THE following day was Sunday. Lucille, who had received and read the
_Declarator_, was present at both morning and evening services, as
usual, and took her full part in the Sunday school in the afternoon.
Welsh's column had annoyed her, undoubtedly, but in another way than
it had annoyed David. To David it had seemed the cruel and unfounded
spitefulness of a wicked-minded old man; to Lucille it was as if Welsh
had guessed close to the truth, but had carried his imagination too far.
It had made her furiously angry, as such a thing would, but she felt
that it would do her little harm. Welsh was known to be so vile that she
had but to hold her head high, and the town and her friends would think
none the less of her for the attack. Those who did believe it, if there
were any, would by their belief be offering her a sort of incense she
coveted.
Several spoke to David about the column, and all with genuine
indignation. The story of Welsh's attack had spread, of course, but none
of us who knew David Dean thought one iota of truth was in it; the thing
was preposterous. It came down to this: David Dean was not the kind of
man of which such things were possible. We did not believe it then, and
we never believed it. The town did not believe it; even his few enemies
knew him better than to believe such a thing; Welsh himself did not
believe it. But Lucille Hardcome did, conceit-blinded creature that she
was! Some day during the week, Wednesday it may have been, she drove her
low-hung carriage to the manse. The driver's seat was a flat affair on
X-shaped iron rods, so arranged that it could be turned back out of the
way when Lucille wished to drive and dispense with her coachman, and she
was driving now. David came to the door, and went in to get his hat.
He wished to visit the same broken-legged boy, and the carriage was
a grateful assistance. He spread the thin lap robe over his legs, and
Lucille touched the horses with the whip.
“Jimmy's first?” she asked, and David assented.
“You have oranges again, I see,” he said. “How he enjoys them!”
“Doesn't he?” Lucille replied, and then: “I'm glad you do not mean
to let that _Declarator_ article make any difference. I was afraid it
might. You are so sensitive, David.”
It was the first time she had called him David. Mary had called him
that, and Rose did; he was David to many of us; but the name did not
sound right coming from Lucille's mouth. She was so lordly, so queenly,
usually so rather grandly aloof, calling even dear Thusia “Mrs. Dean,”
and Rose “Miss Hinch.”
“Sensitive! I have never thought that of myself,” he answered.
“Oh, but you are!” she said. “I know you so well, you see. I almost
feared that article would frighten you away; make you afraid of me. As
if you and I need be afraid of each other!”
“I'm sure we need not be,” David answered, and she glanced at his face.
She did not quite like the tone.
“I thought you might not come with me today,” she said. “If you had
suggested that, I meant to rebel, naturally. Now, if ever, that would
be a mistake. That would be the very thing to make people talk. Your
friendship means too much to me to let it be interrupted by what people
say.”
“It need not be interrupted,” said David.
“It means so much more to me than you imagine,” Lucille said. “Often I
think you don't realize how empty my life was when I began to know you.
You are so modest, so self-effacing, you do not know your worth. If you
knew the full story of my childhood and girlhood, so empty and loveless,
and even my short year of married life, so lacking in love, you would
know what your friendship has meant. Just to know a man like you meant
so much. It gave life a new meaning.”
Unfortunately you cannot see Lucille Hardcome as David saw her when he
turned his face toward her, perplexed by her words, not able to believe
what her tone implied, until he saw her face. She had grown heavier in
the years she had been in Riverbank, and flabbier--or flabby--for she
was not that when she came to the town. She wore one of the flamboyant
hats she affected, and she was beautifully overdressed. The red of her
cheeks was too deep to be natural. She was artificial and the
artificiality extended to her mind and her heart, and could not but be
apparent to one so sincere as David Dean. Her very words were
artificial, as she spoke. The same words coming from another woman would
have been the sincere cry of a heart thankful for the friendship David
had given; coming from Lucille they sounded false; they sounded, as they
were, the love-making of a shallow woman.
David was frightened; he was as frightened as a boy who suddenly finds
himself enfolded in the arms of a lovesick cook, half smothered, and
only anxious to kick himself out of the sudden embrace. He saw, as if a
dozen curtains of gauze had suddenly been withdrawn, the meaning of many
of Lucille's words and actions he had formerly seen through the veils of
misunderstanding. There was something comical in his dismay. He wanted
to jump from the low-hung carriage and run. He said:
“Yes. I'm quite sure--”
“So it means so much to me that we are not to let anything make a
difference,” Lucille continued. “I think we need each other. In your
work a woman's sympathy--”
“I think I'll have to get out,” David said. “I'll just run in here
and--”
He waved a hand toward a shop at the side of the street. It happened to
be a tobacconist's, but he did not notice that. He threw the lap
robe from his knees, and put a foot ont of the carriage. Lucille was
surprised. She stopped her horses. She thought David might mean to buy
a package of tobacco for some old man he had in mind. He stepped to the
walk. Once there he felt safer; his wits returned.
“I think I'll walk, if you don't mind,” he said. “I need the exercise.
No, really, I'll walk. Thank you.”
Lucille looked after him.
“Well!” she exclaimed, and then: “I'm through with you, Mr. David Dean!”
She thought she was haughtily indifferent, but at heart she was
furiously angry. She turned her horses, and drove home. To prove how
indifferent she was she told her coachman, in calm tones, to grease the
harness and, entering the house, she told her maid to wash the parlor
windows. She went to her room quite calmly and thought: “What impudence!
He imagined I was making love to him!” and then, as evidence that she
was calm and untroubled, she seated herself at her desk, and wrote a
calm and businesslike note to David Dean. It said that, as she was in
some need of money, she would have to ask that his note be paid as soon
as it fell due. She still believed she was not angry, but how does that
line go? Is it “Earth hath no fury like a woman scorned”?