XX

The next few days went by, all alike cloudless and uneventful within the

house. Nan coaxed Charlotte into bringing her over meat and vegetables,

and, with a plea of liking it, cooked them herself. Raven swung back and

forth between the houses, but Nan found him silent and, she decided,

cross. Every day he went up to the hut to see whether the fire had been

lighted, and every day found the place in its chilly order. It seemed to

him as if the whole tragic background against which Tira had been moving

had been wiped away by some wide sweeping sponge of oblivion, as if he

had dreamed the story or at least its importance in his own life, as if

Nan had always been living alone in her house, and Amelia, tied up in

Charlotte's aprons, her lips compressed in implacable resolution, always

going through trunks in the attic, searching for a mottled book. He had

no compunction over Amelia. Let her search, he thought, when Charlotte

came to him with a worried brow and asked if he didn't think he could

put it somewheres in sight, so's 't she should know 'twas no use. Do her

good. If she didn't like it she could go back to her clubs and her

eugenics and her Freudians. And when the evening of the prayer-meeting

came he looked out at the brilliant weather, judged that the immediate

region might seize upon it as an excuse for sleigh-riding, and was

returning to his book for a brief minute more, when Amelia called from

the window:

"Three sleighs! Where can they be going?"

"Oh," said Raven, without raising his eyes from the page, "sleighing,

most likely."

But the minute she left the window, he put down his book, got his hat

and coat from the hall, and went out through the kitchen where Charlotte

was sponging bread.

"Going to the meeting?" he asked her.

"No," said Charlotte, absorbedly dissolving her yeast cake. "I never

take much stock in----" There she paused, lest she might be uncharitably

expansive, and found refuge in Jerry. "He says Isr'el Tenney ain't so

much of a man, when all's said an' done, an' don't seem as if he could

stan' seein' him on his knees. But there!"

Raven went on through the shed and up the road, to Nan's. She had seen

him from the window and came down the path.

"Knew I'd come, did you?" he grumbled.

"Yes," said Nan. "We'd really better go."

Raven hated it all, out of his element as he was, going to spy on Tenney

and hear him pray. What other reason was there? He and Nan simply wanted

to search out the reactions in Tenney's spiritual insides in order to

defeat him the more neatly.

The house was brightly lighted downstairs. Six or eight sleighs stood in

the shelter of the long open shed at right angles to the barn. The

horses had been taken in and blanketed. When Raven and Nan arrived, no

one else was outside, and he was about to knock when Nan, who remembered

the ways of neighborhood prayer-meetings, opened the door and stepped

in. Men and women were seated in a couple of rows about the walls of the

two front rooms, and Tenney stood in the square entry beside a table

supplied with a hymn-book, a Bible, and a lamp. He had the unfamiliar

aspect of a man reduced to discomfort of mind by the strictures of a

Sunday suit. His eyes were burning and his mouth compressed. What did

they mean, that passion of the distended pupil, that line of tightened

lip? Was it the excitement of leadership, the responsibility of being

"in charge" of the solemn convention of prayer-meeting? It was the face,

Nan thought, of one who knew the purposes of God from the first word of

creation to the last, and meant to enforce them by every mastery known

to man: persuasion, rage, and cruelty. She gave him a good evening and

he jerked his head slightly in response. The occasion was evidently too

far out of the common to admit of ordinary greetings. A man and woman

just inside the doorway of the front room moved along, and signed Raven

and Nan to take their vacated seats. As soon as they were settled Tenney

began to "lead in prayer," and Raven, his mind straying from the words

as negligible and only likely to increase his aversion to the man, sat

studying the furnishings of the room, a typical one, like all the

parlors of the region from the time of his boyhood to that of his father

and Old Crow. There was the center table with the album and three red

volumes of Keepsakes and Garlands, a green worsted mat, hopefully

designed to imitate moss, and on the depression in its center the astral

lamp. On the wall opposite were pictures of Tenney's father and mother,

painful enlargements from stiff photographs, and on the neighboring wall

a glazed framing of wax flowers and a hair wreath. The furniture was

black walnut upholstered with horsehair. Tenney was of the more

prosperous line of farmers. And yet he had not begun so. All this

represented the pathetic ideal of one who toiled and saved and bought

after the fashion of his type.

Raven's eyes strayed to the faces about him: these were the younger set,

boys and girls from sixteen to twenty. The first two or three had, by

chance perhaps, dropped into this room and the rest gravitated shyly to

it. There was always a line of cleavage at prayer-meeting, as at teas

and "socials," between old and young. Raven was glad he had chosen the

room at random. He liked the atmosphere of half-awed, half-tittering

youth. They were always on the verge, always ready to find hilarity in

untoward circumstance, and yet trained to a respect for meeting, doing

their conventional best. What hard red cheeks there were, what great

brown hands of boys, awkwardly holding hats, and yet, taken into the

open, how unerringly they gripped the tasks that fell to them. All of

them, boys and girls alike, were staring at him and Nan: at Nan with a

frank admiration, the girls perhaps with envy. At the corner of the room

corresponding to his own, two chairs had been left vacant, and when his

eyes came to them he saw a blue scarf depending from the back of one; it

had been dropped when the occupant of the chair had left it. It was

Tira's chair, and Tira herself appeared from the door opposite, leading

from the kitchen, crossed the room, took the scarf and wrapped it about

her shoulders and sat down. She had been called out, perhaps in response

to a cry from the child who seemed to be the center of commotion in this

house, though so mysteriously inactive. Raven felt the blood mounting to

his face, she was so movingly beautiful in this scene of honest but

unlovely mediocrity. Even her walk across the room, unconscious of

herself, yet with the rhythmic step of high processionals--how strange a

part she was of this New England picture! He could not see her now,

without turning, and tried to summon his mind home from her, to fix it

on Tenney, who, having finished his prayer, was calling on one and

another, with an unction that seemed merely a rejoicing tyranny, for

testimony. It was a scene of tension. Church members were timid before

the ordeal of experience or pleading, and the unconverted were strained

to the verge of hysteria over a prospect of being haled into the open

and prayed for. Neither Raven nor Nan knew how unpopular Tenney had

become, because he could not enter the conventional limits of a

prayer-meeting without turning it into something too tense, too

exciting, the atmosphere of the revival. Yet, though his fellow

Christians blamed him for it, they sought it like a drug. He played on

their unwilling nerves and they ran to be played on. He was their opera,

their jazz. Breath came faster and eyes shone. The likelihood of a

hysterical giggle was imminent, and some couples, safely out of range of

Tenney's gaze, were "holding hands" and mentally shuddering at their own

temerity.

Now he was telling his own religious experience, with a mounting fervor

ready to froth over into frenzy. Raven, turning slightly, regarded him

with a cold dislike. This was the voice that had echoed through the

woods that day when Tira stood, her baby in her arms, in what chill of

fear Raven believed he knew. Tenney went on lashing himself into the

ecstasy of his emotional debauch. His eyes glittered. He was happy, he

asserted, because he had found salvation. His conversion was akin to

that of Saul. To his immense spiritual egotism, Raven concluded, nothing

short of a story colossally dramatic would serve. He had been a sinner,

perhaps not as to works but faith. He had kept the commandments, all but

one. Had he loved the Lord his God with all his heart, all his soul, all

his might? No: for he had not accepted the sacrifice the Lord God had

prepared for him, of His only Son. That Son of God had been with him

everywhere, in his down-sittings and his uprisings, as He was with every

man and woman on earth. But, like other sinful men and women, he had not

seen Him. He had not felt Him. But He was there. And one day he was

hoeing in the field and a voice at his side asked: "Why persecutest thou

me?" He looked up and saw----Here he paused dramatically, though Raven

concluded it was simply because he found himself at a loss to go on. He

had appropriated the story, but he was superstitiously afraid to

embroider it. For he (Raven gave him that credit) honestly believed in

his self-evolved God.

"And then," said Tenney, in a broken voice, tears trickling down his

cheeks, "the voice said to me: 'Go ye out and preach the gospel.'"

The front door opened and a little answering breeze flickered in the

flame of the lamp. A girl near Nan, her nerves on edge, gave a cry. A

man stepped in and closed the door behind him. He was a figure of

fashion evolved from cheap models and flashy materials. Tall, quick in

his movements, as if he found life a perpetual dance and

self-consciously adapted himself to it, with mocking blue eyes, red hair

and a long nose bent slightly to one side, he was, in every line and

act, vulgar, and yet so arrogantly bent on pleasing that you

unconsciously had to acknowledge his intention and refrain from turning

your back on him. He looked at Tenney in a calculated good humor,

nodded, had his great coat off with a quick gesture, and slung it over

his arm. Then he stepped past Tenney, who stood petrified as if he saw

the risen dead, and into the room. This was Eugene Martin. He seemed not

to be in the least subdued to the accepted rules of prayer-meeting, but

nodded and smiled impartially, and, as if he had flashed that look about

for the one niche waiting for him, stepped lightly over to Tira's corner

and took the chair at her side. Raven, from the tragic change in

Tenney's face, knew who he was and bent forward to see what Tira's eyes

would tell. She was, it seemed, frozen into endurance. Martin, in

seating himself, had given her a cordial good evening. She did not

answer, nor did she look at him. Her pale lips did not move. Nor did

she, on the other hand, withdraw from him. The chairs had been pushed

close, and, as she sat upright, scarcely moving a muscle with her

breath, the blue scarf touched his shoulder. Raven withdrew his gaze,

not to make the moment in any sense conspicuous, and, feeling the

silence, turned to Tenney to see if his leadership could surmount this

base assault. The assault was premeditated. The gay insolence of the

man's manner told him that. Tenney stood there silent, flaccid, a hand

on the casing of the door. Every vestige of religious excitement had

left his face. His overthrow was complete, and Raven, judging how Martin

must rejoice, was for the moment almost as sorry for Tenney as for his

wife. The little disturbance had lasted only a moment, but now all eyes

were turning on Tenney, who had ceased to "lead." In another minute the

eyes would be curious, the silence would be felt. As Raven wondered what

would break the evil spell, Nan's voice came out clear, untinged by the

prevailing somberness, warm with the confidence of youth:

"Can't we sing one of the nice old hymns? Coronation! That's got such a

swing to it."

She began it, and the young voices broke in pell-mell after her like a

joyous crowd, seeing a vine-clad procession, and losing no time in

joining for fear of losing step. Raven knew perfectly well the great old

hymn was no matter for a passionately remorseful, sin-laden meeting of

this sort. Nan knew it, too. He was sure she had not ventured it for the

protection of Tira. No one had ever told Nan about the man with the

devil in him who "looked up kinder droll." But she could see the tide of

human emotion had better be turned to the glorification of God than to

the abasement of man. Raven, in the swell of it, put his lips to her ear

and whispered:

"I'm going to ask you to change your seat."

She gave no sign of having heard, but sang on, in a delightful volume,

to "Crown Him Lord of all." The moment the last note died, Raven came to

his feet. He addressed Tenney:

"One minute. There's a draught here by the door."

He went over to Martin, Nan following:

"Do you mind sitting by the door?" he asked the man. "There's a good

deal of a draught."

Martin, his surprised look at Nan changing to a ready gallantry, got up

at once.

"Anything," said he, "to oblige a lady."

Nan sat down and Raven and Martin took the seats by the door. There,

too, Martin had advantage of a sort. He could stare down Tenney at short

range, and this he did with a broad smile. Tenney, Raven concluded, was

down and out. His comb was cut. Whatever passions might stir in him

later--however, in reviewing the scene, he might rage over the disturber

of his peace--now his spiritual leadership had passed from him and the

prayer-meeting itself was quashed. An air of curiosity hung over it. Two

or three of the older men and women in the other room offered testimony

and one man, the old clock-mender from the other side of the mountain,

who swore with a free tongue about his secular affairs, but always wept

when he went through the observance he called approaching the throne,

knelt and prayed in a high voice through sobs. This lightened the

atmosphere. No one ever regarded this performance seriously. He was the

comic relief. On his Amen, Nan (blessed Nan! thought Raven) proposed:

"Let's sing again."

"No!" said Tenney. He had got back his self-assertiveness. Raven could

guess his jealous anger, the tide of fury coming, flooding the stagnant

marshes of his soul. "I want to hear one more testimony. Thyatira

Tenney, get up and tell what God has done for you."

Tira gave a start so violent that the blue scarf fell from her shoulders

and one end of it lay over Nan's arm. She did get up. She rose slowly

and stood there looking straight before her, eyes wide and dark, her

hands clasped. Her stiff lips moved. She did piteously, Raven saw, try

to speak. But she could not manage it and after the long moment she sank

back into her seat. Nan placed the blue scarf about her shoulders,

carefully, as if the quiet concern of doing it might tell the woman

something--that she was companioned, understood--and, one hand on the

knot of Tira's clasped fingers, began to sing. She sang the Doxology,

and after that, through unbreakable custom, the meeting was over and you

had to go home. Men and women came to their feet, there were greetings

and good nights and about Nan gathered a group of those who remembered

her. But she kept her left hand on Tira's, and after the others had gone

she said something quickly to the woman who stood, looking dead tired,

uttering mechanical good nights. Martin, with a jovial good night to

Tenney, had hurried off at once.

"See you later," he called back to him at the door, and Tenney looked

after him with the livid concentration of a man who sends his curse

forward to warn where it is not yet time for a blow. A laughing group

followed Martin. There were girls who, horrified at the implications

that hung about his name, were yet swayed by his dashing gallantry, and

young men who sulkily held the girls back, swearing under their breath.

Tira broke loose from Nan and went, fast as running water, through the

room, to the back of the house. Raven made no pretense of saying good

night to Tenney. He forgot it, forgot Tenney, save as an element of

danger to be dealt with later. On the doorstep he stopped with Nan, in

the seclusion of the moment while the others were bringing out horses

and putting them into the sleighs.

"We can't leave her here with him," he said.

"What was the matter?" Nan returned as quickly. "What happened? That

man?"

"Yes. The one he's jealous of. We can't leave her here."

"No use," said Nan. "She won't go. I asked her, told her I was living

over at the house alone, wanted company. No use. She wouldn't go."

"She must go."

"She won't, I tell you. Then I asked if she'd let me stay over here and

she said no. She said----"

"What?" urged Raven when she stopped.

"I almost can't tell, it's so pathetic. Just a word--three words: 'You

don't know.' Then she stopped. Just that: 'You don't know.'"

Raven gave a little sound she could not bear, a breath, a curse--what

was it? Anyway, the breaking impatience of a helpless man. He did not

stir. He meant, she saw, to stay there, doggedly stay, on the step, to

await what happened. She put her hand through his arm.

"Come," she said authoritatively, "let's walk up the road and drop in

again when they've all gone. It's no use staying now."

That, he saw, was wise, and they went out into the road, waited a moment

for the sleighs just starting, and then walked away from home. Some of

the people were singing "camp-meeting hymns," and there was one daring

burst of "Good night, ladies," and a chorused laugh. Prayer-meeting at

Tenney's was not, Raven concluded, regarded much more seriously than

Charlotte had foreseen. The bells jingled off into the distance. The

horses were bent on home. As if the sound only had torn up the night

into shreds of commotion, so now the bits of silence drew together into

a web and the web covered them. Nan, in spite of the perplexed question

of Tira, could have settled under the web, there with Raven, as under

wings. But he was hot with impatience. They had gone half a mile

perhaps, when he stopped.

"Come back," he said. "I've got to know."

Nan turned with him and they went on in silence but very fast. Once or

twice she was about asking him not to take such long steps, but she set

her teeth and swung forward. In front of Tenney's they stopped. The

rooms were lighted. The house was still. Raven drew a deep breath. What

he had expected he did not know, whether calls for help or Tenney's

voice of the woods shouting, "Hullo!" This, at any rate, was a reprieve.

"Come on," he said. "I'll take you home and then come back."

Again Nan stepped out in time. No use, she thought, to beg him to let

her come, too. But she could come back. Women were useful, she knew,

with their implied terrors and fragility, in holding up certain sorts of

horror. Nan was willing to fight, if need were, with all the weapons of

her sex. In the road in front of her own house, was Charlotte, waiting

for them. Nan left Raven, put a hand on Charlotte's arm, and called her

"Ducky."

"You won't come in?" she said to Raven. "Don't you think you'd better.

Half an hour or so?"

"Not a minute," said Raven. "Good night."

He left them and after a few striding steps was aware of Charlotte,

calling him. She came up and spoke his name.

"I've just met that woman."

"What woman?" he asked impatiently.

"Tira Tenney. With the baby. This time o' night."

"Where?"

"Front o' the house, just as I come out."

"Then she was coming there," he burst forth. "Too bad! too bad! Didn't

you know that? Didn't you ask her in?"

"Yes," said Charlotte, "I asked her in an' she said no, she was goin'

down along. An' I stood an' watched her an' she turned off up the rise

into the woods."

So it had begun, the terror, the flight. She was going to the hut and,

for some reason, not the back way.

"There's somethin' 'tain't right," Charlotte was beginning, but he

seized her wrist and held it. To keep her attention, or to feel the

touch of something kindly and warm?

"Yes," he said, "something's wrong. Don't tell, Charlotte. Not a

word--not to Nan or Jerry or--above all not to Tenney. I'll see to it."

He left her and hurried loping along the road, almost at a run, and

Charlotte went in to Nan.