Busied with her “penance” of quilting, the next day, Thurley was summoned
by a peremptory rap at the side door. It was Ali Baba, his shabby silk
hat laid across his heart after the fashion of pictures of cavaliers
which he had chanced to see in old-time novels.
“I’ve an invitation from the queen,” he said with a bit of dry humor.
“After she heard you sing, she wants to tell you how you please her.
Don’t refuse or we’ll all be beheaded in the tower! Thurley dear, I’m a
silly old man—what I mean is that Abigail Clergy wants you to drive with
her. She won’t harm you—she’s as sane as you or I—only she heard you sing
and she liked it. For land’s sake and Mrs. Davis, don’t refuse! We’d lose
the one chance of maybe makin’ her be her own self again. Never mind a
hat; just go out to the coupé and drive about with her. Let her talk to
you!” The hand which held the silk hat trembled from excitement.
To have lived with a haunted creature for over thirty years and suddenly
have that haunted creature express a normal desire was nothing less than
terrifying to the two aged servitors.
“Me? Drive with Abby Clergy? Ali Baba, sure it’s not a joke? Come? Of
course I will,” and with no more thought for her “penance,” Thurley
danced out of the house, down the flagstone walk and with an abrupt,
determined hand opened the door of the curtained coupé.
Trembling with excitement herself, Miss Clergy managed to extend her
hand. “I wanted to tell you something, Thurley Precore,” she began. “Ali
Baba—an hour’s drive—not too fast!” this a discreet hint to Ali Baba
that eavesdropping was not to be tolerated, and, as Melba stalked down
the road, injured to the last buckle of her shining harness at the extra
weight thrust upon her, Thurley turned an unaffectedly delighted face to
Miss Clergy and said,
“What in the world is it? You’ve no idea how larky it is to drive with
you—I’ve made up stories about you ever since I found my way into your
house years ago—the side way—and you ran after me,” her clear, musical
laugh seemed to clear the atmosphere of excited unrest.
“So it was you! Strange ... never mind myself—tell me, have you always
sung like this?”
“Of course! I can’t help it any more than to breathe.”
“You have no relatives—no one nearer than Betsey Pilrig?”
Thurley admitted sorrowfully that she had not.
“Nor money?”
“Not a penny! But I’m the happiest pauper alive.”
“I hear you are to marry,” Miss Clergy’s voice broke as she said the
words, “the Birge boy? My dear, I’m not so old as I seem, but I had a
great sorrow when I was younger than you and it changed everything. I’ve
never chosen to explain to the world, since I was not dependent on it,
and if I preferred to live alone and brood, it was my right. But this
much do I know, and because you are young and have a God-given talent, I
shall tell you. You are a fool—as great a fool in your way as I was in
mine to trust the man who cheated me—to marry a country boy and try to
be content. You’ll be running off with the first goodlooking stranger
that comes your way ... ah, but I know, times never have changed women’s
hearts. They eloped years ago by a team of fast horses, and now they do
it by the aid of an automobile, and in a little while they’ll be eloping
in a flying machine. You see, I’m not so queer as people say, I’ve kept
up a bit! Birges have bad tempers. I knew the grandfather, and they are
Englishmen regarding their wives. You can sing and you are young and
spirited; you should go away to New York and have teachers and the chance
to become great. I am not telling you this to break your engagement, but
from your eyes I see that singing is as dear to you as Daniel Birge or
you would have stopped me when I first mentioned his name. Is that not
so?”
“Quite,” said Thurley simply.
“Then remember this! Should some disagreement come between you two, I
could not say what,” she shrugged her black shoulders and waved the
withered hands with their flashing rings, “say, if you wanted to sing
and he tried to prevent you from so doing—as all beasts of men try to
cheat women of the things dearest to them,” her teeth made a grinding,
unpleasant noise, “if you should be brave enough and big enough, as I
think you would be, to tell this boy to go his way and you with your
voice would go yours, come to me, Thurley! I may be odd, but I am very
rich, and your singing has made me realize I’m a lonesome old woman. I’d
like nothing better, my child, than to take you to New York to make you
the success God intended. Don’t thank me. It is not goodness of heart—not
half so much as revenge. If you came with Dan Birge’s child in your arms
and told me he was out of work and you needed aid, I’m afraid I would
have a deaf ear. But I want to cheat some man of the woman he loves, to
turn the tables. This boy loves you in his over-colored, peasant way.
It would break his heart, as nearly as any man’s heart can be broken, to
have you leave him. It would sting his pride and scratch his vanity—”
“But Dan is true blue, Miss Clergy! I couldn’t hurt him to please any
one.”
“No, but if he forbade your singing—as he will—and you were lucky enough
to find it out before you married him instead of afterwards—what then?
Would you meekly lock your piano and follow him into the kitchen? What
then? Speak up, my girl! Remember, I am not trying to cause trouble. I
ask you only for the promise. Should you have an argument with your—your
lover, come to me; do not weaken! I am rich—and lonesome—and your voice
has made me know I want to love some one again—just before I die. I’ll
let you out here, my dear. You can scamper back. Don’t forget, will you,
Thurley?”
She pressed the tube for Ali Baba to halt. Thurley, bewildered,
impressed, angered, yet amused, all in one, knew that yellowed lips
brushed her fresh cheek, and, when she looked up to say good-by, there
were tears in Abby Clergy’s restless eyes!
Fate sometimes pursues people, even if they are not willing to be
pursued. Certainly it was fate pursued Thurley Precore. As she came to
Betsey Pilrig’s gate tingling with excitement, inclined to laugh and then
to protest against the abuse of Dan, and, finally, to cry a little like
a true woman, she glanced in the letter-box to find an offer from Rufus
Westcott, manager of the South Wales county fair. He asked if Thurley
would sing during fair week at five dollars a night, and to let him know
as soon as possible.
Betsey Pilrig wondered why Thurley stayed so long at the gate reading her
letter. But only Thurley knew! Miss Clergy had spoken barely in time. An
hour before and Thurley would have said to Dan,
“Please let me. You can take me home every night—I want to—there’s no
harm and it’s such a lark—please,” and would have ended in being coaxed
out of her desire.
But she marched into the dining-room, and, sitting at the table, opened
a writing pad and picked up a pencil. Fate did not even let her wait for
ink! She accepted Mr. Westcott’s offer with pleasure and would send him
her programme of songs inside of two days.
Signing her name, she glanced up to see Betsey Pilrig standing in the
doorway.
“Thurley, you look up to mischief! Where have you been?”
Thurley sealed the envelope with an emphatic little thump, “I can’t tell
you until I’ve told Dan.”
“I guess as long as you tell Dan first, I can wait,” Betsey answered.
But had she witnessed the telling she would not have complacently made
beaten biscuit, wondering if Dan was coming home for supper with Thurley.
For Thurley, racing impatiently back from the post office to keep her
daily tryst with Dan, had come upon him returning from the cemetery.
“You’re an hour late,” he complained.
She started to explain and then something kept “ticking” these words into
her head like an insistent clock, “I am rich and lonesome and your voice
has made me know I want to love some one again.” So all she answered was,
“Must I account to you for every moment?” flinging herself down by the
road and playing with Zaza.
Although he felt he ought to tower down at her in conventional, jealous
rage, Dan seated himself meekly beside her. “Why, I didn’t mean it that
way! Only you’re never late and I worried. I was afraid you were hurt.
You are going to be my wife and I’ve the right to ask questions. What’s
wrong, dear? Your eyes are like stars and your cheeks as pink as your
dress! You look as if you’d found some one you liked better than you do
me,” he could not refrain from adding. “Do you know I’m terribly envious
of any one you like at all? I’d like to lock away all your smiles for
myself.”
“Silly,” reproached Thurley, as she trailed a stick in front of Zaza. “As
if I couldn’t have personal errands. I don’t go asking you where you are
every minute in the day—”
“I’d rather you did than to seem not to care.” He tried to put his arm
around her, but she drew away.
“Don’t! It’s terribly childish to make love at every fence corner. Let’s
be dignified—not boy and girl style! I don’t like it any more.”
“You used to,” he objected.
“Oh, no, it was just the young of me that liked excitement. There isn’t
any excitement at the Corners unless the gods happen to favor one. I’ve
been thinking for a long time I should not have been so lazy as I am,
staying at Granny’s and hardly earning my ‘keep.’”
“Have you been reading more silly books?”
“Dan, suppose we quarreled! Well, just suppose we did—and Miss Clergy,
the funny old lady at the Fincherie, took it into her head that she
wanted to give me a chance to learn how to sing and talk and dance and
all the things that are just crying inside of me to be learned! Oh, Dan,
dear, don’t look like that! I’m just supposing. And suppose I decided to
let her take me to New York—and our engagement was broken, would you care
so terribly?” The latent maternal in Thurley was asking the question; it
lacked the usual ruse of the vapid coquette.
He looked as if he scarcely comprehended what she had said. Then he
answered, “Don’t suppose that way. Something inside me would just _die_.”
Thurley’s handsome eyebrows drew together in a straight line. “Dan,” she
added a moment later, “I’ve promised Rufus Westcott, the county fair
manager, to sing at the South Wales fair every night. Do you mind?”
“Never!” he cried, standing up. “So that’s what has caused this talk?
I’ll not let my future wife sing at a county fair with painted dancers
and half-drunken fakirs! What do you think I am?”
“I’m not your wife yet,” she retorted, angry youth rising to face angry
youth, and tender love quite helpless between them! “I’ve written and
promised—I just posted the letter.”
“You didn’t even ask me!” he accused.
“Why should I ask you?”
“Because I love you! I’d ask you about anything I was going to do, you
know that. How much did he offer you? I’ll double it, if you say no.”
She shook her head. “If you gave me five hundred dollars, I’d not be
bribed. It isn’t the money. It’s the joy of singing to people—but you
can’t understand.”
“You belong to me and you shall not do it!” The Birge temper was gaining
control of the good-natured, generous boy. “Do you hear me?”
“I belong to whom I choose! Don’t look at me like that! Do you think
I’ll marry a man so narrow-minded that he refuses me the chance to sing
in respectable fashion? Better women than I have done so.” The Precore
temper was matching the Birge temper without hesitation.
“I won’t give my consent,” Dan said in a dangerous tone. “If you sing
at that fair, by God—I—I won’t marry you!” Then his face went white
as soon as he had spoken. “Oh, no, of course I,” he began piteously,
“Thurley—listen—don’t do it, will you—”
Thurley’s eyes were closed for a moment. She saw in tempting panorama
the old coupé with Miss Clergy saying good-by and adding, “I am rich and
lonesome and—”
She opened them to look with impersonal scorn at Dan Birge. In that brief
interlude he became a presuming, ill-tempered, small-town man who would
drive her into becoming an equally ill-tempered, small-town woman—she
would have none of it!
“Very well,” she answered, drawing off the seal ring which she was
wearing until the solitaire was ready, “you’ve said it—not I. Good-by and
I hope you’ll be happy.”
She turned and walked in the opposite direction. At first Dan started
to follow; then he threw back his head with the same insolent toss as
Thurley’s, and, squaring off his shoulders, walked in the direction of
the hotel. Of course their engagement was _not_ broken; that was too
absurd even to fancy. But Thurley must know, first as well as last,
that when she married Dan his wishes were to count. Lovely, wilful
Thurley-girl, what a wonderful time of it they would have making up! Of
course nothing would _really_ interfere with the September wedding—impish
and unwelcome thought. It was just that Thurley must see he was in
the right, and, when she sang, it would be in her husband’s house—the
twenty-thousand-dollar house with the statue of a deer in the front
and a pergola and steam heat! He would go up to see Thurley that same
night and they would begin all new again and he would write Westcott
on a typewriter and on the store official paper and explain that Miss
Precore could not keep her engagement. His Thurley singing at a county
fair—never!