Snow-Blind

CHAPTER XI

Next day there came out of that room a new Sylvie or rather a dozen new Sylvies: a flighty witch of a Sylvie who tempted her blindness with rash ventures about the rooms and even out of doors, who laughed at Hugh and led him on, and drew him out to his maddest improvisations, who treated Pete to snubs and tauntings that stung like so many little whips; and again a Sylvie who was still and timid and a trifle furtive, who rarely spoke, but sat with locked hands in an attitude of desperate concentration and seemed to be planning something secret and dangerous; and then there was a haughty, touch-me-not Sylvie; and a Sylvie who mysteriously wept. But all of these Sylvies showed an impetuous, new tenderness toward Bella.

“I’ve been all wrong about you, Bella,” she confessed. “I know you’re not really old and ugly and cross at all. Let me touch your face.” Bella, awkward and flushed, had no choice but to submit to the flick of the light, young fingers. “I’m learning the touch of the blind,” Sylvie boasted. “Now, listen—isn’t this right? You have thick, straight eyebrows and deep-set eyes; are they blue or brown, Bella, or bright gray?”

“They’re gray,” said Pete.

Hugh was watching from eyes sunk in a nervous, pallid face. He had come in from his traps in the midst of Sylvie’s experiment.

“And she has a nice, straight, strong, short nose, and a mouth that she holds too tight. Loosen your mouth, Bella; it might be very sweet if you gave it a chance. And she has a sharp chin—not pretty, your chin, but—look! If you’d soften your hair, pull it over your ears and forehead—Why do you brush it back that way? It must be unbecoming. And, Bella, it’s curly, or would be with a little freedom. What color is your hair?”

“Gray—like my eyes,” said Bella, scarlet now, and trying to draw herself away.

“Is it really gray, Pete? Tell me the truth, if you can.”

“Her hair is a very light brown,” said Pete, flushed as scarlet now as Bella; “sort of a grayish brown; you wouldn’t notice any gray hairs, hardly.”

“Bella, I’m sure you don’t look a day older than thirty-five. Your skin feels smooth and young. Why do you let Hugh call you an old woman? Poor Bella, I’m afraid you’ve spoiled those two boys?”

Sylvie turned suddenly and imperiously upon the men, and Bella made her escape, not from the room, for she was too stirred, too full of an excited suspense, to bring herself to leave. From a far corner, near the window through which came the soft May wind, she watched them.

“Now, Pete,” said Sylvie, “it’s your turn. If I’m to learn the touch of the blind, I must have practice. What can I make of you! Come here. Why don’t you come?” She stamped her foot. “My, but you are badly trained. Really, Hugh, you ought to discipline him. Wait until I am your sister-in-law.”

Hugh started angrily. “Don’t joke about that!” he threatened in a harsh, sudden voice.

She turned toward him with quickness and bent her head sidelong as though listening intently for what else he might have to say. Her lips were set close and narrow. She had listened to him like this, almost breathlessly, ever since her sudden faintness, listened as though she would draw his very soul in through her ears.

He too flushed. “It’s life and death to me, Sylvie,” he pleaded.

“Life and death—life or death,” she repeated strangely. She stood, as if turning the speech over in her mind, then gave her head a quick little shake like a diver coming to the surface of deep water, and moved a step toward Pete. “Are you coming, boy, or not? I want to feel your face.”

“Do as she says,” Hugh commanded harshly, and Pete came slowly to her and stood with his hands locked behind him, bending over the little figure. She put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a shake, and smiled.

“Such a big, strong boy! Where’s your face?” It winced and paled under her touch. His eyes fell, shifted, could not meet Hugh’s, who watched with unsteady breathing and white lips.

“Your face is as smooth as a girl’s, Pete. What a wide, low forehead and crisp, short hair; it ripples back from your temples. You must be a pretty boy! A neat nose and a round, hard chin and—oh, Pete, Pete! I believe you have a dimple. How absurd! A great, long dimple like a slit in your right cheek. Why do you blink your eyes so? They’re long eyes, with thick, short lashes. What a strong, round neck! I think I like your face.”

She patted his cheek, the pat more like a smart slap. He pulled away. “That’s for disobedience. Come back. I’m not through with you. Where’s your mouth? A big, long mouth. Pete, why does your mouth tremble?” Her hand fell from his lips, and she turned away. “Take me out for a walk, Hugh, please,” she said. “This cabin is stuffy, now that the days are warm. I want to sit under the pines and listen to the river. You can tell me one of your wonderful stories about yourself.”

“What does it mean, Bella?” Pete asked breathlessly when Hugh had gone out, not so much leading the girl as hurrying after her to save her from the rashness of her impetuous progress. “What does it mean?” Pete was as white as paper.

“I don’t know.” Bella came over from the window and stood by the fireplace, rolling her arms in her apron and shaking her head. “She’s a crazy little witch. She’ll drive us mad. Hugh is half mad now—have you noticed? She won’t let him touch her. And you, poor boy! Pete, why don’t you go away?”

“I’ve thought about it,” he said. “I—I can’t.” He flung himself down in Hugh’s chair and rested his head in his hands.

Bella bent over him. “Poor Pete! It’s cruel for you—and,” she added softly, uncertainly, “and for me.”

“For you too, Bella?” He looked up at her through tears.

She nodded her head, and her face worked. “Perhaps you could take her back to her friends, Pete?”

“And leave Hugh? Didn’t you hear what he said, Bella? Life and death! It would kill him if she should go away with me. Or—he’d follow and kill me.”

“Yes,” Bella assented somberly; “yes, he’d kill you. The devil is still living in his heart.”

“No. Sylvie will marry him. Hugh gets his will.” Pete shook his head. “Wait a few days—you’ll see. She’s fighting against him now; I don’t know why—some instinct. But though he tells her so many lies, he doesn’t lie about one thing. He loves her. He does love her.”

“No! No!” Bella’s passion, tearing its way through her long habit of repression, was almost terrifying. “He loves the image she has of him. If he knew that she could see him as I do, his love would shrivel up like a flower in a drought. Hugh can’t love the truth. He can’t love anything but his delusions. Pete, tell her the truth. For God’s sake, tell her the truth. Give her back her eyesight. Let her know his name, his story—his face!”

“Don’t dare ask me, Bella!”

“Why not?” She seemed to be out of breath, like a person who has been climbing in thin air. Her lips were dry.

“Because—well, would you do it yourself?”

“Ah! He would hate me, if I did. But you, Pete, when Sylvie loved you—and if she knew you, she would surely love you; any woman would—why, then you could bear Hugh’s hatred. I have only him—only him.”

She locked her hands and lifted them to her forehead and was now making blind steps toward the kitchen door.

Pete followed her, and turning her about, drew down the hands from her face.

“Bella—you? Without saying a word? All these years?”

Under the first pressure of sympathy that her agony had ever known, she could not speak. She bent her head for an instant against his arm, then moved away from him, groping through the kitchen door, back to her unutterable loneliness.

Pete stood staring after her. A new Bella, this, not the cousin, the little cousin from the farm; not the nurse who had saved him from Hugh’s hardness and told him limping fairy tales and doctored his hurts; not the accepted necessity, but a woman—a woman young, yes, young. In the instant when he had glimpsed her face, broken and quivering, the tight lips parted and the hair disarranged about flushed, quivering cheeks, the eyes deep with widened pupils, she had revealed beauty and passion—the two halves of youth. How blind, how blind Hugh had been, blind and selfish and greedy, drinking up the woman’s heart, feeding upon her youth!