Mountain Blood Part 11

"No, no, no, I'm afraid it must be now or never; something would take you from me. I knew it, I was afraid of it, from the first ... I'll shoot myself."

She started toward him in an excess of tender pity. "Do you care as much as that?" She laid her palms upon his shoulders, lifting her face to his: "Then we will do what you say, we will go, yes, we will go immediately.

You can hitch up the buggy, while I get a little thing or two. I have my beads, and the bracelets that were mother's ... I wish my white organdie was here. You mustn't think I'm silly! You see--marriage, for a girl ... I thought it would all be so different. But, Gordon dear, we won't let you be unhappy."

He wished silently to G.o.d that she would get the stuff in the house, that they would get started. At any minute now word would come of the old man's death, there would be delay, Lettice would learn that he had lied again and again to her. With a gesture of impatience he dislodged her hands from his shoulders. "Where's Sim?" he demanded.

"In the long field. I'll show you the stable; it won't take me a minute to get ready."

He hitched, in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, a tall, ungainly roan horse into the buggy; his practised hands connected the straps, settled the headstall, the collar, as if by magic. He stood in a fever of uneasiness at the harnessed head. Lettice was longer than she had indicated.

When, at last, she appeared, she carried a neatly pinned paper bundle, and a fragrant ma.s.s of hastily pulled roses. Bright blue gla.s.s beads hung over the soft contours of her virginal b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the bracelets that had been her mother's--enamelled in black on old, reddish gold--encircled her smooth wrists.

He would have hurried her at once into the buggy, but she stopped him, and stood facing him with level, solemn eyes:

"I give myself to you, Gordon," she said, "gladly and gladly, and I will go wherever you go, and try all my life to be what you would like." As she repeated her simple words, erect and brave, with her arms filled with roses, for a fleeting second he was again conscious of the vague menace that had towered darkly at her back on the night when she had laid in his grasp that other rose ... the rose that had faded.

"Let's get along," he urged. The whip swung out across the roan's ears, and the horse started forward with a vicious rush. The dewy fragrance of the flowers trailed out behind the buggy, mingling with the swirling dust, then both settled into the empty road, under the burning brightness of the sun, the insensate beauty of the azure sky.

TWO

I

In the clear glow of a lengthening twilight of spring Gordon Makimmon sauntered into Simmons' store. The high, dusty windows facing the Courthouse were raised, and a warm air drifted in, faint eddies of the fragrance of flowering bushes, languorous draughts of a countryside newly green.

A number of men idling over a counter greeted him with a familiar and instantly alert curiosity. The clerk behind the counter bent forward with the brisk a.s.sumption of a business-like air. "Certainly," Gordon replied to his query, pausing to allow his purpose to gain its full effect; "I want to order a suit of clothes."

"Why, d.a.m.n it t'ell, Gord!" exclaimed an individual, with a long, drooping nose, a jaw which hung loosely on a corded, bare throat; "it ain't three weeks ago but you got a suit, and it ain't the one you have on now, neither."

"Shut up, Tol'able," Buckley Simmons interposed, "you'll hurt trade.

Gordon's the Dandy d.i.c.k of Greenstream."

"Haven't I a right to as many suits of clothes as I've a mind to?" Gordon demanded belligerently.

"Sure you have, Gord. You certainly have," a pacific chorus replied.

"I want one like the last drummer wore through here," he continued; "a check suit with braid on all the edges."

The clerk dropped a bulky volume heavily on the counter. "The Chicago Sartorial Company," he a.s.serted, "have got some swell checks." He ran hastily over the pages, each with a sample rectangle of cloth pasted within a printed gold border, and a cabalistic sign beneath. Finally, "How's that?" he demanded, indicating a bold, mathematical design in pale orange, blue and grey.

A combined whistle rose from the onlookers; comments of mock amazement crowded one upon another. "Jin ... go! He's got the wrong book--that's rag carpet. Don't look at it too long, Gord, it'll cross your eyes. That ain't a suit, it's a game." A gaunt hand solemnly shook out imaginary dice upon the counter, "It's my move and I can jump you."

"Gentlemen! gentlemen!" the clerk protested; "this is the finest article woven, the very toniest."

Gordon dismissed the sample with a gesture. "I'm a man," he p.r.o.nounced, "not a minstrel." His attention was held by a smaller pattern, in black and white, with an occasional red thread drawn through. "That's it," he decided; "that's it, with braid. What will that damage me?"

The clerk consulted the sign appended to the sample, then raced through a smaller, supplementary volume, where he located the item in question.

"That cloth you picked out," he announced importantly, "is one of the best the Chicago Sartorial Company put out. Cut ample, with sleeves lined in silkaleen and back in A1 mohair, it'll stand you thirty-eight dollars.

Genuine Eytalian thread silk lining will come at four and a half more."

"She'll do," Gordon told him, "with the silk and the braid edge."

The clerk noted the order; then with a tape measure affixed to a slim, wooden angle, came from behind the counter. "Remove the coat, please."

Gordon, with a patent self-consciousness, took off his coat, revealing a flimsy white silk shirt striped like a child's stick of candy in vivid green.

The whistle arose with renewed force; gnarled and blackened fingers gingerly felt the shirt's texture. "Man dear! The lily of Lebanon. Arrayed like a regular prost.i.tute ... silk shirt tails."

The clerk skilfully conducted a series of measurements, noting results on a printed form; outer and inner seams were tallied, chest and thigh and knee recorded, the elbow crooked. "Don't forget his teeth," the clerk was admonished; "remember the braid on the pants."

Gordon resumed his coat, the clerk returned the books to their shelf, and the fact.i.tious excitement subsided. The light faded, the depths of the store swam in blue obscurity, but the fragrance of the spring dusk had deepened.

"When are you going to get the dog, Gord?" Tol'able asked.

"What dog?" another interposed curiously.

"Why, ain't you heard about Gord's dog," the chorus demanded. "Where have you been--up with the Dutch on the South Fork? Gord's got a dog coming he give two hundred dollars for. Yes, sir, he paid for a dog, he give real money for a four-legged, yelping wire-hound. It ain't a rabbit dog, nor a sheep dog, nor even a bull-dog; but just plain, stinking dog."

"Ah, he did like h.e.l.l, give two hundred for a dog!"

"Yes, he did. That's right, didn't you, Gord? Two hundred! I saw the cheque. G.o.d dam' if he didn't!"

Gordon admitted the facts as far as they had been stated. "But this dog,"

he explained, "is different from the just happen so hounds around here.

This dog has got a pedigree, his parents were united by the church all regular and highly fashionable. He ain't expected to run rabbits nor mangy sheep; he just sits on the stoop eating sausages and syrup, and takes a leg off any low down parties that visit with him without a collar on.

He'll be on the Stenton stage this evening," he added. "I got word last night he was coming."

They lounged to the entrance of the store, gazing over the still road, in the direction from which the stage would arrive. Valentine Simmons was in his office; and, as Gordon pa.s.sed, he knocked on the gla.s.s of the enclosure, and beckoned the other to enter.

He greeted Gordon Makimmon cordially, waving him to a seat. Valentine Simmons never, apparently, changed; his countenance was always freshly pink, the tufts of hair above his ears like combed lamb's wool; his shirt with its single, visible blue b.u.t.ton never lacked its immaculate gloss.

"You're looking as jaunty as a man should with the choice of the land before him. Lucky! lucky! charming little wife, large fortune at your disposal.... Pompey left one of the solidest estates in this section.

Opportune for you, very ... miraculous, if I may say so. But there, you ornament the money as well as any other. You are right too--a free hand; yours is the time for liberality, no cares--they come later. Ah, Gordon, have you examined the details of your late father-in-law's property? Have you searched through all the items, made yourself familiar with all the--er, petty and laborious details?"

"No, not just yet, I have been intending--"

Simmons stopped him with an upraised palm. "No more, I understand your thought exactly. It's a tiresome business. Yours is the time for liberality, no cares. However, I had a slight knowledge of Pompey Hollidew's arrangements. He was accustomed to discussing them with me. He liked my judgment in certain little matters; and, in that way, I got a general idea of his enterprises. He was a great hand for timber, your father-in-law; against weighty advice at the time of his death he was buying timber options here and there in the valley. Though what he wanted with them ... beyond ordinary foresight.--No transportation, you see; no railroad nor way of getting lumber out. But then, he had some visionary scheme or other. He held some thousand acres, most of it bought at a nominal figure. No good to anybody now; but I have got the timber fever myself--something may turn up in the far future, perhaps in another generation.... What would you say to a flat eight dollars an acre for the options, the money banked right to your credit? A neat little sum for current pleasures. Ah--" in spite of himself, Valentine Simmons became grave at the contemplation of the amount involved. "I don't say I would take all, but the best, certainly the greater part."

"Why, I don't know," Gordon spoke slowly from an old-time suspicion of the other. "It's my wife's property."

"But such a dutiful little wife--the husband's word. Remember, the money in your hand."

"It certainly sounds all right. Lettice would have the cash to show. I'll speak to her."

"Better not delay. There are other options; owners are glad to sell. I have given you the privilege first--old friend, old Presbyterian friend.

The time is necessarily limited."