Northrup decided to turn back at once to his own place in life after
that revealing afternoon with Mary-Clare. He was not in any sense
deceived by conditions. He had, after twenty-four hours, been able to
classify the situation and reduce it to its proper proportions. As it
stood, it had, he acknowledged, been saved by the rare and unusual
qualities of Mary-Clare. But it could not bear the stress and strain
of repeated tests. Unless he meant to be a fool and fill his future
with remorse, for he was decent and sane, he could do nothing but go
away and let the incidents of King's Forest bear sanctifying fruits,
not draughts of wormwood.
Something rather big had happened to him--he must not permit it to
become small. He recalled Mary-Clare's words and face and a great
tenderness swept over him.
"Poor little girl," he thought, "part of a commonplace, dingy tragedy.
What is there for her? But what could I have done for her, in God's
name, to better her lot? She saw it clear enough."
No, there was nothing to do but turn his back on the whole thing and
go home! Shorn of the spiritual and uplifting qualities, the situation
was bald and dangerous. He must be practical and wise, but deciding to
leave and actually leaving were different matters.
The weather jeered at him by its glorious warmth and colour. It _held_
day after day with occasional sharp storms that ended in greater
beauty. The thought of the city made Northrup shudder. He tried to
work: it was still warm enough in the deserted chapel to write, but he
knew that he was accomplishing nothing. There was a gap in the
story--the woman part. Every time Northrup came to that he felt as if
he were laying a wet cloth over the soft clay until he had time
finally to mould it. And he kept from any chance of meeting
Mary-Clare.
"I'll wait until this marvellous spell of weather breaks," he
compromised with his lesser--or better--self. "Then I'll beat it!"
Looking to this he asked Uncle Peter what the chances were of a cold
spell.
"There was a time"--Peter sniffed the air. He was husking golden corn
by the kitchen fire--"when I could calculate about the weather, but
since the weather man has got to meddling he's messed things
considerable. He's put in the Middle States, and what-not, until it's
like doing subtraction and division--and by that time the change of
weather is on you."
Northrup laughed.
"Well," he said, getting up and stretching, "I think I'll take a turn
before I go to bed. Bank the fire, Uncle Peter; I may prowl late."
Heathcote asked no questions, but those prowls of Northrup's were
putting his simple faith to severe tests. Peter was above gossip, but
when it swirled too near him he was bound to watch out.
"All right, son," he muttered, and ran his hand through his bristling
hair.
The night was a dark one. A soft darkness it was, that held no wind
and only a hint of frost. Stepping quickly along the edge of the lake,
Northrup felt that he was being absorbed by the still shadows and the
sensation pleased and comforted him. He was not aware of thought, but
thought was taking him into control, as the night was. There would be
moments of seeming blank and then a conclusion! A vivid, final
conclusion. Of course Mary-Clare occupied these moments of seeming
mental inaction. Northrup now wanted to set her free from--what?
"That young beast of a husband!" So much for that conclusion. If the
end had come between him and Mary-Clare, Northrup wondered if he could
free her from Rivers.
"What for?"
This brought a hurtling mass of conclusions.
"No man has a right to get a stranglehold on a woman. If she has, as
the old darkey said, lost her taste for him, why in thunder should he
want to cram himself down her throat?"
This was more common sense than moral or legal, and Northrup bent his
head and plunged along. He walked on, believing that he was master of
his soul and his actions at last, while, in reality, he was but part
of the Scheme of Things and was acting under orders.
Presently, he imagined that he had decided all along to go to the
Point and have a talk with Twombley. So he kept straight ahead.
Twombley delighted his idle hours. The man, apparently, never went to
bed until daylight, and his quaint unmorality was as diverting as that
of an impish boy.
"Now, sir," he had confided to Northrup at a recent meeting, "there's
Peneluna Sniff. Good cook; good manager. I held off while she played
up to old Sniff, women _are_ curious! But now that woman ought to be
utilized legitimate-like. She's running to waste and throwing away her
talents on that young Rivers as is giving this here Point the creeps.
Peneluna and me together could find things out!"
Northrup, hurrying on, believed there was no better way to drive off
the blue devils that were torturing him than to pass the evening with
Twombley.
Just then he heard quick, light footsteps coming toward him. He hid
behind some bushes by the path and waited.
The oncomer was Larry Rivers on his way from the Point. His hat was
pulled down over his face and his hands were plunged in his pockets. A
lighted cigar in his mouth illumined his features--Larry rarely needed
his hands to manipulate his cigar; a shift seemed to be all that was
essential, until the ashes fell and the cigar was almost finished.
Larry walked on, and when he was beyond sound Northrup proceeded on
his way.
The Point seemed wrapped in decent slumber. A light frankly burned in
Twombley's hovel, but for the rest, darkness!
Oddly enough, Northrup passed Twombley's place without halting, and
presently found himself nearing Rivers's. This did not surprise him.
He had quite forgotten his plan.
It was seeing Larry that had suggested this new move, probably; at any
rate, Northrup was curiously interested in the fact that Larry was
headed away from the Point and toward the yellow house.
The loose rubbish and garbage presently got into Northrup's
consciousness and made him think, as they always did, of Maclin's
determination to get possession of the ugly place.
"It is the very devil!" he muttered, almost tumbling over a smelly
pile. "What's that?" He crouched in the darkness. His eyes were so
accustomed to the gloom now that he saw quite distinctly the door of
Peneluna's shack open, close softly, and someone tiptoeing toward
Rivers's shanty. Keeping at a distance, Northrup followed and when he
was about twenty feet behind the other prowler, he saw that it was
Jan-an and that she was cautiously going from window to window of
Larry's empty house, peeping, listening, and then finally muttering
and whimpering.
"Well, what in thunder!" Northrup decided to investigate but keep
silent as long as he could.
A baby in the distance broke into a cry; a man's rough voice stilled
it with a threat and then all was quiet once more.
The next thing that occurred was the amazing sight of Jan-an nimbly
climbing into the window of Larry's kitchen! Jan-an had either pried
the sash up or Larry had been careless. Northrup went up to the house
and listened. Jan-an was moving rapidly about inside and presently she
lighted a lamp, and through the slit between the shade and the window
ledge Northrup could watch the girl's movements.
Jan-an wore an old coat, a man's, over a coarse nightgown; her hair
straggled down her back; her vacant face was twitching and worried,
but a decent kind of dignity touched it, too. She was bent upon a
definite course, but was confused and uncertain as to details.
Over the papers scattered on the table Jan-an bent like a hungry beast
of prey. Her long fingers clutched the loose sheets; her devouring
eyes scanned them, compared them with others, while over and again a
muttered curse escaped the girl's lips.
Northrup took a big chance. He went to the door and tapped.
He heard a quick, frightened move toward the window--Jan-an was
escaping as she had entered. As the sash was raised, Northrup was
close to the window and the girl reeled back as she saw him.
"Jan-an," he said quietly, controllingly, "let me in. You can trust
me. Let me in."
Poor Jan-an was in sore need of someone in whom she might trust and
she could not afford to waste time. She raised the sash again, climbed
in, and then opened the door. Northrup entered and locked the door
after him.
"Now, then," he said, sitting opposite to the girl who dropped, rather
than seated herself, in her old place. "Jan-an, what are you up to?"
To his surprise, the girl burst into tears.
"My God," she moaned, "what did I have feelin's for--and no sense? I
can't read!" she blurted. "I can't read."
This was puzzling, but Northrup saw that the girl had confidence in
him--a desperate, unknowing confidence that had grown slowly.
"Why do you want to read, Jan-an?" he asked in a low, kindly tone.
"I know you ain't his friend, are you?" The wet, pitiful face was
lifted. Old fears and distrust rose grimly.
"Whose?"
"Maclin's, ole divil-man Maclin?"
"Certainly not! You know better than to ask that, Jan-an."
"Nor his--Larry Rivers?"
"No, I am not his friend."
Thus reassured once more, Jan-an ventured nearer:
"You don't aim to hurt--her?"
"Whom do you mean?" Northrup was perplexed by the growing intelligence
in the face across the table. It was like a slow revealing of a
groping power.
"I mean them--Mary-Clare and Noreen."
"Hurt them? Why, Jan-an, I'd do anything to help them, make them safe
and happy." Northrup felt as if he and the girl opposite were rapidly
becoming accomplices in a tense plot. "What does all this mean?"
"As God seeing yer, yer mean that?" Jan-an leaned forward.
"God seeing me! Yes, Jan-an."
"Yer ain't hanging around her to do her--dirt?"
"Good Lord, no!" Northrup recoiled. Apparently new anxiety was
overcoming the girl.
Then, by a sudden dash, Jan-an swept the untidy mass of papers over to
him; she abdicated her last stronghold.
"What's them?" she demanded huskily. Northrup brought the smelly
kerosene lamp nearer and as he read he was conscious of Jan-an's
mutterings.
"Stealing her letters--what is letters, anyway? And I've counted and
watched--he's took one to her to-night. Just one. One he has made.
Writing day in and out--tearing up writing--sneaking and lying. God!
And new letters looking like old ones, till I'm fair crazy."
For a few moments Northrup lost the sound of Jan-an's guttural
whimpers, then he caught the words:
"And her crying and wanting the letters. Just letters!" Northrup again
became absorbed.
He placed certain old sheets on one side of the table; newer sheets on
the other; some half sheets in the middle. It was like an intricate
puzzle, and the same one that Maclin had recently tackled.
That he was meddling with another's property and reading another's
letters did not seem to occur to Northrup. He was held by a determined
force that was driving him on and an intense interest that justified
any means at his disposal.
"Some day I will read my old doctor's letters to you--I have kept them
all!"
Northrup looked up. Almost he believed Jan-an had voiced the words,
but they had been spoken days ago by Mary-Clare during one of those
illuminating talks of theirs and here _were_ some old letters of the
doctor's. Were these Mary-Clare's letters? Why were they here and in
this state?
Suddenly Northrup's face stiffened. The old, yellowed letters were,
apparently, from Doctor Rivers to his son! But there were other
letters on bits of fresh paper, the handwriting identical, or nearly
so. Northrup's more intelligent eye saw differences. The more recent
letters were, evidently, exercises; one improved on the other; in some
cases parts of the letters were repeated. All these Northrup sorted
and laid in neat piles.
"She set a store by them old letters," Jan-an was rambling along. "I'd
have taken them back to her, but I 'clar, 'fore God, I don't know
which is which, I'm that cluttered. Why did he want to pest her by
taking them and then making more and more?"
"I'm trying to find out." Northrup spoke almost harshly. He wanted to
quiet the girl.
The last scrap of paper had been torn from an old, greasy bag and bore
clever imitation. It was the last copy, Northrup believed, of what
Jan-an said he had just carried away with him.
Northrup grew hot and cold. He read the words and his brain reeled. It
was an appeal, or supposed to be one, from a dead man to one whom he
trusted in a last emergency.
"So he's this kind of a scoundrel!" muttered Northrup, dazed by the
blinding shock of the fear that became, moment by moment, more
definite. "And he's taken the thing to her in order to get money."
Northrup could grope along, but he could not see clearly. By
temperament and training he had evolved a peculiar sensitiveness in
relation to inanimate things. If he became receptive and passive,
articles which he handled or fixed his eyes upon often transmitted
messages for him.
So, now, disregarding poor Jan-an, who rambled on, Northrup gazed at
the letters near him, and held close the brown-paper scrap which was,
he believed, the final copy before the finished production which was
undoubtedly being borne to Mary-Clare now. Rivers would have a scene
with his wife in the yellow house. With no one to interfere! Northrup
started affrightedly, then realized that before he could get to the
crossroads whatever was to occur would have occurred.
Larry would return to the shack. There was every evidence that he had
not departed finally. Believing that no one would disturb his place so
late at night he had taken a chance and--been caught by the last
person in the world one would have suspected.
As an unconscious sleuth Jan-an was dramatic. Northrup let his eyes
fall upon the girl with new significance. She had given him the power
to set Mary-Clare free!
Her dull, tear-stained face was turned hopefully to him; her straight,
coarse hair hung limply on her shoulders--the old coat had slipped
away and the ugly nightgown but partly hid the thin, scraggy body.
Lost to all self-consciousness, the poor creature was but an evidence
of faith and devotion to them who had been kind to her. Something of
nobility crowned the girl. Northrup went around to her and pulled the
old coat close under her chin.
"It's all right, Jan-an," he comforted, patting the unkempt head.
"Are them the letters he stole?"
"Some of them, yes, Jan-an."
"Kin I take 'em back to her?"
"Not to-night. I think Rivers will take them back."
"S'pose he won't."
"He will."
"You, you're going to fetch him one?" The instinct of the savage rose
in the girl.
"If necessary, yes!" Northrup shared the primitive instinct at that
moment. "And now you trot along home, my girl, and don't open your
lips to any one."
"And you?"
"I'll wait for Mr. Larry Rivers here!"
"My God!" Jan-an burst forth. Then: "There's a sizable log back of
the stove. Yer can fetch a good one with that."
"Thanks, Jan-an. Go now."
Jan-an rose stiffly and shuffled to the door, unlocked it, and went
into the blackness outside.
Then Northrup sat down and prepared to wait.
The stove was rusty and cold, but Rivers had evidently had a huge fire
on the hearth during the day. Now that he noticed, Northrup saw that
there were scraps of burned paper fluttering like wings of evil omens
stricken in their flight.
He went over to the hearth, poked the ashes, and discovered life. He
laid on wood, slowly feeding the hungry sparks, then he took his old
place by the table, blew out the light of the lamp and in the dark
room, shot by the flares of the igniting logs, he resigned himself to
what lay before.
Rivers might return with Maclin. This was a new possibility and
disconcerting; still it must be met.
"I may kill a flock of birds by one interview," Northrup grimly
thought and then drifted off on Maclin's trail. The ever-recurring
wonder about the Point was intensified; he must leave that still in
doubt.
"I'll get the damned thing in my own control, if I can," he concluded
at length. "Buy it up for safety; keep still about it and watch how
Maclin reacts when he knocks against the fact, eventually. That will
make things safe for the present."
But to own the Point meant to hold on to King's Forest just when he
had decided to turn from it forever--after setting Mary-Clare free.
The sense of a spiritual overlord for an instant daunted Northrup. It
was humiliating to realize how he had been treading, all along, one
course while believing he was going another. And then--it was close
upon midnight and vitality ran sluggish--Northrup became part of one
of those curious mental experiences that go far to prove how narrow
the boundary is that lies between the things we understand and those
that are yet to be understood.
For some moments--or was it hours?--Northrup was not conscious of time
or place; not even conscious of himself as a body; he seemed to be a
condition, over which a contest of emotions swept. He was not asleep.
He recalled later, that he had kept his eyes on the fire; had once
attended to it, casting on a heavy log that dimmed its ferocious
ardour.
Where Jan-an had recently sat, struggling with her doubts and fears,
Mary-Clare seemed to be. And yet it was not so much Mary-Clare,
visually imagined, as that which had gone into the making of the
woman.
The black, fierce night of her birth; her isolated up-bringing with a
man whose mentality had overpowered his wisdom; the contact with Larry
Rivers; the forced marriage and the determined effort to live up to a
bargain made in the dark, endured in the dark. It came to Northrup,
drifting as he was, that a man or woman can go through slime and
torment and really escape harm. The old, fiery furnace legend was
based on an eternal truth; that and the lions' den! It put a new light
on that peculiar quality of Mary-Clare. She had never been burnt or
wounded--not the real woman of her. That explained the maddening thing
about her--her aloofness. What would she be now when she stood alone?
For she was going to stand alone! Then Northrup felt new sensations
driving across that state which really was himself shorn of prejudice
and limitations. His relation to Mary-Clare was changed!
There were primitive forces battling for expression in his lax hour.
Setting the woman free from bondage--what for?
That was the world-old call. Not free for herself, but free that
another might claim her. He, sitting there, wanted her. She had not
altered that by her heroism. Who would help her free herself, for
herself? Who would cut her loose and make no claims? Would it be
possible to help her and not put her under obligation? Could any one
trust a higher Power and go one's way unasking, refusing everything?
Was there such a thing as freedom for a woman when two men were so
welded into her life?
Northrup set his teeth hard together. In the stillness he had his
fight! And just then a shuffling outside brought him back to reality.
Rivers came in, not noticing the unlocked door; he had been drinking.
Northrup's eyes, accustomed to the gloom, marked his unsteady gait;
smiled as Larry, unconscious of his presence, sank into a chair--the
one in which Jan-an had sat--reached out toward the lamp, struck a
match, lighted the wick and then, appalled, fixed his eyes upon
Northrup!