Part 14

To one who did not know Coats Penniman, the words would sound cold, but Sue knew the meaning of the gray tint that had overspread his face, and the extent of the concentrated rage that edged each word with bitter sarcasm. In her terror she began to cry. "I don't know it's true, Coats--I don't know it's true, dear.... I haven't talked to Ann. We can't tell till we've asked Ann.... Coats, if harm comes to you because of this, it'll just kill me--"

Coats looked at her; took her arm. "Don't, Sue--don't cry so.... I can't do anything till I'm sure. I can't tell till I see his letters. Where are they, Sue?"

"At the house.... It'll drive you mad to read them."

"Oh, no, it won't," Coats said, through tight lips. "It may drive Edward mad, though. I shall settle my account with both of them ... when I'm ready.... Where did you say Ann had gone?"

"Rachel said she had gone down to the woods. She said Ann was dressed up--I thought maybe she had gone away with Garvin--it's what he's been askin' her to do."

"Not in broad daylight," Coats said, in the same cutting way. "His kind do their work at night.... She'll come back--and with nothing but misery before her.... If Marian had only lived, the child might have been saved--" At thought of his wife, he dropped into huskiness and restless motion. "Come to the house," he said thickly. "We can't stand here doing nothing."

Sue followed him as he strode along. "Go by the front way," she begged. "Rachel mustn't see.... And father; Coats, you mustn't tell father--it'll kill him--it'll bring on a stroke, Coats."

Coats stopped. He had regained his composure. "Keep calm," he said. "I mean to keep calm. We've faced trouble together before, Sue--we're neither of us going to go mad."

"I'd rather have died than have this happen."

"I know you would. You're all Penniman, Sue--there're some of us mongrel, but not you."

They went in by the front porch. "Bring me the letters," Coats said, in the same quiet way.

Sue went to Ann's room and gathered them up from the bed where they lay scattered, as she had left them when she had hurried to find Ann. She brought, also, the sheet of paper that had led her to discovery, placed them all in Coats' hands.

Coats read them, Ann's few blotted sentences first. It was Ann's struggle over her letter to Garvin, a beginning put aside because it was so ill-written and blotted:

"DEAR GARVIN:

"If I could endure any longer without telling you, I'd not write this, but I can't. You have asked me all along in your letters why I have written so anxiously, and I have told you that I wasn't happy because I was worried about everything, but I didn't tell you the real reason."

Coats read it, then passed from letter to letter, his brows lowering more and more ominously, his eyes graying to steel as he noted such sentences as these: "Why do you let your mind dwell on the possibility of trouble--we are going away so soon, Ann--in less than a month we'll be together. I'm going to live to make you happy, then." And in another letter there was the underlined sentence, "_You are mine, now, every bit of you_--there can be no going back for either of us;" and in the same letter "... if we are careful, there is no danger of any one's knowing how much we are to each other. And it will only be for a short time--I have the agency at last--we will go in June." Coats understood as neither Ann nor Sue had understood the omissions in the picture of their life together with which Garvin had closed his letter. He understood perfectly what was in Garvin's mind. He knew what Garvin was, as Sue could not know. The men on the Ridge knew Garvin Westmore; he was an open secret.

When Coats put down the last letter and sat looking at the collected evidences of sensual infatuation and very evident suffering, a sort of madness that could not be given the name of love, he was without even the faint doubt that had given Sue a ray of hope. There might be girls who had either the coolness or the hardihood to pass through a siege such as this unscathed. Or the occasional girl who, though capable of arousing mad passions, remains aloof, wrapped in a self-sufficient self-respect that makes her invincible. But it was not his reading of the child who had grown up without anybody's particular care. He had said to Sue, "She's bound to have her bit of life, have it and pay for it." It had come sooner and more terribly than he had feared. Coats thought of Ann when she was a little thing, just able to walk across the floor, her steps, as always, leading her to him, and his face twisted in pain.

Sue had watched him. "Coats, you think it's so?" she asked despairingly.

"Yes," he said.

"What are you goin' to do?" she whispered.

Coats got up and gathered the letters together. "I'm going to find her first.... You go, Sue, and see if she's in sight anywhere. Then come and tell me."

He wanted those few minutes alone. He went up to his room and, from a shelf in the cupboard, took his pistol, loaded it and put it in his pocket. When Sue came back, he was again where she had left him, his hat on and binding the letters together. He put them in his pocket.

"I don't see her, Coats.... You have your hat--what are you goin' to do?" Sue could not rid herself of the terror his grim look inspired.

"I'm going to look for her--better I should talk to her where your father won't hear.... Then I'm going to Westmore."

Sue grew deadly pale. "Coats, don't you fight them! Don't, for my sake!"

Coats' lip curled. "Don't worry. I've got a word to say to Edward, and I'll guarantee he'll listen."

"If anything happens to you, I don't want to live," Sue said in despair.

Coats' face softened. He put his arm about her. "You're forgetting that we Pennimans are not cowards, Sue."

She looked at him with her heart in her eyes. "I'm just a woman when it comes to you, Coats--just a lovin' woman." In her agony of fear over him, Sue had thrown away the concealment of years; the truth stood clear, looked the man she loved straight in the eye.

It struck queerly across Coats' tense nerves, the revelation of a thing quite unexpected, but having nothing to do with the burning present. He answered to it only vaguely. "Do your part, then, Sue. Do what I tell you to do. Don't give way.... And not a word of all this to your father." He bent and kissed her, then, putting her aside, went out.

He went down to the woods, his eyes keen and searching beneath his lowered brows. He saw no sign of Ann, either in the open or at the edge of the woods, and went straight on, looking about him, but not pausing, until he came out on the Back Road. He had not expected to find Ann in the woods. In one of his first notes to Ann, Garvin had appointed Crest Cave as an afternoon meeting-place; Coats had made a mental note of it.

He followed the Back Road until he stood clear of the woods, then looked about him. There was no sign of any one. As far as he could see, in every direction, fields and woods and brilliant evening sunshine; cattle in the pastures below, but not a human being in sight.

Coats looked at the warm teeming country, then up at the looming Mine Banks, over which hung a faint blue haze, the mist from innumerable ore-pits which the spring rains had filled to overflowing. "The hell-hole of the Westmores," he always called it in his own mind.

Then he struck off for it, directly across country, his vigorous stride carrying him along rapidly.

XXIX

"WHAT'S NOT KNOWN"

Later, when the hollows lay in shadow and only the crowns of the hills glistened in the departing sunshine, Coats Penniman came back through the woods.

Sue had gone about the house oppressed by the terror she tried to keep out of her face. She was gripped by the certainty that there was even worse trouble in store for them than merely the shame Ann had brought upon them. The thought of it made her weak-kneed and sick, yet she tried to do the usual things in the usual way. She persuaded her father to have an early supper and go to bed, and she sent Rachel to her cabin, gave her an unexpected evening off. They would have their wretchedness to themselves for one night at least. If only it did not end in tragedy! Coats' grimly purposeful look obsessed her. And in all her coming and going, from the kitchen landing, when she was down-stairs, from an upper window, while she waited for her father to go to sleep, she watched the woods.

Sue had watched Coats in terror when he went down to the woods; she watched in terror when she saw him coming back. He had gone quickly, but was coming back slowly, bent forward and walking as if each step was an effort. His coat was off, laid over one shoulder, and his free hand held it in place, so that it covered his other arm.

Sue ran down the spring-house path, and they met as he was dragging himself up to the willows. She did not need to ask if anything had happened, for Coats was ghastly pale, and, even before she reached him, she saw that he was walking so slowly because he could not walk any faster, though, from the strained look in his eyes and the effort he was making, it was plain that he wanted to hurry. They had fought and he was terribly hurt; they had tried to kill him, and suddenly rage sprang up in Sue, commingled with her fear that he was mortally wounded.

Even before she reached him, she cried, "Coats, they've hurt you--"

"I've been shot," Coats said, in a voice that was not his it was so lifeless.

He spoke with great difficulty, as if he were about to faint, yet at her horrified exclamation he frowned and looked about him. "Hush!" he said thickly. "It's just my arm--but I've bled so I'm almost done.... Get me a drink of water."

Sue obeyed him instantly and in silence. He looked grim and determined--in spite of his exhaustion; somberly excited and at the same time fearful of something, of being overcome by weakness, for one thing. Sue visioned the worst as she hurriedly filled the tin cup she took from one of the jutting logs of the spring-house. He was not fatally hurt; her greatest terror had been quieted, and the fighting blood of the Pennimans lifted in her, giving her courage. If he had killed a Westmore it was that Westmore's due. Hatred of their hereditary enemy nerved her. No matter what Coats had done in his righteous anger, she would stand by him; she would stand and fall with Coats--no matter what came. Even the sight of his blood-soaked coat did not turn her faint.

Coats was leaning against the spring-house, and she put her arm about him, holding the cup to his lips, for he kept his uninjured hand pressed to his shoulder. "Don't you worry, Coats," she said resolutely. "I'm not frightened now. Just you drink this, an' then let me help you up to the house. I've got father to bed an' I've sent Rachel home an' Ben's not about. Just you tell me--I'll stand by you no matter what it is, Coats."

Evidently he did not mean to tell her, or else his haste was too great to waste precious moments. The water had revived him somewhat. "I'm not going to the house," he said more clearly than he had spoken before. "Go up and get something soft to wrap my arm in. Bring it to the barn--I'll manage to get up there and wait for you--in the wagon-shed. Don't let anybody know what you're about--just come to the barn to me.... Has Ann come back?"

"No. Ain't you seen her, Coats?"

"No." He paused to think, intently, though his face was twitching from pain. Then he went on hurriedly, "It's just as well--it's better she shouldn't know.... She'll come back. Put a note where she's sure to find it--just say that we've gone driving and won't be back till late, and that she's to look after her grandfather; that she's not to leave the house; that Ben will be there, so she needn't feel nervous. Say that and nothing more. Then get your hat and things and something to put around my arm and another coat for me--I want you to drive me into the city as fast as you can. I'd not take you with me, but I can't manage by myself."

"Coats! You can't go all that way with your arm like that! You've got to have a doctor!" Every word he had uttered made her the more certain that there had been a tragedy, something so terrible that he was afraid of arrest. He was afraid to tell her, and she was afraid to ask him. "You can't go like that," she reiterated helplessly. "You'll bleed to death." The thought of it made her sick.

Coats broke into sudden impatience. "I'm going to a doctor! We can't have a doctor from the Ridge! I want to get to the city as fast as I can. It's the only way. I know what I'm about--I'm trying to do what's best for us all--I've had time to think. Ann and your father mustn't know--what's not known can't be told. I'll explain while we're on our way. Go and do what I told you, then come and hitch up Billy--he's the best traveler.... Hurry, Sue--God knows what I'd do if I hadn't you to help me." His voice failed at the end; he was panting from exhaustion.

Sue obeyed without a word.

XXX

CONTENT

Twenty minutes later, when Ann came out from beneath the pines at the edge of the woods and started down through the fields to the house, she saw Sue and Coats driving away from the barn. She could not see distinctly, they were too far away, but she noticed that they were going fast. Evidently they had had supper and were going somewhere together, as they so often did.

Ann had not realized how late it was until the sun touched the horizon. She was reminded then that it was past the supper hour and that they would wonder what had become of her. She must have sat for two hours there, under the pines, simply thinking of her happiness. She had wanted to be alone with it, just as long as she could be. Once she had carried her grief and her desolation to that place; it seemed the right place to come with her joy.

Ann was glad she was going to have the evening to herself, just to sit on the porch and think. The farm and everything connected with it had faded into distance since that hour with Edward. They belonged to each other. The joy of it! During those two weeks of anxious thought over Garvin, she had realized that Edward was more to her than any one else in the world. And she knew now that he loved her as she loved him. She was solemnly, gratefully happy. He was wise and loving and wonderful; he filled the place of friend, father and lover. The ache of loneliness she had carried about with her since she was a little thing was stilled.

Ann had thought of Garvin many times that afternoon. Edward had talked about him while they sat together in the hollow. The first time she and Edward had met after she had given Garvin her promise, she had gathered up her courage and had told Edward of her engagement to his brother. Ann had felt that she must tell him. She had given Edward every detail of her acquaintance with his brother.

Edward had listened to her, never taking his eyes from her face, and when she had finished he was a little gray about the lips, as he had been while she handled the runaway horse, but all he had said was, "You don't love Garvin, Ann."

"I'm fond of him," Ann had said in deep distress.

"You don't love him--you have been spared that," Edward had repeated quietly.

"I don't love him as he loves me--I promised to marry him when I was angry and wretched," Ann had confessed.

"Yes, I understand that," Edward had said in the same steady way. "You neither love him nor will you marry him. Before long you will collect courage to write Garvin exactly how you feel. I'd rather have it that way. Then he will accommodate himself to it without going mad over it, which will be the best solution for him. And in the meantime he shall not come near you." Then he had smiled at her as he often did. "You love to be loved too well to love easily, my little Ann. But it won't always be so."

"I am so sorry for him," Ann had said.

"We are all sorry for him," Edward had answered. "By and by you will understand why."

It had been Edward's last word on the subject. In their following meetings, he had held his peace, listening intently to Ann's troubled thoughts--until that afternoon, when she had told him that she had written to Garvin, and what she had written. Then, in that steady way of his, Edward had told her what she was to him, and heaven had opened to Ann. He had filled her heart completely.

Edward had gone back over the years and had told her about his life; about his leaving Westmore; about his marriage; about their future together. And then he had told her about Garvin, and Ann had understood why she had been drawn to Garvin and had pitied him, and yet had felt repelled. He was one of the unfortunates of the world.

Edward had not even hinted at what he knew had been Garvin's endeavor and that she had been walking on the edge of a precipice over which many would have fallen; that her elusiveness and her innocence, and, more than anything else, the quality of her affection for Garvin had probably saved her. He allowed her to think affectionately and pityingly of his brother; when he took Ann unto himself, Garvin would necessarily be part of her inheritance.

Ann was still absorbed when she came slowly down from the woods and into the house. Sue's note was lying on Ann's plate, and she read it somewhat vaguely: she was to take care of her grandfather while they were away; they would not be back until very late, but Ben would be there so she need not feel anxious.... Ann turned away from the table; she did not want anything to eat. She went up, dutifully, to see whether her grandfather needed anything, and, finding him asleep, went to her room. Then she saw her gaping trunk, Edward's books flung out on the floor ... and that Garvin's letters were not there.

At first she was terrified, for the spell of secrecy was still upon her, and the fear of harm to Edward and to Garvin. But then it came to her as a tremendous relief that Edward would know how to guard himself and how to shield Garvin. He was very wise and careful. He had said to her, "I mean to tell Garvin everything just as soon as I feel it is wise to do so. I shall write to Coats Penniman at once, but I am afraid the Penniman enmity is insurmountable. If it is, we must wait until you are of age, and that will be in October." Edward would know what to do and what to say to them; she need not be frightened.

As she sat on the porch, listening to the night sounds, Ann kept repeating to herself that she need not be frightened, and her faith in Edward's wisdom was so complete that she slipped into visions of the future. It was a dark night illumined only by the orange-red glow in the west, and it was fading rapidly. It was going to be a black night, misty with the prescience of rain.

It grew so dark that even the outlines of the nearest objects faded into the enveloping blackness, but Ann did not move; she was still dreaming with eyes wide, quite alone yet content.

XXXI

THE FAMILY NAME

It was after sundown when Judith lifted from her work over the flower-bed on the terrace and looked at the glow in the western sky. It was twilight; time for Garvin to come from the city, and Edward from his daily ride to the club; another long evening before her without the relief of active work.

Would Baird come that evening? Since her visitors had gone, there had been significant intervals between his calls, and she was quite helpless in the matter. She was filled with a passionate revolt against what she felt was woman's helplessness. If she had a man's opportunities, how long would she remain quiescent at Westmore, a slave to a routine that had begun to gall her intolerably! And any day she might be set aside.

Judith had endlessly pondered Edward's tense championship of Ann, and Baird's interest in the girl. What was going to grow out of it all? Something certainly that would make Westmore unendurable to her. After fifteen years of mental and physical toil, she was a dependent, unskilled in any direction--except as a housekeeper--the spinster adjunct to a family that would not need her. It was the fate of most women who conserved and conserved. It was her rearing that had made her what she was. If she had defied the family conventions and had gone out into the world, she could easily have made a life for herself. It was men who held the winning cards.... Judith's gardening had been a relief. She could look her thoughts while she worked; the warm earth her strong hands had prodded and pressed was a safe confidant.

She stood with hand shading her face, looking at the sunset glow, her lips shut in a straight line, her eyes smoldering. When the thud of steps on the porch above warned her that some one was coming, she turned with her usual swift decision, but first she had wiped expression from her face, a resolute downward movement of her hand from which her eyes emerged, level and questioning.

It was Ben Brokaw who was hurrying down to her, his long arms hanging and his body bent, his usual position when running and which was oddly suggestive of primordial locomotion. The smile that grew in Judith's eyes as she watched the grotesque creature changed quickly into a frown when she saw his face. He had evidently run some distance, for there was about him the steaming heat of a hard-driven animal. But his ridged and mottled face was curiously drawn and tense. He had brought up within a few feet of her, had paused and straightened.

With the instant alarm of one inured to apprehension, Judith asked, "What has happened?"

Ben could express himself only in the way natural to him. "Miss Judith, there ain't no time fo' me to come around slow to what I've got to tell, an' you ain't one to go under, you're Westmo' through an' through.... Miss Judith, the Mine Banks is claimed another Westmo'."

"Garvin?" Judith asked through suddenly blanched lips.

"Not him, tho' there's no tellin' about him. It's Edward, Miss Judith."

"Edward ... not Edward--" Judith's voice was entirely without modulation.

Ben hurried over his explanation. "I were watchin' over Ann, like Edward had told me to do--it's Edward I've been workin' for this spring, not Coats Penniman. I had found out that Garvin was meeting Ann, an' Edward had told me not to let Garvin come near Ann again. Edward knowed that Ann were safe if I watched over her. This afternoon Edward had been talkin' with Ann, down by the Back Road, an' when he went and Ann went up in the woods, I was clost to her. When she went down to the house I went to the Banks. I'd heard shootin' there, but that's always goin' on about here, I didn't think nothin' of that, but I was scart by things I seen when I got to the Banks, an' I looked about. I found him, Miss Judith, he's lyin' like one gone peaceful to sleep--the little thing what killed him done its work quick."

"You mean--he's been shot--to death--?" Judith whispered with pauses.

"Yes." Ben looked down at the flower-bed.

"By whom?" She had straightened, flung back her head.

Ben was silent.

Judith went to him, laid her steel grip on his shoulder. "You tell me!... There's only one man in the world would do that.... You know who did it--tell me this instant what you know!"