Just at this time he got his first chance at a big order. An industrial suburb was projected to house the operatives of a new machine-tool manufacturing plant in the Connecticut valley. The contractors had never been Gates customers and no one in the office thought that young Crittenden had the ghost of a show of landing the order--no one, that is, but young Crittenden himself. The contract would run up into the millions of board feet: forgetting Martha, marriage, every personal element in life, Neale started after it.
He studied the buyer, the situation, the sort of lumber needed. He sat up nights going over the architect"s specifications; made up alternative schedules for spruce, oak, yellow pine interior trim; clear or "grade A"
shingles. Then, delving deep in the information he himself had collected, he rechecked his figures, shaving the margin of safety down till he was sure his bid would be lower than any other firm"s, and yet safe--no danger of leaving the firm in the hole. The Gates Lumber Co.
could count on its usual percentage of profit and Neale Crittenden on his biggest commission yet, to add to the sum he was laying aside for the new home.
When his bid was finally in the contractor"s hands, and routine office and road work threatened to leave him with time to think, Neale turned hastily back to his private deal with Grandfather. Grandfather"s intimate knowledge of all the possible timber-tracts in his region was a gold mine. There were always wood-lots in the back valleys being sold for taxes, or for very little because, all the older generation dying off, the western heirs did not care enough about the little old family land-holdings to come east and investigate them. And even if they had, knowing nothing of the eastern or indeed of any lumber market, they had no notion of the potential value of their inheritance. Neale resolved to take part of his little savings for the use of the new household, to buy up a few such wood-lots, and turn them over at a big profit. He felt sure of himself now, sure he could swing such an operation, and taking advantage of the Labor Day vacation, he went up to West Adams to spend the week-end and talk it over with Grandfather.
Nothing ever changed in Grandfather"s home. Grandfather and Grandmother did not look so very much older to Neale at twenty-four than they had to the eight-year-old, having always looked as old as possible. Jennie, the hired girl, had aged more than the old folks, he noted, as she went with him up the steep stairs to the little slant-ceilinged room now incredibly low and tiny.
He sat down on his little-boy bed, a thousand forgotten memories standing thick about him. He saw his mother leading in the sleepy little Neale, and now he saw that she was young, young as Martha, so young herself ... as young as Martha! He was the strong, purposeful, determined young man, sitting on the bed and looking at that long-past scene, and yet he was also the sleepy little boy, feeling on his lips his young mother"s kiss. "Good-night, Neale." "Good-night, Mother."
"Oh, d.a.m.n it!" he cried impatiently, dismayed to feel that with the memory of his mother, he was aware as though of a palpable presence in the room there, of women ... of women as different from men, emotionally exacting, wanting something different from men, with some fine-spun impossible ideal of what could be had out of human nature, troubling, hampering the real business of life ... and yet all the time an inevitable part of things! For an instant he felt brutally angry with them, with their superfine weakening notions, and had for the first time the exasperated feeling that they were an element in life which you could neither do anything with, nor do without. The ewig-weibliche,--good heavens! All it did was to snarl things up! Neale got up from the bed and went over to the wash-stand, amazed at himself, his fit of fury pa.s.sed, unable to conceive what had started him off on such an explosion. What under the sun possessed him, veering around like a crazy weather-c.o.c.k from one high-strung mood to another, more shifts of feeling in a day than he had ever used to know in a year! He would put it all out of his mind, all! He simply would not allow himself to think of it again, to think of all that, he would not!
He went hastily down the stairs and fell to talking business with Grandfather, talking to very good purpose, too. To-day their projects went far beyond the little tract of second-growth oak they had first thought of. Grandfather, wily old spider, at the center of a wide-flung web, knew many tips which he was more than willing to pa.s.s on to his favorite, Neale,--Neale who had the other half of the combination and could sell at top prices what Grandfather could buy at rock-bottom. He was in fact delighted with Neale"s ideas and the energy with which Neale laid his plans. "Why, you"re worth two of your father!" he cried exultantly, as they sat again, the next morning on the porch and went into details. "I never could see why Dan"l didn"t get on better! He never seemed to care enough about it, and by thunder, you got to care if you"re going to get anywhere." The old man paused, took breath, and brought out, with an attempt to sound casual, "I"ve thought sometimes "twas your mother made him that way. She"s a nice girl, your mother is, Neale, but I never thought she _pushed_ your father the way she ought to."
He glanced at Neale a little apprehensively, but the young man said nothing. He was following out a thought, not entirely new, a guess which he had subconsciously made before, that there was a long hostility between his mother and his grandfather. The idea stirred a great deal in his own head, which he felt no desire to examine.
"I tell you what, Neale," said the old man, observing the other"s silence and emboldened by it. "I tell you what, Neale," the old man took his pipe out of his mouth and spoke more loudly, "don"t you get to thinking women are too darned _important_. That"s what your father did.
He was going good ... but that softened him right up."
Neale still said nothing, a succession of well-remembered scenes from his early home-life evoked by his grandfather"s words.
The old man cried out now, in a burst of long-contained resentment, "Your father ought to have gone enough sight further than he did! Yes, he had ought to!" He looked keenly into the hard, strong face of his grandson and said proudly, "But _you_ will!"
Neale felt so queer a disquiet at all this, that he got up abruptly and clapped on his hat. All kinds of different pieces were fitting together before his eyes into some sort of a pattern. He wanted to get away by himself and look at it to see what pattern it was.
"I"m going up to the far wood-lot," he said. "I can remember when the pines were just coming in there. I want to see how much they grow in fifteen or twenty years." But he had no interest in the young pines, and he was not at all thinking of them as he strode hurriedly up the stony sunken wood-road. He was thinking of Martha. Out of nowhere there had come to him the recollection of saying good-by to her at the station. He had kissed her good-by, and as clearly as though he had just now stooped to her, he could remember that the very instant their lips met he had been wondering if he would have time to get down to the office before Mr. Gilman came in from Chicago. He wanted Gilman"s support for his scheme to follow the shifting center of supply with a branch office in the Gulf States. Were the figures he wanted filed under L for Louisiana or Y for Yellow pine?
He laughed rather grimly to himself, marching rapidly up through the second-growth birch on which with one corner of his eye he was automatically setting a possible value. If Grandfather only knew, he wouldn"t think he needed any exhortation to avoid uxoriousness. He was not very proud of that remembered moment at the station. It was all very well not to be uxorious but ...
When a clear tiny brook crossed the road, he stopped to draw breath, for, without knowing it, he had been hurrying as if not to miss an appointment up on the mountain. He saw his father stooping to say good-by to his mother at the train as the yearly summer vacation began.
He had seen that good-by every June of his little boyhood, but he had never looked at it, till, a man grown, he now stood stock-still on the mountain and stared back through the years into his father"s face. What he saw there was startling and troubling to him. He stood frowning sternly down at the brook. He was very, very unhappy and he resented his unhappiness. But his unhappiness was nothing to the remorse which now shook him. If that was what marriage could mean to a man and a woman, what right had he to ask Martha to accept what he had to give? Martha was so fine, so true--dear, dear Martha! To his amazement, almost to his fright, he saw the brook waver and flicker and knew that the tears were in his eyes. For G.o.d"s sake, what was the matter with him?
He sat down on a fallen log, looking back down towards the valley and found that far beneath him lay the sunburned, flat, upper pasture where in his junior year he had practised so fiercely to learn how to punt. He cast a glance of heart-sick envy back at the sweating, anxious boy who could conceive of nothing worse in life than to have a kick blocked. How lucky kids were, only they didn"t know it, never for a moment to dream of such a heavy burden of obscure misery as that which now sickened his heart.
What was the trouble? What _was_ the trouble? He had everything in the world a man could work for. Why then, did he stand there leaden-hearted, as wretched as a man who cannot pay his debts?
The feeling of oppression, of weight was intolerable, like a physical constriction. He stretched his great arms and shook himself and drew a long breath, trying to throw it off physically. In the back of his mind stood his father, looking down at his mother, but now he would not look him in the face, for if he did he would see that he was not in love with Martha, deep and tender as was his affection for her.
With this sudden involuntary formulation of what he had been fighting not to formulate, the trouble and restlessness and disquiet dropped away, and left Neale, sitting, his face gray and grim, looking steadily at what he ought to have seen long ago, at what he had known for a long time.
That was what the trouble was: he _was_ a man who could not pay his debt, and he owed it to the person he loved best.
Well, it was better, infinitely better now that he knew what there was to face. He could face anything, anything, if he could see it. His native energy rose up, that energy which had been so carefully and steadily trained to aggressive strength. He wouldn"t take anything lying down! He would stand up to this!
The young man with the hard strong face sat as silent and motionless as though he did not breathe. The bright sun wheeled slowly across the sky.
The shadows stretched longer.
When he finally rose to his feet, stiff and lame with his long immobility, he had constructed a new little world in which to live, different from what he had foreseen but tolerable, probably all that could be expected by any one who had an honest mind. At least it was constructed on things exactly as they were.
These were the foundations and boundaries of his new world: a profound doubt as to whether any one outside of books is ever in love as men and women are traditionally supposed to be; a certainty that with his deep affection for Martha, his respect for her, his liking for all her ways, he could make her happy ... happy enough ...; and be happy with her ...
as happy as any one in this world was likely to be; the probability that a normal healthy man married to a young and comely woman would fall in love with her sufficiently at least to satisfy any conception she would be likely to have of love, sufficiently to satisfy what any honest open-eyed man had a right to expect from love; a guess that in the long run such a marriage would be more to his taste (possibly also to Martha"s) than a more absorbing, exciting union. It would certainly be all right for Martha if they had children. The point was that he could do infinitely more for her, advance and succeed and triumph, unclogged by too much personal life. He did not, he decided, looking back over his life, seem to be the sort of man who really cared much for personal life. He never had. His few tentative steps towards it had always made him miserable, a fish out of water. What he really did care for, what he had always liked when he got it, was a chance to use his strength and wits in compet.i.tion with other men. Wasn"t that after all the real business of life? Wasn"t that after all what women wanted of men? That was at the bottom of the marriages he saw about him, in the homes of the older men where he occasionally was asked to dinner. He could give Martha all they gave to their apparently quite-satisfied wives ... and more, much more! ... because Martha was such a dear, dear girl.
And that was enough! Enough for any one! He did not feel very light-hearted, it is true. But life evidently was not a very light-hearted business. And he was no grimacing, G.o.d"s-in-His-Heaven, professional optimist. You took what was coming to you. And what was coming to him was plenty good enough for anybody!
The thought of Father and Mother knocked at the door, but he turned the key in the lock, and started down the mountain to his grandfather, the most promising young business man who had ever entered the employ of the Gates Lumber Company.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV
Martha came into the room with a little rush as though she had been waiting impatiently to see Neale, and yet when she saw him she gave a little quavering "oh!" as of fright, and stood stock-still near the door.
Neale, conscious of nothing but his own heavy heart, was so startled that he had for an instant the fantastic notion that his mountain colloquy with himself was perhaps written on his face, and that Martha had read it at a glance. But before he could move, she had moved herself and come towards him as swiftly as she had first entered the room. She spoke swiftly too, as though she were afraid of losing her breath before she could say what she had to say; and yet she had already lost her breath, and was panting.
"Neale, dear, dear Neale ..." her voice was quavering and very low, "I must tell you quickly. Neale, I"m afraid I"ve done you a great wrong.
Neale, I love you better than any one I ever saw, but," her voice sank so low Neale could scarcely hear her, "I don"t want to marry you."
Her lips began to tremble. She hung her head, and Neale could see the dark red flooding up to the roots of her hair.
He was for a moment literally incapable of speech. She went on falteringly, "Out in Cleveland, at Margaret"s wedding you know, everybody talking about getting married, and Margaret ... she"s like my sister ... we"re so near each other ... and we talked. She was just going to be married, and she thought I was, too. And I thought so.
Truly, Neale, I"d never dreamed of anything else. And she talked to me as one woman about to be married talks to another--not girls" talk."
She began to cry a little now, though she made a great effort to control herself, drawing long, long breaths, and halting between her words, trying to bring them out quietly, "Neale, I"m afraid you won"t understand. I don"t know how to tell you, I don"t know how to tell you!
You see I never knew my mother and I never liked to talk intimately with other girls about ... about ... but Margaret is so fine and----" She cried out what she had to say in one burst, in a loud voice of pain, "Oh, Neale, when I saw Margaret with her lover I knew, I knew, I"d never loved you at all. I knew I"d hate you if we were married."
She turned away and leaned against the wall, sobbing, her face hidden in the crook of her arm. "What"s the matter with me!" she cried desperately, brokenly. "Why don"t I? Am I different from other women? I can"t bear to hurt you so! I want to love you! What can I do with myself if I don"t?"
The two stood there, the broken pieces of their life lying in a heap between them.
Over the heap, Neale took one long step and put his arms around Martha, so tenderly, so quietly, that she did not start or shrink away. She stopped sobbing, she stood still in his arms, breathlessly still as though she were listening intently, as though she were taking in some knowledge from a source not articulate.
She turned her face to his, and said abruptly, "Neale, it"s just come to me.... I hadn"t thought of that ... perhaps you don"t really love me either, not in _that_ way ... perhaps you never did. Perhaps I"ve just found all of it out in time."
Neale was startled, frightened, unutterably desolate but he made no pretense of being taken by surprise. "I can"t bear to give you up, Martha," he said looking down at her. "Perhaps what we have is all we could ever have. We may lose this and have nothing. Perhaps there really is nothing else. What we have is ... is ... very good to have." His face contracted in a pain that really did surprise him by its keenness. He was horrified at the idea of losing Martha altogether.
Martha gazed steadily into his face as if trying to understand what he said, their old habit of sharing things, of talking things over, strong on her. He noted how pale and drawn her face was, with dark rings under her eyes. She had been suffering, she too had had broken nights. And as he looked he saw from her eyes that she was no longer seeing him, but some inner vision.
She shivered and drew away from him. "Yes, there is something else ...
something we haven"t ... and it"s what makes it all right," she said.
"I"d rather have nothing at all ... nothing ... _ever_! than something that would make part of me shrink away from you. I couldn"t stand that!
I couldn"t stand that!"
She had said the last words wildly, and she was back by the door now, as if ready for flight.