And in that moment Alix came in. She had said good-night half an hour
before; she was in her wrapper, and her hair fell over one shoulder in
a rumpled braid. Cherry, sick with fright, faced her in a sort of
horror, unable to realize, at the moment, that there was nothing
betraying in her attitude or Peter's, and nothing in her sister's
unsuspicious soul to give significance to what she saw in any case.
Peter, more quickly recovering self-control, went toward his wife.
Alix saw neither clearly, her eyes were full of tears, and she had a
paper in her hand.
"Pete!" she said. "Cherry! Look at this! Look at this!"
She held the paper out to them, but it was rather at her that they
looked, as all three gathered near the hearth again.
"I happened to finish my novel," Alix said, "and I reached for Dad's
old Bible--it's been there on the shelf near my bed ever since I was
married, and I've even read it, too! But look what was in it--there all
this time!"
"What is it?" Cherry asked, as Peter, in a sudden and violent revulsion
of feeling, took the paper and bent toward the lamp to read it.
"By George!" he said, suddenly, his eyes still running over the
half-sheet. "By George, this is wonderful!"
"It's Uncle Vincent's receipt to Dad for that three thousand that is
making all the trouble!" Alix exulted to the still bewildered Cherry.
"It's been there all this time--and Cherry," she added, in a voice rich
with love and memory, "THAT'S what he meant by saying it was in
Matthew, don't you remember? Doesn't it mean that, Pete? Isn't it
perfectly clear?"
"It means only about fifty thousand for you and Cherry," Peter
answered. "Yes sir, by George--it's perfectly clear! He paid it
back--every cent of it, and got his receipt! H'm--this puts rather a
crimp in Little's plans--I'll see him to-morrow. This calls off his
suit--"
"REALLY, Pete!" Alix asked, with dancing eyes. "And it means that you
can keep the old house, Cerise," she exclaimed, triumphantly, "and we
can be together part of the year anyway! Oh, come on, everybody, and
sit down, and let's talk and talk about it! Let me see it again--'in
recognition of all claims against the patent extinguisher
aforementioned'--sit down, Pete, it's only ten o'clock! Let's talk.
Aren't you simply WILD with joy, Cherry?"
But she told Peter later that she had been surprised at Cherry's
quietness; Cherry had looked pale and abstracted, and had not seemed
half enthusiastic enough.
"Though very probably," mused Alix, "it brought back Dad's death, and
saddened her in that way, and more than that, I know she is worried all
the time about feeling as she does toward Martin, and perhaps he'll
feel that she ought to put this into some horrible mining scheme!
Cherry is not mercenary, I'll say that for her."
"What will you do with all yours?" Peter asked.
"I wish we three could go about the world together," Alix answered.
"I'd love to see Japan and India--I'd like to see burning-ghats on the
sacred Gunga!" she added, cheerfully. "But I don't know--money doesn't
buy you much!" she yawned. "Perhaps I'll go to some Old Ladies' Home,
and give each of the old girls one hundred dollars a quarter--wouldn't
they have fun, buying scarfs and wool and caps?"
"Their families would immediately remove them, for the revenue," Peter
suggested. He was grinning at her; he felt suddenly the wholesomeness
and safety of her absurdity and originality. He liked the
characteristic earnestness with which, in the very act of snapping off
her bedroom light, before going out to the sleeping-porch, she widened
her eyes at him, and frowned in concentrated thought.
"Then I'll give them fifty dollars a quarter!" she decided. "Just
enough to buy them some little things, you know, brass tea-kettles,
flannel underwear, whatever they wanted! Presents--they must always
want to be making Christmas presents." And she yawned again. "Shut your
door, Pete, if you read," she said. "The light shines against the
trees, and it's right in my eyes!" But ten minutes later he heard her
call through the door, "Or I could give it on condition that they
stayed in the home and didn't let their families get it!" and grinned
again over his book.
After that there was silence, and gradually the little sounds of the
summer night made themselves heard again. Alix's light was out. Cherry
came, trailing her thin wrapper, to the porch bed opposite her sister's
bed and slipped into it with only a brief good-night. But Peter read on
deep into the first hours of the morning.
Kow Yu, flinging the striped blue tablecloth over the porch table the
next day at the noon hour, and clinking knives and forks, was
questioned by his master.
"You go catchem 'nother plate, Kow!" Peter said.
"Missy no come!" Kow answered, unruffled. "Him say no can come!"
"Cherry!" Peter shouted. "Did Alix say she wasn't coming to lunch?"
"N-n-not to me!" Cherry answered from the garden. She came up to the
porch, with her hands full of short-stemmed roses.
"Him go flend house," Kow elucidated. "Fiend heap sick!"
"Mrs. Garvin?" Cherry questioned. "Did she stay at Mrs. Garvin's for
lunch? Perhaps it's the Garvin baby," she added to Peter. "She said she
was going to stop in!"
"I'll find out!" Peter was conscious that everything was beginning to
tremble and thrill again, as he went to the telephone. "Why, yes," he
said, coming back to the porch, "the baby arrived just before she got
there, and they were all upset. She's in her glory, of course. Says
that she'll be home to supper, even if she goes back!"
"Oh!" Cherry said, in a small voice. She sat down at the table, and
shook out her napkin. Peter sat down, too, and, as usual, served. Kow
came and went, and a silence deepened and spread and grew more and more
terrible every instant.
It was a Sunday, foggy and overcast, but not cold. The vines about the
porch were covered with tiny beads of moisture; among the bushes in the
garden little scarfs and veils of fog were caught, and from far across
the ridge the droning warning of the fog horn penetrated, at regular,
brief intervals.
"Cherry," Peter said, suddenly, when the silent meal was almost over,
"will you talk about it?"
"Talk--?" she faltered. Her voice thickened and stopped. "Oh, I would
rather not!" she whispered, with a frightened glance about.
"Listen, Cherry!" he said, following her to the wide porch rail, and
standing behind her as she sat down upon it. "I'm sorry! I'm just as
sorry as I can be. But I can't help it, Cherry. And I would like--I do
think it would be wiser, just to--to look the matter squarely in the
face, and--and perhaps discuss it for a few minutes, and then END it."
She gave him a fleeting glance over her shoulder, but she did not go
away. Peter sat down behind her on the rail, and she turned to face
him, although her troubled eyes were still averted.
"Cherry," he said then, "I'm as surprised as you are--I can't tell you
when it--it all happened! But it--" Peter folded his arms across his
chest, and with a grimly squared jaw looked off into the misty
distance--"it is there," he finished.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Cherry whispered, on a breath of utter distress.
"I'm so sorry! Oh, Peter, we never should have let it happen--our
caring for each other!--we never should have allowed ourselves to
think--to dream--of such a thing! Oh, Peter, I'm so sick about it,"
Cherry added, incoherently, with filling eyes. "I'm just sick about it!
I know--I know that Alix would never have permitted herself to--I know
she wouldn't!"
He was close to her, and now he laid his hand over hers.
"I care--" he said, quite involuntarily, "I have always cared for you!
I know it's madness--I know it's too late--but I love every hair of
your beautiful head! Cherry--Cherry--!"
They had both gotten to their feet, and now she essayed to pass him,
her face white, her cheeks blazing. He stopped her, and held her close
in his arms, and after a few seconds he felt her resisting muscles
relax, and they kissed each other.
For a full dizzy minute they clung together, arms locked, hearts
beating madly and close, and lips meeting again and again. Breathless,
Cherry wrenched herself free, and turned to drop into a chair, and
breathless, Peter stood looking down upon her. About them was the
silence of the dripping garden; all the sounds of the world came
muffled and dull through the thick mist.
Then Peter knelt down beside her chair, and gathered her hands together
in his own, and she rested her forehead on his, and spent and silent,
leaned against his shoulder. And so they remained, not speaking, for a
long while. Kow clinked dishes somewhere in a faraway kitchen, and the
fog-horn boomed and was still-boomed and was still. But here on the
porch there was no sound.
"Cherry, tell me that you care for me a little?" Peter said after
awhile, and he felt as if he met a new Cherry, among all the strange
new Cherries that the past bewildering week had shown him, when she
answered passionately:
"Oh, Peter--Peter--if I did not!"
He tightened his fingers about her own, but did not answer, and it was
presently Cherry who broke the brooding, misty silence again.
"What shall we do?" she asked, in a small, tired voice.
Peter abruptly got to his feet, took a chair three feet away, and with
a quick gesture of his hand and toss of his head, flung back his hair.
"There is only one thing to do, of course!" he said, decidedly, in a
voice almost unrecognizably grim. "We mustn't see each other--we
mustn't see each other! Now--now I must think how best to manage that!"
Her eyes, heavy with pain, were raised to meet his, and she saw his
mouth weaken with a sudden misgiving, and she saw him try to steady it,
and look down.
"I can--I shall tell Alix that this new business needs me in town for
two or three nights," he said, forcing himself to quiet speech, but
with one fine hand propping his forehead as if it ached. "I'll stay at
the club."
"And as soon as I can go," Cherry added, feverishly, "I shall join
Martin. I suppose Alix would think it was perfectly idiotic for me to
go now, just when the whole thing can be closed up so quickly, and
Martin, too--" her voice trailed away vaguely. She fell silent, her
eyes absent and full of pain. Suddenly they widened, as if some pang
had suddenly shaken her into consciousness again. "Well, I'll go back,"
she began again, bravely, "I'll leave you power--what do they call
it?--power to act for me. I can do that, can't I? I'll wire Martin
to-morrow--this is Sunday, and I'll go on Wednesday!" And as she looked
off across the green spaces of fog-wreathed hills and valleys, they
seemed to turn suddenly glaring and ugly to her, and she felt a great
weariness and heartsickness with life.
Peter sprang over the porch rail, and vanished, walking with swift
energy up the trail that led toward the mountain. Cherry knew that he
would walk himself tired; she longed to walk, too, to plunge on and on
through the foggy depths of the hills, striding, stumbling, getting
breathless and weary in body, while somehow--somehow!--this confusion
and exhaustion cleared away from mind and soul. And yet beyond the
horror and shame and regret she felt something was thrilling, exulting,
and singing for joy.
For the rest of that day she lived in a sort of daze of emotion,
sometimes she seemed to be living two lives, side by side. In the one
was her old happy relationship with Alix, and even with Peter, the old
joking and talking, and gathering for meals, the old hours in the
garden or beside the fire, and in the other was the confused and
troubled and ecstatic consciousness of the new relationship between
Peter and herself, the knowledge that he did not merely admire her, did
not merely feel for her an unusual affection, but that he was consumed
by a burning adoration of her slightest motion, the turn of her wrist,
the smile she gave Kow at breakfast time, the motion she made when she
stooped to tie her shoe, or raised her arm to break an apple from the
low, dusty branches. The glory of being so loved enveloped her like a
great shining garment, and her cheeks glowed softly rosy, and there was
a new and liquid softness, a sort of shining glitter, in her blue eyes.
Peter was quiet that evening, and was gone the next morning when the
sisters came out to breakfast. His absence was a real relief to Cherry,
who felt curiously tired and spent after a wakeful night, and looked
pale. Alix, busy with a new venture in duck raising, noticed nothing,
and Cherry could lie idly in the hammock all morning, sometimes
frowning, and shutting her eyes at some sudden thought, otherwise
smiling and dreaming vaguely, and always hearing Peter's voice, in
words so charged with new magic that the mere recollection of them
almost suffocated her with emotion.
He had left a message to the effect that he would not be at home that
night, and at four o'clock telephoned confirming the message. Alix
chanced to answer the telephone, and Cherry, who was in her room, heard
Peter's name, and stood still, listening with a shock of
disappointment. She did not want him to come home, she was hardly
conscious of any desire or dread; her only thought was that he was
there--now--at the telephone, and in a moment Alix would have hung up
the receiver, and she, Cherry, would not have spoken to him, would not
have heard his voice!
But at eight o'clock that evening, when she and Alix were sitting on
the porch, when the last ebbing pink of the sunset had faded, and great
spiders had ventured forth into the dusk and the dews, there was a
sudden hail at the gate, and Cherry knew that it was he! A flood of
utter, irrational happiness rose in her heart; she had been racked with
hunger for the sound of that voice; she had been restless and
unsatisfied, almost feverish with longing and doubt; now peace came
again, and content.
He came up to them, his glance resolutely averted from Cherry,
explaining that he was lonesome, assuring them that everything went
well, and making them laugh with an account of Justin Little's
reception of the new turn of affairs. Alix asked a hundred questions;
laughed and rejoiced.
"To-morrow let's go down and see the old house," suggested Alix, "I
guess it's in pretty bad shape, for we couldn't rent it. At least Pete
and I didn't think it was worth while to do all the plastering and
painting they wanted! But we'll do it now, Cherry; we'll fix it all up,
and then every summer, and perhaps some winters--at least if Mart isn't
too far away--you can live there. Did you see Anne, Peter?" she asked,
suddenly.
"No, just Justin. He seemed absolutely dumbfounded," Peter said. "He
looked at the paper, read it, laughed, and said--in that little
nervous, smiling way of his--that he felt it to be by no means
conclusive--"
"I can hear him!" giggled Alix.
"And I guess both you girls will have to come in in a day or two,"
Peter continued.
"Cherry's going in to the dentist to-morrow," said Alix.
"Oh, so I am!" Cherry said, in a rather strained voice.
She did not look at Peter, nor did he at her, but they felt each
other's thoughts like a spoken word.
"Had you forgotten?" Alix asked. "I may go with you," she added,
carelessly.
"Oh, do come!" Cherry said, eagerly. "I--I hate so going alone!"
"I've not a thing in the world to do in town, but I'll browse along
those old book stores in Third Street," Alix mused.
But in the morning she had changed her mind. She was a trifle late to
breakfast, and Cherry and Peter had a chance minute or two alone.
"Cherry," he said then, "I'm going to lunch at the St. Francis. Will
you meet me there?"
"No, I can't!" Cherry whispered, unhappily.
"Well, I'll be there," Peter said, in a dull, steady voice. They did
not look at each other as Cherry began, with trembling white ringers,
to strip the black fine skin from a fig.
A moment later Alix joined them. She had come in from her ducks, and
ate but a hasty and indifferent breakfast so that she might the sooner
begin to prepare their meal. The ducks had been regaled of late on the
minced remains of all the family meals, Alix spending an additional
half-hour at the table while she cut fruit-rinds, cold biscuits, and
vegetables into small pieces, for her gluttonous pensioners.
"Wait for the ten o'clock train, Pete, and go in with Cherry!" said
Alix, holding a small piece of omelet close to the nose of the
importunate Buck. "Go on, be a sport!--DON'T YOU DARE," she added, to
the dog, who rolled restless and entreating eyes, banged his tail on
the floor, and allowed a faint, disconsolate whimper to escape him. "I
don't think I'll go in," she explained, "for I have about a week's work
here to do. Those Italian boys are coming up to thin the lettuce, and
Kow is going to put up the peaches, and if you both are gone I can have
a regular orgy of housekeeping--really, I'd rather. Here, take it--the
dear old Buckboy--well, did he get so mad he couldn't see out of his
eyes!" she added, affectionately, to Buck, as the omelet disappeared
with one snap of his jaws. She folded his two fringed ears into his
eyes, and laid her face against his shining head. "Well, this isn't
feeding the ducks!" she finished, jumping up. "Come see them, Pietro,
they're too darling!"
"They're extremely dirty and messy," Peter complained, following with
Cherry nevertheless, to see her scatter her chopped food carelessly on
the surface of the little pond, the struggling bodies of the ducklings,
and the bobbing downy heads alike. With quacking and wriggling and
dabbling, the meal was eaten, and Alix, scraping the bowls for last
fragments, and blinking in a flood of sunlight, laughed exultantly at
the exhibition.
Peter left them there, without one word or look for Cherry, who went
back to the house with her sister in a most agitated and wretched state
of mind. She had the telephone in her hand, to cancel the engagement
with her dentist, when Alix suddenly consented to accompany her into
town; "and at lunch-time we'll take a chance on the St. Francis, Sis,"
Alix said, innocently, "for Peter almost always lunches there!"
Feeling that the question was settled, yet restless and unsatisfied
still, Cherry dressed for town; they climbed into the car; Alix's firm
hands, in yellow chamois gloves, sparched at the wheel; the die was
cast.
Yet at the station another change of plan occurred, for as Alix brought
the car to the platform Anne came toward them from the arriving train,
a gloved and demure and smiling Anne, anxious, she explained, to talk
over this newest development, and "whether it proved to be of any value
or not," to try to find out what Uncle Lee had really WANTED for them
all, and then agree to do that in a friendly manner, out of court. Alix
turned from the wheel, to face Cherry in the back seat, and Anne leaned
on the door of the tonneau.
"My first feeling, when Frenny told me," said Anne, chatting pleasantly
in the shade, "was one of such RELIEF! For I hadn't wanted all that
money one bit," she confessed, gaily. "I only wanted to do what was
FAIR. Only two or three nights ago I said to Frenny that it really
belonged to us all, and last night we talked and talked about it, and
the result was that I said that I must see the girls--we three are the
only ones concerned, after all, and"--Anne's old half-merry and
half-pouting manner was unchanged--"what we decide is what really
matters!" she finished.
"Why, there is no question that it's Daddy's handwriting," Cherry said,
with what, for her, was sharpness, "and it seems to me--it seems to me
Anne--" she added, hesitatingly.
"That you have a nerve!" Alix finished, not with any particular venom.
"That document throws the case out of court," she said, flatly. "Peter
is confident of that!"
Anne's pale face flushed a trifle, and her eyes narrowed.
"Yes, but it doesn't throw the WILL out of court," she said quickly.
"You proposed to break the Will!" Alix reminded her, getting angry.
"I know I did, but it might be valid, after all, and under that Will I
inherit only a fifth less than you and Cherry!" Anne answered, also
with feeling. "That's just what I came over to talk about," she added,
still smiling. "Isn't it better," and all friendliness and appeal were
in her voice, "isn't it better to do it all in a kindly manner, than to
fight about it? Why, we can easily settle it among ourselves," she
assured them, sensibly.
Alix shrugged, and looked down at the wheel of her car with a doubtful
shake of her head. Cherry, now standing beside it on the platform, was
flushed and uncomfortable. There was an awkward pause.
"Board?" shouted a trainman, with a rising inflection. The sisters
looked at each other in a panic of haste.
"I can't leave this car here." Alix exclaimed. "I've got to park her
and lock her and everything! Run get on board, Cherry, I don't have to
go in anyway--you've got a date!"
Cherry's heart leaped, sank coldly, and leaped again, as with a swift
nod of parting she hurried for her train. The other two women watched
her with forced interest as she climbed on board, and as the train
slipped noiselessly out of sight. It curved among the redwoods, and was
gone before either spoke again. Then, as her eyes met Anne's friendly,
questioning smile, Alix said awkwardly:
"I think the only thing to do is for you and Justin to take this up
with Peter, Anne. I mean--I mean that you were the ones who proposed to
bring it into court in the first place, and--and I don't understand
much about it!"
"Alix, don't let's talk in a cold, hard, legal way," Anne pleaded. She
had gotten into the back seat, and was leaning on the front seat in an
informal sort of way. "Let's just try to get each other's point of
view!" she suggested. "The idea is that Uncle Lee wanted all his girls
to inherit alike--"
"That idea didn't seem to impress you much a week ago!" Alix said, glad
to feel herself getting angry.
"My dear, I was going to divide it to the last PENNY!" Anne assured
her, widening her eyes.
Alix was silent, but the silence shouted her unbelief.
"Truly, I was," Anne went on. "This--this discovery only complicates
matters. Why, the last thing in the world that dear Uncle Lee would
wish would be to have us drag the family name into a law-suit--"
"You and Justin began it!" Alix reminded her, goaded into reluctant
speech.
"I beg your pardon!" It was a favourite phrase of Anne's. "But it was
Peter who said he would fight!"
"Well, because you made the claim!" Alix, hating herself for being
betrayed into argument, said hotly. "But I won't talk about it, Anne,"
she added, firmly, "and as far as coming to any agreement with me is
concerned, you might just as well have gone back on the train with
Cherry. I hate to talk this way--but we all think you acted very--well,
very meanly!" Alix finished rather flatly.
"Perhaps it's just as well to understand each other!" Anne said, with
hot cheeks. They exchanged a few more sentences, wasted words and angry
ones, and then Anne walked over to a seat in the shade, to wait for
another train, and Alix, with her heart beating hard and her colour
high, drove at mad speed back to the mountain cabin.
"I didn't ask her to lunch--I don't care!" Alix said to herself, in
agitation. "She and Justin know they're beaten--they're just trying to
patch it up before it's too late--I don't care--I won't have her think
she can get away with any such scheme--!"
And so muttering and scolding, Alix got back to her dog and her
barnyard, and soothed herself with great hosing and cleaning of the
duck-pond, and much skimming and tasting of Kow's preserves. After all,
she had grudged this perfect summer day to the city, and she was always
happiest here, in the solitude of the high mountain.