A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties Part 19

After Rita had told her story, Roger's chatty style of conversation suddenly ceased. He made greater efforts to please than before, but the effort seemed to impair his power of pleasing. Rita, longing to be alone, had resolved many times to return to the house, but before acting upon that resolve she heard a voice calling, "Rita!" and a moment afterward a pair of bright blue eyes, a dimpled rosy face, and a plump little form constructed upon the partridge model came in sight and suddenly halted.

"Oh, excuse me," said our little wood-nymph friend, Sukey Yates. "I did not know I was intruding. Your mother said you had come in this direction, and I followed."

"You are not intruding," replied Rita. "Come and sit by me. Mr.

Williams, Miss Yates."

Miss Yates bowed and blushed, stammered a word or two, and sat by Rita on the rocky bench. She was silent and shy for a moment, but Williams easily loosened her tongue and she went off like a magpie. Billy used to say that Sukey was the modern incarnation of the ancient and immortal "Chatterbox."

After Sukey's arrival, Rita could be alone, and an hour pa.s.sed before she returned to the house.

That evening Billy Little took supper with Mrs. Bays, and Rita, considering Williams her father's guest, spent most of the evening on the sycamore log with the bachelor heart.

"Dic gave me the ring again," she said, holding out her hand for inspection. Billy took the hand and held it while he said:--

"It's pretty there--pretty, pretty."

"Yes," she responded, looking at the back of her hand, "it's very pretty. It was good of you--but you need not be frightened; I'm not going to thank you. Where do you suppose he is at this moment?"

"I don't know," answered Billy. "I suppose he's between Pittsburg and New York."

"I had a letter from him at Pittsburg two weeks ago," said Rita; "but I have heard nothing since. His work must be very hard. He has no time to think of me."

"He probably finds a moment now and then for that purpose," laughed Billy.

"Oh, I don't mean that he doesn't think of me! Of course he does that all the time. I mean that he must have little time for writing."

"You must feel very sure of him when you say he thinks of you all the time. How often have you thought of him since he left?" asked Billy.

"Once," replied the girl, smiling and blushing.

"Do you mean all the time?" queried Billy.

She nodded her head. "Yes, all the time. Oh, Billy Little, you won't mind if I tell you about it, will you? I must speak--and there is no one else."

"What is it you want to say, Rita?" he asked softly.

"I hardly know--perhaps it is the great change that has taken place within me since the night of Scott's social and the afternoon I shot Doug Hill. I seem to be hundreds of years older. I must have been a child before that night."

"You are a child now, Rita."

"Oh, no," she replied, "trouble matures one."

"But you are not in trouble?"

"N-o--" she answered hesitatingly, "but--but this is what I want to say.

Tell me, Billy Little, do you think anything can come between Dic and me? That is the thought that haunts me all the time and makes me unhappy."

"Do you feel sure of Dic?" asked Billy.

"Indeed, I do," she replied; "I am as sure of him as I am of myself."

"How about that fellow in there?" asked Billy, pointing toward the house with his thumb.

"How? In what way?" inquired the girl.

"Don't you find him interesting?" asked Billy.

For reply she laughed softly. The question was not worth answering. The bachelor heart had felt a strong twinge of jealousy on Williams's account, because it knew that with wealth, an attractive person, and full knowledge of the world, Williams would, in the long run, prove a dangerous rival to any man who was not upon the field. The fact that Rita dismissed him with a laugh did not entirely rea.s.sure the bachelor heart. It told only what was already known, that she loved Dic with all the intensity of her nature. But Billy also knew that many a girl with such a love in her heart for one man had married another. Rita, he feared, could not stand against the domineering will of her mother; and, should Williams ply his suit, Billy felt sure he would have a stubborn, potent ally in the hard Chief Justice. There was, of course, an "if,"

but it might easily be turned into a terrible "is"--terrible for Billy, Dic, and Rita. Billy had grown used to the thought that Rita would some day become Dic's wife, and after the first spasm of pain the thought had brought joy; but any other man than Dic was a different proposition, and Billy's jealousy was easily and painfully aroused. He endured a species of vicarious suffering while Dic was not present to suffer for himself.

Soon he began to long for Dic's return that he might do his own suffering.

Billy's question concerning Williams had crystallized Rita's feeling that the "fellow in there" was "making up" to her, and when she returned to the house that evening, she had few words for Roger.

Monday Rita was unusually industrious during the day, but the evening seemed long. She was not uncivil to her father's guest, but she did not sit by him on the edge of the porch as she had done upon the first evening of his visit. He frequently came to her side, but she as frequently made an adroit excuse to leave him. She did not dislike him, but she had found him growing too attentive. This girl was honest from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and longed to let Williams understand that she was the property of another man to whom she would be true in the spirit and in the letter.

Tuesday morning the guests departed. Mrs. Bays urgently invited Williams to return, and he, despite Rita's silence, a.s.sured his hostess that he would accept her invitation. The Indianapolis project had been agreed upon, provided Bays could raise the money. If that could be done, the new firm would begin operations January first. That afternoon Rita went to the step-off and looked the Indianapolis situation in the face. It stared back at her without blinking, and she could evolve no plans to evade it. Dic would return in November--centuries off--and she felt sure he would bring help. Until then, Indianapolis, with the figures of her mother and Williams in the background, loomed ominously before her vision.

Williams's second visit was made ostensibly to Rita's father. The third, two weeks later, was made openly to her father's daughter. It was preceded by an ominous letter to Rita requesting the privilege of making the visit to her. Rita wished to answer at once by telling him that she could not receive him, but Rita's mother thought differently.

"Say to him," commanded Mrs. Bays, "that you will be pleased to see him.

He is a fine young man with a true religious nature. I find that he has been brought up by a G.o.d-fearing mother. I would not have you receive him because he is rich, but that fact is nothing against him. I can't for the life of me understand what he sees in you, but if he--" she stopped speaking, and her abrupt silence was more emphatic than any words could have been. Rita saw at once the drift of her mother's intentions and trembled.

"But I would not be pleased to see him, mother," the girl responded pleadingly; "and if I write to him that I would, I should be telling a lie."

"I tell a lie," cried the stern old woman in apparent anguish. "Oh, my heart!" She sank to a chair, and gasping between her words, continued, "Oh, that I should have lived to be told by my own child that I'm a liar!" Her head fell backward, and one would have supposed dissolution near. Mr. Bays ran to fetch a cup of water, and Rita stood in deep trouble by her mother's side fanning her. "A liar! a liar!" moaned the dying woman.

"I did not say that, mother. I said--"

"A liar! yes, I'm a liar. My own daughter that I have loved and cherished in my own bosom, and have toiled and suffered for all my life, says I'm a liar."

"Mother, I protest, dear mother, hear me," began Rita, but mother interrupted her by closing her eyes and supposedly her ears as if she were on the point of pa.s.sing over. The only signs of life in the old woman were her gasps for breath. The girl, who had no deceit in her heart, could not recognize it in others, least of all was she able to see it in her own mother, whose transcendent virtues had been dinned into her ears ever since she had possessed those useful organs. Out of her confiding trustfulness came a deadly fear for her mother's life. She fell on her knees and cried: "Forgive me, mother dear, forgive me. I was wrong. I'll write whatever you wish."

This surrender, I know, was weak in our heroine; but her words restored her mother to life and health, and Rita rejoiced that she had seen her duty and had performed it in time.

Justice was soon again in equilibrium, and Rita, amid a flood of tears, wrote to Williams, "I shall be pleased to see you," and he came.

She did not treat him cordially, though she was not uncivil, and Williams thought her reticence was due to modesty,--a mistake frequently made by self-sufficient men. The girl felt that she was bound by her letter, and that she could not in justice mistreat him. It was by her invitation he had come. He could not know that she had been forced to write the letter, and she could not blame him for acting upon it. She was relieved that he attempted no flattery, and felt that surely her lack of cordiality would prevent another visit. But she was mistaken. He was not a man easily rebuffed.

A fortnight later Mrs. Bays announced to her daughter the receipt of a letter from Mr. Williams, stating that he would be on hand next Sat.u.r.day evening.

"He is trying to induce his father to loan us the money," said Mrs.

Bays, "and your father and I want you to be particularly kind to him.

Your father and I have suffered and worked and toiled for you all your life. Now you can help us, and you shall do so."

"Mother, I can't receive him. I can't talk to him. It will be wicked. It would not be honest; I can't, I can't," sobbed poor Rita. "I don't know much, but I know it is wrong for me to receive visits from Mr. Williams when there can be nothing between--between--"

"Why can't there be anything between you and Williams, girl? Why?"

demanded Mrs. Bays.