It's my duty to look the matter in the face before I look in
Alfred's--and decide. If not Alfred, what then?
First--no husband. That's out of the question! I'm not strong-minded
enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I like men,
can't help it, and seem to need one for my own.
Second--if not Alfred, who? Judge Wade is so delightful that I flutter
at the thought, but his mother is Aunt Adeline's own best friend, and
they have ideas in common.
Still, living with him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes!
The girl he wanted to marry died of turberculosis, and he wears a locket
with her in it yet. I'd like to reward him for such faithfulness. But
then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at Ruth Clinton and realise how
faithful, and my heart melts to him in my breast--my brain feels almost
all melted away, too, so I had better keep the heart cold enough to
manage, if I want anything left at all for him to come home to.
In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. I truly
try to make him be serious about the important things in life, like
going to church with his mother and working all day, even if he is rich.
I wish he wasn't so near kin to me! Now, there, I feel in Ruth Clinton's
way again!
I suppose I really would be doing the right thing to marry Mr. Graves,
and I should adore all those children to start with, but I know Billy
wouldn't get on with them at all. I can't even consider it on his
account, but I'll let the nice old gentleman come for a few times more
to see me, for he really is interesting, and we have suffered things in
common. Mrs. Graves lacked the kind of temperament poor Mr. Carter did.
I'd like to make it all up to him, but if Billy wouldn't be happy, that
settles it, and I don't know how good his boys are. I couldn't have
Billy corrupted.
And so, as there is nobody else exactly suitable in town, it all simmers
down to one or the other of these or Alfred. In my heart I knew that I
couldn't hesitate a minute--and in the flash of a second I _decided_.
Of course I love Alfred, and I'll take him gladly and be the wife he has
waited for all these six lonely years. I'll make everything up to him,
if I have to diet to keep thin for him the rest of my life. Probably
I shall have that very thing to do, and I get weak at the idea. Before
I burn this book I'll have to copy it all out and be chained to it for
life. At the thought my heart dropped like a sinker to my toes; but I
hauled it up to its normal place with picturing to myself how Alfred
would look when he saw me in that old blue muslin remade into a Rene
wonder. However, my old heart would show a strange propensity for
sinking down into my slippers without any reason at all. Tears were even
coming into my eyes when Tom suddenly came over the fence and picked me
and the heart up together and put us into an adventure of the first
water.
"Molly," he said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a
jolly, strolling, German band up at the hotel; and we're going to have
an evening's gaiety. Get into a pretty dress, and don't keep me
waiting."
"Tom!" I gasped.
"Oh, don't spoil sport, Moll! You said you would wake up this town, and
now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I went to a party
with you, and I'm not going to wait any longer. Everybody is there, and
they can't all have Miss Clinton."
That settled it--I couldn't let a visiting girl be worn out with
attention. Of course, I had planned to make a dignified debut under my
own roof, backed up by the presence of ancestral and marital rosewood,
silver and mahogany, as a widow should; but _duty_ called me to
de-weed myself amidst the informality of an impromptu _soirée_ at the
little town hotel. And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weeded
to some purpose and flowered out to still more. I never do anything
by halves.
In that--that--trousseau Madame Rene had made me there was one, what
she called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the
cheque it called for. It was of lawn as transparent as a cobweb, real
lace and tiny delicious incrustations of embroidery. It fitted in lines
that melted into curves, had enticements in the shape of a long sash and
a dazzling breast-knot of shimmery blue, the colour of my eyes, and I
looked new-born in it.
I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about pads in my
hair, now that they are out of fashion, for I've got lots of my own left
in consequence of not wearing other people's. It clings and coils to my
head just anyhow, so that it looks as if I had spent an hour on it. That
made me able to be ready to go down to Tom in only ten minutes over the
time he gave me.
I stopped on next to the bottom step in the wide old hall and called Tom
to turn out the light for me, as Jane had gone out.
I have turned out that light lots of times, but I felt it best to let
Tom see me in a full light when we were alone. It is well I did! At
first it stunned him--and it is a compliment to any woman to stun Tom
Pollard. But Tom doesn't stay stunned long.
"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you
are one lovely dream. Your cheeks are peaches under cream, your eyes are
blue forget-me-nots, and your mouth a red blossom. Come on before I lose
my head looking at you." I didn't know whether I liked that or not, and
turned down the light quickly myself and went to the gate hurriedly. Tom
laughed and behaved himself.
Everybody in town was at the hotel, and everybody was nice to me, girls
and all. There is a bunch of lovely posy girls in this town, and they
were all in full flower. Most of the men were a few years younger than
I. I have been friends with them for always, and they know how I dance.
I didn't even get near enough to the wall to know it was there, though
I was conscious of Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson sitting on it at one
end of the room, and every time I passed them I flirted with them until
I won a smile from them both. I wish I could be sure of hearing Mrs.
Johnson tell Aunt Adeline all about it.
And it was well I did come to save Ruth Clinton from a dancing death,
for she is as light as a feather and sails on the air like thistle-down.
I felt sorry for Tom, for when he was with me he could see her, and when
he was with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I verily
believe it was from being really jealous that he asked little Pet Buford
to dance with him--by mistake as it were.
And how I did enjoy it all, every single minute of it! My heart beat
time to the music as if it would never tire of doing so. Miss Clinton
and I exchanged little laughs and scraps of conversation in between
times, and I fell deeper and deeper in love with her. Every pound I have
melted and frozen and starved off me has brought me nearer to her, and
I just _can't_ think about how I am going to hurt her in a few days
now. I put the thought from me, and so let myself swing out into
thoughtlessness with one of the boys.
This has been a happy night, in which I betrothed myself to Alfred,
though he doesn't know it yet. I am going to take it as a sign that life
for us is going to be brilliant and gay, and full of laughter and love.
I haven't had Billy in my arms to-day, and I don't know how I shall ever
get myself to sleep if I let myself think about it. His sleep-place on
my breast aches. It is a comfort to think that the great big God
understands the women folk that He makes, even if they don't understand
themselves.
Leaf VI.
Conflagration.
Most parties are just bunches of selfish people who go off in the
corners and have good times all by themselves; but in Hillsboro it is
not that way. Everybody that is not invited helps the hostess get ready
and have nice things for the others, and sometimes I think they really
have the best time of all.
This morning Aunt Bettie came up my front steps before breakfast
with a large basketful of things for my dinner, and I wondered what
I would have collected to be served to those people by the time all my
neighbours had made their prize contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and
Jane a half-hour to unpack her things and set them in the refrigerator
and on the pantry shelves. One was a plump fruit-cake that had been
keeping company, in a tight box, with other equally rich cakes ever
since the New Year. It was ripe, or smelt so. It made me feel very
hungry.
A little later Jane was exclaiming over a two-year-old ham that had been
simmered in some wonderful liquor and larded with egg dressing, when
Mrs. Johnson came in and began to unpack her basket.
I had planned to have a lot of food and had ordered some things up from
a caterer in the city, but I telegraphed to them not to deliver them
until the next day, even if they did spoil. How could I use smelts when
Mrs. Wade had sent me word that she was going to bake some brook trout
by a recipe of the judge's grandmother's? Mrs. Hampton Buford had let
me know about two fat little summer turkeys she was going to stuff with
chestnuts, and roast fowl seemed foolish eating beside them. But when
the little bit of a baby pig, roasted whole with an apple in its mouth,
looking too frisky and innocent for worlds with his little baked tail
curled up in the air, arrived from Mrs. Caruthers Cain, I went out into
the garden and laughed at the idea of having spent money for lobsters.
When I got back in the kitchen things were well under way, everything
smelling grand, and Aunt Bettie in full swing matching up my dinner
guests.
"Nobody in this town could suit me better than Pet Buford for a
daughter-in-law, and I believe I'll have all the east rooms done up with
blue chintz for her. I think that would be the best thing to set off her
blue eyes and fair hair," she was saying as she cut orange peel into
strips.
"You've planned the refurnishing of that east wing to suit the style of
nearly every girl in Hillsboro since Tom put on long trousers, Bettie
Pollard, and they are just as they have been for fifteen years since you
did up the whole house," said Mrs. Johnson as she poured a wine-glass
half full from one bottle and added a tablespoonful from another.
"Well, I think he is really interested now from the way he spent most of
his time with her down at the hotel the other night, and I have hopes
I never had before. Now, Molly, do put him between you and her, sort of
cornered, so he can't even see Ruth Clinton. She is too old for him."
And Tom's mother looked at me over the orange-peel as to a confederate.
"Humph, I'd like to see you or Molly or any woman 'corner' Tom Pollard,"
said Mrs. Johnson with a wry smile as she tasted the concoction in the
wine-glass.
"I have to put him at the end of the table because he is my kinsman and
the only host I've got at present, Aunt Bettie," I said regretfully.
I always take every chance to rub in Tom's and my relationship on Aunt
Bettie, so that she won't notice our friendliness.
"I'd put John Moore at the head of the table if I were you, Molly
Carter, because he's about the only man you've invited that has got
any sense left since you and that Clinton girl took to going about
Hillsboro. He's a host of steadiness in himself, and the way he ignores
all you women, who would run after him if he would let you, shows what
he is. He has my full confidence," and as she delivered herself of this
judgment of Dr. John, Mrs. Johnson drove in all the corks tight and
began to pound spice.
"He's not out of the widower-woods yet, Caroline," said Aunt Bettie with
her most speculative smile. "I have about decided on him for Ruth since
the judge has taken to following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does.
But don't any of you say a word, for John's very timid, and I don't
believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. He
doesn't see a woman as anything but a patient at the end of a spoon, and
mighty kind and gentle he does the dosing of them, too. Just the other
day--dearie me, Jane, what has boiled over now?" And in the excitement
that ensued I escaped to the garden.
Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Dr. John; he doesn't see a woman, and
there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realise
that he had always been like that, and I told myself that there was no
reason in the world why my heart should beat in my slippers on that
account. Still I don't see why Ruth Clinton should have her head
literally thrown against that stone wall, and I wish Aunt Bettie
wouldn't. It seemed like a desecration even to try to match-make him,
and it made me hot with indignation all over. I dug so fiercely at the
roots of my phlox with a trowel I had picked up that they groaned so
loud I could almost hear them. I felt as if I must operate on something.
And it was in this mood that Alfred's letter found me.
It had a surprise in it, and I sat back on the grass and read it with my
heart beating like a hammer. He was leaving Paris the day he had posted
it, and he was due to arrive in London almost as soon as it did, just
any hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from London immediately to
Hillsboro" he had written in words that fairly sung themselves off the
paper. I was frightened--so frightened that the letter shook in my
hands, and with only the thought of being sure that I might be alone for
a few minutes with it, I fled to the garret.
Surely no woman ever in all the world read such a letter as that, and no
wonder my breath almost failed me. It was a love-letter in which the
cold paper was turned into a heart that beat against mine, and I bowed
my head over it as I wetted it with tears. I knew then that I had taken
his coming back lightly; had fussed over it and been silly-proud of it;
while not _really_ caring at all. All that awful reducing my waist
measure seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me; he wouldn't
have minded if I weighed five hundred pounds, I felt sure. He loved
me--really, really, really; and I had sat and weighed him with a lot of
men who were nothing more than amused by my chatter, or taken with my
beauty, and who wouldn't have known such love if it were shown to them
through a telescope.
I reached into a trunk that stood just beside me and took out a box that
I hadn't looked into for years. His letters were all there, and his
photographs, that were very handsome. I could hardly see them through
my tears, but I knew that they were dim in places with being cried over
when I had put them away years ago after Aunt Adeline decided that I was
to be married. I kissed the poor little-girl cry-spots; and with that a
perfect flood of tears rose to my eyes--but they didn't fall, for there,
right in front of me, stood a more woe-stricken human being than I could
possibly be, if I judged by appearances.
"Molly, Molly," gulped Billy, "I am so ill I'm going to die here on the
floor," and he sank into my arms.
"Oh, Billy, what is the matter?" I gasped and gave him a little
terrified shake.
"Mamie Johnson did it--poked her finger down her throat and mine, too,"
he wailed against my breast. "We was full of things people gived us to
eat and couldn't eat no more. She said if we did that with our fingers
it would make room for some more then. She did it, and I'm going to die
dead--dead!
"No, no, pet; you'll be all right in a second. Stay quiet here in your
Molly's lap and you will be well in just a few minutes," I said with a
smile I hid in his yellow mop as I kissed the drake-tail kiss-spot.
"Where's Mamie?" I thought to ask with the greatest apprehension.
"In the garden eating cup-cake Jane baked hot for both of us," he
answered, snuggling close and much comforted.
"Don't ever, ever do that again, Billy," I said, giving him both a hug
and a shake. "It's piggy to eat more than is good for you and then still
want more. What would your father say?"
"Father isn't no good, and I don't care what he says," answered Billy
with spirit. "He don't play no more, and he don't laugh no more, and he
don't eat no more hardly, too. I'm not going to live in that house with
him more'n two days longer. I want to come over and sleep in your bed
and have you to play with me, Molly."
"Don't say that, darling, ever again," I said as I bent over him. "Your
father is the best man in the world, and you must never, never leave
him."
"I 'spect I will, when I get big enough to kill a bear," answered Billy
decidedly. "I say, do you think Mamie saved even a little piece of that
cake? I 'spect I had better go see," and he slipped out of my arms and
was gone before I could hold him.
It is a lonely house across the garden with the big and the tiny man
in it all by themselves! And tears, from another corner of my heart
entirely, rose to my eyes at the thought, but they, too, never fell, for
I heard Mrs. Johnson calling, and I had to run down quick and see what
new delicacy had arrived for my party.
Somehow I didn't enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner, and when I was
ready I stood before the mirror and looked at myself a long time. I was
very tall and slim and--well, I suppose I might say regal in that
amethyst crêpe with the soft rose-point, but I looked to myself about
the eyes as I had been doing for years. And to-night that Rene triumph
made me feel no different from one of Miss Hettie Primm's conceptions
that I had been wearing for ages with indifference and total lack of
style. I shrugged my shoulder with what I thought was sadness, though it
felt a trifle like temper, too, and went on down into the garden to see
if any of my flowers had a cheer-up message for me.
But it was a bored garden I stepped into just as the last purple flush
of day was being drunk down by the night. The tall white lilies laid
their heads over on my breast and went to sleep before I had said a word
to them, and the nasturtiums snarled round my feet until they got my
slippers stained with green. Only Billy's bachelor's-buttons stood up
stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew. I felt
cheered at the sight of them, and bent down to gather a bunch of them to
wear, even if they did clash with my amethyst draperies, when an amused
smile, that was done out loud, came from the path just behind me.
"Don't gather them all to-night, Mrs. Molly," said Dr. John teasingly,
as he stooped beside me. "Leave a few for--for the others." I waked up
in a half-second, and so did all those prying flowers, I felt sure.
"I was just gathering them for place bouquets for--for the girls," I
said stupidly as I moved over a little nearer to him. Why it is that the
minute that man comes near me I get warm and comfortable and stupid, and
as young as Billy, and bubbly and sad and happy and cross, is more than
I can say, but I do. I never possibly know how to answer any remark that
he may happen to make, unless it is something that makes me lose my
temper. His next remark was the usual spark.
"Better give them the run of the garden--alone, Mrs. Molly. No chance
for them unless you do," he said laughingly, "or the buttons, either,"
he added under his breath so I could just hear it. I wish Mrs. Johnson
could have heard how soft his voice lingered over that little
half-sentence. She is so experienced she could have told me if it
meant--but, of course, he isn't like other men!
There are lots of questions I'm going to ask Alfred after I'm married
to him.
"Oh, you Molly," came a hail in Tom's voice from the gate, just as I was
making up my mind to try and think of something to wither the doctor
with, and he and Ruth Clinton came up the front walk to meet us. I
wondered why I was having a party in my house when being alone in my
garden with just a neighbour was so much more interesting, but I had to
begin to enjoy myself right off, for in a few minutes all the rest came.
I don't think I ever saw my house look so lovely before. Mrs. Johnson
had put all the flowers out of hers and Mrs. Cain's garden all over
everything, and the table was a mass of soft pink roses that were
shedding perfume and nodding at one another in their most society
manner. There is no glimmer in the world like that which comes from
really old polished silver and rosewood and mahogany, and one's
great-great-grandmother's hand-woven linen feels like Oriental silk
across one's knees.
Suddenly I felt very stately and granddamey and responsible as I looked
at them all across the roses and sparkling glass. They were lovely
women, all of them, and could such men be found anywhere else in the
world? When I left them all to go out into the big universe to meet the
distinctions that I knew my future husband would have for me, would I
sit at table with people who loved me like this? I saw Pet Buford say
something to Tom about me that I know was lovely from the way he smiled
at me; and the judge's eyes were a full cup for any woman to have
offered her. Then in a flash it all seemed to go to my head, and tears
rose to my eyes, and there I might have been crying at my own party if
I hadn't felt a strong warm hand laid on mine as it rested on my lap and
Dr. John's kind voice teased into my ears--"Steady, Mrs. Molly, there's
the loving-cup to come yet," he whispered. I hated him, but held on to
his thumb tight for half a minute. He didn't know what the matter really
was, but he understood what I needed. He always does.
And after that everybody had a good time, Jane and her nephew as much
as anybody, and I could see Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson peeping in the
pantry door, having the time of their lives, too.
That dinner was going like an airship on a high wind, when something
happened to tangle its tail feathers, and I can hardly write it for
trembling yet. It was a simple little telegram, but it might have been
nitro-glycerine on a tear for the way it acted. It was for me, but the
nephew handed it to Tom, and he opened it and, looking at me, he
solemnly read it out loud. It said--
"Arrived this noon. Have I your permission to come to Hillsboro
immediately? Answer. ALFRED."
It was dreadful! Nobody said a word, and Tom laid the telegram right
down in his plate, where it immediately began to soak up the dressing
of his salad. He was so white and shaky that Pet looked at him in
amazement, and then I am sure she had the good sense to find his hand
under the cloth and hold it, for his shoulder hovered against hers, and
the colour came back to his face as he smiled down at her. I don't
believe I'll ever get the courage to look at Tom again until he marries
Pet, which he'll do now, I feel sure.
And as for the judge and Ruth Clinton, I was glad they were sitting
beside each other, for I could avoid that side of the table with my eyes
until I had steadied myself a few seconds at least. The surprise made
the others I had been dining seem statues from the stone age, and only
Mr. Graves' fork failed to hang fire. His appetite is as strong as his
nerves, and Delia Hawes looked at his composure with the relief plain in
her eyes. Henrietta's smile in the judge's direction was doubtful. But
they were not all my lovers, and why that awful silence?
I couldn't say a word, and I am sure I don't know what I should have
done if it hadn't been for the doctor. He leaned forward, and his deep
eyes came out in their wonderful way and seemed to collect every pair of
eyes at the table, even the most astounded. We all held our breaths and
waited for him to speak.
"No wonder we are all stricken dumb at Mrs. Carter's telegram," he
said in his deep voice that commands everybody and everything, even the
terrors of birth and death. "The whole town will be paralysed at the
news that its most distinguished citizen is only going to give them two
days to get ready to receive him. I can see the panic the brass band
will have now getting the brass polished up, and I want to be the one
to tell Mayor Pollard myself, so as to suggest to him to have at least
a two-hour speech of welcome to hand out at the train. We'll make it a
great time for him when he lands in the old town."
* * * * *
Tom took Pet home early, and I hope they walked in the moonlight for
hours. Tom is the kind of man that any pretty girl who is sympathetic
enough in the moonlight could comfort for anything. I'm not at all
worried about him, but--
The hour I sat in the garden and talked to Judge Wade must have brought
grey hairs to my head if it was daylight and I could see them. Ruth
Clinton had said good-bye with the loveliest haunted look in her great
dark eyes, and I had felt as if I had killed something that was alive.
Dr. John had been called from his coffee to a patient and had gone with
just a friendly word of good night, and the others had at last left the
judge and me alone--also in the moonlight, which I wished in my heart
somebody would put out.
To-night he looked me in the face and told me how to marry, and I'm not
sure yet that I won't do as he says. Of course I'm in love with Alfred,
but if he wants me he had better get me away quick before the judge
makes all his arrangements. A woman loves to be courted with poems and
flowers and deference, but she's wonderfully apt to marry the man who
says, "Don't argue, but put on your bonnet and come with me."
Oh, I'm crying, crying in my heart, which is worse than in my eyes, as
I sit and look across my garden, where the cold moon is hanging low over
the tall trees behind the doctor's house and his light in his room is
burning warm and bright. They are right: _he_ doesn't care if I am
going away for ever with Alfred. His quick eulogy of him, and the lovely
warm look he poured over poor frightened me at his side, told me that
once and for all. Still, we have been so close together over his baby,
and I have grown so dependent on him for so many things, that it cuts
into me like a hot knife that he shouldn't care if he lost me--even for
a neighbour. I shouldn't mind not having _any_ husband if I could
always live close by him and Billy like this, and if I married Judge
Wade--_no, I don't like that!_ Of course, I'm going with Alfred,
now that an accident has made me announce the fact to the whole town
before he even knows it himself, but wherever I go, that light in the
room with that lonely man is going to burn in my heart. I hope it will
throw a glow over Alfred!
Leaf VII.
Heart Agonies.
I have suffered this day until I want to lay my face down against the
hem of His garment and wait in the dust for Him to pick me up. I shall
never be able to do it myself, and how He's going to do it I can't see,
but He will.
That dinner-party last night was bad enough, but to-day's been worse.
I didn't sleep until long after daylight and then Jane came in before
eight o'clock with a letter for me that looked like a state document.
I felt in my trembly bones that it was some sort of summons affair from
Judge Wade; and it was. I looked into the first paragraph and then
decided that I had better get up and dress and have a cup of coffee and
a single egg before I tried to read it.
Incidental to my bath and dressing, I weighed and found that I had lost
all four of those last surplus pounds and two more in three days. Those
two extra pounds might be construed to prove that I was in love, but
exactly with whom I was utterly unprepared to say. I didn't even enjoy
the thinness, but took a kind of already married look in my glass and
tried to slip the egg past my bored lips and get myself to chew it down.
It was work; and then I took up the judge's letter, which also was work
and more of it.
He started at the beginning of everything, that is at the beginning of
the tuberculosis girl, and I cried over the pages of her as if she had
been my own sister. At the tenth page we buried her and took up Alfred,
and I must say I saw a new Alfred in the judge's bouquet-strewn
appreciation of him, but I didn't want him as bad as I had the day
before, when I read his own new and old letters, and cried over his old
photographs. I suppose that was the result of some of what the judge
manages the juries with. He'd be apt to use it on a woman, and she
wouldn't find out about it until it was too late to be anything but mad.
Still when he began on me at page sixteen I felt a little better, though
I didn't know myself any better than I did Alfred when I got to page
twenty.
What I am, is just a poor foolish woman, who has a lot more heart than
she can manage with the amount of brains she got with it at birth.
I'm not any star in a rose-coloured sky, and I don't want to inspire
anybody; it's too heavy an undertaking. I want to be a healthy, happy
woman and a wife to a man who can inspire himself and manage me. I want
to marry a thin man, and when I get to be thirty I want my husband to
want me to be as large as Aunt Bettie, but not let me. An inspiration
couldn't be fat, and I'm always in danger from hot cakes and chicken
gravy.
However, if I should undertake to be all the things Judge Wade said in
that letter he wanted me to be to him, I should soon be skin and bones
from mental and physical exercise. Still, he does live in Hillsboro, and
I won't let myself know how my heart aches at the thought of leaving my
home--and other things. It's up in my throat, and I seem always to be
swallowing it, the last few days.
All the men who write me letters seem to get themselves wound up into
a sky rocket and then let themselves explode in the last paragraph, and
it always upsets my nerves. I was just about to begin to cry again over
the last words of the judge, when the only bright spot in the day so far
suddenly happened. Pet Buford ran in with the pinkest cheeks and the
brightest eyes I had seen since I looked in the mirror the night of the
dance. She was in an awful hurry.
"Molly dear," she said with her words literally falling over themselves,
"Tom says you would give us some of your dinner left-overs to take for
lunch in the car, for we are going to take a run down to Hedgeland to
see some awfully fine cattle he has heard will be in the market there.
I don't want to ask mother, in case she won't let me go; and his mother,
if he asked her, will begin to talk about us. Tom said I was to come to
you, and you would understand and arrange it all quickly. He sent his
love and all sorts of other messages. Isn't he fond of a joke?" And we
kissed and laughed and packed a basket, and kissed and laughed again for
good-bye. I felt amused and happy for a few minutes--and also deserted.
It's a very good thing for a woman's conceit to find out how many of her
lovers are just make-believes. I may have needed Tom's deflection.
Anyway, I don't know when I ever was so glad to see anybody as I was
when Mrs. Johnson came in the front door. A woman who has proved to her
own satisfaction that marriage is a failure is at times a great tonic to
other women. I needed a tonic badly this morning and I got it.
"Well, from all my long experience, Molly," she said as she seated
herself and began to hem a tea-cloth with long steady stabs, "husbands
are just like sticks of candy in different jars. They may look a little
different, but they all taste alike, and you soon get tired of them.
In two months you won't know the difference in being married to Alfred
Bennett and Mr. Carter, and you'll have to go on living with him maybe
fifty years. Luck doesn't strike twice in the same place, and you can't
count on losing two husbands. Alfred's father was Mr. Johnson's first
cousin and had more crotchets and worse. He had silent spells that
lasted a week, and altogether gave his family a bad time of it. Alfred
looks very much like him."
"Mrs. Johnson," I said after a minute's silence, while I had decided
whether or not I had better tell her all about it. If a woman's in love
with her husband you can't trust her to keep a secret, but I decided to
try Mrs. Johnson. "I really am not engaged exactly to Alfred Bennett,
though I suppose he thinks so by now if he has got the answer to that
telegram. But--but something has made me--made me think about Judge
Wade--that is he--what do you think of him, Mrs. Johnson?" I concluded
in the most pitifully perplexed tone of voice.
"All alike, Molly; all as much alike as peas in a pod; all except John
Moore, who's the only exception in all the male tribe I ever met! His
marrying once was just accidental and must be forgiven him. She fell in
love with him while he was attending her when she had typhoid, when his
back was turned as it were, and it was simple kindness in him that made
him marry her when he found out how it was with the poor thing. There's
not a woman in this town who could marry that wouldn't marry him at the
drop of his hat--but, thank goodness, that hat will never drop, and I'll
have one sensible man to comfort and doctor me down into my old age.
Now, just look at that! Mr. Johnson's come home here in the middle of
the morning, and I'll have to get that old paper I hunted out of his
desk for him last night. I wonder how he came to forget it!"
It's funny how Mrs. Johnson always knows what Mr. Johnson wants before
he knows himself and gets it before he asks for it!
As she went out of the gate the postman came in, and at the sight of
another letter my heart slunk off into my slippers, and my brain seemed
about to back up in a corner and refuse to work. In a flash it came to
me that men oughtn't to write letters to women very much--they really
don't plough deep enough, they just irritate the top soil. I took this
missive from Alfred, counted all the fifteen pages, put it out of sight
under a book, looked out of the window and saw Mr. Johnson shooed off
down the street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's car go chugging
hurriedly in the garage, and then my spirit turned itself to the wall
and refused to be comforted. I tried my best, but failed to respond to
my own remonstrances with myself, and tears were slowly gathering in a
cloud of gloom when a blue gingham, romper-clad sunbeam burst into the
room.
"Git your night-gown and your tooth-bresh quick, Molly, if you want to
pack 'em in my trunk!" he exclaimed with his eyes dancing and a curl
standing straight up on the top of his head, as it has a habit of doing
when he is most excited. "You can't take nothing but them 'cause I'm
going to put in a rope to tie the whale with when I ketch him, and it'll
take up all the rest of the room. Git 'em quick!"
"Yes, lover, I'll get them for you, but tell Molly where it is you are
going to sail off with her in that trunk of yours?" I asked, dropping
into the game as I have always done with him, no matter what game of my
own pressed when he called.
"On the ocean where the boats go 'cross and run right over a whale.
Don't you remember you showed me them pictures of spout whales in a
book, Molly? Father says they comes right up by the ship and you can
hear 'em shoot water and maybe a iceberg, too. Which do you want to
ketch' most, Molly, a iceberg or a whale?" His eager eyes demanded
instant decision on my part of the nature of capture I preferred. My
mind quickly reverted to those two ponderous and intense epistles I had
got within the hour, and I lay back in my chair and laughed until I felt
almost merry.
"The iceberg, Billy, every time," I said at last. I just can't manage
whales, especially if they are ardent, which word means intense. I like
_icebergs_, or I think I should if I could catch one."
"I don't believe you could, Molly, but maybe father will let you put a
rope and a long hook in his trunk to try with, if your clothes go into
mine. His is a heap the biggest anyway, and Nurse Tilly said he ought to
put my things in his, but I cried, and then he went upstairs and got out
that little one for me. Come and see 'em."
"What do you mean, Billy?" I asked, while a sudden fear shot all over me
like lightning. "You're just playing go-away, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you and
father is going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here.
Father ast me about it this morning, and I told him all right, and you
could come with us if you was good. He said couldn't I go without you if
you was busy and couldn't come, and I told him you would put things down
and come if I said so. Won't you, Molly? It won't be no fun without you,
and you'd cry all by yourself with me gone." His little face was all
drawn up with anxiety and sympathy at my lonely estate with him out of
it, and a cry rose up from my heart with a kind of primitive savagery at
what I felt was coming down upon me.
Without waiting to take him with me, or think, or do anything but feel
deadly savage anger, I hurried across the garden and into Dr. Moore's
surgery, where he was just taking off his gloves and dust-coat.
"What do you mean, John Moore, by daring, daring to think you can go and
take Billy away from me?" I demanded, looking at him with what must have
been such fear and madness in my face that he was startled as he came
close to the table against which I leaned. His face had grown white and
quiet at my attack, and he waited to answer for a long horrible minute
that pulled me apart like one of those inquisition machines they used to
torture women with when they didn't know any better modern way to do it.
"I didn't know Bill would tell you so soon, Mrs. Molly," he said at last
gently, looking past me out of the window into the garden. "I was coming
over just as soon as I got back from this call to talk with you about
it, even if it did seem to intrude Bill's and my affairs into a day
that--that ought to be all yours to be--be happy in. But Bill, you see,
is no respecter of--of other people's happy days if he wants them in his."
"Billy's happy days are mine and mine are his, and he has the heart
not to leave me out even if you would have him!" I exclaimed, a sob
gathering in my heart at the thought that my little lover hadn't even
taken in a situation that would separate him from me across an ocean.
"Bill is too young to understand when he is--is being bereaved, Molly,"
he said, and still he didn't look at me. "I have been appointed a
delegate to attend the Centennial Congress in Paris the middle of next
month--and somehow I--feel a bit run down lately and I thought I would
take the little chap and--have--have a _Wanderjahr_. You won't need him
now, Mrs. Molly, and I couldn't go without him, could I?" The sadness in
his voice would have killed me if I hadn't let it madden me instead.
"Won't need Billy any more!" I exclaimed with a rage that made my voice
literally scorch past my lips. "Was there ever a minute in his life that
I haven't needed Billy? How dare you say such a thing to me? You are
cruel, cruel, and I have always known it, cold and cruel like all other
men who don't care how they wring the life-blood out of women's hearts,
and are willing to use their children to do it with. Even the law
doesn't help us poor helpless creatures, and you can take our children
and go with them to the ends of the earth and leave us suffering. I have
gone on and believed that you were not like what the women say all men
are, and that you cared whether you hurt people or not, but now I see
that you are just the same, and you'll take my baby away if you want
to--and I can do nothing to prevent it--nothing in the wide world--I am
completely and absolutely helpless--you coward, you!"
When that awful word, the worst word that a woman can use to a man, left
my lips, a flame shot up into his eyes that I thought would burn me up,
but in a half second it was extinguished by the strangest thing in the
world--for the situation--a perfect flood of mirth. He sat down in his
chair and shook all over, with his head in his hands, until I saw tears
creep through his fingers. I had calmed down now so suddenly that I was
about to begin to cry in good earnest when he wiped his eyes and said
with a low laugh in his throat--
"The case is yours, Molly, settled out of court, and the
'possession-nine-points-of-the-law clause' works in some cases for a
woman against a man. Generally speaking, anyway, the pup belongs to the
man who can whistle him down, and you can whistle Bill from me any day.
I'm just his father, and what I think or want doesn't matter. You had
better take him and keep him!"
"I intend to," I answered haughtily, uncertain as to whether I had
better give in and be agreeable, or stay prepared to cry in case there
was further argument. But suddenly a strange diffidence came into his
eyes, and he looked away from me as he said in queer hesitating words--
"You see, Mrs. Molly, I thought, from now on, your life wouldn't have
exactly a place for Bill. Have you considered that you have trained him
to demand you all the time and all of you? How would you manage
Bill--and--and other claims?"
And if there is a contagious thing in this world it is embarrassment. I
never felt anything worse in all my life than the shame that swept over
me in a great hot wave when that look came into his eyes and made me
realise just exactly what I had been saying to him, about what, and how
I had said it. I stood perfectly still, shook all over like a leaf, and
wondered if I would ever be able to raise my eyes from the ground. A
dizzy nauseated feeling for myself rose up in me against myself, and I
was just about to turn on my heels and leave him, I hoped for ever, when
he came over and laid his hand on my shoulder.
"Molly," he said in a voice that might have come down from heaven on
dove wings, "you can't for a moment feel or think that I don't realise
and appreciate what you have been to the motherless little chap, and for
life I am yours at command, as he is. I really thought it would be a
relief to you to have him taken away from you for a little while just
now, and I still think it is best; but not unless you consent. You shall
have him back whenever you are ready for him, and at all times both he
and I are at your service to the whole of our kingdoms. Just think the
matter over, won't you, and decide what you want me to do?"
Something in me died for ever, I think, when he spoke to me like that.
He's not like other men, and there aren't any other men on earth but
him! All the rest are just nowhere. And I'm not anything myself. There's
no excuse for my living, and I wish I wasn't so healthy and likely to go
on doing it. It was all over, and there was nothing left for me to live
for, and before I could stop myself I buried my face in my hands.
"Billy asked me to go with him on this awful whale-hunt!" I sobbed
out to comfort myself with the thought that somebody did care for me,
regardless of just how I was further embarrassing and complicating
myself in the affairs of the two men I had thought I owned and was now
finding out that I had to give up. I wish I had been looking at him,
for I felt him start, but he said in his big friendly voice that is so
much--and never enough for me--
"Well, why not you and Alfred come along and make it a family party, if
that is what suits Bill, the boss?"
If men would just make an end of women's hearts in a businesslike way,
it would be so much kinder of them. Why do they prefer to use dull
weapons that mash the life out slowly? Everything is at an end for me
to-night, and that blow did it. It was a horrible cruel thing for him
to say to me! I know now that I have been in love with John Moore for
longer than I can tell, and that I'll never love anybody else, and that
also I have offered myself to him and have had to be refused at least
twice a day for a year. A widow can't say she didn't understand what she
was doing, even to herself, but-- My humiliation is complete, and the
only thing that can make me ever hold up my head is to puzzle him by--by
_happily_ marrying Alfred Bennett--and quick.
Of course, he must suspect how I feel about him, for two people couldn't
both be so ignorant as not to see such an enormous thing as my love for
him is, and I was the blind one. But he must never, never know that I
ever realised it, for he is so good that it would distress him. I must
just go on in my foolish way with him until I can get away. I'll tell
him I'm sorry I was so indignant to-night, and say that I think it will
be fine for him to take my Billy away from me with him. I must smile at
the idea of having my very soul amputated, insist that it is the only
thing to do, and pack up the little soul in a cabin trunk with a smile.
Just smile, that is all! Life demands smiles from a woman even if she
must crush their perfume from her own heart; and she generally has them
ready.
Oh, Molly, Molly, is it for this you came into the world, twice to give
yourself without love? What difference does it make that your arms are
strong and white if they can't clasp him? Why are your eyes blue pools
of love if they are not for his questioning?
Yes, I know God is very tender with a woman, and I think He understands;
so, if she crept very close to Him and caught at His sleeve to steady
herself, He would be kind to her until she had the courage to go on
along her own steep way. Please, God, never let him find out, for it
would hurt him to have hurt me!
Leaf VIII.
Melted.
Some days are like the miracle flowers that open in the garden from
plants you didn't expect to bloom at all. I might have been born, lived
and died without having this one come into my life, and now that I have
had it I don't know how to write it, except in the crimson of blood, the
blue of flame, the gold of glory--and a tinge of light green would well
express the part I have played. But it is all over at last and--
Ruth Clinton was the unfolding of the first hour-petal, and I got a
glimpse of a heart of gold that I feel dumb with worship to think of.
She's God's own good woman, and He made her what she is. I wish I could
have borne her, or she me, and the tenderness of her arms was a
sacrament. We two women just stood aside with life's artifices and
concealments and let our own hearts do the talking.
She said she had come because she felt that if she talked with me I
might be better able to understand Alfred when he came, and that she had
seen that the judge was very determined, and she thoroughly recognised
his force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the document
to read. I suppose it was dishonourable, but I needed her protection
from it. I'm glad she had the strength of mind to walk with a head high
in the air to the fire and burn it up. Anything might have happened if
she hadn't. And even now I feel that only my marriage vows will close up
the case for the judge--even yet he may-- But when Ruth had got done
with Alfred, she had wiped Judge Wade's appreciation of him completely
off my mind and destroyed it in tender words that burned us both worse
than Jane's fire burned the letter. She did me an awfully good service.
"And so you see, you lovely woman, you, do you not, that you were for
him, as a tribute to his greatness, and it is given to you to fulfil a
destiny?" She was so beautiful as she said it that I had to turn my eyes
away, but I felt as I did when those solemn "_let-not-man-put-asunder_"
words were spoken over me by Mr. Raines, our minister. It made me
frightened, and before I knew it I had poured out the whole truth to her
in a perfect cataract of words. The truth always acts on women as some
hitherto untried drug, and you can never tell what the reaction is going
to be. In this case I was stricken dumb and found it hard to see.
"Oh, dear heart," she exclaimed as she reached out and drew me into her
lovely gracious arms, "then the privilege is all the more wonderful for
you, as you make some sacrifice to complete his life. Having suffered
this, you will be all the greater woman to understand him. I accept my
own sorrow at his hands willingly, as it gives me the larger sympathy
for his work, though he will no longer need my personal encouragement as
he has for years. In the light of his love, this lesser feeling for Dr.
Moore will soon pass away and the accord between you will be complete."
This was more than I could stand, and, feeling less than a worm, I
turned my face into her breast and wailed. Now who would have thought
that girl could dance as she did?
By this time I was in such a solution of grief that I would soon have
had to be sopped up with a sponge if Pet hadn't run in all bubbling
over. Happiness has a habit of not even acknowledging the presence of
grief, and Pet didn't seem to see our red noses, crushed draperies and
generally damp atmosphere.
"Molly," she said with a deliciously young giggle, "Tom says you are to
send him two guineas to spend getting the brass band to polish up before
the six o'clock train, by which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent a
guinea already to induce them to clean up their uniforms, and it cost
him five pounds to bail the cornettist out of gaol for roost robbing. He
says I am to tell you that, as this is your festivity, you ought at
least to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for me, and here's the
kiss he told me to put on your left ear!"
"I suppose you delivered that kiss straight from where he gave it to
you, Pettie dear," I had the spirit to say as I went over to the desk
for my purse.
"Why, Molly, you know me better than that!" she exclaimed from behind a
perfect rose cloud of blushes.
"I know Tom better than I do you," I answered as she fled with the money
in her hand. I looked at Ruth Clinton and we both laughed. It is true
that a broader sympathy is one of the by-products of sorrow, and a week
ago I might have resented Pet to a marked degree instead of giving her
the money and a blessing.
"I'm going quick, Molly, with that laugh between us," Ruth said as she
rose and took me into her arms again for just half a second, and before
I could stop her she was gone.
She met Billy toiling up the front step with a long piece of rusty iron
gas-pipe, which took off an inch of paint as it bumped against the
doorway. She bent down and kissed the back of his neck, which theft was
almost more than I could stand and apparently more than Billy was
prepared to accept.
"Go away, girl," he said in his rudest manner; "don't you see I'm busy?"
I met him in the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar on
my parquet floor. He was hot, perspiring and panting, but full of
triumph.
"I found it, Molly, I found it!" he exclaimed as he let the heavy pipe
drop almost on the bare pink toes. "You can git a hammer and pound the
end sharp and bend it so no whale we ketch can git away for nothing. You
and father kin put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and I
can carry father's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick, and
I'll help you do it!" The pain in my breast was almost more than I could
bear.
"Lover," I said as I knelt down by him in the dim old hall and put my
arms around him as if to shield him from some blow I couldn't help being
aimed at him, "you wouldn't mind much, would you, if just this time your
Molly couldn't go with you? Your father is going to take good care of
you and--and maybe bring you back to me some day."
"Why, Molly," he said, flaring his astonished blue eyes at me, "'tisn't
me to be took care of! I'm not going to leave you here for maybe a a
bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and father gone.
'Sides, father isn't very useful and maybe wouldn't help me hold the
rope right to keep the whale from gitting away. He don't know how to do
like I tell him like you do."
"Try him, lover, and maybe he will--will learn to--" I couldn't help
the tears that came to stop my words.
"Now you see, Molly, how you'd cry with that kiss-spot gone," he said
with an amused, manly little tenderness in his voice that I had never
heard before, and he cuddled his lips against mine in almost the only
voluntary kiss he had given me since I had got him into his ridiculous
little trousers under his blouses. "You can have most a hundred kisses
every night if you don't say no more about not going, and make that
whale-hook for me quick," he coaxed against my cheek.
Oh, little lover, little lover, you didn't know what you were saying
with your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy little hand burned the
sleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I was
powerless to defend myself. You are mine, you are, you _are!_ You
are soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit.
I don't know how I managed to answer Mrs. Johnson's call from my front
gate, but I sometimes think that women have a torture-proof clause in
their constitutions.
She and Aunt Bettie had just come up the street from Aunt Bettie's
house, and the Pollard cook was following them with a large basket, in
which were packed things Aunt Bettie was contributing towards the
entertainment of the distinguished citizen. Mr. Johnson is Alfred's
nearest kinsman in Hillsboro, and, of course, he is to be their guest
while he is in town.
"He'll be feeding his eyes on Molly, so he'll not even know he's eating
my Kensington almond pudding with Thomas's old port in it," teased Aunt
Bettie with a laugh as I went across the street with them.
"There's going to be a regular epidemic of love affairs in Hillsboro, I
do believe," she continued in her usual strain of sentimental
speculation. "I saw Mr. Graves talking to Delia Hawes in front of the
draper's an hour ago, as I came out from looking at the blue chintz to
match Pet for the west wing, and they were both so absorbed they didn't
even see me. That was what might have been called a conflagration dinner
you gave the other night, Molly, in more ways than one. I wish a spark
had set off Benton Wade and Henrietta, too. Maybe it did, but is just
taking fire slowly."
I think it would be a good thing just to let Aunt Bettie blindfold every
unmarried person in this town and marry them to the first person they
touch hands with. It would be fun for her, and then we could have peace
and apparently as much happiness as we are going to have anyway. Mrs.
Johnson seemed to be in somewhat the same state of mind as I found
myself.
"Humph," she said as we went up the front steps, "I'll be glad when you
are married and settled, Molly Carter, so the rest of this town can
quiet down into peace once more, and I sincerely hope every woman under
fifty in Hillsboro who is already married will stay in that state until
she reaches that age. But come on in, both of you, and help me get this
marriage feast ready, if I must! The day is going by on greased wheels,
and I can't let Mr. Johnson's crotchets be neglected, Alfred or no
Alfred."
And from then on for hours and hours I was strapped to a torture wheel
that turned and turned, minute after minute, as it ground spice and
sugar and bridal meats and me relentlessly into a great suffering pulp.
Could I ever in all my life have hungered for food and been able to get
it past the lump in my throat that grew larger with the seconds? And if
Alfred's pudding tasted of the salt of Dead Sea fruit this evening, it
was from my surreptitious tears that dripped into it.
It was late, very late, before Mrs. Johnson realised it and shooed me
home to get ready to go to the train along with the brass band and all
the other welcomes.
I hurried all I could, but for long minutes I stood in front of my
mirror and questioned myself. Could this slow, pale, dead-eyed, slim,
drooping girl be the rollicking girl of a Molly who had looked out of
that mirror at me one short week ago? Where were the wings on her heels,
the glint in her curls, the laugh on her mouth, and the light in her
eyes?
Slowly at last I lifted the blue muslin, twenty-three-inch waist shroud
and let it slip over my head and fall slimly around me. I was fastening
the buttons behind and was fumbling the next one into the buttonhole
when I suddenly heard laughing excited voices coming up the side street
that ran just under my west window. Something told me that Alfred had
come by the five-down train instead of the six-up, and I fairly reeled
to the window and peeped through the venetian blind.
They were all in a laughing group around him, with Tom as master of
ceremonies, and Ruth Clinton was looking up into his face with an
expression I am glad I can never forget. It killed all my regrets on the
score of his future.
It took two good looks to take him all in, and then I must have missed
some of him, for, all in all, he was so large that he stretched your
eyes to behold him. He's grown seven feet tall, I don't know how many
pounds he weighs, and I don't want anybody ever to tell me!
I had never thought enough about evolution to know whether I believed in
it and woman's suffrage. But I know now that millions of years ago a
great, big, distinguished hippopotamus stepped out of the woods and
frightened one of my foremothers so that she turned and fled through a
thicket that almost tore her limb from limb, right into the arms of her
own mate. That's what I did! I caught that blue satin belt and hooked it
together with one hand and ran through my garden right over a bed of
savage tiger-lilies and flung myself into John Moore's surgery, slammed
the door and backed up against it.
"He's come!" I gasped. "And I'm frightened to death, with nobody but you
to run to. Hide me quick! He's large and coarse-looking, and I
_hate_ him!". I was that deadly cold you can get when fear runs
into your very marrow and congeals the blood in your arteries. "Quick,
quick!", I panted.
He must have been as pale as I was, and for an eternity of a second he
looked at me, then suddenly heaven shone from his eyes and he opened his
arms to me with just one word.
"Here?"