They saw a lithe, exquisite animal figure, poised strongly on her feet, walking as in the very pride of s.e.x, radiating charms consciously, but with all the grace of a flower in the breeze. Her bright eyes, her ma.s.ses of dark hair, her dimpled face and neck, her lips that flamed with the joy of life, the enchantment of her whole body, was so complete a thing that morning, that she might well have told her story to the world. The little Doctor knew what her answer to Henry Fenn had been and always would be. He knew as well as though she had told him. In spite of himself, his heart melted a little and he had consciously to stop arguing with himself that she had done the wise thing; that to throw Henry over would only hasten an end, which her powerful personality might finally avert. But George Brotherton--when he saw the light in her eyes, was sad. In the core of him, because he loved his friend, he knew what had happened to that friend. He was sad--sad and resentful, vaguely and without reason, at the mien and bearing of Margaret Muller as she went to her work that morning.
Brotherton remembered her an hour later when, in the back part of the bookstore Henry Fenn sat, jaded, haggard, and with his dull face drawn with remorse,--a burned-out sky rocket. Brotherton was busy with his customers, but in a lull, and between sales as the trade pa.s.sed in and out, they talked. Sometimes a customer coming in would interrupt them, but the talk went on as trade flowed by. It ran thus:
"Yes, George, but it"s my salvation. She"s the only anchor I have on earth."
"But she didn"t hold you yesterday."
"I know, but G.o.d, George, it was terrific, the way that thing grabbed me yesterday. But it"s all gone now."
"I know, Henry, but it will come back--can"t you see what you"ll be doing to her?"
Fenn, gray of face, with his straight, colorless hair, with his staring eyes, with his listless form, sat head in hands, gazing at the floor. He did not look up as he replied: "George, I just can"t give her up; I won"t give her up," he cried. "I believe, after the depths of love she showed me in her soul last night, I"d take her, if I knew I was taking us both to h.e.l.l. Just let me have a home, George,--and her and children--George, I know children would hold me--lots of children--I can make money. I"ve got money--all I need to marry on, and we"ll have a home and children and they will hold me--keep me up."
In Volume XXI of the "Psychological Society"s Publications," page 374, will be found a part of the observations of "Mr. Left," together with copious notes upon the Adams case by an eminent authority. The excerpt herewith printed is attributed by Mr. Left to Darwin or Huxley or perhaps one of the Brownings--it is unimportant to note just which one, for Mr. Left gleaned from a wide circle of intellects. The interesting thing is that about the time these love affairs we are considering were brewing, Mr. Left wrote: "If the natural selection of love is the triumph of evolution on this planet, if the free choice of youth and maiden, unhampered by cla.s.s or nationality, or wealth, or age, or parental interference, or thought of material advantage, is the greatest step taken by life since it came mysteriously into this earth, how much of the importance of the natural selection of youth in love hangs upon full and free access to all the data necessary for choice."
What irony was in the free choice of these lovers here in Harvey that day when Mr. Left wrote this. What did Henry Fenn know of the heart or the soul of the woman he adored? What did Laura Nesbit know of her lover and what did he know of her? They all four walked blindfolded. Free choice for them was as remote and impossible as it would have been if they had been auctioned into bondage.
CHAPTER X
IN WHICH MARY ADAMS TAKES A MUCH NEEDED REST
The changing seasons moved from autumn to winter, from winter to spring.
One gray, wet March day, Grant Adams stood by the counter asking Mr.
Brotherton to send to the city for roses.
"White roses, a dozen white roses." Mr. Brotherton turned his broad back as he wrote the order, and said gently: "They"ll be down on No. 11 to-night, Grant; I"ll send "em right out."
As Grant stood hesitating, ready to go, but dreading the street, Dr.
Nesbit came in. He pressed the youth"s hand and did not speak. He bought his tobacco and stood cleaning his pipe. "Could your father sleep any after--when I left, Grant?" asked the Doctor.
The young man shook his head. "Mrs. Nesbit is out there, isn"t she?" the Doctor asked again.
"Yes," replied the youth, "she and Laura came out before we had breakfast. And Mrs. Dexter is there."
"Has any one else come?" asked the Doctor, looking up sharply from his pipe, and added, "I sent word to Margaret Muller."
Grant shook his head and the Doctor left the shop. At the doorway he met Captain Morton, and seemed to be telling him the news, for the Captain"s face showed the sorrow and concern that he felt. He hurried in and took Grant"s hand and held it affectionately.
"Grant, your mother was with my wife her last night on earth; I wish I could help you, son. I"ll run right down to your father."
And the Captain left in the corner of the store the model of a patent coffee pot he was handling at the time and went away without his morning paper. Mr. Van Dorn came in, picked up his paper, snipped off the end of his cigar at the machine, lighted the cigar, considered his fine raiment a moment, adjusted his soft hat at a proper angle, pulled up his tie, and seeing the youth, said: "By George, young man, this is sad news I hear; give the good father my sympathy. Too bad."
When Grant went home, the silence of death hung over the little house, in spite of the bustling of Mrs. Nesbit. And Grant sat outside on a stone by his father under the gray sky.
In the house the prattle of the child with the women made the house seem pitifully lonesome. Jasper was expressing his sorrow by chopping wood down in the timber. Jasper was an odd sheep in the flock; he was a Sands after Daniel"s own heart. So Grant and his father sat together mourning in silence. Finally the father drew in a deep broken breath, and spoke with his eyes on the ground:
""These also died in the faith, without having received the promise!""
Then he lifted up his face and mourned, "Mary--Mary--" and again, "Oh, Mary, we need--" The child"s voice inside the house calling fretfully, "Mother! mother!" came to the two and brought a quick cramp to the older man"s throat and tears to his eyes. Finally, Amos found voice to say:
"I was thinking how we--you and I and Jasper need mother! But our need is as nothing compared with the baby"s. Poor--lonely little thing! I don"t know what to do for him, Grant." He turned to his son helplessly.
Again the little voice was lifted, and Laura Nesbit could be heard hushing the child"s complaint. Not looking at his father, Grant spoke: "Dr. Nesbit said he had let Margaret know--"
The father shook his head and returned, "I presumed he would!" He looked into his son"s face and said: "Maggie doesn"t see things as we do, son.
But, oh--what can we do! And the little fellow needs her--needs some one, who will love him and take care of him. Oh, Mary--Mary--" he cried from his bewildered heart. "Be with us, Mary, and show us what to do!"
Grant rose, went into the house, bundled up Kenyon and between showers carried him and walked with him through the bleak woods of March, where the red bird"s joyous song only cut into his heart and made the young man press closer to him the little form that snuggled in his arms.
At night Jasper went to his room above the kitchen and the father turned to his lonely bed. In the cold parlor Mary Adams lay. Grant sat in the kitchen by the stove, pressing to his face his mother"s ap.r.o.n, only three days before left hanging by her own hands on the kitchen door. He clung to this last touch of her fingers, through the long night, and as he sat there his heart filled with a blind, vague, rather impotent purpose to take his mother"s place with Kenyon. From time to time he rose to put wood in the stove, but always when he went back to his chair, and stroked the ap.r.o.n with his face, the baby seemed to be clinging to him. The thought of the little hands forever tugging at her ap.r.o.n racked him with sobs long after his tears were gone.
And so as responsibility rose in him he stepped across the border from youth to manhood.
They made him dress in his Sunday best the next morning and he was still so close to that borderland of boyhood that he was standing about the yard near the gate, looking rather lost and awkward when the Nesbits drove up with Kenyon, whom they had taken for the night. When the others had gone into the house the Doctor asked:
"Did she come, Grant?"
The youth lifted his face to the Doctor and looked him squarely in the eye as man to man and answered sharply, "No."
The Doctor c.o.c.ked one eye reflectively and said slowly, "So--" and drove away.
It was nearly dusk when the Adamses came back from the cemetery to the empty house. But a bright fire was burning in the kitchen stove and the kettle was boiling and the odor of food cooking in the oven was in the air. Kenyon was moving fitfully about the front room. Mrs. Dexter was quietly setting the table. Amos Adams hung up his hat, took off his coat, and went to his rocker by the kitchen door; Jasper sat stiffly in the front room. Grant met Mrs. Dexter in the dining room, and she saw that the child had hold of the young man"s finger and she heard the baby calling, "Mother--mother! Grant, I want mother!" with a plaintive little cry, over and over again. Grant played with the child, showed the little fellow his toys and tried to stop the incessant call of "Mother--mother--where"s mother!" At last the boy"s eyes filled. He picked up the child, knocking his own new hat roughly to the floor. He drew up his chin, straightened his trembling jaw, batted his eyes so that the moisture left them and said to his father in a hard, low voice--a man"s voice:
"I am going to Margaret; she must help."
It was dark when he came to town and walked up Congress Street with the little one snuggled in his arms. Just before he arrived at the house, the restless child had asked to walk, and they went hand in hand up the steps of the house where Margaret Muller lived. She was sitting alone on the veranda--clearly waiting for some one, and when she saw who was coming up the steps she rose and hurried to them, greeting them on the very threshold of the veranda. She was white and her bosom was fluttering as she asked in a tense whisper:
"What do you want--quick, what do you want?"
She stood before Grant, as if stopping his progress. The child"s plaintive cry, "Mother--Grant, I want mother!" not in grief, but in a great question, was the answer.
He looked into her staring, terror-stricken eyes until they drooped and for a moment he dominated her. But she came back from some outpost of her nature with reenforcements.
"Get out of here--get out of here. Don"t come here with your brat--get out," she snarled in a whisper. The child went to her, plucked her skirts and cried, "Mother, mother." Grant pointed to the baby and broke out: "Oh, Maggie--what"s to become of Kenyon?--what can I do! He"s only got you now. Oh, Maggie, won"t you come?" He saw fear flit across her face in a tense second before she answered. Then fear left and she crouched at him trembling, red-eyed, gaping, mouthed, the embodiment of determined hate; swiping the child"s little hands away from her, she snapped:
"Get out of here!--leave! quick!" He stood stubbornly before her and only the child"s voice crying, "Grant, Grant, I want to go home to mother," filled the silence. Finally she spoke again, cutting through the baby"s complaint. "I shall never, never, never take that child; I loathe him, and I hate you and I want both of you always to keep away from me."
Without looking at her again, he caught up the toddling child, lifted it to his shoulder and walked down the steps. As they turned into the street they ran into Henry Fenn, who in his free choice of a mate was hurrying to one who he thought would give him a home--a home and children, many children to stand between him and his own insatiate devil. Henry greeted Grant:
"Why, boy--oh, yes, been to see Maggie? I wish she could help you, Grant."
And from the veranda came a sweet, rich voice, crying:
"Yes, Henry--do you know where they can get a good nurse girl?"