The roast _was_ burned. Dr. Lowell, at the head of the table, carved
and dispensed it, with sly chuckles. His mild blue eyes beamed through
his spectacles, and he kept up the slow flow of conversation, now
addressing the minister, who sat alone on one side of the table, now
Captain Carlin, who sat with Mary on the other side; and sending
propitiatory glances at his wife, who loomed opposite, stonily
indignant. She was outraged at having her dinner spoiled--in addition
to everything else. And if looks could have done it, the whole company,
except the minister, would have been annihilated.
Yes, her husband too. This was one of the times when he exasperated
her beyond endurance. How ridiculous he was, with his perpetual
good-humour, his everlasting jokes! As he carved the leathery beef he
made a point of asking each person, "Will you have it well-done, or
rare?" And then he would wink at her. She glared back at him, looking
like a block of New England granite, as she was.
It was strange that in a long life together she had not been able to
crush the light-mindedness out of that man. But she had not even made a
church member of him. He treated the minister as he did anybody else,
with gentle courtesy--beneath which, if you knew him well, you might
suspect a sparkle of amusement. He laughed at everything, everybody! At
times she suspected him of being an atheist. He had said that he was
too busy correcting God's mistakes in people's bodies to think about
their souls, or his own. Mrs. Lowell would not have dared repeat this
remark to the minister, for if she had an atheist in the family she
would conceal him to the last gasp, as she would a forger.
Whenever she spoke, during this meal, she addressed herself pointedly
to the minister, for she was above being hypocritical or pretending
that Captain Carlin's presence was welcome to her. From the deep
respect of her manner toward the Reverend Mr. Robertson, he might
have been a very venerable personage indeed. But he was a young man,
under thirty and at first glance insignificant--slight and plain.
His straw-coloured hair was smoothed back from a brow rather narrow
than otherwise, his light eyebrows and lashes gave no emphasis to his
grey-blue eyes, his complexion was sallow, his mouth straight and
rather wide. Perhaps Mrs. Lowell's manner merely indicated respect to
the cloth.
But when Hilary Robertson spoke, people listened to him--whether he
was in his pulpit or in a chance crowd of strangers. Sometimes on the
street, people would turn and look at him, at the sound of his voice.
It had a deep, low-toned bell-like resonance. The commonest words,
spoken in that rich voice, took on colour, might have an arresting
power. Perhaps this remarkable organ accounted for Hilary Robertson as
a minister of religion. No, it was only one of his qualifications.
A second glance was apt to dwell on his face with attention. There were
deep lines from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth and across
the forehead and between the eyebrows. The pale-coloured eyes had a
luminous intensity, and the mouth a firm compression. A fiery irritable
spirit under strong control had written its struggle there.
As he sat quietly, eating little, speaking less, but listening,
glancing attentively at each of the family in turn and at Captain
Carlin, only an uncommon pallor showed that he was feeling deeply.
No one--not Mrs. Lowell, though she suspected much, not Mary--no one
knew what the return of Carlin meant to Hilary Robertson. Two people
at that table would have been glad if Carlin never had come back.
Mrs. Lowell would have denied indignantly that she wished any ill to
Laurence Carlin--only she did not want her daughter to marry a nobody,
of unworthy foreign descent. But the minister faced the truth and knew
that he, Hilary Robertson, sinner, had hoped that Laurence Carlin would
die in battle; that when his imagination had shown him Carlin struck
down by a bullet, he felt as a murderer feels. His heart had leaped and
a deep feeling of solace had filled it, to think that Carlin might be
out of his way. Why not, where so many better men had died? Why must
just this man, whom his judgment condemned, come back to cross the
one strong personal desire of his life, his one chance of happiness?
Mary belonged to him already, in a sense--he shared the life of her
soul, its first stirring was due to him. Not a word of love had ever
been spoken between them. She was betrothed, he could not have spoken
to her. But all the same he felt that only a frail bond held her to
the other--the bond of her word and of a feeling less intense than
the spiritual sympathy between her and himself.... But now it was all
over--Carlin had come back and she would marry him. And a soul just
beginning to be awakened to eternal things would perhaps slip back into
the toils of the temporal and earthly....
Dr. Lowell asked questions about Washington city, the great review
of the army, about General Grant, and Sherman and the new President.
Carlin answered rather briefly, his natural buoyancy suppressed by the
hostility of two of his auditors. But this he felt only vaguely, his
happiness was like a bright cloud enfolding him, blurring his eyes. The
other people were like shadows to him, he was really only conscious of
Mary there beside him. He would have liked to be silent, as she was.
There was no lingering over the table. The doctor had his round of
visits to make. The Indian pudding disposed of, he lit his pipe, put on
his old felt hat and his cape, took his black medicine-chest, and went
out to hitch up Satan, a fast trotter who had come cheap because of his
kicking and biting habits. Gentle Dr. Lowell liked a good horse, and as
he pointed out to his wife, he needed one, on his long country journeys
at all hours of the day or night. The horse's name had provoked a
protest, but as the doctor said, that _was_ his name and it suited him,
why change it? You might christen him the Angel Gabriel but it wouldn't
change his disposition.
The minister took his leave, saying that he had work to do. At parting
he asked if he should see them at evening meeting. Mary felt a reproach
and blushed faintly and Mrs. Lowell said with asperity, "Certainly,
that is all except the doctor, nobody ever knows when he'll be back."
She escorted Mr. Robertson to the door, and then majestically
began gathering up the dinner dishes. There were no servants in the
household. Mary came to help, but her mother said sternly, "I'll attend
to these, you can go along."
So Mary went along, to the parlour where Laurence Carlin was waiting.
This room was bright now because of the sunlight and the potted plants
in all the windows, between the looped-up lace curtains. But the
furniture was black walnut and horse-hair, and marble-topped tables.
On the walls were framed daguerreotypes and a wreath under glass, of
flowers made from hair. It was not a genial room. The blue and purple
hyacinths flowering in the south windows made the air sweet with rather
a funeral fragrance.
Carlin turned to her with a tremulous wistful look. After the first joy
of seeing her, as always, timidity came upon him. Each time that he
had come back to her, during these four years, it seemed that he had
to woo her all over again. Each time she had somehow become a stranger
to him. Yet she had never repudiated the engagement made when she was
seventeen. It was always understood that they were to be married. But
it seemed almost as though she had accepted and then forgotten him. She
took their future together for granted, but his passionate eagerness
found no echo in her. So he always had to subdue himself to her calm,
her aloofness, and his wistful hungry eyes expressed his unsatisfied
yearning. Mary liked him best when only his eyes spoke, when his
caress, as now, was timid and restrained. He touched her bright hair
and looked adoringly at her untroubled face. They sat down together on
the slippery horse-hair sofa.
"Captain!" said Mary, looking at the stripes on his sleeve with a
pensive smile. "So now you're Captain Carlin!"
"That's all I am," he said ruefully. "I have to start all over again
now."
"Yes."
"Nothing to show for these four years."
Mary smiled and touched with her square finger-tips the scar on his
cheek.
"How did you get that?"
"Sabre-cut." He looked hurt. "I wrote you from the hospital, don't you
remember?"
"Oh, yes, I remember," she said serenely. "Well, it doesn't look so
bad. You aren't sorry, are you?"
"For what, the--"
"The four years."
"No, I couldn't help it. But--but--"
"I'm glad of it--I'm proud of you--and that you were promoted for
bravery--"
"Oh, Mary, are you?... But bravery isn't anything, it's common. Why--"
"Yes, I know. But you must have been uncommonly brave, or they wouldn't
have promoted you!"
He laughed and drew her near him, venturing a kiss.
"It seems strange that you have been through all that--battles, killing
people--and you just a boy too, just Laurence," said Mary dreamily.
"And wouldn't hurt a fly. I can remember yet what a fuss you made about
a kitten--you remember the kitten the boys were--"
"Just Larry O'Carolan, the gossoon, divil a bit else," said Laurence.
"Oh, don't be Irish!... O'Carolan is pretty, though, prettier than
Carlin, but it's too Irish!"
"You can have it either way you like, Mary darling," said he tenderly.
"Just so you take it soon--will you?"
She could feel the strong beating of his heart as he held her close.
"And yet--I ought not to ask you, maybe! For I've got nothing in the
world, only my two hands!... You know I was studying law when it came.
Judge Baxter would take me back in his office, I think--but it would be
years before--"
"He said you would be a good lawyer," pondered Mary.
"Would you like that? I could make some money at something else,
perhaps, and be reading law too--at night or some time.... Or there's
business--there are a lot of chances now, Mary, all over the country.
I've heard of a lot of things.... Would you go away with me, Mary, go
west, if--"
"West?"
She looked startled, rather dismayed.
"Well, we'll talk about that later, I'll tell you what I've heard,"
said Laurence hastily. "But I'll do exactly what you want, Mary, about
everything. You shall have just what you want, always!"
She smiled, her pensive dreamy smile, and looked at his eyes so near
her--blue mysterious eyes, radiant with love. This love, his complete
devotion, she accepted calmly, as her right and due. Laurence belonged
to her and she to him--that was settled, long ago. Her heart beat none
the quicker at his touch--except now and then when he frightened her a
little. Mary Lavinia was not in the least given to analysing her own
feelings. She took it for granted that they were what they should be.
And they remained largely below the threshold of consciousness.
But now she moved a little away from him and studied his face
thoughtfully. This was not the handsome boy of four years ago, gay,
tumultuous, demanding, full of petulant ardour. The lines of his
mouth and jaw, which she had always thought too heavy, with a certain
grossness, were now firmly set. He was thinner, that helped--the scar
on his cheek, too. There was power in this face, and a look, sad,
almost stern, that she had never seen before. Suffering, combat, the
resolute facing of death, the habit of command, had formed the man.
She had been used to command Laurence Carlin, she had held him in the
palm of her hand. But here was something unfamiliar. Her instinct for
domination suffered an obscure check.