Dust

"Are you trying to imply that I"m carrying on with her?"

"I certainly am. I"m not angry, Martin. I never was calmer than I am right now, and I don"t intend to say things just for the sake of saying them. I only want you to know that I have eyes, and that I don"t want to be made a fool of."

To her surprise, Martin came over to her and, looking at her steadily, returned with amazing candidness: "I"m not going to lie to you. You"re perfectly welcome to know what"s in my mind. I love her with every beat of my heart--she has brought something new into my life, something sacred--you"ve always thought I cared for nothing but work, that all I lived for was to plan and scheme how to make money. Haven"t you? I don"t blame you. It"s what I"ve always believed, but tonight I"ve learned something." Mrs. Wade could see his blood quicken. "She has been in this house only a few days and already I am alive with a new fire. It seems as if these hours are the only ones in which I have ever really lived--nothing else matters. Nothing! If there could be the slightest chance of my winning her love, of making her feel as I am feeling now, I"d build my world over again even if I had to tear all of the old one down." Martin was now talking to himself, oblivious to his wife"s presence, indifferent to her. "Happiness is waiting for me with her, with my little flower."

"Your Rose of Sharon?" Her tone was biting.

"If only I could say that! My Rose of Sharon!" It seemed to Mrs. Wade that the very room quivered with his low cry that was almost a groan. "I know what you"re thinking," he went on, "but you know I have never loved you. You knew it when I married you, you must have." The twisting agony of it--that he could make capital out of the very crux of all her suffering. "I have never deceived you and I never intend to. My life with you hasn"t been a Song of Solomon, but I"m not complaining."

"You"re not complaining! I hope I won"t start complaining, Martin."

"Well, now you know how I feel. I"ll go on with the present arrangement between us, but I"m playing square with you--it"s because there"s no hope for me. If I thought she cared for me, I would go to her, right now, tonight, and pour out my heart to her, wife or no wife. Oh, Rose, have pity! It can"t do you any harm if I drink a little joy--don"t spoil her faith in me! Don"t frighten her away. I can"t bear the thought of her going out into the world to work. She"s like a gentle little doe feeding on lilies--she doesn"t dream of the pitfalls ahead of her. And she will never know--she doesn"t even suspect how I feel towards her.

She will meet some young fellow in town and marry. I"m too old for her--but Rose, you don"t understand what it means to me to have her in the same house, to know that she is sleeping so near, so beautiful, so ready for love; that when I wake up tomorrow she will still be here."

Disarmed and partly appeased by the frankness of his confession, Mrs.

Wade sat silently taking in each word, studying him with wet eyes, her lips almost blue, her breath a little short. The fire in his voice, the reality of his strange, terrible love, the eyes that gazed so sadly and so unexpectantly into s.p.a.ce, the hands that seemed to have shed their weight of toil and clutched, too late, for the bright flowers of happiness--all filled her with compa.s.sion. Never had he looked so splendid. He seemed, in casting off his thongs, to have taken on some of the Herculean quality of his own magnificent gesture. It was as if their barnyard well had burst into a mighty, high-shooting geyser. To her dying day would she remember that surge of pa.s.sion. To have met it with anger would have been of as little avail as the stamp of a protesting foot before the tremors of an earthquake.

She offered him the comforting directness which she might have given Bill. "I didn"t know you felt so deeply, Martin. Life plays us all tricks; it"s played many with me, and it"s playing one of its meanest with you, for whatever happens you are going to suffer--far more than I am. You can believe it or not, but I"m sorry."

Martin felt oddly grateful to her; he had not expected this sense of understanding. She might have burst into wild tears. Instead, she was pitying him. More possessed of his usual immobility, he remarked:

"I must be a fool, a great, pathetic fool. I look into a girl"s eyes and immediately see visions. I say a few words to her and she is kind enough to say a few to me and I see pictures of new happiness. I should have more sense. I don"t know what is the matter with me."

Although countless answers leaped to his wife"s tongue she made none but the cryptic: "Well, it"s no use to discuss it any more tonight. We both need rest." But all the while that she was undressing with her usual sure, swift movements, and after she had finally slipped between the sheets, her mind was racing.

She was soon borne so completely out on the current of her own thoughts that she forgot Martin"s actual presence. She remembered as if it were yesterday, the afternoon he came to the office and asked her to marry him. She wondered anew, as she had wondered a thousand times, if anything other than a wish for a housekeeper had prompted him. She remembered her misgivings--how she had read into him qualities which she had believed all these years were not there. But hadn"t her intuition been justified, after all, by the very man she had seen tonight? Yes, her first feeling, that he was something finer, still in the rough, had been correct. She had thought it was his shyness, his unaccustomedness to women that had made him such a failure as a lover--and all the while it had been simply that she was not the right woman. When love touched him, he became a veritable white light.

All these years when he had been so cold, so hard toward her, it simply was because he disliked her. She remembered the day she was hurt, and the night her first baby came. Martin"s brutality even now kindled in her a dull blazing anger, and as she realized what depths of feeling were in him, his callousness seemed intensified an hundred-fold. Well, she was having her revenge. All his life he had thwarted her, stolen from her, used her as one could not use even a hired hand, worked her more as a slave-driver hurries his underlings that profits may mount; now, by her mere existence, she was thwarting him. She saw him again as he had flashed before her when he had talked of Rose and she admitted bitterly to herself, what in her heart she had known all along--that if Martin could have loved her, she could have worshipped him. Instead, he had slowly smothered her, but she had at least a dignity in the community. He should not harm that. If they were unhappy, at least no one knew it. Her pride was her refuge. If that were violated she felt life would hold no sanctuary, that her soul would be stripped naked before the world.

But why was she afraid? Didn"t Martin have his own position to think of?

What if he had said nothing was to be compared to his new-found love for Rose. What stupidity on his part not to realize that it was his very position, power and money that commanded her respect. Did he command anything else from her? Mrs. Wade reviewed the evening. Yes, response had been in Rose"s laugh, in every movement. Hadn"t she always adored Martin, even as a tiny girl? Hadn"t there always been some mystic bond between them? How she had envied them then. But if Martin were to go to her with only his love? From the depths of her observations of people she took comfort. He might stir his lovely Rose of Sharon to the uttermost, had he been free he might have won her for his wife--but would it be possible for fifty-four to hold the attention of twenty for long if he had nothing but his love to offer?

Such thoughts were hurrying through her heated mind as Martin slowly laid himself beside her. He said nothing, but lost himself in a flood of ceaseless ponderings. After stretching some of the tiredness out of his throbbing muscles, he relaxed and lay quietly, trying to recall exactly what he had said. Did his wife suspect that there might be no truth in the remark that Rose would never know how he felt toward her? At moments he felt that the girl already divined it, again he was not so sure. It was hard to be certain, but the more he thought about it the more hope he began to feel that she would yet be wholly his. Her admiration and trust belonged to him now, but there might be moral scruples which he would have to overcome. There would be the difficulty of convincing her that she would be doing her aunt no wrong. She would gain courage, however, from his own heedlessness. That same daring which he had just shown with the older Rose and which had impressed her into silence would eventually move his flower to him. He had thrown down the bars. Secrecy was now out of the question and it was well that he was moving thus in the open. Rose might shrink at first from the plain-spokenness of the situation, but this phase would soon pa.s.s and then the fact that she knew he was not hiding his love for her even from his wife would make it far easier to press his suit and possibly to bring it to a swift consummation.

He must win her! He must. He had been mad to admit to himself, much less to his Rag-weed, that there was any doubt of this outcome. It might take a few more days, a week, not longer than that. But what should he do when Rose gave the message to him? Could he go away with her? This bothered him for a while. Of course, he would have to. He could not send his wife away. The community would not tolerate this. Martin knew his neighbors. He did not care a snap for their good opinion, but he realized exactly how much they could hurt him if he violated their prejudices beyond a certain point. Fortunately, there are millions of communities in the world. This one would rise against him and denounce, another would accept them as pleasant strangers. He might be taken for Rose"s father! He would fight this with tireless care. Yes, he would have to go away. But his business interests--what about his farm, his cattle, his machinery, his bank stock, his mortgages, his munic.i.p.al bonds? How wonderful it would be if he could go with her to the station--his securities in a grip, his other possessions turned into a bank draft! But this woman lying at his side--the law gave her such a large share.

Cataclysmic changes were taking place in the soul of Martin Wade. The very thing which, without being able to name, he had dreaded a short week ago in the garage, was hovering over him, casting its foreboding shadow of material destruction. His whole system of values was being upset. He felt an actual revulsion against property. What was it all compared to his Rose? He would throw it at his wife"s feet--his wife"s feet and Bill"s. Let them take every penny of it--no, not every penny.

He would need a little--just a thousand or two to start with and then the rest would come easily, for he knew how to make money. And how liberal that would be.

He could see himself as he would go forth with Rose, leaving behind the woman he had never loved and all that he had toiled so many years to ama.s.s. It seemed fair--the property for which he had l.u.s.ted so mercilessly left for the woman with whom he had lived so dully, left as the ransom to be paid for his liberty. So he and his Rose of Sharon would walk away--walk, because even the car would be surrendered--and he would be free with the only woman for whom he had ever yearned.

Would she be happy for long? His pride answered "yes," but against his will he pictured himself being dumped ruthlessly into the pitiless sixties while Rose still lingered in the glorious twenties. This was a most unpleasant reflection and Martin preferred to dismiss it. That belonged to tomorrow. He would wait until then to fight tomorrow"s battles. His mind came back to the property again. Wasn"t it rather impetuous to surrender all? Wouldn"t it be unfair to Rose to be so generous to his wife? She had Bill. In a few years he would be old enough to run the farm. Until then, with his help and good hired hands, she could do it herself. Why not leave it and the goods on it to her and take the mortgages and bonds with him? Rose was joy. He could hold her more securely with comforts added to his great love. Her happiness had to be thought of, had to be protected.

He could tell that his wife was still awake. He might begin to talk and maybe they could arrange a settlement. But he was getting too tired for a discussion that might invite tears and even a fit of hysterics, like the one she had gone through before their first child came dead. He could see her still as she looked that morning in the barn crying: "You"ll be punished for this some day--you will--you will. You don"t love me, but some time you will love some one. Then you"ll understand what it is to be treated like this--" It gave him the creeps now to remember it. It was like one of those old incantations; almost like a curse. What if some day his Rose should grow to be as indifferent, feel as little tenderness toward him as he had felt toward his wife at that moment. The pain of it made him break out into a fine sweat. But he hadn"t understood. What had he understood until this love had come into his life! He would never do a thing as cruel as that now. Come to think of it, the older Rose wasn"t acting like a bad sort. But then, when it came to a show-down she might not be so magnanimous as she had appeared tonight.

Mrs. Wade was still thinking. She also was measuring possibilities and clairvoyantly sensing what was going on in her husband"s mind. She, too, was sure that Rose would capitulate to him. She felt a deep sympathy for the girl. Martin had said it himself--he was too old for her. Her happiness lay with youth. And yet, how could one be so certain? Love was so illusive, so capricious! Did it really bow to the accident of years?

Had she, Rose Wade, the right to s.n.a.t.c.h from anyone"s hands the most precious gift of life? Wouldn"t she have sold her very soul, at one time, to have had Martin care for her like this? Oh, if the child were wise she would not hesitate! She would drink her cup of joy while it was held out to her br.i.m.m.i.n.g full. A strange conclusion for a staid churchwoman like Mrs. Wade, but her rich humanity transcended all her training. She wondered if there could be anything in the belief that there was waiting somewhere for each soul just one other. There were people, she knew, who thought that. Rose had drawn out all that was finest in Martin--she had transformed him into a lover, and if she wanted the man, himself, she could have him. But, decided his wife, he could not take with him the things which her sweat and blood had helped to create. She would give him a divorce, but her terms would be as brutal as the Martin with whom she had lived these twenty years, and who now took it for granted that she would let him do whatever he chose.

She was to be made to step aside, was she, with no weapon with which to strike back and no armor with which to protect herself? Well, there was one way she might hit him--one. She would strike him in his weakest point--his belongings. Yes, Martin Wade might leave her but all his property must be left behind--every cent of it. There should be a contract to that effect; otherwise, she would fight as only a frenzied woman can fight.

The two of them, lying there side by side as quietly as if in death, each considered the issue settled. She would let him go without his property; Martin would leave with half of it. And through all the long wordless controversy, their little Rose of Sharon, a few yards away, slept as only a tired child can sleep.

VIII. THE DUST SMOTHERS

WHEN Martin opened his eyes, next morning, he realized with a start that he had overslept, which was a new experience for one whose life had been devoted so consistently to hard toil; and he saw with a sharper start, that his wife, who always got up about a half hour earlier than himself, was not even yet awake. He wondered what had come over him that he should have committed such a sin, and as his tired mind opened one of its doors and let the confused impressions flutter out, he countenanced a luxury as unusual as the impulse that had sent him townward the evening before to bring home the Victrola. Instead of jumping out hastily so that he might attend to his hungry, bellowing stock, he lay quietly marshalling the new incidents of his life into a parade which he ordered to march across the low ceiling.

He could not comprehend what the tornado had been about. There had been so little on which to base the excitement--so little that he was puzzled as to what had caused the scene with his wife. And as he reflected, it seemed highly unlikely to him that he would ever permit himself to do anything that might jeopardize his whole life, topple over the structure that decades of work had built. Why, it was scarcely less than suicidal to let a stranger come into his heart and maybe weaken his position.

He remembered his last thought before falling asleep. It appeared unutterably rash, though when hit upon, it had been a decision that moderated a more extreme action. Now he realized that it was the very acme of foolishness deliberately to sacrifice half his fortune, especially the farm itself, to which he had given so many years of complete concentration. Certainly, if Rose were ready to be his, he might not hesitate even a second; but this flower was still to be won by him, and this morning, aware of what scant grounds he had upon which to venture any forecasts, he felt as full of doubt as he had been of confidence last night. It had been a saddening experience, but fortunate, for all that, inasmuch as nothing serious had come of it, except that he was greatly sobered. Martin could not understand that mysterious something which had risen up in his nature and threatened to wreck a carefully-built life. It was his first meeting with the little demon that rebels in a man after he thinks his character and his reactions thoroughly established, and he shuddered as he realized how close the strange imp had pulled him to the precipice. Yesterday, that precipice had seemed a new paradise; now it was a yawning chasm--and he drew back, frightened.

Cows, horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys, dogs, barn cats--all do not remain patient while the man who owns them lies in bed dreaming dreams. They wait a while and then get nervous. The many messages for food which they sent to Martin forced him to spring out of bed and hurry to them, for nothing is as unbearably insistent as a barn and yard full of living things clamoring their determination to have something to eat.

As Martin ran to stop the bedlam, he saw the world as an enormous, empty stomach, at the opening of which he stood, hurling in the feed as fast as his muscles would permit. It was all there was to farming--raising crops and then shovelling the hay and the grain into these stomachs.

Martin stood back a few feet and with loving eyes watched his animals enjoy their food. Here were the creatures he loved. The fine herd of Holstein cows--their big eyes looked at him with such trust! And their black and white markings--so spick and span with shininess because he threw salt on them that each cow might lick the other clean--their heavy milk veins, great udders, and backs as straight as a die--all appealed to his sense of the beautiful. "G.o.d Almighty!" he thought, "but they"re wonders! There"s none like them west of Chicago." The mule colts, so huge and handsome, and oh, so knowing! made him chuckle his pride and satisfaction in a muttered: "Man"s creation, are you, you fine young devils? Well, you"re a credit, the lot of you, to whoever deserves it."

His eyes wandered over the rest of his stock, swept his wide realm. It was all a very part of himself. Yes, here was his life--here was his world. It would be the height of folly to leave it.

At breakfast, his wife ate sullenly, refusing to be drawn into the conversation, but by a wise compression of her lips and a flicker of amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes, which seemed to say: "Oh, if only you could see how absurd you appear," she contrived very cleverly to render Martin miserably self-conscious. Hampered by this new and unexpected feeling, his attempts to be pleasant fell flat and he lapsed into his old grimness, while Rose, eating quickly, confined her remarks to her determination to go to town in search of a job. Had Martin not talked as he had to his wife he would have been able, undoubtedly, to disregard her and to continue the line of chatter which he had hit upon so happily and which he had never suspected was in him. But the fact, not so much that she knew, but that from this vantage point of knowledge she was ridiculing him, was too much for even his self-possession. It made the light banter impossible. Especially, as there was no doubt that Rose did not seem anxious for it.

For Martin had not been the only member of that household who had held early communion with himself. The girl had sat long and dreamily at her dressing table--the dainty one of rich, dark mahogany that Uncle Martin"s thoughtfulness had provided. It seemed unbelievable, but there was no use pretending she was mistaken--Uncle Martin, Aunt Rose"s husband, was falling in love with her. She felt a little heady with the excitement of it. He was so different from the callow youths and dapper fellows who had heretofore worshipped at her shrine. There was something so imposing, so important about him. She was conscious that a man so much older might not appeal to many girls of her age, but it so happened that he did appeal to her. She would be able to have everything she wished, too--didn"t she know how good, how kind, how tender he could be. And her heart yearned toward him--he was so clearly misunderstood, unhappy. But what about Aunt Rose? Well, then, why had she let herself get to be so ugly? She looked as if the greases of her own kitchen stove had cooked into her skin, thought the girl, mercilessly. Didn"t she know there was such a thing as a powder puff? Women like that brought their own troubles upon themselves, that"s what they did. And she was an old prude, too. Anyone could see with half an eye that she didn"t like the idea of Uncle Martin learning to dance--why, she didn"t even like his getting the Victrola--when it was just what both he and Bill had been wanting. But for all that she was her aunt, her own mother"s sister and, poor dear, she was a good soul. It would probably upset her awfully and besides, oh well, it just wasn"t right.

Before her mirror Rose blushed furiously, quite ashamed of the light way in which she had been leading Uncle Martin on. "But I haven"t said one solitary thing auntie couldn"t have heard," she justified herself.

Oh, well, no harm had been done. But she mustn"t stay here, that was certain. She wouldn"t say so, or hurt their feelings, for she wanted to be on the best of terms with them always, but she would stop flirting with Uncle Martin and just turn him back into a dear good friend. She hoped she was clever enough to do that much. And the dark-brown curls received a brushing that left no doubt of the vigor of her decisions.

She insisted that she go to Fallon that morning.

"I"ve been here eight whole days, Uncle Martin," she announced firmly, "eight whole days and haven"t tried to get a thing. It"s terrible, isn"t it, Aunt Rose, how lazy I am. I"m going to have Bill take me in right straight after breakfast."

"If you"re so set on it, I"ll see about your position this afternoon,"

conceded Martin reluctantly. "We"ll drive in in the car."

"Oh, Uncle Martin," she coaxed innocently, "let me try my luck alone first. Bill can tell me who the different men are and if I know he"s waiting for me outside in the buggy, it will keep me from being scared."

And her young cousin, only too pleased with the proposed arrangement, chimed in with: "That"s the stuff, Rose. Folks have got to go it on their own, to get anywhere."

By evening she had a position in an insurance agent"s office with wages upon which she could live with fair decency. As it had rained all day and her employer wanted her to begin the next morning, she had the best possible excuse for renting a room in Fallon and asking Bill to ride in horseback with some things which she would ask Aunt Rose, over the telephone, to pack. It rained all the next day, too, and Sunday, when she met Mrs. Wade and Bill at church, she told them she had some extra typing she had promised to do by Monday. "No, auntie, this week it is really and truly just impossible, but next week--honest and true!"

she insisted as the older woman seconded rather impersonally her son"s urgent invitation to chicken and noodles.

Soon winter was upon them in good earnest, and Rose"s visits "home," as she always called it, were naturally infrequent. By Christmas time, she was receiving attentions from Frank Mall, Nellie"s second son, a young farmer of twenty-five.

To Mrs. Wade"s everlasting credit, she never twitted Martin with this, although she knew it from Rose"s own lips, a month before he heard of it through Bill. She was too grateful for their narrow escape to feel vindictive and might have convinced herself they had merely endured a bad nightmare if it had not been for the shiny Victrola; the sight of it underscored the whole experience and she wished there were some way to get rid of the thing, a wish that was echoed even more fervently by Martin. In the evenings they would sit around the cleared supper table, she doing odd jobs of mending, Martin reading, checking up the interest dates on his mortgages or making entries in his account book, while Bill at his books, would study to the accompaniment of record after record, blissfully unconscious of what a thorn in the flesh he and his music were to both his parents.

It was all so unpleasant. To Mrs. Wade it brought up pictures. And it made Martin feel sheepish--the way he had felt that afternoon, decades ago, as he sat in the bakery eating a chocolate ice-cream soda and watching her walk across the Square. He would have told Bill to quit playing it--more than once the sharp words were on his tongue--but memories of the enthusiasm he had evinced the night he brought it home kept him silent. He was afraid of what the boy might say, afraid he might put two and two together, so he let it stay, although with his usual caution he had arranged for a trial and would have felt justified in packing it back as soon as the roads had permitted. Illogically, he felt it was all Bill"s fault that he must endure this annoyance.

That fall, the boy started to high school in Fallon, making the long daily ride to and from town on horseback. He was a good pupil and the hours he spent with his lessons were precious; they made the farm drift away. To his mind, which was opening like a bud, it seemed that history was the recorded romance of men who were everything but farmers. School books told fascinating stories of conquerors, soldiers, inventors, writers, engineers, kings, statesmen and orators. He would sit and dream of the doers of great deeds. When he read of Alexander the Great, Bill was he. He was Caesar and Napoleon, Washington and Lincoln, Grant and Edison and Shakespeare. When railroads were built in the pages of his American History, it was Bill, himself, no less, who was the presiding genius. His imagination constructed and levelled, and rebuilt and remade.

One beautiful November afternoon, in his Junior year, at the sound of the last bell, which usually found him cantering out of town, he went instead to the school reading-room, and, sitting down calmly, opened his book and slowly read. The clock ticked off the seconds he was stealing from his father; counted the minutes that had never belonged to Bill before, but which now tasted like old wine on the palate. He cuddled down, lost to the world until five o"clock, when the building was closed. He left it only to march down a few blocks to the town"s meager library, where another hour flew past. Gradually an empty feeling in his middle region became increasingly insistent, and briefly exploring his pockets, Bill decided upon a restaurant where he bought a stew and rolls for fifteen cents. Never had a supper tasted so satisfying. After it, he strolled around the town, feeling a pleasant warmth in his veins, a springiness to his legs, a new song in his heart. It was so good to be free to go where he pleased, to be his own master, if only for a stolen hour, to keep out of sight of a cow or a plow. He wondered why he had never done this before.

It was youth daring Fate, without show or bravado or fear; rolling the honey under his tongue and drawing in its sweetness; youth, that lives for the moment, that can be blind to the threatening future, that can forget the mean past; youth slipping along with some chewing-gum between his teeth and a warm sensation in his stew-crammed stomach, whistling, dreaming, happy; youth, that can, without premeditation, remain away from home and leave udders untapped and pigs unfed; sublime enigma; angering bit of irresponsibility to the Martins of a fiercely practical world. Bill was that rare kind of boy who could pull away from the traces just when he seemed most thoroughly broken to the harness.