Green Valley Part 29

"When Cynthy saw me she let us in. Her father and mother and two aunts came in when they heard us. In the midst of these people Roger and Cynthy stood looking at each other with death in their eyes. They didn't seem to know anybody was there.

"'Cynthy--I love you--I love you,' Roger begged.

"'I know, Dear Boy, I know!' she cried back to him.

"'Forgive--my G.o.d, Cynthy, forgive.'

"'I do.'

"'Marry me.'

"'Oh, I want to--oh, I want to marry you,' sobbed poor Cynthy.

"'Then marry me. I'm not good enough--but I know no other man who is.'

"'Oh--Roger--Roger--you are good enough for me--you are good enough for _me_. But you are not good enough for my children. You are not good enough to be the father of my son.'

"I think we all knew then that it was useless. There was no answer and we were too startled to say anything. Roger grew white and the strength seemed to leave his body. His eyes filled with horror and fright.

"'Cynthy, sweetheart--' he moaned and she flew to comfort him. She let him hold her and kiss her. Then she drew his head down and kissed his hair, his eyes, his lips. She laid his hands against her cold white cheeks, then crushed them to her lips and fled.

"Roger never saw her again.

"She went away and was gone a long time. I got letters every now and then from out-of-the-way places.

"For five years I was happy. It was hard to live without Cynthy. But Roger had left town and d.i.c.k was good to me. I knew that the shock of Roger's tragedy had kept him from touching anything those five years.

But as time pa.s.sed and memories faded I grew afraid once more. d.i.c.k was no drinking man but everybody drank a little then, even the women.

Men joked about it and the women, poor souls, tried to. Well--just five years almost to a day they brought him home to me--dead. He had had a few drinks--the first since our marriage. He was driving an ugly horse--and it happened.

"Some way Cynthia heard and she came home to comfort me. I think that when she stood with me beside d.i.c.k's grave she was glad she had done what she had done and felt a kind of peace. Roger was still gone but it would not have mattered. It was then that we carried these wedding things up here and locked them in this old square trunk with the bra.s.s nail-heads. And we thought that life for us both was over.

"Cynthy's father was glad to have her home. He sold the hotel and never went near it. He tried in every way to make up to Cynthy and his wife. For Cynthy's mother grieved about it all long after Cynthy had learned to smile again. And that nearly killed Cynthy's father. Some folks claimed it really did worry Mrs. Churchill to death, for she died the spring after d.i.c.k was buried.

"After that Cynthia took her father traveling, for he was very nearly heartbroken over his wife's death. It was somewhere in England that they met your father, John. Of course, I can understand how a man like your father must have loved Cynthy on sight. But she never could understand it. She thought she was all through with love. She wrote and told me how she had explained all about Roger and how he had said it made him love her all the more. She tried to fight him but strong men are hard to deny. He had a hard time of it, I imagine, but he won her at last and took her away to India. She wrote me when you were born and for some years after, but toward the end, when she was sick so much, I think my letters made her homesick.

"Roger came back. His stepsister got into trouble and died, leaving little David. Roger took him and raised him in memory of the son he knew he might have had. When he found Cynthia was married he had that stone put in the cemetery. He explained the idea to me.

"'The girl, Cynthia, was mine and I killed her. She is dead and it is to the memory of her sweetness that I have erected that stone. The woman, Cynthia, is another man's wife.'

"So that, then, is the history of that trunk. The thing, John, that is killing little Jim Tumley is the thing that worried your grandmother to death, nearly broke your mother's heart and certainly embittered her youth, that sent your grandfather into exile and made a widow of me.

It robbed Roger Allan of the only woman he could love.

"Since that day a great many of us have learned to fight it. And there are now any number of men in Green Valley who are opposed to it and who even vote the prohibition ticket. But Green Valley is still far from understanding that until the weakest among us is protected none of us are safe.

"Some day perhaps the women will cease worrying. But before that day comes many here will pay the price. And it is usually the innocent who pay. Now let's put these memories back before they tucker me out completely."

Cynthia's son stood spellbound. He stared at the faded pictures and the little silver ring. Nan was pinning up the wedding dress and weeping openly and unashamed. It was the sight of her quiet tears that brought him back to earth.

"Oh--Nan--don't. Don't grieve about this evil thing. We're going to fight it and fight it hard. We shall save Jim Tumley yet and purify Green Valley."

When Nan got back home she went up to her room and looked down to where Cynthia Churchill's old home glowed among its autumn-tattered trees.

"What a woman! What a mother! And he is her son!"

She stood a long time at her window, then turned away with a little sigh.

"I am not made of heroic stuff. But I shall see to it that my son need never be ashamed of his mother. If one woman could fight love so can another."

When Grandma was taking off her rubbers in her little storm-shed she smiled and fretted:

"Dear me, Cynthy, that boy of yours is as innocent right now as you were in the olden days. He--why, he just doesn't know anything!"

CHAPTER XX

CHRISTMAS BELLS

After the last bit of glory has faded from the autumn woods and the first snowfall comes to cover the tired fields, Green Valley, all snugly housed and winter proof, settles down to solid comfort and careful preparation for the two great winter festivals--Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The question of whether the Thanksgiving dinner is to be eaten at home or whether "we're going away for Thanksgiving" has in all probability been settled long ago. For in Green Valley Thanksgiving invitations begin to be exchanged and sent out to distant parts as early as July.

That is, of course, if the matter of who's to go where had not already been settled the Thanksgiving before. In some families the last rite of each Thanksgiving feast is to discuss this question and settle it then and there for the following year. Conservative and clannish families who live far enough apart so that little quarrels can not be born among them to upset this fixed yearly programme usually do this.

The greater part of Green Valley however leaves itself absolutely free until some time in August. By that time though, the heat is so intense that stout, collarless men in s.h.i.+rt sleeves, in searching about for some relief, think gratefully of Thanksgiving and snowdrifts and ask their wives whom they are planning to have for Thanksgiving.

"Why," may be the answer, "I hadn't thought of it yet. But I rather think Aunt Eleanor expects us this year."

"Well," answers the husband, "all right. Only if you decide to go, don't forget to take along some of your own pumpkin pies. Your Aunt Eleanor's never quite suit me. I like considerable ginger in my pumpkin pies."

Another husband may say, "No, sir! Not on your life are we going to Jim's for Thanksgiving. That wife of his is much too young to know how to make just the right kind of turkey dressing. And I'm too old to take chances on things like that now. Those pretty brides are apt to get so excited over their lace table doilies that they forget to put in the sage or onions and there you are--one whole Thanksgiving Day and a turkey spoiled forever. No, sir--count me out!"

Sometimes wives say, "We've been invited to three places, Jemmy, but let's stay home. When we go out I always get white meat and I hate it.

And I like my cranberries hulls and all instead of just jell."

It is just such little human likes and notions that finally decide the matter. And so it was this year.

Sam Bobbins' eldest sister was having Sam and his wife "because Sam's spent so much money for his fighting roosters that he ain't got money for a Thanksgiving turkey."

Dolly Beatty's mother was having Charlie Peters for Thanksgiving dinner and all the immediate relatives to pa.s.s judgment on him. He had proposed and Dolly had accepted but no announcement was to be made until all the Beattys and Dundrys had had their say.

Frank Burton and Jenny were going by train to Jennie's rich and haughty and painfully religious aunt in Cedar Point. All Jennie's sisters, even the one from Vermont, were to be there and Jennie did want to go to visit with the girls. She and Frank had never been invited to any semi-religious festival by this aunt, owing to Frank's atheistic tendencies.

But the haughty and religious dame had heard rumors and was curious.

"I'll go for your sake, Jennie. But she'll be disappointed. Maybe I'd better shave my mustache so's to let her see some change in me."

Of course everybody who had a grandmother in the country was going to grandma's and early Thanksgiving morning teams were arriving for the various batches of grandchildren.