I'M TELLING YOU GOOD-BYE
It was fully an hour after Fat Joe and Garry had rolled themselves up
in their blankets when Steve, who had elected to sit up for one last
pipe even though his body was aching with fatigue, heard behind him the
approach of her footsteps. Outside at the top of the rise some fifty
yards in front of the tents, he had seated himself on a log, chin
buried in one palm and eyes vacantly steady before him; but even before
he turned--before he rose slowly to his feet--he knew who was coming,
knew and realized that she should not have come. Wrapped in a long
heavy coat, face half-hidden by the upturned collar, bare of head,
Barbara came quietly down to where he waited. And without word of
greeting on the part of either of them, they sat down together, facing
the silvered bowl of the valley.
Time passed before Barbara opened her lips for a long, quivering intake
of breath.
"I never dreamed it could be so big," she murmured in awe. "And then
to think that some day--within a few months in reality--engines will go
screeching their signals across this very place. It doesn't seem
possible; it seems almost a shame to spoil it, too."
Her earnestness was so unconsciously wistful that Steve could not help
but smile at it a little, even though he had been telling himself,
since the moment of her coming, that he must not let himself dwell just
then upon that wistfulness which, for many hours, had been most
apparent to him.
"I've felt that way about it often," he answered, almost dully. "I
like it better myself, as it is. It does appear to be a long way
ahead, doesn't it--that day of completion which you cover in the
screech of the whistles? Only to-day, when we were scrambling about
down there in the alders, it took nearly all the imagination I
possessed to see two streaks of steel where there is nothing but
thicket now. But as for the bigness of it"--he laughed
deprecatingly--"it isn't so very big, you know. It's just a--a mean
sort of proposition."
Barbara leaned forward, delicate chin resting upon interlocked fingers.
She was not quite certain whether she had caught a thread of weariness
in those words.
"To me," she said, "to me it is colossal! Why, I thought the work at
Morrison seemed complicated and tangled enough, but there--there isn't
even a beginning or an ending here. There's nothing but woods and
water."
She pointed out across the valley toward a mound-like outline yellow
under the moon; pointed into the north and asked another question.
"Is that part of the embankment?" she wanted to know. "Is that the
direction in which Mr. Wickersham's timber lies?"
The man nodded.
"Just a few miles up through that notch," he told her. "That's the end
of the rail-bed which we have been building along the river-edge."
Her next words made him start and then try to cover that moment with a
readjustment of his long body.
"I'm going up there to-morrow. Mr. Wickersham has asked me to ride
with him, in the morning." She waited a moment or two. "That--that's
why I came out here to-night. We'll be going back to town the next day
or two, and I wanted to have a chance to bid you good-bye, before I
left Morrison for the winter."
He had known that she would not be likely to remain in the hills much
longer. He had realized that each day which he checked off, always
hopeful that the next might open the way for him to see her again, was
steadily bringing nearer the date of her departure. But he had not let
himself think that it would come so soon. There was no doubt this time
about the heaviness of his voice.
"I see," he said. "I see."
There came another long silence. Rising out of it, Barbara's voice
sounded very, very little.
"I've never known a sky in which the stars were so thick.
They're--they're like a field of buttercups. And have you ever seen
such an irrepressibly happy creature as Miriam was to-night. She was
radiant--positively shameless! Did you know that Garry knows----"
"I told him, myself," said Steve, simply.
The girl faced around in her surprise.
"You?"
"Most certainly! Why not?" His voice was not quite so unenthusiastic
now. "It's one of the few unmistakable opportunities I've ever had to
make two people permanently as happy as Miriam was to-night. I'd feel
guilty all my life if I didn't help all I could, knowing how happy I am
going to be, myself!"
Thus did he work around, quite without abruptness, to a renewal of that
discussion which she had thought to close, weeks before.
"Are you trying to infer that I am to be a part of that happiness?" she
asked none too promisingly.
"You ought to know. I said 'all my life.'"
And there, suddenly, Barbara laughed.
"I suppose now they'll marry and live happily ever after!" she
exclaimed with an attempt at airiness.
"Most certainly," asserted Steve, although her mirth puzzled him. "Why
is it funny to you?"
"It isn't, but--yes it is too, now that it's no longer a thing one need
worry about. That's always the trouble with emotions which are too
intense. They're either very sad to contemplate, or very, very absurd.
And they will persist in exchanging faces, to the confusion of the
on-lookers. Garry was so dangerously in love with Mary Graves, you
see!"
"He was in love with an idea," the man contradicted flatly. "He was in
love with just that. And it is not safe for any man to live alone with
an abstract conception of anything. He's bound, sooner or later, to
lose his grip on tangible things if he does. He's likely to start
destroying property to further the cause of labor, or liable to turn to
shooting men who were born to jobs I'm certain some of them never
wanted--kings and that sort, I mean--figuring on solving the social
problems of men and women who must solve that problem themselves.
Perfection is a fine thing to anticipate; expectations of it are
dangerous. And women aren't made that way."
"No?" her voice slid coolly upward.
"No," he told her, and smiled with that serenity she had come to know
so well. "Not even you, though I suppose I'd about annihilate anyone
else if he ever hinted at it." He chose to be didactic in tone. "No,
you're not perfect; you've too much intelligence for that. Why, right
now you're fighting with your brain against the dictates of your heart,
and if you were above mortal error in judgment you'd know that you are
wasting your time."
The girl forgot entirely that she, too, had promised herself that their
leave-taking should not cross the border of personalities. And with
that lazy joy of her on his tongue she might not have been quite so
quick to hold that she could love no man, had she stopped to give it
thought. Her advance to the skirmish was most spirited.
"Your opinion has the merit of sincerity," she said, "although, looking
back upon a--a certain day, I can't help but wonder whether you haven't
been guilty of mouthing pretty nothings for my poor ears."
"That proves my point right now." He was imperturbable. "You're
begging the question to gain----"
"You said----" she flashed, and then grew red.
"I said I'd let you ask no pardon of me. I said I'd let myself find no
flaw in you. But how does that embarrass my present argument?
Flawless perfection would be a mighty difficult thing to live with, day
in and day out. Living with a woman who never made a mistake could
have no appeal for me. She'd always be emphasizing my own
shortcomings. You become consistent and you'll catch me yawning some
day; grow logical and you'll almost scare me off! Why, you're a girl!"
Her laughter was like a bell on the still air.
"And you--you still sit there and insist that perfection has no
attraction for you? When you've just described, without knowing it,
the--the sort of a girl you think is perfect."
His lips curled in a way to quicken any woman's pulse.
"You have me beaten," he laughed. His eyes, dark as was the shadow
upon his face, made her breath unsteady. "I would like to watch you
play poker with Fat Joe. Your game would puzzle him more than a
little. Yes, you've surely left me without a leg on which to hobble
off, because it would be small spirited in me, wouldn't it, if I were
to tell you that you are the exception that makes my general rule hold
sound? I wouldn't, however, prescribe such a degree of perfection for
any other man's daily diet. It would prove his destruction."
"Your own superiority, of course, rendering you immune?"
"Maybe." At least, whether she knew it or not, she loved his serenity.
"Maybe--and maybe I'm an exception too."
He sat very still. She had turned away once more.
"You'll be back again in the spring?" he asked with that gentleness he
saved for her alone.
"I hope--I think so." The smallness of her voice angered her. She
feigned a short, carefree laugh. "Unless I am too busy. Getting
married seems to become a more and come complicated problem of proper
costuming, doesn't it, with every passing season!"
She couldn't have told why she said it; she was trying to think of
something else to say which would be kinder by far. And then, half
lifting her, he had swung her around to him. For a moment he held her,
face close to that small, frightened face buried in its deep collar,
while she struggled uselessly against those hard arms which tried not
to hurt her. Her lips continued to rebel, long after her eyes had
closed--long after body and brain were quiescent.
"You mustn't!" she gasped. "Oh, I can't let you . . . the moon . . .
we--we're sure to be seen!"
His lips on hers silenced that last incoherent resistance. She sat,
wavy brown head bowed, when he had set her free.
"I was going to ask you not to forget!" There was no weariness now in
his voice. "I had planned to ask you just that, a little ago, and it
would have been a weak and useless request, wouldn't it? Any man who
has to beg to be remembered is not the sort to remain long in any
woman's brain. So I have taught you to remember, instead. You aren't
going to forget, ever, now! You're coming back in the spring, and
you're coming to stay! And now _I'm_ telling _you_ good-bye. It's
time you were asleep."
He helped her to her feet. Together they turned--and Archibald
Wickersham, tall to gauntness in the moonlight, was coming across
toward them from the direction of the cabin. The girl's slim body
stiffened, but Steve saw her chin come up. His own body grew lazier
still, it seemed, in length and limb.
Wickersham's approaching steps were crisply precise; he stopped an
arm's length in front of them, and his words were an echo of that last
sentence of Steve's.
"It's time you retired," he said, ignoring the other man's presence
entirely. "It's cold, and you have a long, hard ride ahead of you
to-morrow."
For a barely perceptible moment, with the eyes of both men upon her,
Barbara kept her place. Neither of them saw that her teeth were
tightly closed over one full lip; neither knew that she had closed her
eyes, dizzily, for an instant. And then, without a word, she put her
hand upon the arm which Wickersham offered her; but Steve, on the other
side, walked with her that night, as far as the door of the storehouse
shack. Miriam herself opened the door and snatched Barbara within, and
then laughed with her consummate impudence into both men's faces.
"G'lang wid ye's now," she flung at them, "an' quit disturbin' dacint
folks that likes to sleep o' nights!"
She slammed the door upon them.
They stood there a second or two, Wickersham an inch or more taller and
inches narrower in shoulder and girth of chest. Perfunctorily they
nodded, each to the other, and wheeled silently upon their heels.
Steve did not respond the next morning when Joe summoned the rest with
a long spoon applied heartily to the flat of a huge tin basin; and over
the breakfast table Joe explained to the assembled guests the reason
for his absence. Before daybreak a rider had come from Morrison,
bearing word from Hardwick Elliott that Ainnesley was on from Manhattan
and wanted to talk with him; before the camp was fairly awake he had
ridden away into the south. And returning two days later, travelling
the lower, lesser trails that followed the river, in order to save
time, Steve missed her party going out. So, in the last moment, after
days and days of patient waiting, did Chance trick him sadly.
How much or how little Wickersham might have overseen the night before
he betrayed not at all at breakfast the next morning, either by word or
look. And throughout that day, and the day that followed, while she
rode at his side, undetermined whether she should attempt an
explanation, Barbara found his face inscrutable. It was a week later,
the night preceding her departure from the hills, long after the girl
had ceased to think of him at all in connection with the incident,
before she learned how much he really knew.
Miss Sarah had found her brother most uncommunicative upon his return
from Thirty-Mile. In response to her first question concerning Steve
he had assured her, lifelessly, that the latter was looking very well
indeed, and let it go at that. Because she was a very remarkable
woman, Miss Sarah had been able to curb her curiosity for several days,
but on that particular evening she found it impossible calmly to wait
longer.
"You have not told me yet, Cal," she reproached him at dinner, in her
slightly lisping voice, "how much progress Steve seems to have made.
You know how interested I am, and you must realize how undignified a
thirty-mile dash on horseback would be on my part, in order to find
out, myself."
While up-river Caleb had found much time in which to talk with Garry
Devereau--that is to say, quite a little time, in view of the fact that
Miriam Burrell, in boots and mackinaw, had insisted upon following
Garry wherever he went. And since his return to Morrison he had been
spending a surprisingly large share of his days in conference with
Hardwick Elliott and his partner, Ainnesley. Now his reply to his
sister's query was startlingly fervid.
"Progress!" he exclaimed. "Progress! I tell you he's going to win
out, in spite of all of them, damn 'em!"
Miss Sarah froze in her chair.
"Caleb!" she expostulated. "Caleb!"
And Caleb's face went hot.
"I am very sorry," he muttered contritely. "But I couldn't help it.
When I think of the way that boy has plugged on alone, all his life,
with no one to give him a lift, it--it angers me to think that the very
man whom I have prized as a friend should be the one to make his
problem harder."
"Would you mind explaining, lucidly?" Miss Sarah requested. "And if it
is business to which you are referring, will you please try to make it
as brief and non-technical as possible?"
Once he started to tell her, Caleb realized that it was just what he
had needed to do all along, without knowing it. Briefly as she had
requested, he sketched for her the facts which, so far as he was
concerned, had made of his first sneaking suspicion an absolute
certainty. And he waxed wroth in the recital.
"It's treachery," he snapped, "rank, contemptible treachery. And the
worst part of it all is that, even now, when I am morally certain of
his culpability, I--I can't bring myself to despise the man. He's been
my friend for thirty years, Dexter has, and damn it---- I beg your
pardon, Sarah--but, damn it, I keep on thinking of him, in soft
moments, as my friend now. I sit by the hour trying to foist the blame
upon Archie Wickersham, and he's no more guilty than Dexter. Dexter's
merely good-natured about his crookedness; wholesome about it, somehow.
And Wickersham's a sneak!"
In all the years they had lived together Miss Sarah had never heard her
brother talk so bitterly. Yet her voice remained soft.
"It's very unpleasant, no doubt," she sympathized, "although I can't
quite see why they don't all join hands and try to make a success of
the project between them. Surely it seems feasible. And, somehow,
even after listening to you, I don't seem to find myself greatly
perturbed about our boy, Steve. He's very big and strong, Cal,
and--and I am very old-fashioned. I still believe in the might of
right. It may sound very feminine to you, but I do not find myself
worried at all over his lack of assistance in his work. And I must
confess that I did not have it in mind, at all, when I asked in regard
to his progress."
Caleb looked up, suspiciously.
"Well?" he said.
"I meant how--how did he and Barbara appear to--get on together?"
Caleb spilled a spoonful of soup.
"Her!" he exploded with no regard for his grammar. "Why, she is true
to her blood! If she weren't she wouldn't be engaged to that thief who
masquerades as a gentleman. She isn't blind, and she's going to marry
him!"
"You are positively violent, Cal," reproved his sister. "And your
reference to Barbara does not do you credit. If I were your wife I
suppose I'd rise coldly now and sweep upstairs to leave you alone with
your bad mood. But being merely your sister I remain to hear you
apologize. Barbara is not yet married to Wickersham, I might add."
"I am exceedingly sorry," said Caleb.
"And, without any reason for it, save my womanly intuition, I feel very
certain that she will never marry him," Miss Sarah went on. "But you
spoke about Steve having no one upon whom he could depend for
assistance, and it was really a helpful hint to me. Did I fail to hear
you say how they seemed to get on together?"
"She didn't think he was good enough for her, ten years ago," growled
Caleb. "She wouldn't think so, now. He cares for her, so she treats
him like a dog, of course."
Miss Sarah had to smile.
"Then I think it is high time I did something about it," she stated
thoughtfully. "For she is a lovable girl, and she hasn't any mother of
her own. She's very pretty and little and finer than any girl I know.
If she weren't, Steve would not be in love with her, I am sure. And
Dexter Allison is no doubt an estimable man in many ways, even though,
as you feel positive, he has a tendency to acquisitiveness which is
deplorable. Your continued regard for him convinces me of that. I
wish, however, that Steve was not so entirely dependent upon what he
earns. There are many beautiful things--beautiful and intimate and
feminine things--which no man can remain happy in seeing paid for by
other money than his own, for the woman he loves."
Ten minutes after it was done Caleb could not have told what impulse
was to blame for the deed, but he rose forthwith and went to his
strong-box, to return with the legal-looking document and the bunch of
tax-receipts which he had found among Old Tom's papers, years and years
before.
"There's the deed to some thousands of acres of the finest timber in
this country," he announced challengingly, "all ship-shape in the name
of Stephen O'Mara, 2nd! Old Tom bought them for the boy he hid away
with him, in the days when timber-lands were going for a song. He paid
the taxes until he was drowned, and I--I've paid 'em since, my dear!
Three or four hundred thousand dollars, or more, ought to buy quite an
amount of--er--feminine necessities, it seems to me."
With delicately thin fingers Miss Sarah leafed the papers through.
"You have never told me of this matter before, Cal," she murmured.
"Never told anybody!" chirruped Caleb triumphantly. "I tried to find
the boy--both of us did, that is--and we failed. And when he turned up
of his own accord--well, I knew a half year more of ignorance
concerning his legacy wouldn't see him starve. Sarah, I wanted to see
how that boy of ours would behave, without any backing. I wanted to be
sure of the stuff he is made of!"
They had finished a much interrupted meal, but Miss Sarah lingered a
moment at table. With incredible calm she had listened to the secret
which her brother had been keeping to himself so long.
"A very good reason," she agreed, "one that would seem to have many
points to excuse it. And although it is not within the letter of the
law I--I think, Cal, I shall become an accessory before the fact. Very
shamelessly I am going to ask you to see that no one knows of this
property of Steve's, for a little longer, at least. I have spoken with
the utmost confidence concerning Barbara; your reference to all that
she said to Steve in a childish burst of passion years ago does not
affect my attitude at all. But I have not been blind to what might be
her--opinion now, either, impossible and ignoble though it seems. You
will not tell Stephen of this matter for a while, Cal, for it would
please me to know, without room for doubt, just what stuff she is made
of, too!"
She straightened her diminutive body and started upstairs.
"She will be over to bid us good-bye to-night," she added. "Will you
see that she comes directly up to me?"
And once more, from the landing, she spoke over her shoulder:
"You said that she treated him like a dog, Cal," she managed to keep
her features grave, "and being a woman I can understand exactly why
that is so. The joy of a breathless pursuit, it is often said, is the
only choice left for the female. But can you tell me why a man hunts
out the deepest, most comfortable chair he can find and ensconces
himself therein, once he had overtaken the idol of his fancy? They
often do, you know, sometimes for the rest of their lives."
Caleb lighted his pipe and cast about for his paper. "Maybe it's only
the natural consequence," he retorted, his face turned away, "of such a
pursuit as you mention. Maybe he feels the need of a long, long rest!"
And then Miss Sarah laughed.
An hour later, when she ran upstairs, Barbara found Caleb's tiny
spinster sister, in negligee and boudoir cap, sitting cross-legged like
a girl in the middle of the floor. There was an orderly litter of
papers around her, and a confusion of clothes; and Barbara hesitated on
the threshold until Miss Sarah nodded her head.
"Come in, my dear," she invited. "I'm indulging in one of the few joys
left to advanced, unmarried years, that is all. But even memories need
prodding with more material things, at times, I find."
The dark-eyed girl crossed and found a clear spot and seated herself.
Without seeming to look at her, Miss Sarah saw that those eyes were
vaguely troubled.
"I'm leaving to-morrow," Barbara began after a minute. "I came over to
say good-bye."
Miss Sarah went on with her sorting.
"We'll see you again soon," she suggested pleasantly.
There was trouble in the girl's voice, too.
"I--don't think so."
"It's a very pretty country--a hard country to forget." Miss Sarah
very wisely gave no heed to the woebegone note. "Perhaps," archly,
"perhaps you'll be returning as the new Mrs. Wickersham?"
Barbara flushed duskily. Miss Sarah, however, was gazing at a
dog-eared picture--a very old-fashioned picture of a youth in brave and
resplendent garb of a period long dead. No one but herself and her
brother had seen that photograph for many years, and he only because he
had rummaged in a pigeon-hole in which he had no licence to look. His
sister's eyes, as well as her posture, were girlish when she laid it
aside to hold up to view a battered black velvet suit with wide collars
and cuffs.
"I wonder if you could ever guess who once wore this?" she laughed
lightly.
Politely Barbara examined it.
"I'm sure I couldn't," she answered. And, very slowly:
"Miriam is going to marry Garry Devereau. She is disgracefully happy
about it."
The older woman received this irrelevance with composure.
"How charming," she said. "And I am sure that they will continue to be
as happy as I hope you will be soon. This suit was Steve's--little
Steve's. Dear me, what a day that was!"
After a moment of hesitation Barbara leaned forward to examine the
silver buttons.
"It--it doesn't seem possible," she faltered. "What sort of a--a day?"
And then, with smooth, serious face upturned, she listened to Miss
Sarah's tale--her own story of how she had dressed a gloomy-faced boy
in half-century-old finery and sent him townward for eggs. When it was
finished and she had decided, abruptly, that she must be going,
suddenly, wet-eyed, she wheeled in the doorway and went blindly back to
the older woman's arms. Miss Sarah hugged her once; then stood her
away at arm's length. She knew how few women weep, without hiding
their heads.
"There, we mustn't be temperamental," she chided. "It's only for a
winter, at most. Remember, I love you very dearly, Barbara; write to
me whenever you are lonely. And be a very good girl."
It was a brave bit of comfort, but Caleb's tiny sister, whose face had
never lost its pink-and-whiteness, looked suddenly tired and old when
she was alone again. As blindly as Barbara had come into her arms, she
reached for the dog-eared picture and held it to her flat breasts.
There is no greatness of soul save there be simplicity. Very directly,
very simply Miss Sarah stood there in the middle of her girlish room
and spoke to her Creator.
"I do not mean to meddle, dear God," she whispered, with tears
squeezing from beneath tight lids. "I only want to help a little, if I
may. You see, I've never had a baby of my own."
The door of the ground floor room which served Dexter Allison as an
office was ajar when Barbara re-entered the house beyond the hedge.
There was a streak of light running out across the floor of the dim
hall from within, and the girl lingered on her hurried way to her own
room to bid her father good-night. But she found Wickersham alone when
she pushed wider the door. The light was behind him and she could not
see how distorted was his face, yet as she paused on the threshold and
a thin and pungent odor crinkled her nostrils, she sensed, somehow,
that he had not been long alone.
"Father gone to bed?" she called. "Well, that's wise. You'd better
come, too; it's time you were asleep."
She did not remember, just then, that other night when he had addressed
those same words to her. She only knew that his features became
suffused with purple even before she had finished. And then she
realized quickly that it was alcohol she smelled; knew, too, that it
was not Wickersham who had been drinking, even though Wickersham had
trouble with his tongue. And while she waited, puzzled and frowning,
the man gave up an attempt at his usual nicety of phrase and blurted
out all that which had been many days hidden behind his impassivity.
"We haven't yet set a certain date for our marriage, Barbara," his
voice was strained. "Don't you think it is high time we did?"
The girl colored. It was, at least, very unexpected.
"Why, no, we haven't," she admitted. "But we can if you wish it. Have
you thought of a day you'd prefer?"
"I have," he stated. "Would the first of May be too early for you?"
Often, afterward, she wondered at her humility of that night, for
whatever the quick thought might have been which made her reach out one
hand to touch the doorframe beside her, her words were merely mild.
"It is, rather. But I think I can manage it, if it will please you."
Wickersham had come to his feet, but he would not turn so that she
might see his face. He spoke with eyes averted.
"It would," he answered with an effort, "and--and in the interim I am
going to be very sure, now, that no thoughtlessness of yours will be
derogatory, either to my profound respect for you or your own respect
for yourself."
The small hand closed then until it was clutching whitely the woodwork
beneath it. She understood at last how much Wickersham had seen; she
was never to understand entirely her mood of that moment. For had she
waited she would have left him with finger ringless. Instead she
wheeled without a word and climbed, white-lipped, upstairs.
Miriam Burrell loomed in one window of her bedroom when she entered--a
different Miriam than the one who had once sat in just such an
attitude, gazing into the north. The older girl's gladness of heart
throbbed in her voice.
"I don't want to leave it, Bobs," she sighed. "I love every brawling
rapid and sulky, ragged old peak. Did you ever see a more perfect
night?"
Through the gloom the younger girl's answer lashed back, reckless of
what hurt she might do.
"I hate it!" she gasped vehemently. "I hate it--hate it! And I must
ask you, please--I want to go to bed."
There is a poise which comes only with hard-bought knowledge of one's
self. It was Miss Sarah's; Miriam had acquired it, too. Without a
hint of resentment in her manner she rose and withdrew. But Barbara
did not go to bed. She took that vacated seat at the window. And long
after her breathing had ceased to be quick and sharp she was still
wondering why the odor of stale alcohol should recall to her, with
elusive vagueness, the threatening face of a red-haired riverman who
found it hard to keep his feet.