A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties Part 33

"Get the whiskey," he cried. "I'll fetch the water," and a few seconds thereafter Billy was dashing cold water in Rita's face. The great brown eyes opened, and the half-conscious girl, thinking that Dic was still leaning over her, lifted her arms and gave poor old Billy a moment in paradise, by entwining them about his neck. He enjoyed the delicious sensation for a brief instant, and said:--

"I'm Billy Little, Rita, not Dic." Then the eyes opened wider as consciousness returned, and she said:--

"I thought Dic was here."

"Yes--yes, Rita," said Dic, "I am here. I was by your side a moment since. I came so suddenly upon you that you fainted; then Billy Little took my place."

"And you thought I was Dic," said Billy, laughingly.

"I'm glad I did," answered the girl with a rare smile, again placing her arms about his neck and drawing his face down to hers; "for I love you also very, very dearly." Billy's heart sprang backward thirty years, and thumped away astonishingly. At that moment Mrs. Bays returned with the whiskey, and Billy prepared a mild toddy.

"The doctor said she must not have whiskey while the fever lasts,"

interposed Mrs. Bays.

"We'll try it once," replied Billy, "and if it kills her, we'll not try it again. Here, Rita, take a spoonful of this."

Dic lifted her head, and Billy administered the deadly potion, while the humbug lover stood by, confidently expecting dire results, but too much subdued by the situation to interpose an objection.

Soon Rita asked that two pillows be placed under her head, and, sitting almost upright in bed, declared she felt better than for several days.

Mrs. Bays knew that Dic's motive had been pure and spotless, but she had no intention of relinquishing the advantage of her false position. She had for months been seeking an excuse to turn Dic from her house, and now that it had come, she would not lose it. Going to Rita's side, she again took up her theme:--

"No wonder my poor sick daughter fainted when she was insulted. I can't tell you, Mr. Little, what I saw when I entered this room."

"Oh, mother," cried Rita, "you were wrong. You do not understand. When I saw Dic, I held up my arms to him, and he came to me because I wanted him."

"_You_ don't know, my daughter, you don't know," interrupted Mrs. Bays.

"I would not have you know. But I will protect my daughter, my own flesh and blood, against insult at the cost of my life, if need be. I have devoted my life to her; I have toiled and suffered for her since I gave her birth, and no man shall enter my house and insult her while I have strength to protect her." She gathered force while she spoke, and talked herself into believing what she knew was false, as you and I may easily do in very important matters if we try.

"My dear woman," said Billy, in surprise bordering on consternation, "you don't mean you wish us to believe that you believe that Dic insulted Rita?"

"Yes, I saw him insult her. I saw it with my own eyes."

"In what manner?" demanded Dic.

He was beginning to grasp the meaning of her accusation, and was breathing heavily from suppressed excitement. Before she could reply he fully understood, and a wave of just anger swept over him.

"Old woman, you know you lie!" he cried. "I revere the tips of Rita's fingers, and no unholy thought of her has ever entered my mind. _I_ insult her! You boast of your mother's love. You have no love for her of any sort. You have given her nothing but hard, cold cruelty all her life under the pretence--perhaps belief--that you were kind; but if your love were the essence of mother love, it would be as nothing compared to my man's love for the girl who will one day be my wife and bear my children."

The frightened old woman shrank from Dic and silently took a chair by the window. Then Dic turned to the bed, saying:--

"Forgive me, Rita, forgive me. I was almost beside myself for a moment.

Tell me that you know I would not harm you."

"Of course you would do me no harm," she replied sobbing. "You could not. You would be harming yourself. But how could you speak so violently to my mother? You were terrible, and I was frightened. How could you?

How could you?"

"I was wild with anger--but I will explain to you some day when you are my wife. I will not remain in this house. I must not remain, but I will come to you when you are well. You will write me, and I will come. You want me, don't you, Rita?"

"As I want nothing else in all the world," she whispered, taking his face between her hands.

"And you still love me?" he asked.

"Ah," was her only reply; but the monosyllable was eloquent.

Dic at once left the house, but Billy Little remained.

"I never in all my life!" exclaimed Mrs. Bays, rising from her chair.

Billy did not comprehend the exact meaning of her mystic words, but in a general way supposed they referred to her recent experiences as unusual.

"You were mistaken, Mrs. Bays," he said. "Dic could not offer insult to your daughter. You were mistaken."

"I guess I was," she replied; "I guess I was, but I never, I never in all my life!"

The old woman was terribly shaken up; but when Billy took his departure, her faculties returned with more than pristine vigor, and poor, sick Rita, as usual, fell a victim to her restored powers of invective.

Mrs. Bays shed no tears. The salt in her nature was not held in solution, but was a rock formation from which tears could not easily be distilled.

"I have nursed you through sickness," she said, turning upon Rita with an indignant, injured air. "I have toiled for you, suffered for you, prayed for you. I have done my duty by you if mother ever did duty by child, and now I am insulted for your sake; but I bear it all with a contrite spirit because you are my daughter, though G.o.d's just hand is heavy upon me. There is one burden I will bear no longer. You must give up that man--that brute, who just insulted me."

"He did not insult you, mother."

"He did, and nothing but G.o.d's protecting grace saved me from bodily harm in my own house while protecting my daughter's honor."

"But, mother," cried Rita, weeping, "you are wrong. If there was any wrong, it was I who did it."

"You don't know! Oh, that I should live to see what I did see, and endure what I have endured this day for the sake of an ungrateful daughter--oh, sharper than a serpent's tooth, as the good book says--to be insulted--I never! I never!"

Rita, of course, had been weeping during her mother's harangue; but when the old woman took up her meaningless refrain, "I never! I never!" the girl's sobs became almost convulsive. Mrs. Bays saw her advantage and determined not to lose it.

"Promise me," demanded this tender mother, rudely shaking the girl, "promise me you will never speak to him again."

Rita did not answer--she could not, and the demand was repeated. Still Rita answered not.

"If you don't promise me, I'll leave your bedside. I'll never speak your name again."

"Oh, mother," sobbed the girl, "I beg you not to ask that promise of me.

I can't give it. I can't. I can't."

"Give me the promise this instant, or I'll disown you. Do you promise?"

The old woman bent fiercely over her daughter and waited stonily for an answer. Rita shrank from her, but could not resist the domineering old creature, so she whispered:--

"Yes, mother, I promise," and the world seemed to be slipping away from her forever.