Nobody's Child

"They don't know what good brains are in that school in the village," Edward said quietly. "My greatest pleasure is reading, too – you are fortunate to have grown up in a library."

Ann was forced to admit that it was not a library, just a cupboard in her father's room stacked with books. Edward knew that, as a boy, Coats Penniman had been an omnivorous reader and something of a student. He selected in his mind the books Coats was likely to have read, many histories, the lives of great men, and the staider fiction which he himself had enjoyed when a boy, and Ann warmed into vivid pleasure when she found that they had acquaintances in common. She talked of George Eliot's characters as one would of friends, and lovingly of Maggie Tulliver, that creation of a great woman's brain always tenderly loved by misfits such as Ann.

"She was a nobody's child," Ann said softly.

Edward noticed that the dramatic and emotional appealed profoundly to her, and the sentimental very little. He thought as he listened to her and looked at her beauty that, if the right sort of man possessed her, she would grow into a superb woman; a few years' training would make her a finished product, something more than presentable, a really fascinating woman. But the emotional in her would have to be satisfied. It was innate, patent, unmistakable – her power to arouse passion, an irresistible inclination to test the emotional, and it was quite possible that in the process she might be irremediably marred.

Edward thought of the thing he had witnessed the morning before, his brother's face bent to Ann's, and his own face darkened. He had thought of it frequently in the last twenty-four hours, and with a full realization of what her appeal to Garvin would be. He thought of the night just past, when the family skeleton had broken loose and been captured and locked away again, only after hours of dread and terror to them all.

He turned from the sickening recollection to look again at Ann. He reflected that with her type the brain is apt to be constant and the emotions less dependable, and love, actual love, rarely a sudden thing and almost always a consecration. How much of herself she would give would depend largely on the man who captured her; to hold her he would have to appeal to her brain as well as her emotions. Edward was certain that he read her aright. He had traveled a long way before he had learned what little he knew of women; what man ever knew more than a very little of the riddle the Creator intended man should not solve.

To Ann he said, "But you haven't read many of the more modern novels, have you? And very little poetry?"

"I couldn't get them," Ann answered regretfully. "There's no library in the village." She did not add, "And I have no money to buy books," but Edward understood.

"I have any number of them – good and bad – at Westmore. I should be glad to lend you anything you would like to read."

Ann did not know what to say. She had collided again with the family quarrel. But she wanted to see Edward again. No one had ever talked to her as he had, or treated her as he did. He was quite different from Garvin, far more deferential, and yet eager to please her. She felt intensely sorry for Garvin; things seemed to be all wrong with him, just as they were with her. And she wanted him to love her; she wanted every man to love her – even Ben Brokaw. It was delightful to feel that she could interest them – as she was interesting Edward Westmore. It was wonderful that she could interest him. He was the most courtly man she had ever seen, and the most distinguished-looking. She was accustomed to tanned faces; the black and white contrasts of Edward's face pleased her. He was tall and erect and dignified. She felt a tremendous respect for him, and at the same time she felt perfectly at one with him; he was so pleasant to be with.

"I'd like very much to have the books," she said somewhat helplessly.

Edward smoothed out the difficulty without mentioning it. "I go by here so often, to the club – I could easily leave them up there, beside the bushes. If some one else found them or they got rained on, it wouldn't matter – there are plenty of others." He looked up at her, smiling quizzically. "I go to the club almost every afternoon, and ride back about this time – just when you will be curled up here in the hollow examining what I have left. I know you will do just that, because that is what all book-lovers do – an unread book is as tantalizing as ripe fruit just out of reach."

Ann thought it was a nice way of being told that he wanted to see her again, and she answered with much of his own manner. "Maybe – but never as late as this, though. See, the sun's most down, an' supper waitin' for you at Westmore, like it is for me up at the farm."

"That means that I am dismissed – that it's growing late, and that I've let you sit here without your cape around you… Let me put it on for you – before we go up."

He wrapped it about her, his touch light yet lingering, brought it together under her chin, as one would with a child. "Have you felt cold?" he asked tenderly, as if guarding something infinitely precious.

For the second time that day affection lifted in Ann's eyes. In all her life no one had looked at her or spoken to her in just that way; even Garvin had not. "No, I have been warm," she answered softly.

Edward looked full into her eyes, the veil of melancholy that so often shadowed his face stealing over it. "Then I've done you no harm, and you have given me a great pleasure," he said. "Now run home quickly – while I get my horse back to the road."

Ann went, as he said, quickly. It had seemed to her that morning, as she had walked along the same road with her father, that she could never be comforted. But she had been – doubly comforted.

XVI

"IT WAS BORN IN HER"

"Is Ann always like this?" Coats Penniman asked Sue that evening.

They had come from supper and were sitting together on the porch. Preparing the meal had been Sue's work; Ann had insisted that the clearing away was her task, and Sue knew why she had been so determined; she did not want to join them on the porch.

"She's always quiet when father is around," Sue answered.

"And I'm a strange element – well, it's natural."

Sue knew that Coats meant to talk of Ann, and she dreaded it. They had spent almost the entire day together, going over the farm and talking of its possibilities, and Coats had scarcely mentioned Ann. But Sue knew that he was thinking of her from the occasional questions he asked and from the way in which he had studied Ann, surreptitiously, with a pitying intensity which Sue understood well. When he spoke to Ann directly his usually deep voice softened to its kindliest note, and Ann had answered dutifully, but Sue noticed that she kept her eyes turned from him.

Poor Ann! Sue sighed inaudibly. She was very sorry for the girl, but she had known just how it would be; the love Coats had seemed incapable of giving the child was not likely to be given the grown girl who reminded him even more poignantly of the bitterest days of his life.

She knew Coats so well. They had grown up together, she and her sister Marian and Coats, and his love for her sister seemed to have been born with him. He had loved Marian as a child, as a boy he had adored her, loved her with an all-engrossing passion when they were grown. He would gladly have given his life for the girl who was his wife for less than a year, and over whom he had agonized with an intensity that had almost deprived him of his reason. She had borne her child and had left him desolate. She seemed to have taken with her all his capacity for love. They were like that, the Pennimans; an affection for each other and a tremendous sense of duty, but only one love. She herself was like that. No one had ever guessed; she alone knew who it was she had loved all those years; loved in spite of everything, steadily loved and loved.

It was dark, and Sue could think and feel without her face betraying her. Coats' figure was a vague outline, but his presence was an intensely palpable thing. It pressed on her, enveloped her. What that day had been to her! After all these years, he her companion, his hand on her arm, his first thought for her, and no one to come between them – except the ghost of the past. She wanted it laid, buried too deep ever to rise again. So far he had not mentioned the past; was he going to drag the thing out now and agonize over it again?

She had not answered his remark, and he said nothing for a time, smoking in silence. Finally he said, "I wish I could make the future a little easier for her."

Sue drew a breath of relief. She was quite willing to talk of the future, even Ann's future. "I've often wondered what was best to do for her."

"Has any man ever made love to her, Sue?"

"No, no one," Sue said positively. "Who would? You know how away from people we've had to live – we haven't even had the relations here – it was the only way to do when we were so poor… Besides, Ann's not much more than a child."

"You've always written that she was a thoughtless child. She's less of a child than you realize, Sue. And she's not thoughtless, either. She does a deal of thinking, but keeps it to herself."

Sue remembered Ann's burst of feeling which had so surprised her. "I reckon that she has grown up so gradually I haven't noticed. She has such a careless way with her most of the time. She plays with every mortal thing that comes her way, Coats – peeps at it with her eyelids down – seein' if it's goin' to give her any fun, it seems to me. It drives father mad to see her. I've often watched her, with the collie, with Ben – with every breathing thing that comes her way. An' she does lay hold on people – if there's a creature on earth Ben Brokaw loves, it's Ann. It's Ann has kept him here these last two years – she can do anything with him."

"It was born in her," Coats said evenly. It was his first reference to his wife and he turned from it, spoke more clearly. "Sue, Ann's the quintessence of attraction – I've realized it to-day. She's one of those women you might wall up and use plenty of stone and mortar to do it, and still she'd draw some man to her. It's her portion – we might as well recognize it and allow for it in the future."

"You mean she's bound to marry?"

It was not all Coats had meant, but he said, "Yes."

"But she mustn't marry here, Coats – it's what father has always said… What chance is there here for a girl, anyway. The few boys that have stayed here are a shiftless lot, an' the Hunt Club set – they're rich, most of them, an' fast – we're just farmers to them – a girl situated like Ann is mustn't have anything to do with them."

"The club is since my time – are they about much, the men?"

"They're all over the place – as long as there's huntin'," Sue said with disgust, "an' they're always about the club, summer and winter. Father stopped their ridin' through here – he put up the gate an' notice – and he arrested Garvin Westmore, Coats."

Coats was silent, Sue guessed, because he might say too much; hatred of the Westmores lay deep in him. Sue liked the restraint he put upon himself. He had gone away a wretched silent man, and had returned a restrained yet forceful personality. He had broadened and gained weight, both mentally and physically. She had guessed from his letters that he had improved, and she had often thought, miserably, that she was not keeping pace with him. She had never had her sister's beauty or attraction, and even her prettiness was fading. And mentally?.. What chance had she had, tied down to the farm?.. Then bitterness slipped from her. He was here and, she hoped intensely, was going to stay. The fear that had tormented her, that he might marry out of sheer loneliness, was set at rest, and if she could feel certain that he would stay, her cup of joy would be full. All she dared hope for was that he would stay where she could care for him.

Coats spoke again, and of Ann. "I don't know just what to do for her," he said thoughtfully. "You wrote that she had no head for study. If she hasn't, sending her away to school would be a mistake – just courting mischief… I'm inclined to think that she'll be best off here – until she's older – then I'll try to send her west – put her with people who will look after her and see that she gets a chance to marry, for that's what it will be with her. She's bound to have her bit of life, have it and pay for it, the certainty of it is written all over her, and she'll have a better chance of happiness somewhere else than here." His voice deepened. "You see, Sue, she's not really one of us – that's the thing has been borne in on me to-day. It's an old wound opened, and it's made me feel a little sick; her mother was never meant for this place – or for me. You know how it was with her – just that craving for all the things we were not. It showed in every look and word of Marian's, unconsciously, and it shows doubly in Ann… Why, Sue, when I looked up this morning and saw her standing there, where Marian often stood, black and white, that hair and brow of hers, and with Marian's lips smiling at me, it was exactly as if a ghost had risen up and beckoned to me! I lost hold on myself. I did the best I could, but my best was bad. I froze whatever affection the child has for me – just froze it forever." He ended helplessly, a sudden breaking away from the restraint that was habitual with him: "She's a woman grown, Sue – I didn't expect it to be that way – I never dreamed it would be like that – you never told me she looked like that – you never told me how she looked!"

"You never asked me to tell you," Sue said painfully.

Coats quieted, gained control of himself almost instantly. "I didn't mean to let myself go like that. It's the last time I'll speak of things that can't be helped. The best I can do is to watch over Ann and give her a chance."

"It's the best any of us can do, Coats," Sue's voice was still husky.

Because of the note of pain, Coats drew his chair close to hers, touched her arm. "You've always done your best, Sue. I left you to bear most of the burden, but I've come back to it. I'm going to stay, Sue – it's going to be lifted from your shoulders to mine… And I'm glad to be back. I belong here – I'm no money-maker. I'm fitted for just this – to draw a living out of the soil and enjoy doing it… I can't expect help from Ann – she's bound to go out into the world and live – but you'll stand by me, Sue?"

The assurance Sue longed for had been given her. "Yes, I'll stand by you!" she said deeply. "I'll stand by you always, Coats – I'm fitted for just this, too."

XVII

COMPLEXITIES

The first of May, and spring had come on the Ridge. A young green lay upon pasture and woodland, upon every spot where nature was allowed her way – except the bald patches on the Mine Banks. They still glared a sullen red, defiantly barren, when even the plowed earth glistened and was warm, impatient under man's restraining hand, eager to quicken the seed being entrusted to it, a civilized mother as intent on bearing fruit as was her uncultured sister.

Those three weeks had brought the stir of life, both restlessness and joy, to Sue, to Ann, to Judith Westmore; and, as spring quickens man as well as woman, to Edward Westmore, Garvin and Baird the consciousness of things desired and not attained which is the urge to all accomplishment.

Even Coats Penniman, busied about the farm from early morning until night, was stirred by a vague unrest which was not unhappiness nor its opposite. He worked the harder for it; he had cast his net here; he meant to gather in the harvest, a modest harvest, but one that would be sufficient for his family's needs. New horses filled the stalls that had stood empty so long, new farm implements were stored in the wagon-shed, the barn acquired a coat of paint. And the crying shame of water carried by women up three hundred yards to a kitchen without a convenience was abolished. That was Coats' first improvement: pipes were laid to the bubbling spring and a pump installed; the spring-house, unsanitary relic of a past century, would no longer harbor crocks of milk and butter ill-protected from things that crawl and germs that fatten; it housed the pump. And only the weeping willows mourned the change; they no longer stood in a swamp, for a drain carried the seeping water to the creek; they were a pleasant shelter now for any man and maid who chose to sit beneath them.

Coats Penniman had his work and Sue had hers. The old house was being transformed. Many years before, Ann, playing with a forbidden pen-knife, had cut through the half-dozen layers of paper that generations of tasteless Pennimans had laid upon the living-room walls and had come to oak paneling as beautiful as any at Westmore. Sue had not forgotten the discovery. The living-room was stripped of paper and became again what it had been in colonial days, a spacious dining-room paneled from ceiling to floor. The modern front room, the parlor, lost its dingy figured paper, was hung and curtained in white, as were the rooms above. Sue, with Ann to help her, and a sturdy negress to do the heaviest work, labored joyfully. Paint and whitewash had their way with the old house, and it emerged an elderly lady still, but with white hair smoothed and wearing a spotless cap.

Only the lonely farm-woman who toils unaided, her interests bound by four unsightly walls, a veritable prison with a treadmill for diversion, can justly appreciate what those days of transformation were to Sue. She had longed for the two strong black hands that under her direction washed and churned and swept and cooked. But she had longed still more for a little beauty, a touch of fashion, a hint of luxury. Her day's work had always lapped over into the morrow. Now she could appear at supper with hair arranged and wearing a fresh gown. She could go from supper to sit with Coats on the porch and talk to him of her work as he talked to her of his. The delight of it!

And it was not only the house that wore new garments. Sue chose carefully and economically, but she would not have chosen tastefully had Ann not been at her right hand. Ann had an instinct for color, and an observant eye for style. She had insisted on shades of blue for Sue. "You ought to get everything blue, it goes with your eyes, an' it makes you look young and pretty," she had urged. "Have an all-blue suit, Aunt Sue, an' a blue silk drivin' coat, an' a little blue hat with white wings. An' for your house-dresses just have lawn with blue flowers in it." Sue had thought the coat an unpardonable extravagance, until she remembered that she often drove with Coats. Then she did not hesitate.

Ann was too proud to ask for anything for herself, but Sue insisted that whatever she had must be duplicated for Ann, so Ann chose for herself a summer suit of deep cream and a large cream-colored straw hat. Sue had objected to Ann's choice of a red coat. "Your suit's so dark a cream it's 'most yellow, an' your coat's a regular nigger red, Ann."

"I'm black an' white – they're my colors, Aunt Sue. I'll always have to wear rich colors to look best," Ann returned, and she was right. She did not put red roses on her hat, however. She decorated it with water-lilies; their yellow centers blended with hat and gown.

Even Sue did not suspect what pleasure Ann took in her attire, but she did notice that the girl was startlingly beautiful, even in her simple white lawn dresses sprayed with either red or yellow. It was not a glaring effect the girl had produced; she had simply intensified her usual impression of warmth, her hint of the exotic. Coats noticed it; he looked at her in an expressionless way, but Sue knew what he thought, and her father also, when he looked at Ann and then looked away. Ann's new clothes set her more apart from them than ever.

And in spite of her good sense, Sue envied Ann's compelling quality. She would never have it, but Ann thought that since her father's return Sue had grown almost beautiful. Sue's face had grown fuller and now her cheeks almost always had color. She arranged her brown hair carefully and changed her dresses frequently. And she laughed much oftener, softly and with eyes alight. Sue was glad, of course, that Coats had brought better times to them all, but even supreme relief would not account for Sue's air of subdued happiness.

Ann had puzzled over the change in Sue, until one day she saw her watching Coats Penniman while he slept. He had come in tired out and had stretched himself on the couch in the living-room. Sue and Ann were sewing when he came in and Sue had sprung up, brought him a glass of water and begged him to lie down. Then Sue had taken up her sewing again. A little later, when Ann glanced up, wondering how she could slip away without being noticed, she saw that her father was asleep and that Sue sat with hands idle. She was bent forward a little, looking at Coats in utter absorption, her lips parted, her eyes misty and yearning, her heart laid bare for Ann to read. Sue had forgotten her, forgotten everything; there were only they two in the world, she and Coats.

Ann looked long and steadily, and, in those moments of hot surprise and then of clear understanding, she laid down every claim upon her father, became definitely nobody's child. Ann's own experience in love had rapidly taught her; she knew how it was with her father and Sue; Sue loved her father, and he liked Sue better than he liked any one else.

That was what Garvin said to her in the evenings when they met under the willows by the spring: that he loved her madly, and that she only liked him. She let him kiss her when he talked like that. It made her hot and restless to be plead with and urged and caressed. She did love him – the thought of losing his love was terrible – yet she was not happy, partly because she felt that Edward would be shocked if he knew. She had discovered that the brothers did not love each other any more than she and her father loved each other. She never mentioned Edward to Garvin, or Garvin to Edward.

The night before, Garvin had said startling things: that he was going into the city to live; that Nickolas Baird was arranging a city agency for a large automobile firm, and that he would probably have charge of it. Ann had been swept by a feeling of desolation until Garvin had added, "It won't be right away, but when the time comes will you go with me?"

Ann knew that she had been silent so long that he had grown desperate. He had put his arms about her and held her as if he were afraid that she would run from him. She had said, finally, "I couldn't bear it, to have you go away."

"But I shall have to go," he had told her positively. "I can't stay at Westmore – Edward is master of Westmore now… And you want to go away – will you go with me, Ann?"

Then she had told him the thing that had troubled her from the beginning. "A Westmore marry a Penniman? We can't do it, Garvin – ever."

And Garvin had been silent then, thinking; she had felt his hands grow burning hot. Then he said steadily: "The city is not the Ridge, Ann. If you'll only love me completely, as I love you, what seems impossible here may be possible there. I want you, just mine to love and care for always."

Then she had told him with complete honesty. "I don't know whether I love you enough to marry you, but I can't bear to have you go away from me."

He had made his usual appeal, his own unhappiness, and Ann had almost yielded him her promise. But when she thought it all over she was not happy; she was so doubtful of her own feelings.

And she had another anxiety. Edward Westmore had given her a number of books, and she had seen him several times. Every day there had been a book for her in the chinkapin bushes. With the instinct for making herself doubly desired, she did not always stay to thank him. But sometimes she had waited in the hollow, and Edward came and sat at her feet. Then they talked. They had been less exciting but more satisfying hours than she had with Garvin. Edward told her wonderful things, interesting things. She felt like an ignorant child when she was with him, and yet she knew that he liked whatever she said, and that he loved to look at her, and that he touched her with a certain tender reverence. She thought of him as a very dear friend. It was some time before she told him how things were at the farm. Before she realized, she had told him about it, and he had said: