The Wall Between

by Sara Ware Bassett

  CHAPTER X

  A TEMPTATION

  Martin was indeed in love! Before a week had passed no one knew it betterthan he.

  During the solitary hours when his hands were busy thinning lettuce orweeding young corn, his mind had abundant leisure for reflection, and thetheme on which his thoughts turned with increasing activity was always thesame. Defy Fate as he would, he faced the realization that he loved LucyWebster with every fiber of his being.

  It was a mad and hopeless affection,--one which, for the sake of his ownpeace of mind if for no other reason, it would be wiser to strangle at itsbirth. Nevertheless, he did not strangle it; on the contrary, he huggedthe romance to his breast and fed it upon all the tender imaginings of aman's first dream of love, conjuring before his vision one empty fantasyafter another.

  It was evening, and under the silver light of a thin crescent hanging lowin the heaven he paced beneath the trees, Lucy upon his arm. Or lovelywith the freshness of early morning, she stood with him in the field, thebrightness of her eyes as sparkling as the flash of the dew-drops on thegrass. Again she came before him, gliding quietly amid a maze of humbledomestic tasks, transforming each with the grace of her presence. Orperhaps she sat quietly watching the embers of a winter's fire thattouched her hair to a glory of glinting copper.

  But wherever she moved, the land upon which she trod was _his_ land; thehome where she toiled _his_ home; the hearth that warmed her _his_hearth.

  There were long hours when he was alone in the twilight with only his pipefor company, when through the smoke he seemed to see her close beside him.Sometimes she smiled down into his eyes; sometimes she raised her sweetlips to his; and once she came to him with madonna-like holiness, asleeping child in her arms,--her child--and his.

  Then Martin would rouse himself to find his pipe smoldering, the lamp dim,and the chill of the night upon him. With an impatient shrug he wouldspring to his feet and tramp upstairs, hoping to find in slumber an escapefrom these fair but tormenting reveries. Sleep, however, came butfitfully, and even from the sacred confines of its privacy it wasimpossible to banish subconscious mirages of the day. There was no placeto which he could flee where thoughts of Lucy Webster did not pursue him.

  He saw her often now, very often, tripping buoyantly from house to barn,from barn to garden and back again, her round young arms bearing basketsof vegetables, or laden with shining milk pails.

  How proud her head! How light her step!

  One morning she skirted the wall so close that his whisper might havereached her had he chosen to speak. He could see the fringe of dark lashesagainst her skin, the rise and fall of her round bosom, the lilacs thatfilled her hands. But he did not speak and neither did she. In fact, sheseemed not to see him, so busy was she toying with her flowers. She mustbe fond of flowers, for she was seldom without one tucked in her gown.

  These glimpses, however, were fleeting, and after he had yielded to thetemptation of indulging in them he was wont to tax himself severely forhis folly. Was he not already tortured with pain too poignant to beendured? Why rivet more tightly the fetters that goaded him?

  He had fled once and for all from Circe's magic, vowing that never againshould the sorceress work her charm upon him; and that vow he intended tokeep. Nevertheless, it did not prevent him from stealing an occasionalpeep at the enchantress, if only to assure himself that her spell was aspotent and deadly as he had supposed it. Surely, if he did not consortwith her, looking could do no harm. Therefore he indulged his fancy,watching Lucy whenever she was within sight and each time becoming morehelplessly entangled in her fascinations, until any escape from thethralldom of her beauty became impossible. His days were a cycle oftantalizing visions which ceased only with the coming of darkness; andwhen with the night he would have found release from their misery, it wasonly to discover that night an endless stretch of hours that intervenedbetwixt him and the moment when the visions might return again.

  Poor Martin! He endured a hell of suffering during those radiant summerdays. He was melancholy, ecstatic, irritable by turns, ascending to theheights and plunging into the depths with an abruptness andunaccountability that was not only enigmatic to himself but to every oneelse with whom he came in contact. He kept Mary in a ferment of excitementtrying to devise remedies for his successive ills. One day she would besure he needed a tonic to dispel his listlessness and with infinite painswould brew the necessary ingredients together; but before the draughtcould be cooled and administered, Martin had rebounded to an unheard-ofvitality. Ah, she would reason, it must be his appetite that was at thebottom of the trouble. She must stimulate his desire for food. No sooner,however, was her concoction of herbs simmering on the stove than hererratic patient was devouring everything within sight with the zest of acannibal. So it went, the affliction which oppressed him one day givingplace to a new collection of symptoms on the morrow.

  "I'd have Doctor Marsh to him if I had any opinion of the man," remarkedMary one night. "But I ain't ever been able to muster up my respect forthat critter's principles since he left that medicine for 'Liza marked_'Keep in a Dark Place.'_ That was enough to shake my confidence in himforever. It was so under-handed. I'd rather had 'Liza sick for the rest ofher life than that she should 'a' been dosed up on some stuff we had tokeep hidden away lest somebody see it. If he was ashamed of the medicine,or it was anything we'd hadn't ought to had, he shouldn't 'a' given it tous. I never said nothin' to nobody 'bout it, but I poured the wholebottleful down the sink, and told Doctor Marsh that he needn't come again.He pretended he couldn't see why, but I guess he understood, an' I hopethe lesson did him good," concluded Mary with righteous zeal.

  "So that was the reason Doctor Marsh stopped comin'!" Jane exclaimed. "Ialways wondered. You never told me that before."

  "No," said Mary with dignity, "I never did."

  "But, Mary,"--Jane broke into a laugh.

  "You needn't laugh, Jane. It was a very serious matter."

  "If you'd only explained it, Mary, I could have told you----"

  "That is precisely why I didn't explain it, Jane," Mary answered. "I knewyou would interfere, an' I felt it was somethin' that laid between me an'my conscience. No matter what you'd 'a' said, I should 'a' felt the sameway about it. Matters of right an' wrong are the affairs of me an' myMaker. Nobody else on earth can settle 'em."

  There were instances when it was useless to argue with Mary, and Jane sawthat this was one of them.

  Had she so willed she could not only have cleared up the mystery aboutDoctor Marsh's medicine, but she could have furnished her sister with thekey to Martin's caprices, and thereby saved the metaphysician not onlymuch worry but also much physical labor.

  Mary and Eliza, however, lived in such a miniature world that Jane knew ifMartin's secret were divulged it would become the unending topic ofconversation from that moment on. Moreover, so intense would be hissisters' excitement concerning the affair, and so keen their interest andcuriosity that they might blunder into destroying the delicate fabric ofthe romance altogether. Hence Jane kept her own council, speculating withamusement as to how long it would be before his two solicitous butblinded relatives should stumble upon the truth.

  In the meantime the neighboring between the two families, so bravelybegun, was not continued. Mary and Eliza Howe had not the courage or theinitiative to attempt a second clandestine tea-party, much as they wouldhave enjoyed it; and Jane saw no use in urging Lucy to the house. IfMartin decreed to further the affair, he was quite capable of doing sowithout any aid of hers; and if he ordained to abandon it, as he evidentlydid, wild horses could not turn him from his purpose. Therefore Jane gaveup all her aggressive attempts to heal the breach between Howe andWebster, and contented herself with waving to Lucy over the wall andcalling a cheery greeting to the girl whenever she came within hailingdistance.

  Lucy was disappointed by this retreat of her neighbors into their formeraloofness. Of course their action was traceable to Martin. It was hisfault. No doubt he had gone ho
me and berated his sisters for theirfriendliness and had so intimidated them that they had no choice but tobow to his will. Jane was the only one of them anyway who had the spiritto defy her brother, and presumably she had decided that the game was notworth the candle. Perhaps, too, she was right. To live in a dailypurgatory made of life a sorry existence. She herself had found that out.

  Her aunt was continually becoming more irritable and less sound ofjudgment, and there were times when Lucy feared that the warped mind wouldgive way under the strain of repeated paroxysms of anger. Could Ellen havebeen persuaded to surrender the management of her affairs entirely intoher niece's hands, she might have been spared much annoyance; but frail asshe was, she persisted in retaining to the last her scepter of supremacy.

  She went each day into the garden and put Tony out of humor by findingfault with everything he did; having demoralized his temper, she wouldreturn to the house to rasp Lucy's patience by heaping upon the girl'sblameless head such remnants of wrath as she still cherished toward thelong-suffering Portugese.

  For sometime she had contented herself with this daily programme, notvarying it by venturing away from the place, even to carry her gardentruck to market. Therefore Lucy was astounded when one morning her auntappeared at breakfast, dressed in her shabby black cashmere and wearingher cameo pin, and announced she was going to drive to town.

  "I've an errand to do," she said without preamble, "an' I shan't be hometill noon. You needn't go falutin' over to the Howes', neither, the minutemy back is turned, as you did the last time I went off."

  Lucy smiled good-humoredly.

  "I'm goin' to see a lawyer," her aunt went on. "Lawyer Benton."

  No reply appearing necessary, Lucy did not speak.

  "Well!" piped Ellen, after waiting a moment.

  "Well, what?" Lucy asked.

  "Ain't you got no interest in what I'm goin' for?" the woman demandedquerulously.

  "I'm always interested in anything you wish to tell me," answered thegirl, "but I thought it was not my place to inquire into your business."

  "It is my business, an' I can keep it to myself," said Ellen tartly. "ButI'll tell you this much--I'm goin' to get my will made."

  The hard blue eyes fixed themselves on Lucy's face narrowly.

  "My will!" repeated Ellen, a challenge in her tone. "I s'pose you thoughtit was all made long ago; but it warn't. I'm goin' to make it to-day."

  At a loss how to reply, Lucy nodded.

  "You don't seem much concerned 'bout it," observed her aunt peevishly."Ain't you curious to know who I'm goin' to leave my property to?"

  "No."

  "You ain't!"

  "No."

  "S'pose I was to give it all to you."

  "That would be very kind."

  "Yes, it would be--it would be kind," agreed Ellen. "But mebbe I ain'ta-goin' to. Mebbe I'm goin' to will it to somebody else."

  "That's your affair."

  "I'll bet, for all your indifference, you'd be mad as a wet hen if I wasto leave it to somebody else," went on the woman provokingly.

  "No, I shouldn't. Why should I?"

  "'Cause you're my next of kin. By rights it had oughter come to you,hadn't it?"

  "I don't know the New Hampshire laws."

  With an admiring glance at her niece, Ellen broke into an unpleasantlaugh.

  "There's no trappin' you, Miss Lucy Webster, is there?" she exclaimed,rising from her chair and clapping on her hat. "You're a cute one, anawful cute one!"

  "Why?"

  "Oh, you don't need to be told," chuckled Ellen. "Anybody as cute as youare, _knows._"

  With that she was gone.

  All the morning the girl busied herself within doors, exchanging one dutyfor another. Toward noon, however, she made an excursion to the garden forlettuce and radishes. Her pathway lay close to the wall, and on her returnto the house she was amazed to see lying on the topmost stone of theruined heap a mammoth bunch of sweet peas. There was no mistaking the factthat the flowers were intended for her, for her name had been hastilyscrawled on a bit of crumpled paper and placed beside them. Nothing couldhave surprised her more than to stumble upon this offering.

  Evidently the blossoms had just been gathered, for the raindrops of theprevious night still sparkled among their petals, jeweling with brilliancytheir kaleidoscopic riot of color.

  She caught them up with delight, burying her face in their cool fragrance.Where had they come from? She knew no one who raised sweet peas,--no oneexcept the Howes, and of course----she halted and blushed. Could it havebeen the Howes?

  "_Mary's are white_" she heard herself automatically repeating in Jane'sphrases. "_'Liza's pink, an' mine are purple. Martin has his in anotherplace, 'cause he likes all the colors mixed together. But he never pickshis nor lets us. He says he likes to see 'em growin'._"

  And now, by some miracle, here were the blossoms of Martin's raising,their prismatic tints exquisite as a sunset. It was like holding therainbow in one's hands. She knew the Howes too well to cherish for aninstant the illusion that any of the three sisters had cut the flowersfrom the vines. They would not have dared. No. No hand but Martin's hadplucked them.

  With a strange fluttering of her heart, Lucy carried the bouquet to herown room, a corner of the house where Ellen seldom intruded. There shebent over it with a happy, triumphant little smile. Then, from behind theshelter of the muslin curtain, she blew a kiss from her finger tips toMr. Martin Howe, who was hoeing potatoes on the hill, with his back setsquarely toward the Webster mansion.

  When Ellen returned at noon, there was still a shell-like flush of pink onthe girl's cheek and on her lips a smile for which her aunt could notaccount.

  "Where you been?" inquired the woman suspiciously.

  "Nowhere. Why?"

  "You look as if somebody'd sent you a Christmas tree full of presents."

  Lucy laughed softly.

  "You ain't been to the Howes'?"

  "I haven't been anywhere," repeated Lucy, throwing up her chin. "I'mtelling the truth."

  Ellen eyed her shrewdly.

  "Yes, I reckon you are," she observed slowly. "I ain't never caught youlyin' yet." Then as if an afterthought had occurred to her, she added:"Likely you've been thinkin' 'bout the will I've been makin'."

  She saw Lucy open her lips, then close them.

  "I've got it all done," went on Ellen audaciously. "It's drawn up, signed,an' sealed. In fact, I brought it home with me. Here it is."

  Tossing a large white envelope fastened with a splash of red wax upon thetable, she peered at her niece.

  "I'm goin' to give it to you to keep," continued she in a hectoring tone."It'll be like havin' Pandora's box around. You can't open it, an' you'llhave the continual fun of wonderin' what's inside."

  "I'd rather not take it."

  "But I want you to," asserted Ellen. "I'm givin' it to you to take careof. It'll help to make life interestin'. Besides, who knows but you may betempted to break it open some night an' have a peep inside."

  Craftily the old woman watched the girl.

  "Or mebbe you'll tear it up," she mused. "Who knows? Then if I was to die,you could pretend I hadn't made no will."

  "Take it back. I shan't keep it," Lucy cried, moving toward the door.

  "Afraid of yourself, eh?"

  "No."

  The monosyllable rang with scorn.

  "Then prove it," sneered Ellen.

  "Give it to me."

  Smiling evilly, her aunt pushed the packet across the table. There was aleer of triumph in the sharp-featured face.

  "I 'magine that 'twas gettin' as mad as you are now that kep' the Webstersfrom ever buildin' up that wall," she called after her niece, as Lucy withcrimson cheeks fled up the stairs, the long white envelope in her hand.