A DEFERRED INTERMENT
Except for the clerk at the Clematis House the first person to welcome
Justin Ware on his next return to his native town was Annabel Sinclair.
She wore a little white veil, vastly becoming, but masking a tragedy,
since she thereby acknowledged the deterioration of her complexion.
The dramatic encounter took place one block from the hotel, and Annabel
clasping her gloved hands uttered the single word; "You!"
The greeting, abrupt in type, is anything else on the lips of a woman
who has studied the possibilities of that monosyllable. On Annabel's
lips it expressed incredulous wonder, gentle reproach and strong
feeling held in check by womanly modesty. No man can rise superior to
this subtle flattery. Justin greeted her as if she were the woman of
his dreams.
"It's really you--after almost a year." The reproach was uppermost in
her voice now, but she mitigated its severity by allowing him to retain
possession of the hand he had seized.
"It has been a long year--for me," replied Justin, and the rival artist
thrilled with responsive admiration. For his manner said as plainly as
words that throughout those dragging twelve months one thought had
possessed him, the desire to see her again.
"Were you on your way home? May I walk with you?" He asked the favor
with deferential tenderness. She granted it with an effective flutter
of the lids. Each, realizing the other's proficiency in the game, was
spurred to emulation.
And then abruptly the curtain dropped on the play, for at the first
street corner, an automobile barked a warning. Justin, who had
gallantly taken his companion's arm, the better to assist her in the
perils of the crossing, raised his eyes and at once lost interest in
Annabel Sinclair and her kind.
The woman driving the car to all appearances had not recognized him,
her absorption preventing her from differentiating the human species
beyond the broad classification of those likely to be run over and
those in no such danger. Her color was high, and her face despite a
grim intentness indicated keen satisfaction. A handsome boy sat beside
her, and Justin had a confused impression of a number of other children
in charge of a buxom girl on the back seat. He stood motionless gazing
after the flying car and oblivious to Annabel's resentful glances.
"Well, good afternoon if you've decided to spend the rest of the day on
the street corner."
Justin roused himself. But he had lost heart in these amateur
theatricals.
"Whose car is Persis Dale driving?"
"Her own. A year brings changes, you see, Mr. Ware. The car and the
children all belong to her."
"What!" he shouted. His first not unnatural idea was that Persis had
become the wife of a prosperous widower, and he was astonished at the
pang for which this thought was responsible. Resentfully Annabel
recognized the difference between the voice of real emotion and
counterfeit tenderness.
Her lips curled as she allayed his consternation. "She came into a
little money--an obliging aunt died, I believe. Pity it hadn't come
early enough to do her some real good. She patched up her old house,
and adopted five or six orphan-asylum kids, and I suppose the poor
thing thinks she's having a good time." Even to the most prejudiced
eye Annabel could not have looked beautiful at that moment. The venom
that poisoned her spirit, disfigured her face like a scar. Hag-ridden
by those unlovely twins, jealousy and hate, she looked for the instant
prematurely old.
Justin did not notice. He was absorbed in gleaning from her all
possible information as to the change in Persis' circumstances and
quite indifferent to the emotions of his reluctant informant. With the
relentlessness of the thoroughly selfish, he continued his
cross-examination till Annabel's mind seemed to herself a squeezed
orange. She felt something like terror mingling with a sense of
physical exhaustion. It always frightened her to find herself unable
to keep a man's attention focused on herself when she had him to
herself.
"When shall I see you again?" she asked, as she approached her home.
Had the interview continued with the dramatic intensity of its
beginning, she could safely have left him to ask that question. Under
the circumstances she did not dare.
"I'm not quite sure. I have some business that has hung fire an
unconscionable time, and ungallant as it seems, we twentieth century
fellows have to put business before pleasure." He smiled
propitiatingly and therein lay the sting, that he did not even take the
trouble to conceal that he was trying to appease her. Their parting
sank to the level of the commonplace for he shook hands hastily, and
her look of appeal flattened itself ineffectively against his
preoccupation.
A little skilful quizzing of the hotel clerk confirmed in every detail
Annabel's remarkable story, and in his own room Justin sat down to
think the matter through to a conclusion. The renewal of his
acquaintance with Persis Dale nearly a year earlier had enlightened him
as to the tenacity of certain impressions he had thought obliterated
long before. The girl he had loved in his callow youth and had
forgotten, still retained something of her old fascination for him. A
year earlier this discovery was responsible for an amused wonder at
himself, coupled with a realization of the need of caution. Now common
sense took sides with his lingering fondness. Persis Dale, with a
comfortable little fortune added to her unique personality, had become
distinctly desirable. She was a woman with an infinite capacity for
surprises, which meant that she would not bore the man she married,
unduly. With a little metropolitan polish added to her native
cleverness she should be able to give a good account of herself
socially. The children were a drawback of course, but there must be
some way of getting rid of an adopted family of which one tired. And
it was quite impossible that Persis' fondness for the little ones she
had picked up the other day, so to speak, would prove a serious rival
to an affection which had been a vital factor in her life for more than
twenty years.
By supper-time he had made up his mind. With a little sigh for the
freedom he was relinquishing, he resolved on matrimony. He had always
intended to marry somebody and domesticity with Persis promised at
least commonplace comfort, something Justin was the last man on earth
to despise. With the children disposed of, Joel sent adrift and
Persis' money wisely handled, there was no reason why they should not
get on better than the majority of married people. Justin ate an
unusually hearty supper as if to fortify himself for his wooing.
He had made up his mind to ignore the change in Persis' circumstances
that his call might seem a spontaneous tribute to her personal
attractions. But the change in the house and its furnishings was so
pronounced that he judged it bad policy to pass it over without
comment. "I thought for a minute I'd come to the wrong house, Persis,
and I felt positively alarmed about myself. I knew if I couldn't find
the Dale place blindfolded, I needed the services of a nerve
specialist." He laughed a little with an air of catching himself up
before he had said too much, something he had found effective with many
women.
She smiled upon him gravely. "It was the improvements that mixed you
up, I suppose. There was a spot on the ceiling of mother's room where
the rain leaked through the winter she died. After the papering was
finished I missed that spot as if it had been human. Time and again
when I went into that room I'd jump as if I'd got into somebody else's
house by mistake." Her voice lost a subtle pensive quality as she
added: "But the new furniture ain't the best of the changes, Justin. I
wish I could show you the children, but they're all in bed and asleep."
"I'm not sure I'm sorry." Justin's voice was low and caressing. "It's
always been hard for us two to have any time alone. I used to wonder
when I came here who would be sitting by and listening to every word we
said, your father or your mother or Joel or some other young fellow
who'd discovered the most charming girl in Clematis. If fate has
granted us an evening to ourselves at last, let's be thankful."
He thought it a very fair beginning. The reference to their early love
affair could not fail to soften her. The implication that the
interference of interested third parties was responsible for keeping
them apart was cleverly done. It was a distinct surprise at the end of
an hour to find himself no further along than at the start. Justin had
no intention of offering his hand and heart to any woman without a
reasonable assurance of a rapturous acceptance, and singularly enough,
he was far from certainty. He had been making love in a restrained and
subtle fashion for the better part of an hour and was ready for an
avowal of his devotion as soon as Persis showed any intention of
meeting him half-way. But up to this point, she had skilfully
disguised any such intention, and while showing no displeasure at the
sentimental tendency disclosed in his remark, had so persistently
injected a tincture of matter-of-factness into the conversation that he
seemed as far as ever from coming to the point. With it all, her air
was friendly. He suspected her of playing with him, taking her revenge
by keeping him in doubt overnight.
Resistance seldom detracts from a woman's value in a man's eyes. When
Justin rose to go he was almost ready to believe himself in love. He
was a little angry, slightly amused and more in doubt as to her state
of mind than he often felt regarding his opponents in the eternal duel.
When Persis gave him her hand for good night he held it in both his own
for a moment and raised it to his lips. The curious rekindling of a
burned-out tenderness, due to her lack of responsiveness, gave the act
an effect of sincerity which impressed him, even while he thrilled with
honest passion, as an excellent move.
He looked into her eyes and found them gravely contemplative.
"Justin," she said, "there's something I want to speak to you about if
you're not in a hurry."
He tingled with triumph. Women were all alike. She could play the
coquette for an hour, but she could not let him leave her till she had
heard the words he had been trying all the evening to speak. He put
down his hat. "You know of course," he said with an air of repressed
feeling, "that I am at your service now and always." And as her eyes
fell he laid his hand on hers.
It was not easy to restore the balance, but Persis did it. "The
property my aunt left me," she began in her most matter-of-fact voice,
"brings me a pretty fair income, but nothing's good enough as long as
it might be better. Only yesterday I got an offer of ten thousand
dollars for some water-works stock in a place out West where Aunt
Persis Ann lived for a good many years."
Justin put his hands in his pockets, the character of her opening
rendering sentimental advances ludicrously inopportune.
"Have you any idea what income you get from that stock?"
"Last year it was a thousand and fifty dollars."
"Why, that's over ten per cent. on what the fellow offers you," Justin
exclaimed, and Persis nodded.
"Yes, about ten per cent. And in the Apple of Eden Investment Company
I'd be guaranteed twenty-five per cent. by the tenth year, with a good
chance to double my money even before that. I didn't stop you to ask
your advice, Justin, for I can see you'd feel a little delicate about
urging me to invest in your company. But what I've heard from Mis'
Hornblower makes it plain enough that the best thing for me to do is to
turn my property into cash as fast as I can and put every penny into
apples."
Justin crossed his feet, reflecting impatiently that it was high time
for Persis Dale to have a husband. His elation over all that was
implied by her consulting him on so personal a matter, was almost lost
in his feeling of annoyance. This made it plain that he must lose no
time, but marry her offhand. What with her penchant for orphans and
for foolish investments, she would make ducks and drakes of her fortune
unless a man peremptorily took the helm.
"It would be a pity to be precipitate, Persis. An investment that pays
ten per cent. isn't to be sneezed at nowadays. And this fellow's offer
just now looks as if the stock wasn't in any danger of depreciating."
He glanced at her and was annoyed to find her face stubborn. Had she
been the type of woman to accept masculine counsel as akin to divine
guidance, his task would have been easier. Her evident lack of
yielding forced him to take a superior tone.
"My dear girl, you will admit that I am a little better versed in
business matters than you are. And my advice is to hold on to your
stock unless you should have a better reason for selling than appears
at present."
"Ten per cent. looks pretty well alongside the Savings bank, I'll
admit. But why shouldn't I get twenty-five? I've got these children
to educate. I can use considerable more than if I just had myself to
think of."
He gulped down his vexation, "Raising apples is a science, Persis. The
weakness of the American investor is to imagine that he can do whatever
any other fellow has done. Because some horticultural shark doubles
his money on his orchard in a banner year, you fancy you can do the
same every year."
"Gracious, Justin! I'm not going into apple-raising. I've got my
hands full enough without that. I'm going to leave the company to run
my orchard for me. All they ask is twenty-five per cent of the net
profits, but you know that without my telling you."
"And suppose there comes a year like 1896, when apples didn't bring
enough to pay for the barrels they were packed in? You can't count on
top-notch prices every season."
"No, but I can count on the company's guarantee."
An oath, a tribute to her obstinacy, winged through his brain. In his
exasperation he forgot caution.
"That guarantee--"
"Well?"
"There's nothing to hold us after you've become the owner of the
property. If we find that running your orchard isn't profitable, as we
might easily do after one or two bad seasons, we could slip from under,
and you could use the guarantee as you call it, for curl papers.
That's all it would be good for."
He was glad to see that he had shaken her foolish stubbornness at last.
She caught her breath like one jerked back from an unrealized danger by
a friendly hand.
"I--I guess it's lucky I consulted you, Justin. It's foolish for a
woman to think that she's up to all the tricks in business nowadays."
The slight trembling of her hand tempted him to kiss it, though he
compromised by merely taking it again.
"If I've helped you a little, Persis, dear girl, I'm very happy. I
only wish you were willing to make use of me always." His hope that
this was the psychological moment was dashed when ignoring the
attempted caress, she grasped his hand and shook if vigorously.
"Good night, Justin. Thank you for setting me right in that matter. I
believe that's the baby starting to cry. I'll have to hurry up before
she rouses the house."
But she got no farther than the foot of the stairs on this errand, and
Justin, letting himself out, gave voice to the oath he had thought more
than once that evening. Persis stood listening as he made his way down
the walk, but up-stairs all was still. She returned to the living-room
rather slowly. Through all the various changes in the household,
indicative of increased prosperity, the photograph in the blue plush
frame had triumphantly retained its post of honor on the mantel, a
landmark of constancy. Now she took it up with hands that trembled.
"It's not that I've got anything against you." She addressed it as if
there were an intelligence back of the vacuous pleasantness of the
young face. "It's only that there's not any you and hasn't been for I
don't know how long. It's so much deader than death, all ashes to
ashes and dust to dust and the spirit turned into something different."
And then Justin's hopes would have soared high had he seen her, for she
kissed the lips that smiled at her, a strange kiss in which pity
blended with forgiveness.
Holding fast to the blue plush frame, Persis passed through the house
to the woodshed, found a trowel among the garden tools, and then made
her way into the night. The sky was overcast, hiding the stars, but
the flitting fire-flies outlined strange constellations against the
velvety darkness. Persis groped her way through the dewy grass toward
the syringa bush, guided as much by the odor of blossoms as by sight,
and falling on her knees used her trowel industriously for many
minutes. And when the grave was deep enough, she laid the plush frame
into its recesses, hiding the smile she once had loved with heaped-up
earth. Since so many of her girlish hopes were covered by that same
earth, it is not strange that her tears fell upon the little mound.
"I'm going to miss that picture same as if it was alive. It was always
smiling so cheerful that it cheered me just to look at it. But when a
thing's dead, it ought to be buried, and as it is, I guess this funeral
is pretty near twenty years behind time."