before she had wanted her mother, wanted her intensely. That afternoon,
on their return from the village, she had gone down to the woods. There
had been a letter for her in the chestnut tree, an impassioned letter.
Garvin wrote of the night before, of her promise to go with him. "_You
are mine now, every bit of you_--there can be no going back for either
of us." And he had also said, "Some one has been spying on us, Ann. I
found that out last night. We can't meet as we have. I'll write to you
every day, but we mustn't even be seen speaking to each other, for the
present. But don't let that worry you, dear--if we are careful, there is
no danger of any one's knowing how much we are to each other. And it
will only be for a short time--I have the agency at last--we will go in
June." Then he had painted a picture of their life together that to one
more experienced than Ann might have suggested some notable omissions.
Ann simply knew that the letter did not make her happy.... Then there
was also a book for her in the bushes, and on the fly leaf a line:
"Please wait for me to-morrow?" That had not made her happy, either.
"I suppose it would have made a difference," Baird was saying
thoughtfully. "It would have made a difference to me, too--it makes a
difference to any child. I wasn't much better off than you--my mother
died when I was four years old."
"You can't remember then even how she looked," Ann said with profound
fellow-feeling, "any more than I can remember my mother."
She had slipped from her chair, seated herself on the step beside him,
and Baird could see her eyes now, wells of sympathy. So long as she
lived, Ann would do such things, offer sympathy by the suggestion of a
caress, just as she would always respond to the masculine call by an
illusive half-promise. Baird saw her sympathy and felt her nearness. She
was an utterly sweet thing; he would have liked to touch her; not in the
rough way in which he once had, just draw her close and kiss her
softly. He kept his rebellious hands clasped behind his head.
"I can just remember her face--in the misty way I saw yours when you
were in the chair," he said steadily. "I can't remember where or when,
but I know it was my mother. She was black and white--like you." Baird
did not tell her that his mother had been a Jewess; that was a thing he
told no one, though he often shrugged in private over his parentage, a
Jewish mother and an Irish father! A truly modern American inheritance!
"And not such a bad one, either," he was in the habit of adding to
himself. "It produces good brains." Just now his brain was
retrospective, his feelings busied with Ann.
"I suppose a mother is just as helpful to a boy as she is to a girl," he
continued, in the same reflective way. "I suppose, if I'd had my mother
to talk to, I'd know women better--all the nice side of them--the mother
side.... I suppose I'd know myself better.... Lord knows, I'd like some
one to tell me what the lasting thing is composed of--the thing one
wants to go through life with."
There was a long silence. Ann was also reflecting vaguely on the same
subject, her hands clasped about her knees, her head thrown back,
looking up at the stars that appeared to move restlessly, as if palely
rebellious under the supremacy of the moon. A cricket beneath the steps
ventured upon the stillness, and, as if emboldened by its temerity, a
bird flitted by them to the clump of lilacs on the terrace and cut the
silence with injunctions to "Whip-poor-will!" Far off, somewhere in the
open, his mate agreed with him and reiterated his insistence. Then, just
below them, in the pasture, a bobwhite called repeatedly, seeking an
answer, which came presently, from the far distance, faint almost as a
whispered echo.
"The night birds are making love," Baird said softly. "All nature's
stirring with it. Ann, what is love, anyway? The thing we humans ought
to have--the lasting thing, I mean?"
"I've been thinking, too," Ann answered musingly. "Why--I suppose
it's ... I don't know just how to say it--"
"Try, Ann--you're a woman, you ought to know."
Ann pondered, eyes still lifted to the stars. "Why--I guess it's wanting
somebody for all your own--so badly you feel sure you can't live without
them ... an' at the same time bein' such good friends with them that you
care more about makin' them happy than being happy yourself."
Baird sat up abruptly. "Say that again, will you!"
Ann was startled into confusion. She looked wonderingly at his
earnestness. "I don't believe I know--just what I said."
Baird repeated her definition alertly. "That was it, wasn't it?"
"Yes, I think so."
He sat a moment in thought. "That's about right," he said finally and
decidedly, "and here I've been asking myself all sorts of fool questions
for twenty-four solid hours."
He got up, stood a moment looking down at her, laughing softly,
amusedly, and with an air of relief. "And you're not sure just what you
did say! It was a bit of wisdom that slipped out of your
subconsciousness.... Ann, you're a divinely dear thing! I'm grateful to
you for existing, and I'll come another evening and tell you so."
Ann had recovered somewhat from surprise. This was a little more like
the impetuous young man who had displeased her because she had liked his
kiss. She shook hands with him distantly. "Father'll be here then, I
hope."
Baird did not stop to parley. He rode off through the cedar avenue,
turned his horse over to Sam, and went directly to his room. He threw
aside his cap and, sitting down at his table, wrote to Judith.
XXV
BECAUSE SHE LOVED TOO MUCH
It was Hetty who gave Baird's letter to Judith on Monday morning, as
soon as Judith returned from Fair Field. "Mr. Baird come in Saturday
evenin' an' he look mighty surprised when I tol' him you was gone,"
Hetty said, "an' yestiddy mo'nin' Sam Jackson, he come from de club
fetchin' this letter.... Honey, you ain't lookin' right smart--weren't
de party no 'count?"
"Yes, the party was all right," Judith answered briefly. "I'm tired,
that's all."
Hetty knew better, but what the trouble was she could not guess.
Hetty had lived with the Westmores for fifty years. She was born in a
Westmore cabin and was a slave child when the war broke. On the morning
when the Westmore slaves had celebrated their emancipation by departing
from Westmore, Hetty had been left behind. She had clung to the family
throughout the hard years, the only house-servant Westmore possessed
until Edward's wife's money helped to resurrect the place. She had been
mammy to all the Westmore children, had "toted" both Edward and Judith
and had been sole mother to Sarah and Garvin, for Mrs. Westmore had
soon faded into God's half-acre, leaving Judith to become mistress of
Westmore; master of Westmore, in reality, for the colonel was no longer
master of anything, least of all of himself.
Hetty had a dog's attachment to Westmore and the family, and for Judith,
not merely attachment, but worship. Judith wielded the whip sometimes,
her stinging, cutting tongue, and Hetty cowered under it, as on the
night when she had let Sarah escape to the Mine Banks. Hetty had known
that Sarah's change from gentleness to restlessness portended an
out-break and was confident in the strength of her own arms, they had
often restrained Sarah in the old days, but she had not had intelligence
enough to circumvent cunning. Just as now, when she sensed tension in
Edward, in Garvin, and in Judith, she was unable to determine the cause.
As soon as Judith returned, pale and bright-eyed and with lips hard set,
Hetty knew that she was in trouble of some sort. She could only wait
upon her dumbly, watch her in canine fashion.
Judith did not read Baird's letter at once. She attended to her
household first. When she knew she could shut herself away without fear
of interruption, she opened it.
"Dear Wonder-Woman," Baird wrote.
"Though I feel that I have forfeited the joy of ever again
calling you so, that you will be quite right if you decree
never to see or speak to me again, I can't help thinking of
you just as I always have, as the most wonderful woman I have
ever known.
"You are big-natured and kind enough to forgive me for the
other night? You are, aren't you? You know, don't you, that I
meant no disrespect when I forgot for a moment that you are too
fine, too far beyond me for me ever to touch? I've not been a
very good sort, Judith--I dropped for a moment into old ways.
If by my fault I have lost your friendship, I feel that I shall
lose the best thing that has ever come into my life. You have
kept me to decent ways--you have taught me reverence for much
that I used to consider loosely. That's why you are, and always
will be the Wonder-woman.
"Will you forgive me and let me try in the future to be better
worthy of your friendship and your kindness? I want them both,
more than I have ever wanted anything.
"Yours in sincere regret,
"NICKOLAS BAIRD."
Judith had known that it would be a withdrawal of some sort.... She sat
for a long time with the letter in her lap, looking straight before her,
feeling rather than thinking. Then she got up abruptly, let the pages
fall, and went to the window, looking down on Westmore, at the terraces,
off over the country with its promise of plentiful harvest, then up at
the Westmore half-acre.... God's half-acre?... He had dealt hardly with
some who lay there, and He had dealt hardly with her.
With the ache of irreparable loss torturing her, Judith went back in
bitter retrospect over the years. What chance had she had? She had given
her youth to Westmore; every nerve, every energy, every atom of her
brain and body strained, year in and year out, to the one purpose, the
conservation of the family. Her mother had slipped away and left the
burden to her. Her father had weighted the burden until it was
mountain-high, then had left her to carry it. Edward had flung aside
family allegiance and had gone; Sarah had worse than failed her, added
dread and a stigma to the burden; Garvin had remained, but more of an
anxiety than a help.... Edward had come back to allegiance, tried
through the last ten years to lighten her burden as much as possible,
and now had lifted it to his own shoulders, but that could not bring
back her youth or soften the callouses on her shoulders. They were
attached to the bone, by long galling become an irremovable part of her.
She was thirty-four; she had crossed the apex; she had started on the
downward way.... And that letter told her so.
Cheeks white and eyes flaming, Judith stared at God's half-acre. What
chance had she had? What had _He_ sent her in those twenty years of
struggle? She had worked faithfully, but what had _He_ done to satisfy
the _woman_ in her--the ache for _life_! A cousin had made love to her
and a nobody, a boy whose father had been overseer of slaves, had
ventured to tell her that he loved her, and both romances had had their
inception and their close back in the years when she was young enough
to be all appeal and no brain--the sort upon which Baird would expend
himself--some brainless pretty girl who would have no conception of the
possibilities that lay in the man who would be mad over her.
Judith turned from the window, goaded into restless pacing by the
thought. Some girl who could smile like Ann Penniman! Just allure,
nothing more, but the thing that captures, nevertheless.... Baird had
come to her too late; not too late if she had been like some women,
experienced in the art of capture. Though cumbered by thirty-four years,
she was as inexperienced as any girl, and far more ineffective because
made awkward by pride and a consciousness of the overwhelming thing
which had grown and grown in her until it had led her to that moment in
his arms.
Judith's tightly-gripped hands twisted when she thought of that sudden
offering. What woman who was not made a fool of by passion would have
made that mistake!... Or what woman possessed of an iota of strategic
ability would, after making one mistake, have made another, allowed her
pride to carry her away when her one hope lay in the elimination of
pride? Had she remained at Westmore, Baird would be hers now, and quite
unconscious that he had been a dilatory lover; and she had beauty and
charm enough to have kept him in ignorance. He would have married her in
ignorance and been happy, as thousands of other men had married and been
content, for she had a beautiful body and a clear understanding of both
his possibilities and his defects. And she loved him completely.
But she had blundered stupidly, irremediably--loosened the hold she had
on him by one uncontrollable act, and, by another misstep, had given his
usually cool brain time to adjust itself and pen her that cruelly clever
letter.... It was damnably clever; it eliminated himself, and pointed
out to her the only role it would be possible for her to play.... She
had lost him, and through her own fault--because she loved him too much.
She wanted to scream; she had to hold herself with strong hands. If she
had Sarah's taint in her, she would go mad.
It was the ache of desolation that finally brought Judith to her knees,
laid her quivering across her bed, crying like a child under the lash.
And it was pride and the tenacity that had held her to Westmore, a faint
hope of the future, that, later on, nerved her to write her answer:
"DEAR NICKOLAS:
"Of course you are forgiven, for I have succeeded in forgiving
myself. At the risk of your thinking me immodest, I'll speak
plainly--the moon and the spring-time were a little too much
for us the other evening, and we behaved rather foolishly. I'm
some eight years older than you are, and I certainly should
have known better, so I take the blame--if there is any--upon
myself. Let us think of it as an incident, a bit of nature, or
a bit of sweetness, or quite a reprehensible proceeding, or in
any way that's proper to think of it, but certainly not as a
thing that can for a moment affect our sincere liking for each
other. I have enjoyed our friendship fully as much as you have,
and I certainly want it to continue. If, as you say, I have
helped you by stimulating that very good brain of yours, I am
happy.
"Please be sure that you are always welcome at Westmore. We are
all of us fond of you, and I'm as eager as can be to have you
succeed. Edwin Carter was at Fair Field yesterday, and he spoke
enthusiastically of you. He talked quite a long time to me
about you and told me as a state secret that he was going to
urge Mr. Dempster to send you to Europe in the autumn--he said
they couldn't spare you till then. It will be splendid if they
do that--I hope they will.
"Your affectionate friend,
"JUDITH WESTMORE."
"Don't forget Priscilla Copeley's lawn party on Wednesday.
Elizabeth Dickenson and Christine Carter are coming out on the
three-thirty, they told me."
The letter reached Baird that evening and he read it eagerly, then sat
in thought over it for a time. It did not alter his conviction in the
least, though it did call forth his sincere admiration. "She's fine--a
thoroughbred! She knew just what note to strike!" Then his shrewdness
added, "But I'm not forgiven--not a bit more than she forgives herself,
and I'm sorry."
Baird got up and walked about then, half reflective, half restless. He
had the evening on his hands; he couldn't go to Westmore until the next
night--he must go then--what was he going to do for the next three
moonlit hours--until he could go to bed?
He got his horse, finally, and rode through the cedar avenue; if Ann was
about he would stop and talk with her.
XXVI
THE ETERNAL ATTRACTION
In the days, or rather, the evenings, that followed, Baird came and went
by the cedar avenue. Though as frequent a caller at Westmore as ever, he
appeared to have a penchant for the short cut, and curiously enough he
seemed also to prefer the longest way back to the club from the station,
around by the County Road and through the Penniman place.
With the purpose of bringing Baird often to Westmore, and at the same
time bridging the awkward interval of adjustment, Judith had asked
Elizabeth Dickenson and Christine Carter for a fortnight's visit at
Westmore. Judith had given much thought to what must be her attitude to
Baird, a perfect friendliness and the best presentation of herself
always; while Baird, who possessed in full the masculine capacity to
forget an affair in which he had lost interest, had given the matter no
thought at all. It was a thing finished, comfortably adjusted, disposed
of. He liked Judith very much, occasionally he wondered how in the world
he had ever mistaken liking for anything else, for in comparing her with
Ann she appeared so unalluringly mature; he had simply been off his
head for a time, that was all.
Baird was gallant to Judith without effort, and attentive to her guests,
and glad, on the whole, that he rarely saw Judith alone. He went about
to the Ridge gatherings with Judith and her guests, gave a dinner party
at the club for them, taking care always that he should not be detained
so late that he could not stop for a few minutes, at least, at the
Penniman house.
He took a great deal of pains to secure that few moments with Ann, or an
hour or more, if he could manage it. It would seem that Coats and Sue
tacitly favored him, for simultaneously with his regular comings and
goings they forsook the front porch. They had many calls to return,
frequent evening drives to the village, and, when not actually off the
place, they were not in evidence. Ben was always there, but he never
obtruded.
Though Ann appeared to be too self-absorbed to pay any particular
attention to him, Baird noticed that she looked annoyed when, not
finding any one on the porch, he had the assurance to knock at the
living-room entrance, forcing her to come down from her room. She always
told him with frozen politeness that her father and Aunt Sue were out,
and that he must keep quiet and not wake her grandfather. Baird knew
that, in the evenings, Ann was always somewhere about the place, for Sue
waited upon the old man during the day, and it had become Ann's duty to
watch over him in the evenings. He always went to bed early now, and
slept heavily; he had grown very deaf and feeble in the last few weeks.
With his usual assurance, Baird would beg Ann to come out to the porch,
and often he stayed until late, using every art he knew to interest Ann.
He talked on many subjects, and Ann listened; sometimes Baird was
certain that she was not even listening.
He did not know what to make of her. She was utterly unlike the girl
whom he had once roughly kissed; often so absent-minded that Baird vowed
to himself in rage that it would be the last time he would try to talk
to her. But there were the times when she aroused and was gravely
thoughtful, and best of all were her occasional lapses into sweetness.
Baird thought her irresistibly charming then, "divinely dear," as on the
night when she had unconsciously solved his doubts for him. And she was
so young; so utterly young that she made him feel vastly experienced.
Half a dozen times during the fortnight Baird decided that he would stop
riding through the Penniman place, put temptation behind him, and as
many times lapsed into an unsatisfactory investigation of Ann. Nobody
knew what he was about; he'd like to make up his mind about Ann before
the Ridge began to gossip about his devotion. He wondered,
uncomfortably, what Judith would say if she knew how often he was at the
Pennimans'. What would Edward think?
Judith already knew. The fortnight she had planned so carefully was not
yet over when, one day, Hetty remarked: "Sam Jackson, he was tellin' me
Mr. Baird is settin' up mos' every night with Ann Penniman. Sam says he
don't go nor come no other way but through de Penniman place. I reckon
Mr. Baird, he ain't been long enough on de Ridge to know jes' who is de
right famb'lys 'roun' here."
Judith received the information in perfect silence, carried it about
with her for a hotly jealous day, before she imparted it to Edward.
Edward was the one person who could say an effective word to Baird.
Judith chose an opportunity when they were alone. "Hetty tells me that
they are talking at the club about Mr. Baird's going so much to the
Pennimans'--he seems to be taken with Ann." Judith was purposely abrupt;
if Edward was startled, so much the better.
He was startled, more moved than she thought he could be; he rarely
flushed, but the color grew in his face until he was crimson. "He might
spend his time to worse advantage," he returned icily.
Judith's nerves were not under the best of control, for it had been a
wretched two weeks, every day of which had assured her of Baird's
complete withdrawal. A slight sneer crept into her even answer: "Ann is
hardly the girl for Nickolas Baird to marry--for any one who considered
social position to marry--is she?... Isn't it your duty to advise him a
little?"
Edward changed from red to white. He rose from his chair and stood over
his sister, looked at her as Judith had not seen him look since the day
when he had defied her father and had left Westmore. "Ann would grace
any position--I intend to help her to do so," he said, and left the
room.
Judith sat in petrified silence.... So Edward loved the girl.... She had
not suspected that.... A long vista opened before Judith Westmore: she
was reminded that Edward owned Westmore; that he could make Ann mistress
of Westmore if he chose; that his fortune was his to dispose of as he
liked. She and Garvin were dependents upon him, nothing more. The shock
of the thing stilled her. She was utterly helpless--she could do
nothing.
By degrees, Baird also had come to the conclusion that Edward loved Ann
Penniman, and that she loved him to the extent of being completely
indifferent to every one else. From the way in which Baird sometimes
paced his room after an evening at the Pennimans', his conclusions
certainly disturbed him. Baird's powers of observation had been on the
alert; he guessed that Edward saw Ann frequently. Edward came to the
club almost every afternoon, dallied over a mint-julep, then went off
down the Back Road, and Baird had discovered that often it was a full
hour before he rode out of the woods again.
If Garvin had been up to that sort of thing, Baird would not have
granted Ann much chance of happiness; but Edward was as straight a man
as he had ever known. If he was making love to Ann, it was intended
seriously. He couldn't come to her house; to meet her secretly was the
only thing he could do; it was what he himself would do under the same
circumstances.... And Edward had the right of way; he was in the field
first and, more than that, Edward was his friend. He, Baird, had no
right to be hanging about trying to interest Ann. What the devil was the
matter with him, anyway, that he was determined to get into such messes!
Here, he had just failed Judith, and now he was urged to get in Edward's
way.... It would be wild folly for him to fall in love with Ann.
For four restless nights Baird kept away from Ann. He was too upset to
go anywhere. Judith's guests had gone and he could not bring himself to
go to Westmore; he did not want to see either Judith or Edward. The last
night of the four Baird spent in the city, and came back the next day
swearing to himself that he'd not do _that_ again--he'd rather sit in
his room and do nothing. Then, quite suddenly, he reached a
characteristic decision; it did not take him long to get into the saddle
and to the Penniman house.
Coats and Sue were not there, but neither was Ann, though Baird knocked
an unreasonable time at the living-room door. He walked around the house
then, and was rewarded by meeting Ann, who was hurrying up the
spring-house path, breathless, as from a run.
To accomplish the momentous thing that had been weighing upon her, Ann
had risked leaving her grandfather alone for a short time. During the
last two weeks it had made little difference to Ann whether she sat on
the porch listening to Baird, or lay on her bed thinking of the thing
that loomed large before her. It had grown out of her two weeks of
companionship with Edward. No matter what the hurt to Garvin, she must
tell him the truth.
She had written her confession that day, spent hours and much paper over
the short letter, and as soon as her father and Sue were safely away she
had taken it to the woods. She was back now; the thing was done; she was
panting as much from nervousness as from haste.
The sight of a man looming dimly in the path startled her and she
stopped. She felt ill enough to be frightened by everything; a moment
before a bird had fluttered in the grapevines and her heart had stood
still.
"It's only I--don't be frightened," Baird's voice said.
Ann came on without answer.
"You've been running--where have you been?" Baird questioned. He felt
jealously certain that Ann had been to the woods--to see Edward, of
course.
Ann did not answer his question. "Were you at the house? Was grandpa all
right?" she asked anxiously.
"I think so--everything was quiet.... Why don't you wait a minute and
get your breath?... I want to ask you something, anyway, Ann?"
Ann did pause. "Well?" she asked indifferently.