_ CHAPTER XXIII. TOM AND HER
Tom Kimberly he come to our house steady now. Every day he sent flowers in bundles, like he owned a flower ranch somewhere. Bonnie Bell put them in the dining-room, and the music room, and the reception parlors, and the staircase, and the bedrooms--and even in our ranch room.
"Whatever the papers says about bad crops, sis," says I one morning when a bunch of red roses come in about as big as a sheaf from a self-binder, "the flower crop is shore copious this year, ain't it? Likewise it seems to be getting better right along."
"He's a good boy," says she after a while--"a fine boy. And he comes of such a good family, and I like all his people so much. And Katherine--what could I do without Katherine?"
"Uh-huh!" says I. "Of course if you like a young man's sister, you ought to marry him. That stands to reason, don't it?" says I.
"And dad likes 'em all--Mr. Kimberly and Tom's mother."
"Shore he does! For all them reasons you ought to marry the boy. Never mind about love."
"They're the best people we've met in this town," says she, "and there aren't any better in any town. They're not only charming people but good people. They've everything you could ask, Curly."
"Yes," says I; "so it stands to reason you ought to marry that family," says I. "Here's them Better Things we come for. Love ain't in it."
You see, I was half her pa. Us two had raised her from a baby together. I couldn't tell the old man what I knew, but I had to talk to her like her pa would of talked. I allowed, if she'd get married to Tom Kimberly right quick, that'd sort of keep things from breaking loose the way they might, and keep me from having to tell Old Man Wright about the man next door. I knew plenty more about him now that I wouldn't tell her. I thought she'd forget him.
Well, she set around all that day sort of moping, with a green poetry book in her lap; and she had a letter in her hands. It didn't come by the Peanut route, neither, but by the postman. It was square.
"Tell me, is that from Tom Kimberly, Bonnie?" says I.
"It's absolutely none of your business, Mr. Curly Wilson," says she; "and I wouldn't tell you in any circumstances. But it is."
"Let me see it," says I.
"Indeed!" She looks me square in the face.
"Don't tell me a word, sis," says I. "I'm not so hard as you think."
"He's coming over tonight," says Bonnie Bell to me after a time.
"That's to get his answer?" asts I; and she nodded then.
"Well, Colonel," says I to the old man that evening when he come in and we was having a nip before dinner, "I reckon I got this thing all fixed up at last. It's been a hard pull for me, being half a pa to a girl like ours; but I done it."
"Is that so, Curly?" says he. "Well, it's been some chore, ain't it, for both of us? Well, how!"
When Old Man Wright taken a drink he never did say "Here's how!" He just said "How!" which is Western. When a man says "Here's how!" he comes from the East and is trying his best to hide it.
"How!" says I. "And a good health to the young and happy couple."
"What's that?" says he, sudden. "Has anything happened? She hasn't said anything to me. Why is she so tight-mouthed with me, Curly, and so free with you?"
"Oh, it's a way I have with women," says I.
"They all come and tell me their troubles. It's because I got red hair and a open countenance."
"Tell me, what's my girl confided to your red hair and open face?" says he. "I'd like to know."
"You notice a good many flowers around the last few weeks?" says I.
"I haven't noticed nothing else," says he.
"And that didn't make nothing occur to your mind?"
"Oh, yes, it did; only I didn't want to say anything to the kid--I didn't want to try to influence her in any way, shape or manner, in a time like this. Only I told her quite a while ago that Tom Kimberly was the only young man I seen in town that I'd allow to come around at all. I only said to her that the old man was my best friend and I liked Tom's ma as much as I could any woman with gray hair.
"Still, I said gray hair was all right for a grandma. Why, Curly," says he, "I been plumb thoughtful and tactful. I ain't said a word to let Bonnie Bell know what I thought about Tom Kimberly. I believe in leaving a young girl plumb free to follow her own mind and heart."
"Uh-huh! Yes, you do!" says I. "The truth is, Colonel, you believe in running the whole ranch here like you done out West. Now if you'd only keep out of this game and leave me alone in it you'd find things would come out a heap better," says I.
"But I just said I ain't said a word," says he. "She can do whatever she likes about getting married----"
"Just so she married Tom Kimberly," says I. "Ain't that about it?"
"Well," says he at length, "maybe that's about it; yes."
I got up and went out of the room. I wouldn't talk to him no more. He wasn't noways consistent with hisself and every time I talked with him it got harder for me to hold down my job.
But, anyhow, Tom come over that night. He wouldn't go in the ranch room; but he made some sort of a talk about music, one thing or another, and he toled Bonnie Bell out into the music room. But she didn't play and he didn't. From there they must of went out into our flower house, which is called the conswervatory. I didn't hear anything then for a long time. Old Man Wright he goes off to bed at last, pleasant as if he'd ate all the canaries in the shop. Me, I wasn't so shore.
It wasn't right for me to think of them young people, I reckon; but I set there restless, knowing what was going on and how much it meant, and all the time wondering just what them two young folks was talking about. It made me feel sort of dreamy, too, and I begun to figure on this whole damn question of girls and young men. I begun to see that what Old Man Wright and me had worked for all our lives was just this one hour or so in our conswervatory. It was for her--that was all. If she chose right now she'd be happy, and so would we. But if she didn't, what was the use of all her pa's money and all her pa's work?
What chance for happiness would there be in this world for him if she wasn't happy? He loved the girl from the top of her head to her feet, like he'd loved her ma. He was wrapped up in her. If things didn't come right it was going to be mighty hard for him. He'd never get over anything that meant the unhappiness of Bonnie Bell.
So what Tom was doing in our conswervatory around ten or eleven o'clock was settling the happiness of Bonnie Bell and her pa--and me, if you can say I counted.
"Well," says I to myself at last, "this is the way the game is played in the cities. The girl's got to figure on heaps of things that don't bother so much in Wyoming. It ain't the same as if Bonnie Bell was pore and he was pore too. It's a good match--if any match can be good enough for her. She'll forget."
I could just almost see her standing there all in her pale-blue silk and little pale-blue slippers, with her hair done up in a band, like she was when she come down the stair that night, smiling but still ca'm, when she knew Tom was coming. I could see her---- Aw, shucks! What's a cowpuncher got to do with things like that? I wisht I was out on the range, where I belonged.
I set there I don't know how long--maybe I went to sleep once or twice--when I heard the front door close easylike and knew somebody had went out--I didn't know who it was. I waited for a long time after that, but no one come in and no one spoke.
By and by I heard her dress rustle, and she come into our room, where I was setting.
She was white as a ghost--I never seen anyone as white as she was. She didn't know I was there, and she threw her hands up to her face and almost screamed when I moved. Then she went over to our rawhide lounge and set down, and held her hands together so tight I could see her knuckles was white. She knew I was there, but she didn't seem to see me.
I didn't say a word. When a woman's fighting out things in that way it ain't no time to meddle. I wisht I was out of there, but I didn't dare go. She set and looked at the fire and wrung her hands. Whenever you see a horse wring his tail, he's done for. Whenever you see a woman wring her hands that way, she's all in; and she's shore suffering. But I had to stay there and see her suffer.
"Bonnie," says I, "what is it?"
She turns her eyes on me, and they was wide open and awful.
"Curly," says she, "I'm in trouble. It's awful! I don't know----"
"What's awful?" says I. "What's happened, Bonnie, girl? Tell old Curly, and he won't say a word to a living soul. I'm in with you, any sort of play--only don't look that way no more."
"Curly," says she, "it's come! I--I didn't know----"
"What's come?" says I. "Tell old Curly, can't you? I'll help all I can."
She set for a while, and when she spoke it was only in a whisper.
"I--I'm a woman!" says she. "I didn't know! I'm--I'm a woman. I'm not a girl any more. I'm a woman...."
She got up now and stood there as straight as though she was cut out of marble, and her silk dress hung round her legs, and she was still wringing her hands, and her eyes was wide open. But she wasn't crying.
"I didn't know," says she. "I never knew it would be this way. I didn't know."
"You didn't know what, Honey?" says I. "There's heaps of things we all don't know. But is there anything your old friend Curly can do for you now? Listen, sis, I've got you mighty much to heart," says I. "Tell old Curly, can't you, what's gone wrong? Your pa he's just gone to bed. Shall I go and get him?"
"No, no, no! For Gawd's sake, no! I can't see him--I could never tell him."
"It's got to be told," says I.
Then she nodded up and down, fastlike, and didn't say anything.
"It ain't really any of my business," says I, "but have you and him---- Well now----"
"You men----" She broke down. "You men--what do you know about a girl? What have you men done to me?"
"We done all in God Almighty's world we knew how to do for you," says I. "We'd of done more for you if we'd knowed how."
"Ah, is it so! You've made me the most unhappy girl in all the world."
I couldn't say a word to that. It went through me like a knife-cut. I was glad that Old Man Wright wasn't there to hear it. I seen then that him and me had failed. We could never play no other game, for this was the only girl we had.
"You've brought me here," says she, "and I've been like a prisoner. But I've done all I could."
"Didn't you like it here?" says I. "We done considerable on your account. Don't you like us none?"
"Like you, Curly?" says she. "I love you! I love you!"
She come now and taken me by the shoulders and shook me. I didn't know she was so strong before.
"I love you--love both of you," says she. "I'd die for you any minute," says she. "I'd try to cut my heart out for either of you now--if it come to that. I tried it now, tonight. I tried it for an hour--two hours. I didn't know what it meant before."
"He ast you, Bonnie?" says I.
"Yes, yes," says she. "The poor boy! I like him so much--I pity him."
"My Gawd! Bonnie, you haven't refused him?" say I. "You haven't done that? You haven't broke the pore fellow's heart?" says I. "Why did you----"
"Why did you!" says she after me. "I told you he made it plain to me."
"What was it he made plain, Bonnie?" says I. "I suppose he, now, made some sort of love? It ain't for me to talk of that."
"Yes, yes!" She says it out sharp and high. "He did. I know now what it means to be a woman and in love. I never knew that before. But it wasn't--it wasn't for him! He held me--I was a woman--and it wasn't for him. How can I love---- What can I do? Why, I love you all, Curly--I love you all! I love Tom in one way; and I'm sorry, because he's good. But that isn't being a woman. It wasn't for him--it wasn't for him!"
She was sort of whispering by now.
"So he went right away?" says I.
She nodded.
"Maybe I've broken his heart. I've broken yours and my father's and my own--all because I couldn't help being a woman. And I'm the unhappiest woman in all the world. I want to die! I don't know what to do. I want to be square and I don't know how."
"Bonnie," says I after a while, slow, "I know all about it now. You've been plumb crazy and you're crazy now. You've kept on remembering that low-down sneak next door. You've turned down a high-toned gentleman like Tom--and you done it for what? You ain't acted on the square, Bonnie Bell Wright," says I. "It ain't needful for me to tell all I know about him now. I could tell you plenty more."
"No," says she, and she was crying now; "it was an evil thing of me ever to listen to him. I've done wrong," says she. "But what must I do?" says she, "Must I lie all my life? I can't do that."
"Well, some women are able to--just a little," says I. "Maybe you'd get over that business of that man next door if you was married and had a few kids of your own running around. You'd be happy with Tom. We'd all be happy. You'd forget--of course you'd forget. Women are built that way," says I. "I reckon I know!"
"Curly----" And, though she looked just like she always had, young and white and beautiful, and fit only to be loved by anybody, her face had something in it that made her look old, real old, like one of them statutes in our front yard.
She was twenty-three, and pretty as anything ever made in marble--and white as anything in marble; but she looked a thousand years old as she stood there then. There was something in her face that seemed to come down from 'way back in the past. She was--well, I reckon she was what she said--a woman!
"Curly," says she, "some women may be able to forget. It's the easiest way--maybe most of them do it. The average woman lives that way. But I can't, Curly; I can't--it isn't in my blood. Women like me have got to follow their own hearts, Curly--no matter what it means.
"I tried with all my heart to lie to Tom tonight. I even told him I wouldn't answer now--even told him to come back again after while; but I knew all the time I couldn't lie forever. I knew I could love some man--a man--but it wasn't for him. I'm like my father and like my mother, Curly. Do you want to crush the life out of me? Do you want to make me do something we'd all regret as long as ever we lived?"
She stopped talking then; but, sort of swinging around, she went on:
"It's been but a little while, Curly," says she. "It's been but such a little time! I don't know whether I can get over it--I don't know whether I can forget. But, oh, Curly, for one hour let me open my heart--for just this time let me be a woman!... But it wasn't for him!"
And now she was whispering again.
"I'm a thief, Curly!" says she after a while. "I've stolen your life and dad's. I've taken all you gave me. I don't deserve it."
"Oh, yes, you do," says I; "you deserved all we done for you. We loved you, Honey, and we do now."
"But you can't any more, Curly," says she. "I've been a thief. I've stolen your lives--from you two big, splendid men. But, oh! give me my hour--the one hour out of all my life.
"I stole from him too--from Tom," says she. "I've taken from him what I didn't pay for and can't. I never can. At least I can't until I've had--my hour.
"A woman has to face things all her life, Curly," says she; "and always she says: 'Well, let it be!' She takes her losses, Curly, and sometimes she forgets. But if she ever forgets what is in my heart tonight--if she forgets that--then life is never worth while to her again. There's nothing to do then--it's all a sham and a fraud. If that's what life means I don't want to live any more."
"Bonnie," says I, "you mustn't talk that way." I sort of drew her down on my knee now, and pushed her hair back and looked at her. "Listen at you--you that used to be up in the morning so early and hoorahing all through the ranch--your cheeks red with the sun, and your hair blowing, and your eyes like a deer's! Why, nothing but life was in the world for you then--nothing but just being alive."
"I wasn't a woman then, Curly," says she. "I didn't know."
"I didn't neither," says I; "and I don't know now."
"You can't," says she. "It's terrible! I'm--I think I'll go now."
She taken herself off my knee then; and, the first thing I know, she was gone.
I stayed there looking at the place where she'd been. I knew that now there shore was hell to pay! _