out here touring it with them fool boys and they were all the chance
you had for help outside. You suppose her father is going to see her git
left? _They_'ll get in here, if they have to crawl on their bellies or
climb through the tree-limbs. They know how! And we've wasted the grub
and talked like a couple of women!”
“Oh, don't--don't torment me!” Paul groaned. “It was all over. Can't you
leave the dead in peace!”
“We are not the dead! I 'most wish we were. Boy, I've got a big word to
say to you about that. Come closer!” The packer's speech hoarsened and
failed. They could only hear each other breathe. Then it seemed to the
packer that his was the only breath in the darkness. He listened. A
faint cheer arose in the forest and a crashing of the dead underlimbs of
the pines.
He turned frantically upon his son, but no pledge could be extorted now.
Paul's lips were closed. He had lost consciousness.
XIV
KIND INQUIRIES
The colonel's drawing-room was as hot as usual the first hour after
dinner, and as usual it was full of kindly participant neighbors who had
dropped in to repeat their congratulations on the good news, now almost
a week old. Mrs. Bogardus had not come down, and, though asked after by
all, the talk was noticeably freer for her absence.
Mrs. Creve, in response to a telegram from her brother, had arrived from
Fort Sherman on the day before, prepared for anything, from frozen feet
to a wedding. She had spent the afternoon in town doing errands for
Moya, and being late for dinner had not changed her dress. There never
was such a “natural” person as aunt Annie. At present she was addressing
the company at large, as if they were all her promising children.
“Nobody talks about their star in these days. I used to have a star. I
forget which it was. I know it was a pretty lucky one. Now I trust in
Providence and the major and wear thick shoes.” She exhibited the shoes,
a particularly large and sensible kind which she imported from the East.
Everybody laughed and longed to embrace her. “Has Moya got a star?” she
asked seriously.
“The whole galaxy!” a male voice replied. “Doesn't the luck prove it?”
“Moya has got a 'temperament,'” said Doctor Fleming, the Post surgeon.
“That's as good as having a star. You know there are persons who attract
misfortune just as sickly children catch all the diseases that are
going. I knew that boy was sure to be found. Anything of Moya's would
be.”
“So you think it was Moya's 'temperament' that pulled him out of the
snow?” said the colonel, wheeling his chair into the discussion.
“How about Mr. Winslow's temperament? I prefer to leave a little of the
credit to him,” said Moya sweetly.
A young officer, who had been suffering in the corner by the fire,
jumped to his feet and bowed, then blushed and sat down again,
regretting his rashness. Moya continued to look at him with steadfast
friendliness. Winslow had led the rescue that brought her lover home.
A glow of sympathy united these friends and neighbors; the air was
electrical and full of emotion.
“I suppose no date has been fixed for the wedding?” Mrs. Dawson, on the
divan, murmured to Mrs. Creve. The latter smiled a non-committal assent.
“I should think they would just put the doctor aside and be married
anyhow. My husband says he ought to go to a warmer climate at once.”
“My dear, a young man can't be married in his dressing-gown and
slippers!”
“No! It's not as bad as that?”
“Well, not quite. He's up and dressed and walks about, but he doesn't
come down to his meals,--he can eat so very little at a time, and
it tires him to sit through a dinner. It isn't one of those ravenous
recoveries. It went too far with him for that.”
“His mother was perfectly magnificent through it all, they say.”
“Have you seen much of Mrs. Bogardus?”
“No; we left them alone, poor things, when the pinch came. But I used to
see her walking the porch, up and down, up and down. Moya would go off
on the hills. They couldn't walk together! That was after Miss Chrissy
went home. Her mother took her back, you know, and then returned alone.
Perfectly heroic! They say she dressed every evening for dinner as
carefully as if she were in New York, and led the conversation. She used
to make Moya read aloud to her--history, novels--anything to pretend
they were not thinking. The strain must have begun before any of us
knew. The colonel kept it so quiet. What is the dear man doing with your
bonnet?”
The colonel had plucked his sister's walking-hat, a pert piece of
millinery froward in feathers, from the trunk of the headless Victory,
where she had reposed it in her haste before dinner.
“Mustn't be disrespectful to the household Lar,” he kindly reminded her.
“Where am I to put my hats, then? I shall wear them on my head and come
down to breakfast in them. Moya, dear, will you please rescue my hat?
Put it anywhere, dear,--under your chair. There is not really a place
in this house to put a thing. A wedding that goes off on time is bad
enough, but one that hangs on from month to month--and doesn't even take
care of its clothes! Forgive me, dear! The clothes are very pretty.
I open a bureau-drawer to put away my middle-aged bonnet--a puff of
violets! A pile of something white, and, behold, a wedding veil! There
isn't a hook in the closet that doesn't say, 'Standing-room only,' and
the standing-room is all stood on by a regiment of new shoes.”
“My dear woman, go light on our sore spots. We are only just out of the
woods.”
“Isn't it bad to coddle your sore spots, Doctor? Like a saddle-gall,
ride them down!” Mrs. Creve and Dr. Fleming exchanged a friendly smile
on the strength of this nonsense. On the doctor's side it covered a
suspicion: “'The lady, methinks, protests too much'!” The colonel, too,
was restless, and Moya's sweet color came and went. She appeared to be
listening for steps or sounds from some other part of the house.
The men all rose now as Mrs. Bogardus entered; one or two of the ladies
rose also, compelled by something in her look certainly not intended.
She was careful to greet everybody; she even crossed the room and gave
her hand to Lieutenant Winslow, whom she had not seen since the night of
his return. The doctor she casually passed over with a bow; they had met
before that day. It was in the mind of each person present not of the
family, and excepting the doctor, to ask her: 'How is your son this
evening?' But for some reason the inquiry did not come off.
The company began suddenly to feel itself _de trop_. Mrs. Dawson, who
had come under the doctor's escort, glanced at him, awaiting the moment
when it would do to make the first move.
“I hear you lost a patient from the hospital yesterday?” said Lieutenant
Winslow, at the doctor's side.
“_From_, did you say? That's right! He was to have been operated on
to-day.” The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“What!”
“Two broken ribs. One grown fast to the lung.”
“Wh-ew!”
“He just walked out. Said I had ordered him to have fresh air. There was
a new hall-boy, a greenhorn.”
“He can't go far in that shape, can he?”
“Oh, there's no telling. The constitution of those men is beyond
anything. You can't kill him. He'll suffer of course, suffer like an
animal, and die like one--away from the herd. Maybe not this time,
though.”
“Was he afraid of the operation?”
“I can't say. He did not seem to be either afraid or anxious for help.
Not used to being helped. He would be taken to the Sisters' Hospital.
Wouldn't come up here as the guest of the Post, not a bit! I believe
from the first he meant to give us the slip, and take his chance in his
own way.”
“Did you hear,”--Mrs. Creve spoke up from the opposite side of the room
under that hypnotic influence by which a dangerous topic spreads,--“did
you hear about the poor guide who ran away from the hospital to escape
from our wicked doctor here? What a reputation you must have, Doctor!”
“All talk, my dear; town gossip,” said the colonel. “You gave him his
discharge, didn't you, Doctor?” The colonel looked hard at the medical
officer; he had prepared the way for a statement suited to a mixed
company, including ladies. But Doctor Fleming stated things usually to
suit himself.
“There was a man who left the Sisters' Hospital rather informally
yesterday. I won't say he is not just as well off to-day as if he had
stayed.”
“Who was it? Was it our man, father?”
“The doctor has more than one patient at the hospital.” Colonel
Middleton looked reproachfully at the doctor, who continued to put aside
as childish these clumsy subterfuges. “I think you ladies frightened him
away with your attentions. He knew he was under heavy liabilities for
all your flowers and fancy cookery.”
“Attentions! Are we going to let him die on the road somewhere?” cried
Moya.
“Miss Moya?” Lieutenant Winslow spoke up with a mixture of embarrassment
and resolution to be heard, though every voice in the room conspired
against him. “Those men are a big fraternity. They have their outfitting
places where they put in for repairs. Packer John had his blankets sent
to the Green Meadow corral. They know him there. They say he had money
at one of the stores. They all have a little money cached here and
there. And they _can't_ get lost, you know!”
Moya's eyes shone with a suspicious brightness.
“'When the forest shall mislead me;
When the night and morning lie.'”
She turned her swimming eyes upon Paul's mother, who would be sure to
remember the quotation.
Mrs. Bogardus remained perfectly still, her lips slightly parted. She
grew very pale. Then she rose and walked quickly to the door.
“Just a breath of cold air!” she panted. The doctor, Moya, and Mrs.
Creve had followed her into the hall. Moya placed herself on the settle
beside her and leaned to support her, but she sat back rigidly with her
eyes closed. Mrs. Creve looked on in quiet concern. “Let me take you
into the study, Mrs. Bogardus!” the doctor commanded. “A glass of water,
Moya, please.”
“How is she? What is it? Can we do anything?” The company crowded
around Mrs. Creve on her return to the drawing-room. She glanced at
her brother. There was no clue there. He stood looking embarrassed and
mystified. “It is only the warm welcome we give our friends,” she said
aloud, smiling calmly. “Mrs. Bogardus found the room too hot. I think I
should have succumbed myself but for that little recess in the hall.”
The colonel attacked his fire. He thought he was being played with.
Things were not right in the house, and no one, not the doctor, or even
Annie, was frank with him. His kind face flushed as he straightened up
to bid his guests good-night.
“Well, if it's not anything serious, you think. But you'll be sure
to let us know?” said Mrs. Dawson. “Well, good-night, Mrs. Creve.
_Good_-night, Colonel! You'll say good-night to Moya? Do let us know if
there is anything we can do.”
Dr. Fleming was in the hall looking for his cape. The colonel touched
him on the shoulder. “Don't be in a hurry, Doctor. Mrs. Dawson will
excuse you.”
“I don't think you need me any more to-night. Moya is with Mrs.
Bogardus. She is not ill. The room was a little close.”
“Never mind the _room_! Come in here. I want a word with you.”
The doctor laughed oddly, and obeyed.
“Annie, you needn't leave us.”
“Why, thank you, dear boy! It's awfully good of you,” Annie mocked him.
“But I must go and relieve Moya.”
“I don't believe you are wanted in there,” said Doctor Fleming.
“It's more than obvious that I'm not in here.”
“Oh, do sit down,” said the teased colonel.
The fire sulked and smoked a trifle with its brands apart. Doctor
Fleming leaned forward upon his knees and regarded it thoughtfully. The
colonel sat fondling the tongs. In a deep chair Mrs. Creve lay back and
shaded her face with the end of her lace scarf. By her manner she might
have been alone in the room, yet she was keenly observant of the men,
for she felt that developments were taking place.
“What is the matter with your patient upstairs, Doctor?” the colonel
began his cross-examination. Doctor Fleming raised his eyebrows.
“He's had nothing to eat to speak of for six weeks, at an altitude”--
“Yes; we know all that. But he's twenty-four years old. They made an
easy trip back, and he has been here a week, nearly. He's not as strong
as he was when they brought him in, is he?”
“That was excitement. You have to allow for the reaction. He has had
a shock to the entire system,--nerves, digestion,--must give him time.
Very nervous temperament too much controlled.”
“Make it as you like. But I'm disappointed in his rallying powers,
unless you are keeping something back. A boy with the grit to do what he
did, and stand it as he did--why isn't he standing it better now?”
“We are all suffering from reaction, I think,” said Mrs. Creve
diplomatically; “and we show it by making too much of little things.
Tom, we oughtn't to keep the doctor up here talking nonsense. He wants
to go to bed.”
“_I_'m not talking nonsense,” said the doctor. “I should be if I
pretended there was anything mysterious about that boy's case upstairs.
He has had a tremendous experience, say what you will; and it's pulled
him down nervously, and every other way. He isn't ready or able to
talk of it yet. And he knows as soon as he comes down there'll be forty
people waiting to congratulate him and ask him how it was. I don't
wonder he fights shy. If he could take his bride by the hand and walk
out of the house with her I believe he could start to-morrow; but if
there must be a wedding and a lot of fuss”--
Mrs. Creve nodded her head approvingly. The three had risen and stood
around the hearth, while the colonel put the brands delicately together
with the skill of an old campaigner. The flames breathed again.
“I don't offer this as a professional opinion,” said the doctor. “But a
case like his is not a disease, it's a condition”--
“Of the mind, perhaps?” the colonel added significantly. He glanced at
Mrs. Creve. “You've thought about that, Doctor? The letter his mother
consulted you about?”
“Have you been worrying about that, Colonel? Why didn't you say so?
There is nothing in it whatever. Why, it's so plain a case the other
way--any one can see where the animus comes from!”
“Now you _are_ getting mysterious, and I'm going to bed!” said Mrs.
Creve.
“No; we're coming to the point now,” said the colonel.
“What is it you want Bogardus to do?” asked Doctor Fleming. “Want him to
get up and walk out of the house as my patient did at the hospital? Dare
say he could do it, but what then? Will you let me speak out, Colonel?
No regard to anybody's feelings? Now, this may be gossip, but I think
it has a bearing on the case upstairs. I'm going to have it off my mind
anyhow! When Mrs. Bogardus came to see the guide,--Packer John,--day
before yesterday, was it?--he asked to see her alone. Said he had
something particular to say to her about her son. We thought it a queer
start, but she was willing to humor him. Well, she wasn't in there above
ten minutes, but in that time something passed between them that hit
her very hard, no doubt of that! Now, Bogardus holds his tongue like
a gentleman as to what happened in the woods. He doesn't mention
his comrades' names. And the packer has disappeared; so he can't be
questioned. Seems to me a little bird told me there was an attachment
between one of those Bowen boys and Miss Christine?
“Now we, who know what brutes brute fear will make of men, are not going
to deny that those boys behaved badly. There are some things that can't
be acknowledged among men, you know, if there is a hole to crawl out of.
Cowardice is one of them. Well then, they lied, that's the whole of
it. The little boys lied. They wrote Mrs. Bogardus a long letter from
Lemhi,”--the doctor was reviewing now for Mrs. Creve's benefit,--“when
they first got out. They probably judged, by the time they had had,
that Paul and the packer would never tell their own story. Very well: it
couldn't hurt Paul, it might be the saving of them, if they could show
that something had queered him in the woods. They asked his mother
if she had heard of the effects of altitude upon highly sensitive
organizations. They recounted some instances--I will mention them later.
One of the boys is a lawyer, isn't he? They are a pair of ingenious
youths. Bogardus, they claim, avoided them almost from the time they
entered the woods,--almost lived with the packer, behaved like a crank
about the shooting. Whereas they had gone there to kill things, he made
it a personal matter whenever they pursued this intention in a natural
and undisguised manner. He had pangs, like a girl, when the creatures
expired. He hated the carcases, the blood--forgive me, Mrs. Creve. In
short, he called the whole business butchery.”
“Do you make _that_ a sign of lunacy?” Mrs. Creve flung in.
“I am quoting, you know.” The doctor smiled indulgently. “They declare
that they offered--even begged--to stay behind with him, one of them, at
least, but he rejected their company in a manner so unpleasant that they
saw it would only be courting a quarrel to remain. And so, treating him
perforce like a child _or_ a lunatic _pro tem._, and having but little
time to decide in, they cut loose and hurried back for help. This is the
tale, composed on reflection. They said nothing of this to Winslow--to
save publicity, of course! Mrs. Bogardus's lips are doubly sealed, for
her son's sake and for the sake of the young scamp who is to be her
son, by and by! I saw she winced at my opinion, which I gave her
plainly--brutally, perhaps. And she asked me particularly to say
nothing, which I am particularly not doing.
“This, I think, you will find is the bitter drop in the cup of rejoicing
upstairs. And they are swallowing it in silence, those two, for the sake
of the little girl and the old friends in New York. Of course she has
kept from Paul that last shot in the back from those sweet boys! The
packer had some unruly testimony he was bursting with, which he had
sense enough to keep for her alone, and she doesn't want the case to
spread. It is singular how a man in his condition could get out of
the way as suddenly as he did. You might think he'd been taken up in a
cloud.”
“Doctor, what do you mean by such an insinuation as that?”
“Colonel, have I insinuated anything? Did I say she had oiled the wheels
of his departure?”
“Come, come! You go too far!”
“Not at all. That's your own construction. I merely say that I am not
concerned about that man's disappearance. I think he'll be looked after,
as a valuable witness should be.”
“Well,” the colonel grumbled uneasily, “I don't like mysteries myself,
and I don't like family quarrels nor skeletons at the feasts of old
friends. But I suppose there must be a drop in every cup. What were your
altitude cases, Doctor?”
“The same old ones; poor Addison, you know. All those stories they tell
an Easterner. As I pointed out to Mrs. Bogardus, in every case there was
some predisposing cause. Addison had been too long in the mountains, and
he was frightfully overworked; short of company officers. He came to me
about an insect he said had got into his ear; buzzed, and bothered him
day and night. The story got to the men's quarters. They joked about the
colonel's 'bug.' I knew it was no joke. I condemned him for duty, but
the Sioux were out. They thought at Washington no one but Addison could
handle an Indian campaign. He was on the ground, too. So they sent him
up higher where it was dry, with a thousand men in his hands. I knew
he'd be a madman or a dead man in a month! There were a good many of the
dead! By Jove! The boys who took his orders and loved the old fellow and
knew he was sending them to their death! Well for him that he'll never
know.”
“The 'altitude of heartbreak,'” sighed Mrs. Creve. The phrase was her
own, for many a reason deeply known unto herself, but she gave it the
effect of a quotation before the men.
“Then you think there is no 'altitude' in ours?”
“No; nor 'heartbreak' either,” said the doctor, helping himself to one
of the colonel's cigars. “But I don't say there isn't enough to keep a
woman awake nights, and to make those young men avoid the sight of each
other for a time. Thanks, I won't smoke now. I'm going to take a look at
Mrs. Bogardus as I go out.”
XV
A BRIDEGROOM OF SNOW
The doctor had taken his look, feeling a trifle guilty under his
patient's counter gaze, yet glad to have relieved the good colonel's
anxiety. If he loved to gossip, at least he was particular as to whom he
gossiped with.
Moya closed the door after him and silently resumed her seat. Mrs.
Bogardus helped herself to a sip of water. She was struggling with a
dry constriction of the throat, and Moya protested a little, seeing the
effort that it cost her to speak, even in the hoarse, unnatural tone
which was all the voice she had left.
“I want to finish now,” she said, “and never speak of this again. It was
I who accused them first--and then I asked him:--if there was anything
he could say in their defense, to say it, for Chrissy's sake! 'I will
never break bread with them again,' said he,--'either Banks or Horace.
I will not eat with them, or drink with them, or speak with them again!'
Think of it! How are we to live? How are they to inhabit the same
city? He thinks I have been weak. I am weak! The only power I have is
through--the property. Banks will never marry a poor girl. But that
would be a dear-bought victory. Let her keep what faith in him she can.
No; in families, the ones who can control themselves have to give in--to
those who can't. If you argue with Christine she simply gives way, and
then she gets hysterical, and then she is ill. It's a disease. Mothers
know how their children--Christine was marked--marked with trouble! I
am thankful she has any mind at all. She needs me more than Paul does. I
cannot be parted from my power to help her--such as it is.”
“When she is Banks Bowen's wife she will need you more than ever!” said
Moya.
“She will. I could prevent the marriage, but I am afraid to. I am
afraid! So, as the family is cut in two--in three, for I--” Mrs. Bogardus
stopped and moistened her lips again. “So--I think you and Paul had
better make your arrangements and go as soon as you can wherever it
suits you, without minding about the rest of us.”
Moya gave a little sobbing laugh. “You don't expect me to make the first
move!”
“Doesn't he say anything to you--anything at all?”
“He is too ill.”
“He is not ill!” Mrs. Bogardus denied it fiercely. “Who says he is ill?
He is starved and frozen. He is just out of the grave. You must be good
to him, Moya. Warm him, comfort him! You can give him the life he needs.
Your hands are as soft as little birds. They comfort even me. Oh, don't
you understand!”
“Of course I understand!” Moya answered, her face aflame. “But I cannot
marry Paul. He has got to marry me.”
“What nonsense that is! People say to a girl: 'You can't be too cold
before you are married or too kind after!' That does not mean you and
Paul. If you are not kind to him _now_, you will make a great mistake.”
“He is not thinking of marriage,” said Moya. “Something weighs on him
all the time. I cannot ask him questions. If he wanted to tell me he
would. That is why I come downstairs and leave him. But he won't come
down! Is it not strange? If we could believe such things I would say a
Presence came with, him out of that place. It is with him when I find
him alone. It is in his eyes when he looks at me. It is not something
past and done with, it is here--now--in this house! _What_ is it? What
do _you_ believe?”
The eyes she sought to question hardened under her gaze. Here, too, was
a veil. Mrs. Bogardus sat with her hands clasped in her lap. She was
motionless, but the creaking of her silks could be heard as her bosom
rose and fell. After a moment she said: “Paul's tray is on the table in
the dining-room. Will you take it when you go up?”
Moya altered her own manner instantly. “But you?” she hesitated. “I must
not crowd you out of all your mother privileges. You have handed over
everything to me.”
“A mother's privilege is to see herself no longer needed. I can do
nothing more for my son”--her smile was hard--“except take care of his
money.”
“Paul's mother!”
“My dear, do you suppose we mind? It is a very great privilege to be
allowed to step aside when your work is done.”
“Paul's _mother!_” Moya insisted.
Mrs. Bogardus rose. “You don't remember your own mother, my dear. You
have an exaggerated idea of the--the importance of mothers. They are
only a temporary arrangement.” She put out her hands and the girl's
cheek touched hers for an instant; then she straightened herself and
walked calmly out of the room. Moya remained a little longer, afraid
to follow her. “If she would not smile! If she would do anything but
smile!”