Grandmother. Richards Laura Elizabeth Howe

THE FIRST LINE CAME IN HER FACE

      Rachel did not kill herself, nor go crazy; nor did she even go away, as she threatened to do when she wearied of announcing her imminent death. She stayed and made things unpleasant for Grandmother. She was barely civil to her in Grandfather’s presence, for she dared not be otherwise; but the moment his back was turned she was grimacing and threatening behind it, and when he left the room she would break out into open taunt and menace. There was no name too hateful for her to call the pale girl who never reviled her in turn; but Grandmother’s very silence was turned against her.

      “You needn’t think that I don’t know why you’re dumb as a fish!” raved the frantic girl. “You know what I say is true, and you darsn’t speak! you darsn’t! you darsn’t! – ” She stopped short; for Grandmother had come and taken her by both wrists, and stood gazing at her.

      “Stop!” she said quietly. “That is enough. Stop!”

      They stood for some minutes, looking into each other’s eyes; then Rachel turned her head away with a sullen gesture. “Let me go!” she said. “I don’t want to say anything more. I’ve said enough. Let me go!”

      These were bad hours, but there were good ones too for little Grandmother. She loved her housework, and did it with a pretty grace and quickness; she loved to sit by Grandfather with her sewing, or read the paper to him. She could not be doing enough for the old man. She told Anne Peace that he had saved her life. “I should not have gone on living out there,” she said, “it was not good to live after my father died. I had one friend, but he left me, and there were only strangers when Grandfather came and saved me. It is a little thing to let her scold” – it was after one of Rachel’s tantrums – “if only she will be quiet before him, and not make him grieve.”

      But her happiest hours were in the garden. It was a lovely place, the Merion garden; not large, only a hundred feet from the house to the street; but this space was so set and packed with flowers that from a little distance it looked like a gay carpet stretched before the old red brick house. Small lozenge-shaped beds, each a mass of brilliant color; sweet-william, iris, pansies, poppies, forget-me-nots, and twenty other lovely things. Between the beds, round and round like a slender green ribbon, ran a little grassy path, just wide enough for one person. Grandmother would spend her best hours following this path; pacing slowly along, stopping here to look and there to smell, and everywhere to love. She was like a flower herself, as she drifted softly along in her light dress, her soft hair blowing about her sweet pale face; a windflower, as Anne Peace said.

      One day she had followed the path till she came to where it ran along by the old vine-covered brick wall that stood between the garden and the road. You could hardly see the wall for the grapevines that were piled thick upon it; and inside the vines tumbled about, overrunning the long bed of yellow iris that was the rearguard of the garden.

      Grandmother was talking as she drifted slowly along; it was a way she had, bred by her lonely life in the western cabin; talking half to herself, half to the long white lily that she held, putting it delicately to her cheek now and then, as if to feel which was the smoother.

      “But Manuel never came back!” she was saying. “I never knew, white lily, I never knew whether he was alive or dead. That made it hard to come away, do you see, dear? Whether he was lost in the great snow up on the mountains, or whether the Indians caught him, – I can never know now, lily dear; and he was my only friend till Grandfather came, and I loved him – I loved Manuel, white lily! Ah! what is that?”

      There was a smothered exclamation; a rustle on the other side of the wall. The next moment a figure that had been lying under the wall rose up and confronted Grandmother; the figure of a young man, tall and graceful, with the look of a foreigner.

      “Pitia!” cried the young man. “It is you? You call me? – see, I come! I am here, Manuel Santos.”

      Yes, things happen so, sometimes, more strangely than in stories.

      He stretched out his arms across the wall in greeting.

      “Are you alive, Manuel?” asked Grandmother, making the sign of the cross, as her Spanish nurse had taught her. “Are you alive, or a spirit? Either way I am glad, oh, glad to see you, Manuel!”

      She drew near timidly, and timidly reached out her hand and touched his; he grasped it with a cry, and then with one motion had leaped the wall and caught her in his arms. “Pitia!” he cried. “To me! mine, forever!”

      He lifted her face to his, but in breathless haste little Grandmother put him from her and leaned back against the wall, with hands outstretched keeping him off.

      “Manuel,” she said. “I have a great deal to tell you. I thought – you did not come back. I thought you were dead.”

      “Yes,” said the boy. “No wonder! The Apaches got me and kept me all winter with a broken leg. What matter? I got away. I found you had come east. I found the man’s name who brought you – found where he lived. I followed. I come here an hour ago, and lie down, I think by chance, beneath the wall to rest. That chance was the finger of Heaven. You see, Pitia, it leads me to you. I take you, you are mine, you go back with me, as my wife.”

      The little windflower was very white as she leaned against the wall, still with outstretched pleading hands; whiter than the lily that lay at her feet.

      “Manuel,” she said; “listen! I was alone. Father died. There was no woman save old Emilia – ” the lad uttered an oath, but she hurried on. “I could not – I could not stay. I meant to die; I thought you dead, and I – I was going up into the great snow to end it, when – a good old man came. Old, old, white as winter, but good as Heaven. He saved me, Manuel; he brought me here to his home, and it is mine too. I am his wife, Manuel.”

      “His wife!” The young man stared incredulous, his dark eyes full of pain and trouble. “His wife – an old man! You, my Pitia?” Suddenly his face broke into laughter.

      “I see!” he cried. “You punish me, you try me – good! I take it all! Go on, Pitia! more penance, I desire it, because at the last I have you – so!”

      Once more he sprang towards her with a passionate gesture; but the slender white arms never wavered.

      “I am his wife,” she repeated; “the good old man’s wife. See – the ring on my finger. They – they call me Grandmother, Manuel dear.”

      She tried to smile. “And you are alive!” she said. “Manuel, that is all I will think of; my friend is alive, my only friend till Grandfather came.”

      Alas! poor little Grandmother, poor little windflower; for now burst forth a storm beside which Rachel’s rages seemed the babble of a child. Cruel names the boy called her, in his wild passion of love and disappointment; cruel, cruel words he said; and she stood there white and quiet, looking at him with patient pleading eyes, but not trying to excuse or defend.

      “Ah!” he cried at last. “You are not alive at all, I believe. You have never lived, you do not know what life is.”

      That was the first time she heard it, poor little Grandmother. She was to hear it so many times. Now she put her hand to her heart as if something had pierced it; a spasm crossed her smooth forehead, and when it passed a line remained, a little line of pain.

      But she only nodded and tried to smile, and said, “Yes, sure, Manuel! yes, sure!”

      Then they heard Grandfather’s voice behind them, and there was the good old man standing, leaning on his stick and looking at them with wonder.

      “What is this?” said Grandfather. “I heard loud and angry words. Who is this, my dear?”

      “This is Manuel, Grandfather; my friend of whom I told you. He is angry because I am married to you!” said Grandmother simply; “but I am always so thankful to you, Grandfather dear!”

      Grandfather looked kindly at the boy. “I see!” he said. “Yes, yes; I see! I see! But come into the house with us, sir, and let us try to be friends. Sorrow in youth is hard to bear, yet it can be borne, it can be borne, and we will help you if we may.”

      And