Gordon thought again of Lettice Hollidew as he was sitting for the last
evening on the porch of the dwelling that had passed out of his hands.
Twilight had poured through the valley, thickening beneath the trees, over
the stream; the mountain ranges were dark, dusty blue against a maroon
sky. He recalled the sympathy, the plea for comprehension, in Lettice's
gaze, lifted, for the first time, frankly against his own.
Hers was not the feminine type which attracted him; he preferred a more
flamboyant beauty, ready repartee, the conscious presence and employment
of the lure of sex. His taste had been fed by the paid women of Stenton,
the few, blowsy, loose females of the mountains; these and the surface
chatter of the stage, and Clare, formed his sole knowledge, experience,
surmising, of women. He recalled Lettice condescendingly; she did not stir
his pulses, appeal to his imagination. Yet she moved his pride, his
inordinate self-esteem. It had been on his account, and not Clare's, that
she had come to the funeral. The little affair with Buckley Simmons had
captured her attention and interest; he had not thought Lettice so
impressionable.
It was, he remembered, Wednesday night--there would be prayer-meeting in
the Methodist Church; the Hollidews were Methodists; women, mostly,
attended prayer meeting. If he strolled about in that vicinity he might
see Lettice at the close of the service, thank her for attending poor
Clare's funeral.
He rose and negligently made his way through the soft gloom past the
Courthouse to the Methodist Church. The double doors were open, and a
flood of hot radiance rolled out into the night, together with the
familiar tones of old Martin Seeker loudly importuning his invisible,
inscrutable Maker. There were no houses opposite the church, and, balanced
obscurely on the fence of split rails against the unrelieved night, a row
of young men smoked redly glowing cigarettes; while, on the ground below
them, shone the lanterns by the aid of which they escorted the various
maidens of their choice on their various obscure ways.
The prayer stopped abruptly, and, after a momentary silence, the dolorous
wail of a small organ abetted a stridulent concourse of human voices
lifted in lamentable song, a song in which they were desirous of being
winged like the dove.
The sound mounted in a grievous minor into the profound stillness, the
peace, of the valley, of the garment of stars drawn from wall to wall.
There was something animal-like in its long-drawn, quavering note--like
the baying of a dog out of the midst of his troubled darkness at the
remote, silver serenity, the disturbing, effortless splendor, of the
moon.
The line of figures without, sitting on the fence with their feet caught
under the second rail, smoked in imperturbable, masculine indifference.
There was, shortly, a stir within, a moving blur of figures in the opened
doors, and the lanterns swung alertly to the foot of the steps, where, one
by one, the bobbing lights, detached from the constellation, vanished into
the night.
Almost immediately Gordon saw Lettice Hollidew standing at the entrance,
awaiting a conversing group of older women at the head of the aisle. She
recognized him, and descended immediately with a faint, questioning smile.
The smile vanished as she greeted him; her eyes were dark on a pale, still
countenance. He noticed that she was without the heady perfume which
stirred him as the other girls passed, and he was silently critical of the
omission.
He delivered quickly, with a covert glance above, the customary period
about seeing her home. Immediately she walked with him into the obscurity,
the mystery, of the night.
"It was certainly nice-hearted of you to come to Clare's funeral," he
began.
Close beside him she shivered, it might be at the memory of that occasion.
She was without a hat, and he was able to study her profile: it was
irregular, with a low, girlish brow and a nose too heavy for beauty; she
had a full under lip and a strongly modelled chin, a firm line ending in a
generous throat, milk-white in the gloom. Her figure too, he judged, was
too heavy for his standard of feminine charm. His interest in her burned
low, sustained only by what he recognized as a conquest.
She walked slowly and more slowly as he dallied by her side. Almost
subconsciously he adopted the tone by which he endeavored to enlist the
interest of the opposite sex: he repeated in a perfunctory manner the
stereotyped remarks appropriate for such occasions.
She listened intently, with sudden, little glances from a momentarily
lifted gaze. He grew impatient at the absence of the flattering responses
to which he was largely accustomed. And, dropping abruptly his artificial
courtesy, he maintained a sullen silence, quickened his stride. He drew
some satisfaction from the observation that his reticence hurt her. Her
hands caught and strained together; she looked at him with a longer,
questioning gaze.
"I wanted to tell you," she said finally, with palpable difficulty, "how
sorry I am about ... about things; your home, and--and I heard of the
stage, too. It was a shame, you drove beautifully, and took such care of
the passengers."
"It was that care cost me the place," he answered with brutal directness;
"old Simmons did it; him and his precious Buckley."
She stopped with an expression of instant, deep concern. "Oh! I am so
sorry ... then it was my fault. But it's horrid that they should have done
that; that they should be able; it is all wrong--"
"Right nor wrong don't make any figure I've ever discovered," he retorted;
"Valentine Simmons has the power, he's got the money. That's it--money's
the right of things; it took my house away from me, like it's taken away
so many houses, so many farms, in Greenstream--"
"But," she objected timidly, "didn't they owe Mr. Simmons for things? You
see, people borrow, borrow, borrow, and never pay back. My father," she
proceeded with more confusion, "has lost lots of money in that way."
"I can tell you all about that," he informed her bitterly, proceeding to
mimic Simmons' dry, cordial tones, "'Take the goods right along with you,
pay when you like, no hurry between old friends.' Then, when Zebener
Hull's corn failed, 'I'll trouble you for that amount,' the skinflint
says, and sells Zebener out. And what your father's lost," he added more
directly still, "wouldn't take you on the stage to Stenton. Your father
and Simmons have got about everything worth getting in the county; they've
got the money, they've got the land, they've got the men right in their
iron safes. Right and wrong," he sneered, "it's money--"
"Oh! please," she begged, "please don't be so unhappy, so hard. Life isn't
as dreadful as that."
"It's worse," he declared somberly. They turned by Simmons' store, but
continued in the opposite direction from the one-time Makimmon dwelling.
They passed a hedge of roses; the perfume hung heavy-sweet, poignant;
there was apparently no sky, no earth, only a close, purple envelopment,
imminent, palpable, lying languidly, unstirring, in a space without form
or limit and of one color.
Lettice walked silently by his side; he could hear her breathing,
irregular, quick. She was very close to him, then moved suddenly,
consciously, away; but, almost immediately, she drifted back, brushing his
shoulder; it seemed that she returned inevitably, blindly; in the gloom
her gown fluttered like the soft, white wings of a moth against him.
"It's worse," he repeated, his voice loud and harsh, like a discordant
bell clashing in the sostenuto passage of a symphony; "but it's all one
to me--there's nothing else they can take; I'm free, free to sleep or
wake, to be drunk when I like with no responsibility to Simmons or any one
else--"
Her breathing increasingly grew labored, oppressed; a little sob escaped,
softly miserable. She was crying. He was completely callous, indifferent.
They stood before the dark, porchless facade of her home.
"I thought life was so happy," she articulated, facing him; "but now it
hurts me ... here;" he saw her press her hand against the swelling, tender
line of her breast. His theatrical self-consciousness bowed him over the
other hand, pressing upon it a half-calculated kiss. She stood motionless;
he felt rather than saw the intensity of her gaze. "I wish I could mend
the hurt," he began, appropriately, professionally.
He was interrupted by a figure emerging from the obscurity of the house.
Pompey Hollidew peered at them from the low, stone lintel. "Letty," he
pronounced, in a voice at once whining and truculent; "who?--oh! that
Makimmon.... Letty, come in the house." He caught her arm and dragged her
incontinently toward the door. "... rascal," Gordon heard him mutter,
"spendthrift. If you ever walk again with Gordon Makimmon," the old man,
through his daughter, addressed the other, "don't walk back here, don't
come home. Not a dollar of mine shall fall through the pockets of that
shiftless breed."