The Open Question Part 97

Val s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and read:

"_Come home at once_.--SARAH C. GANO."

"Oh, she's ill; dying, perhaps! Oh, G.o.d! not dying!" She leaned against the wall; her face frightened her hostess.

"My dear, it doesn't say a word about being ill."

"It's what it means; she knew I'd understand."

"Don't take it like that, Val." She put her arm round the girl.

Val threw her off, exclaiming: "Oh, I must go this moment. Can we send Ethan word? Quick, quick!"

"I'll let him know soon enough," returned the other, fastening suspicious eyes on the girl's pitiful face. "I expect Harry back every moment. I'll help you with your packing."

In a dim way Val was relieved on second thoughts that Ethan should not be summoned. He and she had been plotting treason. The poignant fear and grief that swayed her would wear an artificial air in his presence after what had pa.s.sed.

The packing, Harry's return, the hurried supper, all went as in a nightmare. Now she was driving to the station, now she was saying good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Ball, and to Harry. No, he was coming with her apparently. Now they were in the train. Now they were rattling and clattering through a tunnel. She sat in a corner with closed eyes, while tears trickled incessantly from under the lids.

"Dear, dear, I love you," she said to herself, and her lover was far away from her thoughts. On the throne of life a bowed old woman seemed to sit alone. "Oh, I'll be better to you after this, only live and give me a chance." She drew her limp figure up suddenly and turned her back on Harry's whispered solicitude. A lightning-like realization came, as she sat there, of what the life of this woman had meant to her. And it was going--going--would be gone, perhaps, before Val got home. She covered up her face. She told herself it was no common relation that she bore to the ancient _chatelaine_ of the Fort. Something deeper than the blood tie, a thing wrought out of sheer personal force, hammered out of antagonisms, welded with fear and with love, and binding, abiding grat.i.tude for a glimpse of the unconquerable mind.

She saw now that if life from the beginning had never worn that cheap and shabby air that it did to many girls without wealth or family distinction; if, from the beginning, and day by day to the end, life had carried itself bravely in the tumble-down old home; if in the leanest years it had never lacked dignity, nor ever lost its faint old-world fragrance; Val knew who it was who had wrought the spell, and who had maintained it against all comers.

And this magical power was threatened; this costly life in danger. It suddenly seemed the one thing in the world best worth preserving. A few hours before she had faced the idea of its loss so willingly--her tears gushed afresh at the memory--even with an obscure, impatient longing she had thought of this thing, that she saw now in its true aspect, as unspeakably terrible and tragic. For it was something irreparable. There was nothing like _her_ in the world; the things that went to her making had pa.s.sed away. To think that all that was represented by such a spirit--that a force like this, after enduring and dominating life so long, should go out into Nothingness--why, it was merely incredible. But the presentment of the possibility had shaken the foundations of the world.

It was close on midnight when Val and Wilbur drove up to the gate.

"Harry," said the girl, "you've been so kind, be kinder still: let me go in alone."

"Very well. I'll come back in a quarter of an hour to see if I can do anything."

There was a light in the long room. Val lifted the knocker, and as it fell Emmie opened the door. It seemed to Val that her sister's face said "Death." She pushed past her without greeting, and into the long room.

Mrs. Gano was sitting in the great chair. She leaned forward, holding fast by the arms. The veil falling on either side her face did not hide, or even soften, the expression of concentrated contempt with which she said, very low:

"So you've come back."

"Y--yes. I thought--"

"You thought you'd come before it was too late."

"Yes; I was afraid--"

"I'm glad there's _something_ you're afraid of doing, though I can scarce imagine what."

Val put her hand up, bewildered, to her eyes.

"The last thing I would have believed of Valeria Gano was that she would do something underhand."

"Oh, but I didn't--"

"You didn't pretend to me that you were going to visit Mrs. Austin Ball when you were really running after Ethan?"

"I haven't been running after any one."

"Did he write you to come?"

"No."

"Did he expect you?"

"No."

"Some one who went up in the same train with you has had the audacity to bring back the report that you went to the hotel to see Ethan before you went to Mrs. Ball's at all."

Val did not make the expected denial.

"I'm ashamed of you"--the old face worked--"I've never been ashamed before of a woman of this house."

"I am not ashamed," said Val.

"Then all I can say is"--Mrs. Gano extended her shawled arm--"you are without the feelings of a decent woman."

Val had sat down like one dazed.

"Ask Emmeline," said the old voice, shaking as it rose; "the whole town is ringing with the story, how you left your home under false pretences, and pursued this man, who cares nothing for you--"

"He does care for me." Val's nerves quivered under her grandmother's derisive laugh, but it did not escape her that Emmie had caught convulsively at the corner of the great buffet, and was leaning against the pillared cupboard.

"I dare say," observed Mrs. Gano, "that Ethan cares for a good many ladies, if the truth's told, but he doesn't get most of them to run about the country after him; that honor is reserved for you."

"Wait!" Val struggled to her feet with a sense that she was choking.

"I'll tell you the honor that's reserved for me: Ethan cares more for me than for any one in the world."

Emmie leaned forward with white face and glittering eyes.

"Indeed," said Mrs. Gano, "and when is the wedding, if one may know?"

Val sank slowly back in the chair, dropping her hands at her sides and her gloves on the floor.

Emmie drew herself up, and the color came back into her face.

"It's only an indefinite engagement as yet, perhaps," said the younger girl. Her dark eyes flew to Val's hands. "Did he give you a ring?"

"Yes," said Val, mechanically.

"Why don't you wear it?"