by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PENITENCE, REAL AND UNREAL
Kate rocked back and forth, and tears of pain rolled down her cheeks.She leaned her shoulder against a tree and moaned, with her eyes shut.It frightened Marion to look at her. She went up and put her hand onKate's shoulder with more real tenderness than she had felt formonths.
"What's the matter, Kate? Did you hurt yourself? Is it your ankle?"she asked insipidly.
"O-oh! Marion, you keep me nearly distracted! You must know I onlywant to guard you against--oh--gossip and trouble. You seem to lookupon me as an enemy, lately--Oh!--And I only want to consider yourbest interests. Who is that man, Marion? I believe he is a criminal,and I'm going to send word to the sheriff. If he isn't, he is welcomeat the cabin--you know it, Marion. You--you hurt me so, when you meethim out here in this sly way--just as if you couldn't trust me. And Ihave always been your friend." She stopped and began moaning again.
"Now, don't cry, dear! You're simply upset and nervous. Let me helpyou up, Kate. Is it your ankle?"
"Oh, it pains dreadfully--but the shock of seeing you meet thatstrange man out here and knowing that you will not trust me--"
"Why, forevermore! I do _trust you_, Kate. But you have been sodifferent--you don't trust _me_, is the trouble. I'm not doinganything awful, only you won't see anything but the wrong side ofeverything I do. I'd tell you about the man, only--" Marion glancedguiltily across at the place where Jack had disappeared, "--it's hissecret, and I can't."
Kate wept in that subdued, heartbroken way which is so demoralizing tothe person who has caused the tears. Like a hurt child she rubbed herankle and huddled there in the snow.
"We never used to have secrets," she mourned dismally. "This place haschanged you so--oh, I am simply too miserable to care for anything anymore. Go on, Marion--I'll get home somehow. I shouldn't have followed,but I was so hurt at your coldness and your lack of confidence! And Iwas sure you were deceiving me. I simply could not endure the suspenseanother day. You--you don't know what I have suffered! Go on--you'llget cold standing here. I'll come--after awhile. But I'd as soon bedead as go on in this way. Please go on!"
Kate may have been a bit hysterical; at any rate, she really believedherself utterly indifferent to her sprained ankle and the chance offreezing. She closed her eyes again and waved Marion away, and Marionimmediately held her closer and patted her shoulder and kissed herremorsefully.
"Now, don't cry, dear--you'll have me crying in a minute. Be a goodsport and see if you can't walk a little. I'll help you. And onceyou're back by the fire, and have your ankle all comfy, and a cup ofhot chocolate, you'll feel heaps better. Hang tight to me, dear, andI'll help you up."
It was a long walk for a freshly sprained ankle, and the whiteness ofKate's face stamped deeper into Marion's conscience the guilty senseof being to blame for it all. She had started in by teasing Kate overlittle things, just because Kate was so inquisitive and so lacking inany sense of humor. She could see now that she had antagonized Katewhere she should have humored her little whims. It wouldn't have doneany harm, Marion reflected penitently, to have confided more in Kate.She used to tell her everything, and Kate had always been so loyal andsympathetic.
Penitence of that sort may go to dangerous lengths of confession ifit is not stopped in time. Nothing checked Marion's excitedconscience. The ankle which she bared and bathed was so swollen andpurple that any lurking suspicion of the reality of the hurt vanished,and Marion cried over it with sheer pity for the torture of that longwalk. Kate's subdued sadness did the rest.
So with Kate, lying on the couch near the fire and with two steamingcups of chocolate between them on an up-ended box that sturdily didits duty as a table, Marion let go of her loyalty to one that shemight make amends to another. She told Kate everything she knew aboutJack Corey, down to the exact number of times she had boughtcigarettes and purloined magazines and papers for him. Wherefore thenext hour drew them closer to their old intimacy than they had beensince first they came into the mountains; so close an intimacy thatthey called each other dearie while they argued the ethics of Jack'scase and the wisdom--or foolishness--of Marion's championship of thescapegoat.
"You really should have confided in me long ago--at the very firstinkling you had of his identity," Kate reiterated, sipping herchocolate as daintily as ever she had sipped at a reception. "I canscarcely forgive that, dearie. You were taking a tremendous risk ofbeing maligned and misunderstood. You might have found yourselfterribly involved. You are so impulsive, Marion. You should have comestraight to me."
"Well, but I was afraid--"
"Afraid of Kate? Why, _dearie_!"
That is the way they talked, until they heard the professor scrapingthe snow off his feet on the edge of the flat doorstep. Kate lay backthen on her piled pillows, placed a finger across her closed lips andpulled her scanty hair braid down over her left shoulder. She shut hereyes and held them so until the professor came in, when she openedthem languidly.
Marion carried away the chocolate cups, her heart light. She would nothave believed that a reconciliation with Kate and the unburdening ofher secret could work such a change in her feelings. She wishedfervently that she had told Kate at first. Now they could have Jackdown at the cabin sometimes, when the men were both away. They wouldcook nice little dinners for him, and she could lend him all thereading matter he wanted. She would not have to sneak it away from thecabin. It was a great relief. Marion was very happy that evening.
Jack was not so happy. He was climbing slowly back to his comfortlesscamp, wondering whether it was worth while to keep up the struggle forsake of his freedom. Jail could not be worse than this, he kepttelling himself. At least there would be other human beings--he wouldnot be alone day after day. He would be warm and no worse off for foodthan here. Only for his mother and the shame it would bring her, hewould gladly make the exchange. He was past caring, past the horror ofbeing humiliated before his fellows.
It was hard work climbing to the cave, but that was not the reason whyhe had not wanted Marion to make the trip. He did not want Marion toknow that the cave was half full of snow that had blown in with thewind, and that he was compelled to dig every stick of firewood outfrom under a snowdrift. Only for that pile of wood, he would havemoved his camp to the other side of the peak that was more sheltered,even though it was hidden from the mountain side and the lower valleyshe had learned to know so well.
But the labor of moving his camp weighed heavily against the comforthe would gain. He did not believe that he would actually freeze here,now that he had the bearskin; stiff and unwieldy though it was, whenhe spread it with the fur next to his blankets it was warm--especiallysince he had bent the edges under his bed all around and let the hideset that way.
Marion would have been astonished had she known how many hours out ofevery twenty-four Jack spent under the strong-odored hide. Jackhimself was astonished, whenever he came out of his general apathylong enough to wonder how he endured this brutish existence. But hehad to save wood, and he had to save food, and he had to kill timesomehow. So he crawled into his blankets long before dark, short asthe days were, and he stayed there long after daylight. That is why hesmoked so many cigarettes, and craved so much reading.
Lying there under the shelter of a rock shelf that jutted out from thecave wall, he would watch the whirling snow sift down through theopening in the cave's roof and pack deeper the drift upon that side.Twice he had moved his pile of supplies, and once he had moved hiswood; and after that he did not much care whether they were buried ornot.
Lying there with only his face and one hand out from under the coversso that he might smoke, Jack had time to do a great deal of thinking,though he tried not to think, since thinking seemed so profitless. Hewould watch the snow and listen to the wind whistling in the roof, andtry to let them fill his mind. Sometimes he wondered how any one savean idiot could ever have contemplated passing a winter apart from hiskind, in a cave on a mountain-top. Holed up with the bears, her
eminded himself bitterly. And yet he had planned it eagerly withMarion and had looked forward to it as an adventure--a lark with a fewpicturesque hardships thrown in to give snap to the thing. Well, hehad the hardships, all right enough, and the snap, but he could notsee anything picturesque or adventurous about it.
He could have given it up, of course. His two legs would have carriedhim down to the valley in a matter of three hours or so, even with thesnow hampering his progress. He could, for instance, leave his cave inthe afternoon of any day, and reach Marston in plenty of time foreither of the two evening trains. He could take the "up" train, whoseheadlight tempted him every evening when he went out to watch for itwistfully, and land in Salt Lake the next night; or he could take the"down" train a little later, and be in San Francisco the next morning.Then, it would be strange if he could not find a boat ready to leaveport for some far-off, safe place. He could do that any day. He hadmoney enough in his pocket to carry him out of the country if he werewilling to forego the luxuries that come dear in travel--and hethought he could, with all this practice!
He played with the idea. He pictured himself taking the down train,and the next day shipping out of San Francisco on a sailing vesselbound for Japan or Panama or Seattle--it did not greatly matter which.He would have to make sure first that the boat was not equipped withwireless, so he supposed he must choose a small sailing vessel, orperhaps a tramp steamer. At other times he pictured himself landing inSalt Lake and hiking out from there to find work on some ranch. Whowould ever identify him there as Jack Corey?
He dreamed those things over his cigarettes, smoked parsimoniouslythrough a cheap holder until the stub was no longer than one ofMarion's fingernails that Jack loved to look at because they werealways so daintily manicured. He dreamed, but he could not bringhimself to the point of making one of his dreams come true. He couldnot, because of Marion. She had helped him to plan this retreat, shehad helped him carry some of the lighter supplies up to the cave, shehad stood by him like the game little pal she was. He could dream, buthe could not show himself ungrateful to Marion by leaving the place.Truth to tell, when he could be with her he did not want to leave. Butthe times when he could be with her were so dishearteningly few thatthey could not hold his courage steady. She upbraided him for going sofar down the mountain to meet her--what would she have said if sheknew that once, when the moon was full, he had gone down to the verywalls of the cabin where she slept, and had stood there like alonesome ghost, just for the comfort her nearness gave him? Jack didnot tell her that!
Jack did not tell her anything at all of his misery. He felt that itwould not be "square" to worry Marion, who was doing so much for himand doing it with such whole-souled gladness, to serve a fellow beingin distress. Jack did not flatter himself that she would not have doneexactly as much for any other likable fellow. It was an adventure thathelped to fill her empty days. He understood that perfectly, and asfar as was humanly possible he let her think the adventure a pleasantone for him. He could not always control his tongue and his tones, buthe made it a point to leave her as soon as he saw her beginning todoubt his contentment and well-being.
He would not even let Marion see that thoughts of his mother gnawed athim like a physical pain. He tried to hold to his old, childishresentment against her because she never spoke of his dad and did notshow any affection for his dad's boy. Once she had sighed and said, "Inever will forgive you, Jack, for not being a girl!" and Jack hadnever forgotten that, though he did forget the little laugh and theplayful push she had given him afterwards. Such remarks had beenalways in the back of his mind, hardening him against his mother. Nowthey turned against Jack accusingly. Why couldn't he have been a girl?She would have gotten some comfort out of him then, instead of beingalways afraid that he would do something awful. She would have had himwith her more, and they would have become really acquainted instead ofbeing half strangers.
He would stare at the rock walls of the cave and remember littlethings he had forgotten in his roistering quest of fun. He remembereda certain wistfulness in her eyes when she was caught unawares withher gaze upon him. He remembered that never had she seemed to grudgehim money--and as for clothes, he bought what he liked and neverthought of the cost, and she paid the bills and never seemed to thinkthem too large, though Jack was ashamed now at the recollection ofsome of them.
Why, only the week before his world had come to an end, he had said atdinner one evening that he wished he had a racing car of a certainexpensive type, and his mother had done no more than lecture himmildly on the tendency of youth toward recklessness, and wonderafterwards how in the world the garage was going to be made largerwithout altogether destroying its symmetry and throwing it out ofproportion to the rest of the place. It would make the yard look verycramped, she complained, and she should be compelled to have her rowof poinsettias moved. And she very much doubted whether Jack wouldexercise any judgment at all about speed. Boys were so wild and rough,nowadays!
Well, poor mother! She had not been compelled to enlarge the garage;but Jack's throat ached when he thought of that conversation. Whatkind of a mother would she have been, he wondered, if he had pettedher a little now and then? He had an odd longing to give her a realbear-hug and rumple up her marcelled pompadour and kiss her--and seeif she wouldn't turn out to be a human-being kind of a mother, afterall. He looked back and saw what a selfish, unfeeling young cub he hadalways been; how he had always taken, and had given nothing in returnsave a grudging obedience when he must, and a petty kind of deceptionwhen he might.
"Bless her heart, she'd have got me that racer and never batted an eyeover the price of it," he groaned, and turned over with his facehidden even from his bleak cave. "I was always kicking over littlethings that don't amount to a whoop--and she was always handing outeverything I asked for and never getting a square deal in her life."Then, to mark more definitely the change that was taking place inJack's soul, he added a question that a year before would have beenutterly impossible. "How do I know that dad ever gave her a squaredeal, either? I never saw dad since I was a kid. She's proud as thedeuce--there must be some reason--"
Once full-formed in his mind, the conviction that he had been a poorsort of a son to a mother whose life had held much bitterness grew andflourished. He had called her cold and selfish; but after all, herlife was spent mostly in doing things for the betterment of others--asshe interpreted the word. Showy, yes; but Jack told himself now thatshe certainly got away with it better than any woman he knew. And whenit came to being cold and selfish, it struck Jack forcibly that he hadbeen pretty much that way himself; that he had been just as fullyoccupied in playing with life as his mother had been in messing aroundtrying to reform life. When he came to think of it, he could see thata woman of Mrs. Singleton Corey's type might find it rather difficultto manifest tenderness toward a husky young son who stood off from herthe way Jack had done. Judgment is, after all, a point of view, andJack's viewpoint was undergoing a radical change.
That very change added much to his misery, because it robbed him ofthe comfort of pitying himself. He could do nothing now but pity hismother. As he saw it now, the crime of lying to her about thatSunday's frolic loomed blacker than the passive part he had played inthe tragedy of the night. He had lied to her and thought it a joke. Hehad taken a car worth more than five thousand dollars--more than hisyoung hide was worth, he told himself now--and he had driven itrecklessly in the pursuit of fun that nauseated him now just toremember. Summing up that last display of ingratitude toward themother who made his selfish life soft and easy, Jack decided that hehad given her a pretty raw deal all his life, and the rawest of all onthe tenth of last May.
All the while he was coaxing his fire to burn in the little rockfireplace he had built near his bed; all the while, he was whittlingoff a slice of frozen bear meat and broiling it over the fire for hissupper, Jack was steeped in self-condemnation and in pity of hismother. More than was usual she haunted him that night. Even when hecrept shivering under the bearskin and bl
ankets, and huddled there forwarmth, her face was as clear before him as Marion's. Tears swelledhis eyelids and slid down his cheeks. And when he brushed away thosetears others came--since boyhood these were the first tears he hadever shed because of a poignant longing for his mother.