I
“For the land’s sake! If there isn’t Jonas Lane!” burst out Miss Cockerill irrelevantly.
She so far forgot the respect due to a minister’s wife, and that reserve which should be the portion of a maiden lady, as to forsake her chair for the window. Peering discreetly through her lattice of geraniums, she regarded with tense interest the actions of a gentleman who was emerging from a buggy in front of her neighbour’s house. This person, after securing his horse to a ringed post, made his way with some deliberation toward the door.
“He’s taken on flesh,” pursued Miss Cockerill. She drew a trifle to one side in order to share her opportunity with her visitor, but losing nothing of what it was vouchsafed her to behold during the interval between the pull at the bell and the opening of the door. “She keeps him waitin’, same as she’s done for twenty years,” commented the spectator.
The door at which he sued closed behind the expectant gentleman who had “taken on flesh.” And as Miss Cockerill’s most piercing gaze failed to penetrate that exasperating barrier, she turned apologetically:
“You see, Mis’ Webster, I’ve known Martha Waring ever since we were that high.” She indicated an altitude above the floor about equal to that of an ambitious kitten. “She was born in that very house, and I was born in this, and now we’re the only ones left of our folks. So it seems like I knew more about her than I did about myself.”
It is to be feared that Mrs. Webster, lately come from more impersonal atmospheres to that of Ackerton, made small effort to discourage the revelations which it not seldom befell her to hear. On the contrary, she made it a point to regard them as among the roses which garnish the rather thorny path of young divines and their wives.
“A friendship like that is charming,” she remarked. “It is not many that survive the perils of childhood. You are both fortunate in having such constant friends.”
“H’m! It’s a pity she don’t see it!” exclaimed Miss Cockerill somewhat grimly. “Like as not she’ll tell Jonas Lane to go back out West.”
“Jonas Lane?” echoed Mrs. Webster with diplomatic interrogation. “Mr. Lane? I don’t seem to remember that name.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” agreed Miss Cockerill promptly. “His family’s all dead, like the rest of ours, and he went away twenty years ago—after he’d proposed to Martha the first time.”
“O!” exclaimed Mrs. Webster with discreet non-committal. But there was that in the regard she cast upon Miss Cockerill which did not deter that lady from continuing:
“He’s only been back twice since. That was when he proposed to her the second and third times. Now I s’pose he’s doing it the fourth.”
She looked out of the window again, at the house in which so momentous an event should be taking place. The house gave no hint, however, of being the abode of passion. It stood back in its maple-shaded yard, more trim and respectable in its clap-boarded dove-colour than a thing of nature, but as indifferent to human palpitations. The eyes of both ladies devoted to it an interval of silence. Then Miss Cockerill turned once more to her companion:
“I don’t see how she can refuse him this time. You see the first time she had her father an’ mother and Anne. Her father was real sickly, and Anne took after him. They both lay abed for years. Father Waring did because he fell from the hay loft. But Anne did because her father did, I guess. Anyhow, when Jonas first proposed to Martha, twenty years ago, she said she liked him well enough but that she couldn’t leave her folks while they needed her. So Jonas went out West, he was that provoked. He did mighty well, too. He went into lumber, and he’s a rich man now. But he didn’t forget Martha, for all that. He was always as faithful as you’d want to see—from the time he was a boy and we all went to school together.”
Miss Cockerill let her eye return to the dove-coloured house with a reminiscent light which quickened Mrs. Webster’s interest.
“He asked me to keep him informed of what went on here. He wasn’t a great hand at writin’, and Martha wasn’t either. And so after her father died he came back. She told him she wasn’t ready, though. An’ ’twas the same when Anne went. Martha said she liked him just as much as ever, and maybe more, but that her duty was with her mother. Jonas said then he’d marry her mother, too. He was always a great hand at his jokes, was Jonas. But Martha said her mother wanted to spend her last days at home, and so Jonas had to go off the third time. Seems like Martha knew her own mind better than most folks.”
Again Miss Cockerill paused a moment and contemplated the fateful grey house.
“That was twelve years ago,” she resumed. “And it’s hardly a fortnight since Mis’ Waring was laid in her grave, and here comes Jonas knocking again at Martha’s door. Guess she’ll have to let him in this time. Anyway, I’ll know as soon as anybody. Jonas always promised that he’d tell me first.”
It seemed to Mrs. Webster that she found a certain parallel between the decently painted clap-boards to which her attention had thus been drawn and the somewhat inscrutable exterior of her hostess. There was more within than appeared on the surface. As for Miss Cockerill, her gaze had an intensity which walls of brass could scarcely have withstood. And as if the house could keep its secret from her no longer, Jonas Lane suddenly emerged upon the veranda.
“He’s coming over now, I do believe!” exclaimed Miss Cockerill excitedly, endeavouring to make the most of the window without appearing from the outside to do so.
Jonas, however, strode down the path, untied his horse, threw the halter into the back of the buggy, got in with much less deliberation than he had got out, and drove rapidly away.
Miss Cockerill watched the buggy until it disappeared in the long elm vista. Then, after another glance at the grey house, she turned to her visitor.
“Well, I declare!” she burst forth. “If she hasn’t refused him again!”