CHAPTER XXIIIBlanche Learns the Truth
IT was noon when Blanche rode up to the barn, to be greeted by a glance of genuine admiration which the old cattleman divided between the golden sorrel and its rider.
She nodded with great friendliness as Lightning bared his head. Then she lightly slipped out of the saddle, and looked up into the keen old eyes.
“Molly gotten back from her dance?” she inquired.
Lightning took possession of her horse. Stooping, he ran a comprehending hand down the creature’s forelegs.
“She surely has, ma’am,” he said. “She’s by the house. An’ I’d say she’s most like a pore tired kid yearnin’ for a play game she don’t know about.” He straightened himself up. “I’d say, them legs is clean as a gun bar’l, ma’am.”
Blanche nodded. Lightning’s downright love of horseflesh appealed to her.
“He surely is a gentleman,” she laughed.
“A king, ma’am,” the old man corrected. “I’ll hand him a rub-down an’ feed him good,” he went on. “You’ll be makin’ the house right away?” His gaze passed to a thoughtful contemplation of Molly’s storm doorway. “I guess you’ll feel most like sayin’ a piece that’ll set Molly, gal, in sperrits?”
Blanche smiled into his earnest face.
“I surely will,” she said, turning and passing on up to the house.
The thing lying behind the old cattleman’s words was soon made apparent to Blanche. It was there in the troubled eyes of Molly as she struggled hard to smile a warmth of real welcome.
Molly was at work. She had spent the morning in almost feverish effort. And it was an expression of a mind that was endeavouring to escape from itself. Molly was full of simple gratitude to this stranger who had so suddenly and even mysteriously, come into her life. And almost her first words were of thanks.
But the girl’s appearance shocked Blanche. She was wholly unprepared for anything beyond the reaction of a glorious social adventure. Molly looked ill. And it seemed to Blanche that all the sunny enthusiasm, all the happy youth, of which she had carried away such a vivid impression after their first meeting, were entirely lacking. To her mind, if Molly had encountered some terrible grief rather than participated in the riotous delight of her first dance, her spirits and appearance could not have suffered more.
Her concern found almost instant expression.
“Why, child,” she exclaimed, “you look like a little ghost.” Then she shook her head. “The belle of the Hartspool ball never looked like that last night, I’ll wager. Was the floor bad? Was the music a dirge? Did your frock get mussed? Tell me.”
Molly denied with so much vehemence and endeavour to convince that she completely failed to allay the other’s apprehension.
But Blanche had come there with a very definite purpose in her mind. She had come to learn all she could from Molly of the man who had taken her into the Hartspool dance. But she was too much a woman for that to be the whole object that had entailed many miles in the saddle over a territory that was without trail or track of any sort. No. Her visit was for the girl’ssake, too, and for the sake of the gossip and happy chatter of the glorious time she had helped to provide her with.
But Blanche was foredoomed to disappointment. Molly’s dispiritedness was so intensely real that she became more gravely concerned than she knew. It was not that Molly was not ready to talk of the dance. On the contrary she talked of it almost too eagerly. It was not that her smile was lacking. But to Blanche neither her talk nor her smile were such as she had looked for. There was no spontaneity in either. They were both the result of obvious effort. They lacked all naturalness. And all the time there was something looking out of the girl’s eyes that intrigued and troubled her, and left her wondering.
Blanche was again sitting in George Marton’s chair. She was sitting up in her neat riding-suit, with her hands held out to the warmth of the stove in spite of the summer heat. Molly was preparing the midday meal for her guest, neglecting nothing, meticulous in her care that the meal should be the best she could provide for her new friend.
“Is this Andy of yours a good dancer, Molly?”
Blanche was observing the figure bending over the stove. She was watching, with the closest interest, the girl’s care in her work. When she put her apparently casual question she saw the bending figure start. Then, as it straightened itself up, she realised that the hand grasping the pepper-box, with which she was seasoning the jack-rabbit stew was trembling. Instantly a mental reservation warned her where lay the key to Molly’s grievous mood.
The girl steadied herself with an effort. Then she laughed a little uncertainly.
“Why, I guess he’s no sort of dancer,” she said. “But then,” she added quickly, “I wouldn’t know the diff’rence.You see, I haven’t learnt any swell dancing. I just sort of know the things you do at ‘sociables.’”
Blanche’s laugh came readily.
“I guess you don’t need to be a swell dancer to have a time. If your boy’s right, and you’re looking good, and the folks are all in to enjoy things, the dancing doesn’t matter a deal. This Andy—you didn’t say his other name to me—he’s a farmer like you?”
There was a moment of hesitation before Molly replied. It almost seemed as though she had forgotten the stew on the stove. She was still grasping the pepper-box, but a far-away, unsmiling look was in the sad eyes, that were turned upon the sunlight pouring in through the open window.
“He’s your neighbour, isn’t he? Ten miles east?”
Blanche was urging the girl in the gentlest fashion. At the sound of her voice Molly turned sharply back to her stove. She bent over her work again and spoke rapidly, without even glancing in her friend’s direction.
“Yes. He’s Andy McFardell, and he’s set up his homestead along down the creek ten miles east of here. I’m—he’s going to marry me. We’ll be married—before summer’s out.”
There was just the shadow of a break in the girl’s final announcement. Blanche noted her attitude, and a wave of pity she could not account for stirred her deeply.
“You’re engaged? You’re going to be married? Why, Molly, you hadn’t said a thing. Tell me. Just tell me all about it. I’m surely dying to know. Is he a good-looker? Has he a swell farm? My!”
Blanche was acting. She condemned herself for it. Her enthusiasm was sheer pretence. She remembered that the man Molly had said she was going to marry was—Andrew McFardell.
The girl’s reply came with a rush. It came with all the spontaneity which Blanche had missed before. Andall the time Molly was talking Blanche felt that every word she was speaking was in some measure defensive, not against her, not against any individual, but against some feeling, in conflict with some emotion of her own.
“Maybe you won’t understand,” she cried. “How could you? Nobody could understand the way I feel. I guess I just love him to death.” She laughed a little meaninglessly. “I love him so he could beat me, so he could walk all over my fool body. I just can’t think what things would be without him. The thing he says goes all the time, and when I hear him I can’t even think for myself. Do you know how I mean? Of course you don’t. It’s love, I guess. There isn’t a sun in the sky to compare with his smile. With him around I just want to sit an’ listen, an’ do the thing he says. Oh, Blanche, it’s awful, just awful, when you feel that way. I think it sets you crazy. Yes, yes. That’s it, plumb crazy. If he said he was goin’ to kill me I’d be glad. If he said I was a fool girl I’d know I was. It wouldn’t matter what he said or did—so long as he didn’t quit me. Oh, I want him, and—and he’s goin’ to marry me before the summer’s out. Think of it, Blanche. When summer’s through he’ll be along here. I’ll have him with me always. Every day I’ll wake to find him near by, to listen to his voice, to see his eyes smile deep into mine. It—it’ll be heaven—just heaven. Oh, how I’ll work around to make this farm a home to him! His homestead’s a poor sort of place. He’s been working lone-handed. You see, he’s only had it come two years, since he quit the Police. He hasn’t had a good time. No. They’ve surely been cruel to him. But it don’t matter now. I’ll make that all different. Think of it, he’ll be all mine to work for, an’ to make happy. An’ this farm’s good, and some day he’ll be well fixed. And—and I’ll have helped to do that for him.”
She drew a deep breath and stood up straight. AndBlanche saw the wonderful light shining in her eyes.
“It’s—it’s all just wonderful to think that way, Blanche,” she went on. “It makes me feel—it makes——”
Suddenly the light in her eyes faded, and she turned again to the stove in some haste, and went on with her work.
Blanche made the response she felt she must make. She had listened to the outpouring of the soul of the girl. She had been invited for one brief moment to peer into the inner recesses where the fires of simple human love burned fiercely upon the altar of sacrifice. And her responsibility burdened her.
She simply dared not pursue the matter in the light fashion she had intended. Then there was that feeling that the girl had been pleading in her own defence. And it was a feeling she was powerless to shake off.
It was not until food had been prepared and set ready on the table that Blanche found it possible to shake off the weight which the girl’s confession had heaped upon her. But at Molly’s invitation to “sit in” her lighter mood returned. The change was wrought by the change which her confession seemed to have brought about in Molly. The girl seemed easier in her mind. Her smile was less forced, and talk came more readily.
They talked through the meal, and as time went on Blanche’s constraint passed altogether. They talked of everything that interested, and by the time the meal was finished Blanche felt that Molly had actually benefited by her visit, and she herself had learned all, and far more than she had wanted to know concerning the man who had once been Corporal Andrew McFardell.
When the time for her departure came, Lightning brought her horse to the door of the house, and stood apparently engrossed in his admiration of the golden creature.
Inside the house the two women made their farewell.
“May I come again, Molly?”
Blanche’s smile was full of warmth. And Molly’s eyes widened at the superfluousness of the question.
“Why, Blanche, I’m crazy for you to come along all the time. Next to Andy I want you most.”
Blanche shook her head admonishingly.
“Say, my dear, some day I’m going to be married myself,” she said, and her manner was very, very gentle. “I love the man I’m going to marry with all my foolish heart. He’s not a good-looker like your Andy. And he’s got a mop of scarlet hair and a bunch of foolish freckles. But I’m not going to let him set me crazy. It’s not good to get too crazy that way. I—I may come to your wedding if I’m around here when the time comes?”
Molly nodded, and her smile was one of sheer exaltation.
“Surely, Blanche,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right without you.”
Blanche took the girl by the shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks.
“Good. So long, Molly,” she said.
Molly was standing at the open doorway. Blanche had ridden away. She had long since vanished round the bluff where the grass-trail followed its outline in the direction where her father had been in the habit of hewing his cordwood. Lightning had been into the house for his meal. He had eaten it and returned again to his work. Molly had seen him moving out with his team, heading for the hay slough. Her own work was awaiting her.
The last shadow of her smile had passed. And thecloud of dispiritedness had resettled itself in the pathetic depression of her brows. The interim of relief had passed with the going of her mysterious friend. Once more she had fallen back into that distressing mood which had inspired the cattleman’s appeal at Blanche’s coming.