CHAPTER IX

THE LITTLE OLD LADY IN THE RED HOUSE

The girl turned her head quickly aside, for there was something in the ill-concealed admiration in the man’s black eyes that caused the color to rush in a wave to her cheeks. Several minutes later a careless glance in the man’s direction, as she casually surveyed the other occupants of the store, impelled her to stare curiously, as she perceived a rather peculiar motion,—a sudden twitching shake of his head, repeated every moment or so. Realizing that the man was the victim of some nervous affliction, her eyes involuntarily softened with pity, and then noting that there were several letters in her box, she hurried forward to get them.

Slipping them into her bag, she hastened from the store, drawing quickly back, however, as the man who had been staring at her brushed rudely against her. Nathalie glanced up with annoyance, but as he begged her pardon, with a sweep of his cap in an exaggerated bow, and another bold, somewhat mocking glance from his eyes, the pink in her cheeks deepened angrily.

Nathalie, irritated at the incident, walked slowly down the narrow path leading to the flagging, but suddenly remembering her determination to explore the little village set in the hollow of a hill, the unpleasant occurrence passed from her mind. Attracted by the many flower-beds that bloomed so luxuriantly with such vivid coloring in the door yards of the little New England cottages beyond the post-office, she turned about and slowly strolled in that direction.

Presently she came to a sudden pause to gaze admiringly across the road at a white, gable-roofed house, with bright green blinds, on a grassy terrace, peeping from beneath a mass of vines and leaves. It was surrounded by a garden from which came the gleam of many colors, in the tall, flowering rows of sweet peas that flanked its sides. But it was not so much their beauty that held her eyes as the small east wing of the building, where a wide, roomy porch was surmounted by the sign,

The Sweet Pea Tea-House _Come in and have a cup of tea_

Nathalie would have enjoyed going over and having a sip of that social beverage, lured by the daintiness of the house and its sweet-pea garden, but, on discovering that she had left her purse at home, she continued her walk. A few steps down the road, and she was staring up at a timeless clock—looking as if its hands had been swept away in the mad rush of the hours—in the steeple of a church some distance back from the road. Then she was watching a horseshoer pounding with a noisy “Clank, clank” on the hoof of a horse, patiently standing in front of the blacksmith shop.

A half-hour later, as she stood in front of a little neglected cemetery at one end of the village, staring in melancholy mood at its time-scarred stones, gleaming with a dulled whiteness from the rank and overgrown shrubbery, she heard the purr of an automobile.

Turning carelessly, she noticed a bright red car, with the glossy, shiny look of newness, coming slowly in her direction, and quickly perceived that its only occupant was the bold-eyed man who had annoyed her in the post-office. She quickly glanced in another direction, but, to her surprise, the car came to a sudden stop, and as the man threw away his cigar, while doffing his cap, he said, pleasantly, “You have chosen rather a dreary place to linger, have you not, on this beautiful afternoon? Would you not like a little ride,—just a help up the hill, you know?”

For a moment Nathalie was tongue-tied with astonishment, and was about to walk quickly away, when sudden resentment at the man’s impertinence overwhelmed her. Swinging about, with marked emphasis she answered in stiff formality, “Possibly I might—with friends.” The next second she was hurrying down the road, without waiting to see the man’s eyes darken with annoyance, as he emitted a low whistle. With the peculiar motion of the head already referred to, he started up the car, and a moment later whirled around the bend out of sight.

Nathalie in her haste, caused by her anger and annoyance at the man’s impertinence, was oblivious to the fact that the clouds had been gathering for a thunderstorm, until she heard a loud clap of thunder and a drop of rain swirled into her face. She was tempted to start and run, for she was an arrant coward in a thunderstorm, but remembering that a swiftly moving object is apt to attract the lightning, she curtailed her speed, trying to make as much headway as she could by extra long strides.

Oh, it was coming down in great big drops! What should she do? But with her heart thumping nervously, she kept resolutely on her way, covering her face with her hands in a spasm of terror every time a streak of lightning zigzagged before her eyes. Oh, she had reached the tea-house! She would take refuge on the wide veranda.

The next instant she was racing across the road; but before she gained the desired haven, a deafening clap of thunder, followed by a blinding glare of red flame, came bolting through the trees, causing her to utter a loud, frightened scream, as she stumbled blindly up the steps. Another instant and the door of the house was flung wide, as a sweet-faced lady, with pleasant, smiling eyes, hurriedly beckoned for her to hasten in.

Nathalie, with a little cry of relief, made a wild rush for the door. As the lady closed it, with shaking limbs and white lips, but with an attempt at a smile the girl cried, “Oh, you are very kind to let me come in, for I am just about drenched”; quickly pulling off her hat as she spoke, and then shaking her wet, clinging skirts.

“Oh, my dear child! you must come in and take off your wet things,” at this moment came in sudden call from an adjoining room, whose door was standing ajar. Nathalie started in surprise, for the voice was singularly low and sweet, in strange contrast to the somewhat high-sounding, rather unpleasant voices of the few villagers whom she had heard conversing, when waiting for her mail in the post-office.

Fearing she would be intruding,—she had noticed that the lady who had opened the door for her, although she smiled pleasantly, had not seconded the invitation,—she shook her head. “Oh, no,” she protested with evident embarrassment, “I shall not take cold. I can stand here until the storm is over. I am sure I shall be all dry in a moment or so.”

But as the voice insisted that she come in, and the woman with the smiling eyes laid her hand on her arm as if to lead her into the room, she reluctantly entered. As she attempted to stammer forth her thanks, and her fear of trespassing upon their kindness, she saw that the owner of the voice was an elderly lady, evidently an invalid, for she sat in a Morris chair by the window, propped up with pillows. As she motioned for the girl to come nearer, and slowly and awkwardly put forth her hand to feel her wet skirts, Nathalie noticed that her hands were swathed with white cloths.

“Dear me,” she murmured worriedly, “you are wet. I am afraid you will take cold. But just take off your blouse and skirt, and Mona will dry them for you in a few moments by the kitchen fire.”

Then, with a few strange motions of the bandaged hands to the sweet-faced woman,—which immediately revealed to Nathalie that she was deaf and dumb,—the wet garments were quickly removed and taken out to the kitchen to dry. Presently the girl, with humorous amazement, found herself snugly wrapped in a silk Japanese kimono, seated in a big chair by the invalid lady, gazing at her in silent admiration.

It was a face that could lay no real claim to beauty, and yet to Nathalie there was a singular charm in the clear-cut outlines of the delicate features, and the soft, warm tints of a complexion that, although many years past youth’s fresh coloring, resembled a blush-rose. But it was the eyes that held Nathalie, black-lashed, deep-set, with a calm, peaceful expression in their deep blue; and the brown hair, slightly threaded with gray, parted in the middle, and curling in a natural wave on each side of her face, gave it the quaint sweetness of some old-time miniature.

Fascinated, as it were, by the charm of the lady’s personality, the girl was soon chatting volubly, as she told how she came to get caught in the storm. “I am sure I should have reached home before the rain came,” she cried in an aggrieved voice, “if it had not been for that _horrid_ man. For I intended going home by the road he took, which is much shorter, but he had made me so nervous by his rudeness that I took the longest way back, for I was afraid I should meet him again.”

“Oh, you must not feel annoyed at receiving an invitation to ride in an automobile when trudging up these mountain roads,” laughed the lady, “for it is quite the customary thing to give a pedestrian a lift up the hills. But I think, in your case,” she added more soberly, “that you did right in refusing the man’s offer, for he was rude, as you say, and all young girls should be careful.”

Won by her companion’s sympathetic interest, Nathalie told that they were spending the summer at Seven Pillars, up near “Peckett’s on Sugar Hill,” but she was cautious not to tell of the peculiar conditions of their stay, or of her aunt’s strange letter. Miss Whipple, as that proved to be the lady’s name, said that she had known her aunt, Mrs. Renwick, and considered her a very interesting woman, although, to be sure, she was somewhat eccentric. Nathalie also told about her Liberty Girls, a subject that was always close to her heart, and how she was going to try to teach liberty to the little settlement-boys, who were coming up to stay with her for a few weeks.

The invalid, and also her sister, were both greatly interested in Nathalie’s merry chatter; for Mona had come from the kitchen and seated herself on a low stool by the feet of her sister, who would interpret to her as the girl rattled on. In return for Nathalie’s confidences she told how she and her sister, although having been born in the White Mountains, had lived since childhood in Boston. On the death of their parents, after meeting with some reverses, she explained, they had determined to come up to the old homestead and start a sweet-pea farm, as her sister was passionately fond of flowers.

It was delightful work, she said, and it meant so much that was beautiful and joyous to her sister, who, of course, on account of her infirmity, was deprived of many pleasures that other people enjoyed. They had an old farm-hand who had lived with them when they were small children, who did the rough gardening, and who made the farm pay by selling the flowers to the mountain hotels.

“The tea-house was my sister’s inspiration,” continued Miss Whipple, “and has always been a source of great enjoyment to us both, as so many of the young people from the hotels and boarding-houses would drop in of an afternoon for a cup of tea, or a little dance, as I always used to make it a point to be on hand to play for them. My sister,” she added a little sadly, “although deprived herself of the joys of girlhood, has always been passionately devoted to the young, and has spent any amount of labor in trying to make our little tea-room attractive.

“But now, as I cannot play any more,—you see I am the victim of inflammatory rheumatism,”—she held up her bandaged hands pathetically,—“the young people do not come in as much as they did. It is a great disappointment to us both,” concluded the invalid dolefully, “although perhaps my sister is partly compensated by her work among her flowers.

“But I am wrong to complain in this way,” she hastened to add, a sudden expression of contrition darkening the sweetness of her glance, “for every one has to endure disappointment and sorrow, sooner or later, as my mother used to tell me when I was a girl; and, after all, ours might have been much worse. I try to comfort myself with the thought that all these little jars of life are just ‘helps’ to fit one for the greater life beyond. Indeed,” she added softly, “I grow ashamed of myself for thinking I am even disappointed, when I think of the renunciation, the sufferings, and the agony of the Man of Sorrows, that we might have joy.”

Nathalie made no reply, not only because she was at a loss for words to express her sympathy, but stilled, possibly, by the beautiful look of calm peace that had crept into the sweet eyes.

“But I am wearying you,” smiled the invalid, her eyes lighting with a warm glow, “making you think I am a great martyr because I am deprived of a few things that I think needful to my happiness. Perhaps I am in a particularly rebellious mood to-day, for I am so anxious to read a book a friend sent me, but with my poor hands I cannot hold it, and it makes my neck ache to read from the bookstand. But here comes Mona with your dried clothing; yes, and to bring me off my cross of martyrdom by her sweet patience, for she is always cheery and smiling under _her_ great deprivations.”

“Oh, and she can’t even read to you!” lamented Nathalie impulsively, suddenly reminded of what it must mean to live with a person who could not talk to you.

“Yes, and that is one of the nails in the cross,” said the shut-in, with whimsical sweetness, “for I not only want some one to talk, to read to me, but sometimes I just yearn for the sound of a human voice. Oh, but I am getting selfish again—for,—Yes, as soon as you get your gown on, you must go with Mona to see her sweet peas; she would love to show them to you.”

“And I would love to see them,” replied the girl as she dropped the kimono and slipped into her skirt, “for I, too, adore flowers.” And then, as Nathalie fastened up her blouse, and put on her belt, Miss Whipple made her sister understand that their guest wanted to see her bunches of sweet peas.

Mona’s face lighted happily as she comprehended, and in a few moments she and Nathalie were standing in an outer shed, where masses of the dainty flowers were piled in heaps, waiting to be tied into bunches, their delicate odor filling the place with quite perceptible fragrance. Nathalie watched the deaf-and-dumb woman tie a few bunches, dimpling in gratified embarrassment as she softly touched the blossoms. She held a beautifully pink-tinted one against the girl’s cheek, to indicate that they were of the same hue, and then smilingly fastened a big bunch to her waist.

By this time the worst of the storm was over, and Nathalie, seeing that it had settled down to a slow drizzle, decided that she must hurry on, for fear her mother would worry. So, after thanking her kind hostesses, and declaring that she would return their umbrella very soon,—she had promised to make them a real visit, as Miss Whipple called it, in answer to their repeated urgings,—she hurried out into the rain and was soon on her homeward way.

It was not a pleasant walk, this plodding over a road deep with mud, and in some places running in tiny rivulets, for the girl had no rubbers on, but she kept up her cheer by whistling softly, for not a person was in sight until she reached the road through the woods, leading to Seven Pillars. Here she spied a queer-looking little figure in black, hobbling on ahead of her with a cane, but no umbrella.

Something, perhaps it was the basket the woman carried, suggested that she might be the old lady who had called the afternoon before, so the girl hurried her steps, hoping, by the proffer of her umbrella, to atone for the seeming rudeness of her reception of the previous day.

As she reached the black figure, she pantingly cried, “Oh, won’t you come under my umbrella, for I am sure you must be wet.” As she spoke she peered at the woman’s face, almost hidden by the wide brim of an old, rusty-looking black bonnet. But the bright blue eyes in the withered face, under its halo of black, only stared coldly, stonily, while the drooping mouth, seamed with a network of fine wrinkles, and deep lines of worry and disappointment, narrowed into a tightly compressed slit of red.

But Nathalie, notwithstanding the disdainful glare, and the woman’s oppressive silence, pushed her umbrella over her head, and, somewhat to her own amusement, after a shuffle or two, was soon walking in step to the old woman’s hobble.

“It has been quite a storm, hasn’t it?” ventured the girl, although her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment under the ill-timed silence of the woman, who acted not only as if she could dispense with the shelter of her umbrella, but with her company as well.

The only reply to the girl was a sniff,—sounding almost like a sneer,—but, determined not to be daunted by the old woman’s surliness, Nathalie kept up her chatter, telling how charmed they were with the mountains, especially with Seven Pillars, with its magnificent view, and expressed her regret that they had not been at home the afternoon before, explaining that her mother had been lying down and did not know of her call.

Presently, with a sudden movement, the old lady came to a halt. Before Nathalie could understand what she was stopping for,—her umbrella was held so closely over her companion’s head that she didn’t perceive the splash of red peeping from between the trees,—she had turned in at a little gate and the girl suddenly realized that the queer old lady was her neighbor of the little red house!

For a moment she was speechless; then a smile dawned in her eyes, as she suddenly understood why her greeting had not been returned when passing by earlier in the afternoon. Quickly recovering her wits, however, she stepped forward, and as she held the gate open for her new-found neighbor to pass through, she cried, “Oh, I am so glad I met you, and know that we are near neighbors. Mother will be very pleased to meet you, I am sure, and will soon run over to see you.”

But no reply was forthcoming, and Nathalie, her patience at a boiling point, hurried on, inwardly vowing that she was never going to speak to that cantankerous old woman again, for had she not done her best to apologize for an unintentional slight? As she reached the veranda with its magic seven pillars her eyes gleamed humorously, as she suddenly realized how funny she must have appeared, hobbling along with that old woman. What a funny way she had of sniffing, and _that_ old black poke-bonnet. Then she wondered if the rest of their neighbors were as peculiar and queer as the old lady in the little red house.