“The winged word of spite outstrips a kindness.”
EMMA was too tired to feel her unhappiness, and too relieved, now
that everything was over, to feel her loneliness very much. The blast
rite had somehow robbed her of her hope of Jarlsen’s recovery, and
established the idea of his death in her mind. Jeremy Black nursed him
at first, after her outburst. In the neighbours’ phrase, he “turned and
fed the poor blast.”
Emma’s crude nature found a pleasure--never before known to her--in
food, and in lying on the lean-to floor and thanking God that her
barber days were over. Her voice was harsh and loud; she had always
hidden it from Jarlsen. To-day she sang and was not ashamed.
Then Black went mysteriously to the city. This might mean New York,
Pittsburg, Philadelphia, or some nearer, smaller town than either of
these. He left at the beginning of the drought, and Emma, with the rest
of his townspeople, envied him sorely. Her resumed service to Jarlsen
was automatic. He spoke, but she did not listen; she was afraid of
being hurt if she heard his words. The drought made her double work,
for her patient drank a great deal of water, and refused it with a
wearied patience if it were not cold. She often went at noon to the
Bridge well, her tin dipper growing burning hot beneath a sun that made
the mica specks shine in the roadside dust. She lagged heavily down the
hill, the people greeting her and she answering without knowledge of
what they said. She had learned that forgetfulness is the better part
of wisdom.
She could not ignore Quarry; he was merciless. On Sunday she went at
six for Jarlsen’s drink from the well. She had a handful of oatmeal to
put in it; and, as she leaned over and caught the dripping bucket, she
heard Quarry’s voice in the alder thicket that smelt sweet with the
heavy dew on it.
“She’s a real good girl, and I can’t help but feel, ef she could let
me at her wedding dance, set alone with her waitin’ till Jarlsen come,
that I owe it to her to marry her, and I think when she’s worn out her
mourning thet she’d be agreeable. He was a queer fellow; hed them fancy
virtues thet prevents a man from making a good husband jest as sure
as his havin’ the vices would. He give his money to lame-legged and
blind-eyed, and thet’s keepin’ it from wifie jest es much es if he give
it up for drink.”
A woman’s voice answered him in full assent: “You’ll not be the only
one to marry her, though; she’s got money now, and a rare head for
livin’ straight.”
Emma had not seen the woman, but guessed it must be one of those who
“wrought” in the offices of the plant, writing, or sorting the mass of
mail. Excepting herself Quarry rarely spoke to any one of less class
among the women.
She was very angry, and could see how Quarry had used it all in his
talk; all the circumstances of her courtship he could twist into
evidence that she had loved nothing of Jarlsen but what he had left
her. She could hear the woman’s opinion that her conduct was not quite
right, uttered in the dry tone she used when speaking of her straight
life.
She said to herself just as fiercely as ever that Quarry was a liar,
but she felt that happiness had given her the power to fight him, and
now her happiness was gone. She remembered with a dim horror that
Quarry had resumed a practice, since Jarlsen’s mishap, that she hoped
her engagement had ended. Up to the day that they had spoken of their
marriage publicly, Quarry would take things into his hands that Emma
had lately touched and fondle them. He had done so again the day of the
blast rite, she remembered.
She had intended to revel in her grief at chapel that morning, and
Quarry had divined her intention. She meant to stand in the singing,
as Jarlsen had stood, and sob when the preacher shivered and scowled
and beat the reading-desk with his fists. She would not go now. She
felt that no one would believe that she mourned for him if Quarry had
been talking about her very much in the way she had heard. She burned
to speak with him of the traitor’s part he had played.
It was as usual in Soot City as in other places for folks to bethink
themselves of the church when trouble thwarts them; and so every one
went to church expecting Emma. And Quarry’s tongue was not quite long
enough to have reached the general ear in so short a time.
The congregation was very large, and the flattered minister observed
Emma’s absence with satisfaction. He never thought that his hearers
could have been ignorant of her intention to stay at home, and supposed
that in the sudden calamity come upon the town they had found a warning
anent churchless ways. He announced an extra service at three in the
afternoon, and the only person who answered it was Jeremy Black’s
foreman, who came to protest.
After service Quarry went straight to Emma’s room. He could not account
for her absence; he had intended to sit with her in the front pew while
she stood in the singing. He expected to colour his stories with her
behaviour and satisfy every one that she had loved the money Jarlsen
left her the best of all his attentions.
She was sitting with her charge, who lay with his face turned away from
the sun--blind, maimed, deaf--yet as conscious of Quarry’s presence as
when last week he had turned to him with lazy scorn and a short word.
“Emma,” said Quarry.
“Yes,” she said, after a pause. She had been wondering if he could have
been telling about the money everywhere and “setting the men on her.”
Quarry looked at her and at Jarlsen with a twist in his mouth that
he thought of as “his smile.” He realized that he could insult Emma
thoroughly in the presence of a Soot citizen who could not stir to
protect her.
“The women think you might as well marry,” he said. “You’ve got the
fixin’s, and if you take me you’ve got the husband. The whole place
expects a wedding off you. You’ve got the extra money to care for your
friend here.”
“I’d rather give up the money than take you; besides,” she said
spitefully, “there’s better men nor you in the town that knows I have
money for my man. You ain’t no kind to love me after what I’ve had, and
I don’t want you should make my love for this one shabby, talkin’ it
over all the time. You can get out,” she said very quietly.
Quarry went; and, as he said himself, his heart was sour.
Then Emma stayed at Jarlsen’s side and prayed in the hot afternoon
silence, and wondered why God didn’t do something worth while--that
is how she thought it. But she never doubted Him nor the fate that He
ordained, but rocked in her only rocking-chair and kissed her helpless
lover boldly, longing for a woman’s touch as a sick child longs for its
mother.
When Jarlsen spoke her name she trembled with love of him; she was
awake now and filled with pity. She did not answer, but, like a child,
prayed God to tell Jarlsen she heard him call, and then slept till the
coolness of dusk awoke her. Jarlsen slept a little while too, and told
her he had talked with her in dreams.
She got the supper, talking within herself. “I can feel things mend,”
she said. “Every one will come out right, and my big man will live
again and lick that terrible scant Christian, Quarry!”
She ate her supper opposite her silent old father. It was quite late;
they had candles and a lamp, which was only an extravagance for
courting-time in the sordid social usage of Soot City.
Emma had not thought of this till Ben Bowa, the youngest foreman, stood
in the narrow doorway.
“I didn’t know to come in till I saw lights making the shine,” he
explained in Swedes’ English. And then many more came in, and the
kitchen was full. Jarlsen cried for water from the next room, and
before Emma could get to her feet Quarry had gone to him.
“How can I show them I don’t want one of them?” she thought. There was
no word of Jarlsen, and everything went on as it had when the one or
two men courted her before Jarlsen took her.
Bowa cut profiles out of paper and asked whose they were, and the
other men performed their trifling social accomplishments. They were
endeavouring to “raise a laugh”; none came.
Late at night a wakeful neighbour heard Emma’s door close, and later
God heard her sobbing. “That Quarry’s done me!” was what she said.
And through the night her eyes burned, and she felt that the darkness
fell like a weight on them. She longed even for Miss Bentley or the
Polack girls’ overdressed Madonnas.