CHAPTER VI
ON THE CREEK-BANK
THERE is only a partial account of that evening in Mary's Good Timesbook. She recorded the fact that the General himself came and talked toher a few minutes, and laughed several times at her replies till peopleturned to see who it was that he found so amusing. The handsome officerof the day in sword and spurs was brought up to be introduced, and therewas a most gratifying list of names on her well-filled program.Lieutenant Boglin had dutifully seen to that.
Had it not been for one circumstance the evening would have been asuccession of thrills, and she could have filled several pages withenthusiastic recollections of it. That one little happening, however,marred the whole occasion. She made no record of it in her Good Timesbook, and she made up her mind never to speak of it, but to seal it upin its particular memory cell as the bees do any intruding object whichthreatens to poison their honey.
There was so much else to tell about her visit, that for several daysafter her return she kept the family amused by her lively descriptions.She and Gay had had a whole string of adventures the morning after thehop, when they went down town together to finish her shopping. There hadbeen some interesting guests from New Zealand at luncheon, who had viedwith each other in telling marvelous yarns, and Mary had stored them allaway to repeat at home.
With so much else to talk about she might have succeeded in keeping herresolution, had not she and Jack gone off to the creek one afternoon,instead of taking their usual excursion towards the village. The spotwhere they paused was a place which seemed to invite confidences. Shewheeled his chair along the bank, close to the water's edge, until theycame to a secluded circle of shade under an ancient cypress tree. Thereshe sat down opposite him on a big boulder.
They were some distance from the main road. Except when a wagon rattleddown the hill and across the ford it was so very still that the rush ofwater over the pebbles sounded almost brawling. The constant gurgle andswish seemed to have a sort of hypnotic effect on them both, for neitherof them spoke for a long time. Then Jack broke the silence.
"This monotony is getting on my nerves," he said in a low tense voice."You're a wonder to me, Mary. I don't see how you can come back to sucha deadly stupid place as this is, after the taste of gay times you'vehad, and settle down again as cheerfully as you do. It makes medesperate whenever I think that if it wasn't for my being in such a fixyou needn't be tied here. You could be where you'd have the socialopportunities you ought to have."
Mary looked up quickly. This tone of bitterness was a new note in Jack'sspeech. He had drawn his hat down over his eyes, and was gripping thearms of his chair with both hands, as if trying to keep his resentmentagainst fate in check.
"Just let me tell you something," cried Mary, so anxious to smooth thegrim lines of suffering out of the beloved face that she recklesslybroke her resolution. "_I didn't have as good a time at that hop as Imade out! The last part of it was perfectly ghastly, and I never want togo to another as long as I live!_"
Then, seeing the look of blank amazement that spread over Jack's face,she hastened to explain.
"Oh, it started out beautifully. I was simply ecstatic when we climbedout of the 'bus and were ushered into that long room with the flags andthe evergreens, and the military music. And you already know how much itmeant to me to have the General so nice to me and the officer of the dayso attentive and complimentary; and how happy I was to have my programmefilled up so that there was no danger of my being a wall-flower. I washaving the loveliest time imaginable, when I went up to Gay to ask ifany of the safety-pins showed below my girdle. The polo man I had met atdinner, that Mr. Mills, had been dancing with me, and, when he left mewith Gay, went over to speak to a pretty butterfly sort of girl, alittle brunette all in frilly pink and white; I'd been admiring her at adistance. Of course he didn't know his voice carried so far. He wasprotesting because she had left no place for him on her programme, and Iheard him say:
"'It wasn't _my_ fault that I didn't get to you in time. Bogey roped mein first thing for a turn with that kindergarten kid he's got in tow.She's Miss Melville's guest and I couldn't get out of it, but really,Juliet--_that was punishment enough_ without your--'"
"I didn't hear the rest of it. Some people beside me laughed just thenand drowned his voice, but the girl looked over at me, and gave me along, searching glance, sort of out of the corner of her eye, and thenturned away with a little shrug of her shoulders and smiled up at himquite as if she agreed with him and had forgiven him because he had sucha good excuse.
"I never had anything make me so uncomfortable in all my life as hisspeech and then her sidelong look and nasty little shrug. It was the_way_ he said it, and the _way_ she answered, that hurt. After that Inever forgot for a moment that my dress was a borrowed one and that itdidn't fit, and that I was the plain little country mouse that they werepolite to, merely because I was Gay's guest and Lieutenant Boglin askedthem to be. And I couldn't help feeling that every man who danced withme was as bored as Mr. Mills had been; even more so, for I had beenperfectly natural and at ease when I was talking to him, and after Ioverheard his remark I was so stiff and self-conscious that such a stateof mind was bound to have its effect all the rest of the evening. I wasperfectly aware that I was boring my partners."
"But that was such a little thing to let spoil your whole evening,"interrupted Jack. "It was awfully rude of the fellow to make such aspeech, but he probably said it just to square himself with the othergirl. 'All's fair in love and war,' they say, and you don't know howmuch it might have meant to him to keep in her good graces. I don'tbelieve he really meant it."
"Oh, I know better!" insisted Mary dismally. "He _did_ mean it! I feltit!"
She slowly gathered up a handful of pebbles and sent them skippingacross the water at intervals as she continued:
"It gave me the same sensation that I had years ago, when I had my firsttoy balloon. That is one of my earliest and most vivid recollections.One moment I was hugging it to me because it was such a dear, gay, redbubble, fairly entranced with the beauty of it. The next I was lookingdown in a scared, puzzled way at what was left--just a dull scrap ofwrinkled rubber. That one remark and glance and shrug made all thepleasure ooze out of the evening as quickly as my hugging squeezed theair out of that collapsed balloon."
Jack smiled at her comparison. He remembered that time, and how they hadall laughed at her bewildered expression when the balloon burst in herhands. She could not be convinced at first that her beautiful, redbubble had ceased to be, and hopefully peered under tables and chairs,even while she held the wreck of it in her hands.
Jack had always been her comforter. He had dried her tears then with thepromise of another balloon as soon as he could find the man who soldthem, and now he hurried to lift the gloom that had settled down on herusually cheerful features. Having thrown away all her pebbles, shebunched herself up into a disconsolate little heap, on the boulder, herelbows on her knees, and her chin in her hand.
"No, it's no use your trying to comfort me," she said presently inresponse to his repeated attempts. "Every time I think about thatevening I'm so mortified that I could cry. My mind's made up. I am adead failure socially, and I never want to go to another function aslong as I live!"
"You're a little goose! That's what you are," said Jack. "And I knowwhat's at the root of the whole trouble. You've done a lot of imaginingabout your social career at one time and another. You've looked forwardto it and seen yourself in the role of an irresistible charmer. You'vefelt like a dowager duchess inwardly, and forgotten that you've no marksoutwardly to show that you've grown up to take such a part. You haveyour own individual charm, but so far it is only the charm of anunsophisticated little school-girl, and naturally grown men find oldergirls more interesting, just as you would prefer Phil Tremont's companyfor instance, to that of little Billy Downs. But that's not saying thatyou dislike Billy Downs, or that he won't grow up to be a social lionsome day. So may you. Now own up. You always have pictured you
rself ascutting quite a wide swath on your first appearance in society, haven'tyou? That's one reason you were so disappointed at the hop."
"Well," admitted Mary, smiling in spite of herself, "I own I did expectto once, a long time ago, and maybe that had a sort of sub-consciousinfluence on me. It was when we first moved to Arizona. Hazel Lee and Ifound a book that a boarder had left behind in his tent. It was called'The Lady Agatha's Career; A Novel.' We took it out on the desert, alittle way, and spelled it out between us, sitting on the sand behind aclump of grease-wood bushes, that hid us from view of the ranch house.Hazel was allowed only juvenile books, and she knew her mother wouldtake this away from us on account of the word novel.
"It was such a horribly sentimental story that we found it embarrassingto read the tenderest parts of it aloud, and I suppose because it wasthe first one of the kind we had ever come across, it made a deeperimpression on us than it would have done otherwise. We fairly devouredit. For days we thought and talked of nothing else, and we used to taketurns playing we were the Lady Agatha, about to burst on society like adazzling star, and win the heart of the proud scion of the House of deHoverly."
Jack threw back his head and laughed so heartily that Mary was forced tosmile again herself, as she went on with her confession.
"That all came back to me the other night when we climbed out of the'bus, and I almost giggled when I remembered that this was what Hazeland I had looked forward to as such a grand event--being escorted forthe first time by a grown man. It was on a similar occasion that theLady Agatha made such a hit in society. Our ideas of society were socrude and funny then," Mary went on, beginning to relish her ownreminiscences. "All we knew about it we gathered from that book. Itseemed to be made up principally of haughty earls and dowager duchesseswho lived in castles and wore coronets. I didn't know what a dowagerwas then, but I privately resolved to be one when I was grown. The nameseemed so grand and high-sounding, and in the story they always hadeverything their own way. I couldn't help laughing a bit ago when youused the word, for you had hit the nail on the head."
"Then you won't mind when I say 'I told you so'" laughed Jack. "If youhadn't gone that night expecting to create a sensation, you'd have beensatisfied to have people nice to you simply because you were theirfriend's friend, and wouldn't have been so cut up over that remark youoverheard."
"I'm not so sure about the last part," Mary insisted, her face cloudingagain. "It _was_ nasty of him to say it, and the mere thought of thatman will always be an abomination to me."
There was silence for a little while. Everything was so still that abird hopped fearlessly out on a limb above them, and began to call toits mate. When Mary spoke again there was a whimsical expression on herface that soon reflected itself in Jack's.
"I can't help picturing things out beforehand, the way I'd like to havethem be. I've done it all my life. The rehearsing is always more fun,though, than the actual happening. Now when I went away to school lastyear, every time I'd wake up that last night in the sleeping-car, I'dplan just what I'd say and how I'd act to make my entrance to WarwickHall imposing. I could actually see myself sweeping in to make a goodimpression on Madam Chartley, and you know what happened! My hat wascocked over one ear, the wire sticking out through the loops of ribbon,and Madam caught me jumping up and down to try every seat in thereception-room, one after the other."
Jack chuckled, glad to see some of Mary's cheerfulness returning.
"And then," she continued, "you remember when we met Phil and ElsieTremont on the train, as we were going out to Arizona to live?"
Jack nodded.
"I was only nine years old then, but for weeks I thought of Phil as asort of young god--a regular Apollo, and I pictured all sorts of scenesin which I should be a prominent personage at our next meeting. And whenhe _did_ come I was sprinting down the road in a cloud of dust, hatlessand breathless and purple in the face, crying, and crazy with fright,because I thought that a harmless old Indian who chanced to be ridingdown the same road, was chasing me. How Phil does laugh every time thatis mentioned!"
Mary was sitting up straight on the boulder now, her face dimpling asshe recalled these various predicaments.
"Then there's the time the Little Colonel visited us at the Wigwam.Hadn't I dreamed of that first meeting for weeks--what we'd say and whatshe'd say? Me in my rosebud sash and best embroidered white gown. Butshe caught you and Joyce at the wash-tub, and I had to take my firstpeep at her, crouched down in an irrigating ditch on my way home fromschool, all inky and dirty and torn.
"But I don't think I've done quite so much romancing since Betty gave memy Good Times book and preached me that little sermon on beingself-conscious," Mary chattered on. "She said that my always thinking ofthe impression I was making on people, and being so eager to please waswhat made me miserable when I fell short of my expectations. She saidthat I ought to copy Lloyd. That her greatest charm was her utterunconsciousness of self. I think that is Betty's too. She's _such_ adarling."
There was no response to this. The mention of Betty's name brought upso many pleasing scenes to Mary, that she sat living them over,unmindful of the long silence that fell between her and Jack. He satwith his hat pulled still farther over his eyes, in a revery as deep ashers. Betty's name recalled the picture that was often before him inthese long, idle days. He was seeing her as he had seen her the firsttime, now over a year ago, when he made his memorable visit to Kentucky.She was standing at the end of the long locust avenue, all in white,between the stately white pillars, with her godmother's arm about her,as they awaited his approach.
Slim and girlish and winsomely sweet she was, and when he looked intoher wistful brown eyes, he felt in some strange way that he had come tothe end of all pilgrimage. The world held nothing beyond worth seekingfor.
After a long time the swirl of the water past them was lost in the soundof a wagon, rattling noisily down the hill and across the ford. Then along line of cattle passed down the same road, accompanied by the hoarsecalls of their drivers on horseback. Mary looked up.
"Jack," she said hesitatingly, "did you ever hear this verse?
"'For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill, And come not by the far sea-way, yet come he surely will. Close all the roads of all the world--_Love's road is open still_.'
"Do you believe that is true?"
"Not for me," he answered in a hoarse voice, so bitter, so resentfulthat it startled her, coming as it did after long silence. He grippedthe arms of his chair again, as if in pain too great to endure, and thenburst out vehemently, "_Every_ road is closed to me now! It wouldn't beso hard if there was any prospect of the end coming soon, but I may haveto hang on this way for years--just a living death! Caged in thishelpless hulk of a body, a drag on every one and a misery to myself!_Heavens!_ If I could only end it all!"
"Oh, Jack!" begged Mary, starting up, tears in her eyes. "Don't talkthat way! You're not a drag on anybody! We couldn't live without you!You've been so brave--just like Aldebaran in the Jester's Sword. '_Sobravely did he bear his lot, it seemed a kingly spirit dwelt among us!_'Don't you know that just having you with us is more to us than anythingelse in the whole world?"
She was fairly wringing her hands in her distress over this revelationof the overwhelming bitterness of Jack's soul. For months he had beenso cheerful, hiding his real feelings under a playfulness of manner,that it was a shock to her to find that his cheerfulness was onlyassumed. Because he "had met his hurt so bravely and made no sign" she,like the Jester, thought "the struggle had grown easier with time, andthat he really felt the gladness that he feigned." Like the Jester, too,she was "at her wit's end for a reply." She could think of no word ofcomfort.
The loud halloo which sounded just then in a familiar voice from up thecreek, was a welcome interruption. The next instant Norman came in sightaround the curve. He was standing up in a flat-bottomed boat, polingdown stream towards them, with the vigor and skill of a young Indian. Itwas a clumsy, home-made a
ffair, with "The Swan" painted in blue letterson the side.
"She's mine for the winter!" he announced joyfully, as soon as he waswithin speaking distance. "A man who lives up past Klein's crossingrented it to me. I'm to chop wood awhile every Saturday to pay for theuse of it."
Norman was so interested in his new possession that he could not seethat he had interrupted a conversation of tragic seriousness.
"Come on and get in, Mary," he urged. "It's great. Beats those old raftsyou used to pole at Lee's ranch, all hollow. Don't you want to try it?"
Mary hesitated. To go off and leave Jack sitting on the creek-bank,unable to accompany her, would emphasize his crippled condition. Torefuse to leave him would only be added proof in his present sensitivemood that he was a "drag on every one."
"The sun is dropping so low we ought to be starting home before itbegins to get chilly," she said with a meaning glance towards Jack,which to her relief Norman interpreted aright. He answered cheerfully,
"Oh, go on! It's a cinch _you_ won't get chilly if you push that oldboat along as fast as I did, and if we get cold waiting for you, itwon't be many minutes till we'll be 'seen, a-rolling down the BowlingGreen' towards home."
"All right, then," said Mary, climbing in as he climbed out to hold theboat steady for her. "I won't go far, but I'm surely glad to get out onthe water again."
She took the oar he handed her, and with a skilful push against the bankshe sent the boat gliding out into the stream. As she went off shethought: "That was considerate of Norman, to put it the way he did--toinclude Jack with himself as a matter of course, and not to remind himof his helplessness by saying he'd stay and take care of him. Norman haslots of tact for a boy of his age; more than I have. I must have hurtJack many a time by my inconsiderate speeches, but I had no idea he feltso horribly sensitive about being dependent."
All the way up the creek she was so occupied with thinking of what Jackhad said, and so depressed over the depths of mental suffering which hisexclamations revealed, that she plied her oar mechanically, only partlyawake to the scenes about her. But the long even strokes, first on oneside and then the other, sent her darting forward through the water sorapidly that she soon reached a turn in the creek which she had neverpassed before, and as she rounded the curve such a beautiful sightgreeted her that she cried out in pleased surprise, "How perfectly_heavenly_!"
On one side the bank towered up into a high, steep cliff, straight as awall. It was completely covered with ferns; delicate, featherymaiden-hair ferns, as luxuriantly green as in mid-summer. In thissheltered spot they were still left untouched by the frost, although itwas now December. Everywhere else vegetation was dry and sere, but thegreen freshness of this bank was accounted for by a number of tinywater-falls splashing down from unseen springs above, and sending alight spray in every direction, as fine as mist.
"I'm coming straight back here in the morning," she said to herself,"and dig up a lot of these ferns before the frost gets them. I can'tthink of anything lovelier to send to Gay for a Christmas greeting thana clump of them growing in a box--a rustic box covered with bark anddainty lichens. One would be nice for Mrs. Rochester, too. She's justthe kind that would appreciate such a gift. Well, that solves two of myhardest problems of what to give." That trip up the creek in _The Swan_was a voyage of discovery in more ways than one, for Mary came upon thefact that she had grown older in the last quarter of an hour, quite assuddenly and unexpectedly as she had come upon the fern-bank. That cryof Jack's, "Heavens! If I could only end it all!" had shocked her into adeeper understanding of pain, and human limits of endurance.
She had always prided herself on her ability to imagine herself inother people's places, and until now had believed that she fullyunderstood and appreciated the depths of Jack's suffering. Now she sawthat she had not even begun to fathom it. His bravery had deceived her.All the while that she had been thinking that he was growing accustomedto his lot and that time was making it easier for him to bear, a fire ofrebellion was smouldering fiercely within him, making each day one ofnew torture.
MARY WARE in TEXAS
"She sent the boat down stream with long swift strokes."]
Because she could plaster up her own small hurts with platitudes andproverbs, and ease her disappointments by counting her blessings "as onewould count the beads upon a rosary" she had vainly imagined that allthis would be balm for him. How many times she had offered him suchcomfort, feeling with childish complacency that she was helping to easehis pain. She understood now. A sugarplum may help one to forget abee-sting, but a death-thrust is another matter.
Absorbed in her thoughts, she sent the boat down stream with long, swiftstrokes, not noticing how fast it was going. Helped by the current, shecame in sight of Jack and Norman before she had mentally adjustedherself to her new view-point. She was afraid that as soon as she andJack were left alone again they would find themselves facing the samewall of blank despair, and she dreaded it. So to gain time, she begancalling to them about the wonderful bank of ferns she had discovered,and made several awkward thrusts of the oar in an attempt to land,before she finally ran the boat up on the bank.
But Norman did not leave them alone. Deciding that that secluded spotwould be a good place to chain the boat, and that it was time to bedoing his evening chores, he slipped the padlock key in his pocket andhanded the oar over to Mary, saying, "You carry this and I'll wheel thechair."
Jack had taken a new grip on his courage, and if Mary could have butknown it, it was by the help of one of the very means she had branded asfutile, a few moments before. The sight of the bloodstone on hiswatch-fob, as he glanced at the time, recalled the story of the poorJester who had been born in Mars month, like himself, and for thatreason had cause to claim undaunted courage as the "jewel of his soul."The merest flicker of a smile crossed Jack's grimly-set lips as helooked down at the bloodstone and thought of all it stood for; andpulling himself together he whispered the Jester's vow between clenchedteeth: "I'll keep my oath until the going down of one more sun."
When Mary joined them he was chaffing Norman quite as usual, andimmediately began to joke about the awkward landing she had made. On theway home Norman laughed often, thinking that Jack was in one of hisjolliest moods; but Mary walked beside them, the oar over her shoulder,saying to herself, "And under all this brave show, _he's feeling everyminute that he'd be glad to die_!"
When she reached the house Mrs. Ware met them at the door, and Mary,passing in quietly as Norman began telling about the boat, suddenlyremembered that that was not the natural way for her to come home.Whenever she had any news she fairly tumbled into the house in her hasteto tell it. The boys knew that she had discovered the bank of ferns, andthat it was as exciting as Norman's discovery of a boat, because itwould provide some of her Christmas presents without cost. Yet here shewas walking in as calmly as if she were fifty years old and had outgrownher girlish enthusiasms. It certainly was not natural.
So she turned back and interrupted Norman, because that was what shealways did when she was in a hurry to tell things, and she tried to makeher description as full of life and color as she usually did; but allthe time she had a feeling that she was acting.
Mrs. Ware expressed her interest with many pleased exclamations as shealways did when Mary came to her with any new-found cause for rejoicing,but Mary, suddenly grown keen of vision, saw the look of anxiety andweariness that seemed to lie in the back of her eyes behind the smile."I wonder," she mused, "if mamma is acting, too, if her gladness is onlyon the surface, and she smiles to keep up her courage and ours, as theysay little boys whistle in the dark. Oh, it's dreadful to grow up if onehas to lose faith in this being a good old world. It used to seem sohappy all the time, and now it's all so sorrowful and out of joint."
She went into her room to wash her hands and get an apron before goingout into the kitchen to help prepare supper. As she stood tying theapron-strings, she looked up at Lloyd Sherman's picture which hung overher bed, as it used to hang in Warwick H
all and at Lone Rock, when shepretended that it was Lloyd's _shadow-self_, the chum to whom she couldcarry all her troubles, sure of silent sympathy. But somehow, while thebeautiful eyes smiled down into hers as kindly as they had always done,they did not bring the sense of her presence. They did not speak to heras they had done those other times when she turned to them for theimagined communion that always brightened her spirits.
"It's never seemed the same since I knew she was engaged," Mary thoughtwith a sigh. "Of course I know she's just as fond of me as she wasbefore, but I can't help feeling that she's so taken up with otherthings now, her life so heavenly full since she has found her prince,that she _can't_ take the same interest in my affairs."
As she passed the mirror she turned back for a second glance. The firsthad shown her the fresh unlined face of a girl of seventeen, but judgingby the way she felt she was sure there should be wrinkles. The weight ofworld-weariness and disillusionment and foreboding which depressed her,certainly could not belong to youth. They must be the property of an oldwoman, in her sixties at least.