“I think you have a right to this, and some day I would like you to see it, but please don’t open it till my father is dead. Yours ever, W.”
I turned the parcel over and over. It felt like a book with a soft cover; but why Willy, of all people in the world, should send me a book, and what it could have to say to Uncle Dominick was more than I could fathom.
It was no use trying to think about it. Everything lately had gone beyond my powers of comprehension. I was sick of conjectures, and exhausted by unexplainable disasters. I would not let myself think of Willy; it did not bear thinking of, that he was now turning his back on his own home, for no apparent reason, except the contradictory one that he had married, contrary to his father’s wishes, a girl whom he did not love. One comfort was, that I also was soon to leave Durrus behind me, and in my case it would certainly be for ever. Even if Uncle Dominick had meant anything by his threat of leaving me his property, it did not make any difference to me. Nothing would induce me to have anything to say to it. Willy would have to come home and take possession when the time came, and I would go on living my peaceful uneventful life in the house in Charles Street with Aunt Jane. That was what it was going to be, I determined—a placid, unexciting existence; an occasional classical concert; a literary tea or two; no more dances or frivolities—I had in the last two or three months grown too old for them.
I went up to my room and began to get through some preliminary packing before lunch, and as with a heavy heart I folded up and laid in my trunk the dresses which I had bought in Boston with such pleasant anticipations, Aunt Jane’s words came back to me with humiliating force—“I trust you will not have cause to regret the headstrong self-will which has made you unable to content yourself in a quiet and God-fearing household.”
The morning went quickly by, and, when I had finished packing, I sat down by the window with an aching back and a hot head, but nevertheless with satisfaction in the thought that the big trunk which I had just filled and locked need not be opened again until it had once more taken up its quarters in the house in Charles Street. Some irrational sentiment had made me defer the packing of my habit till the last moment, and when I did at last lay it on the top of my dresses, I slipped the parcel Willy had sent me into its folds.
I raised the window, and looked out into the mild still air. By this time next week, Willy and I would both be on the sea, being carried to opposite ends of the earth, without anything to connect us for the future, except this parcel, which he had forbidden me to open. It seemed to me, as I looked out at the woods of Durrus, the place that I was so fond of, and that yet I almost hated, that it was a true saying—
“Life is a tale told by an idiot, ...
... signifying nothing.”
The sky was dark and sullen, with layers of overlapping clouds roofing it down to the horizon, and on the lonely sea-stretches there was not so much as a fishing-boat to be seen. The place was unusually deserted, and in nothing was Willy’s absence more clearly shown than in the fact that the fallen sycamore was still lying across the bend of the avenue, no attempt having even been made to cut away the branches. I looked away from it with a shudder, remembering Uncle Dominick’s dreadful confidences about it the night before, and I wondered how I should summon up courage enough to go into his room to say good-bye to him. It seemed unnatural to leave him when he was ill; but I knew very well that I could be of no real use to him, and the mere thought of another scene such as that of last night actually made my blood run cold.
A sound of the snapping of twigs made me again look in the direction of the fallen tree, and I saw that a woman, whom I soon recognized as being Moll Hourihane, was breaking away some of the smaller branches, and making them into a bundle for firewood. It was the first time I had ever seen her occupy herself rationally, or that I had been able to watch her in unobserved security, and my eyes followed her movements with a fascinated curiosity as she made herself a large bundle, and, having hoisted it on to her back with surprising ease, crossed the grass between the house and the drive, and walked along close under the windows until she reached the end one, which was the French window of my uncle’s study. She stood for a moment or two outside, looking in, and then drew her hand once or twice down the glass.
I had leaned as far out of my window as was possible, and I now called out to her, “Go away! You will disturb the master. Go away at once!”