_Dr. Darrow damns the first families with his last breath, and little
Miss Nancy Carey meets the young mountaineer._
FROM the time she was fourteen--almost, indeed, from the moment of the
first meeting, Glen Darrow knew that some day, when she was old enough,
she would fall in love with Luke Manders.
She accepted this knowledge without excitement or self-consciousness,
as simply as she accepted the other undebatable facts of her life and
circumstances. It was just as another girl might know that she was
going to college after she finished high school, or a third, that her
aunt would take her abroad when she was eighteen.
She _knew_ it, that was all, in a grave preoccupation, in a certain
serene young sense of dedication. The thing was settled; it hadn’t
to be worried about. It would have been amusing to an observer in
possession of the facts to see how sedulously both her father and
Miss Ada Tenafee avoided all discussion, all mention even, of such a
possibility--the man, because he desired it so heartily and feared
to frustrate his hopes by forcing, and the woman because she turned
from the idea with all the inhibitions of her caste and type, and was
craftily aware that opposition would fan the flame.
It was, therefore, a wordlessly understood thing between the doctor
and his daughter during the remainder of his life, but he became vocal
about it on his profane and painful deathbed. He was hotly and bitterly
rebellious at being obliged to die at forty-eight. His heedless habits
of finance would leave her pitifully poor: beyond the dull house on
the dull street, midway between The Hill and the mills, there would be
something under two thousand dollars. Glen would have to leave high
school in her final year and go to business college, and to work.
Glenwood Darrow had always told himself that presently he would turn
over a new leaf, force collections, invoke the law on long outstanding
accounts, set his affairs in order and assure the girl’s future.... The
automobile accident put a sudden and gory period to his plans.
He had been persuaded, after long delay, to give up his elderly
horse and his battered buggy and buy a machine, and--once he had
been actually won over--the salesman and demonstrator found him
juvenilely enthusiastic and a quick if careless and cocksure pupil.
The demonstrator found that his store of bright and steady patience
would not be heeded in this case: the doctor said--“Yes, yes! I get
you! All right! All _right_, I say--Good God, man, do I look like a
half-wit?”--at the end of the second lesson and refused a third. He
came back from his third attempt with broken bumper and bent fenders,
and a chuckling delight in his achievement, though he absolutely
refused to take Glen with him until he’d “got the hang of the fool
thing in a little better,” and from his fourth trip he was brought home
in the ambulance he had summoned so many times for others, and cursed
for its tardiness and its meager comforts.
He lived for ten difficult days with the grief-stricken girl and a
brow-beaten nurse in attendance, with Luke Manders coming in at night
to lift him capably when his position became unbearable, and Miss Ada
Tenafee calling conscientiously to inquire every afternoon on her way
home from school.
Remorsefully, he laid before his daughter the nakedness of their land.
“But it doesn’t matter, Dad, dear,” she comforted him. “I always
expected to work; you know I did. It doesn’t matter; nothing matters
but _you_!” Her voice broke on the words but she did not cry. She bore
herself, from the moment that he was carried into the house, crushed
and broken, until he was carried out of it for the last time, with the
same composure she had exhibited on the night of Luke Mander’s exodus
from his mountains. She was, after all, the man told himself with
satisfaction and pride, his child; the soft-eyed, soft-chinned Effie
had been merely the mild receptacle for her embryonic stage; directly
she was born, she was triumphantly _his_, and his child would make her
way in the world against any mischance.
She planned with him, steadily: she would leave school and go to
business college at once, and fit herself for a job as expeditiously
as possible, so as not to draw upon her tiny capital any more than was
absolutely necessary. The house, he insisted, she must keep; it would
not bring enough to make its sale worth while, and it was a shelter; he
didn’t want her knocking round in boarding places. He thought she might
rent some of the rooms to school-teachers or decent women of some sort;
he didn’t want her there alone, of course.
Glen opened her mouth to say that she would try to coax Miss Ada from
her solitary little room, but stopped herself in time; it would only
have irritated him. “Yes, Dad; I can get some one, surely, and I will.
I promise you I won’t stay alone. You mustn’t worry, Dad!”
He told her, clumsily, since praise came unhandily to his lips, what
she had meant to him, and his earnest hope that she would be true to
the creeds and convictions he had set up for her. Jerkily, pausing
often to rest and husband his fast-failing strength, he renewed for her
the standards he had given her in her childhood, particularly on the
day of the ill-starred valentine party, when she had gone to drive with
him after that tragic festivity. She was to remember always that she
was as good as any, and better than most; she was to be the champion of
the weak--as represented by the mountaineers and the mill people--and
she was to pick her friends from among them; she was to “hate’n
despise” The Hill contingent, and to “spike their guns by snubbing them
before they got the chance to snub her.”
And on the last day of all, gruffly and ineptly, he approached the
subject nearest his heart.
“Look here, Glen,” he began, “about Luke....”
“Yes, Dad,” she met his eyes steadily.
“You and Luke ...” he managed between battled breaths, “I’m not fool
enough, no, nor knave enough, to pull the ‘dying father’s wish’ on you,
but----”
The girl wedged another pillow behind his heaving shoulders. “I know,
Dad.” The infrequent color had surged up in her golden-olive cheeks,
but beyond that single manifestation she was entirely calm.
“You’re only seventeen ... child, still.... Wait till you’re
nineteen--twenty-- No foolishness in meantime, hear me?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“No hand-holding ... mooning ’round....”
“No, Dad,” she promised earnestly and without embarrassment.
“Well, now, remember ... haven’t made any deathbed promise.... I’m not
expecting ... run things ... from the grave.”
“I know,” she soothed him, wiping the sweat from his glistening
forehead. “I understand, Dad, dear. _Please_ don’t try----”
But he went doggedly on. “You’re free ... free as air ... but if you
_do_-- Well, if there’s anything to this ‘hereafter’ stuff ... if
I’m--anywhere--you’ll know I’m--_glad_!” He scowled at the nurse,
bringing his nourishment, and sent Glen out for a breath of air.
He died soon after midnight with his daughter beside him, two local
doctors and the harried nurse. Luke Manders and Miss Ada Tenafee, on
either side of the hideous sitting room, waited downstairs. His mind
wandered a little, toward the last, and he spoke of his wife, of her
and to her. “Blue eyes,” he muttered, “blue and soft ... gentle ...
kind of sad, some way.... Just see her eyes over the top of the hymn
book.... What’s the matter, Effie? Oh, you like that fool rug? G. P.
present ... old Mrs. Ludermann, my one wealthy patient.... I figured
we’d take it back and get credit for it ... doesn’t go with anything
else we’ve got-- Oh, all right! All right, I say! Keep it! Good lord,
_keep_ it!” He murmured snatches of long-forgotten talk, relived a
portion of his interview with Granny Manders when she confided her
dream of having her son’s _son’s_ son “fotched on,” and at the end
looked at the girl with clear and unclouded gaze.
“You keep away from that Hill crowd, hear? You mind me! Poor Effie,
your poor mother, she came down here as friendly as a fox terrier, and
what’d they do? Snubbed her, and cold-shouldered her, and looked right
through her, that’s what they did, damn ’em! Crushed her, and broke
her heart, and killed her, damn ’em--killed her! Damn their souls!”
shouted the doctor with amazing vigor, and, damning, died, entirely in
character, as he had lived.
The two doctors, one old and one young, were kind, and the nurse was
kind, and Glen was civil in her appreciation, but she turned to her two
friends, stumbling blindly down the stairs to find them.
The shabby teacher put thin arms about her and held her close. She
knew, she said, none better, what it meant to lose a father.... Glen
was to lie down at once, and she would bring her a cup of tea. She
had--happily--put the kettle on a half hour earlier, and she pushed
Glen gently down into the easiest of the chairs and tiptoed swiftly to
the kitchen.
Luke Manders did not speak to her, but he came and stood before her,
towering over her like a young pine, and his black eyes were very
bright. He took the hand that she gropingly held out to him and held
it hard in his own hard hand, and it went through her mind that it was
like taking hold of a stalwart tree for support--like leaning upon
solid rock, like the strength of the hills. Looking up at him through
tears she wondered, even in that hour, if her father had talked to him
as he had to her, but she heard Miss Ada’s pattering return and pulled
her hand away. She must be careful now with her two friends--her only
friends--who were not friends with each other.
The young mountaineer was no longer openly rude to the faded
gentlewoman: to the boldness and poise which he had brought down from
the heights he had added a grave courtesy which sat well upon him,
and he hooded the scorn in his keen eyes. Miss Ada, for her part,
was obliged to admit and did admit, very pleasantly, to Glen, that
the youth had made amazing progress, not only in his studies but in
his adjustment to civilization. There was still, and Glen secretly
hoped there would always be something alien, something distinct and
different in dress, in carriage, in speech; it set him apart from
the savorlessness of the herd. He had made astonishing speed at the
business college course, and at the mill, where he had at once engaged
the attention of Mr. ’Gene Carey, the genial senior partner, and was
constantly being pushed forward.
It was true, as Miss Ada Tenafee had once allowed herself to remark,
very casually, that he did not make friends; he had left the frowsy
Tollivers, where the doctor had placed him, at the end of his first
month, and found himself a tiny, clean room with strangers who were
still strangers to him after three years, but this did not lessen him
in Glen’s eyes. Her father did not make friends; she did not make
friends herself; it was, in her bleak young creed, rather a pledge of
fineness not to make friends.
A respectable number of his patients, the two doctors and the nurse,
and three or four good-natured neighborhood people came to the brief,
drab little funeral, and Glen sat between Miss Ada and Luke Manders.
Just as they drove home from the cemetery Nancy Carey, in a soft blue
dress, came down from The Hill with her hands filled with flowers.
“Oh, Glen, I’m so sorry!” she said, hurrying to meet her as she stepped
from the machine. “I’ve just heard, half an hour ago (I’ve been in
Augusta, you know) and of course it’s too late, but I just thought I’d
bring you these!”
“Thank you,” said Glen hoarsely. The encounter unsteadied her--to come
from her father’s grave, from his admonitions, and find the Greeks
bearing gifts. Nancy Carey had always been gently, languidly pleasant
to her, although they had met rarely since the little days at Miss
Josephine’s. Nancy had been years away at Northern finishing schools
and would soon, the Social Chat of the leading local paper announced
excitedly, go abroad for an indefinite tour of the Continent. She had
been a sweetly lovely child and she was a sweetly lovely girl, with
tints of rose and cream in her softly modeled face and a liquid hazel
gaze, and fine, pale brown hair, like a baby’s, curling loosely about
her mild brow. There was a tender, a lyric quality about Nancy Carey
... old ballads ... hearts and initials carved on trees ... keepsakes
... lost causes ... early deaths.... She should have been Barbara
Freitchie’s gentle best friend.
Miss Ada was fluttered at the call. “Honey, this is _very_ good of
you,” she blushed girlishly. “Glen appreciates your thoughtfulness. I
know I may speak for her!” She laid an admonitory hand on her charge’s
arm.
“It is ... very kind,” Glen managed obediently.
“And won’t you step in for a moment, Nancy, my dear? I’m just going
to make Glen a cup of strong tea, and she’d be so pleased--we _both_
would--” Miss Ada quite clearly thought that grief, at any rate, grief
for a person of Dr. Darrow’s caliber, might well be laid aside for the
amenities of life when a Carey came to call.
The girl from The Hill was regarding the young mountaineer with mild
interest. “Oh, thanks, Cousin Ada,” she said, turning to her--Miss Ada
was a connection by marriage in two or three directions--“but I just
came to bring the roses and tell Glen how _sorry_-- Auntie Lou-May is
waiting for me.”
“Then I’ll walk back with you a piece,” Miss Ada slipped her arm
through Nancy’s. “And how _is_ your dear Auntie Lou-May? Is her
sciatica better?--Glen, my dear, I’ll be back immediately.”
“Not much better, poor dear,” Nancy answered prettily. “But she’s such
an angel about it, and I don’t like to keep her waiting when I’ve
promised to play cribbage with her.”
“Of course _not_!” assented the connection warmly. “I’m sorry you
couldn’t stop, but it was just wonderful for you to think of coming!”
“Glen Darrow is a nice girl,” said Nancy vaguely. “I always liked her,
some way ... and felt sorry for her....”
“Well, so do I, honey, and that’s why I’m staying with her until she
can make some suitable arrangement. It just seems to be my _part_ to
look after the poor child, alone as she is. Glen has a remarkably fine
character, _innately_ refined,” said Miss Ada, as she had said of her
Simpson mother. “So _pitifully_ alone, and almost _wholly_ unprovided
for----”
“Who was that boy, Cousin Ada?” Nancy interrupted gently.
“Why--why--that is--that isn’t _anybody_, you might say, my dear. He
is a young lad from the mountain districts to whom Dr. Darrow took one
of his odd fancies. A very peculiar person, Dr. Darrow, and I pray his
standards will not affect Glen’s life too seriously. He always----”
“Does he live in the mountains now, Cousin Ada?”
“Why, no, not just now--not at present, that is. He is employed at your
dear father’s mill in some small capacity, I believe.”
“Oh ... at the mill....”
“Yes. Dr. Darrow took him there, several years ago, and begged
employment for him, and your dear father, I understand from Glen, has
been especially kind to him. Your father had a high respect for Dr.
Darrow, who did a great deal of quiet charity among the mill workers.
But the doctor, unfortunately, had no social standards whatever, and
that one must always deplore, and now that he is gone I shall try to
guide poor Glen-- This impossible friendship, for instance----”
“What is his name?”
Miss Ada Tenafee stared at her young kinswoman. The girl had halted and
was gazing back. “Why--Manders, Luke Manders. He----”
“Luke Manders!” Nancy repeated in her languid, sweet voice. “Isn’t that
quaint, Cousin Ada? It sounds like a story, doesn’t it?”
“Well, possibly it does,” Miss Ada grudged. “It has not occurred to
me, however. The doctor admitted this young savage to his household as
an equal--he idealized him in the most absurd way, and prophesied the
most impossibly brilliant future for him--but now that Glen is alone,
I shall try, tactfully, of course, because the child is loyal to her
father and his ideas to the point of fanaticism, to give her a better
sense of values. And _your_--graciousness to her to-day, Nancy, honey,
will mean more than you can possibly----”
Nancy Carey was looking at that moment even more like a maiden in a
ballad than usual; there was a melting sweetness in her hazel gaze and
with a distinct sense of shock the shabby teacher heard her say, with
soft fervor--“Cousin Ada, I think he’s the handsomest thing I ever saw
in my _life_....”