Joyce of the North Woods Part 7

Joyce's eyes dilated and the colour rose through her soft paleness, but she did not speak.

"It's always the way. Them most concerned gits wind of scandal last.

Even the brats have caught on before me. But once your father has both eyes open, folks better watch out."

"Who do you mean by Myst.?" asked Joyce, and her strained voice sounded unnatural.

"Gaston, to be sure! I've got a wit of my own, Joyce. Myst.--short for Mystery. That's what Gaston is. No one knows a d.a.m.ned thing about him."

"Well, that's to his credit, anyway." Joyce flung up a defence now. She must fight, but she must keep herself out of sight.

Jared glared angrily. He did not like the tone.

"Oh! I ain't the one to object to you keeping your mouth shut," he returned. "Jammed logs"--the phrase stuck in his mind--"jammed logs don't creak any; but when it comes to joining forces, like two jams together for instance, there's got to be, in the nature of things, some demonstration. What I'm aiming at is this. Has this here Myst. meant business or has he not? I'm a man of the world--so is Gaston--he ain't never hoodwinked me. I had my reasons for coming here, and likewise, so has he. That's my business and his, by thunder! but when _he_ meddles in my affairs he's got to show his hand. Now is it, or ain't it, business 'twixt you and him?"

"What kind of business?" Joyce's voice was low and even. She was approaching her father cautiously and fearfully.

"Honourable--or otherwise?"

A silence followed. Something was born, and something died in the sunlighted room while that silence lasted.

The child's dependence upon its father fell, torn and quivering, before the new-risen self-protection of the pitiful girlhood.

For the first time, consciously, Joyce experienced the soul-loneliness for which there is no aid. Her deep eyes pleaded for help and mercy where there was no help, and alas! no mercy. Birkdale had his answer now, though no word had been uttered by those quivering lips.

"You can't be expected to act for yourself in these matters." Jared put his pipe on the table and brought his chair to the floor. "You ain't the first girl as has been game for such as Myst., but he's made a d.a.m.ned mistake if he thought two couldn't play at his game here in St. Ange.

We'll make something out of him no matter which way you put it."

"Make something--out--of--what?" Joyce bent forward and real horror filled her eyes. Was even the security of Jude to be wrenched from her?

"Out of Myst. He's got money, It comes in letters--checks. Tate has ways of finding out. Myst. has a fat account over to Hillcrest. He thought we took him on trust. We knowed what we wanted to know."

"And so, and so," panted Joyce, "what next?"

"Well, by the living G.o.d, if he wants to marry you, let him come out and say so, and I won't hold back my presence nor my blessing."

It was quite plain now. Gaston was the target at which Jared aimed. In some way she must s.h.i.+eld him and s.h.i.+eld him so effectually that no harm could reach him. There was no escape for her. Every path was closed through which she had hoped to go free and happy.

"I ain't going, though," Jared was whining in his semi-religious tone, "to have my reputation smirched. Either he marries you, or he pays well, and we'll get out. See?"

"Oh, yes, I see!" Joyce s.h.i.+vered in the hot room; "I see what you think, but _why_ do you suppose I'd marry Mr. Gaston if he _did_ want me?

Sometimes girls don't--marry--men even when they are asked. Books are full of such things." A heavy sob came after the pitiful words.

"Oh! that's your dodge, eh?" Jared laughed comfortably from the secure position he had gained for himself from this misery. "Trying to s.h.i.+eld him, eh? It won't do, Joyce. Your daddy's too much a man of the world for that. Now here it is in a nutsh.e.l.l: The boys at the tavern are back of me. How do I know? You leave that to me. Now I calculate that Gaston don't want any of the dust of his past stirred up by us. If he's been playing with you, it's for _you_ to say whether you'd rather have him forced to marry you, or have him pan out money enough to hush the matter up. I'm willing to sacrifice something for you, Joyce. I'm willing to go so far as to say I don't want the dust of _my_ past raised--I'm actually willing to sacrifice--anything."

"Even me!" The words were a moan of fear and misery.

"Sure!" Jared did not catch the point. "This is an opportunity that don't come often. Retribution for Myst., by thunder, and clear gain for me and you! Out beyond the high trees, girl, there's better diggings for us. G.o.d! how I've smothered, these long years. The end justifies the means--you will say so, too, when you see what lies down to the south."

Jared laughed wildly as if the ambition of all the desolated years had been achieved. Joyce, compelled by his delirious words and excitement, almost felt a responsive sympathy; but her words, slow and hard, brought her and Jared down to the bleakness of St. Ange again.

"You are wrong, terribly wrong. Mr. Gaston never wanted to marry me, and I can take care of myself--I always have--taken care of myself!

Why--why, I'm engaged to Jude Lauzoon. I'm going to marry him right away. We can't even wait for him to build a new shack. If a minister doesn't happen this way, we're going over to Hillcrest. Oh, what a joke we've played on you!"

Jared stared idiotically, and Joyce's laugh rang wildly out.

"Mr. Gaston and me! What an idea! Why, he's helping us"--the inspiration to say this came from a blind belief in Gaston's quick adaptability--"he's helping me and Jude--to what we want."

"The devil he is!" It was all that Jared could clutch from the rout.

"I--I believe it's a thundering lie," he added as an after-thought, and as a cover to his retreat.

"It's no lie." Joyce had regained her calmness. She was panting, but she had reached safety and she knew it. An unlovely, unhallowed safety, but such as it was it was her salvation and Gaston's.

When she had stolen to him the night before it was her last ignorant impulse to gain her own ends. From now on she must be on guard, or her world would come clattering about her heart and soul. It took Jared some minutes to digest the information that had been flung at him so unexpectedly, and then anger and baffled hope swayed him. Joyce married to Jude would make _his_, Jared's, future no securer than it now was.

Indeed it might complicate matters, for Jared had no belief in Jude rising above the dead level of St. Ange standards.

"You're a durn fool!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed at last, while the new impression of his daughter's beauty stirred him painfully. "You are a durn fool to fling yourself away on Jude when you might have done most anything with yourself--if you was managed right."

Then in an evil moment Joyce laughed. Her lips parted in an odd little way they had showing the small white teeth and forming the dimples in cheeks and chin. So great was the girl's relief; so appalled was she at what might have been, that the conflict of emotions made her almost hysterical.

"Daddy," she said, between ripples of laughter, "you thought you had me then, didn't you? But being your daughter, you know, I had wit enough to take care of myself."

Jared listened to this outburst in sheer amazement. Unable to understand, in the least, what was pa.s.sing over the girl before him, he weighed her by his own low standard, and drew the worst possible conclusion as Jude had done before him.

He looked steadily at Joyce, and he saw the colour and fire come to cheek and eye. The ringing laughter struck through his brutality and hurt something in him that was akin to paternal love; but so long had that protecting tenderness been ignored by Jared, that now when it was called upon to act, it did so in a savage rage.

"By heaven!" he thundered, "I catch your drift, you young divil. And if that Myst. ain't a slick one! Going to use Jude is he, to pull his chestnuts out of the fire?"

Then Jared strode forward with arm upraised as if to strike and, by so doing, again command the situation. In like manner had he downed and controlled Joyce's mother. But he paused before the pale undaunted girl.

Her laugh died suddenly, to be sure, so suddenly that the gleaming teeth and pretty dimples outlived the mirth long enough to give a stricken, death-like expression to the face, but the change brought no fear; it brought something worse.

Joyce's moral sense was an unknown quant.i.ty in her present development.

Her father's true meaning affected her not at all; what she felt was--a loathing disgust, and a conviction that if she was to hold even Jude for herself against her father's anger and purpose, she must flee to other shelter.

She drew herself up and cast a look upon Jared that he never forgot to his dying day. It was an added f.a.ggot to that h.e.l.l of his.

"Isa Tate," the even voice broke upon him, "Isa Tate said you killed my mother. But I'm not afraid of you, and I'm going to live my life. You can't kill me! I know when and where to go."

With that she gathered up the work that had fallen to the floor, and almost ran into the little bedchamber beyond the kitchen, closing the door after her.

Jared sat dumbly staring at the wooden barrier. He longed to call her, but his tongue p.r.i.c.ked with excitement.

He dared not go to her--so he waited. He heard her moving about inside the room. A half-hour pa.s.sed, then an hour. Noon came and went. The fire was out, and dinner, apparently, was as distant as it had been two hours before.

Jared fell asleep in his hard chair, his dishevelled head lying on his arms folded on the bare table. When he awoke it was three o'clock and Joyce stood before him.

She was very white, and the drawn look was still in evidence. She wore a blue-and-white checked gown; short and scant it was, but daintily fresh and sweet. She had her poor little best hat on--a hat with a bunch of roses on the side--and she carried a large basket in her hand.

Jared stared at her as if she were part of a nightmarish dream.