Dust

"You always were as pretty as a picture," he said slowly, his nerves tingling, "if a farmer"s opinion is worth anything in that line."

This was twaddle, of course, and Martin knew it. Rather it was the city person"s point of view he was inclined to belittle. He had the confidence in his superiority that comes from complete economic security and his pride of place was even more deeply rooted. Men of Martin"s cla.s.s who are able to gaze, in at least one direction, as far as eye can see over their own land, are shrewd, sharp, intelligent, and far better informed on current events and phases of thought than the people of commercial centers even imagine. There is nothing of the peasant about them. Martin knew quite well that dressed in his best clothes and put among a crowd of strange business men he would be taken for one of their own--so easy was his bearing, so naturally correct his speech.

Something of all this had already registered in Rose"s mind. "Come on, Uncle Martin," she laughed, "flatter me. I just love it!"

"Very well, then, I"ll say that you"ve come back as pretty a little woman as ever I"ve laid eyes on."

"Is that all? Oh, Uncle Martin, just pretty? The boys usually say I"m beautiful."

"You are beautiful--as beautiful as a rose. That"s what you are, a red, red rose of Sharon--with your dove"s eyes, your little white teeth like a flock of even sheep and your sweet, pretty lips like a thread of scarlet."

"Why, Uncle Martin!" exclaimed the girl, a trifle puzzled by the intensity of his quiet tone, and stressing their relationship ever so lightly. "You"re almost a poet."

"You mean old King Solomon was," he retrieved himself quickly. "Don"t you ever read the Bible?"

"I didn"t know you did!"

"Oh, your old Uncle reads a little of everything," he returned with a rea.s.suring commonplaceness of manner. He was thunderstruck at his outburst. Never had he had occasion to talk in that vein. He remembered how blunt he had been with the older Rose twenty years before--how he had jumped to the point at the start and landed safely; clinched his wooing, as he had since realized, by calling her his Rose of Sharon, and now he was saying the same thing over again, but, oh, how differently.

If only he were thirty-four today, and unmarried!

"You always were the most wonderful person," beamed Rose, completely at her ease once more, "I used to simply adore you, and I"m beginning to adore you again."

"That"s because you don"t know what a glum old grouch I really am."

"You--a grouch? Oh, Uncle Martin!" Her merry, infectious laugh left no doubt of how ridiculous such a notion seemed.

"Oh, yes; I am."

"Nonsense. You"ll have to prove it to me."

"Ask your aunt or Bill; they"ll tell you." The acrimony in his tone did not escape her.

"Then they"ll have to prove it to me," she corrected, her gaiety now a trifle forced. Aunt Rose never had appreciated him, was her quick thought. Even as a child she had sensed that.

"How are they?" she added quickly. "Bill must be a great boy by this time."

"Only a few inches shorter than I am," Martin answered indifferently.

"He"s one of the kind who get their growth early--by the time he"s fifteen he"ll be six feet."

"I"m crazy to see them."

"Well, there"s your aunt now," he resumed drily as they drew up before the little house that contrasted so conspicuously with the fine brick silos and imposing barns. Gleaming with windows, they loomed out of the twilight, reminding one, in their slate-colored paint, of magnificent battleships.

The bright glare of the auto picked Mrs. Wade out for them as mercilessly as a searchlight. Where she had been stout thirteen years before, she was now frankly fat. Four keen eyes noted the soft, cushiony double chin, the heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, ample stomach, spreading hips, and thick shoulders, rounded from many years of bending over her kitchen table.

Kansas wind, Kansas well-water and Kansas sun had played their usual havoc, giving her skin the dull sand color so common in the Sunflower State. She had come from her cooking and she was hot, beads of sweat trickling from the deep folds of her neck. Withal, there was something so comfortable and motherly about her, the kind, wise eyes behind the gold-rimmed gla.s.ses were so misty with welcome and unspoken thoughts of the dear mother Rose had lost, that the girl went out to her sincerely even as she marvelled that the same years on the same farm which had given one person added polish and had made him even more good looking than ever, could have changed another so completely and turned her into such a toil-scarred, frumpy, oldish woman. Why, when she had been talking with Uncle Martin he had seemed no older than herself--well, not quite that, of course, but she had just forgotten about his age altogether--until she saw Aunt Rose. No wonder whenever he spoke of his wife every intonation told how little he loved her. How could he care any more--that way?

Rose"s first look of astonishment and her darting glance in his own direction were not lost on Martin. With an imperceptible smile, he accepted the unintended compliment, but he felt a pang when he noticed that to her Aunt went the same affectionate, impetuous embrace that she had given to him at the station.

"You"re losing your head," he told himself sternly, driving into the garage, where, stopping his engine, he continued to sit motionless at the wheel. "That ought to be a lesson to you; she"s just naturally warm-hearted and loving. Always was. You"re no more to her than anybody else. Well, there"s no fool like an old fool." Yet, deeper than his admitted thought was the positive conviction that already something was up between them. If not, why this excitement and wild happiness? To be sure, nothing had been said--really. It had all been so light. Rose was just a bit of a born flirt. But he, having laughed at love all his life, loved her deeply, desperately. Well, so much the worse for himself--it couldn"t lead anywhere. Yet in spite of all his logic he knew that something was going to happen. Hang it all--just what? He was afraid to answer his own question; not because of any dread of what his wife might do--he was conscious only of a new, cold, impersonal hatred toward her because she stood between him and his Rose; nor was it qualms about his ability to win the girl"s heart. Already, despite his inexperience with love technique, he was, in some mysterious manner, making progress. The community--his position in it? This was food for thought certainly, but it was not what worried him. Then why this feeling of dismay when he wanted to be only glad?

The question was still unanswered when he finally left the garage. With all his powers of introspection, he had not yet fathomed the fact that it was a fear of his own, until now utterly unsuspected, capacity for recklessness. Heretofore, he had been able to count on the certainty that his best judgment would govern all his actions. Now, he felt himself clutching, almost frantically, at the hard sense of proportion that never before had so much as threatened to desert him. He went about his ch.o.r.es in a grave, automatic way, absorbed in anything but agriculture. Hardly ever did he pa.s.s through his barn without paying homage to his own progressiveness and oozing approval of the mechanical milker, driven by his own electrical dynamo, the James Way stanchions with electric lights above, the individual drinking fountains at the head of each cow, the cork-brick floors, the scrupulously white-washed walls, and the absence of odor, with the one exception of sweet, fermented silage. But, tonight, he was not seeing these symbols of material superiority. Instead he was thinking of a girl with eyes as soft as a dove"s, lips like a thread of scarlet and small white teeth as even as a flock of his own Shropshire sheep. What else did that old King Solomon say? G.o.d Almighty, he thought, there was a man who understood!

He"d try to get a chance to reread that Song of Songs that was breaking his own heart with its joy and its sadness.

His reverie was broken abruptly by the jangling supper-bell. When he reached the back door Bill was already at the table and Rose, in a simple gown that brought out the appealing lines of her slim young body, was deftly helping his wife in the final dishing up. As Martin stood a moment, looking in at the bright scene and listening to the happy chatter, he heard her ask if he had got her a job. At sight of him she cried excitedly: "Oh, Uncle Martin! You can"t think how I adore my beautiful room! And Bill says it was you who first thought of building it for me. You old darling! You and Aunt Rose are the best people in the whole wide world. How can I ever thank you?"

"I"ll tell you," he smiled, "forget all about that job and just stay around here and make us all young. Time enough to work when you have to."

Mrs. Wade noticed how Bill"s eyes widened at these words, so unlike his father, and soon she was acutely aware of her husband"s marked agreeableness whenever he directed his conversation toward Rose. He even tried to include his son and herself in this new atmosphere, but with each remark in their direction his manner changed subtly. Toward herself, in particular, his feelings were too deep for him to succeed in belying them.

As the meal progressed, she realized that her dim forebodings were fast materializing into a certain danger. Unless she acted promptly this slip of a girl was going to affect, fundamentally, all their lives. Already, it seemed as though she had been amongst them a long time and had colored the future of them all. Mrs. Wade understood far better than her husband would have supposed that, in his own way, his married life had been as starved as her own; oh, far more so, for she had her boy. And while it was not at all likely, it was not wholly impossible that he might seek a readjustment. It seemed far-fetched for her to sit thus and feel that drama was entering their hard lives when nothing had really happened, but nevertheless--she knew. As, outwardly so calm, she speculated with tumbled thoughts on how it might end, she tried to a.n.a.lyze why it was that the prospect of a shake-up filled her with such a sense of disaster. Surely, it was not because of any reluctance to separate from Martin. Her life would be far easier if they went their own ways. With Bill, she could make a home anywhere, one that was far more real, in a house from which broken promises did not sound as from a trumpet. Ashes of resentment still smouldered against Martin because of that failure of his to play fair. She recalled the years during which she had helped him to earn with never an unexpected pleasure; reflected with bitterness that never, since they had cast their lives together, had he urged her to indulge in any sweet little extravagance, though he had denied himself nothing that he really wished. It was no riddle to her, as it had been to her niece earlier in the evening, why the same hard work had dealt so benignly with Martin and so uncharitably with herself. She comprehended only too well that it was not that alone which had crushed her. It was his ceaseless domination over her, the utter subjugation of her will, her complete lack of freedom. She glanced across the table at him, astounded by his hearty laugh in response to one of Rose"s sallies. It seemed incredible that it could be really Martin"s. It had such a ring and came out so easily as if he were more inclined to merriment than to silence. Usually, he seemed made of long strips of thin steel, but under the inspiration of Rose"s presence he had become animated, brisk, interesting. No wonder she was being drawn to him.

It was as if he had withheld from his wife a secret alchemy that had kept him handsome and attractive, as compelling as when he had come in search of herself so long ago. And now that the last vestige of her own bloom was gone, he was laughing at her, inwardly, as a cunning person does who plays a malicious trick on a simpler, more trusting, soul. Only it had taken twenty years to spring the point of this one. Hatred welled in her heart; a sad, weary hatred that knew no tears. She wished that she might hurt him as he had hurt her. Yet, with her usual honesty, she presently admitted how easy it would be for this malevolence to melt away--a word, a look, a gesture from Martin and the heart in her would flood with forgiveness; but the look did not come, the word was unuttered.

He was squandering, she continued to observe, sufficient evidence of his interest at the feet of this child who never would have missed it, while she, herself, who could have lifted mountains from her breast with one tenth of this appreciation, was left, as she always had been left, without the love her being craved, the love of a mate, rising full and strong to meet her own. It was a yearning that the most cherished of children could never satisfy and as she watched Martin and Rose her position seemed to her to be that of a hungry pauper, brought to the table of a rich gourmand, there to look on helplessly while the other toyed carelessly with the precious morsels of which she was in such extreme need. And what rankled was that these thoughts were futile, that too much water had run under the bridge, that it was her lot in Martin"s life merely to accept what was offered her. She knew that the marks of her many hours of suppressed anguish, thousands of days of toil and long series of disappointments were thick upon her. She realized, too, how ironical it was that with all her work she should have grown to be so ungainly although Martin retained the old magnetism of his gorgeous physique. There was no doubt that if he chose, he could still hold a woman"s devotion. Yes, for him there was an open road from this gray monotony, if he had the will and the courage to escape.

Suddenly, she found herself wondering what effect all this would have on Bill. She stole a surrept.i.tious glance at him, but he, too, seemed to have been caught up by Rose"s gay, good humor. Mrs. Wade sighed as she remembered how everyone had flocked around Norah. Rose had inherited her mother"s charm. Such women were a race apart. They could no more be held responsible for trying to please than a flower for exhaling its fragrance. At what a lovely moment of life she was! Small wonder that Martin was captivated, but not even the shadow of harm must fall on that fresh young spirit while she was under their roof. If things went much further she would have it out with him. And this decision reached, Mrs.

Wade felt her usual composure gradually return, nor did it again desert her during the long evening through which it seemed to her as if her husband must be some stranger.

VII. MARTIN BATTLES WITH DUST

THE human animal is a strange spectacle to behold, let alone comprehend.

Not infrequently he goes along for years developing a state of mind, a consistent att.i.tude, and then having got it thoroughly established does something in distinct contradiction to it. Martin had never cared for music, but when one evening, a little more than a week after Rose"s arrival, she suggested, with a laughing lilt, her fondness for it, he agreed that he had missed it in his home and, to Bill"s and Mrs. Wade"s unbelieving surprise, dwelt at length upon his enjoyment of Fallon"s band and his longing to blow a cornet. A little later, finding an excuse to leave, he drove into town on a mission so foreign to his iron-clad character that it seemed to cry against his every instinct, but which, for all that, he did with such simplicity as to indicate that it was the most natural step imaginable. He actually bought a two-hundred-dollar mahogany Victrola and an a.s.sortment of records, bringing both home with him in his car and, a.s.sisted eagerly by Bill, carrying them into the front room with an air that said it was a purchase he had been intending to make for a long time. Rose rewarded him with her bubbling delight and her aunt noticed with an odd constriction about her heart how Bill revelled at last in the new treasure, until now so hopelessly coveted.

Martin had never shone to better advantage than this evening as he helped select and put on different pieces, lending himself to the mood of each. It was while a foot-stirring dance was on that Rose asked suddenly:

"Oh, Uncle Martin, do you know how?"

He shook his head. "You"ll have to teach me to square up for learning to drive the car."

"That"s a bargain; and I"ll teach Bill too," she added with native tact.

But Mrs. Wade, ill at ease in her own parlor, caught the afterthought quality of Rose"s tone. There was no question but that it was for Martin she sparkled, sweet and spontaneous as she was. Decidedly, the time had come when definite action should not be delayed.

It was nearly twelve o"clock when they finally broke up and husband and wife found themselves alone in their own room. As they undressed, Mrs.

Wade acted nervously, confused as to how to begin, while Martin whistled lightly and kept time by a slight bobbing of his head. She shot a meaning look in his direction.

"You seem happy, don"t you?"

He stopped whistling instantly and a.s.sumed his more normal look of set sternness. This was the man she knew and she preferred him that way, rather than buoyant because of some other woman, even though that other was as lovable and innocent of any deliberate mischief as her niece. Not that she was jealous so much as she was hurt. When a woman has fortified herself, after years of the existence to which Mrs. Wade had submitted, with the final conviction that undoubtedly her husband"s is a nature that cannot be other than it is, and then learns there are emotional potentialities not yet plumbed, not to mention a capacity for pleasant comradeship of which he has never vouchsafed her an inkling, she finds herself being ground between the millstones of an aching admission of her own deficiencies and a tattered, but rebellious, pride.

Martin, when her remark concerning his apparent happiness had registered, let his answer be a sober inspection of the garment he had just removed.

"I don"t suppose you can talk to me now after such a strenuous evening,"

she went on more emphatically. And as he maintained his silence, she continued with: "Oh, don"t think I"m blind, Martin Wade. I know exactly how far this has gone and I know how far it can go."

"What are you driving at?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean--the way you are behaving toward Rose."