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So Kathryn, embroidering her wedding linen––for she meant to be married soon––prayed for guidance.
On the whole, the situation was most gratifying. No wonder Kathryn felt well pleased with herself and more fully convinced that, with such wits as hers, life was reduced to a common factor. Once married she would be able to draw a long breath. Marriage was such a divine institution for women. It gave them such a stranglehold––with the right sort of men––and Bracewasthe right sort.
To be sure he was not entirely satisfying at the present moment. His attentions smacked too much of duty. He could not deceive Kathryn. He sent flowers and gifts in such profusion that they took on the aspect of blood money. Well, marriage would adjust all that.
Helen urged an early date for the wedding and even Manly, who did not like Kathryn, gripped her as the saviour of a critical situation.
King’s Forest had had a sinister effect upon Manly; it made him doubt himself.
And so life, apparently, ran along smoothly on the surface. It was the undercurrents that were really carrying things along at a terrific rate.
It was in his tower room that most of Northrup’s struggle went on. Daily he confronted that which Was and Had To Be! With all his old outposts being taken day by day, he was left bare and unprotected for the last assault. And it came!
It came as death does, quite naturally for the most part, and found him––ready. Like the dying––or the reborn––Northrup put his loved ones to the acid test. His mother would understand. Kathryn? It was staggering, at this heart-breaking moment, to discover, after all the recent proving of herself, that Kathryn resolved into an Unknown Quantity.
This discovery filled Northrup with a sense of disloyalty and unreality. What right had he to permit the girl who was to be his wife, the mother of his children, to be relegated to so ignominious a position? Had she not proved herself234to him in faithfulness and understanding? Had she not, setting aside her own rights, looked well to his?
The days dragged along and each one took its toll of Northrup’s vitality while it intensified that crusading emotion in his soul.
He did not mention all this to those nearest him until the time for departure came, and he tried, God knew, to work while he performed the small, devotional acts to his mother and Kathryn that would soon stand forth, to one of them at least, as the most courageous acts of his life.
He had come to that part of his book where his woman must take her final stand––the stand that Mary-Clare had so undermined. If he finished the book before he went––and he decided that it might be possible––his woman must rise supreme over the doubts with which she had been invested. But when he came to the point, the decision, if he followed his purpose, looked cheap and commonplace––above everything, obvious. In his present mood his book would be just––a book; not the Big Experience.
This struggle to finish his work in the face of the stubborn facts at moments obliterated the crusading spirit; the doubts of Kathryn and even Mary-Clare’s pervading insistence. He hated to be beaten at his own job.
Love’s supreme sacrifice and glory, as portrayed in woman––mustbe man’s ideal, of course!
The ugly business of the world had to be got through, and man often had to set love aside––for honour. “But, good Lord!” Northrup argued, apparently to his useless right hand, what would become of the spiritual, if woman got to setting up little gods and bowing down before them? Why, she would forego her God-given heritage. To her, love must be all. Above all else. Why, the very foundations of life were founded upon that. What could be higher to a woman? Man could look out for the rest, but he must be sure of his woman’s love! The rest would be in their own hands––that was their individual affair.
And then, at this crucial moment, Mary-Clarewouldalways intrude.
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“It’s what one does to love!” That was her stern ultimatum. “Love’s best proof might be renunciation, not surrender!”
“Nonsense!” Northrup flung back. “How then could a man be sure? No book with such an ending would stand a chance.”
“You must not harm your book by such a doubt. That book must betrue, and you know the truth. Women must be made glad by it, men stronger because someone understands and is brave enough to say it.”
But Northrup steeled his heart against this command. He meant to finish his book; finish it with a flaming proof that, while men offered their lives for duty, women offered theirs for love and did not count the cost, like misers or––lenders.
One afternoon Northrup, the ink still wet upon the last sheet of his manuscript, leaned back wearily in his chair. He could not conquer Mary-Clare. He let his eyes rest upon his awakening city. For him it rose at night. In the day it belonged to others––the men and women, passing to and fro with those strange eyes and jaws. But when they all passed to their homes, then the lone city that was his started like a thing being born upon a hill.
It may have been at one of these strained moments that Northrup slept; he was never able to decide. He seemed to hold to the twinkling lights; he thought he heard sounds––the elevator just outside his door; the rising wind.
However that may be, as clearly as any impression ever fixed itself upon his consciousness, he saw Mary-Clare beside him in her stained and ugly garb, her lovely hair ruffled as if she had been travelling fast, and her great eyes turned upon him gladly. She was panting a bit; smiling and thankful that she had found him, at last in his city!
It was like being with her on that day when they stood on the mountain near her cabin and talked.
Northrup was spellbound. He understood, though no word passed between him and the girl so close to him. She did not try to touch him, but she did, presently, move a step236nearer and lay her little work-worn hand upon the pile of manuscript in that quaint way of hers that had so often made Northrup smile. It was a reverent touch.
Standing so, she sealed from him those last chapters! She would not argue or be set aside––she claimed her woman-right; the right to the truth as some women saw it, as more would see it; as, God willing, Northrup himself would see it some day! He would know that it was because of love that she had turned him and herself to duty.
Northrup suddenly found himself on his feet.
The little room was dark; the city was blazing about him––under him. His city! His hand lay upon his manuscript.
Quietly he took it up and locked it in his safe. Slowly, reverently, he set the bare room in order without turning on the electricity. He worked in the dark but his vision was never clearer. He went out, locked the door, as one does upon a chamber, sacred and secret.
He did not think of Mary-Clare, his mother, or Kathryn––he was setting forth to do that which had to be done; he was going to give what was his to give to that struggle across the ocean for right; the proving of right.
All along, his unrest had been caused by the warring elements in himself––there was only one way out––he must take it and be proved as the world was being proved.
237CHAPTER XX
“Mother, I must go!”
Helen Northrup did not tremble, but she looked white, thin-lipped.
“You have given me the twenty-four hours, son. You have weighed the question––it is not emotional excitement?”
“No, Mother, it is conscience. I’m not in the least under an illusion. If I thought of this thing as war––a mere fight––I know I would be glad to avail myself of any honourable course and remain here. But it’s bigger than war, that Thing that is deafening and blinding the world. Sometimes”––Northrup went over to the window and looked out into the still white mystery of the first snowstorm––“sometimes I think it is God Almighty’s last desperate way to awaken us.”
Helen Northrup came to the window and stood beside her son. She did not touch him; she stood close––that was all.
“I cannot see God in this,” she whispered. “God could have found another way. I have––lost God. I fear most of us have.”
“Perhaps we never had Him,” Northrup murmured.
“But thereisGod––somewhere.” Helen’s voice quivered. “I shall always be near you, beloved, always, and perhaps––God will.”
“I know that, Mother. And I want you to know that if this call wasn’t mightier than anything else in all the world, I would not leave you.”
“Yes, I know that, dear son.”
For a moment they stood in silence by the window and then turned, together, to the fireside.
They were in Helen’s writing-room. The room where so238often she had struggled to put enough life into her weak little verses to send them winging on their way. The drawers of her desk were full of sad fancies that had been still-born, or had come fluttering back to her ark without even the twig of hope to cheer her. But at all this she had never repined––she had her son! And now? Well, he was leaving her. Might never–––
Sitting in the warmth and glow the woman looked at her son. With all the yearning of her soul she wanted to keep him; she had so little; so little. And then she recognized, as women do, in the Temple where the Most High speaks to them, that if he turned a deaf ear to the best that was in him, she could not honour him.
“You have been happy, dear son? I mean you have had a happy life on the whole?”
Helen had wanted that above all else. His life had been so short––it might be so soon over, and the trivial untalked-of things rose sharply now to the surface.
“Yes, Mother. Far too happy and easy.”
“I’ve been thinking.” Helen’s thought went slowly over the backward road––she must not break! But she must go back to the things they had left unspoken. “I’ve been thinking, during the last twenty-four hours, of all the happenings, dear, that I wish had been different. Your father, Brace! I––I tried not to deprive you of your father––I knew the cost. It––it wasn’t all his fault, dear; it was no real fault of either of us; it was my misfortune, you see––he was asking what––what he had a perfect right to ask––but I was, well, I had nothing to give him that he wanted.”
Northrup went across the space between him and his mother and laid his hand upon hers.
“Mother, I understand. Lately I have felt a new sympathy for Father, and a new contempt. He missed a lot that was worth while, but he did not know. It was damnable; he might have––kept you.”
“No, Brace. It is the world’s thought. I have never been bitter. I only wish he could have been happy––after––after he went away.”
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“And he wasn’t?” This had never been discussed between them.
“No, dear. He married a woman who seemed to be what he wanted. She wearied of him. He died a lonely, a bitter man. I was saved the bitterness, at least, and I had you.”
Another pause. Then:
“Brace, I know it will seem foolish, but perhaps when you are far away it won’t seem so foolish. I want to tell you, dear, that I wish I had never spoken a harsh word to you. Life hurts so at the best––many women are feeling this as I do, dear. Once––you must humour me, Brace––once, after I punished you, I regretted it. I asked your pardon and you said, ‘Don’t mention it, Mother, I understood.’ I want you to say it now, son; it will be such a comfort.”
“I believe, God hearing me, Mother, that I have understood; have always known that you were the best and dearest of mothers.”
“Thank you.”
“And now, Mother, there is one thing more. We may not have another opportunity for a real house-cleaning. It’s about King’s Forest.”
Helen started, but she stiffened at once.
“Yes, Brace,” she said simply.
“There is a girl, a woman there. Such things as relate to that woman and me often happen to men and women. It’s what one does to the happening that counts. I realize that my life has had much in it; but much was left out of it. Much that is common stuff to most fellows; they take it in portions. It came all at once to me, but she was strong enough, fine enough to help me; not drift with me. I wanted you to know.”
“Thank you. I understand. Is there anything you would like to have me do?”
“No. Nothing, Mother. It is all right; it had to happen, I suppose. I wanted you to know. We did not dishonour the thing––she’s quite wonderful.” A pause; then:
“She has a brute of a husband––I hope I freed her of him,240in a way; I’m glad to think of that now. She has a child, a little girl, and there were some dead children.”
This detail seemed tragically necessary to tell; it seemed to explain all else.
“And now, Mother, I must go around to Kathryn’s. Do not sit up, dear. I’ll come to your room.”
“Very well.” Then Helen stood up and laid her hands on his shoulders. “Some sons and daughters,” she said slowly, convincingly, “learn how to bear life, in part, from their parents––I have learned from my son.”
Then she raised her hands and drew his head down to hers and rested her cheek against his. Without a word more Northrup left the house. He was deeply moved by the scene through which he and his mother had just passed. It had consisted of small and trivial things; of overwhelmingly big things, but it had been marked by a complete understanding and had brought them both to a point where they could separate with faith and hope.
But as Northrup neared Kathryn’s house this exalted feeling waned. Again he was aware of the disloyal doubt of Kathryn that made him hesitate and weigh his method of approach. He stood, before touching the bell of the Morris house, and shook the light snow from his coat; he was glad of delay. When at last he pushed the button he instinctively braced. The maid who admitted him told him that he was to go to the library.
This was the pleasantest room in the house, especially at night. The lighting was perfect; the old books gave forth a welcoming fragrance and, to-night, a generous cannel coal fire puffed in rich, glowing bursts of heat and colour upon the hearth. Kathryn was curled up in the depths of a leather chair, her pretty blonde head just showing above the top. She did not get up but called merrily:
“Here, dear! Come and be comfy. This is a big chair and a very little me.”
Northrup came around in front of the chair, his back to the fire, and looked down upon the small figure. The blue blur of the evening gown, the exquisite whiteness of arms,241neck, and face sank into his consciousness. Unconsciously he was fixing scenes in his memory, as one secures pictures in a scrap-book, for the future.
“Been dining out, dear?”
The dress suggested this, but Kathryn was alert.
“Don’t be a silly old cave thing, Brace. One cannot throw an old friend overboard in cold blood, now can one? Sandy is going away for a week, but I told him to-night that never, never again would I dine with him alone. Now will you be good?”
Still Northrup did not smile. He was not concerned about Arnold, but he seemed such a nuisance at this moment.
Kathryn, regarding Northrup’s face, sat up and her eyes widened.
“What’s the matter, Brace?” she asked, and the hard, metallic ring was in her voice. Northrup misunderstood the change. He felt that he had startled her. He sat down upon the arm of the chair.
“Poor little girl,” he whispered. Kathryn also misunderstood, she nestled against him.
“Big man,” she murmured, “heisgoing to be nice. Kiss me here––close behind my right ear––always and always that is going to be just your place.”
Northrup did not seem to hear. He bent closer until his face pressed the soft, scented hair, but he did not kiss the spot dedicated to him. Instead he said:
“Darling, I am going away!”
“Away––where?” Kathryn became rigid.
“Overseas.”
“Overseas? What for, in heaven’s name?”
“Oh! anything they’ll let me do. I’m going as soon as I can be sent––but–––”
“You mean, without any reason whatever, you’re going to go over there?”
“Hardly without something that stands for reason, Kathryn.”
“But no one, not even Doctor Manly, thinks that it is our fight, Brace. The men who have gone are simply adventurers;242men who love excitement or men who want to cut responsibilities and don’t dare confess it.”
Kathryn’s face flamed hot.
“Their lives must be pretty damnable,” Northrup broke in, “if they take such a method to fling them aside. Do try to understand, dear; our women must, you know.” There was pleading in the words.
Then by one of those sudden reversions of her nimble wits, Kathryn recalled things she had heard recently––and immediately she took the centre of her well-lighted stage, and horrible as it might seem, saw herself, a ravishing picture in fascinating widow’s weeds! While this vision was holding, Kathryn clung to Northrup and was experiencing actual distress––not ghoulish pleasure.
“Oh! you must not leave me,” she quivered.
“You will help me, Kathryn; be a woman like my mother?” Again Northrup pleaded. This was unfortunate. It steadied Kathryn, but it hardened her.
“You want me to marry you at once, Brace?” she whispered.
“No, dear. That would not be fair to you. I want you to understand; I want to know that you will––will keep Mother company. That is all, until I come home. I could not feel justified in asking a woman to marry such a––such a chance as I am about to be.”
Now there was cause for what Kathryn suddenly felt, but not the cause she suspected. Had Northrup loved deeply, faithfully, understandingly, he might, as others did, see that to the right woman the “chance,” as he termed himself, would become her greatest glory and hope, but as it was Northrup considered only Kathryn’s best good and, gropingly, he realized that her interests and his were not, at the present, identical.
But Kathryn, her ever-present jealousy and apprehension rising, was carried from her moorings. She recalled the evidences of “duty” in Northrup’s attitude toward her since his return from King’s Forest; his abstraction and periods of low spirits.
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“He cannot stand it any longer,” she thought resentfully; “he’s willing to do anything, take any chance.”
A hot wave of anger enveloped Kathryn, but she did not speak.
“Kathryn”––Northrup grew restive at her silence––“haven’t you anything to say to me? Something I can remember––over there? I’d like to think of you as I see you now, little, pretty, and loving. The blue gown, the jolly fire, this fine old room––I reckon there will be times when my thoughts will cling to the old places and my own people rather fiercely.”
“What can I say, Brace? You never seemyposition. Men are selfish always, even about their horrible fights. What do they care about their women, when the call of blood comes? Oh! I hate it all, I hate it! Everything upset––men coming back, heaven only knows how! even if they come at all––but we women must let them go andsmileso as to send them off unworried. We must stay home and benothingsuntil the end and then take what’s left––joyfully, gratefully––oh! I hate it all.”
Northrup got up and stood again with his back to the fire. He loomed rather large and dark before Kathryn’s angry eyes. She feared he was going to say the sentimental regulation thing, but he did not. Sorrowfully he said:
“What you say, dear, is terribly true. It isn’t fair nor decent and there are times when I feel only shame because, after all these centuries, we have thought out no better way; but, Kathryn, women are taking part in this trouble––perhapsyou–––”
“You mean thatImay go over into that shambles––if I want to?” With this Kathryn sprang to her feet. “Well, thanks! I do not want to. I’m not the kind of girl who takes her dissipation that way. If I ever let go, I’ll take my medicine and not expect to be shielded by this sentimentality.”
“Kathryn, how can you? My dear, my dear! Say what you want to about my folly––men’s mistakes––but do not speak so of your––sisters!”
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“Sisters?” Kathryn laughed her mirthless but musical laugh. “Youarefunny, Brace!”
Then, as was her way when she lost control, Kathryn made straight for the rocks while believing she was guided by divine intuition. She faced Northrup, looking up at him from her lower level.
“I think I understand the whole matter,” she said slowly, all traces of excitement gone. “I am going to prove it. Will you marry me before you go?”
“No, Kathryn. This is a matter of principle with me.”
“You think they might not let you go––you’d have to provide for my protection?”
“No, I am not afraid of that. You’d be well provided for; I would go under any circumstances, but I will not permit you to take a leap in the dark.”
“That sounds very fine, butIdo not believe it!”
The black wings that poor Jan-an had suspected under Kathryn’s fine plumage were flapping darkly now. Kathryn was awed by Northrup’s silence and aloofness. She was afraid, but still angry. What was filling her own narrow mind, she believed, was filling Northrup’s and she lost all sense of proportion.
“Isshegoing over there?” she asked.
Northrup, if possible, looked more bewildered and dazed.
“She––whom do you mean, Kathryn?”
“Oh! I never meant to tell you! You drive me to it, Brace. I always meant to blot it out–––”
Kathryn got no further just then. Northrup came close to her and with folded arms fixed his eyes upon her flushed face.
“Kathryn, you’re excited; you’ve lost control of yourself, but there’s something under all this that we must get at. Just answer my questions. Whom do you mean––by ‘she’?”
Kathryn mentally recoiled and with her back to her wall replied, out of the corner of her mouth:
“That girl in King’s Forest!”
From sheer astonishment Northrup drew back as from a blow. Kathryn misunderstood and gained courage.
“I forgave it because I love you, Brace.” She gathered245her cheap little charms together––her sex appeals. “I understood from the moment I saw her.”
“When did you see her? Where?”
Northrup had recovered himself; he was able to think. He knew he must act quickly, emphatically, and he generously tried to be just.
Keen to take advantage of what she believed was guilt, Kathryn responded, dragging her lures along with her.
“Please, dear Brace, do not look at me so sternly. I could not help what happened and I suffered so, although I never meant to let you know. You see, I walked in the woods that day that I went to King’s Forest to tell you about your mother. A queer-looking girl told me that you lived at the inn, but were then in the woods. I went to find you; to meet you––can you not understand?”
The tears stood in Kathryn’s eyes, her mouth quivered. Northrup softened.
“Go on, Kathryn. Idounderstand.”
“Well, I came to a cabin in the woods, I don’t know why, but something made me think it was yours. You would be so likely to take such a place as that, dear. I went in––to wait for you; to sit and think about you, to calm myself––and then–––”
“Yes, Kathryn!” Northrup was seeing it all––the cabin, the silent red-and-gold woods.
“And then––she came! Oh! Brace, a man can never know how a woman feels at such a moment––you see there were some sheets of your manuscript on the table––I was looking at them when the girl came in. Brace, she was quite awful; she frightened me terribly. She asked who I was and I told her––I thought that would at least make her see my side; explain things––but it did not! She was––she was”––Kathryn ventured a bolder dash––“she was quite violent. I cannot remember all she said––she said so much––a girl does when she realizes whatshemust have realized. Oh! Brace, I tried to be kind, but I had to take your part and she turned me out!”
In all this Northrup felt his way as one does along a narrow246passage beset on either side with dangers. Characteristically he saw his own wrong in originally creating the situation. Not for an instant did he doubt Kathryn’s story; indeed, she rose in his regard; for he felt for her deeply. He had, unwittingly, set a trap for her innocent, girlish feet; brought her to bay with what she could not possibly understand; and the belief that she had been merciful, had accepted, in silence, at a time when his trouble absorbed her, touched and humiliated him; and yet, try as he did to consider only Kathryn, he could not disregard Mary-Clare. He could not picture her in a coarse rage; the idea was repellent, but he acknowledged that the dramatic moment, lived through by two stranger-women with much at stake, was beyond his powers of imagination. The great thing that mattered now was that his duty, since a choice must be made, was to Kathryn. By every right, as he saw it, she must claim his allegiance. And yet, what was there to be done?
Northrup was silent; his inability to express himself condemned him in her eyes, and yet, strangely enough, he had never been more desirable to her.
“Marry me, dear. Let me prove my love to you. No matter what lies back there, I forgive everything! That is what love means to a woman like me.”
Love! This poor, shabby counterfeit.
With a sickening sense of repulsion Northrup drew back, and maddeningly his book, not Kathryn, seemed to fill his aching brain. With this conception of love revealed––how blindly he had misunderstood. He tried to speak; did speak at last––he heard his words, but was not conscious of their meaning.
“You are wrong, child. Whatever folly was committed in King’s Forest was mine, not that girl’s. I suppose I was a bit mad without knowing it, but I will not accept your sacrifice, Kathryn, I will not ask for forgiveness. When I come home, if you still love me, I will devote my life to you. We will start afresh––the whole world will.”
“You are going at once?” Kathryn clutched at what was eluding her.
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“Yes, my dear.”
“And you won’t marry me? Won’t––prove to me?”
“No.”
“Oh! how can you leave me to think–––”
“Think what, Kathryn?”
“Oh! things––about her. It would be such a proof of what you’ve just said––if only you would marry me now.”
“Kathryn, I cannot. I am––I wish that you could understand––I am stepping out into the dark. I must go alone.”
“That is absurd, Brace. Absurd.” A baffled, desperate note rang in Kathryn’s voice. It was not for Northrup, but for her first sense of failure. Then she looked up. All the resentment gone from her face, she was the picture of despair.
“I will wait for you, Brace. I will prove to you what a woman’s real love is!”
So, cleverly, did she bind what she intuitively felt was the highest in Northrup. And he bent and laid his lips on the smooth girlish forehead, sorrowfully realizing how little he had to offer.
A few moments later Northrup found himself on the street. The snow was falling thicker, faster. It had the smothering quality that is so mysterious. People thudded along as if on padded feet; the lights were splashed with clinging flakes and gleamed yellow-red in the whiteness. Sounds were muffled; Northrup felt blotted out.
He loved the sensation––it was like a great, absorbing Force taking him into its control and erasing forever the bungling past. He purposely drifted for an hour in the storm. He was like a moving part of it, and when at last he reached home, he stood in the vestibule for many moments extricating himself––it was more that than shaking the snow off. He felt singularly free.
Once within the house, he went directly to his mother’s room. She was lying on a couch by the fire. In the shelter of her warm, quiet place Helen seemed to have gained what Brace had won in the storm. She was smiling, almost eager.
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“Yes, dear?” she said.
Northrup sat down in the chair that was his by his mother’s hearth.
“Kathryn wanted to marry me, Mother, at once.”
“That would be like her, bless her heart!”
“I could not accept the sacrifice, Mother.”
“That would be like you––but is it a sacrifice?”
“It seems so to me.”
“You see, son, to many women this is the supreme offering. Alltheycan give, vicariously, at this great demanding hour.”
“Women must learn to stop that rubbish, Mother. We men must refuse it.”
“Why, Brace!” Then: “Are you quite, quite sure it was all for Kathryn, son?”
“No, partly for myself; but that must include and emphasize Kathryn’s share.”
“I see––at least I think I do.”
“But you have faith, Mother?”
“Yes, faith! Surely, faith.”
After a silence, broken only by the sputtering of the fire and that soft, mystic pattering of the snow on the window glass, Northrup asked gently:
“And you, Mother, what will you do? I cannot bear to think of you waiting here alone.”
Helen Northrup rose slowly from the couch; her long, loose gown trailed softly as she walked to the fireplace and stood leaning one elbow on the shelf.
“I’m not going to––wait, dear, in the sense you mean. I’m going to work and get ready for your return.”
“Work?” Northrup looked anxious. Helen smiled down upon him.
“While you have been preparing,” she said, “so have I. There is something for me to do. My poor little craft that I have pottered at, keeping it alive and praying over it––my writing job, dear; I have offered for service. It has been accepted. It is my great secret––I’ve kept it for you as my last gift. When you come home, I’ll tell you about249it. While you are away you must think of me, busy––busy!”
Then she bent and laid her pale fine face against the dark bowed head.
“You are tired, dear, very, very tired. You must go to bed and rest––there is so much to do; so much.”
250CHAPTER XXI
In King’s Forest many strange and awe-inspiring things had happened––but, as far as the Forest people knew, they were so localized that, like a cancer, they were eating in, deeper and deeper––to the death.
The winter, with its continuous snow and cruel ice, had obliterated links; only certain centres glowed warm and alive, though even they ached with the pain of blows they had endured.
The Mines. The Point. The Inn. The Little Yellow House. These throbbed and pulsated and to them, more often than of old––or so it seemed––the bell in the deserted chapel sent its haunting messages––messages rung out by unseen hands.
“There’s mostly lost winds this winter,” poor Jan-an whimpered to Peneluna. “I have feelin’s most all the time. I’m scared early and late, and that cold my bones jingle.”
Peneluna, softened and more silent than ever, comforted the girl, wrapped her in warmer clothes, and sent her scurrying across the frozen lake to the yellow house.
“And don’t come back till spring!” she commanded.
“Spring?” Jan-an paused as she was strapping on an old pair of skates that once belonged to Philander Sniff. “Spring? Gawd!”
It was a terrific winter. The still, intense kind that grips every snowstorm as a miser does his money, hiding it in secret places of the hills where the divine warmth of the sun cannot find it.
The wind, early in November, set in the north! Occasionally the “ha’nt wind” troubled it; wailed a bit and caught the belfry bell, and then gave up and sobbed itself away.
At the inn a vague something––was it old age or lost faith?––was251trying to conquer Peter’s philosophy and Aunt Polly’s spiritual vision. TheThing, whatever it was, was having a tussle, but it made its marks. Peter sat oftener by the fire with Ginger edging close to the leg that the gander had once damaged and which, now, acted as an indicator for Peter’s moods. When he did not want to talk his “leg ached.” When his heart sank in despair his “leg ached.” But Polly, a little thinner, a little more dim as to far-off visions, caught every mood of Peter’s and sent it back upon him like a boomerang. She met his silent hours with such a flare of talk that Peter responded in self-defence. His black hours she clutched desperately and held them up for him to look at after she had charged them with memories of goodness and love.
As for herself? Well, Aunt Polly nourished her own brave spirit by service and an insistent, demanding cry of justice.
“’Tain’t fair and square to hold anything against the Almighty,” she proclaimed, “till you’ve given Him a chance to show what He did things for.”
Polly waxed eloquent and courageous; she kept her own faith by voicing it to others; it grew upon reiteration.
Peter was in one of his worst combinations––silence and low spirits––when Polly entered the kitchen one early afternoon. A glance at the huddling form by the red-hot range had the effect of turning Polly into steel. She looked at Ginger, who reflected his master’s moods pathetically, and her steel became iron.
“I suppose if I ask you, Peter, how you’re feeling,” she said slowly, calmly, “you’ll fling your leg in my face! It’s monstrous to see how an able-bodied man can use any old lie to save his countenance.”
“My leg–––” Peter began, but Polly stopped him. She had hung her coat and hood in the closet and came to the fire, patting her thin hair in order and then stretching her small, blue-veined hands to the heat.
“Don’t leg me, Peter Heathcote, I’m terrible ashamed of you. Terrible. So long as youhavelegs, brother––and youhave!––I say use ’em. Half the troubles in this world arethink troubles, laid to legs and backs and what not.”
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“Where you been?” Peter eyed the stern little face glowering at him. “You look tuckered.”
“I wasn’t tuckered until I set my eyes on you, Peter. I’ve been considerable set up to-day. I went to Mary-Clare’s. She is mighty heartening. She’s gathered all the children she can get and she’s teaching them. She’s mimicking the old doctor’s plan––making him live again, she calls it––and the Lord knows we need someone in the Forest who doesn’t set chewing his own troubles, but gets out and does things!”
Peter winced and Polly rambled on:
“It’s really wonderful the way that slip of a thing handles those children. She has made the yellow house like a fairy story––evergreens, red leaves and berries hanging about, and all the dogs with red-ribbon collars. They look powerful foolish, but they don’t look like poor Ginger, who acts as if he was being smothered!”
Peter regarded the dog by his side and remarked sadly:
“I guess we better change this dog’s name. Ginger is like an insult to him. Ginger! Lord-a-mighty, there ain’t no ginger left in him.”
“Peter, you’re all wrong. There are times when I think Ginger is more gingery than ever. You don’t have to dash around after yer tail to prove yer ginger, the thinking part of you can be terrible nimble even when yer bones stiffen up. Ginger does things, brother, that sometimes makes my flesh creepy. Do you know what he does when he can get away from you?”
“No.” Peter’s hair sprang up; his face reddened. Polly noted the good signs and took heart.
“Why, he joins Mary-Clare’s dogs and fetches the littlest children to the yellow house. Carries lunch pails, pulls sleds, and I’ve seen that little crippled tot of Jonas Mills’ on Ginger’s back. Ain’t that ginger fur yer? I tell you, Peter, it’s you as ails that dog––he’s what you make him. I reckon the Lord, that isn’t unmindful of sparrows, takes notice of dogs.” Then suddenly, Polly demanded: “Peter, what is it, just?”
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Polly drew her diminutive rocker to the stove and settled back against its gay cretonne cushions––a vivid bird of Paradise flamed just where her aching head rested.
“Well, Polly”––Peter slapped the leg that he had lied about––“you and I came to the Forest half a century ago and felt real perky. We thought, under God, we’d make the Forest something better; the people more like people. We came from a city with all sorts of patterns of folks; we had ideas. The Forest gave me health and we were grateful and chesty. It all keeps coming back and––and swamping me.”
“Yes, brother, and what else?”
“At first we did seem to count, under God, of course. We shut up the bar and fixed up the inn and we thought we was caring for folks and protecting ’em.” Peter gulped.
“I guess the Lord can care for His own, Peter,” Polly remarked fiercely.
“Then Maclin came!” Peter groaned out the words, for this was the crux of the matter.
“Yes––Maclin came.” Aunt Polly wiped her eyes. “And I think, looking back, that something had to happen to wake us up! Maclin was a tester.”
Peter gave a rumbling laugh.
“Maclin a tester!” he repeated. “Lord, Polly, yer notions are more messing than clearing.”
“Well, anyway, Peter Heathcote, Maclin came, and this I do say: places are like folks––if their constitutions are all right, they don’t take disease. Maclin was a disease, and we caught him! He settled on us and we hadn’t vim enough to know and understand what he was. If it hadn’t been Maclin it would have been another. As things are I do feel that Maclin has cleared our systems! The folks were wakened by him as nothing in the world could have wakened them.”
Peter was not listening, he was thinking aloud.
“All our years wasted! We felt so sure that we was capable that we just let folks fall into the hands of that evil man. Think of anything, bearing the image of God taking advantage of simple, honest people and letting them into what he did!”
254
“I never did think Maclin was in the image of God, Peter. All God’s children ain’t the spitting image of Him. And Maclin certainly did us a good turn when he found iron on the Point. The iron’s here––if he ain’t!”
“He meant to turn that and his damned inventions against us. Betray us to an enemy! And us just sitting and letting him do it!”
“Well, he didn’t do it!” Polly snapped. “And it seems like God is giving us another chance; same as He is the world.”
Peter got up and stumped noisily about the kitchen much to Ginger’s surprise and discomfort.
“We’re old, Polly,” he muttered; “the heart’s taken out of us. We led ’em astray because we didn’t lead ’em right.”
“I’m not old.” Polly looked comically defiant. “And my heart’s where it belongs and on the job. It’s shame to us, Peter, if we don’t use every scrap that’s left of us to undo the failings of the past.”
“And that night!” Peter groaned, recalling the night of Maclin’s arrest. “That’s what comes of being false to yer trust. Terrible, terrible! Twombley standing over Maclin with his gun after finding him flashing lights to God knows who, and then those government men hauling things out of his bags––why, Polly, in the middle of some black nights I get to seeing the look on Maclin’s face when he was caught!”
“Now, brother, do be sensible and wipe the sweat off yer forehead. This room is stifling. Can’t you see, Peter, that at a time like that the Lord had to use what He had, and there was only us to use? Better Twombley’s gun than Maclin’s, and you know, full well, they found two ugly looking guns in Maclin’s bag all packed with papers and pictures of the mines and bits of our own rock––what showed iron. Peter, I ain’t a bloodthirsty woman and the Lord knows I don’t hunger for my fellow’s vitals, but I’m willing to give Maclin up to a righteous God. The Lord knows we couldn’t deal with the like of him.”
“But, Polly”––poor Peter’s humanity had received a terrible jog––“the look on Maclin’s face––when he was caught!”