POLLY TRIES HER WINGS
FINALLY Kate wandered back to the hotel and went to their room to learn
if Nancy Ellen was there. She was and seemed very much perturbed. The
first thing she did was to hand Kate a big white envelope, which she
opened and found to be a few lines from John Jardine, explaining that
he had been unexpectedly called away on some very important business.
He reiterated his delight in having seen her, and hoped for the same
pleasure at no very distant date. Kate read it and tossed it on the
dresser. As she did so, she saw a telegram, lying opened among Nancy
Ellen's toilet articles, and thought with pleasure that Robert was
coming. She glanced at her sister for confirmation, and saw that she
was staring from the window as if she were in doubt about something.
Kate thought probably she was still upset about John Jardine, and that
might as well be gotten over, so she said: "That note was not
delivered promptly. It is from John Jardine. I should have had it
before I left. He was called away on important business and wrote to
let me know he would not be able to keep his appointment; but without
his knowledge, he had a representative on the spot."
Nancy Ellen seemed interested so Kate proceeded: "You couldn't guess
in a thousand years. I'll have to tell you spang! It was his wife."
"His wife!" cried Nancy Ellen. "But you said--"
"So I did," said Kate. "And so he did. Since the wife loomed on the
horizon, I remembered that he said no word to me of marriage; he merely
said he always had loved me and always would--"
"Merely?" scoffed Nancy Ellen. "Merely!"
"Just 'merely,'" said Kate. "He didn't lay a finger on me; he didn't
ask me to marry him; he just merely met me after a long separation, and
told me that he still loved me."
"The brute!" said Nancy Ellen. "He should be killed."
"I can't see it," said Kate. "He did nothing ungentlemanly. If we
jumped to wrong conclusions that was not his fault. I doubt if he
remembered or thought at all of his marriage. It wouldn't be much to
forget. I am fresh from an interview with his wife. She's an old
acquaintance of mine. I once secured her for his mother's maid.
You've heard me speak of her."
"Impossible! John Jardine would not do that!" cried Nancy Ellen.
"There's a family to prove it," said Kate. "Jennie admits that she
studied him, taught him, made herself indispensable to him, and a few
weeks after his mother's passing, married him, after he had told her he
did not love her and never could. I feel sorry for him."
"Sure! Poor defrauded creature!" said Nancy Ellen. "What about her?"
"Nothing, so far as I can see," said Kate. "By her own account she was
responsible. She should have kept in her own class."
"All right. That settles Jennie!" said Nancy Ellen. "I saw you notice
the telegram from Robert--now go on and settle me!"
"Is he coming?" asked Kate.
"No, he's not coming," said Nancy Ellen.
"Has he eloped with the widder?" asked Kate flippantly.
"He merely telegraphs that he thinks it would be wise for us to come
home on the first train," said Nancy Ellen. "For all I can make of
that, the elopement might quite as well be in your family as mine."
Kate held out her hand, Nancy Ellen laid the message in it. Kate
studied it carefully; then she raised steady eyes to her sister's face.
"Do you know what I should do about this?" she asked.
"Catch the first train, of course," she said.
"Far be it from me," said Kate. "I should at once telegraph him that
his message was not clear, to kindly particularize. We've only got
settled. We're having a fine time; especially right now. Why should we
pack up and go home? I can't think of any possibility that could arise
that would make it necessary for him to send for us. Can you?"
"I can think of two things," said Nancy Ellen. "I can think of a very
pretty, confiding, little cat of a woman, who is desperately infatuated
with my husband; and I can think of two children fathered by George
Holt, who might possibly, just possibly, have enough of his blood in
their veins to be like him, given opportunity. Alone for a week, there
is barely a FAINT possibility that YOU might be needed. Alone for the
same week, there is the faintest possibility that ROBERT is in a
situation where I could help him."
Kate drew a deep breath.
"Isn't life the most amusing thing?" she asked. "I had almost
forgotten my wings. I guess we'd better take them, and fly straight
home."
She arose and called the office to learn about trains, and then began
packing her trunk. As she folded her dresses and stuffed them in
rather carelessly she said: "I don't know why I got it into my head
that I could go away and have a few days of a good time without
something happening at home."
"But you are not sure anything has happened at home. This call may be
for me," said Nancy Ellen.
"It MAY, but this is July," said Kate. "I've been thinking hard and
fast. It's probable I can put my finger on the spot."
Nancy Ellen paused and standing erect she looked questioningly at Kate.
"The weak link in my chain at the present minute is Polly," said Kate.
"I didn't pay much attention at the time, because there wasn't enough
of it really to attract attention; but since I think, I can recall
signs of growing discontent in Polly, lately. She fussed about the
work, and resented being left in the house while I went to the fields,
and she had begun looking up the road to Peters' so much that her head
was slightly turned toward the north most of the time. With me away--"
"What do you think?" demanded Nancy Ellen.
"Think very likely she has decided that she'll sacrifice her chance for
more schooling and to teach, for the sake of marrying a big, green
country boy named Hank Peters," said Kate.
"Thereby keeping in her own class," suggested Nancy Ellen.
Kate laughed shortly. "Exactly!" she said. "I didn't aspire to
anything different for her from what she has had; but I wanted her to
have more education, and wait until she was older. Marriage is too
hard work for a girl to begin at less than eighteen. If it is Polly,
and she has gone away with Hank Peters, they've no place to go but his
home; and if ever she thought I worked her too hard, she'll find out
she has played most of her life, when she begins taking orders from
Mrs. Amanda Peters. You know her! She never can keep a girl more than
a week, and she's always wanting one. If Polly has tackled THAT job,
God help her."
"Cheer up! We're in that delightful state of uncertainty where Polly
may be blacking the cook stove, like a dutiful daughter; while Robert
has decided that he'd like a divorce," said Nancy Ellen.
"Nancy Ellen, there's nothing in that, so far as Robert is concerned.
He told me so the evening we came away," said Kate.
Nancy Ellen banged down a trunk lid and said: "Well, I am getting to
the place where I don't much care whether there is or there is not."
"What a whopper!" laughed Kate. "But cheer up. This is my trouble. I
feel it in my bones. Wish I knew for sure. If she's eloped, and it's
all over with, we might as well stay and finish our visit. If she's
married, I can't unmarry her, and I wouldn't if I could."
"How are you going to apply your philosophy to yourself?" asked Nancy
Ellen.
"By letting time and Polly take their course," said Kate. "This is a
place where parents are of no account whatever. They stand back until
it's time to clean up the wreck, and then they get theirs--usually
theirs, and several of someone's else, in the bargain."
As the train stopped at Hartley, Kate sat where she could see Robert on
the platform. It was only a fleeting glance, but she thought she had
never seen him look so wholesome, so vital, so much a man to be desired.
"No wonder a woman lacking in fine scruples would covet him," thought
Kate. To Nancy Ellen she said hastily: "The trouble's mine. Robert's
on the platform."
"Where?" demanded Nancy Ellen, peering from the window.
Kate smiled as she walked from the car and confronted Robert.
"Get it over quickly," she said. "It's Polly?"
He nodded.
"Did she remember to call on the Squire?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," said Robert. "It was at Peters', and they had the whole
neighbourhood in."
Kate swayed slightly, then lifted her head, her eyes blazing. She had
come, feeling not altogether guiltless, and quite prepared to overlook
a youthful elopement. The insult of having her only daughter given a
wedding at the home of the groom, about which the whole neighbourhood
would be laughing at her, was a different matter. Slowly the high
colour faded from Kate's face, as she stepped back. "Excuse me, Nancy
Ellen," she said. "I didn't mean to deprive you of the chance of even
speaking to Robert. I KNEW this was for me; I was over-anxious to
learn what choice morsel life had in store for me now. It's one that
will be bitter on my tongue to the day of my death."
"Oh, Kate, I as so sorry that if this had to happen, it happened in
just that way," said Nancy Ellen, "but don't mind. They're only
foolish kids!"
"Who? Mr. and Mrs. Peters, and the neighbours, who attended the
wedding! Foolish kids? Oh, no!" said Kate. "Where's Adam?"
"I told him I'd bring you out," said Robert.
"Why didn't he send for you, or do something?" demanded Kate.
"I'm afraid the facts are that Polly lied to him," said Robert. "She
told him that Peters were having a party, and Mrs. Peters wanted her to
come early and help her with the supper. They had the Magistrate out
from town and had the ceremony an hour before Adam got there. When he
arrived, and found out what had happened, he told Polly and the Peters
family exactly his opinion of them; and then he went home and turned on
all the lights, and sat where he could be seen on the porch all
evening, as a protest in evidence of his disapproval, I take it."
Slowly the colour began to creep back into Kate's face. "The good
boy!" she said, in commendation.
"He called me at once, and we talked it over and I sent you the
telegram; but as he said, it was done; there was no use trying to undo
it. One thing will be a comfort to you. All of your family, and
almost all of your friends, left as soon as Adam spoke his piece, and
they found it was a wedding and not a party to which they'd been
invited. It was a shabby trick of Peters."
Kate assented. "It was because I felt instinctively that Mrs. Peters
had it in her to do tricks like that, that I never would have anything
to do with her," said Kate, "more than to be passing civil. This is
how she gets her revenge, and her hired girl, for no wages, I'll be
bound! It's a shabby trick. I'm glad Adam saved me the trouble of
telling her so."
Robert took Nancy Ellen home, and then drove to Bates Corners with Kate.
"In a few days now I hope we can see each other oftener," he said, on
the way. "I got a car yesterday, and it doesn't seem so complicated.
Any intelligent person can learn to drive in a short time. I like it
so much, and I knew I'd have such constant use for it that--now this is
a secret--I ordered another for Nancy Ellen, so she can drive about
town, and run out here as she chooses. Will she be pleased?"
"She'll be overjoyed! That was dear of you, Robert. Only one thing in
world would please her more," said Kate.
"What's that?" asked Robert.
Kate looked him in the eye, and smiled.
"Oh," he said. "But there is nothing in it!"
"Except TALK, that worries and humiliates Nancy Ellen," said Kate.
"Kate," he said suddenly, "if you were in my shoes, what would you do?"
"The next time I got a phone call, or a note from Mrs. Southey, and she
was having one of those terrible headaches, I should say: 'I'm
dreadfully sorry, Mrs. Southey, but a breath of talk that might be
unpleasant for you, and for my wife, has come to my ear, so I know
you'll think it wiser to call Dr. Mills, who can serve you better than
I. In a great rush this afternoon. Good-bye!' THAT is what I should
do, Robert, and I should do it quickly, and emphatically. Then I
should interest Nancy Ellen in her car for a time, and then I should
keep my eyes open, and the first time I found in my practice a sound
baby with a clean bill of health, and no encumbrances, I should have it
dressed attractively, and bestow it on Nancy Ellen as casually as I did
the car. And in the meantime, love her plenty, Robert. You can never
know how she FEELS about this; and it's in no way her fault. She
couldn't possibly have known; while you would have married her just the
same if you had known. Isn't that so?"
"It's quite so. Kate, I think your head is level, and I'll follow your
advice to the letter. Now you have 'healed my lame leg,' as the dog
said in McGuffey's Third, what can I do for THIS poor dog?"
"Nothing," said Kate. "I've got to hold still, and take it. Life will
do the doing. I don't want to croak, but remember my word, it will do
plenty."
"We'll come often," he said as he turned to go back.
Kate slowly walked up the path, dreading to meet Adam. He evidently
had been watching for her, for he came around the corner of the house,
took her arm, and they walked up the steps and into the living room
together. She looked at him; he looked at her. At last he said: "I'm
afraid that a good deal of this is my fault, Mother."
"How so?" asked Kate, tersely.
"I guess I betrayed your trust in me," said Adam, heavily. "Of course
I did all my work and attended to things; but in the evening after work
was over, the very first evening on the way home we stopped to talk to
Henry at the gate, and he got in and came on down. We could see Milly
at their gate, and I wanted her, I wanted her so much, Mother; and it
was going to be lonesome, so all of us went on there, and she came up
here and we sat on the porch, and then I took her home and that left
Henry and Polly together. The next night Henry took us to town for a
treat, and we were all together, and the next night Milly asked us all
there, and so it went. It was all as open and innocent as it could be;
only Henry and Polly were in awful earnest and she was bound she
wouldn't be sent to town to school--"
"Why didn't she tell me so? She never objected a word, to me," said
Kate.
"Well, Mother, you are so big, and Polly was so little, and she was
used to minding--"
"Yes, this looks like it," said Kate. "Well, go on!"
"That's all," said Adam. "It was only that instead of staying at home
and attending to our own affairs we were somewhere every night, or
Milly and Henry were here. That is where I was to blame. I'm afraid
you'll never forgive me, Mother; but I didn't take good care of Sister.
I left her to Henry Peters, while I tried to see how nice I could be to
Milly. I didn't know what Polly and Henry were planning; honest, I
didn't, Mother. I would have told Uncle Robert and sent for you if I
had. I thought when I went there it was to be our little crowd like it
was at York's. I was furious when I found they were married. I told
Mr. and Mrs. Peters what they were, right before the company, and then
I came straight home and all the family, and York's, and most of the
others, came straight away. Only a few stayed to the supper. I was so
angry with Polly I just pushed her away, and didn't even say good-night
to her. The little silly fool! Mother, if she had told you, you would
have let her stay at home this winter and got her clothing, and let her
be married here, when she was old enough, wouldn't you?"
"Certainly!" said Kate. "All the world knows that. Bates all marry;
and they all marry young. Don't blame yourself, Adam. If Polly had it
in her system to do this, and she did, or she wouldn't have done it,
the thing would have happened when I was here, and right under my nose.
It was a scheme all planned and ready before I left. I know that now.
Let it go! There's nothing we can do, until things begin to go WRONG,
as they always do in this kind of wedding; then we shall get our call.
In the meantime, you mustn't push your sister away. She may need you
sooner than you'd think; and will you just please have enough
confidence in my common sense and love for you, to come to me, FIRST,
when you feel that there's a girl who is indispensable to your future,
Adam?"
"Yes, I will," said Adam. "And it won't be long, and the girl will be
Milly York."
"All right," said Kate, gravely, "whenever the time comes, let me know
about it. Now see if you can find me something to eat till I lay off
my hat and wash. It was a long, hot ride, and I'm tired. Since there's
nothing I can do, I wish I had stayed where I was. No, I don't, either!
I see joy coming over the hill for Nancy Ellen."
"Why is joy coming to Nancy Ellen?" asked the boy, pausing an instant
before he started to the kitchen.
"Oh, because she's had such a very tough, uncomfortable time with
life," said Kate, "that in the very nature of things joy SHOULD come
her way."
The boy stood mystified until the expression on his face so amused Kate
that she began laughing, then he understood.
"That's WHY it's coming," said Kate; "and, here's HOW it's coming. She
is going to get rid of a bothersome worry that's troubling her
head--and she's going to have a very splendid gift, but it's a deep
secret."
"Then you'll have to whisper it," said Adam, going to her and holding a
convenient ear. Kate rested her hands on his shoulder a minute, as she
leaned on him, her face buried in his crisp black hair. Then she
whispered the secret.
"Crickey, isn't that grand!" cried the boy, backing away to stare at
her.
"Yes, it is so grand I'm going to try it ourselves," said Kate. "We've
a pretty snug balance in the bank, and I think it would be great fun
evenings or when we want to go to town in a hurry and the horses are
tired."
Adam was slowly moving toward the kitchen, his face more of a study
than before.
"Mother," he said as he reached the door, "I be hanged if I know how to
take you! I thought you'd just raise Cain over what Polly has done;
but you act so sane and sensible; someway it doesn't seem so bad as it
did, and I feel more sorry for Polly than like going back on her. And
are you truly in earnest about a car?"
"I'm going to think very seriously about it this winter, and I feel
almost sure it will come true by early spring," said Kate. "But who
said anything about 'going back on Polly?'"
"Oh, Mrs. York and all the neighbours said that you'd never forgive
her, and that she'd never darken your door again, and things like that
until I was almost crazy," answered Adam.
Kate smiled grimly. "Adam," she said, "I had seven years of that
'darken you door' business, myself. It's a mighty cold, hard
proposition. It's a wonder the neighbours didn't remember that. Maybe
they did, and thought I was so much of a Bates leopard that I couldn't
change my spots. If they are watching me, they will find that I am not
spotted; I'm sorry and humiliated over what Polly has done; but I'm not
going to gnash my teeth, and tear my hair, and wail in public, or in
private. I'm trying to keep my real mean spot so deep it can't be
seen. If ever I get my chance, Adam, you watch me pay back Mrs.
Peters. THAT is the size and location of my spot; but it's far deeper
than my skin. Now go on and find me food, man, food!"
Adam sat close while Kate ate her supper, then he helped her unpack her
trunk and hang away her dresses, and then they sat on the porch talking
for a long time.
When at last they arose to go to bed Kate said: "Adam, about Polly:
first time you see her, if she asks, tell her she left home of her own
free will and accord, and in her own way, which, by the way, happens to
be a Holt way; but you needn't mention that. I think by this time she
has learned or soon she will learn that; and whenever she wants to come
back and face me, to come right ahead. I can stand it if she can. Can
you get that straight?"
Adam said he could. He got that straight and so much else that by the
time he finished, Polly realized that both he and her mother had left
her in the house to try to SHIELD her; that if she had told what she
wanted in a straightforward manner she might have had a wedding outfit
prepared and been married from her home at a proper time and in a
proper way, and without putting her mother to shame before the
community. Polly was very much ashamed of herself by the time Adam
finished. She could not find it in her heart to blame Henry; she knew
he was no more to blame than she was; but she did store up a grievance
against Mr. and Mrs. Peters. They were older and had had experience
with the world; they might have told Polly what she should do instead
of having done everything in their power to make her do what she had
done, bribing, coaxing, urging, all in the direction of her
inclinations.
At heart Polly was big enough to admit that she had followed her
inclinations without thinking at all what the result would be. Adam
never would have done what she had. Adam would have thought of his
mother and his name and his honour. Poor little Polly had to admit
that honour with her had always been a matter of, "Now remember," "Be
careful," and like caution on the lips of her mother.
The more Polly thought, the worse she felt. The worse she felt, the
more the whole Peters family tried to comfort her. She was violently
homesick in a few days; but Adam had said she was to come when she
"could face her mother," and Polly suddenly found that she would rather
undertake to run ten miles than to face her mother, so she began a
process of hiding from her. If she sat on the porch, and saw her
mother coming, she ran in the house. She would go to no public place
where she might meet her. For a few weeks she lived a life of working
for Mrs. Peters from dawn to dark, under the stimulus of what a sweet
girl she was, how splendidly she did things, how fortunate Henry was,
interspersed with continual kissing, patting, and petting, all very new
and unusual to Polly. By that time she was so very ill, she could not
lift her head from the pillow half the day, but it was to the credit of
the badly disappointed Peters family that they kept up the petting.
When Polly grew better, she had no desire to go anywhere; she worked to
make up for the trouble she had been during her illness, to sew every
spare moment, and to do her full share of the day's work in the house
of an excessively nice woman, whose work never was done, and most
hopeless thing of all, never would be. Mrs. Peters' head was full of
things that she meant to do three years in the future. Every night
found Polly so tired she staggered to bed early as possible; every
morning found her confronting the same round, which from the nature of
her condition every morning was more difficult for her.
Kate and Adam followed their usual routine with only the alterations
required by the absence of Polly. Kate now prepared breakfast while
Adam did the feeding and milking; washed the dishes and made the beds
while he hitched up; then went to the field with him. On rainy days he
swept and she dusted; always they talked over and planned everything
they did, in the house or afield; always they schemed, contrived,
economized, and worked to attain the shortest, easiest end to any
result they strove for. They were growing in physical force, they were
efficient, they attended their own affairs strictly. Their work was
always done on time, their place in order, their deposits at the bank
frequent. As the cold days came they missed Polly, but scarcely ever
mentioned her. They had more books and read and studied together,
while every few evenings Adam picked up his hat and disappeared, but
soon he and Milly came in together. Then they all read, popped corn,
made taffy, knitted, often Kate was called away by some sewing or
upstairs work she wanted to do, so that the youngsters had plenty of
time alone to revel in the wonder of life's greatest secret.
To Kate's ears came the word that Polly would be a mother in the
spring, that the Peters family were delighted and anxious for the child
to be a girl, as they found six males sufficient for one family. Polly
was looking well, feeling fine, was a famous little worker, and seldom
sat on a chair because some member of the Peters family usually held
her.
"I should think she would get sick of all that mushing," said Adam when
he repeated these things.
"She's not like us," said Kate. "She'll take all she can get, and call
for more. She's a long time coming; but I'm glad she's well and happy."
"Buncombe!" said Adam. "She isn't so very well. She's white as putty,
and there are great big, dark hollows under her eyes, and she's always
panting for breath like she had been running. Nearly every time I pass
there I see her out scrubbing the porches, or feeding the chickens, or
washing windows, or something. You bet Mrs. Peters has got a fine
hired girl now, and she's smiling all over about it."
"She really has something to smile about," said Kate.
To Polly's ears went the word that Adam and her mother were having a
fine time together, always together; and that they had Milly York up
three times a week to spend the evening; and that Milly said that it
passed her to see why Polly ran away from Mrs. Holt. She was the
grandest woman alive, and if she had any running to do in her
neighbourhood, she would run TO her, and not FROM her. Whereupon Polly
closed her lips firmly and looked black, but not before she had said:
"Well, if Mother had done just one night a week of that entertaining
for Henry and me, we wouldn't have run from her, either."
Polly said nothing until April, then Kate answered the telephone one
day and a few seconds later was ringing for Adam as if she would pull
down the bell. He came running and soon was on his way to Peters' with
the single buggy, with instructions to drive slowly and carefully and
on no account to let Polly slip getting out. The Peters family had all
gone to bury an aunt in the neighbourhood, leaving Polly alone for the
day; and Polly at once called up her mother, and said she was dying to
see her, and if she couldn't come home for the day, she would die soon,
and be glad of it. Kate knew the visit should not have been made at
that time and in that way; but she knew that Polly was under a
dangerous nervous strain; she herself would not go to Peters' in Mrs.
Peters' absence; she did not know what else to do. As she waited for
Polly she thought of many things she would say; when she saw her, she
took her in her arms and almost carried her into the house, and she
said nothing at all, save how glad she was to see her, and she did
nothing at all, except to try with all her might to comfort and please
her, for to Kate, Polly did not seem like a strong, healthy girl
approaching maternity. She appeared like a very sick woman, who sorely
needed attention, while a few questions made her so sure of it that she
at once called Robert. He gave both of them all the comfort he could,
but what he told Nancy Ellen was: "Polly has had no attention
whatever. She wants me, and I'll have to go; but it's a case I'd like
to side-step. I'll do all I can, but the time is short."
"Oh, Lord!" said Nancy Ellen. "Is it one more for Kate?"
"Yes," said Robert, "I am very much afraid it's 'one more for Kate.'"