I went along the thick carpet towards him, smiling foolishly, while he waited and watched. It seemed an endless journey. When I stood five feet from him, he said gravely: “Hello, Jim.”
“Hello, Dan,” I said awkwardly. He gestured towards an opposite chair with his pipestem. He did not ask me to remove my coat, but I did so. I peeped at him furtively as he watched me. It was over two years since I had seen him. He looked older than his twenty-five years, and heavily grave. He was as shabby as ever, and thinner. There were deep clefts about his big mouth, and a permanent furrow on his forehead. My old affection came back with a rush for him, but he seemed so remote that I could not speak until I sat down opposite him. The dog had entered the room with me, and now lay down on the rug before the fire near Dan. Dan played with the animal’s ears, but the dog did not remove his unfriendly and suspicious eyes from me, and once or twice he growled.
“He doesn’t seem to like me,” I said, desperately breaking the silence.
Dan smiled slightly, patted the dog’s head.
I leaned towards him earnestly. “Dan, I’ve been pretty much of a skunk, not coming to see you. I won’t mutter something about being busy or anything. I could have come. I was wrong. I wonder if you know why I didn’t come?”
“Why did you come now?” he asked quietly. He was looking at the dog, and smiled at him. I felt my face burn. I laughed forcedly.
“Because I wanted to see you. I’ve—been in a sort of fog. Gotten smug. Listened to—things. But last night I woke up. Go on, call me anything you want to. I deserve it. But last night I knew I had to come, I woke up, as I said. I’ve never forgotten you, Dan,” I added, wincing as I remembered how thoroughly I had forgotten him.
For a long moment he did not speak, then he looked at me with opaque eyes.
“You’re cold, aren’t you? Bad weather to be out in.” He raised his voice and called: “Martha!” The old woman appeared at the distant door. “Bring in some whiskey and hot water and sugar and some cake.”
He looked at me remotely. “You’re fatter,” he said, without particular expression.
“You haven’t forgiven me, have you, Dan?”
He smiled again, and smoked placidly.
“Forgive? It was your business if you wanted to come or not. I’m not asking any questions.”
I fished for my pipe and filled it. The dog growled at intervals, and the logs dropped with a rush of sparks. The sunlight poured in the windows. I was in despair. At this rate I would never dare to say anything.
“You’re pretty hard on me, Dan. I’ve apologized. I know what I’ve been. It isn’t like you to hold grudges.” I glanced at him expectantly. He did not reply. He stared at the fire and smoked. It was some minutes before he spoke again, and then not until he had mixed me a drink. Then he said,
“Hold grudges? What for? I don’t hold grudges. But time passes. It’s been a long time, and we’ve gone different ways. Too far, perhaps, to come together again.”
“I had to get news of you from others, and you can’t blame me if the news was garbled. Why didn’t you write to me?”
He turned to me abruptly, and pulled the pipe from his mouth. His eyes narrowed on me searchingly.
“I wrote,” he said sharply. “They were returned. I took letters to your father and asked him to send them to you. I never thought that he wouldn’t”.
I stared at him blankly, my mind going round. Then a passionate fury rose up in me and I set my glass down on the table with a bang. But before I could speak, Dan lifted his hand and smiled at me. There was the old friendliness in his face again.
“Forget it, Jim. Never mind. It was a mistake. But it’s gone, and nothing can be done.” I stood up, infuriated.
“Nothing can be done! You always said that, Dan. It’s a coward’s excuse. I’ll find out about it; someone’s going to pay for it!”
He eyed me curiously, smiling as though somewhat amused. He shrugged. For some reason the dog stopped growling, and pushed out a tentative muzzle to me.
“Forget it,” repeated Dan. I sat down, fuming. He made me feel young and foolish and impotent. After all, what could I do? I picked up the glass and drank the balance of the warming fluid.
“How do you like my place?” asked Dan with sheepish pride.
“Fine, I suppose,” I answered morosely. He leaned back in his chair and smoked tranquilly. “I’ve got five acres. Take care of it myself. Everything I want. I just live here and browse like a starved horse that’s gotten into good oats. It’s all I want. For awhile. I never knew there would be such peace like this.” He closed his eyes. The dog came to me and laid his head on my knee. I rubbed his head, and he closed his eyes blissfully.
“Isn’t it lonely, Dan?”
“Lonely? My God! I tell you, I was always lonely until I came here. People make me feel lonely. But since I came here it’s as if I have friends. All these books, the farm, the house, the freedom. Freedom. When you are free you are never lonely. It’s only when you live among people that you are in prison. You can’t be happy in prison, among people.”
“Isn’t that—a little antisocial?” I asked hesitatingly, and hated myself for the pat word.
“Antisocial?” He smiled at me amusedly. “What’s antisocial? Not being able to endure fools gladly? Well then, I’m antisocial. I must be free, free from eyes and mouths and faces. Faces like prison walls. Now, I’m free of faces. I don’t see anyone except old Martha for months on end. And she keeps away from me.” He looked about the room passionately. “I love this place, I tell you. Nothing would ever drive me away from it. Not even a fire,” he added, and now there was something menacing in his voice. I laughed nervously.
“I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” I remarked foolishly.
He was silent. His tanned face had become a little pale, and I did not like his expression. After a few moments he said, almost under his breath: “Why can’t they leave me alone?”
“Are you sorry I came?” I asked, hurt. I expected an instant denial. But to my surprise and increasing hurt he did not say anything for a little while. Then he looked at me straightly as though studying me.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly and thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Dick, here, seems to have accepted you. He only accepted two others, Sarah and Mort Rugby. He hates everyone else.”
“Bee, too?” I asked boldly.
He was silent again, but as he looked at me a mask seemed to fall over his face, a rigid and repelling mask.
“So, that’s why you came,” he stated quietly. I stood up, much agitated.
“Dan, that’s part of the reason I came. I woke up when I heard about you and Bee. I would have come anyway, after that. I wanted to see you desperately, even without—that. My God, how can I say it! Anything I say will only make you detest the sight of me. But, I’ve got to say it!”
“What?” The word was like the touch of an icicle. Dick retreated from me again, looking from me to Dan, and growling.
“Oh, hell, Dan, you know what I mean. Don’t make me put it into words. When I heard that, I knew I had to do something to—save you. Damn it, yes, save you. I hardly believed it, at first. You and Bee Faire! I came out—”
“Like a saving angel!” His tone was hard and contemptuous.
“Dan, why are you doing this? She always hated you. Leopards,” I added, without originality, “don’t change their spots, or their characters. You never liked her, either. Nobody ever liked her, except old fools. Dan, she’ll kill you. There—there’s something poisonous about her. Look, I can look at you like this and know you don’t care about her. You couldn’t.” He stared at the fire. “Dan, you don’t know, but Sarah came to us last night, and begged me to save you, to keep you from marrying Bee. That’s why I had to come, if for that reason alone.”
He lifted his head and stared at me, his eyes glinting.
“Sarah came to you?”
“Yes.” I was delighted that I had moved him at last. “She
was afraid for you. She knows what Bee is.” He put his pipe back into his month, and turned his head aside. I could see the skin on his forehead wrinkling, as though with pain. He began to speak as though to himself.
“I’ve got to marry her. Sarah’s getting old. She can’t live forever.”
What the devil did he mean? I thought I was enlightened, and I said: “So, you’re marrying Bee out of gratitude for her mother’s kindness to you! What a damned quixotic notion! But now that you know that Sarah doesn’t want you to marry Bee, I’m sure you’ll oblige her in this.” I smiled. But he neither looked at me nor smiled.
“Bee looks the image of Sarah,” he muttered. “It’d be like having—” He put down his pipe abruptly and gazed at me for a long moment. The mask was still on his face.
“I’m marrying Bee in a few days,” he said coldly. “After all, it’s my business, not yours. I’m sorry Sarah doesn’t want me to marry Bee. But I shall, anyway, and she’ll get over it. I think you all underestimate Bee.”
But I knew, with great clarity, that Dan did not underestimate her, either. I shook my head sadly.
“Always the dramatist, eh, Jim?” He was smiling. “Sorry I can’t invite you to the wedding, but it’s going to be quiet. In Ripley.”
I was affronted. He glanced at my coat.
“You said something about a call around here, didn’t you? Better get started. There’s a blizzard coming soon, or my barometer’s a liar.”
I was too miserable to be insulted. I picked up my coat and put it on.
“There ought to be a law against this,” I said with childish bitterness.
He picked up his book and deliberately began to read.
“Dan, if I go like this, we can’t be friends. Believe me, I came here because I couldn’t bear to think of you being unhappy. And you’ll be so unhappy that—that you’ll want to kill yourself. Or her. Dan, don’t do it!”
“You’re insolent,” he said without looking up from the book. “No, we can’t be friends. I don’t want to see you. Not for a long time, anyway.”
“Dan.” I persisted; I felt that something terrible was about to happen to him, and he was too blind to see. “I’ve known Bee all my life. She’s like a poison. I know. There’s no heart or kindness in her. Only greed and hate and cunning. She sees only evil. She’s always suspecting everyone of the basest motives. There’s no good in the world to her. She—”
Dan lifted his head and voice and called, “Martha.” The old woman came to the door. “Dr. Marcy is leaving, Martha. Will you show him the door?”
“All right,” I said heavily. “I’ll go. You needn’t throw me out.”
I waited a moment; he did not speak again, but read on. I went down the length of the room. I looked back at the doorway; he was still reading. I went out into the cold brightness of the winter day, and Martha slammed the door after me vigorously. The knocker rattled with the impact. Full of wretchedness, I unhitched my horse and drove away.
I hated him furiously for a little while. Then after awhile I was overwhelmed with a deep and desolating sense of loss. I cursed myself. If I had gone to him six months ago I might have prevented this. And then I knew that I could not have prevented it.
I arrived home later in the deepest despair.
Chapter Thirteen
Three days later, the day before New Year’s, Dan Hendricks and Beatrice Faire were quietly married in Ripley. Not even Sarah was there; the witnesses were strangers.
The news exploded in South Kenton like a charge of dynamite. As my father said, there had not been that much excitement since the Civil War. Friends flocked to Sarah Faire with their condolences, and her abject grief and stupefied despair were all that even the most morbid could desire. The death of a dear one could hardly have affected her more deeply, and my mother said that the poor woman could not be alone. So Livy moved into Beatrice’s room, and after school hours she filled the house with her resolute common sense and practical kindheartedness. I believe that in all of South Kenton, only Livy, Mortimer and myself understood the true cause of Sarah’s anguish.
At first the sentiment of South Kenton was that the man should be horsewhipped, ridden on a rail out of town, even lynched. There were lurid threats made against him. He had seduced and tricked into marriage a sweet and innocent young woman, inveigled her into a secret wedding against her mother’s knowledge and desire. There was nothing too bad for him. No wonder poor Sarah was so heartbroken, her lovely young daughter marrying a scoundrel and an outcast and a yellow dog like Dan Hendricks! There were dark speculations as to the sinister and evil pressure he must have brought upon the poor girl to make her commit such a desperate and terrible act. Some of the more romantic asked if he had held a mortgage on Sarah’s house; others said he must have threatened her with obscure but dreadful penalties. A few of the young hotbloods suggested that they drag her forcibly from him and thrust him into an outbound cattle car. Three, I believe, actually went out to Dan’s farm, but discovered that he and Beatrice had gone on a honeymoon, and old Martha did not know when they would return.
A month later they did return, and bought South Kenton’s newest and prettiest house at the foot of Main Street. Old Endicott King had built the house at the request of Jack Rugby and Amelia Burnett, but when it was actually built and paid for Amelia took a dislike to it. Her papa and mama had bought ten acres in the suburbs and had built an immense house upon it, and disliking to be separated from their only child had asked the young couple to live with them. So the house, snug, of white stone and stucco, amazingly simple and beautiful for that era, had remained empty. This was the house that Dan Hendricks bought. Jack Rugby was a shrewd young man, and he saw no reason why he should not turn a handsome profit, even if it meant doing business with Dan.
An ominous silence fell over the town when the bridal couple moved in. With cold and menacing eyes it watched vanloads of beautiful new furniture from Ripley and from distant Warburton carried into the house, furniture which made the ladies sigh with envy. There was even a grand piano of rosewood and mahogany, the like of which South Kenton had never seen before. Beatrice was invisible, as was Dan, but a smart young girl was seen hanging magnificent curtains at the low, bowed windows. Finally two sleek horses appeared in the stable, and a grand new carriage.
South Kenton drew a deep breath, and looked sheepish. It began to argue diffidently. Well, perhaps, it was all for the best. They were moving into town, and setting up housekeeping just like other young folks, but more elaborately. That meant business for the stores and employment for two or three women, at least, for the house had immense gardens, and another smart young girl had joined the first. For a little while South Kenton felt resentment, then curiosity, then an active desire to take the bridal couple to its bosom. Evidently Bee, it argued, was having firm and serious effect on her husband. She would “make something out of him.” They were signifying their intention of asking to be forgiven and received. Dan Hendricks’ money—Ezra King made articulate the feelings of the whole town when he said: “We’re Christians, aren’t we? What’s bygones is bygones. He’s coming to us and asking us to take him in. Why not? It ain’t his fault that he had a drunken father and everything When he was a boy. Bee’ll make a man of him, show him the right way, civilize him, cure him of a lot of his fool ideas. No good raking up old coals.” He spoke virtuously, for Dan had recently transferred his account to South Kenton’s First National, and there was self-satisfaction in Ezra’s dignified offer of forgiveness.
They moved into their new house quietly. South Kenton did not rush to extend the olive branch, nor did it kill the fatted calf immediately. It held itself woundedly aloof. It saw Beatrice come and go, with humble bent head; it saw her touch her eyes with the finest lace handkerchiefs, heard her soft and pleading voice. It saw Dan, too, but he seemed remote and quiet, minding his own business. South Kenton finally decided that they had been punished enough, and was melted in a rush by Bee’s humility and gentleness and tear-fill
ed eyes.
Bee gave a housewarming, sending humble and beseeching little notes to her friends, begging them to come to see her and Dan on the night of Thursday, February 2, 1897, at eight o’clock. Every worthy lady in town pretended to refuse, to shake her head, to demur and sniff, and murmur. They discussed with each other whether they ought to accept or not, but it was a foregone conclusion that they would. The discussion was merely atmosphere. Their husbands were going also. On the night of the party my parents prepared to go, and were astonished when I announced that I would remain at home.
“Why, I thought Dan was a particular friend of yours,” said my father.
“Bee has a telephone, and if there are any calls Mabel can call you there, if necessary,” objected my mother.
They went away together, unable to understand my continued refusal. When they had gone I dressed hastily and went to Sarah’s little house where Livy was boarding. I knew that neither of the two women was going to Bee’s party. Sarah’s attitude had been the object of great, amazed, and somewhat indignant discussion for several weeks. She had apparently been unable to forgive her daughter, and when her friends urged her to do so, she would merely look at them with a strange white smile without answering. Livy had pleaded tiredness and a cold, and indeed the poor girl had been looking badly of late, and I was much worried about her. Her color was exceptionally bad, and she had become thin to the point of emaciation. She seemed always on the point of bursting into tears; I knew the symptoms of impending nervous breakdown. The children at school were, apparently too much for her, just released from the burden of the care of her father and his house. Therefore her absence was not commented upon. As for Sarah, the excited indignation that followed her refusal to attend her only daughter’s housewarming almost surpassed the excitement of the town when it had learned of Bee’s marriage.
I arrived at the little old house. It stood, its trees weighted down with silent and heavy snow, banks of whiteness rising about it, one or two windows burning with a yellow light that fell softly on the snow, and all wrapped in a wash of dark blue moonlight and spectral shadows. Livy let me in, her slight figure pale and drooping in a dark red shirtwaist and serge skirt, her masses of black hair seeming too heavy for her tired young head. She told me that Mortimer Rugby was there, and that Sarah had been ill and had gone to bed. She did not appear to be particularly glad to see me, or rather, I should say, she seemed overwhelmed with a sort of stupefied lassitude, and her eyes closed frequently as she spoke to me. I tried to express my alarm and give professional advice as we stood in the hallway, Livy waiting for me to remove my coat and hat, but she glanced aside indifferently.