"_No one can travel that road for you, you must travel it for
yourself._"
David Martin came into the living room of Ridge House bringing, as it
seemed, the Spring with him. He left the door open and sat down. He was
in rough clothes; he was brown and rugged. He was building, with his own
hands, much of the cabin at Blowing Rock. He had never been more content
in his life. He often paused, as he was now doing, and thought of it.
The hard winter's work was over and Martin felt the spring in his blood
as he had not felt it in many a year.
Things were going to suit him--and they had had a way of eluding him in
the past. Perhaps, he thought, because he had always wanted them just
his way.
Somewhere, above stairs, Doris was singing, and Nancy from another part
of the house was calling out little joyous remarks.
"Two telegrams in one day, Aunt Doris. Such riches!"
Doris paused in her song long enough to reply:
"Joan may come any day, Nan, dear. It is so like her to act, once she
decides."
Martin, sitting by the hearth, reflected upon the injustice of Prodigal
Sons and Daughters--but he smiled.
"They don't deserve it--but it's damnably true that they get it," he
mused, irrelevantly.
"Joan's room is a dream, Nan, come and see it!" called Doris, and Nancy
could be heard running and laughing to inspect the Prodigal's quarters.
"It looks divine!" she ejaculated. "Push that pink dogwood back a
little, Aunt Dorrie--make it like a frame around the mirror for the
dear's face."
"How's that, Nan?"
"Exactly--right. Aunt Dorrie?"
"Yes, my dear girl."
"I have the dearest plan--I feel that Ken would love it, but I hate to
be the one to propose it."
From his armchair Martin smiled more broadly.
"Perhaps I can do it for you, Nan." Doris spoke abstractedly--she was,
apparently, giving more thought to the decorations for the returning
wanderer than to the plans of the good child who had remained at her
post.
"Well, Aunt Doris, I don't want to wait until next winter to be married.
Ken writes that he will have Mrs. Tweksbury safely settled in New York
by the first of June----" Emily Tweksbury had fled the influenza and
gone to Bermuda only to fall victim to pneumonia. Kenneth Raymond had
been summoned, to what was supposed to be her death-bed, but which she
indignantly refused to accept as such.
"When women are as old as I, Ken," she had whispered as he bent over
her, "they consign them to death-beds too easily. Give me a month, boy,
and I'll go back with you."
Kenneth had given her a month, then two weeks extra; he was bringing her
back now--a frail old woman, but one in whose heart the determination to
live was yet strong.
"But, darling, we'd have to give up the beautiful wedding--Mrs.
Tweksbury could never stand the excitement now, or even this summer."
Doris's voice was more suggestive of attention as she now spoke. Martin
waited.
"I know, Aunt Dorrie, but I am sure she would rather have me and Ken
married than come to our wedding. Listen, duckie! Suppose, after Joan
comes, we plan the dearest little service in the Chapel--I'm sure we
could snatch Father Noble as he flits by. There would be you and Uncle
David and Joan, and perhaps Clive could wrench himself away, and Mary
and Uncle Jed--and," a tender pause, "and--Ken and me! We could make the
Chapel beautiful with flowers from The Gap--our flowers--and then I
could help Ken with Mrs. Tweksbury--for you, Aunt Dorrie, will have
Joan."
Martin blinked his eyes. He never admitted a mistiness to the extent of
wiping them. He listened for Doris's next words.
"Childie, it sounds enticing and just like you. I will talk it over with
Uncle David."
The voices upstairs fell into a silence and Martin got up and paced the
room.
A few minutes later Doris came down the stairs and, singing softly,
entered the living room.
There was welcome in her eyes; the languor and helpless expression had
faded from her face.
"Davey," she said, "I felt the draught--you have left the door open--I
knew you were here.
"Oh! Davey, to-day the twenty-year limit seems quite the possible thing.
My dear, my dear, Joan is coming home!"
Martin met Doris midway of the big room. He was startled at the change
in her.
"I heard that a telegram had come. It's great news, Doris."
"Queer, isn't it, Davey, how one can brace and bear a good deal while
there is the necessity, and then realize the strain only when the need
is past? Joan says only 'coming home,' but I know as surely as I ever
knew anything that it has been for the best and she is coming gladly to
me--coming home! I could not have endured the silence much longer."
Martin put his arm around Doris and led her to the hearth. A mild little
fire was crackling cheerfully, rather shyly, between the tall jars of
dogwood that seemed to question the necessity of the small blaze.
"Davey, I want to talk to you. There are so many things to say if you
are absent twenty-four hours. How goes the cabin?"
"Like magic. It will be livable by June or before. The men like to have
me pothering around, and I've discovered that one never really has a
house unless he helps build it. I'm going to get Bud down the minute I
can put a bed up. And, Doris----"
"Yes, Davey."
"I've been eavesdropping, I've been here a half hour. I heard what Nancy
said--let the child have her wish!"
"You feel that way, David? I had hoped to have everything rather
splendid--to make up for what I could not do for--Merry."
"All stuff and nonsense! Give the girl her head. She knows her path and
will not make mistakes. What she wants is Raymond and her own life.
Nancy is simple and direct; no complications about her. Don't make any
for her."
"David, her happiness and peace almost frighten me. You remember how she
drooped last summer? Taking her to New York has done more than give her
love and happiness. She is quite another girl, so resourceful and clear
visioned."
"She's on her own trail, Doris, that's all. Things are right with Nancy.
The rule holds."
"But, David, I have not told her yet----"
"Told her?--oh! I see--about the birth mix-up?"
Martin smiled--he always did when the subject was referred to. The
humour and daring of it had never lost their zest.
"It is no laughing matter, Davey; as the time draws near when I must
tell I am in a kind of panic. I always thought it would be easy; if it
had been right why should I know this fear?"
Martin was serious enough now. He folded his arms and leaned back in his
chair--he held Doris with his calm gray eyes.
"It seems to me," he spoke thoughtfully, "that you should stand by your
guns. You did what you did from the highest motives; you have succeeded
marvellously--why upset the kettle of fish, my dear?"
Doris's face softened.
"I think if I had committed murder," she said, "you would try to defend
the deed."
"I certainly would!"
They smiled into each other's eyes at this.
"But, David, I am afraid to tell Nancy. Somehow I think the doubt would
hurt her more cruelly than the real truth might have. It has always been
the not knowing that mattered to Nan--unless what was to be known was a
happy thing. Merry was like that, you remember."
"Then why run a risk with Nancy, Doris?"
Martin had the look in his eyes with which he scanned the face of a
patient who could not be depended upon to describe his own symptoms.
"I--think--Ken should know."
"What?"
"Why--why--what there is to know!"
"Just muddle him. Nancy would be the same girl, but he'd get to puzzling
over her and tagging ideas on her--and to what end, Doris? The girl has
the right to her own path and you have, by the grace of God, pushed
obstacles from before her, in heaven's name give her fair play and
don't--flax out at this stage of the game."
"But, Davey, if in the future anything should disclose the truth, might
Ken not resent?"
"I don't see why he should. When the hour struck you could call him into
the family circle and share the news. By that time he'd feel secure in
his own right about Nancy."
"I'm not afraid of, or for, Joan, Davey." Doris lifted her head proudly.
"And, David, I want to tell you now that my coming to The Gap was more
on the children's account than my own. I have always felt that here, if
anywhere, the truth might be exposed. At first I was anxious; fearful
yet hopeful. I know now that The Gap has no suspicions, and I am more
and more confident that George Thornton has passed from our lives."
"Very good!" Martin sat up and bent forward in order to take Doris's
hands in his own.
"My dear," he said, gently, "have you never thought that--Nancy is--your
own?"
"Yes, Davey, I have grown to believe it. She is very like Meredith--not
in looks, but in her character and habits. She is stronger, happier than
Merry, and oh! Davey, for that very reason I hesitate to touch the
beautiful faith and love of the child. I do not want her disillusioned.
It would kill her as it did Merry."
"Then, again I caution against risks, especially when the odds are with
Nancy, not against her."
The fire burned low--a mere twinkle in the white ashes, then David asked
as one does ask a useless question:
"Are those words over the fireplace, Doris?" He puckered his
near-sighted eyes.
"I think so. There are carvings and paintings everywhere through the
house. One of the Sisters did them. This one is so blackened by smoke
that it is all but destroyed--some day I will see what can be done to
restore it."
"I like the idea," Martin said. "I mean to have something over my
fireplace. It sort of strikes one in the face."
Presently Doris spoke, going back past the interruption:
"Davey, the wonderful thing to me is that while believing Nancy to be
Merry's child I find my heart clinging passionately to Joan. I know how
you disapprove of her--but I glory in her. Through this anxious time I
have been able to follow her, understand her better, even, than I have
Nan. Joan has often seemed like--well, like myself set free. I might
have been like Joan in many ways. And, Davey, this could not have
happened had I known the real truth concerning the girls."
"No, I do not think it could. And it goes to prove my theory that two
thirds of the inherited traits are common to us all. The whole business
lies in the handling of them by the one third that does come down the
line. The thing we know as the ancient law of inheritance. Doris, take
my advice and keep your hands off."
"Oh! Davey. To keep my hands off is so easy that it doesn't seem safe or
right."
David smiled, then said:
"There are times, Doris, when I fear that you should be taken by the
roots and--transplanted. The old soil is used up."
"I--I do not understand, David."
"Don't try! Come, now, I want you to take a rest. Go on the porch in the
sun, I'll wrap you warm. I'm going to take Nancy over to the cabin for
lunch and plan her wedding with her. This afternoon you and I are going
for a drive--the roads have settled somewhat and I want your advice
about things to put in my garden."
As he spoke Martin was leading Doris to the piazza, gathering rugs and
pillows in one arm as he went.
"I am so happy, David, so unspeakably happy." Doris sank into her
pillows and smiled up at the face bending over her. "It's beautiful, all
this care and love, and I have a feeling that I will be able, soon, to
really live. I have had so much without paying the price."
"And you'd mess it all, would you, Doris, when you don't know what the
price is?"
"No, David, I wouldn't."
Martin walked into the house and whistled to Nancy. She responded, so
did the hounds and a new litter of long-eared pups.
Doris, with closed eyes, smiled and then she thought. She, too, was
planning for Nancy's wedding--she saw the small altar in the Chapel
flower-decked; they must have some music, perhaps Joan would sing one of
her lovely, quaint songs--and then Doris slept while the sun lay on her
peaceful face and the sound of the busy river soothed her.
* * * * *
It was like Joan to do exactly what she did.
After two deplorable days in the little hotel--days devoted to
collecting her belongings and eating and sleeping--she suddenly found
herself so strong that she sent the telegram to The Gap.
Having sent it, she meant to prepare carefully against shock at her
appearance by buying a rather giddy hat and coat to offset her short
hair and thin body. Cameron had insisted, at the last, that she reserve
her cash for emergencies and repay him later.
Joan accepted this solution, and having arrayed herself frivolously she
bought Cuff a most remarkable collar which embarrassed the dog
considerably. In all the changing events of Cuff's life a collar had not
figured, and it was harder to adjust himself to it than to foots of beds
and meals served on plates. However, Cuff rose to the emergency and bore
himself with credit.
Twice Cameron came to the hotel; twice he took Joan for a drive--"It
will help you get on your feet," he explained.
"I--I don't quite see how," she faltered and, as they were driving where
once she and Raymond had driven, her eyes were tear-filled. The old,
dangerous, foolish past had a most depressing effect upon her.
At Cameron's second attempt to put her on her feet he succeeded, for
when he paid his third call, a quaint little note greeted him at the
office:
Thank you--thank you for all that you have done. I will explain
everything soon, in the meantime, morally and physically, I am
wobbling home.
Cameron's jaw set as he read.
"I'll wait," was what he inwardly swore. And at that moment he was
conscious that, for the first time in his career, a woman had got into
his system!
When Joan reached Stone Hedgeton she feared that she and Cuff would have
to overcome many obstacles before they reached The Gap, for no one was
willing to travel the roads.
"There is holes in the river road mighty nigh a yard deep," one man
confided. "I ain't going to risk my hoss, nor my mule, nuther!"
It was the mail man who, at last, solved the problem. He had a small car
whose appearance was disreputable but whose record was marvellous.
"If you-all," he included Cuff in the general remark, "ain't sot 'bout
reaching The Gap at any 'pinted time, I'll scrooge you in. There's a
couple of stops to make, and I reckon I'll have to dig us-all out of
holes now and then--that shovel ain't in yo' way, is it, Miss?" he
asked.
For Joan and Cuff were already among the mail bags and merchandise.
"Nothing is in the way!" Joan replied, "and I'll help you dig us out."
It was just daylight when they started.
It was past noon when, stiff and rather shaken, Joan scrambled out of
the old car and, followed by Cuff, noiselessly made her way over the
lawn to Ridge House.
She went lightly up the steps, then stood still. Doris Fletcher lay
sleeping in the full, warm glow. So quiet was she, so pale and delicate,
that for a moment Joan knew a fear that had had its beginning when
Patricia passed from life.
The awful uncertainty, the narrow pass over which all travel, were newly
realized perils to Joan, and her breath came sharp and quick.
So this was what had happened while she was learning her lessons! She
had not learned alone.
"Oh! Aunt Dorrie," she murmured. "You and I have paid and paid--but you
never held me back!"
Joan sat down and waited. It was always to be so with her from now on.
In that hour a great and tender patience was born that was to calm and
guide her future life. She was given, then and there, to draw upon the
strength and vision that do not err. And it may have been that in sleep
Doris Fletcher, too, was prepared, for when suddenly she opened her eyes
upon Joan she was not startled: a gladness that was almost painful
overspread her face.
"My darling! You have come at last!" was what she said.
And, as on that night when she had come to plead for freedom, Joan did
not, now, rush into human touch. She nodded and whispered:
"I've come as I promised to, Aunt Dorrie. It--it wasn't my chance! Not
my big chance, anyhow, but I had to find out, dearie."
"My little girl!"
Joan went nearer; she bent and kissed again and again that radiant face;
then, sitting on the floor by the couch, with Cuff huddled close, she
touched lightly the high peaks that lay between the parting and this
home-coming, but Doris, with that deep understanding, followed
laboriously, silently, through the dark valleys.
"I'm rather battered and cropped, Aunt Dorrie--but here I am!"
With this Joan tossed off her hat and voluminous coat.
"Your--hair, Joan? Your beautiful hair!"
"I have been very sick, Aunt Dorrie, my hair and my fat had to go--just
enough bones left to hold my soul. But I'm all right now."
"Don't be sorry for me," Joan was pleading, "I'm the gladdest thing
alive to-day. I've dropped all the old husks; I've found out just what
they are worth, but some of them that seem like husks, dear, are
not--I've learned that, too."
"Yes, Joan--and now go on, in just your own way. For a little while I
have you to myself. Nancy will take lunch at Uncle David's new
bungalow."
There was a good deal of explanation necessary in dealing with Sylvia's
part in the past--Doris had banked on Sylvia. The tea room was easier,
but Joan slipped over that experience so glibly that Doris made a mental
reservation concerning it.
Patricia was the critical test. At the mention of her name Cuff whined
pathetically, and Joan bent and gathered him in her arms.
"I--I can't talk much about Pat, dearie, not now"; Joan bent her head;
"she was so wonderful. Just a beautiful, lost spirit in the
world--trying to find its way home. There was only one way for Pat--I
shall always be glad that I could go part of it with her."
"Yes, yes--I am glad, too!" Doris whispered, for she had caught up with
Joan now. She did not know all that lay in the valleys--but she felt the
chill and darkness through which her child had come up to the light.
Strange as it might seem, she was thinking of that time, long ago, when
she had escaped from the Park and had touched life in the open.
The hospital experience Joan could describe with a touch of humour that
eventually brought a smile to Doris's face. She took for granted that it
had been in Chicago, and when Joan told of flitting away from the young
doctor who had saved her, Doris laughingly said:
"Joan, that was cruel. You should have explained."
"No, Aunt Dorrie, it was wise. Of course I'm going to explain to him and
send him the money, but I wanted to shut the door on my silly past
first. I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose.
When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been
seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper. He hadn't the
least idea what was happening--he saw only the bag of bones that he had
rescued, but I wasn't going to let him run any risks. You see, I've
learned more than some girls."
And then Joan, mentally, turned her back on the past. With that power
she had for holding to the thing she desired, the thing she wanted to
make true, she laughed her merry, carefree laugh--she recalled only the
joyous, amusing incidents and she watched with hungry, loving eyes the
effect she was creating.
It was while this was going on that Mary came upon the piazza to
announce luncheon. There were days when no one saw Mary, when her cabin
was closed and locked; but after such absences she came to Ridge House
and worked with a fervour that flavoured of apology.
She gazed long upon Joan before she spoke. It was not surprise she
showed, but a slow understanding.
"Miss Joan," she said at last, "seems like you ain't got the world by
the tail like you uster have."
Joan threw her head back and laughed.
"No, Mary," she presently replied, "it swung so fast that I fell
off--but I'll catch hold soon."
The quiet little luncheon in the quaint dining room did much to restore
the long-past relations of Joan with the family. Uncle Jed came in and
chuckled with delight. The old man lived mostly in the past now, and
followed Mary like a poor crumpled shadow. What held the two together
was difficult to understand--but it was the kinship of the hills, the
stolid sense of familiarity.
After the meal was over Joan wandered about through the living rooms for
a few moments, touching Nancy's loom, but speaking seldom of Nancy.
"I want to hear all about it from her," she explained; and Doris, with
Joan's affairs chiefly in her thought, referred merely to Nancy's
happiness, their perfect sympathy with it; and if Kenneth's name was
mentioned, Joan did not notice it.
At last she went up to her room to rest.
"Quite as if I had never been away, Aunt Doris," she said, "and you
don't mind if I take Cuff? The poor little chap has had so many changes
that I fear for his nerves!"
Joan went upstairs to the west wing chamber singing a gay little
song--her own voice seemed to hold her to the safe, happy present--so
she sang.
She paused at the door of her room to read the words carved there long
ago by Sister Constance:
=And the Hills Shall Bring Peace=
It was like someone speaking a welcome.
"Oh! it is all so dear," Joan murmured, "how could it ever have seemed
dull!"
Flowers filled the vases, and there was a small, fragrant fire on the
hearth--a mere thing of beauty, there was no need of it, for the windows
were open to the gentle spring day.
Joan slipped into a loose gown and then stood in the middle of the room
leisurely taking in the comfort and joy of every proof of love that she
saw.
On the desk by the window lay a pile of unopened letters--she took them
up. They were the letters from Doris and Nancy which had been returned
from Chicago. Pitiful things that had been so hopefully sent forth only
to come back like blighted hopes!
For a moment Joan contemplated throwing them all on the fire. She did
not feel equal to re-living the past. It was only by laughing and
singing that she could hold her own.
But on second thought she opened the first one--it was from Nancy.
"I better have all I can get to begin on," she reflected; "it will save
time."
She sat down in a deep chair and presently she was aware of combating
something that was being impressed upon her; she was not conscious of
reading it.
"Such things do not happen--not in life----" her sane, cautious self
seemed to say. For a second Joan believed her tired brain was playing
her false as it had during those awful weeks in the hospital. She closed
her eyes; grew calm--then tried again:
Since you are not coming to see Ken now, Joan, I will try to
describe him. You remember old Mrs. Tweksbury? Well, my dear boy
belongs, in a way, to her----
Again Joan closed her eyes while a faintness saved her from too acute
shock. She felt the soft air upon her face; she was conscious of that
bewildered whine of poor Cuff. Vaguely she thought that he must be
hungry; thirsty--then there was a moment's blank and--the sickening
weakness was gone!
With the strength and clarity that sometimes comes at a critical moment
Joan's mind worked fast and carried her where hours of quiet thought
could not have done.
It was natural, of course, that Nancy should meet Raymond--the most
natural thing in the world.
His loving her--so soon after what had happened! That was the thing that
gripped and hurt. Joan tried to connect the date of that night in the
studio and the one on Nancy's letter. She seemed powerless to do so--the
time between was a blank; there was no time! Everything belonged to a
previous incarnation.
With a shudder, Joan presently realized the insignificant part she had
borne in Kenneth Raymond's life.
The humiliation turned her hot and cold. He had always held but one
opinion of her; his loss of self-control had simply torn down the
defences behind which he had played with her, amused himself with her,
during the dull summer.
She was, to him, one of the women not to be considered, while Nancy
was--the other kind!
Joan regarded, as she never had before, the freedom and safety of such
girls as Nancy. She could realize the pressure, the favouring
environment that surrounded so desirable a thing as this coming together
of Raymond and Nancy!
She knew how the same force could blot such as she was supposed to be
from the inner circle! How little they counted!
Oh! the bitterness of the knowledge that it was such girls as
Patricia--as Raymond believed her--who were not free; who must snatch
what they can from life and not resent what goes with it. They must--not
care! Outside the code there was no real freedom--because there was no
choice! It was a place of chains and bars compared to the other.
The waves of humiliation and shame swept over Joan, but each time she
emerged she held her head higher.
"And he left me--to go my way and he went--to Nancy! He did not care!"
It was anger now; proud, life-saving anger. "If he had only cared!"
"And why--should he?" The thought was like a dash of cold water in her
face.
After all, why should he? It _was_ only play until that awful night!
That was the revealing hour of real danger.
Clutching her hands, Joan went over every step of the way upon which
Raymond had gone with her.
It had all been a mad escapade in that time of mistaken freedom. He and
she had both been brought to the realization of the folly by a blow that
had awakened them, not stunned them. They had been forced to acknowledge
the danger hidden in themselves. It was in such whirlpools many were
lost, but they----
And at this point Joan recalled, as if he were before her now, the look
in Raymond's face when he gained control of himself!
Always, since that night, Joan had felt, when thinking of Raymond, that
she never wanted to see him again. She knew that he had never held any
real part in her life and he would always hold her back, as she might
him--from proving the best that was in each other if they came into
contact.
With this conclusion reached Joan had gained a secure footing. As a man,
detached from herself and her past, she knew that Raymond was worthy of
love and happiness, just as, in her heart, she knew that she herself
was. But could others understand? Others, like Nancy?
While she had been buffeted on a rough sea, since that stormy night in
the studio, Raymond had drifted into his safe harbour, sooner. There was
nothing to hold him back--and here Joan began to sob in self-pity; in
pity for all girls, like Patricia and her, who were so lightly
considered.
"We do not matter!" she murmured. Then she dashed her tears away. "But
we _must_ matter!"
She sprang up. She flung the letters upon the embers; she gathered Cuff
to her bosom and--laughed!
It was her old, old laugh. The laugh that held in its depth, not scorn
of life, but an appreciation of it.
"It's how we take it all, Cuff, my dear, just how we take it! And,
Cuff"--here Joan held the little animal off at arms' length and looked
into his deep, serious eyes--"I'm going to get the world by the tail
again--_you watch me!_"