CHAPTER IX
BROTHER AND SISTER
As he turned into Main Street he espied the figure of a woman coming
toward him from the direction of the public Square. She was perhaps
a hundred yards farther down the street and was picking her way
gingerly, mincingly, along the narrow path at the roadside. His
mind was so fully occupied with thoughts of a most disturbing character
that he paid no attention to her, except to note that she was dressed
in black and that in holding her voluminous skirt well off the ground
to avoid the mud-puddles, she revealed the bottom of a white, beruffled
petticoat.
His meditations were interrupted and his interest suddenly aroused
when he observed that she had stopped stock-still in the path. After
a moment, she turned and walked rapidly, with scant regard for the
puddles, in the direction from which she had come. Fifteen or twenty
paces down the road, she came to what was undoubtedly a path or
"short cut" through the wood. Into this she turned hastily
and was lost to view among the trees and hazel-brush.
He had recognized her,--or rather he had divined who she was. He
quickened his pace, bent upon overtaking her. Then, with the thrill
of the hunter, he abruptly whirled and retraced his steps. With
the backwoodsman's cunning he hastened over the ground he had already
traversed, chuckling in anticipation of her surprise when she found
him waiting for her at the other end of the "short cut."
He had noticed a path opening into the woods at a point almost opposite
his own house, and naturally assumed that it was the one she was
now pursuing in order to avoid an encounter with him. His long legs
carried him speedily to the outlet and there he posted himself.
He could hear her coming through the brush, although her figure
was still obscured by the tangle of wildwood; the snapping of dead
twigs under her feet; the scuffling of last year's leaves on the
path, now wet and plastered with mud and the slime of winter; the
swish of branches as she thrust them aside.
She emerged, breathless, into a little open spot, not twenty feet
away, and stopped to listen, looking back through the trees and
underbrush to see if she was being followed. Her skirts were drawn
up almost to the knees and pinched closely about her grey-stockinged
legs. He gallantly turned away and pretended to be studying the
house across the road. Presently he felt his ears burning; he turned
to meet the onslaught of her scornful, convicting eyes.
She had not moved. Her hands, having released the petticoat, were
clenched at her sides. Her cheeks were crimson, and her dark eyes,
peering out from the shade of the close-fitting hood of her black
bonnet, smouldered with wrath,--and, if he could have read them
better, a very decided trace of maidenly dismay.
"Ah, there you are," he cried, lifting his hat. "I
was wondering whether you would come out at this--"
"Can't you see I am trying to avoid you?" she demanded
with extreme frigidity.
"I rather fancied you were," said he easily. "So
I hurried back here to head you off. I trust you will not turn around
and run the other way, now that I have almost trapped you. Because
if you do, I shall catch up with you in ten jumps."
"I wish you would go away," she cried. "I don't want
to see you,--or talk to you."
"Then why did you leave word for me to come to your house to
see you?" he challenged. "I suspect you know by this time,"
she replied, significantly.
He hesitated, regarding her with some uneasiness. "What do
you mean?" he fenced.
"Well, you surely know that it was my mother who wanted to
see you, and not I," she said, almost insolently. "Are
you going to keep me standing here in the mud and slush all day?"
"No, indeed," he said. "Please come out."
"Not until you go away."
"Why don't you want to talk to me? What have I done?"
"You know very well what you have done," she cried, hotly.
"In the first place, I don't like you. You have made it very
unpleasant for my mother,--who certainly has never done you any
harm. In the second place, I resent your interference in my affairs.
Wait! Do not interrupt me, please. Maybe you have not exactly interfered
as yet, but you are determined to do so,--for the honour of the
family, I suppose." She spoke scathingly. "I defy you,--and
mother, too. I am not a child to be--"
"I must interrupt you," he exclaimed. "I haven't
the slightest idea what you are talking about."
"Don't lie," she cried, stamping her foot. "Give
me credit for a little intelligence. Don't you suppose I know what
mother wanted to see you about? There! I can see the guilty look
in your eyes. You two have been putting your heads together, in
spite of all the ill-will you bear each other, and there is no use
in denying it. I am a naughty little girl and my big brother has
been called in to put a stop to my foolishness. If you--What are
you laughing at, Mr. Gwynne?" she broke off to demand furiously.
"I am laughing at you," he replied, succinctly. "You
ARE like a little girl in a tantrum,--all over nothing at all. Little
girls in tantrums are always amusing, but not always naughty. Permit
me to assure you that your mother and I have not discussed your
interesting affair with Mr. Lapelle. We talked of business mat--"
"Then," she cried, "how do you happen to know anything
about Mr. Lapelle and me? Aha! You're not as clever as you think
you are. That slipped out, didn't it? Now I know you were discussing
my affairs and nothing else. Well, what is the verdict? What are
you going to do to me? Lock me in my room, or tie me hand and foot,
or--Please stay where you are. It is not necessary to come any nearer,
Mr. Gwynne."
He continued his advance through the thicket, undeterred by the
ominous light in her eyes. She stood her ground.
"I think we had better talk the matter over quietly,--Viola,"
he said, affecting sternness. "We can't stand here shouting
at each other. It is possible we may never have another chance to
converse freely. As a matter of fact, I do not intend to thrust
myself upon you or your mother. That is understood, I hope. We have
nothing in common and I daresay we can go our own ways without seriously
inconveniencing one another. I want you to know, however, that I
went to that house over there this afternoon because I thought you
wanted to consult with me about something. I was prepared to help
you, or to advise you, or to do anything you wanted me to do. You
were not there. I felt at first that you had played me a rather
shabby trick. Your mother,--my step-mother,--got me there under
false pretences, solely for the purpose of straightening out a certain
matter in connection with the--well, the future. She doubtless realized
that I would not have come on her invitation, so she used you as
a decoy. In any event, I am now glad that I saw her and talked matters
over. It does not mean that we shall ever be friendly, but we at
least understand each other. For your information I will state that
your mother did not refer to the affair at Striker's, nor did I.
I know all about it, however. I know that you went out there to
meet Lapelle. You planned to run away with him and get married.
I may add that it is a matter in which I have not the slightest
interest. If you want to marry him, all well and good. Do so. I
shall not offer any objection as a brother or as a counsellor. If
you were to ask for my honest opinion, however, I should--"
"I am not asking for it," she cried, cuttingly.
"--I should advise you to get married in a more or less regular
sort of way in your mother's home."
"Thank you for the advice," she said, curtly. "I
shall get married when and where I please,--and to whom I please,
Mr. Gwynne."
"In view of the fact that I am your brother, Viola, I would
suggest that you call me Kenneth."
"I have no desire to claim you as a brother, or to recognize
you as one," said she.
He smiled. "With all my heart I deplore the evil fate that
makes you a sister of mine."
She was startled. "That--that doesn't sound very--pretty,"
she said, a trifle dashed.
"The God's truth, nevertheless. At any rate, so long as you
have to be my sister, I rejoice in the fact that you are an extremely
pretty one. It is a great relief. You might have turned out to be
a scarecrow. I don't mind confessing that last night I said to myself,
'There is the most beautiful girl in all the world,' and I can't
begin to tell you how shocked I was this morning when Striker informed
me that you were my half-sister. He knocked a romantic dream into
a cocked hat,--and--But even so, sister or no sister, Viola, you
still remain beyond compare the loveliest girl I have ever seen."
There was something in his eyes that caused her own to waver,--something
that by no account could be described as brotherly. She looked away,
suddenly timid and confused. It was something she had seen in Barry
Lapelle's eyes, and in the eyes of other ardent men. She was flustered
and a little distressed.
"I--I--if you mean that," she said, nervously, "I
suppose I--ought to feel flattered."
"Of course, I mean it,--but you need not feel flattered. Truth
is no form of flattery."
She had recovered herself. "Who told you about Barry Lapelle
and me?" she demanded.
"You mean about last night's adventure?" he countered,
a trifle maliciously.
She coloured. "I suppose some one has--Oh, well, it doesn't
matter. I sha'n't ask you to betray the sneak who--"
"Tut, tut, my dear Viola! You must not--"
"Don't call me your dear Viola!"
"Well, then, my dear sister,--surely you cannot expect me to
address you as Miss Gwyn?" in mild surprise.
"Just plain Viola, if you must have a name for me."
"That's better," said he, approvingly.
"Whoever told you was a sneak," she said, wrathfully.
She turned her face away, but not quickly enough to prevent his
seeing her chin quiver slightly.
"At any rate, it was not your mother," he said. "I
have Striker's permission to expose what you call his treachery.
He thought it was his duty to tell me under the circumstances. And
while I am about it, I may as well say that I think you conspired
to take a pretty mean advantage of those good and faithful friends.
You deceived them in a most outrageous manner. It wasn't very thoughtful
or generous of you, Viola. You might have got them into very serious
trouble with your mother,--who, I understand, holds the mortgage
on their little farm and could make it extremely unpleasant for
them if she felt so inclined."
She was staring at him in wide-eyed astonishment, her red lips slightly
parted. She could not believe her ears. Why, he was actually scolding
her! She was being reprimanded! He was calmly, deliberately reproving
her, as if she were a mischievous child! Amazement deprived her
momentarily of the power of speech.
"To be sure," he went on reflectively, "I can appreciate
the extremities to which you were driven. The course of true love
was not running very smoothly. No doubt your mother was behaving
abominably. Mothers frequently do behave that way. This young man
of yours may be,--and I devoutly hope he is,--a very worthy fellow,
one to whom your mother ought to be proud and happy to see you married.
In view of her stand in the matter, I will go so far as to say that
you were probably doing the right thing in running away from home
to be married. I think I mentioned to you last night that I am of
a very romantic nature. Lord bless you, I have lain awake many a
night envying the dauntless gentlemen of feudal days who bore their
sweethearts away in gallant fashion pursued by ferocious fathers
and a score or more of blood-thirsty henchmen. Ah, that was the
way for me! With my lady fair seated in front of me upon the speeding
palfrey, my body between her and the bullets and lances and bludgeons
of countless pursuers! Zounds! Odds blood! Gadzooks! and so forth!
Not any of this stealing away in the night for me! Ah, me! How different
we are in these prosaic days! But, even so, if I were you, the next
time I undertake to run away with the valiant Mr. Lapelle I should
see to it that he does his part in the good old-fashioned way. And
I should not drag such loyal, honest folk as Striker and his wife
into the business and then ride merrily off, leaving them to pay
the Piper."
His heart smote him as he saw her eyes fill with tears. He did not
mistake them for tears of shame or contrition,--far from it, he
knew they were born of speechless anger. He had hurt her sorely,
even deliberately, and he was overcome by a sudden charge of compassion--and
regret. He wanted to comfort her, he wanted to say something,--anything,--to
take away the sting of chastisement.
He was not surprised when she swept by him, her head high, her cheeks
white with anger, her stormy eyes denying him even so much as a
look of scorn. He stood aside, allowing her to pass, and remained
motionless, gazing after her until she turned in at her own gate
and was lost to view. He shook his head dubiously and sighed.
"Little Minda," he mused, under his breath. "You
were my playmate once upon a time,--and now! Now what are you? A
rascal's sweetheart, if all they say is true. Gad, how beautiful
you are!" He was walking slowly through the path, his head
bent, his eyes clouded with trouble. "And how you are hating
me at this moment. What a devil's mess it all is!"
His eye fell upon something white lying at the edge of the path
a few feet ahead. It was a neatly folded sheet of note paper. He
stood looking down at it for a moment. She must have dropped it
as she came through. It was clean and unsoiled. A message, perhaps,
from Barry Lapelle, smuggled to her through the connivance of a
friendly go-between,--the girl she had gone to visit, what was her
name? He stooped to pick it up, but before his fingers touched it
he straightened up and deliberately moved it with the toe of his
boot to a less exposed place among the bushes, where he would have
failed to see it in passing. Then he strode resolutely away without
so much as a glance over his shoulder, and, coming to the open road,
stepped briskly off in the direction of the public Square. His conscience
would have rejoiced had he betrayed it by secreting himself among
the bushes for a matter of five minutes,--quaint paradox, indeed!--for
he would have seen her steal warily, anxiously into the thicket
in search of the lost missive,--and he would have been further exalted
by the little cry of relief that fell from her lips as she snatched
it up and sped incontinently homeward, as if pursued by all the
eyes in Christendom.
As a matter of fact, it was not a letter from Barry to Viola. It
was the other way round. She had written him a long letter absolving
herself from blame in the contretemps of the night before, at the
same time confessing that she was absolutely in the dark as to how
her mother had found out about their plans. Suffice to say, she
HAD found out early in the evening and, to employ her own words,
"You know the result." Then she went on to say that, all
things considered, she was now quite sure she could never, never
consent to make another attempt.
"I am positive," she wrote, ingenuously, "that mother
will relent in time, and then we can be married without going to
so much trouble about it." Farther on she admitted that, "Mother
is very firm about it now, but when she realizes that I am absolutely
determined to marry you, I am sure she will give in and all will
be well." At the end she said: "For the present, Barry
dear, I think you had better not come to the house. She feels very
bitter toward you after last night. We can see each other at Effie's
and other places. After all, she has had a great sorrow and she
is so very unhappy that I ought not to hurt her in any way if I
can help it. I love you, but I also love her. Please be kind and
reasonable, dear, and do not think I am losing heart. I am just
as determined as ever. Nothing can change me. You believe that,
don't you, Barry dear? I know how impulsive you are and how set
in your ways. Sometimes you really frighten me but I know it is
because you love me so much. You must not do anything rash. It would
spoil everything. I do wish you would stay away from that awful
place down by the river. Mother would feel differently toward you,
I know, if you were not there so much. She knows the men play cards
there for money and drink and swear. I believe you will keep your
promise never to touch a drop of whiskey after we are married, but
when I told her that she only laughed at me. By this time you must
know that my brother has come to Lafayette. He arrived this morning.
He knows nothing about what happened last night but I am afraid
mother will tell him when she sees him to-day. It would not surprise
me if they bury the hatchet and join hands and try to make a good
little girl out of me. I think he is quite a prim young man. He
spent the night at Striker's and I saw him there. I must say he
is good-looking. He is so good-looking that nobody would ever suspect
that he is related to me." She signed herself, "Your loving
and devoted and loyal Viola."
She had been unable to get the letter to him that day, and for a
very good reason. Her messenger, Effie Wardlow's young brother,
reached the tavern just in time to see Barry emerge, quite tipsy
and in a vile temper, arguing loudly with Jack Trentman and Syd
Budd, the town's most notorious gamblers.
The three men went off toward the ferry. The lad very sensibly decided
this was no time to deliver a love letter to Mr. Lapelle, so forthwith
returned it to the sender, who, after listening bleakly to a somewhat
harrowing description of her lover's unsteady legs and the direction
in which they carried him, departed for home fully convinced that
something dreadful was going to happen to Barry and that she would
be to blame for it.
Halfway home she decided that her mother was equally if not more
to blame than she, and, upon catching sight of her lordly, self-satisfied
brother, acquitted herself of ALL responsibility and charged everything
to her meddling relatives. Her encounter with the exasperating Kenneth,
however, served to throw a new and most unwelcome light upon the
situation. It WAS a shabby trick to play upon the Strikers. She
had not thought of it before. And how she hated him for making her
think of it!
The first thing she did upon returning to the house with the recovered
letter was to proceed to the kitchen, where, after reading it over
again, she consigned it to the flames. She was very glad it had
not been delivered to Barry. The part of it referring to the "place
down by the river" would have to be treated with a great deal
more firmness and decision. That was something she would have to
speak very plainly about.
By this time she had reached the conclusion that Barry was to blame
for THAT, and that nothing more terrible could happen to him than
a severe headache,--an ailment to which he was accustomed and which
he treated very lightly in excusing himself when she took him to
task for his jolly lapses. "All red-blooded fellows take a
little too much once in a while," he had said, more than once.