Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

  CHAPTER XIX

  JOHN ANGUS

  In the early part of July, a lift having been added to the house toaccommodate his wheel-chair, Miss Felton and Caleb brought Mr.Esterbrook to Quality Hill. The homecoming was in itself pathetic, butnot to be compared with the starved and yearning affection that beamedfrom Miss Felton's eyes every time she looked at him, followed by anexpression of gratitude when he managed to express the simplest wish.

  In appearance the old man was as trim and dapper as of old; he never wasallowed to be seen below stairs without his light gray or buff spats,and this toilet was made afresh every afternoon, though as to theevening there was no change, for he supped in his room and was put tobed by eight o'clock.

  Of waistcoats and neckties he had a fresh assortment and appeared totake pleasure in them, and in some way express his choice to Caleb; butaside from the physical difficulty of speech, such as he could commandhad the aphasia warp, so that he usually said the opposite of what hemeant, thus bringing an added bitterness to Miss Elizabeth. When she wasin the room, he followed her with his eyes and sometimes refused to eatat all unless she fed him, and he often held and patted her hand whenshe walked beside his chair under the old shade trees, but when he triedto call her by name, it was always Emmy that he said and not Elizabeth,or Beth, as she had been called in childhood.

  Sometimes Miss Felton would try to argue, saying:--

  "This is Elizabeth. You know Elizabeth, do you not?" but still he wouldlaugh noiselessly, the laugh of senility not mirth, and nod his head toand fro, saying:--

  "Know Emmy? know Emmy? yes, yes, Emmy!" and sometimes throw kisses toher with the hand that he could move. So finally she let it passunnoticed. But Miss Emmy, being once within hearing of it, conceived anintense aversion to the poor man, and afterward kept entirely out of hissight.

  After a time of absolute silence, Poppea took up her singing with freshinterest, and Stephen Latimer noticed the increased volume as well assympathy of her voice. After all, it seemed a pity to put any check uponsuch a gift, and little by little he began to speak of the desirabilityof her still further developing it as an art, even as her brother Philipwas developing his gift of modelling.

  Latimer well knew that Poppea's nature was not one of those who can ekeout a life of small things without the force of a mastering love toblend them into dignity, and so he talked of study abroad and traveluntil Poppea herself began to take up the idea.

  Early one evening she had been walking up and down the grassy gardenpath, watching the poppies fold their petals, palm to palm, for thenight, taking the form of pilgrim's cockle-shells, and all at once itcame to her that these flowers from the old garden on the hill above haddoubtless been planted by her mother long ago, for they were Englishpoppies, delicate of tint, and not the heavy-hued Orientals. Howwonderful it was, this handing down. Touching them lightly with herfinger-tips as she walked, her heart began to sing back to that longago, and then the music welled from her lips, all unconscious that shehad two auditors; John Angus, sitting above on his piazza, muffled andchilly even in the balmy evening, and a man, who with the air of astranger, had been walking up and down the road. Finally he opened thegate to the post-office house, but instead of following the sound of themusic to its origin, proceeded to the door and knocked.

  Presently Oliver Gilbert came stumbling out into the twilight, and, canein hand, made his halting way into the garden.

  "Poppy," he said, "there is some one who wants to see you; it's that Mr.Winslow who came down last summer, the day after the Felton ladies hadthe party. Do you remember?"

  "Yes, Daddy," said Poppea, "I remember,"--the words feeling cold to herlips like drops of dew.

  "Will you come indoors? or shall I tell him you are here?"

  "I will come in," she said, rising quickly from the bench on which shehad been seated for a moment. No, she did _not_ want him to come there,for beside her in the twilight seemed to be sitting the ghost of Hugh.

  Yet slow as Gilbert was, he gained the house before her, and when shereached the porch, it was Bradish Winslow alone who stood in the opendoorway, both hands extended.

  "I have been abroad; I did not know until yesterday," he said at oncewithout other greeting--as if she must have wondered at his silence."And now the thing of which you made a barrier has vanished, how can youkeep me out, how can you hold me away even if you want to, little one?But you don't, you can't; ah, child, child, do you know how I havemissed you? How I had to put the ocean between in order to obey the pleain your letter?"

  He had seized her hands in his greeting and still held them, drawing hernearer and nearer to him by a power that was not wholly physical force;while she, having forgotten a certain magnetism she had always felt inhis presence, did not know how to protest.

  Finally freeing her hand, she pulled forward a deep porch chair, andintrenched in its protecting arms, motioned him to take its mate.

  "I did not know that you were away," she managed to say at last.

  "Then why did you not write me only one word, 'Come'?"

  "Because, because," she stammered miserably, "I didn't think of it,because it was better that you shouldn't," and she hid her face betweenher hands to free it from the yearning of his eyes.

  "Poppea, do you not understand how much and why I care for you, foryourself and that only?" he said presently, his voice changing from theringing, joyous tone of his greeting to one serious to the verge ofsadness.

  "I believe that you do, with all my heart and soul," she answered, andcontinued in an almost reverent tone, "Few men would have acted towardme as you did that night of humiliation. I did not realize it fullythen, but I do now, and this makes me understand all the more thedifference between what you offer me and the best I have to give."

  "Even so, a little is a beginning, dear, and I can wait in patience ifyou will only let me be near you and teach you what love means. You donot even yet dream what it is, you, who, above all others I have met,were made for it and cannot be yourself without it." He saw that Poppeawas moved, was trembling, and for the moment he believed he had almostwon.

  "Perhaps I have not yet dreamed as you say," she answered gently, "butof this I am certain: love does not come by learning, love knows and issure."

  Winslow's face changed, his throat felt dry, his lips seemed rivetedtogether, his whole being fell under the spell of a complete depression.

  "Then you do know?" he said in a broken, husky voice.

  "Yes, I know," she replied like a faint echo.

  He did not make any attempt either to reason with her or to go; hemerely sat there in utter dejection, this man of the world and itsaffairs, whom women had these many years called callous.

  When at last he pulled himself from the chair, he held out both hishands, but did not go toward Poppea.

  "Then it is good-by?" he questioned.

  "I'm afraid it must be," she replied, touched by a profound sadness,"but oh, I do wish for my own sake it need not be, for in spite ofeverything I am so very lonely." Then of her own accord she took hishands and looked into his face, but in her eyes there shone somethingthat checked the parting kiss that he intended. If she were born forlove, she was no less fashioned for fidelity even to an idea, andWinslow saw that young as she was and whether she realized it or not, hehad come into her life too late.

  * * * * *

  John Angus, sitting alone on his piazza, had at first listened inirritation to the voice below in the garden, then the very quality ofits tone brought back the past as a surging tide that he could notcheck. Once more he was at the open-air fete of a foreign city and thesinging of a lovely girl, little more than a child, had crept into hisheart, as her exquisite form and coloring had pleased his critical eye,and he had let himself go. Then to keep the time schedule he hadarranged between himself and certain inexorable ambitions, he hadsuddenly pulled the chain brutally taut, and among those that it hadcruelly bruised, must he not at last count himself?

  What
if he had not--but what was the use. The singing ceased and with ithis unusual revery. Shivering at the touch of the dew on the arm of hischair, he went indoors, closing the long porch window after him, andafter wandering listlessly through the lower rooms for a while, climbedslowly up to his own chamber in the same wing with Philip's rooms, wherehe sat reading, and so seemed less lonely. For of late, without spokenwords having passed between, Philip was becoming more and more estrangedfrom his father, and sought his room or went to the studio as soon asmight be after meals, until John Angus began to wonder, with ahalf-physical, half-emotional belief in the supernatural, if it werepossible that Philip knew the policy of the will that he had made, by aform of second sight.

  This thought was uppermost as he entered his private room, and afterlighting the four lamps that it held, closed and locked the door. Hewould read the will over once more after he was comfortably fixed inbed. He could not understand why in July the air should be so cold, yetas fresh air was his chief necessity, he could not close the windows.Turning to ring for his valet, that he might light the wood fire thatwas laid ready at all seasons, he changed his mind and put a match to ithimself. Drawing a chair before the blaze, that under ordinaryconditions he would have deemed suffocating, he chafed and warmed hishands. This done, he slowly set about undressing.

  When quite ready for bed, he again changed his mind, and throwing on adressing-gown, slid back the panel from the small square closet by thebed, and opening the safe, took from it the will, which, from itscompletion, had seemed to exercise a strange fascination over him. Hewould read it once more to be sure that all points were covered, and onthe morrow, as he expected to go to town, he would place it once for allin the safety vault, for such a paper had no place in one's house, evenif under lock and key.

  As he turned for the twentieth time the half dozen pages he knew almostby heart, a voice seemed to be making a running commentary in his ear,and the pith of it all was: "What have you gained by trying to controlothers absolutely all your life? What are you gaining now by trying tocontrol others absolutely after you are dead?"

  The worst of it was that the critic seemed waiting for an answer, andhe, having none ready, sat trying to frame one, but he could not, forthere was none to give.

  Suddenly the pain that was an agony ran through the arm and hand thatgrasped the will and then gripped his chest. It was one of his seizures,but more intense than usual. He felt himself realizing that it wouldpass off as others had before, but it did not. He could not reach thebell or little tablet vial on his dresser. He had known, of course, theend must come some day. Was that time now? The will, stirred by thetremor of his hand, fairly flaunted in his face.

  Why had he made it? Why? "Why not destroy it now," the voice whispered,"and for once will for good?"

  He tried to move, but the agony held him fast, he was suffocating andnot even slowly.

  "Try," whispered the voice; "the fire is almost at your feet, and itwill help you."

  Then inch by inch he worked himself forward, and unclasping hisstiffening hand, dropped the paper on the hearth.

  Would the blaze reach it? Would he live to know?

  Yes, the eager flame caught hold; he saw the red seals melt, hissignature disappear, and then--John Angus's greed for power was quenchedby that last act.

  It was late the next morning that the man-servant, unable to open thedoor, climbed in the open window and found his master fallen back in thearm-chair, his bed untouched. When, panic-stricken, he opened the door,calling loudly for help, Philip came quickly in, and saw his father, theopen safe, and the fragments of burnt legal papers on the hearthstone,and reading the few words that remained, he understood. Putting his armsabout the lifeless form as he never before had dared, he thanked God inhis heart for the single tender memory.

  * * * * *

  Though due show of public respect was paid in the last rites, as due toa leading citizen whose name, known to them rather than his person, wasalways first on the subscription papers alike for foreign missions andcivic improvements, John Angus's death did not affect any one. The onlyperson who really took it to heart was Oliver Gilbert. To him the oneidea was paramount, the death of his neighbor before the possibility ofmutual understanding had come, and with the Puritan strain ofself-reproach strong in him, Gilbert, sitting in his little shop,mentally scourged himself and followed painfully on foot in company withthe humbler members of the town as though the fault lay on his side.

  "What shall you do?" Jeanne Latimer had asked Poppea during the next daywhen Philip was closeted with her husband in whose hands he had placedall arrangements.

  "Whatever Philip wishes," Poppea answered. "You know he is the familynow, and he will never broach the one point I cannot yield."

  "Shall you wear black?" Jeanne continued with some hesitation.

  "I think so, for a time," Poppea said with brows knitted, "or elsePhilip will feel so entirely alone, so isolated."

  In a week's time the lawyer, whom Poppea had met before, came to theRectory, where Philip had been staying since the funeral, for the boyhad told Stephen Latimer frankly that he should never again sleep in thehouse on Windy Hill, where the servants now remained alone, awaitingevents and orders, or again go to the sombre city house that lookedacross Washington Square.

  The lawyer met Philip and Mr. Latimer alone, as Poppea had asked to bereleased from any part in this interview, and spoke of the will that hehad drawn up within the month and produced the draft of it.

  Philip laid on the table the scorched fragments found upon the hearthon which a visible word here and there was enough to prove identity.

  "Then the course of the law lies straight," the lawyer said; "but as Mr.Philip Angus is a minor until next year, a guardian must be appointed."

  "I shall petition that Mr. Latimer acts as such," Philip replied.

  "What has Miss Angus--Gilbert--or whatever she persists in callingherself, to say to that, pray?"

  "She bids me say as her spokesman," Philip answered, "that she intendsto make no personal claim in the matter. Whatever may be hereafterdecided will be out of the range of business or of law and will lie onlybetween her brother and herself."

  "A close corporation, it seems," said the lawyer, puckering his mouthfor a contemptuous whistle, but catching sight of a glance in Latimer'seye, he checked it by remarking:--

  "Pray tell me, as between man and man, is this young woman quite sane?She can claim half of an ample though not princely property."

  "Yes, quite sane," said Latimer, in accents as steely and clear-cut asthe man's own, "but the expression of her sanity does not chance to takea form familiar to members of your calling."

  After this the wheels of local probate law began to turn with theirusual deliberation.

  At first Miss Emmy proposed to postpone their journey, but now it wasPoppea who urged her on, feeling the positive necessity of a change anda little time away from familiar places, in which to readjust herself.She not only now wished to look over the field for musical study atclose range, but dreams flitted through her head of a winter either inFlorence or in Rome in company with Philip, though not, perhaps, atonce; for winter was a perilous time for one of Oliver Gilbert's years,and this winter the post-office would cease to be, in itself no smallbereavement to him.

  Again Satira, her snapping black eyes always fixed eagerly upon thebustling life of the village centre, came to the fore, and 'Lisha, good,easy man, acquiesced, acknowledging that "twarn't no further to go up tothe corn and potato fields of mornings than, living on the hill, to hevto drop down to the village o' nights for a dish of gossip and thenews."

  Finally the day before the one for sailing came, and with it thestartling announcement from Oliver Gilbert that he was going to the cityto see Poppea off.

  "Land alive! you'll get lost; you don't know how the city's changedthese near twenty years since the time you would fetch Poppy down toPresident Lincoln's obsequies!" cried Satira. "I've heard Miss Emmy saythat
what were cow pastures where she used to pick dandelions when agirl are built solid over with emporiums of fashion. Besides, you'venever been aboard anything bigger'n Captain Secors's onion schooner, andif that big thing they're going on began to get up steam and snort,_how_ it would quake your vitals. It did mine that trip I took."

  _That trip_ being the term applied to a wonderful excursion of theprevious summer, from Bridgeton to the new-found land of pleasure, ConeyIsland, whither 'Lisha had taken her, and of which he was destined neverto hear the last.

  But Gilbert saying in a tone that barred discussion that he would takewhatever risks there were, the matter was dropped as being decided.

  Late in the scorching July afternoon he harnessed his old Roman-nosedhorse to the chaise and disappeared on the cross-road that ran eastwardtoward the Moosatuck, without vouchsafing any explanation to his sister,who, having questioned him in vain, called his attention to thethreatening array of 'thunder-heads' that were rolling over the hills,every few seconds being rent together by forks of lightning.

  He had been gone perhaps half an hour when the storm reached thevillage, and great splashes of rain, falling upon the shed roof, wereturned into steam by the heat of the tin.

  Poppea, having given the finishing touches to her simple packing, wassetting her room in order, fingering each article lovingly as though shefelt that even should she come back and find all as she left it, yetthere must be a difference.

  As the rain increased to a steady downpour, she looked anxiously up theroad and made a mental calculation as to what houses lay on the routeDaddy had taken, and where he would be by now, his probable destinationhaving been as obscure to her as to Satira.

  Meanwhile, the horse and chaise were standing in the shelter of anabandoned lumber shack in the woods that overhung the west bank ofMoosatuck, while Gilbert, utterly oblivious of the rain that graduallysifted to him through the heavy leafage, was following a narrowfoot-path. Glancing from side to side, he pulled a long string ofground-pine here, there a fine branch of strong laurel, and then again ahandful of the dark green, white-veined leaves of the wax-floweredpipsissewa; when his arms would hold no more and he again reached thechaise, the thunder-heads were scurrying across the bay and the rain wasover.

  Poppea had sorted the evening mail and was sitting at the desk inGilbert's workshop when he came in, slowly yet without his cane, andcrossing to where she was, laid his armful of dripping wood-treasurebefore her, saying, half-shamedfacedly, yet as to one who wouldunderstand:--

  "Will you tie me a nice wreath, Poppy, like the one we always have tohang up there at Christmas, lacking of course the berries? I guess I'llgo in and change and get a bite to eat, if you'll spell me here fortwenty minutes longer," and Poppea, with a comprehending smile and nod,buried her face in the fresh, spicy greenery.

  What Gilbert wanted with the wreath or did with it when he took it fromher hands presently, she did not know, for later, as she walked up anddown the flagged walk between the porch and gate, thinking of thedetails of to-morrow, the latch clicked and Hugh Oldys came through thewicket.

  It was not alone the colorless twilight that made the change in hisface which struck her like a blow. Without having become absolutelythin, the man of a year before, with height and breadth, good color,wholesome flesh, natural joy and interest in life and living, seemed tohave passed through some phase that, while it spiritualized in a sense,had eliminated much that was characteristic.

  "Your mother--is she worse?" was Poppea's first question.

  "I do not think so, though in a case like hers it is worse to be nobetter. I should have been to see you many days ago but for a suddenchange in nurses. No one stays more than a month," he added, breakingthrough his habitual reticence on this subject, as though at last hemust have the support of sympathy.

  "No one but you, Hugh. Ah, how can you go on so when every one elsefalters?"

  "Because she is my mother and not theirs; in that lies all."

  "All?" Poppea echoed, leaning toward him with such unmistakabletenderness in her eyes that it must have broken through any self-raisedbarrier of the man's had he but seen and compassed it. Yet he neverlooked at her directly nor let her read his face, though it was notuntil after he had gone that Poppea realized this.

  For an hour the conversation drifted to casual things, and save forPhilip, his work and plans, in wholly impersonal channels, they twositting on the top step of the porch. When at last Hugh rose to go, andwalking slowly side by side down the narrow path they halted at theend, one inside the gate, one without, he said, looking backward up theway they had come, as if into the past:--

  "It will be good when you come back, but it isn't to be supposed orhoped that after you have made the break you will care for this sleepylittle village as you have, Poppea. I have always wondered why you caredso little for the New York life with the fine opening you made. In thefew months I had there, the fulness and the vigor of it all gripped meso that leaving was a wrench."

  "For New York? Yes, I cared for that and all the best it gives. But thelife? Yes, I cared for that too, in a way, until I stood off and lookedback."

  Then, clasping her hands about the post, she said, smiling shyly, with alittle quizzical expression at the corners of her mouth:--

  "Do you remember once, long ago, how you and I stood by the railroadbrook and watched a big, striped snake charm and swallow a little greenfrog?

  "We didn't mean to let the affair come to the swallowing, but though thebeginning was slow, the frog sat still and waited too long, and the endcame quicker than we expected. Then, as the lump that was the frog beganto be moved down the snake's length in being digested, you took yourfoot and little by little edged the frog backward out of the snake'smouth to the ground, slime covered and quite insensible. Then we bothtook water in our hands, and dashing it washed the slime away, untilpresently the frog came to and hopped away like mad, without everlooking back.

  "Well, once upon a time, Hugh, as the fairy stories say, I was a littlegreen frog and the life down there the snake; it drew me, and I didn'twant to get away, until, when it was almost too late, one night a greatsplash of cold water, thrown by people who did not throw it in kindness,and that nearly strangled me, brought me to, and I hopped away withouteven wishing to look back.

  "So when you think to yourself again, 'Poppea will yet love the life ofthe city,' remember the little green frog!"

  Thus they parted in a sudden ripple of laughter, good friends.

  Next day, in the hurry and bustle that always belong to an outgoingsteamer in the season of summer travel, some of those in the crowd onthe deck of the _Normanic_ were attracted by the sight of a young andwell-bred woman of unusual beauty, accompanied by a maid and some onewho might either be her mother or aunt, clinging tearfully about theneck of an old man, whom she was wishing good-by. While there wasnothing unusual about the parting at such a time, yet the dainty dressand bearing of the woman were in striking contrast to the homespunplainness of the man, who wore the long, flowing beard, stiff clothes,and wide-brimmed Panama hat, his Sunday best for years, that marks thecountryman. Moreover, he carried a home-made hickory cane and clutchedto his breast a bulky newspaper parcel.

  When the final blast of "all ashore" was sounded, the air quivering withthe vibrations, the girl loosed her hold, and crying, "Good-by, dearDaddy!" disappeared in the crowd that gathered by the stairway; whilehe, turning toward the gang-plank, marched down it with all thesoldier-like precision his lameness would allow, never looking back, hisbundle still clasped tightly to him.

  Boarding a small blue car known as a "bob-tail," Gilbert rode across thecity, carefully scanning his course. When he emerged presently from theregion of crooked ways to where the avenues run north and south and thestreets east and west, and saw ahead an open square, he stopped the car,and standing at the street curb, shielding his eyes from the pitilesssun, tried to get his bearings.

  "Fourteenth Street," said one lamp-post, "University Place" another.Yes, the park op
posite was Union Square, but where was the house onwhose porch he had stood that April day in eighteen sixty-five when theprocession swung around from Broadway?

  A business building covered with signs replaced it; yet at the samemoment, his eyes fell on what he sought. The statue of Lincoln, ruggedand majestic, standing above the cobbled plateau, calm and unmoved byall the frantic bustle of the street.

  Making his way carefully through the traffic, Gilbert approached therail about the statue. He paused for a moment, and then, undoing hisparcel, took from it the wreath, rested it on the railing, while hefolded the paper and, winding the string about it, placed it in hispocket. Then getting stiffly over the barrier, he laid the wreath atLincoln's feet, raised his old hat, looking up into Lincoln's face asone in perfect, if humble, comradeship, while his lips murmured,"Through you I have finished the course, with you I have kept thefaith!"

  The people of the street, big and little, loafer and gamin, who springup about an unusual object as swiftly as the circles surround a stoneflung in the water, neither jostled nor jeered nor plucked the wreathaway, for among the simple-minded, hero-worship will never die out savefor lack of heroes.

  Then making his way back to Fifth Avenue, Gilbert, seeking the scantybits of shade as best he might, walked up its length until he reachedthe third open space and turned eastward to the railway station.

  At the coming of the evening mail he pottered as usual with the lettersas though that day had been like all the others, and ate his supper withlittle sauce of conversation, to the inexpressible disappointment ofSatira Potts.