"I'm a mighty unhappy man," he said sadly. "I'm different that way, that's a sure thing."
Pearl looked at him closely, as if she would see the inner working of his mind.
"Mr. Braden, I know just what you're like," she said. "Did you ever see a man 'trying to stand still on a bicycle? That's no harder than what you're tryin' to do. You've stopped doin' wrong, but you haven't gone on, and you're in great shape to take a bad fall. If you'd just get busy helpin' people you'd soon get over bein' sad and down-hearted. You're feelin' bad over Bill Cavers's death. Why don't you make Bill's death count for something good? You're a smart man, and everybody likes you. If you was to teach a Bible class every one would come to hear you."
"I'll bet they would," he said, shrugging his shoulders and laughing almost bitterly.
"Well, then," said Pearl, "don't let the chances all go by you. Do you know, I often look at trees and feel sorry for them?"
"Why?" he asked curiously.
"Because they can't do a thing to help each other; and I often wonder if they're the people who wouldn't lift a finger to help any one when they were livin', and so they were turned into trees when they died, and now they see grubs and worms crawlin' over their own folks, maybe, and they can't lift a leaf to help them. Mr. Donald read us a story in school about a man who was awful mean while he lived and wouldn't help anybody, and when he died he had to wander up and down the world and see people starvin' and all sorts of sad sights, but he couldn't do a single thing for them, though he wanted to bad enough, because he had forged a chain that bound him hand and foot while he was livin', all unbeknownst to himself. Did you ever read that little book, Mr. Braden?"
"I did," he said. "I read that story, but I had almost forgotten it.I haven't thought of it for years."
"It's a good story," said Pearl meaningly.
"I guess it is," he answered, smiling.
When they reached the Watson home, Mrs. Watson and Aunt Kate came out and thanked Mr. Braden profusely for his kindness in "givin' the childer a lift." Danny, who had been bored by the serious nature of the conversation, had gone to sleep, and was carried snoring into the house.
Mr. Braden admired the display of poppies and asters, which still made a brave show of colour against the almost leafless trees of the bluff, and when Pearl ran over to pick him a bouquet of asters, was it by accident—or does anything ever happen by accident—that she put in some leaves of sweet-mary?
A shipwrecked sailor, waiting for a sail;No sail from day to day, but every dayThe sunrise broken into scarlet shafts—A blaze upon the waters to the east,A blaze upon the waters to the west,—but no sail.
——From Enoch Arden.
ALMOST every person in the neighbourhood was interested in Arthur Wemyss's new home which he had built on the bank of Plover Creek, a small stream that dawdled aimlessly across the prairie from Lang's Lake to the Souris River. Plover Creek followed the line of least resistance all the way along, not seeming to care how often it changed its direction, but zigzagging and even turning around and doubling on itself sometimes. Its little dimpled banks, treeless save for clumps of silver willow, gave a pleasing variety to the prairie scenery.
It was on one of the highest of these banks that Arthur had built his house, and it was a pleasant outlook for any one who loves the long view that the prairie gives, where only the horizon obstructs the vision.
Behind the house, which faced the setting sun, was an old "buffalo run," a narrow path, grass-grown now, but beaten deep into the earth by the hoofs of innumerable buffalo that long ago came down to the little stream to drink. It had been a favourite killing-place, too, for the Indians, as the numerous buffalo bones, whitened by the sun and frost of many seasons, plainly showed.
Arthur had made a fantastic "rockery" of skulls and shanks and ribs, and filled it in with earth, enough to furnish growth for trailing nasturtiums, whose bright red and yellow blossoms were strangely at variance with their sombre setting.
Arthur had won for himself many friends among the people of the neighbourhood by his manly, upright ways and by his courteous manner, and every one in the neighbourhood, particularly the women, were interested in the coming of Thursa. Mrs. Motherwell, Mrs. Slater, and Mrs. Watson had each promised to set a hen on thirteen eggs—which number is supposed to lose its unluckiness when applied to eggs—to give Thursa a start in poultry. Arthur thanked them warmly, but just for a minute he found himself wondering how Thursa would look feeding chickens. He knew that she was adorable at tennis or golf, and although attending to fowl is not really more strenuous than these, still it is different. But everything looks rosy at twenty-five, and Arthur was supremely happy dreaming of the coming of Thursa.
His father and mother had sent him a phonograph for his Christmas present the previous year, and it had been an unending source of comfort and pleasure to him as well as to his neighbours and friends. There was one record that Arthur put on only when he was alone, for it was Thursa's own voice singing to him from across the sea—the song of all others he loved to hear, for every note, every word of it, throbbed with tenderness and love:
"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,Are as a string of pearls to me;I count them over, every one apart,My rosary, my rosary."
Often when his day's work was over and he sat in his little house, as the velvet-footed dusk came creeping down the Plover Creek, Thursa's bird-like voice, so clear and precious and full of dearest memories, would fill the little room with heavenly sweetness and carry him back again to the dear days at home, when they wandered hand in hand beside the English hedges "white with laughing may."
There was only one person in the community with whom Arthur felt really at home and to whom he could speak freely, and that was Martha Perkins, for although Martha did not talk much she was a pleasant listener, and Arthur always came away rested and cheered. "She is a jolly good sort, Martha is," he often told himself, "a real comfortable sort of person." In return for Martha's kindness to him Arthur brought her books and magazines when he found that Martha now spent most of her time reading instead of working at the never-ending needlework.
All through the harvest Arthur had had working for him a stolid-faced son of toil, whose morose face began to "get on his nerves," and it was partly to get away from this depressing influence that Arthur went much oftener to see Martha than he had up to this time. His man was "no company and spoiled his solitude," he said. When the harvest was over and his farm hand had gone it seemed quite natural for him to keep up his visits regularly, and since Bud had gone the family were very glad of his cheery presence.
One Friday night Arthur did not come for his bread as was his custom, and when Martha took it over herself the next morning she found him suffering from a bad attack of la grippe. Then followed for Martha five sweet days of never-to-be-forgotten happiness, when Arthur, fevered and restless, would exclaim with joy when she came in. Martha was a born nurse, quiet, steady, and cheerful, and no matter how Arthur's head was aching when she came in, he always felt better just to have her near, and the touch of her hand, work-hardened though it was, on his forehead, always had the effect of soothing him.
She went every night and morning to Arthur's house, bringing with her enough tempting eatables to feed two healthy men; for Martha was strongly imbued with the idea that to eat well was a sure road to recovery. In Arthur's case her faith was justified, for on the morning of the sixth day she found him so much better that she realized the happy days were over. Arthur no longer needed her.
"My word, Martha," he said, "you have been a welcome sight to me this week. You are like the good fairy of the tales. I have been noticing how you have improved the house. Thursa will thank you when she comes: I am sure you and Thursa will be the greatest pals ever. I was just thinking, Martha, what a comfortable sort of person you are anyway. You do know how to make people feel easy in their minds. It is wonderful. I never saw any one like you in that way."
Any person looking at Martha then would not have called her a plain girl, so radiant did her face become at these words of praise.
"It's my only gift," she said with her slow smile. "I cannot sing or talk or look nice. I can only bake and scrub and sew and keep things tidy."
"Well, that is a gift, I tell you, a real good one. People who talk sometimes talk too much, and you can't live on singing, you know, though it is one of the greatest gifts." He was thinking of Thursa's chirrupy little treble, which to him was the sweetest music on earth. "Thursa will brighten us all when she comes. Just to hear her laugh, Martha, would chase away the blues any day. She has the most adorable little ways. You do not mind hearing me rave about her, do you, Martha? You know, you are the only person I can talk to about her, and when you see her you won't blame me at all."
Martha was putting on her wraps to go home, and fortunately he could not see her face.
"That's all right, Arthur," she said bravely. "I like to hear you talk—about her," which came as near to being a deliberate falsehood as Martha had ever told in all her honest life.
* * *
The arrangements for Arthur's wedding were all made. Thursa was coming the first week in December and would stay with Martha until Christmas Day. Arthur's house was not quite ready yet. Martha, glad to feel that she was of any service to him, made great preparations for the coming of Thursa.
Her own bedroom, which was to be used by Thursa, was re-papered and painted; the new rag carpet that Martha had put away in her cupboard "in case" was put on the floor; new lace curtains, bought out of the butter money, replaced the frilled art muslin that had been at the windows. Martha's best pin-cushion, her best stand-covers and pillow-shams were all brought out for Thursa's use. It seemed very fitting to her that her treasures should be used by Arthur's bride. She thought of it all sadly, but without bitterness.
One afternoon Aunt Kate and Pearl came over, and Martha invited them to come upstairs and see the room she had made ready for Thursa.
"Upon my word, Martha," Aunt Kate said, as she looked admiringly at Martha's tastefully arranged room, "you're fixin' up as if you were goin' to be married yerself, and I just hope this English girl of his is all he thinks she is, and not a useless tool like some of them are. I mind well one Englishwoman who lived neighbour to me down in Ontario, nice woman, too, but sakes alive, she was a dirty housekeeper. She was a cousin to the Duke of something, but she'd make a puddin' in the wash-basin just the same. I'd hate awful to see Arthur get a girl like that. I suppose you haven't heard him say whether she's been brought up thrifty. It means a lot, let me tell you. I've seen women that could throw out as much at the back door as their man could bring in the front. You don't know, do you, whether or not she's savin'?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," Martha said. "I don't think she has much experience, but she can learn. It's no trick to do housework."
"Well, now, Martha, you're wrong, for it is a trick," Aunt Kate said positively. "It's the finest thing a woman can know. A man will get tired of a pretty face, but he ain't likely to tire of good vittles and well-mended clothes; and if he came home hungry and found her playin' the piano and no dinner ready, it would make him swear, if anything would."
Aunt Kate went down-stairs then to help Mrs. Perkins do some sewing, and Pearl and Martha were left alone.
"It's awful good of you, Martha, to help Arthur's wedding along so well," Pearl said, "but I know you are glad to do it. People ought to be kind to any one that's gettin' married, I do think. They need flowers and kind things said about them far more than people do when they are gettin' buried. Pshaw! When a person's dead they're clean out of the bush and not needin' help from any one; but getting married is awful. Ma saved the lilacs she had when she was married, and put them in a gem-jar, and I've often heard her tell what a comfort they were to her when she came home all tired and couldn't get the stains out of some one's tablecloth. She had a piece of the cake, too, sealed up in a vaseline jar, and the very maddest I ever saw Ma was when she found Danny eatin' it—he et her clove apple the same day, and we couldn't do a thing to him because it was his birthday."
Martha looked at Pearl wonderingly. There were no dried lilacs or sealed vaseline jars in her family, but she understood vaguely what it might mean.
"You are going to be the bridesmaid, Pearl," Martha said. "Arthur told me so!"
"Oh, goody!" Pearl cried, but a sudden thought occurring to her, she said, "You should be it yourself, Martha. Why don't you?"
"I'll tell you why, Pearl," said Martha. "I would look awful beside Thursa. She is fair and fluffy-haired, and she'd make me look worse than usual. Arthur asked me, but I told him I couldn't very well. Anyway, there is the gravy to make and the pudding-sauce, and I'll have to be right there over it. You'll do it, won't you, Pearl?"
"Oh, yes, I'll do it," said Pearl. "Sure thing. Glad of the chance to wear the white dress Camilla made me and my bracelet—and—and all!" She was about to ask Martha, question, but changed her mind suddenly and went on: "I just hope there'll be a lovely blue sky and snow on the ground and a real glitterin' sunshine, like what Christmas ought to be, with everything so lovely that it just hurts, and so much Christmas in it that you're dead sure the air is full of angels. And, Martha, we'll put blue ribbons on the table to make them think of the blue sky that was over them on their weddin' day. I tell you, Martha, it's a great thing to have blue skies to think of, even if you haven't got blue skies over you. It heartens a person up wonderful to know that up through the clouds the sky is blue anyway. It's just like havin' on a clean shirt, Martha, even if your outside clothes are not very clean. So, if there's a blue sky we'll try to pin down some of it, so they can use it when they need it. When is she comin', Martha?"
"Next week, she is in Brandon now. She is staying there a few days to see the shops, Arthur said."
Pearl wrinkled her forehead. "Isn't it a wonder she don't come hustlin'? You'd think she'd be far more anxious to see him than any store. She's seen loads of stores, and she hasn't seen him for two years. Say, Martha, there was an English painter in Millford when we lived there who sent home for his girl, and comin' over on the boat didn't she meet another fellow she liked better and she up and married him. Wouldn't it be awful if Thursa was to do that after Arthur gettin' all ready, too?"
Martha did not answer, and Pearl, looking up, was startled at the expression of her face—it was like the face of a shipwrecked sailor who has been looking, looking, looking over a desolate waste of water, dreaming of hope, but never daring to hope, when suddenly, before his weary eyes, there flashes a sail! Of course, it may not be a sail at all, and even if it is a boat it may never, never see the shipwrecked sailor, but still a great hope leaps into his face!
Pearl saw it all in Martha's face in that moment; she remembered Martha's saying that often when she sat at her embroidery she imagined foolish things that could never come true.
"Isn't she a brick?" Pearl thought to herself. "Gettin' ready for this weddin' just as cheerful as if her heart wasn't breakin'!" Then Pearl, in her quick imagination, made a new application: "Just like if it was me gettin' ready for Miss Morrison to marry—" She stopped and thought, with a stern look on her face. Then she said to herself grimly: "I believe this is the greatest piece of True Greatness I've seen yet, and if it is, then I haven't got a smell of it."
"No word from Bud, is there, Martha?" asked after a while.
"Nothing, only the card from Calgary saying he was working on a horse-ranch west of there. It's lonely without him, I tell you, Pearl. I wonder will he ever come back?" said Martha wistfully.
"Sure he will!" cried Pearl. "Bud'll come back, and it'll all be cleared up, and don't you forget it."
"I don't know how, Pearl."
"Some way we don't expect, maybe, but it'll all come right.Everything will in time," Pearl answered cheerfully.
At tea-time the conversation naturally turned to weddings. Mr. Perkins had been in a doleful frame of mind until the visitors came, but under the stimulus of fresh listeners he brightened up wonderfully. Here were two people who had not heard any of his stories. He was full of reminiscences of strange weddings that he had been at or had heard of. One in particular, which came back to him now with great vividness, was when his friend, Ned Mullins, married the Spain girl down "the Ot'way."
"Ned had intended to marry the youngest one," he said, "but when we got there, by jinks, there was Jane, the oldest one, all decked out with ribbons and smilin' like a basket of chips, while the pretty one, Rosie, that Ned wanted, was sittin' in a corner holdin' a handkerchief to her eyes. Old man Spain said he'd let no man cull the family—he'd have to take them as they come, by George! Poor Ned was all broke up. They wouldn't let him say a word to Rosie—they seemed to know which way her evidence would run. The timber-boss took Ned aside; I can hear him yet the way he said, 'Marry the girl, Ned, me boy; the Spaniards are too numerous for us! We mustn't make bad blood wid them!' Father Welsh was there all ready, kinda tapping his foot impatient-like, waiting to earn his money. Old Geordie Hodgins was there; he was one of the oldest river-drivers on the Ot'way, a sly old dog with a big wad o' money hid away some place, some said it was in the linin' of his cap. Old Geordie never looked at a girl—Scotch, you know, they're careful. Well, old Geordie began kinda snuffin' like he always did when he got excited. Well, sir, he got up and began to walk around, slappin' his hands together, and all the clatter stopped, for every one was wonderin' what was wrong with Geordie; and old man Spain, he says: 'What's wrong, Geordie? Sit down, blame you, and let's get on wid the weddin'.' And then old Georgie straightens up and says, 'I'll take the old one, if ye like, and let Ned have the wan he wants,' and with that the little one with the red eyes bounces right out of her corner and she slaps a kiss on Geordie that you could hear for the brea'th of an acre. Old Geordie wiped it off with the back of his hand and says he, 'Look out, young Miss, don't you do that again or Ned'll have to take the old one after all.' And by jinks, as soon as she heard that the old one, who wasn't so slow after all, she bounced up and landed one on Geordie that sounded like an ox pullin' his foot out of the mud, and, then Ned he came to himself and says he, 'See here, Geordie's gettin' more'n his share; where do I come in?' and then John McNeish, the piper, struck up his pipes, and we were all off into an eight-hand reel before you could wink. There wasn't enough girls to go round, and I had to swing around Bill Fraser with the wooden leg, and Bill was kinda topply around the corners, but we got the two couples married and they both done well."
Mrs. Perkins was something of a raconteur herself, and she, too, was ready with a story on the same subject. She and her husband never interfered with each other's story-telling. Each chose his or her own story and proceeded with it quite independent of the other one. But it was confusing to the audience when the two stories ran concurrently, as they did to-day.
Mrs. Perkins's story was about her youngest sister's husband's brother, who was the "biggest cut-up you ever saw." He'd keep a whole room full of people "in stitches, and he was engaged to a girl called Sally Gibson—she was one of the Garafraxa Gibsons that ran the mill at 'the Soble'—well, anyway, this Sally Gibson gave him the slip and married a fellow from Owen Sound, and some say even kept the ring," though Mrs. Perkins was not prepared to say for sure; but, anyway, this was pretty hard on her youngest sister's husband's brother. Henry Hall was his name and he had bought the license and all. "He was terrible cut up and vowed he'd marry some one and not lose his license altogether, so he came over to where Bessie Collins lived, and he came in at the back door, and there was Bessie scrubbin' the floor, and he says: 'Bessie, will you marry me?' and she says, knowin' what a cut-up he was, she says, 'Go on, Hank, you're foolin',' and he says: 'I'm not foolin', Bessie,' and he told her what Sally Gibson had went and done, and then Bessie says: 'Well, wait till I've finished this floor and do off the door-step, and I don't care if I do.' So she went and primped herself some and they were married and they done well, too!"
* * *
When Pearl and her aunt were walking home that night Aunt Kate said: "I like them people better one at a time. I never did like a two-ring circus. I never could watch the monkey trundlin' a barrel up a gangway when the clown was jumpin' through rings; it always annoyed me to be losin' either one or the other. Did you get any sense of it, Pearlie?"
But Pearl's thoughts were on an entirely different theme. "MissMorrison ain't what you'd call a real pretty girl, not like MaryBarner or Camilla," she said absently.
Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayerTo still a heart in absence wrung.I tell each bead unto the end, and thereA cross is hung!
——My Rosary.
EARLY in December Thursa came. Martha had asked Pearl to come over and help her to receive her guest, which Pearl was only too glad to do, for she knew how hard all this was for Martha.
"Just like sendin' out invitations to yer own funeral," Pearl said, as early in the morning of the eventful day she walked over the snowy road to the Perkins home. In spite of all, Pearl was determined to have Martha looking her very best. She was even prepared to put powder on Martha's face, and had actually secured some from Camilla for the occasion.
Martha had improved in many ways since the day she and Pearl had talked beside the lilac hedge. She stood straighter; she walked more gracefully; she was more at her ease in conversation. These were the outward visible signs; but the most important change that had taken place in Martha was that she now had a broader outlook on the world. It was no longer bounded on the north by the Assiniboine River and the Brandon Hills, and on the south by the Tiger Hills and Pelican Lake. The hours that she had spent studying the magazine had been well spent, and Martha had really learned a great deal. She had learned that there were hundreds and hundreds of other girls like herself, living lonely lives of endless toil and sacrifice, and who still kept alive the little flame of ambition and the desire to make the best of their surroundings and themselves; and from the stories, which she now read with consuming interest, she learned that there were other women who loved hopelessly, but yet without bitterness, whose hearts were enriched by it, and who went on with their work day by day, bravely fighting the good fight; and with all this Martha's heart was greatly sustained and comforted. Martha had some blue days, too, when she was deeply conscious of her own dullness, and was disposed to give up all her efforts; but Pearl Watson was always able to fire her with fresh enthusiasm, for it was Pearl's good gift that she could inspire people to worthy endeavour.
It was not long before Arthur noticed that Martha was brightening up and that she seemed easier to talk to. After his long days of solitude he was glad of an opportunity to talk to an interested listener, and so he found his way over to the Perkins home three or four nights every week.
He told her stories of his school-days and of the glorious holidays he had spent at his uncle's country home. Arthur was a close observer and an interesting talker, and even Mrs. Perkins sometimes sat up to listen to him. Thomas Perkins said he didn't take much stock in the stories that young English chap told, and so he usually retired to the kitchen, where he would sit studying the catalogues. Mr. Perkins preferred the centre of the stage, if he were on it at all, and certainly would not consent to do a "thinking part" for anybody.
* * *
"Don't you be a bit worried, Martha," Pearl said soothingly, as she was combing Martha's hair that morning; "you'll look just as well as she does. Englishwomen always look queer to me with those big rough coats on them, all crinkly at the seams. They always wear them coming over on the boat, and it looks to me as if they fell in a few times and the stuff shrunk something awful; and their hair is always queer, done in a bun on the small of their neck."
"But Thursa is not like that," Martha said. "She is little and slight, and has a skin as fair as a lily and pink cheeks."
Pearl stepped back to look at Martha's hair, done in a braid around the top, before replying:
"Skin like a lily, has she? Well, that settles it—we'll use the powder. Now, don't say a word, Martha—it ain't wicked at all—it's paintin' and powderin' that's wicked. Now, I could make a bright glow on each of yer cheeks by usin' the red leaf of one of the roses on my summer hat. I thought of that, and I tried it myself—it was a fine colour and would improve you, Martha, but I'm afraid it wouldn't be just the thing to do it, and anyway you are looking fine now, and your red silk waist will give you a colour."
They went down-stairs when Martha's toilet was complete, speculating on what Thursa would be like. Martha was plainly nervous, which Pearl saw, but would not recognize. They were not left long in doubt, for in a few minutes they heard Arthur driving up to the door. Pearl and Martha held each other's hands in suspense until the door opened and Arthur said quite simply:
"Martha, this is Thursa."
And then poor Martha had need of her full supply of true greatness as Thursa's fresh young beauty burst on her, for Thursa was of that most bewitching type of young English girl, clear-skinned and violet-eyed, with a head of curling golden hair. She wore a long green coat and a little green cap that did not begin to hold down the rebellious curls.
If Martha was embarrassed Thursa certainly was not. She kissed Martha impulsively and called her "the dearest thing," and then, turning to Pearl, cried gaily. "Come here, you brown-eyed witch. I should have known you anywhere. You two girls have spoiled Arthur, I am afraid, by dancing attendance on him. He will be so frightfully important and overlordish, but all that will be changed now. I am really a very domineering person."
When Martha took Thursa upstairs to remove her wraps she said, as she tucked in her curls before the glass: "It does seem so gorgeous to be away without an aunt. I have three of them at home, you know, and they have always taken the wildest interest in me, and there was always one ready to come with me every place. They are not old really, but they seem old to me, and I really expect they will never die. They have heaps of money, too, and so I simply had to be civil to them. I had a perfectly ripping time on the boat. My aunts put me in charge of the Bishop of Donchester, and he was a perfect love and went to his stateroom so early every evening, and slept in a steamer chair every afternoon until he got ill, the old dear, and then he didn't appear at all for three days, and I really had such jolly fun. It did seem such fun not to be bothered with some one stalking me all the time. There were such pleasant people, too, on shipboard!'"
Martha remembered what Pearl had said about the English girl who had changed her mind coming over on the boat, and, making an excuse about having dinner to see to, went down stairs and sent Pearl up to Thursa. Pearl would get at the true state of affairs quicker than any one else.
"Did you have a pleasant journey?" Pearl asked, when she went upstairs.
"Oh, rather!" said Thursa. "It was simply heavenly to be away any place without an aunt. I was just telling Martha I have three of them—Aunt Honora, Aunt Constance, and Aunt Prudence. They have dangled their money over my head for years, but I don't care now if I never get it. They've always done everything for me. They picked out Arthur for me because his uncle is a bishop, and they do adore bishops."
"But didn't you like Arthur first—yourself—anyway?" Pearl exclaimed, hanging on to the chair in her excitement.
Thursa pursed her pretty lips. "Well enough—oh, yes, real well—and I liked him awfully when he decided to come to Canada—it was so splendid and dashing of him, I thought, and I was simply wild to come, too, for the adventures!"
"The what?" Pearl asked.
"The adventures. It must be perfectly jolly to chase Indians and buffaloes and bears. Wouldn't it be a lark to send one home?"
Pearl winked hard, wondering if it was an Indian, a buffalo, or a bear she wanted to send home.
After dinner, for which Arthur stayed, Thursa said she believed she would take a rest—she had so many letters to write, too, to people she met on shipboard, and such delightful people.
Arthur begged to be let stay 'a little while longer, but Thursa said very, decidedly he must go now and not come back until the next evening, for she really must get her letters done—there was one in particular that must be sent by next post. "Do you know a Mr. Smeaton in Brandon," she asked, "Mr. Jack Smeaton?"
Arthur did not know him.
"He was on the boat and was so jolly! He was teaching me Canadian words. We did have good fun over it. He told me to be sure and let him know how I liked you when I saw you."
Arthur winced.
"I said I would come and see anyway, for I said I couldn't believe you had changed so very much in two years. He said it was always well to take thirty days to consider any serious step, and he taught me the word for it—'a thirty days' option'—that's it, Arthur. That's what I have on you!"
She laughed merrily, but Arthur pleaded with her not to say such things.
Then Thursa became very serious. "Now, Arthur, for heaven's sake," she said, "don't act like the aunts. That's what I've listened to all my life. Calm yourself, my de-ar. That's what I've run away from. I might as well have stayed with them if you're going to do it. It's wicked of you, Arthur, it really is, to scold me, when I came so far just to see you, and when you know how tired I am."
Pearl and Martha retired hastily to the kitchen.
Arthur apologized in due form and Thursa's good-humour came back. "Now, then, Arthur, run along, because I am going to have a long sleep, and then I have some very serious thinking to do. The aunts said that is what I am incapable of doing, but I've done some that would have surprised them if they had just heard me at it. Now I am going to do some more. It's so horrible to be in a quandary. It is as bad as it was when I was choosing a gown for my first party; I lay awake nearly a whole night trying to decide between a reseda and a pink-violet. It was perfectly maddening, and I did have such a head the next day."
"Are you in a quandary now, Thursa?" he asked gently. "Tell me about it."
"Oh, no, Arthur, dear me, no—I haven't got half my thinking done yet. I'll tell you after I get it done. I am so happy to think that I got away without any of the aunts that, really, I am not very worried about anything. You' know I wasn't perfectly sure that I was away until I was a day out, and once I got such a fright—there was something swimming behind the boat! But now, good-bye, Arthur. Kiss me, if you like. There, now, that will do. Yes, I do like you, Arthur, you're a good sort. Good-bye till to-morrow evening."
Two days later Arthur took Thursa over to see the house. She was quite rested now from her journey, and in her scarlet coat and hat she was more bewitching than ever.
"It is very pretty here in the summer-time, Thursa," he said, as they stood together in the little porch. "I had some flowers last year, and the trees are growing nicely. It will be the dearest place on earth to me when you are here. Won't it be glorious to be together always, dearie, you and I? I wonder if you know how beautiful you are, Thursa?"
Thursa knit her brows in deep thought. "I wonder if I do?" she said quite gravely. "I've heard quite a 'lot about it lately, and I don't object to hearing it as much as my aunts would wish me to, I fear. It seems pleasant, really!"
Arthur laughed joyously. Her beauty dazzled him.
Then they went into the house that he had built and furnished with much loving care. Thursa was interested in everything; the shining new pots and pans gave her great delight—she said they were "such jolly little dears," but what were they all for? Arthur tried to explain, but Thursa became impatient at the mention of cooking and washing dishes, and cried out petulantly. "Why don't you tame a squaw and have her do all this? I simply loathe cooking or washing up. It is horrid, messy work, Arthur, and I really never can do it. I know I can't. I never stayed in our scullery at home for one minute. Of course my aunts would not have allowed me to stay anyway, but that isn't why. I simply detest work of that kind."
Arthur's face showed his disappointment. "We will have to get some one to show you how," he said, after an unpleasant pause. "You will not dislike it so much after you learn how, Thursa. It is really pleasant work, housekeeping is, and I am sure you will learn to be a famous little housewife."
"Don't bank too strong on it, Arthur. Isn't that the right word? Mr. Smeaton taught me that. This idea of having to cook has upset me dreadfully."
She sat down in the rocking-chair and rocked herself in her agitation. "Arthur, I shall go staring mad if I have to mess around and try to cook. I know I shall. I feel it beginning on me, and I shall have rough hands, and my skin will get red and blotchy, just like a cook's, and there will always be a greasy smell on my clothes. I am going to cry, Arthur, I am, now, really, and nobody can stop me, and I do cry dreadfully when I start."
"Oh, don't cry, Thursa!" Arthur pleaded, with all the helplessness of a man in the presence of tears. "Don't cry, dearest. You'll break my heart if you cry the first day you come into your new home. I don't want you to cook or work or do anything, only just stay with me and love me and let me look at you—you are too beautiful to ever have to work, darling."
Contrary to her expectations, Thursa did not cry, but looked atArthur with a very shrewd expression on her pretty face.
"I'd rather stay here and take a chance on it—that's a Canadian word, too—than go back to the aunts and have to work antimacassars and put up with them trailing around after me always—that was perfectly maddening—but it seems to me—" she went over to Arthur's new sideboard and looked critically into the glass—"it seems to me a girl like me—you see I am not what you might call a fright, am I, Arthur?—and here in Canada there are abundant opportunities for good marriages—I think I really should do pretty well."
Arthur stood beside her looking at her image in the glass. When her meaning became clear he turned away hastily to hide the hurt her words had given him.
"You mean I am not good enough for you. You are quite right, I am not. You are a queen among women, Thursa."
"Queen nothing!" Thursa cried impatiently. "You make love like they do it in Scott's novels. The aunts made me read it, and now I simply loathe anything that sounds like it. Now, Mr. Smeaton said I was a peach."
Arthur consigned Mr. Smeaton and all such cads to a hotter climate.
"Good for you, Arthur!" she said, laughing, "you can ride the high horse, too. I like you like that. Now, Mr. Smeaton said——"
"See here, Thursa," Arthur broke in, "did that cur make love to you?"
"Madly," she said.
"And you let him—and listened?"
She clapped her hands and laughed merrily.
"Listened? I didn't have to listen hard. He was near me, you know, and he did make love so beautifully. I wish you could have heard him."
"I'd have bashed his head for him," Arthur said hotly. "Who is he, anyway?"
"He has a dry-goods store in Brandon. He's a linen-draper really, and is only six-and-twenty, but he is awfully clever, and so charming. When I sent you word that I was staying to see the shops I meant I was staying to see his shop. He took me to his own home, and his mother and sisters were lovely to me. He wanted me to marry him at Montreal, and asked me again at North Bay, and twice in Winnipeg, and I really forgot to count how many times he proposed to me in Brandon; but I wanted to be perfectly fair, and would not marry him until I had seen you."
Arthur said not a word, but walked over to the eastern window. It was a pleasant day in early winter. He could see the curls of smoke rising from the neighbours' houses into the frosty air, and the long gray wreath of it that the morning train had left still lay on the Tiger Hills. A mirage had lifted the old spruce bush on the Assiniboine into vision. Every mark on the landscape stung him with remembrances of happy days when youth and love and hope were weaving for him a glorious dream.
He turned suddenly and caught her in his arms. "Don't go back on me, Thursa! I won't give you up!" he cried. "He can't love you the way I do. You haven't been in his mind, day and night, all these years. He doesn't love you, dear, like I do, and he can't have you. I tell you, I won't give you up. You are mine forever."
Suddenly his arms, dropped and he put her away from him. "Let me think a minute, Thursa," he said, in his usual tone. "This has come on me suddenly. Stay here until I come back."
Outside the cold, bracing air fanned his burning face. He stood on the bank of the Plover Creek and looked with unseeing eyes around him, and found himself thinking of the most trifling things—he couldn't think about what he wanted to; his brain refused to act. Suddenly there came over him a great calmness, and with it a strong resolve. He would do the square thing. He loved Thursa, but there was something stronger even than that—something that must be obeyed.
When Arthur went back to the house his face was white with the conflict, but his resolve was taken "Do you want to marry this Brandon man, Thursa?" he asked.
"I don't know. I am thinking. Don't hurry me now. I can't bear to be hurried. That's where Aunt Honora and I never could agree; she crowded me so. I am thinking very hard, really. Mr. Smeaton's offer is still open. I was to let him know. Of course, Arthur, you are a bishop's nephew, and that's something. Mr. Smeaton's family are all in trade."
"That does not matter in this country," said Arthur. "No, that's what he said, too. He is so witty and clever. He said I could write to the aunts that I had married the son of a leading M. P. of the West."
"Is his father a Member of Parliament?" Arthur asked quickly.
Thursa laughed delightedly. "M. P. stands for 'milk peddler,'" she said. "Wasn't he adorable to think of that?"
"Very clever indeed," Arthur said quietly.
"We did have screaming fun over it. He said we would spell it Smeatholym if it would make the aunts feel any easier, and he told me I could tell them how brave he was—that he once slew a wild oryx. He said he often drove a yoke of wild oryxen before him as gentle as lambs. I know Aunt Constance would be deeply impressed with this. He even went so far, Arthur—he was so deadly in earnest—to give me the telegraph form to sign. It is all written if I decide to marry him."
"Let me see it!" said Arthur.
She opened her little bead purse and handed him a yellow telegraph blank, on which was written:
"Mr. John Smeaton,"Rosser Avenue,"Brandon,"L. G. D. is past. O. for O."
"What does it mean?" he asked.
"You could never guess—it is so funny," she laughed. '"L. G. D.' is 'love's golden dream.' 'O. for O.' means 'open for offers.'"
Arthur's face was twitching with pain and anger, but with wonderful self-control he asked her again:
"Do you want to marry this man?"
"I think I do, Arthur. He's lovely."
Arthur handed her his pencil and motioned to her to sign the blank.
"Oh, Arthur!" she cried, "do you mean it? May I sign it? Do you not mind?"
She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him impulsively. Arthur made no response to her embrace, but the perspiration stood out in beads on his forehead.
"Sign it," he said, almost roughly. He turned away his head, while she signed her name.
She watched him anxiously. Why didn't he speak? This was dreadfully unpleasant.
"Thursa," he said at last, "will you sing for me that Rosary song?Just once. I want to hear it."
She sang it, sweet and tender as ever, every word a caress.
When she was done, he stood up and said very gently, but very sadly, "I wanted to be sure it was not ever meant for me. A clean cut is the easiest healed."
He went to his phonograph records and picked out the "Rosary." Only for a second he fondled it in his hand, then crushed it in pieces and threw them into the fire. "There now, Thursa," he said steadily, "that chapter is closed forever."
She looked at him in astonishment. "Why don't you get excited and threaten to shoot yourself and all that?"
"Because I have no notion of doing it," he said.
"Well, I do wish you would be a little bit melodramatic—this is deadly uninteresting. I would have loved to write home something really thrilling."
"This is thrilling enough for me, Thursa," he answered. Then, after a pause, he said, "Shall I send your telegram?"
"Not just yet," she answered. "You see, Arthur, I want to be sure. I know that Mr. Smeaton is lovely and all that, but I want to be sure he is a gentleman. I want you to go and see him; Arthur. I will do whatever you say."
She came and put her hands on Arthur's shoulders and looked up at him.
"Arthur, I have not treated you very well, but you'll do this for me, and if you find that he is not—" she hesitated—"I do not like to speak of him in this way, it doesn't seem right to doubt him, and I don't doubt him really; but you will do it, won't you, Arthur?"
"I will not do it!" he cried. "Don't ask me to do this!"
"And Arthur, if you come back and say that I must forget him, I will, try to, and I will marry you and try to like all these horrid little pots and pans. I truly will, and we will never speak of this again."
She was looking into his face as she spoke, and there was an earnestness in the depths of her violet eyes, a sweet womanliness, that he had never seen before.
"Oh, Thursa!" he cried, his voice quivering with tenderness. "You are making it hard for me—how can I help but perjure myself to win you? Any man would lie to you rather than lose you. Send some one else; I can't do it. I can't come back and tell you he is worthy of you."
Thursa drew his face down to hers and kissed his cheek.
"Arthur, I know you, and I will trust you. You couldn't lie; you don't know how, and you will do this, for me."
O memories that bless and burn,O barren gain and bitter loss,I kiss each bead and try at last to learnTo kiss the cross.
——My Rosary.
ARTHUR went to Brandon that night, presumably on business relating to his house-furnishing. Not even Martha knew the nature of his visit to the Wheat City. It was late in the evening when he arrived, so late that he was unable to make any inquiries, but was forced to spend the night in uncertainty, with only his own gloomy thoughts for company. The varied night sounds of the city smote on his unaccustomed ear. The long hall of the hotel echoed the passing of many feet; doors slammed at intervals, and once a raucous voice called loudly for "Towels for '53'"; from the room next his came the sound of talking and laughter; farther down the hall a young baby cried dismally. Through the babel of voices came the regular pink-pank of a banjo in the parlour below. Outside, the wind raged against the frosted windows, train-bells rang and whistles blew all night long, and the pounding of horses' feet on the pavement never ceased—there seemed to be one long procession of heavy drays passing down the street.
In the quiet of his own house on Plover Creek Arthur had almost forgotten the outside world that never sleeps—the rushing, careless, inexorable world, that cannot be stayed or entreated. He had lived his life in the country, and he loved its silent places, the kindly silences of the country nights that lie so soothingly on the heart and brain. To-night, the roar of the Brandon street was full of evil significance, for this man, this interloper, whom his soul hated so bitterly, was part of the great uncaring throng that surged past; this rushing, jostling, aggressive life was what he stood for, this man who had stolen from him his heart's dearest treasure.
All night long Arthur lay staring into the darkness, trying to, fight out the greatest battle of his life; on one side Thursa and the memory of her kisses on his cheek, and on the other side honour and honesty, and all the traditions of his house; sometimes telling himself sternly that there was but one course open to him, and then, suddenly overcome by his love for her, crying out bitterly that he would never, never give her up. The pitch-black night seemed interminable to him, but dawn came at last, deep blue behind the frost-ferns on the window, slowly fading to pale azure, then suddenly changing to rosiest pink as the sun rolled up over the sandhills of the Assiniboine and sent his cheerful rays over an untroubled white world.
At half-past eight Arthur was walking the street. No one would imagine, to look at the quietly dressed young Englishman, that he was going through a severe mental struggle. Without any difficulty he found the store for which he was looking. The words on the sign, "J. C. Smeaton & Co., Dry Goods," in black and gold, seemed charged with open hostility.
A group of women stood in front of the door waiting for it to be opened. They were looking longingly at the window display of lace blouses, which were going to be sold, according to a staring sign, at half the regular price. They were the typical bargain-hunters, sharp-eyed and distrustful, and not particularly amiable. Early rising on a cold winter morning is at the best no aid to amiability, even if by the effort a ten-dollar blouse is bought for five.
The waiting group were discussing sales in general, and one woman was disposed to think that all sales were snares and delusions—she lived on Eighteenth Street, and had had to get up very early. Another woman exonerated herself from complicity in the matter of sales by saying that her sister-in-law had telephoned her to come down and get her a waist; she would never have come for herself, never! There was only one real optimist in the crowd—of course, optimism does not usually flourish before breakfast. She declared that Smeaton's sales were all right. If Smeaton advertised a sale it was a sale. People could say what they liked about Jack Smeaton, but she had always found him straight as a string.
Arthur hurried away—the woman's crude words of praise for the man he hated struck him like a blow between the eyes.
Arthur went first to a Church of England clergyman whom he knew slightly, and made inquiries. The clergyman was unable to give any information about the young man. He knew him well by sight, he said, but he had never spoken to him. He directed Arthur to go to one of the wardens of his church, a Mr. Bevan, who was one of the old-timers in Brandon and knew everybody.
To Mr. Bevan's office Arthur went, and waited there an hour, for the senior member of the firm of Bevan & Wallace, real estate brokers, did not begin the day very early. However, he did come at last, and looked sharply at Arthur's eager face as he made known his business.
"Smeaton?" Mr. Bevan cried, when Arthur was through speaking. "What do I know about young Jack Smeaton? What do you know about him? If you can tell me anything that he has been up to that is very bad, I'll be glad to hear it, the cheeky young beggar. Think of it! Last fall he went out making political speeches—I heard him! He's a rabid Grit, too, will stop at nothing to get a vote. Oh, yes, I know Jack Smeaton."
"Would you call him a man of honour?" Arthur asked.
"Man of honour?" the old man cried excitedly. "Bless your heart, what have I just told you? Didn't I say he was a Grit? Why don't you listen, man, to what I am telling you?" His voice fell to a confidential whisper. "Young Jack Smeaton is one of the strongest Grits in this city, and he has a very great influence on the young men, for they like him, mind you. Oh, he is a bad one, a deep one, and don't you forget it."
"Would you consider him a man worthy of trust?" Arthur said eagerly, trying to pierce through the old man's political prejudice.
"Trust!" the other man repeated, scorn, wonder, contempt in his voice. "Young man, where were you at the time of the last election? You talk like a man from Mars. Didn't you hear about the ballot-stuffing that went on here? How do you suppose the Grits carried this constituency? No, sir; I would not trust him, or any of them."
Arthur rose to go.
"My advice to you, young man, is to have no dealings with Jack Smeaton. He's pretty nearly sure to influence you, for, mind you, he has a way with him."
Arthur walked back to his room at the hotel with many conflicting emotions struggling in his heart. Jack Smeaton was evidently a man of strong character, and a flirtation such as he had carried on with Thursa would mean nothing to him—he had probably forgotten it by this time. Couldn't he honestly go back and tell Thursa that one of the church-wardens, to whom the clergyman had sent him for information, had told him emphatically to have nothing to do with Jack Smeaton? Thursa would ask to know nothing further. She had said, with that sweet look in her face, that if he came back and told her to forget this fellow she would marry him and do her best. Arthur recalled every tone of her dear voice, the touch of her soft little hands, as she drew his face down to hers when she said this. Thursa was his own. She had come from England as his affianced wife. What right had this adventurer to steal her away from him? Arthur clenched his fists and raged at the man who had done him this injury. He would go back to Thursa in the morning, and they would be happy yet. This man's name would never be mentioned again.
Arthur was not nearly so happy in this resolve as he expected to be. There was a distinct uneasiness in his heart that increased as the day went on. At five o'clock he stood outside the Smeaton store, to which he seemed drawn by a strange fascination. The man who was so largely in his thoughts was, no doubt, only a few feet away from him, happy, careless, prosperous, arrogant, having his own way by hook or crook. The clock struck the half-hour. The store would be closed six.
Arthur started back to the hotel. What did he care when the store closed? It was nothing to him. At the corner of Rosser and Eighth Street some Salvation Army people were holding a meeting, and as he passed through the crowd the tinkle of their cymbals in a familiar tune came to his ear. Then a dozen voices, clear and distinct, broke into singing:
If some poor wandering child of Thine,Has spurned to-day the voice divine,Now, Lord, the gracious work begin,Let him no more lie down in sin.
It brought him back to the old life at home, this dear old hymn of his childhood, with its old-fashioned, monotonous tune, and it awakened in his consciousness the voices he was trying hard to silence. A light shone in upon him and showed him a straight path, a hard road, set with thorns, which he must follow. The colour suddenly went from Arthur's face as he realized which way the path of honour led.
Abide with me from morn till eve,For without Thee I cannot live.
sang the Army, while Arthur, pale and trembling on the outer edge of the crowd, leaned against a lamppost for support. He did not hear the words they were singing, but the old tune beat into heart and brain the memories of his home and childhood. He saw his father's saintly face, proud and strong, unstained by any compromise with evil, and it called to him across the sea to play the man.
The Army had sung the hymn all through, and now they were kneeling in prayer; a thin-voiced girl led the petitions, while the others, frequently interjected exclamations of thanksgiving. Arthur did not hear a word of it, but into his troubled heart there came peace and the strength of God, which alone is able to make a man swear to his own hurt.
He walked rapidly back to the store he had left and asked to see Mr. Smeaton. Mr. Smeaton had his hat and coat on, about to leave the store, but he came back, and, taking Arthur into his office, offered him a chair.
Arthur remained standing, and, without speaking, gave the young man a searching glance. What he saw was a muscular young fellow, of about his own age, with clear gray eyes and curling brown hair. He was faultlessly dressed, and had an unmistakably straightforward expression and countenance.
"What can I do for you?" the young merchant asked.
Without a word Arthur took from his pocket Thursa's telegram. His hand trembled, and he had a queer, dizzy feeling as he did it, but he put it safely in the other man's hand.
Away across the sea, in the Rectory of St. Agnes, a gray-haired father and mother were praying for their boy so far away, and their prayer for him that day was not that he might have wealth, or ease, or fame, or the praise of men, nor that he might always gain his heart's desire—not that at all; they asked for him a greater gift still—that he might always walk in honour's ways.
Jack Smeaton's face was illumined with joy as he read Thursa's telegram.
"Did she send me this? Where is she? I want to see her—who are you?" he asked, all in one breath.
Something in Arthur's face told him who he was. "You are Arthur," he said gently.
Arthur nodded.
The two young men stood looking at each other, but for a full minute neither spoke.
"I have only one question to ask you, Mr. Smeaton," Arthur said at last. "Do you love her?"
"I do," the other man replied, "as God hears me." And Arthur, looking into his clear gray eyes, believed him, and his last hope vanished.
"I feel like a miserable sneak in your presence," Jack Smeaton said humbly. "Upon my word, that enchanting little beauty turned my brain. Isn't she the most bewitching little girl in all the world?"
"I have always thought so," Arthur said quietly. "I have behaved badly to you, Mr.——"
"Wemyss," Arthur said.
"Mr. Wemyss, and I humbly apologize."
"It is not necessary," Arthur said, with an effort. "Her happiness is the only thing to be considered. She was only a child when she gave me her promise, only seventeen, and I can see now that she would not be happy with me."
"Come with me now, Mr. Wemyss. I want you to meet my people. They will be glad to have you stay for dinner."
"Thank you," Arthur said, trying hard to speak naturally. "I would rather not."
"I shall go back with you to-morrow, if I may," Mr. Smeaton said. "I cannot just say to you all that is in my heart, but you have taught me a lesson on what it is to be a gentleman."
He held out his hand, which Arthur took without hesitation, and they parted.
That night as Jack Smeaton was selecting a pearl necklace for Thursa, along with all sorts of other beautiful gifts, he was pondering deeply one thought—that perhaps, after all, successive generations of gentle breeding do count for something in the make-up of a man, and having a bishop in the family may help a little, too.
Life? 'Tis the story of love and troublesOf troubles and love that travel togetherThe round world through.
——Joaquin Miller.
WHEN Arthur and Jack Smeaton arrived at the Perkins home the next morning, and announced that the wedding would take place at once, Mrs. Perkins, without waiting for further details, made an emergency visit to the hen-house and slew six chickens—there could be no wedding without fried chicken. Then she came back to find out who was to be the groom.
Mr. Perkins was hurriedly despatched for Pearl Watson, who was to be the bridesmaid, and Mr. and Mrs. Watson and Aunt Kate, who were to be the guests. Mr. Perkins, who had refused to leave the house without being dressed in his "other" suit, was in the hilarious humour that went with his good clothes when he reached the Watson home.
"By golly! John," he said, "that Arthur's a game one, and don't you forget it—he's simply handed his girl over to the other fellow; and I tell you he's done it handsome, just as cool and cheerful about it as if he liked the job. The little girl there, that Thursa, she's pretty enough to make men draw their shootin'-irons on each other. I'm fifty-three year old myself, but, by jingo! I was proud to be seen walkin' down the street with her yesterday in Millford; she drove in with me, and we walked around a bit. She had a hat as big as a waggon wheel, carrying as many plumes as a hearse. Whew! You should 'a' seen the people lookin' at us. She took my arm, mind ye, John; and say, now, I can't understand Arthur bringin' that other gent right back with him. Arthur went up to find out about this fellow, if he was the straight goods, and all that—she told me the hull thing yesterday. It was a secret, she said, but she just told me and the missus and Martha—she didn't see any one else—and she was that glad to-day when she saw this 'Jack' fellow that she kissed him and kissed Arthur, too—a kind of overflow meetin' his was—I stood around handy by, but she over-looked me some way; and then her and Jack went into the parlour to decide who was goin' to be boss and a few things like that, and I'll be blessed if Arthur didn't pitch right in to help Martha and the missus to get dinner ready. Never winked an eyelash, that fellow—the English have great grit, when you get a nice one. So hurry along now, we'll have to rustle. The minister's comin' at twelve o'clock sharp, and they're goin' away on the afternoon train. He's a right smart-lookin' fellow, this Jack—the little girl's doin' well, all right, all right; he maybe hasn't got as good a pedigree as Arthur, but he'll suit her better. She won't sass back to him, I'll bet, the way she would to Arthur. She'd give Arthur a queer old time, I know, but this chap'll manage her; he's got that sort of a way with him. I could see it, though I was only speakin' a few words to him."
* * *
Pearl was dressed in her cream silk dress, and carried a bouquet of roses.
"Land sakes!" Aunt Kate exclaimed, "where does anyone get roses at this time o' year, I'd like to know?
"I lived in Ontario many a year, and that's what I never saw was roses in December. They must 'a' had a sheltered place to grow in." And every person who heard her was too loyal a Manitoban to enlighten her.
Thursa, in a trailing gown of white silk mull, came into the parlour leaning on Arthur's arm, and made the responses as demurely as the staid Aunt Prudence would have desired. Any one looking at Arthur's unmoved face would never have guessed at the tragedy that was taking place in the young man's heart.
The wedding breakfast was a very jolly meal, and everybody, Arthur included, was in the best of humour. Young Jack Smeaton clearly demonstrated that the old lawyer had expressed the truth when he said: "Jack Smeaton has a way with him." He discussed the various knitting wools with Mrs. Perkins, and told Thomas Perkins a new way of putting formalin on his seed-wheat to get rid of the smut, and how to put patches on grain bags with flour paste. Mrs. Perkins told very vividly the story of Mary Ann Corbett's wedding, where the bridegroom failed 'to appear, and she married her first love, who was acting in the capacity of best man, and the old man Corbett gave them the deed of one hundred and fifty acres of land, and a cow and a feather bed, and some other tokens of paternal affection, and they lived happy ever afterward.
While she was telling this, her husband, in his usual graphic way, told his story, which happened to be on this occasion an account of the death of his old friend, Tony Miner; which had happened the winter before.
"The last words Tony said—mind ye, he was sensible to the last—was to tell his missus not to let the undertaker do her on the price of the coffin. He was a very savin' man, was Tony, but he needn't have worried, for the old lady could see a hole in a ladder as quick as most people, and even an undertaker couldn't get ahead of her. The old lady went herself and picked out the coffin. They sent it out in a box, of course, with Tony's name on it in big black letters, and when they charged her a dollar for the box she wanted them to take it back, but they said they couldn't when it had the name on it; but I tell you, she's a savin' woman, and no wonder Tony died rich. She wasn't goin' to let the box go to waste when it cost money, so she made a door for the hen-house out of it, and there it is yet, with 'Anthony Miner' in big black letters on it. Some say she's goin' to make it answer for a headstone, but I don't know about that. She's a fine savin' woman, and no one can say she is superstitious anyway, or filled with false pride."
The two stories ran concurrently and filled in most of the time at the table. Mr. Perkins did not believe in having awkward pauses or any other kind.
Pearl could not help noticing the glow "on Martha's cheek and the sympathetic way she had of watching Arthur.
"My, but women are queer," Pea thought to her self. "Here's Martha, now, glad as glad that the other fellow has got Thursa, and still feelin' so sorry for Arthur she can't eat her vittles. Wasn't it fine that Martha had so' much good stuff cooked in the house and was able to set up such a fine meal at a minute's notice? I wonder if it ever strikes Arthur what a fine housekeeper she is? I'll bet Miss Thursa'll never be able to bake a jenny Lind cake like this, or jell red currants so you can cut them with a knife."
Thursa and Jack left on the five o'clock train. It was a heavy, misty day, the kind that brings a storm, and the loose snow that lay on the ground needed only a strong enough wind to make a real Manitoba blizzard.
The bride and groom, with Arthur and Martha, drove in the Perkins double cutter. Dr. Clay, who had not been able to come to the wedding, came out afterward, and he and Pearl drove behind.
At the station there was only time for a hurried good-bye. Thursa seemed to take a more serious view of life, now that the real parting had come. She held Arthur's hand in a close grasp. "You've behaved awfully decent, Arthur," she said earnestly.
Arthur smiled bravely and thanked her.
The last to say good-bye were Jack and Arthur. It was an embarrassing moment for both of them, but their handclasp was warm and genuine, and Jack said in a low voice: "I'll try to be worthy of her, old man, and of you."
Arthur spoke not a word.
The train pulled out of the station and made its way slowly over the long Souris bridge. They watched it wind up the steep grade until it was hidden by a turn of the hill, and even then they stood listening to the hoarse boom of the whistle that came down the misty valley. The wind, that seemed to be threatening all day, came whistling down the street, driving before it little drifts of snow as they turned away from the station platform.
Dr. Clay took Pearl over to Mrs. Francis, where she was to stay for the night. Arthur and Martha drove home in silence. When they reached the door Martha said: "Come in, Arthur, and stay; don't try to get your own supper to-night."
Arthur roused himself with an effort. "I think I'll go home, Martha, thank you."
Mr. Perkins came out and helped Arthur to put away the team. Martha stood watching him as he walked across the field to his own little lonely house. The snow was drifting in clouds across the fields, and sometimes hid him from sight, but Martha stood straining her eyes for the last glimpse of him. Her heart was full of tenderness for him, a great, almost motherly tenderness, for he was suffering, and he was lonely, and her heart's greatest desire was to help him.
Arthur went bravely back to his own desolate house—the house that he had built with such loving thoughts. The fire was dead, like his own false hopes, and the very ticking of the clock seemed to taunt him with his loss. The last time he had been here she was with him. It was there beside the window that she had told him about this man; it was there she had kissed him, and he had held her close to his heart for one sweet moment; it was there he had fought so hard to give her up. But he loved her still, and would always love her, the violet-eyed Thursa, the sweetheart of his boyish dreams.
He made an attempt to light the fire, but it would not burn—it was like everything else, he told himself, it was against him. He went out and fed his horses and made them comfortable for the night, and then came back to his deserted house, dark now, and chilly and comfortless.
With the light of his lantern he saw something white on the floor. He picked it up listlessly, and then the odour of violets came to him—it was Thursa's hand-kerchief, that she had dropped that day. He buried his face in it, and groaned.
The wind had risen since sunset, and now the snow sifted drearily against his windows. Down the chimney came the weird moaning of the storm, sobbing and pitiful sometimes, and then angry and defiant. He sat by the black stove with his overcoat on, holding the little handkerchief against his lips, while the great, bitter sobs of manhood tore their way through his heart.
All night long, while the storm raged around the little house and rattled every door and window, he sat there numb with cold and dumb with sorrow. The lantern burned out, unnoticed. At daylight he threw himself across the bed, worn out with grief and loneliness, and slept a heavy sleep, still holding the violet-scented handkerchief to his lips.