Gaston often took a trip to Hillcrest, remaining several days, at times,
and Joyce never questioned. Gradually she had accepted the place in
Gaston's life that he had allotted her without expectation or regret. To
live in the light and joy of his presence had become enough--almost
enough. She studied, and sought to be what he desired. She was, after
the very first, genuinely happy and full of quaint sweetness. As the
black interval of her life faded, she turned with grateful appreciation
to the present and played the part expected of her in an amazing manner.
Sometimes that disturbing doubt, hardly strong enough to be classified,
made her pause, wide-eyed and still, but it fled before Gaston's laugh
and jest.
With Drew's coming she grasped the subtle restlessness and comforted
herself with the thought that he who understood so much, he, who was, in
kind, like Gaston, he would clear away the elusive doubt forever.
She had never forgotten that it was Drew who had first set her feet on
the upward path; he, above all others, would be glad of her better life,
and sympathize with her happiness.
When she pondered upon Gaston's possible past, she felt guilty. What he
did not entrust to her, she had no right to consider--so she tried to
push the thought away. She was glad of so good an excuse for putting a
fretting thing aside. But it would not remain hidden. During Gaston's
absences it reared its hated head--with his return it slunk into shadow.
Taking advantage of one of Gaston's brief visits from home, Joyce had
gone to Drew, timing her call when she knew his womenkind were away. She
had an instinctive aversion to her own sex. She had thought it was
contempt for St. Angé womanhood; she did not speculate about these
others.
Her talk with the young minister, instead of clearing her sky of the
tiny cloud, had resulted in a general atmosphere of doubts and shapeless
fears that doomed her days to unhappiness, and her lonely nights to
actual misery.
Things were _not_ right. That was the overpowering conviction that grew
apace. If she knew all--all what? Well, if she insisted upon knowing
all--what would happen?
She caught her breath sharply, and frantically turned to bodily toil in
order to down the spectre which now confronted her with brazen
insistence. Things must go on as before. Ralph Drew was nothing but a
boy--what were his opinions compared to Gaston's? Gaston could do no
wrong. She was content to abide by his decree.
She sang, and turned from one task to another with determined haste. At
one moment she vowed the subject should never be thought of again; the
next, she promised herself that she would put the whole matter before
Gaston as soon as he returned, and, by so doing, prove the unimportance
of the thing. But whichever way she looked at it, she hourly grew to
dread Gaston's return. Life was never going to be the same. Something
was going to happen!
Oh, she had often had these premonitions before. Gaston laughed at them,
and called her funny names when she voiced them to him.
Three days and nights dragged on, after that visit to Drew, before
Gaston came back.
The house had been cleaned and recleaned until it shone. The fire was
kept brilliant, and Joyce donned, in turn, every pretty bit of adornment
that she owned. She decked the pictures with ground-pine, and, in the
act of preparing the dishes for supper that Gaston liked best, he found
her.
"Hello, little girl," he called cheerily; "it look like Christmas. It's
lucky I have some presents in my pack. I believe you fixed up to catch
me, and make me feel like a tight-wad. But I'm one to the good. Don't
peek. After supper we'll have a lark. Have you a kiss by way of
welcome?"
Joyce turned from the lamp she was lighting, and put both her hands on
his shoulders.
"Oh, but it's good to have you back!" she said, and raised her lips to
his.
This fond response to him was the greatest recompense the change in
their lives had brought to Gaston. It warmed the lonely places of his
heart.
It was a jovial meal that followed. Gaston was hungry, the food was
excellent, and Joyce glowed and beamed in the atmosphere of regained
trust.
It was, though, a fleeting peace. When the dishes were removed, Gaston
noticed how tired she looked.
"Happy?" he asked, with a laugh.
"Perfectly." Joyce was filling his pipe.
"Perfectly _nothing!_" he exclaimed, drawing her down to the arm of his
chair. "Now own up, my lady, what have you been doing?"
Gaston expected a rehearsal of daily tasks, more energetically
performed, perhaps, than was necessary.
"I went to see Mr. Drew." The smile fled from Gaston's face. So it was
not housework!
"How is the young D. D.?"
"He looks very ill, but they say he is getting better."
"Did you have a pleasant call?"
Gaston was unreasonably annoyed, but he was curious also.
Joyce dropped her eyes. In a subtle way Gaston felt a change in her. She
was never anything but direct and truthful with him, her attitude was
now, therefore, more significant. He had beaten his life, his personal
life, into a monotonous round outlined on that first night when Joyce
had been thrust into his care. He had grown to think that emotions were
dead and done with; this sudden realization that the first touch from
the outer world could disturb his calm, irritated him beyond measure.
"Mr. Drew was very--kind," Joyce's voice fell dully upon Gaston's
impatience; "he's coming--to see us!"
"The devil he is!" The outburst seemed so childish that Gaston laughed,
and his gloom passed.
By persistent practice he had felled every circumstance to a dead
level--he would raze this new element, too, to the ground, and things
would assume the old placidity.
"We'll welcome him when he comes, Joyce. I'm a selfish brute and don't
want to be disturbed; but of course any one who cares to come will be
welcome."
She shot a swift glance at him, then her eyes fell.
Gaston stared at her, and his face flushed. It had not been easy during
the past year to keep the man in him under control, but he had begun to
think, lately, the victory was assured. So confident was he of himself,
that he had planned a final test in order to make sure the future held
no danger for him--and her!
He sometimes wondered, if she were placed in different environment,
surrounded by luxuries and admiration, how she would appear; and how she
would affect him. In a way he had educated her and refined her. He had
grown used to her and taken her for granted, but there were moments when
she perplexed him.
His visit to Hillcrest was connected with his little plan to test, in a
fashion, this woman he had helped to form.
Her announcement about Drew had diverted his thought, but he returned
now to his own interests. Again he wondered if, after all he had done
for her, she could rise above Jude and St. Angé to a degree that might
touch him--that part of him that he hoped he had conquered forever.
If she could--then--but he would not anticipate. Drew's advent had
focussed his desire to put himself, and her, to the test. Joyce had
precipitated matters, that was all.
"Joyce!"
She was bending to place a log upon the fire.
"None of that! When I'm at home, the big logs are for me."
She laughed brightly. To be so guarded and cared for never ceased to be
exciting.
"And now for my surprise! It's a corker this time, Joyce."
Gaston walked to the lean-to room and brought out two boxes.
"Take them to your room, and put them on," he said.
There were always surprises when Gaston returned from Hillcrest. From
out the Somewhere, somehow there drifted marvellous things--books,
pictures, dresses, dainty slippers and home furnishings. Things that St.
Angé gaped silently upon. Joyce never asked questions. Like a child she
shielded this fairy-like mystery from her own curiosity. She was happier
not to know.
But to-night the boxes seemed heavy. Not from what they held, but from
the weight of her unrest, which was returning with added force.
She obeyed, however, with that quivering smile still upon her lips.
Almost staggering under the load, she turned and entered the chamber
that had once been Gaston's. It was a woman's room now in every sense.
Gone were the rough furniture, the pipes and books. In their places were
the white bed, the low rocker, the many trifles that go to meet the
endless whims of a woman's fancy and taste. It was an odd room for the
shack of a backwoodsman. It had taken Joyce long to settle into it
comfortably. Her brief apprenticeship in the home that Gaston had helped
Jude make for her was the only preparation she had had for ease among
these refinements.
Once within the shelter now, Joyce almost flung the boxes from her. It
was dark and cold in the room, and the stillness soothed her. She
groped her way to the window and looked out at the little mound near the
pines, where all that was really her own--her very own--lay. It had
always been a comfort to have the little body so near her place of
safety. She had ceased to grieve when once the baby was brought away
from the ruin of the former home; but to-night the small oval, under its
crust of glittering snow, made her shudder. It was her own--but oh! it
was cold and dead like all the rest of her hope and joy. She knew it
now. Not even Gaston's coming had cleared the doubt.
She had believed herself so good and happy--and here it was made plain,
horribly plain. Everything was wrong. It had always been wrong.
But she dared not shrink into her pain. She must obey, and play her
part. Awkwardly she lighted her lamp; tremblingly she untied the
boxes--they bore the same mystic signs and the oft-repeated words, "New
York." It did not matter. New York or the New Jerusalem, one was as
unreal as the other to the backwoods girl.
Oh, but here was surprise indeed!
Joyce had not, as yet, sunk so far in doubt and apprehension, but that
the contents of the boxes moved her to interest and delight.
A gown of golden silk, clinging and long. The daintiest of gloves,
silken hose, and satin slippers. Filmy skirts, and bewildering ruffles
of cobwebby lace. What wild imagination ever conceived of such
witcheries; and what power could command their materialization in the
North Woods?
Joyce sank beside the boxes, gasping with delight. Then suddenly, as the
shock of pleasurable surprise passed, the mockery of the gift struck
her. Down went the humbled head, and the girl wept as if her heart would
break.
Gaston was playing with her. She had not been keen enough to understand,
but all along he had amused himself at her expense. Having had her
thrust upon him by circumstances, he had accepted the situation in his
good-natured way, but underneath it was as cruel as--all else in her
life.
She had been an ignorant, blind fool. Never had Gaston been so daring
with her. Other pretty gifts had found a place, and supplied a want, in
their common life; but this--this--oh! the incongruity was cruel
and--insulting.
Joyce could not analyze all this--she merely felt it. But when it had
sunk to the depths of her aroused instinct, the reaction took place. Had
the girl been ugly physically, or had Gaston debased her, her doom would
have been fixed; but there was a--chance!
In the death throes of her false position, she retraced the steps of her
life with Gaston. With a sickening shudder she recalled her mad fear
that first awful night when he had shut the door upon Jude and the
others. How he had made her feel, and at once, that from the high place
that was his, he could afford to help her, and only the low and vile
would misunderstand. It was because she was low and vile as Jude had
made her that she had feared--what?
How the knowledge had stung, then stunned her! She might have known, had
she remembered, from the first Gaston had always driven her back upon
herself when her foolish passion for him reared its head.
No one of his own kind would ever have been led into a misunderstanding
of his motives and goodness.
Then in the days that followed that first terrible night, she had abased
herself and striven to fill the role Gaston prepared for her!
Later she studied and silently prayed that, in a small way, she might
repay him for his divine kindness!
But with the patient effort and the marvellous results of quickened
mentality, a clear space was left in the new woman for harrowing doubt.
She never again sank to the thought that Gaston could love her; but she
could not utterly blind herself to the fear that he might be hurting
himself through others _not_ realizing the difference between him and
her. Naturally she could not go to Gaston with this doubt--it would seem
an insult to him, and a shameless suggestion.
Therefore she hailed Drew's advent with mingled apprehension and relief.
Had he taken for granted that all was well; had he seemed glad that
Gaston had saved her from her evil fate; then she would have known that
such people as Gaston and Drew would understand and think no evil. But
the effect of Gaston's training and influence had sunk deep. Joyce had
risen above the vile thing Jude and St. Angé had tried to make her. She
was, for all the wide difference between her and Gaston, a woman! A
woman beautiful and alive to the highest degree. She dared not any
longer ignore that. For Gaston's sake she must face the blinding truth.
Crouching beside the boxes of finery that he had thought she could not
understand, Joyce clenched her hands in an agony of consecration and
renunciation. Then despair seized her, and for a wild moment she was
tempted to use Gaston's own weapon against him.
Heretofore she had accepted his gifts with a child's delight--what a
fool she had been! Suppose now she should--well, take what she could get
from life in spite--yes, in spite of Gaston himself?
Dare she? Could she? Would she be able to do anything when she faced
him, but fall at his feet, beg for mercy, and implore him to tell her
what her awakened conscience demanded?
She would try.
The colour rose and fell in the lovely face. She was beautiful, and she
loved him. She had never let him see how much; or how. He should see
now! She would try her meanest and basest weapon--and if--if--it
conquered, she would make--terms. She, poor, dependent Joyce of the
backwoods. Old Jared's girl. Jude Lauzoon's discarded wife. If she won a
victory, _what_ a victory it would be!
It would prove to Drew--she rose defiantly, and snatched the finery from
the boxes. Her eyes were blazing and her blood ran hotly. Before her
little mirror she let the garments of her past life fall from her. She
unpinned her glorious hair, and thrilled as its convincing beauty gave
added power to her plans.
Slowly, carefully, with a pictured ideal in her memory, she fashioned
the wonderful tresses into form. High upon her head the glistening mass
was fastened, then cunningly the little curls were pulled loose, and
were permitted to go free about the smooth brow and white neck.
Then with an instinct that did not play her false, she donned the
marvellous garments.
She was finished at last. The new, palpitating woman. All that belonged
to the old Joyce seemed to have fallen, with the discarded garments, to
the floor.
She did not doubt her power now. She was not afraid. Something was going
to happen--again she experienced the sensation. It had come first in
this very shack, when her childhood had departed, and the woman in her
had been born. A poor, dull woman, to be sure; still, a woman.
She had felt it, too, the Sunday of her marriage, when Drew had called
to her conscience and spirituality, and set the chords of suffering and
hope vibrating. From that hour to this she had been climbing painfully
to what was about to occur.
Well, she was ready. The bewitching smile played over her face.
Tiptoeing across the bedroom floor, she noiselessly unfastened the door,
and silently reached Gaston's side.
He had quite forgotten her. Weary from the day's work, perplexed by
later developments, with closed eyes, and hands clasped behind his head,
he was lost in thought.
Joyce touched him lightly, and he looked up.
She had taken him off guard. Her bewildering beauty attacked his senses
while his shield of Purpose was down.
"Good God!" he exclaimed staring at her. "You--you glorious creature!"
She laughed, and the sound thrilled the man as her beauty did. It was
new, and wonderful. He staggered to his feet and reached out to her like
a man blinded by a sudden glare.
She evaded his touch, and gave that wild little laugh again.
"You like it?" she asked, from across the table.
"Like it? You--are--divine!"
"Why--did--you--do it?"
"I had a mad fancy to see just how great your--beauty was."
"And--you see?"
"Heavens! I do see."
"And you think?"
"What any man would think," Gaston's excitement was rising, "who had
been starved for--years--and then finds all he's hungered for--alone in
the North Woods. Think?"
The breaking of a flaming log startled them, and it steadied Gaston for
a moment. Joyce had herself well in hand. The victory was hers if only
she could command this new power long enough.
"Please," she pleaded, "please sit down. I have something to say to
you."