Friendship Village. Gale Zona
in a tone so skilfully admiring that he looked almost gratified. And we mentioned the Proudfits no more.
So Calliope Marsh's surprise party came about. When supper was over, the table was "left setting," while pickles and cookies and "conserve" were packed in baskets; and presently the Topladys and I were stealing about the village inviting to festivity. I love to remember how swiftly Daphne Street took on an air of the untoward. Kitchens were left dark, unaccustomed lights flashed in upper chambers, some went scurrying for oysters before the post-office store should be closed, and some spread the news, eager to share in the holiday importance. I love to remember our certainty, so reasonably established, that they would all join us as infallibly as children will join in jollity. No one refused, no one hesitated; and when, at eight o'clock, the Topladys and I reached the rendezvous in the Engine-House entry, every one was there before us – save only, of course, the Proudfits.
"Where's the Proudfits? Ain't we goin' to wait for the Proudfits?" asked more than one; and some one had seen the Proudfit motor come flashing through the town from the Plank Road, empty. At all of which I kept a guilty silence; and I had by then not a little guilt to bear, since I was becoming every moment more doubtful of my undertaking. For at heart these people are the kindly of earth, and yet they are prone, as Delia More had said of the Proudfits, "to worship goodness like a little god," nor do they commonly broaden their allegiance without distinguished precedent. And how were we to secure this?
Every one was there – the little gray Doctor June, flitting about as quietly as a moth, and all those of whom Delia More had asked me: Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, wearing her cloak wine broadcloth side out to honour the occasion; Abigail Arnold, with a huge basket of gingerbread and jumbles from her home bakery; Photographer Jimmy Sturgis, and even Mis' Sturgis, in a faint aroma of caraway which she nibbled incessantly; Liddy Ember, and poor Ellen, wearing her magnificent hair like a coronet, and standing wistfully about, with her hand, palm outward, persistently covering her mouth; and Abel Halsey, who was to leave at midnight for a lonely cross-country ride into the hills. And as they stood, gossiping and eager, the women bird-observant of one another's toilettes, I own myself to have felt like an alien among them, remembering how I alone knew that Calliope Marsh was not even in the village.
Very softly we lifted the latch of Calliope's gate and trooped in her little dark yard.
"Blisterin' Benson!" Timothy Toplady whispered, "ef the house hain't pocket-dark, front and back. What ef she's went in the country?"
"Sh – h!" whispered his great Amanda, masterfully. "It's the shades down. I'm nervous as a witch. My land! if the front door ain't open a foot!"
Though there are no locked doors in Friendship, I had feared that Calliope's cottage door would now be barred, and that Delia More would answer no formal summons. At sight of the unguarded entrance I had a sick fear that she had in some way heard of our coming and fled away, leaving the door ajar in her haste. But when we had footed softly across the porch and peered in the dark passage, we saw at its farther end a crack of light.
"Might as well step ri' down to the dinin' room – that's where she sets," Mis' Amanda said in her whisper, which is gigantic too.
The passage smelled of the oilcloth on the floor and of a rubber waterproof which I brushed. And I shrank back beside the waterproof and let the others go on. For, after all, to that woman within I was a stranger, and these were her friends of old time. So it was Mis' Amanda who opened the dining-room door.
I could see that the room was cheery with a red-shaded hanging-lamp, and shelves of plants, and a glowing fire in the great range. A table was covered with red cotton and laid with dishes. Also, there was the fragrance of toast, so that one wished to enter. And in a rocking-chair sat Delia More. She stared up in a kind of terror at the open door, and then turned shrinkingly to some one who sat beside her. But at that one beside her I looked and looked again, for her rich fur cloak had fallen where she had let it fall; and there, sitting with Delia More's hand in hers, was that great Madame Proudfit of the Proudfit estate.
"For the land!" Mis' Amanda said. "For the land…"
But she was not looking at Madame Proudfit. And hardly seeing her, as I could guess, that great Mis' Amanda went forward, holding out her arms.
"Delia More!" she cried, "Delia More!"
I saw Abel Halsey's pale, luminous face as he pushed past Timothy and strode within and crossed to her; and I remember Abigail Arnold and Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, and how they followed Abel with little sharp cries which must have been a kind of music. And with them went Ellen Ember, as if, secretly, she were wiser than we knew. And while the others blocked the passage or crowded into the room, according to the nature which was theirs, some one came from the cellarway and paused, smiling, on the threshold. And it was Miss Clementina Proudfit, with eggs in her hands.
"Wait!" I heard Delia's sharp, piping voice then; "wait!"
She rose, one thin little hand pressed tensely along her cheek. But the other hand Madame Proudfit held in both her own as she, too, rose beside her. And with them Abel stood, facing the rest.
"O, Abel Halsey – Abel Halsey …" Delia said, "an' Mame Bliss – nor you, Abigail, don't you, any of you, come in yet. I got somethin' to tell you."
"But shake hands first, Delia," cried Abel Halsey, and Delia looked up at him, in her face a sudden, incredulous thankfulness which flushed it, brow and cheek, and won it to a way of beauty. But she did not give him her hand. And before she could speak again Miss Clementina put down the eggs, and, with some little stir of silk, she took a step or two steps toward us.
"Ah," she said, "let us not wait for anything – it has been so long since we have met! Delia has just told mother and me all about these years – and you don't know how splendid we think she has been and how brave in great trouble. Come in, everybody, and let's make her welcome home!"
Madame Proudfit said nothing, but she nodded and smiled at Delia More, and it seemed to me that in the Proudfits' way with Delia, their beautiful Linda had won a kind of presence with them after all. And in the moment's hush the toast, propped on a fork before the coals in the range, suddenly blazed up in blue flame at the crust.
"Somebody save the toast!" cried Clementina and smiled very brightly.
They needed no more. Timothy Toplady sprang at the toast, and already Abel Halsey and Doctor June were shaking Delia's hand; and Mis' Amanda, throwing her shawl back over her shoulders from its pin at her throat, enveloped Delia in her giant arms. And the others came pushing forward, on their faces the smiles which, however they had faltered in the passage seeking a precedent, I make bold to guess bodied forth the gentle, hesitant spirit which informed them.
As for me, I waited without, even after the others had entered. And as I lingered, the outer door was pushed open to admit some late comer who whisked down the passage and stood in the dining-room doorway. It was Calliope.
"Delia More!" she cried; "didn't I tell you how it'd be if you'd only let 'em know? An' Mis' Proudfit, you here? I been worried to death on account o' forgettin' to take home your cream lace waist I mended."
Madame Proudfit's voice lowered the high key of the others talking in chorus.
"We drove over to get it, Calliope," she said. "And here we found our Delia More."
At eleven o'clock that night, as I sat writing a letter in which the spirit of what had come to pass must have breathed – as a spirit will breathe – Calliope Marsh tapped at my door; and she had a little basket.
"Here," she said, "I brought you this. It's some o' everything we hed. An' – I'm obliged for my s'prise," she added, squeezing my hand in the darkness. "I surmised first thing, most, when Delia described you. No; land, no! – Delia don't suspicion you got it up. She don't think of it bein' anybody but just God – an' I donno's 'twas. An' that's what Abel thinks – wa'n't Abel splendid? You know 'bout Abel – an' Delia? You know he use' to – he wanted to – that is, he was in – oh, well, no. Of course you wouldn't know. Well, Delia don't suspicion you – but she said I should tell you something. 'You tell her,' she says to me, 'you tell her I say I guess I take stock now,' she says; 'tell her that: I guess I take stock now.'"
At this my