At the Sawdust Pile the monotony of Nan Brent's life remained
unbroken; she was marking time, waiting for something to turn up.
Since the last visit of the McKaye ambassador she had not altered her
determination to exist independent of financial aid from the McKaye
women or their father,--for according to her code, the acceptance of
remuneration for what she had done would be debasing. Nan had made
this decision even while realizing that in waiving Mr. Daney's proffer
of reimbursement she was rendering impossible a return to New York
with her child. The expenses of their journey and the maintenance of
their brief residence there; the outlay for clothing for both and the
purchase of an additional wardrobe necessitated when, with
unbelievable good luck she had succeeded in securing twenty weeks time
over a high-class vaudeville circuit for her "Songs of the 'Sixties,"
had, together with the cost of transportation back to Port Agnew, so
depleted her resources that, with the few hundred dollars remaining,
her courage was not equal to the problem which unemployment in New
York would present; for with the receipt of Mrs. McKaye's message, Nan
had written the booking agent explaining that she had been called West
on a matter which could not be evaded and expressed a hope that at a
later date the "time" might be open to her. Following her return to
the Sawdust Pile she had received a brief communication stating that
there would be no opening for her until the following year. The
abandonment of her contract and the subsequent loss of commissions to
the agent had seriously peeved that person.
The receipt of this news, while a severe disappointment, had not
caused her to flinch, for she had, in a measure, anticipated it and
with the calmness of desperation already commenced giving thought to
the problem of her future existence. In the end she had comforted
herself with the thought that good cooks were exceedingly scarce--so
scarce, in fact, that even a cook with impedimenta in the shape of a
small son might be reasonably certain of prompt and well-paid
employment. Picturing herself as a kitchen mechanic brought a wry
smile to her sweet face, but--it was honorable employment and she
preferred it to being a waitress or an underfed and underpaid
saleswoman in a department store. For she could cook wonderfully well
and she knew it; she believed she could dignify a kitchen and she
preferred it to cadging from the McKayes the means to enable her to
withstand the economic siege incident to procuring a livelihood more
dignified and remunerative.
Thus she had planned up to the day of her unexpected meeting with Jane
and Elizabeth McKaye in the Port Agnew telegraph office. On that day,
something had happened--something that had constituted a distinct
event in Nan Brent's existence and with which the well-bred insolence
of the McKaye girls had nothing to do. Indirectly old Caleb Brent had
been responsible, for by the mere act of dying, his three-guarter pay
as a retired sailor had automatically terminated, and Nan had written
the Navy Department notifying it accordingly.
Now, the death of a retired member of the Army or Navy, no matter what
his grade may be, constitutes news for the service journals, and the
fact that old Caleb had been a medal of honor man appeared, to the
editor of one of these journals, to entitle the dead sailor to three
hundred words of posthumous publicity. Subsequently, these three
hundred words came under the eye of a retired admiral of the United
States Navy, who thereby became aware that he had an orphaned
grand-daughter residing in Port Agnew, Washington.
As a man grows old he grows kindlier; those things which, at middle
age, appear so necessary to an unruffled existence, frequently undergo
such a metamorphosis, due to the corroding effects of time, that at
eighty one has either forgotten them or regards them as something to
be secretly ashamed of. Thus it was with Nan's grandfather. His pride
and dignity were as austere as ever, but his withered heart yearned
for the love and companionship of one of his own blood; now that Caleb
Brent was dead, the ancient martinet forgot the offense which this
simple sailor had committed against the pride of a long line of
distinguished gentlemen, members of the honorable profession of arms.
He thought it over for a month, and then wrote the only child of his
dead daughter, asking her to come to him, hinting broadly that his
days in the land were nearly numbered and that, in the matter of
worldly goods he was not exactly a pauper.
Having posted this letter the old admiral waited patiently for an
answer, and when this answer was not forthcoming within the time he
had set, he had telegraphed the postmaster of Port Agnew, requesting
information as to her address. This telegram the postmaster had
promptly sent over to Nan and it was for the purpose of replying to it
that she had gone to the telegraph office on the day when Fate decreed
that Jane and Elizabeth McKaye should also be there.
After her return to the Sawdust Pile that day Nan's thoughts
frequently adverted to the Biblical line: "The Lord giveth and the
Lord taketh away." Certainly, in her case, He appeared to be working
at cross purposes. At a time when she had resigned herself to domestic
labor in order to avoid starvation, her aristocratic, arrogant,
prideful grandfather had seen fit to forgive her dead father and offer
her shelter from the buffets of the world; yet, even while striving,
apparently to be kind, she knew that the reason underlying his
invitation was plain, old-fashioned heart-hunger, a tender conscience
and a generous admixture of human selfishness. She smiled bitterly at
his blunt hint of a monetary reward following his demise; it occurred
to her that the stubborn old admiral was striving to buy that which he
might have had for a different asking.
She read the admiral's letter for the twentieth time--and from the
thick white page her glance went to her child. Would he be welcome in
that stern old sea dog's home? Would his great-grandfather forget the
bar sinister of little Don's birth and would her own misfortune be
viewed by him with the tenderness and perfect understanding accorded
her by old Caleb? She did not think so; and with the remembrance of
her dead father, the flames of revolt leaped in her heart. He had been
loyal to her and she would be loyal to him. No, no! She was not yet
prepared to come fawning to the feet of that fierce old man who had
robbed her father of his happiness. What right had he to expect
forgiveness, _sans_ the asking, _sans_ an acknowledgment of his
heartlessness?
With a bitter smile she wrote him a long letter, relating in detail
the incident of her marriage, the birth of her child, her standing in
Port Agnew society and her belief that all of this rendered acceptance
of his invitation impossible, if she were to act with deference to his
point of view and still remain loyal to the memory of her dead father.
For these reasons she declined, thanked him for his kindness and
remained his very sincerely. When she had posted this letter she felt
better, and immediately took up the case of the McKayes.
Until that moment she had not considered seriously the possibility of
a marriage with the young Laird of Port Agnew as a means of
humiliating these women who had humiliated her. The thought had
occurred to her in the telegraph office and at the moment had held for
her a certain delightful fascination; prior to that meeting her
resolution not to permit Donald McKaye to share her uncertain fortunes
had been as adamant. But long and bitter reflection upon the problem
thrust upon her by her grandfather had imbued her with a clearer,
deeper realization of the futility of striving to please everybody in
this curious world, of the cruelty of those who seek to adjust to
their point of view that of another fully capable of adjusting his
own; of the appalling lack of appreciation with which her piteous
sacrifice would meet from the very persons who shrank from the
ignominy incident to non-sacrifice oft the part of her whom they held
in open contempt!
Donald McKaye was not unintelligent. He was a man, grown, with all a
man's passions, with all the caution to be expected in one of his
class. If he still loved her sufficiently, following a period of
mature deliberation and fierce opposition from his people, to offer
her honorable marriage, would she not be a fool to cast away such a
priceless gift? How few men know love so strong, so tender, so
unselfish, that they do not shrink from sharing with the object of
their love, the odium which society has always set upon the woman
taken in adultery.
In rejecting his proffered sacrifice, she had told herself that she
acted thus in order to preserve his happiness, although at the expense
of her own. By so doing Nan realized that she had taken a lofty, a
noble stand; nevertheless, who was she that she should presume to
decide just wherein lay the preservation of his happiness? In her
grandfather's letter before her she had ample evidence of the
miscarriage of such pompous assumptions.
There is a latent force in the weakest of women, an amazing capacity
for rebellion in the meekest and a regret for lost virtue even in the
most abandoned. Nan was neither weak, meek, nor abandoned; wherefore,
to be accorded toleration, polite contumely and resentment where
profound gratitude and admiration were her due, had aroused in her a
smouldering resentment which had burned like a handful of oil-soaked
waste tossed into a corner. At first a mild heat; then a dull red glow
of spontaneous combustion progresses--and presently flame and smoke.
It is probable that mere man, who never has been able to comprehend
the intensity of feeling of which a woman is capable, is not equal to
the problem of realizing the effect of solitude, misunderstanding and
despair upon the mind of a woman of more than ordinary sensibilities
and imagination. The seed of doubt, planted in such soil, burgeons
rapidly, and when, upon the very day that Mr. Daney had made his last
call at the Sawdust Pile, Nan, spurred to her decision by developments
of which none but she was aware, had blazed forth in open rebellion
and given the Tyee Lumber Company's general manager the fright of his
prosaic existence.