The House of Martha Part 24

The mare was a very deliberate traveler, and the boy who sat beside me was an easily satisfied driver.

"We must go faster than this," said I, after we had reached what appeared to be a highroad, "or I shall not get to Sanpritchit in time to attend to my business there."

"Ye can't drive a hoss too fast when ye first set out," answered the boy. "Ye'll hurt a hoss if ye do that. After a little while she'll warm up, and then she'll go better. Oh, she can go if she's a mind ter. She's a rattler when she really gets goin'."

"I don't want her to rattle," said I; "but what is her ordinary rate of travel,--how many miles an hour, do you suppose?"

"Don't know as I ever counted," the boy said. "Some miles she goes faster, and some miles she goes slower. A good deal depends on whether it's uphill or downhill."

"Well," said I, taking out my watch, "we must keep her up to six miles an hour, at least, and then we shall do the eight miles by half past nine, with something to spare."

"Eight miles!" repeated the boy. "Eight miles to where?"

"Sanpritchit," replied I. "That's what they told me."

"Oh, that's by water," said the driver; "but this road's got to go around the end of the bay, and after that 'way round the top of the big marsh, and that makes it a good seventeen miles to Sanpritchit. Half past nine! Why, the boss told me, if I didn't get there before twelve, I must stop somewhere and water the mare and give her some oats. I've got a bag of them back there."

I sat dumb. Of course, with this conveyance, and seventeen miles between me and Sanpritchit, it was absurd to suppose that I could get there before the yacht sailed. It was ridiculous to go an inch farther on such a tedious and useless journey.

"Boy," I asked, "where is the nearest railroad station?"

"Stipbitts," said he.

"How far?"

"Five miles."

"Take me there," I said.

The boy looked at me in surprise. "I can't do that. I was told to take you to Sanpritchit: that's where I'm goin', and I'm goin' to bring back a box belongin' to Captain Fluke. That's what I 'in goin' to do."

"I cannot get there in time," I said. "I didn't know it was so far. Take me to Stipbitts, and I will give you a dollar; then you can go along and attend to Captain Fluke's box. I have already paid for the drive to Sanpritchit."

"Have you got as much as a dollar and a half about you?" asked the boy.

I replied that I had.

"All right," said he; "give me that, and I'll take you to Stipbitts."

The bargain was struck, I was taken to Stipbitts, and an hour afterward I was on my way to my home at Arden.

There was one very satisfactory feature about this course of action: it was plain and simple, and needed no planning. To attempt to follow the yacht would be useless. To wait anywhere for Walkirk would be equally so. He would be more apt to find me at my home than anywhere else. It was his business to find me, and there was no doubt that he would do it.

I did not like to defer my intended interview with Mrs. Raynor, but it could not be helped. And as for Sylvia, if she had resolved to return to the House of Martha, the best place for me was the neighborhood of that inst.i.tution.

x.x.xVI.

IN THE SHADE OF THE OAK.

I found my home at Arden very empty and dreary. The servants did not expect me, my grandmother had not returned, and the absence of Walkirk added much to my dissatisfaction with the premises.

I was never a man who could sit down and wait for things to happen, and I felt now that it was absolutely necessary that I should do something, that I should talk to somebody; and accordingly, on the morning after my arrival, I determined to walk over to the House of Martha and talk to Mother Anastasia. For a man to consult with the Mother Superior of a religious inst.i.tution about his love affairs was certainly an uncommon proceeding, with very prominent features of inappropriateness; but this did not deter me, for, apart from the fact that there was no one else to talk to, I considered that Mother Anastasia owed me some advice and explanation, and without hesitation I went to ask for it.

When I reached the House of Martha, and made known my desire to speak to the head of the inst.i.tution, I was ushered into a room which was barer and harder than I had supposed, from Walkirk's description of it. It did not even contain the religious pictures or the crucifixes which would have relieved the blankness of the walls in a Roman Catholic establishment of the kind.

As I stood gazing about me, with a feeling of indignation that such a place as this should ever have been the home of such a woman as Sylvia, a door opened, and Mother Anastasia entered.

Her appearance shocked me. I had in my mind the figure of a woman with whom I had talked,--a woman glowing with the warmth of a rich beauty, draped in graceful folds of white, with a broad hat shadowing her face, and a bunch of wild flowers in her belt. Here was a tall woman clothed in solemn gray, her face pale, her eyes fixed upon the ground; but it was Mother Anastasia; it was the woman who had talked to me of Sylvia, who had promised to help me with Sylvia.

Still gazing on the floor, with her hands folded before her, she asked me what I wished. At first I could not answer her. It seemed impossible to open my heart to a woman such as this one. But if I said anything, I must say it without hesitation, and so I began.

"Of course," I said, "I have come to see you about Sylvia Raynor. I am in much trouble regarding her. You promised to aid me, and I have come to ask for the fulfillment of that promise. My love for that girl grows stronger day by day, hour by hour, and I have been thwarted, mystified, and I may say deceived. I have come"--

"She of whom you speak," interrupted Mother Anastasia, "is not to be discussed in that way. She has declared her intention to unite herself permanently with our sisterhood, and to devote her life to our work. She can have nothing more to do with you, nor you with her."

"That will not do at all," I said excitedly. "When I last saw you, you did not talk like that, and the opinions you expressed at that time are just as good now as they were then. I want to go over this matter with you. There are things that I have a right to know."

A little frown appeared upon her brow. "This conversation must cease,"

she said; "the subjects you wish to discuss are forbidden to our sisterhood. You must mention them no more."

I tried hard to restrain myself and speak quietly. "Madam"--said I.

"You must not call me 'madam,'" she broke in. "I am the Mother Superior of this house."

"I understand that," I continued, "and I understand your feeling of duty. But you have other duties besides those you owe to your sisterhood. You made me a promise, which I accepted with an honest and confiding heart. If you cannot do what you promised, you owe it to me to explain why you cannot do it. I do not know what has happened to change your views and her views, and, so far as I am concerned, the whole world. You can set me right; you can explain everything to me."

The frown disappeared, and her face seemed paler. "It is absolutely impossible to discuss anything of the sort in this house. I must insist"--

I did not permit her to finish her sentence. "Very well, then," I exclaimed, "if you cannot talk to me here, talk to me somewhere else.

When you desire it, you go outside of these walls, and you speak freely and fully. You have so spoken with me; and because you have done so, it is absolutely necessary that you do it again. Your own heart, your conscience, must tell you that after what you have said to me, and after what I have said to you, it is unjust, to say no more, to leave me in this state of cruel mystification; not to tell me why you have set aside your promise to me, or even to tell me, when we talked together of Sylvia, that we were then at the home of Sylvia's mother."

For the first time she looked at me, straight in my eyes, as a true woman would naturally look at a man who was speaking strongly to her. I think I made her forget, for a few moments at least, that she was a Mother Superior. Then her eyes fell again, and she stood silent.

"Perhaps," she said presently, and speaking slowly, "I ought to explain these things to you. It is a great mistake, as I now see, that I ever said anything to you on the subject; but things were different then, and I did not know that I was doing wrong. Still, if you rely on me to set you right, you shall be set right. I see that this is quite as necessary from other points of view as from your own. I cannot speak with you to-day, but to-morrow, about this time, I shall be on the road to Maple Ridge, where I am going to visit a sick woman."

"I shall join you on the road," I answered, and took my leave.

For the rest of the day I thought of little but the promised interview on the morrow. To this I looked forward with the greatest interest, but also with the greatest anxiety. I feared that Mother Anastasia would prove to me that I must give up all thoughts of Sylvia. In fact, if Sylvia had resolved to devote herself to the service of the House of Martha,--and she had told me herself that she had so resolved,--I was quite sure she would do so. Then what was there for Mother Anastasia to say, or me to do? The case was settled. Sylvia Raynor must be nothing to me.

I greatly wished for Walkirk. I knew he would encourage me, in spite of the obvious blackness of the situation. It was impossible for me to encourage myself. But, however black my fate might be, I longed to know why it had been made black and all about it, and so waited with a savage impatience for the morning and Mother Anastasia.

Immediately after breakfast, the next day, I was on the Maple Ridge road, strolling from our village toward the top of a hill a mile or more away, whence I could see the rest of the road, as it wound through the lonely country, and at last lost itself in the woods. Back again to Arden I came, and had covered the distance between the village and the hilltop five times, when, turning and coming down the hill, I saw, far away, the figure of a woman walking.

I knew it was Mother Anastasia, but I did not hasten to meet her. In fact, I thought the further she was from the village, when our interview took place, the more likely she would be to make it long enough to be satisfactory. I came slowly down the hill, and, reaching a place where a great oak-tree shaded the road, I waited.