BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
Bertie looked older and graver when Haney entered the Eagle Hotel, and
his heart expanded with a tenderness that was partly paternal. She
seemed so young and looked so pale and troubled.
She greeted him unsmilingly and calmly handed him the pen with which to
register.
"How are you all?" he asked, with genuine concern.
"Pretty bum. Mother gave out this week. It's the heat, I guess. Hottest
weather we've had since I came to town."
"Why didn't you let me know?"
She avoided his question. "We're too low here at Junction. Mother ought
to go a couple of thousand feet higher. She needs rest and a change.
I've sent her out to the ranch."
"You're not running the house alone?"
"Why, cert!--that is, except my brother's wife is taking mother's place
in the kitchen. I'm runnin' the rest of it just as I've been doin' for
three years."
He looked his admiration before he uttered it. "You're a wonder!"
"Don't you think it! How does it happen you're down to-day? You said
Saturday."
"I've sold out--signed the deeds to-day. I'm out of the liquor trade
forever."
She nodded gravely. "I'm glad of that. I don't like the business--not a
little bit."
He took this as an encouragement. "I knew you didn't. Well, I'm neither
saloon-keeper nor gambler from this day. I'm a miner and a
capitalist--and all I have is yours," he added, in a lover's voice,
bending a keen glance upon her.
The girl was standing very straight behind her desk, and her face did
not change, but her eyes shifted before his gaze. "You'd better go in to
supper while the biscuit are hot," she advised, coolly.
He had tact enough to take his dismissal without another word or glance,
and after he had gone she still stood there in the same rigid pose, but
her face was softer and clouded with serious meditation. It was
wonderful to think of this rich and powerful man changing his whole life
for her.
Winchell, the young barber, came in hurriedly, his face full of
accusation and alarm. "Was that Haney who just came in?" he asked,
truculently.
"Yes, he's at supper--want to see him?"
"See him? No! And I don't want _you_ to see him! He's too free with you,
Bert; I don't like it."
She smiled a little, curious smile. "Don't mix it up with _him_, Ed--I'd
hate to see your remains afterwards."
"Bert, see here! You've been funny with me lately." (By funny he meant
unaccountable.) "And your mother has been hinting things at me--and now
here is Haney leaving his business to come down the middle of the week.
What's the meaning of it?"
"It isn't the middle of the week. It's Friday," she corrected him.
He went on: "I know what he keeps coming to see you for, but for God's
sake don't you think of marrying an old tout and gambler like him."
"He isn't old, and he isn't a gambler any more," she significantly
retorted.
"What do you mean?"
"He's sold out--clean as a whistle."
"Don't you believe it! It's a trick to get you to think better of him.
Bert, don't you dare to go back on me," he cried out, warningly--"don't
you dare!"
The girl suddenly ceased smiling, and asserted herself. "See here, Ed,
you'd better not try to boss me. I won't stand for it. What license have
you got to pop in here every few minutes and tell me what's what? You
'tend to your business and you'll get ahead faster."
He stammered with rage and pain. "If you throw me down--fer that--old
tout, I'll kill you both."
The girl looked at him in silence for a long time, and into her brain
came a new, swift, and revealing concept of his essential littleness and
weakness. His beauty lost its charm, and a kind of disgust rose in her
throat as she slowly said, with cutting scorn:
"If you really meant that!--but you don't, you're only talking to hear
yourself talk. Now you shut up and run away. This is no place for
chewing the rag, anyway--this is my busy day."
For a moment the man's face expressed the rage of a wild-cat and his
hands clinched. "Don't you do it--that's all!" he finally snarled.
"You'll wish you hadn't."
"Run away, little boy," she said, irritably. "You make me tired. I don't
feel like being badgered by anybody, and, besides, I'm not mortgaged to
anybody just yet."
His mood changed. "Bertie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be fresh. But
don't talk to me that way, it uses me all up."
"Well, then, stop puffing and blowing. I've troubles of my own, with
mother sick and a new cook in the kitchen."
"Excuse me, Bert; I'll never do it again."
"That's all right."
"But it riled me like the devil to think--" he began again.
"Don't think," she curtly interrupted; "cut hair."
Perceiving that she was in evil mood for his plea, he turned away so
sadly that the girl relented a little and called out:
"Say, Ed!" He turned and came back. "See here! I didn't intend to hurt
your feelings, but this is one of my touchy days, and you got on the
wrong side of me. I'm sorry. Here's my hand--now shake, and run."
His face lightened, and he smiled, displaying his fine, white teeth.
"You're a world-beater, sure thing, and I'm going to get you yet!"
"Cut it out!" she slangily retorted, sharply, withdrawing her hand.
"You'll see!" he shouted, laughing back at her, full of hope again.
She was equally curt with two or three others who brazenly tried to buy
a smile with their cigars. "Do business, boys; this is my day to sell
goods," she said, and they took the hint.
When Haney came out from his supper, he stepped quietly in behind the
counter and said: "I'll take your place. Get your grub. Then put on your
hat and we'll drive out to see how the mother is." The girl acknowledged
a sense of relief as she left him in charge and went to her seat in the
far corner of the dining-room--a relief and a dangerous relaxation. It
was, after all, a pleasure to feel that a strong, sure hand was
out-stretched in sympathy--and she was tired. Even as she sat waiting
for her tea the collapse came, and bowing her head to her hands she
shook with silent sobs.
The waitresses stared, and young Mrs. Gilman came hurrying. "What's the
matter, Bertie; are you sick?"
"Oh no--but I'm worried--about mother."
"You haven't heard anything--?"
"No, but she looked so old and so worn when she went away. She ought to
have quit here a month ago."
"Well, I wouldn't worry. It's cooler out to the ranch, and the air is so
pure she'll pick up right away--you'll see."
"I hope so, but she ought to take it easy the rest of her days. She's
done work enough--and I'm kind o' discouraged myself."
Slowly she recovered her self-possession. She drank her tea in
abstracted silence, and at last she said: "I'm going out there, Cassie;
you'll have to look after things. I'll get some of the boys to 'tend the
office."
"You're not going alone?"
"No, Mart Haney is going to drive me."
"Oh!" There was a look of surprise and consternation in the face of the
young wife, but she only asked, "You'll be back to-night?"
"Yes, if mother is no worse."
Haney had the smartest "rig" in town waiting for her as she came out,
but as he looked at her white dress and pretty hat of flowers and tulle
he apologized for its shortcomings--"'Tis lined with cream-colored satin
it _should_ be."
She colored a little at this, but quickly replied: "Blarney. Anybody'd
know you were an Irishman."
"I am, and proud of it."
"I want to take the doctor out to see mother."
"Not in this rig," he protested.
She smiled. "Why not? No, but I want to go round to his office and leave
a call."
"I'll go round the world fer you," he replied.
The air was deliciously cool and fragrant now that the sun was sinking,
and the town was astir with people. It was the social hour when the heat
and toil of the day were over, and all had leisure to turn wondering
eyes upon Haney and his companion. The girl felt her position keenly.
She was aware that a single appearance of this kind was equivalent to an
engagement in the minds of her acquaintances, but as she shyly glanced
at her lover's handsome face, and watched his powerful and skilled hands
upon the reins, her pride in him grew. She acknowledged his kindness,
and was tired and ready to lean upon his strength.
"When did your mother quit?" he asked, after they had left the town
behind.
"Sunday night. You see, we had a big rush all day, and on top of that,
about twelve o'clock, an alarm of fire next door. So she got no sleep.
Monday morning she didn't get up, Tuesday she dressed but was too
miserable to work, so finally I just packed her off to the ranch."
"That was right--only you should have sent for me."
She was silent, and her heart began to beat with a knowledge of the
demand he was about to make. She felt weak and unprotected here--in the
office they were on more equal terms--but she enjoyed in a subconscious
way the swift rush of the horses, the splendor of the sunset, and the
quiet authority in his voice--even as she lifted eyes to the mesa
towards which they were driving he began to speak.
"You know my mind, little girl. I don't mean to ask you till
to-morrow--that's the day set--but I want to say that I've been cleaning
house all the week, thinkin' of you. I'm to be a leading citizen from
this day on. You won't need to apologize for me. I've never been a
drinking man, but I have been a reckless devil. I don't deny that I've
planted a wide field of wild oats. However, all that I put away from
this hour. 'Tis true I'm forty, but that's not old--I'm no older than I
was at twenty-one, sure--and, besides, you're young enough to make up."
He smiled, and again she acknowledged the charm of his face when he
smiled. "You'll see me grow younger whilst you grow older, and so wan
day we'll be of an age."
Her customary readiness of reply had left her, and she still sat in
silence, a sob in her throat, a curious numbness in her limbs.
He seemed to feel that she did not wish to talk. "If you come into
partnership with me you need never worry about the question of bread or
rent or clothes, and that's worth considerin'--Which road now?"
She silently pointed to the left, and they drew near the foot of the
great mesa whose level top was cutting the sun in half.
The miner was filled with grateful homage. "'Tis a great world!" he
exclaimed, softly. "Sure, 'tis only yesterday that I found it out, and
lifting me head took a look at the hills and the stars for the first
time in twenty years. 'Tis a new road I'm enterin'--whether you come to
me or not."
All this was wonderful to the girl. Could it be that she was capable of
changing the life of a powerful man like this? It filled her with a
sense of duty as well as exaltation, an emotion that made a woman of
her. She seemed suddenly to have put the hotel and all its worriments
far, far behind her.
Seized by an impulse to acquaint her with his family, Haney began to
tell about his father and his attempts to govern his five sons. "We were
devils," he admitted--"broncos, if ever such walked on two legs. We
wouldn't go to school--not wan of us except Charley; he did pretty
well--and we fished and played ball and went to the circus--" He
chuckled. "I left home the first time with a circus. I wanted to be a
lion-tamer, but had to content meself with driving the cook wagon. Then
I struck West, and I've never been back and I've never seen the old man
since, but now I've made me pile, I think I'll go home and hunt him up
and buy him new spectacles; it's ace to the three-spot he's using the
same horn-rimmed ones he wore when I left."
Bertha was interested. "How long did you stay with the circus?"
"Not very long. I got homesick and went back, but the next time I left,
I left for fair. I've been everywhere but East since. I've been in
Colorado mostly. 'Tis a good State."
"I like it--but I'd like to see the rest of the country."
"You can. If you join hands with me we'll go round the ball together."
She did not follow this lead. "I've been to Denver once--went on one of
these excursion tickets."
"How did you like it there?"
"Pretty good; but I got awful tired, and the grub at the hotel was the
worst ever--it was a cheap place, of course. Didn't dare to look in the
door of the big places."
"You can have a whole soot of rooms at the Royal Flush--if you will."
Again she turned away. "I can't imagine anybody rich enough to live at
such hotels--There's our ranch."
"Shy as a coyote, ain't it?" he commented, as he looked where she
pointed. "I'd prefer the Eagle House to that."
"I love it out here," she said. "I helped plant the trees."
"Did you? Then I want the place. I want everything your pretty hands
planted."
"Oh, rats!" was her reproving comment, and it made him laugh at his own
sentimental speech.
The ranch house stood at the foot of the mesa near a creek that came out
of a narrow gorge and struck out upon the flat valley. It was a little
house--a shack merely, surrounded by a few out-buildings, all looking as
temporary as an Indian encampment, but there were trees--thriftily
green--and some stacks of grain to testify to the energy and good
husbandry of the owner.
Mrs. Gilman was lying in a corner room, close to the stream which
rippled through the little orchard, and its gentle murmur had been a
comfort to her--it carried her back to her home in Oxford County (State
of Maine), where her early girlhood had been spent. At times it seemed
that she was in the little, old, gray house in the valley, and that her
father's sharp voice might come at any moment to break her delicious
drowse.
Her breakdown had been caused as much by her mental turmoil as by her
overtaxing duties. She was confronted by a mighty temptation (through
her daughter) at a time when she was too weak and too ill to carry
forward her ordinary duties. To urge this marriage upon Bertha would be
to bring it about. That she knew, for the girl had said, "I'll do it if
you say so, mother."
"I don't want you to do it if you'd rather not," had been her weak
answer.
Bertie entered quietly, in a singularly mature, almost manly way, and
bending to her mother, asked cordially, "Well, how are you to-day?"
The sick woman took her daughter's hand and drew it to her tear-wet
cheek. "Oh, my baby! I can't bear to leave you now."
"Don't talk that way, mother. You're not going to leave me. The doctor
is coming out to see you, and everything is going all right at the
house, so don't you worry. You set to work to get well. That's your
little stunt. I'll look after the rest of it."
Bertie had never been one to bestow caresses, even on her parents, and
her only sign of deep feeling now lay in the tremble of her voice. She
drew her hand away, and putting her arm about her mother's neck patted
her cheek. "Cassie's doing well," she said, abruptly, "and the girls are
fine. They brace right up to the situation, and--and everybody's nice to
us. I reckon a dozen of the church ladies called yesterday to ask how
you were--and Captain Haney came down to-day on purpose to find out how
things were going."
The sufferer's eyes opened wide. "Bert, he's with you!"
"Yes, he drove me out here," answered the girl, quietly. "He's come for
an answer to his proposition. It's up to us to decide right now."
The mother broke into a whimper. "Oh, darling, I don't know what to
think. I'm afraid to leave this to you--it's an awful temptation to a
girl. I guess I've decided against it. He ain't the kind of man you
ought to marry."
She hushed her mother's wail. "Sh! He'll hear you," she said, solemnly.
"There are lots o' worse men than Mart Haney."
"But he's so old--for you."
"He's no boy, that's true, but we went all over that. The new fact in
the case is this: he's sold out up there--cleared out his saloon
business--and all for _me_. Think o' that--and I hadn't given him a word
of encouragement, either! Now that speaks well for him, don't you
think?"
The mother nodded. "Yes, it surely does, but then--"
The girl went on: "Well, now, it ain't as though I hated him, for I
don't--I like him, I've always liked him. He's the handsomest man I
know, and he's treated me right from the very start. He didn't come down
to hurry me or crowd me at all, so he says. Well, I told him I wouldn't
answer yet awhile--time isn't really up till to-morrow. I can take
another week if I want to."
The mother lay in silence for a few moments, and then with closed eyes,
streaming with hot tears, she again prayed silently to God to guide her
girl in the right path. When she opened her eyes the tall form of
Marshall Haney towered over her, so handsome, so full of quiet power
that he seemed capable of anything. His face was strangely sweet as he
said: "You must not fret about anything another minute. You've but to
lie quiet and get strong." He put his broad, soft, warm, and muscular
hand down upon her two folded ones, and added: "Let me do fer ye as I
would fer me own mother. 'Twill not commit ye to a thing." He seemed to
understand her mood--perhaps he had overheard her plea. "I'm not asking
a decision till you are well, but I wish you would trust me now--I could
do so much more fer you and the girl. Here's the doctor, so put the
whole thing by for the present. I ask nothing till you are well."
If this was policy on his part it was successful; for the poor tortured
mother's heart was touched and her nerves soothed by his voice, as well
as by the touch of his hand, and when they left the house she was in
peaceful sleep, and the doctor's report was reassuring. "But she must
have rest," he said, positively, "and freedom from care."
"She shall have it," said Haney, with equal decision.
This bluff kindness, joined to the allurement of his powerful form,
profoundly affected the girl. Her heart went out towards him in
admiration and trust, and as they were on the way home she turned
suddenly to him, and said:
"You're good to me--and you were good to mother; you needn't wait till
to-morrow for my answer. I'll do as you want me to--some time--not
now--next spring, maybe."
He put his arm about her and kissed her, his eyes dim with a new and
softening emotion.
"You've made Mart Haney over new--so you have! As sure as God lets me
live, I'll make you happy. You shall live like a queen."