The hours of the Hatchard Memorial were from three to five; and Charity Royall's of her at her until nearly half-past four.
But she had that any practical either to North Dormer or to herself; and she had no in decreeing, when it her, that the library should close an hour earlier. A minutes after Mr. Harney's she this decision, put away her lace, the shutters, and the key in the door of the temple of knowledge.
The upon which she was still empty: and after up and it she to walk toward her house. But of entering she passed on, into a field-path and to a on the hillside. She let the of the gate, a along the of the pasture, and walked on till she a where a of out their fresh to the wind. There she on the slope, off her and her in the grass.
She was and to many things, and it; but to all that was light and air, perfume and colour, every of blood in her responded. She loved the of the under her palms, the of the into which she her face, the of the wind in her and through her blouse, and the of the as they to it.
She often up the hill and there alone for the of the wind and of her in the grass. Generally at such times she did not think of anything, but in an well-being. Today the of well-being was by her at from the library. She liked well to have a friend in and talk to her when she was on duty, but she to be about books. How she where they were, when they were so asked for? Orma Fry occasionally took out a novel, and her Ben was of what he called “jography,” and of books to and bookkeeping; but no one else asked for anything except, at intervals, “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” or “Opening of a Chestnut Burr,” or Longfellow. She had these under her hand, and have them in the dark; but came so that they her like an injustice....
She had liked the man's looks, and his short-sighted eyes, and his odd way of speaking, that was yet soft, just as his hands were sun-burnt and sinewy, yet with like a woman's. His was sunburnt-looking too, or the colour of after frost; his grey, with the look of the shortsighted, his yet confident, as if he of she had of, and yet wouldn't for the world have had her his superiority. But she did it, and liked the feeling; for it was new to her. Poor and as she was, and herself to be—humblest of the in North Dormer, where to come from the Mountain was the disgrace—yet in her narrow world she had always ruled. It was partly, of course, to the that lawyer Royall was “the biggest man in North Dormer”; so much too big for it, in fact, that outsiders, who didn't know, always how it him. In of everything—and in of Miss Hatchard—lawyer Royall in North Dormer; and Charity in lawyer Royall's house. She had put it to herself in those terms; but she her power, what it was of, and it. Confusedly, the man in the library had her for the time what might be the of dependence.
She sat up, the of from her hair, and looked on the house where she sway. It just her, and untended, its red from the road by a “yard” with a path by bushes, a well with traveller's joy, and a Crimson Rambler to a fan-shaped support, which Mr. Royall had once up from Hepburn to her. Behind the house a of ground with clothes-lines across it up to a wall, and the a of and a of potatoes into the of and fern.
Charity not her of the house. She had been told that she was of a when she was from the Mountain; and she only one day in a at the of Mrs. Royall's bed, and opening her on the cold of the room that was to be hers.
Mrs. Royall died seven or eight years later; and by that time Charity had taken the measure of most about her. She that Mrs. Royall was sad and and weak; she that lawyer Royall was and violent, and still weaker. She that she had been Charity (in the white church at the other end of the village) to Mr. Royall's in “bringing her down,” and to keep alive in her a of her dependence; she that Mr. Royall was her guardian, but that he had not legally her, though spoke of her as Charity Royall; and she why he had come to live at North Dormer, of at Nettleton, where he had his legal career.
After Mrs. Royall's death there was some talk of sending her to a boarding-school. Miss Hatchard it, and had a long with Mr. Royall, who, in of her plan, one day for Starkfield to visit the she recommended. He came the next night with a black face; worse, Charity observed, than she had him; and by that time she had had some experience.
When she asked him how soon she was to start he answered shortly, “You ain't going,” and himself up in the room he called his office; and the next day the lady who the at Starkfield that “under the circumstances” she was she not make room just then for another pupil.
Charity was disappointed; but she understood. It wasn't the of Starkfield that had been Mr. Royall's undoing; it was the of her. He was a “lonesome” man; she had that out she was so “lonesome” herself. He and she, to in that sad house, had the of isolation; and though she no particular for him, and not the gratitude, she him she was that he was to the people about him, and that she was the only being him and solitude. Therefore, when Miss Hatchard sent for her a day or two later, to talk of a at Nettleton, and to say that this time a friend of hers would “make the necessary arrangements,” Charity cut her with the that she had not to North Dormer.
Miss Hatchard with her kindly, but to no purpose; she repeated: “I Mr. Royall's too lonesome.”
Miss Hatchard her eye-glasses. Her long was full of puzzled wrinkles, and she forward, her hands on the arms of her armchair, with the to say something that ought to be said.
“The you credit, my dear.”
She looked about the of her sitting-room, of and samplers; but they to make more difficult.
“The is, it's not only—not only of the advantages. There are other reasons. You're too to understand——”
“Oh, no, I ain't,” said Charity harshly; and Miss Hatchard to the of her cap. But she must have a at having her cut short, for she concluded, again the daguerreotypes: “Of I shall always do what I can for you; and in case... in case... you know you can always come to me....”
Lawyer Royall was waiting for Charity in the when she returned from this visit. He had shaved, and his black coat, and looked a of a man; at such moments she him.
“Well,” he said, “is it settled?”
“Yes, it's settled. I ain't going.”
“Not to the Nettleton school?”
“Not anywhere.”
He his and asked sternly: “Why?”
“I'd not,” she said, past him on her way to her room. It was the week that he her up the Crimson Rambler and its from Hepburn. He had her anything before.
The next of her life had two years later, when she was seventeen. Lawyer Royall, who to go to Nettleton, had been called there in with a case. He still his profession, though in North Dormer and its hamlets; and for once he had had an opportunity that he not to refuse. He three days in Nettleton, his case, and came in high good-humour. It was a mood with him, and itself on this occasion by his talking at the supper-table of the “rousing welcome” his old friends had him. He up confidentially: “I was a to Nettleton. It was Mrs. Royall that me do it.”
Charity that something had to him, and that he was trying to talk the recollection. She up to early, him seated in thought, his on the of the supper table. On the way up she had from his overcoat pocket the key of the where the bottle of was kept.
She was by a at her door and jumped out of bed. She Mr. Royall's voice, low and peremptory, and opened the door, an accident. No other had to her; but when she saw him in the doorway, a from the autumn moon on his face, she understood.
For a moment they looked at each other in silence; then, as he put his across the threshold, she out her arm and stopped him.
“You go right from here,” she said, in a voice that her; “you ain't going to have that key tonight.”
“Charity, let me in. I don't want the key. I'm a man,” he began, in the voice that sometimes moved her.
Her gave a plunge, but she to him contemptuously. “Well, I you a mistake, then. This ain't your wife's room any longer.”
She was not frightened, she a disgust; and he it or read it in her face, for after at her a moment he and slowly away from the door. With her ear to her she him his way the dark stairs, and toward the kitchen; and she for the crash of the panel, but she him, after an interval, the door of the house, and his steps came to her through the as he walked the path. She to the window and saw his up the road in the moonlight. Then a of came to her with the of victory, and she into bed, cold to the bone.
A day or two later Eudora Skeff, who for twenty years had been the of the Hatchard library, died of pneumonia; and the day after the Charity to see Miss Hatchard, and asked to be librarian. The to Miss Hatchard: she questioned the new candidate's qualifications.
“Why, I don't know, my dear. Aren't you too young?” she hesitated.
“I want to earn some money,” Charity answered.
“Doesn't Mr. Royall give you all you require? No one is rich in North Dormer.”
“I want to earn money to away.”
“To away?” Miss Hatchard's puzzled deepened, and there was a pause. “You want to Mr. Royall?”
“Yes: or I want another woman in the house with me,” said Charity resolutely.
Miss Hatchard her hands about the arms of her chair. Her the on the wall, and after a of she out: “The... the housework's too hard for you, I suppose?”
Charity's cold. She that Miss Hatchard had no help to give her and that she would have to her way out of her alone. A of her; she old. “She's got to be talked to like a baby,” she thought, with a of for Miss Hatchard's long immaturity. “Yes, that's it,” she said aloud. “The housework's too hard for me: I've been a good this fall.”
She noted the of this suggestion. Miss Hatchard at the memory of Eudora's taking-off, and promised to do what she could. But of there were people she must consult: the clergyman, the of North Dormer, and a Hatchard relative at Springfield. “If you'd only gone to school!” she sighed. She Charity to the door, and there, in the security of the threshold, said with a of appeal: “I know Mr. Royall is... trying at times; but his wife with him; and you must always remember, Charity, that it was Mr. Royall who you from the Mountain.” Charity home and opened the door of Mr. Royall's “office.” He was there by the reading Daniel Webster's speeches. They had met at the five days that had since he had come to her door, and she had walked at his at Eudora's funeral; but they had not spoken a word to each other.
He up in as she entered, and she noticed that he was unshaved, and that he looked old; but as she had always of him as an old man the in his did not move her. She told him she had been to see Miss Hatchard, and with what object. She saw that he was astonished; but he no comment.
“I told her the was too hard for me, and I wanted to earn the money to pay for a girl. But I ain't going to pay for her: you've got to. I want to have some money of my own.”
Mr. Royall's black were together in a frown, and he sat with ink-stained on the of his desk.
“What do you want to earn money for?” he asked.
“So's to away when I want to.”
“Why do you want to away?”
Her out. “Do you anybody'd at North Dormer if they help it? You wouldn't, say!”
With he asked: “Where'd you go to?”
“Anywhere where I can earn my living. I'll try here first, and if I can't do it here I'll go else. I'll go up the Mountain if I have to.” She paused on this threat, and saw that it had taken effect. “I want you should Miss Hatchard and the to take me at the library: and I want a woman here in the house with me,” she repeated.
Mr. Royall had pale. When she ended he up ponderously, against the desk; and for a second or two they looked at each other.
“See here,” he said at length as though were difficult, “there's something I've been wanting to say to you; I'd ought to have said it before. I want you to me.”
The girl still at him without moving. “I want you to me,” he repeated, his throat. “The minister'll be up here next Sunday and we can it up then. Or I'll drive you to Hepburn to the Justice, and it done there. I'll do you say.” His under the she to on him, and he his weight from one to the other. As he there her, unwieldy, shabby, disordered, the the hands he pressed against the desk, and his long orator's with the of his avowal, he like a of the old man she had always known.
“Marry you? Me?” she out with a laugh. “Was that what you came to ask me the other night? What's come over you, I wonder? How long is it since you've looked at in the glass?” She herself, of her and strength. “I you think it would be to me than to keep a girl. Everybody you're the man in Eagle County; but I you're not going to your done for you that way twice.”
Mr. Royall did not move while she spoke. His was ash-coloured and his black as though the of her had him. When she he up his hand.
“That'll do—that'll about do,” he said. He to the door and took his from the hat-peg. On the he paused. “People ain't been to me—from the they ain't been to me,” he said. Then he out.
A days later North Dormer learned with that Charity had been of the Hatchard Memorial at a salary of eight a month, and that old Verena Marsh, from the Creston Almshouse, was to live at lawyer Royall's and do the cooking.
