_ CHAPTER IX. BROTHER AND SISTER
As he turned into Main Street he espied the figure of a woman coming toward him from the direction of the public Square. She was perhaps a hundred yards farther down the street and was picking her way gingerly, mincingly, along the narrow path at the roadside. His mind was so fully occupied with thoughts of a most disturbing character that he paid no attention to her, except to note that she was dressed in black and that in holding her voluminous skirt well off the ground to avoid the mud-puddles, she revealed the bottom of a white, beruffled petticoat.
His meditations were interrupted and his interest suddenly aroused when he observed that she had stopped stock-still in the path. After a moment, she turned and walked rapidly, with scant regard for the puddles, in the direction from which she had come. Fifteen or twenty paces down the road, she came to what was undoubtedly a path or "short cut" through the wood. Into this she turned hastily and was lost to view among the trees and hazel-brush.
He had recognized her,--or rather he had divined who she was. He quickened his pace, bent upon overtaking her. Then, with the thrill of the hunter, he abruptly whirled and retraced his steps. With the backwoodsman's cunning he hastened over the ground he had already traversed, chuckling in anticipation of her surprise when she found him waiting for her at the other end of the "short cut."
He had noticed a path opening into the woods at a point almost opposite his own house, and naturally assumed that it was the one she was now pursuing in order to avoid an encounter with him. His long legs carried him speedily to the outlet and there he posted himself. He could hear her coming through the brush, although her figure was still obscured by the tangle of wildwood; the snapping of dead twigs under her feet; the scuffling of last year's leaves on the path, now wet and plastered with mud and the slime of winter; the swish of branches as she thrust them aside.
She emerged, breathless, into a little open spot, not twenty feet away, and stopped to listen, looking back through the trees and underbrush to see if she was being followed. Her skirts were drawn up almost to the knees and pinched closely about her grey-stockinged legs. He gallantly turned away and pretended to be studying the house across the road. Presently he felt his ears burning; he turned to meet the onslaught of her scornful, convicting eyes.
She had not moved. Her hands, having released the petticoat, were clenched at her sides. Her cheeks were crimson, and her dark eyes, peering out from the shade of the close-fitting hood of her black bonnet, smouldered with wrath,--and, if he could have read them better, a very decided trace of maidenly dismay.
"Ah, there you are," he cried, lifting his hat. "I was wondering whether you would come out at this--"
"Can't you see I am trying to avoid you?" she demanded with extreme frigidity.
"I rather fancied you were," said he easily. "So I hurried back here to head you off. I trust you will not turn around and run the other way, now that I have almost trapped you. Because if you do, I shall catch up with you in ten jumps."
"I wish you would go away," she cried. "I don't want to see you,--or talk to you."
"Then why did you leave word for me to come to your house to see you?" he challenged. "I suspect you know by this time," she replied, significantly.
He hesitated, regarding her with some uneasiness. "What do you mean?" he fenced.
"Well, you surely know that it was my mother who wanted to see you, and not I," she said, almost insolently. "Are you going to keep me standing here in the mud and slush all day?"
"No, indeed," he said. "Please come out."
"Not until you go away."
"Why don't you want to talk to me? What have I done?"
"You know very well what you have done," she cried, hotly. "In the first place, I don't like you. You have made it very unpleasant for my mother,--who certainly has never done you any harm. In the second place, I resent your interference in my affairs. Wait! Do not interrupt me, please. Maybe you have not exactly interfered as yet, but you are determined to do so,--for the honour of the family, I suppose." She spoke scathingly. "I defy you,--and mother, too. I am not a child to be--"
"I must interrupt you," he exclaimed. "I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about."
"Don't lie," she cried, stamping her foot. "Give me credit for a little intelligence. Don't you suppose I know what mother wanted to see you about? There! I can see the guilty look in your eyes. You two have been putting your heads together, in spite of all the ill-will you bear each other, and there is no use in denying it. I am a naughty little girl and my big brother has been called in to put a stop to my foolishness. If you--What are you laughing at, Mr. Gwynne?" she broke off to demand furiously.
"I am laughing at you," he replied, succinctly. "You ARE like a little girl in a tantrum,--all over nothing at all. Little girls in tantrums are always amusing, but not always naughty. Permit me to assure you that your mother and I have not discussed your interesting affair with Mr. Lapelle. We talked of business mat--"
"Then," she cried, "how do you happen to know anything about Mr. Lapelle and me? Aha! You're not as clever as you think you are. That slipped out, didn't it? Now I know you were discussing my affairs and nothing else. Well, what is the verdict? What are you going to do to me? Lock me in my room, or tie me hand and foot, or--Please stay where you are. It is not necessary to come any nearer, Mr. Gwynne."
He continued his advance through the thicket, undeterred by the ominous light in her eyes. She stood her ground.
"I think we had better talk the matter over quietly,--Viola," he said, affecting sternness. "We can't stand here shouting at each other. It is possible we may never have another chance to converse freely. As a matter of fact, I do not intend to thrust myself upon you or your mother. That is understood, I hope. We have nothing in common and I daresay we can go our own ways without seriously inconveniencing one another. I want you to know, however, that I went to that house over there this afternoon because I thought you wanted to consult with me about something. I was prepared to help you, or to advise you, or to do anything you wanted me to do. You were not there. I felt at first that you had played me a rather shabby trick. Your mother,--my step-mother,--got me there under false pretences, solely for the purpose of straightening out a certain matter in connection with the--well, the future. She doubtless realized that I would not have come on her invitation, so she used you as a decoy. In any event, I am now glad that I saw her and talked matters over. It does not mean that we shall ever be friendly, but we at least understand each other. For your information I will state that your mother did not refer to the affair at Striker's, nor did I. I know all about it, however. I know that you went out there to meet Lapelle. You planned to run away with him and get married. I may add that it is a matter in which I have not the slightest interest. If you want to marry him, all well and good. Do so. I shall not offer any objection as a brother or as a counsellor. If you were to ask for my honest opinion, however, I should--"
"I am not asking for it," she cried, cuttingly.
"--I should advise you to get married in a more or less regular sort of way in your mother's home."
"Thank you for the advice," she said, curtly. "I shall get married when and where I please,--and to whom I please, Mr. Gwynne."
"In view of the fact that I am your brother, Viola, I would suggest that you call me Kenneth."
"I have no desire to claim you as a brother, or to recognize you as one," said she.
He smiled. "With all my heart I deplore the evil fate that makes you a sister of mine."
She was startled. "That--that doesn't sound very--pretty," she said, a trifle dashed.
"The God's truth, nevertheless. At any rate, so long as you have to be my sister, I rejoice in the fact that you are an extremely pretty one. It is a great relief. You might have turned out to be a scarecrow. I don't mind confessing that last night I said to myself, 'There is the most beautiful girl in all the world,' and I can't begin to tell you how shocked I was this morning when Striker informed me that you were my half-sister. He knocked a romantic dream into a cocked hat,--and--But even so, sister or no sister, Viola, you still remain beyond compare the loveliest girl I have ever seen."
There was something in his eyes that caused her own to waver,--something that by no account could be described as brotherly. She looked away, suddenly timid and confused. It was something she had seen in Barry Lapelle's eyes, and in the eyes of other ardent men. She was flustered and a little distressed.
"I--I--if you mean that," she said, nervously, "I suppose I--ought to feel flattered."
"Of course, I mean it,--but you need not feel flattered. Truth is no form of flattery."
She had recovered herself. "Who told you about Barry Lapelle and me?" she demanded.
"You mean about last night's adventure?" he countered, a trifle maliciously.
She coloured. "I suppose some one has--Oh, well, it doesn't matter. I sha'n't ask you to betray the sneak who--"
"Tut, tut, my dear Viola! You must not--"
"Don't call me your dear Viola!"
"Well, then, my dear sister,--surely you cannot expect me to address you as Miss Gwyn?" in mild surprise.
"Just plain Viola, if you must have a name for me."
"That's better," said he, approvingly.
"Whoever told you was a sneak," she said, wrathfully. She turned her face away, but not quickly enough to prevent his seeing her chin quiver slightly.
"At any rate, it was not your mother," he said. "I have Striker's permission to expose what you call his treachery. He thought it was his duty to tell me under the circumstances. And while I am about it, I may as well say that I think you conspired to take a pretty mean advantage of those good and faithful friends. You deceived them in a most outrageous manner. It wasn't very thoughtful or generous of you, Viola. You might have got them into very serious trouble with your mother,--who, I understand, holds the mortgage on their little farm and could make it extremely unpleasant for them if she felt so inclined."
She was staring at him in wide-eyed astonishment, her red lips slightly parted. She could not believe her ears. Why, he was actually scolding her! She was being reprimanded! He was calmly, deliberately reproving her, as if she were a mischievous child! Amazement deprived her momentarily of the power of speech.
"To be sure," he went on reflectively, "I can appreciate the extremities to which you were driven. The course of true love was not running very smoothly. No doubt your mother was behaving abominably. Mothers frequently do behave that way. This young man of yours may be,--and I devoutly hope he is,--a very worthy fellow, one to whom your mother ought to be proud and happy to see you married. In view of her stand in the matter, I will go so far as to say that you were probably doing the right thing in running away from home to be married. I think I mentioned to you last night that I am of a very romantic nature. Lord bless you, I have lain awake many a night envying the dauntless gentlemen of feudal days who bore their sweethearts away in gallant fashion pursued by ferocious fathers and a score or more of blood-thirsty henchmen. Ah, that was the way for me! With my lady fair seated in front of me upon the speeding palfrey, my body between her and the bullets and lances and bludgeons of countless pursuers! Zounds! Odds blood! Gadzooks! and so forth! Not any of this stealing away in the night for me! Ah, me! How different we are in these prosaic days! But, even so, if I were you, the next time I undertake to run away with the valiant Mr. Lapelle I should see to it that he does his part in the good old-fashioned way. And I should not drag such loyal, honest folk as Striker and his wife into the business and then ride merrily off, leaving them to pay the Piper."
His heart smote him as he saw her eyes fill with tears. He did not mistake them for tears of shame or contrition,--far from it, he knew they were born of speechless anger. He had hurt her sorely, even deliberately, and he was overcome by a sudden charge of compassion--and regret. He wanted to comfort her, he wanted to say something,--anything,--to take away the sting of chastisement.
He was not surprised when she swept by him, her head high, her cheeks white with anger, her stormy eyes denying him even so much as a look of scorn. He stood aside, allowing her to pass, and remained motionless, gazing after her until she turned in at her own gate and was lost to view. He shook his head dubiously and sighed.
"Little Minda," he mused, under his breath. "You were my playmate once upon a time,--and now! Now what are you? A rascal's sweetheart, if all they say is true. Gad, how beautiful you are!" He was walking slowly through the path, his head bent, his eyes clouded with trouble. "And how you are hating me at this moment. What a devil's mess it all is!"
His eye fell upon something white lying at the edge of the path a few feet ahead. It was a neatly folded sheet of note paper. He stood looking down at it for a moment. She must have dropped it as she came through. It was clean and unsoiled. A message, perhaps, from Barry Lapelle, smuggled to her through the connivance of a friendly go-between,--the girl she had gone to visit, what was her name? He stooped to pick it up, but before his fingers touched it he straightened up and deliberately moved it with the toe of his boot to a less exposed place among the bushes, where he would have failed to see it in passing. Then he strode resolutely away without so much as a glance over his shoulder, and, coming to the open road, stepped briskly off in the direction of the public Square. His conscience would have rejoiced had he betrayed it by secreting himself among the bushes for a matter of five minutes,--quaint paradox, indeed!--for he would have seen her steal warily, anxiously into the thicket in search of the lost missive,--and he would have been further exalted by the little cry of relief that fell from her lips as she snatched it up and sped incontinently homeward, as if pursued by all the eyes in Christendom.
As a matter of fact, it was not a letter from Barry to Viola. It was the other way round. She had written him a long letter absolving herself from blame in the contretemps of the night before, at the same time confessing that she was absolutely in the dark as to how her mother had found out about their plans. Suffice to say, she HAD found out early in the evening and, to employ her own words, "You know the result." Then she went on to say that, all things considered, she was now quite sure she could never, never consent to make another attempt.
"I am positive," she wrote, ingenuously, "that mother will relent in time, and then we can be married without going to so much trouble about it." Farther on she admitted that, "Mother is very firm about it now, but when she realizes that I am absolutely determined to marry you, I am sure she will give in and all will be well." At the end she said: "For the present, Barry dear, I think you had better not come to the house. She feels very bitter toward you after last night. We can see each other at Effie's and other places. After all, she has had a great sorrow and she is so very unhappy that I ought not to hurt her in any way if I can help it. I love you, but I also love her. Please be kind and reasonable, dear, and do not think I am losing heart. I am just as determined as ever. Nothing can change me. You believe that, don't you, Barry dear? I know how impulsive you are and how set in your ways. Sometimes you really frighten me but I know it is because you love me so much. You must not do anything rash. It would spoil everything. I do wish you would stay away from that awful place down by the river. Mother would feel differently toward you, I know, if you were not there so much. She knows the men play cards there for money and drink and swear. I believe you will keep your promise never to touch a drop of whiskey after we are married, but when I told her that she only laughed at me. By this time you must know that my brother has come to Lafayette. He arrived this morning. He knows nothing about what happened last night but I am afraid mother will tell him when she sees him to-day. It would not surprise me if they bury the hatchet and join hands and try to make a good little girl out of me. I think he is quite a prim young man. He spent the night at Striker's and I saw him there. I must say he is good-looking. He is so good-looking that nobody would ever suspect that he is related to me." She signed herself, "Your loving and devoted and loyal Viola."
She had been unable to get the letter to him that day, and for a very good reason. Her messenger, Effie Wardlow's young brother, reached the tavern just in time to see Barry emerge, quite tipsy and in a vile temper, arguing loudly with Jack Trentman and Syd Budd, the town's most notorious gamblers.
The three men went off toward the ferry. The lad very sensibly decided this was no time to deliver a love letter to Mr. Lapelle, so forthwith returned it to the sender, who, after listening bleakly to a somewhat harrowing description of her lover's unsteady legs and the direction in which they carried him, departed for home fully convinced that something dreadful was going to happen to Barry and that she would be to blame for it.
Halfway home she decided that her mother was equally if not more to blame than she, and, upon catching sight of her lordly, self-satisfied brother, acquitted herself of ALL responsibility and charged everything to her meddling relatives. Her encounter with the exasperating Kenneth, however, served to throw a new and most unwelcome light upon the situation. It WAS a shabby trick to play upon the Strikers. She had not thought of it before. And how she hated him for making her think of it!
The first thing she did upon returning to the house with the recovered letter was to proceed to the kitchen, where, after reading it over again, she consigned it to the flames. She was very glad it had not been delivered to Barry. The part of it referring to the "place down by the river" would have to be treated with a great deal more firmness and decision. That was something she would have to speak very plainly about.
By this time she had reached the conclusion that Barry was to blame for THAT, and that nothing more terrible could happen to him than a severe headache,--an ailment to which he was accustomed and which he treated very lightly in excusing himself when she took him to task for his jolly lapses. "All red-blooded fellows take a little too much once in a while," he had said, more than once. _