A SOMBRE excitement reigned in Thessaly next day, when it became known
that the French-Cana-dian workmen whom the rolling-mill people were
importing would arrive in the village within the next few hours. They
were coming through from Massachusetts, and watchful eyes at Troy had
noted their temporary halt there and the time of the train they took
westward. The telegraph sped forward the warning, and fully a thousand
idle men in Thessaly gathered about the dépôt, both inside and on the
street without, to witness the unwelcome advent.
Some indefinite rumors of the sensation reached the secluded milliner’s
shop on the back street, during the day. Ben Lawton drifted in to warm
himself during the late forenoon, and told of the stirring scenes that
were expected. He was quick to observe that Jessica was not looking
well, and adjured her to be careful about the heavy cold which she said
she had taken. The claims upon him of the excitement outside were too
strong to be resisted, but he promised to look in during the afternoon
and tell them the news.
The daylight of the November afternoon was beginning imperceptibly
to wane before any further tidings of the one topic of great public
interest reached the sisters. One of the better class of factory-girls
came in to gossip with Lucinda, and she brought with her a veritable
budget of information. The French Canadians had arrived, and with them
came some Pinkerton detectives, or whatever they were called, who were
said to be armed to the teeth. The crowd had fiercely hooted these
newcomers and their guards, and there had been a good deal of angry
hustling. For awhile it looked as if a fight must ensue; but, somehow,
it did not come off. The Canadians, in a body, had gone with their
escort to the row of new cottages which the company had hired for them,
followed by a diminishing throng of hostile men and boys. There were
numerous personal incidents to relate, and the two sisters listened with
deep interest to the whole recital.
When it was finished the girl still sat about, evidently with something
on her mind. At last, with a blunt “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
she led Jessica out into the shop. There, in a whisper, with repeated
affirmations and much detail, she imparted the confidential portion of
her intelligence.
The effect of this information upon Jessica was marked and immediate.
As soon as the girl had gone she hastened to the living-room, and began
hurriedly putting on her boots. The effort of stooping to button them
made her feverish head ache, and she was forced to call the amazed
Lucinda to her assistance.
“You’re crazy to think of going out such a day as this,” protested the
girl, “and you with such a cold, too.”
“It’s got to be done,” said Jessica, her eyes burning with eagerness,
and her cheeks flushed. “If it killed me, it would have to be done. But
I’ll bundle up warm. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.” Refusing
to listen to further dissuasion she hastily put on her hat and cloak,
and then with nervous rapidity wrote a note, sealed it up tightly with
an envelope, and marked on it, with great plainness, the address: “Miss
Kate Minster.”
“Give this to father when he comes,” she cried, “and tell him--”
Ben Lawton’s appearance at the door interrupted the directions. He was
too excited about the events of the day to be surprised at seeing the
daughter he had left an invalid now dressed for the street; but she
curtly stopped the narrative which he began.
“We’ve heard all about it,” she said. “I want you to come with me now.”
Lucinda watched the dominant sister drag on and button her gloves with
apprehension and solicitude written all over her honest face. “Now, do
be careful,” she repeated more than once.
As Jessica said “I’m ready now,” and turned to join her father, the
little boy came into the shop through the open door of the living-room.
A swift instinct prompted the mother to go to him and stoop to kiss him
on the forehead. The child smiled at her; and when she was out in
the street, walking so hurriedly that her father found the gait
unprecedented in his languid experience, she still dwelt curiously in
her mind upon the sweetness of that infantile smile.
And this, by some strange process, suddenly brought clearness and order
to her thoughts. Under the stress of this nervous tension, perhaps
because of the illness which she felt in every bone, yet which seemed to
clarify her senses, her mind was all at once working without confusion.
She saw now that what had depressed her, overthrown her self-control,
impelled her to reject the kindness of Miss Minster, had been the
humanization, so to speak, of her ideal, Reuben Tracy. The bare thought
of his marrying and giving in marriage--of his being in love with the
rich girl--this it was that had so strangely disturbed her. Looking at
it now, it was the most foolish thing in the world. What on earth had
she to do with Reuben Tracy? There could never conceivably have entered
her head even the most vagrant and transient notion that he--no, she
would not put _that_ thought into form, even in her own mind. And were
there two young people in all the world who had more claim to her good
wishes than Reuben and Kate? She answered this heartily in the negative,
and said to herself that she truly was glad that they loved each other.
Yes, she was glad! She bit her lips, and insisted on repeating this to
her own thoughts.
But why, then, had the discovery of this so unnerved her? She answered
the question only vaguely. It must have been because the idea of their
happiness made the isolation of her own life so miserably clear; because
she felt that they had forgotten her and her work in their new-found
concern for each other. Yes, that would be the reason. She was all over
that weak folly now. She had it in her power to help them, and dim,
half-formed wishes that she might give life itself to their service
flitted across her mind.
She had spoken never a word to her father all this while, and had seemed
to take no note either of direction or of what and whom she passed; but
she stopped now in front of the doorway in Main Street which bore the
law-sign of Reuben Tracy. “Wait for me here,” she said to Ben, and
disappeared up the staircase.
Jessica made her way with some difficulty up the second flight. Her head
burned with the exertion, and there was a novel numbness in her limbs;
but she gave this only a passing thought.
The door of the office was locked. On the panel was tacked a white
half-sheet of paper. It was not easy to decipher the inscription in the
failing light, but she finally made it out to be:
“_Called away until noon to-morrow (Friday)_.”
The girl leaned against the door-sill for support. In the first moment
or two it seemed to her that she was going to swoon. Then resolution
came back to her, and with it a new store of strength, and she went down
the stairs again slowly and in terrible doubt as to what should now be
done.
The memory suddenly came to her of the one other time she had been in
this stairway, when she had stood in the darkness with her little boy,
gathered up against the wall to allow the two Minster ladies to pass.
Upon the heels of this chased the recollection--with such lack of
sequence do our thoughts follow one another--of the singularly sweet
smile her little boy had bestowed upon her, half an hour since, when she
kissed him.
The smile had lingered in her mind as a beautiful picture. Walking down
the stairs now, in the deepening shadows, the revelation dawned upon her
all at once--it was his father’s smile! Yes, yes--hurriedly the fancy
reared itself in her thoughts--thus the lover of her young girlhood had
looked upon her. The delicate, clever face; the prettily arched lips;
the soft, light curls upon the forehead; the tenderly beaming blue
eyes--all were the same.
Often--alas! very often--this resemblance had forced itself upon her
consciousness before. But now, lighted up by that chance babyish smile,
it came to her in the guise of a novelty, and with a certain fascination
in it. Her head seemed to have ceased to ache, now that this almost
pleasant thought had entered it. It was passing strange, she felt, that
any sense of comfort should exist for her in memories which had fed
her soul upon bitterness for so long a time. Yet it was already on the
instant apparent to her that when she should next have time to think,
that old episode would assume less hateful aspects than it had always
presented before.
But now there was no time to think.
At the street door she found her father leaning against a shutter and
discussing the events of the day with the village lamplighter, who
carried a ladder on his shoulder, and reported great popular agitation
to exist.
Jessica beckoned Ben summarily aside, and put into his hands the letter
she had written at the shop. “I want you to take this at once to Miss
Minster, at her house,” she said, hurriedly. “See to it that she gets it
herself. Be sure you wait for an answer. Don’t say a word to any living
soul. Do just what she tells you to do. I’ve said you can be depended
upon. If you show yourself a man, it may make your fortune. Now, hurry;
and I do hope you will do me credit!”
Under the spur of this surprising exhortation, Ben walked away with
unexampled rapidity, until he had overtaken the lamplighter, from whom
he borrowed some chewing tobacco.
The girl, left to herself, began walking irresolutely down Main Street.
The flaring lights in the store windows seemed to add to the confusion
of her mind. It had appeared to be important to send her father away at
once, but now she began to regret that she had not kept him to help her
in her search. For Reuben Tracy must be found at all hazards.
How to go to work to trace him she did not know. She had no notion
whatever as to who his intimate friends were. The best device she could
think of would be to ask about him at the various law-offices; for she
had heard that however much lawyers might pretend to fight one another
in court, they were all on very good terms outside.
Some little distance down the street she came upon the door of another
stairway which bore a number of lawyers’ signs. The windows all up the
front of this building were lighted, and without further examination she
ascended the first flight of stairs. The landing was almost completely
dark, but an obscured gleam came from the dusty transoms over three or
four doors close about her. She knocked on one of these at random, and
in response to an inarticulate vocal sound from within, opened the door
and entered.
It was a square, medium-sized room in which she found herself, with
a long, paper-littered table in the centre, and tall columns of light
leather-covered books rising along the walls. At the opposite end of the
chamber a man sat at a desk, his back turned to her, his elbows on the
desk, and his head in his hands. The shaded light in front of him made a
mellow golden fringe around the outline of his hair.
A sudden bewildering tumult burst forth in the girl’s breast as she
looked at this figure. Then, as suddenly, the recurring mental echoes of
the voice which had bidden her enter rose above this tumult and stilled
it. A gentle and comforting warmth stole through her veins. This was
Horace Boyce who sat there before her--and she did not hate him!
During that instant in which she stood by the door, a whole flood of
self-illumination flashed its rays into every recess of her mind. This,
then, was the strange, formless opposing impulse which had warred with
the other in her heart for this last miserable fortnight, and dragged
her nearly to distraction. She recognized it now, and welcomed it.
The bringing home of her boy had revived for her, by occult and subtle
processes, the old romance in which his father had been framed, as might
a hero be by sunlit clouds. She hugged the thought to her heart, and
stood looking at’ him motionless and mute.
“Well, who is it? What is wanted?” he called out, querulously, without
changing his posture.
Jessica moved slowly toward him. It was as if a magic voice drew her
forward in a dream--herself all rapt and dumb.
Irritably impressed by the continued silence, Horace lifted his head,
and swung abruptly around in his chair. His own shadow obscured the
features of his visitor. He saw only that it was a lady, and rose
hesitatingly to his feet.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled, “I was busy with my thoughts, and did not know
who it was.”
“Do you know now?” Jessica heard herself ask, as in a trance. The balmy
warmth in her own heart told her that she was smiling.
Horace took a step or two obliquely forward, so that the light fell on
her face. He peered with a confounded gaze at her for a moment, then let
his arms fall limp at his sides.
“In the name of the dev--” he began, confusedly, and then bit the word
short, and stared at her again. “Is it really you?” he asked at last,
reassured in part by her smile.
“Are you sorry to see me?” she asked in turn. Her mind could frame
nothing but these soft little meaningless queries.
The young man seemed in doubt how best to answer this question. He
turned around and looked abstractedly at his desk; then with a slight
detour he walked past her, opened the door, and glanced up and down the
dark stairway. When he had closed the door once more, he turned the key
in the lock, and then, after momentary reflection, concluded to unlock
it again.
“Why, no; why should I be?” he said in a more natural voice, as he
returned and stood beside her. Evidently her amiability was a more
difficult surprise for him to master than her original advent, and he
studied her face with increasing directness of gaze to make sure of it.
“Come and sit down here,” he said, after a few moments of this puzzled
inspection, and resumed his own chair. “I want a good look at you,” he
explained, as he lifted the shade from the lamp.
Jessica felt that she was blushing under this new radiance, and it
required an effort to return his glance. But, when she did so, the
changes in his face and expression which it revealed drove everything
else from her mind. She rose from her chair upon a sudden impulse,
and bent over him at a diffident distance. As she did so, she had the
feeling that this bitterness in which she had encased herself for years
had dropped from her on the instant like a discarded garment.
“Why, Horace, your hair is quite gray!” she said, as if the fact
contained the sublimation of pathos.
“There’s been trouble enough to turn it white twenty times over! You
don’t know what I’ve been through, my girl,” he said, sadly. The
novel sensation of being sympathized with, welcome as it was, greatly
accentuated his sense of deserving compassion.
“I am very sorry,” she said, softly. She had seated herself again, and
was gradually recovering her self-possession. The whole situation was
so remarkable, not to say startling, that she found herself regarding it
from the outside, as if she were not a component part of it. Her pulses
were no longer strongly stirred by its personal phases. Most clear of
all things in her mind was that she was now perfectly independent of
this or any other man. She was her own master, and need ask favors from
nobody. Therefore, if it pleased her to call bygones bygones and make a
friend of Horace--or even to put a bandage across her eyes and cull from
those bygones only the rose leaves and violet blossoms, and make for her
weary soul a bed of these--what or who was to prevent her?
Some inexplicable, unforeseen revulsion of feeling had made him pleasant
in her sight again. There was no doubt about it--she had genuine
satisfaction in sitting here opposite him and looking at him. Had she
so many pleasures, then, that she should throw this unlooked-for boon
deliberately away?
Moreover--and here the new voices called most loudly in her heart--he
was worn and unhappy. The iron had palpably entered his soul too. He
looked years older than he had any chronological right to look. There
were heavy lines of anxiety on his face, and his blonde hair was
powdered thick with silver.
“Yes, I am truly sorry,” she said again. “Is it business that has gone
wrong with you?”
“Business--family--health--sleep--everything!” he groaned, bitterly. “It
is literally a hell that I have been living in this last--these last few
months!”
“I had no idea of that,” she said, simply. Of course it would be
ridiculous to ask if there was anything she could do, but she had
comfort from the thought that he must realize what was in her mind.
“So help me God, Jess!” he burst out vehemently, under the incentive of
her sympathy, “I’m coming to believe that every man is a scoundrel, and
every woman a fool!”
“There was a long time when _I_ thought that,” she said with a sigh.
He looked quickly at her from under his brows, and then as swiftly
turned his glance away. “Yes, I know,” he answered uneasily, tapping
with his fingers on the desk.
“But we won’t talk of that,” she urged, with a little tremor of anxiety
in her tone. “We needn’t talk of that at all. It was merely by accident
that I came here, Horace. I wanted to ask a question, and nothing was
further from my head than finding you here.”
“Let’s see--Mart Jocelyn had this place up to a couple of months ago.
Was it he you came to see? I didn’t know you knew him.”
“No, you foolish boy!” she said, with a smile which had a ground tone
of sadness. “I never heard of him before. It was simply any lawyer I was
looking for. But what I wanted to say was that I am not angry with you
any more. I’ve learned a host of bitter lessons since we were--young
together, and I’m too much alone in the world to want to keep you an
enemy. You don’t seem so very happy yourself, Horace. Why shouldn’t
we two be friends again? I’m not talking of anything else,
Horace--understand me. But it appeals to me very strongly, this idea of
our being friends again.”
Horace looked meditatively at her, with softening eyes. “You’re the best
of the lot, dear old Jess,” he said at last, smiling candidly. “Truly
I’m glad you came--gladder than I can tell you. I was in the very slough
of despond when you entered; and now--well, at least I’m going to play
that I am out of it.”
Jessica rose with a beaming countenance, and laid her hand frankly on
his shoulder. “I’m glad I came, too,” she said. “And very soon I want to
see you again--when you are quite free--and have a long, quiet talk.”
“All right, my girl,” he answered, rising as well. The prospect seemed
entirely attractive to him. He took her hand in his, and said again:
“All right. And must you go now?”
“Oh, mercy, yes!” she exclaimed, with sudden recollection. “I had no
business to stay so long! Perhaps you can tell me--or no--” She vaguely
put together in her mind the facts that Tracy and Horace had been
partners, and seemed to be so no longer. “No, you wouldn’t know.”
“Have I so poor a legal reputation as all that?” he said, lightly
smiling. “Hang it all! One’s friends, at least, ought to dissemble their
bad opinions.”
“No, it wasn’t about law,” she explained, stum-blingly. “It’s of no
importance. I must hurry now. Good-by for the time.”
He would have drawn her to him and kissed her at this, but she gently
prevented the caress, and released herself from his hands.
“Not that,” she said, with a smile in which still some sadness lingered.
“I would rather not that. It is better so. And--good-by, Horace, for the
time.”
He went with her to the door, lighting the hall gas that she might
see her way down the stairs. When she had disappeared, he walked for
a little up and down the room, whistling softly to himself. It was
undeniable that the world seemed vastly brighter to him than it had only
a half-hour before. Mere contact with somebody who liked him for himself
was a refreshing novelty.
“A damned decent sort of girl--considering everything!” he mused aloud,
as he locked up his desk for the day.