Chapter VII
When Vickers came downstairs ready to start for Mr. Overton’s, Emmons was just arriving to dine at the Lees’. The two men met at the front door. Emmons eyed Vickers suspiciously. Evidently he and Nellie had had some discussion as to the advisability of allowing the renegade as much liberty as evening visits implied. Indeed, the little man almost blocked Vickers’s path for a moment.
“Going out?” he asked.
“Going to dine with a friend,” returned Vickers. The reply made Emmons curious. In the first place he did not approve of Vickers’s roaming over the country by moonlight; in the second there were few people in Hilltopwho would receive Bob Lee into their houses. Perhaps it was not so much curiosity as distrust that was aroused in him. On reviewing the situation he simply did not believe a word, a state of mind his manner did not entirely conceal.
“I am sure it is very nice to see you making friends so quickly,” he said.
“Oh, I usually make friends quickly, if at all. And the same way with enemies. As I am a little late,” he added, with the utmost geniality, “perhaps you will just step aside and let me go.”
Reluctantly Emmons allowed the other to pass, but as he did so, he hazarded one more question.
“Going far?” he said.
Vickers did not answer. He was some distance down the path, and possibly did not hear; but it is irritating to be left with an unanswered question on your lips, and Emmonscame storming in to Nellie, who was standing in the hall.
“Where is he going, Nellie? I don’t think we are justified in letting him loose on the countryside—a man like that.”
Nellie was watching Vickers’s back as he swung out of sight, and she returned rather absently, “He is dining at the Overtons’.” She did not at first observe the expression of surprise and annoyance that appeared upon the face of her betrothed.
“TheOvertons’!” he exclaimed.
Now we all know that strangely petty ambitions are laid away in the minds of even the greatest; and Emmons had always cherished a secret wish to be on terms of intimacy with Overton, whom he often described as the “ablest man in New England.” But, though the compliment must necessarily have been repeated, it had never won for its inventor the cordiality which it deserved.
“To the Overtons’,” he repeated. “Well, you will excuse my saying that seems to be about the most extraordinary thing I ever heard.”
“Does it?” returned Nellie. “It doesn’t to me. People like Bob are such a rarity in Hilltop.”
Emmons glanced at her to see what in the world she could mean, and not being very much the wiser for his glance, answered contemptuously: “A rarity! Fortunately.”
Nellie appeared to be willing to take up the subject from a thoughtful and scientific stand-point.
“I don’t know that I think it fortunate,” she replied. “It does not seem to me that the absence of fine-looking, amusing young men is a matter for any community to congratulate itself upon.”
It would have been impossible, of course, that any girl with a profile like Nellie’s shouldwish deliberately to annoy another human being—least of all a thoroughly domesticatedfiancé. Certainly such an idea never occurred to Emmons, and yet none the less he found himself distinctly irritated.
“I hardly think you would find the community improved by changing men like Dr. Briggs and the Reverend Mr. Fowler for men of the type of your cousin.”
Nellie laughed. “I only suggested that Mr. Overton would find them more amusing at dinner,” she said.
“I think,” said Emmons, “that you are talking without thinking.”
She seemed at any rate quite willing to think without talking, and a pause fell upon the conversation. It was almost with relief that they heard the sound of the village fire-bell break in upon the silence. Ding-dong, ding-dong—a regular, terrible sound of warning, almost like a human voice calling for helpin the darkness. Nellie started up. The sound brought recollections of old tragedies. Fire seldom visited Hilltop, but when it came the little town was almost helpless. Emmons rose, too, but more slowly. They went to the door and listened.
Already the quiet night was full of the sounds of shouting and hurrying feet, and then the tinkle of the little hand fire-machine. The fire was at some distance, for the tinkling grew fainter and fainter, and finally died away entirely.
“Oh, let’s go, James,” said Nellie.
A man may be pardoned for not wishing to take hisfiancéeto one of the few situations where he can not shine. Emmons shook his head, pouting out his lips slightly.
“Oh, I don’t think you want to go, my dear. It’s a long way off and the dew is heavy.”
“Yes, but I do,” said Nellie. She openedthe coat closet, and began hunting for an old cloak.
“It’s probably nothing at all—a false alarm,” he continued; but seeing that she persisted—and she could be very persistent when she wanted to—he added: “Oh, very well; I’ll go up to the corner of the road, and if it is anything worth seeing, I’ll come back for you.”
Left alone, Nellie sat down on the steps of the front piazza and waited. Now that Emmons had gone so meekly, her conscience began to reproach her for her treatment of him throughout the evening. No wonder he disapproved of Bob. He was quite right to do so; she disapproved of him, herself. Yet, the result of a day’s effort to be, as he had asked, a little more civil had rendered him more civil in return. Even if one did disapprove of a man’s morals, one could not help noticing the extraordinary quickness withwhich he caught one’s ideas and anticipated one’s wishes. He never shut his eyes and repeated the same thing in exactly the same tone of voice—a trick of Emmons’s which for the first time she noticed annoyed her excessively. It was in the small things that Bob was so considerate of her feelings; and yet there was something ludicrous in talking about a man’s consideration for her feelings when he had stolen her patrimony before she had put up her hair.
At this point she began to appreciate that Emmons had had more than time not only to run, but to walk, to the corner of the road and back. She went down to the gate, and looked up the road. There was no sign of him. He had been right then. It was only a false alarm. And then to contradict this hypothesis she saw the heavens suddenly lit up with the unmistakable glare of a conflagration.
Emmons had played her false.
Nellie did not hesitate an instant. She started out by herself.
Guided first by the glare in the sky and soon by the sound of shouting, she cut across fields. Before long she came in sight of the fire. It was in the barn of a neighboring farmer. She could see the people crowding about it, and the thick rolling smoke that turned the full moon to a dull reddish brown.
Coming up from the darkness she was unnoticed. Every one was watching the flames, except those who were trying to put them out. The first person she saw was Vickers. His coat was off, and from the rather dangerous eminence of a woodpile he was playing the hose upon the roof of a neighboring stable. Among the lookers on, she observed Overton, and then the perfidious Emmons. She might be excused for a feeling of anger against her betrothed; and she was just approaching him in order to thank him for his consideration ofher wishes, when her attention was distracted. Vickers, who had come down from the woodpile, was suddenly approached by a sobbing, expostulating child, the daughter of the farmer. She had evidently escaped from the parental supervision and had seized the knees of the first passer-by. Nellie saw Vickers stoop to listen, saw him lay down a bucket he had taken up, saw him hitch his trousers with a peculiarly energetic motion, and run toward the blazing building. Some one shouted to him, another caught his arm, and was shaken off. He disappeared into the blaze. An instant later he reappeared carrying a small bundle which turned out to be nothing more than a puppy.
A voice reached her ears in the pause that followed.
“Well, I would not risk my life for a dog.” And Emmons’s voice replied: “A pretty even risk. Bob Lee against a blind puppy.”
The sentence fell coldly on Nellie’s enthusiasm. Her heart beat quickly with something very like contempt for the speaker. Nearby, the child and the mother dog were holding a solemn thanksgiving, utterly indifferent to the excitement about them. Nellie preferred their society. She had had some thought of saying a word to her cousin, but something held her back. There seemed a sort of meanness in keeping herself aloof from him at home, and then stepping out to share his public triumphs.
As she moved back she found herself near Overton, who was talking to Mr. Fowler, the Presbyterian clergyman.
“The fellow’s as wild as a hawk, Fowler,” Overton was saying, “and yet I rather like him.”
“It was a brave action,” returned the clergyman dubiously.
“Aye,” said Overton, noting the hesitation;“a good many of the brave actions of this world have been done by those the church damned in the next.”
“I think,” answered the clergyman tartly, “that it takes some courage to be merely good, Mr. Overton. Morality is a kind of courage.”
Overton laughed. “I’m not so sure of that,” he said; “but I rather think courage is a kind of morality.”
The sentence impressed itself on Nellie’s mind. She admired Mr. Overton, and was accustomed to give attention to anything he said. Of course, courage was a kind of morality—Bob’s kind—not so difficult and praiseworthy as a steady industry, like James Emmons’s; but, oh, so much more interesting!
She amused herself listening to the different comments on her cousin’s action. She noticed, for the first time, how such unlikely phrases as “the young fool,” or “well, ifthat isn’t the darndest,” could be made to express a very poignant form of masculine admiration. She chuckled softly to herself: “it certainly was the darndest,” she repeated, deriving no little pleasure from the unaccustomed form of words.
The barn was now seen to be doomed. The flames burst out of the roof, licking it up. There was nothing more to do, except to keep neighboring buildings wet, and as there was no wind the danger to these was not great.
Seeing Mr. Overton standing alone, Nellie drew near to him to ask if the loss of the farmer was serious.
No, Overton thought not. The barn was old, and fortunately there was no live-stock in it. “Except,” he added with his crooked Yankee smile, “that puppy your cousin pulled out.”
“I am afraid Bob was very foolhardy,” Nellie replied, not quite ingenuously.
Overton laughed. “Why, so they are all saying,” he answered. “But I don’t know. The little girl says she had promised the old bitch to preserve one puppy when all the others were drowned. A lady’s promise is a sacred thing, isn’t it, Miss Nellie? Oughtn’t a gentleman to risk his life to help her keep her word of honor?” He looked at her whimsically.
“I don’t think a gentleman need trouble himself to do anything that you don’t do, Mr. Overton,” she answered, “and I notice you did not rush in.”
“I? Oh, dear no. I am too old and stiff, but if I had been a romantic young giant of twenty-eight or nine——”
“You flatter him,” said Nellie dryly. “Bob is thirty-five.”
Overton looked at her gravely. “Impossible,” he said. “But of course you know. All I can say is that he is the youngest-lookingman for his age that I know. I must ask him how he manages it.”
“Perhaps by avoiding all his responsibilities,” said Nellie, and regretted her speech the next instant. Her position was really absurd. She seemed to be equally annoyed at those who praised her cousin and at those who blamed him. Whatever was said of him stirred her to contradiction.
The lights and shadows cast by the fire were very sharp, so that Nellie, standing behind Overton, was almost invisible when a little later Vickers himself came up.
He was quite hoarse with shouting, and was enjoying himself immensely.
“It’s a fine sight,” said Overton.
“What? Oh, yes, bully. I’ve had the time of my life. But I am afraid it’s almost over.”
Nellie moved forward. She had not forgotten Emmons’s perfidy, and she said:“Will you tell me when you are going, Bob? I should like to go home with you.”
“You here, Nellie? Of course I’ll take you home any time you say. Has Emmons deserted you? I thought I saw him here earlier.”
“Yes, I saw him, too, looking on.”
“The same occupation he was engaged in when I saw him. In fact of all natural-born, first-rate spectators——”
She thought Overton need not have laughed, and she said, “Bob, if you can not speak civilly of Mr. Emmons——”
“There, there, I’ll not say another word. Where is my coat? Are you ready? Let’s be getting along. Shall we go by the road or across lots?”
Nellie chose to return as she had come. She was glad that he did not wait to be thanked, and slipped off without any notion of being missed.
They walked in silence through alternate patches of woods and moonlight. Occasionally he would offer a friendly hand to help her over a fence, but Nellie did not accept it. She had climbed fences unaided all her life. A strange impression of loneliness crept over her. She listened with a certain breathlessness to the quiet of the woods. Even the moonlight looked different; and then she realized that she had not often seen the full moon so high.
Her companion, too, was unusually silent, and it was she who spoke first. “Bob,” she said suddenly, “why did you risk your life for a dog?”
“Oh, Lord!” cried Vickers, “if any one else asks me that—! Every one seems to think I had a plan. I didn’t. The kid asked me to, and it seemed to be up to me. I quite forgot I was risking your precious salary. It would have been a good joke to send youhome my corpse to pay the funeral expenses—the funeral expenses of a total stranger.”
“Perhaps it would not have been a very expensive funeral, Bob,” she answered dryly.
He was irrepressible, however.
“That would have been a shame, for we gave your cousin a splendid blow-out—a camellia wreath! You ought to have seen it,—equal to the best artificial. Oh, Nellie,” he went on, “you don’t know how the idea of your following my remains to the grave touches me. Would you wear mourning for me, Nellie?”
She would not smile. “Yes,” she said gravely. “But only because I should not wish to hurt my uncle’s feelings.”
“And would it be for me, or my two hundred dollars a month, that you mourned?”
“Entirely for the two hundred.”
“Then mourn for it now, you cold-hearted girl,” he answered, vaulting lightly over afence beside which they had been walking; and grinning teasingly at her from the other side, he added, “I’ve had enough of it and of you. Good-night. Good-by.”
Nellie caught his arm in both her hands, and held it with all her strength.
“I’ll call for help, Bob. Be careful. No, no, you shan’t slip through my fingers.”
“Do you really suppose you could hold me, my dear Nellie?” he asked, looking down at her, and touching for an instant the two hands on his coat-sleeve with his large hand.
For all answer Nellie lifted up her voice and sent as loud a call as she could achieve into the empty night.
“Oh, they’ll never hear that,” said Vickers, “let me do it for you,” and he shouted loudly: “Help, help, help! She’s holding me against my will. Won’t somebody remove this terrible young woman? Help!”
Nellie could not resist smiling at his obviousenjoyment of the noise he was making. “How silly you are, Bob!” she said. Perhaps she unconsciously relaxed her grip, for the next instant he had wrenched himself free, and retreating a few paces, addressed her from a safe distance.
“Shall I really go, Nellie? Good-by to the old house and poor Emmons, and to you and our inspiriting little scraps. Well, I rather think so. Don’t be so sharp with the next victim—that’s my parting word. Good-by!”
He waved his hand lightly and set off across a moonlit field toward the woods on the other side.
Nellie did not hesitate an instant; she climbed the fence and followed him with all the speed of a long and active pair of legs. Once in the shadow of the woods, however, he was pleased to pause—to disappear into the darkness to reappear at her elbow, to leanout and speak in her ear from behind a sheltering tree-trunk.
At last, seeing that she was getting exhausted without having the smallest intention of giving in, he stopped of his own accord, and leaning his back against a tree, shook his head at her.
“Aren’t you ashamed, Miss Nellie,” he said, “to be out playing tag with an utter stranger at this hour of the night? What would Mr. Emmons say if he knew it? I’m surprised at you. Come home directly.” (He tucked her hand under his arm.) “You ought to have been in bed two hours ago.”
And Nellie, somewhat bewildered, but very tired, allowed herself to be led home.