STANDING GUARD IN VAIN.
It was Isabel Marlay that sought Albert again. Her practical intellect,
bothered with no visions, dazed with no theories, embarrassed by no broad
philanthropies, was full of resource, and equally full, if not of
general, at least of a specific benevolence that forgot mankind in its
kindness to the individual.
Albert saw plainly enough that he could not keep Katy in her present
state of feeling. He saw how she would inevitably slip through his
fingers. But what to do he knew not. So, like most men of earnest and
half-visionary spirit, he did nothing. Unbeliever in Providence that he
was, he waited in the belief that something must happen to help him out
of the difficulty. Isa, believer that she was, set herself to be her own
Providence.
Albert had been spending an evening with Miss Minorkey. He spent nearly
all his evenings with Miss Minorkey. He came home, and stood a minute, as
was his wont, looking at the prairie landscape. A rolling prairie is like
a mountain, in that it perpetually changes its appearance; it is
delicately susceptible to all manner of atmospheric effects. It lay
before him in the dim moonlight, indefinite; a succession of undulations
running one into the other, not to be counted nor measured. All accurate
notions of topography were lost; there was only landscape, dim,
undeveloped, suggestive of infinitude. Standing thus in the happiness of
loving and being loved, the soft indefiniteness of the landscape and the
incessant hum of the field-crickets and katydids, sounds which came out
of the everywhere, soothed Charlton like the song of a troubadour.
"Mr. Charlton!"
Like one awaking from a dream, Albert saw Isa Marlay, her hand resting
against one of the posts which supported the piazza-roof, looking even
more perfect and picturesque than ever in the haziness of the moonlight.
Figure, dress, and voice were each full of grace and sweetness, and if
the face was not exactly beautiful, it was at least charming and full of
a subtle magnetism. (Magnetism! happy word, with which we cover the
weakness of our thoughts, and make a show of comprehending and defining
qualities which are neither comprehensible nor definable!)
"Mr. Charlton, I want to speak to you about Katy."
It took Albert a moment or two to collect his thoughts. When he first
perceived Miss Marlay, she seemed part of the landscape. There was about
her form and motion an indefinable gracefulness that was like the charm
of this hazy, undulant, moonlit prairie, and this blue sky seen through
the lace of thin, milk-white clouds. It was not until she spoke Katy's
name that he began to return to himself. Katy was the one jarring string
in the harmony of his hopes.
"About Katy? Certainly, Miss Marlay. Won't you sit down?"
"No, I thank you."
"Mr. Charlton, couldn't you get Katy away while her relations with
Westcott are broken? You don't know how soon she'll slip back into her
old love for him."
"If--" and Albert hesitated. To go, he must leave Miss Minorkey. And the
practical difficulty presented itself to him at the same moment. "If I
could raise money enough to get away, I should go. But Mr. Plausaby has
all of my money and all of Katy's."
Isabel was on the point of complaining that Albert should lend to Mr.
Plausaby, but she disliked to take any liberty, even that of reproof.
Ever since she knew that the family had thought of marrying her to
Albert, she had been an iceberg to him. He should not dare to think
that she had any care for him. For the same reason, another reply died
unuttered on her lips. She was about to offer to lend Mr. Charlton
fifty dollars of her own. But her quick pride kept her back, and,
besides, fifty dollars was not half-enough. She said she thought there
must be some way of raising the money. Then, as if afraid she had been
too cordial and had laid her motives open to suspicion in speaking thus
to Charlton, she drew herself up and bade him good-night with stiff
politeness, leaving him half-fascinated by her presence, half-vexed
with something in her manner, and wholly vexed with himself for having
any feeling one way or the other. What did he care for Isabel Marlay?
What if she were graceful and full of a subtle fascination of presence?
Why should he value such things? What were they worth, after all? What
if she were kind one minute and repellent the next? Isa Marlay was
nothing to him!
Lying in his little unfinished chamber, he dismissed intellectual Miss
Minorkey from his mind with regret; he dismissed graceful but practical
Miss Marlay from his mind also, wondering that he had to dismiss her at
all, and gave himself to devising ways and means of eloping with little
Katy. She must be gotten away. It was evident that Plausaby would make no
effort to raise money to help him and Katy to get away. Plausaby would
prefer to detain Katy. Clearly, to proceed to pre-empt his claim, to
persuade Plausaby to raise money enough for him to buy a land-warrant
with, and then to raise two hundred dollars by mortgaging his land to
Minorkey or any other lover of mortgages with waiver clauses in them, was
the only course open.
Plausaby, Esq., was ever prompt in dealing with those to whom he was
indebted, so far as promises went. He would always give the most solemn
assurance of his readiness to do anything one wished to have done; and
so, when Albert explained to him that it was necessary for him to
pre-empt because he wished to go East, Plausaby told him to go on and
establish his residence on his claim, and when he got ready to prove up
and pre-empt, to come to him. To come and let him know. To let him know
at once. He made the promise so frankly and so repetitiously, and with
such evident consciousness of his own ability and readiness to meet his
debt to Albert on demand, that the latter went away to his claim in
quietness and hopefulness, relying on Miss Marlay to stand guard over his
sister's love affairs in his absence.
But standing guard was not of much avail. All of the currents that
flowed about Katy's life were undermining her resolution not to see
Smith Westcott. Katy, loving, sweet, tenderhearted, was far from being a
martyr, in stubbornness at best; her resolutions were not worth much
against her sympathies. And now that Albert's scratched face was out of
sight, and there was no visible object to keep alive her indignation,
she felt her heart full of ruth for poor, dear Mr. Westcott. How
lonesome he must be without her! She could only measure his lonesomeness
by her own. Her heart, ever eager to love, could not let go when once it
had attached itself, and she longed for other evenings in which she
could hear Smith's rattling talk, and in which he would tell her how
happy she had made him. How lonesome he must be! What if he should drown
himself in the lake?
Mr. Plausaby, at tea, would tell in the most incidental way of something
that had happened during the day, and then, in his sliding, slipping,
repetitious, back-stitching fashion, would move round from one
indifferent topic to another until he managed at last to stumble over
Smith Westcott's name.
"By the way," he would say, "poor Smith looks heartbroken. Absolutely
heart-broken. I didn't know the fellow cared so much for Katy. Didn't
think he had so much heart. So much faithfulness. But he looks down.
Very much downcast. Never saw a fellow look so chopfallen. And, by the
way, Albert did punish him awfully. He looks black and blue. Well, he
deserved it. He did so. I suppose he didn't mean to say anything against
Katy. But he had no business to let old friends coax him to drink.
Still, Albert was pretty severe. Too severe, in fact. I'm sorry for
Westcott. I am, indeed."
After some such talk as this, Cousin Isa would generally find Katy crying
before bed-time.
"What is the matter, Katy, dear?" she would say in a voice so full of
natural melody and genuine sympathy, that it never failed to move Katy to
the depths of her heart. Then Katy would cry more than ever, and fling
her arms about the neck of dear, dear, _dear_ Cousin Isa, and lavish on
her the tenderness of which her heart was full.
"O Cousin Isa! what must I do? I'm breaking poor Smith's heart. You don't
know how much he loves me, and I'm afraid something dreadful will happen
to him, you know. What shall I do?"
"I don't think he cares much, Katy. He's a bad man, I'm afraid, and
doesn't love you really. Don't think any more of him." For Isabel
couldn't find it in her heart to say to Katy just what she thought
of Westcott.
"Oh! but you don't know him," Katy cries. "You don't know him. He says
that he does naughty things sometimes, but then he's got such a tender
heart. He made me promise I wouldn't throw him over, as he called it, for
his faults. He said he'd come to be good if I'd only keep on loving him.
And I said I would. And I haven't. Here's more than a week now that he
hasn't been here, and I haven't been to the store. And he said he'd go to
sleep in the lake some night if I ever, ever proved false to him. And I
lie awake nearly all night thinking how hard and cruel I've been to him.
And oh!"--here Katy cried awhile--"and oh! I think such awful things
sometimes," she continued in a whisper broken by sobs. "You don't know,
Cousin Isa. I think how cold, how dreadful cold the lake must be! Oo-oo!"
And a shudder shook her frame. "If poor, dear Smith were to throw himself
in! What if he is there now?" And she looked up at Isa with staring eyes.
"Do you know what an awful thing I heard about that lake once?" She
stopped and shivered. "There are leeches in it--nasty, black worms--and
one of them bit my hand once. And they told me that if a person should
be drowned in Diamond Lake the leeches would--oo!--take all their blood,
and their faces would be white, and not black like other drowned people's
faces. Oh! I can't bear to think about poor Smith. If I could only write
him a note, and tell him I love him just a little! But I told Albert I
wouldn't see him nor write to him. What shall I do? He mayn't live till
morning. They say he looks broken-hearted. He'll throw himself into that
cold lake to-night, maybe--and the leeches--the black worms--oo!--or else
he'll kill himself with that ugly pistol."
It was in vain that Isabel talked to her, in vain that she tried to argue
with a cataract of feeling. It was rowing against Niagara with a
canoe-paddle. It was not wonderful, therefore, that before Albert got
back, Isa Marlay found Katy reading little notes from Westcott, notes
that ho had intrusted to one of his clerks, who was sent to the
post-office three or four times a day on various pretexts, until he
should happen to find Katy in the office. Then he would hand her the
notes. Katy did not reply. She had promised Albert she wouldn't. But
there was no harm in her reading them, just to keep Smith from drowning
himself among those black leeches in Diamond Lake.
Isabel Marlay, in her distressful sense of responsibility to Albert,
could yet find no means of breaking up this renewed communication. In
sheer desperation, she appealed to Mrs. Plausaby.
"Well, now," said that lady, sitting in state with the complacent
consciousness of a new and more stunning head-dress than usual, "I'll
tell you what it is, Isabel, I think Albert makes altogether too much
fuss over Katy's affairs. He'll break the girl's heart. He's got notions.
His father had. Deliver _me_ from notions! Just let Katy take her own
course. Marryin's a thing everybody must attend to personally for
themselves. You don't like to be meddled with, and neither does Albert.
You won't either of you marry to suit me. I have had my plans about you
and Albert. Now, Isabel, Mr. Westcott's a nice-looking man. With all his
faults he's a nice man. Cheerful and good-natured in his talk, and a good
provider. He's a store-keeper, too. It's nice to have a storekeeper for a
husband. I want Plausaby to keep store, so that I can get dresses and
such things without having to pay for them. I felt mad at Mr. Westcott
about his taking out his pistol so at Albert. But if Albert had let Mr.
Westcott alone, I'm sure Smith wouldn't a-touched him. But your folks
with notions are always troubling somebody else. For my part, I shan't
meddle with Katy. Do you think this bow's nice? Too low down, isn't it?"
and Mrs. Plausaby went to the glass to adjust it.
And so it happened that all Isa Marlay's watching could not keep Westcott
away. For the land-office regulations at that time required that Albert
should live on his claim thirty days. This gave him the right to buy it
at a dollar and a quarter an acre, or to exchange a land-warrant for it.
The land was already worth two or three times the government price. But
that thirty days of absence, broken only by one or two visits to his
home, was enough to overturn all that Charlton had done in breaking up
his sister's engagement with Westcott. The latter knew how long Albert's
absence must be, and arranged his approaches to correspond. He gave her
fifteen days to get over her resentment, and to begin to pity him on
account of the stories of his incurable melancholy she would hear. After
he had thus suffered her to dream of his probable suicide for a
fortnight, he contrived to send her one little lugubrious note,
confessing that he had been intoxicated and begging her pardon. Then he
waited three days, days of great anxiety to her. For Katy feared lest her
neglect to return an answer should precipitate Westcott's suicide. But he
did not need an answer. Her looks when she received the note had been
reported to him. What could he need more? On the very evening after he
had sent that contrite note to Katy, announcing that he would never drink
again, he felt so delighted with what he had heard of its reception, that
he treated a crony out of his private bottle as they played cards
together in his room, and treated himself quite as liberally as he did
his friend, got up in the middle of the floor, and assured his friend
that he would be all right with his sweet little girl before the brother
got back. By George! If folks thought he was going to commit suicide,
they were fooled. Never broke his heart about a woman yet. Not much, by
George! But when he set his heart on a thing, he generally got it. He!
he! And he had set his heart on that little girl. As for jumping into the
lake, any man was a fool to jump into the drink on account of a woman.
When there were plenty of them. Large assortment constantly on hand. Pays
yer money and takes yer ch'ice! Suicide? Not much, by George! he! he!
Hung his coat on a hickory limb,
Then like a wise man he jumped in,
My ole dad! My ole dad!
Wondered what tune Charlton would sing when he found himself beat? Guess
'twould be:
Can't stay in de wilderness.
In a few days, in a few days,
Can't stay in de wilderness,
A few days ago.
Goin' to pre-empt my claim, too. I've got a month's leave, and I'll
follow him and marry that girl before he gets far. Bruddern and sistern,
sing de ole six hundredth toon. Ahem!
I wish I was a married man,
A married man I'd be!
An' ketch the grub fer both of us
A-fishin' in the sea.
Big fish,
Little fish,
It's all the same to me!
I got a organ stop in my throat. Can't sing below my breath to save my
life. He! he!
After three days had elapsed, Westcott sent a still more melancholy note
to Katy. It made her weep from the first line to the last. It was full of
heartbreak, and Katy was too unobserving to notice how round and steady
and commercial the penmanship was, and how large and fine were the
flourishes. Westcott himself considered it his masterpiece. He punched
his crony with his elbow as he deposited it in the office, and assured
him that it was the techin'est note ever written. It would come the
sympathies over her. There was nothing like the sympathies to fetch a
woman to terms. He knew. Had lots of experience. By George! You could
turn a woman round yer finger if you could only keep on the tender side.
Tears was what done it. Love wouldn' keep sweet without it was pickled in
brine. He! he! he! By George!