Читать книгу Forgive Us Our Trespasses - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 15

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Zandy was in line for the Perkins Medal in oratory. On no account must that event be jeopardized.... Could Julia, he wondered, manage to carry on until the oratorical contest was over? February third, it was. How about it, Julia, darling?

Julia would certainly try. Zandy must not be disqualified for that medal. Perhaps his father would be that much more kind, if he won it. But, dear boy, let's arrange to tell them the very minute the contest is over! It's getting serious! Please!

It so happened that on the very night when Zandy was laboriously composing a letter which began, "My dear Father Miller (for I really want to call you Father Miller, because your Julia is my wife; though I'm afraid you will be annoyed, a little, that we haven't told you earlier about our wedding)"—Greta had whispered to Susan, and Susan, white-faced, had whispered to Martha, and Martha, trembling with fear and indignation, had entered Julia's room without knocking.

Julia was outstretched, her dark-circled eyes were closed, her hands lay supine, palms upward, on the counterpane. Martha looked at her for a long time before she spoke. She swallowed, noisily.

"You might as well make a clean breast of it," said Martha, hoarsely. Julia opened her eyes and smiled.

"In the drawer of my desk, Martha. Here's the key. That long paper. That's it. My marriage licence."

"So you run off and got married, did yuh?"

"Well—not exactly... run off. We were married during the County Institute."

"And you was in Albion, a-livin' with a man, while we thought you was a-goin' to that school that cost all o' Thirty Dollars!"

"He was my husband—and it was my money."

"Humph! He don't seem to set much store by yuh... a-leavin' yuh to face the music. What's his name?" Martha adjusted her steel-bowed spectacles, and stooped under the lamp. "Alexander Craig... who's that? You don't mean t' say it's that rich Craig's boy what was here last summer a-visitin' at the Squire's?"

Julia nodded.

"It's a heap the Craigs would do fer a Miller! You wait till your father hears o' this. He'll make that young rascal sweat! He'll have th' law on him!"

So—at long last, Julia had no further need to punish her desperately ill-treated body. Ungirded—physically, mentally—she felt that her worst troubles were behind her. They could say what they liked, they could do what they would—she had made her last agonizing trip to the schoolhouse. There was some comfort in that, at least.

Old Ferd was torn between grief and anger. He wanted to pour out his rage without delay. He would write to that lousy whelp and tell him, for once, what somebody should have told him long ago—that he was a low-lived coward, a dirty blackguard, and—and—if he ever darkened their door, except to bring the money to pay for Julia's sickness, he would be pitched out!... And he did write that, and more, pounded a stamp on the envelope with a fist that looked amazingly like Julia's, only not so white, and stalked, half-blind with hate, to the Post Office, where he was regarded with fresh interest, the loafers in corduroy coats and felt boots noting his state of mind and winking at one another out of the tails of their eyes. He was aware of it. Everybody knew, damn them!... There was a letter for Julia. She always got the mail, herself.... He would tear it up, and throw it in the river. The sleety gale sobered him, somewhat, on the way home. He did not destroy the letter.