Sheilah

“ II At first Roger had combated the increasing consolation he found himself feeling in the nearness of a woman who was not Sheilah. But finally he concluded it was but another proof of the intensity of his love for her. Before Sheilah's advent his desires, as far as women were concerned, were well under control. She awoke them, excited them, and then went away, and left them unsatisfied. It was the absent and forever-forbidden Sheilah he groped for in Cicely, when he placed his hand upon her wrist and felt the warm, smooth, feminine flesh beneath his fingers. ”

“ Sheilah felt a great comforting sense of satisfaction. Not only was she letting Felix out of the dark, but also she was discharging a debt she felt she owed him. He had been alone and neglected at college. He had failed at college. If she saw to it that he was not alone and neglected in Wallbridge, if she helped him to succeed in Wallbridge, then that strange hungry sense of obligation to him, always fumbling for food just over her heart, would be satisfied, perhaps; would become weaned in time, and she would be free again, and happy, seeing him prosper on the milk of others' kindness. ”

“ Sheilah smiled. Only one whose heart is very calm and quiet can hear such little sounds. As she swung down the hill that led into the town she observed the various roadside signs and symbols of the New England autumn—piles of orange-colored pumpkins on the back porch of almost every house she passed, mounds of discarded apples beneath the bared branches of the orchards, Indian wigwams in place of the waving cornfields. ”

“ Afterwards, when they were both barriered behind a wall of smoke, John Sheldon went into detail about Sheilah, not looking at Sidney much, gazing out of the window most of the time. Sheilah hadn't been surprised to find him beside her, he said, when she woke up. One is never surprised to find one's doctor beside one, when one wakes up after an accident, or a night like Sheilah's. ”

“ Suddenly Sheilah leaned forward and buried her head in the curve of her arm on top of the litter of flat toilet silver on her dressing-table. Why hadn't her mother sent her away to school last fall? She had begged to go. Ever since she was thirteen years old Felix Nawn had hung above her, like a cloud, hiding more and more of her sunshine, darkening more and more of her sky, growing heavier and heavier with the weight of what he took from her, as a cloud with the weight of what it takes from the earth. ”

“ Lying now on her hilltop (her hilltop because she sought it so often) , Sheilah rejoiced in the consciousness of being better, as another might rejoice in the consciousness of physical perfection. How good to lie upon a hilltop, day after day, and feel strength running back through one's finger-tips instead of out of them. It was one of her secret delights to imagine that the hill was holding her up, like some kind friend, as far as it could reach toward the healing qualities of sun and sky and wind. ”

“ A car for Sheilah! A car that he himself bought for Sheilah! He had never been able to buy anything for her of any account before. All the plans and preparations for her vacation made by another than himself! All her new clothes for the occasion provided by a stranger! The very thought of buying a car for Sheilah was salve to the deeply-buried hurt Felix had been silently enduring ever since Cicely's offer had been accepted. ”

“ III All the next day, rattling down over the dusty roads in the little car beside Felix, Sheilah lived over and over again her last five minutes alone with Roger—her last half-minute. She wasn't sorry. She regretted nothing. He hadn't kissed her. If her lips had been the petals of a flower he couldn't have been more careful not to crush them. Oh, had ever any woman before received such a strange, illusive, and provocative caress? ”

“ Ten minutes later, walking along the main street of the town, beneath the tawny elm trees, Sheilah stopped several times to speak to neighbors whom she met (this was her second autumn in Terry, Vermont) , passing on each time with a deepening smile. Little sounds beneath a tree, simple sights along a road-way, homely expressions of friendliness from neighbors, all gave pleasure to Sheilah now. ”

“ On a certain morning in late June, Sheilah woke to the realization that she must somehow muster enough strength to go in town to do some necessary shopping for the children. It had been haunting her for a week. Every necessity haunted her lately, loomed ahead of her like a menacing calamity. She postponed the dreaded shopping-tour until after lunch, and then, after the children had gone back to school, sprang up from the couch, put on her hat, and plunged out into the midday sun and heat in desperate and unintelligent determination. ”

“ Sheilah always wondered why, because the earth was so dark and rich. The Chinaman was picking up little shining white things out of the black earth and putting them in a deep side pocket in his coat. From a distance the shining white things looked like sea-shells. It was so strange to be hunting for sea-shells in a garden that Sheilah approached the Chinaman, and asked him what it was he was putting in his pocket. He mumbled something she couldn't understand, and, stretching out the opening of his pocket towards her, he motioned her to put her hand down in it and find out for herself. ”

“ Sheilah seemed so much happier lately. The children were turning out so much better than she'd been afraid, and since she'd come to live with his folks, she appeared to be more reconciled to their inheritance. She didn't seem even to object very much to Phillip's always saying that he wanted to be like his father. ”

“ There is no poison more deadly than jealousy, no emotion more devastating. Several of her women friends were jealous of her, and men used to be. How she despised them for it. How she despised herself for it. Strange coincidence, that she should have sent Sheilah into Roger's very arms. Any one could see there was something between them. How happy Sheilah had seemed, and glowing. And how she had flushed when she had jibed her about the man who had been nice to her at Avidon's. And later how elaborately at ease Roger had tried to appear ”

“ But after the first four or five days of this self-inflicted separation, Sheilah was guilty of haunting the public parking-space, where Roger left his car during office hours. It had suddenly occurred to Sheilah that pneumonia was often followed by a relapse. The gray car with the number she knew so well was proof that Roger was at his work. Moreover, the gray car itself had come to seem so much a part of him that the mere sight of it gratified a little her aching desire. ”

“ How quickly frying potatoes over the kitchen stove at home would consume the perfume of a single wet wood-violet!
In spite of her lingering, Sheilah was ready for dinner early to-night. When she came downstairs, she joined the group on the verandah, gathered to watch the sunset. Several of the Outsiders were there, Roger among them, besides others of the hotel guests. There was an exceptionally beautiful display to-night of salmon-colored sky and violet clouds. ”

“ Her mother had sacrificed her sewing-room to provide Sheilah with this luxury. Her mother was always making such sacrifices. She deserved a daughter who could reward her without effort. Sheilah had to use all the self-control that she possessed, not to turn upon her mother now, and tell her that she wished she would go out of the room and leave her alone. ”

“ The telephone-booth was cheap and battered, lined with pressed tin, and smelling of stale tobacco. He felt the same old distaste that he used to, in receiving Sheilah's voice in such unlovely surroundings, but he was in too much of a hurry to seek a more fitting place. He also felt the same old eagerness and excitement, as he impatiently waited for his call to be completed, increased to-night, by uncertainty. Would she wish him to call her? Her loyalty to Felix would be burning just now with abnormal intensity, he felt sure. ”

“ Look what she's got!' sang out Peggy, and she tapped the big square package on Sheilah's knees. 'Gosh! your friend may live in a God-forsaken place, but he's certainly all right when it comes to "saying-it-with-candy." A ten-pounder, boys! Come, Sheilah, we're starved, too. Open it up, and pass it round.'
'Is that a hint?' laughed Sheilah, grateful with all her heart that Felix's box was of such conventional shape and size. Then, shaking her head tantalizingly, 'Candy isn't good for children before meals. ”

“ Roger, left alone, watched her flutter away from him like a moth, as she had come, or a butterfly which he had caught, held a moment, and then let go.
Sheilah hadn't seen him again till morning. In spite of her remonstrances several of the loyal survivors of the Outsiders rose at seven-thirty to wave her good-bye. She made her departure from the front porch of the hotel, with no word of apology for the overburdened little car, taking her proper place beside Felix, with a smile, gallantly waving, and calling a last bright, crisp 'good-bye,' as the car fussed and sputtered out of the drive. ”

“ Tried to learn golf. For in those early years in Wallbridge they had, as a matter of course, belonged to the group of young married people who had always been Sheilah's friends. Successful confident young married people. Rather ruthless since the war. Amazingly able and alert. Difficult competitors.
It had been Sheilah's suggestion that they move away from Wallbridge. Felix always dreaded any change, but he complied, for Sheilah explained to him that there was a future for him in the big prosperous manufacturing concern in Boston, if he tried hard and worked evenings. ”

“ There was a group of birches at the further end of the meadow where the brook spilled over into a marsh. Roger stopped to-day and remarked upon the birches.
'They're like young girls in green chiffon in wading,' he said to Sheilah, as he had to Cicely years ago.
Sheilah flashed him one of her brightest smiles and then turned meditatively toward the birches. 'No, not young girls—little girls. Their legs are so spindly and straight.'
How different from Cicely! Oh, really she was too good to be true, too absolutely satisfying to be made of flesh and blood. ”

“ No woman unconsciously laughs out loud if her heart is aching very hard; nor hums to herself over her work, as Sheilah caught herself doing often here in this kind, homely kitchen. Her life in Terry was dull, drab, monotonous, but the dullness and drabness and monotony had covered her, comforted her, and slowly healed—well, anyway, almost healed. Not entirely, she supposed, or she wouldn't have dreaded opening her third letter. It was from Cicely. Every time Cicely wrote to Sheilah now, she mentioned Roger Dallinger. ”

“ Sheilah was crossing a crowded thoroughfare two hours later, when somebody spoke her name from the back of an automobile which the traffic policeman had brought to a standstill immediately in front of her. Her hands were full of packages. She usually paid and carried.
'Why, it's Sheilah, isn't it?' the voice exclaimed. ('No, no! It isn't Sheilah!') Sheilah wanted to reply, and might have, too, in all honesty, for it really wasn't the Sheilah Cicely Morgan had known so many years ago. ”

“ Away from the warm peat fire;
I must be up and faring,
For this is the hour of tryst,
And Sheilah will be waiting
At the glen amid the mist.
Oh, what ’s gray rain to lovers,
And what though white rains fall,
When blue skies shine in Sheilah’s eyes
For a lad of Donegal!
[p 34]
A ROVER
Oh, I am just a rover
Among the roving men
Who loves to watch the sunlight
Upon the flowering fen;
Who fain would feel the heather
Dew-soft beneath his tread
When morning parts the cloud-wrack
Above Benbulbin’s head ”

“ There was a suggestion of Sheilah about Phillip. His eyes were corn-flower blue, but the rest of him was like his Grandfather Nawn, even to the crooked, undershot teeth. The teeth must be straightened sometime. It would take a great deal of money, and perhaps he wouldn't be any better off for it. Why fight nature so?
IV 'What's the matter?' Laetitia asked her mother before she went back to school for the afternoon study-period; for Sheilah had gone to her bedroom and lain down, as soon as she had carved the meat. ”

“ Last night by the gate in the shadow of the hedge, with Felix's fingers on her wrist, Sheilah had agreed to meet him with her skates next Saturday afternoon at five o'clock on the upper bend of the river, beyond the falls, by the ice-houses. If there was no skating, she had agreed to meet him without her skates. In her note Sheilah told Felix briefly that she had changed her mind about next Saturday, and then had added, with her early-morning courage still brave and bright, 'and please don't meet me after the Guild any more either. ”

“ Four years ago Felix had promised Sheilah he wouldn't smoke. Four years ago, in the Wallbridge high-school, promising a girl you wouldn't smoke for her sake sealed a secret compact between you, when you were both too young and timid to talk of love. Four years ago Sheilah had accepted the position of Felix's good angel. Girls were good angels to boys when Sheilah was in her early teens. To Felix she was still his good angel.
He hadn't seen Sheilah for over two years when he engaged the room on Greene Street, but there hadn't been a day that he hadn't thought of her. ”