Flamsted quarries Part 28

He drew back then to look at her in amazement; turned away for a moment as if half dazed; then, holding her to his side with his left arm he laid his ear hard over her heart. What was it that paled the man's flushed cheeks?

The girl's heart was beating slowly, calmly, even faintly. He caught her wrist, pressing his fingers on her pulse--there was not the suspicion of a flutter. He let her go then. She stood before him; her eyes were raised fearlessly to his.

"I'm going to row back now--no, don't speak--not a word--"

She turned and walked slowly down to the boat; cast it off; poled it with one oar out of the tall arrowhead and the thick fringe of lily-pads; took her seat; fitted the oars to the rowlocks, dipped them, and proceeded to row steadily down the reach towards The Bow.

Champney Googe stood where she had left him till he watched her out of sight around the curve; then he went over to the willows and sat down.

It took time for him to recover from his debauch of feeling. He made himself few thoughts at first; but as time pa.s.sed and the shadows lengthened on the reach, he came slowly to himself. The night fell; the man still sat there, but the thoughts were now crowding fast, uncomfortably fast. He dropped his head into his hands, so covering his face in the dark for very shame that he had so outraged his manhood. He knew now that she knew he had not intended to speak that "word" between them; but no finer feeling told him that she had saved him from himself.

In that hour he saw himself as he was--unworthy of a good woman's love.

He saw other things as well; these he hoped to make good in the near future, but this--but this!

He rowed back under cover of the dark to Champ-au-Haut. Octavius, who was wondering at his non-appearance with the boat, met him with a lantern at the float.

"Here's a telegram just come up; the operator gave it to me for you. I told him you was out in the boat and would be here 'fore you went up home."

"All right, Tave." He opened it; read it by the light of the lantern.

"I've got to go back to New York--it's a matter of business. It's all up with my vacation and the yachting cruise now,"--he looked at his watch,--"seven; I can get the eight-thirty accommodation to Hallsport, and that will give me time to catch the Eastern express."

"Hold on a minute and I'll get your trap from the stable--it's all ready for you."

"No, I'll get it myself--good-bye, Tave, I'm off."

"Good-bye, Champney."

"Champ's worried about something," he said to himself; he was making fast the boat. "I never see him look like that--I hope he hasn't got hooked in with any of those Wall Street sharks."

In a few minutes he heard the carriage wheels on the gravel in the driveway. He stopped on his way to the stable to listen.

"He's driving like Jehu," he muttered. He was still listening; he heard the frequent snorting of the horse, the rapid click of hoofs on the highroad--but he did not hear what was filling the driver's ears at that moment: the roar of an unseen cataract.

Champney Googe was realizing for the first time that he was in mid-stream; that he might not be able to breast the current; that the eddying water about him was in fact the whirlpool; that the rush of what he had deemed mere harmless rapids was the prelude to the thunderous fall of a cataract ahead.

IX

For several weeks after her nephew's visit, Mrs. Champney occupied many of her enforced leisure half-hours in trying to put two and two together in their logical combination of four; but thus far she had failed. She learned through Octavius that Champney had returned to New York on Sat.u.r.day evening; that in consequence he was obliged to give up the cruise with the Van Ostends; from Champney himself she had no word. Her conclusion was that there had been no chance for him to see Aileen during the twelve hours he was in town, for the girl came home as requested shortly before six, but with a headache, and the excuse for it that she had rowed too far in the sun on the way up to the sheds.

"My nephew told me he was going to row up to the sheds, too--did you happen to meet him there?" she inquired. She was studying the profile of the girl's flushed and sunburned face. Aileen had just said good night and was about to leave Mrs. Champney's room. She turned quickly to face her. She spoke with sharp emphasis:

"I did _not_ meet your nephew at the sheds, Mrs. Champney, nor did I see him there--and I'll thank you, after what you said to me this morning, to draw no more conclusions in regard to your nephew's seeing or meeting me at the sheds or anywhere else--it's not worth your while; for I've no desire either to see or meet him again. Perhaps this will satisfy you."

She left the room at once without giving Mrs. Champney time to reply.

A self-satisfied smile drew apart Mrs. Champney's thin lips; evidently the girl's lesson was a final and salutary one. She would know her place after this. She determined not to touch on this subject again with Aileen; she might run the risk of going too far, and she desired to keep her with her as long as possible. But she noticed that the singing voice was heard less and less frequently about the house and grounds. Octavius also noticed it, and missed it.

"Aileen, you don't sing as much as you did a while ago--what's the matter?" he asked her one day in October when she joined him to go up street after supper on an errand.

"Matter?--I've sung out for one while; I'm taking a rest-cure with my voice, Tave."

"It ain't the kind of rest-cure that'll agree with you, nor I guess any of us at Champo. There ain't no trouble with her that's bothering you?"

He pointed with a backward jerk of his thumb to the house.

"No."

"She's acted mad ever since I told her Champney had to go back that night and tend to business; guess she'd set her heart on his making a match on that yachting cruise--well, 't would be all in the family, seeing there's Champney blood in the Van Ostends, good blood too,--there's no better," he added emphatically.

"Oh, Tave, you're always blowing the Champneys' horn--"

"And why shouldn't I?"--he was decidedly nettled. "The Champneys are my folks, my townspeople, the founders of this town, and their interests have always been mine--why shouldn't I speak up for 'em, I'd like to know? You won't find no better blood in the United States than the Champneys'."

Aileen made no reply; she was looking up the street to Poggi's fruit stall, where beneath a street light she saw a crowd of men from the quarries.

"Romanzo said there was some trouble in the sheds--do you know what it is?" she asked.

"No, I can't get at the rights of it; they didn't get paid off last week, so Romanzo told me last night, but he said Champney telegraphed he'd fix it all right in another week. He says dollars are scarce just at this time--crops moving, you know, and market dull."

She laughed a little scornfully. "You seem to think Mr. Googe can fix everything all right, Tave."

"Champney's no fool; he's 'bout as interested in this home work as anybody, and if he says it'll be all right, you may bet your life it will be--There's Jo Quimber coming; p'raps he's heard something and can tell us."

"What's that crowd up to, Uncle Jo?" said Aileen, linking her arm in the old man's and making him right about face to walk on with them.

"Talkin' a strike. I heerd 'em usin' Champ's name mighty free, Tave, just now--guess he'd better come home an' calm 'em down some, or there'll be music in the air thet this town never danced to yet. By A.

J., it riles me clear through to hear 'em!"

"You can't blame them for wanting their pay, Uncle Jo." There was a challenge in the girl's voice which Uncle Jo immediately accepted.

"So ye've j'ined the majority in this town, hev ye, Aileen? I don't say ez I'm blamin' anybody fer wantin' his pay; I'm jest sayin' it don't set well on me the way they go at it to get it. How's the quickest way to git up a war, eh? Jest keep talkin' it up--talkin' it up, an' it's sure to come. They don't give a man like Champ a chance--talkin' behind his back and usin' a good old Flamsted name ez ef 't wuz a mop rag!" Joel's indignation got the better of his discretion; his voice was so loud that it began to attract the attention of some men who were leaving Poggi's; the crowd was rapidly dispersing.

"Sh--Joel! they'll hear you. You've been standing up for everything foreign that's come into this town for the last seven years--what's come over you that you're going back on all your preaching?"

"I ain't goin' back on nothin'," the old man replied testily; "but a man's a man, I don't keer whether he's a Polack or a 'Merican--I don't keer nothin' 'bout thet; but ef he's a man he knows he'd oughter stop backbitin' and hittin' out behind another man's back--he'd oughter come out inter the open an' say, 'You ain't done the right thing by me, now let's both hev it out', instead of growlin' and grumblin' an' spittin'

out such all-fired nonsense 'bout the syndicaters and Champ--what's Champ got to do with it, anyway? He can't make money for 'em."

The crowds were surging past them; the men were talking together; their confused speech precluded the possibility of understanding what was said.

"He's no better than other men, Uncle Jo," the girl remarked after the men had pa.s.sed. She laughed as she spoke, but the laugh was not a pleasant one; it roused Octavius.

"Now, look here, Aileen, you stop right where you are--"

She interrupted him, and her voice was again both merry and pleasant, for they were directly opposite Luigi's shop: "I'm going to, Tave; I'm going to stop right here; Mrs. Champney sent me down on purpose to get some of those late peaches Luigi keeps; she said she craved them, and I'm going in this very minute to get them--"

She waved her hand to both and entered the shop.