LOVE TRIUMPHANT
Serene in spirit, Martin turned into the road, his future plain before
him. He would search Lucy out, marry her, and bring her back to her own
home. How blind he had been that he should not have seen his path from the
beginning! Why, it was the only thing to do, the only possible thing!
There might be, there undoubtedly would be difficulties in tracing his
sweetheart's whereabouts, but he did not anticipate encountering any
insurmountable obstacle to the undertaking: and should he be balked by
circumstance it was always possible to seek assistance from those whose
business it was to untangle just such puzzles. Therefore, with head held
high, he hastened toward home, formulating his plans as he went along.
With the dawning of to-morrow's sun he must set forth for the western town
which, if Tony's testimony was to be trusted, was Lucy's ultimate
destination. It was a pity his fugitive lady had twelve hours' start of
him. However, he must overtake her as best he might.
It was unquestionably unfortunate too, that it was such a bad season of
the year for him to be absent from home. Harvest time was fast
approaching, and he could ill be spared. But of what consequence were
crops and the garnering of them when weighed against an issue of such life
import as this? To plant and gather was a matter of a year, while all
eternity was bound up in his and Lucy's future together.
In consequence, although he realized the probable financial loss that
would result from his going on this amorous pilgrimage, the measure of his
love was so great that everything else, even the patient toil of months,
was as nothing beside it.
It came to him that perhaps, if he confided his present dilemma to his
sisters, they might come to his rescue, and in the exigency of sudden
frosts save at least a portion of his crops from loss. They were fond of
Lucy. Sometimes he had even thought they guessed his secret and were
desirous of helping on the romance. At least, he felt sure they would not
oppose it, for they had always been eager that he should marry and leave
an heir to inherit the Howe acreage; they had even gone so far as to urge
it upon him as his patriotic duty. Moreover, they were very desirous of
demolishing the barrier that for so many years had estranged Howe and
Webster.
The more he reflected on taking them into his confidence, the more
desirable became the idea, and at length he decided that before he went to
bed he would have a frank talk with the three women of his household and
lay before them all his troubles. If he were to do this he must hasten,
for Sefton Falls kept early hours.
When, however, he reached his own land, he found the lights in the house
still burning, and he was surprised to see Jane, a shawl thrown over her
head, coming to meet him.
"Martin!" she called, "is that you?"
The words contained a disquieting echo of anxiety.
"Yes, what's the matter?"
"Oh, I'm so glad you've got back!" she exclaimed. "I was just goin' over
to the Websters' to find you. A telephone message has just come while
you've been gone. Lucy----"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Martin breathlessly.
"There's been an accident to the Boston train, an' they telephoned from
the hospital at Ashbury that she'd been hurt. They wanted I should come
down there!"
She saw Martin reel and put out his hand.
"Martin!" she cried, rushing to his side.
"Is she much hurt? When did the message come?" panted the man.
"Just now," Jane answered. "The doctor said her arm was broken an' that
she was pretty well shaken up an' bruised. He didn't send for me so much
because she was in a serious condition as because her bag with all her
money an' papers was lost, an' she was worryin' herself sick over being
without a cent, poor child. He didn't tell her he'd sent for me. He just
did it on his own responsibility. Oh, Martin, you will let me go an' bring
her back here, won't you? Mary an' 'Liza an' I want to nurse her,
ourselves. We can't bear to think of her bein' a charity patient in a
hospital."
Jane's voice trembled with earnestness.
"Yes, you shall go, Jane," Martin answered quickly. "We'll both go. I'll
see right away if we can get Watford to take us in his touring car. We
ought to make the distance in four hours in a high-power machine."
"Mercy, you're not goin' to-night?"
"I certainly am."
"But there's no need of that," protested Jane. "The doctor said Lucy was
gettin' on finely, an' he hoped she'd quiet down an' get some sleep, which
was what she needed most."
"But I'd rather go now--right away," Martin asserted.
"'Twould do no good," explained the practical Jane. "We wouldn't get to
Ashbury until the middle of the night, an' we couldn't see Lucy. You
wouldn't want 'em to wake her up."
"N--o."
"It'll be much wiser to wait till mornin', Martin."
"Perhaps it will."
The brother and sister walked silently across the turf.
"I'm--I'm glad you're willin' we should take care of Lucy," murmured Jane,
after an awkward pause. "Mary, 'Liza, an' I love her dearly."
"An' I too, Jane."
The confession came in a whisper. If Martin expected it to be greeted
with surprise, he was disappointed.
Jane did not at first reply; then she said in a soft, happy tone:
"I guessed as much."
"You did."
The man laughed in shamefaced fashion.
"I ain't a bat, Martin."
Again her brother laughed, this time with less embarrassment. It had
suddenly become very easy to talk with Jane.
Welcoming her companionship and sympathy, he found himself pouring into
her listening ear all his difficulties. He told her of Ellen's will; of
the wall; of Lucy's flight; of his love for the girl. How good it was to
speak and share his troubles with another!
"How like Lucy to go away!" mused Jane, when the recital was done. "Any
self-respectin' woman would have done the same, too. She warn't goin' to
hang round here an' make you marry her out of pity."
"But I love her."
"Yes, but how was she to know that?"
"She must have known it."
"You never had told her so."
"N--o, not in so many words."
"Then what right, pray, had she to think so?" argued Jane with warmth.
"She warn't the sort of girl to chance it."
"I wish I'd told her before."
"I wish you had," was Jane's brief retort. "You may have trouble now
makin' her see you ain't marryin' her 'cause you're sorry for her."
"Sorry for her!"
Jane could not but laugh at the fervor of the exclamation.
"My land! Martin," she said, "I never expected to live to see you so head
over ears in love."
"I am."
"I ain't questionin' it," was Jane's dry comment.
When, however, he set foot on the porch, his lover's confidence suddenly
deserted him, and he was overwhelmed with shyness.
"You tell Mary an' 'Liza," he pleaded. "Somehow, I can't. Tell 'em about
the will an' all. You'll do that much for me, won't you?"
"You know I will."
The words spoke volumes.
"That's right. An' be ready to start for Ashbury on the mornin' train.
We'd better leave here by six, sharp."
"I'll be on hand. Don't worry."
"Good night, Jane."
"Good night."
Still Jane lingered. Then drawing very close to her brother's side, she
added bashfully:
"I can't but think, Martin, that instead of puttin' up walls, Ellen
Webster's will has broken some of 'em down."
For answer Martin did something he had never done before within the span
of his memory; he bent impulsively and kissed his sister's cheek.
Then as if embarrassed by the spontaneity of the deed, he sped upstairs.
* * * * *
In the morning he and Jane started for Ashbury. The day was just waking as
they drove along the glittering highway. Heavy dew silvered field and
meadow, and the sun, flashing bars of light across the valley, transformed
every growing thing into jeweled splendor.
Martin was in high spirits and so was Jane. While the man counted the
hours before he would be once more at the side of his beloved, the woman
was thinking that whatever changes the future held in store, she would
always have it to remember that in this supreme moment of his life it had
been to her that Martin had turned. She had been his confidant and helper.
It was worth all that had gone before and all that might come after. There
was no need for conversation between them. The reveries of each were
satisfying and pregnant with happiness.
Even after they had boarded the train, Jane was quite content to lapse
into meditation and enjoy the novelty of the journey. Traveling was not
such a commonplace event that it had ceased to be entertaining. She
studied her fellow passengers with keenest interest, watched the pictures
that framed themselves in the car window, and delighted in a locomotion
that proceeded from no effort of her own. It was not often that she was
granted the luxury of sitting still.
They reached Ashbury amid a clamor of noontide whistles, and took a cab to
the hospital. Here the nurse met them.
"Miss Webster has had her arm set and is resting comfortably," announced
the woman. "There is not the slightest cause for alarm. We telephoned
merely because she was fretting and becoming feverish, and the doctor
feared she would not sleep. The loss of her purse and bank books worried
her. We found your address in her coat pocket. She was too dazed and
confused to tell who her friends were."
"Is she expectin' us?" inquired Jane.
"No," the nurse answered. "The doctor decided not to tell her, after all,
that we had telephoned. For some reason she seemed unwilling for people to
know where she was. To be frank, we rather regretted calling you up, when
we discovered how she felt about it. But the mischief was done then----"
"It warn't no mischief," Jane put in with a smile. "It was the best thing
that could 'a' happened."
"I'm glad of that."
"Could I see her, do you think?" demanded the visitor presently.
"Yes, indeed. She is much better this morning. Perhaps, however, one
caller at a time will be enough; she still has some fever."
"Of course."
Jane turned to Martin; but he shook his head.
"You go," he said.
"I'll do whatever you want me to."
"I'd rather you went first."
"Just as you say. I won't stay long though."
After watching the two women disappear down the long, rubber-carpeted
corridor, he began to pace the small, spotlessly neat office in which he
had been asked to wait. It was a prim, barren room, heavy with the fumes
of iodoform and ether. At intervals, the muffled tread of a doctor or
nurse passing through the hall broke its stillness, but otherwise there
was not a sound within its walls.
Martin walked back and forth until his solitude became intolerable. There
were magazines on the table but he could not read. Would Jane never
return? The moments seemed hours.
In his suspense he fell to every sort of pessimistic imagining. Suppose
Lucy were worse? Suppose she declined to see him? Suppose she did not love
him?
So sanguine had been his hopes, he had not seriously considered the latter
possibility. The more he meditated on the thought of failing in his suit,
the more wretched became his condition of mind. The torrent of words that
he had come to speak slowly deserted his tongue until when Jane entered,
a quarter of an hour later, wreathed in smiles, he was dumb with terror.
"She's ever so much better than I expected to find her," began his sister
without preamble. "An' she was so glad to see me, poor soul! You can go up
now with the nurse; only don't stay too long."
"Did you tell her----" began the discomfited Martin.
"I didn't tell her anything," Jane replied, "except that I was going to
take her home with me in a day or two."
"Doesn't she know I'm here?"
"No."
"You don't know, then, whether she----"
"I don't know anything, Martin," Jane replied, nevertheless beaming on him
with a radiant smile. "An' if I did I certainly shouldn't tell you. You
an' Lucy must settle your affairs yourselves."
With this dubious encouragement and palpitating with uneasiness, Martin
was forced to tiptoe out of the room in the wake of his white-robed
conductor. As he walked down the long, quiet hall, he said to himself that
every step was bringing him nearer to the crisis when he must speak, and
still no words came to his lips. When, however, he turned from the
dinginess of the passageway into the sunny little room where Lucy lay, he
forgot everything but Lucy herself.
She was resting against the pillows, her hair unbound, and her cheeks
flushed to crimson. Never had she looked so beautiful. He stopped on the
threshold, awed by the wonder of her maidenhood. Then he heard her voice.
"Martin!"
It was only a single word, but the yearning in it told him all he sought
to know. In an instant he was on his knees beside her, kissing the brown
hand that rested on the coverlid, touching his lips to the glory of her
hair.
Jane, waiting in the meantime alone in the dull, whitewashed office, had
ample opportunity to study every nail in its floor, count the slats in the
slippery, varnished chairs, and speculate as to the identity of the
spectacled dignitaries whose portraits adorned the walls.
She planned her winter's wardrobe, decided what Mary, Eliza and herself
should wear at the wedding, and mentally arranged every detail of the
coming domestic upheaval. Having exhausted all these subjects, she began
in quite indecent fashion to select names for her future nieces and
nephews. The first boy should be Webster Howe. What a grand old name it
would be! She prayed he would be tall like Martin, and have Lucy's eyes
and hair. Ah, what a delight she and Mary and Eliza would have bringing up
Martin's son and baking cookies for him!
It was just when she was mapping out the educational career of this same
Webster Howe and was struggling to decide what college should be honored
by his presence that Martin burst into the room. A guilty blush dyed
Jane's virgin cheek.
Martin, however, took no notice of her abstraction. In fact he could
scarcely speak coherently.
"It's all right, Jane," he cried. "I'm the happiest man on earth. Lucy
loves me. Isn't it wonderful, unbelievable? We are goin' to be married
right away, an' I'm to start buildin' the wall, so'st it will be done
before the cold weather comes. We're goin' to leave a little gate in it
for you an' Mary an' 'Liza to come through. An' we're goin' to put up a
stone in the cemetery to Lucy's aunt with: _In grateful remembrance of
Ellen Webster_ on it."
Jane sniffed.
"I can think of a better inscription than that," she remarked with
unwonted tartness, lapsing into Scripture. "Carve on it:
"He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity; and the rod of his anger shall
fail."