The Devil's Garden Part 41

"You know," he said, "if anything happened to me, you'd be all right.

I have made my will long ago. There's a copy of it in there," and he pointed to the lower part of the bureau; "while th' instrument itself lies snug in Mr. Cleaver's safe, over at Manninglea."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't speak of it. I can't bear even to hear the word." And then, taking alarm, she said he must be feeling really ill, or such things as wills would never have come into his head.

"Tell me the truth, dear. Tell me what you do feel--truly." And she asked him all sorts of questions about his health, begging him to consult a doctor without a day's delay.

"Only a bit tired, Mav--and that's what I never used to feel."

"No, you never did. And I don't at all understand it."

"It's quite natural, my dear."

"Not natural to you."

Then he took her hand, pressed it affectionately, and laughed in his old jolly way. "My dear, it's nothing--just an excuse for slacking off now and then. Remember, Mav, I am not a chicken. I shall be fifty before th' end of this year."

He convinced her that there was no cause for her anxiety; and only too happy not to have to be anxious, she thought no more of this strange thing that her untiring Will now sometimes knew what tiredness meant.

But his la.s.situde increased. He uttered no further hints about it to anybody; he endeavored to conceal it; he refused to admit its extent even to himself. On certain days to think made him weary, to be active and bustling was an impossibility. Instinct seemed to whisper that he was pa.s.sing through still another phase, that presently he would be all right again--just as vigorous and energetic as in the past; and that meanwhile he should not flog and spur himself, but just rest patiently until all his force returned to him.

Since to do anything was a severe effort, he had better do nothing. He ceased to bother about Billy's schooling. He postponed making his harvest arrangements; he forgot to answer a letter asking for an estimate, and one Thursday he omitted to wind the clocks. He tried to let his beard grow, in order to escape the trouble of shaving. It grew during three days; but the effect was so disfiguring--a stiff stubble of gray, hiding his fine strong chin, and spreading high on his bronzed cheeks--that Norah and Mavis implored him to desist. Even Ethel the housemaid ventured to say how very glad she felt when he shaved again.

The month of May was hot and enervating; the month of June was wet and depressing. Day after day the rain beat threateningly against the windows, and night after night it dripped with a melancholy patter from the eaves. On three successive Sundays Dale considered the rain an adequate excuse for not going to chapel. He and Norah had a very short informal service within sound and within smell of the roast beef that was being cooked close by in the kitchen, and afterward he meditatively read the Bible to himself while Norah laid the cloth for dinner.

He had said that he did not want to fold his hands and sit quiet for the remainder of his existence; but that was precisely what he desired to do for the moment. He allowed Norah to relieve him of more and more of his office duties, and he idly watched her as she stood bending her neck over the tall desk or sat stooping her back and squaring her elbows at the writing-table. And still sitting himself, he would maintain long desultory conversations with her about nothing in particular when, having completed the tasks that he had entrusted to her, she moved here and there about the office tidying up for the night.

Thus on an evening toward the end of June he talked to her about love and the married state. It had been raining all day long, and though no rain fell at the moment, one felt that more was coming. The air was saturated with moisture; heavy odors of sodden vegetation crept through the open window; and one saw a mist like steam beginning to rise from the fields beyond the roadway. Mr. Furnival, the new pastor, had just pa.s.sed by; and it was his appearance that started the conversation.

"He is a conscientious talented young man," said Dale; "and with experience he will ripen. At present he seems to me deficient in sympathy."

"Yes, so he does," said Norah, as she opened the desk drawer.

"He hasn't the knack of putting himself in the place of other people.

There's something cold and cheerless in his preaching--I don't say as if he didn't feel it all himself, but as if he hadn't yet caught the knack of imparting his feelings to others."

"No more he has," said Norah, putting away her papers.

"Between you and me and the post," said Dale, "I don't like him."

"No more do I."

"What! Don't you like Mr. Furnival either?"

Norah shook her head and said "No" emphatically.

"But he is handsome, Norah. I call him undoubtedly a handsome man.

And they tell me that the girls are falling in love with him."

Norah laughed, and said that, if Mr. Dale had been correctly informed, she was sorry for the taste of the girls.

"Then you don't admire his looks, Norah?"

"It rather surprises me, because I should have thought he was just the sort of person to attract and fascinate the other s.e.x--a bachelor too, without ties, able to take advantage of any success in that line that came his way. I mean, of course, by offering marriage to the party who fancied him."

Norah said again that she thought nothing of Mr. Furnival's alleged handsomeness. She considered him a namby-pamby.

"You are young still. Perhaps I oughtn't to talk like this--putting nonsense in your head. But it'll come there sure enough of its own accord. Your turn will come. You'll fall in love one day, Norah."

Norah, putting the big account-books back on the shelf over the desk, did not answer.

"You've never fallen in love yet, have you?"

Norah would not answer.

"Ah, well." Dale got up from his chair, and stretched himself. "But you'll have to marry some day, you know."

"Oh, no, I shan't."

"Oh, yes, my dear, you will. That's a thing there's no harm for girls to think of, because it's what they've got to prepare themselves for."

And Dale delivered a serious little homily on the duties and pleasures of wedlock, and concluded by telling Norah that when she had chosen an honest proper sort of young fellow, neither himself nor Mrs. Dale would stand in the way of her future happiness. "Yes, my dear, you'll leave us then; and we shall miss you greatly--both of us will miss you very greatly, but we shan't either of us consider that. And you mustn't consider it yourself. It's nature--quite proper and correct that under those circ.u.mstances you should leave us."

"Never," said Norah. "Never--unless you send me away;" and stooping her head on her arms, she began to cry.

"Oh, my dear, don't cry," said Dale bruskly. "What in the name of reason is there to cry about?"

"Then say you won't send me away," sobbed Norah. "Promise me you won't do that."

"Of course I won't," said Dale, in the same brusk tone. "That is, unless I'm morally certain that--"

"No, no--never."

"Oh, don't be silly. Dry your eyes, and be sensible;" and Dale, plunging his hands in his pockets, hurried out of the office.

He walked as far as the Baptist Chapel, and straight back again; and before he got home he made a solemn resolution to rouse himself from the idle lethargic state into which he felt himself slipping deeper and deeper. Thinking about business and other matters, he decided now that the odd weariness which he had been experiencing must be struggled with, and not submitted to. There was no sense in calmly accepting such a mental and bodily condition. It might be different if there was anything organically wrong with him; but he was really as strong and fit as ever--only a bit tired; but he thought with scorn of the folly of allowing dark days and foul weather to influence one's spirits or one's capacity for effort. That sort of rubbish is well enough for rich old maids who go about the world with a maid, a hot-water bottle, and a poll parrot; but it is degrading and undignified in a successful business man who has a wife and two children to work for, whether the sun shines or the sky is overcast.

At supper he told Mavis that he was going to make a long round of it next day, starting early, and riding far to pay several calls that were overdue. He added that he would not require Norah's a.s.sistance in the office, either to-morrow or for some time to come.

"I fear me," he said, "that I've been selfish, and abused the privilege of taking her away to act as secretary, and thereby thrown more on you."

"Not a bit," said Mavis. "Take her just as long as she makes herself useful."

"She has done fine," said Dale, "and lifted a lot off my shoulders.

But now I feel I'm all clear, and I restore her to her proper place and duties."

Mavis, if aware of the fact, would have thought it curious that Dale had spoken to Norah of falling in love, because she herself was at this time worried by thoughts of such possibilities with regard to the girl. She noticed various changes in Norah's manner and deportment.

Norah, although Dale said she worked well enough for him in the office, showed a perceptible slackness at her household tasks. She seemed to have lost interest, especially in all kitchen work; she was often careless in dusting and cleaning the parlor, and had done one or two very clumsy things--such as breaking tea-cups when washing up--as if her wits had gone wool-gathering instead of being concentrated on the job in hand. Her temper, too, was not so even and agreeable as it ought to have been. She was distinctly irritable once or twice to the children, when they were trying to play with her as of old, and not, as she declared, wilfully teasing her. And once or twice when she was reproved, there had come some nasty little flashes of rebellion.

Mavis, seeking any reason for this slight deterioration of conduct and steadiness, wondered if Norah by chance had a little secret love affair up her sleeve. That would account for everything. But if so, who could it be who was upsetting her? Girls, even at what matrons call the silly age, can not give scope to their silliness without opportunities; and there were no visitors to the house, and certainly none of the men in the yard, who could conceivably be carrying on with her.