CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"I don't like the look of you," said Mrs. Donovan.
"Then you're hard to please." Neil turned at the foot of the steps tosay, trying to smile as he said it. "Harder than I am. I do like thelook of you."
The Donovans, mother and son, were both quite sufficiently attractive tothe eye at that moment. This was the second day of September, and alsothe second day of the county fair in Madison, five miles away--the bigday of the fair, and Neil's uncle had been up at dawn to escort theyounger Bradys there in a borrowed rig, and in the company of at leasthalf Green River in equipages of varied style and state of repair. Neilhad slept late, breakfasted sketchily, and dined elaborately alone withhis mother. Now the long, still, sunny afternoon was half over, and shestood in the kitchen door, watching him start for town.
The kitchen, newly painted this year, looked empty and unnaturally neatbehind her, but friendly and lived in, too, with the old, creakingrocker pulled to an inviting angle at the window overlooking the marsh,and a sofa under the other window, its worn upholstery covered freshlywith turkey-red; one splash of clear colour, sketched in boldly, just inthe corner where it satisfied the eye. Her neighbours did not take thishumble fabric seriously for decorative purposes; indeed, they would nothave permitted a sofa in the kitchen at all, but her neighbours were notof her gracious race. They could not wear a plain and necessary whiteapron like the completing touch to a correct toilette assumeddeliberately. Mrs. Donovan could, and she did to-day. Also her brownhair, dulled to a softer, more indefinite brown by its sprinkling ofwhite, rippled softly about her low forehead, and her dress was faded toa tender, vague blue like the blue of her eyes. Her eyes, almost on alevel with Neil's as she stood on the step above him, had the charm thatwas peculiarly their own to-day, cloudy as they were with the farawaylook of a race that believes in fairies, but warm and human, too, withan intimate mother look of concern for Neil.
Neil met it steadily, not a sullen boy as he would have been under thatquestioning a year ago, not resenting it at all, but keeping his secretsdeliberately. It had always been hard for her to make him answerquestions. It was not even easy for her to ask them now.
"You don't sleep," she began.
"Neither do you, if you've been catching me at it," reasoned her soncorrectly.
"You work too hard." She had made an accusation that he could not deny,so he only smiled his quick, flashing smile. "You won't even take a dayto yourself."
"I'll have the office and most of the town to myself this afternoon.I'll have to go. I've got something special to look into."
"Where's Charlie?" she demanded at once.
"Oh, he's not troubling me to-day. He's safe at Madison with his newmare. He'll break loose there, then come home and repent and staystraight for weeks and make no trouble for me. He's due to break loose.He's been good too long--too good to be true. He was in fine form lastnight." Mr. Charlie Brady's cousin grinned reminiscently.
"What do you mean?"
"He gave me quite a little side talk on good form in dress and diction.Charlie claims I won't make an orator, and he don't like my taste inties."
"Who does he think he is?" flashed Mr. Brady's aunt indignantly.
"Who do you think he is?" her son inquired unexpectedly. "For whateveryou think, that's me. I'm no better than Charlie."
"Charlie?" Mrs. Donovan gasped, and then plunged into an indignantdefence of her son, not pausing to take breath.
"You?" she began. "You that's planted firm on the ladder and right-handto the Judge already, and him getting older every day, and Theodore Burrjust kept on in the office because Everard's after Burr's wife. So heis, and the town knows it, and Theodore'll wake up to it soon. A finepartner Theodore is for the Judge, poor boy, but he's a good boy, too,though none too strong in the head; Lil Burr is a good girl, too, andshe'd make a good wife to Theodore if she could be left to herself.She'd make it up with Theodore, as many a girl has done that's got morefor her husband to forgive than Lil.
"Poor Lil. Her head's high above me now, but the time was she cried onmy shoulder; crying for Charlie, she was, before ever Charlie took upwith Maggie and Lil with Theodore; when the four of them were all youngtogether, and the one as good as the other. Young they were, and thehearts of them young--wild, doubtful hearts. Many's the time Lil wouldcome to me then, here in this same kitchen, and go down on her knees,her that was tall and a fine figure of a girl, and cling onto me, cryingher heart out; crying she was for all the world like--like----"
Mrs. Donovan checked herself abruptly with shrewd eyes upon her son.
"Like young things do cry, and tell you their troubles in tears, notwords." She ended somewhat vaguely, and came quickly back to her mainsubject again.
"You that can walk into the big rally next week and sit with the menthat count, and whisper and talk to them, and hold your head high, withnothing against you, and will be sitting up on the platform soon, withthe best of them, and be mayor yet, like Everard's going to be, orgovernor, maybe--you to compare yourself with Charlie, if he is myhalf-sister's own son. He's a drunken good-for-nothing. He's got nospirit in him if he'll stay here at all, where he's ashamed himself andmake a show of himself. How is it he's able to stay? Where does he getthe money he spends? This town don't pay it to him. Who does?"
"What put that into your head?" her son asked sharply.
"There's talk enough of it, and there'll be more. The whole town will beasking soon."
"The town asks a lot of questions it don't dare hear the answers to,"said Neil softly, unregarded. His mother returned to her grievance:
"You to be likening yourself to Charlie."
"When Charlie was twenty-five," Neil began slowly, "he was where I willbe then, or better. The Judge was a friend to him, too, and the Judgewas a better friend then to have. Charlie was setting up for himself,well thought of. My own father trusted him. When I was a boy and notgrown, Charlie was a son to him, and more. He was a better spoken lawyerthan I'll ever make, quick and smooth with his tongue, and he was fineappearing, and put up a better front than I do. I've gone part of theroad that Charlie went. What will stop me from going the whole road?What's beat Charlie is strong enough to beat me.... Don't look soscared, mother. I don't want to scare you. I only want you to be fair toCharlie."
"His heart's broke," she conceded, melting. "He's nothing with Maggiegone."
"His heart's broke, but that's not what beat him," her son stated withauthority. "He was beat before."
"When?"
"He was beat," Neil stated deliberately, "when Everard moved to GreenRiver."
This was a sweeping statement, but Neil did not qualify it. He droppedthe subject and stood silent, turning absent eyes upon the green expanseof marshy field that had been the starting-place of all his dreams whenhe was a dream-struck, gazing boy. His mother's eyes followed his,growing cloudier and soft as if even now she could read them there.
"Rests your eyes," Neil said, after a minute; "looks pretty, too, in thesun. It's a pretty green. We'll drain it, perhaps, by the time I'm mayoror governor. It might pay. I'll be going now."
"Neil, when did you see her last?" asked his mother suddenly.
"See who?" he muttered, and then flushed, and straightened himself, andmet her eyes bravely.
"I saw Judith yesterday," he said, "on Main Street, and--she cut me."
"Did she walk past you?"
"No, she wouldn't do that. She pretended not to see me, but she saw me,all right. She passed me in an automobile."
"Whose?"
"One of Everard's."
"Was he with her?"
"Yes."
"Neil," his mother began a little breathlessly, "I want to tell yousomething. I've said hard things to you, and they weren't deserved. Iknow it now, and I'm sorry. I want to take them all back. I've said hardthings about Judith Randall."
She hurried on, afraid of being stopped, but he made no move to stopher. He listened courteously, his face not changing.
"Neil, she's not what I thought. There's no harm in her. There's nopride in her. She's just lonesome. She's just a young, young girl. She'ssweet-spoken and sweet-faced. Neil, from all I hear----"
"You didn't hear all this direct from--Judith, then?"
"Judith?" she hesitated, flashing a questioning glance at him. "Is itlikely? How would I get the chance? But from all I hear, she's too goodfor Everard and the like. And she's not safe with them. She needs----"
"What?" interrupted her son gravely, with the air of seeking informationon a subject quite strange to him and rather distasteful. But she triedto go on.
"--Judith needs--any one that's fond of her, any one that she's fond of,to be good to her now. I've seen her, and it's in the eyes of her. Noman ever knows just what a woman is grieving for, but that's all one ifhe'll comfort her when she's grieving. She needs----"
Neil's eyes were expressionless. She sighed and put her two hands on hisshoulders. "Have it your own way," she said. "I'll say no more."
Neil caught at one of the hands on his shoulders and kissed it.
"For one thing," he said, "Judith or any girl needs a mother with aheart in her--like I've got, but you're the one in the world. I'mgoing."
But he did not go at once. Standing beside her, suddenly awkward andshy, he first gave her the confidence that she could not force from him,all in one generous breathless burst of words.
"Mother, Charlie's not the only one with his heart broke. Butheart-break isn't the worst thing I've got to bear. There's somethingelse. I can't tell you. I'd rather bear it alone. I've got to.Good-bye."
Then he left her standing still in the door, shading her cloudy blueeyes with one small hand and looking after him. He swung into the dustyroad and, keeping his head high and his eyes straight ahead, undazzledby the sharp sunlight of mid-afternoon on the long stretch of unshadedway, passed out of sight toward Green River.
The Wishing Moon Page 17
