I KNEW David Dean so well and for so many years that I may see a tragedy
in what may, after all, be merely an ordinary human life. As I think
of him, from the time I first knew him, on through our many years of
friendship, I cannot recall that he ever had a greater ambition than
to serve his church and his town faithfully. He had a man's desire for
happiness, and for the blessings of wife and children, and that they
might live without penury; but he was always too full of the wish to be
of service to waste thought on himself. Love and care and such little
luxuries as the shut-in invalid must have he lavished on 'Thusia,
but the lavishment of the luxuries was in the spirit, and not in the
quantity. It was lavishness to spend even a few cents for daintier fruit
than usual, when David's income and expenses were considered. 'Thusia
did not suffer for luxuries, to tell the truth; for Mary and the church
ladies sometimes almost overwhelmed her with them, but the occasional
special attention from David was, as all wives will appreciate, most
necessary.
The Riverbank Presbyterians considered themselves exceedingly fortunate
in having David Dean. The rapid succession of Methodist pastors,
with the inevitable ups and downs of character and ability, and the
explosions of enthusiasm or of anger at each change, made David's long
tenure seem a double blessing. His sermons satisfied; his good works
were recognized by the entire community; his faith was firm and warming.
He was well loved. When Lucille Hardcome finally recognized his worth,
there did not remain a member of the congregation who wished a change.
It may be put more positively: the entire congregation would have
dreaded a change had the thought of one been possible.
A few of the members, Burton among them, may have recognized that
David--to put it brutally--was a bargain. He could not be replaced for
the money he cost. The other members were content in the thought that
their dominie was paid a little more than any minister in Riverbank,
nor was it their affair that the other ministers were grossly underpaid.
Certainly there was always competition enough for the Methodist
pastorate and hundreds of young men would have been glad to succeed
David.
When the six months--the term of the note David had given Lucille
Hardcome--elapsed he was unable to make any reduction in its amount.
Casting up his accounts he found he was not quite able to meet his
bills; a new load of debt was accumulating. He went to her with the
interest money, feeling all the distress of a debtor, and she laughed
at him. From somewhere in her gilded escritoire she hunted out the note,
took the new one he proffered, and made the whole affair seem trivial.
He mentioned the subscription she had half, or wholly, promised and she
reassured him. Some houses she owned somewhere were not rented at the
moment; she did not like to promise what she could not perform or
could only perform with difficulty. It would be all right; Mr. Burton
understood; she had explained it to him. She made it seem a matter of
business, with the unrented houses and her talk of taxes, and David was
no business man; it was not for him to press matters too strongly
if Lucille and Burton had come to an understanding. She turned the
conversation to Alice and Ben.
“Lanny Welsh hasn't been down at all, has he?” she asked.
“Yes, once or twice,” David said.
“Alice says he is buying a shop in Derlingport.”
“Has bought it. It is one reason he cannot come down.”
Lucille looked full into David's eyes.
“Tell me!” she smiled. “Don't I deserve to know the whole? Has she said
anything!”
“Yes,” said David, “she has said something. She doesn't know what to do.
She came to me for advice; I told her to trust her own heart.” Lucille
laughed gleefully.
“These girls!” she exclaimed. “Well, you told her exactly the right
thing! Mr. Dean, she is in love with Ben! She is in love with both of
them, of course, or she is in love with Love, as a young girl should
be, and she doesn't know behind which mask, Ben's or Lanny's, Love is
hiding. She will never marry Lanny!”
“You are so sure?”
“You wouldn't know the Ben I have made,” said Lucille. “Ben does not
know. Six months ago he had no more of the lover in him than a machine
has; if any youth was left, it was drying up while he clawed over his
business affairs. I think,” she laughed, “if I ever needed a profession
I would take up lover-making. What do you think Ben has done?”
David did not hazard a guess.
“Bought a shotgun,” Lucille laughed. “Ben Derling going in for sport!
I'd have him learning to dance, if dancing was proper. I believe I am
really clever, Mr. Dean! I saw just what Ben lacked, and I had George
Tunnison come here--he plays a flute as horribly as anyone can--and I
made him talk ducks and quail, until Ben's muscles twitched. If Alice
had been a man she would be a duck hunter.”
David smiled now.
“She would,” he admitted.
“So Ben is spending half his spare time banging at a paper target with
George, and he brings the targets to show to Alice. He has bought a
shanty boat with George. It's romance! Danger! Manliness!”
She laughed again. David smiled, looking full at her with his gray eyes,
amusement sparkling in them. He had a little forelock curl that always
lay on his forehead. Lucille thought what a boy he was, and then--what a
lover he would be; quite another sort from Ben Derling. She drew a deep
breath, frightened by the daring thought that flashed across her mind.
At no time, I am sure, was Lucille Hardcome in love with David. The
pursuit she began--or it would be better to call it a lively siege--was
no more than a wanton trial of her powers. She was a born schemer, an
insatiable intrigante, lacking, in Riverbank--since she was now social
queen and church dictator--opportunity for the exercise of her ability.
It is doubtful whether she ever knew what she wanted with David Dean.
There are cooks and chambermaids who glory in their “mashes,” and tell
them over with gusto; they collect “mashes” as numismatists collect
coins, and display the finer specimens with great pride. It may be that
Lucille thought it would be a fine thing to make the finest man she knew
fall in love with her. The proof of her power would be all the greater
because he was a minister and married, and seemingly proof against her
and all other women.
'Thusia was an invalid, and it may have flashed across Lucille's brain
that 'Thusia might not live forever; it is more likely that she did not
think of a time when David might be free to marry again. She doubtless
thought it would be interesting, and in harmony with her character as
social queen, to make a conquest of David, and have him dangling. There
is no way of telling what she thought or what she wanted beyond what we
know: she came to courting him so openly that it made talk. Lucille had
sufficient conceit to think that no man could withstand her if she gave
her heart to a conquest. She did not hurry matters. She had all the rest
of her life, and all the rest of David's, in which to play the game.
For a year or two she was satisfied to think that David admired her
secretly; that he was struggling with himself, and trying to conceal
what he felt, as a man in his position should. Instead, he was unaware
that Lucille was trying to do anything unusual. She had her ways and her
manners; she was flamboyant and fleshily impressive. That she should coo
like a dove-like cow might well be but another of her manifestations.
David really had no idea what she was getting at, or that she was
getting at anything except--by seeming to be on close terms with the
dominie--strengthening her dominance in the church. She had enveloped
the elders and the trustees, and now she seemed to wish to envelop the
dominie, after which she would grin like the cat that swallowed the
canary. David, having a backbone, stiffened it, and it was then Lucille
discovered she had teased herself into a state where a conquest of David
seemed a necessity to her life's happiness.
Long before she reached this point, she had the satisfaction of knowing
that Alice had broken with Lanny, and was engaged to Ben Derling. The
break with Lanny came less than a year after Lanny went to Derlingport,
and was not sharp and angry but slow and gentle--like the separation of
a piece of water-soaked cardboard into parts. Distance and time worked
for Lucille; propinquity worked for Ben Derling. Thirty miles and eleven
months were too great for Lanny's personal charm to extend without
losing vigor, and Lucille groomed Ben, mentally and otherwise, and
brought out his best. There was no doubt that Ben would make the best
husband for Alice; he was a born husband. No matter what man any girl
picked it was safe to say Ben would make a better husband than the man
chosen; it would only remain for the girl to be able to get Ben, and to
feel that--the world being what it is, and perfection often the dullest
thing in it--she wanted a best husband. Alice, aided by Lucille, decided
that she did want Ben.
It would be untruthful to deny that David and 'Thusia were pleased. They
liked Ben and loved his mother; Lanny's unfortunate father no longer
lurked a family menace. With these and other considerations came,
unasked but warming, the thought that the future would not hold poverty
for all concerned. It was well that Alice need not add her poverty
to David's and 'Thusia's, for Roger--well beloved as he was--seemed
destined to be helpless in money affairs. The George Tunnison who had
been used to tempt Ben Derling to so much sportiness as lay in
duck hunting kept a small gun and sporting goods shop--a novelty in
Riverbank--and Roger had found a berth there. His ball playing made him
a local hero, and he did draw trade, and George gave him five dollars a
week. This was to be more when the business could afford it, which would
be never.
No time had been set for Alice's wedding. Ben was never in a hurry, and
there seemed no reason why the wedding should be hastened. If Ben was
slow in other things he was equally slow in changing his mind and,
having once asked Alice to marry him, he would marry her, even if she
made him wait ten years. Except for their worry over money matters--for
Lucille meant to withhold her increased subscription as long as
the withholding made the trustees, and especially Burton, fawn a
little--David and 'Thusia were quite happy. The engagement had brought
Mary Derling closer than ever, and Rose Hinch was always dearer when
young love was in the air. She had missed love in her youth, since David
was not for her, but her joy in the young love of others was as great as
if it had been her own.
The day was early in the spring, and the hour was late in the afternoon.
David, just in from some call, had thrown his coat on the hall rack,
and entered the study. He was tired, and dropped into his big easy-chair
half inclined to steal a wink or two before supper. In the sitting room
'Thusia and Mary Derling, Alice and Rose Hinch, were sewing and talking.
“I'll tell you one thing,” he heard Alice say; “I'm not going to spoil
my beautiful blue eyes sewing in this light.”
He heard a match scrape, and a strip of yellow light appeared on his
worn carpet. Against it Alice's profile, oddly distorted, showed in
silhouette. Mary's voice, asking if Alice saw her scissors, and Alice's
reply, came faintly. He closed his eyes.
The jangling of the doorbell awakened him. “Never mind, I'll use
Rose's,” he heard Mary say, so brief had been his drowsing, and Alice
went to the door.
“Yes, Mrs. Derling is here,” he heard Alice say in reply to a question
he could not catch. “Will you come in!”
Evidently not. Alice went into the sitting room. “Someone to see you,
Aunt Mary,” she said, for so she called Mary. “He won't come in.”, Mary
went to the door. David heard her querying “Yes!” and the mumbling voice
of the man at the door and Mary's rapid questions and the answers she
received. He reached the door in time to put an arm around her as she
crumpled down. She had grown stout in the latter years and her weight
was too much for him. He lowered her to the lowest hall step and called:
“Rose!” Rose Hinch came, trailing a length of some white material. She
cast it aside, and dropped to her knees beside Mary.
“What is it!” she asked, looking up at David. “I think she fainted,” he
said. “Ben is dead--is drowned.”
“Ah!” cried Rose in horror and sympathy and put her hand on Mary's
heart.
“And Roger,” said David. “Roger, too!”