Читать книгу King Spruce, A Novel - Holman Day - Страница 7

“Pete Lebree had money and land, Paul of Olamon had none,

Only his peavy and driving pole, his birch canoe and his gun.

But to Paul Nicola, lithe and tall, son of a Tarratine,

Had gone the heart of the governor’s child, Molly the island’s

queen.”

—Old Town Ballads.

The coachman usually drove into town from the “Oaklands” to bring John Barrett home from his office, for Barrett liked the spirited rush of his blooded horses.

But when his daughter occasionally anticipated the coachman, he resigned himself to a ride in her phaeton with only a sleepy pony to draw them.

Once more absorbed in his affairs, after the departure of Pulaski Britt, Barrett had forgotten the unpleasant morsel of gossip that Britt had brought to spice his interview.

But a familiar trilling call that came up to him stirred that unpleasant thing in his mind. When Barrett walked to the window and signalled to her that he had heard and would come, his expression was not exactly that of the fond father who welcomes his only child. It was not the expression that the bright face peering from under the phaeton’s parasol invited. And as he wore his look of uneasiness and discontent when he took his seat beside her, her face became grave also.

“Is it the business or the politics, father?” she asked, solicitously. “I’m jealous of both if they take away the smiles and bring the tired lines. If it’s business, let’s make believe we’ve got money enough. Haven’t we—for only us two? If it’s politics—well, when I’m a governor’s daughter I’ll be only an unhappy slave to the women, and you a servant of the men.”

But he did not respond to her rallying.

“I can’t get away from work this summer, Elva,” he said, with something of the curtness of his business tone. “I mean I can’t get away to go with you.”

“But I don’t want you to go anywhere, father,” protested the girl.

She was so earnest that he glanced sidewise at her. His air was that of one who is trying a subtle test.

“I feel that I must go north for a visit to my timber lands,” he went on; “I have not been over them for years. I’ve had pretty good proof that I am being robbed by men I trusted. I propose to go up there and make a few wholesome examples.”

He was accustomed to talk his business affairs with her. She always received them with a grave understanding that pleased him. Her dark eyes now met him frankly and interestedly. Looking at her as he did, with his strange thrill of suspicion that another man wanted her and that she loved the man, he saw that his daughter was beautiful, with the brilliancy of type that transcends prettiness. He realized that she had the wit and spirit which make beauty potent, and her eyes and bearing showed poise and self-reliance. Such was John Barrett’s appraisal, and John Barrett’s business was to appraise humankind. But perhaps he did not fully realize that she was a woman with a woman’s heart.

The pony was ambling along lazily under the elms, and the reflective lord of lands was silent awhile, glancing at his daughter occasionally from the corner of his eye. He noted, with fresh interest, that she had greeting for all she met—as gracious a word for the tattered man from the mill as for the youth who slowed his automobile to speak to her.

“These gossips have misunderstood her graciousness,” he mused, the thought giving him comfort.

But he was still grimly intent upon his trial of her.

“Because I cannot go with you, and because I shall be away in the woods, Elva,” he said, after a time, “I am going to send you to the shore with the Dustins.”

There was sudden fire in her dark eyes.

“I do not care to go anywhere with the Dustins,” she said, with decision. “I do not care to go anywhere at all this summer. Father!” There was a volume of protest in the intonation of the word. She had the bluntness of his business air when she was aroused. “I would be blind and a fool not to understand why you are so determined to throw me in with the Dustins. You want me to marry that bland and blessed son and heir. But I’ll not do any such thing.”

“You are jumping at conclusions, Elva,” he returned, feeling that he himself had suddenly become the hunted.

“I’ve got enough of your wit, father, to know what’s in a barrel when there’s a knot-hole for me to peep through.”

“Now that you have brought up the subject, what reason is there for your not wanting to marry Weston Dustin? He’s—”

“I know all about him,” she interrupted. “There is no earthly need for you and me to get into a snarl of words about him, dadah! He isn’t the man I want for a husband; and when John Barrett’s only daughter tells him that with all her heart and soul, I don’t believe John Barrett is going to argue the question or ask for further reasons or give any orders.”

He bridled in turn.

“But I’m going to tell you, for my part, that I want you to marry Weston Dustin! It has been my wish for a long time, though I have not wanted to hurry you.”

She urged on the pony, as though anxious to end a tête-à-tête that was becoming embarrassing.

“It might be well to save our discussion of Mr. Dustin until that impetuous suitor has shown that he wants to marry me,” she remarked, with a little acid in her tone.

“He has come to me like a gentleman, told me what he wants, and asked my permission,” stated Mr. Barrett.

“Following a strictly business rule characteristic of Mr. Dustin—‘Will you marry your timber lands to my saw-mill, Mr. John Barrett, one daughter thrown in?’”

“At least he didn’t come sneaking around by the back door!” cried her father, jarred out of his earlier determination to probe the matter craftily.

“Intimating thereby that I have an affair of the heart with the iceman or the grocery boy?” she inquired, tartly.

She was looking full at him now with all the Barrett resoluteness shining in her eyes. And he, with only the vague and malicious promptings of Pulaski Britt for his credentials, had not the courage to make the charge that was on his tongue, for his heart rejected it now that he was looking into her face.

“In the old times stern parents married off daughters as they would dispose of farm stock,” she said, whipping her pony with a little unnecessary vigor. “But I had never learned that the custom had obtained in the Barrett family. Therefore, father, we will talk about something more profitable than Mr. Dustin.”

Outside the city, in the valley where the road curved to enter the gates of “Oaklands,” they met Dwight Wade returning, chastened by self-communion.

Barrett did not look at the young man. He kept his eyes on his daughter’s face as she returned Wade’s bow. He saw what he feared. The fires of indignation quickly left the dark eyes. There was the softness of a caress in her gaze. Love displayed his crimson flag on her cheeks. She spoke in answer to Wade’s salutation, and even cast one shy look after him when he had passed. When she took her eyes from him she found her father’s hard gaze fronting her.

“Do you know that fellow?” he demanded, brusquely.

“Yes,” she said, her composure not yet regained; “when he was a student at Burton and I was at the academy I met him often at receptions.”

“What is that academy, a sort of matrimonial bureau?” His tone was rough.

“It is not a nunnery,” she retorted, with spirit. “The ordinary rules of society govern there as they do here in Stillwater.”

“Elva,” he said, emotion in his tones, “since your mother died you have been mistress of the house and of your own actions, mostly. Has that fellow there been calling on you?”

“He has called on me, certainly. Many of my school friends have called. Since he has been principal of the high-school I have invited him to ‘Oaklands.’”

“You needn’t invite him again. I do not want him to call on you.”

“For what reason, father?” She was looking straight ahead now, and her voice was even with the evenness of contemplated rebellion.

“As your father, I am not obliged to give reasons for all my commands.”

“You are obliged to give me a reason when you deny a young gentleman of good standing in this city our house. An unreasonable order like that reflects on my character or my judgment. I am the mistress of our home, as well as your daughter.”

“It’s making gossip,” he floundered, dimly feeling the unwisdom of quoting Pulaski Britt.

“Who is gossiping, and what is the gossip?” she insisted.

“I don’t care to go into the matter,” he declared, desperately. “If the young man is nothing to you except an acquaintance, and I have reasons of my own for not wanting him to call at my house, I expect you to do as I say, seeing that his exclusion will not mean any sacrifice for you.”

He was dealing craftily. She knew it, and resented it.

“I do not propose to sacrifice any of my friends for a whim, father. If your reasons have anything to do with my personal side of this matter, I must have them. If they are purely your own and do not concern me, I must consider them your whim, unless you convince me to the contrary, and I shall not be governed in my choice of friends. That may sound rebellious, but a father should not provoke a daughter to rebellion. You ought to know me too well for that.”

They were at the house, and he threw himself out of the phaeton and tramped in without reply. During their supper he preserved a resentful silence, and at the end went up-stairs to his den to think over the whole matter. It had suddenly assumed a seriousness that puzzled and frightened him. He had been routed in the first encounter. He resolved to make sure of his ground and his facts—and win.

Usually he did not notice who came or who went at his house. The still waters of his confidence in his daughter had never been troubled until the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt had breathed upon them.

This evening, when he heard a caller announced, he tiptoed to the head of the stairs and listened.

It was Dwight Wade, and at sight of him his pride took alarm, his anger flared. After the afternoon’s exasperating talk, this seemed like open and insulting contempt for his authority. It was as though the man were plotting with a disobedient daughter to flout him as a father. His purpose of calm thought was swept away by an unreasoning wrath. Muttering venomous oaths, he stamped down the stairs, whose carpet made his approach stealthy, though he did not intend it, and he came upon the two as Wade, his great love spurred by the day’s opposition, despondent in the present, fearing for the future, reached out his longing arms and took her to his heart.

They faced him as he stood and glowered upon them, a pathetic pair, clinging to each other.

“You sneaking thief!” roared Barrett.

The girl did not draw away. Wade felt her trembling hands seeking his, and he pressed them and kept her in the circle of his arm.

“I don’t care to advertise this,” Barrett went on, choking with his rage, “but there’s just one way to treat you, you thief, and that’s to have you kicked out of the house. Elva, up-stairs with you!”

She gently put away her lover’s arm, but she remained beside him, strong in her woman’s courage.

“I have always been proud of my father as a gentleman,” she said. “It hurts my faith to have you say such things under your own roof.”

“That pup has come under my roof to steal,” raged the millionaire, “and he’s got to take the consequences. Don’t you read me my duty, girl!”

Even Barrett in his wrath had to acknowledge that simple manliness has potency against pride of wealth. Wade took two steps towards him, the instinctive movement of the male that protects his mate.

“Mr. Barrett,” he said, gravely, “give me credit for honest intentions. If it is a fault to love your daughter with all my heart and soul, I have committed that fault. For me it’s a privilege—an honor that you can’t prevent.”

“What! I can’t regulate my own daughter’s marriage, you young hound?”

“You misunderstand me, Mr. Barrett. You cannot prevent me from loving her, even though I may never see nor speak to her again.”

And Elva, blushing, tremulous, yet determined, looked straight in her father’s eyes, saying, “And I love him.”

Barrett realized that his anger was making a sorry figure compared with this young man’s resolute calmness. With an effort he held himself in check.

“We won’t argue the love side of this thing,” he said, grimly. “I haven’t any notion of doing that with a nineteen-year-old girl and a pauper. But I want to inform you, young man, that the marriage of John Barrett’s only child and heir is a matter for my judgment to control. I’m taking it for granted that you are not sneak enough to run away with her, even if you have stolen her affections.”

The millionaire understood his man. He had calculated the effect of the sneer. He knew how New England pride may be spurred to conquer passion.

“These are wicked insults, sir,” said the young man, his face rigid and pale, “but I don’t deserve them.”

“I tell you here before my daughter that I have plans for her future that you shall not interfere with. This is no country school-ma’am, down on your plane of life—this is Elva Barrett, of ‘Oaklands,’ a girl who has temporarily lost her good sense, but who is nevertheless my daughter and my heiress. She will remember that in a little while. Take yourself out of the way, young man!”

The girl’s eyes blazed. Her face was transfigured with grief and love. She was about to speak, but Wade hastened to her and took her hand.

“Good-night, Elva.”

She understood him. His eyes and the quiver in his voice spoke to her heart. She clung to his hands when he would have withdrawn them. The look she gave her father checked that gentleman’s contemptuous mutterings.

“I am ashamed of my father, Mr. Wade,” she said, passionately. “I offer you the apologies of our home.”

“Say, look here!” snarled Barrett, this scornful rebelliousness putting his wits to flight, “if that’s the way you feel about me, put on your hat and go with him. I’ll be d—d if I don’t mean it! Go and starve.”

He realized the folly of his outburst as he returned their gaze. But he persisted in his puerile attack.

“Oh, you don’t want her that way, do you?” he sneered. “You want her to bring the dollars that go along with her!”

Then Wade forgot himself.

He wrested one hand from the gentle clasp that entreated him, and would have struck the mouth that uttered the wretched insult. The girl prevented an act that would have been an enormity. She caught his wrist, and when his arm relaxed he did not dare, at first, to look at her. Then he gave her one quick stare of horror and looked at his hand, dazed and ashamed.

Barrett, strangely enough, was jarred back to equanimity by the threat of that blow. He folded his arms, drew himself up, and stood there, the outraged master of the mansion restored to command, silent, cold, rigid, his whole attitude of indignant reproach more effective than all the curses in Satan’s lexicon.

Talk could not help that distressing situation. The young man’s white lips tried to frame the words “I apologize,” but even in his anguish the grim humor of this reciprocation of apology rose before his dizzy consciousness.

“Good-night!” he gasped.

Then he left her and went into the hall, John Barrett close on his heels. The millionaire watched him take his hat, followed him out upon the broad porch, and halted him at the edge of the steps.

“Mr. Wade,” he said, “you’d rather resign your position than be kicked out, I presume?”

“You mean that it is your wish that I should go away from Stillwater?”

“That is exactly what I mean. You resign, or I will have your resignation demanded by the school board.”

“I think my school relations are entirely my own business,” retorted the young man, fighting back his mounting wrath.

“I’ll make it mine, and have you kicked out of this town like a cur.”

Wade remembered at that instant the face of the man whom he had seen leave John Barrett’s office that morning. He recollected his words—“I’d relish bein’ the man that mistook him for a bear!” He knew now how that man felt. And feeling the lust of killing rise in his own soul for the first time, he clinched his fists, set his teeth, and strode away into the night.