The Girl of the Woods Read online

  Revel lifted his eyes to the wide space over the mantel where in fancy now he felt his mother’s picture.

  The picture was a lovely portrait, done by one of the great artists of the day. During his lifetime it had hung downstairs in the big parlor. But it was only a few days after her funeral that Revel came upon his father removing it from the wall and hanging in its place some old warrior ancestor, from the attic. The other picture was of a Radcliffe with a severe turn of countenance, another Hiram Radcliffe, great-grandfather to his father, something to be proud of.

  Revel had paused in the doorway and watched his father stand the lovely portrait of his mother with its face against the wall and lift the ugly ancestor high in its place. Then he watched the whole face of the room change into hard severity. It had seemed as though all the gentleness and beauty of the home had been wiped out, and unloving formality substituted. He had stood there dully for a moment staring at the difference, and then as his father had swung around and noticed him, he had burst out abruptly with a hoarse young protest.

  “What’re you doing, Dad?” There was a kind of fierce anger in his tone, a challenge to his father’s right to make a change like that.

  The father eyed his boy coldly and answered the challenge with a steely defensive.

  “I’m taking your mother’s portrait down,” he said. “Can’t you see for yourself? You ought to get over asking such unnecessary questions.”

  “But—what are you going to do with it?” Revel came into the room and turned the portrait about so that the lovely eyes looked at them like a reproach.

  “Do with it? Why, put it up in the attic, I suppose. Or sell it to some museum. After all, it was painted by a famous artist, though I never really liked it. It made your mother look much too childish.”

  “Oh, no!” cried the boy as if something had pierced his heart. “Don’t sell it. Don’t. I want it. I’ll get a job, Dad, and pay you for it. I want it. She was my mother!” he added fiercely.

  The father looked at him in astonishment. It was not often that Revel showed any feeling.

  “Well, of course, if you want it, you can have it. You don’t need to pay for it. But I won’t have it around the house where it can be seen.”

  “All right,” said Revel. “I’ll put it away. You won’t need ever to see it. Someday I’ll have a house of my own.”

  “Very well,” said his father angrily. “But keep it out of my sight. Put it up in the attic, away back under the eaves, and pull those old trunks in front of it. I don’t want it brought out suddenly sometime.”

  “I’ll see to it, Dad,” said the boy. And he had taken the picture tenderly and carried it upstairs to his own room, where he wrapped it carefully and put it way in the very back of his closet, with garment bags over it and a row of shoes on the floor in front. No casual observer could possibly dream that a picture was hidden in the back of that closet.

  That was the story of the picture. But every night when Revel sat alone in his room before the fire that the old servant managed to have burning for the young master, Revel sat and looked up over the bare mantel where his heart’s desire would have been to see his mother’s picture hanging, if he had dared. But he knew if it were there and his father should once discover it, that he would stop at nothing until that picture was either sold or destroyed.

  So now he stared at the space above the mantel and thought of the picture. Assuredly, if he went away, the picture must go with him. He would never leave it, even hidden in the most unexpected place, to the tender mercies of an alien wife who had not known her predecessor. She would ferret it out and bring it to his father’s notice, or else destroy it herself. Of course, he didn’t know the woman. He was just reasoning out what might be the natural reaction. No, he would never leave the picture; if he stayed, he would have to be constantly guarding it.

  Hungrily he ate the supper the servant had brought him, and while he ate he was trying to plan. Where could he go? What could he do? If it were time for college to open he could go there, and arrange to stay there throughout the four years perhaps, but it couldn’t be done if he attended his father’s alma mater, where his father meant that he should go. He did not want to go there. He felt sure his father’s traditions would overshadow him there, and his father would keep a terrible espionage over him. And his college course would be prescribed for him, in ways that his father chose, so that he might follow in his father’s footsteps and be what his father was. A country banker, flourishing among poorer neighbors with whom he dealt harshly, exacting the last ounce of the proverbial pound of flesh. Oh, he didn’t put it in so many words to himself, but he knew in his heart that his father was so accounted in the vicinity, and Revel had no desire to be a businessman of that type, to grow rich on borrowing and lending among those who ought to be his friends and were not.

  As he thought this over, he came to the firm conviction that he must go away, and at once, before a new mother should be introduced to the scene. But where could he go that his father would not search for him and bring him back to work out his own desires in him? His father had never cultivated any sort of friendship with him, never asked him what he wanted to do, but always told him what he must do, and no amount of protest gave any relief from that absolute must.

  Then while he considered possibilities of running away and hiding, the words of his new acquaintance came to him. She had practically made him promise that he would ask God before he did anything in his perplexity.

  There was something about the girl’s memory, brief as the contact had been, that lingered and left a pleasant, comforting presence. She was like his mother. Yes, he would pray, if only to keep his promise to her, though he hadn’t much idea that it would do any good. Yes, he would pray before he went to bed.

  He thought of the girl as she first appeared to him in the dusky edge of the woods, and he burned hot at the thought that she had found him weeping. Yet somehow it did not shame him as it would have done if she had been some girl he knew, or even an older woman. She had gentle eyes, remembering eyes for her mother, and she had come to that sweet, quiet woods where he loved to go himself, to find some of the flowers her mother used to love. She had intended to get them by the roots to take with her, and he had kept her there with his troubles till it was too dark to get them. She had only lingered to try and help him. He owed her a lot. She had helped to tide him over that first impossible place where he couldn’t get his bearings in a world that seemed to have turned utterly against him, and upside down. He wished he could do something for her in return for her clear common sense and her gentle sympathy. Why didn’t he tell her he would get the flowers she wanted? Would there be time now? She had said they would start early the next day. What if he got up at daylight and went to the woods and got the flowers? He could pack them in a box with wet moss, and they ought to keep till she got where she could give them light and air and water again. That was what he would do!

  He glanced at the clock on his desk, the little clock his mother had gotten for him on his last birthday before she died. It was getting late, and his father would be coming in soon. It would be best for him to be asleep when he came. And in the morning he could slip away very early and be back in time for the regular breakfast hour.

  He gathered up his dishes and took them down to the kitchen. His mother had taught him to be careful about such little things to save the servants. He found Irving dozing in his chair over the newspaper, and the servant took the dishes from him and smiled grimly at the murmured thanks of the boy.

  So Revel went back to his room and got ready for bed. But after his light was out he knelt in the moonlight by his bed and kept his promise to that girl, asking God to show him what to do in this trying situation. Then he got into bed with a sense of having done all he could to make things right, and was almost instantly asleep, his little clock on the bedside table carefully set for early rising. He did not hear his father when he came in very late, did not know that he paused before his door an
d hesitated, frowned, and then went on to his own room. Other nights he might have been wide awake listening and have felt the disapproval, the scathing lecture that was in reserve for him next morning. But he had trusted his future to God, and he slept calmly on.

  Mr. Radcliffe was still sleeping when the little clock in his son’s room buzzed softly and was instantly stilled by an alert hand. Five minutes later Revel stole out of his door, which he always kept well oiled, went silently down the stairs and out the front door, and was soon speeding across the meadows on his way to the woods. Even the servants were not awake yet to hear or see.

  He had taken a box with him in which to pack the flowers. It was a beautiful tin box that his mother had treasured. Her young brother, David Revel, had sent it to her a year or two after she was married. It had been the outer covering for a box of delicious candy. How often Revel stood beside her as a little boy and heard her tell the story of that morning, her birthday morning, when that box had come, surprising her. She had not told how her husband had sneered at the brother, without a job, spending money for foolish, expensive candy. But Revel did not need to be told that. Without explanation he had sensed the attitude of his father toward his mother, and especially toward her family, even from mere babyhood.

  So he knew that the box was very precious to her, and therefore was precious to him. And so the more it seemed a fitting carrier for the flowers to the girl who had comforted him in his dire dismay. It seemed that he would like to remember it as having gone to her. He had brought some paper. There was a brook in the woods, and plenty of moss. He could wrap the roots of the flowers in wet moss and cover them close. He was sure they would keep.

  When he knelt in the woods in the very spot where she had stood, and gazed down on the wide-open blossoms of blue and white and pink, all fresh and dewy with the early morning, he was filled with awe. It seemed as if he never had seen such beauty in the little flowers before.

  Suddenly he put his face down and laid it in the coolness of those little living blossoms, letting the dew touch his hot eyelids that were so near to tears, and waited so for a moment, with his lips against them in almost a caress.

  Then he lifted his head and set about gathering them, digging close about their roots with his pocket knife and selecting the very best plants.

  It did not take long. He had stopped on the way to gather the moss from the roots of a great tree at the edge of the woods and wet it in the brook, and now he packed the roots softly and closely in the moss and laid them in place in the box till it was full. Then he laid the tissue paper over the tops, gently, as if they had been human, sprinkling it over with fragments of the wet moss, closed the cover sharply, and fastened the little metal clasp. His work was done, and it had not taken long. Now, if he could get them to Margaret before she was gone!

  He sped down the hillside and across meadows of dewy grass, arriving within sight of the Martin house just as the breakfast bell rang sharply through the house.

  It was early, even for a breakfast in the country, yet of course it would be when people were journeying far and wanted to be well on their way in the freshness of the morning.

  He was glad Mrs. Martin was not in evidence. He stole silently up to the door and rang the bell, reassured as the grim old servant took his box and nodded that she would give it to the girl. “Miss Weldon” she called her. Revel turned and hastened silently down the steps, out the gate, and across to the screen of shrubs before the owner of the house could appear to identify him, for instinctively he felt what her reaction would be.

  Then, too, he began to remember his father, and that it was near breakfast time, and he, Revel, had been quite absent from dinner the night before after having been told that his father especially wished to talk with him when the evening meal was over. There would likely be a lot of irritation over that. His father would be fairly furious, and he must go home and meet that. Yet he had the memory of that quiet wooded place and dewy flowers. He was glad he had that. It would carry him through the hard things of the day that were before him. For he was sure there would be hard things.

  As swiftly as a swallow might have sailed over the bending grass, he made his way across the road and, hidden by the great hedge, stole entirely out of sight of the Martin house, lest his enemy should pursue him.

  And then across the clean air he heard a light laugh, with a lilt in it, and looking furtively through the leafy branches of his hiding place, he saw Margaret Weldon come out of the house, with his box in her arms, held firmly. He could hear the sharp voice of Mrs. Martin imploring her, though he could not hear the words. But Margaret’s happy laughter rang out again with reassurance, and he saw her get into the car, holding his box in her lap. Then the car started on its way into a far country, taking the girl who had so unexpectedly touched his life, and taking his flowers with her.

  He watched until the car was out of sight around the bend by the old mill, and then he sped straight to his home.

  Chapter 4

  Revel came in by the kitchen way and anxiously searched for Irving.

  “Has Dad come down yet?” he asked in his lowest tone.

  “Your father had his breakfast an hour earlier than usual,” said the old servant stiffly. “He found that he had business in New York that might keep him a couple of days, and he was greatly disturbed not to see you before going. He said he had some orders to give you, some things he wanted done while he was gone. He did not understand your absence both last night and this morning.”

  Revel lifted his chin with almost the haughtiness of his father.

  “I had some things to attend to,” he said reservedly. “I expected to be back by our usual breakfast time. I did not know he was going away.”

  The old servant looked at the boy curiously. There was something in the boy’s manner that reminded him of his dead mistress, the quiet dignity with which she had sometimes been able to give her orders and keep her reserves.

  “Well, your father left you a note, Mr. Hiram,” said Irving with a more respectful tone in his voice. He handed Revel an envelope containing several papers and a hastily scribbled note.

  Revel took them and went out on the porch to read the note. It wasn’t long, but the very angularity of the script looked like his father’s severe countenance, and demanded instant obedience.

  Son:

  I was much annoyed at your absence from dinner last night, especially as I had expressly told you I wished to talk with you afterward. Much more I am offended that you went away before I could see you this morning. Such actions are unprecedented and inexcusable. And now I am called to New York, and may be a couple of days. Don’t leave the place while I am gone, except to go to school, and see that you occupy all spare time on your homework and in filling out the enclosed papers and studying up on the subjects herein named, relative to your examinations for college entrance.

  Revel examined the papers disinterestedly then slowly folded them back into the envelope and sat staring off at the hills in the distance thoughtfully. Did he have to do this? He had no heart for it now, although he had expected, of course, to go to college. But this was not the college of his choice, and it would make no difference if he tried to protest and urge another. His father would never listen to him.

  Well, he had to go to school in a few minutes now, that is, if he decided to stay here and face the thing that his father was bringing to pass. But his whole soul was still in rebellion, and as yet he had gotten no light on what else he might do. If he could only hear of a job, far enough away so that his father would not find him for a while, at least. And yet his mother’s teaching had made him feel that he did not want to do anything in an underhanded way.

  That girl had told him to ask God first before he made any decisions, and he had asked God last night. God hadn’t answered him yet. Would He?

  He went slowly upstairs to his room, locked his door, knelt down again, and really prayed.

  “Oh, God, if You are interested in me, won’t You sho
w me what to do? I can’t stay here. My dad doesn’t understand. If You understand, won’t You please make a way somehow for me to get away? My dad doesn’t care anything about me. He never did. You know that. Please show me what to do.”

  Then he took the college papers his father had left and glanced over them apathetically again, but finally laid them in his desk. There was one thing he must do, whether he went away or stayed, and that was to put away his personal things, in compact form, so that if he had to stay, and that strange wife did come, she would have no opportunity to pry into them and perhaps order them to be thrown away. There were not many, but they were things that were connected with his childhood and his beloved mother, treasured toys and old keepsakes. His fierce young heart rebelled at the thought of an alien looking them over and perhaps despising them.

  He heard Irving driving out the driveway, on his way to do his morning marketing. It would be some time before he returned. He could hear Mandy rattling pots and pans down in the kitchen. Now would be a good time to look after this, when no one would be likely to come upon him unawares. There was no telling how soon changes would come here, and he must be ready for anything. What he had to do must be done quickly, or it might never be done at all.

  He stood a moment, considering, and then unlocked his door and went silently over to his mother’s old room. His father did not occupy it now, and the door was usually closed.

  He went in and shut the door, locking it against interruption, and opened the closet door. There hung his mother’s dresses, just as she had left them when she was taken ill. There was the soft gray silk that he loved, and the pretty blues, and greens. The simple dresses she had worn about the house. How he had loved her in them! And that stranger should not have possession of them! He must take them down, hide them! His father would never care. He did not take thought of such things. Jewels, yes, he would notice their absence, that is, the ones he had bought for her, more for ostentation than for love, he felt sure. And yet, why had he married her? Not for money, for he had often referred bitterly to the fact that she had not been wealthy. She was beautiful, of course, but he hadn’t cared for her beauty except as it would reflect glory upon himself and give him a mistress for his home who would be admired. Thus the seventeen-year-old boy reasoned it out, bitterly.