CHAPTER XVIIA Golden Moment
ANDY McFARDELL’S drift was infinitely more rapid than appeared. The current of indolence was strong in him, and, to a nature such as his, it was irresistible. Since the day of the visit of Molly Marton to his homestead, and, later, the infinitely less welcome visit of Lightning, not another rod of seeding had been done, in spite of the week of perfect weather that had passed over his head.
The simple truth was that Andy McFardell belonged to a type to which discipline is an essential, to which it is sheer salvation. Robbed of the iron rule of the Mounted Police the man had quickly degenerated to the condition of a storm driven, rudderless, derelict. Inclination swayed him like the yielding grass on a wind-swept plain. The sturdy resistance of the forest tree was impossible to him. His moods impelled, and he drifted before them.
The drift had set for sheer and growing indolence where his farm was concerned. The fierce enthusiasm which had first supported him, had died out like the fitful blaze of an unfed camp-fire. And with its passing only the ashes of all that was best in him remained behind.
Two purposes dominated him entirely just now. The one was the thing which the shrewd mind of Lightning had suggested. And the other was the storm of passion which Molly Marton had set stirring in his selfish soul.
Molly’s visit had served him with further excuse. It had served him with another three days of respite from the work of his farm; with another three days of BarneyLake’s hotel at Hartspool; another three days of the allurements of its poker game and Rye whisky. He had forthwith ridden into the township to obtain the tickets necessary for the farmers’ dance.
On his return home there was not the smallest pretence of making up his leeway of neglected work. He was glad enough to continue his drift. He had obtained the tickets. He must forthwith convey the news to Molly and obtain her definite reassurance that she would let him take her to the dance.
He found Molly in her hay corral. She was at work in sun-bonnet and cotton overall, clearing the ground with rake and fork, and making ready for the new cut of hay, which operation was the next in the routine of the year’s labours.
He had ridden hard. And when he drew rein at the corral fence the horse under him was pretty badly tuckered. It was caked with sweat and dust on the matted remains of its thick winter coat, and looked generally the mean thing that McFardell’s neglect had reduced it to.
Had the rider been any other, the smiling eyes under the girl’s sun-bonnet would have been full of serious condemnation. But with Andy McFardell’s coming the girl’s heart was beating high. She was concerned only with the portent of his visit, and thinking of the wonderful secret which lay between her and that kindly, generous, stranger-woman, Blanche.
“Why, Andy,” she cried. “I just hadn’t a notion you’d get along so soon. Is—is it all—fixed? The dance, I mean? You—you got the tickets?”
The man laughed as he slid out of the saddle. Molly was all eagerness.
“Doesn’t that beat it?” he cried, in mock amazement. “Say, I’ve ridden hell-for-leather, worried to death guessing. You see, I’d paid for two tickets and hadn’tdefinite word from you I was to take you along in to that dance.”
He laughingly threw up his hands, and Molly came to the corral rail and rested her folded arms upon it. She was more than content.
Andy was good enough for any woman to gaze upon. In the saddle he had none of the horsemanship of Lightning, in spite of the latter’s sixty years. But he had the military seat of the Police. He was clad in a loose cotton shirt, with sleeves rolled above the elbows. His breeches were the uniform breeches of the Police, with the yellow stripe removed, and they fitted closely over his sturdy limbs. His top boots, too, belonged to his police days. So, too, the heavy, rusted steel spurs upon his heels.
But it was neither his clothing, nor his horsemanship which concerned Molly at that moment. It was his good-looking face, the sturdy breadth of his shoulders, and the fine muscles of his arms which stirred her simple heart so deeply.
She ducked under the rail and came to him.
“Why,” she laughed slily, “my mind was fixed directly I quit you.”
Andy shook his head.
“But not before. You left me guessing,” he said reproachfully. Then he glanced swiftly about him. “Where’s Lightning?”
Never in her life had laughter more impelled Molly. She felt somehow she wanted to laugh all the time.
“Out on the ploughing,” she cried. “He’s breaking a new five acres.”
Andy pulled an envelope from the pocket of his shirt. He opened it and drew out the contents. And the while he was watching the play of interest and expectancy on the girl’s expressive face. He passed her the gaudily got up tickets, and waited while she read down the letter press.
“Fi’ dollars!” she breathed in consternation, as she came to the price of the ticket. Then she looked up incredulously. “You paid fi’ dollars for each? Fi’ dollars for—me? Oh, Andy!”
The man laughed.
“Why not?” he cried, a hot light leaping into his eyes. “I’d do more than that any day. I’d hand out everything, if it left me without a cent in the world—for you. You see, little girl, I want to hand you a real swell time. Dancing don’t mean a lot to me. With a girl it’s surely diff’rent. Say, Molly, you just don’t know the thing you’ve been to me around these hills. I’d never have got through or made good without you. Say——”
The man’s words had come quickly. His tone rang with a sincerity which, at the moment, was completely real. And as he made a sudden movement towards her, a movement which there could be no mistaking, the passion in his dark eyes was an expression of the stirring of his whole manhood.
The girl stood like some simple, defenceless, fascinated creature. And only a wealth of rich colour dyed the soft roundness of her cheeks, and a shy responsive gladness lit her big eyes. Coquetry was impossible to her. So, too, was any girlish, unmeant denial. The passion of love she had nursed ever since her great realisation well-nigh suffocated her. It completely robbed her of all power for connected thought and speech.
For Molly the next few moments were filled with a wild rush of confused emotions, and unutterable happiness. It seemed to her that life could never again afford her a moment of delight comparable with that through which she was passing. She hardly knew; she certainly did not pause to think. For one wild moment she was caught and tightly held in the arms which had never failed to stir her admiration. She seemed to feel, in the delirium of it all, the strong beating of the man’s heart against hers.Then came those kisses upon her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, her forehead. And as she abandoned herself to them her young heart was driving fiercely to make return.
Then—then—it was over. She had released herself, and she knew not how or why. Her returning senses revealed to her his passion-lit eyes gazing down into hers. Her bosom was heaving in a tumult of emotion, and every limb of her body was a-shake. But happiness, supreme happiness that was well-nigh exaltation, thrilled her. Life seemed at the very pinnacle of its amazing beauty.
In that brief, delirious moment of spiritual expression Molly’s whole world had somehow become transfigured. Everything was changed. Her whole life had changed out of the even, unemotional calm she had hitherto known. It seemed as if a great new light were shining somewhere deep down in her soul, diffusing wonderful rays to the uttermost extremities of her being, lighting a path of unspeakable joy down the channels of her senses. The golden sunlight of the day about her had intensified. It had become doubly brilliant and more full of meaning. The old homestead, so full of the calm beauty of her childhood’s sheltered happiness, the very trees and hills about it, all these, everything, had doubled the depth of their concern for her innocent mind.
Then the man with his passionate eyes, his strong arms, and sturdy body. He, too, had shared in the transformation. No longer was he the struggling object of her girlish pity; no longer was he a creature who had played the cruel rôle of fortune’s shuttle-cock. All that was wiped out. It was all brushed away by the gilded artistry that had re-adorned her vision of life. He was the golden superman of her soul, crowned with the sublime halo of her young love.
They both stood speechless. Then at last it was the man who broke the silence.
“You—aren’t mad with me, Molly?” he asked, still holding her by the hands that were so soft and warm in his. But his tone was without the doubt his words implied, and his smile was full of confidence.
Molly shook her head. Then she released her hands which moved in a queer little gesture that told so much.
“Oh, Andy!” she cried. And the exclamation seemed to set loose the tide of her surging feelings. “Mad with—you? You? Oh, no. How could I be? I—I love you, Andy. Why,” she added with innocently widening eyes, “I guess I’ve loved you right along always, just always.”
The man’s gaze had been averted as though something of the girl’s innocence abashed him. But in a moment it came back swiftly, hotly. His hands were flung out, and he caught Molly up again in his arms. He held her crushed closely to him, and talked between the kisses which he rained upon her up-turned face.
“I just know, little girl,” he cried thickly. “I surely know it all. I been through it. It’s been the same here, right from the first, when you happened along with me opening out my clearing. I haven’t ever been able to forget. I didn’t want to anyway. I——”
He broke off in a fashion that startled the girl in his arms. And a sudden twinge of alarm shot through her senses. She looked up into the face she loved, and realised that the whole expression of it had changed. The eyes were cold and hard, and they were searching the distant bluff round which the grass-trail to the ploughing skirted.
It required no second thought to tell her the meaning of the change. Besides, there was a sound upon the warm air, the sound of the rattle of chain harness and plodding hoofs.
“It’s Lightning,” she said, recovering herself.
Andy’s arms fell from about her. And together theystood searching the bluff. Presently they beheld Jane and Blue Pete appear from amongst the tree-trunks. And Jane’s capacious back was bearing the grotesque burden of the old choreman with his guns. He was sitting sideways on her vast expanse of rounded breadth, and his heavily-booted feet were dangling.
Molly spoke quickly, anxiously.
“It’s just dinner, Andy,” she said. “You’ll stop around an’ eat?”
She knew Lightning’s antagonism, and she wanted to make sure before the old man came up.
But Andy shook his head unsmilingly.
“I just can’t stop around, little kid,” he said quietly, his eyes still on the team with its queer burden.
“Why?”
Molly was disappointed, and her disappointment found expression in her monosyllable.
Andy shrugged. Then he moved over to his horse and busied himself at the cinchas of his “condemned” police saddle. He spoke over his shoulder.
“No, sweetheart,” he said quietly, but decidedly. “It’s no use. I got to get right back to work. If I stop around to eat the day’ll be gone before I make home, and ther’s the—seeding. Besides——”
“Yes?”
Andy indicated the choreman who was crossing the open towards them. Then, quite abruptly, he turned from his saddle and held out his hand in farewell. He was smiling, and his smile told Molly that his action was for the benefit of the man who was observing them as he came.
“No,” he said, in a tone intended for Lightning’s ears. “I won’t stop around to eat. You see, I just got along to fix things with you, and tell you I’d got the tickets for the dance. There’s a week. Just a week for you to fix your party frock in. You’ll fix it good, eh?” he laughed.“You see, we hill folks need to show the town dames. I fancy you being a real show-up to ’em.”
He had swung into the saddle, and Molly laughed happily. He had said the one thing that gave her the opportunity she needed. In spite of her feelings and emotions of the moment the memory of Blanche’s visit, Blanche, with wonderful generosity for all she was a stranger, still stood out in her mind a matter of tremendous moment. Her femininity was abounding. Nothing in the world, it seemed, was left that could add one tittle to her happiness.
Her eyes were dancing as Lightning came up, and the great team halted of its own accord. The old man remained where he was on the mare’s back, while some form of greeting passed between the home team and the stranger. He barely even responded to Andy’s nod of greeting.
“Don’t worry, boy,” Molly cried airily. “I’ll sure be fixed right. I’ll be wearing a swell gown. I certainly will. When’s the day?”
Lightning spat out a chew, and took a fresh bite at a fragment of plug he drew from his hip pocket. But his hard old eyes remained fixed on the other man’s face as though he were reading him down to the depths of his very soul. He uttered no word. Not a single word.
“Thursday. I’ll be along with the spring wagon.”
Lightning’s jaws chewed harder as Andy made his reply. There was not the flicker of an eyelid to indicate that which was passing behind his stony regard.
Molly was becoming uneasy at the old man’s silence. She wanted to force him into speech. But she refrained, fearing the result.
“So long, Molly.”
Andy raised a hand in salutation, and his horse stirred as he lifted his reins. “Thursday—sure.”
Molly gazed smilingly up into the man’s face under the cold gaze of the silent Lightning.
“Thursday—sure,” she responded. “So long, Andy.”
The horse moved off, and Andy McFardell glanced round at the choreman.
“So long, Lightning. I’m going after that matter—after Thursday.”
But the old man still made no reply. He sat there on his old mare’s back stolidly intent and watchful. His unfriendliness was adamant. And Molly became completely alarmed.
Andy rode off. His way took him up past the barn, and he disappeared beyond it, round the lean-to workshop, and headed eastwards for his home.
The moment he had passed out of view Molly turned on Lightning who had slid down from Jane’s broad back. A flush dyed her pretty cheeks, and an angry sparkle lit her eyes.
“I—I won’t stand for it, Lightning!” she cried, stamping her foot on the hard, dusty ground. “It’s mean. It’s so mean I can’t believe it. He’s been right into Hartspool and paid five dollars for my ticket. He’s paid that for me! Just to hand me a swell time. I——”
“Don’t ’ee do it, Molly, gal. Just don’t ’ee do it.”
Lightning was transformed. All the stony light of his eyes had changed to one of humble pleading as he stood before the child he loved better than life itself. His lean face seemed suddenly to have become more deeply lined, and his tatter of whisker looked more than usually grotesque and pathetic. His hands were outheld in appeal.
“Fer the love o’ yer dead father, Molly, don’t ’ee go fer to do it,” he went on. “He’s bad. He’s rotten——”
“Don’t dare say it, Lightning! Don’t ever dare say it. He’s not bad. He’s—oh!”
Molly broke off with an exclamation of supreme disgustand helpless indignation. And she fled headlong towards the house as though Lightning’s very presence were something she could no longer endure.
The old man gazed after her. Then the yearning in his eyes gave place to an expression which no thought of Molly could have inspired. He turned to his team, and it was the comfortable, gentle Jane he led, and addressed, as he moved towards the barn.
“It ain’t no use, old gal,” he said, with a shake of his grizzled head. “I’ll sure jest hev to do it one day.”
He hunched his shoulders in the fashion peculiar to him.
“Guess I ain’t blind yet, an’ my nerve’s dead steady, an’ I’m surely glad that’s so.”