Nobody's Child Part 17

Those three weeks had brought the stir of life, both restlessness and joy, to Sue, to Ann, to Judith Westmore; and, as spring quickens man as well as woman, to Edward Westmore, Garvin and Baird the consciousness of things desired and not attained which is the urge to all accomplishment.

Even Coats Penniman, busied about the farm from early morning until night, was stirred by a vague unrest which was not unhappiness nor its opposite. He worked the harder for it; he had cast his net here; he meant to gather in the harvest, a modest harvest, but one that would be sufficient for his family's needs. New horses filled the stalls that had stood empty so long, new farm implements were stored in the wagon-shed, the barn acquired a coat of paint. And the crying shame of water carried by women up three hundred yards to a kitchen without a convenience was abolished. That was Coats' first improvement: pipes were laid to the bubbling spring and a pump installed; the spring-house, unsanitary relic of a past century, would no longer harbor crocks of milk and b.u.t.ter ill-protected from things that crawl and germs that fatten; it housed the pump. And only the weeping willows mourned the change; they no longer stood in a swamp, for a drain carried the seeping water to the creek; they were a pleasant shelter now for any man and maid who chose to sit beneath them.

Coats Penniman had his work and Sue had hers. The old house was being transformed. Many years before, Ann, playing with a forbidden pen-knife, had cut through the half-dozen layers of paper that generations of tasteless Pennimans had laid upon the living-room walls and had come to oak paneling as beautiful as any at Westmore. Sue had not forgotten the discovery. The living-room was stripped of paper and became again what it had been in colonial days, a s.p.a.cious dining-room paneled from ceiling to floor. The modern front room, the parlor, lost its dingy figured paper, was hung and curtained in white, as were the rooms above.

Sue, with Ann to help her, and a st.u.r.dy negress to do the heaviest work, labored joyfully. Paint and whitewash had their way with the old house, and it emerged an elderly lady still, but with white hair smoothed and wearing a spotless cap.

Only the lonely farm-woman who toils unaided, her interests bound by four unsightly walls, a veritable prison with a treadmill for diversion, can justly appreciate what those days of transformation were to Sue. She had longed for the two strong black hands that under her direction washed and churned and swept and cooked. But she had longed still more for a little beauty, a touch of fashion, a hint of luxury. Her day's work had always lapped over into the morrow. Now she could appear at supper with hair arranged and wearing a fresh gown. She could go from supper to sit with Coats on the porch and talk to him of her work as he talked to her of his. The delight of it!

And it was not only the house that wore new garments. Sue chose carefully and economically, but she would not have chosen tastefully had Ann not been at her right hand. Ann had an instinct for color, and an observant eye for style. She had insisted on shades of blue for Sue.

"You ought to get everything blue, it goes with your eyes, an' it makes you look young and pretty," she had urged. "Have an all-blue suit, Aunt Sue, an' a blue silk drivin' coat, an' a little blue hat with white wings. An' for your house-dresses just have lawn with blue flowers in it." Sue had thought the coat an unpardonable extravagance, until she remembered that she often drove with Coats. Then she did not hesitate.

Ann was too proud to ask for anything for herself, but Sue insisted that whatever she had must be duplicated for Ann, so Ann chose for herself a summer suit of deep cream and a large cream-colored straw hat. Sue had objected to Ann's choice of a red coat. "Your suit's so dark a cream it's 'most yellow, an' your coat's a regular n.i.g.g.e.r red, Ann."

"I'm black an' white--they're my colors, Aunt Sue. I'll always have to wear rich colors to look best," Ann returned, and she was right. She did not put red roses on her hat, however. She decorated it with water-lilies; their yellow centers blended with hat and gown.

Even Sue did not suspect what pleasure Ann took in her attire, but she did notice that the girl was startlingly beautiful, even in her simple white lawn dresses sprayed with either red or yellow. It was not a glaring effect the girl had produced; she had simply intensified her usual impression of warmth, her hint of the exotic. Coats noticed it; he looked at her in an expressionless way, but Sue knew what he thought, and her father also, when he looked at Ann and then looked away. Ann's new clothes set her more apart from them than ever.

And in spite of her good sense, Sue envied Ann's compelling quality. She would never have it, but Ann thought that since her father's return Sue had grown almost beautiful. Sue's face had grown fuller and now her cheeks almost always had color. She arranged her brown hair carefully and changed her dresses frequently. And she laughed much oftener, softly and with eyes alight. Sue was glad, of course, that Coats had brought better times to them all, but even supreme relief would not account for Sue's air of subdued happiness.

Ann had puzzled over the change in Sue, until one day she saw her watching Coats Penniman while he slept. He had come in tired out and had stretched himself on the couch in the living-room. Sue and Ann were sewing when he came in and Sue had sprung up, brought him a gla.s.s of water and begged him to lie down. Then Sue had taken up her sewing again. A little later, when Ann glanced up, wondering how she could slip away without being noticed, she saw that her father was asleep and that Sue sat with hands idle. She was bent forward a little, looking at Coats in utter absorption, her lips parted, her eyes misty and yearning, her heart laid bare for Ann to read. Sue had forgotten her, forgotten everything; there were only they two in the world, she and Coats.

Ann looked long and steadily, and, in those moments of hot surprise and then of clear understanding, she laid down every claim upon her father, became definitely n.o.body's child. Ann's own experience in love had rapidly taught her; she knew how it was with her father and Sue; Sue loved her father, and he liked Sue better than he liked any one else.

That was what Garvin said to her in the evenings when they met under the willows by the spring: that he loved her madly, and that she only liked him. She let him kiss her when he talked like that. It made her hot and restless to be plead with and urged and caressed. She did love him--the thought of losing his love was terrible--yet she was not happy, partly because she felt that Edward would be shocked if he knew. She had discovered that the brothers did not love each other any more than she and her father loved each other. She never mentioned Edward to Garvin, or Garvin to Edward.

The night before, Garvin had said startling things: that he was going into the city to live; that Nickolas Baird was arranging a city agency for a large automobile firm, and that he would probably have charge of it. Ann had been swept by a feeling of desolation until Garvin had added, "It won't be right away, but when the time comes will you go with me?"

Ann knew that she had been silent so long that he had grown desperate.

He had put his arms about her and held her as if he were afraid that she would run from him. She had said, finally, "I couldn't bear it, to have you go away."

"But I shall have to go," he had told her positively. "I can't stay at Westmore--Edward is master of Westmore now.... And you want to go away--will you go with me, Ann?"

Then she had told him the thing that had troubled her from the beginning. "A Westmore marry a Penniman? We can't do it, Garvin--ever."

And Garvin had been silent then, thinking; she had felt his hands grow burning hot. Then he said steadily: "The city is not the Ridge, Ann. If you'll only love me completely, as I love you, what seems impossible here may be possible there. I want you, just mine to love and care for always."

Then she had told him with complete honesty. "I don't know whether I love you enough to marry you, but I can't bear to have you go away from me."

He had made his usual appeal, his own unhappiness, and Ann had almost yielded him her promise. But when she thought it all over she was not happy; she was so doubtful of her own feelings.

And she had another anxiety. Edward Westmore had given her a number of books, and she had seen him several times. Every day there had been a book for her in the c.h.i.n.kapin bushes. With the instinct for making herself doubly desired, she did not always stay to thank him. But sometimes she had waited in the hollow, and Edward came and sat at her feet. Then they talked. They had been less exciting but more satisfying hours than she had with Garvin. Edward told her wonderful things, interesting things. She felt like an ignorant child when she was with him, and yet she knew that he liked whatever she said, and that he loved to look at her, and that he touched her with a certain tender reverence. She thought of him as a very dear friend. It was some time before she told him how things were at the farm. Before she realized, she had told him about it, and he had said:

"Never mind, Ann, be patient. There is the future--you will leave the farm, one of these days."

He had spoken quietly enough, but Ann had seen the color come slowly into his face. Though he had turned to look at the water, she had seen and wondered. Was he beginning to care for her--as Garvin did? Such a possibility had never before occurred to her! He had seemed so much older than Garvin--old enough to be her father. It made her very uncomfortable, the first touch of self-consciousness she had had while with him. For several days after that, she had taken her book and hurried away.

Then Ben Brokaw had added to her anxiety. They talked together as always, she and Ben. Though he had said nothing, Ann knew that he understood about her father and herself. On the evening of that Sunday when she had met her father, she had found on her window-sill a box lined with pine-needles and on them several sprays of arbutus. She knew instantly that Ben had put them there, climbed to the roof to do it. His was the language of the woods: Ann knew from the pine-needles that Ben had been somewhere about when she had lain sobbing beneath the pine trees. And she had known just how to thank him; she had pinned a bit of the arbutus to her dress the next morning, and had smiled at him. "It's sweet," was all she had said. And all Ben said was "Um!"

Ben rarely mentioned Coats Penniman, but occasionally he had been satirical over the changes Coats was making. When the house became redolent of paint, he took his hammock and slept in the woods. "Paint is supposed to be a' awful good thing," he told Ann. "Even the ladies thinks it'll hide old age, but it don't deceive n.o.body. I never took no stock in paint--wood is one of the prettiest things on earth; why cover it up?"

On the evening when he talked with Ann in a way that made her anxious, he began by saying, "This place an' Westmo' is becomin' too fashionable.

All we needs now is a' automobile. Westmo's got one--I seen Garvin scarin' chickens an' n.i.g.g.e.rs all down the Post-Road this mornin', an'

that young cool-head who's stayin' at the club an' makin' love to Miss Judith showin' Garvin how to do it. If the president was to travel down the Post-Road in a wheelbarrer, it wouldn't stir up half the sensation Garvin did.... I reckon Edward wanted to give Garvin something to occupy his mind. Well, he's done it--an' a fashionable way to break his neck, too."

Ann knew that Garvin was to have the automobile. He had told her that it was coming, and that, as soon as he could run it, he would take her with him to the city and back in an evening. That now he could show her the city of which she knew so little.

But she did not comment on Garvin's new possession. "You always speak of Garvin in that way, Ben, and differently of Edward Westmore--why do you?" she asked gravely.

"Edward's a gentleman an' Garvin's jes' a Westmo', second generation to his pa," Ben returned.

"I thought every Westmore was a gentleman," Ann said, quite as Judith might have spoken; there was hauteur in the reproof. Her head had lifted.

It was not too dark for Ben to see her face, and he glanced at her, a swift, intensely interested look, a deeply anxious look as well. But his answer was drawled as usual. "Accordin' to the dictionary, they are, Ann. I read up on 'gentleman' once, an' I decided that there dictionary wasted a lot of words. Why didn't it jest say, 'Gentleman: the man who does to others like he'd have them do to him.' Of co'se, if it was necessary to say more, it could jest add that there is those who grows to be gentlemen. A man can train hisself to be one. Edward has growed to be a gentleman--I found that out when he come back.... Now, if there was anything troublin' me, I'd go straight to Edward Westmo'. There ain't anythin' I'd be afraid to tell him. An' that's the advice I'd give to any one who was doubtful in their mind about anything, or who'd got into trouble--jest to talk to Edward about it.... I'm down about the woods a good bit, an' I often see Edward comin' an' goin'. We speaks. There ain't much goes on down there I don't know about; even when I'm not there, my eye's on them woods. If Edward Westmo' sat down a bit on Penniman land, I wouldn't say nothing about it--not I. I'd as soon cut my hand off as set a Penniman on a Westmo'. Coats Penniman has growed, like I tell you some men do, Ann, but he ain't growed enough not to hate a Westmo'. That's one reason I keep my eye on them woods--I wouldn't answer for what would happen if a Westmo' angered Coats Penniman."

Ann had nothing to say to this long speech; she escaped as soon as possible to think it over. Ben had the queer cautious ways of an animal--he had told her several things, in his usual fashion. He had meant to tell her that Garvin was not as fine a man as Edward. Ann was forced to confess that she felt he was not. But Garvin was younger, and impatient and unhappy, just as she was. She loved and pitied Garvin, and nothing Ben could say would make her stop loving him.

And Ben had also meant to tell her that he knew and approved of her talking to Edward; that he stood guard over them. He wanted her to tell Edward about Garvin. She felt certain that Ben knew she cared for Garvin. Possibly he knew that they met, but she was not so certain of that.

Ann's anxiety was princ.i.p.ally on Garvin's account. If her father discovered them it would be terrible. They ought not to meet in that way. But Garvin could not take her away now.... And even if he could, did she love him enough to go with him and face all the trouble that would follow? And yet, she would be sick with loneliness if Garvin went away and left her. But if she did not love Garvin--in the way in which he wanted her to love him--she ought to tell him so and not meet him any more. And she could not tell Edward about his brother--not after the way in which Edward had looked at her the last time she saw him--she simply couldn't.

XVIII

"YOU'RE ALL I HAVE"

Ann spent a troubled night after her talk with Ben, and she had reached no decision the next day when she went down to the woods to get her book. She did not know whether or not she would wait to see Edward. She ought not to see him. It had not occurred to her that as things were between Garvin and herself, she ought not to see Edward in this way--not until after she had suspected that Edward cared a great deal for her.

Ann did not know how much she wanted to see Edward until she discovered that there was no book left for her. She searched the bushes thoroughly; there was nothing there. Then she paused to think.... She had avoided Edward and he had decided that she did not want to see him; she had lost her friend.

Ann went slowly back to the road and stood hesitating. She did not want to go back to the house; she felt more like going up to the pines, to sit with her trouble where no one would see her.

She had flushed while she searched and found nothing, then grown pale when she felt that she had been forsaken. She brightened into beauty when she heard a horse on the Back Road. He was late in coming, that was all. She waited, her eyes fixed on the turning in the road.

It was Baird who appeared, and, riding with him, Judith Westmore. They were riding so close to each other that their horses almost touched, Judith with head bent and playing with her whip, Baird looking down at her.

Ann would have escaped if she could, but they were upon her before she had recovered from surprise, and Baird had seen her. He straightened instantly, and Ann also stiffened, moving only to give them room to pa.s.s. Baird looked at her steadily, for a questioning instant, then suddenly smiled and lifted his cap. He bowed profoundly enough when Ann smiled, though she had merely glanced at him; she was looking at Judith.

Ann's smile and bow should have been claimed by Judith, it was meant for her; but she looked at Ann, at her and through her, a blankly brilliant stare, then touched her horse. Both horses leaped at her flick of the whip, and left Ann standing beside the road.

Ann did not go to the pines and weep; it might have been better for her if she had. She went back to the house, and with head high. Hers had always been an inflammable temper, but never before had she felt the profound anger that held her now. It turned her cold, not hot. With all the family enmity forgotten, she had smiled as she would have smiled at Edward, and had been cut in a manner possible only to as finished a product as Judith. Ann's nerves were always high strung, and for the last weeks she had been under the strain of persistent denial, anxious over the danger to Garvin of their secret meetings, and too inexperienced to realize the still greater danger to herself from the sort of appeal Garvin was making to her; certain only that neither he nor she was happy. Edward's defection had been followed too closely by Judith's act. Ann shivered like one with ague.

She was very quiet at supper. The meal was a hurried one, for Sue and Coats were going to the village, and no one noticed Ann's white face.

She was going to meet Garvin that night. She went as soon as it was dark, and waited for him, sitting tensely upright under the willows; usually it was Garvin who waited. She sat so still that a rabbit came in under the willows, almost to her feet, before it leaped and fled.

Garvin came presently, well hidden by the dense growth of elderberry bushes that, matted by foxgrape vines, extended to the creek. He had chosen this spot because he could come all the way from the woods under cover. "Ann!" he said. "You here first!" On the instant his arms were about her.