Pippa

“ Pippa had felt as if she were passing through some strange troll country in a German fairy tale. Surely in such a world as this were the terrible kobold women, and the werewolves that hunt in the dark of the moon,
Then, in the dawning, she had lifted the shade in her stateroom and looked out upon rolling mountain reaches and shifting miles of mist, and a sort of uplift had come to her. For she was of those who receive impressions with almost magical speed and certainty. In all her travels she was forever rocked by the mood of the place. Perhaps that was why she had kept young so long. ”

“ Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!"
And so poor Pippa passes on, consoled for the wearisome silk-winding, the scant food, scant raiment, scant human love. ”

“ Now—well, there was very little glamour about the word now to Pippa Carpenter. The will-o'-the-wisp's lantern was out, and—she was still in the wilderness.
But—a friend! Friendship was for Pippa the supreme luxury, the divine indulgence. She had never in all her life had a man friend before. Gregory was not the least bit in love with her—how grateful she was that he was not! He could meet her eyes squarely, laugh at her affectionately, contradict her crossly on occasions ”

“ The realization of a new view of life is always rather staggering to the soul, Pippa was more adaptable, more sentient, and more imaginative than most women, and had a bigger outlook and a broader grasp of things; yet she felt as helpless as a little child as she sat there listening to the howling wind, and waiting for the guide to come back. ”

“ He still stared into the fire, and Philippa still stared at him.
A wild burst of wind shook the little hut, sending flurries of snow under the rattling door, but neither of them noticed it. A silence was poised fast between them, and hung so, growing more and more tense every moment.
The night seemed full of voices. Were they warning, menacing, mocking—or all three? The strings of Pippa's life had been tautly strung, and she recognized an urgency that pervaded the atmosphere. She was not in the least afraid of the man. She was never afraid of anything. ”

“ Her comments on it have none of the wayward charm of her morning fancies, for Pippa is very human—she can envy and decry, swinging loose from the central steadiness of her nature like many another of us, obsessed like her by some vile happening of the hours. ”

“ Gently Philippa lifted her hands and held them in her own.
“Sit down,” she said, drawing the drooping figure quietly to the rustic bench from which the woman had risen. Mrs. Rivers shuddered once, and then sat still. Her eyes, wide and hopeless, never left Pippa's. The scent of the flowers was almost overpowering; the air, heavy and damp, pressed upon the senses. In the rosy, artificial twilight of the conservatory, Pippa could just see the other woman's white face and those waiting eyes. ”

“ In the small hours before morning Pippa Carpenter lay in her berth, staring into the night. The girl tramp, with a little extra money in the pocket of Philippa's dust coat, was safe on board the limited bound for Los Angeles, and had promised to write the day after she got there. Now that it was all over, Pippa felt profoundly tired, but the boredom of the afternoon had quite evaporated. She was a-thrill with adventure and interest. Life once more showed possibilities for exploration. ”

“ She is forced to obey, and is of course crushed to death. And Pippa dances. That omnipotent Huhn who can call down all the muses to come and entertain him, to amuse him, to serve him, to degenerate or to perish! Watch that wonderful creature, the amalgamated American Huhn, making love to music, hugging and caressing her; I shudder at the thought of what will become of gentle Pippa in the choking embrace of her boorish suitor.
Yes, Huhn knows what he wants. He expects of music the same service that he gets from illustrations in popular magazine novels. ”

“ Their eyes met in a long look.
“What sort of a woman are you?” whispered the man, and she felt his tremulous, hard kiss upon her hand.
The next moment both started, and Pippa hid the money inside the loose blouse of her dress. In a lull in the tempest they could hear the sound of clumping footsteps and smothered voices. ”

“ Pippa felt fairly sure of him, and she unfolded her plan in a rapid undertone.
Twenty minutes later her things were in the newly engaged stateroom, and she was standing on the platform nearest it, with a dust coat over her arm, peering anxiously into the growing dimness and murkiness of the tunnel. The mouth of it was becoming a smaller and smaller round of light; the air was increasingly heavier and more difficult to breathe. Would the train never slow down? Would the girl down there in the darkness faint before they could get to her? ”

“ Her complexion was, in fact, too good to need rouge, but Pippa saw a faint bloom that was not of nature upon her smooth cheeks. A man would not have noticed it at all. The girl had a full, red mouth; she was slender and shapely, and her curly brown hair was abundant. A Frenchwoman of her sort would have been chic and insinuating; poor Gladys Harrison did not have the bravado of her class. ”

“ Anne started.
"Here, here, West, none of that," the older man corrected, sharply. "That's no thing to say—what is the matter?"
"It's Pippa," he returned, simply. "She won't marry me. I'll kill myself if she don't. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't think. It cuts into me night and day. You don't know how it kills me—you don't know!"
He writhed like a child in physical pain. His face was distorted : he made no more effort to conceal his misery than his delight of weeks ago. Delafield showed a little of his disgust. ”

“ He seemed about fifteen or sixteen, though some haunted, hunted look about his tense mouth suggested that he might be older, in experience, if not in years.
“Why,” gasped Pippa, “you're hardly more than a child, are you?”
“Eighteen,” said the tramp, in a rather tired voice.
“Do—do you have to do this?” asked Mrs. Carpenter, genuinely aghast.
“Ride the rods? You bet I do! Do you think I'd be doing it for fun?”
The boy did not seem to mean to be impertinent; he was simply quite candid, and very weary.
“When did you get on?” asked Philippa, amazement giving full place to pity. ”

“ All left to me are two grandsons, whose father was my son, and they are in this land. But there is that which I must carry to Egypt, or send by a trusty messenger; and I am poor, and may not hire a carrier. Honest men, madame knows, cost money!”
Perhaps it was this unconsciously cynical aphorism that appealed to Pippa; perhaps it was the fantastic quality of the idea that had come to her; perhaps it was nothing but genuine pity for the old man. At all events, she gave a little nod as if in decision, and walked up to the scowling young man. ”

“ Pippa is the story of a working girl, a silk weaver of Asolo, who has a precious holiday and goes forth to enjoy it, wishing she could share her happiness with others, especially with the great people of her town. But the great live in another world, she thinks, a world far removed from that of the poor little working girl ”

“ Pippa shook her head. There was a curious bitterness in her voice as she answered: “No! I am only offering you—myself.” Olaf Nilsson did not understand.
“It is—too much,” he muttered huskily.
“No,” said Mrs. Carpenter quietly, “it is not too much. It is all that I have to give, but that is not—too much. It is quite possible that it is not enough.”
The boy looked as if he could have knelt. His blue eyes were wide and remote with their passion of dreams. ”

“ Let him believe that you are, indeed, his lost Désirèe.”
In silence, Pippa rose and followed the old woman into the inner room.
In a great chair near the open window sat a man; a man with prematurely white hair and eyes in which the tragic anxiety of blind burned always like a devouring flame, a flame without light. ”

“ Sometimes she looked out of the windows and saw the woods and sky, and then she would sigh for the birds and the flowers. Sometimes she would see a lovely lady go by in a silk dress, and then she would say: “We helped make that dress,” and then she would feel very proud of the great mill.
There was one day in the year that Pippa had [143] for her very own. She could go out in the woods and gather flowers and hear the brook ripple along, and she could sing just as the birds did in the trees. When this day came Pippa was a very happy little girl. ”

“ And Pippa, feeling certain rings upon her finger heavier than ever ball and chain could be to a convict, answered steadily:
“I am happy—and I am—good. I have gone up into the light, not down into the darkness. I have fallen on no evil day. There is nothing for you to grieve about, Gervais—nothing—nothing!”
A light came into his face, and his arms sank back. The merciful lids, closing, shut out the painful agony of his sightless eyes.
“Kiss me good-by, Désirèe,” he murmured. And she did so, gently, as one might kiss the dead. ”

“ Something in the boy's face made the man change his mind. He threw the stick far off into the field. "All right, you runt!" He spat the words between his yellowed teeth. "You so smart, you load Long-ears! You drive my shoats to market."
"I will! But first I drive Pippa to our farm." The boy ran back to his cart, lifted Pippa's head with the lines, and down the road the donkey clippety-clopped as if there were no time to lose. Giorgio glanced back to make sure the swineherd would wait. ”

“ And the girl told her; adding, “He's 'way up in G, and owns mines, and railroads, and yachts, and little things like that. I guess a girl more or less doesn't matter a whole heap to him!”
Pippa sat still, wondering at the wild improbabilities that color this our human life. “When we read about these things in novels and magazines,” she said to herself, “and when we see them on the stage, we say they're impossible. Yet they go on happening right along!”
For Pippa knew the man. ”

“ Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from Orcana to the Turret. Two or three of the Austrian Police loitering with Bluphocks, an English vagabond, just in view of the Turret.
Bluphocks. So, that is your Pippa, the little girl who passed us singing? Well, your Bishop’s Intendant’s money shall be honestly earned:—now, don’t make me that sour face because I bring the Bishop’s name into the business; we know he can have nothing to do with such horrors: we know that he is a saint and all that a bishop should be, who is a great man beside. ”

“ Maybe you haven't dreamed a lot; maybe you haven't had to, I mean?' Her eyes met Pippa's eagerly. “Maybe you've lived all the lovely things, and didn't need to dream them?”
Pippa did not answer, for the memory of her own lost dreams choked her. The girl went on:
“Everything with me has just been pretending. Do you remember 'Sara Crewe'? Well, my childhood was a little bit like that—hard work, and ugly things to look at, and ugly clothes to wear. There was a brown calico thing——” She shuddered. “But never mind about that! Even the food was ugly. ”

“ But she got no help. The scowling young man had turned to scowl at somebody else.
This was a stout, comfortable-looking little man, with an air of bustling and conscious importance. Pippa recognized him at once as the energetic traveler who had wanted to “take a look at the Golden Gate.” ”

“ A woman, like Pippa herself, is the best person to understand the matter."
"All right," the boy assented wearily, "only she isn't like Pippa, not a bit. Pippa's different."
Anne coloured deeply, and Delafield cursed the day he met the boy. His niece he did not pretend to understand.
The next afternoon, as he chafed in the stuffy dining-room-parlour of the flat that was Pippa's home, listening to the quarrelling of a half dozen children on the dreary little roof-garden below him as to who should swing in Uncle Joseph's hammock, he understood her less and less. ”

“ Phene, undeveloped in mind and heart, the easily duped agent of a cruel trick, appeals to us by her slow, incredulous, but eager response to goodness and aspiration, the tremulous opening of her soul to love. But Pippa, with her observant love of nature, her gay, sportive, winsome fancies, her imaginative sympathy with the lives of others, her knowledge of good and evil, her poise, her bright steadiness of soul, carries us into a different and much more highly evolved world of thought and feeling. ”

“ So, not the country girl, but she whose black hair discontents her, sings, and Pippa "listens and comes close," for the song has words as sweet as any of her own . . . and the red-fingered one calls to her to come closer still, they won't eat her—why, she seems to be "the very person the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with." ”

“ Pippa cast wildly about in her own mind for some argument that would hold them for a few minutes longer.
“I've heard,” she said slowly, “that when you run the logs down in the spring, there are sometimes dams and breakwaters belonging to other men that you have to break down. ”

“ It is better, Pippa.... Perhaps it is even more real than the other."
She smiled, patiently, and, for the second time that day, felt a motherly pity for his youthfulness.
"Your Majesty," she said, "in my book, The Fairy Prince, the girl sings a song about love, and she asks her mother, 'Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?' I know now that it is both. Ah! I think it is too wonderful to be a woman; for some day, perhaps yes, perhaps no, I shall have my own children and a husband and friends. ”