Kathryn Morris had her plans completed, and if the truth were known
she had never felt better pleased with herself--and she was not
utterly depraved, either.
She was far more the primitive female than was Mary-Clare. She was
simply claiming what she devoutly believed was her own; reclaiming it,
rather, for she sagely concluded that on this runaway trip Northrup
was in great danger and only the faith and love of a good woman could
save him! Kathryn believed herself good and noble.
Mary-Clare had her Place in which she had been fed through many
lonely, yearning years, but Kathryn had no such sanctuary. The
dwelling-places of her fellow creatures were good enough for her and
she never questioned the codes that governed them--though sometimes
she evaded them!
After her talk with Helen Northrup, Kathryn did a deal of thinking,
but she moved cautiously. She had never forgotten the address on
Northrup's letter to his mother and she believed he was still there.
She again looked up road maps, located King's Forest, and made some
clever calculations. She could go in the motor. The autumn was just
the time for such a trip. It would be easy to satisfy her aunt,
Kathryn very well knew. The mere statement that she was going to meet
Northrup and return with him would account for everything and relieve
the situation existing at present with Sandy Arnold in daily evidence.
"And if Brace is not playing in some messy puddle in his old Forest, I
can get on his trail from there," she reasoned secretly.
But, for some uncanny cause, Kathryn was confident that Northrup _was_
at his first address. It was so like him to creep into a hole and be
very dramatic and secretive. It was his temperament, Kathryn felt,
and she steeled herself against him.
On the morning that Northrup staggered over the rubbish of Hunter's
Point toward Twombley's, Kathryn took her place in her limousine--her
nice little travelling bag at her feet--and viewed with complacency
the back of her Japanese chauffeur who had absorbed and digested all
her directions and would be, henceforth, a well-oiled, safe-running
part of the machinery, without curiosity or opinions.
They stopped for luncheon at a comfortable road-house, rested for an
hour, and then went on. It was mid-afternoon when the yellow house at
the crossroads made its appeal to be questioned.
"I'll run in and ask the way," Kathryn explained, and slowly went up
to the door that once opened so humorously to Northrup's touch. Again
the door responded, and a bit startled, Kathryn found herself in the
presence of a dull-faced girl seated by the table apparently doing
nothing.
"I beg your pardon. Really, I did knock--the door just opened."
Kathryn was confused and stepped back.
In all her dun-coloured life Jan-an had never seen anything so
wonderful as the girl on the doorstep. She was not at all sure but
that she was one of Noreen's fiction creatures. There was a story that
Northrup had told Noreen about Eve's Other Children, and for an
instant Jan-an estimated the likelihood of the stranger being one--she
wasn't altogether wrong, either!
"What you want?" she asked cautiously. Jan-an was, as she put it, "all
skew-y," for the work of the evening before had brought her to a more
confused state than usual.
The world was widening--she included Northrup now in her circle of
protection and she wasn't sure what Eve's Other Children were capable
of doing.
"I want to find out the way to the inn, Heathcote Inn." Kathryn smiled
alluringly.
"Why don't you look at the sign?" There was witchery about that sign,
certainly.
"I did not see the sign. Please excuse me." Then, "Do you happen to
know if there is a Mr. Northrup at the inn?"
"He sleeps there!" Jan-an looked stupid but honest. "Days, he takes to
the woods."
Jan-an meant, as soon as the unearthly visitor departed, to find
Northrup and give the alarm. Kathryn thanked the girl sweetly and
returned to her car. As she did so she saw the sign-board as Northrup
had before her, and felt a bit foolish, but she also recalled that
Northrup might be in the woods!
"You may go on to the inn," she said to her man, "and make arrangements.
I am going to remain over night and start back early to-morrow
morning. Explain that I am walking and will be there shortly."
The quiet man at the door of the car touched his cap and took his
place at the wheel.
This was to Kathryn a thrilling adventure. The silence and beauty were
as novel as any experience she had ever known, and her pulses
quickened. The solitude of the woods was not restful to her, but it
stimulated every sense. The leaves were dropping from the trees; the
sunlight slanted through the lacy boughs in exquisite design, and the
sky was as blue as midsummer. There was a smell of wood smoke in the
crisp air; the feel of the sweet leaves, underfoot, was delightful.
Kathryn "scruffed" along, unmindful of her high heels and thin silk
stockings. She did not know that she _could_ be so excited.
She crossed the road and turned to the hill. An impish impulse swayed
her. If she came upon Northrup! Well, how romantic and thrilling it
would be! She fancied his surprise; his----Here she paused. Would it
be joy or consternation that would betray Northrup?
Now, as it happened, Mary-Clare had given her morning up to the
business of the Point and she was worn and super-sensitive. An
underlying sense of hurry was upon her. When she had done all that she
could do, she meant to go to her Place and lay her tired soul open to
the influence that flooded the quiet sanctuary. All day this had
sustained her. She would leave Noreen at the inn; send Jan-an back
there, and would, after her hour in the cabin, seek Larry out and give
him what he asked--the Point.
Through the hours at the inn she had feared Northrup's appearance, but
when she learned that he had been away all night, she feared _for_
him. Her uneventful days seemed gone forever, and yet Mary-Clare knew
that soon--oh, very soon--there would be to-morrows, just plain
to-morrows running one into another.
She was distressed, too, that Larry was to have the Point. Aunt Polly
had shaken her head over it and remarked that it seemed like dropping
the Pointers into Maclin's mouth. But Peter reassured her.
"I see your side, child," he comforted. "What the old doc said _goes_
with you."
"But it was Larry, not the doctor, as specified the Point," Polly
insisted.
"All right, all right," Peter patted Polly's shoulder. "Have it your
own way, but I see it at _this_ angle. Give Larry what he wants;
Maclin has Larry, anyway, but if he keeps him here where we can watch
what's going on, I'll feel easier. He'll show his hand on the Point,
take my word for it. Larry gallivanting is one thing, Larry with
Twombley and Peneluna, not to mention us all, is another. You let go,
Mary-Clare, and see what happens."
"Well, I hold"--Aunt Polly was curiously stubborn--"that Larry Rivers
don't want that Point any more than a toad wants a pocket."
"All right, all right!" Peter grew red and his hair sprang up. "Put it
as you choose. This may bring things to a head. I swear the whole
world is like a throbbing and thundering boil--it's got to bust, the
world and King's Forest. I say, then, let 'em bust and have done with
it."
At four o'clock the business of the day was over and Mary-Clare was
ready to start. Then Noreen, with the perversity of children,
complicated matters.
"Motherly, let me go, too," she pleaded.
"Childie, Mother wants to be alone."
"Why for?"
"Because, well, I must think."
"Then let me stay home with Jan-an."
"Dearie, I'm going to send Jan-an back here."
"Why for?"
"Mary-Clare," Peter broke in, "that child is perishing for a
paddling."
Noreen ran to Peter and hugged him.
"You old grifferty-giff!" she whispered, falling into her absurd
jargon, "just gifferting."
Then she went back to her mother and said impishly:
"I know! You don't want me to see my father!" Then, pointing a finger
at Mary-Clare, she demanded: "Why didn't you pick a nice father for me
when you were picking?"
The irrelevancy of the question only added to its staggering effect.
Mary-Clare looked hopelessly at her child.
"I didn't have any choice, Noreen," she said.
"You mean God gave him to you?"
"See here, Noreen"--Polly Heathcote rose to the call--"stop pestering
your mother with silly talk. Come along with me, we'll make a mess of
taffy."
"All right!" Noreen turned joyously to this suggestion, but paused to
add: "If God gave my father to us, I s'pose we must make the best of
it. God knows what He is doing--Jan-an says He even knew what He was
doing when He nearly spoiled her."
With this, Aunt Polly dragged Noreen away and Mary-Clare left the
house haunted by what Noreen had said. Children can weave themselves
into the scheme of life in a vivid manner, and this Noreen had done.
In her dealings with Larry, Mary-Clare knew she must not overlook
Noreen.
Now, if fools rush in where angels fear to tread, surely they often
rush to their undoing. Kathryn followed the trail to the cabin in the
woods, breathlessly and in momentary danger of breaking her ankles,
for she teetered painfully on her French heels and humorously wished
that when the Lord was making hills He had made them all down-grade;
but at last she came in sight of the vine-covered shack and stood
still to consider.
It was characteristic of Kathryn that she never doubted her intuitions
until she was left high and dry by their incapacity to hold her up.
"Ho! ho!" she murmured. "So _this_ is where he burrows? Another
edition of the East Side tenement room where he hid while writing his
abominable book!"
Kathryn went nearer, stepping carefully--Northrup might be inside! No;
the strange room was empty! Kathryn recalled the one visit she had
made to the tenement while Northrup was writing. There had been a
terrible woman with a mop outside the door there who would not let her
pass; who had even cast unpleasant suggestions at her--suggestions
that had made Kathryn's cheeks burn.
She had never told Northrup about that visit; she would not tell him
about this one, either, unless her hand were forced. In case he came
upon her, she saw, vividly, herself in a dramatic act--she would be a
beautiful picture of tender girlhood nestling in his environment, led
to him by sore need and loving intuition.
Kathryn, thus reinforced by her imagination, went boldly in, sat down
by the crude table, smiled at the Bible lying open before her--then
she raised her eyes to Father Damien. The face was familiar and
Kathryn concluded it must be a reproduction of some famous painting of
the Christ!
That, and the Bible, made the girl smile. Temperament was insanity,
nothing less!
Kathryn looked about for evidences of Northrup's craft.
"I suppose he takes his precious stuff away with him. Afraid of fires
or wild beasts."
This latter thought wasn't pleasant and Kathryn turned nervously to
the door. As she did so her arm pushed the Bible aside and there,
disclosed to her ferret glance, were the pages of Northrup's
manuscript, duplicate sheets, that Mary-Clare had been rereading.
"Ho! ho!" Kathryn spread them before her and read greedily--not
sympathetically--but amusedly.
There were references to eyes, hair, expressions; even "mud-stained
breeches." With elbows on the table, daintily gloved hands supporting
her chin, Kathryn read and thought and wove _her_ plot with Northrup's
words, but half understood, lying under her gaze.
Suddenly Kathryn's eyes widened--her ears caught a sound. Never while
she lived was Kathryn Morris to forget her sensations of that moment,
for they were coloured and weighted by events that followed rapidly,
dramatically.
In the doorway stood Mary-Clare, a very embodiment of the girl
described in the pages on the table. The tall, slim, boyish figure in
rough breeches, coat, and cap, was a staggering apparition. The beauty
of the surprised face did not appeal to Kathryn, but she was not for
one instant deceived as to the sex of the person on the threshold, and
her none-too-pure mind made a wild and dangerous leap to a most
unstable point of disadvantage.
The girl in the doorway in some stupefying fashion represented the
"Fight" and the "Puddle" of Northrup's adventure. If Kathryn thought
at all, it was to the effect that she had known from start to finish
the whole miserable business, and she acted upon this unconscious
conclusion with never a doubt in her mind. The two women, in silence,
stared at each other for one of those moments that can never be
measured by rule. During the palpitating silence they were driven
together, while yet separated by a great space.
Kathryn's conclusion drove her on the rocks; Mary-Clare's startled her
into a state of clear vision. She recovered her poise first. She
smiled her perturbing smile; she came in and sat down and said
quietly:
"I was surprised. I am still."
Kathryn felt a wave of moral repugnance rise to her assistance. The
clothes might disguise the real state of affairs--but the voice
betrayed much. This was no crude country girl; here was something
rather more difficult to handle; one need not be pitiful and
condoning; one must not flinch.
"You expected, I suppose, to find Mr. Northrup?"
When Kathryn was deeply moved she spoke out of the corner of her
mouth. It was an unpleasant trick--her lips became hard and twisted.
"Oh! no, I did not, nor anyone else." The name seemed to hurt and
Mary-Clare leaned back. "May I ask who you are?" she said. Mary-Clare
was indignant at she hardly knew what; hurt, too, by what was
steadying her. She knew beyond doubt that the woman near her was one
of Northrup's world!
"I am Miss Morris. I am engaged to be married to Mr. Northrup."
It were better to cut deep while cutting, and Kathryn's nerve was now
set to her task. She unrelentingly eyed her victim. She went on:
"I can see how this must shock you. I sent my car on to the inn. I
wanted a walk and--well! I came upon this place. Fate is such a
strange thing."
Kathryn ran her words along rather wildly. The silence of her
companion, the calm way in which she was regarding her, were having an
unpleasant effect. When Kathryn became aware of her own voice she was
apt to talk too much--she grew confidential.
"Mr. Northrup's mother is ill. She needs him. The way I have known all
this right along is simply a miracle."
How much more Kathryn might have said she was never to know, for
Mary-Clare raised a hand as though to stay the inane torrent.
"What can you possibly mean," she asked, and her eyes darkened, "by
knowing _this_ all along? I do not understand--what have you known?"
Then Kathryn sank in a morass.
"Oh! do be sensible," she said, and her voice was hard and cold. "You
must see I have found you out--why pretend? When a man like Mr.
Northrup leaves home and forgets his duties--does not even write,
buries himself in such a place as this and stays on--what does it
mean? What can it possibly mean?"
Mary-Clare was spared much of what Kathryn was creating because she
was so far away--so far, far away from the true significance of it
all. She was seeing Northrup as Kathryn had never seen him; would
never see him. She realized his danger. It was all so sudden and
revolting. Only recently had she imagined his past, his environment;
she had taken him as a wonderful experience in her barren, sterile
life, but now she considered him as threatened from an unsuspected
source. A natural revulsion from the type that Kathryn Morris
represented for a moment oppressed her, but she dared not think of
that nor of her own right to resent the hateful slurs cast upon her.
She must do what she could for Northrup--do it more or less blindly,
crudely, but she must go as she saw light and was given time.
"You are terribly wrong about--everything." Mary-Clare spoke quietly
but her words cut like bits of hail. "If you are going, as you say, to
be Mr. Northrup's wife, you must try and believe what I am saying now
for your own sake, but more for his."
Kathryn tried to say "Insolence!" but could not; she merely sat back
in her chair and flashed an angry glance that Mary-Clare did not
heed.
"Mr. Northrup is writing a beautiful book. The book is himself. He
does not realize how much it is----"
"Indeed!" Kathryn did utter the one word, then added: "I suppose he's
read it to you?"
"Yes, he has."
"Here, I suppose? By the fire, alone with you?"
"No, under the trees, out there."
Mary-Clare turned and glanced at the pure, open woods. "It is a
beautiful book," she repeated.
"Oh! go on, do! Really this is too utterly ridiculous." Kathryn
laughed impatiently. "We'll take for granted the beauty of the book."
"No, I cannot go on. You would not understand. It does not matter.
What I want you to know is this--he could not do an ugly, low thing.
If you wrong him there, you will never be forgiven, for it would hurt
the soul of him; the part of him that no one--not even you who will be
his wife--has a right to hurt or touch. You must make him _believe_ in
women. Oh! I wish I could make you see--that was the matter with his
beautiful book--I can understand now. He did not know women; but if
you believe what I am saying, all will be right; you can make him know
the truth. I can imagine how you might think wrong--it never occurred
to me before--the woods, the loneliness, all the rest, but, because
everything has been right, it makes him all the finer. You do believe
me! You must! Tell me that you do!"
Mary-Clare was desperate. It was like trying to save someone from a
flood that was carrying him to the rapids. The unreality of the
situation alone made anything possible, but Kathryn suddenly reduced
the matter to the deadly commonplace.
"No, I do not believe you," she said bitterly. "I am a woman of the
world. I hate to say what I must, but there is so little time now, and
there will be no time later on, so you'll have to take what you have
brought upon yourself. This whole thing is pitifully cheap and
ordinary--the only gleam of difference in it is that you are rather
unusual--more dangerous on that account. I simply cannot account for
you, but it doesn't really interest me. When Mr. Northrup writes his
books, he always does what he has done now. It's rather brutal and
cold-blooded but so it is. He has used you--you have been material for
him. If there is nothing worse"--Kathryn flushed here--"it is because
I have come in time. May I ask you now to leave me here in Mr.
Northrup's"--Kathryn sought the proper word--"study?" she said lamely.
"I will rest awhile; try to compose myself. If he comes I will meet
him here. If not, I will go to the inn later."
Kathryn rose. So did Mary-Clare. The two girls faced each other. The
table lay between them, but it seemed the width of the whole world.
"I would have helped you and him, if I could." Mary-Clare's voice
sounded like the "ghost wind" seeking wearily, in a lost way, rest.
"But I see that I cannot. This is not Mr. Northrup's Place--it is
mine. I built it myself--no foot but mine--and now yours--has ever
entered here. I have always come here to--to think; to read. I wonder
if I ever will be able to again, for you have done something very
dreadful to it. You will do it to his life unless God keeps you from
it." Mary-Clare was thinking aloud, taking no heed of her companion.
"How dare you!" Kathryn's face flamed and then turned pale as death.
Mary-Clare was moving toward the door. When she reached it she stood
as a hostess might while a guest departed.
"Please go!" she said simply, but it had the effect of taking Kathryn
by the shoulders and forcing her outside. With flaming face, dyeing
the white anger, she flung herself along. Once outside she turned,
looking cheap and mean for all the trappings of her station in life.
"I want you to understand," she said, "that you are dealing with a
woman of the world, not a sentimental fool."
Mary-Clare inclined her head. She did not speak. She watched her
uninvited guest go down the trail, pass out of sight. Then she went
back to her chair to recover from the shock that had dazed her.
The atmosphere of the little cabin could not long be polluted by so
brief an experience as had just occurred, and presently Mary-Clare was
enfolded by the old comfort and vision.
She could weigh and estimate things now, and this she did bravely,
justly. Like Northrup in Larry's cabin the night before, she became
more a sensitive plate upon which pictures flashed, than a personality
that was thinking and suffering. Such things as had now happened to
her, she knew, happened in books. Always books, books, for Mary-Clare,
and the old doctor's philosophy that gave strength but no assurance.
The actual relation existing between Northrup and herself became a
solid and immovable fact. She had not fully accepted it before;
neither had he. They had played with it as they had the golden hours
that they would not count or measure.
Nothing mattered but the truth. Mary-Clare knew that the wonderful
thing had had no part in her decision as to Larry--others would not
believe that, but she must not be swayed; she knew she had taken her
steps faithfully as she had seen them--she must not stumble now
because of any one, anything.
"It's what you do to love that counts!" Almost fiercely Mary-Clare
grasped this. And in that moment Noreen, Northrup's mother, even Larry
and the girl who had just departed, put in their claim. She must
consider them; they were all part with Northrup and her.
"There is nothing for me to do but wait." Mary-Clare seemed to hear
herself speaking the words. "I can do nothing now but wait. But I will
not fear the Truth."
The bared Truth stood revealed; before it Mary-Clare did not flinch.
"This is what it has all meant. The happiness, the joy, the strange
intensity of common things."
Then Mary-Clare bowed her head upon her folded arms while the warm
sunlight came into the doorway and lay full upon her. She was absorbed
in something too big to comprehend. She felt as if she was being born
into--a woman! The birth-pains were wrenching; she could not grasp
anything beyond them, but she counted every one and gloried in it.
The Big Thing that poor Peneluna had known was claiming Mary-Clare. It
could not be denied; it might be starved but it would not die.
Somewhere, on beyond----
But oh! Mary-Clare was young, young, and her beyond was not the beyond
of Peneluna; or if it were, it lay far, far across a desert stretch.