CHAPTER XXX

THE RETURN

It was strange to Hilda to be going home to Lame Jones County by railroad. Not once before, since that journey from New York that brought the Van Brunts to Texas, had she traveled on a train. The thought flitted vaguely through her mind—why she’d hardly know how to act—what to do.

But, once settled in the car, sunk in her own thoughts, she found that the people in the other seats or passing in the aisles were almost like shadows. Even the Marchbankses out there at the ranch, in that queer breakfast at dawn, Mrs. Marchbanks and Maybelle stealing down for it in wrappers, sitting with her under the colonel’s watchful eye, hadn’t been real people. They all swung in a sort of dream. Mrs. Marchbanks’s little signals to her when the man at the end of the table wasn’t looking—that trying to get in a word alone with her before the final good-by. What did it matter? Maybelle’s anxious, apologetic whisper that she’d tried to find out what Pa said in his telegram—guessed it was just a notification to the folks at the Sorrows of Hilda’s unexpected return—got little attention. Fayte wasn’t at the table. Probably he hadn’t come back from Juan Chico.

But, when they’d driven the miles in to the station, the colonel hardly speaking a word to her on the way, they didn’t see anything of Fayte there, either—and Hilda felt sure that the colonel was both disappointed and angry at that. He was angrier still when she openly posted with her own hand the note she had written to Pearse. Then they were checking her trunk; the colonel was having it brought close to the track where it could be loaded as soon as the train pulled in. Some one came hastily around the corner of the building, speaking to her as Miss Van Brunt, lifting his hat—the marshmallow man—the man who had stolen the ride with Maybelle on the way to the dance—the person Maybelle called Gene. In the morning light he looked more hard and objectionable even than she’d thought. His air was furtive. She moved back a step; he followed up, saying hurriedly:

“I didn’t mean to be rough last night when you butted in on my game. Of course I took you for Maybelle. How about her? She send me any word? Have her folks found out anything? What’s my chance to see her now?”

“What—what’s all this?” Marchbanks pounced on them from around the pile of baggage—he had heard every word. “Stop—wait, Hilda!”

The train roared in; her trunk—the only one to go—was hustled aboard.

“Hold on!” But she went past him. It was the conductor who helped her up the step, while he shouted “All aboard!” As the train moved out, she looked back to see the two men confronted. The wheels gathered speed. Soon the station was a toy house, those two she’d left beside the track just little vibrating dots—and finally they were out of sight.

Thump-thump of the wheels—the swift-flying landscape outside of the windows.... Time—place—were things that wavered, dissolved. She was again the little girl Hilda of nearly twelve years ago, on that journey from New York to Texas; her mother lying ill in a berth the porter had made up; all the people trying to be kind to them, but the Masterses seeming like own folks; Pearse’s mother sitting beside her mother, fanning the sufferer’s pale face, and her Boy-On-The-Train making himself a little girl’s hero. With this came more sense of reality than anything about her held. She could see it and feel it more vividly than she saw the conductor when he came through for her ticket now, or these other people about her in the seats of this other train.

Through the long day’s journey, the stopping and starting, the getting on and getting off of passengers at stations, Hilda lived over and over the few short days that Pearse Masters—in the flesh—had occupied in her life; the many long hours that he had been with her mentally. Why he’d always been there. He was one of the fundamental facts of existence—like Uncle Hank.

He had asked her to stay in Encinal County so he could see her—once again, anyway. She’d failed him. She hadn’t stayed. Well—but—she’d told him in that note why she couldn’t stay. And she fairly begged him to come right over to the Three Sorrows as quick as he could. Would he do it? And if he did.... How would it be when he came?

At the lowest of her depression she had a sick, cold clammy feeling that what she’d done—hiding Pearse in the cyclone cellar, and never telling Uncle Hank all these years; keeping him out of sight when she met him that night at the camp-fire, and again when she saw him on the trail the day the rustlers were at the ranch; not admitting to Uncle Hank when he talked to her on the door-stone that there was such a person as Pearse in Encinal County, and that his presence was the greater part of the reason for her wanting to go to the Alamositas to school—sometimes all this arrayed itself against her and seemed unforgivable. Then she’d excuse herself—and Pearse—by remembering how long ago most of it was. He was different now. She was different. Yet it was a very pale, spent Hilda who saw, for the first time, the roof-lines of the little new station out on the western edge of the Three Sorrows, who got up and followed with dragging step when a porter jerked her valises together and started out with them.

Uncle Hank was there to meet her with the buckboard. Well, it was a relief to have him to face—first. Uncle Hank was going to be the hardest part of it. She could deceive the others, if necessary; but she knew those kind blue eyes would look right through her.

And that’s just what they seemed to do as he swung her down from the steps, searched her face gravely and said in a sort of subdued tone:

“My, it’s a weight off my mind to have you here, all right, Pettie!” Then after another anxious survey of her pale cheeks, the lips that she couldn’t keep from quivering, the eyes that were only bright because of unshed tears, he finished on a falling note, “I got Lee Marchbanks’s telegraft about noon.”

The trunk had been thrown off. The train thundered away. Now Burch rode in from the trail, swung down from his pony, and came across to give her the usual funny, bumping kind of Burch kiss and ask in blunt boy fashion as he picked up the valises:

“What started you home all in a hurry before the term was over, Hilda? Not sick, are you?”

She glanced sidewise at Uncle Hank, who was bringing her trunk to lash on the back of the buckboard, and got a little shake of the head, which showed that he alone had whatever disquieting information there was in that telegram of Colonel Marchbanks’s.

“S’pose we leave sister tell us why she come home when she’s ready to say, Bud,” he suggested. “Reckon we’re glad to see her—whatever’s the reason. When folks get back ’tain’t polite, right at the first go-off, to ask too many questions, or so I was fetched up to believe.”

“All right, Uncle Hank.” Burch, piling valises into the buckboard, grinned across at the old man strapping on the trunk. “Of course you’d stick up for Hilda, whatever she did. You always do. All I’ve got to say is that it takes something more than a quitter to get ready for college. Bet I beat her yet.”

“I guess you will, Buddie.” Hilda’s foot was on the step. “I never said I was going to college, anyhow. Uncle Hank and I are going to be partners and run the ranch; you know that.”

Burch stared up at her, absently chucking a bag to see if it was firm.

“Aw, that was the talk when we had to save money. We don’t, now. Hilda,” with a sharper look at her, “I believe you are sick. You look like it, anyhow.”

“Ride on ahead, son,” Hank said gently. “Tell Auntie we met the girl, and it’s all right. You and her can talk out this college business when we get home. This child has had a hard trip. No wonder she looks sorta peaked; traveling on the railroad is mean work, if you ask me.”

“But it’s lovely to have our own station, right here on our own land,” Hilda put in nervously. “It’s ever so exciting.”

“Ye-es,” drawled Burch, grinning again as he heaved himself into the saddle and held his pony for a moment close beside them. “I noticed how excited you were when you first came—just like some one walking in their sleep.” He loosened the rein and galloped ahead.

There was a trying moment just after he was gone. Uncle Hank wouldn’t demand anything of her—he never did. That was what made it so hard. She must begin. She couldn’t begin. As though he felt her trouble, he said in a low tone,

“I wasn’t aiming to ask any questions, Pettie.” The hurt in his voice pierced her. “I can wait for you to say your say.”

“Oh, can you, Uncle Hank?” Her voice was husky. “Would you do that? I think—or anyhow I hope—that he’ll be over here at the Three Sorrows—well—soon. If you could wait until then—”

“I’ll wait.” The old man’s eyes were fixed straight ahead, on the empty plain. “That telegraft of Lee Marchbanks’s sorta made me think there might be a young man coming over here to see me pretty soon.”

“Did it? Did they say it was—Pearse Masters?”

Hank glanced up at her with a brief nod.

“That’s the name,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll show it to you,” and he began searching through his pockets. “Long as it wasn’t that feller Fayte Marchbanks,” he muttered half to himself, “I felt I had something left to be thankful for. What’s that name again, Pettie? Masters?”

“Pearse Masters.” Hilda, studying his face, saw that apparently he had never heard the name before. It meant nothing to him. But Pearse knew Uncle Hank by name; seemed to have known him—or known of him—a long time. Oh, why couldn’t she have had a chance to be told about that before she came home! The telegram was being smoothed out on her knee. She glanced down at it.

“Your ward, Hilda Van Brunt, made attempt to elope from my house with man named Masters. Am sending her home on this morning’s train. Marchbanks.”

She sat staring at it dumbly. Of course that was what the colonel would have said. But she could tell Uncle Hank the truth about that. She could tell him the whole thing. And he would believe her. As she began to speak, some one behind them called out,

“Hi, Pearsall!”

Looking around, they saw the agent standing in the station door waving a paper. Uncle Hank turned, almost with an air of relief, went back and got it. Hilda watched as he read and re-read the message, spoke to the man over his shoulder, and then came toward her, his hat pushed back, his hair ruffled, demanding, as he turned the sheet over to her,

“What in time does this mean, Pettie? I can’t make nothing of it. The agent says that it’s been delayed. Looks like Marchbanks must have sent it soon after you took the train.”

“He did,” said Hilda, as she read. “He must have sent it right there at the station at Juan Chico.” For the second yellow sheet that she and Uncle Hank now read together ran:

“Statement in my earlier message entire mistake. Very much regret whole circumstance and apologize to Miss Hilda. She behaved most honorably. She will explain.

“Marchbanks.”

And explain Hilda did, as she and Uncle Hank finally drove away, headed for home. When all was told, and Uncle Hank seemed relieved as she expected he’d be—he said slowly,

“And yet you tell me this young man, of the name of Masters, is coming over here to see me, Pettie?” Hank tried to smile. “No, you needn’t answer that. I said I’d ask no questions. Looks like I might keep my word—for a few minutes, anyhow.”

The buckboard rattled ahead. Hank’s wide gaze took in the Three Sorrows pastures, the glimpse, beyond there, of the low roof. There was the property he had pulled out of debt, saved for Charley Van Brunt’s children. Not so young as he had been—no, not so young. Yet to Hilda’s eyes, which had always seen him with the silver in his hair, he shouldn’t have appeared noticeably older than when on that first occasion, in the office room, she, frightened that he was going away and leaving her, had wanted to say to him, in the words of her fairy tale, “If you will never forsake me, then I will never forsake you.” He stirred uneasily and began to speak.

“You got my last letter?”

Instantly there flashed into her mind the details of that letter: a sort of summing up of the Three Sorrows business affairs—in which he’d reminded her that she was said to be his partner in them, but in fact, though he was their guardian, she and Burch owned everything in full, and would be his employers, and he wanted her to see what this railroad proposition meant to the estate. It had come the day before the dance at Graingers. Other things, to her much more important, had so filled her thoughts that she had not answered it. She came to herself now with the knowledge that Uncle Hank was stealing glance after glance at her, apparently distressed by the look in her face.

“I—oh, of course, you did write me in the letter all about it,” she said confusedly. “I guess I didn’t quite understand. Are we—will it put us out of debt, Uncle Hank?”

“Pays everything.” The old man smiled a little sadly. “With the State & Gulf Line running that spur right through here, gives a-plenty to pay off—and stands to make you and Burch rich young folks. Within a few years, if things is managed right, you’ll be very rich, I doubt not. You can see from that, Pettie, why Lee Marchbanks’s news of you—” He broke off and gave his attention to his team, finishing after a minute, “You will both be rich. I ain’t uneasy about Burch. He’s a boy; and old-headed at that. It’s you—and—and things like this telegraft that scares me.”

No, it wasn’t that he really looked so much older; he seemed somehow stricken, disappointed. Why, he’d had that second telegram—she’d explained how the first one came to be sent—that it was all a mistake; yet he could sit there and tell her that the ranch was paid out of debt and they were going to be rich—and still look that way. Well, it was— Oh, didn’t he know she wasn’t forsaking him—that she never would? You might like another person very much too. That didn’t mean—

“You—you will try to like him, Uncle Hank, when he comes—if he comes?” Hilda spoke with tremulous eagerness. “I—oh, I just feel as though it would break my heart if you and he weren’t friends.”

“All right, Pettie girl.” Again that effort to smile; it made her throat choke up. “You know the Bible says it’s hard for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. I’ve been told that the needle’s eye is really a low gate, so called, and the beast has to kneel down and shuffle through on his knees. Reckon that’s the way any young men you bring around will have to come through with your Uncle Hank.”

“Oh—I’m just hoping to get him over here for you to see—that’s all.” The red rushed up in Hilda’s face; she flashed a shaky little smile at him. “How could he be a friend of mine—without being a friend of yours?”

He seemed about to answer that; thought better of it; finally said mildly:

“Pettie, spose we don’t speak no more of the matter—till he comes. Let’s put it by and be just like old times. There’s your Auntie on the porch. It’s doing Miss Valeria lots of good to be rich again. She’s a’ready got in new servants. I doubt not she has many a fine plan laid for you—now that expense doesn’t have to be considered.”

But all time is new time. Even “times” are always new ones—never just like “old times.” Always something has been taken out—or something added—that makes the new different. Here was Hilda eager, fond, loving everything and everybody on the ranch of the Three Sorrows more demonstratively than ever before in her life, yet Hank felt the difference as she rushed up the steps to greet her aunt, as she ran through the house to find Sam Kee in his kitchen.

An unseen presence seemed to come with her, very real: the young man who would be here in the flesh to-morrow—or the next day—or the next. Oh, he’d come. Hank never doubted that. Surely it was the thought of him that gave her such glowing cheeks, lit soft fires under the dusk of her lashes as they sat that night at the table.

“After all,” smiled Miss Val, very complacent in the new order of things, “it’s as well that Hilda’s come home. That ranch place wasn’t very suitable. Mr. Pearsall and I have been talking about your future, Hilda. Probably a good finishing school near New York for awhile—and then travel.”

Hilda and Uncle Hank exchanged a glance, both acutely conscious of the young man who was coming to the Three Sorrows on the next day—or the next. Neither said a word to Miss Valeria of the matter. They were still partners, that far. If Pearse Masters’ coming was to be the wedge between them—it had not yet divided them completely.