CHAPTER EIGHT
"You'll find the coffee pot on the back of the stove. I'm washing out afew things," said Mrs. Donovan.
Though she kept her five little nephews and nieces in dark-patterneddresses or shirts, as the case might be, and encouraged her brotherMichael to wear flannel shirts, and even limited her eldest niece,Maggie Brady, clerking in the Green River Dry Goods Emporium now,instead of helping her father in his little store at the Falls, to threewhite waists a week, she was usually washing out a few things.
The contending odours of damp clothes and rank coffee were as much apart of the Brady kitchen as the dishes stacked in the sink for Neil towash, or the broken-legged, beautifully grained mahogany card table inthe warm corner near the stove, where his school books were piled, arelic of his dead father's prosperous saloon-keeping days, or the viewof Larribee's Marsh through the curtainless windows with their torngreen shades.
The swampy field was the most improvident part of an improvidentpurchase--a brown, tumbledown house, wind swept and cold,inconveniently far from the settlement at the Falls and the larger town,heavily mortgaged, and not paid for yet, but early on sunny springmornings like this the field was beautiful; level and empty and green,the only monotonous thing in that restless stretch of New Englandcountry, billowy with little hills, and rugged with clumps of trees. Aboy could people the sunlit emptiness of the field with airy creaturesof folk-lore, eagerly gleaned in a busy mother's rare story-tellingmoments, or with Caesar's cohorts marching across it, splendid in thesun, if he had eyes for them. The only boy who ever had regarded thefamiliar, glinting green of the field with unkindled eyes to-day as hesat finishing his lukewarm breakfast. Yet it was Saturday morning, thatmagic time, the last Saturday of his last spring vacation, and he hadonly one more term of school before him.
On this Saturday morning he had an unpleasant errand to do, and he wascarefully dressed for it, just as he had been dressed for the Lyceumdeclamation contest and ball the night before, but not so effectively,for his best black suit showed threadbare in the morning sun, and theshine on his shoes was painstakingly applied, and a heavy, even, blueblack, but they needed tapping. His brown eyes had a big, rather hungrylook that was unquestionably picturesque, and Miss Natalie Ward wouldhave approved of it, if his mother did not, watching him as she trailedin and out of the room.
"Making out all right? Don't hurry," she said.
"I'm in no hurry to get there," agreed her son.
"He won't say no to you. He never has yet, and he likes you."
"Oh, he won't say no. Nothing new will happen to me in this town; noteven that."
Neil's mother paused, balancing her clothes basket against one hip, anddeftly favouring the string-mended handle, then put it heavily down, andleaned on the table and looked at him--a small, tired, pretty woman,with gray, far-away eyes that were like no other eyes in Green River,and a smile like Neil's.
"Tired?" she said.
"Dog tired."
"Well, you were out till three."
"One. That was Maggie you heard at three. Where was she?"
"That's her business."
"It's Charlie's, if he's going to marry her."
"It's not yours, then. Never mind Maggie. Your uncle and I had a talkabout you last night."
"Why don't you ask to see my dance order?" He made a defensive clutchat his pocket as if she had, and quick colour swept into his cheeks. Shewatched it, and watched it fade, leaving his face tired and sullen, andtoo old for its years. "Uncle!"
"He's been like a father to you."
"I've been two sons to him, then. He's worked me like two. If he grudgesthe time I take off, I can make it up to him. There's been little enoughof it, and there'll be little more, and there's been little enoughenjoyment in it, and I'm not ashamed of it. Why don't he spy on his owndaughter, if he's curious? Why----" This outburst ended as suddenly asit began, in a short, sullen laugh as he pushed his empty cup away. "Danthinks he can land something for me with the telephone company. Icouldn't send money home at first, but I'd be off your hands. Tell thatto Uncle."
"Would you be with Dan, in Wells?"
"Somewhere outside Wells. It won't be too gay. You needn't be afraidI'll go to too many dances."
"Don't glare at me. I'm not your uncle."
"Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."
"Don't you?"
He flushed, laughed, and ignored the question, producing a small box andoffering it. "I got that last night. Don't wipe your hands. They're goodenough to handle it wet." A gold medal glittered in her hand. Heobserved it without enthusiasm, and noticing that, his mother shut thebox abruptly.
"Neil, that's the first prize."
"Looks like it. I spoke the Gettysburg address, and they always fall forthat. Good-bye, I'm off."
"Neil, come back here."
He swung round with his cap doubled under his arm, and stood before her,helpless and sullen, hedged about with that sudden dignity which nowoman creature can break through, but seeming to derive no comfort fromit. Painful colour mounted to her cheeks, as if the effort of keepinghim there was all she could manage without the effort of openingdelicate subjects.
"Neil, I'm worried about you."
"Why? Are you afraid I'll marry beneath me? I won't marry without yourconsent. It's not being done."
"You got three dollars from the _Clarion_ last week."
"Are you afraid I'll try to support a wife on it?"
"It's the most you've made from them. Why weren't you proud of it? Whyaren't you proud of this prize? A year ago you'd have had me up at oneto speak your piece to me. There's no life in you, and no pride, and Iknow why."
"Me with so much to be proud of."
"You're good enough for any girl, but----"
"Do you think I don't know my place, with the whole town teaching it tome going on eighteen years? I've got no false hopes, and I shan't losemy head over any girl. Let me be."
"It's not the town that's taught you your place, it's----"
"Don't you say her name."
"--empty headed and overdressed."
"Go on. Judith Randall don't care what you think of her."
"Can't you even get up enough spirit to stand up for her? You thatthought you had your fortune all but made when you got the chickens paidfor, and followed me round the house, telling me how you'd run the town?You that could tell what was wrong with the _Record_ editorials, if youcouldn't pay for a year's subscription to the paper? You----"
"Yes, I come from one of the five lines in Ireland what have a right tothe O', but you never tell me that unless you've got something else totell me that you're afraid to tell. What is it this time?"
"You come of Irish kings."
"What did Uncle say last night?"
"Well, he's getting to be an old man."
"What did he say?"
His mother did not reply. She avoided his eyes, and made no furthercriticism of him, or of a young lady who was no doubt as indifferent toher criticisms as Neil said, since she did not recognize Mrs. Donovan onthe street.
"Uncle," Neil decided deliberately, "wants me to help in the store. Ican't go to Wells."
"He can't get on alone now Maggie's gone. We need your board money torun the house at all. Dan was wild to get away from Green River, but intwo years he's got no farther than Wells, and ten dollars a week. I knowwe ought to leave you free to start yourself, if we can't give you astart, but----"
"Is that all you want to tell me?"
She put out an unaccustomed arm and pulled him awkwardly close. He cameobediently, and patted her shoulder stiffly but did not kiss her. "Iknow what this means," she asserted, and showed a rapidly formingintention of crying on his shoulder. "It hurts me like it does you."
"'_I know what this means,' she asserted_'"]
"It don't hurt me. I ought to have seen it myself. I ought not to haveplanned to go. It's all right, mother. Is that all?"
"All? It's enough. I was awake half the night planning
to break it toyou."
"You broke it all right. I'll be going." He shook out his crushedcap, and adjusted it with dignity, looking at her calmly out ofimpenetrable eyes, like a young prince ending an audience, with morepower behind him than he knew, kissed her gravely on the cheek with coolyoung lips, and opened the door, and walked off into the sunshine.
"It's the girl," said his mother, but not until the door had closedbehind him. "No girl is good enough to do what she's done to you." Thenshe selected the frilliest of Maggie's blouses, which had dried whileshe talked, and spread it on the ironing table to sprinkle again.
Neil did not look like a young man crossed in love, or a young man withhis future wrecked by a word. He did not give a backward glance to thelittle brown house with the sun on its many-paned windows, or seem tohear the children's voices from the old barn behind the house--thefavourite refuge of the little Bradys when they were banished from thekitchen--that echoed after him in the clear morning air, shrill and thenfainter as he left the place behind.
He had settled into his usual pace for this familiar walk--a steadystride that you could fit the unmanageable parts of a Latin verb to therhythm of, or the refractory words of a song; but it was not a usualday. It was the first warm day of that April, warmer already, with thegoading urge of spring in the softening air that frets and troubles withnew desires and a sense of unfitness for them at once, and will not letyou be. The road, fringed with scattering trees, and wind-swept andbleak on winter days, was golden with new sunlight, spongy underfoot,but drying under your eyes in the morning sun. The boy's brooding facedid not change as he walked, but his shoulders straightened themselves,and lost their patient look, and his lean young body gave itself moregayly to the swing of his pace and looked strong and free, alive withthe unconscious strength of youth that must be caught and harnessed tomake the wheels of the world go round before it can be taught what itspurpose is.
Whether it troubled him or not--his face did not tell--all that hismother had hinted was wrong with his world, and more. No outsider hadever won a place like Neil's in Green River High School society so faras the unwritten history of it recorded. Charlie Brady in his time, andDan after him, had been extra men at big dances, hard worked andpatronized in school entertainments, more intimate with the boys thanthe girls. Charlie, deep in a secret love affair with Lil Gaynor, hadstill called her Miss in public, and treated her as respectfully as hedid now that the affair was forgotten and she was Mrs. Burr and one ofthe Everard circle. Charlie and Dan had only looked over impassablebarriers. Neil had been really inside--included in small, intimateparties, like week-ends at Camp Hiawatha, openly favoured by Natalie, ifnot Judith--inside and he would soon be shut out.
There were new signs of it every day. The long, friendly winter, when hehad been safe in that intimate fellowship, was over. The girls wereplanning their gowns for college commencement dances. Willard came backfrom a week-end at the state university pledged to a fraternity thereand refusing to discuss minor subjects. God-like creatures in amazingneckties condescended to visit him, and Natalie was beginning to collectfraternity pins. Rena and Ed were engaged, and under the impression thatit was a secret, and a place was being made for Ed in the bank. In oneway or another, the world was opening to all of them, and closing toNeil.
And with the spring, the Everards had come back to Green River. The big,over-decorated house had not been open a week, but already they pervadedthe town. Their cars whirled through the splashing spring streets, andladies not upon Mrs. Everard's calling list peered at the passengers tosee who was in her favour. The Colonel was turning the Hiawatha Clubinto a private camp, and closing it to the town, but nobody protestedmuch. He was ordering a complete set of slip covers from the furnituredepartment of Ward's Emporium, and the daring group of prominentbusiness men who ventured to assail the Colonel's political views andprivate morals sometimes in the little room at the rear of the storelacked support from Ward. Neil had the run of the store and hung aboutand listened, but never contributed. Whether these criticisms werejustified or not, the Everards were back again.
Judith had given up the Lyceum dance for the first of the Everarddinners the night before. It was three days since Neil had seen her, andhe was to see her to-day, but he was showing no impatience for themeeting. The end of the world, not the beginning of it, that was whatspring would mean to him, and that is a graver catastrophe at eighteenthan at eighty. The boy who was facing it had passed the outlyingstraggle of houses, and had come to the edge of the town, and to the endof the long, hilly street that led down past the court-house, straightinto Post Office Square, the heart of the town. It was still empty oftraffic at ten, and looked sunny and empty and clean, wide-awake for theday. He took his hands out of his pockets, stopped whistling "AmosMoss," and hurried down Court-house Hill, stepping in time to the tuneof it.
A mud-splashed Ford clattered down Main Street, and drew up in front ofthe post-office as Neil reached it with a flourish that would have donecredit to a more elegant equipage than this second-hand one of theNashes. Two elegant young gentlemen, week-end guests of Willard's andduly presented to Neil the night before, ignored his existence, perusinga gaudily covered series of topical songs with exaggerated attention onthe rear seat of the car, but Willard greeted him exuberantly:
"Ah, there, Murph. You don't look like the morning after. Sorry Ihaven't got room for you. We've got other plans. We love the ladies."
"I'm tied up, anyway. So long."
Willard's tone was too patronizing, but he was not to blame, for thedays when they would exchange intimate greetings at all were numbered.As Neil left them one of the elegant guests demanded audibly:
"Who's your friend?"
Neil flushed but did not look back. He had an errand to do in the fewminutes before his appointment with Judge Saxon. He crossed the streetto Ward's store.
Ward's Dry Goods Emporium, three stores in one, and literally threestores bought out one by one, and joined by connecting doors, thoughthey could never be united in their style of architecture, was ratherdark and chaotic inside, though a brave showing of plate glass acrossthe front advertised its prosperity. Luther Ward himself, in his shirtsleeves, was looking over a tray of soiled, pale-coloured spats,assisted by a tall, full-bodied girl with a sweet, sulky mouth, and atowering mass of blue-black hair.
"Hello, Donovan, what's new?" he said, with only a shade morecondescension than Willard, and distinctly more friendliness.
"Nothing, sir," said Neil with conviction.
"You want to talk to Maggie, here. I won't intrude on a family quarrel,"said Mr. Ward, and chuckling heartily at his own mild joke, as hegenerally did, and few others did, disappeared into the furnituredepartment, the central one of the three stores, and his favourite. Thetwo cousins regarded each other across the tray of spats as if thefamily quarrel were not a joke, but an unpleasant reality.
"You can't come here and take up my time," stated Miss Brady.
"Your time is pretty full--evenings, too. Do you know where Charlie waslast night?"
"I don't care."
"You ought. He's your second cousin, and goes by the same name as you,if you're not in love with him. He was in Halloran's billiard hall."
"If he can't keep himself out of the gutter, I can't keep him out,"stated Miss Brady logically.
"Well, don't push him in," her cousin advised, but the light of battlehad died out of his eyes, leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. Ionly came to bring you this."
He produced something from an inner pocket and tossed it on the counter,something wrapped in a twist of newspaper, which parted as the girl benteagerly over it, something which shone and twinkled alluringly, as shestraightened it out with caressing fingers and held it up to thelight--a little necklace of rather ornate design and startling colours,crimson stones and green and blue, the gayest of toys.
"Seems to be yours all right."
His cousin, who seemed to have forgotten his existence for one raptmoment, remembered it with
a start. "Did you show this to your mother?"she asked sharply.
"Why?"
"Well, she don't like to have me spend my money on imitation jewellery."Miss Brady delivered this very natural explanation haltingly.
"Do you?"
One of the sudden, vivid blushes which had helped to establish herreputation as a beauty overspread Miss Brady's cheek. "I missed it thismorning and didn't have time to hunt for it, and I was worried. I don'twant to show it to her. It cost a good deal."
"It must have. They say a ruby's the only stone you can't imitate."
"What do you mean?" Miss Brady's cheeks grew still redder. "Why don'tyou save your big talk for Saxon? You may need it. Why don't you mindyour own affairs, and leave mine alone?"
"Leave that on the kitchen floor for mother to find and sweep up in abroken dust-pan, or one of the kids to show to your father?"
"Why not? Haven't I got a right to do what I want with my own money?Haven't I got a right to do what I want with myself? Who are you todictate to me, with the Randall girl making a fool of you? Why----"
"That will be all." Though Miss Brady's voice had been threatening tomake itself heard throughout all the three stores in one, she stoppedobediently, looking defiant but frightened, but when her cousin spokeagain the ring of authority which had shocked her was gone from hisvoice.
"Don't be scared. It's nothing to me what you do, and I shan't talk toomuch. You know me, Mag."
"No, I don't, not lately. You act doped, not half there. I can't makeyou out. If you think--if you suspect----"
"I don't. It's nothing to me. I'm due at Saxon's. Put your glass beadsaway before Ward sees them. Good luck to you."
Miss Brady, standing quite still in one of her carefully cultivated,statuesque poses, watched her cousin cross the street and disappear intoa narrow and shabbily painted doorway there. Then she took his advice,and producing a red morocco wrist bag from under the counter, shut thenecklace into it with a vicious snap, as if she did not derive so muchpleasure as before from handling it now.
Her cousin climbed the three flights of stairs to Judge Saxon's office.The stairs were dingy and looked unswept, and a pane of glass in thedoor of the untenanted suite across the landing from the Judge's wasbroken. Nothing about the Judge's quarters indicated that he was ColonelEverard's attorney, a big man in the town before the Everard regime, andunder it--an unusual combination. His office was shabby outside and in.The lettering on the door, Saxon and Burr, Attorneys-at-Law, lookednewer than it was by contrast, and it was still only six months old.Theodore Burr had his delayed junior partnership at last.
The Judge's young client did not pause to collect himself on the worndoor-mat, as he had done when he first came here on errands like this.They were an old story to him now, and so were scenes like the one withMaggie, which he had just come through so creditably. He looked quiteunruffled by it, calm as people are when they have no troubles tobear--or when they have borne all they can, and are about to find reliefin establishing the fact. He knocked and stepped inside.
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