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CHAPTER XXV
BERTHA'S DECISION
It was good to wake in her old room and see the morning light breaking in golden waves against the peaks, to hear her dogs bay and to listen to the murmuring voice of the fountains on the lawn. It was deliciously luxurious to sit at breakfast on the vine-clad porch with the shining new coffee-boiler before her, while Miss Franklin expressed her admiration of the napery and china which the Mosses had helped her to select.
It was glorious to go romping with the dogs about the garden, and most intoxicating to mount her horse and ride away upon the mesa, mad with speed and ecstatic of the wind. No one could have kept pace with her that first day at home. She ran from one thing to the other. She unpacked and spread out all her treasures. She telegraphed her mother and 'phoned her friends. She gave direction to the servants and examined every thing from the horses' hoofs to the sewing-machine. She went over the house from top to bottom to see that it was in order. She was crazy with desire of doing. Her mid-day meal was a mere touch-and-go lunch, but when at last she was seated in her carriage with Haney and Miss Franklin she fell back in her seat, saying, "I feel kind o' sleepy and tired."
"I should think you would!" exclaimed her teacher.
"Of all the galloping creatures you are the most wonderful. I hope you're not to keep this up."
Haney put in a quiet word. "She will not. Sure, she cannot. There'll be nothin' left for to-morrow."
Their ride was in the nature of a triumphal progress. Many people who had hesitated about bowing to them hitherto took this morning to unbend, and Mart observed, with a good deal of satisfaction: "The town seems powerful cordial. I think I'll launch me boom for the Senate."
At the bank-door, where the carriage waited while Bertha transacted some business within, he held a veritable reception, and the swarming tourists, looking upon the sleek and shining team and the gray mustached, dignified old man leaning from his seat to shake hands, wondered who the local magnate was, and those who chanced to look in at the window were still more interested in the handsome girl in whose honor the president of the bank left his mahogany den.
In truth, Bertha had won, almost without striving for it, the recognition of the town. Those who had never really established anything against her seized upon this return as the moment of capitulation. There was no mystery about her life. She was known now, and no one really knew anything evil of her—why should she be condemned?
In such wise the current of comment now set, and Mrs. Haney found herself approached by ladies who had hitherto passed her without so much as a nod. She took it all composedly, and in answer to their invitations bluntly answered: "The Captain ain't up to going out much, and I don't like to leave him alone. Come and see us."
She was composed with all save Fordyce, who now produced in her a kind of breathlessness which frightened her. She longed for, yet dreaded, his coming, and for several days avoided direct conversation with him. He respected this reserve in her, but was eager to get her comment on the East.
"How did you like New York," he asked one night as they were all in the garden awaiting dinner.
"It scared me," she answered. "Made me feel like a lady-bug in a clover-huller; but it never phased the Captain," she added, with a smile. "'There's nothin' too good for the Haneys,' says he, and we sure went the pace. We turned Lucius loose. We spent money wicked—enough to buy out a full-sized hotel."
Her quaint, shrewd comment on her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly, and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her salient experiences—excepting, of course, her grapple with the degenerate artist.
"Lucius turned out the jewel they said he was?"
She responded with enthusiasm. "I should say he did! He knew everything we wanted to know and more too. We'd have wandered around like a couple of Utes if it hadn't been for him. When in doubt ask Lucius, was our motto."
She told stories of the elder Haney and the McArdles, and described the trials of the children in their new home till Ben laughingly said: "It's hard to run somebody else's life—I've found that out."
And Haney admitted with a chuckle that Mac was "a little bewildered, like a hen with a red rag on her tail—divided in his mind like. As for Dad, he still thinks me a burglar on an improved plan."
They also talked of Bertha's studies, for Miss Franklin began at once to give her daily instruction in certain arts which she considered necessary to women of Mrs. Haney's position, and always at the moment of meeting they spoke of Alice—that is to say, Haney with invariable politeness asked after her health, and quite as regularly Ben replied: "Not very well." Once he added: "I can hardly get her out any more. She seems more and more despondent."
This report profoundly troubled Bertha, and the sight of Alice's drawn and tragic face made her miserable. There was something in the sick woman's gaze which awed her, and she was careful not to be left alone with her. The thought of her suffering and its effect on Ben threw a dark shadow over the brightness of her world. She was filled, also, with a growing uneasiness by reason of Mart's change of attitude towards herself. In the excitement of his home-coming he seemed about to regain a large part of his former health and spirits. His eyes brightened, his smile became more frequent, the appealing lines of his brow smoothed out, and save for an occasional shortening of the breath his condition appeared to be improving.
This access of vitality was apparent to Bertha, and should have brought joy to her as to him; but it did not, for with returning vitality his attitude towards her became less of the invalid and more of the lover. He said nothing directly—at first—but she was able to interpret all too well the meaning of his jocular remarks and his wistful glances. Once he called her attention to the returning strength in his arm. "The ould man is not dead yet," he exulted, lifting his disabled arm and clinching his fist. "I feel younger than at any time since me accident," and as he spoke she perceived something of the lion in the light of his eyes.
One night as she was passing his chair he reached for her and caught her and drew her down upon his knee. "Sit ye down a wink. Ye're always on the move like a flibberty-bidget."
She struggled free of his embrace, her face clouded with alarm and anger. "Don't be a fool," she said, harshly.
He released her, saying, humbly: "Don't be angry, darlin', 'tis foolish of me, an ould crippled wolf, to be thinking of matin' with a fawn like y'rself. I don't blame ye. Go your ways."
She went to her room, with his voice—so humbly penitent and resigned—lingering in her ears, trembling with the weight of the burden which his amorous mood had laid upon her.
She resented his action the more because life at the moment was so full of joy. Each morning was filled with pleasant duties, and each afternoon they drove to the office to discuss the mines with Ben, and in the evening he called to sit for an hour or two on the porch, smoking, talking, till Mart grew sleepy and yawned. These meetings were deliciously, calmly delightful, for Mrs. Gilman or Miss Franklin was always present, and, though the talk was general, Ben talked for her ears at times, but always impersonally, and she honored him for his delicacy, his reserve, his respect for her position as a married woman, recognizing the care with which he avoided everything which might embarrass her.
And now, by force of Mart's humble suing, her half-forgotten scruples were revived. Her uneasiness began again. A decision was finally and definitely thrust upon her. Instantly she was beset by all her doubts and desires, and the sky darkened with clouds of trouble.
To make Mart happy was still her wish, but the way was not so easy of choice, nor so simple to follow as it had once seemed. The briers were thick before her feet. There was so much of personal gratification, so much of selfish pleasure, in remaining his companion, warmed and defended by all the comfort and dignity which his wealth had brought to her, that it seemed a kind of treachery to halt with her duty half done. To be his spouse, to become the mother of his children, this alone would entitle h
er to his bounty. "I can't do it!" she cried out—"I can't, I can't!" And yet not to do his will was to remain a pensioner and to be under indictment as an adventuress.
She had read somewhere these words from a great philosopher: "The woman who bears a child to any man should instantly be lawfully seized of one-half his goods, for by that sublime act she takes her life in her hand as truly as the soldier who charges upon an invading host. The anguish of maternity should sanctify every woman."
On the other side of her hedge lay enticing freedom. It seemed at times as though to be again in the little office of the Golden Eagle Hotel would be a more perfect happiness than this she now enjoyed—but that, too, was illusory. How could she repay the money she had used? The moment she left Marshall Haney she would not only be poor, she would be profoundly in his debt. Where could she find the money to repay him and to make her schooling possible?
Perplexity was in her darkened eyes. Happiness and sorrow, doubt and delight grew along each path—thickly interwoven—and decision became each day more difficult. It was hateful to lie under the charge of having married merely for a gambler's money, and yet to plunge her mother and herself back into poverty would seem to others the act of one insane. As she pondered the problem of her life she lost all of her girlish lightness of heart and lay in her luxurious bed a brooding, troubled woman.
She could have gone on indefinitely with the half-filial, half-fraternal relationship into which she and Mart had fallen, but the thought of that other most intimate, most elemental union which his touch had made more definite than ever before produced in her a shudder of repulsion, of positive loathing. She could no longer endure the clasp of his hand, and in spite of herself she was forced, by contrasting experience, to acknowledge the allurement which lay in Ben Fordyce's handsome face and strong and graceful body.
"I must go away—for a while at least. I'll go back to the ranch and think it over."
And yet even the ranch was partly Haney's! How could she escape from her indebtedness to him? To what could she turn to make a living? To leave this big house and her horses, her garden, her dresses and jewels, required heroic resolution, but what of the long days of toil and dulness to which she must return?
Worn with the ceaseless alternations of these thoughts, she fell into a dream that was half a waking vision. She thought she had just packed a bag with the gown she wore the night she came to Haney's rescue, when he came shuffling into her room and said: "Where are you goin', darlin'?"
She replied: "To the ranch—to think things over."
The tears came to his eyes, and he said: "'Tis the sun out of me sky when ye go, Bertie. Do not stay long."
She promised to be back soon, but rode away with settled intent never to return.
No one knew her on the train, for she had drawn her veil close and sat very still. It seemed that she went near the mine in some strange way, and at the switch Williams got on the train to stop her and persuade her to return. He was terribly agitated. "Didn't you know Mart is sick?" he said, in a tone of reproach. It seemed as if a broad river of years flowed between herself and the girl who used to see this queer little man enter her hotel door—but he was unchanged. "You can't do this thing!" he went on, his lips trembling with emotion.
"What thing?" she asked.
"Fordyce tells me you're going to throw poor old Mart overboard."
"That's my notion—I can't be his wife, and so I'm getting out," she answered.
"But, girl, you can't do that!" and he swore in his excitement. "Mart needs you—we all need you. It'll kill him."
"I can't help it!" she answered, with infinite weariness in throat and brain. "I pass it up, and go back to my brother."
"I don't see why."
"Because I've no right to Mart's money."
"You're crazy to think of such a thing. You a queen! Who's goin' to catch the money when you drop it?" he asked, and helplessly added: "I don't believe you. You're kiddin', you're tryin' us out."
"I'm doing nothing to earn this luxury."
"Doing nothing! My God, you've made Mart Haney over new. You've converted him—as they say, you've redeemed him. Let me tell you something, little sister, Mart worships you. It does him good just to see you. You don't expect the moon to fry bacon, do you? Stars don't run pumps! Mart is satisfied. Every time you speak to him or pass by him he gets happy all the way through—I know, for I feel just the same."
There was something in his eloquence that went to the heart of the dreaming girl. If any one in her world was to be trusted it was this ugly little man, who never presumed to ask even a smile for himself, and whose unswerving loyalty to Mart made her own flight a base and cruel act; and yet even as he pleaded his face faded and she fancied herself stepping from the train in Sibley, unnoticed by even the hackmen, who used to bring the humbler passengers of each train to the door of the Golden Eagle Hotel.
She walked up the sidewalk, surprised to find it changed to brick. The hotel was gone, and in its place stood a saloon marked, "Haney's Place." This hardened her heart again. "That settles it!" she said, bitterly. "He's gone back to his old business."
The road out to the ranch seemed very long and hot, but she had no money, not a cent left with which to hire a carriage, and she kept saying to herself: "If Mart knew this, he'd send Lucius and the machine. I reckon he'd be sorry to see me walking in this dust. It's a good thing I have my old brown dress on." She passed lovingly, regretfully over the splendid gowns which hung in her wardrobe. "What will become of them?" she asked. "Fan can't wear them." This called up a vision of Fan and her eldest daughter, sweeping about in her splendor, her opera-cloak only half encompassing the mother, while the girl swished over the floor in the gown she had worn at her last dinner in the East. She laughed and cried at the same time—it was painful to see them thus abused.
Then she seemed suddenly to enter the grove of twisted, hag-like cedars which stood upon the mesa back of the ranch-house. "By-and-by I will look like this," she dreamed, and laid her hand on one that was ragged and gnarled and gray with a thousand years of sun and wind, and even as she stood there, with the old crones moaning round her, Ben suddenly confronted her.
Her first impulse was for flight, so sad and bitter was his face. She began to pity him. His boyhood seemed to have slipped from him like a gay cloak, revealing the stern man beneath.
He met her gravely, self-containedly, yet with restrained passion, and his voice was sternly calm as he began: "I have come to ask you what you wish to do with Marshall Haney's inheritance? I will not be a party to your action. I helped him plan out his will, and he said he could trust you to do the right thing, and I have come to tell you that his will must be yours."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"He is dead!" he replied.
Her heart turned to ice at the sound of his words, so clear, succinct, and piercing; then the cedars began to wail and wail, and sway in eldrich grief, but she who felt most remorse could not utter a sound to prove her own despair; and in the tumult her dream ended abruptly, and she woke to hear the night wind whistling weirdly through the screen of her open window.
She lay in silence, shuddering with the subsiding terror of her vision, till she came to a full realization of the fact that it was all but a night terror and that Mart was still alive and her decision not yet irrevocably made.
She shuddered again—not in grief, but in terror—as she relived the vivid hour of self-chosen poverty which her dream had brought her. Yes, the magic of wealth had spoiled her for Sibley and the ranch. To go back there was impossible. "I will try the East," she said. "The Mosses will help me." And yet to return to Chicago—after having played the grand lady—would be bitterly hard. Suppose her friends should meet her with cold eyes and hesitating words? Suppose they, too, had loved her money and not herself? Suppose even Joe, who seemed as true as Williams, should prove to be a selfish sycophant. Ah yes, it would be a different city with the magic of Haney's money no longer hers to command.
In this hour of deepest misery and despair the sheen of his gold returned like sunlight after a storm; and yet, even as she permitted herself to imagine how sweetly the new day would dawn with her determination to remain the mistress of this great house, the old fear, the new disgust, returned to plague her. Her love for Ben Fordyce came also—and the knowledge that Alice was dying of a broken heart because of Ben's growing indifference—all these perplexities made the coming of sunlight a mockery.
She rose to the new day quite as undecided as before and more deeply saddened. One thing was plain—Ben should come no more to visit her—for Alice's sake he must keep the impersonal attitude of the legal adviser. In that way alone could even the semblance of peace be won.
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CHAPTER XXVI
ALICE VISITS HANEY
Alice Heath was dying of something far subtler than "the White Death," to which Haney so often referred. Tortured by Ben's studied tenderness when at her side, she suffered doubly when he was away, knowing all too well that his keenest pleasure now lay in Bertha's companionship. Her doubt darkened into despair. In certain moments of exaltation she rose to such heights of impersonal passion as to acknowledge fully, generously, the claims of youth and health—admitting that she and Marshall Haney were the offenders and not the young lovers, whose desire for happiness was but an irresistible manifestation of the mystic force which binds the generations together.
"Why do we not quietly take ourselves off and make them happy?" she asked herself. "Of what selfish quality is our love? Here am I only a spiteful, hopeless invalid—I hate myself, I despise my body and everything I am. I loathe my wrinkled face, my shrivelled hands, my flat chest. I am fit only to be bride to death. I'm tired of the world—tired of everything—and yet I do not die. Why can't I die?"
These moods never soared high enough (or sank quite low enough) to permit the final severing stroke, and she ended each of them in a flood of tears, filled with ever-greater longing for the beautiful young lover whose heart had wandered away from her. It was hard not to welcome him when he came, but infinitely harder to send him away, for life held no other solace, the day no other aim.
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