Horace Chase Part 34

Malachi laughed. He admired Horace Chase greatly, but he had long ago despaired of making him pay heed to certain distinctions. "I think I won't meddle with the other churches if you will only help along ours,"

he answered; "our Church school here, and my mountain missions."

"All right; we'll boom them all," said Chase, liberally. "There might be a statue of Daniel Boom in the park, near the casino," he went on in a considering tone; "he lived near here for some time. Though, come to think of it, his name was Boone, wasn't it?--just missed being appropriate! Well, at any rate, we can have a statue of Colonel David Vance, and of Dr. Mitch.e.l.l, who is buried on Mitch.e.l.l's Peak. And of David L. Swain."

"Have you any especial sculptor in view?" inquired Malachi, who was not without a slight knowledge of art.

"No. But we could get a good marble-cutter to take a contract for the lot; that would be the easiest way, I reckon."

Malachi could not help being glad, revengefully glad, that at least there was no mention of Maud Muriel. Only the day before the sculptress had greeted him with her low-breathed "Manikin!" as he came upon her in a narrow winding lane which he had incautiously entered. A man may be as dauntless as possible (so he told himself), but that does not help him when his a.s.sailant is a person whom he cannot knock down--"a striding, scornful, sculping spinster!" "She had better look out!" he had thought, angrily, as he pa.s.sed on.

His morning ride over, Chase took a fresh horse after lunch, and went down to Crumb's. Nicholas Willoughby, struck by the wildness and beauty of these North Carolina mountains, had built a cottage on the high plateau above Crumb's, the plateau which Chase had named "Ruth's Terrace" several years before. During the preceding summer, Nicholas had occupied this house (which he called The Lodge) for a month or more.

This year, having lent it to some friends for August and September, he had asked Chase to see that all was in order before their arrival.

While Chase was off upon this errand, Ruth and Dolly were to go for a drive along the Swannanoa. But first Dolly stopped at Miss Mackintosh's barn; her latest work was on exhibition there. This was nothing less than a colossal study in clay of the sculptress's own back from the nape of the neck to the waist; Dolly, who had already had a view of this masterpiece, was now bringing Ruth to see it, with the hope that it would make her laugh. It did. Her old mirth came back for several minutes as she gazed at the rigidly faithful copy of Maud Muriel's shoulder-blades, her broad, gaunt shoulders, and the endless line of conscientiously done vertebrae adorning her spine.

Mrs. Kip was there, also looking. "Maud Muriel, how could you _see_ your back?" she inquired.

"Hand-gla.s.s," replied the sculptress, briefly.

"Well, to me it looks hardly proper," commented Mrs. Kip; "it's so--_exposed_. And then, without any head or arms, it seems so mutilated; like some awful thing from a battle-field! I don't think it's necessary for lady artists to study anatomy, Maud Muriel; it isn't expected of them; it doesn't seem quite feminine. Why don't you carve angels? They _have_ no anatomy, and, of course, they need none. Angels, little children, and flowers--I think those are the most appropriate subjects for _lady_ artists, both in sculpture and in painting." Then, seeing Maud Muriel begin to snort (as Dolly called the dilation of the sculptress's nostrils when she was angry), Mrs. Kip hurried on, changing the subject as she went. "But sculpture certainly agrees with you, Maudie dear. I really think your splendid hair grows thicker and thicker! You could always earn your living (if you had occasion) by just having yourself photographed, back-view, with your hair down, and a placard--'Results of Barry's Tricopherus.' Barry would give _anything_ to get you."

Maud Muriel was not without humor, after her curt fashion. "Well, Lilian," she answered, "_you_ might be 'Results of Packer's Granulated Food,' I'm sure. You look exactly like one of the prize health-babies."

"Oh no!" cried Mrs. Kip, in terror, "I'm not at _all_ well, Maud Muriel.

Don't tell me so, or I shall be ill directly! Neither Evangeline Taylor nor I are in the _least_ robust; we are _both_ pulmonic."

At this moment Evangeline herself appeared at the door, accompanied by her inseparable Miss Green, a personage who was the pride of Mrs. Kip's existence. This was not for what she was, but for her t.i.tle: "Evangeline Taylor and her governess"--this to Mrs. Kip seemed almost royal. She now hurried forward to meet her child, and, taking her arm, led her away from the torso to the far end of the barn, where two new busts were standing on a table, one of them the likeness of a short-nosed, belligerent boy, and the other of a dreary, sickly woman. "Come and look at these _sweet_ things, darling."

And then Ruth broke into a second laugh.

"Mrs. Chase," said Maud Muriel, suddenly, "I wish _you_ would sit to me."

"No. Ask her husband to sit," suggested Dolly. "You know you like to do men best, Maud Muriel."

"Well, generally speaking, the outlines of a man's face are more distinct," the sculptress admitted. "And yet, Dolly, it doesn't always follow. For, generally speaking, women--"

"Maud Muriel, I am _never_ generally speaking, but always particularly,"

Dolly declared. "Do Mr. Chase. He will come like a shot if you will smoke your pipe; he has been dying to see you do it for three years."

"I have given up the pipe; I have cigars now," explained Maud, gravely.

"But I do not smoke here; I take a walk with a cigar on dark nights--"

"Sh! Don't talk about it now," interrupted Mrs. Kip, warningly. For Evangeline Taylor, having extracted all she could from the "sweet things," was coming towards them. There was a good deal to come. Her height was now six feet and an inch. Her long, rigid face wore an expression which she intended to be one of deep interest in the works of art displayed before her; but as she was more shy than ever, her eyes, as she approached the group, had a suppressed nervous gleam which, with her strange facial tension, made her look half-mad.

"Dear child!" said the mother, fondly, as Ruth, to whom the poor young giant was pa.s.sionately devoted, made her happy by taking her off and talking to her kindly, apart. "She has the true Taylor eyes. So profound! And yet so dove-like!" Here the head of Achilles Larue appeared at the open door, and Lilian abandoned the Taylor eyes to whisper quickly, "Oh, Maud Muriel, do cover that dreadful thing up!"

"Cover it up? Why--it is what he has come to see," answered the intrepid Maud.

The ex-senator inspected the torso. "Most praise-worthy, Miss Mackintosh. And, in execution, quite--quite fairish. Though you have perhaps exaggerated the anatomical effect--the salient appearance of the bones?"

"Not at all. They are an exact reproduction from life," answered Maud, with dignity.

Lilian Kip, still apprehensive as to the influence of the torso upon a young mind, sent her daughter home to play "battledoor and shuttlec.o.c.k, dear" (Evangeline played "battledoor and shuttlec.o.c.k, dear," every afternoon for an hour with her governess, to acquire "grace of carriage"); Larue was now talking to Ruth, and Lilian, after some hesitation, walked across the barn and seated herself on a bench at its far end (the only seat in that resolute place); from this point she gazed and gazed at Larue. He was as correct as ever--from his straight nose to his finger-tips; from his smooth, short hair, parted in the middle, to his long, slender foot with its high in-step. Dolly, tired of standing, came after a while and sat down on the bench beside the widow.

They heard Achilles say, "No; I decided not to go." Then, a few minutes later, came another "No; I decided not to do that."

"All his decisions are _not_ to do things," commented Dolly, in an undertone. "When he dies, it can be put on his tombstone: 'He was a verb in the pa.s.sive voice, conjugated negatively.' Why, what's the matter, Lilian?"

"It's nothing--I am only a little agitated. I will tell you about it some time," answered Mrs. Kip, squeezing Dolly's hand. Ruth, tired of the senator, looked across at Dolly. Dolly joined her, and they took leave.

Maud Muriel followed them to the door. "I _should_ like to do your head, Ruth."

"No; you are to do Mr. Chase's," Dolly called back from the phaeton.

"She has been in love with your husband from the first," she went on to her sister, as she turned her pony's head towards the Swannanoa. And then Ruth laughed a third time.

But though Dolly thus made sport, in her heart there was a pang. She knew--no one better--that her sister's face had changed greatly during the past three months. Now that his wife was well again, Chase himself noticed nothing. And to the little circle of North Carolina friends Ruth was dear; they were very slow to observe anything that was unfavorable to those they cared for. To-day, however, Maud Muriel's unerring scent for ugliness had put her (though unconsciously) upon the track, and, for the first time in all their acquaintance, she had asked Ruth to sit to her. It was but a scent as yet; Ruth was still lovely. But the elder sister could see, as in a vision, that with several years more, under the blight of hidden suffering, her beauty might disappear entirely; her divine blue eyes alone could not save her if her color should fade, if the sweet expression of her mouth should alter to confirmed unhappiness, if her face should grow so thin that its irregular outlines would become apparent.

Two hours later there was a tap at Miss Billy Breeze's door, at the Old North Hotel.

"Come in," said Miss Billy. "Oh, is it you, Lilian? I am glad to see you. I haven't been out this afternoon, as it seemed a little coolish!"

Mrs. Kip looked excited. "Coolish, Billy?" she repeated, standing still in the centre of the room. "Ish? _Ish?_ And I, too, have said it; I don't pretend to deny it. But it is over at last, and I am free! I have been--been different for some time. But I did not know _how_ different until this very afternoon. I met him at Maud Muriel's barn, soon after two. And I sat there, and looked at him and _looked_ at him. And suddenly it came across me that _perhaps_ after all I didn't care _quite_ so much for him. I was so nervous that I could scarcely speak, but I did manage to ask him to take a little stroll with me. For you see I wanted to be perfectly _sure_. And as he walked along beside me, putting down his feet in that precise sort of way he does, and every now and then saying 'ish'--like a great light in the dark, like a falling off of _chains_, I knew that it was at last at an end--that he had ceased to be all the world to me. And it was such an _enormous_ relief that when I came back, if there had been a circus or a menagerie in town, I give you my word I should certainly have gone to it--as a celebration! And then, Billy, I thought of _you_. And I made up my mind that I would come right straight over here and ask you--_Is_ he worth it? What has Achilles Larue ever done for either of us, Billy, but just snub, snub, snub? and crush, crush, crush? If you could only feel what a joy it is to have that tiresome old ache gone! And to just _know_ that he is hateful!" And Lilian, much agitated, took Billy's hand in hers.

But Billy, dim and pale, drew herself away. "You do him great injustice, Lilian. But he has never expected the ordinary mind to comprehend him.

Your intentions, of course, are good, and I am obliged to you for them.

But I am not like you; to me it is a pleasure, and always will be, as well as a constant education, to go on admiring the greatest man I have ever known!"

"Whether he looks at you or not?" demanded Lilian.

"Whether he looks at me or not," answered Billy, firmly.

"If you had ever been _married_, Wilhelmina, you would know that you could not go on forever living on _shadows_!" declared the widow as she took leave. "Shadows may be all very well. But we are human, after all, and we need _realities_." Having decided upon a new reality, her step was so joyous that Horace Chase, coming home from his long ride to Crumb's, hardly recognized her, as he pa.s.sed her in the twilight. At L'Hommedieu he found no one in the sitting-room but Dolly. "Ruth is resting after our drive," explained the elder sister. "I took her first to the barn to see Maud Muriel's torso, and that made her laugh tremendously. Well, is The Lodge in order?"

"Yes, it's all right; Nick's friends can come along as soon as they like," Chase answered.

"And are none of the Willoughbys to be there this summer?" Dolly went on.

"No; Nick has gone to Carlsbad--he isn't well. And Richard is off yachting. Walter has taken a cottage at Newport."

Dolly already knew this latter fact. But she wished to hear it again.

Rinda now appeared, ushering in Malachi Hill. The young clergyman was so unusually erect that he seemed tall; his face was flushed, and his eyes had a triumphant expression. He looked first at Dolly, then at Chase.

"I've done it!" he announced, dashing his clerical hat down upon the sofa. "That Miss Mackintosh has called me 'Manikin' once too often. She did it again just now--in the alley behind your house. And I up and kissed her!"

"You didn't," said Chase, breaking into a roaring laugh.

"Yes; I did. For three whole years and more, Mr. Chase, that woman has treated me with perfectly outrageous contempt. She has seemed to think that I was nothing at all, that I wasn't a man; she has walked on me, stamped on me, shoved me right and left, and even kicked me, as it were.

I have felt that I couldn't stand it _much_ longer. And I have tried to think of a way to take her down. Suddenly, just now, it came to me that nothing on earth would take her down quite so much as that. And so when she came out with her accustomed epithet, I just gave her a hurl, and did it! It is true I'm a clergyman, and I have acted as though I had kept on being only an insurance agent. But a man is a man after all, in spite of the cloth," concluded Malachi, belligerently.

"Oh, don't apologize," said Dolly. "It's too delicious!" And then she and Horace Chase, for once of the same mind, laughed until they were exhausted.