“Jessie Belle, I’ve been a fool!” he said almost humbly.
“You would,” said Jessie Belle sweetly. “I saw that from the beginning, Dana, but that doesn’t make any difference. I don’t mind.”
“But listen, Jessie Belle. I can’t marry you. Why, I’m practically engaged to Lynette Brooke. We’ve been as good as engaged for years. I can’t go back on her! I really can’t marry you, Jessie Belle. I shouldn’t really have gone around with you. I didn’t realize; I felt you were just a child—at first it never entered my head.”
“I know,” said Jessie Belle with a hard tone in her voice. “You were an awful fool, of course. But that’s neither here nor there. You did go around with me, and you’ve gone too far, Dana Whipple. You’re mine now, and I’m going to keep you. I don’t care if you were engaged to a dozen other girls. That’s nothing in my young life. I want you and that’s that. You’ve gone too far to go back now and you know it. And what’s more, if you don’t, I’ll take means to have you know it. If you don’t turn right around now and take me off somewhere where we can get married before we go back to the house, why then I’m going to walk right in and tell Grandma and your mother and Ella and Justine exactly how you’ve acted from the start. I’ll tell everything! And I’ll go out to the neighbors. I’ll go and tell Mrs. Brooke, and I’ll write to your silly baby doll of a Lynette and tell her a few things she never heard before. And I’ll write to your old New York church and tell them you aren’t by any means the saint you set up to be. I’ll spoil your wonderful career you’re talking about all the time. I’ll knock it all to smithereens. But you can’t put anything over on me. I’m no infant! Now, will you turn around and go somewhere and get married?”
“Are you threatening to blackmail me?” Dana asked with some of his old-time spirit, “because no man will stand for that!”
“Well, I’m not so sure you are a man!” snapped Jessie Belle. “We’ll see! But it isn’t blackmail, it’s the truth, and you know it!”
Dana looked at her with miserable eyes and was speechless.
In the end she had her way.
They turned around. She would not risk passing the Brooke house till she had him hard and fast. She knew the very sight of it would make him falter again.
Silently, with set white lips and eyes that were hard and haunted, he drove the car at high speed out across the county line and on across the state line to a place where marriages were made easy and no questions asked, and Jessie Belle was well content to cease her chatter and let him drive. For once she knew ‘twas best to keep her mouth shut.
They drove back a little before midnight, having eaten a wedding supper at a miserable little roadhouse by the way. At least the bride ate heartily. The bridegroom gulped a cup of coffee and sat with shut lips watching her. It seemed to him incredible that he had come to this. He could not believe the thing was done and he was married to Jessie Belle! How had he ever allowed himself to get into such a plight? He saw his reputation ruined and his high hopes tottering. He saw the vision of Lynette as she stood on the porch that last night in the sunset. The last time he had seen her. Perhaps the last time he would ever see her in this life. His Lynette! Gone forever from him. And by his own act!
He was so miserable that he would have liked to put his head down on the cheap wooden table before him and cry like a little boy. And somehow the hardest thing about it all was that he despised himself. Himself! Had he himself done a thing like this? No! Surely it was not his fault. It was Lynette’s fault for crossing his will and refusing to stick by him. For running off to Europe because she was peeved. It was Jessie Belle’s fault for tempting him! “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me!” The old, old story of the Garden of Eden and the shut gate with the flaming swords. He was seeing himself shut off from the Eden that had been his. And yet there was no sorrow in his heart for what he had done, only for the things he had lost!
One proviso he had made, and Jessie Belle had acceded easily enough because it suited her plans, and besides, she did not have to keep her promise if she did not wish to do so. Dana wanted the marriage kept secret! For the present anyway. She was not to tell a soul until he gave her permission. Well, it would serve as a good hold over him when she wanted anything. She would threaten to tell.
Dana was not sure what gain was to come from keeping his marriage secret. In the end it would have to come out perhaps, but he could not go home and face his grandmother, his grandmother who held the money in trust for him, just how powerfully he had never known, and have her know what he had done.
They drove home silently. Jessie Belle was sleepy and yawned a good deal. It had been a strenuous occasion, this getting married, but it was done and she had the marriage certificate. Dana had wanted to keep it but she had insisted and it had been handed to her. She hugged it to her now, with a gleam of triumph in her eyes. What would that smug, religious Lynette say when she found she was cut out? And she, Jessie Belle, meant to take pains that news of it traveled abroad soon, in one way or another.
They stole into the sleeping house and to their rooms, Dana creeping up the back stairs like a scoundrel, his shoes in his hand, Jessie Belle happily humming a light little tune and flashing on the light regardless of her mother waking and weeping and waiting for her.
She shut the door and locked it and then turned to her mother her head up, her eyes shining.
“Well, you can say what you please now, Ella; I’m married and on my own!” she announced triumphantly.
“Jessie! Whatever can you mean?”
“I mean what I say. Dana and I were married tonight. Oh, it’s all right. I got a certificate good and fast. He can’t get away!”
“Oh, Jessie! My b–b–ba–by!” sobbed the mother, burying her face in the pillow lest she should be heard.
“Oh, shut up!” cried the girl impatiently. “What’s the sense of bellowing like that? Didn’t you expect I’d ever get married? I should think you’d be pleased that I got a good-looking rich fella like Dana. There ain’t so many of them.”
“But Jessie! He don’t belong to you. He was engaged! It wasn’t honorable!” protested her mother, sitting up in bed and getting tragic.
“Honor nothing!” said Jessie Belle impudently. “Shut up, woncha? Dana don’t wantta tell them yet. If you boo-hoo like that the whole thing’ll be dished and we’ll haveta get out in the morning. But if you shut up and do as I say we can perfectly well get away with it and stay here all fall till your money comes. Dana’s gotta get a job. I’m not goin’ to stand for that religious stuff. You see me running a missionary society, doncha? Not on yer life. I’ve been thinking of the movies. Dana could act, and he’s a looker, all right. I think we could both get in together. Great stuff, wouldn’t it! Five thousand a week apiece and things like that. You could keep house for us and have it soft, Ella. Didn’t I tellya I’d get Dana, all right? Now, mop up and get to sleep. I’m just about ready to pass out! And in the morning, keep yer mouth shut! Remember! No matter what happens, you don’t know a darned thing. See?”
“Oh, Jessie,” sobbed the distracted mother, “I feel just like a th–th–th–ief!”
“Oh, heck!” said Jessie Belle bouncing into bed. “If you don’t cut that I’ll throw some water on ya!”
And Ella Smith “cut it.” But it was hours before she fell into a troubled sleep. She kept saying over and over to herself, “Oh, what would her father say? What would he say? He was always so honorable! What would he say?”
The next morning at breakfast Grandma Whipple watched the two come in with their guilty faces, Jessie Belle’s face wreathed in smiles, Dana’s in gloom.
She waited until the blessing was asked and the food was served, and then she opened up, piercing Dana with her keen little eyes.
“Well, Ahab, what time did you get back last night?”
Dana dropped his knife and looked at his grandmother with fury and guilt in his face. He studied her face for an instant, the color utterly leaving his
own, and then he arose, white and angry, and stalked out of the room. He was not seen any more that day. But Jessie Belle hung around and laughed and sang and played with the cat, and Grandma watched her incessantly, but she did not chuckle once all day, and Amelia thought she caught her wiping her eyes once.
It was the next day that the lawyer came for one of his occasional business sessions with Grandma Whipple and the door of the parlor was closed for two hours.
Chapter 21
Dana went down to New York before lunch. He did not come back to the dining room, and he did not speak to anybody but his mother before he left. Notwithstanding the low state of his treasury he refrained from going into the room where his grandmother habitually sat, and he even evaded Jessie Belle.
He had packed his bag and gone down the back stairs, climbed the back fence, and walked to the station across lots. He avoided speaking to any of his fellow townsmen on the way. He held up his head and walked haughtily, as if he were the same proud Dana Whipple of the old days, but his heart was heavy as lead.
In his bag were his most brilliant sermons, filled with fine quotations, sparkling with his best seminary eloquence, not devoid of originality. He had not conned his great-grandfather’s sermons in vain. They had become a part of his fiber as it were, that is, the rugged phrases and the keen way of putting things had become his. That they lacked the deep spirituality that characterized the grandfather’s mighty messages, and that they dwelt more on the note of uplift and peace and church union than upon doctrinal truths, was a small matter in his eyes; in fact, he felt that in this very point they excelled his grandfather’s, they were all the more up-to-date, and his friends and professors in the seminary were inclined to agree with him.
So Dana was not worrying about the morning. He was reasonably sure he could get up in the pulpit and go through the services without anyone suspecting that he was in despair. He would be like a tall oak, neatly sawed off at the ground and standing yet upon its stump. A breath, perhaps, might cause him to topple. As long as he was in the pulpit he would be all right. Nobody would know that his life had been cut off down to the roots and all the sources of his happiness drained. But if he had to talk with people, if he had to go down among the congregation and answer questions and smile and do the conventional thing, would he be able to carry it through? He felt physically ill as he dropped into his chair in the parlor car, and pulling his shade down and placing his hat over his eyes so that no neighbor who chanced to be traveling that way also would dare approach him, he felt that he would be glad if the train would have a smashup on the way down and he would be killed.
Then he recalled that even so his stainless name would not be kept untarnished, for Jessie Belle had that marriage license, and she would extract through it the last penny from Grandma and then flaunt her position before the world. Oh, he had been a fool, a fool, a fool! Nevertheless he did not search out the sin that self had brought into his heart. He began to tell himself that it was all Lynette’s fault for going off and leaving him. “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me.”
The elder who was to entertain Dana lived in a comfortable home on Park Avenue, and after dinner when they were sitting around the gas logs which the coolness of the late August evening permitted, the elder began to warm up and tell Dana eagerly how interested the whole congregation was in him, and how the session was a unit in feeling that he would be the coming man.
Dana, his heart warmed by the genial atmosphere and his body comforted by the exceedingly good dinner he had just finished, rested his comely head back against the crimson cushion of the luxurious chair in which he was sitting and began to look more like himself. He even expanded genially to the open flattery to which he had been accustomed. It soothed his angry, frightened, disgusted heart and made him feel as if even yet there might be some way out and life still be worth living. His face lost some of its attractive pallor, and his lips got back their habitual hue, and he warmed to the situation mightily. After all, this was New York. Grandma Whipple’s ideas were quite different from those of the modern world. If he could only keep Jessie Belle in the background long enough, he could put this thing across, and once done, New York forgave almost anything. Also churches were not what they used to be. Christian people were no longer narrow nor hidebound.
“You may be interested to know what turned the tide in your favor at the last,” went on George Avery Billingsgate genially. “It was the fact that you are reported to be engaged to the daughter of an old friend and former pastor of our senior elder, Mr. Tabor Vanderholt. Mr. Vanderholt was at first much in favor of calling an older and married man to our church. He felt that it had always occupied a prominent place among churches, that it had always taken a prominent part in our denominational government, been a leader in great and good movements, and that we needed a man of experience. A settled man who had chosen a wise wife and lived with her long enough to have become one with her, and to work in perfect unison with her in our various organizations. But when it was mentioned that you were about to be married to Miss Lynette Brooke, I think that is the name, is it not, Lynette? It struck me at the time as being most unique and charming, and so clung to my memory—when, as I say, she was mentioned, Mr. Vanderholt gave immediate attention and asked if by any chance she was the daughter of Reverend Harrison Brooke, who had been his pastor for ten years before he came to New York. Of course then we looked up the data, and Vanderholt came over to our side immediately, which turned the vote in your favor. It is an interesting little item in the history of this affair that I thought you might like to tell Miss Brooke. I understand she is a very charming young woman, quite unusual in a way, and very beautiful—”
He looked straight at Dana’s blanched face and waited for corroboration. Dana summoned his stiff lips and parched throat to reply, but no sound came from them. He merely bowed his head gravely. He had tried to summon a smile, but no smile had come. He felt that the man had stabbed him with a fine, thin blade that had gone clear through to the chair, and when he pulled it out again his life blood would gush upon the floor and that would be the end of him. He wished that he might quietly pass away before this happened.
“And that she is remarkably fitted to be the wife of a city pastor.” The elder went on smiling. “In fact we found no word of anything but praise for her, in all our investigations. I was much amazed that she has even studied Greek and Hebrew to better prepare her for Bible study and teaching.”
“Greek and Hebrew?” came to the startled lips of Dana before he could order his thoughts aright.
“Yes, remarkable! Remarkable! And to take such high rank, and with such unmistakable scholars of authority as she has studied! I happen to have a brother out there in the college where she was graduated, and he keeps me informed about things. Of course, when I found where she was I had no trouble in getting all the information I needed. And to think that she is as beautiful and winning in her personality as she is brilliant. It seems to me that you are a remarkably blessed young man.”
Dana never knew how he got through the remainder of that awful evening, or what he said in answer to all the questions that were asked him and the flattery that was dealt out to him. He only knew that he was the most miserable man on earth when at last he was released on the plea of a desire to go over his sermon once more and ascended the stairs to the guestroom, with the reflected halo of Lynette resting upon his troubled brow. Oh, what a fool he had been! What a fool! What a fool! What a fool! It rang over and over in his brain as he got out his most cherished sermon and attempted to go over it. He gave it up at last, snapped out his light, and went to bed, but he did not go to sleep. Instead he went over the whole miserable business again from start to finish, his cheeks burning hot in the darkness over his own part in his downfall. How he hated Jessie Belle. How he loathed himself! Yet not for his sin. Not even yet for his sin, only for its consequences. It really had been all Lynette’s fault. And now perhaps she would never know in full all that she had missed, an
d all that he had missed through her. He cursed her and he loved her and he longed for her that he might tell her in scathing terms just what she had done.
And now what was he to do?
They had asked him how soon he was to be married and he had told them, “Not at present,” and had spoken of Lynette being abroad with her aunt. The elder had raised his brows and suggested, oh, most delicately, that perhaps it would be well to recall her and hasten up the marriage in time for the installation and reception. It was always well for a man and his wife to begin a thing like that together. It gave them a great advantage. He had even intimated that there was a house that would be most convenient, and if Dana would care to look it over Monday they could arrange that it would be held until Miss Brooke could come on and look it over. It really was an exceptional chance, and there might not be another so good.
Dana was a most miserable man. And when he thought of Jessie Belle he almost lost his mental balance. To think of Jessie Belle, his wife, occupying a position like that in a church like that! What a fool, what a fool, what a fool he had been! The refrain began again, and Dana lay and watched the dawn creep into his room, a dawn without a ray of hope.
Somehow he got through the next day.
The attentive audience, as usual, perhaps went to his head and lifted him above his circumstances for the time being. He was all preacher now, and Jessie Belle was not there. He had this one day, at least, in which to shine, helped on by the soft light of radiance from Lynette Brooke’s lovely life. He would preach as he never preached before. He would show these people what he could do. Himself should have its day, even if it were but a day long. Himself should have the glory that he had worked for so long and hard.
And preach he did! It almost seemed as if he were inspired, though not with the Spirit from above perhaps. The words came without hesitation; his perfect enunciation, his richly modulated tones, his attractive pallor, his handsome head and graceful gestures, all came in for pleasant comment by the eager audience. Here was a coming man, a great pulpit orator, who would make for their church a name and a fame in the annals of church history, as great as any that preceded him. They were unanimous in their delight over him. They had secured a prize. All about over the church could be heard the sibilant words, “So handsome!” “Such wonderful eyes!” “Such a clear, penetrating voice,” “Aren’t his lips charming? I love to watch them move; they seem to make his words become living things,” and one woman even said, “He looks like a young god!” He overheard the woman, and then he seemed to hear Lynette’s voice, “Beautiful as the morning!” as she stood in the sunshine before the round hill and looked at blue ruin raising its stately candles above the daisied cover of the hill. He almost groaned aloud at the memory. But he put it quickly aside. He must not let these people see he was distraught. He must get through this day somehow, receive his reward of praise this once, before all tottered and fell in ruin. Blue ruin! He said that over, startled at himself, and wondered if he was going mad. And yet, Jessie Belle was like blue ruin who had stolen into his life and brought death. He must pull himself out of this somehow and get through the rest of the day!