CHAPTER XXII
AT WILLOWVALE
There was an early tea at Willowvale that evening, and Ruth sat at thebig round table alone. Mrs. Nelson always went to bed when the timecame for packing, and Carter was late, as usual.
Ruth was glad to be alone. She had passed through too much to be ableto banish all trace of the storm. But though her eyes were red fromrecent tears, they were bright with anticipation. Sandy was comingback. That fact seemed to make everything right.
She leaned her chin on her palm and tried to still the beating of herheart. She knew he would come. Irresponsible, hot-headed, impulsiveas he was, he had never failed her. She glanced impatiently at theclock.
"Miss Rufe, was you ever in love?" It was black Rachel who broke inupon her thoughts. She was standing at the foot of the table, herround, good-humored face comically serious.
"No-yes. Why, Rachel?" stammered Ruth.
"I was just axin'," said Rachel, "'cause if you been in love, you'dknow how to read a love-letter, wouldn't you, Miss Rufe?"
Ruth smiled and nodded.
"I got one from my beau," went on Rachel, in great embarrassment; "butdat nigger knows I can't read."
"Where does he live?" asked Ruth.
"Up in Injianapolis. He drives de hearse."
Ruth suppressed a smile. "I'll read the love-letter for you," shesaid.
Rachel sat down on the floor and began taking down her hair. It wasdivided into many tight braids, each of which was wrapped with a bitof shoe-string. From under the last one she took a small envelope andhanded it to Ruth.
"Dat's it," she said. "I was so skeered I'd lose it I didn't trust itno place 'cept in my head."
Ruth unfolded the note and read:
"DEAR RACHEL: I mean biznis if you mean biznis send me fore dollars to git a devorce.
"_George_."
Rachel sat on the floor, with her hair standing out wildly and anxietydeepening on her face.
"I ain't got but three dollars," she said.
"I was gwine to buy my weddin' dress wif dat."
"But, Rachel," protested Ruth, in laughing remonstrance, "he has onewife."
"Yes,'m. Pete Lawson ain't got no wife; but he ain't got but one arm,neither. Whicht one would you take, Miss Rufe?"
"Pete," declared Ruth. "He's a good boy, what there is of him."
"Well, I guess I better notify him to-night," sighed Rachel; but sheheld the love-letter on her knee and regretfully smoothed its crumplededges.
Ruth pushed back her chair from the table and crossed the wide hall tothe library.
It was a large room, with heavy wainscoting, above which simpered orfrowned a long row of her ancestors.
She stepped before the one nearest her and looked at it long andearnestly. The face carried no memory with it, though it was herfather. It was the portrait of a handsome man in uniform, in the fullbloom of a dissipated youth. Her mother had seldom spoken of him, andwhen she did her eyes filled with tears.
A few feet farther away hung a portrait of her grandfather, brave in ahigh stock and ruffled shirt, the whole light of a bibulous pastradiating from the crimson tip of his incriminating nose.
Next him hung Aunt Elizabeth, supercilious, arrogant, haughty. Ruthrecalled a tragic day of her past when she was sent to bed forclimbing upon the piano and pasting a stamp on the red-painted lips.
She glanced down the long line: velvets, satins, jewels, and uniforms,and, above them all, the same narrow face, high-arched nose, brilliantdark eyes, and small, weak mouth.
On the table was a photograph of Carter. Ruth sighed as she passed it.It was a composite of all the grace, beauty, and weakness of thesurrounding portraits.
She went to the fire and, sitting down on an ottoman, took twopictures from the folds of her dress. One was a miniature in a smallold-fashioned locket. It was a grave, sweet, motherly face, singularlypure and childlike in its innocence. Ruth touched it with reverentfingers.
"They say I am like her," she whispered to herself.
Then she turned to the other picture in her lap. It was a cheapphotograph with an ornate border. Posed stiffly in a photographer'schair, against a background which represented a frightful storm atsea, sat Sandy Kilday. His feet were sadly out of focus, and his headwas held at an impossible angle by the iron rest which stood like ahalf-concealed skeleton behind him. He wore cheap store-clothes, and aturn-down collar which rested upon a ready-made tie of enormousproportions. It was a picture he had had taken in his first newclothes soon after coming to Clayton. Ruth had found it in an old bookof Annette's.
How crude and ludicrous the awkward boy looked beside the elegantfigures on the walls about her! She leaned nearer the fire to get thelight on the face, then she smiled with a sudden rush of tenderness.
The photographer had done his worst for the figure, but even anunskilled hand and a poor camera had not wholly obliterated thefineness of the face. Spirit, honor, and strength were all there. Theeyes that met hers were as fine and fearless as her own, and thehonest smile that hovered on his lips seemed to be in frank amusementat his own sorry self.
Ruth turned to see that the door was closed, then she put the pictureto her cheek, which was crimson in the firelight, and with hesitatingshyness gradually drew it to her lips and held it there.
A noise of wheels in the avenue brought her to her feet with a littlestart of joy. He had come, and she was possessed of a sudden desire torun away. But she waited, with glad little tremors thrilling her andher heart beating high. She was sure she heard wheels. She went to thewindow, and, shading her eyes, looked out. A buggy was standing at thegate, but no one got out.
A sudden apprehension seized her, and she hurried into the hail andopened the front door.
"Carter," she called softly out into the night--"Carter, is it you?"
There was no answer, and she came back into the hall and closed thedoor. On each side of the door was a panel of leaded glass, and shepressed her face to one of the little square panes, and peeredanxiously out. The light from the newel-post behind her emphasized thedarkness, so that she could distinguish only the dim outline of thebuggy.
Twice she touched the knob before she turned it again; then sheresolutely gathered her long white dress in her hand, and passed downthe broad stone steps. The wind blew sharply against her, and thepavement was cold to her slippered feet.
"Carter," she called again and again--"Carter, is it you?"
At the gate her scant supply of courage failed. Some one was in thebuggy, half lying, half sitting, with his face turned from her. Shelooked back to the light in the cabin, where the servants would hearif she called. Then the thought of any one else seeing Carter as shehad seen him before drove the fear back, and she resolutely opened thegate and went forward.
At her first touch Carter started up wildly and pushed her from him."You said you wouldn't give me up; you promised," he said.
"I know it, Carter. I'll help you, dear. Don't be so afraid! Nobodyshall see you. Put your arm on my shoulder--there! Step down a littlefarther!"
With all her slight strength she supported and helped him, the keenwind blowing her long, thin dress about them both, and the lacefalling back from her arms, leaving them bare to the elbow.
Half-way up the walk he broke away from her and cried out: "I'll haveto go away. It's dangerous for me to stay here an hour."
"Yes, Carter dear, I know. The doctor says it's the climate. We aregoing early in the morning. Everything's packed. See how cold I amgetting out here! You'll come in with me now, won't you?"
Coaxing and helping him, she at last succeeded in getting him to bed.The blood on his handkerchief told its own story.
She straightened the room, drew a screen between him and the fire,and then went to the bed, where he had already fallen into a deepsleep. Sinking on her knees beside him, she broke into heavy, silentsobs. The one grief of her girlhood had been the waywardness of heronly brother. From childhood she had stood between him and blame,shielding
him, helping him, loving him. She had fought valiantlyagainst his weakness, but her meager strength had been pitted againstthe accumulated intemperance of generations.
She chafed his thin wrists, which her fingers could span; she tenderlysmoothed his face as it lay gray against the pillows; then she caughtup his hand and held it to her breast with a quick, motherly gesture.
"Take him soon, God!" she prayed. "He is too weak to try any more."
At midnight she slipped away to her own room and took off the daintygown she had put on for Sandy's coming.
For long hours she lay in her great canopied bed with wide-open eyes.The night was a noisy one, for there was a continual passing on theroad, and occasional shouts came faintly to her.
With heavy heart she lay listening for some sound from Carter's room.She was glad he was home. It was worse to sit up in bed and listen forthe wheels to turn in at the gate, to start at every sound on theroad, and to wait and wait through the long night. She could scarcelyremember the time when she had not waited for Carter at night.
Once, long ago, she had confided her secret to one of her uncles, andhe had laughed and told her that boys would be boys. After that shehad kept things to herself.
There was but one other person in the world to whom she had spoken,and that was Sandy Kilday. As she looked back it seemed to her therewas nothing she had withheld from Sandy Kilday. Nothing? Sandy's face,as she had last seen it, despairing, reckless, hopeless, rose beforeher. But she had asked him to come back, she was ready to surrender,she could make him understand if she could only see him.
Why had he not come? The question multiplied itself into numerousforms and hedged her in. Was he too angry to forgive her? Had herseeming indifference at last killed his love? Why had he not sent hera note or a message? He knew that she was to leave on the early train,that there would be no chance to speak with her alone in the morning.
A faint streak of misty light shone through the window. She watched itdeepen to rose.
By and by Rachel came in to make the fire. She tiptoed to the bed andpeeped through the curtains.
"You 'wake, Miss Rufe? Dey's been terrible goings on in town lastnight! Didn't you hear de posse goin' by?"
"What was it? What's the matter?" cried Ruth, sitting up in bed.
"Dat jail-bird Wilson done shot Jedge Hollis. 'Mos' ebery man in townwent out to ketch him. Dey been gone all night."
"Sandy went with them," thought Ruth, in sudden relief; then shethought of the judge.
"Oh, Rachel, is he dangerously hurt? Will he die?"
"De las' accounts was mighty bad. Dey say de big doctors is a-comin'up from de city to prode fer de bullet."
"What made him shoot him? How could he be so cruel, when the dear oldjudge is so good and kind to everybody?"
"Jes pore white trash, dat Wilson," said Rachel, contemptuously, asshe coaxed the kindling into a blaze.
Ruth got up and dressed. Beneath the deep concern which she felt wasthe flutter of returning hope. Sandy's first duty was to hisbenefactor. She knew how he loved the old judge and with what promptaction he would avenge his wrong. She could trust him to follow honorevery time.
"Some ob 'em 's comin' back now!" cried Rachel from the window. "I'sgwine down to de road an' ax 'em if dey ketched him."
"Rachel, wait! I'm coming, too. Give me my traveling-coat--there onthe trunk. What can I put on my head? My hat is in auntie's room."
Rachel, rummaging in the closet, brought forth an old whitetam-o'-shanter. "That will do!" cried Ruth. "Now, don't make anynoise, but come."
They tiptoed through the house and out into the early morning. It wasstill half dark, and the big-eyed poplars watched them suspiciously asthey hurried down to the road. Every branch and twig was covered withice, and the snow crackled under their feet.
"I 'spec' it's gwine be summer-time where you gwine at, Miss Rufe,"said Rachel.
"I don't care," cried Ruth. "I don't want to be anywhere in the worldexcept right here."
"Dey're comin'," announced Rachel. "I hear de hosses."
Ruth leaned across the top bar of the gate, her figure enveloped inher long coat, and her white tam a bright spot in the half-light.
On came the riders, three abreast.
"Dat's him in de middle," whispered Rachel, excitedly; "next to desheriff. I's s'prised dey didn't swing him up--I shorely is. He'shangin' down his head lak he's mighty 'shamed."
Ruth bent forward to get a glimpse of the prisoner's face, and as shedid so he lifted his head.
It was Sandy Kilday, his clothes disheveled, his brows lowered, andhis lips compressed info a straight, determined line.
Ruth's startled gaze swept over the riders, then came back to him. Shedid not know what was the matter; she only knew that he was introuble, and that she was siding with him against the rest. In the onemoment their eyes met she sent him her full assurance of compassionand sympathy. It was the same message a little girl had sent yearsago over a ship's railing to a wretched stowaway on the deck below.
The men rode on, and she stood holding to the gate and looking afterthem.
"Here comes Mr. Sid Gray," said Rachel. The approaching rider drewrein when he saw Ruth and dismounted.
"Tell me what's happened!" she cried.
He hitched his horse and opened the gate. He, too, showed signs of ahard night.
"May I come in a moment to the fire?" he asked.
She led the way to the dining-room and ordered coffee.
"Now tell me," she demanded breathlessly.
"It's a mixed-up business," said Gray, holding his numb hands to theblaze. "We left here early in the night and worked on a wrong trailtill midnight. Then a train-man out at the Junction gave us a clue,and we got a couple of bloodhounds and traced Wilson as far asEllersberg."
"Go on!" said Ruth, shuddering.
"You see, a rumor got out that the judge had died. We didn't sayanything before the sheriff, but it was understood that Ricks wouldn'tbe brought back to town alive. We located him in an old barn. Wesurrounded it, and were just about to fire it when Kilday came tearingup on horseback."
"Yes?" cried Ruth.
"Well," he went on, "he hadn't started with us, and he had been ridinglike mad all night to overtake the crowd. His horse dropped under himbefore he could dismount. Kilday jumped out in the crowd and began totalk like a crazy man. He said we mustn't harm Ricks Wilson; thatRicks hadn't shot the judge, for he was sure he had seen him out theJunction road about half-past five. We all saw it was a put-up job; hewas Ricks Wilson's old pal, you know."
"But Sandy Kilday wouldn't lie!" cried Ruth.
"Well, that's what he did, and worse. When we tried to close in onWilson, Kilday fought like a tiger. You never saw anything like themix-up, and in the general skirmish Wilson escaped."
"And--and Sandy?" Ruth was leaning forward, with her hands clasped andher lips apart.
"Well, he showed what he was, all right. He took sides with thatgood-for-nothing scoundrel who had shot a man that was almost hisfather. Why, I never saw such a case of ingratitude in my life!"
"Where are they taking him?" she almost whispered.
"To jail for resisting an officer."
"Miss Rufe, de man's come fer de trunks. Is dey ready?" asked Rachelfrom the hall.
Ruth rose and put her hand on the back of the chair to steady herself.
"Yes; yes, they are ready," she said with an effort. "And, Rachel,tell the man to go as quietly as possible. Mr. Carter must not bedisturbed until it is time to start."