CHAPTER XVI
THE TALL CHILD
There were times, even now, when Prosper tried to argue himself backinto sardonic self-possession. "Pooh!" said his brain, "you werebeside yourself over a loss and then you were shut in for months ofwinter alone with this mountain girl, so naturally you are off yourbalance." He would school himself while Joan shoveled outdoors. Hewould try to see her with critical, clear eyes when she strode in. Butone look at her and he was bemused again. For now she was at a greatheight of beauty, vivid with growing strength and purpose, her lipscalm and scarlet, her eyes bright and hopeful. In fact, Joan had madeher plans. She would wait till spring, partly to get back her fullstrength, partly to make further progress in her studies, but mostlyin order not to hurt this hospitable Prosper Gael. The naivete ofher gratitude, of her delicate consideration for his feelings, whichcontinually triumphed over an instinctive fear, would have filled himwith amusement, perhaps with compunction, had he been capable ofunderstanding them. She was truly sorry that she had hurt him byrunning away. She told herself she would not do that again. In thespring she would make him a speech of thankfulness and of farewell,and then she would tramp back to Pierre's homestead and win and holdPierre's land. As yet, you see, Prosper entered very little into herconscious life. Somewhere, far down in her, there was a disturbance, agrowing doubt, a something vague and troubling.... Joan had not learntto probe her own heart. A sensation was not, or it was. She waspuzzled by the feeling Prosper was beginning to cause her, a feelingof miserable complexity; but she was not yet mentally equipped for theconfronting of complexity. It was necessary for an emotion to rush atJoan and throw down, as it were, her heart before she recognized it;even then she might not give it a name. She would act, however, andwith violence.
So now she planned and worked and grew beautiful with work andplanning, while Prosper curbed his passion and worked, too, and hisinstruments were delicate and deadly and his plans made no account ofhers. Every word he read to her, every note he played for her, had itscalculated effect. He worked on her subconsciousness, undermining herpath, and at nights and in her sleep she grew aware of him.
But even now, in his cool and passionate heart there were moments ofreaction, one at last that came near to wrecking his purpose.
"Your clothes are about done for, Joan," Prosper laughed one morning,watching her belt in her tattered shirt; "you'll soon look likeCophetua's beggar maid."
"I'm not quite barefoot yet." She held up a cracked boot.
"Joan--" He hesitated an instant, then got up from his desk, walked toa window, and looked out at the bright morning. The lake was ruffledwith wind, the firs tossed, there were patches of brown-needled earthunder his window; his eyes were startled by a strip of green wheretiny yellow flowers trod on the very edge of the melting drift. Thewindow was open to soft, tingling air that smelt of snow and of sun,of pines, of growing grass, of sap, of little leaf-buds. The birdswere in loud chorus. For several minutes Prosper stared and listened.
"What is it, Mr. Gael?" asked Joan patiently.
He started. "Oh," he said without looking at her again, "I was goingto tell you that there are a skirt and a sort of coat in--in a closetin the hall. Do you want to use them?"
She went out to look. In five minutes--he had gone back to his work atthe desk--he heard her laugh, and, still laughing, she opened the dooragain.
"Oh, Mr. Gael, were you really thinking that I could wear these?Look."
He turned and looked at her. She had crowded her strong, lithe frameinto a brown tweed suit, a world too narrow for her, and she waslaughing heartily at herself and had come in to show him the misfit.
"These things, Mr. Gael," she said,--"they must have been made for atall child."
Prosper had too far tempted his pain, and in her vivid phrase it cameto life before him. She had painted a startling picture and he hadseen that suit, so small and trim, before.
Joan saw his face grow white, his eyes stared through her. He drew aquick breath and winced away from her, hiding his face in his hands. Amoment later he was weeping convulsively, with violence, his head downbetween his hands. Joan started toward him, but he made a wicked andrepellent gesture. She fled into her room and sat, bewildered, on herbed.
All at once the question came to her: for whom had the delicatefabrics been bought, for whom had this suit been made? "It was hiswife and she is dead," thought Joan, and very pitifully she took offthe suit, laid it and the other things away, and sitting by her windowrested her chin in her hands and stared out through the blue pines.Tears ran down her face because she was so sorry for Prosper's pain.And again, thought Joan, she had caused it, she who owed himeverything. Yes, she was deeply sorry for Prosper, deeply; her wholeheart was stirred. For the first time she had a longing to comfort himwith her hands.
For all that day Prosper fled the house and went across the country,now fording a flood of melted snow, now floundering through a drift,now walking on springy sod, unaware of the soft spring, conscious onlyof a sort of fire in his breast. He suffered and he resented hissuffering, and he would have killed his heart if, by so doing, hecould have given it peace. And all day he did not once think of Joan,but only of the "tall child" for whom the gay canyon refuge had beenbuilt, but who had never set her slim foot upon its threshold. Sunsetfound him miles away in the foothills of a low, many-folded rangeacross the plain. He was dog tired, so that for very exhaustion hisbrain had stopped its tormenting work. He lit a fire and sat by it,huddled in his coat, smoking, dozing, not able really to sleep forcold and hunger. The bright stars, flung all about the sky, mildlyregarded hum. Coyotes mourned their loneliness and hunger near andfar, and once, in the broken woods above him, a mountain lion gave itsblood-curdling scream. Prosper hated the night and its beautifuldesolation, he hated the God that had made this land. He cursed thedawn when it came delicately, spreading a green arc of radiance acrossthe east. And then, as he arose stiffly, stamped out his fire, andstarted slowly on his way back, he was conscious of a passionatehomesickness, not for the old life he had lost, but for his cabin, hisbright hearth, his shut-in solitude, his Joan. Very dear and real andhuman she was, and her laughter had been sweet. He had shocked it tosilence, he had repulsed her comforting hands. She had been soinnocent of any desire to hurt him. He could not imagine her everhurting any one, this broad-browed Joan. She was so kind. And now shemust be anxious about him. She would have sat up by the fire allnight.... His eagerness for her slighted comfort gave his laggingsteps a certain vigor, the long walk back seemed very long, indeed.Noon was hot, but he found water and by sundown he came to the canyontrail. He wanted Joan as badly now as a hurt child wants its mother.He came, haggard and breathless, to the door, called "Joan," came intothe warm little room and found it empty. Wen Ho, to be sure, patteredto meet him.
"Mister Gael been gone a long time, velly long, all night. Wen Ho, hefix bed, fix breakfast--oh, the lady? She gone out yestiddy, not comeback. She leave a letter for him, there on the table."
Prosper took it, waved Wen Ho out, and, dropping into the big chair,opened the paper. There was Joan's big handwriting, that he himselfhad taught her. Before she could only sign her name.
_Mister Gael, dere frend,_--
You have ben too good to me an it has ben too hard for you to keep me when you were all the wile amissin her an it hurts me to think of how it must have ben terrible hard for you all this winter to see me where you had ben ust to seem her an me wearin her pretty things all the wile. Now dere frend this must not be no more. I will not stay to trouble you. You have ben awful free-hearted. When you come back from your wanderin an tryin to get over your bein so unhappy you will find your house quiet an peaceful an you will not be hurt by me no more. I am not able to say all I am feelin about your goodness an I hev not always ben as kind to you in my thoughts an axions but that has ben my own fault not yours. I want you to beleave this, Mister Gael. I am goin back to Pierre's ranch to work on his land an some day I will be hopin to see you co
me ridin in an I will keep on learnin as well as I can an mebbe you will not be ashamed of me. I feel awful bad to go but I would feel more bad to stay when it must hurt you so. Respectably
JOAN
There were blistered spots above that pathetic, mistaken signature.The poor girl had meant to sign herself "Respectfully," and somehowthat half-broke his heart.
He drank the strong coffee Wen Ho brought for him, two great cups ofit, and he ate a piece of broiled elk meat. Then he went out again andwalked rapidly down the trail. It was not yet dark; the world was in asoft glow of rose and violet, opalescent lights. The birds weresinging in a hundred chantries. And there, through the firs, a sightto stop his heart, Joan came walking toward him, graceful, free, aswinging figure, bareheaded, her rags girded beautifully about her.And up and up to him she came soundlessly over the pine needles andthrough the wet snow-patches, looking at him steadfastly and tenderly,without a smile. She came and stood before him, still without droppingher sad, grave look.
"Mr. Gael," she said, "I hev come back. I got out yonder an'"--herbreast heaved and a sort of terror came into her eyes--"an' the worldwas awful lonely. There ain't a creature out yonder to care fer me,fer me to care fer. It seemed like as if it was all dead. I couldn'tabear it."
She put out her hand wistfully asking for pity, but he fell upon hisknees and wrapped his hungry arms about her. "Joan," he sobbed, "Joan!Don't leave me. Don't--I couldn't bear it!" He looked up at her, hisworn face wet with tears. "Don't leave me, Joan! I want you. Don't youunderstand?"
Her deep gray eyes filled slowly with light, she put a hand on eitherside of his face and bent her lips to his. "I never thought you'd bewantin' _me_," she said.
The Branding Iron Page 16