Nobody's Child Part 31

Baird was sick with fatigue, racked still by anxiety, and angered by Coats Penniman's neglect of his daughter. "Where were Ann's people all night--why did they leave Ann to fall into a trap like that?" he demanded.

Ben worked away at his stick. "That were a mystery to me, till Sue come.

It was natural enough, though, how that happened. Coats, he had to go to the city, an' Sue, she drove in with him, early in the evenin'. They'd left word with Ann they'd be gone late. They knowed I'm always here in the evenin'--I ain't moved off this place a single evenin', not in weeks. They weren't worryin' about Ann's not bein' safe. But last evenin' I weren't here, an' you know why. Sue tells me they were drivin'

Billy, an' you know what he is. Come time to get home, they had trouble with him. He's a devil, that horse, a good traveler, but that's all. He give Coats' shoulder a bad wrench. There weren't no trains they could get till near mornin', an' Sue she took the first train out an' walked up from the station, leavin' Coats to dispose of Billy and come out later. Sue were worried to death over her father an' Ann, she looked like a ghost when she come in, an' ready to drop, but she come to when she seen what trouble she'd come back to.... That's Penniman fo' you, jest like Miss Judith's stiff upper lip is Westmo'. These southern ladies, Mr. Baird, whose mothers done stood fas' while their men was bein' shot to pieces in the war--their mothers' blood's in them, all right! They'll stand up to anything, they will, an' gamble on a chance cooler nor any man!" Ben spoke with a profound admiration that dignified even his language.

Baird thought of Judith and how he had bent to her hand. But he had learned a surprising thing. "You don't tell me that old Mr. Penniman was in the house all the time I was there?" he exclaimed. "Why, I pounded the door and shouted."

"Sure he was there--up to his room in the front. He's fearful deaf an'

he were asleep. He never heared you. I forgot to tell you, when we were plannin' quick of how to keep from everybody's knowin' that Ann was with Garvin. All my mind was on gettin' the doctor to her an' keepin' Ann's name from bein' mixed up in what's happened, an' so was yours."

"Will Miss Penniman be able to carry it through?" Baird asked anxiously.

"She _will_! I've done talked to her."

"And Ann?"

"Ann's too sick to talk--that's her answer," Ben returned with decision.

"I tol' you I'd find the right thing to say." He pointed: "You see that there hole, where fodder is throwed down to the cows? Ann fell through there--it's a consid'able fall--more'n fifteen feet an' it won't be the first case of the kind the doctor has had to do with. _I_ say that _I_ foun' Ann down there, onconscious, an' any that doubts my word can come to me! I ain't never judged a lie a lie if it were tol' to help a woman--it's about the only chanst a man has to make up to his ma fo'

men's havin' fastened the story of Eve to her."

In spite of his anxiety, Baird smiled. He liked Ben, and for much the same reasons as he had liked Edward Westmore; Ben Brokaw was every whit as true a gentleman. Baird thought of Edward's gentleness and consideration to women. "Ben?" he asked abruptly. "Why did Edward kill himself? Ann loved him, and you say he loved her--why did he hurt her like that? There appears to be no doubt about it, for the doctor told me that the pistol was smoked and that the wound showed that it had been fired at close range. The reason Mr. Copeley gave me--that Edward had heart trouble--isn't sufficient reason to me. Why in the name of heaven did he do such a thing!"

Ben stopped his work. But he did not look at Baird; he looked out at the struggle between sun and mist. After a considerable pause, he said slowly, "It seems the cruelest thing in all this night's work, don't it?... I can't explain it.... The Ridge'll give its reasons, an' first among them, that there is knowed to be one Westmo' whose mind ain't right, an' that now the thing's showed itself in Edward.... It's all right your askin' me--I know you are considerin' Ann same as I am. You can ask me anything you like an' I'll answer to the best of my ability, but it's a thing I won't discuss with n.o.body else. I thought a heap of Edward--I don't want to talk about it. My biggest trouble now is Ann."

If Ben intended to divert Baird, he succeeded. Baird moved restlessly, then got up. "He's in there a long time!" he said through his teeth.

He went to the door and looked out at the misty morning. It had been a steady, deep-sinking rain, like the satisfying answer to a prayer, and now the sun was fighting the steaming moisture, trying to work its vivifying will upon the growing things; in an hour's time it would triumphantly climb the heavens.

Ben looked at Baird's drooping shoulders. The boy was almost falling from fatigue. He was certainly a "cool-head," but a boy, nevertheless; a young fellow experiencing his first big trouble, and not knowing just what to make of it. He loved Ann completely, he had shown that, a somewhat astonis.h.i.+ng thing in one of his rough-and-ready sort, Ben thought. If the doctor brought them bad news, they were both going to suffer.

Baird straightened and turned. "He's coming," he said.

Ben rose uncertainly to his feet. "You go ask him," he returned in his deepest growl.

But Baird was already on his way. The doctor's buggy had come into view, and Ben watched Baird go. He peered intently at the group, the doctor bent forward a little and Baird standing with one hand on the dashboard, as if for support.... The buggy moved on, and, for a moment, Ben could not make out whether Baird was returning laggingly or not. Then he saw that he came with head up, and Ben stopped swaying.

Baird's tired eyes were alight. "Ben, he says there's no serious injury, just a severe shock. It was the concussion made her unconscious so long.

He said she might never have come out from it, that many don't, but that she had. And he says her spine's all right." It was the fear that had harried them both, and to which neither had referred.

"Um!" said Ben. It was an expressive monosyllable.

The two looked at each other in the way usual with men when uplifted and yet held by awkwardness.

"I'm going to the club now," Baird said.

And Ben asked as prosaically, "Where's your horse?"

"I left him in the doctor's stable--I don't mind walking.... I'll come over this afternoon." And he went.

Ben stood for a time, considering, and the color that for a few moments had dulled the patches on his face gradually faded. One trouble had been lifted from his mind, but it was crowded with others. He was thinking of Judith Westmore--and intently of Coats Penniman. Sue had done her best, and he had listened without questioning, but she had not deceived his intelligence. Ann had told him that they had found Garvin's letters.

Coats' sudden going and his failure to return were curious things. Was it possible that he had been mistaken? And that he had misled Judith?...

If he had, he had unwittingly saved a Penniman at a pretty big price to a Westmore.

Ben was thinking anxiously of the future.

x.x.xV

WAITING

The middle of June brought hot days and unrefres.h.i.+ng nights to the Ridge, frequent rains and steaming heat, and yet Baird stayed on. He was comparatively idle now, for he had done about all he could in the Southeast for his firm. Dempster needed him in the West; any day the summons might come.

Baird could not and would not go until Ann was on the way to recovery.

It was three weeks since her accident and yet he had not been allowed to see her; she had been too ill. Coats Penniman had returned to the farm the day after the Westmore tragedy, and had immediately sent for a city specialist, who had simply confirmed what the Ridge doctor had said, that there was no injury except the shock to Ann's entire nervous system. She had youth in her favor, but, at best, nervous prostration was a slow matter. Rest and freedom from worry of any sort was his prescription, the usual prescription.

Coats and Sue and Ben, and Baird also, knew why Ann was so lifeless, that she was not only ill from shock, but sick with grief as well. Sue had talked to Ann, affectionately and pityingly, and Coats had shown Ann far more paternal tenderness than he had expressed in all the seventeen years past; Ann was surrounded by kindness, but she remained lifeless, too weak to walk, too weak to talk much, even to Ben, though he was her constant companion, her nurse, in reality, for his seemed to be the only presence that did not tire her. The sight, even the sound, of her grandfather made her eyes dilate dangerously. The attentions of her family appeared to exhaust her; she could not sleep when they were with her.

Very little of the talk and excitement over the Westmore tragedy filtered to Ann. Ben told her a little about Judith's and the entire Westmore connection's quiet acceptance of an overwhelming trouble. The day following the tragedy, the city papers had given accounts of the occurrence that carefully avoided any mention of the Westmore family's inherited misfortune which was being openly discussed both in the city and on the Ridge. Colonel d.i.c.kenson had given to his friends in the city the only reason the family could a.s.sign for Edward's act, the same reason Mr. Copeley had given to Baird, and their explanation of Garvin's fate; a frantic haste to reach Westmore, and the condition of the Post-Road bridge.

For a time the Ridge had buzzed with comments: the Ridge had always known that the family misfortune would reveal itself in another Westmore, and for Garvin they had terse sentences: a reckless dissipated man, what else could you expect? A dash in an automobile on a black night and over such roads as theirs! The Ridge had always known that he would come to some such end. Ben was questioned by every one he met, and talked with apparent frankness of his connection with the tragedy. Baird had said little, but had listened intently to the Ridge gossip. When it was apparent that no one knew of Ann's connection with the Westmore brothers, he breathed more freely. Ben was keeping his secret well.

Baird's own surmises he kept strictly to himself.

Coats Penniman had very little to say to any one--except Sue--there were no secrets between them. They had come together, those two; mutual distress had united them. It was known now on the Ridge that they would be married as soon as Coats' daughter was well. Coats went about the farm working hard, as usual. He had carried his arm in a sling for some days, then had discarded it. He had always been a silent man, he was more silent than usual, that was all.

Sue alone knew what weighed on his mind. His most constant thought was of Ann, and how best to help her. It seemed best to leave her to Ben.

Sue knew how acutely Coats was suffering, and she clung to him with the greater devotion.

During the last of the three anxious weeks, Ann had talked more with Ben, and after that she gained a little strength. Ben wished that she would weep; her calmness was unnatural.

Ann's stoicism frightened Sue. "I'm afraid of it," she was driven to say to Coats.

The furrows in Coats' forehead deepened, but he said quietly, "Don't worry, Sue. There's plenty of good sane blood in Ann. Just wait and let time help her."

Baird also was anxiously waiting. Every day of that three weeks he had stopped at the Penniman house to inquire about Ann. Often he rode on to Westmore and spent the evening with Judith. Though urged by the whole connection, Judith had refused to leave Westmore, even for a day. She had faced G.o.d's half-acre, faced the present and the future with the same undaunted spirit with which she had faced the difficult past. She had taken up Edward's interests; she rode about Westmore like any capable overseer, and her evenings she spent seated beneath the Westmore portraits.

She was always at home to Baird, and Westmore seemed to Baird much as it had been. Save for Judith's black gown, there were few signs of mourning. Judith bore herself spiritedly, was the same fluent speaker, and charming, as always. If Baird had not noticed her expression at times, when she was off guard, he might have thought her heartless. He knew that, in her way, she was suffering as keenly as Ann. Her manner to Baird was a mixture of friendly interest and something deeper, a tacit recognition of their former relations, and as tacit a disclaimer of any expectations.

Baird was in many respects the "cool-head" Ben Brokaw thought him. So long as his own feelings were clearly defined, he felt no hesitation in going to Westmore. On the first occasion when Judith said, "You are not looking well, Nickolas," he had answered without preamble or apology, "You know, I suppose, how fond I am of Ann Penniman? She's very ill--I doubt sometimes whether she'll pull through. I'm not feeling particularly happy, Judith."

If Judith had rehea.r.s.ed her answer many times, it could not have been more equably delivered: "Yes, I know you are. Ben tells me that it was a fall in the barn, and I'm sorry both for you and for her. But she's young and strong--she will get well."

"I don't know. I hope so," Baird said.

The drop in his voice had told Judith far more than his avowal, and she could not endure it in silence. "Ann was fond of my brother--of both my brothers," she said dryly.