BROTHER AND SISTER
As he turned into Main Street he espied the figure of a woman
coming toward him from the direction of the public Square. She was
perhaps a hundred yards farther down the street and was picking
her way gingerly, mincingly, along the narrow path at the roadside.
His mind was so fully occupied with thoughts of a most disturbing
character that he paid no attention to her, except to note that
she was dressed in black and that in holding her voluminous skirt
well off the ground to avoid the mud-puddles, she revealed the
bottom of a white, beruffled petticoat.
His meditations were interrupted and his interest suddenly aroused
when he observed that she had stopped stock-still in the path.
After a moment, she turned and walked rapidly, with scant regard
for the puddles, in the direction from which she had come. Fifteen
or twenty paces down the road, she came to what was undoubtedly a
path or "short cut" through the wood. Into this she turned hastily
and was lost to view among the trees and hazel-brush.
He had recognized her,--or rather he had divined who she was. He
quickened his pace, bent upon overtaking her. Then, with the thrill
of the hunter, he abruptly whirled and retraced his steps. With the
backwoodsman's cunning he hastened over the ground he had already
traversed, chuckling in anticipation of her surprise when she found
him waiting for her at the other end of the "short cut."
He had noticed a path opening into the woods at a point almost
opposite his own house, and naturally assumed that it was the one
she was now pursuing in order to avoid an encounter with him. His
long legs carried him speedily to the outlet and there he posted
himself. He could hear her coming through the brush, although her
figure was still obscured by the tangle of wildwood; the snapping
of dead twigs under her feet; the scuffling of last year's leaves
on the path, now wet and plastered with mud and the slime of winter;
the swish of branches as she thrust them aside.
She emerged, breathless, into a little open spot, not twenty feet
away, and stopped to listen, looking back through the trees and
underbrush to see if she was being followed. Her skirts were drawn
up almost to the knees and pinched closely about her grey-stockinged
legs. He gallantly turned away and pretended to be studying the house
across the road. Presently he felt his ears burning; he turned to
meet the onslaught of her scornful, convicting eyes.
She had not moved. Her hands, having released the petticoat, were
clenched at her sides. Her cheeks were crimson, and her dark eyes,
peering out from the shade of the close-fitting hood of her black
bonnet, smouldered with wrath,--and, if he could have read them
better, a very decided trace of maidenly dismay.
"Ah, there you are," he cried, lifting his hat. "I was wondering
whether you would come out at this--"
"Can't you see I am trying to avoid you?" she demanded with extreme
frigidity.
"I rather fancied you were," said he easily. "So I hurried back
here to head you off. I trust you will not turn around and run the
other way, now that I have almost trapped you. Because if you do,
I shall catch up with you in ten jumps."
"I wish you would go away," she cried. "I don't want to see you,--or
talk to you."
"Then why did you leave word for me to come to your house to see
you?" he challenged. "I suspect you know by this time," she replied,
significantly.
He hesitated, regarding her with some uneasiness. "What do you
mean?" he fenced.
"Well, you surely know that it was my mother who wanted to see you,
and not I," she said, almost insolently. "Are you going to keep me
standing here in the mud and slush all day?"
"No, indeed," he said. "Please come out."
"Not until you go away."
"Why don't you want to talk to me? What have I done?"
"You know very well what you have done," she cried, hotly. "In the
first place, I don't like you. You have made it very unpleasant
for my mother,--who certainly has never done you any harm. In the
second place, I resent your interference in my affairs. Wait! Do
not interrupt me, please. Maybe you have not exactly interfered
as yet, but you are determined to do so,--for the honour of the
family, I suppose." She spoke scathingly. "I defy you,--and mother,
too. I am not a child to be--"
"I must interrupt you," he exclaimed. "I haven't the slightest idea
what you are talking about."
"Don't lie," she cried, stamping her foot. "Give me credit for a
little intelligence. Don't you suppose I know what mother wanted
to see you about? There! I can see the guilty look in your eyes.
You two have been putting your heads together, in spite of all the
ill-will you bear each other, and there is no use in denying it. I
am a naughty little girl and my big brother has been called in to
put a stop to my foolishness. If you--What are you laughing at,
Mr. Gwynne?" she broke off to demand furiously.
"I am laughing at you," he replied, succinctly. "You ARE like a
little girl in a tantrum,--all over nothing at all. Little girls in
tantrums are always amusing, but not always naughty. Permit me to
assure you that your mother and I have not discussed your interesting
affair with Mr. Lapelle. We talked of business mat--"
"Then," she cried, "how do you happen to know anything about Mr.
Lapelle and me? Aha! You're not as clever as you think you are. That
slipped out, didn't it? Now I know you were discussing my affairs
and nothing else. Well, what is the verdict? What are you going to
do to me? Lock me in my room, or tie me hand and foot, or--Please
stay where you are. It is not necessary to come any nearer, Mr.
Gwynne."
He continued his advance through the thicket, undeterred by the
ominous light in her eyes. She stood her ground.
"I think we had better talk the matter over quietly,--Viola," he
said, affecting sternness. "We can't stand here shouting at each
other. It is possible we may never have another chance to converse
freely. As a matter of fact, I do not intend to thrust myself upon
you or your mother. That is understood, I hope. We have nothing
in common and I daresay we can go our own ways without seriously
inconveniencing one another. I want you to know, however, that I
went to that house over there this afternoon because I thought you
wanted to consult with me about something. I was prepared to help
you, or to advise you, or to do anything you wanted me to do. You
were not there. I felt at first that you had played me a rather
shabby trick. Your mother,--my step-mother,--got me there under false
pretences, solely for the purpose of straightening out a certain
matter in connection with the--well, the future. She doubtless
realized that I would not have come on her invitation, so she used
you as a decoy. In any event, I am now glad that I saw her and
talked matters over. It does not mean that we shall ever be friendly,
but we at least understand each other. For your information I will
state that your mother did not refer to the affair at Striker's,
nor did I. I know all about it, however. I know that you went out
there to meet Lapelle. You planned to run away with him and get
married. I may add that it is a matter in which I have not the
slightest interest. If you want to marry him, all well and good. Do
so. I shall not offer any objection as a brother or as a counsellor.
If you were to ask for my honest opinion, however, I should--"
"I am not asking for it," she cried, cuttingly.
"--I should advise you to get married in a more or less regular
sort of way in your mother's home."
"Thank you for the advice," she said, curtly. "I shall get married
when and where I please,--and to whom I please, Mr. Gwynne."
"In view of the fact that I am your brother, Viola, I would suggest
that you call me Kenneth."
"I have no desire to claim you as a brother, or to recognize you
as one," said she.
He smiled. "With all my heart I deplore the evil fate that makes
you a sister of mine."
She was startled. "That--that doesn't sound very--pretty," she
said, a trifle dashed.
"The God's truth, nevertheless. At any rate, so long as you have
to be my sister, I rejoice in the fact that you are an extremely
pretty one. It is a great relief. You might have turned out to
be a scarecrow. I don't mind confessing that last night I said to
myself, 'There is the most beautiful girl in all the world,' and I
can't begin to tell you how shocked I was this morning when Striker
informed me that you were my half-sister. He knocked a romantic
dream into a cocked hat,--and--But even so, sister or no sister,
Viola, you still remain beyond compare the loveliest girl I have
ever seen."
There was something in his eyes that caused her own to waver,--something
that by no account could be described as brotherly. She looked
away, suddenly timid and confused. It was something she had seen
in Barry Lapelle's eyes, and in the eyes of other ardent men. She
was flustered and a little distressed.
"I--I--if you mean that," she said, nervously, "I suppose I--ought
to feel flattered."
"Of course, I mean it,--but you need not feel flattered. Truth is
no form of flattery."
She had recovered herself. "Who told you about Barry Lapelle and
me?" she demanded.
"You mean about last night's adventure?" he countered, a trifle
maliciously.
She coloured. "I suppose some one has--Oh, well, it doesn't matter.
I sha'n't ask you to betray the sneak who--"
"Tut, tut, my dear Viola! You must not--"
"Don't call me your dear Viola!"
"Well, then, my dear sister,--surely you cannot expect me to address
you as Miss Gwyn?" in mild surprise.
"Just plain Viola, if you must have a name for me."
"That's better," said he, approvingly.
"Whoever told you was a sneak," she said, wrathfully. She turned
her face away, but not quickly enough to prevent his seeing her
chin quiver slightly.
"At any rate, it was not your mother," he said. "I have Striker's
permission to expose what you call his treachery. He thought it was
his duty to tell me under the circumstances. And while I am about
it, I may as well say that I think you conspired to take a pretty
mean advantage of those good and faithful friends. You deceived them
in a most outrageous manner. It wasn't very thoughtful or generous
of you, Viola. You might have got them into very serious trouble
with your mother,--who, I understand, holds the mortgage on their
little farm and could make it extremely unpleasant for them if she
felt so inclined."
She was staring at him in wide-eyed astonishment, her red
lips slightly parted. She could not believe her ears. Why, he was
actually scolding her! She was being reprimanded! He was calmly,
deliberately reproving her, as if she were a mischievous child!
Amazement deprived her momentarily of the power of speech.
"To be sure," he went on reflectively, "I can appreciate the extremities
to which you were driven. The course of true love was not running
very smoothly. No doubt your mother was behaving abominably.
Mothers frequently do behave that way. This young man of yours may
be,--and I devoutly hope he is,--a very worthy fellow, one to whom
your mother ought to be proud and happy to see you married. In
view of her stand in the matter, I will go so far as to say that
you were probably doing the right thing in running away from home
to be married. I think I mentioned to you last night that I am of
a very romantic nature. Lord bless you, I have lain awake many a
night envying the dauntless gentlemen of feudal days who bore their
sweethearts away in gallant fashion pursued by ferocious fathers
and a score or more of blood-thirsty henchmen. Ah, that was the way
for me! With my lady fair seated in front of me upon the speeding
palfrey, my body between her and the bullets and lances and bludgeons
of countless pursuers! Zounds! Odds blood! Gadzooks! and so forth!
Not any of this stealing away in the night for me! Ah, me! How
different we are in these prosaic days! But, even so, if I were you,
the next time I undertake to run away with the valiant Mr. Lapelle
I should see to it that he does his part in the good old-fashioned
way. And I should not drag such loyal, honest folk as Striker and
his wife into the business and then ride merrily off, leaving them
to pay the Piper."
His heart smote him as he saw her eyes fill with tears. He did not
mistake them for tears of shame or contrition,--far from it, he
knew they were born of speechless anger. He had hurt her sorely,
even deliberately, and he was overcome by a sudden charge of
compassion--and regret. He wanted to comfort her, he wanted to say
something,--anything,--to take away the sting of chastisement.
He was not surprised when she swept by him, her head high, her
cheeks white with anger, her stormy eyes denying him even so much
as a look of scorn. He stood aside, allowing her to pass, and remained
motionless, gazing after her until she turned in at her own gate
and was lost to view. He shook his head dubiously and sighed.
"Little Minda," he mused, under his breath. "You were my playmate
once upon a time,--and now! Now what are you? A rascal's sweetheart, if
all they say is true. Gad, how beautiful you are!" He was walking
slowly through the path, his head bent, his eyes clouded with
trouble. "And how you are hating me at this moment. What a devil's
mess it all is!"
His eye fell upon something white lying at the edge of the path
a few feet ahead. It was a neatly folded sheet of note paper. He
stood looking down at it for a moment. She must have dropped it as
she came through. It was clean and unsoiled. A message, perhaps,
from Barry Lapelle, smuggled to her through the connivance of a
friendly go-between,--the girl she had gone to visit, what was her
name? He stooped to pick it up, but before his fingers touched it
he straightened up and deliberately moved it with the toe of his
boot to a less exposed place among the bushes, where he would have
failed to see it in passing. Then he strode resolutely away without
so much as a glance over his shoulder, and, coming to the open
road, stepped briskly off in the direction of the public Square.
His conscience would have rejoiced had he betrayed it by secreting
himself among the bushes for a matter of five minutes,--quaint
paradox, indeed!--for he would have seen her steal warily, anxiously
into the thicket in search of the lost missive,--and he would have
been further exalted by the little cry of relief that fell from her
lips as she snatched it up and sped incontinently homeward, as if
pursued by all the eyes in Christendom.
As a matter of fact, it was not a letter from Barry to Viola. It
was the other way round. She had written him a long letter absolving
herself from blame in the contretemps of the night before, at the
same time confessing that she was absolutely in the dark as to how
her mother had found out about their plans. Suffice to say, she
HAD found out early in the evening and, to employ her own words,
"You know the result." Then she went on to say that, all things
considered, she was now quite sure she could never, never consent
to make another attempt.
"I am positive," she wrote, ingenuously, "that mother will relent
in time, and then we can be married without going to so much trouble
about it." Farther on she admitted that, "Mother is very firm about
it now, but when she realizes that I am absolutely determined to
marry you, I am sure she will give in and all will be well." At the
end she said: "For the present, Barry dear, I think you had better
not come to the house. She feels very bitter toward you after last
night. We can see each other at Effie's and other places. After
all, she has had a great sorrow and she is so very unhappy that I
ought not to hurt her in any way if I can help it. I love you, but
I also love her. Please be kind and reasonable, dear, and do not
think I am losing heart. I am just as determined as ever. Nothing
can change me. You believe that, don't you, Barry dear? I know how
impulsive you are and how set in your ways. Sometimes you really
frighten me but I know it is because you love me so much. You must
not do anything rash. It would spoil everything. I do wish you
would stay away from that awful place down by the river. Mother
would feel differently toward you, I know, if you were not there
so much. She knows the men play cards there for money and drink and
swear. I believe you will keep your promise never to touch a drop
of whiskey after we are married, but when I told her that she only
laughed at me. By this time you must know that my brother has come
to Lafayette. He arrived this morning. He knows nothing about what
happened last night but I am afraid mother will tell him when she
sees him to-day. It would not surprise me if they bury the hatchet
and join hands and try to make a good little girl out of me. I think
he is quite a prim young man. He spent the night at Striker's and
I saw him there. I must say he is good-looking. He is so good-looking
that nobody would ever suspect that he is related to me." She signed
herself, "Your loving and devoted and loyal Viola."
She had been unable to get the letter to him that day, and for
a very good reason. Her messenger, Effie Wardlow's young brother,
reached the tavern just in time to see Barry emerge, quite tipsy
and in a vile temper, arguing loudly with Jack Trentman and Syd
Budd, the town's most notorious gamblers.
The three men went off toward the ferry. The lad very sensibly
decided this was no time to deliver a love letter to Mr. Lapelle,
so forthwith returned it to the sender, who, after listening bleakly
to a somewhat harrowing description of her lover's unsteady legs
and the direction in which they carried him, departed for home fully
convinced that something dreadful was going to happen to Barry and
that she would be to blame for it.
Halfway home she decided that her mother was equally if not more to
blame than she, and, upon catching sight of her lordly, self-satisfied
brother, acquitted herself of ALL responsibility and charged everything
to her meddling relatives. Her encounter with the exasperating
Kenneth, however, served to throw a new and most unwelcome light
upon the situation. It WAS a shabby trick to play upon the Strikers.
She had not thought of it before. And how she hated him for making
her think of it!
The first thing she did upon returning to the house with the recovered
letter was to proceed to the kitchen, where, after reading it over
again, she consigned it to the flames. She was very glad it had
not been delivered to Barry. The part of it referring to the "place
down by the river" would have to be treated with a great deal more
firmness and decision. That was something she would have to speak
very plainly about.
By this time she had reached the conclusion that Barry was to blame
for THAT, and that nothing more terrible could happen to him than
a severe headache,--an ailment to which he was accustomed and which
he treated very lightly in excusing himself when she took him to
task for his jolly lapses. "All red-blooded fellows take a little
too much once in a while," he had said, more than once.