt him and me. In her young days she'd been French and you know yer can't get away from what's born in the blood, and the Frenchiness was terrible onsettling. Philander was side-twisted. Yer see, Mary-Clare, when a man ain't had nothing but work and working folks in his life, a creature that laughs and dances and sings gets like whiskey in the head, and Philander didn't rightfully know what he was about."

Peneluna drew the end of her crepe veil up and wiped her eyes.

"They went off together, him and the furriner. Least, the furriner took him off, and the next thing I heard she'd taken to her heels and Philander drifted here to the mines. I knew he needed me more than ever--he was a dreadful creature about doing for himself, not eating at Christian hours, just waiting till he keeled over from emptiness, so I came logging along after him and--stayed. He was considerable upset when he saw me and he never got to, what you might say, speaking to me, but he was near and he ate the food I left on his steps and he washed the plates and cups and that meant a lot to Philander. If I'd been his proper wife he wouldn't have washed 'em. Men don't when they get used to a woman.

"And then"--here Peneluna caught her breath--"then last night he called from his winder and I came. He said, holding my hand like it was the last thing left for him to hold: 'I didn't think I had a right to you, Pen'--he used to call me Pen--'after what I did. And I've just paid for my evil-doing up to the end, not taking comfort and forgiveness--just paying!' I never let on, Mary-Clare, how I'd paid, too. Men folks are blind-spotted, we've got to take 'em as they are.

Philander thought he had worked out his soul's salvation while he was starving me, soul and body, but I never let on and he died smiling and saying, 'The food was terrible staying, Pen, terrible staying.'"

Mary-Clare could see mistily the long, rigid figure on the bed, her eyes ached with unshed tears; her heart throbbed like a heavy pain.

Here was something she had never understood; a thing so real and strong that no earthly touch could kill it. What was it?

But Peneluna was talking on, her poor old face twitching.

"And now, Mary-Clare, him and me is man and wife before G.o.d and you.

You are terrible understanding, child. With all the fol-de-rol the old doctor laid on yer, he laid his own spirit of knowing things on yer, too. Suffering learns folks the understanding power. I reckon the old doctor had had his share 'fore he came to the Forest--but how you got to knowing things, child, and being tender and patient, 'stead of hot and full of hate, I don't know! Now read, soft and low, so only us three can hear--the last service."

Solemnly, with sweet intonations, Mary-Clare read on and on. Again the bird came to the window ledge, looked in, and then flew off singing jubilantly. Peneluna smiled a fleeting wintry smile and closed her eyes; she seemed to be following the bird--or was it old Philander's soul?