Jessie Belle was not happy in the little backwoods town. She longed for New York. She continually nagged Dana for new clothes and to take her to the nearest town to the movies. She pleaded with him to take her to the dances, and when he refused on the ground that it was not the thing for a minister to do, that it would be as much as his position in the church was worth, especially at the present critical time, she stamped her foot and said she hated the old church and she hated him and she wished she’d never seen him or his fussy old grandmother, and declared she would write to the New York church and spoil his prospects for him yet if he did not give her more money and show her a good time.
Dana was almost distracted.
This woman he had married was all and more than his mother and grandmother had warned him she would be. He could not do anything with her but endure her. For her physical attractions, which had been all that had drawn him to her in the first place, had lost their charm for him. She was a lazy, selfish, spoiled woman who no longer cared to interest him and who expected him to wait upon her. As Dana had always been lazy and spoiled himself, things did not work out very well, and sometimes Ella Smith would come down from the hotel where she had got a position looking after linen and creep in and get their house in order. It was a sad state of things, and Dana grew more and more morbid. Only the hope of the New York call held him from utter desolation.
And then one day another letter came from the New York elder, apologetic, but cool. He was sorry, more than words could tell, that he had held up the young man so long. He had not expected things to turn out this way, of course, or he would not have presumed to tell him to wait. The senior elder had come home with his mind full of a wonderful preacher he had met in London. He had been approached before the senior elder had known of their interest in Mr. Whipple, but nothing had as yet been decided. He was enclosing his personal check for a hundred dollars which he hoped Mr. Whipple would accept as a slight token of his own appreciation of this work and in view of the fact that he had been kept so long waiting for the decision.
Dana’s moral stamina collapsed under this blow, and Jessie Belle walked off alone to go to a dance that he had expressly forbidden her to attend. Things were getting worse and worse for Dana Whipple, and the end was not in sight.
So the winter wore away, and spring was upon the hills again, the blue ruin and the devil’s paintbrush, and the stars and gold of the daisy-and-buttercup embroidery, and Lynette was coming home!
Her mother stood at the window one morning and sang the words to her heart, “My Lynnie is coming home.” The little grandmother, a breath frailer than last year, said it with a smile. Elim shouted it to his dog and went to get the fishing tackle ready. “Say, Snipe, Lynn’s coming home!”
Chapter 23
Grandmother Whipple had been slowly dying all winter. She did not seem to have the strength to last from day to day. Her hands grew so frail that she could no longer hold the crutch under her arm, and her feeble knees would bend and give way. Twice she fell upon the floor when she tried to get up by herself, and Amelia and Justine were frightened at her gray look when they went to pick her up. After that she never tried to rise by herself, although she insisted on being put in her chair every morning. She would lie frail and grim against the pillows all day, only her bright, keen old eyes as sharp as ever seeing what ought to be done and directing, driving her slaves from morning to night although there was no need now for such intensive housekeeping with only the three to stir things up and no young folks coming and going.
Amelia wrote to Dana that she thought he ought to come home, that his grandmother could not last long now, and he ought to make his peace with her; but Dana was proud. He would not go home till he had something to show for all his boasting. Grandmother had ordered him out of the house, had said she was done with him; very well now, let her send for him if she wanted him back. He would not come back till he could come with his head up and proudly as he used to come.
But Grandmother did not speak of Dana, and Amelia was afraid to excite her by doing so herself. The days slipped by and the lady grew weaker till it seemed that a breath might blow her away.
Then, one morning, there was crepe on the door and the undertaker’s car in front of the house.
Mary Brooke stood at the window and looked out across the way. She saw what had happened in the night and wondered what she ought to do. Would they consider it an intrusion if she went over?
So the frail old tyrant was gone! Gone with her heart broken by the grandson on whom she had counted! The pride of the house of Whipple, the descendant of the noble minister of God, hiding in the wilderness of Canada!
Mary Brooke finally called up, but met with such a sharp negative when she asked if there was anything that she could do—it was Justine who answered the telephone and who seemed to resent her intrusion—that she merely sent down some flowers and let it go at that. It did seem strange at such a time to let petty differences come between households that had almost been united by one of the strongest ties that earth can weave. But the circumstances were peculiar.
Lynette was coming home the next day, too. And it would be Lynnie’s birthday again, in two days more.
Would Dana be at the funeral? Would the two come in contact again? And what had become of Jessie Belle?
These questions troubled Mary Brooke until she went and laid them on her Burden Bearer and sat down to wait for her child to return.
It would be hard for Lynette to have to go to a funeral the first thing. Perhaps it would be over before she landed. Boats were often delayed. Well, her girl was coming home after the long winter, and she felt that whatever came was going to be all right. The Father had somehow worked it out for her child’s good. Perhaps Lynette would not feel it was necessary to go. Why would it be? An old person with whom she had had little to do?
But Lynette, when she came, looked grave.
“Oh, I would like to go, Mother. She was always good to me. She used to like to have me come over with flowers or read to her. She enjoyed a good joke, too, and she used to tell me that none of the family had a sense of humor, and it was a great lack. She thought I had, and we used to laugh together over little things. Oh, I think I would like to go to the service and sort of say good-bye. I thought of her after I went away. I had an impulse to write and say good-bye or something, but things were so mixed up that I didn’t see my way clear to do it, for Dana or his mother might have misunderstood, but now I wish I had. I think maybe it hurt her a little that I went away without a word. It would. I will just run over and say good-bye. I would like to see her face once more. It was a strong face, I thought, and kind of hungry for love. Not sweet like my grandmother, harder, but wistful.”
And so it came about that Dana saw Lynette for the first time since that night in the sunset, standing beside his grandmother’s coffin, looking down into the rugged old face that death had softened and dignified; and there were tears upon her lashes.
He was startled at her beauty. He somehow had not remembered how rare and fine she was. Getting used to Jessie had taken the edge off from his memories. He studied her without seeming to do so. Yes, she had changed. She had acquired a certain something which he used to call poise. He could see it in the very way she entered the room, the way she stood and touched the flowers, the way she smiled when someone gave her a chair. In the Paris frock she wore, the chic little hat.
And he had thrown that girl away! Oh, God, what a fool he had been!
Through all the service he was watching her from behind his slim white hand. There was the same sweet, serious brow; the lovely, thoughtful eyes; the same gold glint of hair and upward curl of lashes; the delicate complexion, an apple-blossom pink—or was it wild rose, or something still more delicate? How had he been forgetting her all these months? How could he ever had been attracted by Jessie Belle’s rough skin, coarsened by powder and makeup, startling in its dead white and carmine, when he had been used to this delicate, lovely flower of a girl? Oh,
well, he had been crazy, that was all. He had been crazy! And now he was sane again. A man ought not to have to suffer forever for a thing he had done when he was crazy.
The funeral service was long and deeply affecting, for old Madame Whipple was well known and honored, and came of a family who had been active in the church and community; and tyrant though she had been, they loved her in a way and respected the things that she always stood for, even though they thought her hard and strange.
So there was much talk about her family and her husband and the long and useful life she had lived. But Dana heard little of it because he was watching Lynette. He scarcely noticed that no one mentioned him, save in the prayer when the officiating clergyman prayed for the bereaved friends and mentioned the daughter-in-law and grandson by name. That was all. No mention of the brilliant descendant who was to carry on and follow in the footsteps of his noted grandfather, no mention of his prospects and attainments. Dana would have figured largely in such a service as this a year ago, for the town had been proud of him and was looking to him in a way to make the town more famous, put it upon the theological map as it were. But now Dana was wiped out. His reputation was in question, his future a blank. He sat in the shadow with his mother and Justine and watched the girl he might have married. He was nothing more than a figure, one of the mourners. How strange that such a thing could happen to him in such a short time! And back up there in Canada was Jessie Belle, his wife! And here was Lynette, his Lynette, who was his no longer!
People spoke afterward of how sad Dana looked.
“He must have loved his grandmother a lot,” they said to one another as they walked away from the house in the late afternoon sunlight. “I suppose it was hard on him to have his grandmother send him off.” For somehow they had surmised that Dana had been sent away or he never would have gone. And they looked at Lynette as she walked sweetly by her mother up the hill ahead of them, and wondered. Had Lynette done this or had Dana, or who? And what had been done anyway? The town was not even sure yet whether the story of Dana’s marriage was false or true.
But there was a thundershock the next day when the news went forth that old Madame Whipple had left the bulk of her estate to Lynette Brooke!
Amelia had the house and a comfortable income, enough to keep her quietly, but not enough to support Dana. Justine was given a small competency, with the proviso that she live elsewhere. The remainder was all Lynette’s.
To Dana there had been handed an envelope containing one hundred dollar bill and a Bible verse written in Grandma Whipple’s cramped old hand. When Dana opened it, he read
“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”
Dana’s fury was beyond all expression. He simply froze.
He spent a thunderous half hour alone with the lawyer trying to find some way of breaking the will, proving that his grandmother was out of her mind or that there was another later will, or something of the sort; but when he became convinced that he had no chance, he seemed to congeal like cold metal. He did not talk the matter over with his mother, he brushed Justine aside contemptuously when she attempted a word of sympathy that he had been cut off penniless, and he did not go near Lynette. He packed his bag and took the next train back to Canada. It was up to Lynette now, and of course she would come across and hand him back his own. He could not think of Lynette as keeping the heritage which she had always known was his. Lynette was honest even if she had been exceedingly narrow. Lynette would hand it back, of course. It was only one of Grandma Whipple’s crude old jokes. They would both understand that, and as such he could receive it back without feeling any qualms. But he would receive it proudly, as if he had not expected it, of course. He could not go and talk to Lynette about it, for there was Jessie Belle! He would have to tell her about Jessie Belle. It was an awkward situation, take it any way you would. And Grandma had known it would be. That was why she had selected Lynette, of course, instead of his mother. Now if it had been left to Mother, why of course it would have been the same as his, a little awkward perhaps to arrange the transfer, but he could have told his mother what to do and she would have done it. No, his grandmother had meant to mortify him, or else she was trying to make him break with Jessie Belle and go back to Lynette. Could it be possible that Grandma had some such subtle suggestion behind her act? That she was trying to let him know that she would be willing for such a thing? The thought was interesting. He put it away for a time of need and went on with his other line of reasoning. Yes, of course, Lynette would give back the property. But it was going to be most awkward. He almost hated his grandmother to have given him that last ugly thrust in her death. To think a woman about to do such a solemn thing as to die should be willing to hurt her cherished grandson of whom she had seemed to be so proud. He wouldn’t have believed it of his grandmother. And that ugly Bible verse, too. He could almost hear her voice cackling with the old-time mirth, see her twinkling little eyes watching his face as he read it. Grandma had to have her joke even in her death! The old tyrant! The old, wicked tyrant!
He said it under his breath and felt better. Back in Canada, he would wait for Lynette to do her part. It would not be many days. Lynette always did her duty promptly.
But two long weeks went by in which he haunted the post office at all hours and was so unbearably cross at home that Jessie Belle took herself away to the hotel to visit her mother. And still no word came from Lynette. He had not told Jessie Belle that the inheritance was not his after all, for she had been counting on it. Unknown to him she had spent a lot of money on clothes and even a few cheap jewels. He knew the bills would be coming in pretty soon, and she was just as glad to be away when they arrived. Dana was not pleasant to live with when he was in that mood. She would stay away until the bills were well out of the way and Dana had forgotten them. There was no need for him to be so tight anymore, now that he had plenty of money. She would let him understand that right away. She wasn’t going to skimp any longer.
In due time the bills arrived, and in a towering rage Dana went in search of Jessie Belle. The altercation that ensued made plain to both of them how utterly of separate worlds they were.
Jessie Belle flung her small contempt at him for being tight and said she wouldn’t stand for it now that he had plenty of money. Dana told her a good many kinds of things she was and was not, and when she only laughed, in cold hate he told her that the money had not been left to him. He did not tell her where it had been diverted. That would have been too deep a humiliation, but afterward Jessie Belle wrote to Justine and of course got the whole story.
Dana stood haughtily in his mother-in-law’s tiny fourth-story back bedroom and delivered his last thrust to the girl who had married him because he was rich.
“Oh hen!” said Jessie Belle with a sudden pause in her teasing contempt. “What an old devil she was!”
Then after a moment’s thought, “Well, that settles it! You’ve gotta quit this religious stuff. It’ll never pay! You and I gotta start for Hollywood this week and get a real job, or I’m done. You’re losing all your good looks mooning around like this, and it’s time I did something about it. You go back and sell the furniture. That’ll pay our way out. The bills! Oh, heck! Ferget the bills.”
Dana went out from that interview humiliated, furious, and convinced that he and Jessie Belle could never make it go. He was done with Jessie Belle!
He told himself that several times on the way back to his desolate house, where soiled dishes and Jessie Belle’s possessions held high sway. He sat down amid the debris and groaned aloud. He was tired and sick, and he was hungry. He was actually hungry. The story of the prodigal son came vividly to him. Even husks might have tasted good. He realized with a wave of horror that he had come to a place like that. He, the great Dana Whipple, with all his pleasant prospects and sturdy ancestors! He was down and out! He hadn’t but a dollar and seventeen cents in his pocket, and there were all those bills! It would be two months before hi
s next quarter’s meagre salary was due, and how was he to live? Put Jessie Belle out of the question. How was he to live? Through his fevered brain ran a phrase from the parable, “And when he had spent all!” And when he had spent all! He flung the change from his pocket out upon the table and said it aloud and laughed a hard, dry cackle, startlingly reminding him of his Grandmother Whipple, and then he dropped his face upon his arms on the table among the fluttering bills and groaned aloud. But he did not remember what the prodigal did in like situation. “I will arise and go to my Father.” Repentance was one of the things that did not belong in his new creed. It was unnecessary, because he no longer considered the possibility of sin. It belonged in the portions of the Bible that had been cut out and relegated to the dead past.
The next morning brought a letter from his mother. It enclosed a check for five hundred dollars.
“Lynette has insisted on giving all the property to me,” she wrote casually as if it were not the most momentous business in the world. As if his very life did not hang on the words. He breathed a sigh of deep relief as he saw the check and read the opening sentence over again. But why to his mother? Why not to him? But still, perhaps that was Lynette’s revenge. She knew, too, that he would get it all if it went to his mother, of course, only there would be the nuisance of the transfer, and Mother perhaps arguing a little about what he ought to do with it now and then. Still, it was good that Lynette had acted at last. He had known she would, of course. Why had she been so long? He went back to the letter for further information.