His mother divined what he knew. And her embrace was so close, almost
fierce in its tenderness, her voice so broken, that Lane could only
hide his face over her, and shut his eyes, and shudder in an ecstasy.
God alone had omniscience to tell what his soul needed, but something
of it was embodied in home and mother.
That first acute moment past, he released her, and she clung to his
hands, her face upturned, her eyes full of pain and joy, and woman's
searching power, while she broke into almost incoherent speech; and he
responded in feeling, though he caught little of the content of her
words, and scarcely knew what he was saying.
Then he reeled a little and the kitchen dimmed in his sight. Sinking
into a chair and leaning on the table he fought his weakness. He came
close to fainting. But he held on to his sense, aware of his mother
fluttering over him. Gradually the spell passed.
"Mother--maybe I'm starved," he said, smiling at her.
That practical speech released the strain and inspired his mother to
action. She began to bustle round the kitchen, talking all the while.
Lane watched her and listened, and spoke occasionally. Once he asked
about his sister Lorna, but his mother either did not hear or chose
not to reply. All she said was music to his ears, yet not quite what
his heart longed for. He began to distrust this strange longing. There
was something wrong with his mind. His faculties seemed too sensitive.
Every word his mother uttered was news, surprising, unusual, as if it
emanated from a home-world that had changed. And presently she dropped
into complaint at the hard times and the cost of everything.
"Mother," he interrupted, "I didn't blow my money. I've saved nearly a
year's pay. It's yours."
"But, Daren, you'll need money," she protested.
"Not much. And maybe--I'll be strong enough to go to work--presently,"
he said, hopefully. "Do you think Manton will take me back--half days
at first?"
"I have my doubts, Daren," she replied, soberly. "Hattie Wilson has
your old job. And I hear they're pleased with her. Few of the boys got
their places back."
"Hattie Wilson!" exclaimed Lane. "Why, she was a kid in the eighth
grade when I left home."
"Yes, my son. But that was nearly three years ago. And the children
have sprung up like weeds. Wild weeds!"
"Well! That tousle-headed Wilson kid!" mused Lane. An uneasy
conviction of having been forgotten dawned upon Lane. He remembered
Blair Maynard's bitter prophecy, which he had been unable to accept.
"Anyway, Daren, are you able to work?" asked his mother.
"Sure," he replied, lying cheerfully, with a smile on his face. "Not
hard work, just yet, but I can do something."
His mother did not share his enthusiasm. She went on preparing the
supper.
"How do you manage to get along?" inquired Lane.
"Lord only knows," she replied, sombrely. "It has been very hard. When
you left home I had only the interest on your father's life insurance.
I sold the farm--"
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Lane, with a rush of boyhood memories.
"I had to," she went on. "I made that money help out for a long time.
Then I--I mortgaged this place.... Things cost so terribly. And Lorna
had to have so much more.... But she's just left school and gone to
work. That helps."
"Lorna left school!" ejaculated Lane, incredulously. "Why, mother, she
was only a child. Thirteen years old when I left! She'll miss her
education. I'll send her back."
"Well, son, I doubt if you can make Lorna do anything she doesn't want
to do," returned his mother. "She wanted to quit school--to earn
money. Whatever she was when you left home she's grown up now. You'll
not know her."
"Know Lorna! Why, mother dear, I carried Lorna's picture all through
the war."
"You won't know her," returned Mrs. Lane, positively. "My boy, these
years so short to you have been ages here at home. You will find your
sister--different from the little girl you left. You'll find all the
girls you knew changed--changed. I have given up trying to understand
what's come over the world."
"How--about Helen?" inquired Lane, with strange reluctance and
shyness.
"Helen who?" asked his mother.
"Helen Wrapp, of course," replied Lane, quickly in his surprise. "The
girl I was engaged to when I left."
"Oh!--I had forgotten," she sighed.
"Hasn't Helen been here to see you?"
"Let me see--well, now you tax me--I think she did come once--right
after you left."
"Do you--ever see her?" he asked, with slow heave of breast.
"Yes, now and then, as she rides by in an automobile. But she never
sees me.... Daren, I don't know what your--your--that engagement means
to you, but I must tell you--Helen Wrapp doesn't conduct herself as if
she were engaged. Still, I don't know what's in the heads of girls
to-day. I can only compare the present with the past."
Lane did not inquire further and his mother did not offer more
comment. At the moment he heard a motor car out in front of the house,
a girl's shrill voice in laughter, the slamming of a car-door--then
light, quick footsteps on the porch. Lane could look from where he sat
to the front door--only a few yards down the short hall. The door
opened. A girl entered.
"That's Lorna," said Lane's mother. He grew aware that she bent a
curious gaze upon his face.
Lane rose to his feet with his heart pounding, and a strange sense of
expectancy. His little sister! Never during the endless months of
drudgery, strife and conflict, and agony, had he forgotten Lorna. Not
duty, nor patriotism, had forced him to enlist in the army before the
draft. It had been an ideal which he imagined he shared with the
millions of American boys who entered the service. Too deep ever to be
spoken of! The barbarous and simian Hun, with his black record against
Belgian, and French women, should never set foot on American soil.
In the lamplight Lane saw this sister throw coat and hat on the
banister, come down the hall and enter the kitchen. She seemed tall,
but her short skirt counteracted that effect. Her bobbed hair, curly
and rebellious, of a rich brown-red color, framed a pretty face Lane
surely remembered. But yet not the same! He had carried away memory of
a child's face and this was a woman's. It was bright, piquant, with
darkly glancing eyes, and vivid cheeks, and carmine lips.
"Oh, _hot dog_! if it isn't Dare!" she squealed, and with radiant look
she ran into his arms.
The moment, or moments, of that meeting between brother and sister
passed, leaving Lane conscious of hearty welcome and a sense of
unreality. He could not at once adjust his mental faculties to an
incomprehensible difference affecting everything.
They sat down to supper, and Lane, sick, dazed, weak, found eating his
first meal at home as different as everything else from what he had
expected. There had been no lack of warmth or love in Lorna's welcome,
but he suffered disappointment. Again for the hundredth time he put
it aside and blamed his morbid condition. Nothing must inhibit his
gladness.
Lorna gave Lane no chance to question her. She was eager, voluble,
curious, and most disconcertingly oblivious of a possible
sensitiveness in Lane.
"Dare, you look like a dead one," she said. "Did you get shot,
bayoneted, gassed, shell-shocked and all the rest? Did you go over the
top? Did you kill any Germans? Gee! did you get to ride in a
war-plane? Come across, now, and tell me."
"I guess about--everything happened to me--except going west,"
returned Lane. "But I don't want to talk about that. I'm too glad to
be home."
"What's that on your breast?" she queried, suddenly, pointing at the
_Croix de Guerre_ he wore.
"That? Lorna, that's my medal."
"Gee! Let me see." She got up and came round to peer down closely, to
finger the decoration. "French! I never saw one before.... Daren,
haven't you an American medal too?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"My dear sister, that's hard to say. Because I didn't deserve it, most
likely."
She leaned back to gaze more thoughtfully at him.
"What did you get this for?"
"It's a long story. Some day I'll tell you."
"Are you proud of it?"
For answer he only smiled at her.
"It's so long since the war I've forgotten so many things," she said,
wonderingly. Then she smiled sweetly. "Dare, I'm proud of you."
That was a moment in which his former emotion seemed to stir for her.
Evidently she had lost track of something once memorable. She was
groping back for childish impressions. It was the only indication of
softness he had felt in her. How impossible to believe Lorna was only
fifteen! He could form no permanent conception of her. But in that
moment he sensed something akin to a sister's sympathy, some vague and
indefinable thought in her, too big for her to grasp. He never felt it
again. The serious sweet mood vanished.
"Hot dog! I've a brother with the _Croix de Guerre_. I'll swell up
over that. I'll crow over some of these Janes."
Thus she talked on while eating her supper. And Lane tried to eat
while he watched her. Presently he moved his chair near to the stove.
Lorna did not wait upon her mother. It was the mother who did the
waiting, as silently she moved from table to stove.
Lorna's waist was cut so low that it showed the swell of her breast.
The red color of her cheeks, high up near her temples, was not
altogether the rosy line of health and youth. Her eyebrows were only
faint, thin, curved lines, oriental in effect. She appeared to be
unusually well-developed in body for so young a girl. And the air of
sophistication, of experience that seemed a part of her manner
completely mystified Lane. If it had not been for the slangy speech,
and the false color in her face, he would have been amused at what he
might have termed his little sister's posing as a woman of the world.
But in the light of these he grew doubtful of his impression. Lastly,
he saw that she wore her stockings rolled below her knees and that the
edge of her short skirt permitted several inches of her bare legs to
be seen. And at that he did not know what to think. He was stunned.
"Daren, you served a while under Captain Thesel in the war," she said.
"Yes, I guess I did," replied Lane, with sombre memory resurging.
"Do you know he lives here?"
"I knew him here in Middleville several years before the war."
"He's danced with me at the Armory. Some swell dancer! He and Dick
Swann and Hardy MacLean sometimes drop in at the Armory on Saturday
nights. Captain Thesel is chasing Mrs. Clemhorn now. They're always
together.... Daren, did he ever have it in for you?"
"He never liked me. We never got along here in Middleville. And
naturally in the service when he was a captain and I only a
private--we didn't get along any better."
"Well, I've heard Captain Thesel was to blame for--for what was said
about you last summer when he came home."
"And what was that, Lorna?" queried Lane, curiously puzzled at her,
and darkly conscious of the ill omen that had preceded him home.
"You'll not hear it from me," declared Lorna, spiritedly. "But that
_Croix de Guerre_ doesn't agree with it, I'll tell the world."
A little frown puckered her smooth brow and there was a gleam in her
eye.
"Seems to me I heard some of the kids talking last summer," she mused,
ponderingly. "Vane Thesel was stuck on Mel Iden and Dot Dalrymple both
before the war. Dot handed him a lemon. He's still trying to rush Dot,
and the gossip is he'd go after Mel even now on the sly, if she'd
stand for it."
"Why on the sly?" inquired Lane. "Before I left home Mel Iden was
about the prettiest and most popular girl in Middleville. Her people
were poor, and ordinary, perhaps, but she was the equal of any one."
"Thesel couldn't rush Mel now and get away with it, unless on the
q-t," replied Lorna. "Haven't you heard about Mel?"
"No, you see the fact is, my few correspondents rather neglected to
send me news," said Lane.
The significance of this was lost upon his sister. She giggled. "Hot
dog! You've got some kicks coming, I'll say!"
"Is that so," returned Lane, with irritation. "A few more or less
won't matter.... Lorna, do you know Helen Wrapp?"
"That red-headed dame!" burst out Lorna, with heat. "I should smile I
do. She's one who doesn't shake a shimmy on tea, believe me."
Lane was somewhat at a loss to understand his sister's intimation, but
as it was vulgarly inimical, and seemed to hold some subtle personal
scorn or jealousy, he shrank from questioning her. This talk with his
sister was the most unreal happening he had ever experienced. He could
not adjust himself to its verity.
"Helen Wrapp is nutty about Dick Swann," went on Lorna. "She drives
down to the office after----"
"Lorna, do you know Helen and I are engaged?" interrupted Lane.
"Hot dog!" was that young lady's exposition of utter amaze. She stared
at her brother.
"We were engaged," continued Lane. "She wore my ring. When I enlisted
she wanted me to marry her before I left. But I wouldn't do that."
Lorna promptly recovered from her amaze. "Well, it's a damn lucky
thing you didn't take her up on that marriage stuff."
There was a glint of dark youthful passion in Lorna's face. Lane felt
rise in him a desire to bid her sharply to omit slang and profanity
from the conversation. But the desire faded before his bewilderment.
All had suffered change. What had he come home to? There was no clear
answer. But whatever it was, he felt it to be enormous and staggering.
And he meant to find out. Weary as was his mind, it grasped peculiar
significances and deep portents.
"Lorna, where do you work?" he began, shifting his interest.
"At Swann's," she replied.
"In the office--at the foundry?" he asked.
"No. Mr. Swann's at the head of the leather works."
"What do you do?"
"I type letters," she answered, and rose to make him a little bow that
held the movement and the suggestion of a dancer.
"You've learned stenography?" he asked, in surprise.
"I'm learning shorthand," replied Lorna. "You see I had only a few
weeks in business school before Dick got me the job."
"Dick Swann? Do you work for him?"
"No. For the superintendent, Mr. Fryer. But I go to Dick's office to
do letters for him some of the time."
She appeared frank and nonchalant, evidently a little proud of her
important position. She posed before Lane and pirouetted with fancy
little steps.
"Say, Dare, won't you teach me a new dance--right from Paris?" she
interposed. "Something that will put the shimmy and toddle out of
biz?"
"Lorna, I don't know what the shimmy and toddle are. I've only heard
of them."
"Buried alive, I'll say," she retorted.
Lane bit his tongue to keep back a hot reprimand. He looked at his
mother, who was clearing off the supper table. She looked sad. The
light had left her worn face. Lane did not feel sure of his ground
here. So he controlled his feelings and directed his interest toward
more news.
"Of course Dick Swann was in the service?" he asked.
"No. He didn't go," replied Lorna.
The information struck Lane singularly. Dick Swann had always been a
prominent figure in the Middleville battery, in those seemingly long
past years since before the war.
"Why didn't Dick go into the service? Why didn't the draft get him?"
"He had poor eyesight, and his father needed him at the iron works."
"Poor eyesight!" ejaculated Lane. "He was the best shot in the
battery--the best hunter among the boys. Well, that's funny."
"Daren, there are people who called Dick Swann a slacker," returned
Lorna, as if forced to give this information. "But I never saw that it
hurt him. He's rich now. His uncle left him a million, and his father
will leave him another. And I'll say it's the money people want these
days."
The materialism so pregnant in Lorna's half bitter reply checked
Lane's further questioning. He edged closer to the stove, feeling a
little cold. A shadow drifted across the warmth and glow of his mind.
At home now he was to be confronted with a monstrous and insupportable
truth--the craven cowardice of the man who had been eligible to
service in army or navy, and who had evaded it. In camp and trench and
dug-out he had heard of the army of slackers. And of all the vile and
stark profanity which the war gave birth to on the lips of miserable
and maimed soldiers, that flung on the slackers was the worst.
"I've got a date to go to the movies," said Lorna, and she bounced out
of the kitchen into the hall singing:
"Oh by heck
You never saw a wreck
Like the wreck she made of me."
She went upstairs, while Lane sat there trying to adapt himself to a
new and unintelligible environment. His mother began washing the
dishes. Lane felt her gaze upon his face, and he struggled against all
the weaknesses that beset him.
"Mother, doesn't Lorna help you with the house work?" he asked.
"She used to. But not any more."
"Do you let her go out at night to the movies--dances, and all that?"
Mrs. Lane made a gesture of helplessness. "Lorna goes out all the
time. She's never here. She stays out until midnight--one
o'clock--later. She's popular with the boys. I couldn't stop her even
if I wanted to. Girls can't be stopped these days. I do all I can for
her--make her dresses--slave for her--hoping she'll find a good
husband. But the young men are not marrying."
"Good Heavens, are you already looking for a husband for Lorna?" broke
out Lane.
"You don't understand, Dare. You've been away so long. Wait till
you've seen what girls--are nowadays. Then you'll not wonder that I'd
like to see Lorna settled."
"Mother, you're right," he said, gravely. "I've been away so--long.
But I'm back home now. I'll soon get on to things. And I'll help you.
I'll take Lorna in hand. I'll relieve you of a whole lot."
"You were always a good boy, Daren, to me and Lorna," murmured Mrs.
Lane, almost in tears. "It's cheered me to get you home, yet.... Oh,
if you were well and strong!"
"Never mind, mother. I'll get better," he replied, rising to take up
his bag. "I guess now I'd better go to bed. I'm just about all in....
Wonder how Blair and Red are."
His mother followed him up the narrow stairway, talking, trying to
pretend she did not see his dragging steps, his clutch on the
banisters.
"Your room's just as you left it," she said, opening the door. Then on
the threshold she kissed him. "My son, I thank God you have come home
alive. You give me hope in--in spite of all.... If you need me, call.
Good night."
Lane was alone in the little room that had lived in waking and
dreaming thought. Except to appear strangely smaller, it had not
changed. His bed and desk--the old bureau--the few pictures--the
bookcase he had built himself--these were identical with images in his
memory.
A sweet and wonderful emotion of peace pervaded his soul--fulfilment
at last of the soldier's endless longing for home, bed, quiet, rest.
"If I have to die--I can do it _now_ without hate of all around me,"
he whispered, in the passion of his spirit.
But as he sat upon his bed, trying with shaking and clumsy hands to
undress himself, that exalted mood flashed by. Some of the dearest
memories of his life were associated with this little room. Here he
had dreamed; here he had read and studied; here he had fought out some
of the poignant battles of youth. So much of life seemed behind him.
At last he got undressed, and extinguishing the light, he crawled into
bed.
The darkness was welcome, and the quiet was exquisitely soothing. He
lay there, staring into the blackness, feeling his body sink slowly as
if weighted. How cool and soft the touch of sheets! Then, the river of
throbbing fire that was his blood, seemed to move again. And the dull
ache, deep in the bones, possessed his nerves. In his breast there
began a vibrating, as if thousands of tiny bubbles were being pricked
to bursting in his lungs. And the itch to cough came back to his
throat. And all his flesh seemed in contention with a slowly ebbing
force. Sleep might come perhaps after pain had lulled. His heart beat
unsteadily and weakly, sometimes with a strange little flutter. How
many weary interminable hours had he endured! But to-night he was too
far spent, too far gone for long wakefulness. He drifted away and sank
as if into black oblivion where there sounded the dreadful roll of
drums, and images moved under gray clouds, and men were running like
phantoms. He awoke from nightmares, wet with cold sweat, and lay
staring again at the blackness, once more alive to recurrent pain.
Pain that was an old, old story, yet ever acute and insistent and
merciless.
The night wore on, hour by hour. The courthouse clock rang out one
single deep mellow clang. One o'clock! Lane thrilled to the sound. It
brought back the school days, the vacation days, the Indian summer
days when the hills were golden and the purple haze hung over the
land--the days that were to be no more for Daren Lane.
In the distance somewhere a motor-car hummed, and came closer, louder
down the street, to slow its sound with sliding creak and jar outside
in front of the house. Lane heard laughter and voices of a party of
young people. Footsteps, heavy and light, came up the walk, and on to
the porch. Lorna was returning rather late from the motion-picture,
thought Lane, and he raised his head from the pillow, to lean toward
the open window, listening.
"Come across, kiddo," said a boy's voice, husky and low.
Lane heard a kiss--then another.
"Cheese it, you boob!"
"Gee, your gettin' snippy. Say, will you ride out to Flesher's
to-morrow night?"
"Nothing doing, I've got a date. Good night."
The hall door below opened and shut. Footsteps thumped off the porch
and out to the street. Lane heard the giggle of girls, the snap of a
car-door, the creaking of wheels, and then a low hum, dying away.
Lorna came slowly up stairs to enter her room, moving quietly. And
Lane lay on his bed, wide-eyed, staring into the blackness. "My little
sister," he whispered to himself. And the words that had meant so much
seemed a mockery.