The Flirt Part 31

Until now I just thought it was the sky. The whitest clouds I ever saw sailed over that blue, and I stood upon the prow of each in turn, then leaped in and swam to the next and sailed with _it_!

Oh, the beautiful sky, and kind, green woods and blessed, long, white, dusty country road! Never in my life shall I forget that walk--this day in the open with my love--You! To-morrow!

To-morrow! To-morrow! _To-morrow_!"

The next writing in Laura's book was dated more than two months later:

. . . . "I have decided to write again in this book. I have thought it all out carefully, and I have come to the conclusion that it can do no harm and may help me to be steady and sensible.

It is the thought, not its expression, that is guilty, but I do not believe that my thoughts are guilty: I believe that they are good. I know that I wish only good. I have read that when people suffer very much the best thing is for them to cry. And so I'll let myself _write_ out my feelings--and perhaps get rid of some of the silly self-pity I'm foolish enough to feel, instead of going about choked up with it. How queer it is that even when we keep our thoughts respectable we can't help having absurd _feelings_ like self-pity, even though we know how rotten stupid they are!

Yes, I'll let it all out here, and then, some day, when I've cured myself all whole again, I'll burn this poor, silly old book. And if I'm not cured before the wedding, I'll burn it then, anyhow.

"How funny little girls are! From the time they're little bits of things they talk about marriage--whom they are going to marry, what sort of person it will be. I think Cora and I began when she was about five and I not seven. And as girls grow up, I don't believe there was ever one who genuinely expected to be an old maid. The most unattractive young girls discuss and plan and expect marriage just as much as the prettier and gayer ones. The only way we can find out that men don't want to marry us is by their not asking us. We don't see ourselves very well, and I honestly believe we all think--way deep down--that we're pretty attractive. At least, every girl has the idea, sometimes, that if men only saw the whole truth they'd think her as nice as any other girl, and really nicer than most others. But I don't believe I have any hallucinations of that sort about myself left. I can't imagine--now--_any_ man seeing anything in me that would make him care for me. I can't see anything about me to care for, myself.

Sometimes I think maybe I could make a man get excited about me if I could take a startlingly personal tone with him from the beginning, making him wonder all sorts of you-and-I perhapses--but I couldn't do it very well probably--oh, I couldn't make myself do it if I could do it well! And I shouldn't think it would have much effect except upon very inexperienced men--yet it does! Now, I wonder if this is a streak of sourness coming out; I don't feel bitter--I'm just thinking honestly, I'm sure.

"Well, here I am facing it: all through my later childhood, and all through my girlhood, I believe what really occupied me most--with the thought of it underlying all things else, though often buried very deep--was the prospect of my marriage. I regarded it as a certainty: I would grow up, fall in love, get engaged, and be married--of course! So I grew up and fell in love with You--but it stops there, and I must learn how to be an Old Maid and not let anybody see that I mind it. I know this is the hardest part of it, the beginning: it will get easier by-and-by, of course. If I can just manage this part of it, it's bound not to hurt so much later on.

"Yes, I grew up and fell in love with You--for you will always be You. I'll never, never get over _that_, my dear! You'll never, never know it; but I shall love You always till I die, and if I'm still Me after that, I shall keep right on loving you then, of course. You see, I didn't fall in love with you just to have you for myself. I fell in love with You! And that can never bother you at all nor ever be a shame to me that I love unsought, because you won't know, and because it's just an ocean of good-will, and every beat of my heart sends a new great wave of it toward you and Cora.

I shall find happiness, I believe, in service--I am sure there will be times when I can serve you both. I love you both and I can serve her for You and you for her. This isn't a hysterical mood, or a fit of 'exaltation': I have thought it all out and I know that I can live up to it. You are the best thing that can ever come into her life, and everything I can do shall be to keep you there. I must be very, very careful with her, for talk and advice do not influence her much. You love her--she has accepted you, and it is beautiful for you both. It must be kept beautiful. It has all become so clear to me: You are just what she has always needed, and if by any mischance she lost you I do not know what would become----"

"Good G.o.d!" cried Richard. He sprang to his feet, and the heavy book fell with a m.u.f.fled crash upon the floor, sprawling open upon its face, its leaves in disorder. He moved away from it, staring at it in incredulous dismay. But he knew.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Memory, that drowsy custodian, had wakened slowly, during this hour, beginning the process with fitful gleams of semi-consciousness, then, irritated, searching its pockets for the keys and dazedly exploring blind pa.s.sages; but now it flung wide open the gallery doors, and there, in clear light, were the rows of painted canva.s.ses.

He remembered "that day" when he was waiting for a car, and Laura Madison had stopped for a moment, and then had gone on, saying she preferred to walk. He remembered that after he got into the car he wondered why he had not walked home with her; had thought himself "slow" for not thinking of it in time to do it. There had seemed something very "taking" about her, as she stopped and spoke to him, something enlivening and wholesome and sweet--it had struck him that Laura was a "very nice girl." He had never before noticed how really charming she could look; in fact he had never thought much about either of the Madison sisters, who had become "young ladies" during his mourning for his brother. And this pleasant image of Laura remained with him for several days, until he decided that it might be a delightful thing to spend an evening with her. He had called, and he remembered, now, Cora's saying to him that he looked at her sometimes as if he did not like her; he had been surprised and astonishingly pleased to detect a mysterious feeling in her about it.

He remembered that almost at once he had fallen in love with Cora: she captivated him, enraptured him, as she still did--as she always would, he felt, no matter how she treated him or what she did to him. He did not a.n.a.lyze the process of the captivation and enrapturement--for love is a mystery and cannot be a.n.a.lyzed. This is so well known that even Richard Lindley knew it, and did not try!

. . . Heartsick, he stared at the fallen book. He was a man, and here was the proffered love of a woman he did not want. There was a pathos in the ledger; it seemed to grovel, sprawling and dishevelled in the circle of lamp-light on the floor: it was as if Laura herself lay pleading at his feet, and he looked down upon her, compa.s.sionate but revolted. He realized with astonishment from what a height she had fallen, how greatly he had respected her, how warmly liked her. What she now destroyed had been more important than he had guessed.

Simple masculine indignation rose within him: she was to have been his sister. If she had been unable to stifle this misplaced love of hers, could she not at least have kept it to herself? Laura, the self-respecting! No; she offered it--offered it to her sister's betrothed. She had written that he should "never, never know it"; that when she was "cured" she would burn the ledger. She had not burned it! There were inconsistencies in plenty in the pitiful screed, but these were the wildest--and the cheapest. In talk, she had urged him to "keep trying," for Cora, and now the sick-minded creature sent him this record. She wanted him to know.

Then what else was it but a plea? "I love you. Let Cora go. Take me."

He began to walk up and down, wondering what was to be done. After a time, he picked up the book gingerly, set it upon a shelf in a dark corner, and went for a walk outdoors. The night air seemed better than that of the room that held the ledger.

At the corner a boy, running, pa.s.sed him. It was Hedrick Madison, but Hedrick did not recognize Richard, nor was his mind at that moment concerned with Richard's affairs; he was on an errand of haste to Doctor Sloane. Mr. Madison had wakened from a heavy slumber unable to speak, his condition obviously much worse.

Hedrick returned in the doctor's car, and then hung uneasily about the door of the sick-room until Laura came out and told him to go to bed. In the morning, his mother did not appear at the breakfast table, Cora was serious and quiet, and Laura said that he need not go to school that day, though she added that the doctor thought their father would get "better." She looked wan and hollow-eyed: she had not been to bed, but declared that she would rest after breakfast. Evidently she had not missed her ledger; and Hedrick watched her closely, a pleasurable excitement stirring in his breast.

She did not go to her room after the meal; the house was cold, possessing no furnace, and, with Hedrick's a.s.sistance, she carried out the ashes from the library grate, and built a fire there. She had just lighted it, and the kindling was beginning to crackle, glowing rosily over her tired face, when the bell rang.

"Will you see who it is, please, Hedrick?"

He went with alacrity, and, returning, announced in an odd voice.

"It's d.i.c.k Lindley. He wants to see you."

"Me?" she murmured, wanly surprised. She was kneeling before the fireplace, wearing an old dress which was dusted with ashes, and upon her hands a pair of worn-out gloves of her father's. Lindley appeared in the hall behind Hedrick, carrying under his arm something wrapped in brown paper. His expression led her to think that he had heard of her father's relapse, and came on that account.

"Don't look at me, Richard," she said, smiling faintly as she rose, and stripping her hands of the clumsy gloves. "It's good of you to come, though. Doctor Sloane thinks he is going to be better again."

Richard inclined his head gravely, but did not speak.

"Well," said Hedrick with a slight emphasis, "I guess I'll go out in the yard a while." And with shining eyes he left the room.

In the hall, out of range from the library door, he executed a triumphant but noiseless caper, and doubled with mirth, clapping his hand over his mouth to stifle the effervescings of his joy. He had recognized the ledger in the same wrapping in which he had left it in Mrs. Lindley's vestibule. His moment had come: the climax of his enormous joke, the repayment in some small measure for the anguish he had so long endured. He crept silently back toward the door, flattened his back against the wall, and listened.

"Richard," he heard Laura say, a vague alarm in her voice, "what is it? What is the matter?"

Then Lindley: "I did not know what to do about it. I couldn't think of any sensible thing. I suppose what I am doing is the stupidest of all the things I thought of, but at least it's honest--so I've brought it back to you myself. Take it, please."

There was a crackling of the stiff wrapping paper, a little pause, then a strange sound from Laura. It was not vocal and no more than just audible: it was a prolonged scream in a whisper.

Hedrick ventured an eye at the crack, between the partly open door and its casing. Lindley stood with his back to him, but the boy had a clear view of Laura. She was leaning against the wall, facing Richard, the book clutched in both arms against her bosom, the wrapping paper on the floor at her feet.

"I thought of sending it back and pretending to think it had been left at my mother's house by mistake," said Richard sadly, "and of trying to make it seem that I hadn't read any of it. I thought of a dozen ways to pretend I believed you hadn't really meant me to read it----"

Making a crucial effort, she managed to speak.

"You--think I--did mean----"

"Well," he answered, with a helpless shrug, "you sent it! But it's what's in it that really matters, isn't it? I could have pretended anything in a note, I suppose, if I had written instead of coming.

But I found that what I most dreaded was meeting you again, and as we've got to meet, of course, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to blunder through a talk with you, somehow or another, and get that part of it over. I thought the longer I put off facing you, the worse it would be for both of us--and--and the more embarra.s.sing. I'm no good at pretending, anyhow; and the thing has happened. What use is there in not being honest? Well?"

She did not try again to speak. Her state was lamentable: it was all in her eyes.

Richard hung his head wretchedly, turning partly away from her.

"There's only one way--to look at it," he said hesitatingly, and stammering. "That is--there's only one thing to do: to forget that it's happened. I'm--I--oh, well, I care for Cora altogether. She's got never to know about this. She hasn't any idea or--suspicion of it, has she?"

Laura managed to shake her head.

"She never must have," he said. "Will you promise me to burn that book now?"

She nodded slowly.

"I--I'm awfully sorry, Laura," he said brokenly. "I'm not idiot enough not to see that you're suffering horribly. I suppose I have done the most blundering thing possible." He stood a moment, irresolute, then turned to the door. "Good-bye."

Hedrick had just time to dive into the hideous little room of the mult.i.tudinous owls as Richard strode into the hall. Then, with the closing of the front door, the boy was back at his post.

Laura stood leaning against the wall, the book clutched in her arms, as Richard had left her. Slowly she began to sink, her eyes wide open, and, with her back against the wall, she slid down until she was sitting upon the floor. Her arms relaxed and hung limp at her sides, letting the book topple over in her lap, and she sat motionless.

One of her feet protruded from her skirt, and the leaping firelight illumined it ruddily. It was a graceful foot in an old shoe which had been re-soled and patched. It seemed very still, that patched shoe, as if it might stay still forever. Hedrick knew that Laura had not fainted, but he wished she would move her foot.

He went away. He went into the owl-room again, and stood there silently a long, long time. Then he stole back again toward the library door, but caught a glimpse of that old, motionless shoe through the doorway as he came near. Then he spied no more. He went out to the stable, and, secluding himself in his studio, sat moodily to meditate.

Something was the matter. Something had gone wrong. He had thrown a bomb which he had expected to go off with a stupendous bang, leaving him, as the smoke cleared, looking down in merry triumph, stinging his fallen enemies with his humour, withering them with satire, and inquiring of them how it felt, now _they_ were getting it. But he was decidedly untriumphant: he wished Laura had moved her foot and that she hadn't that patch upon her shoe. He could not get his mind off that patch. He began to feel very queer: it seemed to be somehow because of the patch. If she had worn a pair of new shoes that morning. . . . Yes, it was that patch.