BERTHA'S DECISION
It was good to wake in her old room and see the morning light breaking
in golden waves against the peaks, to hear her dogs bay and to listen to
the murmuring voice of the fountains on the lawn. It was deliciously
luxurious to sit at breakfast on the vine-clad porch with the shining
new coffee-boiler before her, while Miss Franklin expressed her
admiration of the napery and china which the Mosses had helped her to
select.
It was glorious to go romping with the dogs about the garden, and most
intoxicating to mount her horse and ride away upon the mesa, mad with
speed and ecstatic of the wind. No one could have kept pace with her
that first day at home. She ran from one thing to the other. She
unpacked and spread out all her treasures. She telegraphed her mother
and 'phoned her friends. She gave direction to the servants and examined
every thing from the horses' hoofs to the sewing-machine. She went over
the house from top to bottom to see that it was in order. She was crazy
with desire of doing. Her mid-day meal was a mere touch-and-go lunch,
but when at last she was seated in her carriage with Haney and Miss
Franklin she fell back in her seat, saying, "I feel kind o' sleepy and
tired."
"I should think you would!" exclaimed her teacher.
"Of all the galloping creatures you are the most wonderful. I hope
you're not to keep this up."
Haney put in a quiet word. "She will _not_. Sure, she cannot. There'll
be nothin' left for to-morrow."
Their ride was in the nature of a triumphal progress. Many people who
had hesitated about bowing to them hitherto took this morning to unbend,
and Mart observed, with a good deal of satisfaction: "The town seems
powerful cordial. I think I'll launch me boom for the Senate."
At the bank-door, where the carriage waited while Bertha transacted some
business within, he held a veritable reception, and the swarming
tourists, looking upon the sleek and shining team and the gray
mustached, dignified old man leaning from his seat to shake hands,
wondered who the local magnate was, and those who chanced to look in at
the window were still more interested in the handsome girl in whose
honor the president of the bank left his mahogany den.
In truth, Bertha had won, almost without striving for it, the
recognition of the town. Those who had never really established anything
against her seized upon this return as the moment of capitulation. There
was no mystery about her life. She was known now, and no one really knew
anything evil of her--why should she be condemned?
In such wise the current of comment now set, and Mrs. Haney found
herself approached by ladies who had hitherto passed her without so much
as a nod. She took it all composedly, and in answer to their invitations
bluntly answered: "The Captain ain't up to going out much, and I don't
like to leave him alone. Come and see us."
She was composed with all save Fordyce, who now produced in her a kind
of breathlessness which frightened her. She longed for, yet dreaded, his
coming, and for several days avoided direct conversation with him. He
respected this reserve in her, but was eager to get her comment on the
East.
"How did you like New York," he asked one night as they were all in the
garden awaiting dinner.
"It scared me," she answered. "Made me feel like a lady-bug in a
clover-huller; but it never phased the Captain," she added, with a
smile. "'There's nothin' too good for the Haneys,' says he, and we sure
went the pace. We turned Lucius loose. We spent money wicked--enough to
buy out a full-sized hotel."
Her quaint, shrewd comment on her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly,
and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her
salient experiences--excepting, of course, her grapple with the
degenerate artist.
"Lucius turned out the jewel they said he was?"
She responded with enthusiasm. "I should say he did! He knew everything
we wanted to know and more too. We'd have wandered around like a couple
of Utes if it hadn't been for him. _When in doubt ask Lucius_, was our
motto."
She told stories of the elder Haney and the McArdles, and described the
trials of the children in their new home till Ben laughingly said: "It's
hard to run somebody else's life--I've found that out."
And Haney admitted with a chuckle that Mac was "a little bewildered,
like a hen with a red rag on her tail--divided in his mind like. As for
Dad, he still thinks me a burglar on an improved plan."
They also talked of Bertha's studies, for Miss Franklin began at once to
give her daily instruction in certain arts which she considered
necessary to women of Mrs. Haney's position, and always at the moment of
meeting they spoke of Alice--that is to say, Haney with invariable
politeness asked after her health, and quite as regularly Ben replied:
"Not very well." Once he added: "I can hardly get her out any more. She
seems more and more despondent."
This report profoundly troubled Bertha, and the sight of Alice's drawn
and tragic face made her miserable. There was something in the sick
woman's gaze which awed her, and she was careful not to be left alone
with her. The thought of her suffering and its effect on Ben threw a
dark shadow over the brightness of her world. She was filled, also, with
a growing uneasiness by reason of Mart's change of attitude towards
herself. In the excitement of his home-coming he seemed about to regain
a large part of his former health and spirits. His eyes brightened, his
smile became more frequent, the appealing lines of his brow smoothed
out, and save for an occasional shortening of the breath his condition
appeared to be improving.
This access of vitality was apparent to Bertha, and should have brought
joy to her as to him; but it did not, for with returning vitality his
attitude towards her became less of the invalid and more of the lover.
He said nothing directly--at first--but she was able to interpret all
too well the meaning of his jocular remarks and his wistful glances.
Once he called her attention to the returning strength in his arm. "The
ould man is not dead yet," he exulted, lifting his disabled arm and
clinching his fist. "I feel younger than at any time since me accident,"
and as he spoke she perceived something of the lion in the light of his
eyes.
One night as she was passing his chair he reached for her and caught her
and drew her down upon his knee. "Sit ye down a wink. Ye're always on
the move like a flibberty-bidget."
She struggled free of his embrace, her face clouded with alarm and
anger. "Don't be a fool," she said, harshly.
He released her, saying, humbly: "Don't be angry, darlin', 'tis foolish
of me, an ould crippled wolf, to be thinking of matin' with a fawn like
y'rself. I don't blame ye. Go your ways."
She went to her room, with his voice--so humbly penitent and
resigned--lingering in her ears, trembling with the weight of the burden
which his amorous mood had laid upon her.
She resented his action the more because life at the moment was so full
of joy. Each morning was filled with pleasant duties, and each afternoon
they drove to the office to discuss the mines with Ben, and in the
evening he called to sit for an hour or two on the porch, smoking,
talking, till Mart grew sleepy and yawned. These meetings were
deliciously, calmly delightful, for Mrs. Gilman or Miss Franklin was
always present, and, though the talk was general, Ben talked for her
ears at times, but always impersonally, and she honored him for his
delicacy, his reserve, his respect for her position as a married woman,
recognizing the care with which he avoided everything which might
embarrass her.
And now, by force of Mart's humble suing, her half-forgotten scruples
were revived. Her uneasiness began again. A decision was finally and
definitely thrust upon her. Instantly she was beset by all her doubts
and desires, and the sky darkened with clouds of trouble.
To make Mart happy was still her wish, but the way was not so easy of
choice, nor so simple to follow as it had once seemed. The briers were
thick before her feet. There was so much of personal gratification, so
much of selfish pleasure, in remaining his companion, warmed and
defended by all the comfort and dignity which his wealth had brought to
her, that it seemed a kind of treachery to halt with her duty half done.
To be his spouse, to become the mother of his children, this alone would
entitle her to his bounty. "I can't do it!" she cried out--"I can't, I
can't!" And yet not to do his will was to remain a pensioner and to be
under indictment as an adventuress.
She had read somewhere these words from a great philosopher: "The woman
who bears a child to any man should instantly be lawfully seized of
one-half his goods, for by that sublime act she takes her life in her
hand as truly as the soldier who charges upon an invading host. The
anguish of maternity should sanctify every woman."
On the other side of her hedge lay enticing freedom. It seemed at times
as though to be again in the little office of the Golden Eagle Hotel
would be a more perfect happiness than this she now enjoyed--but that,
too, was illusory. How could she repay the money she had used? The
moment she left Marshall Haney she would not only be poor, she would be
profoundly in his debt. Where could she find the money to repay him and
to make her schooling possible?
Perplexity was in her darkened eyes. Happiness and sorrow, doubt and
delight grew along each path--thickly interwoven--and decision became
each day more difficult. It was hateful to lie under the charge of
having married merely for a gambler's money, and yet to plunge her
mother and herself back into poverty would seem to others the act of one
insane. As she pondered the problem of her life she lost all of her
girlish lightness of heart and lay in her luxurious bed a brooding,
troubled woman.
She could have gone on indefinitely with the half-filial, half-fraternal
relationship into which she and Mart had fallen, but the thought of that
other most intimate, most elemental union which his touch had made more
definite than ever before produced in her a shudder of repulsion, of
positive loathing. She could no longer endure the clasp of his hand, and
in spite of herself she was forced, by contrasting experience, to
acknowledge the allurement which lay in Ben Fordyce's handsome face and
strong and graceful body.
"I must go away--for a while at least. I'll go back to the ranch and
think it over."
And yet even the ranch was partly Haney's! How could she escape from her
indebtedness to him? To what could she turn to make a living? To leave
this big house and her horses, her garden, her dresses and jewels,
required heroic resolution, but what of the long days of toil and
dulness to which she must return?
Worn with the ceaseless alternations of these thoughts, she fell into a
dream that was half a waking vision. She thought she had just packed a
bag with the gown she wore the night she came to Haney's rescue, when he
came shuffling into her room and said: "Where are you goin', darlin'?"
She replied: "To the ranch--to think things over."
The tears came to his eyes, and he said: "'Tis the sun out of me sky
when ye go, Bertie. Do not stay long."
She promised to be back soon, but rode away with settled intent never to
return.
No one knew her on the train, for she had drawn her veil close and sat
very still. It seemed that she went near the mine in some strange way,
and at the switch Williams got on the train to stop her and persuade her
to return. He was terribly agitated. "Didn't you know Mart is sick?" he
said, in a tone of reproach. It seemed as if a broad river of years
flowed between herself and the girl who used to see this queer little
man enter her hotel door--but he was unchanged. "You can't do this
thing!" he went on, his lips trembling with emotion.
"What thing?" she asked.
"Fordyce tells me you're going to throw poor old Mart overboard."
"That's my notion--I can't be his wife, and so I'm getting out," she
answered.
"But, girl, you can't do that!" and he swore in his excitement. "Mart
needs you--we all need you. It'll kill him."
"I can't help it!" she answered, with infinite weariness in throat and
brain. "I pass it up, and go back to my brother."
"I don't see why."
"Because I've no right to Mart's money."
"You're crazy to think of such a thing. You a queen! Who's goin' to
catch the money when you drop it?" he asked, and helplessly added: "I
don't believe you. You're kiddin', you're tryin' us out."
"I'm doing nothing to earn this luxury."
"Doing nothing! My God, you've made Mart Haney over new. You've
converted him--as they say, you've redeemed him. Let me tell you
something, little sister, Mart worships you. It does him good just to
_see_ you. You don't expect the moon to fry bacon, do you? Stars don't
run pumps! Mart is satisfied. Every time you speak to him or pass by him
he gets happy all the way through--I know, for I feel just the same."
There was something in his eloquence that went to the heart of the
dreaming girl. If any one in her world was to be trusted it was this
ugly little man, who never presumed to ask even a smile for himself, and
whose unswerving loyalty to Mart made her own flight a base and cruel
act; and yet even as he pleaded his face faded and she fancied herself
stepping from the train in Sibley, unnoticed by even the hackmen, who
used to bring the humbler passengers of each train to the door of the
Golden Eagle Hotel.
She walked up the sidewalk, surprised to find it changed to brick. The
hotel was gone, and in its place stood a saloon marked, "Haney's Place."
This hardened her heart again. "That settles it!" she said, bitterly.
"He's gone back to his old business."
The road out to the ranch seemed very long and hot, but she had no
money, not a cent left with which to hire a carriage, and she kept
saying to herself: "If Mart knew this, he'd send Lucius and the machine.
I reckon he'd be sorry to see me walking in this dust. It's a good thing
I have my old brown dress on." She passed lovingly, regretfully over the
splendid gowns which hung in her wardrobe. "What will become of them?"
she asked. "Fan can't wear them." This called up a vision of Fan and her
eldest daughter, sweeping about in her splendor, her opera-cloak only
half encompassing the mother, while the girl swished over the floor in
the gown she had worn at her last dinner in the East. She laughed and
cried at the same time--it was painful to see them thus abused.
Then she seemed suddenly to enter the grove of twisted, hag-like cedars
which stood upon the mesa back of the ranch-house. "By-and-by I will
look like this," she dreamed, and laid her hand on one that was ragged
and gnarled and gray with a thousand years of sun and wind, and even as
she stood there, with the old crones moaning round her, Ben suddenly
confronted her.
Her first impulse was for flight, so sad and bitter was his face. She
began to pity him. His boyhood seemed to have slipped from him like a
gay cloak, revealing the stern man beneath.
He met her gravely, self-containedly, yet with restrained passion, and
his voice was sternly calm as he began: "I have come to ask you what you
wish to do with Marshall Haney's inheritance? I will not be a party to
your action. I helped him plan out his will, and he said he could trust
you to do the right thing, and I have come to tell you that his will
must be yours."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"He is dead!" he replied.
Her heart turned to ice at the sound of his words, so clear, succinct,
and piercing; then the cedars began to wail and wail, and sway in
eldrich grief, but she who felt most remorse could not utter a sound to
prove her own despair; and in the tumult her dream ended abruptly, and
she woke to hear the night wind whistling weirdly through the screen of
her open window.
She lay in silence, shuddering with the subsiding terror of her vision,
till she came to a full realization of the fact that it was all but a
night terror and that Mart was still alive and her decision not yet
irrevocably made.
She shuddered again--not in grief, but in terror--as she relived the
vivid hour of self-chosen poverty which her dream had brought her. Yes,
the magic of wealth had spoiled her for Sibley and the ranch. To go back
there was impossible. "I will try the East," she said. "The Mosses will
help me." And yet to return to Chicago--after having played the grand
lady--would be bitterly hard. Suppose her friends should meet her with
cold eyes and hesitating words? Suppose they, too, had loved her money
and not herself? Suppose even Joe, who seemed as true as Williams,
should prove to be a selfish sycophant. Ah yes, it would be a different
city with the magic of Haney's money no longer hers to command.
In this hour of deepest misery and despair the sheen of his gold
returned like sunlight after a storm; and yet, even as she permitted
herself to imagine how sweetly the new day would dawn with her
determination to remain the mistress of this great house, the old fear,
the new disgust, returned to plague her. Her love for Ben Fordyce came
also--and the knowledge that Alice was dying of a broken heart because
of Ben's growing indifference--all these perplexities made the coming of
sunlight a mockery.
She rose to the new day quite as undecided as before and more deeply
saddened. One thing was plain--Ben should come no more to visit her--for
Alice's sake he must keep the impersonal attitude of the legal adviser.
In that way alone could even the semblance of peace be won.