Viola Gwyn Part 18

Mothers frequently do behave that way. This young man of yours may be,--and I devoutly hope he is,--a very worthy fellow, one to whom your mother ought to be proud and happy to see you married. In view of her stand in the matter, I will go so far as to say that you were probably doing the right thing in running away from home to be married. I think I mentioned to you last night that I am of a very romantic nature. Lord bless you, I have lain awake many a night envying the dauntless gentlemen of feudal days who bore their sweethearts away in gallant fashion pursued by ferocious fathers and a score or more of blood-thirsty henchmen. Ah, that was the way for me! With my lady fair seated in front of me upon the speeding palfrey, my body between her and the bullets and lances and bludgeons of countless pursuers! Zounds! Odds blood! Gadzooks! and so forth!

Not any of this stealing away in the night for me! Ah, me! How different we are in these prosaic days! But, even so, if I were you, the next time I undertake to run away with the valiant Mr. Lapelle I should see to it that he does his part in the good old-fashioned way. And I should not drag such loyal, honest folk as Striker and his wife into the business and then ride merrily off, leaving them to pay the Piper."

His heart smote him as he saw her eyes fill with tears. He did not mistake them for tears of shame or contrition,--far from it, he knew they were born of speechless anger. He had hurt her sorely, even deliberately, and he was overcome by a sudden charge of compa.s.sion--and regret. He wanted to comfort her, he wanted to say something,--anything,--to take away the sting of chastis.e.m.e.nt.

He was not surprised when she swept by him, her head high, her cheeks white with anger, her stormy eyes denying him even so much as a look of scorn. He stood aside, allowing her to pa.s.s, and remained motionless, gazing after her until she turned in at her own gate and was lost to view. He shook his head dubiously and sighed.

"Little Minda," he mused, under his breath. "You were my playmate once upon a time,--and now! Now what are you? A rascal's sweetheart, if all they say is true. Gad, how beautiful you are!" He was walking slowly through the path, his head bent, his eyes clouded with trouble. "And how you are hating me at this moment. What a devil's mess it all is!"

His eye fell upon something white lying at the edge of the path a few feet ahead. It was a neatly folded sheet of note paper. He stood looking down at it for a moment. She must have dropped it as she came through. It was clean and unsoiled. A message, perhaps, from Barry Lapelle, smuggled to her through the connivance of a friendly go-between,--the girl she had gone to visit, what was her name? He stooped to pick it up, but before his fingers touched it he straightened up and deliberately moved it with the toe of his boot to a less exposed place among the bushes, where he would have failed to see it in pa.s.sing. Then he strode resolutely away without so much as a glance over his shoulder, and, coming to the open road, stepped briskly off in the direction of the public Square.

His conscience would have rejoiced had he betrayed it by secreting himself among the bushes for a matter of five minutes,--quaint paradox, indeed!--for he would have seen her steal warily, anxiously into the thicket in search of the lost missive,--and he would have been further exalted by the little cry of relief that fell from her lips as she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and sped incontinently homeward, as if pursued by all the eyes in Christendom.

As a matter of fact, it was not a letter from Barry to Viola. It was the other way round. She had written him a long letter absolving herself from blame in the contretemps of the night before, at the same time confessing that she was absolutely in the dark as to how her mother had found out about their plans. Suffice to say, she HAD found out early in the evening and, to employ her own words, "You know the result." Then she went on to say that, all things considered, she was now quite sure she could never, never consent to make another attempt.

"I am positive," she wrote, ingenuously, "that mother will relent in time, and then we can be married without going to so much trouble about it." Farther on she admitted that, "Mother is very firm about it now, but when she realizes that I am absolutely determined to marry you, I am sure she will give in and all will be well." At the end she said: "For the present, Barry dear, I think you had better not come to the house. She feels very bitter toward you after last night. We can see each other at Effie's and other places. After all, she has had a great sorrow and she is so very unhappy that I ought not to hurt her in any way if I can help it. I love you, but I also love her. Please be kind and reasonable, dear, and do not think I am losing heart. I am just as determined as ever. Nothing can change me. You believe that, don't you, Barry dear? I know how impulsive you are and how set in your ways. Sometimes you really frighten me but I know it is because you love me so much. You must not do anything rash. It would spoil everything. I do wish you would stay away from that awful place down by the river. Mother would feel differently toward you, I know, if you were not there so much. She knows the men play cards there for money and drink and swear. I believe you will keep your promise never to touch a drop of whiskey after we are married, but when I told her that she only laughed at me. By this time you must know that my brother has come to Lafayette. He arrived this morning. He knows nothing about what happened last night but I am afraid mother will tell him when she sees him to-day. It would not surprise me if they bury the hatchet and join hands and try to make a good little girl out of me. I think he is quite a prim young man. He spent the night at Striker's and I saw him there. I must say he is good-looking. He is so good-looking that n.o.body would ever suspect that he is related to me." She signed herself, "Your loving and devoted and loyal Viola."

She had been unable to get the letter to him that day, and for a very good reason. Her messenger, Effie Wardlow's young brother, reached the tavern just in time to see Barry emerge, quite tipsy and in a vile temper, arguing loudly with Jack Trentman and Syd Budd, the town's most notorious gamblers.

The three men went off toward the ferry. The lad very sensibly decided this was no time to deliver a love letter to Mr. Lapelle, so forthwith returned it to the sender, who, after listening bleakly to a somewhat harrowing description of her lover's unsteady legs and the direction in which they carried him, departed for home fully convinced that something dreadful was going to happen to Barry and that she would be to blame for it.

Halfway home she decided that her mother was equally if not more to blame than she, and, upon catching sight of her lordly, self-satisfied brother, acquitted herself of ALL responsibility and charged everything to her meddling relatives. Her encounter with the exasperating Kenneth, however, served to throw a new and most unwelcome light upon the situation. It WAS a shabby trick to play upon the Strikers.

She had not thought of it before. And how she hated him for making her think of it!

The first thing she did upon returning to the house with the recovered letter was to proceed to the kitchen, where, after reading it over again, she consigned it to the flames. She was very glad it had not been delivered to Barry. The part of it referring to the "place down by the river" would have to be treated with a great deal more firmness and decision. That was something she would have to speak very plainly about.

By this time she had reached the conclusion that Barry was to blame for THAT, and that nothing more terrible could happen to him than a severe headache,--an ailment to which he was accustomed and which he treated very lightly in excusing himself when she took him to task for his jolly lapses. "All red-blooded fellows take a little too much once in a while," he had said, more than once.

CHAPTER X

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

Rachel Gwyn was seated at the parlor window when Viola entered the house. She was there ten or fifteen minutes later when her daughter came downstairs.

"May I have a word with you, mother?" said the girl, from the doorway, after waiting a moment for her mother to take some notice of her presence.

She spoke in a very stiff and formal manner, for there had been no attempt on the part of either to make peace since the trying experiences of early morning. Viola had sulked all day, while her mother preserved a stony silence that remained unbroken up to the time she expressed a desire to be alone with Kenneth when he called.

Apparently Mrs. Gwyn did not hear Viola's question. The girl advanced a few steps into the room and stopped again to regard the motionless, unresponsive figure at the window. Mrs. Gwyn's elbow was on the sill, her chin resting in the hand. Apparently she was deaf to all sound inside the room.

A wave of pity swept over Viola. All in an instant her rancour took flight and in its place came a longing to steal over and throw her arms about those bent shoulders and whisper words of remorse.

Desolation hung over that silent, thinking figure. Viola's heart swelled with renewed anger toward Kenneth Gwynne.

What had he said or done to wound this stony, indomitable mother of hers?

The room was cold. The fire had died down; only the huge backlog showed splotches of red against the charred black; in front of it were the faintly smoking ashes of a once sprightly blaze. She shivered, and then, moved by a sudden impulse, strode softly over and took down from its peg beside the fireplace the huge turkey wing used in blowing the embers to life. She was vigorously fanning the backlog when a sound from behind indicated that her mother had risen from the chair. She smiled as she glanced over her shoulder.

Her mother was standing with one of her hands pressed tightly to her eyes. Her lips were moving.

"He is Robert--Robert himself," she was murmuring. "As like as two peas. I was afraid he might be--would be--" The words trailed off into a mumble, for she had lowered her hand and was staring in dull surprise at Viola.

"What is it, mother?" cried the girl, alarmed by the other's expression. "What were you saying?"

After a moment her mother said, quite calmly: "Oh, it's you, is it? When did you get home?"

"A few minutes ago. How cold it is! The fire is almost out. Shall I get some kindling and start it up?"

"Yes. I don't know how I came to let it go down."

When Viola returned from the kitchen with the f.a.gots and a bunch of shavings, the older woman was standing in front of the fireplace staring moodily down at the ashes. She moved to one side while her daughter laid the kindling and placed three or four sticks of firewood upon the heap. Not a word was spoken until after Viola had fanned a tiny flame out of the embers and lighted the shavings with a spill.

"I met my brother out there in the grove," said she, rising and brushing the wood dust from her hands.

"Yes?"

"I thought maybe you and he had been discussing Barry Lapelle and me and what happened last night, so I started to give him a piece of my mind," said Viola, crimsoning.

A faint smile played about the corners of Mrs. Gwyn's lips. "I can well imagine his astonishment," she said, drily.

"He knew all about it, even if he did not get it from you, mother,"

said the girl, darkly. "Phin Striker told him everything."

"Everybody in town will know about it before the week is out,"

said the mother, a touch of bitterness in her voice. "I would have given all I possess if it could have been kept from Kenneth Gwynne.

Salt in an open sore, that's what it is, Viola. It smarts, oh, how it smarts."

Viola, ignorant of the true cause of her mother's pain, snapped her fingers disdainfully.

"That's how much I care for his opinion, one way or the other. I wouldn't let him worry me if I were you, mother. Let him think what he pleases. It's nothing to us. I guess we can get along very well without his good opinion or his good will or anything else. And I will not allow him to interfere in my affairs. I told him so in plain words out there awhile ago. He comes here and the very first thing he does is to--"

"He will think what he pleases, my child," broke in her mother; "so do not flatter yourself that he will be affected by your opinion of him. We will not discuss him, if you please. We have come to an understanding on certain matters, and that is all that is necessary to tell you about our interview. He will go his own way and we will go ours. There need be no conflict between us."

Viola frowned dubiously. "It is all very well for you to take that att.i.tude, mother. But I am not in the same position. He is my half-brother. It is going to be very awkward. He is nothing to you,--and people will understand if you ignore him,--but it--it isn't quite the same with me. Can't you see?"

"Certainly," admitted Mrs. Gwyn without hesitation. "You and he have a perfect right to be friendly. It would not be right for me to stand between you if you decide to--"

"But I do not want to be friendly with him," cried the girl, adding, with a toss of her head,--"and I guess he realizes it by this time. But people know that we had the same father. They will think it strange if--if we have nothing to do with each other. Oh, it's terribly upsetting, isn't it?"

"What did he say to you out there?"

"He was abominable! Officious, sarcastic, insolent,--"

"In plain words, he gave you a good talking to," interrupted Mrs.

Gwyn, rather grimly.

"He said some things I can never forgive."