Atlantic Narratives Part 53

Mrs. Myers's youth had not been as strait-laced as her middle age; there was a depth of reminiscent innuendo in Mrs. Hill's remark. Millerstown laughed. It was one of the delights of these hearings that no allusion failed to be appreciated.

'Besides, I did give her money,' Mrs. Myers hastened to say.

'Yes; five cents once in a while, and I had to ask for it every time,'

said Sula. 'I might as well stayed at home with my mom as get married like that.' Sula's eyes wandered about the room, and suddenly her face brightened. Her voice hardened as though some one had waved her an encouraging sign. 'I want him to support me right. I must have four dollars a week. I can't live off my mom.'

The squire turned for the first time to the defendant.

'Well, Adam, what have you to say?'

Adam had not glanced toward his wife. He sat with bent head, staring at the floor, his face crimson. He was a slender fellow, he looked even younger than his nineteen years.

'I did my best,' he said miserably.

'Can't you make a home for her alone, Adam?'

'No.'

'How much do you earn?'

'About seven dollars a week. Sometimes ten.'

'Other people in Millerstown live on that.'

'But I have nothing to start, no furniture or anything.'

'Your mother will surely give you something, and Sula's mother.' The squire looked commandingly at Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill. 'It is better for young ones to begin alone.'

'I have nothing to spare,' said Mrs. Myers stiffly.

'I wouldn't take any of your things,' blazed Sula. 'I wouldn't use any of your things, or have any of your things.'

'You knew how much he had when you married him,' said Mrs. Myers calmly. 'You needn't have run after him.'

'Run after him!' cried Sula.

It was the climax of sordid insult. They had been two irresponsible children mating as birds mate, with no thought for the future. It was not true that she had run after him. She burst into loud crying.

'If you and your son begged me on your knees to come back, I wouldn't.'

'Run after him!' echoed Sula's mother. 'I had almost to take the broom to him at ten o'clock to get him to go home!'

Adam looked up quickly. For the moment he was a man. He spoke as hotly as his mother; his warmth startled even his pretty wife.

'It isn't true; she--never ran after me.'

He looked down again; he could not quarrel, he had heard nothing but quarreling for months. It made no difference to him what happened. A plan was slowly forming in his mind. Edwin Seem was going West; he would go too, away from mother and wife alike.

'She can come and live in the home I can give her or she can stay away,'

he said sullenly, knowing that Sula would never enter his mother's house.

The squire turned to Sula once more. He had been staring at the back of the room, where Cabel Stemmel's keen, selfish face moved now into the light, now back into the shadow. On it was a strange expression, a hungry gleam of the eyes, a tightening of the lips, an eager watching of the girlish figure in the white dress. The squire knew all the gossip of Millerstown, and he knew many things which Millerstown did not know. He had known Caleb Stemmel for fifty years. But it was incredible that Caleb Stemmel with all his wickedness should have any hand in this.

The squire bent forward.

'Sula, look at me. You are Adam's wife. You must live with him. Won't you go back?'

Sula looked about the room once more. Sula would do nothing wrong--yet.

It was with Caleb Stemmel that her mother advised, it was Caleb Stemmel who came evening after evening to sit on the porch. Caleb Stemmel was a rich man even if he was old enough to be her father, and it was many months since any one else had told Sula that her hat was pretty or her dress becoming.

Now, with Caleb's eyes upon her, she said the little speech which had been taught her, the speech which set Millerstown gasping, and sent the squire leaping to his feet, furious anger on his face. Neither Millerstown nor the squire, English as they had become, was yet entirely of the world.

'I will not go back,' said pretty Sula lightly. 'If he wants to apply for a divorce, he can.'

'Sula!' cried the squire.

He looked about once more. On the faces of Sula's mother and Caleb Stemmel was complacency, on the face of Mrs. Myers astonished approval, on the faces of the citizens of Millerstown--except the very oldest--there was amazement, but no dismay. There had never been a divorce in Millerstown; persons quarreled, sometimes they separated, sometimes they lived in the same house without speaking to each other for months and years, but they were not divorced. Was this the beginning of a new order?

If there were to be a new order, it would not come during the two months before the squire started on his long journey! He shook his fist, his eyes blazing.

'There is to be no such threatening in this court,' he cried; 'and no talking about divorce while I am here. Sula! Maria! Sally! Are you out of your heads?'

'There are higher courts,' said Mrs. Hill.

Millerstown gasped visibly at her defiance. To its further amazement, the squire made no direct reply. Instead he went toward the door of the back office.

'Adam,' he commanded, 'come here.'

Adam rose without a word, to obey. He had some respect for the majesty of the law.

'Sula, you come, too.'

For an instant Sula held back.

'Don't you do it, Sula,' said her mother.

'Sula!' said the squire; and Sula, too, rose.

'Don't you give up,' commanded her mother. Then she got to her feet.

'I'm going in there, too.'

Again the squire did not answer. He presented instead the effectual response of a closed and locked door.

The back office was as dark as a pocket. The squire took a match from the safe, and lit the lamp. Behind them the voices of Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill answered each other with antiphonal regularity. Adam stood by the window; Sula advanced no farther than the door. The squire spoke sharply.

'Adam!'

Adam turned from the window.