“Lay your hand on my gal agin, Peter Hamilton, and I’ll tear you into sausage meat,” he growled, shaking the battered man fiercely. “Listen, you pore fool: your ole Granny is dead. Mag and me heard her ole cow bawling last night and went over to see what was the trouble. The ole woman was dying. We stayed all night; she died a little while ago. Damn you, does that satisfy you?”
Melinda, in a shawl, fluttered from the house like a scarecrow figure. Her eyes darted to Margaret, and seeing the bruised face of the girl, she could not refrain from a venomous smirk. She turned on John like a weak fury, trying to loosen his hands from Peter’s neck.
“You leave him be!” she shrieked. “You leave him be, Johnny Hobart! Get out off our land, and take that shameless gal with ye! We don’t want you here!”
John looked down into her malignant eyes and flung Peter from him. Peter staggered, got his balance, thrust his wailing wife aside. He spoke to her, but his face was turned to John. He tried to grin.
“Shut up, Melindy. I was all wrong about this here business. Everythin’s all right. I just sort of lost my temper. John and Maggie spent the night with the ole woman. An’ she died this morning.”
He advanced upon the lowering John, extending his hand frankly.
“Here, now, no hard feelin’s, John? You can hit like a mule, and no lyin’, either. Shouldn’t have lost my temper. Wal, you’re the better man.”
John glowered; he stiffly allowed his hand to be shaken. Peter’s good nature was entirely restored. He did not look at Margaret; he was ashamed to do so.
“That’s all very well!” said John grimly. “But, damn you, lay your hand on my gal again and you’ll never touch her another time! That clear? We’re goin’ to be married soon, so shut up! Take her home with you; then you better see ’bout buryin’ the ole woman!”
He turned to Margaret, took her in his arms. Despite the shock of her father’s blow, she smiled with delighted amusement up into his face. He kissed her with a hard, short kiss, then walked to his horse, still tethered near the house. He swung himself into the saddle and rode away without a backward glance.
“Wal!” shrilled Melinda. “I don’t know what this is all about, but seems like you made a fool of yourself, as usual, Pete Hamilton! Allus flyin’ off the handle ’bout nothin’ an gettin’ yourself in trouble. An’ then makin’ our gal the talk of the country, bangin’ her ’round and makin’ out like she was a bad woman!” She turned to Margaret. “He sure banged you up, didn’t he, Maggie? Come on home, Maggie, and we’ll wash you up.”
Maggie smiled a little to herself. She led old Bossy up to her father demurely, dropped the rope before him, and then walked away with her mother.
Peter looked after them. Suddenly he shouted with laughter.
CHAPTER FIVE
They did not bury old Margaret in the neat country graveyard which huddled about the Baptist Church.
Margaret and her mother had opened the ironbound box in the bedroom in search of suitable garments in which to bury the old woman. The first thing they saw was a sheet of paper, written in pencil, on top of all the other things. It was dated a year ago.
“When I die (it read) I want to be buried in my old gold brocade wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of this box. I want my gold kid slippers on my feet. And I want to be buried near my husband, Sam Hamilton, and my children. To my great-granddaughter, Margaret Hamilton, I leave my land, everything upon it, and everything she can find in my cabin. I also want her to have all my books, and my garnet earrings and garnet necklace, which I want her to wear when she marries Johnny Hobart. I leave nothing to anyone else.”
This odd will was signed carefully: “Margot Hamilton, May 19, 1871, Whitmore township, Wayne County.”
So old Margot was laid beside the sunken grave of her husband. The country folk were scandalized. To be buried like this, in unsanctified ground, like a heathen! No minister, either, no flowers, no mourning!
No one came to the funeral, for no one was invited. Peter Hamilton dug the grave himself. The coffin was of plain pine, ungarnished. Old Margot was carefully put into her old gold brocade.
The ironbound box was removed, the chickens carried to the Hamilton barn. Everything else was left as old Margot had left it. Peter nailed the cabin door shut. The Hamiltons went home in a copper sunset glow, in unaccustomed silence.
Margaret looked over the contents of the box. Ancient dresses, most of them moldering. But there was one, made of yards and yards of ivory silk, embroidered with huge splashes of bright red roses and green leaves. It had a tight bodice, cut very low, the neck a mass of ruffles made of spidery French face. From it emanated a strange fragrance, musty yet haunting. Margaret held its silken coolness to her cheek.
“I’ll be married in this!” she whispered. “Ma can make it over a little. You beautiful thing!”
She held up the garnet earrings and necklace, and caught the sunlight in the ruddy jewels and small pale pearls. She put away her treasures carefully after removing the books, locked the box, and hung the key about her neck.
It was Sunday. The smaller children were out playing in the fields; Melinda drowsed in the bare bedroom she shared with her husband. Margaret sat on the edge of the stoop. In an hour she and her mother were going to drive over to see Susie, Ralph’s mother, if Peter had returned, by then, in the buggy.
Margaret’s thoughts were dark. When she was away from John, she thought of him with indifference and even distaste, shot through with a sense of guilty excitement. She remembered then how brutal were his hands, how empty of subtlety was his ruddy face. She considered her future life with him. They would live in the fine new stone house he was going to build; they would have children; there would be large acres to watch yield, neighbors who would visit; and then—? Nothing. No one to talk to, not even Granny.
The splintered wood of the stoop was warm under her fingers; she ran her hand distractedly over it. A warm drop fell on the back of her hand.
“Oh, I don’t love him; I don’t! Ralph, I love you. I’ll always love you,” she whispered.
An intense desire to see Ralph came over her. She ran into the hot dimness of the little house and knocked on her mother’s door.
“Ma! Are you awake? Can’t we go over to Aunt Susie’s now? It ain’t far; we can walk it in half an hour. Maybe Pa won’t be back until evenin’.”
Melinda’s petulant voice came through the sagging door. “Eh, Why’d you wake me up, Maggie? Go to Susie’s? No, I ain’t goin’ to traipse over the hills in this heat ’out the buggy. Go on yourself. I’ll have Pa drive me over if he comes. Now, go ’way and leave me to a minute’s peace!”
Feverishly Margaret dragged an old wooden box from beneath the bed she shared with Linda. It contained all her wearing apparel. She pulled out a pink and green gingham dress, white cotton stockings, and her only pair of feminine black slippers. She dressed in trembling haste; it had just occurred to her that John would probably be over; she wanted to avoid him now. She tore a comb through her thick black hair and wound it up at the nape of her neck so that it clustered like huge black apples against her skin. She pulled a pink gingham sun-bonnet over her head and ran out of the house, already frantic with haste and heat. Dressed thus, in ordinary clothes, she seemed somewhat awkward; her natural dignity and proud carriage were eclipsed.
She climbed the hill, panting under a sky that seemed pale and swimming in heat. She stopped for breath at the top of the hill and pulled off her bonnet, turning up her face to the cool breeze. Her hair was already loosened into shining coils on her neck, and her slippers were white with dust.
She turned and went down the opposite side of the hill.
Susan Blodgett, her son, and her hired man, lived in the narrow valley on the other side of the hill. Margaret could see her aunt’s house staring up at her. It was a lean, tall, light-gray house, rambling and shabby. The early autumn sun shone on the broken and discolored roof so that it burned with a tawny light.
Mrs. B
lodgett was lucky in her hired man, Silas Rowe, a surly, taciturn bachelor of middle age; it was he who had painted the white picket fence about the house and it was he kept the grounds trim and neat. Ralph did little, if anything. It was also Silas Rowe whose labor furnished the Blodgett table amply. He bullied both the “widder woman” and her son; he was the tyrant of the household, and neither mother nor son dared oppose him.
Margaret was consumed with a passion of desire to see Ralph’s face, to hear him speak, to wander aimlessly about the little valley with him, to touch his hand. The desire deepened into pain; there were stinging tears in her eyes as she reached the floor of the valley and hurried toward the house.
It seemed to Margaret that the very beating of her aching heart could be heard audibly in the silence. She might have been entirely alone in the world. So it was that the voices that came from the “settin’ room’ at the front of the house were quite audible. She stopped a moment, disappointed. Now she could see that three buggies were hitched to the poles of the stoop.
“Well,” Margaret heard Susan Blodgett say. “Well, I hope you folks don’t blame me for the heathen ways of them Hamiltons. T’ain’t poor Melindy’s fault, though her daughter Maggie is a grown girl runnin’ wild like an Indian over the country with the Lord knows who!”
There was an assenting murmur of voices at this, then “old Mis’ MacKensie’s” voice rose shrill and sharp, “Wal, still, Susie, you ought to’ve said something to Melindy ’bout the way they buried the ole Granny. Land, it was scandalous! No minister, no funeral, no nothin’. ’Tain’t civilized; ’tain’t Christian. I heered no other folks was there but the family, and Pete Hamilton dug the grave hisself. He ought to be horsewhipped.”
“But what about this girl, Margaret, you speak of, Mrs. Blodgett?” asked another voice. Margaret, who had been listening with a broad and enjoying smile, started a little, leaned forward to hear more distinctly. She had never heard this voice before; it was young and clear, and had foreign intonations.
“That’s Pete Hamilton’s oldest gal,” replied Mrs. MacKensie with a loud snort. “A strange one. Pete don’t send his young ’uns to school, but they do say this gal can read and write some. But that’s all she can do; brown as an Indian, with big wild eyes and long plaits, and tall and broad in the shoulders like a man. Some folks say she’s a beauty, but I never seed it. Disgrace to the whole country. Runs crazy over them hills, whoopin’. If you stay till October, Lydia, you’ll see her yourself.”
“You won’t miss much, Miss Lydia, if you don’t!” chortled Susan. The others laughed stridently.
“She must be quite a character,” said Miss Lydia. “I really must see her; it will amuse my friends in Williamsburg so much when I tell them about her.”
“An’ Johnny Hobart chasin’ her like a sick calf!” exclaimed another voice, belonging to a woman whom Margaret knew as Mis’ King. “Don’t hear so much about it lately, though.”
“Must be comin’ to his senses,” said Mrs. Holbrooks in a smug and disapproving voice. “’Bout time.”
“You don’t mean Squire Hobart, John Hobart?” cried Miss Lydia. “You don’t mean him, do you, Auntie? John Hobart? Why, you know he comes to Williamsburg three or four times a year. I’ve met him often; he’s a wonderful man, so real and interesting! Mary Campbell’s father buys most of his stock, and it was Mary’s birthday, and he came. He seemed right glad to see me; danced three waltzes with me. Mary said he had a case on me, but I don’t believe it! I asked him why he never called on Papa and Mamma, and he said to me, ‘Do you want me to come, Miss Lydia?’ And land! My face got so hot! Mary said I blushed like a whole garden of roses, but she always did exaggerate. And so I said, ‘Yes, of course I do,’ and he said, ‘I’ll come the next time.’ Mary joked with him about him being a bachelor, and he looked at me so strangely and said, ‘The right girl could change that.’ And Mary just shrieked that I got redder and redder. Oh, I do like him a lot, and I do hope I’ll see him before I go home again!”
Margaret, still listening, was conscious of a cold sensation in her breast.
“John Hobart,” mused Lydia softly. “He’s awful rich, isn’t he, Auntie?”
“Richest man hereabouts; richer than even Mayor Bailey in Whitmore. Could be mayor of Whitmore hisself if he wanted to,” replied Mrs. Holbrooks.
“I like rich men,” said Lydia in a childishly laughing voice. The others laughed fondly.
“You could do worse than Johnny Hobart,” said her aunt stolidly. “Don’t think no worse of him, Lydia, ’cause of that Maggie Hamilton. Men will be men, you know,” she added delicately, “and bein’s the Lord made them that way, we wimin folks must shut our eyes sometimes and pretend like we don’t see nothin’.”
“What a terrible creature she must be!” said Lydia in awed tones.
Margaret felt a stiff smile lift the corners of her cold lips. She felt numb all over. Ralph was forgotten. She put up her hand against the hot side of the house to steady herself. Illuminated by flame, she saw herself and John in the gentle hollow under the dark trees that night a week ago; for the first time a sickening sensation of guilt struck her. It was not at the act itself that she stood appalled; she was appalled because she had given truth to these creatures’ hints and suspicions. She had voluntarily stepped under their feet that they might trample upon her and she was in their power. All at once she wanted to descend upon them, to strike them with powerful fists.
“Wal, there ain’t so much talk anyways ’bout John marryin’ her, like there was,” reminded Mrs. King. “My Ezra said that he heard in town yesterday that John had just ordered new fixin’s and things, and loads of stone. Must be goin’ to build that new house he allus talked about. Don’t look like Maggie Hamilton’s goin’ to be the one to live in it! How about you, Miss Lydia?”
Lydia laughed softly and self-consciously. As though she were in the room, Margaret could see the teasing eyes of the ladies fixed upon the girl. She drew a deep breath, put on her bonnet again, and retreated from the house. Then she began to sing loudly, making a great noise as she approached the house again.
She stepped onto the stoop, humming. The door of the house stood open. All was dimness within, but she could distinguish in the gloom figures of the various ladies sitting about the cold fireplace. Their faces, as they turned them to her, were merely white blotches to her sun-dazzled eyes. She saw that they were drinking coffee and eating cake.
“Oh, it’s you, Maggie!” exclaimed Mrs. Blodgett in a falsely affectionate voice. Her eyes shifted from the girl. “We were just settin’ here out of the heat, where it’s cool, drinkin’ our coffee. Sit down, gal. Just made this cake yest’day; cut yourself a piece.”
“Thanks, no; I’m not hungry,” said Margaret. She looked about at the other women, at Mrs. Holbrooks, stout, dressed in her best Sunday black silk. Mrs. King, tremendously tall and gaunt, like an old spinster. Mrs. MacKensie, of penurious Scotch descent, a tiny, birdlike woman with pecking manners and a reputation for close management of her rich hundred acres. And then the stranger, Lydia Holbrooks, a slender and dainty young girl of about Margaret’s age. It was upon her that Margaret fixed her intent regard. The girl wore a soft and flowing dress of rose-sprigged muslin with a demure collar of rose ribbons high about her throat; a tiny flowertrimmed bonnet of lace and ribbons was tilted forward over her low white forehead and chestnut curls and was tied coquettishly under her round white chin. She was very tiny and beautifully made; for the rest, she had a piquant little face like a saucy child’s, all dainty white and pink, with large blue eyes charmingly wide.
Margaret saw nothing but this town-bred girl, whose father was one of the wealthiest men of Williamsburg, a book and newspaper publisher. And as she looked down at the girl, who returned her fierce regard with impudent amusement, she felt her gorge rise at her own awkwardness, her outgrown dress, her strong brown hands. She felt herself to be unutterably ugly, her hair slipping down her sunburned neck. Her face turned scarlet;
she could have died in her shame and self-loathing.
“So glad to know you,” Lydia murmured. “You’re Maggie, aren’t you?”
Margaret mechanically took the hand; it was lost in her strong brown fingers. She relinquished it as though it were a snake. Lydia smiled again. What a great gawk! she was thinking. And they were silly enough to think that dear John Hobart would run after this lumbering country wench!
The others, with the exception of Mrs. Holbrooks, Lydia’s aunt, smirked knowingly at each other. Mrs. King actually tittered in a smothered voice; Mrs. MacKensie raised sandy eyebrows, like little wings, far up on her tranquil forehead. Each lady smoothed her best Sunday silk dress with conscious hands. But Mrs. Holbrooks looked at Margaret with a sort of angry pity. She had a large and meticulously kept house; she ruled her household of meek husband and three hired men with a hand of iron; she was close and hard; but under her hardness she was just and even kind.
Now her gray eyes snapped. She gave Mrs. King such a glance that that lady subsided, her mouth open with injured amazement. Mrs. Holbrooks had no use for the shiftless Hamiltons; she despised and berated them on all occasions. She had shown no charity in flaying Margaret, either today or in the yesterdays. But now, looking at the girl, her slender and beautiful figure hidden by the childish gingham dress, the white stockings corrugated on her really delicate ankles, the frayed pink sunbonnet revealing unruly masses of black hair, she was conscious of a wrathful compassion. Why, dress that girl up, wash her face, fix her hair decently, and her own husband’s niece, (of whom she was very fond) would look a cheap little hussy in comparison! Mrs. Holbrooks’ eyes were sharp and saw what others did not see.
“Sit down, Maggie!” she snapped. “Coffee’s still hot; anyone can drink coffee.”