Viola Gwyn Part 20

To this Mrs. Gwyn did not reply. She merely observed: "We have had very little sleep in the last six and thirty hours. Come to bed, child."

As was her custom, Rachel Gwyn herself saw to the locking and bolting of the doors and window shutters at the front of the house.

To-night Viola, instead of Hattie, followed the tall black figure from door to window, carrying the lighted candle. They stood together, side by side, in the open front door for a few moments, peering at the fence of trees across the road.

Off in the distance some one was whistling a doleful tune. The spring wind blowing in their faces was fresh and moist, a soft wind laden with the smell of earth. A clumsy hound came slouching around the corner of the little porch and, wagging his tail, stopped below them; the light shone down into his big, glistening eyes. Viola spoke to him softly. He wagged his tail more briskly.

Rachel had turned her head and was looking toward the house that was to be Kenneth's home. Its outlines could be made out among the trees to the right, squat and lonely in a setting less black than itself.

"Before long there will be lights in the windows again," she was saying, more to herself than to Viola. "A haunted house. Haunted by a living, mortal ghost. Eh?" she cried out, sharply, turning to Viola.

"I did not speak, mother."

A look of awe came to Rachel's eyes.

"I was sure I heard--" she began, and then, after a short pause, laughed throatily. "I guess it was the wind. Come in. I want to lock the door."

Viola was a long time in going to sleep. It seemed to her as she lay there, staring wide awake, that everything in the world was unsettled and topsy-turvy. Nothing could ever be right again.

What with the fiasco of the night just gone, the appearance of the mysterious brother, the counterbalancing of resolve and remorse within her troubled self, the report of Barry's lapse from rect.i.tude, her mother's astounding sophistry, her tired brain was in such a whirl as never was.

There was a new pain in her breast that was not of thwarted desires nor of rancour toward this smug, insolent brother who had come upon the scene. It hurt her to think that up to this night she had known so little, ay, almost nothing, about her own mother's life.

For the first time, she heard of Salem, of her mother's people and her occupation, of the journey westward, of the uncle who was killed by the Indians and the wife who turned back; of unknown cousins to whom she was also unknown. There was pain in the discovery that her mother was almost a stranger to her.

CHAPTER XI

A ROADSIDE MEETING

Kenneth remained at the tavern for a month. He did not go near the house of his step-mother. He saw her once walking along the main street, and followed her with his eyes until she disappeared into a store. A friendly citizen took occasion to inform him that it was the "fust time" he had seen her on the street in a c.o.o.n's age.

"She ain't like most women," he vouchsafed. "Never comes down town unless she's got some reason to. Most of 'em never stay to home unless they've got a derned good reason to, setch as sickness, or the was.h.i.+n' and ironin', or it's rainin' pitchforks. She's a mighty queer woman, Rachel Gwyn is. How air you an' her makin' out these days, Kenneth?"

"Oh, fair to middlin'," replied the young man, dropping into the vernacular.

"I didn't know but what ye'd patched things up sorter," said the citizen, invitingly.

"There is nothing to patch up," said Kenneth.

"Well, I guess it ain't any of my business, anyhow," remarked the other, cheerfully.

The business of taking over the property, signing the necessary papers, renewing an agreement with the man who farmed his land on the Wea, taking account of all live-stock and other chattels, occupied his time for the better part of a fortnight. He spent two days and a night at the little farmhouse, listening with ever increasing satisfaction to the enthusiastic prophecies of the farmer, a stout individual named Jones whose faith in the new land was surpa.s.sed only by his ability to till it. Even out here on his own farm Kenneth was unable to escape the unwelcome influence of Rachel Carter. Mr. Jones magnanimously admitted that she was responsible for all of the latest conveniences about the place and characterized her as a "woman with a head on her shoulders, you bet."

He confessed: "Why, dodgast it, she stopped by here a couple o'

weeks ago an' jest naturally raised h.e.l.l with me because my wife's goin' to have another baby. She sez, sorter sharp-like, 'The only way to make a farm pay is to stock it with somethin' besides children.' That made me a leetle mad, so I up an' sez back to her: 'I wouldn't swap my seven children fer all the hogs an' cattle in the state o' Indianny.' So she sez, kind o' grinnin', 'Well, I'll bet your wife would jump at the chance to trade your NEXT seven children, sight onseen, fer a new pair o' shoes er that bonnet she's been wantin' ever sence she got married.' That sorter mixed me up. I couldn't make out jest what she was drivin' at. Must ha'

been nine o'clock that night when it come to me all of a sudden.

So I woke Sue up an' told her what Rachel Gwyn said to me, an', by gosh, Sue saw through it quicker'n a flash. 'You bet I would,'

sez she. 'I'd swap the next HUNDRED.' Then she kinder groaned an'

said, 'I guess maybe I'd better make it the next ninety-nine.'

Well, sir, that sot me to thinkin', an' the more I thought, the more I realized what a lot o' common sense that mother-in-law o'

your'n has got. She--"

"You mean my step-mother, Jones."

"They say it amounts to the same thing in most families," said the ready Mr. Jones, and continued to expatiate upon the remarkable qualities of Rachel Gwyn.

Kenneth found it difficult to think of the woman as Rachel Gwyn.

To him, she was unalterably Rachel Carter. Time and again he caught himself up barely in time to avoid using the unknown name in the presence of others. The possibility that he might some day inadvertently blurt it out in conversation with Viola caused him a great deal of uneasiness and concern. He realized that he would have to be on his guard all of the time.

There seemed to be no immediate prospect of such a calamity, however. Since the memorable encounter in the thicket he had not had an opportunity to speak to the girl. For reasons of her own she purposely avoided him, there could be no doubt about that. On more than one occasion she deliberately had crossed a street to escape meeting him face to face, and there was the one especially irritating instance when, finding herself hard put, she had been obliged to turn squarely in her tracks and hurry back in the direction from which she came. This would have been laughable to Kenneth but for the distressing fact that it was even more laughable to others. Several men and women, witnessing the manoeuvre, had sn.i.g.g.e.red gleefully,--one of the men going so far as to slap his leg and roar: "Well, by gosh, did you ever see anything like that?"

His e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, like that of a town-crier, being audible for a hundred feet or more, had one gratifying result. It caused Viola to turn and transfix the offender with a stare so haughty that he abruptly diverted his attention to the upper north-east corner of the court-house, where, fortunately for him, a pair of pigeons had just alighted and were engaged in the interesting pastime of bowing to each other.

A week or so after his return from the farm Kenneth saw her riding off on horseback with two other young women and a youth named Hayes.

She pa.s.sed within ten feet of him but did not deign to notice him, although her companions bowed somewhat eagerly. This was an occasion when he felt justified in swearing softly under his breath--and also to make a resolve--to write her a very polite and formal letter in which he would ask her pardon for presuming to suggest, as a brother, that she was making a perfect fool of herself, and that people were laughing "fit to kill" over her actions. It goes without saying that he thought better of it and never wrote the letter.

She was a graceful and accomplished horsewoman. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she cantered down the street, sitting the spirited sorrel mare with all the ease and confidence of a practised rider. Her habit was of very dark blue, with huge puffed sleeves and a high lace collar. She wore a top-hat of black, a long blue veil trailing down her back. He heartily agreed with the laconic bystander who remarked that she was "purtier than most pictures."

Later on, urged by a spirit of restlessness, he ordered Zachariah to saddle his horse and bring him around to the front of the tavern, where he mounted and set out for a ride up the Wild Cat road. Two or three miles above town he met Hayes and the two young women returning. The look of consternation that pa.s.sed among them did not escape him. He smiled a trifle maliciously as he rode on, for now he knew what had become of the missing member of the party.

Half a mile farther on he came upon Viola and Barry Lapelle, riding slowly side by side through the narrow lane. He drew off to one side to allow them to pa.s.s, doffing his beaver ceremoniously.

Lapelle's friendly greeting did not surprise him, for the two had seen a great deal of each other, and at no time had there been anything in the lover's manner to indicate that Viola had confided to him the story of the meeting in the thicket. But he was profoundly astonished when the girl favoured him with a warm, gay smile and cried out a cheery "How do you do, Kenneth!"

More than that, she drew rein and added to his amazement by shaking her finger reproachfully at him, saying:

"Where on earth have you been keeping yourself? I have not laid eyes on you for more than a week."

Utterly confounded by this unexpected attack, Kenneth stammered: "Why, I--er--I have been very busy." Not laid eyes on him, indeed!

What was her game? "Now that I come to think of it," he went on, recovering himself, "it is fully a week since I've seen you. Don't you ever come down town, Viola?"

"Every day," she said, coolly. "We just happen never to see each other, that's all. I am glad to have had this little glimpse of you, Kenneth, even though it is away out here in the woods."

There was no mistaking the underlying significance of these words.

They contained the thinly veiled implication that he had followed for the purpose of spying upon her.

"Better turn around and ride back with us, Kenny," said Barry, politely but not graciously.

"I am on my way up to the Wild Cat to see a man on business," said Kenneth, lamely.

"Kenny?" repeated Viola, puckering her brow.

"Where have I heard that name before? I seem to remember--oh, as if it were a thousand years ago. Do they call you Kenny for short?"

"It grew up with me," he replied. "Ever since I can remember, my folks--"

He broke off in the middle of the sentence, confronted by a disconcerting thought. Could it be possible that somewhere in Viola's brain,--or rather in Minda's baby brain,--that familiar name had stamped itself? Why not? If it had been impressed upon his own baby brain, why not in a less degree upon hers? He made a pretence of stooping far over to adjust a corner of his saddle blanket. Straightening up, he went on:

"Any name is better than what the boys used to call me at school.