CHAPTER XIX
SETTERS OF SNARES
The month of Lucy Dean’s stay spread itself over the entire summer, and before she left the fragrance of wild grapes came from the river woods, and the blue ribbon binding the tasselled grasses of the moist meadows was loomed of Puritan fringed gentian instead of royal fleur-de-lis. Time was when Lucy’s protracted presence, under like circumstances, would have been a strain, akin to moving in a comedy of rapid action, where every actor must be on the alert to take his cue. But to this restless, high-strung woman love had come as a clarifier, like the magic electric touch that vitalizes the air after the summer storm has passed, and makes the breath come more freely.
As she became an open book to her friend, their relative positions altered, and the transparent Brooke of old in her turn became a mystery to Lucy, while Stead fairly piqued her to the point of anger. She thought she knew at least the eyemarks of masculine devotion, and before Stead’s June departure she had read them in all their changefulness when his eyes rested upon Brooke, and wondered if she were wholly blind, or seeing it unwillingly, feigned blindness. Time would tell, she thought, for judging by herself, she knew that, to some moods at least, separation is the searcher of hearts in doubt. All visible signs, however, had failed, as on the return the visits, though hardly less frequent, seemed to lack the personal spontaneity of before, and to come under the family or merely casual order. Still this might be accounted for by the fact that Stead was absorbed in the designing of a serious piece of work of some magnitude, and the remote hermitage had become the destination of men of divers sorts,—old friends who had been held almost forcibly aloof and new professional acquaintances.
Dr. Russell, who had been at too great a distance to divine the intimate reason of the revulsion, laid it wholly to the humanizing effect of the general companionship and contact with the wholesome, firm-purposed family life of the homestead, and he rejoiced exceedingly that at last his friend had, as it were, separated self from shelf, and stood aside from the self-inflicted gloom of his own shadow. But one day, chancing upon Stead in New York, and reading a different, yet deeper, suffering, purged of old selfishness, in his face, his habit of mental diagnosis, tinged with kindly philosophy, was at an equal loss with Lucy’s lightning intuition.
As to Brooke, she walked straight forward, almost mechanically, throughout those summer days, filled alike with work and sunshine. The anxiety of the winter had been to know if the new life could possibly become a permanence. Now life under the Sign of the Fox seemed a thing assured; and yet the days seemed longer labourwise now than before, for though Brooke could read the material future, she did not know herself. The culmination of Stead’s friendship pained her, almost haunted her, though chiefly because it had laid bare the needs of her own heart. Ideal and real alike had grown intangible. Even Lorenz’ picture seemed to look at her in reproach, and the giant shadow of the farmer-on-shares crossed the fields less frequently now that the growing time was past. It seemed, too, that Enoch Fenton’s words were proving true, for the man had grown gaunt under the scorching sun and toil, and Bisbee duly reported that his plans had fallen through about his sweetheart and settling, and that he was going to the old country before winter.
As to Lucy’s proposed descent upon the farmer-on-shares, begun in a spirit of teasing and continued purely through curiosity, it was, as she afterward termed it, “a regular toboggan slide”; and no matter in what way or from where she approached him, without the least apparent effort on his part, he was immediately at the farthest possible point away from her. So that a one-sided wager she had made with Brooke, who professed complete ignorance, that she could tell the colour of his eyes and what he would look like without his “barbarous beard” at first sight, remained unproven,—for Lucy there was no near-by first sight at all.
From the West homestead Lucy Dean had gone to Gordon to visit Mrs. Parks. After she had been away a week the early twilight saw her coming up the cross-road from Gilead station, driven by the ubiquitous Bisbee boy in the same buggy that had brought Ashton the night of the storm.
No one was ever wholly surprised at any action on Lucy’s part, and when Mrs. Lawton and Brooke noticed that the buggy had driven away again, they concluded that Lucy had come to bid them good-by before returning home, as the papers were full of the return of the new Mrs. Dean to New York, of the satisfaction of their friends in general, and of the popularity of the couple. They themselves were both dubious as to how Lucy would enjoy being even temporarily only a daughter in the house where she had reigned supreme; and though Mr. Dean had cordially approved of Lucy’s engagement, it was well understood that it must necessarily be a long one.