Joyce of the North Woods Part 16

"Restlessness." Gaston's thought ran along with the cruder one. "Its restlessness is at times--unbearable, unless--one is very young and happy."

"But I am young--and happy." Joyce spoke lingeringly and her eyes grew fixed upon the heart of the coals. "Still I would hate it--and be afraid of it. It's beautiful--but it's awful. I don't like awful things. I like to look up at that brave old mountain, and know--it will always be the same no matter what happens down below."

Suddenly Gaston felt old, very old, beside this girl near him with her intuitive soul-stretches and her hampered life.

"So the mountain is your favourite picture, Joyce?"

A grandfatherly tone crept into his voice, and the caressing hand touched the round, pale outline of cheek and chin with the a.s.surance of age and superiority--but the girl tingled under it.

"No," she said, almost breathlessly, "I like _that_ best of all." And she pointed a trembling finger toward the Madonna and Child.

Gaston was conscious of a palpitating meaning in the words and gesture.

"Why?" he asked softly.

"Because," the fair head was lowered, not in timidity, but in deep thought, "because I want it--my baby--to look like that one. I look and look at the picture, and I dream about it at night. I know every little dimple and the soft curls--and all. I pray and pray, and if G.o.d answers--then--" a gentle ferocity rang through the hurried words--"I'm going to _keep_ it so. It's going to be different from any other little child in St. Ange. And it all fits in, now that Mr. Drew is coming back.

It's just wonderful! It was Mr. Drew that set me thinking about leaving something better for them as come after. He said terrible strange things--but you can't forget them, can you? I've been--well, sort of weeding out my life ever since he was here--and there can't be so much--for my baby to do--if I clear out my own faults. Can there?"

The girl's absolute ignoring of any reason for withholding this confidence from him at first staggered Gaston, and then steadied him.

Never before had Joyce so appealed to him, but the sacredness of the position she had thrust upon him for a moment appalled him. He looked intently at the girlish, innocent face. What he saw was a blind woman, groping through the child, seeking a reality that evaded it.

Never greatly impressed with his own importance, Gaston became cruelly aware, now, that in a marked way he still was the one being in the girl's world to whom she looked for guidance. The knowledge made him withdrawn for an instant.

Drew had appealed to her spirit--but he was elected Father Confessor, Judge and General Arbiter of her daily life. For a moment Gaston's sense of the ridiculous was stirred. Suppose they--those--people who inhabited the Past, and peopled the possible Future--suppose they should know of this? The eyes twinkled dangerously, but the girl in the glow of the red fire was terribly in earnest.

"You are perfectly happy, Joyce?" It was an inane question, but like some inane questions it touched a vital spark.

"Why, if I get on the top of the things that might make me unhappy if they conquered me; and if I shut my ears and eyes--why, then, I guess I'm perfectly happy. I won't _let_ myself feel sad any more, and I make believe a lot--about Jude. You have to when you've been married long; and I guess he has to about me. So you see, living that way it comes out all right. And then when you have beautiful things, like this house, and the books and pictures, and some one ready to help--like you--why _those_ things I just hold up in the light all the time. Isn't _that_ being happy?"

"What a philosopher!" Gaston bent forward and again pressed the slim shoulder. The piteousness of this young wife getting her happiness, all unknowingly, by self-imposed blindness of the inner soul, clutched at his heart.

"Hold hard to that, Joyce," he said. "Hold fast to that. Let all the light in that you can upon your blessings, and as to other things, why, don't acknowledge them! You're on the right track, though how you've struck it so early in the game, beats me."

"Well," Joyce was all aglow, "Mr. Drew helped. He was so funny and jolly. Just a big boy, but he had the queerest ideas about things. When I think of him, sick and weak like he was, and yet living out all his brave thoughts just as if he was a giant--why, sometimes I go off and cry by myself."

Jude from his shadow and aloofness was staring dumbly at the pair opposite while the low-spoken words sank into his drowsiness. Jude was primitive. Actions were _things_ to him; things that admitted of no shades of meaning. What the two were saying in no way modified the situation. Gaston's hand was caressing his wife--his woman, Jude would have expressed it--and the bald fact was enough.

A hot anger rose in him--an anger calculated to urge a personal a.s.sault then and there, upon the two who dared, in his own house, set his rights--his alone--aside.

The sleepy eyes widened and closed; the teeth showed through the rough beard--and then, like a smarting blow, came the memory of all that Gaston meant to him. Money! Gaston's money. There had been loans, trifling, but many, and now Gaston stood ready to advance money for this new building project. Money enough to make Jude master of the situation.

But with this thought came others that crushed and bruised him.

He had been wrong. It was not his wife's folly alone that stood between him and her. Gaston _had_ been using him. He was lending him money--hush money! And while he had gone his stupid way, thinking he held the whip hand over Joyce, the two had had their laugh at him. Money has done much for good and evil in this world, but it saved Gaston that night from a desperate attack.

A low cunning crept into Jude's thoughts. Very well, two or three could play at the same game.

More money! More! More! and who knew? Why he might make a choice in the future--a choice for himself.

He settled back and snored long and deep. Then he stretched and yawned and gave ample notice of his advance, in order that the conspirators might cover their tracks.

When he opened his eyes, Gaston was leaning forward with clasped hands stretched out toward the fading glow, and Joyce, crouched upon her stool with huddled knees, gave no sign that confusion held part in her thoughts.

"Say," Jude had already adopted the guise of the man with a purpose, "you don't suppose, do you, that that young parson is coming up here with any idea of saving souls?"

"Only his own, I fancy." Gaston replied, without turning. "He wants to keep his soul and body together. Seeking his lost health, you know."

"What makes him fancy he lost it up here?"

"He doesn't. He lost it down there among books, bad air, and foolish living. His physicians tell him his only chance for life is up in this region. Some day more of the big doctors will shut down on drugs and give Nature a try."

"Umph!" Jude shook himself. "Put a log on," he commanded Joyce. Then: "He preached a durned mess of nonsense the last time he was visiting us," he continued. "I didn't have any inclination to take his guff myself, but I don't half like the idee, now that I've slept on it, of his coming in here as a disturbing element, so to speak. Living and minding your business, is one thing; interfering with other folks'

business is another. Filmer, he told me a time back that he ain't had a comfortable spree since that young feller was here. He sort of upset Jock's stomach with his gab. The women, too, was considerable taken with him--he's the sort that makes fool women take notice. It ain't pleasant to think of that sissy-boy actually setting up housekeeping here, and reflecting upon old established ways, with any tommy-rot about clearing trails and such foolishness."

Joyce smiled. So that thought rankled in more lives than her own?

"Going to retire from the contractorship, Jude?" Gaston got up and crossed the room for his coat and hat.

"Not much!" Jude rose also. "Only beginning right is half the battle, and I say for one, and Tate he was saying the same this morning, that we'd better stamp out any upraisings in the start, now that it's likely to be a staying on, 'stead of a visit. When I select a teacher," Jude was following his guest to the outer door, "I ain't going to take up with no white-livered infant. See you to-morrow, Mr. Gaston?"

"Oh, certainly. Good night, Jude. Good night, Joyce." Gaston looked back at the little figure by the fire, and he saw that the upturned eyes were fixed on the Madonna and Child.

"Why don't you speak, Joyce? Mr. Gaston is saying good night." Jude's words reached where Gaston's had failed. The girl rose stiffly.

"Good night," she said slowly, and a great weariness was in her face.

When Jude returned she still stood in the middle of the room, her hands hanging limply by her side.

Something had gone out from her life with Gaston's going. But she was still thrilled and her soul was sensitive to impressions.

"What's up?"

Jude came close to her and stared boldly into the large, tired eyes.

"Nothing, Jude."

"You ain't so spry as when--there's company."

"It's late--you've had a nap. I'm dead tired."

"That's it," Jude laughed coa.r.s.ely. "I've slept and kept out of mischief--you've been too durned entertaining--you're feeling the strain. See here, Joyce, maybe you better not be so--amusing in the future. Maybe you better leave Gaston to me--business is business and I guess we can do without petticoats in this camp."

He was losing control of himself.

"Jude," Joyce came close and tried to put her hands on her husband's shoulders. "Jude, I want you to pay Mr. Gaston back as soon as you can.

It's been on my mind for quite a spell. We must owe him a lot. How much, Jude?"

"None of your--durned business."