Nobody's Child

"Hit's mos' ten, suh."

"Lord! Why didn't some one wake me before! I don't deserve any breakfast. The family – I hope nobody waited for me?"

"Miss Judith an' Mis' Morrison, they ain't had breakfus yet."

Baird pulled off his coat. "Tell them I'll be down right away – it won't take me ten minutes to shave… Just bring me some hot water, will you?"

The woman served him in silence. Baird would have liked to get some hint of the state of things before he went down, but the family reserve seemed to reside in the black woman also. He saw now that, though powerfully and superbly built, she was not young; she was probably an old family servant. In the hasty minutes he required for dressing, Baird tried to adjust himself to the perfectly normal atmosphere. What had happened while he slept he could not guess. He could tell better when he went down.

Judith and Mrs. Morrison were in the drawing-room, and welcomed him exactly as he had been welcomed when he first entered Westmore. Both bore the marks of anxiety and lack of sleep. In the bright light Mrs. Morrison looked blanched and old, and Judith was also colorless and with heavy shadows under her eyes, but both were gracefully vivacious; their manner was as usual.

"It was a perfect shame to wake you!" Judith declared, when Baird apologized. "We were so certain we heard you moving."

"Don't you worry, Mr. Baird," Mrs. Morrison said. "I only just came down myself, and it was I told Hetty you were up – my old ears deceived me… Let us go in, Judith – I'm ready fo' your beaten-biscuits."

It seemed that they were to breakfast alone, and with no account given of the absent ones, though Judith did say, "Sunday breakfast is an elastic meal at Westmore. We come down early or late, alone or in relays, as we feel inclined, and, somehow, we manage to be fed."

"I never have been certain which a man likes best – to eat or to sleep," Mrs. Morrison remarked briskly. "The fascinatin'ly natural creatures seem to like both so well – and to drink best of all."

Baird laughed. "That depends on who is ministering to us at the moment. Just now, I should much prefer to eat."

It was all so perfectly normal and natural, with the sunshine slanting across the floor and the windows open to the breeze, that Baird might almost have persuaded himself that he had dreamed – except for the consciousness that he had slept in his clothes and for the telltale pallor and lines of anxiety in Judith's face. And he was certain that he had been waked purposely; he was not wanted at the noonday meal. They intended that he should depart from Westmore in ignorance.

He was soon given a chance to declare his intentions. "I am going to ride to church this morning," Judith said. "Do you care to go, Mr. Baird?"

"Drive to church, you mean, Judith – I'm going with you," Mrs. Morrison intervened.

"Not this morning," Baird said. "I want to get back to the club before noon."

Judith did not urge him, and Baird decided that their determination to drive four miles to church when they were both still ridden by anxiety and drooping with fatigue must also be with purpose, a still further maintaining of appearances; doubtless others beside himself were to be kept in the dark. They were heroic in their methods, these people. They were quite capable of sitting in church with heads high, knowing meantime that something ghastly lay in the disused office. His eyes had not deceived him the night before.

Baird was thinking of it, when, suddenly, heavy steps sounded on the veranda, followed by the tumbling and whining of several hounds, and a voice he knew well said sharply: "Be off, now! Get out!" Then the rear door opened and shut and a man strode through the hall, his spurs jingling as he came.

It was Garvin Westmore.

At the first sound, Judith had half risen; then she dropped back, and the next moment Garvin came in, in riding clothes, booted and spurred, clean-shaven but haggard. Baird was astounded to say the least. Had he been a nervous person, he would have been shocked. His surmises had fallen flat.

Garvin tossed aside his cap. "Still at breakfast?" he said casually. "Hello, Baird." He drew up a chair and sat down.

Baird did not know how the other two looked; he was conscious that he was staring. "Hello – " he returned blankly.

"You'll have coffee, Garvin – " Judith was saying, "and what else?"

"Anything. I'm not hungry."

He looked infinitely tired. His eyes harbored melancholy easily, as did Edward's; he looked somberly at Judith as he tossed a folded slip of paper across to her. "From Ed," he said briefly. Judith glanced at it, then set it aside.

Baird's brain was working again. So Edward had gone – where? And why?

"Is it going to be hot, Garvin?" Mrs. Morrison asked.

"It is already hot, Aunt Carlotta." His voice was too even for sarcasm.

"Aunt Carlotta and I are going to church, and Mr. Baird thinks he must go back to the club. What are you going to do?" Judith said, in the same clear way in which she had spoken to her own people the night before.

Garvin straightened a little under its warning note. "I? I am going to ride – if I can have Black Betty – the bay is about done. You and Aunt Carlotta can represent the family at church, and I'll show myself at the village. I'll ride as far as the Post-Road with you, Baird." He spoke more heartily, though his always disdainful lip curled.

Judith's anxious eyes said that he looked a fitter subject for bed than for the saddle, but she made no comment. For her sake, Baird excused himself and rose. "I'll get things into my bag, then."

XII

A VENDETTA

They went together, as far as the County Road, Judith and Mrs. Morrison driving and Baird and Garvin riding beside them. There the two men turned into the extension of the Westmore Road that skirted the Mine Banks, the shortest way to the Post-Road, leaving Judith and Mrs. Morrison to go by the more roundabout way; the disused Mine Banks Road was possible only to riders.

Judith reached from the buggy to shake hands with Baird, and there was the same sweetness in her voice as there had been when she parted from him the night before. "You must come to see us very soon, Mr. Baird. I shall expect you," and her eyes said, "Welcome you."

And Garvin's voice also had a kinder note when he parted with her, as if he had his worn nerves under better control. "I'll be back for dinner, Judy."

"Be sure you are," she returned brightly.

"Poor Judith!" Garvin said, as he and Baird rode on. "She has the world on her shoulders – or, rather, the Westmore family – and it's something of a weight, I assure you." He sighed impatiently and looked up at the looming conglomeration of sear undergrowth and trees and bald red patches which they were approaching. "Ever been up there?" he asked.

"No, but I'm going."

"Well, don't go without a guide – there are some ugly pitfalls about… That was a steep broad hill once, dug down and muddled into what it is by the picks and shovels of English convicts. If all that's said is true, they fared worse under my great-great-grandfather's rule than the niggers did. It's not easy to make slaves of Englishmen… For the last hundred years it's been simply a game warren. There are caves and underground passages and ore-pits full of water up there, and some soft little hollows, too, where the pines and cedars have grown up. I know every inch of it. It always fascinated me, but there are some of our family who couldn't be driven to set foot in the place, and there's not a nigger in the county will go near it. And that's a good thing – keeps it free of pests." He laughed shortly. "Lord! I've slept off more than one drunk up there – and played with a girl there, too, on occasion, and only the moon the wiser for it." He spoke steadily, carelessly, but with an undercurrent of feeling.

Edward's exclamation still rang in Baird's ears. Garvin had not been drunk the night before; that he knew. When he and Judith went down to the terraces Garvin was dancing with Priscilla Copeley, and with an air of enjoyment.

Baird studied him closely. Garvin was riding with face lifted, and it brought his profile into relief, bold brow, haughty nose and lip, beautifully modeled chin. The lines about his eyes suggested both weariness and sadness, the curled lip measureless disgust and discontent; a thoroughly unhappy man – if he was any judge of physiognomy. And again Baird felt sorry for him; there was something radically wrong with him.

Garvin's face changed suddenly. "Look there!" he exclaimed. "By jove! Any one would say it was a bear."

He was pointing with his whip to a clambering object which was clearly outlined against one of the red patches above, a bald spot just below the cluster of evergreens that darkened the highest ledge on the Banks. There was a red crag behind them, tipping the summit, and the trees stood as if guarding it; the creature that went on all fours was apparently bent on gaining the ledge.

"It does look like a bear – it's a man, though," Baird said.

"It's Bear Brokaw… What's he climbing up to Crest Cave for? Not for an afternoon nap, I hope. The old cuss knows there's a better way up than that – he's shinning up that slope just because he enjoys it." Garvin looked interested, amused.

"So he's the honey-tree thief."

"Poof!" Garvin said. "He served Aunt Carlotta right. There's not a stancher, closer-mouthed creature in existence than Bear. He swears by Judith and would do almost anything for me. He taught me to handle a gun – many's the night I've gone coon-catching with him."

They rode on, and Garvin's face settled into gravity. "I wonder what he's doing up there?" he said musingly. "I should have thought he'd had enough of the Banks last night," he added, and fell into silence.

It was the first reference to the night Baird had heard, but he dared not question. They were well under the Banks now and the going very rough, a road once, but no more than a trail now, leading over mounds and down into hollows, the trees hedging them closely. Baird felt tired, and they rode in silence for the next half-mile. Then they dipped into a deep cut between high banks, and Garvin aroused to speak again.

"See that?" he said, pointing to a large white stone that stood planted like a monument in the red soil of the roadside. "That's where my grandfather dropped when he was shot by some one hidden up above there. A good place for a murder and a getaway, isn't it?"

"Who did it?" Baird asked with interest.

"That's what we don't know – we never will know, I suppose. The family tried to fasten it on a Penniman, old William Penniman's father, but they had no proof at all – except that there was bad blood between them – there always had been, ever since a Penniman got part of the Westmore tract by buying the old house over there. The accusations of our family didn't help matters. I've always had my theory about it, though: old Penniman's father had nothing to do with it; those men my great-grandparents worked up there in the Banks didn't all die or leave the country – somebody's son or son's son did it." He shrugged with a look of bitter disgust. "Lord! the thing's nearly a hundred years old, and still we go on with it! There's not a Penniman will bend his head to a Westmore, or a Westmore to a Penniman. We go on with things endlessly – just our sickening, effete pride! It gets on my nerves." He looked as if it did; he looked harried.

"There's one Penniman who doesn't seem to bear a grudge," Baird remarked, "the little girl who came to your rescue yesterday morning."

"Ann?.. Ann's young and light-hearted. There's plenty of time for the Penniman to develop in her," he answered carelessly, but Baird noticed that his color rose.

Garvin dropped the subject, talked of trivial things, until they reached the Post-Road. They came upon a man here, a sturdily-built, dark-featured man, clad in neat business gray and carrying a bag. He stood at the juncture of the three roads, the Westmore Road, the Back Road to the Hunt Club and the Penniman farm, and the Post-Road. His hat was tipped back like one who had walked far and was warm, and had stopped to rest and look about him. He was looking at the Mine Banks; when the two riders came up out of the cut, he looked at them, or, rather, at Garvin; he had merely glanced at Baird.

It was his steady grim stare at Garvin that arrested Baird's attention. There was no curiosity in it, it was too cold; fraught with recognition and a settled frozen antagonism. He stood his ground though Garvin's horse almost brushed him, planted firmly, like one who would instantly contest the few inches he covered. There was a quiet determined force about the man; Baird was affected by it, even before they reached him.

Baird glanced questioningly at Garvin and saw that he was giving the man stare for stare, erect in his saddle, chin slightly lifted. But Garvin's look lacked the animosity that froze the other man's features, and just before they passed Baird saw Garvin's hand lift half-way to his cap then drop. They passed with Garvin's eyes shifted to look straight ahead, but the man's stare never wavered.

"Speak of the devil and you see him," Garvin muttered, after they had passed.

"Who is he?" Baird asked.

"Coats Penniman… No forgiveness for the past there – why should I have any compunctions over the future." He spoke icily. The cut he had received had evidently stung.

Baird had already guessed. There was an unnamable likeness to Ann in the man's features.

They had come to the center of the Post-Road. "Well, here we part," Garvin said more lightly. "I'll see you soon, I hope."

"Come over to dinner with me to-morrow," Baird returned. "We've got to arrange about that machine."

"I meant to thank you about that," Garvin said quickly. "I haven't my usual wits about me to-day. It's good of you, Baird." There was all the Westmore charm about the man when he smiled.

"Not a bit of it – I'll see you to-morrow," and they parted, Garvin going off at a gallop down the Post-Road.

Baird took the Back Road, glancing at Coats Penniman as he did so. He had not moved; he was looking after Garvin. "I'd hate to have a man look at me like that – especially if I was in love with his daughter," Baird said to himself.

He rode slowly, for he was thinking – of the past night, of many things that were not clear to him. He came up through the pastures, then skirted the woods, as Ann had the day before. He was thinking of her, among other things, so it did not startle him greatly when he saw her a short distance ahead, standing and looking in his direction. But before he reached her she slipped back into the woods. He hurried his horse and stopped to look about him when he had gained the woods, but she had hidden herself.

Though tired, Baird was tempted to dismount and search for her; he was constitutionally opposed to anything escaping him. He did prepare to dismount, then went on, when it occurred to him why she was there: "To meet her father, of course," was Baird's conclusion. "She took me for him, at first."

XIII

INERADICABLY BRANDED

Baird was right; Ann had come to meet her father.

Saturday afternoon and evening had been filled with preparations for Coats Penniman's coming. Ann's pause for play in the barn and her adventure with Baird had merely been an interlude in the rush of work. Sue had worked late into the night, and Ann had helped her. When they went to bed, the house shone in readiness for the home-comer.

Ann had worked steadily and silently; she had had her afternoon's adventure to think over, with a commingling of anger and astonishment and a stir of feeling that made her cheeks burn. The big mannerless creature! He had taken advantage. He had held her and looked at her in imperious fashion; in a way that had made her heart bound. And she had not resented it until it was over. Ann was always truthful to herself; she had liked the hot pressure on her cheek; she could feel it yet, though now it made her angry. She was enraged with herself for having liked it, and with Baird for having touched her. He could not have a particle of respect for her or he would not have dared. Ann tossed about uncomfortably on her bed. If he came again – and she hoped earnestly that he would – he should see! All Ann's considerable will was aroused.

Then the ever-present hurt took possession of her. If she had not grown up with the longing to be petted unsatisfied, the caress of a mere stranger would not have seemed so sweet. At least, so Ann explained herself to herself, having had no experience in passion to tutor her. If only her father would love her, she would be happy. If only she knew?

It was then the plan to meet him sprang into Ann's mind and filled it. He had written that he was not to be met at the station; that he wanted to walk home. Ann decided that he was certain to come the back way. She would meet him and come proudly back with him – if he was loving to her. And if he was not?.. Ann did not know what she would do. At least, her aunt and her grandfather would not be there to see.

Ann kept her purpose closely to herself during the morning, working feverishly over the tasks Sue set her, her cheeks vivid, as were Sue's. Her grandfather was very silent. He sat with his Bible on his knee, as was his custom on Sunday morning, his thin body bent over it, his white hair hiding his face; but Ann saw him look up once as Sue passed him, moving quickly and energetically. It was a long intent look he gave her, his eyes, always vividly blue, brighter and keener than Ann ever remembered seeing them. His lips, the sunken mouth of an old and broken man, shook. He loved Sue, Ann knew that well; he often watched her at work, but with lips tight set, as if in pain; now they trembled. Coats would be bringing Sue deliverance from toil.

Ann stole off in plenty of time to the Back Road. She had waited almost an hour before Baird came upon her. She saw him when he was some distance away, but it occurred to her that he was probably Garvin Westmore, and from him she had no desire to run; she wanted to tell him that her father was coming.

When she saw who it was she hid herself. Crouched in the creek, she watched Baird's pause and close scrutiny of his surroundings. When he was about to dismount, she was frightened; when he rode on, she was a little disappointed, and yet she wanted him away. Ann did not leave her hiding place until she was certain that Baird was well on his way to the club; then she went back to her post. And when she saw a man coming across the pastures, she forgot Baird, everything; it was her father, come at last.

She watched him with the blood throbbing in her ears, a heavily-built man, not thin and sharp-featured like most of the Pennimans, yet with the Penniman look about him. She had waited eagerly enough, but with each step that brought him nearer, her terror of what might be held her back; she did not stand out where she could be seen until her father had nearly reached her.

When she came out suddenly from behind the undergrowth that screened her, they were only a few yards apart, and Coats Penniman stopped on a forward step, stood quite still. Ann saw the spasm that crossed his face, lifting his brows and widening his eyes. She thought that she had startled him; he did not know who she was.

"It's Ann, father – " she said, with a quivering smile. "I – I came to meet you – "

His face changed, settled into deep lines about his mouth, into wrinkles about his eyes, the look of her grandfather upon him – until he smiled, though it was more a twitching of the muscles in his cheeks than an actual smile.

"Ann – " He drew an audible breath. "I – wasn't expecting it – "

He came to her, for Ann stood rooted; no volition of hers could have brought her an inch nearer to that look of her grandfather, covered by that painful smile. "So you came to meet me?" He put his hands on her shoulders. "It's fourteen years since I saw you – you have grown up – child."

There was all the sorrow of the forsaken in the dazed shrinking look Ann gave him. "Yes, I've grown up," she said in tones as colorless as her face. "But I know you – you look like grandpa."

He bent and kissed her cheek, then took his hands from her shoulders, and he said what Sue had said: "And you are a Penniman, too, Ann – we're all Pennimans – we'll never outgrow that… How are you, child?"

"I am well, suh."

"And Cousin Sue and Uncle Will?"

"They are well – they are expectin' you."

Coats Penniman took up his bag and they turned into the woods. Ann's eyes were fixed straight before her. Things looked curiously white and unreal, as they do after a shock. Her father looked at her as they went on, at her proud brow and eyes, then at her softly-rounded chin and warm mouth, reminders of her mother, and, again, the deepening lines in his face made him look old. "I'm glad you came to meet me," he said kindly.

And Ann answered to the note of kindness, just as she had always answered to the same note in Sue's voice, by an offer of service. "Can't I carry your satchel for you, father? You've walked so far."

"No, Ann, I've not come home to be waited on… There're going to be better times at the farm, now I have come home. Until the last year I haven't had the means to make it easier for you all. For fourteen years I've prayed to make money, and then, all at once, when I'd given up hope, it came. For your sake, and for Sue's sake, I wish it had come sooner." He spoke with a deep note of feeling.

"It has been hard for Aunt Sue," Ann said tonelessly.

She felt numb and sick; she was more conscious of a feeling of illness than of anything else. The necessity of walking steadily on when she wanted simply to hide herself somewhere, was infinitely painful. Sue had said, "If Coats seems like a stranger to you, don't you feel hard to him." He did not seem like a stranger to her, any more than her grandfather did, or even her aunt did, at times. But he did not seem like her father, any more than they did. From the height of her isolation, Ann could even look at him calmly.

His dark face had lighted, now that he was looking about him. "Uncle Will has not cut down the trees – every tree is here – just as it used to be," he said with deep satisfaction. "I was afraid he'd had to make cord-wood of them… How well I remember it all!" he added, half eagerly, half sadly. He walked faster, until they reached the open, and then he stopped. "The house and the barn … and the spring-house!" he said. "Not a stick or a stone changed! My, my!.. And fourteen long years!.. When I went, I never wanted to see it again, but it has pulled at me, just the same. It's brought me back."

He turned slowly, half circled to look about him, his eyes finally fixed on the nobly solemn line of cedars. He looked at them long and steadily; he lifted his hat and took it off. "'For better or for worse' … and so it has been – " His face was wiped of expression; his momentary excitement gone.

"He is thinking of my mother," Ann thought.

He stood a moment longer, motionless, then put on his hat, drawing the brim low over his eyes, and went on, forgetful of his surroundings, and of Ann. Perhaps it was habit that guided him, for he took the usual way, across the field and up the path between the grapevines, and Ann dropped behind; when he went into the house, she could escape.

But Sue had seen them coming. Sue who never ran, who was wont to go about wearily, ran down the kitchen stairs and her father followed, slowly, holding to the stair-rail. Sue sped across the few yards that separated them. "Coats!" she said, "oh, Coats!" and Coats Penniman dropped his bag and opened his arms to her.

Ann stood on the path and watched them, Sue's arms about Coats' neck, his arms holding her – and then her grandfather's welcome. The two men clasped hands, the three stood, held together in their joy, then went on slowly, her father helping her grandfather up the stairs.

Ann slipped in between the grapevines, skirted the barn enclosure, then ran like a hunted thing for the shelter of the woods; not to the hollow through which the road came, but up higher, to the group of pines that edged the woods. There was neither road nor path there; the pines were clothed and would hide her.

She stumbled as she ran, for she could not see; her sobs were blinding and strangling her. She crept beneath the sheltering branches and clung to the earth, the only mother she had ever known, beat upon the breast to which she clung, and clung the tighter.