The Wall Between Part 19

"I never knew him to be so sort of cowed down," reflected Mary. "You don't s'pose he's sick, do you, Jane?"

Mary turned anxious eyes toward her sister.

"Of course not," Jane retorted promptly. "Don't go worryin', Mary, an'

start to brew him some thoroughwort in the hope of havin' him down with a fever."

"I don't hope he'll have a fever," objected Mary in an injured tone.

Jane laughed.

"Now you know you'd love to have Martin sick so you could take care of him," said Jane provokingly. "Don't deny it."

"Jane Howe!"

"Well, you would. But he isn't sick, Mary. He's just tired. I wouldn't bother him about it if I was you. He hates bein' fussed over."

A sudden light of understanding had broken in on Jane's soul.

It came like a revelation, in an intuitive flash, backed neither by evidence nor by logic. Had she tried to give a reason for the astonis.h.i.+ng conviction that overwhelmed her, she could not have done so. Nevertheless she was as certain of it as she was that the night would follow the day.

Martin was neither hungry, angry, tired, worried, nor ill.

_He was in love!_

CHAPTER X

A TEMPTATION

Martin was indeed in love! Before a week had pa.s.sed no one knew it better than he.

During the solitary hours when his hands were busy thinning lettuce or weeding young corn, his mind had abundant leisure for reflection, and the theme on which his thoughts turned with increasing activity was always the same. Defy Fate as he would, he faced the realization that he loved Lucy Webster with every fiber of his being.

It was a mad and hopeless affection,--one which, for the sake of his own peace of mind if for no other reason, it would be wiser to strangle at its birth. Nevertheless, he did not strangle it; on the contrary, he hugged the romance to his breast and fed it upon all the tender imaginings of a man's first dream of love, conjuring before his vision one empty fantasy after another.

It was evening, and under the silver light of a thin crescent hanging low in the heaven he paced beneath the trees, Lucy upon his arm. Or lovely with the freshness of early morning, she stood with him in the field, the brightness of her eyes as sparkling as the flash of the dew-drops on the gra.s.s. Again she came before him, gliding quietly amid a maze of humble domestic tasks, transforming each with the grace of her presence. Or perhaps she sat quietly watching the embers of a winter's fire that touched her hair to a glory of glinting copper.

But wherever she moved, the land upon which she trod was _his_ land; the home where she toiled _his_ home; the hearth that warmed her _his_ hearth.

There were long hours when he was alone in the twilight with only his pipe for company, when through the smoke he seemed to see her close beside him.

Sometimes she smiled down into his eyes; sometimes she raised her sweet lips to his; and once she came to him with madonna-like holiness, a sleeping child in her arms,--her child--and his.

Then Martin would rouse himself to find his pipe smoldering, the lamp dim, and the chill of the night upon him. With an impatient shrug he would spring to his feet and tramp upstairs, hoping to find in slumber an escape from these fair but tormenting reveries. Sleep, however, came but fitfully, and even from the sacred confines of its privacy it was impossible to banish subconscious mirages of the day. There was no place to which he could flee where thoughts of Lucy Webster did not pursue him.

He saw her often now, very often, tripping buoyantly from house to barn, from barn to garden and back again, her round young arms bearing baskets of vegetables, or laden with s.h.i.+ning milk pails.

How proud her head! How light her step!

One morning she skirted the wall so close that his whisper might have reached her had he chosen to speak. He could see the fringe of dark lashes against her skin, the rise and fall of her round bosom, the lilacs that filled her hands. But he did not speak and neither did she. In fact, she seemed not to see him, so busy was she toying with her flowers. She must be fond of flowers, for she was seldom without one tucked in her gown.

These glimpses, however, were fleeting, and after he had yielded to the temptation of indulging in them he was wont to tax himself severely for his folly. Was he not already tortured with pain too poignant to be endured? Why rivet more tightly the fetters that goaded him?

He had fled once and for all from Circe's magic, vowing that never again should the sorceress work her charm upon him; and that vow he intended to keep. Nevertheless, it did not prevent him from stealing an occasional peep at the enchantress, if only to a.s.sure himself that her spell was as potent and deadly as he had supposed it. Surely, if he did not consort with her, looking could do no harm. Therefore he indulged his fancy, watching Lucy whenever she was within sight and each time becoming more helplessly entangled in her fascinations, until any escape from the thralldom of her beauty became impossible. His days were a cycle of tantalizing visions which ceased only with the coming of darkness; and when with the night he would have found release from their misery, it was only to discover that night an endless stretch of hours that intervened betwixt him and the moment when the visions might return again.

Poor Martin! He endured a h.e.l.l of suffering during those radiant summer days. He was melancholy, ecstatic, irritable by turns, ascending to the heights and plunging into the depths with an abruptness and unaccountability that was not only enigmatic to himself but to every one else with whom he came in contact. He kept Mary in a ferment of excitement trying to devise remedies for his successive ills. One day she would be sure he needed a tonic to dispel his listlessness and with infinite pains would brew the necessary ingredients together; but before the draught could be cooled and administered, Martin had rebounded to an unheard-of vitality. Ah, she would reason, it must be his appet.i.te that was at the bottom of the trouble. She must stimulate his desire for food. No sooner, however, was her concoction of herbs simmering on the stove than her erratic patient was devouring everything within sight with the zest of a cannibal. So it went, the affliction which oppressed him one day giving place to a new collection of symptoms on the morrow.

"I'd have Doctor Marsh to him if I had any opinion of the man," remarked Mary one night. "But I ain't ever been able to muster up my respect for that critter's principles since he left that medicine for 'Liza marked _'Keep in a Dark Place.'_ That was enough to shake my confidence in him forever. It was so under-handed. I'd rather had 'Liza sick for the rest of her life than that she should 'a' been dosed up on some stuff we had to keep hidden away lest somebody see it. If he was ashamed of the medicine, or it was anything we'd hadn't ought to had, he shouldn't 'a' given it to us. I never said nothin' to n.o.body 'bout it, but I poured the whole bottleful down the sink, and told Doctor Marsh that he needn't come again.

He pretended he couldn't see why, but I guess he understood, an' I hope the lesson did him good," concluded Mary with righteous zeal.

"So that was the reason Doctor Marsh stopped comin'!" Jane exclaimed. "I always wondered. You never told me that before."

"No," said Mary with dignity, "I never did."

"But, Mary,"--Jane broke into a laugh.

"You needn't laugh, Jane. It was a very serious matter."

"If you'd only explained it, Mary, I could have told you----"

"That is precisely why I didn't explain it, Jane," Mary answered. "I knew you would interfere, an' I felt it was somethin' that laid between me an'

my conscience. No matter what you'd 'a' said, I should 'a' felt the same way about it. Matters of right an' wrong are the affairs of me an' my Maker. n.o.body else on earth can settle 'em."

There were instances when it was useless to argue with Mary, and Jane saw that this was one of them.

Had she so willed she could not only have cleared up the mystery about Doctor Marsh's medicine, but she could have furnished her sister with the key to Martin's caprices, and thereby saved the metaphysician not only much worry but also much physical labor.

Mary and Eliza, however, lived in such a miniature world that Jane knew if Martin's secret were divulged it would become the unending topic of conversation from that moment on. Moreover, so intense would be his sisters' excitement concerning the affair, and so keen their interest and curiosity that they might blunder into destroying the delicate fabric of the romance altogether. Hence Jane kept her own council, speculating with amus.e.m.e.nt as to how long it would be before his two solicitous but blinded relatives should stumble upon the truth.

In the meantime the neighboring between the two families, so bravely begun, was not continued. Mary and Eliza Howe had not the courage or the initiative to attempt a second clandestine tea-party, much as they would have enjoyed it; and Jane saw no use in urging Lucy to the house. If Martin decreed to further the affair, he was quite capable of doing so without any aid of hers; and if he ordained to abandon it, as he evidently did, wild horses could not turn him from his purpose. Therefore Jane gave up all her aggressive attempts to heal the breach between Howe and Webster, and contented herself with waving to Lucy over the wall and calling a cheery greeting to the girl whenever she came within hailing distance.

Lucy was disappointed by this retreat of her neighbors into their former aloofness. Of course their action was traceable to Martin. It was his fault. No doubt he had gone home and berated his sisters for their friendliness and had so intimidated them that they had no choice but to bow to his will. Jane was the only one of them anyway who had the spirit to defy her brother, and presumably she had decided that the game was not worth the candle. Perhaps, too, she was right. To live in a daily purgatory made of life a sorry existence. She herself had found that out.

Her aunt was continually becoming more irritable and less sound of judgment, and there were times when Lucy feared that the warped mind would give way under the strain of repeated paroxysms of anger. Could Ellen have been persuaded to surrender the management of her affairs entirely into her niece's hands, she might have been spared much annoyance; but frail as she was, she persisted in retaining to the last her scepter of supremacy.

She went each day into the garden and put Tony out of humor by finding fault with everything he did; having demoralized his temper, she would return to the house to rasp Lucy's patience by heaping upon the girl's blameless head such remnants of wrath as she still cherished toward the long-suffering Portugese.

For sometime she had contented herself with this daily programme, not varying it by venturing away from the place, even to carry her garden truck to market. Therefore Lucy was astounded when one morning her aunt appeared at breakfast, dressed in her shabby black cashmere and wearing her cameo pin, and announced she was going to drive to town.

"I've an errand to do," she said without preamble, "an' I shan't be home till noon. You needn't go falutin' over to the Howes', neither, the minute my back is turned, as you did the last time I went off."

Lucy smiled good-humoredly.

"I'm goin' to see a lawyer," her aunt went on. "Lawyer Benton."

No reply appearing necessary, Lucy did not speak.