The Cave of Adullam

“I HAVE often thought,” said the young minister, “ that your house might be called the Cave of Adullam.”

Miss Lucretia Blaine adjusted her glasses, as if they might help her to some mental insight, and then illogically directed her puzzled gaze at him over their top. She was short and plump, with brown eyes and an abundance of bright hair lapsing into dun maturity. There was so much of the hair that it was difficult to manage, and she had wound it in a sort of crown. So it happened that she carried her head in a fashion that looked like haughtiness and belied the patient seeking of her dove’s eyes. She was not much given to reading, even Bible reading, and the minister’s pictorial talk perplexed her. It was vaguely discomfiting, in a way, much like the minister himself. He was a short and muscular man, with a scholarly forehead, a firm mouth, and eyeglasses magnificently set in gold. He had always disturbed Miss Lucretia, coming as he did after a mild and fading pulpit dynasty. She could never understand how he knew so much, at his time of life, about human trials and their antidotes; his autocracy over the moral world was even too bracing, too insistent. Now she took off her glasses and laid them down, regarding him with that blurred, softened look which is the gift of eyes unused to freedom.

“I don’t know,” said she, “as I rightly understand.”

“The Cave of Adullam! ” repeated the minister, in his pulpit manner. “David was there, if you remember, in the time of his banishment, ‘ and every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented gathered themselves unto him.’ It was a refuge. Your house appeals to me, in a figurative sense, as being somewhat the same thing. The poor, the unfortunate, flee hither to you. This is the Cave of Adullam.”

New trouble added itself to Miss Lucretia’s look. This unnecessary classifying merely greatened her accepted load. She only saw herself pottering about, doing her chores and serving the people who were mysteriously meted out to her. Life was very simple until it became complicated by words.

“Well,” said she vaguely, “I guess there ’s a good many such places, if all was known.”

“Yes,” returned the minister, “we all have some earthly refuge.”

“I should like to know what cousin ’Cretia’s got! ” came a young voice from the doorway, — a woman’s voice, melodious, full. There stood Lucrece, a distant relative defined within some limit of cousinship. She was tall and strenuous, a girl all life and the desire of life. Her pose had an unconsidered beauty; her muscles, whether in rest or action, obeyed according purposes and wrought out harmony. The minister caught his breath as her face flowered upon him like some exotic bloom. He had a young wife at home, and her he truly cherished; yet no one could look upon Lucrece and continue quite unmoved.

Miss Lucretia only smiled at her. She was used to the incursions of the young and passionate thing. Dealing with the hot moods Lucrece engendered seemed more or less like feeding a tame leopard in the kitchen.

“I ’d like to know,” continued Lucrece rapidly, in her moving contralto, “what refuge cousin ’Cretia’s had! There ’s great-uncle Pike in the parlor chamber. He ’s got dropsy. He likes it. There’s cousin Mary Poole in the west room. She’s got nerves. Cousin ’Cretia ’s had to hear her clack from sunrise to sunset for going on nine years. Mary Poole and uncle Pike have got their refuge, both of ’em. Where’s cousin ’Cretia’s? ”

“There, there! ” counseled Lucretia. “You come in, dear, an’ se’ down.”

The minister cleared his throat. He was momentarily dashed by this onslaught of the human, and the natural man in him agreed with Lucrece. Yet officially he could not concur.

“All these trials,” said he, with no abatement of his former emphasis, “will be stars in her crown of rejoicing.”

“Oh!” returned the girl bitingly. She came in and stood by the mantel, her head held high, as if it carried a weight she scorned. “But what about now? They’re having their refuge now. What about cousin ’Cretia’s? ”

“Crechy!” came a wheezing voice from above. “Crechy, you step up here a minute! ”

This might have been a signal for concerted effort. Another voice, dramatically muffled, issued from the west room.

“Crechy, you mind what I say! You come in here first! Crechy, you come ! ”

Lucretia rose in haste and made her capable way out of the room, fitting on her glasses as she went.

“There! ” said Lucrece triumphantly, having seen the proving of her point, “they ’re both calling on her at once. That’s what they do. They ’re neck and neck when it comes to trouble. If one finds a feather endwise in the bed, the other falls over a square in the carpet. And cousin ’Cretia’s got to smooth it all out.”

The minister felt his poverty of resource. The young creature interrogating him at white heat would have flouted his divine commonplaces. He knew that, and decided, with true humility, that he should only be able to meet her after a season of prayer.

“I cannot account for it,” he said, rising with dignity. “I fear I must be going. Please say good-by to Miss Lucretia. ”

The girl accompanied him to the door with all the outward courtesy due him and his office ; but her mind seemed suddenly to be elsewhere. She shook hands with him; and then, as he walked down the path between beds of velvet pinks, her fighting blood rose once more, and she called lightly after him, “What about cousin ’Cretia?”

But he made no answer, nor did she wait for one. On the heels of hexquestion she turned back into the sitting-room and flung herself at full length on the broad lounge, where she lay tapping the white line of her teeth with an impatient finger. Presently Lucretia came down the stairs and, entering the room, gave a quick look about. Her eyes interrogated Lucrece.

“Yes,” said the girl carelessly, “he’s gone. He thinks I ’m awful.”

Lucretia sat down again by the window and took up her work. There was an abiding stillness about her. She was very palpably a citizen of the world, and yet not of it, as if some film lay between her and the things that are.

“Have both of ’em had a drink of water ? ” asked the girl satirically.

“Yes, both of ’em! ”

“Have they ordered what they want for supper ? ”

A slow smile indented the corners of Lucretia’s mouth. “Well,” said she indulgently, “I b’lieve they did mention it.”

“I bet they did ! And to-morrow it ’ll be just the same, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. It ’s all very well to talk about Caves of Adullam. Where ’s your cave ? ”

Lucretia dropped her work and gazed at the girl with unseeing eyes. She had the remote look of one who conjures up visions at will. “Don’t you worry, ” said she. “I don’t mind them no more than the wind that blows.”

“Well,” said Lucrece moodily, “I suppose everybody’s got to have something. Only it seems as if you had everything. They all come and sponge on you. So do I. To-day I’m madder ’n a hatter, and I put for you.”

Lucretia’s glance returned to a perception of tangible things.

“What is it, Lucrece? ”

The girl spoke with the defiance of one who combats tears.

“I ’m not going to be married.”

“Why not? ”

“All the money Tom saved he put in with his father. He wants it out now, to go into the lumber business, and his father won’t let him have it. And Tom’s got nothing to show for it.”

Lucretia sat motionless, a slow flush rising into her face. One might have said she looked ashamed. The room was very still. A bee buzzed into the entry, and described whorled circlets of flight. The sound of his wandering was loud, out of all proportion to its significance.

“That means putting off our marrying for a year or two, ” said Lucrece indifferently. Then, having cried a few tears and angrily wiped them away with her hand, she crushed her pink cheek into the sofa pillow for a moment, and, as if she flung aside an unworthy mood, rose to her feet with a spring.

“Tom pretty much hates his father, ” said she. “He’s ashamed to be the son of a miser. He ’s afraid he might catchit. But he need n’t worry. Tom’s as good as they make ’em. ” She walked to the door and then, returning, stooped over Miss Lucretia and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t you mind,” said she. “It ’ll all come out right. I’m just like them two upstairs, only mine’s temper where they’ve got nerves and dropsy. Why, cousin ’Cretia, what is it?”

Two tears were rolling down Lucretia’s cheeks. They splashed upon her hand. Lucrece had never seen her look so moved and broken.

“Why,” said the girl, “you taking it so hard as that, just my being married? It’s only put off.”

Lucretia rose and folded her work conclusively. Her cheeks were pink under their tears, and her voice trembled.

“Don’t you worry, dear,” said she, a humorous smile beginning to flicker on her lips. “I s’pose I can have my mad fit, too, can’t I? There! you run along now. I’ve got to get in the clo’es.”

It was a dismissal not to be gainsaid, and Lucrece went wonderingly away. At the door she hesitated.

“I guess I’ll go across lots,” said she. “There ’s old Armstrong coming up the road. I can’t talk to him as I feel now.” She took the narrow path skirting the house front, and stepped over the low stone wall into the orchard. There she walked away with a lilting motion, and still with the erect pose of one who carries a burden lightly.

Miss Lucretia stood in the middle of the sunny room, so still that all the little noises of the day seemed loud about her. There was the ticking of the clock, the booming of bees on the jessamine sprays, and chiefly the thickened beating of her heart. Suddenly, as if mounting thought had cast her forth on one great wave, she hurried out of doors and down the path to the gate. There, her hand on the palings, she waited for Dana Armstrong. Yet she did not glance at him, as he came striding along the road, but into the green field opposite, and again her eyes had the unseeing look of one to whom visions are more palpable than fact.

Dana Armstrong was over sixty, but he carried himself like a youth, with the free step and sinewy vigor of one whose time is yet to come. And still, in spite of that assertive strength, the years had marked him with their telltale tracery. His cheeks were deeply scored with long, crisp lines; his mouth dropped slightly at the corners. The gray eyes were cold, though a fanciful mind might have found in them some promise, however unfulfilled, some hint of blue.

“Dana Armstrong, ” called Miss Lucretia, “you come here! I want to talk with you. ”

He quickened his walk, his eyes warming a little at sight of her. She swung open the gate, and he stepped inside.

“Anything happened ? ” he asked concernedly.

“No. You come in a minute.”

She preceded him along the path, her short steps breaking in upon the time of his. They crossed the sun-lighted entry into her sitting-room, and there Dana took off his hat with a grave deliberation much like reverence. It had been years since he entered this room, and the memory of time past shook him a little, dulled as he was by the routine of life and its expediency.

“Be seated,” said Miss Lucretia, taking her accustomed place by the window. He laid his hand upon a chair, and then withdrew it. This had been grandfather Blaine’s chosen spot, and he remembered how the old man used to sit there thumbing over his well-worn jokes when Dana Armstrong came courting the girl Lucretia, all those years ago. He could not have taken the chair without disturbing some harmony of remembrance ; so he sat down on the sofa where Lucrece had lain, and held his hat before him in his stiff, half-bashful way.

“I hear Tom ain’t goin’ to be married this year, ” said Miss Lucretia, “him and my Lucrece!” Her voice came from an aching throat. It sounded harsh and dry.

Armstrong started slightly.

“Well! ” said he.

“I ’m told Tom’s money ’s in with yours, an’ you won’t give it up to him. ”

Dana’s eyes darkened. His forehead contracted into those lines she remembered from a vivid past, when his face made her one book of life, to be conned with loyal passion. Yet she was not looking at him now; there was no need. Only it was the young Dana, not the old one, who sat there. That gave her courage. She could throw herself back into that time when no mischance had come between them, and speak with the candor of youth itself, which scorns to compromise. Her eyes were fixed upon the square of sunlight on the floor. Little shadows were playing in it, and once the bulk of a humming bird swept past. The sunlight had a curious look, as if in that small compass lay the summer and all the summers she had lived, witnesses now to her true testimony. She began in an unmoved voice, and Dana listened. She seemed to be speaking from a dream, and inch by inch the dream crept nearer him, and gradually enfolded him without his will.

“When I heard that, not an hour ago, I says to myself, ' Ain’t Dana Armstrong got over the love o’ money? Ain’t he killed that out of him yet? ’ ”

“There, there! ” said Dana hastily, exactly as he had used to check her years ago.

“No, it ain’t any use to say ' There, there! ’ ” But she was not speaking as the girl was wont to speak. The girl had been quick-tempered, full of beseechings, hot commendation, wild reproach. “We ’ve got to talk things over. It’s a good many years, Dana, since you an’ I were goin’ to be married that fall, an’ you give me up because my sister was in consumption, an’ you would n’t have her live with us.”

He turned full upon her, and seemed to question her face, the stillness of her attitude. These were strange words to be spoken in the clear New England air. They shook him, not only from their present force, but because they held authority from what had been. They seemed to be joining it to what still was, and he felt the continuity of life in a way bewilderingly new. His voice trembled as he answered with some passion, —

“I did n’t give you up! ”

“No, not in so many words. You only said Lindy might live for years. You said there’d be doctors’ bills, an’ my time all eat up waitin’ an’ tendin’ — an’ so I told you we would n’t consider it any more. An’ you went an’ married Rhody Bond, an’ she helped you save — an’ you got rich.”

The words, meagre as they were, smote blightingly upon him. He saw his life in all its barrenness. Yet he was not the poorer through that revelation. A window had been opened, disclosing a tract of land he had hitherto seen only by inches. It was hopelessly sterile, — but the window was wide and he could breathe, though chokingly. The woman’s voice sounded thin and far away.

“I thought when I lost you my heart broke. I don’t know now what happened. Somethin’ did; for after that I was different. For I did set by you. I knew your faults, an’ they ’most killed me: that is, one of ’em did, — your lovin’ money so. But even that never’d ha’ separated us if it hadn’t bid fair to hurt somebody that could n’t fight for herself. Nothin’ could ever have separated us.” She spoke recklessly, as if none but the great emotions were worth her thought. In spite of outer differences, she was curiously like the young Lucrece. There was the same audacity, the courage strong enough to challenge life and all its austere ministrants. But still she did not look at him. If she had looked, it might have been impossible to go on.

“I did n’t give you up, Dana Armstrong,” said she. “I never give you up one minute.”

The man leaned forward and bent his brows upon her, over burning eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked, with the harshness of emotion leashed and held.

“I never give you up one minute. When Lindy died, I was here all alone. You were married then, but I set by you as much as ever. I didn’t even blame you for choosin’ money instead o’ me. I could n’t blame you for anything, any more ’n if you was my own child. You could hurt me. You could n’t make me blame you.” Her voice ended in one of those lingering falls that stir the heart. It was quite unconsidered. She had as yet no purpose in moving him, even by the simplest eloquence: only her own life was eloquent to her, and she could not voice it save with passion.

“I thought it all over, ” she said rapidly, like one giving long considered testimony. “I thought it over that summer you an’ Rhody moved into the new house. I used to set here nights, with the moon streamin’ in through the elms an’ consider it. I knew I could n’t give you up, and it come over me it wa’n’t needful I should. I prayed to God. I made a bargain with Him. I said, ‘ If I won’t speak to him, or look at him, or sin in my thoughts, You let me have some part of him! ’ An’ God was willin’. From that time on it was as if you an’ me lived here together: only it was our souls. I never touched your life with Rhody. I never wanted to. Only every day I talked to you. I told you how I wanted you to be good. I tried to be good myself. I tried to do all I could for them that was in need. But I never lived my life with ’em, even when I was tendin’ upon ’em an’ gettin’ kind of achy trottin’ up an’ down stairs. You an’ me were always together, your soul an’ mine. The minister says everybody has a refuge. I guess he ’d say that was my refuge. He ’d say ’t was my cave.” Her voice broke upon the word, and she laughed a little in a whimsical fashion.

He stretched out his hand, and his face softened in an uncomprehending sympathy. But she seemed not to see the movement, and went on.

“There was no harm in it. I’ve come to the conclusion we can set by folks as much as we ’ve a mind to, so long as we don’t clutch an’ grab, —so long as it’s all spirit. I don’t know what spirit is, but I know it ’s suthin’ we’ve got to take account of in this world, same as any other. Well, I went with you, step an’ step. When little Tom was born I could have eat him up, I loved him so.”

Famished mother-longing had come into her voice, and thenceforward she spoke recklessly. Rehearsing her devotion to the man, she bound herself in stiffer phrasing; when it came to the child, she could name the great name and feel no shyness over it.

“Up to then, I ’d said my prayers for you. Then I had the boy to pray for — him and you. When he went to school, he was stronger ’n’ heartier ’n any of ’em, an’ I was proud of him. When he begun to wait on my Lucrece, I got sort of acquainted with him, an’ I says to myself, ‘ He don’t set by money the way his father did.’ An’ I thanked my God for that.”

Dana’s hands were trembling. He put up one of them to cover his betraying mouth.

“I kep’ near you every step o’ the way, ” said Lucretia mercilessly. “When you got the better o’ yourself an’ give the town that schoolhouse, I kneeled down an’ thanked God. When you done suthin’ mean, I tried to go through it with you an’ make you see how mean it was. I ain’t been away from you a minute, Dana Armstrong, not a minute all your life. I’ve tried to help you live it the best that ever I knew how.”

The man started up in irrepressible passion. “ God! ” he said brokenly. “If I ’d only known! ” But he could not have told what it was he should have known. This was only a blind arraignment of a sterile past.

“When Rhody died,” said the woman, with the least little break in her voice, “I guess I dropped away a mite. I could n’t do no less. Seemed as if ’t would be stretchin’ out my hand to you, an’ that I never did.”

“I come over here a year an’ a day after she died, ” said Dana hotly. “You wouldn’t so much as walk downstairs to see me! ”

“No,” answered Lucretia softly, “I would n’t. ”

“You wouldn’t take the gift of me! ”

“Them things were past an’ gone,” she told him gently, as if she feared to bruise some piteous memory. “There ’s a time for all things. The minister said so last Sunday. The time for some things ain’t ever gone by ; but for some it is. If you an’ I could have grown old together ” — A spasm contracted her face, and it was a moment before she could go on. “But we are old, an’ we’ve got there by different roads. ’T would be like strangers livin’ together. But our souls ain’t strangers. Mine has lived with you, day in, day out, for forty year.”

Pure joy possessed her. She was transfigured. Her face flushed, her eyes shone, each with a spark in it, a look not altogether of this earth. She was radiant with some undefined hope: perhaps of that sort bred, not of circumstance, but out of things unseen. The man was chiefly puzzled, as if he had been called on to test an unsuspected bond. This plain speaking about the eternal was quite new to him. It had an echo of Sunday talk, and yet without that weariness attendant on stiff clothes and lulling tunes. He seemed to be standing in a large place where there was great air to breathe. Hitherto he had been the servant of things palpable. Now it began to look as if things were but the tools of Life, and Life herself, august, serene, sat there in the heavens beside her master, God, in untouched sovereignty.

“There! ” said Lucretia suddenly, as if she broke a common dream. “I only wanted to tell you how I’ve battled to have you do what ’s right. I don’t know as I’ve earned anything of you by battlin’, for maybe you’d ha’ forbidden it if you ’d had your way. But I wanted to tell you there ’s things fightin’ for your soul, an’ you better think twice afore you kill out anything in them that’s young. Tom an’ Lucrece — they’ve got it all before ’em. You let ’em come together afore it ’s any ways too late.” The note of pleading in her voice seemed as much for herself as for another. She might have been demanding compensation for her years. She had shown him the late blooming of her life, for him to justify. Something he mysteriously owed her, and, with that obedience men give to women when the cry is loud and clear, he knew it must be paid. He rose and stood regarding her. His face worked. His eyes held blue fire. He felt young again, invincible. But though thoughts were crowding on him, he had only one word for them, and that her name.

“Lucretia! ”

“What is it? ” she asked quietly.

He hesitated and then broke forth blunderingly, like a boy. “Should you just as soon I ’d come in here, once a week or so ? ”

She answered as a mother might who refuses because she must, for hidden reasons.

“I don’t think we’ve any call to see much of one another. We’ve both got a good deal to think over, an’ if Tom an’ Lucrece should get them a house, you ’d want to run round often an’ set with them.”

He bent his head in an acquiescent courtliness, and went haltingly out at the door. Miss Lucretia sat there, her hands dropped loosely in her lap, not thinking, but aware of life, as if the years were leaves fluttering down about her in autumnal air. They prophesied no denial, nor hardly yet decay: only change, the prelude to winter and then again to spring. She sat there until a voice came querulously, —

“Ain’t it ’most supper time? You come up here ! I ’ll ventur’ you forgot to blaze the fire! ”

Next morning, a little after ten, Miss Lucretia went into the garden, to do her weeding. The sun lay hotly on her hair and burnished it to gold. Her cheeks were warm with sunlight and her hands thick coated with the soil. Life and the love of it were keen within her, strong enough to grip eternal things, sane, commonplace like these of earth, and make them hers forever.

The gate clanged, and then there came a rush of skirts. Lucrece was on her like a swooping wind.

“Cousin ’Cretia! ” she cried. “Cousin ’Cretia! Get up here! I’ve got to speak to you.”

Miss Lucretia rose and found the throbbing creature ready to grasp and hold her. Young Lucrece was lovely, like the morning. The moodiness of yesterday had quite gone out of her. Sweet, quivering sentience animated her, obedient to the call of life. Her beauty clothed her like a veil: it seemed a wedding veil.

“ What do you think ? ” she said rapidly, in a tone like the brooding note of birds. “Mr. Armstrong ’s paid over all Tom’s money, every cent. And he ’s given him the deed of the house in the Hollow. And this morning he came over and kissed me — old Armstrong did ! — and said he hoped we ’d be married right away. I ’m awful happy cousin ’Cretia! ”

Lucretia stood there holding the trowel in her earthy hand. Her voice dropped liquidly.

“ Did he ? ” she said, not looking at Lucrece at all. ‘Did he? ”

The tension of her tone struck keenly on the girl and moved her to some wonder.

“What makes you so pretty, cousin ’Cretia? ” she asked, half timorous because the other woman seemed so far away. “What makes you speak so? Is it because I’m glad? ”

“Yes,” answered Lucretia softly. “An’ I ’m glad, too! ”

Alice Brown.