THE RELEASE
On the fifteenth of each October the turkey-wing fan, rarely out
of Miss Gibbie's hands in warm weather, was put away in camphor,
and on that evening knitting-needles and white Shetland wool were
brought out. In a basket of rare weaving these materials now lay
on the library table near which Miss Gibbie sat, but as yet they
were untouched, for before the open fire her hands lay idle in her
lap. Every now and then she lifted first one foot and then the other
and put it on the fender, and presently she drew closer the tall
screen with its framed square of tapestried lambs and shepherdess
wrought by her grandmother's fingers many years ago. Placing it so
that her face might be protected from the scorching heat of the
dancing flames, she tilted it at the right angle, and then tilted
her head also.
"No use blistering my face because young people prefer to be fools!"
she said, presently. "And what fools! You might have known, Gibbie
Gault, you'd make a mess of it if you put your finger in a lovers'
pie. If life has taught you nothing else it has taught you to let
people do their own paddling, and yet at your age you tried to steer
a man in a way he didn't want to go. You thought it was the wisest
way, and in the end would bring him to the promised land, but your
mistake lay in not letting him fall overboard the way he preferred
to fall. A man would rather fail according to his own ideas than
succeed according to another's. And you certainly can't say this
little arrangement of yours concerning John and Mary has proven a
brilliant one. Of the three simpletons, just at present, you deserve
what's coming to you more than the other two, for better than they
you understand that women is an unknown quantity. Even her Maker
couldn't anticipate her behavior, and when she wills to torment a
man she has seemingly neither soul not sense. In your wise and
worldly advice to John you forgot Mary's possibilities of denseness,
and your meddlesome medicine has had the wrong effect."
She sighed queerly and changed the left foot on the fender to the
right, and again tapped the arms of her chair with the tips of her
delicately pointed fingers. "What a silly, sensitive little thing
this self-love, this pride of ours, is! And it's Mary's hardiest sin.
She wouldn't let the angels of heaven take her up to-day and put her
down to-morrow, and while she laughs at much in life, there are
certain things she doesn't smile at. A friend who fails in her eyes
isn't even in a class with toads. She has an idea that John is no
longer the friend of old. She does not say so, has apparently
forgotten he's living, rarely mentions his name, and doesn't know
that my old eyes see clearly how gayly miserable she is. I have
pretended to be blind, and have encouraged the idea that John was
interested in that pink-and-white offspring of Snobby Deford. What
a bunch of idiots we all have been, and I the biggest of all--the
biggest of all!"
At the library door Celia stood, hand on knob. "Mr. Maxwell is
here, Miss Gibbie. Will you see him?"
"I will." Miss Gibbie leaned back in her chair, put her feet on the
stool in front of it, and crossed her hands in her lap. "And bring
in tea at once."
"It is good of you to let me see you." John Maxwell bent over the
beautiful hand held out to him, but the boyish banter of other days
was gone. Before Miss Gibbie was no pretence, and his face was that
of a man who no longer has time to waste or the will for wasting.
"Not good at all. If you hadn't come I should have sent for you."
She tilted the screen at a different angle. "Sit down, and sit
where I can see you. But first put that table a little closer to
me. Here's Celia with the tea."
The table was moved and the large silver tray with its little
silver legs was placed upon it, the lamp under the kettle lighted,
and Celia waved out, and again Miss Gibbie leaned back.
"What day did you get here?" she asked. "Time has such a
somersault way of passing, one can't keep up with it. How long
have you been here?"
"Ten days. I came on the twenty-ninth, and this is the eighth
of November."
"When are you going away?"
"I don't know." John crossed his right leg over his left, shifted
his position and shaded his eyes with his hand.
Miss Gibbie took up the tea-caddy. "Do you think you've
accomplished great things by coming? Judging by your manner of
late, not to mention your looks, you haven't been drunk with
happiness since you reached this town of historic importance and
modern inconsequence. But of course--" she tilted the spout of
the kettle into the teapot--"my suggestion that you stay where you
belong was a mere woman's, and you saw fit to ignore it. Men like
to bring blessings on their head--and my friend John Maxwell is
most verily a man."
"You seem to forget it." He got up and began to walk backward and
forward the length of the room. "I wonder if I am sometimes. When I
see that round, red, moon-faced pig driving around town with Mary,
taking long horseback rides with her, and going to see her whenever
he pleases, I don't know how I keep from killing him. He isn't fit
to be in the same town with her. I know the man, went to school with
him. He's a cad and a coward and a big fat fool. He has some money--
that is, his father has--and a smearing of education, but he's coarse
and common and not to be trusted. Van Orm was a gentleman at least,
and if Mary wanted--"
"Does Mary know as much of your friend Mr. Fielding as you do?"
Miss Gibbie handed him a cup of tea, but he waved it back.
"If she doesn't it's because she's trying to be blind and deaf. I
have seen practically nothing of her since I came down. You think
I shouldn't have come. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I'm here, and for
the present am going to stay. For six months I've held off, but
through them we've been generally friendly, and I was hoping it
might work, the thing you suggested. I stayed away as long as I
could. But I had to come. I had to see for myself--see how she was,
even if I came through hell."
"A trip through hell might help many men. The trouble is they might
not be able to pass though. Ten days of it--"
"Is more than man is meant to stand. You are quite right." He stopped
and looked down at her. "What is it? What is the matter with Mary?
she is horribly polite, but were I a leper she could not hold herself
more aloof. Morning, noon, and night she has engagements, and
frequently with that brass-coated mine-owner of the Middle West. Do
you think"--his face darkened, fear had unnerved him--"do you think
she has any idea of marrying him?"
Miss Gibbie's head turned. The cup on its way to her lips was held
back and her left eye closed.
"Marrying whom? That Fielding person?" The tea was blown into
bubbles. "He uses a toothpick in public. Do you think Mary would
marry a thing of that kind?"
He laughed begrudgingly. "I can't imagine it, but neither can I
imagine why she is doing what she does--why she treats me as if I
were the most incidental acquaintance."
Miss Gibbie put down her cup, and pushed her chair a little farther
from the fire. "You don't have to, John. There are some things God
doesn't expect of a man. One is to see through a woman. He knows the
limitations of the male, and won't hold you responsible. Sit down!"
She waved to the chair in front of her. "I can't talk to any one I
can't see."
With a half-smile, half-frown John took his seat, and again shaded
his eyes with his hand. "Being that dense creature, a man, I would
appreciate the opinion of an illuminating lady on the tactics of her
sex. What have I done to bring this nonsense to pass? I make no
pretence of understanding any sort of woman, much less Mary's sort,
but why this charming indifference at one time, this indignant
curtness at another? I'm in the air, I admit, but I'm here to stay
as long as that familiar-mannered individual stays. I'd like Mary to
understand it, whether she wishes to or not. Would you mind making
the intimation? She doesn't give me the chance."
Miss Gibbie tapped her lips with the tips of her fingers, blew
through them for a few seconds, then she tilted the stool over
and kicked it aside.
"For a person of ordinary sense you are extraordinarily dull at
times." She looked at him long and searchingly, then she leaned
forward. "Tell me," she said, "are you honestly in earnest when
you say you don't know what is the matter with Mary?"
"With God as witness--"
"You're such a fool! Don't you see she's just found out--she
loves you?"
Half a moment he stared as if not hearing. In the glow of firelight
she saw his face whiten; then he got up and walked to the window
behind her. For some time he stayed there, looking through it with
eyes that saw not, and only the crackling logs broke the stillness
of the room. Celia came in to turn on lights and take away the tea-tray,
but Miss Gibbie waved her back. "I want the firelight," she said. "When
I need you I'll ring."
A few minutes more she watched the dancing flames and, watching
them, her face grew pale and strangely gentle. Into it came memories
of the days that were for her no more. Presently, without turning, she
called:
"John!"
"Well."
"I have something to tell you."
Slowly he came toward her. In his face was the look she had seen
in the long ago, and suddenly hers was buried in her hands.
He stood beside her. "For the love of God"--his voice was not yet
steady--"don't tell me what you have just said--is not true."
With effort her hands were opened, and again she leaned back in her
chair, but she did not look up. "I shall tell you nothing that is not
true," she said, wearily. "Mary loves you, but she is as stubborn as
you were blind. It has pleased you to put hope in Mrs. Deford's heart,
pleased you to be attentive to her little make-believe of a daughter.
Mary has seen and heard things that have led her to imagine you were
in love with Lily."
John sat down suddenly, limp with incredulity. "In love with Lily--
Lily Deford? did she think I was a--"
"She did. She felt about you very much as really fine women would
feel could they look down from the battlements of heaven and see the
sort of things their husbands frequently bring home to take their
place. You have been seen with Lily morning, noon, and night when
she wasn't with that Pugh boy, who they say is in love with her,
and--"
"I was with her as a bluff. Billy Pugh is a friend of mine, and a
good, clean fellow. Having troubles of my own, I felt sorry for him,
and was standing by; that was all. He's not responsible for his
father's or grandfather's business. They were in it before he was
born, and it's been honestly conducted always, which, unfortunately,
is more than Lily's father's was. Lily's father was a rascal, if he
is the husband of his wife. I'm not telling you what you don't know;
only why I have no patience with this rotten pride of Mrs. Deford. I've
been Lily's dump. Into my ears she's poured oceans of lamentations, and
I've let her babble on because it gave her such tearful satisfaction. I
like Billy, and stand ready to help any time he can squeeze out courage
to take things in his own hands."
"And you've been party to these secret meetings, have you? Been
thinking so much of Lily's happiness you forgot other people's.
You'd help them run away, I suppose?"
"I would. I believe in all respect being paid parents, believe
their consent to marriage should always be asked, their approval
desired. But if for any fool ancestral reasons consent and approval
are denied, then were I one of the parties I should invite the parents
to the wedding, but let them understand that whether they came or not
the bells would ring. Were I Billy Pugh and loved his little Lily I'd
marry her to-morrow. If he had a million Mrs. Deford would forget he
didn't have recorded forefathers. The trouble with Billy is he's not
yet rich. I told him a week ago I was ready to help."
His face suddenly changed and he leaned forward. "Do you mean that
Mary has actually, seriously imagined I was interested in Lily
Deford?" With a hard grip his hands interclasped as he looked in
the dancing flames, and when he next spoke his voice was again
unsteady. "It is not given to many men to love as I love Mary. I
could speak of this to no one else, for words are not for love like
mine. But having known her, having in my life but one thought, one
hope--Why didn't you tell her? Why did you let her think I was
such a fool?"
"Why?" Miss Gibbie sat upright. "I thought you were one myself.
Your unremitting attendance upon Lily was carrying my suggestions
rather far. In matters of compromise a man is a master. He'd fall
in love with anything if there was nothing else to fall in love with.
Mary has been something of a trail, and how did I know your vanity
had not surrendered to the soothing balm of adoration? A bit of
encouragement and Lily would have swung incense. She's that kind.
Many a man marries a woman because of her admiration for him. Many
a woman marries her husband because no to her man asked her. Only
occasionally do we find either man or woman who carries through
life one image alone in the heart. When you came down here you went
first to the Defords.
"And why? You were with Mary, and for important matters of business
discussion. I would have been in the way. I walked out to Tree Hill
and back, had a fight with myself about coming in, but knew I
shouldn't. I came down purposely on the twenty ninth, the
anniversary of Mary's return to Yorkburg, but--"
"Have you told Mary this?"
"Told her? I've told her nothing. She gives me no chance."
"Gives? A man who doesn't /take/ his chance doesn't deserve
it! For the love of Heaven, stop being so considerate and remember
a woman has to be mastered every now the then!"
She pulled up her silk skirt and held the tips of her velvet
slippers to the fire.
"Put on a fresh log, will you? Not even backlogs have backbone
any more. When I was young, men had red blood, and color and
flavor went with love-making. Nowadays people are afraid of
emotion, and courtship is a milk-and-mush affair. What time
is it?"
John took out his watch. "Quarter to six."
"Time to go home, boy. You are going to the Porters' party, I
suppose? I understand the little pot and big pot will be put on
to-night. They'll live on herrings for breakfast and cheese for
supper the rest of the winter, doubtless, but Josephine Porter is
bound to blow out once a year. Those decorations of her grandfather,
by royalty bestowed, must be kept in remembrance. With whom are
you going?"
"I asked Mary, and am going with Lily." John smiled grimly. "I
got an invitation for Billy and will hand her over as soon as her
mother is out of the way. I can't understand why Billy doesn't
assert himself."
"You can't? Queer!" Miss Gibbie looked in the fire. "Mary is going
to the party with that Fielding person, I believe. To-morrow night
she spends here. At supper I have some things to talk over with her;
so you can't come to supper. You might come in about eight-thirty.
I'm reading a French novel that Mary objects to. She read it, and
told me I mustn't. Unless some one talks to her she'll talk to me.
Would you mind dropping in so I can get at the book?"
She held out her hand. "Our bargain," he said, gravely. "I can no
longer hold to it. Do you release me?"
"Release you?" She strangled the sudden sob in her throat.
"Love has released you. Don't you see--Mary is awake?"