The Loves of Ambrose

"I've done smelt your efforts, 'Lizabeth," Uncle Ambrose murmured kindly. "They've often come right through the boards of my side wall. I wisht I knowed some way to help you out, but I can't somehow see it."

Nevertheless when Elizabeth had made her old neighbour as comfortable for the night as she knew how by putting fresh coals on his fire and by fastening down his windows, and had said good night, still he continued sitting in the same place, wearing a look of uncomfortable gravity, until by and by hobbling once more into his bedroom he returned with a small daguerreotype in his hand and for a long while kept studying it, with his lips moving silently, and then suddenly said aloud: "Whatever on this earth am I goin' to do 'bout that old maid, Em'ly honey? She's poor and lonesome and she's scaired, and, moreover, she's powerful homely." And then just for an instant piercing the mists over his old eyes the immortal light of laughter flickered.

"I reckon you think I've done earned a trifle of repose from worryin' on females, don't you, honey?" he inquired as he made his solitary way toward bed.

CHAPTER XX

"GIVING IN MARRIAGE"

In a similar cottage on one side of old Ambrose Thompson, as has already been explained, there now dwelt the single departing spinster, Elizabeth Horton, whom Uncle Ambrose regarded as a newcomer, her occupancy lying somewhat within the period of twenty years, while on the other side there still remained his youthful enemy, Susan Barrows. Not Mrs. Susan Barrows, Sr., because of course some years before that old lady had been translated to that country where we hope all human curiosity may be satisfied, but her daughter, Susan Jr.; a little prying, spiteful girl she would always remain to Ambrose, although now a married woman past middle age, with grown-up children of her own.

And among her other inheritances she claimed an interfering interest in the old man's mode of life.

Now a set of signals having been arranged between them in case of urgent need on his part, at about six o'clock the next morning Susan was aroused by a violent knocking on his wall on the side of the house next hers, and hurrying over she found the old man lying half dressed on his bed and groaning with pain.

"Seems like I can't turn over or move or draw long breath, Susan Jr.," he gasped. "'Course I know I got my feet wet; 'tain't no use of you startin' in on that. I've got the lumbago, but bein's as I feel I mayn't be able to git up fer a right smart spell you'd better step next door and tell that old maid 'Lizabeth to come over here and look after me. She ain't no kith and kin to keep her busy like you."

Susan eyed her old neighbour narrowly; she never had and never would be able wholly to trust him, but now his fine old wrinkled face seemed to be twisting with pain and his nose and lips twitching.

"'Lizabeth can't come, you know it well as I do, Ambrose Thompson," she replied. "I've just got to do the best fer you I kin, though it ain't noways convenient to me. This comes from you tryin' to live alone 'cause Aunt Ca'line and the others who used to see to you is passed. 'Lizabeth Horton is movin' within a few hours, bein' turned out of her house, bag and baggage," and there was such richness of superiority in Susan Jr.'s voice, the kind of superiority which the prosperous always feel in the presence of the unprosperous, that the old man longed to shake her.

But instead he only remarked with suspicious meekness: "'Lizabeth's furniture is bein' moved, Susan Jr., but not necessar'ly 'Lizabeth; leastways I don't believe she is engaged to go off in the movin' van settin' on top her best dresser like a hen, though it's what a lot of women would like, they're so bound up in things mortal." And then Uncle Ambrose fixing his gaze on a far spot in the ceiling shivered and groaned until his audience hurried away, when he was able to relax into greater comfort.

Thus it was that 'Lizabeth took up the business of caring for Uncle Ambrose Thompson until such time as the lumbago should depart from his back.

From the first the old man could see that the spinster was enjoying herself thoroughly; true, his cottage was small, but then it was exactly like her own save that he had let his grow truly magnificent in its dirt and disorder, being not of the type of male with perverted feminine instincts, while Elizabeth never had had but one womanly passion gratified and that was her love of putting a house to rights.

So for some little time Uncle Ambrose rather found pleasure in staying in bed with the hateful burden of solitariness removed from him; he loved listening to the familiar homely sounds of sweeping and the moving about of furniture; it brought back – ah well, perhaps at seventy-six it is something to have many things to remember.

And then, lying alone, he used to talk very often to his picture of Emily, which still hung on its nail by the old pine bureau, for this habit, begun after her death and only practised in secret during his marriage to Peachy, had grown on him in these last seven years of failing body and mind.

"She's a real good woman, Em'ly," he said several times, "and you'll be glad to know she's makin' me more comfortable than I been in some time. I was gittin' pretty tired. Seems like I might as well let this old spinster stay on here and keep house fer me; she plumb likes it and I reckon it's just one little thing more I kin do fer the sex. I ain't much good at lonin' it, and 'tain't like I had old Miner now fer the in betweens." And then he would laugh silently until the wrinkles in his old face seemed little channels for merriment: "I been married so frequent and got broke in to so many different sets of housekeepin' ways, seems like I ain't troubled to form no ways of my own."

And in between dozing and talking to himself and the neighbours, who ran in to inquire for his health, Uncle Ambrose used to spend some time in reading his Bible. One afternoon when Elizabeth had been sitting by his bedside sewing and thinking him asleep, he suddenly rose up in bed as though completely ignoring the pain in his back and drawing his old Bible across the coverlid opened it again at the place of the pressed flowers.

"'Lizabeth," he asked after a moment of uncommon gravity in which his hand frequently glided over his bald crown, "are you a good Bible woman? I mean are you a good interpreter of the Scriptures? Seems like I didn't used to look to others fer the meanin' in things, but I'm gittin' a leetle mite older and folks is pretty apt to confuse wishes with facts – "

But Elizabeth's austere face, with its rigid regard for set duties, was reddening. "I read my chapter every night and I try to live accordin'," she answered.

Then into Uncle Ambrose's old voice there crept such an eagerness it might have held the warm desire of youth: "Mebbe you kin tell me then – the meanin' of this here Bible text. I ain't never regarded it for seventy years, but I been worryin' over it consider'ble of late, and now I'd like to get a woman's views on it." And with his trembling forefinger following the lines he had read to himself on the evening before Elizabeth's installation he said: "It is what Jesus remarked to the Sadducees: 'For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.'" And here Uncle Ambrose's eyes travelled wistfully toward the faded daguerreotype on his side wall.

Naturally his listener was puzzled, but afterward laughed a laugh with a touch of new humour in it. "Lord! Uncle Ambrose, I am sorry," she apologized, "but I ain't had cause to worry over that text same as you have; bein's as I'm turned fifty now and ain't had so much as one husband on this earth, I'm kind of expectin' to carry my same single blessedness along with me on the t'other side."

Uncle Ambrose's eyes twinkled appreciatively, but a moment later he looked uncomfortable again. "Well, I reckon that's reasonable of you, 'Lizabeth," he agreed. "Folks can't understand things fer other folks; there's plenty can't comprehend me marryin' so often and now worryin' over arrangements for the future. But it's like this, child: a man may git a lot of helpmates in this world, but he don't find his real mate but once. And I want to know which one of my three wives is goin' to claim me in heaven, 'cause it looks like that combination's got to be eternal. To tell you the truth, I was so worried lately I sent fer the latest Baptist preacher and put this question up to him, and all he did was to read this selfsame verse out of St. Matthew as though I hadn't read and studied over it more'n a hundred times. The new brother seemed to think we'd have to travel alone up in heaven 'thout playin' favrits, but I can't come to agree with him. To tell you the truth, 'Lizabeth" – and here Uncle Ambrose's words sunk to a hoarse whisper – "ef the facts be known I want my Em'ly. I done my best without her, but it wasn't whole livin' 'cept when I had her, and I ain't meanin' nothin' in disfavour of no one else. Of course ef it's true that the Lord don't believe in marriages in the next world, with me such a marrier in this, then that text 'll be a whole lot of assistance to me in gittin' things fixed. For when my three wives come a-floatin' up to me as the angels are, I'll be more'n pleased to see 'em all, but I got to speak up pretty positive: 'I want my Em'ly, and there ain't no marriages nor givin' in marriage in heaven.' For you see I marries little Sarah first and that might give her the first claim, and Peachy last, so it's likely she might think a last tie would bind. Seems like it wouldn't look regular to have the three of 'em to once." And at this the speaker smiled with a kind of appreciative vision of things to come, while at the same time wiping his brow, which was gleaming with perspiration.

A day or so after this, having suddenly found his confinement unendurable, Uncle Ambrose demanded to be taken outdoors, and so wrapping him carefully in blankets Elizabeth set him out on the back stoop to look over his little snow-covered yard, leaving the door open that she might hear if he called to her.

And the woman was so happy now that she sang as she went about her work, for in moving him out the old man had asked her to stay and keep house for him so long as he should live.

Uncle Ambrose did not observe Susan Jr.'s birdlike black eyes peer slantingly at him through her partially closed blind, for two lady sparrows who had chosen to perch on the same twig were keeping up such a violent discussion of their territorial rights that they held his amused attention, so that Susan was able quietly to slip out through her front door and into his by a surreptitious move that outflanked her enemy. But pretty soon the old man caught the notes of her ever meddlesome voice and then a little later the sound of monotonous weeping. He had heard Elizabeth Horton crying one evening for two mortal hours and so was not apt to mistake her particular sniff. At first he squirmed restlessly in his chair, attempting to rise, but both the blankets and his reputation as an invalid enveloped him so that finally he called sharply: "Susan Jr., Susan, don't pretend you don't hear me. Come right out here on my stoop, I got to speak to you alone."

And Susan crept stealthily out. She had grown up to be a thin, small woman with a meddlesome soul out of all proportion to her body, and now she wore a wheedling smile such as one might employ with a fretful baby.

"You are lookin' right smart better, Uncle Ambrose," she began, "and 'Lizabeth Horton tells me you'll soon be yourself again."

"Susan," the old man interrupted, "you are in that kitchen hatching up trouble fer me sure as sin. I heard you tellin' 'Lizabeth that she oughtn't to be stayin' much longer with me. What did you do that fer?" And Uncle Ambrose's eyes, which could be like points of steel in righteous anger, now emitted certain fiery sparks. "'Lizabeth is happy and is makin' me comfortable after seven more lonesome years, and you've always been preachin' I ought to git some one to take kire of me. Susan Jr., the Lord gives and the Lord taketh away, but don't you try comin' around here playin' the part of the Lord. You let this spinster be."

Again Susan Jr. smiled with an air of superior virtue. "It ain't me that's talkin', Uncle Ambrose; I ain't seein' anything so wrong in your present relations, but I must say folks in Pennyrile is beginnin' to speculate some, bein's as 'Lizabeth is just turned fifty and you with such a reckernized taste fer female folks, why, though things ain't to say scanderlous, there is some that thinks 'em a little pe-cul-iar."

"Go, Susan," and though Uncle Ambrose spoke with restraint his long finger pointed toward the intervening space which lay between his house and hers. "Go, afore I'm able to tell you what I think of you, 'cause I've known you from a child and you ain't changed none – fer the better. To think of you sneakin' over here fer the supreme pleasure of worryin' one poor homely old maid with your gossip and suggestin's." And Uncle Ambrose's face worked with the annoyance of frustrated old age. "Ef only 'Lizabeth had had one or two husbands she wouldn't be payin' no attention to this, but bein's as she's never had none, well, I kin see that I'm goin' to have my hands pretty nigh full. Seems like I'd rather turn a child out 'n the world than this poor unrequited female."

Late that evening Elizabeth gave Uncle Ambrose his supper as usual, although her eyes were so nearly closed from weeping that she was unable to catch the worried gleam in his. However, before going to bed she told him that she would have to leave him and go to her nephew's as soon as he was well enough to be about again.

CHAPTER XXI

"I SHALL WANT MY EM'LY."

On that same night Uncle Ambrose suffered a relapse and remained in bed for another week; however, he had already got sufficiently rested from his previous laying up and, besides, even at seventy-six he had not yet come to evading an issue. He was merely taking time to think.

One evening just as the lamps in his room were being lighted he called Elizabeth to his bed. "I'm goin' to git up to-morrow, 'Lizabeth, and stay up; I'm 'bout as well now as I'm ever goin' to be, seein' as I'm gittin' older each day 'stid of younger," he said with the gentle firmness that had always come to him in big moments.

With a nervous trembling Elizabeth smoothed the old man's pillows, tucking his blankets in more closely about him. "I'm reel glad fer you, Uncle Ambrose; then you won't be needin' me much longer."

But the old man shook his head. "Set down, 'Lizabeth, I want to talk to you; I don't want my supper, leastways not yet."

But when Elizabeth had seated herself by the side of his bed for a time he continued silent while his glance wandered from the spot where his daguerreotype hung alongside the wall to the figure of the elderly worried spinster, and once catching a reflection of himself in the looking glass with a night cap tied under his chin and then a vision of Elizabeth, suddenly his blue eyes under their overhanging brows brimmed over.

"'Lizabeth," he inquired at length, "did I ever show you the picture of my Em'ly?"

"You ain't exactly showed it to me," she replied kindly, "but I been seein' it every day when I come in here to clean; she's got a kind of different face; it's a pity she had to leave you."

Uncle Ambrose only cleared his throat a trifle more huskily. "You're a good woman, too, 'Lizabeth, and so was little Sarah and Peachy Tarwater, and you're makin' my declinin' days peacefuller, givin' me a chance to relish things that is past, and to hope fer things to come. Not that I kin say you're one mortal bit like Em'ly, cause you ain't, but all women 'a' got different ways, fer which the Lord be praised. I been lyin' here thinkin' a darn sight lately; ain't had much else to do." But if Uncle Ambrose expected a look of understanding in his companion's face at this he was disappointed. "I know I got to vacate this earthly tenement pretty soon, and though I've had good times and sorry in the building I ain't objectin' to quit. Seems like a new dwellin' house 'll give us more light and space. It's many times I've wondered ef mebbe the spirits of them that love us ain't always hoverin' close, ef only we had the right kind of windows to look out at 'em with. Why, child, there's certainly been times when I've felt my Em'ly's arms a-holdin' me up and her wings brushin' my face. She's done been helpin' me about you lately; 'cause you see I know she'd always want me to do anything that'd make me comfortable and – "

But Elizabeth was not listening to the old man's soliloquy. She was thinking of herself, trying to tear out the tendrils that had grown so close about Uncle Ambrose's house, which had lately come to seem so like her own. So finally when she could bear the pain no longer she rose and started stumbling from the room.

Uncle Ambrose called out after her. "Don't go, 'Lizabeth, and don't try to stop cryin'. Tears is nachural to some women and you sure are one of 'em. I ought to be used to 'em by now. 'Lizabeth, I don't want you to leave me; I want you to stay by me till my trumpet sounds." Elizabeth shook her head.

"Think you got to go 'cause of what Susan Jr. said?" Uncle Ambrose's long nose twitched between amusement and scorn. "Good Lord! why is it the good women that is so afeard of talk?" he muttered to himself. "But thinkin' it all out kireful, 'Lizabeth, I ain't able to let you go. I can't stan' livin' 'thout female aid, and there ain't no use me tryin'. So now you listen to me. When I'm out o' this bed, and it'll be to-morrow, do you think you could bring yourself to marry me?" Uncle Ambrose laughed. "Don't git scaired, child; ef you ain't heard them words before it ain't the first time I've said 'em. But don't you answer me too quick; think it over and when you come back after fixin' my supper 's time enough, for I ain't yet told you all I been steddyin' over, believin' the rest 'd come in better later on."

Then while Elizabeth was away this lover of many women lay with his dim old eyes still steadfast upon the picture of her who after all was "the only woman." "You feel I'm doin' what's best, don't you, honey?" he said with the completeness of a perfect union. "She's poor and lonesome and homely, but I've worked it out so it'll be all right."

Afterward, when Uncle Ambrose discovered that his supper tray held all the dishes he most liked, he did not let his expression betray him, but ate his well-cooked meal peaceably and enjoyably until Elizabeth came to take away his tray, when his feeble hand caught hold of her hard one, trying to give it the rightful pressure.

"I can't," the old maid answered sorrowfully; "it's only because you are sorry for me."

And Uncle Ambrose hesitated. To tell any woman he did not love her, here at the end of his seventy-six years! "I'm growin' powerful fond of you, 'Lizabeth Horton," he hedged, "but ef I'm sorry too, what's the odds? I reckon I'm sorry fer myself and been sorry fer most everybody I've knowed in this world one time or another. But mebbe you kin see things better like this. I'm more'n anxious fer you to look after me till I die and keep me from gittin' too darned lonesome and, moreover, I want to leave you this here cottage when I go away. See here, 'Lizabeth, I've done had some experience with women and I've been thinkin' a lot on what you said to me that evenin' you come over here to dry your tears. I kin see there are some women who kin live 'thout husbands and some that's just got to live 'thout children, but there's some women that ain't able to live 'thout homes of their own. Why, you poor old 'Lizabeth, you'd just pine away and die ef the time ever come when you didn't have a house to keep: it would be worse 'n food starvin', 'cause it would last longer. I ain't no children of my own" – and even now Uncle Ambrose winced at saying it – "and what with selling my interest in the store when Miner went and a remembrance from Peachy I got a tidy sum of money in the bank. So I've got no special call to leave my money to nobody, but I know Pennyrile, and she sure would make it warm fer you ef I willed you my property 'thout makin' you my wife. Give me my answer, 'Lizabeth; I ain't tryin' to bribe you, though I want you to stay by me, but I'm gittin' kind er tired and I ain't said all I've got to say yet."

And here Uncle Ambrose turned his eyes for another time toward Emily's picture with their familiar appeal for light in dark places.

"There is one more request I'm bound to make, but it ain't goin' to hurt you or any female to be sensible."

"Uncle Ambrose," the old maid faltered, her yellow cheeks flushing palely, "ef you're sure you want to marry me I shall be plumb glad. I like to stay here and take care of you, and I don't want to leave you or this house. I'll try my best to do my part."

"Then you listen to me," said the old man, speaking like a grown-up person to a confused child, "and you remember I don't want to hurt your feelin's, but whatsomever cometh I've got to git this out of me."

"What is it, Uncle Ambrose?" Elizabeth inquired anxiously. "I told you I was hopeful to do my part."

Before replying the old face set into beautiful lines of dignity and untarnished faith. "Do you recollect, 'Lizabeth, I told you once that when I died and crossed over the Jerden I was hopin' to spend the life eternal with Em'ly. T'ain't nothin' against little Sarah or Peachy, but you see I married Sarah 'fore I'd met up with Em'ly, and then Peachy she'd kind er staked out an original claim. It won't matter nothin' to Em'ly, but ef the truth be known I ain't no ways easy in my mind 'bout that Bible text I was a-repeatin' over to you. It may be I ain't got the Lord's meanin' exactly clear, whether the marriages made on this earth are goin' to hold good in heaven, so you kin surely see, 'Lizabeth, that there ain't no use in me addin' complications to the future at my time of life."

And here reaching under his pillow Uncle Ambrose drew forth a crumpled sheet of paper torn from a book which deeded his cottage to Elizabeth Horton and five thousand dollars in bank in the event of her becoming his wife.

"I know this document ain't legal," he explained, "but I'll have it writ out fair and square by a lawyer and sign it soon as ever I can ef you'll only give me a little slip of paper in return with a few easy words written on it."

The woman waited a moment puzzled. "I don't quite understand you, Uncle Ambrose," she returned.

"No, of course you don't, child. I just want to know ef you feel willin' to write down these here words: 'I, Elizabeth Horton, bein' fourth wife to Ambrose Thompson, do hereby relinquish all claim to him come the time when I shall meet him in heaven.' You see how 'tis, 'Lizabeth," Uncle Ambrose argued wistfully. "I wisht I'd thought to make some such plan with Peachy 'fore she died; not that I'm at all certain she'd 'a' done it," he added truthfully, "but it would 'a' eased my mind consid'ble in these last childish days ef I only had little gentle Sarah to explain things to on the other side. I don't want there should be any argufyin' or confusion just when Em'ly and me are tryin' to git off quiet to ourselves and talk things over."

Elizabeth did not answer at once, for her vision did not naturally travel beyond the confines of this world, but other women before this old maid had travelled far in this now old man's leading. So she did not feel his request to be either childish or unreasonable, only she too wanted time to think. For after a while with her eyes resting affectionately upon the old face now lying so quiet on the pillow, and at the still beautiful and once so strong hands clasped together outside the counterpane, she leaned over toward him and whispered.

"I'll give you that paper you want, Uncle Ambrose, and I'll write on it same as you wish me to, for I shall have the home, and somehow I feel it will be only right that you and Em'ly should have each other."

"Amen!" whispered Uncle Ambrose.

THE END