As she ate her solitary dinner, Jacqueline reflected upon this episode. Not a trace of wholesome contrition for her treatment of poor Mr. Terrill remained. On the contrary, the whole thing filled her with reprehensible contentment. Evidently Terrill admired her very much. She felt that she ought to tell Barty about him.
“And I’m afraid Barty won’t like it,” she thought.
Rank hypocrisy! Afraid? She hoped with all her heart that he wouldn’t like it. What if he should be really jealous and angry, and should insist upon a public announcement of their marriage? What if she had to give up her job and just be Barty’s wife?
A sudden rush of tears filled her eyes. Not for anything on earth would she hinder or worry Barty; but if he really insisted upon it—
He did not, however. Nothing, apparently, was farther from his thoughts. Before she had finished her meal, a bell boy came in to tell her that Mr. Leadenhall was waiting in the lounge, and she hurried in to him. She had entirely forgiven him for breaking that tea engagement. In fact, she was rather glad he had done so.
There he stood, waiting for her, and the sight of him aroused in her a tenderness that was half pain. Something she had once read in a book came to her now. “A young falcon”—that was what Barty was like. He was a strong, splendid, free creature whose heart would break if he were fettered.
“I’m not silly about him,” she thought. “I know he’s not so awfully handsome.”
But she thought there was something about Barty that marked him out among all other men. His tie was crooked, his sandy hair was a little ruffled, he might seem to others simply a passably good-looking young fellow with a somewhat impatient and careless manner. His conver[Pg 209]sation was practical enough for the most part. Indeed, his feet were solidly planted on the earth; but Jacqueline had had a glimpse now and then of his jealously guarded spirit, of his passion for beauty, of his love for the mute harmonies of his great art. She loved all that was Barty—even his faults; but his spirit she very nearly worshiped.
When she had first met Barty, she herself had been ambitious. She had wanted to write, to make a name for herself. She could laugh—or weep—at that thought now. Ambition? She hadn’t known the meaning of the word. For no imaginable reward could she have worked as Barty did. He would work for days and days on a sketch or a plan, careless of rest or food, in a fire of enthusiasm. Then, putting his enthusiasm aside, and looking at it with his cool, impersonal brain, he would accept his work, or he would reject and destroy it and begin all over again.
Her own little ambition had flickered and died. It seemed to her a sublime destiny to help Barty, to serve this rare talent which her honest heart acknowledged as beyond measure superior to her own.
Their hands met in a formal clasp, and they smiled at each other, with their own secret smile of understanding. It was a wonderful thing to meet thus in public, and to let nobody know that they belonged to each other.
“Old Jacko!” said he.
“Old Barty!” said she.
Looking into his steady gray eyes, all desire to tease him about Mr. Terrill left her. All she wanted in the world was to help her man, at any cost.
“I’ve only got a few minutes,” he said. “I’ve got to go back and finish that thing.”
“The museum?” she asked, with a sinking heart, but with a bright expression of interest.
“No,” he answered, with a trace of impatience. “That can’t be hurried. This is a bit of hack work—a plan for remodeling a house that ought to be blotted out of existence.”
“I hate you to do work like that, Barty!”
“Oh, do you?” said he, smiling. “Well, I’ll tell you what it means, Jacko. The fellow’s coming to look at the plans to-morrow, and if he likes ’em—which he will—it means a week off for you and me.”
“Oh, Barty! You don’t mean that we could go away together for a whole week?” she cried. “Oh, Barty!”
“Don’t, Jacko!” said he, turning away his head. “It—it makes me feel like a brute. You know, I had meant you to have a honeymoon in Europe.”
“As if I cared!”
“Well, I care,” said he, with a sort of fierceness. “You deserve it. You deserve—Jacko, you deserve more than I can ever give you in all my life!” He met her eyes, which were bright with unshed tears. “No one like you, Jacko!” he ended huskily.
She made up her mind not to count upon that week together. She felt sure that something would happen to prevent it, that Miss Clarke wouldn’t let her go, that Barty would be detained by some important work.
Hers was the wildly unreasonable pessimism of a woman’s love. She foresaw the direst misfortunes, and was almost resigned to them. She was tired, too, after a long summer of hard work, and Miss Clarke was increasingly disagreeable to her. She was worried about Barty, worried about all sorts of absurd little things, so that she did not sleep well, and could scarcely tolerate the meals in her hotel. A whole week away somewhere with Barty? Impossible!
But on Sunday morning he actually came. She went upstairs and got her bag, which, with such wretched misgivings, she had packed the night before. She got into the taxi with Barty. His bag was in there. They really were going!
“But where?” she asked, like a happy child. “Where are we going, Barty?”
“Long Beach!” he said proudly. “You told me you liked it.”
“I do!” she assured him earnestly.
After all, what if they did happen to run across Mr. Terrill?
“I’ve engaged a room,” he went on, “for Mr. and Mrs. Leadenhall. If we see any one we know, all right. I’m pretty sick of this hole-and-corner business, anyhow.”
It was then that she noticed there was something wrong with Barty—something very wrong. There was about him an air of grim recklessness, almost of desperation. He was trying to be jolly, but he achieved only a strained sort of hilarity utterly foreign to him, and beyond measure distressing to Jacqueline. She watched him with growing anxiety, pretending to believe in[Pg 210]his pretense, but positively sick at heart with apprehension.
They went all the way down by taxi.
“Hang the expense!” he said. “I’ve worked for it!”
And she pretended to enjoy the trip. She was even jollier than Barty. She spurred on her anxious heart to a hectic gayety. She talked and laughed, always with her eyes on Barty’s face.
He had engaged not a room, but a suite of parlor, bedroom, and bath. Mentally she computed the cost of this, and was appalled; but even then she said nothing. If this was what Barty wanted, very well, she was glad he had it. If it gave him any joy to waste what he had worked so hard to get, very well, she would not spoil his week by a single remonstrance.
He was walking up and down the parlor, with his hands in his pockets, and Jacqueline was in the bedroom, unpacking her bag. She had said all the things she could think of in praise of the suite. While she tried to think of some more praise, a blank little silence had fallen.
“Jacko,” he said, “you—you really do like this, don’t you? You really will be happy here, won’t you—for this week?”
He spoke like a doomed man, as if this week was to be their last. He didn’t even try to smile. Jacqueline could not bear it.
“Barty,” she said, “aren’t you well?”
“Well?” he repeated, in surprise. “Of course I’m well! I’m always well!”
She hesitated for a moment. Then she got up and went into the parlor, barring his path, so that he had to stop short in his pacing; and she asked him the question that had been in the back of her mind all the time.
“Didn’t Mr. Stafford like your going away, Barty?”
“Who cares?” said he.
She hadn’t much doubt now.
“I’d like to know, though, Barty,” she said quietly. “I’d rather know.”
“I can’t see that it makes any difference what Stafford says or thinks. After all—”
“I want to know, Barty!”
It seemed to her that this was the first time she had really felt like Barty’s wife, with a wife’s dignity, a wife’s right to know what concerned her husband. She saw that he felt this, too, for his high-handed air was conspicuously absent.
“Well,” he said, “if you must know, he made the devil of a row.”
“Oh, Barty! But how unkind and unreasonable of him!”
“Well, you see,” said Barty reluctantly, “he’s sick, and—”
“Sick?”
“Some trouble with his eyes. Can’t use them for a week or so. He wanted me to put off going away.”
“Oh, why didn’t you? Why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t want to. I had told you we’d have this week together.”
“I’d have understood, Barty!”
“I know it; but, don’t you see, Jacko, you’re my wife, and you come first.”
She began to cry foolish tears of tenderness and pride.
“That was very rash and imprudent,” she began.
“I’m not prudent where you’re concerned,” said Barty, “and I’m sick of trying to be. If it hadn’t been that I had promised you not to tell any one, I’d have told Stafford then that I was going away with my wife.”
“What did you tell him, Barty?”
“Nothing.”
“You must have said something!”
“I told him I had made arrangements for a week’s holiday with a friend of mine, and I couldn’t put it off.”
Her moment of pride and delight was over now. She realized what had happened. For her sake he had left the friend to whom he owed so much at the time when that friend most needed him. It was the supreme proof of his love for her, but it was a proof which she must not and could not accept.
She gently pushed Barty into a chair. Then she sat on the arm of it and drew his head down against her heart; and with all the wisdom, all the ingenuity, all the art born of her love, she talked to him, argued, pleaded, warned, cajoled. There was dismay in her heart, but she was unwaveringly resolute, and she vanquished him.
Once more she took ruthless advantage of his masculine instinct to yield to the beloved woman whatever she asked. For the second time she safeguarded him to her own cost. Their love must be a help to him, not a handicap. She was not a weak, silly creature to be indulged and protected. She was his friend, his pal. She understood.
“I’ll stay here by myself,” she said, “and it’ll be a splendid rest for me. Of course, I’ll miss you, Barty, but we’ll write[Pg 211]to each other every day; and it won’t be very long before we shall be together all the time.”
She managed to say this without a tremor, and even with a smile; but Barty could not respond. Almost unconsciously, she had used two terribly potent arguments. She had evoked the sacred name of honor, telling him that he was in honor bound not to desert Stafford; and she had warned him that, in hazarding his future prospects, he was endangering her happiness as well as his own. With these weapons she had defeated him.
They went down into the dining room for lunch, and it was dust and ashes to them. They sat facing each other across a small table. Their eyes met, they tried to speak, but what was there to say?
This was not an episode. It had the air of a final tragedy. Their week, their one beautiful week, was lost! And they were so young, so honestly and utterly in love! That day, neither of them believed that happiness would ever come again.
As they were leaving the dining room, a man rose from one of the tables and bowed to Jacqueline.
“Who’s that?” asked Barty.
“Oh, I met him at Miss Clarke’s,” said Jacqueline.
At that moment Mr. Terrill was not of sufficient importance to have a name. He was less than nothing.
They went up to their suite again, and Barty put into his bag the few things he had unpacked so short a time before. Jacqueline helped him. She brushed his hair with his military brushes, she straightened his tie. She kissed him and sent him off with a smile.
“Oh, Barty! Oh, Barty!” she cried, after he had gone.
“Stopping here?” cried a delighted voice.
Odd, how people keep on existing, completely unaware how superfluous they are! Jacqueline turned from her contemplation of the moonlit sea to the vastly inferior spectacle of Mr. Terrill, and answered him as civilly as she could just then.
“Yes,” she said, “for a rest.”
“Not a very quiet place for a rest,” remarked Terrill.
“I don’t like quiet places,” Jacqueline replied impatiently.
He was charmed with this. The more unreasonable she was, the more he liked her.
“I enjoy a place like this,” he went on; “but not for a rest. What appeals to me is the stimulation one finds in a motley crowd like this.”
“Bah!” said Jacqueline, under her breath.
If he would only go away and leave her alone! His voice and his presence were an intolerable exasperation to her. She wanted Barty—and, failing Barty, she wanted to think of him undisturbed; but Mr. Terrill continued to exist, unabashed.
“It’s a curious thing,” he continued, “the transformation that certain qualities of light can effect. Of course, it’s been pretty thoroughly studied in the theater; but to the average mortal—well, moonlight, for instance. I’ve seen your face in lamplight and in the sunlight, but now, in the light of the moon—”
“It makes every one look ghastly, doesn’t it?” Jacqueline interrupted hastily. “I hate it!”
“Hate moonlight, Miss Miles?” said he, mildly reproachful.
“Yes!” she answered stoutly. “I’m not one of those sentimental idiots!”
He seemed to grasp her meaning, for he asked, in quite a different tone, cheerful and matter-of-fact, if he might come down to visit her while she was stopping here.
“Oh, but—” said Jacqueline, dismayed. “You see, Mr. Terrill, I—”
He waited patiently for the reason why he must not come to see Miss Miles, and she tried hard to think of one.
“Well,” she said lamely, “you probably wouldn’t find me at the hotel. I—I take long walks, and I shouldn’t like you to come all that way from the city, you know, and not find me.”
“I’d take a longer trip than that, any day,” said Terrill, “just on the chance of seeing you!”
She had to let that pass. There was no way of explaining to him; but she made up her mind that he should not find her in, whenever he might come.
The next morning she had a letter from Barty. He wrote:
You should have seen Stafford when I got back. There he was, sitting in the dark. I told him I’d thought better of it—took all the credit for your idea, little Jacko, but what else could I do?[Pg 212]I see now that you were right. It was so hard to leave you that I couldn’t see it then. All the way back on the train I was thinking things about you that you wouldn’t have liked. I thought you were a cold-blooded little beast to send me away like that; but after I’d seen poor old Stafford, I saw how right you were. You know, Jacko, I’d have given up Stafford, or anything else on earth, for that week with you, but you wouldn’t let me make a fool of myself. I’ve got it in me, you know, Jacko. I could make the most exalted, glorious sort of fool of myself, and I’d enjoy it; but you’ll always be my sensible little pal.
You should have seen Stafford when I got back. There he was, sitting in the dark. I told him I’d thought better of it—took all the credit for your idea, little Jacko, but what else could I do?[Pg 212]
I see now that you were right. It was so hard to leave you that I couldn’t see it then. All the way back on the train I was thinking things about you that you wouldn’t have liked. I thought you were a cold-blooded little beast to send me away like that; but after I’d seen poor old Stafford, I saw how right you were. You know, Jacko, I’d have given up Stafford, or anything else on earth, for that week with you, but you wouldn’t let me make a fool of myself. I’ve got it in me, you know, Jacko. I could make the most exalted, glorious sort of fool of myself, and I’d enjoy it; but you’ll always be my sensible little pal.
Jacqueline put down the letter and sat for a time staring before her, with a very odd expression on her face. Then she took it up and finished it.
Address letters in care of Jordan Galloway, Philipsville, Long Island. That is the nearest village, and I’ll go there for the mail whenever I get a chance; but don’t worry if you don’t hear from me every day, dear girl, because sometimes I may not be able to get into the village.
Address letters in care of Jordan Galloway, Philipsville, Long Island. That is the nearest village, and I’ll go there for the mail whenever I get a chance; but don’t worry if you don’t hear from me every day, dear girl, because sometimes I may not be able to get into the village.
And then many affectionate messages, and a check, “so that you can stay where you are for another week.”
This check was the first money Barty had ever given her. He had paid for things—dinners, taxis, and so on—and he had bought her presents, but this was different. If she was his friend, his pal, why should she let him do this?
He warned her in his letter not to swim out too far. They had often bathed together. She was a good swimmer, strong and sound of wind, and she knew Barty was proud of her; but she could not swim as well as he. He could always have outdistanced her easily, if he had wished, but the idea of competition had never occurred to them. They were pals, friends, equals; but in almost everything he was stronger and more skillful.
He earned four times as much as she, and he was going forward while she stood still. When they went walking, she always tired first. Whatever they undertook, he did better than she, and it seemed to them both so much a matter of course that she had never thought of it before.
She looked about her, at those rooms, so terribly empty without Barty. She had made him go. She had sent away her man, telling him that she could do without him; but could she? He would do very well with Stafford. He would enjoy himself, no doubt, but how was it with her, left alone here, and sick at heart, longing and longing for Barty?
Suppose she had done wrong not to let him be a “glorious fool”? Suppose it was all a mistake to try to be a pal?
Mr. Terrill did find her. He came across the beach to her, his thin, sensitive face bright with pleasure, and stood before her, hat in hand, looking down at her.
She was not sorry to see him. She had had no letter from Barty for three days. She had written to him every day—jolly, friendly little letters; and not a word from him! Three days!
“I went into the hotel and asked for you, Miss Miles,” said Terrill, “but they would have it that there was no Miss Miles stopping there.”
“How stupid!” murmured Jacqueline, with a smile; but at heart she was ashamed and distressed. “He ought to know,” she thought. “It’s not fair!”
But if he knew, what would he think of Barty?
“I came down in my car,” Terrill went on. “I thought perhaps you’d let me take you for a ride.”
“He’s got to know!” she thought. “Poor thing! At least I can give him some sort of hint.”
But he gave her no opportunity. He said nothing that could be seized upon as an excuse for mentioning that there was a Barty in the offing. It was his way of looking at her, the tone of his voice—intangible things which, of course, he meant her to notice. He very well knew that she did notice them, too.
It was a distressing situation, yet not without zest; for she was young and pretty, and when Mr. Terrill looked at her she felt ten times younger and prettier than when she sat on the sands alone and lonely. She tried not to like this, but she could not help it.
“We could run along the Motor Parkway,” he was saying, “turn off at Philipsville, and go—”
“Philipsville?”
“Yes. Do you know that route, Miss Miles?”
“No, Mr. Terrill,” said she.
He went on to describe the beauties of the trip he proposed. He need not have troubled. Any road that passed through Philipsville was of peculiar interest to Miss Miles. She accepted the invitation very graciously, and off they went.[Pg 213]
It was a bright, cool morning, early in September, still summer, with summer’s green beauty all about; yet in the air there was an indefinable hint that the end was coming. There was an invitation to haste, even to recklessness—to live in joy while the roads were still open, before the iron frost came.
Never had Mr. Terrill seen Miss Miles so charming. To be sure, she responded with frank mockery to his sentimental glances, but he could forgive that, because her mockery was so gay and so kindly. Indeed, he liked everything she said and everything she did. She was willful, lively, imperious, and he submitted gallantly to her least caprice. This went to Jacqueline’s head a little; she found it only too agreeable to be imperious.
She made him stop the car while she gathered goldenrod and purple asters. She made him halt at the top of a hill and sit there for a long time in silence, while she admired the view. His patience and meekness encouraged her to further boldness. She insisted upon getting out of the car in Philipsville, pretending that she found that very dull and commonplace little village “quaint.”
With the obliging Mr. Terrill she strolled down the drowsy, tree-shaded Main Street until she found what she was looking for—a sign reading “Jordan Galloway, groceries and hardware.” Mr. Galloway’s store she also acclaimed as “quaint.” She went in, and bought some wizened little apples by way of excuse for lingering; and, behind the corner of a calendar hanging on the wall, she saw a little sheaf of letters addressed to Barty in her own handwriting. Then he hadn’t troubled to come and get her letters!
She was glad that the store was so dim and shadowy, for she could not keep back the tears. Terrill was talking affably with the proprietor, and nobody was looking at her just then. She could struggle valiantly against her pain and bitterness, and could master them.
She had turned toward Terrill, outwardly quite cool and self-possessed again, and was about to suggest their going on, when a man came in—a man so incongruous in Philipsville that she at once suspected his identity. He was a tall, lean man, fastidiously dressed in a theatrical sort of camper’s outfit—a gray flannel shirt, tweed knickerbockers, and high boots, all fatally belied by his neat Vandyke beard, his delicate hands, his toploftical air. What was more, he was smoking a cigarette in a long ivory holder. It was scarcely necessary for Galloway to address him as “Mr. Stafford.” She had felt sure enough of that already.
“Er—we want potatoes, Galloway,” he said; “and—er—bread and bacon and coffee, and so on.”
He went over to the calendar, took down the letters, and put them into his pocket. Then he saw Jacqueline. His hand went involuntarily to his hat, but he was wearing none, so he bowed gravely instead.
“Er—Galloway!” he said. “I’m in no hurry. Attend to the lady first.”
“Thank you,” said Jacqueline, “but I’ve finished. I was only going to ask if any one here would be kind enough to tell me where the old Veagh house is. I wanted to see that doorway.”
“No! Really?” cried Stafford. “Upon my word, that’s very interesting! You’ll pardon me, but do you mind telling me where you heard of that doorway?”
“I read about it,” said Jacqueline simply, “in a book by Luther Stafford, ‘Vistas of Enchantment.’”
“No!” he cried, his dark face all alight. “Please allow me to introduce myself—Luther Stafford, the writer of that little book.”
So it came about that Mr. Terrill and Mr. Stafford were presented to each other. When the enthusiastic Stafford suggested it, Terrill drove them all in the car to see the doorway of the old Veagh house; but he was singularly lukewarm about that architectural relic, and he did not even pretend to share in Miss Miles’s hitherto unsuspected passion for old doorways.
No—he simply drove the car, and Miss Miles and Stafford sat on the back seat. He heard them talking. Miss Miles was not imperious now. She was so sweet, so gentle, so serious, so humbly anxious to be instructed. She seemed to possess such a surprising acquaintance with architectural terms!
And all the time Jacqueline was praying in her heart:
“Oh, let me make him like me! Oh, please, let me make him like me!”
If she could only win Stafford’s unqualified approval, think what it might mean to Barty and herself! She had never wanted anything so much in her life before.[Pg 214]
Barty had often told her that Stafford was the most thoroughly likable fellow he had ever met; but, hearing of the famous architect’s high-strung nerves, his squeamishness, his minor affectations, she had privately doubted the soundness of this estimate. Now she understood, however. His fine enthusiasm for his art, his eagerness to share it, his spontaneous courtesy, and, above all, something generous and frank and indisputably great that was obvious in all that he said and did, won her immediate respect and liking. And, oh, how she wanted him to like her!
As they drove away from the abandoned farmhouse, it occurred to Stafford that the sun was going down the sky.
“By George!” he cried, alarmed. “Iaman idiot! It ’ll be dark now, and I have all that stuff to carry back! The young chap who’s with me is laid up—”
“Laid up?” cried Jacqueline.
“Yes, or he’d have come with me; but now—”
“What’s the matter with him?” Jacqueline demanded fiercely.
Her tone made Stafford turn toward her, and Terrill threw a startled glance over his shoulder.
“Why, it’s nothing much,” replied Stafford, puzzled. “He caught his foot in an old trap that was buried under some leaves.”
“Is it serious?”
“No, it isn’t—not if it’s properly looked after.”
“What are you doing for it?”
He looked at her with a faint frown, and her eyes met his steadily.
“I want to know,” she said bluntly, “because I’m Barty Leadenhall’s wife.”
There was a long silence. The sun had vanished now, and the dusty road before them was somber under the deepening shadow of the trees. The sky was pallid, the world was without light or color, and a terrible oppression had suddenly descended upon Jacqueline.
She no longer saw this episode as a gay little comedy. It was very close to tragedy. Her high spirits of the afternoon seemed to her now only heartless flippancy, tarnishing the dignity of her wifehood.
“Then you’re the friend he went away with?” asked Stafford.
“Yes,” she answered.
“And—did you send him back to me?”
Her face flushed.
“He didn’t need sending,” she said. “He wanted to go. He—”
“I see!” said Stafford, and again he was silent for a long time. “I think you’d better come back with me,” he said at last.
“But—you mean—now?” cried Jacqueline. “I don’t see how—”
Terrill turned his head, only for an instant, just long enough for her to see on his face a smile she never forgot.
“I would if I were you, Mrs. Leadenhall,” he said. “Set your mind at rest about—your husband.”
There was nothing in his voice but honest, chivalrous kindness. He did not resent her trickery, he did not despise her. He was only kind—so kind that in the dusk she wept a little to herself.
They set off together across the fields. Stafford was burdened with a tremendous sack, which he did not know how to carry properly. Jacqueline could have given him good advice, for she had had five years’ experience of girls’ camps; but she tactfully refrained.
Whenever they came to an unusually rough bit of the trail, Stafford took her arm, to render her assistance, which she did not in the least require; but she accepted it with polite gratitude. There was absolutely nothing of the pal in Stafford. He would only have thought the less of her for knowing how to carry heavy sacks, and for being able to look out for herself.
A canoe was waiting for them at the head of a lake. As a matter of course Jacqueline took up the second paddle, but Stafford earnestly entreated her to put it down. He paddled in a very amateurish fashion, and she could have done much better; but she held her tongue, and listened to Stafford while he reassured her about Barty.
Barty’s foot had not been badly injured in the first place, and it was now almost healed.
“He’s walking about,” said Stafford. “He could just as well have come to-day, but I thought I’d like to try it alone.”
The shores of the lake, where trees and bushes grew, were densely black, but in the center of the lake there was a dim reflection of the moonlight, though the moon itself was not yet visible. It was very still. The woods were all alive with bird, beast, and insect, and the water beneath the canoe[Pg 215]was teeming with life, but no sound reached their human ears but the dip of the paddle. Stafford’s voice broke the stillness.
“There used to be Indians here,” he said.
A singularly inept remark for a man of his intelligence, yet in Jacqueline’s mind it conjured up the most vivid images. She turned her eyes toward the dark woods.
The naked, copper-colored figures which had passed by there, silent as the beasts themselves, the other canoes which had sped through these waters; and after them their enemy, the paleface—an enemy inferior in strength and endurance, ignorant of the forest ways, utterly alien here, and yet, because of the invincible spirit in him, always conquering. Indian and pioneer, warriors, hunters, killers—and behind them the faithful, patient shadow of the burden bearer, the woman. Squaw woman and white woman, carrying babies in their arms or on their backs, their own God-given burdens; and always with other burdens, too—the homely implements of daily life laid upon the shoulders of women, so that the hands of the men might be free for their weapons.
It had to be so. Only by the strong arm of her man could the woman and her child live; but all that was over and done with. Where civilization was established, woman was the friend and equal of man.
Jacqueline moved a little, uneasy and resentful at the thoughts that came to her. Those half legendary loves that were the glory of the civilized world, those names which had, after hundreds of years, still the power to stir the heart—RomeoandJuliet, Hero and Leander,PaulandVirginia—magic names of imperishable glamour and beauty! All good pals, weren’t they? All the women for whom men had ventured sublime and terrible things, the women who had inspired the heroic undertakings of history and romance, the women for whom men had gladly died—all good pals, weren’t they?
A pal? The nearest approach to a pal was the Indian squaw. She had shared her man’s life, she had been his indispensable helper, and the humble, unconsidered bearer of his burdens. The whole idea was a turning back, a renunciation of something lofty and beautiful for something commonplace and inferior. Barty had wanted to be a lover, and she made him a comrade. He had asked for bread, and she had given him a stone. He had longed for the high romance and glory of life, and she had said they couldn’t afford it. She had tried to keep his money in his pockets for him. She had kept his spirit pinned to the earth.
The sack had bumped poor Stafford black and blue. With a weary sigh he flung it across the other shoulder—and whack, those stony potatoes caught him on the left leg. But he was nearly there now. That silly, adorable girl must have had plenty of time to make her explanation to Barty. Stafford had sent her on ahead from the landing stage with an electric flash light. It was only a short half mile over a good trail, and he was only a little way behind her, never out of hearing of a call. He thought that she ought to see Barty alone. They must arrange their own affairs in their own pathetic, blundering way.
Whack! This time just behind the knee. Stafford flung the sack on the ground and began to drag it after him. Let happen what might, he had the tobacco safely in his pocket. If further meals depended upon carrying that accursed sack any more, then he preferred never to eat again.
Ah! He saw the flare of the camp fire now.
“Hallo-o-o, Barty!” he shouted.
“Halloo-o-o, Stafford!” Barty responded cheerfully. “What’s been keeping you so late? I was beginning to get a bit uneasy.”
Stafford made no answer, but came on at a very much quickened pace, dragging the sack behind him over the rough ground.
“Leadenhall!” he said. He stood still, looking anxiously about him. The flickering light of the fire illumined a small cleared space in the dark woodland, and there was no one there but Barty. “Didn’t some one else come?” he demanded sharply.
“Some one else?” said Barty, with a laugh. “Expecting callers?”
Then Stafford told him.
At first it seemed to Barty preposterous, and even a little annoying, that the alert and self-reliant Jacko should have got herself lost in this fashion. The trail up from the landing was perfectly clear and easy to follow, and Stafford had given her his flash light.
Barty went all the way down to the lake again, calling her name. Then, as he stood on the shore of the black water, the note in his voice changed. A fitful wind had sprung up, driving clouds across the face of the moon. The trees stirred and sighed.[Pg 216]No matter what feminine folly had induced her to leave the trail, shehadleft it. She was gone, beyond reach of his voice. Which way?
He remembered Stafford’s words—hard words for a young man of his temper to swallow.
“You accepted the responsibility for her life and her happiness,” Stafford had said; “and you left her—a young, lovely thing like that. I think you failed her pretty badly, Leadenhall!”
It was Barty’s way to hold his tongue, and he had held his tongue then, but he had thought.
“I tried to please her and I tried to please you,” was what he thought; “and I’m hanged if either of you know what you want. All right—Ido!”
So he had set off in a grim and dogged humor. Of course, he was glad—very glad—that Stafford had found Jacko so charming. Of course he did not object to her going about with that fellow named Terrill—certainly not! He trusted Jacko absolutely, and he was glad she had been able to amuse herself a little; only it was a queer sort of gladness. Of course, he wanted to be fair to his little pal.
“Jacko!” he shouted.
His lusty voice died away across the lake, and nothing answered. The canoe was still there, so she couldn’t have gone back. She must have turned off the trail into the woods. It was not a cold night; and there was nothing there that could hurt her. Barty said that over and over again to himself as he turned back—not along the trail, but through the whispering wood.
His flash light threw a valiant little pathway through the surrounding darkness. He stopped every now and then to call her. He limped painfully, and because of his injured foot he had on soft moccasins, not good for going over stones and broken branches; but he could have gone barefoot over red-hot plowshares then, and scarcely known it.
What, nothing here to hurt her—little Jacko, alone in the black shadow of the whispering trees—in the forest, where the old enemies, the nameless and formless things, never wholly forgotten by the most civilized heart, still lurked? He saw the wood not with his own eyes, but with Jacko’s. Little Jacko, with her eager, beautiful gait, her gallant little head held so high, and her pitiful youth and slightness!
“Jacko!” he shouted in anguish. “Jacko!”
He was in a panic now, trying to run, stumbling and falling, whirling the flash light in a wide circle, shouting until his voice was hoarse and strange. There was no fear, however baseless, that he did not feel for her now, no disaster that he did not foresee.
And at last he heard her. Her voice answered his.
“Here, Barty!” she called faintly.
He found her sunk on the ground in a heap, under a tree, white and limp.
“I got lost, Barty,” she said, with a sob. “I’m—sorry!”
He caught her up in his arms and held her strained against his heart. The flash light had fallen to the ground, and he could not see her face.
“Are you hurt?” he cried. “Jacko, are you hurt?”
She flung her arms round his neck and drew down his head. He felt tears on her cheeks. He was filled with a sublime and almost intolerable tenderness for this beloved creature, clinging to him. He had no words. He could only hold her close in his arms and kiss her cold face again and again.
“Barty!” she said. “Your foot! Let me down!”
But he would not. He carried her back to the camp, and he did not stumble or falter once. White and haggard with exhaustion, he came staggering into the friendly firelight with Jacko in his arms, her face hidden on his shoulder, her dark hair hanging loose over his arm.
When he set her down, and she looked at him, she did not regret his pain, his weariness, or the fear he had felt for her. On his face there was a look that she would never forget—an exultation, a sort of splendor that stirred her beyond all measure. This was his hour, the hour that was due him, his hour of supreme effort and glorious victory.
He could not quite suppress a groan as he turned aside, for his foot throbbed horribly; but she knew that he was glad to endure it for her, that it was his right and his pride so to endure for the woman he loved. For the sake of his love she had done this for him. She had strayed away so that he might find her anew, so that they might start all over again, with the past effaced and the future all before them.[Pg 217]
Barty came limping toward her with a plate of unduly solid flapjacks that he himself had cooked. He was followed by Stafford with a cup of ferociously strong coffee. Both of them were so anxious, so concerned, so busy doing clumsily what Jacqueline could have done so easily herself. What she longed to do was to throw her arms about Barty’s neck, to tell him that she did not want him to wait on her and serve her, but to let her help him and share everything, good or bad, with him.
But she stifled that longing. As he stood before her, she looked up into his face with a smile—a strange and beautiful smile which he did not quite understand.[Pg 218]
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
MAY, 1925Vol. LXXXIVNUMBER 4
[Pg 219]
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
THE gates were opened, and the crowd went shuffling and pushing out of the dim ferry house. Fleet and glittering motor cars shot by, and after them came thundering trucks, and great dray horses with earth-shaking tramp—the whole world going by on parade, until it seemed that only an enchanted ship could hold all of it. Then bells clanged and winches rattled, the gates shut before Miss Riordan’s nose, and off went the boat, with the world aboard, leaving in its wake a strip of foaming water that after a while grew tranquil and a lucent green.
Miss Riordan turned back and began to saunter up and down the ferry house. She wore an annoyed expression. She was a cruel lady, frowning upon the tardiness of her cavalier, who was doubtless rushing to her from somewhere, breathless and humbly apologetic.
“I am here,” she said in effect, “and I may as well wait, but it shall never happen again—never!”
Two boats gone! That meant forty minutes.
“Well, of course, I came too early,” she reflected. “That makes it seem longer; but I just won’t wait after the next one.”
She knew she would, though. He knew it, too—knew he would find her there. He would come when it suited him, and there she would be, waiting for him.
“He makes me sick!” she said to herself, with a sudden rush of tears. “Who does he think he is, anyway? I bet, if everything was known—”
But she hoped the time would never come when everything was known, even if it should effect the well deserved humiliation of Mr. Louis Pirini.
On the Day of Judgment there would be an angel with an immense book. He would ask you questions, and write down your answers in letters of fire; but he would know the right answers beforehand, or have them on file somewhere, so you’d have to be careful what you said. It was a comfort to think, though, that if that time came, you would be purely a soul, without bodily contours, and certainly without age. Miss Riordan was not very clear in mind about her sins, but she knew well enough which were the things that filled her with the greatest shame and guilt—her age and her physical luxuriance.
“Well, anyhow, I don’t look it!” she said forlornly to herself. “He don’t really know. He just tries to tease me—but I don’t care!”
The energy she was obliged to expend in not caring for the humorous remarks of Mr. Louis Pirini was, however, a considerable drain upon her nervous system. Usually she was able to laugh when he did; but sometimes he was too mean, and then she cried—a weakness she dreaded beyond measure. Always, whether she laughed or cried, when he was with her and when he was absent, she was filled with a passionate resentment against him.
Her grievances had grown monstrous; her heart was bursting with them. Sometimes, when she lay awake at night, she thought that the only good thing in the world would be to “get even” with him.
But Mr. Pirini was safe as an immortal god from her vengeance. There was no conceivable way in which she could hurt him. She couldn’t retaliate by making unpleasant remarks about his personal appearance, because they both knew that he was superb. She could not shame him by reminding him of all she had done for him—she had tried that once. She couldn’t even tell any one of her own generosity and[Pg 220]his vile ingratitude. On the contrary, she felt obliged to lie quite wildly. When she bought anything new, she pretended that Louis had given it to her. When they went out together, she pretended that it was his treat.
“And he just stands there grinning!” she thought. “All I’ve done for him, and look how he acts! Look at last Sunday, down to Coney, when we met Sadie. She’s seen me and Louis going together nearly a year. It was perfectly natural for her to say was him and me going to get married; and what did he up and say, after all I’ve done for him? ‘Sure we are,’ he says, ‘when hell freezes over!’ I’d just like to have told Sadie a thing or two about him!”
Unattainable consolation! She couldn’t ever tell any one, for nobody would understand. She did not even care to bring the matter to the attention of God prematurely, for she feared He would not consider all the evidence, but would give a judgment based upon one or two salient facts; and the facts were somehow so insignificant, compared with her feelings.
Twelve minutes, now, before the next boat. A sort of panic seized her. He mustn’t come and discover her walking up and down like this, as if she were impatient, as if she were eagerly waiting for him. No—she would be found reading something with profound interest, unconscious of the passing of time, of the waste of this Saturday afternoon, so precious to her after a week’s work in the factory.
She sauntered up to the news stand and fluttered over the pages of a magazine. She thought it was “high-class,” and yet it was full of pictures. She paid for it, and sat down on a bench.
“Well, I read a lot of good things in school,” she reflected, always on the defensive. “‘Hiawatha,’ and all that. I was real good in English.”
She turned to an article on Turkey, a country which she thought immoral and interesting, but it was difficult to divert her attention from her feet. Funny, the way they hurt more when you were sitting down than when you were walking!
“Maybe I might have took a half a size longer,” she reflected. “Well, anyways! This shiny paper kind of hurts my eyes. It’s an awful foolish thing to wear glasses—makes you look so much older; only they do say it gives you wrinkles to squint.”
Wistfully she looked at the photograph of a group of Turkish beauties. Certainly they were all stout, but somehow it was a different sort of stoutness; and their eyes, their languorous, ardent eyes.
“Yes, but I bet if everything was known—” thought Miss Riordan.
Just then she became aware that some one was looking at her—some one who had sat down beside her. She began to assume various expressions of interest in her magazine. She frowned, as if absorbed. She raised her eyebrows, amazed. She smiled and shook her head, incredulous. Then, as she turned the page, she cast a furtive sidelong glance, to see who it was.
It was a little old man with a woeful face. His wrinkled brow, his hanging jowls, and his sad, dim old eyes gave him rather the look of a superannuated hound. Perhaps he was pathetic, but not to Miss Riordan. She was very angry. She stared at him in haughty surprise, and turned back to her magazine; but she could still feel his eyes fixed upon her.
“The nerve of the man!” she thought indignantly.
Presently he moved a little nearer and cleared his throat, as if about to speak. This time she gave him a look calculated to destroy; but, just the same, he did speak.
“I see you are readingTravel,” he said.
She glared at him.
“I have had the honor of contributing one or two articles to that publication,” he went on. “Little sketches of my various journeys; but after all—” He smiled. “After all,” he said, “east or west, home is best. I always return to Staten Island with renewed appreciation.”
Miss Riordan was perturbed. She did not wholly understand this speech, but she was impressed, and she was embarrassed. Clearly she had misjudged this man. There was no occasion here for haughty glances. He was venerable.
“Yes,” he continued, “I find a rare combination of beauties in Staten Island. The stirring panorama of the bay, with ships from the four corners of the earth, the drowsy little hamlets, and the hills. The words of our national anthem have always seemed to me peculiarly applicable to the island—‘I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills.’ May I ask if you are a resident?”
“You mean do I live there? Well, no,” said Miss Riordan. “I just go there sometimes, with my friend.[Pg 221]”
“Ah!” said he. “There are so many delightful rambles—hilltop vistas which linger long in the memory.”
Miss Riordan and her friend were in the habit of taking the train at St. George and going direct to South Beach. The vistas on that journey had not appealed to her as memorable, nor had her rambles along the boardwalk been especially delightful; but she did not care to say so.
“I like the country,” she observed timidly, and was enchanted to see by his face that this pleased him.
He went on talking—which was what she desired. She would have sat there for hours, listening to him. Never had she heard such words, never imagined such refinement. She was filled with reverence that was almost awe. And when he talked poetry!
He quoted in his tremulous old voice: