"You see, I hadn't asked her to set the day. It was kind of understood
between us. An' then Clayton Rand come along an' begun to shine up to
her, spendin' money like water, an' her mother was bewitched by it. So
she orders Alida to throw me over an' take up with t'other man. I don't
know 's Alida's to blame."
"Do you s'pose they're engaged?" asked Dorcas, for the hundredth time.
He was silent for a moment, brooding. Then he answered, as he always
did:--
"That's more'n I can make out. But if they are, I'll break it. Give me
time enough, an' I'll do it when they're walkin' into the meetin'-house,
if I don't afore."
Dorcas felt old and tired. All her buoyant life seemed to settle to a
level where she must foster the youth of others and starve her own.
"Well," she said gently, "you've done pretty well this year, sellin'
house-lots an' all."
"I've done well this year an' I'm goin' to keep on," said Newell, in
that dogged way he had. Often it heartened her, but never when it
touched upon his weary chase. Then it seemed to her like some rushing
force that should be used to turn a mill, wandering away into poor
meadows, to be dried and lost. But he was ending as he always did:
"Clayton Rand won't marry so long 's his mother's alive, no matter how
much money he's got. An' while Alida's waitin' for him, I'll lay up what
I can, an' I bet you I get her yet."
"You goin' to pick peas in the mornin'?" asked Dorcas.
She had heard the clock striking, and it counseled her to remember how
early their days began.
Newell came out of his dream. "Yes," he said, "that patch down the river
road. I guess we can get off ten bushels or more by the afternoon
train."
"All right," said Dorcas. "I'll be there."
"You mustn't walk down. I'm goin' t'other way myself, but I'll hitch up
Jim, an' you can leave him in the old barn till you come home."
"No," said Dorcas, rising. "I'll walk. I'd rather by half than have the
care of him. Maybe I'll catch a ride, too."
They said good-night, and Newell was walking down the path where
clove-pinks were at their sweetest, when he turned to speak again.
Dorcas, forgetful of him, had stretched her arms upward in a yawn that
seemed to envelop the whole of her. As she stood there in the moonlight,
her tall figure loomed like that of a priestess offering worship. She
might have been chanting an invocation to the night. The man, regarding
her, was startled, he did not know why. In that instant she seemed to
him something mysterious and grand, something belonging to the night
itself, and he went away with his question unasked. Dorcas, her yawn
finished, went in to think of him, as she always did, in the few
luxurious moments before she slept. But her nights were always
dreamless. She had the laborer's tired muscles and acquiescent nerves.
It was two years now since she and Newell had become, in a sense,
partners. An affliction had fallen upon each of them at about the same
time, and, through what seemed chance, they had stretched out a hand
each to steady the other, and gone on together. It was then that
Dorcas's mother had had her first paralytic stroke, and Dorcas had given
up the district school to be at home. But she was poor, and when it
became apparent that her mother might live in helpless misery, it was
also evident that Dorcas must have something to do. At that time Newell,
under the first cloud of disappointed love, had launched into
market-gardening, and he gave Dorcas little tasks, here and there,
picking fruit and vegetables, even weeding and hoeing, because that
would leave her within call of home, where a little girl sat daily on
guard. Newell lived alone, with old Kate to do his work, and soon it
became an established custom for Dorcas to cook savory dishes for him,
on the days when Kate's aching joints kept her smoking and grumbling by
the fire. In a thousand ways she unconsciously slipped into his life,
with his accounts, his house purchases, and the work of his fields; and
the small sums he paid her kept bread in her mother's mouth.
And now her mother had died, but Dorcas still kept on. She had no school
yet, she told herself excusingly; but a self she would not hear knew how
intently she was fighting Newell's own particular battle with him, how
she watched here and there lest a penny be spilled and his road be made
the longer to the goal he fixed. She was quite willing to consider
breaking up Alida's intimacy with the other man, because, to her
dispassionate mind, Alida was of no account in the world of feeling. She
might have her mild preferences, but if Newell could give her muslin
dresses and plated pins, he would suit her excellently. And Newell
wanted her. As for Clayton Rand, he would be none the poorer, lacking
her. She had thought it all out, and she was sure she knew.
The next morning, dressed in brown, the color of the earth she worked
in, Dorcas stepped out into the dewy world and closed her door behind
her. It was a long walk to the field. For some unguessed reason she had
been heavy-hearted at rising; but now the pure look of the early day
refreshed her and she went on cheerfully. Since her mother's death life
had seemed to her all a maze where she could find few certainties. She
had no ties, no duties, save the general ones to neighborhood and
church, and her loneliness now and then rose before her like something
inexorable and vast, and would be looked at. Perhaps that was why she
had thrown herself whole-souled into Newell's willful quest, though at
moments she longed to strangle it with passion fiercer than its own; and
why she wondered just what she could do after the desire of his heart
had flowered and Alida was his wife.
As she walked along, she held her head very high, and carried her hat in
her hand, leaving the sun to strike upon her shining braids and light
them to a gloss. For the moment she was unreasonably happy, forgetful of
the past, and aware only of the sunlight on green fields. Then suddenly
she found that a light wagon had drawn up and Clayton Rand was asking
her to ride. She looked at him one quick instant before she answered.
She had known him when they were both children and he came to spend the
summer a mile away, and sometimes, for fun, went to the district school.
Since then they had kept up a recognized acquaintance, but this was the
first time in years that they had spoken together. He was a heavy-faced
young man, with rough-looking clothes of a correct cut, and a suggested
taste in dogs and horses.
"Ride?" he asked again, and Dorcas smiled at him out of many thoughts.
She could not have whispered them to herself perhaps; but they all
concerned Newell and his daily lack. Clayton saw the pretty lifting of
her red lip above her small white teeth, and, being a young man ready to
leap at desired conclusions, instantly thought of kissing.
"I can't be mistaken," he said elaborately. "This is Miss Dorcas Lee."
Dorcas put her foot on the step and seated herself beside him. Then,
surprised at his success, because she had looked to him like a proud
person, though in a working-gown, he began a wandering apology for
having failed to help her in. Meantime he touched up the beautiful
sorrel, and when they began to fly along the road, and the sorrel's
golden mane was tossing, Dorcas had a brief smiling concurrence with
Alida. To speed like that was perhaps worth the company of Clayton Rand.
He was talking to her, and she answered him demurely, with a dignity not
reassuring from one of her large type and regal air. But presently he
began, by some inner cleverness (for he had a way with him), to tell her
stories about horses, and Dorcas listened, wide-eyed with pleasure. The
way to the knoll was very short, and there she had to stop in the midst
of a racing story that had the movement of the race itself, and bid him
leave her. This time he remembered his manners, and leaped out to help
her gallantly.
"Miss Dorcas," he called her back after her pretty thanks, "I suppose--I
don't half dare to ask you--but you like horses. Just let me take you
over to the Country Club to-morrow, and we can see the racing."
For the space of a second, Dorcas gazed at the toe of her patched
working-boots. She was thinking, in a confused tangle, of Alida and
Newell, and wondering if she had any clothes to wear. Then she lifted
her head quickly in a resolution that looked like triumph.
"Thank you," she said, with a shyness very charming in one of her large
type; "I should be happy to."
"Thank _you_," said Clayton, jumping into the wagon. "I'll be along
about half-past one."
All that day Dorcas bent over the pea-vines and listened to her
thoughts. There were other pickers, but she had no words for them, even
when they sat down together for their luncheon, nor for Newell himself,
coming at night to take her home.
"You're real tired, I guess," he said, as he left her at the gate.
Dorcas flashed a sudden smile at him. It was all mirth and mischief.
"No," she said soberly, "I don't believe I'm tired."
"I'm goin' to Fairfax to see about sellin' the colt to-morrow," said
Newell, from the wagon.
Dorcas nodded.
"Maybe I'll take a day off myself," she said. "I'll be on hand next-day
mornin', if you want anything picked. Good-night."
That evening at ten Newell was driving home from the village, and he
marked her light in the kitchen. He stopped, vaguely uneasy, and walked
up the path to the side door, and as he came he saw the shades go down.
"Dorcas!" he called, at the door, "it's me, Newell."
Then he heard her hurrying steps. But instead of opening the door to him
she pushed the bolt softly, and he heard her voice in an inexplicable
mixture of laughter and confusion.
"I'm real sorry, Newell, but I can't let you in. I'm awful sorry."
"All right," he said bluffly, turning away, yet conscious of a tiny hurt
of pained surprise. "Nothin' wrong, is there?"
"No," came the laughing voice again, "there's nothin' wrong."
"That's all I wanted to know," he explained, as he went down the path.
"Seein' the light so late--"
And again the voice followed him.
"Yes, Newell, I'm all right."
Dorcas, an hour after, at her table ironing the dotted muslin she had
washed and dried before the fire, laughed out again. She had a new sense
of triumph, like a bloom upon the purpose of her life. At last she saw
before her a path quite distinct from the dull duties of every day.
When Clayton Rand drove up with his pair of sleek horses and the shining
rig that was admired by all the town, she went out and down the path
very shyly, and with a blushing sedateness becoming to her. Clayton saw
it, and his heart leaped with the vanity of knowing she was moved
because of him. But the cause was otherwise. Dorcas knew her hair was
beautiful, and that her skin, in spite of its tan, was sweetly pink; but
she also knew that the fashion of her sleeves was two years old, and
that no earthly power could bring the gloss of youth to her worn shoes
again. So she blushed and shrank a little, like a bride, and Clayton,
who saw only that her skirts fluttered airily and her hat was trimmed
with something soft and white, straightway forgot all the girls he had
ever seen, and wondered if his mother could fail to approve such worth
as this. And then again he began to talk about horses, and Dorcas began,
in her rapt way, to listen, and put in a keen word here and there.
Alida, she knew, had one idea of horses: that they were four-legged
creatures likely to run away, or to bite your fingers if you gave them
grass. It was easy to compete with her there, and also because Dorcas
really did love animals and need not pretend.
It was a beautiful day at the races. There were all sorts of magnificent
turnouts, and ladies dressed in raiment such as Dorcas had never even
imagined. She innocently fancied Clayton must know any number of them,
and grew very humbly grateful to him for troubling himself about her.
When she suggested that he must have many friends among them, he laughed
with an amused candor, and told her they were gentry, a cut above. Yet
Dorcas continued to believe he might have consorted with them, if he
chose, and her manner to him had a softer friendliness because he was so
kind. And when she could forget her old-fashioned gown, she was quite
childishly content. At the gate that night he thanked her profusely for
the pleasure of her company, and added, boldly:--
"Won't you go to ride a little ways to-morrow night?"
A sudden shyness made her retreat a step, as if in definite withdrawal.
It was like a flower's closing.
"Maybe not to-morrow," she hesitated. It seemed to her the events she
had moved were rushing, of themselves, too fast.
"Next day, then," he called. "I'll be along about seven. Good-night."
And Dorcas went in to think over her day and dream again, not so much of
that as of the desire she was fulfilling for another man.
At that time Newell was very busy over questions of real estate. He had
bought, two years before, the whole slope of Sunset Hill, overlooking
three townships and the sea, and now city residents had found out the
spot and were trying to secure it. That prospect of immediate riches
drew his mind away from his gardening. He forgot the patient things that
were growing silently to earn him his desire, and only gave orders in
the morning to his two men before he drove away to talk about land. Even
Dorcas he forgot, save as a man remembers his accustomed staff leaning
against the wall till he shall need it. But he has no anxiety about it,
for he knows it will be there.
Dorcas hardly missed him, for she, too, had new ways to walk. Clayton
Rand came often now. He seemed to be fascinated, perhaps by her beauty
and the simplicity of her mien, and perhaps by the dignity of her
undefended state. She never asked him into her house, though she would
drive and walk with him. Her strength, that summer, seemed to her
boundless. She could work all day and sit up half the night sewing old
finery or washing and ironing it, and then she could sleep dreamlessly
for two or three hours, and wake to work again and drive with Clayton
Rand in the evening. It seemed to her at times as if that life would go
on breathlessly forever, and then again she knew it would not go on; for
she had planned the end toward which it was tending, and the end was
almost there.
One afternoon, as she came home from her work flushed and covered with
dust, yet looking like an earth-queen in her triumphant health, she had
to pass Alida's house, and Alida's mother was waiting for her by the
gate. As Dorcas came on swiftly, she had a thought that Alida was not
very wise, or she would keep her lovers away from Mrs. Roe. The mother
and daughter were too much alike. The older woman was a terrible
prophecy. The fairness of youth had faded in her into a soft ivory, her
hair was a yellow wisp tightly coiled, and her mouth drooped in a meagre
discontent. She regarded Dorcas frowningly from sharp eyes, and Dorcas
stepped more proudly. She had fancied this onslaught might await her.
"Dorcas Lee!" called the woman sharply. "Dorcas Lee!"
Then, as Dorcas stopped, in a calm inquiry, the woman went on
rushingly, all the words she had not meant to say tumbling forth as she
had thought them.
"Dorcas Lee, what are you carryin' on for, the way you be, with Clayton
Rand? There ain't a decent girl in town would step in an' ketch anybody
up like that. You'll get yourself talked about, if you ain't now. I was
a friend to your mother an' I'm a friend to you, an' now I've gone out
o' my way to give you warnin'."
Dorcas looked past her up the garden walk and at the porch where Alida
sat rocking back and forth, her hands busy as ever with her delicate
work.
"Alida!" she called softly. "'Lida, you come here a minute. I want to
speak to you."
Alida laid down her work with care and placed her thimble in the basket.
Then she came along the garden path, swaying and floating as she always
walked, her pretty head moving rhythmically.
"'Lida, you come a step or two with me," said Dorcas gently, when the
girl was at the gate. "I want to speak to you."
Alida opened the gate and, without a glance at her mother, stepped out
upon the dusty path. People said Mrs. Roe talked so much that everybody
had long ago done listening to her, and perhaps she had done expecting
it.
"You'd ought to have suthin' over your head," she called to Alida.
"You'll be 's black as an Injun."
Dorcas took a long stride into the roadside tangle and broke off a
branch of thick-leaved elder. She gave it to Alida, and the girl gravely
shaded herself with it from the defacing sun. They walked along together
in silence for a moment, and Dorcas frankly studied Alida's face. There
was no sign of grief upon it, of loneliness, of discontent. The skin was
like a rose, a fainter, pinker rose than Dorcas had ever seen. The soft
lips kept their lovely curve.
"'Lida," she breathed, "what you goin' to do to-night?"
"I don't know," said Alida, in her even voice. "Sometimes I sew, when it
ain't too hot. I'm makin' me a dotted muslin."
Dorcas found her own heart beating fast. The excitement of it all, of
life itself, the bliss, the pain and loss, came keenly on her. She
thought of the days that had gone to buying this thing of prettiness,
the strained muscles, the racing blood and thrilling brain, the sweat
and toil of it, and something choked her to think that now the pretty
thing was almost won. Newell would have it, his heart's desire, and in
thirty years perhaps it would look like Alida's mother with that shallow
mouth. Yet her simple faithfulness was a part of her own blood, and she
could not deny him what was his.
"Alida," she said, in an eloquent throb, "do you--do you like him?"
"Who?" asked Alida calmly, turning clear eyes upon her.
Dorcas laughed shamefacedly.
"I don't know hardly what I'm talkin' about," she said. "I've worked
pretty hard to-day. 'Lida, if there was anybody you liked, anybody you
want to talk things over with--well"--she paused to laugh a
little--"well, if I were you, I should just put on my blue dress, the
one with the pink rosebuds, an' walk along this road down to the pine
grove an' back again."
"The idea!" said Alida, from an unbroken calm. "I should think you were
crazy."
Dorcas stopped in the road, decisively, as if the moment had come for
them to part.
"That's what I should do, 'Lida," she said, "to-night, every night along
about eight, till it happens. An' I should wear my blue."
Alida turned away, as if she felt something unmaidenly in the suggestion
and might well remove herself; yet Dorcas knew she would remember. They
had separated, and when they were a dozen paces apart, Dorcas called
again:--
"'Lida!"
Alida turned. Again Dorcas spoke shyly, from the weight of her great
task.
"'Lida, Newell Bond's sellin' off Sunset Hill. He's doin' well for
himself."
"Is he?" returned Alida primly. "I hadn't heard of it." Then she turned
and, keeping her feet carefully from the dust, went on again.
It seemed to Dorcas that night as if she could not wait to finish the
bowl of bread and milk that made her supper, and to put on her white
muslin and seat herself by the window. She felt as if the world were
rushing fast, the flowers in the garden hurrying to open, the sun to get
into the sky and make it redder than ever it had been before, and all
happy people to be happier. Something seemed sweeping after her, and she
dared not turn and look it in the face. But her heart told her it was
the moment that would come after her work had been accomplished and
Newell had found Alida. As if she had known it would be so, she saw him
coming down the road and called to him. He was walking very fast, his
head up, and his hands, she presently saw, clenched as they swung.
"Newell!" she cried, "come in."
He strode up the path and she rose to meet him. She remembered now that
she had many things to tell him, and the knowledge of them choked her.
"Newell," she began, "you mustn't go--I don't know where you're
goin'--but down that way, you mustn't go till eight o'clock. An' then I
guess you'll see her. It'll be better than the house, because her
mother's there. Why," her voice faltered and she ended breathlessly,
"what makes you look so?"
He looked like wrath. It was upon his knotted brow, the iron lips, and
in the blazing of his eyes.
"What's this I've been told?" he said, in a voice she had never heard
from him, "about Clayton Rand?"
She laughed, relieved and pleased at her own cleverness.
"It's all right, Newell," she called gleefully. "He hasn't been there
for two weeks. He's comin' to-night to take me to ride, an' I'll make
him go the turnpike road, an' she'll be down by Pine Hollow, an' you can
snap her up under her mother's nose--an' she's got on her blue."
Newell put out his hands and grasped her wrists. He held them tight and
looked at her. She gazed back in wonder. In all the months of his
repining she had not seen him so, full of warm passion, of a steady
purpose.
"Dorcas," he said, "I won't have it!"