Читать книгу: «Nobody's Child», страница 16

Ben stopped his work. But he did not look at Baird; he looked out at the struggle between sun and mist. After a considerable pause, he said slowly, "It seems the cruelest thing in all this night's work, don't it?.. I can't explain it… The Ridge'll give its reasons, an' first among them, that there is knowed to be one Westmo' whose mind ain't right, an' that now the thing's showed itself in Edward… It's all right your askin' me – I know you are considerin' Ann same as I am. You can ask me anything you like an' I'll answer to the best of my ability, but it's a thing I won't discuss with nobody else. I thought a heap of Edward – I don't want to talk about it. My biggest trouble now is Ann."

If Ben intended to divert Baird, he succeeded. Baird moved restlessly, then got up. "He's in there a long time!" he said through his teeth.

He went to the door and looked out at the misty morning. It had been a steady, deep-sinking rain, like the satisfying answer to a prayer, and now the sun was fighting the steaming moisture, trying to work its vivifying will upon the growing things; in an hour's time it would triumphantly climb the heavens.

Ben looked at Baird's drooping shoulders. The boy was almost falling from fatigue. He was certainly a "cool-head," but a boy, nevertheless; a young fellow experiencing his first big trouble, and not knowing just what to make of it. He loved Ann completely, he had shown that, a somewhat astonishing thing in one of his rough-and-ready sort, Ben thought. If the doctor brought them bad news, they were both going to suffer.

Baird straightened and turned. "He's coming," he said.

Ben rose uncertainly to his feet. "You go ask him," he returned in his deepest growl.

But Baird was already on his way. The doctor's buggy had come into view, and Ben watched Baird go. He peered intently at the group, the doctor bent forward a little and Baird standing with one hand on the dashboard, as if for support… The buggy moved on, and, for a moment, Ben could not make out whether Baird was returning laggingly or not. Then he saw that he came with head up, and Ben stopped swaying.

Baird's tired eyes were alight. "Ben, he says there's no serious injury, just a severe shock. It was the concussion made her unconscious so long. He said she might never have come out from it, that many don't, but that she had. And he says her spine's all right." It was the fear that had harried them both, and to which neither had referred.

"Um!" said Ben. It was an expressive monosyllable.

The two looked at each other in the way usual with men when uplifted and yet held by awkwardness.

"I'm going to the club now," Baird said.

And Ben asked as prosaically, "Where's your horse?"

"I left him in the doctor's stable – I don't mind walking… I'll come over this afternoon." And he went.

Ben stood for a time, considering, and the color that for a few moments had dulled the patches on his face gradually faded. One trouble had been lifted from his mind, but it was crowded with others. He was thinking of Judith Westmore – and intently of Coats Penniman. Sue had done her best, and he had listened without questioning, but she had not deceived his intelligence. Ann had told him that they had found Garvin's letters. Coats' sudden going and his failure to return were curious things. Was it possible that he had been mistaken? And that he had misled Judith?.. If he had, he had unwittingly saved a Penniman at a pretty big price to a Westmore.

Ben was thinking anxiously of the future.

XXXV
WAITING

The middle of June brought hot days and unrefreshing nights to the Ridge, frequent rains and steaming heat, and yet Baird stayed on. He was comparatively idle now, for he had done about all he could in the Southeast for his firm. Dempster needed him in the West; any day the summons might come.

Baird could not and would not go until Ann was on the way to recovery. It was three weeks since her accident and yet he had not been allowed to see her; she had been too ill. Coats Penniman had returned to the farm the day after the Westmore tragedy, and had immediately sent for a city specialist, who had simply confirmed what the Ridge doctor had said, that there was no injury except the shock to Ann's entire nervous system. She had youth in her favor, but, at best, nervous prostration was a slow matter. Rest and freedom from worry of any sort was his prescription, the usual prescription.

Coats and Sue and Ben, and Baird also, knew why Ann was so lifeless, that she was not only ill from shock, but sick with grief as well. Sue had talked to Ann, affectionately and pityingly, and Coats had shown Ann far more paternal tenderness than he had expressed in all the seventeen years past; Ann was surrounded by kindness, but she remained lifeless, too weak to walk, too weak to talk much, even to Ben, though he was her constant companion, her nurse, in reality, for his seemed to be the only presence that did not tire her. The sight, even the sound, of her grandfather made her eyes dilate dangerously. The attentions of her family appeared to exhaust her; she could not sleep when they were with her.

Very little of the talk and excitement over the Westmore tragedy filtered to Ann. Ben told her a little about Judith's and the entire Westmore connection's quiet acceptance of an overwhelming trouble. The day following the tragedy, the city papers had given accounts of the occurrence that carefully avoided any mention of the Westmore family's inherited misfortune which was being openly discussed both in the city and on the Ridge. Colonel Dickenson had given to his friends in the city the only reason the family could assign for Edward's act, the same reason Mr. Copeley had given to Baird, and their explanation of Garvin's fate; a frantic haste to reach Westmore, and the condition of the Post-Road bridge.

For a time the Ridge had buzzed with comments: the Ridge had always known that the family misfortune would reveal itself in another Westmore, and for Garvin they had terse sentences: a reckless dissipated man, what else could you expect? A dash in an automobile on a black night and over such roads as theirs! The Ridge had always known that he would come to some such end. Ben was questioned by every one he met, and talked with apparent frankness of his connection with the tragedy. Baird had said little, but had listened intently to the Ridge gossip. When it was apparent that no one knew of Ann's connection with the Westmore brothers, he breathed more freely. Ben was keeping his secret well. Baird's own surmises he kept strictly to himself.

Coats Penniman had very little to say to any one – except Sue – there were no secrets between them. They had come together, those two; mutual distress had united them. It was known now on the Ridge that they would be married as soon as Coats' daughter was well. Coats went about the farm working hard, as usual. He had carried his arm in a sling for some days, then had discarded it. He had always been a silent man, he was more silent than usual, that was all.

Sue alone knew what weighed on his mind. His most constant thought was of Ann, and how best to help her. It seemed best to leave her to Ben. Sue knew how acutely Coats was suffering, and she clung to him with the greater devotion.

During the last of the three anxious weeks, Ann had talked more with Ben, and after that she gained a little strength. Ben wished that she would weep; her calmness was unnatural.

Ann's stoicism frightened Sue. "I'm afraid of it," she was driven to say to Coats.

The furrows in Coats' forehead deepened, but he said quietly, "Don't worry, Sue. There's plenty of good sane blood in Ann. Just wait and let time help her."

Baird also was anxiously waiting. Every day of that three weeks he had stopped at the Penniman house to inquire about Ann. Often he rode on to Westmore and spent the evening with Judith. Though urged by the whole connection, Judith had refused to leave Westmore, even for a day. She had faced God's half-acre, faced the present and the future with the same undaunted spirit with which she had faced the difficult past. She had taken up Edward's interests; she rode about Westmore like any capable overseer, and her evenings she spent seated beneath the Westmore portraits.

She was always at home to Baird, and Westmore seemed to Baird much as it had been. Save for Judith's black gown, there were few signs of mourning. Judith bore herself spiritedly, was the same fluent speaker, and charming, as always. If Baird had not noticed her expression at times, when she was off guard, he might have thought her heartless. He knew that, in her way, she was suffering as keenly as Ann. Her manner to Baird was a mixture of friendly interest and something deeper, a tacit recognition of their former relations, and as tacit a disclaimer of any expectations.

Baird was in many respects the "cool-head" Ben Brokaw thought him. So long as his own feelings were clearly defined, he felt no hesitation in going to Westmore. On the first occasion when Judith said, "You are not looking well, Nickolas," he had answered without preamble or apology, "You know, I suppose, how fond I am of Ann Penniman? She's very ill – I doubt sometimes whether she'll pull through. I'm not feeling particularly happy, Judith."

If Judith had rehearsed her answer many times, it could not have been more equably delivered: "Yes, I know you are. Ben tells me that it was a fall in the barn, and I'm sorry both for you and for her. But she's young and strong – she will get well."

"I don't know. I hope so," Baird said.

The drop in his voice had told Judith far more than his avowal, and she could not endure it in silence. "Ann was fond of my brother – of both my brothers," she said dryly.

Baird had winced; so she knew all that history, doubtless far better than he did. Then his jaw set, and he quoted her own words, "But she's young and so am I. And as I'm good at both fighting and waiting, I generally win out."

"I hope you will," Judith said, with an instant return to her usual manner. "There is no one whom I'd rather see happy."

After the first flash of anger Baird forgave her the thrust. He had been rather brutal. Still it had been a necessary brutality; unless there was a distinct understanding, he could not continue his visits. Baird judged that Judith would not again swerve from the attitude she had adopted, and he was right. He genuinely liked and admired Judith Westmore. He admired the strength of will that enabled her to go on playing the role she had chosen; she was a pretty splendid sort. And he was profoundly sorry for her; she'd had a beastly hard row to hoe, and had hoed it well. He took off his hat to her!

But Baird did not take his depression and his fears to Judith. When he was "down," he rode for miles into the country, often until late at night. He thought continuously of Ann. He was convinced that she had been a more potential factor in the Westmore tragedy than any one dreamed. Baird wondered endlessly whether Ann was not suffering as much from remorse as from grief. He had long ago decided that she was both elusive and compelling, the type that gives little and receives much, the sort of woman who drives a man to fight for all he receives. Certainly two men had struggled for her, and, Baird was convinced, had died because of her. And he himself! He had fought for her against death itself, and was still fighting… Well, he liked to fight; he had never treasured anything that came easy.

From the beginning of time men have yielded to the women they think potential, a fascinated interest that may or may not be love. Certainly when coupled with desire it is an irresistible force. When allied to tenderness, it is the blind worship which has urged men to most of the chivalrously romantic acts in history.

Baird told himself that he had sensed the potential in Ann, on the day when he had captured a kiss. She had drawn him away from Judith and had compelled him even when he knew perfectly well that her thoughts were with one or the other of those two. She had compelled him to put up the stiffest fight he had ever made, an actual grapple with death. It might seem to others that he was infatuated with a girl of no importance whatever, but he knew better: Ann's surroundings were an accident – by right of innate superiority, she belonged to Judith's class, and Edward had realized that, too. No, he was held and compelled and overwhelmingly in love with a potential woman.

Perhaps Baird was simply laboring under the hallucination usual with lovers, which urges them to swathe the objects of their affection with an interest quite indiscernible to the sane-minded. Possibly the tragedy in which Ann was involved and the fact that she almost certainly owed her life to him had touched an imaginative strain in him. It is more likely that, like Edward, he was a shrewd judge of character and that, despite her youth and her simple rearing, Ann did possess potentiality; that eventually she might even emerge a gifted woman.

However that may be, certainly no lover came into the presence of the woman he loved with more profound sensations than stirred Baird when at last Ben brought him to Ann. "You can come on in," Ben said. "She says she wants to thank you."

When Baird's eyes leaped to her, he lost the power of speech, for illness and grief had worked havoc: they had thinned her face until it looked small and pinched, had set immense circles about her eyes, destroyed the softness of lips and chin; her hair appeared to be the only unchanged thing about her, a black mass crowning the pillow.

Ann lifted to his clasp a hand that seemed as fragile as a bird's claw, but her voice had not changed, the old soft drawl enlivened by the well-remembered touches of coquetry and aloofness: "Ben says you saved my life – and I can't ever pay off that debt, can I? Not unless I save yours some time. I'll have to be always watching out for the chance, but all I can do now is just to say, 'Thank you – thank you very much,' an' not talk any more about it."

A light answer was quite beyond Baird. For almost the first time in his life he was pretty thoroughly tongue-tied. "I wish you weren't so ill," he said simply.

She smiled at him, a parting of colorless lips over white teeth. "Ben says young things get well quicker than old ones. He says funny things to me, an' some of them I reckon are wise things. He said yesterday, that, if a man had any heart left at all after he had done playing with it, he didn't really know nothin' about what kind of a heart it was till he was forty, an' that a woman, whether she had a heart or not, 'never knows nothin' about it at all.'"

Baird was permeated by an aching disappointment. Ann had seen what lay in his eyes, and on the instant had donned a mask and interposed a shield. She had confessed to a debt, that was all. She wanted none of him; Judith could not have conveyed the impression any more skilfully.

From somewhere within himself Baird managed to bring forth what strove to be a light sentence: "Ben's a pretty good second father to you, isn't he?"

"Yes – I reckon he is – " Then, suddenly, her mask slipped. Her eyes widened, filled to overflowing with grief and pain – then closed. The tears gathered beneath her lashes and rolled down her cheeks, until a storm of sobs caught her and shook her.

Shocked and bewildered, Baird bent over her. He was never able to remember just what he said, only that he tried to lift her up and that Ben made him put her down, then drew him out of the room.

"She ain't fit to talk!" Ben said forcibly. "Jest you go on along, an' come another time!"

Baird went out and rode for miles, until long after dark. He would have carried his wretchedness to bed with him had he not returned through the Penniman place. Ben was lounging by the gate.

"Well?" Baird asked dully.

"She's right smart better," Ben growled.

"She is!"

"Um."

Then Ben explained. "Women's nerves is like plants – they needs water. I've been wishin' this long time that Ann's would get rained on… She's jest naturally cried herself to sleep."

"And you think it's done her good?" Baird asked doubtfully.

"I do… When she asks me to fetch her the lookin'-glass, I'll rest easy."

Baird felt rather than saw the twinkle in Ben's eyes, and he laughed from sheer relief, the first time he had laughed in weeks.

He went on to the club and wrote to Dempster, asking him for a month's vacation. "You see," Baird wrote, "the girl I love and mean to marry – if I can get her – has been next door to death. There seems to be a chance for her now, and a month will mean a lot to me."

XXXVI
"IT LIES WITH ANN"

Baird was granted his holiday. He would have taken it, despite consequences, but it was better to have gained it in this way. Dempster, who was a rough but kindly sort, had written: "All right, take the month, but don't you fail me in August. Make the best of it and bring her back with you – we'll welcome her."

Baird had laid the letter down with a groan. "Bring her back with me! If he knew how hard I'm up against it!" Nevertheless, he made his daily visit to the Penniman house.

Ann was certainly improving. By the first of July she was able to sit on the porch, even to walk as far as the terraces. But not with Baird. Baird was very certain that neither Coats nor Sue nor Ben was responsible for his not being allowed to see Ann again. He felt that all three were friendly to him and to his suit, for there was no mistaking his intention.

"He's desperately in love with her," Sue said to Coats. "I'm sorry for him when I have to tell him that Ann doesn't feel well enough to see him. It hurts me the way he looks at me."

"Yes, he's wretched," Coats agreed, "but I've nothing to say one way or the other. It lies entirely with Ann. He's a good sort and he's open-minded, but there are things may daunt even him. Ann will have to decide for herself. I know her a deal better than I did, Sue – I was all wrong in my estimate of her. She's too proud and strong-willed for any man to capture easily. I've been a poor enough father to her in the past, the best I can do now is to hold my peace."

Possibly Ben knew what disposal Ann meant to make of Baird; he knew more about Ann's thoughts than any one else did. At any rate, it was he who, on the Fourth of July, told Baird that Ann was feeling well enough to see him. He appeared at the club and delivered Ann's message:

"Ann wanted I should tell you she was able to see you," he announced.

Baird flushed crimson. "Shall I go now?" he asked hurriedly.

"Wait a bit – till the sun's gone," Ben said. "She'll be out to the porch then." He looked grave. "Mr. Baird, jest you remember that Ann's been through a deal, an' don't you overdo her." He fumbled his cap uncomfortably. "When I were young I was always in a turrible hurry – I never reckoned on time. An' I were awful decided in my mind about everything. Now I don't do no decidin' to speak of – I lets time do it."

Ben's remarks were not altogether clear to Baird, but the first part of his speech was easy to grasp. "I'll try not to tire her," he promised.

"All right," Ben said, and departed.

Baird watched him rolling off to the woods, like a bear freed from human interference. His oddly bent body suggested a craving for the woods and a thirst for running water. He had been caged for a long time; Baird guessed that it had worn upon him; he doubted whether any one but Ann could have compelled Ben to do it.

To fill in time, Baird walked to the Penniman house, loitering along beneath the cedars. He was reflecting that love did queer things to a man; it could strengthen his body into iron, make him fight like mad, or turn him as weak as a baby and as humble as a slave; weak in the knees and sick about the heart… But, if only for a moment, he could hold Ann in his arms … and she should cling to him… He stopped, shaken from head to foot at the thought of possible response.

The thing swept him and shook him… Then he walked on. He was a fool; he was forgetting. The best he could hope for was a little kindness. She meant to be kind, or she wouldn't have sent for him.

It was not twilight yet, the sunset was too brilliant, and fear of not finding Ann on the porch made him come slowly up the road. When he saw her white dress, he strode along. He was grateful to the glow, for he could see her face. It was not so thin as when he had last seen her, and her eyes were less shadowed; a little of the old-time softness had returned to her lips and chin. But she was still wan and thin and fragile enough to remind him of Ben's warning. So help him! he'd behave more sensibly than on the last occasion! He could even force himself to be banal.

"It's good of you to see me," he said when he reached her. "Are you really feeling well enough to talk?"

She smiled up at him, and her smile made her look more like the Ann he remembered. "I can stand up, but I won't," she said with a touch of her old-time gaiety. "My feet feel queer an' far away when I do."

"Stand up! I should think not!.. May I sit here on the step, where I sat the first time we ever really talked together? That was about a hundred years ago, I think." Baird ventured this reference to the past.

Ann answered gravely. "A little less than two months ago – I was thinking of it to-day."

Baird chose to consider the speech propitious, and he ventured further. "I remember you gave me a definition of love, and then couldn't remember just what you'd said… I've always remembered that definition of yours."

"I don't remember now what it was I said. I know, though, that I'm not wise about such things." She spoke with a quiver of feeling, and looked beyond him, at the sunset.

Baird did not dare to say one of the things that crowded to his lips. He decided to say, "Wisdom never proceeds from a vacant head, and what you said was a bit of wisdom. I haven't forgotten a word of it."

Ann moved restlessly. She made no reply, but Baird saw the color tinge her cheeks. He had purposely chosen the top step of the porch, for then he could look up into her face, and, surreptitiously, he could hold a bit of her dress. There was comfort in the contact. He felt queerly nervous, for it was so evident that he was not talking to the same girl who had thought aloud while she stared up at the stars. There was a disconcerting air of maturity about Ann.

Somewhere above them a locust started its song and Ann withdrew her eyes from the distance and looked down at Baird's steady upward gaze. "Do you hear that?" she asked.

Her look, veiled and troubled and at the same time observant of the changes the last weeks had wrought upon him, had no more connection with her question than Baird's eager gaze had with his answer. He had grown thinner, his cheek-bones more prominent and his jaw less heavy; he looked more nervously and less brutally forceful.

"That fellow's retiring late – they've been winding their watches under my window all afternoon." He replied, while his blue-gray eyes, alight and questioning, searched her face: "I went for a walk this morning, beyond the creek, to where they're cutting grain, and the grasshoppers were everywhere, grinding their legs as if getting ready for a busy summer. You know the big flat rock, down by the creek, in the woods near the Back Road? I found a tree-toad in the chinkapin bushes there, and two little red and yellow turtles in the creek. I brought them all home with me and played with them a while… You see, I've been driven to nature for comfort – while I've been waiting for a sight of you."

Ann had grown dead white; her eyes had shifted to her lap, to her tightly clasped hands. "Locusts and grasshoppers coming so early mean – a dry summer – " she said with difficulty. Then more clearly, "I wanted you to come as soon as I was able – because I had to ask you something – " She stopped.

"Well?" Baird breathed.

She met his vivid look, shrank a little under it, but did not look away. "Mr. Baird, I know why you are staying here – an' I'm sorry. It's no use – I'll only hurt you more and more. You must go away."

Baird sat motionless, his eyes blank.

Ann went on more softly. "You've saved my life – you've done much more than that, an' the only kindness I can do you is just to tell you to go. If I let you go on caring for me, I'd be doing you a wicked wrong."

Baird flung back his head; color and life and the urge to fight had come back to him. "Suppose you let me decide what's best for me! How can you judge of the future? Am I hateful or repellent to you?.. I don't believe it. You like me, and in the end you'll love me."

"I can't ever love you," Ann said firmly.

He took her hands. "Ann, give me a little time, dear? Just a fighting chance?.. That's all I ask."

"No. I've been responsible for trouble enough – I can't do it."

"Why can't you? What possible harm can it do for you simply to be kind to me? Give me a chance?"

She was silent, trembling and breathing quickly.

Baird bent and kissed her hands, put his cheek against them. "Ann, I love you – I never dreamed that I could love any one as I love you. You've gone deep down in me and nestled against things I didn't know were there. I'll be patient – if only you'll give me a word of hope."

"I can't – I can't give you hope when there isn't any!" Ann said with sudden sharpness. "If you asked me for anything else in the world I'd give it to you, but you want a thing I can't give!"

Baird dragged himself up and stood with his back to her. "You hurt me – " he said through his teeth.

"I'd have to hurt you – like this – every time you came," Ann said with a drop into huskiness. "That's why I'm beggin' you to go an' stop thinking about me. I've got to go on livin' whether I want to or not, an' I couldn't bear it."

Baird turned around. "I'll go," he said. "I'll go to-morrow… But I'm coming back, Ann… I'll keep on coming to the end of time. I put my life into you that night – you're part of me. It isn't a debt you owe me, it's just that I belong to you and you to me!" He spoke with passionate conviction.

Ann said nothing; she sat with eyes closed.

Then he said thickly, "I've made you ill – is there any one here to look after you?"

"Yes – Aunt Sue – "

He bent down, took her face between his hands and kissed her lips. "I'm going now. I had to say that last – it's true."