car. We'll get my old porter Jim as a valet for Daniel, and you
can just play around and put fresh life into us all. We saw last
winter that we couldn't do anything without our Lady Forrester.
Nothing came off right without her. If we had a party, we sat down
afterward and wondered what in hell we'd had it for. Oh, no, we
can't manage without you!"
Tears flashed into her eyes. "That's very dear of you. It's sweet
to be remembered when one is away." In her voice there was the
heart-breaking sweetness one sometimes hears in lovely, gentle old
songs.
NINE
After three weeks the Captain was up and around again. He dragged
his left foot, and his left arm was uncertain. Though he recovered
his speech, it was thick and clouded; some words he could not
pronounce distinctly,--slid over them, dropped out a syllable.
Therefore he avoided talking even more than was his habit. The
doctor said that unless another brain lesion occurred, he might get
on comfortably for some years yet.
In August Niel was to go to Boston to begin coaching for his
entrance examinations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
where he meant to study architecture. He put off bidding the
Forresters good-bye until the very day before he left. His last
call was different from any he had ever made there before. Already
they began to treat him like a young man. He sat rather stiffly in
that parlour where he had been so much at home. The Captain was in
his big chair in the bay window, in the full glow of the afternoon
sun, saying little, but very friendly. Mrs. Forrester, on the sofa
in the shadowy corner of the room, talked about Niel's plans and
his journey.
"Is it true that Mary is going to marry Pucelik this fall?" he
asked her. "Who will you get to help you?"
"No one, for the present. Ben will do all I can't do. Never mind
us. We will pass a quiet winter, like an old country couple,--as
we are!" she said lightly.
Niel knew that she faced the winter with terror, but he had never
seen her more in command of herself,--or more the mistress of her
own house than now, when she was preparing to become the servant of
it. He had the feeling, which he never used to have, that her
lightness cost her something.
"Don't forget us, but don't mope. Make lots of new friends.
You'll never be twenty again. Take a chorus girl out to supper--a
pretty one, mind! Don't bother about your allowance. If you got
into a scrape, we could manage a little cheque to help you out,
couldn't we, Mr. Forrester?"
The Captain puffed and looked amused. "I think we could, Niel, I
think so. Don't get up, my boy. You must stay to dinner."
Niel said he couldn't. He hadn't finished packing, and he was
leaving on the morning train.
"Then we must have a little something before you go." Captain
Forrester rose heavily, with the aid of his cane, and went into the
dining-room. He brought back the decanter and filled three glasses
with ceremony. Lifting his glass, he paused, as always, and
blinked.
"Happy days!"
"Happy days!" echoed Mrs. Forrester, with her loveliest smile, "and
every success to Niel!"
Both the Captain and his wife came to the door with him, and stood
there on the porch together, where he had so often seen them stand
to speed the parting guest. He went down the hill touched and
happy. As he passed over the bridge his spirits suddenly fell.
Would that chilling doubt always lie in wait for him, down there in
the mud, where he had thrown his roses one morning?
He burned to ask her one question, to get the truth out of her and
set his mind at rest: What did she do with all her exquisiteness
when she was with a man like Ellinger? Where did she put it away?
And having put it away, how could she recover herself, and give
one--give even him--the sense of tempered steel, a blade that could
fence with anyone and never break?
Part Two
ONE
It was two years before Niel Herbert came home again, and when he
came the first acquaintance he met was Ivy Peters. Ivy got on the
train at one of the little stations east of Sweet Water, where he
had been trying a case. As he strolled through the Pullman he
noticed among the passengers a young man in a grey flannel suit,
with a silk shirt of one shade of blue and a necktie of another.
After regarding this urban figure from the rear for a few seconds,
Ivy glanced down at his own clothes with gloating satisfaction. It
was a hot day in June, but he wore the black felt hat and ready-
made coat of winter weight he had always affected as a boy. He
stepped forward, his hands thrust in his pockets.
"Hullo, Niel. Thought I couldn't be mistaken."
Niel looked up and saw the red, bee-stung face, with its two
permanent dimples, smiling down at him in contemptuous jocularity.
"Hello, Ivy. I couldn't be mistaken in you, either."
"Coming home to go into business?"
Niel replied that he was coming only for the summer vacation.
"Oh, you're not through school yet? I suppose it takes longer to
make an architect than it does to make a shyster. Just as well;
there's not much building going on in Sweet Water these days.
You'll find a good many changes."
"Won't you sit down?" Niel indicated the neighbouring chair. "You
are practising law?"
"Yes, along with a few other things. Have to keep more than one
iron in the fire to make a living with us. I farm a little on the
side. I rent that meadow-land on the Forrester place. I've
drained the old marsh and put it into wheat. My brother John does
the work, and I boss the job. It's quite profitable. I pay them a
good rent, and they need it. I doubt if they could get along
without. Their influential friends don't seem to help them out
much. Remember all those chesty old boys the Captain used to drive
about in his democrat wagon, and ship in barrels of Bourbon for?
Good deal of bluff about all those old-timers. The panic put them
out of the game. The Forresters have come down in the world like
the rest. You remember how the old man used to put it over us kids
and not let us carry a gun in there? I'm just mean enough to like
to shoot along that creek a little better than anywhere else, now.
There wasn't any harm in the old Captain, but he had the delusion
of grandeur. He's happier now that he's like the rest of us and
don't have to change his shirt every day." Ivy's unblinking
greenish eyes rested upon Niel's haberdashery.
Niel, however, did not notice this. He knew that Ivy wanted him
to show disappointment, and he was determined not to do so. He
enquired about the Captain's health, pointedly keeping Mrs.
Forrester's name out of the conversation.
"He's only about half there . . . seems contented enough. . . .
She takes good care of him, I'll say that for her. . . . She seeks
consolation, always did, you know .
. . too much French brandy . . .
but she never neglects him. I don't blame her. Real work comes
hard on her."
Niel heard these remarks dully, through the buzz of an idea. He
felt that Ivy had drained the marsh quite as much to spite him and
Mrs. Forrester as to reclaim the land. Moreover, he seemed to know
that until this moment Ivy himself had not realized how much that
consideration weighed with him. He and Ivy had disliked each other
from childhood, blindly, instinctively, recognizing each other
through antipathy, as hostile insects do. By draining the marsh
Ivy had obliterated a few acres of something he hated, though he
could not name it, and had asserted his power over the people who
had loved those unproductive meadows for their idleness and silvery
beauty.
After Ivy had gone on into the smoker, Niel sat looking out at the
windings of the Sweet Water and playing with his idea. The Old
West had been settled by dreamers, great-hearted adventurers who
were unpractical to the point of magnificence; a courteous
brotherhood, strong in attack but weak in defence, who could
conquer but could not hold. Now all the vast territory they had
won was to be at the mercy of men like Ivy Peters, who had never
dared anything, never risked anything. They would drink up the
mirage, dispel the morning freshness, root out the great brooding
spirit of freedom, the generous, easy life of the great land-
holders. The space, the colour, the princely carelessness of the
pioneer they would destroy and cut up into profitable bits, as the
match factory splinters the primeval forest. All the way from the
Missouri to the mountains this generation of shrewd young men,
trained to petty economies by hard times, would do exactly what Ivy
Peters had done when he drained the Forrester marsh.
TWO
The next afternoon Niel found Captain Forrester in the bushy little
plot he called his rose garden, seated in a stout hickory chair
His attention was fixed upon a red block of Colorado sandstone, set
on a granite boulder in the middle of the gravel space around which
the roses grew. He showed Niel that this was a sun-dial, and
explained it with great pride. Last summer, he said, he sat out
here a great deal, with a square board mounted on a post, and
marked the length of the shadows by his watch. His friend, Cyrus
Dalzell, on one of his visits, took this board away, had the
diagram exactly copied on sandstone, and sent it to him, with the
column-like boulder that formed its base.
"I think it's likely Mr. Dalzell hunted around among the mountains
a good many mornings before he found a natural formation like
that," said the Captain. "A pillar, such as they had in Bible
times. It's from the Garden of the Gods. Mr. Dalzell has his
summer home up there."
The Captain sat with the soles of his boots together, his legs
bowed out. Everything about him seemed to have grown heavier and
weaker. His face was fatter and smoother; as if the features were
running into each other, as when a wax face melts in the heat. An
old Panama hat, burned yellow by the sun, shaded his eyes. His
brown hands lay on his knees, the fingers well apart, nerveless.
His moustache was the same straw colour; Niel remarked to him that
it had grown no greyer. The Captain touched his cheek with his
palm. "Mrs. Forrester shaved me for awhile. She did it very
nicely, but I didn't like to have her do it. Now I use one of
these safety razors. I can manage, if I take my time. The barber
comes over once a week. Mrs. Forrester is expecting you, Niel.
She's down in the grove. She goes down there to rest in the
hammock."
Niel went round the house to the gate that gave into the grove.
From the top of the hill he could see the hammock slung between two
cottonwoods, in the low glade at the farther end, where he had
fallen the time he broke his arm. The slender white figure was
still, and as he hurried across the grass he saw that a white
garden hat lay over her face. He approached quietly and was just
wondering if she were asleep, when he heard a soft, delighted
laugh, and with a quick movement she threw off the lace hat through
which she had been watching him. He stepped forward and caught her
suspended figure, hammock and all, in his arms. How light and
alive she was! like a bird caught in a net. If only he could
rescue her and carry her off like this,--off the earth of sad,
inevitable periods, away from age, weariness, adverse fortune!
She showed no impatience to be released, but lay laughing up at him
with that gleam of something elegantly wild, something fantastic
and tantalizing,--seemingly so artless, really the most finished
artifice! She put her hand under his chin as if he were still a
boy.
"And how handsome he's grown! Isn't the old Judge proud of you!
He called me up last night and began sputtering, 'It's only fair to
warn you, Ma'm, that I've a very handsome boy over here.' As if I
hadn't known you would be! And now you're a man, and have seen the
world! Well, what have you found in it?"
"Nothing so nice as you, Mrs. Forrester."
"Nonsense! You have sweethearts?"
"Perhaps."
"Are they pretty?"
"Why they? Isn't one enough?"
"One is too many. I want you to have half a dozen,--and still save
the best for us! One would take everything. If you had her, you
would not have come home at all. I wonder if you know how we've
looked for you?" She took his hand and turned a seal ring about on
his little finger absently. "Every night for weeks, when the
lights of the train came swinging in down below the meadows, I've
said to myself, 'Niel is coming home; there's that to look forward
to.'" She caught herself as she always did when she found that she
was telling too much, and finished in a playful tone. "So, you
see, you mean a great deal to all of us. Did you find Mr.
Forrester?"
"Oh, yes! I had to stop and look at his sun-dial."
She raised herself on her elbow and lowered her voice. "Niel, can
you understand it? He isn't childish, as some people say, but he
will sit and watch that thing hour after hour. How can anybody
like to see time visibly devoured? We are all used to seeing
clocks go round, but why does he want to see that shadow creep on
that stone? Has he changed much? No? I'm glad you feel so. Now
Niel dropped on the turf and sat with his back against a tree
trunk, answering her rapid questions and watching her while he
talked. Of course, she was older. In the brilliant sun of the
afternoon one saw that her skin was no longer like white lilacs,--
it had the ivory tint of gardenias that have just begun to fade.
The coil of blue-black hair seemed more than ever too heavy for her
head. There were lin
es,--something strained about the corners of
her mouth that used not to be there. But the astonishing thing was
how these changes could vanish in a moment, be utterly wiped out in
a flash of personality, and one forgot everything about her except
herself.
"And tell me, Niel, do women really smoke after dinner now with the
men, nice women? I shouldn't like it. It's all very well for
actresses, but women can't be attractive if they do everything that
men do."
"I think just now it's the fashion for women to make themselves
comfortable, before anything else."
Mrs. Forrester glanced at him as if he had said something shocking.
"Ah, that's just it! The two things don't go together. Athletics
and going to college and smoking after dinner--Do you like it?
Don't men like women to be different from themselves? They used
to."
Niel laughed. Yes, that was certainly the idea of Mrs. Forrester's
generation.
"Uncle Judge says you don't come to see him any more as you used
to, Mrs. Forrester. He misses it."
"My dear boy, I haven't been over to the town for six weeks. I'm
always too tired. We have no horse now, and when I do go I have to
walk. That house! Nothing is ever done there unless I do it, and
nothing ever moves unless I move it. That's why I come down here
in the afternoon,--to get where I can't see the house. I can't
keep it up as it should be kept, I'm not strong enough. Oh, yes,
Ben helps me; he sweeps and beats the rugs and washes windows, but
that doesn't get a house very far." Mrs. Forrester sat up suddenly
and pinned on her white hat. "We went all the way to Chicago,
Niel, to buy that walnut furniture, couldn't find anything at home
big and heavy enough. If I'd known that one day I'd have to push
it about, I would have been more easily satisfied!" She rose and
shook out her rumpled skirts.
They started toward the house, going slowly up the long, grassy
undulation between the trees.
"Don't you miss the marsh?" Niel asked suddenly.
She glanced away evasively. "Not much. I would never have time to
go there, and we need the money it pays us. And you haven't time
to play any more either, Niel. You must hurry and become a
successful man. Your uncle is terribly involved. He has been so
careless that he's not much better off than we are. Money is a
very important thing. Realize that in the beginning; face it, and
don't be ridiculous in the end, like so many of us." They stopped
by the gate at the top of the hill and looked back at the green
alleys and sharp shadows, at the quivering fans of light that
seemed to push the trees farther apart and made Elysian fields
underneath them. Mrs. Forrester put her white hand, with all its
rings, on Niel's arm.
"Do you really find a kind of pleasure in coming back to us?
That's very unusual, I think. At your age I wanted to be with the
young and gay. It's nice for us, though." She looked at him with
her rarest smile, one he had seldom seen on her face, but always
remembered,--a smile without archness, without gaiety, full of
affection and wistfully sad. And the same thing was in her voice
when she spoke those quiet words,--the sudden quietness of deep
feeling. She turned quickly away. They went through the gate and
around the house to where the Captain sat watching the sunset glory
on his roses. His wife touched his shoulder.
"Will you go in, now, Mr. Forrester, or shall I bring your coat?"
"I'll go in. Isn't Niel going to stay for dinner?"
"Not this time. He'll come soon, and we'll have a real dinner for
him. Will you wait for Mr. Forrester, Niel? I must hurry in and
start the fire."
Niel tarried behind and accompanied the Captain's slow progress
toward the front of the house. He leaned upon two canes, lifting
his feet slowly and putting them down firmly and carefully. He