CHAPTER XII
Truedale travelled back to the place of his new life bearing his books, his unfinished play, and his secret sorrow with him. His books and papers were the excuse for his journey; for the rest, no one suspected nor—so thought Truedale—was any one ever to know. That part of his life-story was done with; it had been interpreted bunglingly and ignorantly to be sure, but the lesson, learned by failure, had sunk deep in his heart.
He arranged his private work in the little room under the eaves. He intended, if time were ever his again, to begin where he had left off when broken health interrupted.
In the extension room over William Truedale’s bedchamber Lynda carried on her designing and her study; her office, uptown, was reserved for interviews and outside business. Her home workshop had the feminine touch that the other lacked. There were her tea table by the hearth, work bags of dainty silk, and flowers in glass vases. The dog and the cats were welcome in the pleasant room and sedately slept or rolled about while the mistress worked.
But Truedale, while much in the old home, still kept his five-room flat. He bought a good, serviceable dog that preferred a bachelor life to any other and throve upon long evening strolls and erratic feeding. There were plants growing in the windows—and these Conning looked after with conscientious care.
When the first suffering and sense of abasement passed, Truedale discovered that life in his little apartment was not only possible, but also his salvation. All the spiritual essence left in him survived best in those rooms. As time went by and Nella-Rose as an actuality receded, her memory remained unembittered. Truedale never cast blame upon her, though sometimes he tried to view her from the outsider’s position. No; always she eluded the material estimate.
“Not more than half real,” so White had portrayed her, and as such she gradually became to Truedale.
He plunged into business, as many a man had before him, to fill the gaps in his life; and he found, as others had, that the taste of power—the discovery that he could meet and fulfil the demands made upon him—carried him out of the depths and eventually secured a place for him in the world of men that he valued and strove to prove himself worthy of. He wisely went slowly and took the advice of such men as McPherson and his uncle’s old lawyer. He grew in time to enjoy the position of trust as his duties multiplied, and he often wondered how he could ever have despised the common lot of his fellows. He deliberately, and from choice, set his personal tastes aside—time enough for his reading and writing when he had toughened his mental muscles, he thought. Lynda deplored this, but Truedale explained:
“You see, Lyn, when I began to carve the thing out—the play, you know—I had no idea how to handle the tools; like many fools with a touch of talent, I thought I could manage without preparation. I’ve learned better. You cannot get a thing over to people unless you know something of life—speak the language. I’m learning, and when I feel that I cannot help writing—I’ll write.”
“Good!” Lynda saw his point; “and now let’s haunt the theatres—see the machinery in running order. We’ll find out what people want and why.”
So they went to the theatre and read plays. Brace made the wholesome third and their lives settled into calm enjoyment that was charming but which sometimes—not often, but occasionally—made Lynda pause and consider. It would not do—for Con—to fall into a pace that might defeat his best good.
But this thought brought a deep crimson to the girl’s cheeks.
And then something happened. It was so subtle that Lynda Kendall, least of all, realized the true significance.
Once in the early days of her secured self-support, William Truedale had said to her:
“You give too much attention, girl, to your tailor and too little to your dressmaker.”
Lynda had laughingly called her friend frivolous and defended her wardrobe.
“One cannot doll up for business, Uncle William.”
“Is business your whole life, Lynda? If so you had better reform it. If women are going to pattern their lives after men’s they must go the whole way. A sensible man recognizes the need of shutting the office door sometimes and putting on his dress suit.”
“Well, but Uncle William, what is the matter with this perfectly built suit? I always slip a fresh blouse on when I am off duty. I hate to be always changing.”
“If you had a mother, Lynda, she would make you see what I mean. An old fungus like me cannot be expected to command respect from such an up-to-date humbug as you!”
They had laughed it off and Lynda had, once or twice, donned a house gown to please her critical friend, but eventually had slipped back into suits and blouses.
All of a sudden one day—it was nearing holiday time—she left her workroom at midday and, almost shamefacedly, “went shopping.” As the fever got into her blood she became reckless, and by five o’clock had bought and ordered home more delicate and exquisite finery than she had ever owned in all her life before.
“It’s scandalous!” she murmured to her gay, young heart, “an awful waste of good money, but for the first time, I see how women can get clothes-mad.”
She devoted the hour and a half before dinner to locating an artistic dressmaker and putting herself in her hands.
The result was both startling and exciting. The first gown to come home was a dull, golden-brown velvet thing so soft and clinging and individual that it put its wearer into quite a flutter. She “did” and undid her hair, and, in the process, discovered that if she pulled the “sides” loose there was a tendency to curl and the effect was distinctly charming—with the strange gown, of course! Then, marshalling all her courage, she trailed down to the library and thanked heaven when she found the room empty. It would be easier to occupy the stage than to make a late entrance when the audience was in position. So Lynda sat down, tried to read, but was so nervous that her eyes shone and her cheeks were rosy.
Brace and Conning came in together. “Look who’s here!” was Kendall’s brotherly greeting. “Gee! Con, look at our lady friend!” He held his sister off at arms’ length and commented upon her “points.”
“I didn’t know your hair curled, Lyn.”
“I didn’t, myself, until this afternoon. You see,” she trembled a bit, “now that I do not have to go in the subway to business there’s no reason for excluding—this sort of thing” (she touched the pretty gown), “and once you let yourself go, you do not know where you will land. Curls go with these frills; slippers, too—look!”
Then she glanced up at Conning.
“Do you think I’m very—frivolous?” she asked.
“I never knew”—he was gazing seriously at her—“how handsome you are, Lyn. Wear that gown morning, noon and night; it’s stunning.”
“I’m glad you both like it. I feel a little unusual in it—but I’ll settle down. I have been a trifle prim in dress.”
Like the giant’s robe, Lynda Kendall’s garments seemed to transform her and endow her with the attributes peculiar to themselves. So gradually, that it caused no wonder, she developed the blessed gift of charm and it coloured life for herself and others like a glow from a hidden fire.
All this did not interfere with her business. Once she donned her working garb she was the capable Lynda of the past. A little more sentiment, perhaps, appeared in her designs—a wider conception; but that was natural, for happiness had come to her—and a delicious sense of success. She, womanlike, began to rejoice in her power. She heard of John Morrell’s marriage to a young western girl, about this time, with genuine delight. Her sky was clearing of all regrets.
“Morrell was in the office to-day,” Brace told his sister one evening, “it seemed to me a bit brash for him to lay it on so thick about his happiness and all that sort of rot.”
“Brace!”
“Well, it might be all right to another fellow, but it sounded out of tune, somehow, to me. He says she is the kind that has flung herself body and soul into love; I wager she’s a fool.”
Lynda looked serious at once.
“I hope not,” she said thoughtfully, “and she’ll be happier with John, in the long run, if she has some reservations. I did not think that once; I do now.”
“But—you, Lyn? You had reservations to burn.”
“I had—too many. That was where the mistake began.”
“You—do not regret?”
Lynda came close to him.
“Brace, I regret nothing. I am learning that every step leads to the next—if you don’t stumble. If you do—you have to pick yourself up and go back. If John learned from me, I, too, have learned from him. I’m going to try to—love his wife.”
“I bet she’s a cross, somehow, between a cowboy and an idiot. John protested too much about her charms. She’s got a sister—sounds a bit to me as if Morrell had married them both. She’s coming to live with them after awhile. When I fall in love, it’s going to be with an orphan out of an asylum.”
Lynda laughed and gave her brother a hug. Then she said:
“Our circle is widening and, by the way Brace, I’m going to begin to entertain a little.”
“Good Lord, Lyn!”
“Oh! modestly—until I can use my stiff little wings. A dinner now and then and a luncheon occasionally when I know enough nice women to make a decent showing. Clothes and women, when adopted late in life, are difficult. But oh! Brace, it is great—this blessed home life of mine! The coming away from my beloved work to something even better.”
The pulse of a city throbs faster in the winter. All the vitality of well-nourished men and women is at its fullest, while for them who fall below the normal, the necessity of the struggle for existence keys them to a high pitch. Not so in the deep, far mountain places. There, the inhabitants hide from the elements and withdraw into themselves. For weeks at a time no human being ventures forth from the shelter and comparative comfort of the dull cabins. Families, pressed thus close and debarred from the freedom of the open, suffer mentally and spiritually as one from the wider haunts of men can hardly conceive.
When Nella-Rose turned away from Truedale that golden autumn day, she faced winter and the shut-in terrors of the cold and loneliness. In two weeks the last vestige of autumn would be past, and the girl could not contemplate being imprisoned with Marg and her father while waiting for love to return to her. She paused on the wet, leafy path and considered. She had told Truedale that she would go home, but what did it matter. She would go to Miss Lois Ann’s. She would know when Truedale returned; she could go to him. In the meantime no human being would annoy her or question her in that cabin far back in the Hollow. And Lois Ann would while away the long hours by story and song. It seemed to her there was but one thing to do—and Nella-Rose did it! She fled to the woman whose name Truedale had barely heard.
It took her three good hours to make the distance to the Hollow and it was quite dark when she tapped on the door of the little cabin. To all appearances the place was deserted; but after the second knock a shutter to the right of the door was pushed open and a long, lean hand appeared holding a lighted candle, while a deep, rich voice called:
“Who?”
“Jes’ Nella-Rose!”
The hand withdrew, the shutter was closed, and in another minute the door was flung wide and the girl drawn into the warm, comfortable room. Supper, of a better sort than most hill-women knew, was spread out on a clean table, and in the cheer and safety Nella-Rose expanded and decided to take the old woman into her confidence at once and so secure present comfort until Truedale came back to claim her.
This Lois Ann, in whose sunken eyes eternal youth burned and glowed, was a mystery in the hills and was never questioned. Long ago she had come, asked no favours, and settled down to fare as best she could. There was but one sure passport to her sanctuary. That was—trouble! Once misfortune overtook one, sex was forgotten, but at other times it was understood that Miss Lois Ann had small liking or sympathy for men, while on the other hand she brooded over women and children with the everlasting strength of maternity.
It was suspected, and with good reason, that many refugees from justice passed through Miss Lois Ann’s front door and escaped by other exits. Officers of the law had, more than once, traced their quarry to the dreary cabin and demanded entrance for search. This was always promptly given, but never had a culprit been found on the premises! White understood and admired the old woman; he always halted justice, if possible, outside her domain, but, being a hill-man, Jim had his suspicions which he never voiced.
“So now, honey, what yo’ coming to me fo’ this black night?” said Lois Ann to Nella-Rose after the evening meal was cleared away, the fire replenished, and “with four feet on the fender” the two were content. “Trouble?” The wonderful eyes searched the happy, young face and at the glance, Nella-Rose knew that she was compelled to confide! There was no choice. She felt the power closing in about her, she found it not so easy as she had supposed, to explain. She sparred for time.
“Tell me a right, nice story, Miss Lois Ann,” she pleaded, “and of course it’s no trouble that has brought me here! Trouble! Huh!”
“What then?” And now Nella-Rose sank to the hearthstone and bent her head on the lap of the old woman. It was more possible to speak when she could escape those seeking eyes. She closed her own and tried to call Truedale to the dark space and to her support—but he would not come.
“So it is trouble, then?”
“No, no! it’s—oh! it’s the—joy, Miss Lois Ann.”
“Ha! ha! And you’ve found out that the young scamp is back—that Lawson?” Lois Ann, for a moment, knew relief.
“It—it isn’t Burke,” the words came lingeringly. “Yes, I know he’s back—is he here?” This affrightedly.
“No—but he’s been. He may come again. His maw’s always empty, but I will say this for the scoundrel—he gives more than he takes, in the long run. But if it isn’t Lawson, who then? Not that snake-in-the-grass, Jed?” Love and trouble were synonymous with Lois Ann when one was young and pretty and a fool.
“Jed? Jed indeed!”
“Child, out with it!”
“I—I am going to tell you, Miss Lois Ann.”
Then the knotted old hand fell like a withered leaf upon the soft hair—the woman-heart was ready to bear another burden. Not a word did the closed lips utter while the amazing tale ran on and on in the gentle drawl. Consternation, even doubt of the girl’s sanity, held part in the old woman’s keen mind, but gradually the truth of the confession established itself, and once the fact was realized that a stranger—and such a one—had been hidden in the hills while this thing, that the girl was telling, was going on—the strong, clear mind of the listener interpreted the truth by the knowledge gained through a long, hard life.
“And so, you see, Miss Lois Ann, it’s like he opened heaven for me; and I want to hide here till he comes to take me up, up into heaven with him. And no one else must know.”
Lois Ann had torn the cawl from Nella-Rose’s baby face—had felt, in her superstitious heart, that the child was mysteriously destined to see wide and far; and now, with agony that she struggled to conceal, she knew that to her was given the task of drawing the veil from the soul of the girl at her feet in order that she might indeed see far and wide into the kingdom of suffering women.
For a moment the woman fenced, she would put the cup from her if she could, like all humans who understand.
“You—are yo’ lying to me?” she asked faintly, and oh, but she would have given much to hear the girl’s impish laugh of assent. Instead, she saw Nella-Rose’s eyes grow deadly serious.
“It’s no lie, Miss Lois Ann; it’s a right beautiful truth.”
“And for days and nights you stayed alone with this man?”
The lean hand, with unrelenting strength, now gripped the drooping face and held it firmly while the firelight played full upon it, meanwhile the keen old eyes bored into Nella-Rose’s very soul.
“But he—he is my man! You forget the—marrying on the hill, Miss Lois Ann!”
The voice was raised a bit and the colour left the trembling lips.
“Your man!” And a bitter laugh rang out wildly.
“Stop, Miss Lois Ann! Yo’ shall not look at me like that!”
The vision was dulled—Nella-Rose shivered.
“You shall not look at me like that; God would not—why should you?”
“God!”—the cracked voice spoke the word bitterly. “God! What does God care for women? It’s the men as God made things for, and us-all has to fend them off—men and God are agin us women!”
“No, no! Let me free. I was so happy until—Oh! Miss Lois Ann, you shall not take my happiness away.”
“Yo’ came to the right place, yo’ po’ lil’ chile.”
The eyes had seen all they needed to see and the hand let drop the pretty, quivering face.
“We’ll wait—oh! certainly we-all will wait a week; two weeks; then three. An’ we-all will hide close and see what we-all shall see!” A hard, pitiful laugh echoed through the room. “And now to bed! Take the closet back o’ my chamber. No one can reach yo’ there, chile. Sleep and dream and—forget.”
And that night Burke Lawson, after an hour’s struggle, determined to come forth among his kind and take his place. Nella-Rose had decided him. He was tired of hiding, tired of playing his game. One look at the face he had loved from its babyhood had turned the tide. Lawson had never before been so long shut away from his guiding star. And she had said that he might ask again when he dared—and so he came forth from his cave-place. Once outside, he drew a deep, free breath, turned his handsome face to the sky, and felt the prayer that another might have voiced.
He thought of Nella-Rose, remembered her love of adventure, her splendid courage and spirit. Nothing so surely could win her as the proposal he was about to make. To ask her to remain at Pine Cone and settle down with him as her hill-billy would hold small temptation, but to take her away to new and wider fields—that was another matter! And go they would—he and she. He would get a horse somewhere, somehow. With Nella-Rose behind him, he would never stop until a parson was reached, and after that—why the world would be theirs from which to choose.
And it was at that point of Lawson’s fervid, religious state that Jed Martin had materialized and made it imperative that he be dealt with summarily and definitely.
After confiding his immediate future to the subjugated Martin—having forced him to cover at the point of a pistol—Burke, with his big, wholesome laugh, crawled again out of the cave. Then, raising himself to his full height, he strode over the sodden trail toward White’s cabin with the lightest, purest heart he had carried for many a day. But Fate had an ugly trick in store for him. He was half way to White’s when he heard steps. Habit was strong. He promptly climbed a tree. The moon came out just then and disclosed the follower. “Blake’s dawg,” muttered Lawson and, as the big hound took his stand under the tree, he understood matters. Blake was his worst enemy; he had a score to settle about the revenue men and a term in jail for which Lawson was responsible. While the general hunt was on, Blake had entered in, thinking to square things, while not bringing himself into too much prominence.
“Yo’ infernal critter!” murmured Lawson, “in another minute you’ll howl, yo’ po’ brute. I hate ter shoot yo’—yo’ being what yo’ are—but here goes.”
After that White’s was impossible for a time and Nella-Rose must wait. In a day or so, probably—so Burke quickly considered—he could make a dash back, get White to help him, and bear off his prize, but for the moment the sooner he reached safety beyond the ridge, the better. Shooting a dog was no light matter.
Lawson reached safety but with a broken leg; for, going down-stream, he had met with misfortune and, during that long, hard winter, unable to fend for himself, he was safely hidden by a timely friend and served by a doctor who was smuggled to the scene and well paid for his help and silence.
And in Lois Ann’s cabin Nella-Rose waited, at first with serene hope, and then, with pitiful longing. She and the old woman never referred to the conversation of the first night but the girl was sure she was being watched and shielded and she felt the doubt and scorn in the attitude of Lois Ann.
“I’ll—I’ll send for my man,” at last she desperately decided at the end of the second week. But she dared not risk a journey to the far station in order to send a telegram. So she watched for a chance to send a letter that she had carefully and painfully written.
“I’m to Miss Lois Ann’s in Devil-may-come Hollow. I’m trusting and loving you, but Miss Lois Ann—don’t believe! So please, Mister Man come and tell her and then go back and I will wait—most truly
Your Nella-Rose.”
then she crossed the name out and scribbled “Your doney-gal.”
It was early in the third week that Bill Trim came whistling down the trail, on a cold, bitterly cold, November morning. He bore a load of “grateful gifts” to Lois Ann from men and women whom she had succoured in times of need and who always remembered her, practically, when winter “set.”
Bill was a half-wit but as strong as an ox; and, once set upon a task, managed it in a way that had given him a secure position in the community. He carried mail into the remotest districts—when there was any to carry. He “toted” heavy loads and gathered gossip and spilled it liberally. He was impersonal, ignorant, and illiterate, but he did his poor best and grovelled at the feet of any one who showed him the least affection. He was horribly afraid of Lois Ann for no reason that he could have given; he was afraid of her eyes—her thin, claw-like hands. As he now delivered the bundles he had for her he accepted the food she gave and then darted away to eat it in comfort beyond the reach of those glances he dreaded.
And there Nella-Rose sought him and sat beside him with a choice morsel she had saved from her finer fare.
“Trim,” she whispered when he was about to start, “here is a letter—Miss Lois Ann wants you to mail.”
The bright eyes looked yearningly into the dull, hopeless face.
“I—hate the ole ’un!” confided Bill.
“But yo’ don’t hate me, Bill?”
“No.”
“Well, then, do it for me, but don’t tell a living soul that you saw me. See, Bill, I have a whole dollar—I earned it by berry-picking. Pay for the letter and then keep the rest. And if you ever see Marg, and she asks about me—and whether you’ve seen me—tell her” (and here Nella-Rose’s white teeth gleamed in the mischievous smile), “tell her you saw me walking in the Hollow with Burke Lawson!”
The dull fellow shook with foolish laughter. “I sho’ will!” he said, and then tucked the letter and dollar bill in the breast of his shirt. “And now, lil’ doney-gal, let me touch yo’ hand,” he pleaded, “this—er—way.” And like a poor frayed, battered knight he pressed his lips to the small, brown hand of the one person who had always been kind to him.
At sunset Bill halted to eat his supper and warm his stiffened body. He tried to build a fire but the wood was wet and in desperation he took, at last, the papers from inside his thin coat, they had helped to shield him from the cold, and utilized them to start the pine cones. He rested and feasted and later went his way. At the post office he searched among his rags for the letter and the money. Then his face went white as ashes:
“Gawd a’mighty!” he whimpered.
“What’s wrong?” Merrivale came from behind the counter.
“I done burn my chest protector. I’ll freeze without the papers.” Then Bill explained the fire building but, recalling Lois Ann, withheld any further information.
“Here, you fool,” Merrivale said not unkindly, “take all the papers you want. And take this old coat, too. And look, lad, in yo’ wandering have yo’ seen Greyson’s lil’ gal?”
Bill looked cunning and drawing close whispered:
“Her—and him, I seed ’im, back in the sticks! Her—and him!” Then he laughed his foolish laugh.
“I thought as much!” Merrivale nodded, with the trouble a good man knows at times in his eyes; but his faith in Burke coming to his aid. “You mean—Lawson?” he asked.
Bill nodded foolishly.
“Then keep yo’ mouth shut!” warned Merrivale. “If I hear yo’ gabbing—I’ll flax the hide o’ yo’, sure as I keep store.”