_ PART ONE
CHAPTER XIX
Gordon thought again of Lettice Hollidew as he was sitting for the last evening on the porch of the dwelling that had passed out of his hands. Twilight had poured through the valley, thickening beneath the trees, over the stream; the mountain ranges were dark, dusty blue against a maroon sky. He recalled the sympathy, the plea for comprehension, in Lettice's gaze, lifted, for the first time, frankly against his own.
Hers was not the feminine type which attracted him; he preferred a more flamboyant beauty, ready repartee, the conscious presence and employment of the lure of sex. His taste had been fed by the paid women of Stenton, the few, blowsy, loose females of the mountains; these and the surface chatter of the stage, and Clare, formed his sole knowledge, experience, surmising, of women. He recalled Lettice condescendingly; she did not stir his pulses, appeal to his imagination. Yet she moved his pride, his inordinate self-esteem. It had been on his account, and not Clare's, that she had come to the funeral. The little affair with Buckley Simmons had captured her attention and interest; he had not thought Lettice so impressionable.
It was, he remembered, Wednesday night--there would be prayer-meeting in the Methodist Church; the Hollidews were Methodists; women, mostly, attended prayer meeting. If he strolled about in that vicinity he might see Lettice at the close of the service, thank her for attending poor Clare's funeral.
He rose and negligently made his way through the soft gloom past the Courthouse to the Methodist Church. The double doors were open, and a flood of hot radiance rolled out into the night, together with the familiar tones of old Martin Seeker loudly importuning his invisible, inscrutable Maker. There were no houses opposite the church, and, balanced obscurely on the fence of split rails against the unrelieved night, a row of young men smoked redly glowing cigarettes; while, on the ground below them, shone the lanterns by the aid of which they escorted the various maidens of their choice on their various obscure ways.
The prayer stopped abruptly, and, after a momentary silence, the dolorous wail of a small organ abetted a stridulent concourse of human voices lifted in lamentable song, a song in which they were desirous of being winged like the dove.
The sound mounted in a grievous minor into the profound stillness, the peace, of the valley, of the garment of stars drawn from wall to wall. There was something animal-like in its long-drawn, quavering note--like the baying of a dog out of the midst of his troubled darkness at the remote, silver serenity, the disturbing, effortless splendor, of the moon.
The line of figures without, sitting on the fence with their feet caught under the second rail, smoked in imperturbable, masculine indifference. There was, shortly, a stir within, a moving blur of figures in the opened doors, and the lanterns swung alertly to the foot of the steps, where, one by one, the bobbing lights, detached from the constellation, vanished into the night.
Almost immediately Gordon saw Lettice Hollidew standing at the entrance, awaiting a conversing group of older women at the head of the aisle. She recognized him, and descended immediately with a faint, questioning smile. The smile vanished as she greeted him; her eyes were dark on a pale, still countenance. He noticed that she was without the heady perfume which stirred him as the other girls passed, and he was silently critical of the omission.
He delivered quickly, with a covert glance above, the customary period about seeing her home. Immediately she walked with him into the obscurity, the mystery, of the night.
"It was certainly nice-hearted of you to come to Clare's funeral," he began.
Close beside him she shivered, it might be at the memory of that occasion. She was without a hat, and he was able to study her profile: it was irregular, with a low, girlish brow and a nose too heavy for beauty; she had a full under lip and a strongly modelled chin, a firm line ending in a generous throat, milk-white in the gloom. Her figure too, he judged, was too heavy for his standard of feminine charm. His interest in her burned low, sustained only by what he recognized as a conquest.
She walked slowly and more slowly as he dallied by her side. Almost subconsciously he adopted the tone by which he endeavored to enlist the interest of the opposite sex: he repeated in a perfunctory manner the stereotyped remarks appropriate for such occasions.
She listened intently, with sudden, little glances from a momentarily lifted gaze. He grew impatient at the absence of the flattering responses to which he was largely accustomed. And, dropping abruptly his artificial courtesy, he maintained a sullen silence, quickened his stride. He drew some satisfaction from the observation that his reticence hurt her. Her hands caught and strained together; she looked at him with a longer, questioning gaze.
"I wanted to tell you," she said finally, with palpable difficulty, "how sorry I am about ... about things; your home, and--and I heard of the stage, too. It was a shame, you drove beautifully, and took such care of the passengers."
"It was that care cost me the place," he answered with brutal directness; "old Simmons did it; him and his precious Buckley."
She stopped with an expression of instant, deep concern. "Oh! I am so sorry ... then it was my fault. But it's horrid that they should have done that; that they should be able; it is all wrong--"
"Right nor wrong don't make any figure I've ever discovered," he retorted; "Valentine Simmons has the power, he's got the money. That's it--money's the right of things; it took my house away from me, like it's taken away so many houses, so many farms, in Greenstream--"
"But," she objected timidly, "didn't they owe Mr. Simmons for things? You see, people borrow, borrow, borrow, and never pay back. My father," she proceeded with more confusion, "has lost lots of money in that way."
"I can tell you all about that," he informed her bitterly, proceeding to mimic Simmons' dry, cordial tones, "'Take the goods right along with you, pay when you like, no hurry between old friends.' Then, when Zebener Hull's corn failed, 'I'll trouble you for that amount,' the skinflint says, and sells Zebener out. And what your father's lost," he added more directly still, "wouldn't take you on the stage to Stenton. Your father and Simmons have got about everything worth getting in the county; they've got the money, they've got the land, they've got the men right in their iron safes. Right and wrong," he sneered, "it's money--"
"Oh! please," she begged, "please don't be so unhappy, so hard. Life isn't as dreadful as that."
"It's worse," he declared somberly. They turned by Simmons' store, but continued in the opposite direction from the one-time Makimmon dwelling. They passed a hedge of roses; the perfume hung heavy-sweet, poignant; there was apparently no sky, no earth, only a close, purple envelopment, imminent, palpable, lying languidly, unstirring, in a space without form or limit and of one color.
Lettice walked silently by his side; he could hear her breathing, irregular, quick. She was very close to him, then moved suddenly, consciously, away; but, almost immediately, she drifted back, brushing his shoulder; it seemed that she returned inevitably, blindly; in the gloom her gown fluttered like the soft, white wings of a moth against him.
"It's worse," he repeated, his voice loud and harsh, like a discordant bell clashing in the sostenuto passage of a symphony; "but it's all one to me--there's nothing else they can take; I'm free, free to sleep or wake, to be drunk when I like with no responsibility to Simmons or any one else--"
Her breathing increasingly grew labored, oppressed; a little sob escaped, softly miserable. She was crying. He was completely callous, indifferent. They stood before the dark, porchless facade of her home.
"I thought life was so happy," she articulated, facing him; "but now it hurts me ... here;" he saw her press her hand against the swelling, tender line of her breast. His theatrical self-consciousness bowed him over the other hand, pressing upon it a half-calculated kiss. She stood motionless; he felt rather than saw the intensity of her gaze. "I wish I could mend the hurt," he began, appropriately, professionally.
He was interrupted by a figure emerging from the obscurity of the house. Pompey Hollidew peered at them from the low, stone lintel. "Letty," he pronounced, in a voice at once whining and truculent; "who?--oh! that Makimmon.... Letty, come in the house." He caught her arm and dragged her incontinently toward the door. "... rascal," Gordon heard him mutter, "spendthrift. If you ever walk again with Gordon Makimmon," the old man, through his daughter, addressed the other, "don't walk back here, don't come home. Not a dollar of mine shall fall through the pockets of that shiftless breed." _