The Man Thou Gavest Part 10

"Go on!"

"It's too late! We must get back."

"I--I must know the rest! Why, don't you see, you know how it turns out; I don't!"

"Shall I tell you?"

"No, no. I want it here with the warm sun and the pines and your--yourself making it real."

"I do not understand, Nella-Rose!" But as he spoke Truedale began to understand and it gave him an uneasy moment. He knew what he ought to do, but knew that he was not going to do it! "We'll have to come again and hear the rest," was what he said.

"Yes? Why"--and here the shadowy eyes took on the woman-look, the look that warned and lured the man near her--"I did not know it ever came like that--really."

"What, Nella-Rose?"

"Why--love. They-all knew it--and took it. It was just like it was something all by itself. That's not the sort us-all have. Does it only come that--er--way in mel--melerdrammer?"

"No, little girl. It comes that way in real life when hearts are big enough and strong enough to bear it." Truedale watched the effect of his words upon the strange, young face before him. They forced their way through her ignorance and untrained yearning for love and admiration. It was a perilous moment, for conscience, on Truedale's part, seemed drugged and sleeping and Nella-Rose was awakening to that which she had never known before. Gone, for her, were caprice and mischief; she seemed about to see and hear some wonderful thing that eluded but called her on.

And after that first day they met often. "Happened upon each other" was the way Truedale put it. It seemed very natural. The picturesque spots appealed to them both. There was reading, too--carefully selected bits.

It was intensely interesting to lead the untrained mind into bewildering mazes--to watch surprise, wonder, and perplexity merge into understanding and enjoyment. Truedale experienced the satisfaction of seeing that, for the first time in his life, he was a great power. The thought set his brain whirling a bit, but it made him seriously humble as well.

Gradually his doubts and introspections became more definite; he lived day by day, hour by hour; while Jim White tarried, Nella-Rose remained; and the past--Truedale's past--faded almost from sight. He could hardly realize, when thinking of it afterward, where and how he decided to cut loose from his past, and all it meant, and accept a future almost ludicrously different from anything he had contemplated.

One day a reference to Burke Lawson was made and, instead of letting it pa.s.s as heretofore, he asked suddenly of Nella-Rose:

"What is he to you?"

The girl flushed and turned away.

"Burke?--oh, Burke isn't--anything--now!"

"Was he ever--anything?"

"I reckon he wasn't; I _know_ he wasn't!"

Then, like a flash, Truedale believed he understood what had happened.

This simple girl meant more to him than anything else--more than the past and what it held! A baser man would not have been greatly disturbed by this knowledge; a man with more experience and background would have understood it and known that it was a phase that must be dealt with sternly and uncompromisingly, but that it was merely a phase and as such bound to pa.s.s. Not so Truedale. He was stirred to the roots of his being; every experience was to him a concrete fact and, consequently, momentous. In order to keep pure the emotions that overpowered him at times, he must renounce all that separated him from Nella-Rose and reconstruct his life; or--he must let _her_ go!

Once Truedale began to reason this out, once he saw Nella-Rose's dependence upon him--her trust and happiness--he capitulated and permitted his imagination to picture and colour the time on ahead. He refused to turn a backward glance.

Of course all this was not achieved without struggle and foreboding; but he saw no way to hold what once was dear, without dishonour to that which now was dearer; and he--let go!

This determined, he strenuously began to prepare himself for the change.

Day by day he watched Nella-Rose with new and far-seeing interest--not always with love and pa.s.sion-blinded eyes. He felt that she could, with his devotion and training, develop into a rarely sweet and fine woman.

He was not always a fool in his madness; at times he was wonderfully clear-sighted. He meant to return home, when once his health was restored, and take the Kendalls into his confidence; but the thought of Lynda gave him a bad moment now and then. He could not easily depose her from the most sacred memories of his life, but gradually he grew to believe that her relations to him were--had always been--platonic; and that she, in the new scheme, would play no small part in his life and Nella-Rose's.

There would be years of self-denial and labour and then, by and by, success would be achieved. He would take his finished work, and in this he included Nella-Rose, back to his old haunts and prove his wisdom and good fortune. In short, Truedale was love-mad--ready to fling everything to the ruthless winds of pa.s.sion. He blindly called things by wrong names and steered straight for the rocks.

He meant well, as G.o.d knew; indeed all the religious elements, hitherto unsuspected in him, came to the fore now. Conventions were absurd when applied to present conditions, but, once having accepted the inevitable, the way was divinely radiant. He meant to pay the price for what he yearned after. He had no other intention.

Now that he was resigned to letting the past go, he could afford to revel in the joys of the present with a glad sense of responsibility for the future.

Presently his course seemed so natural that he wondered he had ever questioned it. More and more men with a vision--and Truedale devoutly believed he had the vision--were recognizing the absurdity of old ideals.

Back to the soil meant more than the physical; it meant back to the primitive, the simple, the real. The artificial exactions of society must be spurned if a new and higher morality were to be established.

If Truedale in this state of mind had once seen the actual danger, all might have been well; but he had swung out of his...o...b..t.

At this juncture Nella-Rose was puzzling her family to the extent of keeping her father phenomenally sober and driving Marg to the verge of nerve exhaustion.

The girl had, to put it in Greyson's words, "grown up over night." She was dazzling and recalled a past that struck deep in the father's heart.

There had been a time when Peter Greyson, a mere boy, to be sure--and before the cruel war had wrecked the fortunes of his family--had been surrounded by such women as Nella-Rose now suggested. Women with dancing eyes and soft, white hands. Women born and bred for love and homage, who demanded their privileges with charm and beauty. There had been one fascinating woman, a great-aunt of Nella-Rose's, who had imperilled the family honour by taking her heritage of wors.h.i.+p with a high hand.

Disregarding the rights of another, she boldly rode off with the man of her choice and left the reconstruction of her reputation to her kith and kin who roused instantly to action and lied, like ladies and gentlemen, when truth was impossible. Eventually they so toned down and polished the deed of the little social highwaywoman as to pa.s.s her on in the family history with an escutcheon shadowed only, rather than smirched.

Nella-Rose, now that her father considered, was dangerously like her picturesque ancestress! The thought kept Peter from the still, back in the woods, for many a day. He, poor down-at-heel fellow, was as ready as any man of his line to protect women, especially his own, but he was sorely perplexed now.

Was it Burke Lawson who, from his hiding place, was throwing a glamour over Nella-Rose?

Then Peter grew ugly. The protection of women was one thing; ridding the community of an outlaw was another. Men knew how to deal with such matters and Greyson believed himself to be very much of a man.

"Nella-Rose," he said one day as he smoked reflectively and listened to his younger daughter singing a camp meeting hymn in a peculiarly sweet little voice, "when my s.h.i.+p comes in, honey, I'm going to buy you a harp. A gold one."

"I'd rather have a pink frock, father, and a real hat; I just naturally hate sunbonnets! I'd favour a feather on my hat--flowers fade right easy."

"But harps is mighty elegant, Nella-Rose. Time was when your--aunts and--and grandmothers took to harps like they was their daily nourishment. Don't you ever forget that, Nella-Rose. Harps in families mean _blood_, and blood don't run out if you're careful of it."

Nella-Rose laughed, but Marg, in the wash-house beyond, listened and--hated!

No one connected _her_ with harps or blood, but she held, in her sullen heart and soul, the true elements of all that had gone into the making of the best Greysons. And as the winter advanced, Marg, worn in mind and body, was brought face to face with stern reality. Autumn was gone--though the languorous hours belied it. She must prepare. So she gathered her forces--her garden products that could be exchanged for necessities; the pork; the wool; all, all that could be spared, she must set in circulation. So she counted three dozen eggs and weighed ten pounds of pork and called Nella-Rose, who was driving her mad by singing and romping outside the kitchen door.

"You--Nella-Rose!" she called, "are you plumb crazy?"

Nella-Rose became demure at once and presented herself at the door.

"Do I look it?" she said, turning her wonderful little face up for inspection. Something in the words and in the appealing beauty made Marg quiver. Had happiness and justice been meted out to Marg Greyson she would have been the tenderest of sisters to Nella-Rose. Several years lay between them; the younger girl was encroaching upon the diminis.h.i.+ng rights of the older. The struggle between them was as old as life itself, but it could not kill utterly what should have existed ardently.

"You got to tote these things"--Marg held forth the basket--"down to the Centre for trade, and you can fetch back the lil' things like pepper, salt, and sugar. Tell Cal Merrivale to fetch the rest and bargain for what I've got ready here, when he drives by. If you start now you can be back by sundown."

To Marg's surprise, Nella-Rose offered no protest to the seven-mile walk, nor to the heavy load. She promptly pulled her sunbonnet to the proper angle on her head and gripped the basket.

"Ain't you goin' to eat first?" asked Marg.

"No. Put in a bite; I'll eat it by the way."

As the Centre was in the opposite direction from the Hollow, as seven miles going and seven miles coming would subdue the spirits and energy even of Nella-Rose, Marg was perplexed. However, she prepared food, tucked it in the basket, and even went so far as to pin her sister's shawl closely under her chin. Then she watched the slim, straight figure depart--still puzzled but at peace for the day, at least.

Nella-Rose, however, was plotting an attack upon Truedale quite out of the common. By unspoken consent he and she had agreed that their meetings should be in the open. Jim White might return at anytime and neither of them wanted at first to include him in the bewildering drama of their lives. For different reasons they knew that Jim's cold understanding of duty would shatter the sacred security that was all theirs. Truedale meant to confide everything to White upon his return--meant to rely upon him in the reconstruction of his life; but he knew nothing could be so fatal to the future as any conflict at the present with the sheriff's strict ideas of conduct. As for Nella-Rose, she had reason to fear White's power as woman-hater and upholder of law and order. She simply eliminated Jim and, in order to do this, she must keep him in the dark.