IV.
One day in May, about a year from the time that Martha Haydon died, Maria Durrant was sitting by the western window of the kitchen, mending Mr. Haydon's second-best black coat, when she looked down the lane and saw old Polly Norris approaching the house. Polly was an improvident mother of improvident children, not always quite sound in either wits or behavior, but she had always been gently dealt with by the Haydons, and, as it happened, was also an old acquaintance of Maria Durrant's own. Maria gave a little groan at the sight of her: she did not feel just then like listening to long tales or responding to troublesome demands. She nodded kindly to the foolish old creature, who presently came wheezing and lamenting into the clean sunshiny kitchen, and dropped herself like an armful of old clothes into the nearest chair.
Maria rose and put by her work; she was half glad, after all, to have company; and Polly Norris was not without certain powers of good-fellowship and entertaining speech.
"I expect this may be the last time I can get so fur," she announced. "'T is just 'bout a year sence we was all to Mis' Haydon's funeral. I didn't know but that was the last time. Well, I do' know but it's so I can accept that piece o' pie. I've come fur, an' my strength's but small. How's William's folks?"
"They're smart," answered Maria, seating herself to her work again, after the expedition to the pantry.
"I tell ye this is beautiful pie," said the guest, looking up, after a brief and busy silence; "a real comfortable help o' pie, after such a walk, feeble as I be. I've failed a sight sence you see me before, now ain't I?"
"I don't know's I see any change to speak of," said Maria, bending over the coat.
"Lord bless you, an' Heaven too! I ain't eat no such pie as this sence I was a girl. Your rule, was it, or poor Mis' Haydon's?"
"I've always made my pies that same way," said Maria soberly. "I'm pleased you should enjoy it."
"I expect my walk give me an extry appetite. I can walk like a bird, now, I tell ye; last summer I went eleven miles, an' ag'in nine miles. You just ought to see me on the road, an' here I be, goin' on seventy-seven year old. There ain't so many places to go to as there used to be. I've known a sight o' nice kind folks that's all gone. It's re'lly sad how folks is goin'. There's all Mis' Nash's folks passed away; the old doctor, an' the little grandgirl, an' Mis' Nash that was like a mother to me, an' always had some thin' to give me; an' down to Glover's Corner they're all gone"—
"Yes, anybody feels such changes," replied Maria compassionately. "You've seen trouble, ain't you?"
"I've seen all kinds of trouble," said the withered little creature, mournfully.
"How is your daughter to South Atfield gettin' along?" asked the hostess kindly, after a pause, while Polly worked away at the pie.
"Lord bless you! this pie is so heartenin', somehow or 'nother, after such a walk. Susan Louisa is doin' pretty well; she's a sight improved from what she was. Folks is very considerate to Susan Louisa. She goes to the Orthodox church, an' sence she was sick there's been a committee to see to her. They met, fifteen in number. One on 'em give her two quarts o' milk a day. Mr. Dean, Susan Louisa's husband, died the eighth day o' last March."
"Yes, I heard he was gone, rather sudden," said Maria, showing more interest.
"Yes, but he was 'twixt eighty an' ninety year old. Susan Louisa was but fifty-one in February last."
"He'd have done better for you, wouldn't he, Mis' Norris?" suggested Maria, by way of pleasantry, but there was a long and doubtful pause.
"I had rather be excused," said Polly at last, with great emphasis. "Miss Maria Durrant, ain't you got a calico dress you could spare, or an apron, or a pair o' rubbers, anyways? I be extra needy, now, I tell you! There; I ain't inquired for William's folks; how be they?"
"All smart," said Maria, for the second time; but she happened to look up just in time to catch a strange gleam in her visitor's eyes.
"Mis' William don't come here, I expect?" she asked mysteriously.
"She never was no great of a visitor. Yes, she comes sometimes," answered Maria Durrant.
"I understood William had forbid her till you'd got away, if she was your own cousin."
"We're havin' no trouble together. What do you mean?" Maria demanded.
"Well, my hearing ain't good." Polly tried to get herself into safe shelter of generalities. "Old folks kind o' dreams things; you must excuse me, Maria. But I certain have heard a sight o' talk about your stoppin' here so long with Mr. Haydon, and that William thought you was overdoin', an' would have spoke, only you was his wife's cousin. There's plenty stands up for you; I should always be one of 'em my self; you needn't think but I'm a friend, Maria. I heard somebody a-remarking that you was goin' to stay till you got him; an' others said Mr. Israel Haydon was one to know his own mind, and he never would want to put nobody in his wife's place, they set so by one another. An' I spoke a good word for ye. I says, 'Now look here! 't ain't 's if Mari' Durrant was a girl o' twenty-five; she's a smart capable creatur',' says I, 'an''"—
"I guess I've got an old dress I can let you have."
Maria Durrant, with crimson cheeks and a beating heart, rose suddenly and escaped to the back stairway. She left old Polly sitting in the kitchen so long that she fell into a comfortable drowse, from which she was recalled by Maria's reappearance with a bundle of discarded garments, but there was something stern and inhospitable in these last moments of the visit, and Polly soon shuffled off down the lane, mumbling and muttering and hugging the bundle with great delight. She always enjoyed her visits to the Haydon farm. But she had left Miss Durrant crying by the western window; the bitter tears were falling on Israel Haydon's old black coat. It seemed very hard that a woman who had spent all her life working for others should be treated as the enemy of kindred and acquaintance; this was almost the first time in all her history that she had managed to gather and hold a little peace and happiness. There was nothing to do now but to go back to her brother's noisy shiftless house; to work against wind and tide of laziness and improvidence. She must slave for the three boarders, so that her brother's wife could go to New York State to waste her time with a sister just as worthless, though not so penniless, as herself. And there was young Johnny, her nephew, working with Mr. Haydon on the farm, and doing so well, he must go back too, and be put into the factory. Maria looked out of the window; through the tears that stood in her eyes the smooth green fields were magnified and transfigured.
The door opened, and Mr. Haydon entered with deliberate step and a pleasant reassuring look. He almost never smiled, but he happened to be smiling then. "I observed you had company just now; I saw old Polly Norris going down the lane when I was coming up from the field," he said, and then stopped suddenly, and took a step nearer to Maria; he had never seen his cheerful housemate in tears. He did not ask the reason; they both felt embarrassed, and yet each was glad of the other's presence. Mr. Haydon did not speak, but Maria brushed her tears away, and tried to go on sewing. She was mending the lining of the second-best black coat with most touching care.
"I expect I shall have to take that co't for every day now, an' get me a new one for best," he announced at last, because somebody had to say something. "I've about finished with this. Spring work is hard on an old co't."
"Your best one is gettin' a little mite threadbare in the back," said Maria, but it was hard for her to control her voice. "I'll put all your clothes in as good repair as I can before I go, sir. I've come to the conclusion that I ought to go back to my brother's folks, his wife wants to go off on a visit"—
"Don't you, Maria," exclaimed the distressed old man. "Don't talk that way; it's onreasonable. William has informed me about your brother's folks; what else may affect you I don't know, but I've made up my mind. I don't know why 't was, but I was just comin' to speak about it. I may say 't was for your interest as well as mine, an' with William's approval. I never thought to change my situation till lately. Such a loss as I've met ain't to be forgotten, an' it ain't forgotten. I'm gettin' along in years, an' I never was a great talker. I expect you know what I want to say, Miss Durrant. I'll provide well for you, an' make such a settlement as you an' William approve. He's well off, an' he spoke to me about us; that we was comfortable together, an' he never wanted to see me left alone, as I was last year. How do you feel yourself? You feel that 't would be good judgment, now don't ye?"
Maria never had heard Mr. Israel Haydon say so much at any one time. There he stood, a man of sixty-eight, without pretense of having fallen in love, but kind and just, and almost ministerial in his respectability. She had always followed a faint but steady star of romance, which shone still for her in the lowering sky of her life; it seemed to shine before her eyes now; it dazzled her through fresh tears. Yet, after all, she felt that this was really her home, and with a sudden great beat of her heart, she knew that she should say "Yes" to Mr. Haydon. The sharp sting in the thought of going away had been that she must leave him to the ignorant devotion or neglect of somebody else—some other woman was going to have the dear delight of making him comfortable.
So she looked up full in his face, unmindful of the bleakness of his love-making, and was touched to see that he bore the aspect of a truly anxious and even affectionate man. Without further words they both knew that the great question was settled. The star of romance presently turned itself into the bright kitchen lamp that stood between them as Maria sewed her long winter seam and looked up contentedly to see Mr. Haydon sitting opposite with his weekly newspaper.