love you--I never dreamed that I could love any one as I love you.
You've gone deep down in me and nestled against things I didn't know
were there. I'll be patient--if only you'll give me a word of hope."
"I can't--I can't give you hope when there isn't any!" Ann said with
sudden sharpness. "If you asked me for anything else in the world I'd
give it to you, but you want a thing I can't give!"
Baird dragged himself up and stood with his back to her. "You hurt me--"
he said through his teeth.
"I'd have to hurt you--like this--every time you came," Ann said with a
drop into huskiness. "That's why I'm beggin' you to go an' stop thinking
about me. I've got to go on livin' whether I want to or not, an' I
couldn't bear it."
Baird turned around. "I'll go," he said. "I'll go to-morrow.... But I'm
coming back, Ann.... I'll keep on coming to the end of time. I put my
life into you that night--you're part of me. It isn't a debt you owe me,
it's just that I belong to you and you to me!" He spoke with passionate
conviction.
Ann said nothing; she sat with eyes closed.
Then he said thickly, "I've made you ill--is there any one here to look
after you?"
"Yes--Aunt Sue--"
He bent down, took her face between his hands and kissed her lips. "I'm
going now. I had to say that last--it's true."
XXXVII
COLD CASH
"July, August and September--an endless number of Julys, Augusts and
Septembers as futile as these last three months have been. That's my
future, I suppose--if I go on with it," Baird said to himself. He had
just come up through the Mine Banks Road, had crossed the County Road,
and had turned into the long winding approach to Westmore.
Baird drew rein and looked back at the looming Mine Banks. Autumn had
wielded a full brush, splashing the country with October colors, reds,
warm-browns, yellows, rioting in gaudy pre-senile triumph over the
resigned duns of field and pasture and the stately indifference of the
never-changing cedars and pines. The bald iron-reddened forehead of the
Banks, forever ferocious over man's vandalism, glared as angrily upon
autumn's saturnalia as it had upon spring's tender eagerness. The
venturesome tendrils of wild-grape and Virginia creeper, tolerated by
the evergreens, had not dared to wind themselves about the Banks'
burning forehead, and, now, unlike the more courteous evergreens, it
supported none of all this brilliant decay. Not even the sumac,
inconsequent reveler, had planted its crimson torch upon the Banks' bald
head; only the impalpable blue haze, like the courageous wind and the
rain, the sun and the snow, ventured to touch it.
Baird's eyes traveled from the Mine Banks to the pastures, then to the
brilliant semicircle of woodland that curtained the Penniman house. "If
I go on with it," he repeated. He turned and faced Westmore; spoke to
his horse and they moved on.
Nickolas Baird, who loved to fight and to conquer, owned himself beaten.
He had kept his promise to Ann: he had gone west to Dempster and had
worked indefatigably throughout July, August and September, and, now, in
October, they were sending him to France.
Throughout the first two months, he had written frequently to Ann, long
letters sometimes, a pretty complete self-expression. She had not
answered; it had been a little like writing to the dead. Early in the
summer, when terribly anxious over Ann's health, he had written to Coats
Penniman, and had received a courteous but reserved reply: "Sue and I
wish you well," Coats had written. "We have always thought highly of
you. All I can say regarding Ann is that she is steadily improving in
health. Yes, she has received your letters, for I have heard her speak
of them. Cold comfort this had been to Baird."
Early in August it had occurred to Baird to write Ben. The epistle he
had received in return had won Baird's lasting gratitude. There was a
big soul in Ben Brokaw, tenderness and loyalty and sincerity. Baird had
had some conception of the patient effort Ben had expended upon that
letter; he could vision the huge creature compelling himself to chair
and table, the dictionary on his knee, his hairy paw cramped by a pen.
Ben had told him some of the things he was yearning to know: quite
unimportant things Ann said or did, sustenance, nevertheless, to a lover
as starved as Baird was. Among other things, Ben wrote:
"She's not herself yet, but she's prettier nor ever, though,
more growed up and stately."
Baird had not asked why Ann would not even acknowledge his letters, and
Ben had not referred in any way to what lay between Ann and Baird, yet
his entire letter had breathed understanding and sympathy. It had
emboldened Baird to ask, "Ben, you know Ann better than any one
else--tell me, is there no hope at all for me?"
Ben's answer had been cryptic:
"About your hopes--I ain't no wise judge of women, but I've
noticed that some of them is just naturally born giving
hearted, and some has to grow up to it. The kind that has to
grow to it generally loves most to be loved. They seem to grow
up to loving by being loved, that is, if they're loved the
right way."
Baird had been thrown upon his own resources, as he had been when he had
struggled for Ann's life. He had succeeded then in infusing her with his
vitality, why could he not infuse love into her now? Those letters of
Baird's to Ann were vividly honest self-expressions; the best in him
went hand in hand with acute physical craving.
Then, in September, he had received a staggering blow. Ben wrote:
"Something has happened you'll want to know about. Edward
Westmore's will has been made known and it's sure that he's
left Ann a considerable sum of money. Westmore and one-fourth
of his money he left to Judith, and the other three-fourths to
be divided equal between Garvin and Sarah and Ann, Sarah's to
be held in trust. In case either Garvin or Sarah should die,
their portion was to be divided equal between Judith and Ann,
so Ann gets half of Garvin's money right now, as well as her
own. Edward's will states distinct that he is giving a Penniman
this money because of wrongs done the Penniman family by the
Westmore family in the past.
"There's great talk on the Ridge about it, and there's those
who says that Judith sure will try to break the will on the
ground that Edward couldn't have been of sound mind--that the
way he did for hisself showed that, and that the will were made
just before he died. But I know that Ann will get her money.
It's a big thing for Ann, and I thought you'd want to know
about it."
Ben had also told Baird that, a few days before, Coats and Sue had been
married. "Seems like a little happiness has come to the Penniman family
at last," Ben wrote.
Nickolas Baird was a thoroughgoing modern with a high appreciation of
the value of money. He came of a money-winning and money-worshiping
race. However, he was sturdy in his ambitions, for he had never
considered marrying money, and had no particular desire to have it given
to him. It was making money that fascinated him.
Ben's news had cut the ground from beneath Baird, for Ann Penniman,
penniless and tied to the farm, had been a possibility; Ann, independent
and with the world of men from which to choose, was another matter.
Baird had been unable to write to Ann after that. He was handicapped by
as complete a depression as had overtaken him after he had won her back
to life. He had been straining to get a hearing; suddenly it seemed
futile to attempt anything at all; she was beyond him.
But he wrote to Ben: "Thank you for telling me of Ann's good
fortune. I suppose I ought to be glad, but I'm not. I feel more
as if I'd had a blow on the head. I can't write to Ann or do
anything--she's passed beyond my reach. I've nothing to offer
her now--to save my neck, I couldn't clean up more than about
twenty thousand--that and my salary. When I make my pile, I
suppose I'll have courage to try again--if somebody doesn't
get ahead of me, or if in the meantime I don't fall for some
woman whose love is big enough for both of us."
Baird was in exactly this frame of mind as he rode up to Westmore under
the October sunshine. He had fallen hard, down upon the worldly earth;
upon old and familiar thoughts, trite aspirations and desires, cast
there by the vision of Ann buttressed by money. The sweet thing that had
permeated him had grown sick when frowned upon by cold cash. There was
an ugly vacant ache in him.
"Why not?" he asked himself, as he looked at Westmore, its stuccoed
length mottled by splashes of red and yellow, clinging vines and
low-hung branches. Judith had never failed him. All that long summer her
letters had come regularly, warmed by interest, asking nothing of him,
simply giving, giving--all she felt she would be allowed to give. He had
not told her that he was going to Europe. He had not even told her that
he was coming out to the Ridge, for he had decided to keep away from
Ann.
Then, suddenly, he had changed his mind. He would go to New York by the
southern route; give himself the comfort of seeing Judith. But he would
not see Ann.
XXXVIII
THE REVELATION
It seemed very natural to be welcomed by Hetty and shown into the
drawing-room. "Miss Judith, she'll be surprised!" Hetty exclaimed.
"Lord, Mr. Baird, you done growed thin!"
"I've had too happy a summer to grow fat, Hetty."
"Why, you ain't got married, is you?" Hetty asked seriously.
"Far from it, Hetty--you run along and tell Miss Judith I'm here. I'm in
a hurry, for I have to get back to town this evening."
Baird looked about the beautiful old room. How well he knew it! It was
Judith's rightful setting; he was glad she possessed the place. The fact
that she was a rich woman did not trouble him at all; if he loved her
greatly, he supposed it would.
Judith came presently, her light quick step in the hall, then her actual
presence, welcome in every movement, her cheeks warm and eyes very
bright. She was still in black, but Baird thought he had never seen her
look more youthful. Or was it simply because he felt so many years older
than when he last saw her?
"You here, Nickolas?" she said.
Baird took the hands she held out to him, clasped them firmly. "Yes--to
say good-by for a time--I'm sailing for France day after to-morrow. I've
snatched a few minutes this afternoon because I wanted to see you."
There were swift thoughts surging through Judith's brain, but her answer
was spontaneous enough: "That was good of you!"
"Yes, kind to myself," Baird said lightly. "I felt urged to come."
Judith's smiling eyes had taken instant note of his appearance, and her
keen perception was busied over him. He lacked buoyancy, lacked it
utterly; every trace of boyishness was gone. He had aged, hardened. He
had the air of a man who looks coolly and joylessly upon his future.
Judith had learned nothing from Baird's letters. He had left the Ridge
very suddenly; something had gone wrong. Probably Coats had intervened,
or, possibly, when she had discovered herself an heiress, Ann had failed
him. Judith had the jealous woman's bitter estimate of the girl who had
brought both her brothers under her sway, and had entangled Baird also.
The intensity of detestation she felt for Ann sometimes sickened Judith.
That Ann had won part of Edward's fortune had ground Judith's
detestation to a dagger's point.
Under her brilliant exterior Judith was quivering. She had longed for
the sight and touch of this man and, but for Ann, she might have
recaptured him. Yet she had refrained from dealing the girl a blow. For
months Judith's soul had been crisscrossed by passions and burdened by
secrets. And Judith was in revolt. In revolt against conventions,
against her rearing, against herself; against everything. She was
typical of many women of her period; the restless craving woman of 1905
was at heart a revolutionary, and ten years of revolt have molded her
into the feminist of to-day.
Judith had been resolutely considering her future. What did life, lived
as she was living it, offer her? Unproductive, undeveloping middle-years
and a solitary old age. She felt that she had paid her last debt to
Westmore, and that the future lay before her, to be lived in different
fashion--if she had the courage to make the break. She had decided to
make it.
And in her visioning of the future Nickolas Baird was a prominent
figure. He was an ambitious man, vastly capable, and destined for big
things, and she could help him. He would not marry Ann; she felt certain
that she could prevent it; it was her duty to prevent it. He would
recover from his infatuation, for he was not the sort of man who would
be held very long by an infatuation.
Judith had been on the point of writing to Baird her momentous
decisions, and in coming to her he had given her an unexpected
opportunity. The smile did not leave her lips. "I have made all the
arrangements, Nickolas--I intended to write to you about it before I
left--that I am going to Paris, too--in a few days."
"_You_ leave Westmore!" Baird was too much surprised to express
pleasure.
"Yes, I am leaving Westmore--and I doubt whether I shall ever return to
it." Her color had risen; though she smiled, a little of the bitterness
she felt edged her words.
"I imagine it must be desolate for you here--but you, out of this
setting--I can't conceive of it exactly." Then it occurred to Baird what
this move of hers would mean to them both; a continued intimacy,
certainly. The vague motives that had brought him to her prompted the
quick addition: "We'll meet in Paris then, Judith--we'll see it
together."
Though undefined, there was a suggestion both in his words and his
manner that affected Judith curiously, urging her to a sudden defiant
candor. What had her restrained, conventional life won for her? Nothing
more than expressions of gallant admiration; never the vital gripping
thing. "My setting!" she said scornfully. "A woman reared as I have been
has no more freedom of will than a walled-in prisoner! She's a perfect
slave, bound to the past and handed over hand-tied into the future. From
now on, I'm going to live. I am going to know countries, and nations,
and women and men--more as a man knows them. I'm going to think as I
please and live as I please. Not even the past is going to dictate my
future!" She had flung out her resolve, body tense and head high.
Baird studied her; she had both surprised and amused him. Though not
widely experienced, he had met this sort of revolt degenerated into mere
free-living. Baird considered himself broad-minded, but he had not
passed beyond the conception that a woman's assertion of free thought
and action invariably meant that she was considering--as he would have
expressed it to himself--"going on the loose."
But Judith Westmore, with her monumental pride and her immense
self-respect and her narrowly conventional rearing, talking of becoming
a free-lance! She didn't know what she was talking about; she could no
more do it than she could fly. She would see Paris--the world and its
peoples, for that matter--and "_men_," as conventionally as her class
and kind always saw them. She was simply worn into exasperation by
Westmore troubles--and her love for him. The thing was laughable--and a
little sad.
It was Baird's very genuine admiration and liking for Judith that was
responsible for this conclusion. To almost any other attractive woman
who had tempted his present uncertain mood, he would have answered, and
meaningly, "Well, why not?" But to Judith he said kindly and amusedly,
"I don't wonder you want to throw all this off and get out into
breathing space. It'll do you good to get a change. I don't believe
you'll paint Paris a vivid red, though, Judith, even if I tried to help
you do it."
It was evident that he had not taken her seriously, and Judith decided
that it was as well that he had not done so; she had said much more than
she had intended to say. The future was before them, and he would
discover soon enough that she was in deadly earnest. He would find a
changed woman when they met in Paris.
She regained her usual bright manner. "I'm glad you're not too shocked
to continue our acquaintance. I hope you'll come to see me in Paris, and
then you can tell me what you think of my new way of life."
Baird smiled. "Of course I'll come."
She was very beautiful as she stood there, head high and with the color
of defiance still warming her cheeks. The ugly ache in Baird reminded
him that, at a few words from him, her structure of independence would
crumble. She would marry him to-morrow if he asked her, and give him an
immense devotion. His flush deepened into a dull red.
Judith wondered of what he was thinking so absorbedly. Of Ann? Mentally,
she had passed on to the other decision she had reached. "Nickolas, you
knew, of course, that Edward remembered Ann Penniman very generously in
his will?" she asked.
Baird started and stiffened. "Yes, so I understand."
"Do you still care about her?... I wouldn't ask unless I had a good
reason."
Baird had not realized that anything could hurt so keenly as this
questioning. His thoughts of a moment ago had vanished at the first
mention of Ann's name. "Yes, I love her just the same."
"But things haven't gone very smoothly, I am afraid, Nickolas?"
"No--they haven't.... I love Ann--she doesn't love me."
"I doubt whether she is capable of loving anybody, very much," Judith
said quietly. "I hear that she is going to take her little fortune and
leave the Ridge--educate herself; first of all, for she is ambitious....
You mean to see her before you go, I suppose?"
"Yes."
Baird did not know why he said it; he had meant to go without seeing
Ann. But, from the depths of him, the "Yes" came, resonant with
determination.
Judith grew dead white, for what she meant to say next was of tragically
serious import. And it was not jealousy alone that actuated her. She
spoke very slowly and clearly. "I'm sorry to hurt you, Nickolas--I'm
certain you don't know--but if you really mean to persist, if you intend
to try to persuade Ann to marry you, you ought to know. She may risk not
telling you, she may not tell any man whom she wants to marry, and let
him in for disgrace in the future, for any amount of undreamed-of
trouble.... Ann is not Coats Penniman's daughter, Nickolas.... Edward,
my brother, was Ann's father."
Judith was looking directly into Baird's eyes, and she saw how curiously
they widened and grayed. She watched the blood drain from his face. In
spite of the passions warring in her, Judith's love for Baird was a very
complete thing. She suffered as she watched him. She felt that she had
hurt him terribly.
Baird moved at last, looked down at the floor. "I can't realize it--at
once--all it means--" he muttered.
Judith continued. "You see, Nickolas, Edward was only a boy, he was only
twenty-one, and he was madly in love with Marian Penniman--and she with
him. She was a very pretty girl, with Ann's same dangerous allure about
her. You know the family quarrel? They met secretly--my father knew
nothing about it, neither did Mr. Penniman--until it was too late.
Edward was a nice boy, he loved Marian and he wanted to marry her. There
was fearful trouble. Mr. Penniman and my father quarreled violently. My
father swore that no Westmore should marry a Penniman, and Mr. Penniman
was as determined that no daughter of his should owe anything to a
Westmore. Edward would have run away with her if he could, but Mr.
Penniman guarded his house with a shotgun, and between them all they
married Marian to her cousin, Coats Penniman, just to save her good
name. Coats loved her--he honestly wanted to help her, so it was a
marriage only in name. It was a wretched business. It killed Marian, I
believe, and it almost killed Edward." Judith's voice quivered with deep
feeling. "Poor Edward!... And, in the end, he's sacrificed for his
family's sins--"
Baird had heard Judith's explanation, his senses mechanically grasped
what she said, while he pondered the thing which was of such tremendous
import to him. When Judith had finished, he was still pale, but
collected enough.
He looked very steadily at Judith when he asked his questions. "Did
Garvin know Ann's relationship to him?"
"No. Mr. Penniman, Coats and Sue, and Edward and myself--we were the
only ones who knew.... And Ben Brokaw knew. I think Ben guessed rather
than knew--way back in the beginning. And from the beginning he's been
like a father to Ann, I mean in feeling--much more so than Coats."
"And Ann didn't know?"
"Not till Edward told her. Ben says Edward told her, for the first time,
on the afternoon of his death.... I don't know just what Edward had in
mind for her--certainly to take her away from the farm, and perhaps to
adopt her. I know he would never have made the truth known--he would
guard the Westmore name too carefully for that."
There was coldness in Judith's assertion, a discounting of Ann. Judith
Westmore had the southern aristocrat's pitiless contempt for the
illegitimate. It was the heritage of the negro, the curse of the South,
but why think about it? Nothing would have compelled her to countenance
Ann.
Baird understood, but he made no comment. He prepared to go, and smiled
when he took Judith's hand. "Thank you for telling me--you have done me
a kindness. It's settled that we next meet in Paris, and happily, I
hope.... By the way, I must have your address."
Judith gave it to him. She wished that she could keep him long enough to
smooth away the last few painful moments. It had certainly been a shock
to him, but it would be salutary. He was very cool-headed; he would
think it over, and from all angles; and he would not go to Ann.
When Baird had circled the lawn and had reached the road below, he
looked back. Judith still stood where he had left her, on the steps of
the portico. She waved to him, and he lifted his hat. Then his eyes
traveled over Westmore. It was a beautiful old place.... And the proudly
arched brows of Edward Stratton Westmore, first Westmore of Westmore,
had been transmitted unto Ann!
When he turned to open country, Baird's face was set and resolute.
XXXIX
"WILL YOU GO WITH ME?"
Baird walked slowly down the cedar avenue, for he was waiting. Then he
chose a spot beneath the trees, where the branches hung so low that they
shut out the country, and sat down. By leaning forward he could look up
and down the avenue, otherwise he was shut away from the world, canopied
by a leafy tent. And the evening was closing in early.
Sue had told Baird that Ann would return from the village by way of the
avenue. As he waited, Baird remembered the first time he had ridden up
between the cedars, light-heartedly determined to discover Ann. That had
been a boy's quest. He was still seeking to discover Ann, a man now,
anxious and tensely determined.
It seemed a very long time before he saw her at the end of the avenue,
driving slowly, her cape about her shoulders, but with hood thrown back.
He saw the black and white contrasts of face and hair first, before her
features grew distinct. She was leaning back, with reins lax and eyes
lowered. Even when he came out into the road, she did not look up; he
had time in which to see what the last three months had done to her,
that they had brought back much of the old roundness and softness to
chin and lips, and fulness and warmth to her throat. The beautiful arch
and sweep of her brows, her Westmore inheritance, was even more
pronounced. Ben was right, she had grown more arrestingly beautiful.
Baird let the horse pass him, he was abreast of the buggy when she
looked up and saw him. Her convulsive jerk of the reins stopped the
horse, and Baird came to her, looking directly into her eyes.
"Ann Westmore," he said.
She sat motionless for a full moment, then she answered, very low, "You
know, then."
"And you thought that would matter to me?"
"Yes."
The color swept into his face. "So that's why you sent me away, and
would have none of me all summer!" He drew back. "Will you come with me
now, where I can talk to you, or will you drive on with your Westmore
and Penniman pride and leave me to travel alone?"
Ann looked down at the reins, then up, straight up the avenue, a long
enough moment to vision the future. Her thoughts, whatever they were,
drew the color of surprise from her face. Then she looked at Baird, lips
parted a little and eyes blank, like one frightened by what she had
seen.
"Will you come?" Baird repeated.