Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Part 23

"And it doesn't much matter," sneered Warham. Every time he looked at her his anger flamed again at the outrage to his love, his trust, his honor, and the impending danger of more illegitimacy. "Marrying Jeb will give you a chance to reform and be a good woman. He understands--so you needn't be afraid of what he'll find out."

"I don't care what happens to me," the girl repeated in the same monotonous voice.

Warham rose. "I'll send your Aunt Sallie," said he. "And when I call, she'll bring you down."

The girl's silence, her non-resistance the awful expression of her still features--made him uneasy. He went to the window instead of to the door. He glanced furtively at her; but he might have glanced openly as there wasn't the least danger of meeting her eyes. "You're marrying about as well as you could have hoped to, anyhow--better, probably," he observed, in an argumentative, defensive tone. "Zeke says Jeb's about the likeliest young fellow he knows--a likelier fellow than either Zeke or I was at his age. I've given him two thousand dollars in cash. That ought to start you off well." And he went out without venturing another look at her. Her youth and helplessness, her stony misery, were again making it harder for him to hold himself to what he and the fanatic Zeke had decided to be his duty as a Christian, as a father, as a guardian. Besides, he did not dare face his wife and his daughter until the whole business was settled respectably and finally.

His sister-in-law was waiting in the next room. As soon as his descent cleared the way she hurried in. From the threshold she glanced at the girl; what she saw sent her hurrying out to recompose herself. But the instant she again saw that expression of mute and dazed despair the tears fought for release. The effort to suppress outward signs of pity made her plain fat face grotesque. She could not speak. With a corner of her ap.r.o.n she wiped imaginary dust from the gla.s.s bells that protected the artificial flowers. The poor child! And all for no fault of hers--and because she had been born out of wedlock. But then, the old woman reflected, was it not one of the most familiar of G.o.d's mysterious ways that people were punished most severely of all for the things that weren't their fault--for being born in shame, or in bad or low families, or sickly, or for being stupid or ugly or ignorant? She envied Zeke--his unwavering belief in religion. She believed, but her tender heart was always leading her into doubts.

She at last got some sort of control over her voice. "It'll turn out for the best," she said, with her back to Susan. "It don't make much difference nohow who a woman marries, so long as he's steady and a good provider. Jeb seems to be a nice feller. He's better looking than your Uncle George was before he went to town and married a Lenox and got sleeked up. And Jeb ain't near so close as some. That's a lot in a husband." And in a kind of hysteria, bred of fear of silence just then, she rattled on, telling how this man lay awake o' nights thinking how to skin a flea for its hide and tallow, how that one had said only a fool would pay over a quarter for a new hat for his wife----

"Will it be long?" asked the girl.

"I'll go down and see," said Mrs. Warham, glad of a real excuse for leaving the room. She began to cry as soon as she was in the hall. Two sparrows lit upon the window sill near Susan and screamed and pecked at each other in a mock fight. She watched them; but her shiver at the faint sound of her aunt's returning step far away down the stairs showed where her attention was.

When Zeke's wife entered she was standing and said:

"Is it time?"

"Come on, honey. Now don't be afraid."

Susan advanced with a firm step, preceded her aunt down the stairs. The black slouch hat and the straw of dignified cut were side by side on the shiny hall table. The parlor door was open; the rarely used showroom gave forth an earthy, moldy odor like that of a disturbed grave. Its shutters, for the first time in perhaps a year, were open; the mud daubers that had built in the crevices between shutters and sills, fancying they would never be disturbed, were buzzing crossly about their ruined homes. The four men were seated, each with his legs crossed, and each wearing the funereal expression befitting a solemn occasion.

Susan did not lift her eyes. The profusely whiskered man seated on the haircloth sofa smoothed his black alpaca coat, reset the black tie deep hid by his beard, rose and advanced with a clerical smile whose real kindliness took somewhat from its offensive unction. "This is the young lady, is it?" said he, reaching for Susan's rising but listless hand. "She is indeed a _young_ lady!"

The two Warham men stood, shifting uneasily from leg to leg and rubbing their faces from time to time. Sallie Warham was standing also, her big unhealthy face twitching fantastically.

Jeb alone was seated--chair tilted back, hands in trousers pockets, a bucolic grin of embarra.s.sment giving an expression of pain to his common features. A strained silence, then Zeke Warham said:

"I reckon we might as well go ahead."

The preacher took a small black-bound book from the inside pocket of his limp and dusty coat, cleared his throat, turned over the pages. That rustling, the creaking of his collar on his overstarched shirt band, and the buzzing of the mud daubers round the windows were the only sounds. The preacher found the place, cleared his throat again.

"Mr. Ferguson----"

Jeb, tall, spare, sallow, rose awkwardly.

"--You and Miss Lenox will take your places here----" and he indicated a position before him.

Susan was already in place; Jeb shuffled up to stand at her left. Sallie Warham hid her face in her ap.r.o.n. The preacher cleared his throat vigorously, began--"Dearly beloved"--and so on and on. When he put the questions to Susan and Jeb he told them what answer was expected, and they obeyed him, Jeb muttering, Susan with a mere, movement of the lips. When he had finished--a matter of less than three minutes--he shook hands warmly first with Susan, then with Jeb. "Live in the fear of the Lord," he said. "That's all that's necessary."

Sallie put down her ap.r.o.n. Her face was haggard and gray. She kissed Susan tenderly, then led her from the room. They went upstairs to the bedroom. "Do you want to stay to dinner?" she asked in the hoa.r.s.e undertone of funeral occasions. "Or would you rather go right away?"

"I'd rather go," said the girl.

"You set down and make yourself comfortable. I'll hook up your shawl strap."

Susan sat by the window, her hands in her lap. The hand with the new circlet of gold on it was uppermost. Sallie busied herself with the bundle; abruptly she threw her ap.r.o.n over her face, knelt by the bed and sobbed and uttered inarticulate moans. The girl made no sound, did not move, looked unseeingly at her inert hands. A few moments and Sallie set to work again. She soon had the bundle ready, brought Susan's hat, put it on.

"It's so hot, I reckon you'll carry your jacket. I ain't seen as pretty a blue dress as this--yet it's plain-like, too." She went to the top of the stairs. "She wants to go, Jeb," she called loudly. "You'd better get the sulky ready."

The answer from below was the heavy thump of Jeb's boots on the oilcloth covering of the hall floor. Susan, from the window, dully watched the young farmer unhitch the mare and lead her up in front of the gate.

"Come on, honey," said Aunt Sallie, taking up the bundle.

The girl--she seemed a child now--followed her. On the front stoop were George and his brother and the preacher. The men made room for them to pa.s.s. Sallie opened the gate; Susan went out.

"You'll have to hold the bundle," said Sallie. Susan mounted to the seat, took the bundle on her knees. Jeb, who had the lines, left the mare's head and got up beside his bride.

"Good day, all," he said, nodding at the men on the stoop. "Good day, Mrs. Warham."

"Come and see us real soon," said Sallie. Her fat chin was quivering; her tired-looking, washed-out eyes gazed mournfully at the girl who was acting and looking as if she were walking in her sleep.

"Good day, all," repeated Jeb, and again he made the clucking sound.

"Good-by and G.o.d bless you," said the preacher. His nostrils were luxuriously sniffing the air which bore to them odors of cookery.

The mare set out. Susan's gaze rested immovably upon the heavy bundle in her lap. As the road was in wretched repair, Jeb's whole attention was upon his driving. At the gate between barnyard and pasture he said, "You hold the lines while I get down."

Susan's fingers closed mechanically upon the strips of leather.

Jeb led the mare through the gate, closed it, resumed his seat.

This time the mare went on without exacting the clucking sound.

They were following the rocky road along the wester hillside of the pasture hollow. As they slowly made their way among the deep ruts and bowlders, from frequent moistenings of the lips and throats, noises, and twitchings of body and hands, it was evident that the young farmer was getting ready for conversation. The struggle at last broke surface with, "Zeke Warham don't waste no time road patchin'--does he?"

Susan did not answer.

Jeb studied her out of the corner of his eye, the first time a fairly good bit of roadway permitted. He could make nothing of her face except that it was about the prettiest he had ever seen. Plainly she was not eager to get acquainted; still, acquainted they must get. So he tried again:

"My sister Keziah--she keeps house for me--she'll be mighty surprised when I turn up with a wife. I didn't let on to her what I was about, nary a word."

He laughed and looked expectantly at the girl. Her expression was unchanged. Jeb again devoted himself to his driving.

"No, I didn't let on," he presently resumed. "Fact is, I wan't sure myself till I seed you at the winder." He smiled flirtatiously at her. "Then I decided to go ahead. I dunno, but I somehow kinder allow you and me'll hit it off purty well--don't you?"

Susan tried to speak. She found that she could not--that she had nothing to say.

"You're the kind of a girl I always had my mind set on," pursued Jeb, who was an expert love-maker. "I like a smooth skin and pouty lips that looks as if they wanted to be kissed." He took the reins in one hand, put his arm round her, clumsily found her lips with his. She shrank slightly, then submitted. But Jeb somehow felt no inclination to kiss her again. After a moment he let his arm drop away from her waist and took the reins in both hands with an elaborate pretense that the bad road compelled it.

A long silence, then he tried again: "It's cool and nice under these here trees, ain't it?"

"Yes," she said.

"I ain't saw you out here for several years now. How long has it been?"

"Three summers ago."

"You must 'a' growed some. I don't seem to recollect you. You like the country?"

"Yes."

"Sho! You're just sayin' that. You want to live in town. Well, so do I. And as soon as I get things settled a little I'm goin'

to take what I've got and the two thousand from your Uncle George and open up a livery stable in town."