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Sisters

K >> Kathleen Norris >> Sisters




Already there was new grass showing a timid film of emerald under
the brown growth of last year. While Peter climbed, the good earth
giving soddenly under his feet, and grasses tangling in the clasps
of his walking shoes, the sunlight conquered, the sky cleared, and
the last of the storm drifted and spread and vanished in a bath of
dazzling blue. Birds began to circle in brief flights; cloud
shadows fell clear-cut on the west, dark flank of the mountain;
and in the saturated marshy spots, where a scummy green growth
already was spread over the crystal pools of the little hillside
springs, frogs were exultant.

The roof of the little cabin and the outbuildings smoked up into
the pure warm air; the Jersey, placidly awaiting her hour, looked
at him with soft, great eyes; and Alix's chickens picked and
squawked on the steaming mound near the stable. Kow was hanging
out the blue glass-towels, everything--everything was as he had
found it a hundred, a thousand, happy times!

Peter spoke to the Chinese and went into the cabin. It was dusted,
orderly, complete; he and Alix might have left it yesterday. Kow
had seen him coming, he thought, and had had time to light the
fire, which was blazing freshly up to the chimney's great throat.
He sat down, staring at the flames.

Buck pushed open the swinging door between the pantry and the
sitting room, and came in, a question in his bright eyes, his
great plumy tail beating the floor as he lay down at Peter's side.
Presently the dog laid his nose on Peter's knee and poured forth a
faint sound that was not quite a whine, not quite a sigh, and rose
restlessly, and went to the closed door of Alix's room, and pawed
it, his eager nose to the threshold.

"Not here, old fellow!" Peter said, stroking the silky head under
his hand.

He had not been in this room since the day of her death. It struck
him as strangely changed, strangely and heartrendingly familiar.
The windows were closed, as Alix had never had them closed, winter
or summer, rain or sunshine. Her books stood in their old order,
her student's Shakespere, and some of her girlhood's books,
"Little Women," and "Uncle Max." In the closet, which exhaled a
damp and woody smell, were one or two of the boyish-looking hats
he had so often seen her crush carelessly over her dark hair, and
the big belted coat that was as plain as his own, and the big
boots she wore when she tramped about the poultry yard, still
spattered with pale, dry mud. Her father's worn little Bible lay
on the table, and beside it another book "Duck Raising for the
Market," with the marks of muddy and mealy hands still lingering
on its cover.

Suddenly, evoked by these silent witnesses to her busy and happy
life, the whole woman seemed to stand beside Peter, the tall,
eager, vital woman who had been at home here, who had ruled the
cabin with a splendid and vital personality. He seemed to feel her
near him again, to see the interested eyes, the high cheek-bones
touched with scarlet, the wisp of hair that would fall across her
face sometimes when she was deep in baking, or preserving, or
poultry-farming, and that she would brush away with the back of an
impatient hand, only to have it slip loose again.

One of her kitchen aprons, caught in the current of air from the
opened door, blew about on its hook. He remembered her, on many a
wintry day, buttoned into just such a crisp apron, radiantly busy
and brisk in her kitchen, stirring and chopping, moving constantly
between stove and table. With strong hands still showing traces of
flour she would come to sit beside him at the piano, to play a
duet with her characteristic dash and finish, only to jump up in
sudden compunction, with an exclamation: "Oh, my ducks--I'd
forgotten them! Oh, the poor little wretches!"

And she would be gone, leaving a streak of wet, fresh air through
the warm house from the open door, and he would perhaps glance
from a window to see her, roughly coated and booted, ploughing
about her duck yard, delving into barrels of grain, turning on
faucets, wielding a stubby old broom.

She loved her life, he mused, with a bitter heartache, as he stood
here in her empty room. Sometimes he had marvelled at the complete
and unquestioning joy she had brought to it. Books, puzzles,
music, and fires sufficed her in the few hours that she ever spent
in her own drawing room. For the rest she had the kitchen and the
farmyard, and the world out of doors, the oaks and the grass, the
great stretches of dim forest, the muddy trails, the blowing airs
on the crest of the ridge that made her shout and stagger in their
wild onslaught. Peter reminded himself that never in their years
together had he heard her complain about anything, or seem to feel
bored or at a loss.

"We've always thought of Cherry as the child!" he thought. "But it
was she, Alix, who was the real child. She never grew up. She
never entered into the time of moods and self-analysis and
jealousies and desires! She would have played and picnicked all
her life----"

His heart pressed like a dull pain in his chest. Dully, quietly,
he went out to the fire again, and dully and quietly moved through
the day. Her books and music might stand as they were, her potted
ferns and her scattered small possessions--the sewing-basket that
she always handled with a boy's awkwardness, and the camera she
used so well--should keep their places. But he went to her desk,
thinking in this long, solitary evening, to destroy various papers
that she might wish destroyed before the cabin was deserted. And
here he found her letter.

He found it only after he had somewhat explored the different
small drawers and pigeonholes of the desk, drawers and pigeonholes
which were, to his surprise, all in astonishing order for Alix.
Everything was marked, tied, pocketed; her accounts were balanced,
and if she had anywhere left private papers, they were at least
nowhere to be found.

Seeing in all this a dread confirmation of his first suspicion of
her death, Peter nevertheless experienced a shock when he found
her letter. It had been placed in an empty drawer, face up, and
was sealed, and addressed simply with his name.

He sat holding it in his hand, and moments passed before he could
open it.

So it had been true, then, the fear that he had tried all these
weeks to crush? He had been weighing, measuring, remembering,
until his very soul was sick with the uncertainty. His mind had
been a confused web of memories, of this casual word and that
look, of what she had possibly heard, had probably seen, had
suspected--known--

Now he would know. He tore open the envelope, and the dozen
written lines were before his eyes. The letter was dated, a most
unusual thing for Alix to do, and "Saturday, one o'clock" was
written under the date. It was the day of her death.

He read:

PETER DEAR, Don't feel too badly if I find a stupid way out. I've
been thinking for several days about it. You've done so much for
me, and after you, of course there's no one but Cherry. She could
be free now, he couldn't prevent it. When I saw your face a few
minutes ago I knew we couldn't fight it. Remember, this is our
secret. And always remember that I want you to be happy because I
love you so!

It was unsigned.

Peter sat staring at it for awhile without moving, without the
stir of a changing expression on his face. Then he folded it up,
and put it in the pocket of his coat, and went out to the
backyard, where Kow was feeding the chickens. The wet, dark day
was ending brilliantly in a wash of red sunset light that sent
long shadows from the young fruit trees, and touched every twig
with a dull glow.

"Kow," Peter said, after an effort to speak that was unsuccessful.
The Chinese boy looked at him solicitously; for Peter's face was
ashen, and about his mouth were drawn lines. "Kow," he said, "I go
now!"

"Go now other house?" Kow nodded, glancing down toward the valley.

But Peter jerked his head instead toward the bare ridge.

"No, I go now--not come back!" he said, briefly. "To-night--maybe
Bolinas--to-morrow, Inverness. I don't know. By and by the big
mountains, Kow--by and by I forget!"

Tears glittered in the Chinese boy's eyes, but he smiled with a
great air of cheer.

"I keep house!" he promised.

The dog came fawning and springing from the stables, and Peter
whistled to him.

"Come on, Buck! We're going now!"

He opened the farmyard gate where her hand had so often rested,
crossed the muddy corral, opened another gate, and struck off
across the darkening world toward the ridge. The last sunlight
lingered on crest and treetop, tangled itself redly in the
uppermost branches of a few tall redwoods, and was gone. Twilight-
-a long twilight that had in it some hint of spring--lay softly
over the valley; the mountain loomed high in the clear shadow.

Gaining the top of the first ridge, he paused and looked back.
Lights were beginning to prick forth in the brown houses of the
valley, buried in their trees. The busy little mountain train,
descending, puffed forth smoke and steam. Far away, the silver
ribbons of the canals wound through the marsh, and beyond the bay,
the Oakland shore lay like a chain of gems in the pale twilight.

Peter looked at the cabin, the little brown house that he had
built almost fifteen years ago. He remembered that it was in the
beginning a sort of experiment; his mother and he were too much
alone in their big city house, and she had suggested, with rare
wisdom, that as he did not care for society, and as his travels
always meant great loneliness For her, he should have a little
eyrie of his own, to which he might retreat whenever the fancy
touched him.

She liked Del Monte and Tahoe, herself, but she had come to Mill
Valley now and then in the days of his first wild delight in its
freedom and beauty, silk-gowned and white-gloved and very much
disliking dust. She had sent him plants, roses, and fruit trees,
and she had told him one day that he had a neighbour in the valley
who was an old friend of hers, a Doctor Strickland, a widower,
with children.

He remembered sauntering up the opposite canyon to duly call upon
this inventor-physician one day, and his delight upon finding a
well-read, music-loving, philosophic, erratic man, who had at once
recognized a kindred spirit, and who had made the younger man
warmly welcome.

Presently, on the first call, an enchanting little girl In a
shabby smock had come in, a little girl all dimples, demureness,
and untouched babyish beauty. She had said that "Anne wath mad wiv
her, and that Alix--" she managed to lisp the name, "wath up in
the madrone!"

A somewhat older child, named Alix, a freckled, leggy little
person with enormous front teeth, had proved the claim by falling
out of the madrone, and had received no sympathy for a bump, but
a--to him--rather surprising censure. He had yet to realize that
nothing ever hurt Alix, but that she always ruined her clothes,
and frequently hurt other persons and other things. He found her a
spirited, enthusiastic little person, extremely articulate, and
quite unselfconscious, and she had entertained him with an excited
account of a sex feud that was being pushed with some violence at
her school, and had used expressions that rather shocked Peter. A
quiet third girl--a niece, he gathered--had joined the group, a
girl with braids and clean hands, who elucidated:

"Alix and I don't like our teacher!"

"She's a sneak and a skunk," Alix had frankly contributed. Cherry,
now quietly established in her father's lap, had smiled with
mischievous enjoyment; nobody else, to Peter's surprise, had paid
this extraordinary remark the slightest attention. He remembered
that he had fancied only the smallest of these children, and had
been glad when they all went out of the room.

But after that Alix used often to amuse him, and he always felt
more at home with her than with the other two. She had only been a
gawky and thin fifteen or sixteen when she began to assert herself
in his kitchen, dictate to Kow, and waste good butter and eggs on
experiments. He had secretly rather admired her quick tongue and
her daring, he liked her to ride his horses, and was amazed at the
speed with which she grasped the controlling principles of the
motor-car. He had seen her move plants, treat sick chickens, sew
up the gashed head of a horse with her own fingers, while Cherry,
lovely, round-eyed, immaculate in white ruffles, watched her with
fear and admiration.

Looking down at the cabin, the years slipped past him like a
flying film, and it was the present again, and Alix--Alix was
gone.

He roused himself, spoke to the dog, and they went on their way
again. Mud squelched beneath Peter's boots in the roadway; the dog
sprang lightly from clump to clump of dried grass. But when they
left the road, and cut straight across the rise of the hillside,
the ground was firmer, and the two figures moved swiftly through
the dark night. The early stars came out, and showed them,
silhouetted against the sky above Alix's beloved Tamalpais, the
man's erect form with its slight limp, the dog following
faithfully, his plumy tail and feathered ruff showing a dull
lustre in the starlight.

Cherry, with her violet eyes and corn-coloured hair, Cherry, with
her little hands gathered in his, and her heart beating against
his heart, and Alix, his chum, his companion, his comrade on so
many night walks under the stars--he had lost them both. But it
was Alix who was closest to his thoughts to-night, Alix, the
thought of whom was gradually gripping his heart and soul with a
new pain.

Alix was his own; Cherry had never been his own. It was for him to
comfort Cherry, it had always been his mission to comfort Cherry,
since the days of her broken dolls and cut fingers. But Alix was
his own comforter, and Alix might have been laughing and stumbling
and chattering beside him here, in the dark, wet woods, full of a
child's happy satisfaction in the moment and confidence in the
morrow.

"Alix, my wife!" he said softly, aloud. "I loved Cherry--always.
But you were mine--you were mine. We belonged to each other--for
better and for worse--and I have let you go!"

He went on and on and on. They were plunging down hill now, under
the trees. He would see a light after awhile, and sleep for a few
hours, and have a hunter's breakfast, and be gone again. And he
knew that for weeks--for months--perhaps for years, he would
wander so, through the great mountains, with their snow and their
forests, over the seas, in strange cities and stranger solitudes.
Always alone, always moving, always remembering. That would be his
life. And some day--some day perhaps he would come back to the
valley she had loved--

But even now he recoiled in distaste from that hour. To see the
familiar faces, to come up to the cabin again, to touch the music
and the books--

Worse, to find Cherry a little older, happy and busy in her life
of sacrifice, not needing him, not very much wanting the reminder
of the old tragic times--

An owl cried in the woods; the mournful sound floated and drifted
away into utter silence. Some small animal, meeting the death its
brief life had evaded a hundred times, screamed shrilly, and was
silent. Great branches, stirred by the night wind, moved high
above his head, and when there was utter silence, Peter could hear
the steady, soft rush of the ocean, dulled here to the sound of
gigantic, quiet breathing.

Suddenly she seemed again to be beside him. He seemed to see the
dark, animated face, the slender, tall girl wrapped in her big,
rough coat. He seemed to hear her vibrating voice, with that new,
tender note in it that he had noticed when she last spoke to him.

"I'll go home ahead of you, Peter, and wait for you there!"

Tears suddenly flooded his eyes, and he put his hand over them,
and pressed it there, standing still, while the wave of tender and
poignant and exquisite memories broke over him.

"We'll go on, Buck," he whispered, looking up through the trees at
a strip of dark sky spangled with cold stars. "We'll go on. She's--
she's waiting for us somewhere, old fellow!"



THE END

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