Six weeks had dropped off the calendar since the night at Martin's
house.
Facing Grandmother Ludlow in the morning with her last handful of
courage Joan had told her that she had been called back to town. She
had left immediately after breakfast in spite of the protests and
entreaties of every one, including her grandfather, down whose wrinkled
cheeks the tears had fallen unashamed. With a high head and her best
wilful manner she had presented to them all in that old house the bluff
of easy-mindedness only to burst like a bubble as soon as the car had
turned the corner into the main road. She had gone to the little house
in New York, and with a numbed heart and a constant pain in her soul,
had packed some warm-weather clothes and, leaving her maid behind,
hidden herself away in the cottage, on the outskirts of Greenwich, of
an old woman who had been in the service of her school. As a
long-legged girl of twelve she had stayed there once with her mother
for several days before going home for the holidays. She felt like a
wounded animal, and her one desire was to drag herself into a quiet
place to die.
It seemed to her then, under the first stupendous shock of finding that
Marty was with that girl, that death was the next certain thing. Day
after day and night after night, cut to the quick, she waited for it to
lay its cold hand upon her and snuff her out like a tired candle, whose
little light was meaningless in a brutal world. Marty, even Marty, was
no longer a knight, and she had put him into broadcloth.
Not in the sun, but in the shadow of a chestnut all big with bloom, her
days had passed in lonely suffering. Death was in the village, that was
certain. She had seen a little procession winding along the road to the
cemetery the morning after her arrival. She was ready. Nothing mattered
now that Marty, even Marty, had done this thing while she had been
waiting for him to come and take her across the bridge, anxious to play
the game to the very full, eager to prove to him that she was no longer
the kid that he thought her who had coolly shown him her door. "I am
here, Death," she whispered, "and I want you. Come for me."
All her first feelings were that she ought to die, that she had failed
and that her disillusion as to Marty had been directly brought about by
herself. She saw it all honestly and made no attempt to hedge. By day,
she sat quietly, big-eyed, amazingly childlike, waiting for her
punishment, watched by the practical old woman, every moment of whose
time was filled, with growing uneasiness and amazement. By night she
lay awake as long as she could, listening for the soft footstep of the
one who would take her away. At meals, the old woman bullied for she
was of the school that hold firmly to the belief that unless the people
who partake of food do not do so to utter repletion a personal insult
is intended. At other times she went out into the orchard and sat with
Joan and, burning with a desire to cheer her up, gave her, in the
greatest detail, the story of all the deaths, diseases and quarrels
that had ever been known to the village. And every day the good sun
warmed and encouraged the earth, drew forth the timid heads of plants
and flowers, gave beauty even to the odd corners once more and did his
allotted task with a generosity difficult to praise too highly. And
Death paid visits here and there but passed the cottage by. At the
beginning of the second week, Nature, who has no patience with any
attempt to refute her laws, especially on the part of those who are
young and vigorous, took Joan in hand. "What is all this, my girl?" she
said, "sitting here with your hands in your lap while everybody and
everything is working and making and preparing. Stir yourself, bustle
up, get busy, there's lots to be done in the springtime if the autumn
is to bear fruit. You're sound and whole for all that you've been hurt.
If you were not, Death would be here without your calling him. Up you
get, now." And, with good-natured roughness, she laid her hand under
Joan's elbow, gave a hoist and put her on her feet.
Whereupon, in the natural order of things, Joan turned from self-blame
to find a victim who should be held responsible for the pain that she
had suffered, and found the girl with the red lips and the white face
and the hair that came out of a bottle. Ah, yes! It was she who had
caught Marty when he was hurt and disappointed. It was she who had
taken advantage of his loneliness and dragged him clown to her own
level, this girl whom she had called Fairy and who had had the
effrontery to go up to the place on the edge of the woods that was the
special property of Marty and herself. And for the rest of the week,
with the sap running eagerly in her veins once more, she moved
restlessly about the orchard and the garden, heaping coals of fire on
to the all too golden head of Tootles.
Then came the feeling of wounded pride, the last step towards
convalescence. Marty had chosen between herself and this girl. Without
giving her a real chance to put things right he had slipped away
silently and taken Tootles with him. Not she, but the girl with the red
lips and the pale face and the hair that came out of a bottle had
stripped Marty of his armor, and the truth of it was that Marty, yes,
even Marty, was not really a knight but a very ordinary man.
Out of the orchard and the garden she went, once she had arrived at
this stage, and tramped the countryside with her ears tuned to catch
the alluring strains of the mechanical music of the Round-about. She
had not only been making a fool of herself but had been made to look a
fool, she thought. Her pain and suffering and disillusion had been
wasted. All these dull and lonely days had been wasted and thrown away.
Death must have laughed to see her sitting in the shadow of the apple
trees waiting for a visit that was undeserved. Marty could live and
enjoy himself without her. That was evident. Very well, then, she could
live and enjoy herself without Marty. The earth was large enough for
them both, and if he could find love in the person of that small girl
she could surely find it in one or other of the men who had whispered
in her ear. Also there was Gilbert Palgrave, who had gone down upon his
knees.
And that was the end of her isolation, her voluntary retirement. Back
she went to the City of Dreadful Nonsense, bought clothes and shoes and
hats, found an invitation to join a house party at Southampton, made no
effort to see or hear from Marty, and sprang back into her seat in the
Merry-go-round. "Who Cares?" she cried again. "Nobody," she answered.
"What I do with my life matters to no one but myself. Set the pace, my
dear, laugh and flirt and play with fire and have a good time. A short
life and a merry one."
And then she joined the Hosacks, drank deep of the wine of adulation,
and when, at odd times, the sound of Marty's voice echoed in her
memory, she forced it out and laughed it away. "Who Cares?" was his
motto too,--red lips and white face and hair that came out of a bottle!
And now here was Gilbert Palgrave with the fire of love in his eyes.