Blue Ruin

  Justine went.

  Amelia brought a tempting tray and set it before her mother-in-law and seemed almost tender in the way she arranged the cushion under her feet. It was as if the common blow had brought a sympathy between them that had never been there before. Their idol was fallen. They must grieve together.

  The Sabbath night settled down upon them waking in their beds, as if it had been a house of death.

  Dana walked in on them late Monday afternoon and looked about for Jessie Belle, nervous, afraid to meet her, yet anxious to take her off somewhere and get it over. He felt almost confident now that he would be able to buy off Jessie Belle.

  As he walked in at the gate, Justine, just coming out the door to mail a letter, scuttled back upstairs to her room, a frightened look in her eyes. This was what they all had been dreading all day. What would Dana say? How would Grandma treat him? She hid upstairs in the dark hall and tried to listen over the banisters. Dana came into the hall, put down his bags, threw his hat on the hall table, and flung into the dining room.

  “Where’s Mother?” he asked. “I want some lunch. I’m hungry as a bear.”

  Then he looked around for Jessie Belle.

  Nobody answered him. There was a strange silence pervading the place. His mother appeared in the doorway, but did not speak. It was as if she were looking at a ghost. There was a reproachful look in her eyes, a sad, strange look that he had never seen there before.

  “I want some coffee,” he said crossly. “I’ve got a terrible headache. Make it good and strong. I want some bread and butter and cold meat. Is there any custard? I hope it’s cold. I’m burning up! My soul but it was hot on the train. Full of foreigners, too. There wasn’t a place to sit down except by some ill-smelling brute. The parlor car was all taken.”

  He flung himself in a chair and dropped his head on his hand. Still his mother did not speak, and when he looked up, irritated at the silence, he saw that his grandmother was sitting with her head dropped upon her folded arms on the table.

  “Heavens!” he exclaimed, starting to his feet. “What a house this is! Still as a tomb! Where is Jessie Belle? Tell her I want her.”

  Then Grandmother Whipple straightened up and looked him in the eye with her old dominant glance.

  “Jessie Belle is gone!” she said. “Jessie Belle will never come back to this house again!”

  “Gone!” echoed Dana, bewildered. “Gone!” with a sudden relief growing visibly in his face. “Why did she go?”

  The grandmother faced him, still holding him with her eyes; but his mother spoke up, her voice strangely low and gentle, yet firmer, more demanding than he had ever heard it before.

  “Dana, is it true that you have disgraced us all? Have you really married Jessie Smith, or was she lying to us?”

  “Did she say that?” asked Dana. He flew back and forth across the room and around like a caged thing suddenly gone mad.

  “Sit down!” said Grandma, “and don’t swear in my house again! You’ve disgraced your profession, and you’ve disgraced your grandfather’s name, and you’ve disgraced your own reputation, but you shan’t swear in my house. Now, if you’ve anything to say for yourself, say it, and then pick up your bags and go to your wife! Unless she isn’t your wife, in which case you can prove it.”

  “But Grandmother!” began Dana, flinging himself back in the chair, his elbow on the table, his head on his hand.

  “Don’t ‘Grandmother’ me! Tell your story! I’m tired of blather and bluff. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Did you marry that hussy or not?”

  “Oh, yes, I did,” he groaned, “but—it wasn’t really my fault. She—”

  “Yes, Adam, I know; there hasn’t been one of you sinned since the Garden of Eden but you found some woman to blame it on. I don’t doubt she’s to blame, but so are you and you might as well own it. I’m not interested in knowing what particular brand of devil Jessie Belle is. I saw enough of her while she was here to make me sick of living. And I’m not saying I wasn’t to blame to some extent myself for letting her come. But Dana, you’re a fool! You knew what you were, and you had a girl that was worth more in her little finger than five million Jessie Belles put together. And then you fell for that thing! Bah! You! The head of your class! The orator your professors decided you were. The future minister in a big city church. You picked out that little feather brain! You set her in the place that had belonged to another girl for years. You let that flibberty jib fool you and bully you into marrying her? And now, Dana Whipple, what are you going to do?”

  “I have a plan, Grandmother,” said Dana almost meekly. “If you’ll just listen till I finish, I think, I know—I’m sure you’ll approve.”

  “I’ll listen,” said the old woman grimly.

  “I know that I’ve been wrong—” he began.

  “You have.”

  “I know I was a fool,” he said almost humbly.

  “You are! There’s no question about that.”

  Dana stirred uncomfortably and then tried it again.

  “But people have made such mistakes before.”

  “They have. There are a great many fools in the world, but we didn’t think we had one like that in the family.”

  There was another long pause.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking it over,” Dana tried again, “and I can see only one way out. I didn’t really mean to marry Jessie Belle. She got me in a tight corner, and I was so upset that I couldn’t see what was the thing to do.”

  “Don’t try to make excuses for yourself. That’s our business hereafter. We’ll have to be excusing you to ourselves the rest of time I imagine. Go on with your plan. Perhaps you’ve got a streak of honor left somewhere.”

  Dana got up, stung to the quick.

  “Grandma, I can’t tell you when you meet me like that! I really can’t!” he said with a trifle of his old haughtiness.

  “Beggars shouldn’t be choosers,” quoted Grandma. “It was you that asked for the privilege of speaking.”

  Dana slumped into his chair and groaned, and his mother turned her face away to hide the contortion of sudden tears.

  “You see, it’s this way, Grandmother.” He straightened up at last. “Jessie Belle isn’t the right girl, of course I know that. But she got me in a weak place. My eyes are open now, and I’ve got to do something about it. It’s made a great difference for me to go down to New York and preach, Grandmother!” Dana’s voice grew soft with feeling as if he had just met with some great spiritual awakening. “I wish I could make you understand how wonderful those people were to me and how I preached yesterday. It was almost as if I was inspired, really, Grandmother! The house was crowded and it was perfectly still. They listened as if it was a great preacher, a really great one, you know. And now, they are all ready to call me. They are only waiting for one member of the session to return from a trip abroad before they take the actual action.”

  He paused to get the effect of his words, but the two women were utterly silent. They regarded him with almost alien glances. It would seem that his work brought only deeper pain to them.

  “Well, of course the effect of all this was to bring me entirely to my senses, and of course I have been suffering agonies ever since. I’ve been trying to think it out and plan what to do. You see, it is the more complicated because they have heard I was engaged to Lynette Brooke, and they have heard a lot about her. So it’s absolutely imperative that I settle up with Jessie Belle immediately, and I’ve been thinking it over, and I’m positive that I won’t have any trouble—” He was hurrying to his climax now, afraid that they might interrupt him. But the room was still as death.

  “I’m quite sure I won’t have any trouble if I just had a little money,” he went on. “I could make Jessie Belle understand that it was all a very unwise thing and she wouldn’t be any happier than I, and as no one knows anything about it—I am sure it can all be hushed up—of course, I’d have to tell Lynette.”

  “Dana Whipple!” The old lady
in her horror and wrath had arisen to her feet and was standing straight and threatening. “Do I hear your words right, or have my ears deceived me? Is it possible that you not only have disgraced your profession and the name you bear, but you are planning to add cowardice and lying to your sins?”

  “But Grandmother, a marriage like that—nobody really knows, and if Jessie Belle gets her freedom and plenty of money, she won’t tell. I’ll make her promise to go away off somewhere. And if I get this church I can live on the salary and you won’t have to give me anything else. Just give it to Jessie Belle. I’ll never forget it, Grandmother, if you help me out of this terrible mess. And really I’ve had my lesson. I’ll never disgrace you any more.”

  “Dana Whipple, have you forgotten God?” his grandmother cried. “Get out of my presence! Get out of my house! Your mother can do as she pleases. I’m done with you from now on! The only thing left for you to do is to go and live with your wife! You’ve made your bed, now lie on it!”

  The old lady dropped into her chair and shriveled back against the cushions a faded, frail, broken old woman, her white hair straggling down her furrowed forehead and over her wrinkled cheek.

  Amelia answered in a lifeless voice. “That’s your duty now, Dana, since you’ve married her.”

  Dana looked at her for an instant as if he could not believe his senses, and then dropping his head upon his breast he staggered from the room. Dana the beautiful! Dana the beloved!

  In the small hours of the morning he went away from the house that had sheltered him since he was born, stumbling out into the darkness just before the dawn. He had hastily packed some things, and his mother had got money for him, and he was going away to find Jessie Belle. He was doing the honorable thing because they would not let him do anything else, but his heart was hot with rebellion and his punishment seemed greater than he could bear.

  The winter settled down upon the House of Whipple in silence and desolation. Their glory had departed with Dana. There seemed nothing further in life to look forward to. Even Dana’s letters ceased, after a few outraged protests, then there was silence for a time, but later there came letters in a new vein.

  He told them he had come to Canada as he promised, and he had taken a little house and was living with Jessie Belle. He was trying to make it a go. He did not know just what he was going to do. He had been preaching in a little chapel to some common people “just for practice,” and also he thought it would sound well to the New York people, but he was not going to give up his ambitions. Jessie—he called her Jessie now and tried to speak of her in his letters as if she had attained some new dignity by marrying him—Jessie had promised to take a course of study in a school up there, English and a few branches in which she stood sadly in need. She was also going on with her voice training. He thought it might be an asset in New York. He had not given up New York. He was trying to gloss his wife over with a veneer and cover up the traces of what his family considered his disgrace. He gave suggestions also in his letter of things they might say to the neighbors. There was no need for anyone at home to know the true situation. He hinted that there might come a day when he would return with his young and beautiful wife and people would be glad to meet her and would forget all the gossip there had been when he went away.

  But the Whipples were not helping nor hindering gossip. They were keeping close at home. Justine seldom stirred beyond the door save after dark. Amelia went her daily route to market with closed lips and reticent air that few dared to approach. The old lady was failing visibly. People asked after her with lowered breath.

  And in the Mite Society, the women talked of Dana in whispers when the minister’s wife was on the other side of the room.

  “They do say,” and “Well, I saw it myself!” and “How can his grandmother bear it?” And at last it reached farther up the hill and came to Mary Brooke’s ears.

  Elim had heard the study before and believed all and more than he heard. Had he not seen enough with his own eyes? But Elim kept his mouth sealed. Let them find it out all in good time. Lynnie was abroad, and his mother’s heart would only be distressed.

  But Mary Brooke, when she heard the whisper that Dana was married to the summer visitor at his grandmother’s house, went to the window and looked off across the meadows to where the blue ruin was long ago covered with deep, white snow, and said, “Poor, poor Dana!” and then after a little, “But thank the Lord if that is so!”

  Nevertheless she did not write the rumor to Lynette. She waited from week to week to see if her girl would mention her old friend or give some evidence that he had written. Surely he must have written once, at least. It was not like Dana to let things drop that way! Strange that Dana had not come near either to ask questions about Lynette, to get her address or protest at her running away or something. Yet was it strange? For Dana must have been very angry at Elim. And Dana must have changed as Lynnie had feared or he never would have let things go on this way without some sort of explanation. Nevertheless, she was content to let the Lord take care of the matter and glad, too, that her girl was safe on the other side of the world. Only, if Dana was married, how was Lynnie going to take it when she got back? Was she going to blame herself forever, perhaps even blame her mother for letting her go away in the midst of a foolish little misunderstanding which might have easily been put right?

  It was all too deep for Mary Brooke, and so she took it to the Lord and left it there, and asked again for guidance. And by and by she did feel moved to write to Lynette and tell her all about the gossip and prepare her for whatever might be the truth when she came home, but that letter never reached her until long after she was back, for just at that time the Reamers had changed some of their plans, and their mail followed them from place to place, a good deal of it missing them entirely till they got home, so that Lynette, while she was away, was not in touch with anything about her former beau and had no news of him, save Elim’s first outburst.

  To that letter Lynette had written a beautiful reply. Elim read it over many times and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand when at last he folded it away in his pocket.

  Elim, dear brother (she wrote):

  “I’m glad you wrote me that letter about Dana. Of course it was hard for me to read, hard to think you felt that way about him, hard to think he had done anything to lower himself in your estimation. But I felt the love in your letter that wanted to protect me from something you thought was a danger, and I appreciate it more that I can possibly tell you. I trust you, too, don’t think that I don’t. Of course there are such things as misunderstandings and mistakes in this world, and you know that my heart would hope there was some such explanation for what you saw or thought you saw, as you intimate in your letter. I know that you do not lightly speak real evil of anyone, even thought you do not like them, and I know you would not have wanted to trouble me merely because you do not like Dana, so rest assured I shall feel that there is something that must be cleared up when I get back or Dana and I cannot befriends as we were before. Shall we just let the matter rest till I get home, dear? I’ve been learning to trust the Lord with my life a lot more than I ever did before. I guess we can trust Him to this, too. I’m glad I’ve got a wonderful brother anyway, and I hope I may be able to be just as good a sister to you as you are a brother to me.“

  Elim went out in the backyard and kicked the snow about and thought a lot about that letter. He could read between the lines that Lynn was feeling pretty bad. He wished he could do something about it. But he couldn’t make Dana Whipple over, could he, not even if he were willing to, which he wasn’t. Dana was a bad egg!

  And up in a little Canadian lumber town, quite out of civilization as he considered it, Dana had chosen to hide himself and his humiliation, and was eating his heart out among the grandest scenery that ever a man could have for a background. The people to whom he almost contemptuously ministered on Sundays and Wednesday night prayer meeting were rough and crude in appearance but far his superiors in g
enuineness of character and strength of purpose, and might have taught him many a truth about the good old doctrines if he would have taken time to listen.

  But Dana was only staying there to mark time. The New York elder was writing him again, saying the senior elder was on his way home, and soon they would be able to bring the matter of a call before the church, and he felt certain of the outcome if Mr. Whipple would only hold off from anything else for a little while. So Dana held off, for more reasons than one. He did not want the New York people to hear about his marriage until the matter of the call was a settled thing. And he did not want to bring Jessie Belle out into the open and introduce her as his wife until he had toned her down a bit and molded her into a shape fit for a minister’s wife. He had determined to show his mother and his grandmother that he had not done such a dreadful thing after all. That Jessie Belle had good stuff in her, and he could bring it out. If he was not fully convinced of this in his own heart, he yet so desired to convince others that he felt he could do it in time.

  But Jessie Belle, or Jessie as he now insisted on calling her to her utter disgust, did not take kindly to his teaching. She preferred to go her own willful, brazen way.

  “Oh, rats!” she would answer to his lofty appeals. “What do I care for all that culture stuff? It don’t get you anywhere. Oh, a church mebbe, but I don’t want a church and I don’t want a preacher for a husband either. Religion is so long faced and gloomy. I want to have a good time. You know you don’t believe all that baloney you hand ‘em out every Sunday, Dana, and I’m not going anymore to hear you either. What’s more, I’m done with prancing around calling those old galoots. Old women that never saw a fashion magazine in the whole of their days and think you’re terrible if you wear your skirts short. It’s none of their business how I wear my skirts or how I talk, and if I want to smoke I’ll do it. I can’t be tied up to your grandmother’s funny old ideas. You take that and swallow it. I didn’t get married to hang around and study the catechism, and I won’t teach your dirty little kids in Sunday school nor try to act grown up and long-faced either. If you cared anything about me at all you’d go out to Hollywood with me as I want you to. We’d both fit in there and have a wonderful time. I don’t see what your grandfather has got to do with it. You know you don’t believe a word you say on Sunday, and that’s a fact.”