If ten minutes make half an hour, then it took Jack that long to rush
upstairs, two steps at a time, burst into his room, strip off his boots,
tear off his wet clothes, struggle into others jerked from his wardrobe,
tie a loose, red-silk scarf under the rolling collar of his light-blue
flannel shirt, slip into a grey pea-jacket and unmentionables, give his
hair a brush and a promise, tilt a dry hat on one side of his head and
skip down-stairs again.
Old Mrs. Hicks had seen him coming and had tried to catch him as he
flew out the door, hoping to get some more definite news of the calamity
which had stirred the village, but he was gone before she could reach
the front hall.
He had not thought of his better clothes; there might still be work to
do, and his Chief might again need his services. Ruth would understand,
he said to himself--all of which was true. Indeed, she liked him better
in his high-water rubber boots, wide slouch hat and tarpaulins than in
the more conventional suit of immaculate black with which he clothed his
shapely body whenever he took her to one of the big dinners at one of
the great houses on Washington Square.
And she liked this suit best of all. She had been peeping through the
curtains and her critical admiring eyes had missed no detail. She
saw that the cavalier boots were gone, but she recognized the short
pea-jacket and the loose rolling collar of the soft flannel shirt
circling the strong, bronzed throat, and the dash of red in the silken
scarf.
And so it is not surprising that when he got within sight of her
windows, his cheeks aflame with the crisp air, his eyes snapping with
the joy of once more hearing her voice, her heart should have throbbed
with an undefinable happiness and pride as she realized that for a time,
at least, he was to be all her own. And yet when he had again taken her
hand--the warmth of his last pressure still lingered in her palm--and
had looked into her eyes and had said how he hoped he had not kept her
waiting, all she could answer in reply was the non-committal remark:
“Well, now you look something like”--at which Jack's heart gave a great
bound, any compliment, however slight, being so much manna to his hungry
soul; Ruth adding, as she led the way into the sitting-room, “I lighted
the wood fire because I was afraid you might still be cold.”
And ten minutes had been enough for Ruth.
It had been one of those lightning changes which a pretty girl can
always make when her lover is expected any instant and she does not want
to lose a moment of his time, but it had sufficed. Something soft and
clinging it was now; her lovely, rounded figure moving in its folds as
a mermaid moves in the surf; her hair shaken out and caught up again in
all its delicious abandon; her cheeks, lips, throat, rose-color in the
joy of her expectancy.
He sat drinking it all in. Had a mass of outdoor roses been laid by
his side, their fragrance filling the air, the beauty of their coloring
entrancing his soul, he could not have been more intoxicated by their
beauty.
And yet, strange to say, only commonplaces rose to his lips. All the
volcano beneath, and only little spats of smoke and dying bits of ashes
in evidence! Even the message of his Chief about her not getting a new
bonnet all summer seemed a godsend under the circumstances. Had there
been any basis for her self-denial he would not have told her, knowing
how much anxiety she had suffered an hour before. But there was no real
good reason why she should economize either in bonnets or in anything
else she wanted. McGowan, of course, would be held responsible; for
whatever damage had been done he would have to pay. He had been present
when the young architect's watchful and trained eye had discovered some
defects in the masonry of the wing walls of the McGowan culvert bridging
the stream, and had heard him tell the contractor, in so many words that
if the water got away and smashed anything below him he would charge the
loss to his account. McGowan had groveled in dissent, but it had made no
impression on Garry, whose duty it was to see that the work was properly
carried out and whose signature loosened the village purse strings.
None of these details would interest Ruth; nor was it necessary that
they should. The bonnet, however, was another matter. Bonnets were
worn over pretty heads and framed lovely hair and faces and eyes--one
especially! And then again any pleasantry of her father's would tend to
relieve her mind after the anxiety of the morning. Yes, the bonnet by
all means!
“Oh, I never gave you your father's message,” he began, laying aside
his cup, quite as if he had just remembered it. “I ought to have done so
before you hung up the hat you wore a while ago.”
Ruth looked up, smiling: “Why?” There was a roguish expression about her
mouth as she spoke. She was very happy this afternoon.
“He says you won't get a new bonnet all summer,” continued Jack, toying
with the end of the ribbon that floated from her waist.
Ruth put down her cup and half rose from her chair All the color had
faded from her cheeks.
“Did he tell you that?” she cried, her eyes staring into his, her voice
trembling as if from some sudden fright.
Jack gazed at her in wonderment:
“Yes--of course he did and--Why, Miss Ruth!--Why, what's the matter!
Have I said anything that--”
“Then something serious has happened,” she interrupted in a decided
tone. “That is always his message to me when he is in trouble. That is
what he telegraphed me when he lost the coffer-dam in the Susquehanna.
Oh!--he did not really tell you that, did he, Mr. Breen?” The old
anxious note had returned--the one he had heard at the “fill.”
“Yes--but nothing serious HAS happened, Miss Ruth,” Jack persisted, his
voice rising in the intensity of his conviction, his earnest, truthful
eyes fixed on hers--“nothing that will not come out all right in the
end. Please, don't be worried, I know what I am talking about.”
“Oh, yes, it is serious,” she rejoined with equal positiveness. “You do
not know daddy. Nothing ever discourages him, and he meets everything
with a smile--but he cannot stand any more losses. The explosion was bad
enough, but if this 'fill' is to be rebuilt, I don't know what will be
the end of it. Tell me over again, please--how did he look when he said
it?--and give me just the very words. Oh, dear, dear daddy! What will he
do?” The anxious note had now fallen to one of the deepest suffering.
Jack repeated the message word for word, all his tenderness in his
tones--patting her shoulder in his effort to comfort her--ending with
a minute explanation of what Garry had told him: but Ruth would not be
convinced.
“But you don't know daddy,” she kept repeating “You don't know him.
Nobody does but me. He would not have sent that message had he not meant
it. Listen! There he is now!” she cried, springing to her feet.
She had her arms around her father's neck, her head nestling on his
shoulder before he had fairly entered the door. “Daddy, dear, is it very
bad?” she murmured.
“Pretty bad, little girl,” he answered, smoothing her cheek tenderly
with his chilled fingers as he moved with her toward the fire, “but it
might have been worse but for the way Breen handled the men.”
“And will it all have to be rebuilt?”
She was glad for Jack, but it was her father who now filled her mind.
“That I can't tell, Puss”--one of his pet names for her, particularly
when she needed comforting--“but it's safe for the night, anyway.”
“And you have worked so hard--so hard!” Her beautiful arms, bare from
the elbow, were still around his neck, her cheek pressed close--her
lovely, clinging body in strong contrast to the straight, gray, forceful
man in the wet storm-coat, who stood with arms about her while he
caressed her head with his brown fingers.
“Well, Puss, we have one consolation--it wasn't our fault--the 'fill'
is holding splendidly although it has had a lively shaking up. The worst
was over in ten minutes, but it was pretty rough while it lasted. I
don't think I ever saw water come so fast. I saw you with Breen, but I
couldn't reach you then. Look out for your dress, daughter. I'm pretty
wet.”
He released her arms from his neck and walked toward the fire, stripping
off his gray mackintosh as he moved. There he stretched his hands to the
blaze sod went on: “As I say, the 'fill' is safe and will stay so, for
the water is going down rapidly; dropped ten feet, Breen, since you
left. My!--but this fire feels good! Got into something dry--did
you, Breen? That's right. But I am not satisfied about the way the
down-stream end of the culvert acts”--this also was addressed to
Jack--“I am afraid some part of the arch has caved in. It will be bad if
it has--we shall know in the morning. You weren't frightened, Puss, were
you?”
She did not answer. She had heard that cheery, optimistic note in her
father's voice before; she knew how much of it was meant for her ears.
None of his disasters were ever serious, to hear daddy talk--“only the
common lot of the contracting engineer, little girl,” he would say,
kissing her good-night, while he again pored over his plans, sometimes
until daylight.
She crept up to him the closer and nestled her fingers inside his
collar--an old caress of hers when she was a child, then looking up into
his eyes she asked with almost a throb of suffering in her voice, “Is it
as bad as the coffer-dam, daddy?”
Jack looked on in silence. He dared not add a word of comfort of his own
while his Chief held first place in soothing her fears.
MacFarlane passed his hand over her forehead--“Don't ask me, child! Why
do you want to bother your dear head over such things, Puss?” he asked,
as he stroked her hair.
“Because I must and will know. Tell me the truth,” she demanded, lifting
her head, a note of resolve in her voice. “I can help you the
better if I know it all.” Some of the blood of one of her
great-great-grandmothers, who had helped defend a log-house in Indian
times, was asserting itself. She could weep, but she could fight, too,
if necessary.
“Well, then, I'm afraid it is worse than the coffer-dam,” he answered
in all seriousness. “It may be a matter of twelve or fifteen thousand
dollars--maybe more, if we have to rebuild the 'fill.' I can't tell
yet.”
Ruth released her grasp, moved to the sofa and sank down, her chin
resting on her hand. Twelve or fifteen thousand dollars! This meant
ruin to everybody--to her father, to--a new terror now flashed into
her mind--to Jack--yes, Jack! Jack would have to go away and find other
work--and just at the time, too, when he was getting to be the old Jack
once more. With this came another thought, followed by an instantaneous
decision--what could she do to help? Already she had determined on her
course. She would work--support herself--relieve her father just that
much.
An uncomfortable silence followed. For some moments no one spoke. Her
father, stifling a sigh, turned slowly, pushed a chair to the fire and
settled into it, his rubber-encased knees wide apart, so that the warmth
of the blaze could reach most of his body. Jack found a seat beside him,
his mind on Ruth and her evident suffering, his ears alert for any fresh
word from his Chief.
“I forgot to tell you, Breen,” MacFarlane said at last, “that I came up
the track just now as far as the round-house with the General Manager of
the Road. He has sent one of his engineers to look after that Irishman's
job before he can pull it to pieces to hide his rotten work--that is,
what is left of it. Of course it means a lawsuit or a fight in the
Village Council. That takes time and money, and generally costs more
than you get. I've been there before, Breen, and know.”
“Does he understand about McGowan's contract?” inquired Jack
mechanically, his eyes on Ruth. Her voice still rang in his ears--its
pathos and suffering stirred him to his very depths.
“Yes--I told him all about it,” MacFarlane replied. “The Road will stand
behind us--so the General Manager says--but every day's delay is ruinous
to them. It will be night-and-day work for us now, and no let-up. I have
notified the men.” He rose from his seat and crossed to his daughter's
side, and leaning over, drew her toward him: “Brace up, little girl,”
there was infinite tenderness in his cadences--“it's all in a lifetime.
There are only two of us, you know--just you and me, daughter--just you
and me--just two of us. Kiss me, Puss.”
Regaining his full height he picked up his storm-coat from the chair
where he had flung it, and with the remark to Jack, that he would change
his clothes, moved toward the door. There he beckoned to him, waited
until he had reached his side, and whispering in his ear: “Talk to her
and cheer her up, Breen. Poor little girl--she worries so when anything
like this happens”--mounted the stairs to his room.
“Don't worry, Miss Ruth,” said Jack in comforting tones as he returned
to where she sat. “We will all pull out yet.”
“It is good of you to say so,” she replied, lifting her head and leaning
back so that she could look into his eyes the better, “but I know
you don't think so. Daddy was just getting over his losses on the
Susquehanna bridge. This work would have set him on his feet. Those were
his very words--and he was getting so easy in his mind, too--and we had
planned so many things!”
“But you can still go to Newport,” Jack pleaded. “We will be here some
months yet, and--”
“Oh--but I won't go a step anywhere. I could not leave him now--that is,
not as long as I can help him.”
“But aren't you going to the Fosters' and Aunt Felicia's?” She might not
be, but it was good all the same to hear her deny it.
“Not to anybody's!” she replied, with an emphasis that left no doubt in
his mind.
Jack's heart gave a bound.
“But you were going if we went to Morfordsburg,” he persisted. He was
determined to get at the bottom of all his misgivings. Perhaps, after
all, Peter was right.
Ruth caught her breath. The name of the town had reopened a vista which
her anxiety over her father's affairs had for the moment shut out.
“Well, but that is over now. I am going to stay here and help daddy.”
Again the new fear tugged at her heart. “You are going to stay, too,
aren't you, Mr. Breen?” she added in quick alarm. “You won't leave him,
will you?--not if--” again the terrible money loss rose before her. What
if there should not be money enough to pay Jack?
“Me! Why, Miss Ruth!”
“But suppose he was not able to--” she could not frame the rest of the
sentence.
“You can't suppose anything that would make me leave him, or the work.”
This also came with an emphasis of positive certainty. “I have never
been so happy as I have been here. I never knew what it was to be
myself. I never knew,” he added in softened tones, “what it was to
really live until I joined your father. Only last night Uncle Peter and
I were talking about it. 'Stick to Mac,' the dear old fellow said.” It
was to Ruth, but he dared not express himself, except in parables. “Then
you HAD thought of going?” she asked quickly, a shadow falling across
her face.
“No--” he hesitated--“I had only thought of STAYING. It was you who were
going--I was all broken up about being left here alone, and Uncle Peter
wanted to know why I did not beg you to stay, and I--”
Ruth turned her face toward him.
“Well, I am going to stay,” she answered simply. She did not dare to
trust herself further.
“Yes!--and now I don't care what happens!” he exclaimed with a thrill
in his voice. “If you will only trust me, Miss Ruth, and let me come in
with you and your father. Let me help! Don't let there be only two--let
us be three! Don't you see what a difference it would make? I will work
and save every penny I can for him and take every bit of the care from
his shoulders; but can't you understand how much easier it would be if
you would only let me help you too? I could hardly keep the tears back
a moment ago when I saw you sink down here. I can't see you unhappy like
this and not try to comfort you.”
“You do help me,” she murmured softly. Her eyes had now dropped to the
cushion at her side.
“Yes, but not--Oh, Ruth, don't you see how I love you! What difference
does this accident make--what difference does anything make if we have
each other?” He had his hand on hers now, and was bending over, his eyes
eager for some answer in her own. “I have suffered so,” he went on, “and
I am so tired and so lonely without you. When you wouldn't understand me
that time when I came to you after the tunnel blew up, I went about like
one in a dream--and then I determined to forget it all, and you, and
everything--but I couldn't, and I can't now. Maybe you won't listen--but
please--”
Ruth withdrew her hand quickly and straightened her shoulders. The
mention of the tunnel and what followed had brought with it a rush of
memories that had caused her the bitterest tears of her life. And then
again what did he mean by “helping”?
“Jack,” she said slowly, as if every word gave her pain, “listen to
me. When you saved my father's life and I wanted to tell you how much I
thanked you for it, you would not let me tell you. Is not that true?”
“I did not want your gratitude, Ruth,” he pleaded in excuse, his lips
quivering, “I wanted your love.”
“And why, then, should I not say to you now that I do not want your
pity? Is it because you are--” her voice sank to a whisper, every note
told of her suffering--“you are--sorry for me, Jack, that you tell me
you love me?”
Jack sprang to his feet and stood looking down upon her. The cruelty of
her injustice smote his heart. Had a man's glove been dashed in his face
he could not have been more incensed. For a brief moment there surged
through him all he had suffered for her sake; the sleepless nights, the
days of doubts and misunderstandings! And it had come to this! Again he
was treated with contempt--again his heart and all it held was trampled
on. A wild protest rose in his throat and trembled on his lips.
At that instant she raised her eyes and looked into his. A look so
pleading--so patient--so weary of the struggle--so ready to receive the
blow--that the hot words recoiled in his throat. He bent his head to
search her eyes the better. Down in their depths, as one sees the bottom
of a clear pool he read the truth, and with it came a reaction that sent
the hot blood rushing through his veins.
“Sorry for you, my darling!” he burst out joyously--“I who love you like
my own soul! Oh, Ruth!--Ruth!--my beloved!”
He had her in his arms now, her cheek to his, her yielding body held
close.
Then their lips met.
The Scribe lays down his pen. This be holy ground on which we tread. All
she has she has given him: all the fantasies of her childhood, all the
dreams of her girlhood, all her trust, her loyalty--her reverence--all
to the very last pulsation of her being.
And this girl he holds in his arms! So pliant, so yielding, so pure and
undefiled! And the silken sheen and intoxicating perfume of her hair,
and the trembling lashes shading the eager, longing, soul-hungry eyes;
and the way the little pink ears nestle; and the fair, white, dovelike
throat, with its ripple of lace. And then the dear arms about his neck
and the soft clinging fingers that are intertwined with his own! And
more wonderful still, the perfect unison, the oneness, the sameness; no
jar, no discordant note; mind, soul, desire--a harmony.
The wise men say there are no parallels in nature; that no one thing in
the wide universe exactly mates and matches any other one thing; that
each cloud has differed from every other cloud-form in every hour of the
day and night, to-day, yesterday and so on back through the forgotten
centuries; that no two leaves in form, color, or texture, lift the same
faces to the sun on any of the million trees; that no wave on any beach
curves and falls as any wave has curved and fallen before--not since the
planet cooled. And so it is with the drift of wandering winds; with the
whirl and crystals of driving snow, with the slant and splash of rain.
And so, too, with the flight of birds; the dash and tumble of restless
brooks; the roar of lawless thunder and the songs of birds.
The one exception is when we hold in our arms the woman we love, and
for the first time drink in her willing soul through her lips. Then,
and only then, does the note of perfect harmony ring true through the
spheres.
For a long time they sat perfectly still. Not many words had passed, and
these were only repetitions of those they had used before. “Such dear
hands,” Jack would say, and kiss them both up and down the fingers,
and then press the warm, pink shell palm to his lips and kiss it again,
shutting his eyes, with the reverence of a devotee at the feet of the
Madonna.
“And, Jack dear,” Ruth would murmur, as if some new thought had welled
up in her heart--and then nothing would follow, until Jack would loosen
his clasp a little--just enough to free the dear cheek and say:
“Go on, my darling,” and then would come--
“Oh, nothing, Jack--I--” and once more their lips would meet.
It was only when MacFarlane's firm step was heard on the stairs outside
that the two awoke to another world. Jack reached his feet first.
“Shall we tell him?” he asked, looking down into her face.
“Of course, tell him,” braved out Ruth, uptilting her head with the
movement of a fawn surprised in the forest.
“When?” asked Jack, his eager eyes on the opening door.
“Now, this very minute. I never keep anything from daddy.”
MacFarlane came sauntering in, his strong, determined, finely cut
features illumined by a cheery smile. He had squared things with himself
while he had been dressing: “Hard lines, Henry, isn't it?” he had asked
of himself, a trick of his when he faced any disaster like the present.
“Better get Ruth off somewhere, Henry, don't you think so? Yes, get her
off to-morrow. The little girl can't stand everything, plucky as she
is.” It was this last thought of his daughter that had sent the cheery
smile careering around his firm lips. No glum face for Ruth!
They met him half-way down the room, the two standing together, Jack's
arm around her waist.
“Daddy!”
“Yes, dear.” He had not yet noted the position of the two, although he
had caught the joyous tones in her voice.
“Jack and I want to tell you something. You won't be cross, will you?”
“Cross, Puss!” He stopped and looked at her wonderingly. Had Jack
comforted her? Was she no longer worried over the disaster?
Jack released his arm and would have stepped forward, but she held him
back.
“No, Jack,--let me tell him. You said a while ago, daddy, that there
were only two of us--just you and I--and that it had always been so
and--”
“Well, isn't it true, little girl?” It's extraordinary how blind and
stupid a reasonably intelligent father can be on some occasions, and
this one was as blind as a cave-locked fish.
“Yes, it WAS true, daddy, when you went upstairs, but--but--it isn't
true any more! There are three of us now!” She was trembling all over
with uncontrollable joy, her voice quavering in her excitement.
Again Jack tried to speak, but she laid her hand on his lips with--
“No, please don't, Jack--not yet--you will spoil everything.”
MacFarlane still looked on in wonderment. She was much happier, he could
see, and he was convinced that Jack was in some way responsible for the
change, but it was all a mystery yet.
“Three of us!” MacFarlane repeated mechanically--“well, who is the
other, Puss?”
“Why, Jack, of course! Who else could it be but Jack? Oh!
Daddy!--Please--please--we love each other so!”
That night a telegram went singing down the wires leaving a trail of
light behind. A sleepy, tired girl behind an iron screen recorded it
on a slip of yellow paper, enclosed it in an envelope, handed it to a
half-awake boy, who strolled leisurely up to Union Square, turned into
Fifteenth Street, mounted Peter's front stoop and so on up three flights
of stairs to Peter's door. There he awoke the echoes into life with his
knuckles.
In answer, a charming and most courtly old gentleman in an embroidered
dressing-gown and slippers, a pair of gold spectacles pushed high up on
his round, white head, his index finger marking the place in his book,
opened the door.
“Telegram for Mr. Grayson,” yawned the boy.
Ah! but there were high jinks inside the cosey red room with its low
reading lamp and easy chairs, when Peter tore that envelope apart.
“Jack--Ruth--engaged!” he cried, throwing down his book. “MacFarlane
delighted--What!--WHAT? Oh, Jack, you rascal!--you did take my advice,
did you? Well I--well! I'll write them both--No, I'll telegraph
Felicia--No, I won't!--I'll--Well!--well!--WELL! Did you ever hear
anything like that?” and again his eyes devoured the yellow slip.
Not a word of the freshet; of the frightful loss; of the change of
plans for the summer; of the weeks of delay and the uncertain financial
outlook! And alas, dear reader--not a syllable, as you have perhaps
noticed, of poor daddy tottering on the brink of bankruptcy; nor the
slightest reference to brave young women going out alone in the cold,
cold world to earn their bread! What were floods, earthquakes, cyclones,
poverty, debt--what was anything that might, could, would or should
happen, compared to the joy of their plighted troth!