IV.QUARRY THE SCHEMER.
“The winged word of spite outstrips a kindness.”
Emmawas too tired to feel her unhappiness, and too relieved, now that everything was over, to feel her loneliness very much. The blast rite had somehow robbed her of her hope of Jarlsen’s recovery, and established the idea of his death in her mind. Jeremy Black nursed him at first, after her outburst. In the neighbours’ phrase, he “turned and fed the poor blast.”
Emma’s crude nature found a pleasure—never before known to her—in food, and in lying on the lean-to floor and thanking God that her barber days were over. Her voice was harsh and loud; she had always hidden it from Jarlsen. To-day she sang and was not ashamed.
Then Black went mysteriously to the city. This might mean New York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, or some nearer, smaller town than either of these. He left at the beginning of the drought, and Emma, with the rest of his townspeople, envied him sorely. Her resumed service to Jarlsen was automatic. He spoke, but she did not listen; she was afraid of being hurt if sheheard his words. The drought made her double work, for her patient drank a great deal of water, and refused it with a wearied patience if it were not cold. She often went at noon to the Bridge well, her tin dipper growing burning hot beneath a sun that made the mica specks shine in the roadside dust. She lagged heavily down the hill, the people greeting her and she answering without knowledge of what they said. She had learned that forgetfulness is the better part of wisdom.
She could not ignore Quarry; he was merciless. On Sunday she went at six for Jarlsen’s drink from the well. She had a handful of oatmeal to put in it; and,as she leaned over and caught the dripping bucket, she heard Quarry’s voice in the alder thicket that smelt sweet with the heavy dew on it.
“She’s a real good girl, and I can’t help but feel, ef she could let me at her wedding dance, set alone with her waitin’ till Jarlsen come, that I owe it to her to marry her, and I think when she’s worn out her mourning thet she’d be agreeable. He was a queer fellow; hed them fancy virtues thet prevents a man from making a good husband jest as sure as his havin’ the vices would. He give his money to lame-legged and blind-eyed, and thet’s keepin’ it from wifie jest es much es if he give it up for drink.”
A woman’s voice answered him in full assent: “You’ll not be the only one to marry her, though; she’s got money now, and a rare head for livin’ straight.”
Emma had not seen the woman, but guessed it must be one of those who “wrought” in the offices of the plant, writing, or sorting the mass of mail. Excepting herself Quarry rarely spoke to any one of less class among the women.
She was very angry, and could see how Quarry had used it all in his talk; all the circumstances of her courtship he could twist into evidence that she had loved nothing of Jarlsen but what he had left her. She could hear the woman’s opinion that her conduct was not quite right,uttered in the dry tone she used when speaking of her straight life.
She said to herself just as fiercely as ever that Quarry was a liar, but she felt that happiness had given her the power to fight him, and now her happiness was gone. She remembered with a dim horror that Quarry had resumed a practice, since Jarlsen’s mishap, that she hoped her engagement had ended. Up to the day that they had spoken of their marriage publicly, Quarry would take things into his hands that Emma had lately touched and fondle them. He had done so again the day of the blast rite, she remembered.
She had intended to revel in her grief at chapel that morning, andQuarry had divined her intention. She meant to stand in the singing, as Jarlsen had stood, and sob when the preacher shivered and scowled and beat the reading-desk with his fists. She would not go now. She felt that no one would believe that she mourned for him if Quarry had been talking about her very much in the way she had heard. She burned to speak with him of the traitor’s part he had played.
It was as usual in Soot City as in other places for folks to bethink themselves of the church when trouble thwarts them; and so every one went to church expecting Emma. And Quarry’s tongue was not quite long enough to have reached the general ear in so short a time.
The congregation was very large, and the flattered minister observed Emma’s absence with satisfaction. He never thought that his hearers could have been ignorant of her intention to stay at home, and supposed that in the sudden calamity come upon the town they had found a warning anent churchless ways. He announced an extra service at three in the afternoon, and the only person who answered it was Jeremy Black’s foreman, who came to protest.
After service Quarry went straight to Emma’s room. He could not account for her absence; he had intended to sit with her in the front pew while she stood in the singing. He expected to colour his storieswith her behaviour and satisfy every one that she had loved the money Jarlsen left her the best of all his attentions.
She was sitting with her charge, who lay with his face turned away from the sun—blind, maimed, deaf—yet as conscious of Quarry’s presence as when last week he had turned to him with lazy scorn and a short word.
“Emma,” said Quarry.
“Yes,” she said, after a pause. She had been wondering if he could have been telling about the money everywhere and “setting the men on her.”
Quarry looked at her and at Jarlsen with a twist in his mouth that he thought of as “his smile.” Herealized that he could insult Emma thoroughly in the presence of a Soot citizen who could not stir to protect her.
“The women think you might as well marry,” he said. “You’ve got the fixin’s, and if you take me you’ve got the husband. The whole place expects a wedding off you. You’ve got the extra money to care for your friend here.”
“I’d rather give up the money than take you; besides,” she said spitefully, “there’s better men nor you in the town that knows I have money for my man. You ain’t no kind to love me after what I’ve had, and I don’t want you should make my love for this one shabby, talkin’it over all the time. You can get out,” she said very quietly.
Quarry went; and, as he said himself, his heart was sour.
Then Emma stayed at Jarlsen’s side and prayed in the hot afternoon silence, and wondered why God didn’t do something worth while—that is how she thought it. But she never doubted Him nor the fate that He ordained, but rocked in her only rocking-chair and kissed her helpless lover boldly, longing for a woman’s touch as a sick child longs for its mother.
When Jarlsen spoke her name she trembled with love of him; she was awake now and filled with pity. She did not answer, but, like a child, prayed God to tell Jarlsen she heardhim call, and then slept till the coolness of dusk awoke her. Jarlsen slept a little while too, and told her he had talked with her in dreams.
She got the supper, talking within herself. “I can feel things mend,” she said. “Every one will come out right, and my big man will live again and lick that terrible scant Christian, Quarry!”
She ate her supper opposite her silent old father. It was quite late; they had candles and a lamp, which was only an extravagance for courting-time in the sordid social usage of Soot City.
Emma had not thought of this till Ben Bowa, the youngest foreman, stood in the narrow doorway.
“I didn’t know to come in till Isaw lights making the shine,” he explained in Swedes’ English. And then many more came in, and the kitchen was full. Jarlsen cried for water from the next room, and before Emma could get to her feet Quarry had gone to him.
“How can I show them I don’t want one of them?” she thought. There was no word of Jarlsen, and everything went on as it had when the one or two men courted her before Jarlsen took her.
Bowa cut profiles out of paper and asked whose they were, and the other men performed their trifling social accomplishments. They were endeavouring to “raise a laugh”; none came.
Late at night a wakeful neighbourheard Emma’s door close, and later God heard her sobbing. “That Quarry’s done me!” was what she said.
And through the night her eyes burned, and she felt that the darkness fell like a weight on them. She longed even for Miss Bentley or the Polack girls’ overdressed Madonnas.