"Moonlight nights and lonesomely," I answered before I could stop myself, and what happened then was worse than any cyclone. He got white for a minute and just looked at me as if I was a bug stuck on a pin, then gave a short little laugh and turned to the table.
"I didn"t understand you were joking," he said quietly.
That maddened me and I would have done anything to make him think I was not the foolish thing he evidently had cla.s.sified me as being.
I s.n.a.t.c.hed at my mind and shook out a mixture of truth and lies that fooled even myself and gave them to him, looking straight in his face.
I would have cracked all the ten commandments to save myself from his contempt.
"I"m not joking," I said jerkily; "I _am_ lonesome. And worse than being lonesome, I"m scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict of Mr. Carter and gone on to church meetings with Aunt Adeline and let myself be fat and respectable; but I haven"t got the character. You thought I went to town to buy a monument, and I didn"t; I bought enough clothes for two brides, and now I"m scared to wear "em, and I don"t know what you"ll think when you see my bank-book. Everybody is talking about me and that dinner-party Tuesday night, and Aunt Adeline says she can"t live in a house of mourning so desecrated any longer; she"s going back to the cottage. Aunt Bettie Pollard says that if I want to get married I ought to do it to Mr. Wilson Graves because of the seven children and then everybody would be so relieved that they are taken care of that they would forget that Mr. Carter hasn"t been dead quite one year yet.
Mrs. Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward to you. I can"t help Judge Wade"s sending me flowers and Tom"s sitting on my front steps night and day. I"m not strong enough to carry him away and murder him. I am perfectly miserable and I"m--"
"Now that"ll do, Molly, just hush for a half-minute and let me talk to you," said Doctor John as he took my hand in his and drew me near him.
"No wonder your heart hurts if it has got all that load of trouble on it and well just get a little of that "scare" off. You put yourself in my hands and you are to do just as I tell you, and I say--forget it! Come with me while I make a call. It is a long drive and I"m--I"m lonesome sometimes myself."
I saw the worst was over and I breathed freely again, but I had talked so much truth in that fiction that I felt just as I said I did, which is a slightly unnatural feeling for a woman. There was nothing for it but to go with him, and I wanted to most awfully.
To my dying day I"ll never forget that little house, way out on the Cane Run Pike, he took me to in his shabby little car. Just two tiny rooms, but they were clean and quiet and a girl with the sweetest face I ever saw lay in the bed with her eyes bright with pride and a tiny, tiny little bundle close beside her. The young farmer was red with embarra.s.sment and anxiety.
"She"s all right to-day, but she worries because she don"t think I can tend to the baby right," he said; and he did look helpless. "Her mother had to go home for two days, but is coming to-morrow. I dasn"t undress and wash the youngster myself. It won"t hurt him to stay bundled up until granny comes, will it, Doc?"
"Not a bit," answered Doctor John in his big comforting voice.
But I looked at the girl and I understood her. She wanted that baby clean and fresh even if it was just five days old, and I felt all of a sudden terribly capable. I picked up the bundle and went into the other room with it where a kettle was boiling on the stove and a large bucket by the door. I found things by just a glance from her, and the hour I spent with that small baby was one of the most delicious of all my life.
I never was left entirely to myself with one before and I did all I wanted to this one, guided by instinct and desire. He slept right through and was the darlingest thing I ever saw when I laid him back on the bed by her. I never looked in Doctor John"s direction once, though I felt him all the time.
But on the way home I gave myself the surprise of my life! Suddenly I turned my face against his sleeve and cried as I never had before.
I felt safe, for it is a cliff road and he had to drive carefully.
However, he managed to press that one arm against my cheek in a way that comforted me into stopping when I saw we were near town. I got out of the car at the garage and walked away through the garden home without looking in his direction at all. I never seem to be able to look at him as I do at other people. We hadn"t spoken two words since we had left the little house in the woods with that happy-faced girl in it. He has more sense than just a man.
It was almost dusk and I stopped in the garden a minute to pull the dirt closer around some of the bachelor"s-b.u.t.tons that had "popped" the ground some weeks ago. Thinking about them made me regain my spirits and I went on in the house to be scolded for whatever Aunt Adeline had thought up while I was gone to do it to me about. Judy told me with her broadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law"s for supper and I sat down on the steps with a sigh of relief.
Some days are like tin cocoanut graters that everybody uses to grate you against and this was one for me. For an hour I sat and grated my own self against Alfred"s letter that had come in the morning. I realized that I would just have to come to some sort of decision about what I was going to do, for he wrote that he was to sail in a day or two, and ships do travel so fast these days.
I love him and always have, of that I am sure. He offers me the most wonderful life in the world and no woman could help being proud to accept it. I am lonely, more lonely than I was even willing to confess to Doctor John. I can"t go on living this way any longer. Ruth Chester has made me see that if I want Alfred it will be now or never and--quick. I know now that she loves him, and she ought to have her show if I don"t want him. The way she idolizes and idealizes him is a marvel of womanly stupidity.
Some women like to collect men"s hearts and hide them away from other women on cold storage and the helpless things can"t help themselves.
I have contempt for that sort of butcher, and I love Ruth!
It"s my duty to look the matter in the face before I look in Alfred"s--and _decide_. If not Alfred, what then?
First--no husband. That"s out of the question! I"m not strong-minded enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman"s suffrage. I prefer to suffer at the hands of some cruel man and trust to beguiling him into doing just as I say. I like men, can"t help it, and want one for my own.
I don"t count poor Mr. Carter.
Second--if not Alfred, who? Judge Wade is so delightful that I flutter at the thought, but his mother is Aunt Adeline"s own best friend and they have ideas in common. She is so religious that living with her would be like having the sacrament for daily bread. Still, living with him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes! The girl he wanted to marry died of tuberculosis and he wears a locket with her in it yet. I"d like to reward him for such faithfulness with a nice husky wife to wear instead of the locket. But then Alfred"s been faithful too! I look at Ruth Chester and realize how faithful, and my heart melts to him in my breast--my hips have almost all melted away, too, so I had better keep the heart cold enough to handle if I want anything left at all for him to come home to.
In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. You have to say "don"t" to him all the time, but what woman doesn"t like a little impertinence once in a while? I flavor all Tom"s dare-devil kisses with kinship when I feed them to my conscience, and I truly try to make him be serious about the important things in life like going to church with his mother and working all day, even if he is rich. I wish he wasn"t so near kin to me! Now, there, I feel in Ruth Chester"s way again! One of the things that keeps the devil so busy is taking helpless widows to the heights of knowledge and showing them kingdoms of men that girls never dream even exist. If all women could have been born with widow-eyes, things would run much more smoothly along the marriage and giving-in-marriage line. And the poor men are most of them as ignorant as girls about what to do.
I suppose I really would be doing a righteous thing to marry Mr. Graves, and I would adore all those children to start with, but I know Billy wouldn"t get on with them at all. I can"t even consider it on his account, but I"ll let the nice old chap come on for a few times more to see me, for he really is interesting and we have suffered things in common. Mrs. Graves lacked the kind of temperament poor Mr. Carter did.
I"d like to make it all up to him, but if Billy wouldn"t be happy, that settles it, and I don"t know how good his boys are. I couldn"t have Billy corrupted.
And so, as there is n.o.body else exactly suitable in town, it all simmers down to one or the other of these or Alfred. In my heart I knew that I couldn"t hesitate a minute--and in the flash of a second I _decided_. Of course I love Alfred and I"ll take him gladly and be the wife he has waited for all these six lonely years. I"ll make everything up to him if I have to diet to keep thin for him the rest of my life. I likely will have that very thing to do and I get weak at the idea. Before I burn this book I"ll have to copy it all out and be chained to it for life. At the thought my heart dropped like a sinker to my toes; but I hauled it up to its normal place with picturing to myself how Alfred would look when he saw me in that old blue muslin done over into a Rene wonder. However, old heart would show a strange propensity for sinking down into my slippers without any reason at all. Tears were even coming into my eyes when Tom suddenly came over the fence and picked me and the heart up together and put us into an adventure of the first water.
"Molly," he said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we"ve got a dandy, strolling, gipsy band up at the hotel; the dining-room floor is all waxed and I"m asking for the first dance with the young and radiant Mrs. Carter. Get into a glad rag and don"t keep me waiting."
"Tom," I gasped!
"Oh, be a sport, Moll, and don"t take water! You said you would wake up this town, and now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I had my arms around you to music and I"m not going to wait any longer.
Everybody is there and they can"t all dance with Miss Chester."
That settled it--I couldn"t let a visiting girl be danced to death. Of course I had planned to make a dignified debut under my own roof, backed up by the presence of ancestral and marital rosewood, silver and mahogany, as a widow should, but _duty_ called me to de-weed myself amidst the informality of an impromptu dance at the little town hotel.
And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weeded to some purpose and flowered out to still more. I never do anything by halves.
In that--that--trousseau old Rene had made me there was one, what she called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the check it called for, a one and two ciphers back of it. It was of linen as sheer as a cobweb, real lace and tiny delicious incrustations of embroidery. It fitted in lines that melted into curves, had enticements in the shape of a long sash and a dangerous breast-knot of shimmery blue, the color of my eyes, and I looked new-born in it.
I"m glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about rats and things in my hair, now that they are out of style, for I"ve got lots of my own left in consequence of not wearing other peoples". It clings and coils to my head just any old way that looks as if I had spent an hour on it.
That made me able to be ready to go down to Tom in only ten minutes over the time he gave me.
I stopped on next to the bottom step in the wide old hall and called Tom to turn out the light for me, as Judy had gone.
I have turned out that light lots of times, but I felt it best to let Tom see me in a full light when we were alone. It is well I did! At first it stunned him,--and it is a compliment to any woman to stun Tom Pollard. But Tom doesn"t stay stunned long and I only succeeded in suppressing him after he had landed two kisses on my shoulder, one on my hair and one on the back of my neck.
"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you are one lovely dream. Your shoulders are flushed velvet, your cheeks are peaches under cream, your eyes are blue absinthe and your mouth a red devil. Come on before I get drunk looking at you." I didn"t know whether I liked that or not and turned down the light quickly myself and went to the gate hurriedly. Tom laughed and behaved himself.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Molly, you are one lovely dream"]
Everybody in town was up to the hotel and everybody was nice to me, girls and all. There is a bunch of lovely posy girls in this town and they were all in full flower. Most of the men were college boys home for vacation, and while they are a few years younger than me, I have been friends with them for always and they know how I dance. I didn"t even get near enough to the wall to know it was there, though I was conscious of Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson sitting on it at one end of the room, and every time I pa.s.sed them I flirted with them until I won a smile from them both. I wish I could be sure of hearing Mrs. Johnson tell Aunt Adeline all about it.
And it was well I did come to save Ruth Chester from a dancing death, for she is as light as a feather and sails on the air like thistle-down.
I felt sorry for Tom, for when he danced with me he could see her, and when he danced with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade"s arm. I verily believe it was from being really rattled that he asked little Pet Buford to dance with him--by mistake as it were. After that if Pet breathed a single strain of music out of his arms I didn"t see it. I knew that gone expression on his face and it made me feel so lonesome that I was more gracious to the judge than was exactly safe. He dances just as magnificently as he exists in life and it is a kind of ceremonial to do it with him. The boys all wore white flannels, and most of the men, but the judge was as formally dressed as he would have been in mid-winter, and I wondered if Alfred could be half as distinguished to look at. I suppose my eyes must have been telling on me about how grand I thought he was looking because he--well, I was rather relieved when one of the boys took me out of his arms for a good, long, swinging two-step.
And how I did enjoy it all, every single minute of it! My heart beat time to the music as if it would never tire of doing so. Miss Chester and I exchanged little laughs and sc.r.a.ps of conversation in between times and I fell deeper and deeper in love with her. Every pound I have melted and frozen and starved off me has brought me nearer to her and I just _can"t_ think about how I am going to hurt her in a few days now. I put the thought from me and so let myself swing out into thoughtlessness with one of the boys. And after that I really didn"t know with whom I was dancing, I began to get so intoxicated with it all.
I never heard musicians play better or get more of the spirit of dance in their music than those did to-night. They had just given us the most lovely swinging things, one after another, when suddenly they all stopped and the leader drew his bow across his violin. Never in all my life have I ever heard anything like the call of that waltz from that gipsy"s strings. It laughed you a signal and you felt yourself follow the first strain.
Just then somebody happened to take me from whomever I was with and I caught step and glided off the universe. The strongest arms that I had felt that evening--or ever--held me and I didn"t have to look up to see who it was. I don"t know why I knew but I did. I wasn"t clasped so very close to him or left to float by myself an inch; I was just a part of him like the arms themselves or the hand that mine molded into. And while that wonder-music teased and cajoled and mocked and rocked and sobbed and throbbed, I laid my cheek against his coat sleeve and gave myself away, I didn"t care to whom.
Again that strange sense of some wonderful eternal good came to me and I found myself humming Billy"s little "soul to keep" prayer against the doctor"s sleeve to the tune of that magic waltz. I had never danced with him before, of course, but I felt as if I had been doing it always, and I melted in his arms as that baby had wilted to his mother out in the cabin a few hours earlier and I don"t see how such happiness as that _could_ stop. But with a soft entreating wail the music came to an end and there the doctor was, smiling down into my face with his whimsical friendly smile that woke me up all over.
"Somebody has stolen a rose from the Carter garden and brought it to the dance," he said with a laugh that was for me alone.
"No," I flashed back, "a string-bean." And with that I danced off again with the judge, while the doctor disappeared through the door, and I heard the chuck of his car as it whirled away. He had just stopped in for a second to see the fun and G.o.d had given me that gipsy waltz with him, because He knew I needed something like that in my life to keep for always.
This has been a happy night, in which I betrothed myself to Alfred, though he doesn"t know it yet. I am going to take it as a sign that life for us is going to be brilliant and gay and full of laughter and love.
I haven"t had Billy in my arms to-day and I don"t know how I shall ever get myself to sleep if I let myself think about it. His sleep-place on my breast aches. It is a comfort to think that the great big G.o.d understands the women folk that He makes, even if they don"t understand themselves.