He was thinking of all this as he lay in his bed, staring into the darkness. He was thinking of the splintering thought which had come to him when he had watched his father being lowered into his grave. He had thought: I am free at last.
His thoughts had always come to him slowly. They had been like thick-husked seeds planted in the ground. A day would come when the husk would split, and a thin frail tendril would emerge, green and seeking. Then the dark and heavy earth of his mind would be pierced by the delicate stem, and a hopeful leaf would be put out. But it would take a long time before the thought became a rooted and steadfast tree, matted in invincible branches beneath the sun. So he could not understand the suddenness and violence of the thought at his father’s grave. He did not know of the seed which had been planted in his slow and solid mind years ago, and which only now, as the darkness rolled away, was revealed as a full-grown tree.
I am free at last, he had thought. And he had looked at his mother, standing there in the gray drizzle near the raw earth. He had looked, and thought: We are all free. He had loved his mother, as an animal loves its dam, but he had never thought much about her. Now he saw her, and for the first time a quiet and angry bitterness came to him against his father. No expression showed itself on his large and impassive face. Andrew thought with his instincts, and his instincts were awakened now; emotions, rather than true and relentless reflections, marched through his mind. He had looked at Melissa, and his small blue eyes had darkened, partly with pity, partly with disgust. He had looked at little mewling Phoebe, whose golden ringlets were the only bright color in the foggy grayness, and his dark-auburn brows had drawn together in a thick knot.
He thought: Why have I done this thing to my life, and allowed it to be done? I saw his face this morning as he lay in his coffin, and I knew he was a lie. I let him do what he wished with me, because he had deceived me, just as he had deceived my mother and my sisters. How was it possible I did not know until this afternoon when I saw his face for the last time before they closed the lid down upon it? I knew it all at once, suddenly, like lightning
But it had not come like lightning, and Andrew’s mind, moving like a belated sun over a dimmed landscape, began to pick out hidden landmarks and the shapes of his tree-thoughts. He had forgotten, but now, involuntarily, he thought of a certain morning in spring when he had been fifteen years old, and home for the Easter holidays. It was the morning when the hard lifeless seed had been dropped in the earth of his mind.
He saw that morning so clearly now. Yesterday it had been cold and bitter, winter lingering in slabs of white ice, like fallen gravestones, under the bare trees. The wind had been a lash, the rain, drops of ice. But this morning had come, and with it the long sweet breath of spring, like a smile, like a soft, triumphant chorus hardly heard, only felt. Never had there been such a sky, so pure, tinted like a robin’s egg, across which moved thin drifts of clouds radiant before the new sun. The brown wet earth lay under the light, still naked, but softened with mist and exhaling a thousand strong and fertile scents too intoxicating for endurance. The hills floated in mauve radiance. The trees were still empty, yet there was a pliability about, their branches, a gentle blurring; no longer were they stark and hard and rigid as they had.been only yesterday. A faint greenness, like a haze, touched the distant fields, which had lain like rutted iron the other morning. The fowl in the barnyard, the pigs, the horses in the stable, the cattle in their stalls, lifted their voices excitedly as if they had slept all winter and had come awake only at this hour. Robins hopped over the ground, their red-umber breasts bright in the sunlight, and sparrows twittered noisily in the eaves and over the slate roof of the house, which, damp from the rains of the night, now flowed like water with the blue reflection from the sky.
Andrew had seen Charles and Melissa in the wet brown garden. They were listening, and seeing, standing hand in hand like lovers, with the sunlight on their faces. Charles was wearing his old black cloak, which fell about him in lean shabby folds. His heard was bare, and the sunlight had turned his gray hair to a flat silver. As always, his shoulders were bent, and he was the delicate and attenuated scholar delighting esthetically in the young morning. Melissa was clad in one of her somber and bunchy brown frocks, careless, as always, of her seventeen-year-old virgin beauty, unaware of the slender elegance of her figure, which even her garments could not de stroy. She had thrown a gray shawl over her shoulders; it fluttered in the wind. Her profile was turned towards Andrew, and for the first time he knew that his sister was beautiful. Her pale gilt hair shone and glittered in the sun, like a gold piece fresh from the mint, and Andrew thought that her profile, too, resembled the profile on a new coin, so clearly cut was it, so sharp and intense of feature, so unworn by ugly hands.
Andrew had left the house with his usual careful silence, and now stood behind his father and sister. He was content to be near them, without their seeing him. He wanted to hear their voices speaking about the morning. He felt the earth under his feet; all at once, it seemed to pulse against them like a deep, awakening breast. He stood on the breast of the earth, and he knew it was alive, that it had cognizance, that it was a huge sentient being. He must have always known it, all his life, but now he knew that he had known it forever.
Charles began to speak, in the dreamy voice he affected when he wished to inform his audience that he was poignantly moved:
“Melissa, I feel, this morning, that the earth is a living being, personally alive, a huge creature with a soul and a consciousness of its own, apart from the creatures who live upon it.”
Melissa looked at her father breathlessly, and now her face became fluid with quiet rapture, and she murmured incoherently. But Andrew did not look at her. He stared at the earth under his feet and felt its pulse. It lived. But then, he had always known it. The earth was alive; it had a spirit. He had always loved it. Some time, during his school years, he had read that men had once worshipped the earth. He remembered how the schoolboys had laughed scornfully at the idea. They were wrong! The great mother earth was a Being, with an enormous heart forever beating, with a pulsing so huge, so ponderously living, that the little hearts of men must stir in answer, however feeble.
His father’s graciously approving voice echoed in the boy’s ears, and suddenly Andrew could not bear to hear it, though he did not understand why. But he felt that something blasphemous was being uttered, something loftily and indulgently patronizing, as if Charles believed that the earth, great Mother Earth, ought to be pleased that one of her minute children had recognized her, had granted her sentience, from some celestial throne set far above her grossness.
Andrew ran back into the house and shut the door of his room with a rare vehemence. He sat on the edge of his bed, and his hands were sweating, and his face was flushed, as though he had been witness to some scene of desecration. He was young, and his emotions, though vast, were always formless, and at last he did not know why he had felt this thing. He knew only that something alien had salted his mouth; he did not know it was hatred.
But now he knew it as he lay in his bed and stared at the gray patch of little window. The seed had been sown that morning, the seed which would be revealed as a mighty tree-shape in the hour when he stood by his father’s grave.
He thought to himself, moving his large head on his strong, muscular arms: The earth was always mine, and I always belonged to the earth. There was nothing, ever, between us. How dared they stand there, that morning, and be condescending to the morning, and ethereally enraptured over it, no doubt feeling in themselves a mean, exalted self-approval because they had allowed the everlasting earth a little measure of consciousness! Like angels affably acknowledging the wagging tail of a dog! I hated him then, though I did not know it. I know it now. It was my knowing it was hatred that set me free. It was my knowing all about him, and despising him. Melissa? She is a fool.
He thought of the earth, and he said to himself: Mine! There is nothing to keep me from it now. What kept me from i
t before? My own stupidity, my own wicked and senseless humility. In some way, a corrupt mind took hold of my mind. I can see now that a corrupt mind can enslave and injure more than a corrupt act. But his was a very peculiar corruption. I wonder if he ever knew that he was a fraud? I wonder if he deliberately set out to destroy us all, or whether he, too, was helpless?
Andrew listened to the wind, and smiled deeply to himself. It was the voice of promise and deliverance, of freedom and peace. It was the voice of the holy earth. He had never experienced any spiritual reaction in church, or in his Sunday school, and had hardly listened to the sermons. But now he remembered something: Be still, and know that God is. He was not certain if this was the exact quotation, but he understood it. Be still, and know that God is, and knowing, know that the earth is one with Him, and He with the earth.
CHAPTER 7
Next door to Andrew’s room was the linen and storage room, beyond that a “guest chamber,” which no guest had ever occupied, and beyond the guest chamber was Phoebe Upjohn’s room. In some way—though it is doubtful whether Phoebe had ever asked for it outright—the room was one of the best, if not the best, in the house. Phoebe always managed to obtain the nicest thing available, whether it was food or clothing, a piece of jewelry or a delicate length of lace, even if no one ever recalled that she had demanded it. Agreeable gifts, and events, appeared to flow toward Phoebe involuntarily. She had a sweet selfishness, which had a hypnotic effect on the others, and made them strain to give her her spoken, or unspoken desires.
So Phoebe had the best room in the house, if not the largest. It was not afflicted by the long, narrow aspects of the other rooms, so gloomy, chill and depressing. In contrast, it was square, and faced the south, so that any wandering beam of sunlight always found its way there. Amanda’s girlhood furniture filled it, a pretty rosewood desk inlaid with ivory, a small handsome commode, whose doors were painted with a delicate scene of sporting cupids and flowers, a rosewood bookcase, two graceful little damask chairs, a handsome tapestried wing chair, a carved wardrobe of mahogany, and a beautiful canopied bed, draped in pale yellow satin with a white fringe. Here and there dainty little footstools, worked in the most meticulous petit-point, were scattered about the room, available for Phoebe’s small feet. Pale yellow rosebuds were scattered on the soft green wallpaper, which Phoebe had especially chosen in Philadelphia, and there was a wide dim green rug, scattered with yellow roses, also unaccountably purchased on the occasion of a visit to that city. Two large windows, close together, had been draped with yellow satin to match the canopy of the bed. The satin was old and cracked, but this was hardly visible. All in all, it was a charming room, and Phobe nestled in it like a bee in a flower.
Phoebe, like all the others in the household, was not asleep tonight. She lay, curled cosily under her mother’s best quilts and eiderdown puff, and listened contentedly to the wind. She was a luxurious little creature, sedulously careful of herself, and she liked to hear a storm outside while she was here so snugly sheltered and warm. Her head, pressed deep in the warmth of the pillows, hummed with thoughts. They hummed with thoughts of her father, Charles.
Poor Papa. She was so very sorry that he was dead. She pictured him lying in the cold earth, so yellow and so wet, while the wind howled over him. She curled herself more closely together under the heap of quilts and puffs, and loved the cosiness with a voluptuous enjoyment. How dreadful it was to be deadl It made being alive and safe so wonderful, so delightful. She could feel the contact of the smooth linen on her arms and feet, and against her cheek, and revelled in it.
Her eyes smarted a little, and she remembered the tears she had shed. She had cried because she was emotional, and because she knew she looked so helpless and pathetic when she wept, and that everyone’s attention would be turned to her in consolation. But really, poor Papal It was sad he was dead. He must hate it so, if he knew. Phoebe, always so pious in church, always ready with an appropriate text, sincerely doubted whether her father had any conscious existence now. She wished, for an instant, that he knew he was dead. In a way, it would enhance her own cosiness under the quilts. She ran her hand gently over the swell of her young hips, and smiled in the darkness.
Poor Mama. It was so silly that Mama had never known anything at all about Papa, Papa with his worn, greenish cloak, and his eloquent gestures, and his precious way of speaking. Phoebe giggled softly, then stifled her mouth with the edge of the quilt. Stupid Melissa, who looked at her father with the shining eyes of a saint. If she, Phoebe, had had only a little more time, then Melissa would have been quite out in the cold. Melissa was growing old now, and no one but Phoebe knew how Charles had hated age, wrinkled and dry skins, and how he delighted in fresh beauty.
Again, Phoebe giggled. She thought how clever her papa had been, and she, his little daughter, was just like him. They knew how to get their way, how to make fools do their bidding gladly, without even a lift of the voice, or a struggle. Only imbeciles fought for what they wanted, shouting, and getting upset over the slightest object, when all that was necessary was to keep the voice soft, to remain helpless and touching, to smile sweetly and affectionately. Papa was so clever; Phoebe had very early learned her lessons from him.
She had really liked Papa. He was so amusing, but not in the way he had seemed amusing to others. It quite diverted her to watch him getting his way with silly old Melissa and Mama, though he had lately left Mama to her, just as she, Phoebe, had rarely encroached on Melissa. Yes, she had liked Papa. It was better than a play, watching him. He was such a wonderful actor, so much more clever than all the stupid rest of the world. She had learned many adroit things from him. She had learned to be cheerful and sweet-tempered, to appear to bow before the will of “stronger” people, to pretend to be pliable and helpful and eager to please. By obeying Mama with soft smiles, by displaying an anxiety to be useful, by acceding with a “yes, dear Mama,” she had gotten this lovely room, a wardrobe full of dainty gowns, three gold bangles, a spangled net for her hair, eight pairs of the prettiest slippers, and a whole commode full of dainty petticoats and chemises.
Phoebe had known her own power, as Charles had known his. She frowned now in the darkness. She had not possessed quite all of Charles’ patience. She was not always content to allow the stupid “strong” to believe in their strength. There were times when the very sight of Melissa, competent, haughty and severe, going about Charles’ affairs as if only she were important to him, had irked Phoebe almost beyond endurance. She had longed to “take her down a peg,” just for the sake of demonstrating her own secret potency.
Phoebe was no fool, nor had she ever been the sweet little idiot the others in the household had believed her to be. She had a certain flair for the lovely word, a certain frail perceptiveness of beauty. Her isolated life had compelled her to read widely and, as she was of a very superficially romantic temperament, she liked the more airy poetry. A few years ago she had, for her own pleasure and self-satisfaction, begun to string fragile and colorful words together. Then, too, she was very deft. She could take one of Keats’ or Shelley’s lesser-known poems, rearrange, alter a word or two here and there, rephrase a certain line, and have quite an artless little poem of her own. It was part of her cleverness that she could plagiarize without detection, and a tribute to her remarkable cunning that she could remain unexposed. She had no true inspiration of her own.
A year before, love had come to Phoebe, in the narrower sense of the word, for young John Barrett, a childhood friend, had suddenly, with Phoebe’s assistance, been made aware of her beauty. John was the grandson of old Mr. Barrett, who owned one of the richest and most prosperous farms the other side of Midfield. No one, least of all John, had expected that old Mr. Barrett would leave the farm to the young man, for John was the son of Mr. Barrett’s only daughter, whom he had hated. Upon her death, and her husband’s in Philadelphia, John had been brought to the farm with the grudging consent of the old man; who had immediately set him to work from dawn to s
unset and had treated him so cruelly that indignation had been widespread in the community, even at a time when it was considered wise and proper not to spare the rod in the bringing up of a child. John was not allowed to eat with his grandfather; he must eat with the surly housekeeper in the kitchen and be subject to her blows. He slept in a cold attic, among ancient trunks, discarded furniture, and rats. His clothing was rags. But somehow he had been able to acquire an education of a sort and had grown up to be a dignified and gentlemanly young man. He had eventually gained admiration for his own sake, in spite of the pity of the community. When his grandfather died, and it was discovered that he was the heir to all that rich nest, the money in the bank, the fine old house, the fat acres, the shrewdly bought stocks and bonds and the excellent horses, admiration and pity had become respect and approbation.
He had always peeped at Phoebe in church, though she had never turned a direct glance on his frayed shabbiness, big red hands and big muddy boots. But his grandfather had not been dead two weeks before she was peeping at him in return, and blushing all over her pretty bright face.
Before the year was out, Phoebe, to her own immense satisfaction and Amanda’s joy, was formally betrothed to John Barrett. The others in the family had merely smiled vaguely, had not given the matter much thought until Phoebe had produced her poems.
Then Melissa had begun to speak with passionate scorn of John Barrett, “that soulless farmer, that clod, that lout!” Phoebe must live a transcendental life of poetry, dedicated to the service of something beyond herself. She must abandon the very thought of marriage to John Barrett. Melissa took Phoebe’s life competently into her hands and daily, impatiently, urged that Phoebe send John packing. Phoebe had promised, in a small soft voice. For the first time, fear came to her, fear that Melissa might, after all, really be strong and dominant. But it was a passing fear, and after a while Phoebe was merely amused and contemptuous.