Wheat and Huckleberries Part 22

As to the last point Kate eagerly denied the danger. The other questions she answered more slowly, but with her usual frankness. Esther had been more in love with New England than herself; she had not criticised things-oh, dear, she had never quarrelled with anybody in behalf of her native state; and she had been perfectly delighted with the invitation to stay, there could be no doubt of that. And then she was silent, her face lengthening a little, as she thought of the one who gave the invitation.

The young man had listened with the closest attention while she talked, and he gave a little sigh when she finished. "I'm afraid I shan't know as much about things that are happening there now as I did before you came away," he said wistfully. "You were ever so good about writing to me, Kate. I haven't had but one letter since you came away."

His eyes wandered as he spoke to that letter with its well-known writing lying on the table, and it was not the first time since he came in that they had moved in that direction. Kate noted the hungry look, and felt mean.

"We had one to-day, and she is perfectly well," she said uneasily. And then she would have changed the subject but that Virgie, who was so little given to conversation that her occasional contributions were the more dangerous, spoke up just then and said it was such an interesting letter, all about a visit Esther had made with grandfather; Kate had read it to them all, and it was beautiful.

"Can't I hear it too?" said Morton, boldly.

There was no help for it now, and Kate walked soberly to the table.

There were one or two pa.s.sages she would certainly have left out, but Virgie, who had read it three times, would be likely enough to call attention to the omissions, and that would make the business worse. So she went straight through it, with a certain hardness of tone when allusions were made to the charming qualities of Mr. Philip Hadley which made them all the more emphatic.

Morton Elwell's eyes did not move from her face as she read. Indeed, there was a tenseness about his expression at moments which suggested that he was holding his breath.

"So you see grandfather's taking her into all the gayeties," Kate said rather nervously, as she laid down the letter. "She's a wonderful favorite with grandfather."

Morton drew his hand across his forehead. "This Mr. Hadley is the one who went to the graveyard with her, isn't he? Esther wrote me about that."

"Yes, only 'twas Stella he was with," said Kate. "Esther was with grandfather."

The exact arrangement of the party was apparently not the main interest just then for Morton. "And he showed you around Boston and Cambridge and those other places afterward, didn't he?" he queried.

"Yes, we did a good deal of sight-seeing together," said Kate, and then she added hurriedly, "he and Stella are tremendously up in art, and that's why he went to some places with us. He wanted to show her a picture in his own house for one thing. Maybe Esther wrote you about that too."

"But he knows Stella's gone from your grandfather's now, doesn't he?"

said the young man. There were apparently other things besides the price of turkeys in regard to which he could draw quick deductions, and his eyes searched Kate's at that moment with a look that was straight and keen.

"I don't know but he does," she said almost pettishly.

There was a minute's silence, and somehow it occurred to Morton Elwell just then that the hour was growing late.

"I must be going home," he said. "Aunt Jenny'll wonder what has become of me."

He said good night to Virgie, and stopped in the hall a minute for a word with Mrs. Northmore. Kate was beside him. "I'll go down to the gate with you," she said, as she had said many a time before, and he seemed to expect it.

But when they were fairly beyond the porch, in the shadows of the shrubbery, he slipped his arm through hers, and said very quietly: "Kate, I wish you'd tell me the truth about this Mr. Hadley. He's coming to see Esther, of course. Is he in love with her?"

"I don't know that he is. I never saw a thing to make me think so," said Kate, with low vehemence. And then (for there was a frankness in her which would not let her stop there) she added: "Tom says he is; but Tom made up his mind to that right at the start, and he's the most obstinate boy I ever saw about his own opinions. He never changes his mind, no matter what good reasons you may show him on the other side."

The idiosyncrasies of Tom Saxon were not interesting just then to Morton Elwell. Kate heard him draw his breath hard before he said: "Of course he's in love with her. He's been seeing her all summer, and he couldn't help being. And she"-he paused for an instant before he added bitterly: "I understand it now. It's knowing _him_ that made her so willing to stay."

"Oh, no it isn't, Mort; indeed it isn't," said Kate, bringing him to a standstill with a compelling pressure on his arm. "If you knew everything, you wouldn't say that. It was Aunt Katharine that made her stay. Oh, if you knew Aunt Katharine! She's a dreadfully strong-minded woman, and she's taken a terrible fancy to Esther. She'd like to make her feel just as she does about woman's rights, and never marrying, and all that sort of thing. _She's_ the one, not Mr. Hadley at all, that has such an influence over Esther."

"Nonsense!" said Morton Elwell; and he said it with a sharpness that for an instant made Kate almost afraid of him.

There was silence for a minute as they moved down the path. Then, with the sharpness gone out of his voice and the bitterness overflowing it again, he said: "I don't wonder at it. He's rich and agreeable,-you wrote that yourself, Kate. He's all that's delightful and cultivated,-she says so in the letter. He has everything and-and time to be with her," he added, with a groan. "She can't help caring for him. I know it as if I were there to see."

They had reached the great horse-chestnut tree by the gate, and the moonlight came down through the half-leafless branches on the girl's face lifted to his. "Oh, it won't be the way you think, Mort," she whispered pa.s.sionately. "Esther _can't_ care for Mr. Hadley. I'm sure, I'm sure she can't!"

"Why can't she?" he asked, and his face looked pale and stern.

She caught her breath with a sob. "Because-oh, Mort-because _you're_ so much nicer!" she said, with an utter abandon. And then her head dropped, and a splash of tears fell on his coat-sleeve.

He stooped suddenly and kissed her; then, without even a good night, strode off down the road.

It lay before him straight and empty in the moonlight; and he followed it past the turn that led to his uncle's house, on and on, taking no note of distance. This fear which had come to him so suddenly-it seemed already not a possibility but a certainty, and it stalked at his side, keeping even step with his. He had no vanity to whisper that there were other attractions besides those which fortune had bestowed so lavishly on Mr. Philip Hadley. He had been too busy all his life, and such gifts as he had were too inherently part of his nature for him to turn an observant eye upon them and mark their value. He seemed to himself a homely, humdrum fellow beside this other who had stepped so lightly into Esther Northmore's life. There was envy enough in his heart, Heaven knew; but it somehow withheld the thought that wealth was accidental, culture acquired,-poor things at best beside that inner something which makes the man. They were good gifts. He hoped to prove it for himself by and by, and that other something-How if Mr. Philip Hadley were rich in that, too?

But was it fair, was it fair that he, to whom only a summer pleasuring had brought acquaintance with Esther Northmore, should steal her away from one who had loved her so long? His heart ran swiftly over the past, and a lump rose in his throat as memory brought back those early days.

She was five years old, he seven, when he came to his uncle's house, a lonesome, homesick boy. He remembered how she came across the fields with her mother, on that first afternoon, in her little red shoes and white ap.r.o.n, a dainty figure, with gentle ways and soft, loving eyes. He remembered how she had slid her hand into his and whispered she was sorry his mother was dead. And then they had played together, he drawing her about in his little cart; and before he knew it the long day was ending and a sense of being at home had stolen into his heart. That was the beginning, and what friends they had been through the childish years that followed! He remembered how he bought her a carnelian ring once at the county fair. The ring had broken next day, and she had wept scalding tears. Alas, there was no dime left to buy another, but he had promised that she should have a gold one sometime, with a s.h.i.+ning stone at the top, and she had been comforted with this, and promised to wait.

Ah, one could not bear such memories as this. He thrust it down and swallowed fiercely at the lump in his throat, which seemed his heart itself swollen to bursting. But other pictures came: the growing girl, so willing to take his help, so quick to give her own, so proud of all his successes. They had gone through the district school side by side, he only a cla.s.s ahead, though older, for his chance to begin had come later than hers. How many times he had worked her problems for her, how often he had gone over his boyish debates and speeches with her for listener, on the way to school, or in her father's orchard when his ch.o.r.es were done, sure that he had made his pleading well when the tears sprang into her eyes, and the quick responsive color flushed and paled in her cheeks! What would any work he could do, or any triumph he could ever win, be worth to him if she had ceased to care?

There had been a difference in her,-he had marked it uneasily, slow as he was in the steadfast loyalty of his own thoughts to guess at change in hers,-but he had said to himself it was because they had been apart too much, she at boarding school, he at college. It would all be as it had been when they could see each other again in the old way. That they belonged to each other was a thing he had held so simply and of course that the fear of losing her had never till now really entered his heart.

And then, with a pa.s.sionate protest, he felt himself writing to her, telling her of his love and calling her back; but swift chilling doubts overtook the impulse. If she had forgotten, slipped away from all this of the past, could any word of his, across the cruel distance, call her back? He had no art with his pen, and what would the poor meagre page be worth beside the living presence of this new, delightful friend?

The bitterness gathered like a flood in his heart, and all its waves and billows went over him. He knew nothing of the beauty of the night nor the way he was taking. He had no sense of outward things, when his name was called suddenly behind him.

"Mort Elwell! Well, upon my word! I thought 'twas you, and then I thought it couldn't be. When did I ever catch up with you before, on a straight road, with you well in the start?"

The young man turned at the voice, and for a moment stared blankly at the speaker. It was the New Light preacher, his friend of many years, his comrade in the labors of the early summer. The long loose figure bent eagerly toward him, and the sallow face shone in the flooding moonlight. It was impossible, at any pa.s.s of melancholy, not to find a moment's pleasure in so warm a greeting.

"I declare I didn't hear you coming up," said the young man. "I was taking my time to it, and wasn't looking for company."

"No, I reckon not," said the preacher, smiling. "It's toler'ble late, if you happen to know it, and you're a little out of your own bailiwick, aren't you?"

"Over in yours?" said Morton, noting for the first time how far he had gone. "Well, it's rather late for you too, isn't it?"

"Yes," said the preacher; "but I've been over at old man Towner's. He's having one of his bad spells, and this time he won't pull through. I reckon he'll be done with living here in a few days more."

"Well, it's something to be through with," said the young man. He had spoken more to fill the pause than for anything else, but there was a dreary note in his voice which fell strangely on the ear of the other.

"You, Mort!" he exclaimed, and his eyes searched the face of his companion for a moment curiously. It looked tired and worn. "Just through your work?" he asked. "When did you get in?"

"Finished my job yesterday," said Morton, "and am here just long enough to pick up my things. Shall go to-morrow morning."

"And start in for another stiff year's work," said the preacher. "Well, Mort, you've made a summer of it. I hope things'll ease up for you sometime, and they will, they will."

The young man lifted his head with an impatient movement. "I wish people wouldn't pity me for having to work," he said. "I don't care how hard I work. It's the easiest thing there is."

Some fine wrinkles had gathered in the preacher's forehead. "Yes," he said, with his eyes still on Morton's face. "It's a good deal easier than wanting work and not getting it, for instance. Plenty of folks could tell you that."

There was a touch of contempt mingled now with the impatience in Morton's voice. "I never was a bit afraid but I could get all the work I wanted," he said. "Give me my head and hands, and I'll take care of that."

"And not be so proud of yourself for doing it maybe, when you get to my age," said the preacher. Then dropping into his bit of a drawl, he added: "But there _are_ things that ain't so easy to come by, eh, Mort?

It's a fact, man. But 'Faint-heart never won fair lady,' nor anything else worth having."

A flush rose in Morton's face and he sent a quick look at the preacher.