Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

  CHAPTER XVI

  OUT OF THE ASHES

  Poppea's chief wonder on her return home was in finding everythingprecisely as she had left it. A single winter does not witness a verygreat change in place or people, but to Poppea, so much having beencrowded into those few months, it seemed as though the children of thevillage should have become men and women in her absence.

  By the first of May, Miss Emmy had returned to Quality Hill. Miss Feltonhad decided to remain with Mr. Esterbrook in the Madison Square housefor the present, the outlook being pleasant, though the nearness of thedoctor was her first thought. As for Mr. Esterbrook himself, he hadrallied sufficiently to be put in a wheel-chair. His right side wasparalyzed and his speech as yet well-nigh unintelligible, so that hiswants were filled mainly by the intuition of Miss Elizabeth and Caleb.

  In spite of his absence of the previous summer and a report that it wasto be repeated, John Angus had returned to Harley's Mills rather earlierthan usual, and Stephen Latimer, the only one of the people who hadreceived more than a casual greeting, said that he was looking ill, andthat he had virtually confessed to Latimer that the winter had been ahard one to him, this being the first time that he had ever mentionedhis health.

  The new venture at the Mills was beginning to see daylight, for HughOldys's inexperience was offset by the loyalty of the men who surroundedhim. There was much also in connection with the growing plant thatinterested Hugh in an altruistic way, and already, in cooperation withStephen Latimer, he was establishing relations with his employees andtheir families entirely different from those obtaining in the near-byNew England factory towns.

  It was Poppea who felt herself the odd number. Within the limits of acertain suppression of force, she had always seemed content, and herquiet, well-directed energy had been the reverse of the restlessnessthat now possessed her. She worked at everything with a feverishintensity wholly new and very disturbing to Oliver Gilbert, whose dailylife had been unconsciously regulated by her impulse. Poppea not onlytook charge of the making-up and sorting of the two heaviest mails ofthe day, but had undertaken a new and gratuitous task,--the writing ofletters to the old country for those who either could not write at allor could only pen their names and had no way of pouring out theirfeelings to those they had left behind. In addition, she had announcedher intention of doing all the housework herself when Satira Pottsshould leave, for although Mrs. Shandy had returned in April from hervisit home, Hugh Oldys's need of a housekeeper had taken her from thefield.

  Jeanne Latimer, who had been appealed to both by Satira Potts and MissEmmy as the one most likely to convince Poppea of the foolishness ofsuch a course, ended by indorsing the girl's resolution, for she feltthe growing tension that the others did not notice, and knew well, fromher own temperament, that only what sometimes would appear to be foolishactivity keeps the nerves elastic and from snapping.

  One day, in talking to Hugh Oldys about the life in the city, when hehad expressed, as far as he ever allowed himself to, the feeling ofbeing out of the midst of things after having once broken his way in, heturned the matter quickly by saying to Poppea:--

  "And you, how did you like the New York life? I do not mean the outsidethings, the theatre, music, galleries, and shops, but the inner lifethat you led of yourself?"

  As he spoke they were walking down the road from Quality Hill toward thevillage and the afternoon sun was sifting through the hilltops thatgradually increased in height as Moosatuck disappeared among them,--aslender, silvery thread unravelling toward its source.

  For a moment the girl stood looking afar off to where one hill, calledthe mountain by the local youths who climbed it, arose above all theothers; presently she said, speaking as of a state of existence where inpassing through she had lost something of herself:--

  "The life, the real life there in the city? Oh, Hugh! at first it seemedlike being on the mountain where everything is spread before one. Youare very lonely, to be sure, but still, somebody, and then suddenly youfind that you are nothing at all but the wind among the grass that fallsaway as night comes!"

  And reading from what she did not say rather than from what she did,Hugh sighed and then quickened their pace, wondering what would be theend of it all for both of them.

  That night, or rather morning, the fire signal was given by one of thefactories on the Westboro road, to be repeated the next moment by thewhistle of the Owl Express due to pass at three, and which haltedpresently, tolling its bell dismally. Instantly the male portion of thevillage was in its boots and trousers and running toward the red lightat the north horizon. This was soon found to come from the railroadstation at Harley's Mills. 'Lisha Potts, who had arrived at thepost-office house with his team the previous evening to take his wifehome the next day, was among the first to reach the building which hadbeen set on fire at one end of the roof, presumably by a passing train.

  Breaking into the ticket-office to haul out a small safe, and suchexpress packages as had not been delivered, was the work of a fewmoments, while some energetic villagers, with more vigor thandiscretion, rushed into the attic and threw from the dormers a lot ofold lanterns, boxes, broken bits of furniture, and like rubbish alreadypartly on fire, that had been accumulating there ever since the stationwas built and antedating the checking system. The lanterns, of course,were shivered to atoms in transit, while the other smouldering stuffwas promptly seized by the crowd below and dumped into the little brookthat ran along the north side of the track.

  After these efforts, no attempt was made to save the building, for therewas no water-supply, or fire company other than a bucket-brigade, whichwas ineffectual against the keen spring wind that was scattering thebrands over the thirsty old shingles. The burning station furnished anhour's spectacle both for the villagers and the passengers on the OwlExpress which, being on the near track, had to wait; then shrivelledinto a cellar full of ashes crossed by a few charred beams, the fire ofwhich was soon changed to harmless smoke by the efforts of thebucket-brigade. The express ceased its tooting, gave one long and twoshort whistles, and proceeded on its way; while after the safe andmiscellaneous contents of the express office had been transferred to thefreight-house, the throng turned homeward to snatch a little sleep inthe couple of hours that remained before the working day began.

  'Lisha Potts was so thoroughly awake that it did not seem to him worthwhile to go to bed again, especially as he wished to make an early startfor home. Satira, having also been to the fire, was in a bustling mood,so she prepared some of her famous coffee, and the pair sat down to afour o'clock pick-up breakfast in the kitchen of the post-office house,with many cautions of silence interspersed with little jokes and muchchuckling that belonged to a young couple on the verge of eloping ratherthan to people of sedate years who were about to take up housekeepingonce more after a winter of partial separation.

  Presently 'Lisha stood in the doorway facing the east, watching the skyredden until the climax was reached in the coming up of the sun overMoosatuck, while the swifts wheeling in and out of the stone chimneybehind him were making mimic thunder. He was undecided whether to beginat once the grooming of his horses or take a stroll along the lane thatindirectly joined the two main roads and get a sniff of the mist-ladenmorning air so necessary to those whose life has been of the open.

  Choosing the latter, he had gone but a dozen rods when he met thestation-master, who had come across lots with the direct intention ofhunting him out. It seemed that the mass of smouldering debris cast fromthe attic into the brook had bunched together and formed an impromptudam, to the extent that the little stream, unusually lusty from thespring rains, had been diverted from its course to the switch track,where it was now busily washing the ballast from between the ties. Thestation-master's errand was to see if 'Lisha would hook up and cart thestuff about half a mile farther down the road to where a bottomlessbog-hole conveniently consumed the refuse of the community.

  Armed with a potato-digger by way of a weapon, 'Lisha was soon loadingthe sodden stu
ff into his long wagon, which he chanced to be driving thenight before, when he had come direct from the lumber camp to thepost-office house.

  "Do you reckon there's any of this old stuff that's any good to dryout?" he asked the station-master, who was standing on the switch trackon the lookout for the milk train.

  "Nope; there's no company property amongst it, only a lot of odds andends that's been up there since old Binks's day, and his widder didn'tsee value in to move. That little cow-skin trunk I've never seen before;it must have lain away in the dark pit behind the chimney; it might havebeen a sort of a curiosity if it hadn't been scorched and bulged, but asit is, better dump the whole lot and done with it."

  Not until 'Lisha was unloading the steaming and ill-smelling mass didthe box in question excite his curiosity; then dropping it to the grass,he finished his task and swept out his wagon before waiting to examinethe trunk.

  The lock had been broken and rusted away, the strap also haddisintegrated, so that all that held it together was a loop of wire.Jerking the top up disclosed a mass of smoking rags and a few bundles ofscorched papers. The smell of the burned hide with which it was stillpartly covered nearly choked 'Lisha as he stooped to finger thecontents. He was about to gather the things together and give the trunka mighty toss into the swamp, when a bundle of yellow papers, swelled bythe dampness and heat, squirmed and fell apart, leaving a long envelope,in fairly good condition, lying face upward. It was merely the suddenmovement of the papers that drew the man's eye toward them, but hequickly went nearer for a second look, then seized upon the letter withhands that shook so that the characters danced about likewill-o'-the-wisps before him. Yes, the address was plain enough, awell-known name, written in a delicate, pointed hand; the sight of itmade his heart beat like a nervous woman's. Turning the letter, he sawthat the large seal on it had never been broken.

  Carefully wiping it on his coat, 'Lisha put it in his pocket and beganto stir the other papers, but very carefully, for the heat and moisturemade it very easy for a careless motion to turn the bundles into pulp."To whomsoever's hands these papers may fall," was written across thewrapper of the most considerable package, while even as 'Lisha read itmoisture altered the writing so that its identity vanished in a blurredstreak. Quickly realizing that unless the papers were carefully driedand separated their purport would be lost, he tipped the water from thetrunk and closed the lid, saying apparently to Toby the near horse,after the fashion of a woodsman who talks to his animals:--

  "There's suthin queer about this trunk, but as I be the hands the papershave fallen into, I reckon I'll look into them."

  Then, as an impetus akin to an electric spark touched the mists ofconjecture that were gathering in his roomy if not systematicallyordered brain, he jumped fairly off the ground, shouting:--

  "Great snakes! suppos'n' these here have something to do with the ladybaby! Maybe the box was meant to come along with her; those rags therelook as if they was once baby clothes. But how did them villains thatleft her get her switched off from her goods, and why ain't the letter'dressed to Oliver Gilbert instead of to--My Lord! but this here's adilemma with three horns, not the two-horned, ornery kind.

  "If I take 'em to Satiry, she'll be so fussed up she'll worry 'em tobits before read; if Oliver Gilbert or Poppy gets 'em and I'm on thewrong track, as I've nothing yet but instinct to prove that I ain't,it'll pull her heart out with disappointment or maybe give him a stroke,for strokes comes frequent to folks turned of seventy. If a thing's sored-hot you can't handle it, there's folks that by nature's meant to doit for you, and them's the doctor, the lawyer, and the parson. I reckonin this case the parson's the best, 'cause if the Lord has let down abit of his wisdom, discretion, and loving-kindness in a sheet by fourcorners in this neighborhood, it's fell on Stephen Latimer.

  "I'll just clip over there by the back way and leave the box and homeagain before a soul's awake to spy and whisper; hey, Toby 'n Bill?"

  And the horses, accustomed to respond to his cheerful address and beingkeen for breakfast, replied by a doubly shrill whinny.

  It was past six o'clock when 'Lisha drove into the yard of the Rectory.Latimer had but then returned from the cottage colony at the Mills,where he had given courage to a young mother on the road of shadows thatseemed doubly lonely in that she would leave her new-born son behind.

  Latimer wore the look of having himself walked in the beyond at daydawn, and rough 'Lisha, no less than Jeanne, was struck by theillumination of his face.

  At 'Lisha's whispered surmises concerning the contents of the trunk, heshowed no surprise, but the rapt intensity that surrounded himincreased.

  "Take it to my study," was all he said; and when Jeanne came in a fewminutes later, attracted by the sound of voices, 'Lisha had gone, andher husband sat looking at the object on the floor, his hands clasped asthough he prayed.

  He read the question in her face, all the more beautiful to him that thelove and care of others had left their life-lines on the cheeks thatwere once as round and dimpled as a baby's. Telling the bare facts, headded: "Something was struggling to make known that this was coming, forall last night the face of the new-born babe I christened was Poppea'sand the other face that of her mother. The day will come, Jeanne, whenthere will no longer be anything unnatural about the happenings that wecall visions and miracles, because the knowledge will have come to us tounderstand them."

  Then after breakfasting together in the sweet spring morning, in quietconfidence, only separated in degree from the other couple who ate atthe post-office house before the dawn, Stephen Latimer lay down to takesome open-eyed rest before examining the trunk. When he began the work,he cautioned Jeanne to refuse him absolutely to all callers. Then,provided with blotters, a thin paper-knife, and warm irons, he spread asheet upon the study floor and raised the water-soaked lid.

  All through the morning he worked, separating and drying. At noon, whenJeanne opened the door, he did not turn his head, and setting the trayof luncheon where he could see it, she closed the door again withoutspeaking. When supper-time came and she again entered, the papers werearranged upon his desk in tidy piles, and he was reading. He stretchedhis hand out for the cup of tea she held and still kept at his task.

  It was after eight o'clock when he called her, and white and exhaustedas he looked, she saw at once that he had reached some definiteconclusion. Begging him to take at least a bowl of soup, he assented,and then drew her to him on the seat before the open window. Holding herhand as if the tender grasp of it would focus and harmonize histhoughts, he sat a moment silent, as though he had lost the gift ofwords.

  "Was Poppea's secret hid among those papers?" Jeanne finally asked,unable to restrain her curiosity any longer. "And if it was, do tell mequickly and simply who she is, and then the why of it after. You don'trealize, Stevie, what the strain of this long day has been upon awoman."

  "It can be told quickly, but for the rest it's not a simple matter,"replied Stephen, trying with his tired brain to sort his ideas and putthem in sequence. "The papers in this trunk are various family letters,the certificate of Poppea's birth and baptism and some of her mother'sdiaries--"

  "Yes, yes! but _who_ was her mother?" cried Jeanne, the uncontrollableimpetuosity of youth returning to her, so that she rose to a kneelingposition on the window-seat and almost shook her husband, so vigorouslydid she grasp his shoulder.

  "Helen Dudleigh, John Angus's first wife; she whom Gilbert calls 'thelittle roseleaf.'"

  "Helen Dudleigh!" Jeanne repeated in an indrawn voice. "Then Poppea canhave no legal father, because John Angus's first wife merely left himand there was never a divorce. Perhaps this was the reason for hergoing, you know none was ever given; but no one ever dreamed that anyfault lay with her."

  "Yes, it was the reason of her going, yet no one need ever dream oflegal wrong, for John Angus himself is Poppea's father."

  Jeanne fell back, and then, after searching her husband's face andreading there that he was speaking the unmetaphorical truth, sh
e drew alow chair to where she might continue to look at him and whispered:--

  "Go on!"

  "There is much detail among those papers that belongs to Poppea alone,but this is the brief story that I have drawn from them.

  "Over thirty years ago, John Angus was travelling on the continent when,at the same hotel where he was stopping, he met an English artist,Walter Dudleigh, who was staying there, both on account of his health,and because his young daughter Helen was studying singing.

  "Dudleigh was a widower of good birth but of frail health and uncertainmeans. That Angus was at once struck by the girl's delicate beauty--shewas then only eighteen--some of these letters prove, and after hearingher sing at a fete of flowers given by the conservatory, in which shetook the part of a poppy, he proposed to her, or rather to her fatherfor her. The artist, knowing that he had only a short life before himand no one with whom to leave his child, urged on the match, and as awedding gift to his son-in-law, painted a miniature of Helen as she hadappeared at the fete with the poppies in her hair, having the fancifulname of Poppea engraved in the locket with the date.

  "This is, of course, the miniature that hung about Poppea's neck whenshe was found.

  "Dudleigh died of hemorrhage of the lungs almost before the honeymoonwas over, leaving the girl an unexpected two thousand pounds that camefrom her mother, and Angus soon after returned to this country with hisgirl wife.

  "From the first she seems to have had a hard time of it. An emotionalchild with an artistic temperament, thrown not only among strange peopleand customs, but married to a man who always commanded and neverexplained, and who considered that implicit affection, if it might be socalled, was her legal duty, a sort of commercial article that he hadbought, and nothing to be either won or kept by consideration ortenderness. She, chilled and lonely, evidently did not make the markedsocial success he desired, and his constant reproach was that she borehim no children, for John Angus seems to have had an exaggerated idea ofthe political importance of founding a family, so often held by thoseof no especial ancestry.

  "Ten years wore away, and Helen Angus, still under thirty, had faded tothe timorous, trembling shadow that we knew, when one summer, the loveof youth and life taking a final flicker, in John Angus's absence shecame out of her seclusion and took part in some of the Feltons'entertainments, and renewed her habit of going to church, which haddropped away. At this time it chanced that Mr. Esterbrook's nephew, ayoung army officer, met her, danced with her, and showed her somecourtesies, but no more than any woman might receive. Nevertheless, onhis return, Angus upbraided her for going out, and upon her maintainingher own defence for the first time in many years, he struck herfuriously and left the house, not returning for more than a week.

  "During this period of outraged feeling and humiliation, she discoveredthat at last a child was to be born to her, and resolving that JohnAngus should not have it in his power to torture another human being ashe had herself, she determined to go away, leaving a letter saying thatthe price of her silence concerning his treatment culminating in theblow was that he should not try to find her. Public censure on hisprivate conduct was not what was desired by Angus in his prayer-meetingand political purity pose, so he seems to have heeded her request.

  "Helen Angus went directly to the little village in Hampshire on theIsle of Wight where she had spent her childhood and sought out BettyRandal, a woman of fifty, who had also been her nurse and managed theirlittle household prior to her father's going abroad. With Betty shearranged not only to care for her during the coming crisis, but if adaughter should be born, to keep her as long as her little sum of moneylasted and to teach her to earn her living and thus make it possible forher to be free from her father if she so desired on learning hermother's story.

  "A girl was born and duly baptized Helen Dudleigh, by the rector of St.Boniface's near Bonchurch, and the mother, worn out by contendingemotions more than disease, lived to see her daughter three months old,and then was laid away, according to a death notice in a Hampshirepaper. This notice was in an envelope lettered by an illiterate hand andis dated two weeks after the last record in Helen Angus's diary. Thatshe knew that she could not live is certain, for all the writtenevidence was carefully prepared and the writing is decipherable in spiteof time and the blur of moisture.

  "One package contains Helen Angus's marriage certificate and thecertificate of Poppea's birth and baptism; another her diaries and someletters marked, 'Not to be read by my daughter until she is eithereighteen or forced to return to her father.' And then a single thickletter (the one that had attracted 'Lisha Potts), sealed and addressedto John Angus, and underneath in brackets the words, 'To be delivered incase he should dispute my daughter's paternity.'"

  As Latimer paused to wipe away the drops of sweat that stood upon hisforehead, he laid the letter on the table beside his wife and bothlooked at the yellow paper and blurred writing with a feeling of awe atthe living evidence of the poor little roseleaf, wife who, beneath theirvery eyes, had suffered so much in silence and then as silently goneaway to die. Hot tears trickled between the fingers that Jeanne heldbefore her face, but after the relief they brought, questions againformed themselves.

  "But how did the child come here so soon and why was she left at OliverGilbert's instead of the Angus house?" asked Jeanne, "and how could thelittle trunk have been hidden away so long?"

  "The last question might be easily answered," said Stephen. "It was leftin the height of the excited war times when the checking of baggage wasnot as rigid as it is now. In fact, merely the name of the village mayhave been on the box, which was put aside until called for and presentlyforgotten."

  "As to how Poppea came here, was separated from her possessions, andleft at the wrong door, there we have another and unsolved mystery thatmust be learned from the man who left her, the man with the scar on hishand."

  "Was it the wrong door after all, Stephen? Has she not been protectedand loved as her mother would have wished until she knows what love is,even if she has suffered in a lesser way?"

  "Yes, Jeanne, in one way; but do you realize, at the same time, in whata light she has learned to regard her father, and that a knowledge ofhis unrelenting spite is almost a part of her being? In all this is hermother justified, but how inextricably it complicates the future andits relations to every one concerned."

  "How and when shall you tell her, Stephen? To-night?"

  "No, I am much too worn. I will write her a brief note at once, sayingthat papers have come to me concerning the identity of her parents, andasking her to come here at once. She will get the note in the morningmail and be able to accustom herself to the contents without the effortof speech."

  "Why do you not go to her?"

  "Because Poppea will need to be alone with her mother's papers for aspace. It would be too trying if she should hear it first amid theconfusion at the office or in the company of any one, even of OliverGilbert."

  "Is it not strange, Stephen, that 'Lisha Potts, who was the first toopen the door that night, should have been the one to bring this allabout?"

  "Yes, Jeanne, more than strange; we seem to be floating in mystery. No,I cannot sleep yet; I must let the organ speak to me. Come into thechurch for a little while, dearest, and sit beside me while I play."