Chapter 4

"You are cruel, cruel, John Moore, and I hate you worse than I ever did before, if that is possible. I'm hungry, hungry to death, and now you've spoiled it all! Go away before I wet this nice crisp bread and jam with tears, and turn it into a pulp I'll have to eat with a spoon. You don't know what it is to want something sweet so bad you are willing to steal it--from yourself!" I fairly blazed my eyes down into his, and moved as far away from him as the table would let me.

"Don't I, Molly?" he asked softly, after looking straight in my eyes for a long minute, that made me drop my head until the blue bow I had tied on the end of my long plait almost got into the scattered jam. Even at such a moment as that I felt how glad Madame Rene would have been to have given such a nice man as the doctor a treat like that blue silk _chef-d'oeuvre_ of hers. I was glad myself.

"Don't I, Flower?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I had that sensation of being against something warm and great and good, and I don't know how I controlled it enough not to--to--

"Well, have some jam then," I managed to say with a little laugh, as I turned away and picked up the silver spoon.

"Thank you, I will, all of it, and the bread and butter, too," he answered, in that detestable friendly tone of voice, as he drew himself up and sat in the window. "Hurry, Flower, if you are going to feed me, for I'm ravenous. I've been attending Sam Benson's wife, and I haven't had any supper. You have; so I don't mind taking it all away from you."

"Supper," I sniffed, as I spread the jam on those lovely, lovely slices of bread and thick butter that I had fixed for my own self. "I am so tired of that apple-toast combination now that I forget it if I can." As I handed him the first slice of drippy lusciousness, I turned my head away. He thought it was from the expression of that jam, but it was from his eyes.

"Slice up the whole loaf, Flower, and let's have a feast. Forget--" He didn't finish his sentence, and I'm glad. We neither of us said anything more as I cut that whole loaf; but why should I want to be certain that he touched the lace on my sleeve as it brushed his face when I reached across him to catch an inquisitive rose that I saw peeping in the window at us?

Leaf V.

"The juice of a lemon in two glasses of cold water, to be drunk immediately on wakening!" Page eleven! I've handed myself that lemon every morning now until I am sensitive with myself about it. If there was ever anybody "living a Noah's Ark sort of life" it's I, and I have to sit at the Ark window from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of water I'm supposed to consume in that time. Some time I'm going to get mixed up and try to drink my bath, if I don't look out.

I don't know what I'm going to do about this book, and I've got myself into trouble about writing things besides records in it. He looked at me this morning as coolly as if I was just anybody and said--

"I would like to see that record now, Mrs. Molly. It seems to me you are about as slim as you want to be. How did you tip the scales last time you weighed, and have you noticed any trouble at all with your heart?

"I weigh one hundred and thirty-four pounds, and I've got to melt and freeze and starve off that four," I answered, ignoring the heart question and also the question of producing this book. Wonder what he would do if I gave it to him to read just as it is?

"How about the heart?" he persisted, and I may have imagined the smile in his eyes, for his mouth was purely professional. Anyhow, I lowered my lashes down on to my cheeks and answered experimentally:

"Sometimes it hurts." Then a cyclone happened to me.

"Come here to me a minute!" he said quickly, and he turned me round and put his head down between my shoulders and held me so tight against his ear that I could hardly breathe.

"Expand your chest three times and breathe as deep as you can," he ordered from against my back buttons. I expanded and breathed--pretty quickly at that.

"Now hold your breath as long as you can," he commanded, and it fitted my mood exactly to do so.

"Can't find anything," he said at last, letting me go and looking carefully at my face. His eyes were all anxiety; and I liked it. "When does it hurt you, and how?" he asked anxiously.

"Moonlight nights and lonesomely," I answered before I could stop myself, and what happened then was worse than any cyclone. He got white for a minute and just looked at me as if I was an insect stuck on a pin, then gave a short little laugh and turned to the table.

"I didn't understand you were joking," he said quietly.

That maddened me, and I would have done anything to make him think I was not the foolish thing he evidently had classified me as being.

"I'm not joking," I said jerkily; "I am lonely. And worse than being lonely, I'm scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict of Mr. Carter and gone out with Aunt Adeline and let myself be fat and respectable; but I haven't got the character. You thought I went to town to buy a monument, and I didn't; I bought enough clothes for two brides, and now I'm too scared to wear 'em, and I don't know what you'll think when you see my bankbook. Everybody is talking about me and that dinner-party Tuesday night, and Aunt Adeline says she can't live in a house of mourning so desecrated any longer; she's going back to the cottage. Aunt Bettie Pollard says that if I want to get married I ought to marry Mr. Wilson Graves because of his seven children, and then everybody would be so relieved that they are taken care of, that they would forget that Mr. Carter hasn't been dead quite five years yet. Mrs. Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward under you. I can't help judge Wade's sending me flowers and Tom's walking over my front steps every day. I'm not strong enough to carry him away and drown him. I am perfectly miserable and I'm--"

"Now that'll do, Molly, just hush for a half-minute, and let me talk to you," said Dr. John as he took my hand in his and drew me near him. "No wonder your heart hurts if it has got all that load of trouble on it, and we'll just get a little of that 'scare' off. You put yourself in my hands, and you are to do just as I tell you, and I say--forget it! Come with me while I make a call. It is a long drive and I'm--I'm lonesome sometimes myself."

I saw the worst was over, and I breathed freely again. There was nothing for it but to go with him, and I wanted to most awfully.

To my dying day I'll never forget that little house, away out on the hillside, he took me to in his shabby little car. Just two tiny rooms, but they were clean and quiet, and a girl with the sweetest face I ever saw, lay in the bed with her eyes bright with pride, and a tiny, tiny little bundle close beside her. The young farmer was red with embarrassment and anxiety.

"She's all right to-day, but she worries because she don't think I can tend to the baby right," he said; and he did look helpless. "Her mother had to go home for two days, but is coming to-morrow. I dasn't undress and wash the youngster myself. It won't hurt him to stay bundled up until granny comes, will it, doc?"

"Not a bit," answered Dr. John in his big comforting voice.

But I looked at the girl, and I understood her. She wanted that baby clean and fresh, even if it was just five days old, and I felt all of a sudden terribly capable. I picked up the bundle and went into the other room with it where a kettle was boiling on the stove and a large bucket by the door. I found things by just a glance from her, and the hour I spent with that small baby was one of the most delicious of all my life. I never was left entirely to myself with one before, and I did all I wanted to this one, guided by instinct and desire. He slept right through and was the darlingest thing I ever saw when I laid him back on the bed by her. I never looked in Dr. John's direction once, though I felt him all the time.

But on the way home I gave myself the surprise of my life! Suddenly I turned my face against his sleeve and cried as I never had before. I felt safe, for it is a steep road, and he had to drive carefully. However, he managed to press that one arm against my cheek in a way that comforted me into stopping when I saw we were near town. I got out of the car at the garage and walked away through the garden home, without looking in his direction at all. I never seem to be able to look at him as I do at other people. We hadn't spoken two words since we had left the little house in the woods with that happy-faced girl in it. He has more sense than just a man.

It was almost dusk, and I stopped in the garden a minute to pull the earth closer round some of the bachelor's-buttons that had "popped" the ground some weeks ago. Thinking about them made me regain my spirits, and I went on in the house quite prepared to be scolded for whatever Aunt Adeline had thought of while I was gone. Jane told me with her broadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law's for supper, and I sat down with a sigh of relief.

Some days are like tin nutmeg-graters that everybody uses to grate you against, and this was one for me. For an hour I sat and grated my own self against Alfred's letter that had come in the morning. I realised that I would just have to come to some sort of decision about what I was going to do, for he wrote that he was coming in a week or two.

I like him and always have, of that I am sure. He offers me the most wonderful life in the world, and no woman could help being proud to accept it. I am lonely, more lonely than I was even willing to confess to Dr. John. I can't go on living like this any longer. Ruth Clinton has made me see that if I want Alfred it will be now or never and--quick. I know now that she loves him, and she ought to have her chance if I don't want him. The way she idolises and idealises him is a marvel of womanly stupidity.

Some women like to collect men's hearts and hide them away from other women on cold storage, and the helpless things can't help themselves.

I have contempt for that sort of a woman, and I love Ruth!

It's my duty to look the matter in the face before I look in Alfred's--and decide. If not Alfred, what then?

First--no husband. That's out of the question! I'm not strong-minded enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I like men, can't help it, and seem to need one for my own.

Second--if not Alfred, who? Judge Wade is so delightful that I flutter at the thought, but his mother is Aunt Adeline's own best friend, and they have ideas in common.

Still, living with him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes! The girl he wanted to marry died of turberculosis, and he wears a locket with her in it yet. I'd like to reward him for such faithfulness. But then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at Ruth Clinton and realise how faithful, and my heart melts to him in my breast--my brain feels almost all melted away, too, so I had better keep the heart cold enough to manage, if I want anything left at all for him to come home to.

In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. I truly try to make him be serious about the important things in life, like going to church with his mother and working all day, even if he is rich. I wish he wasn't so near kin to me! Now, there, I feel in Ruth Clinton's way again!

I suppose I really would be doing the right thing to marry Mr. Graves, and I should adore all those children to start with, but I know Billy wouldn't get on with them at all. I can't even consider it on his account, but I'll let the nice old gentleman come for a few times more to see me, for he really is interesting, and we have suffered things in common. Mrs. Graves lacked the kind of temperament poor Mr. Carter did. I'd like to make it all up to him, but if Billy wouldn't be happy, that settles it, and I don't know how good his boys are. I couldn't have Billy corrupted.

And so, as there is nobody else exactly suitable in town, it all simmers down to one or the other of these or Alfred. In my heart I knew that I couldn't hesitate a minute--and in the flash of a second I _decided_. Of course I love Alfred, and I'll take him gladly and be the wife he has waited for all these six lonely years. I'll make everything up to him, if I have to diet to keep thin for him the rest of my life. Probably I shall have that very thing to do, and I get weak at the idea. Before I burn this book I'll have to copy it all out and be chained to it for life. At the thought my heart dropped like a sinker to my toes; but I hauled it up to its normal place with picturing to myself how Alfred would look when he saw me in that old blue muslin remade into a Rene wonder. However, my old heart would show a strange propensity for sinking down into my slippers without any reason at all. Tears were even coming into my eyes when Tom suddenly came over the fence and picked me and the heart up together and put us into an adventure of the first water.

"Molly," he said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a jolly, strolling, German band up at the hotel; and we're going to have an evening's gaiety. Get into a pretty dress, and don't keep me waiting."

"Tom!" I gasped.

"Oh, don't spoil sport, Moll! You said you would wake up this town, and now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I went to a party with you, and I'm not going to wait any longer. Everybody is there, and they can't all have Miss Clinton."

That settled it--I couldn't let a visiting girl be worn out with attention. Of course, I had planned to make a dignified debut under my own roof, backed up by the presence of ancestral and marital rosewood, silver and mahogany, as a widow should; but _duty_ called me to de-weed myself amidst the informality of an impromptu _soirée_ at the little town hotel. And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weeded to some purpose and flowered out to still more. I never do anything by halves.

In that--that--trousseau Madame Rene had made me there was one, what she called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the cheque it called for. It was of lawn as transparent as a cobweb, real lace and tiny delicious incrustations of embroidery. It fitted in lines that melted into curves, had enticements in the shape of a long sash and a dazzling breast-knot of shimmery blue, the colour of my eyes, and I looked new-born in it.

I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about pads in my hair, now that they are out of fashion, for I've got lots of my own left in consequence of not wearing other people's. It clings and coils to my head just anyhow, so that it looks as if I had spent an hour on it. That made me able to be ready to go down to Tom in only ten minutes over the time he gave me.

I stopped on next to the bottom step in the wide old hall and called Tom to turn out the light for me, as Jane had gone out.

I have turned out that light lots of times, but I felt it best to let Tom see me in a full light when we were alone. It is well I did! At first it stunned him--and it is a compliment to any woman to stun Tom Pollard. But Tom doesn't stay stunned long.

"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you are one lovely dream. Your cheeks are peaches under cream, your eyes are blue forget-me-nots, and your mouth a red blossom. Come on before I lose my head looking at you." I didn't know whether I liked that or not, and turned down the light quickly myself and went to the gate hurriedly. Tom laughed and behaved himself.

Everybody in town was at the hotel, and everybody was nice to me, girls and all. There is a bunch of lovely posy girls in this town, and they were all in full flower. Most of the men were a few years younger than I. I have been friends with them for always, and they know how I dance. I didn't even get near enough to the wall to know it was there, though I was conscious of Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson sitting on it at one end of the room, and every time I passed them I flirted with them until I won a smile from them both. I wish I could be sure of hearing Mrs. Johnson tell Aunt Adeline all about it.

And it was well I did come to save Ruth Clinton from a dancing death, for she is as light as a feather and sails on the air like thistle-down. I felt sorry for Tom, for when he was with me he could see her, and when he was with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I verily believe it was from being really jealous that he asked little Pet Buford to dance with him--by mistake as it were.

And how I did enjoy it all, every single minute of it! My heart beat time to the music as if it would never tire of doing so. Miss Clinton and I exchanged little laughs and scraps of conversation in between times, and I fell deeper and deeper in love with her. Every pound I have melted and frozen and starved off me has brought me nearer to her, and I just _can't_ think about how I am going to hurt her in a few days now. I put the thought from me, and so let myself swing out into thoughtlessness with one of the boys.

This has been a happy night, in which I betrothed myself to Alfred, though he doesn't know it yet. I am going to take it as a sign that life for us is going to be brilliant and gay, and full of laughter and love.

I haven't had Billy in my arms to-day, and I don't know how I shall ever get myself to sleep if I let myself think about it. His sleep-place on my breast aches. It is a comfort to think that the great big God understands the women folk that He makes, even if they don't understand themselves.

Leaf VI.

Conflagration.

Most parties are just bunches of selfish people who go off in the corners and have good times all by themselves; but in Hillsboro it is not that way. Everybody that is not invited helps the hostess get ready and have nice things for the others, and sometimes I think they really have the best time of all.

This morning Aunt Bettie came up my front steps before breakfast with a large basketful of things for my dinner, and I wondered what I would have collected to be served to those people by the time all my neighbours had made their prize contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and Jane a half-hour to unpack her things and set them in the refrigerator and on the pantry shelves. One was a plump fruit-cake that had been keeping company, in a tight box, with other equally rich cakes ever since the New Year. It was ripe, or smelt so. It made me feel very hungry.

A little later Jane was exclaiming over a two-year-old ham that had been simmered in some wonderful liquor and larded with egg dressing, when Mrs. Johnson came in and began to unpack her basket.

I had planned to have a lot of food and had ordered some things up from a caterer in the city, but I telegraphed to them not to deliver them until the next day, even if they did spoil. How could I use smelts when Mrs. Wade had sent me word that she was going to bake some brook trout by a recipe of the judge's grandmother's? Mrs. Hampton Buford had let me know about two fat little summer turkeys she was going to stuff with chestnuts, and roast fowl seemed foolish eating beside them. But when the little bit of a baby pig, roasted whole with an apple in its mouth, looking too frisky and innocent for worlds with his little baked tail curled up in the air, arrived from Mrs. Caruthers Cain, I went out into the garden and laughed at the idea of having spent money for lobsters.

When I got back in the kitchen things were well under way, everything smelling grand, and Aunt Bettie in full swing matching up my dinner guests.

"Nobody in this town could suit me better than Pet Buford for a daughter-in-law, and I believe I'll have all the east rooms done up with blue chintz for her. I think that would be the best thing to set off her blue eyes and fair hair," she was saying as she cut orange peel into strips.

"You've planned the refurnishing of that east wing to suit the style of nearly every girl in Hillsboro since Tom put on long trousers, Bettie Pollard, and they are just as they have been for fifteen years since you did up the whole house," said Mrs. Johnson as she poured a wine-glass half full from one bottle and added a tablespoonful from another.

"Well, I think he is really interested now from the way he spent most of his time with her down at the hotel the other night, and I have hopes I never had before. Now, Molly, do put him between you and her, sort of cornered, so he can't even see Ruth Clinton. She is too old for him." And Tom's mother looked at me over the orange-peel as to a confederate.

"Humph, I'd like to see you or Molly or any woman 'corner' Tom Pollard," said Mrs. Johnson with a wry smile as she tasted the concoction in the wine-glass.

"I have to put him at the end of the table because he is my kinsman and the only host I've got at present, Aunt Bettie," I said regretfully. I always take every chance to rub in Tom's and my relationship on Aunt Bettie, so that she won't notice our friendliness.

"I'd put John Moore at the head of the table if I were you, Molly Carter, because he's about the only man you've invited that has got any sense left since you and that Clinton girl took to going about Hillsboro. He's a host of steadiness in himself, and the way he ignores all you women, who would run after him if he would let you, shows what he is. He has my full confidence," and as she delivered herself of this judgment of Dr. John, Mrs. Johnson drove in all the corks tight and began to pound spice.

"He's not out of the widower-woods yet, Caroline," said Aunt Bettie with her most speculative smile. "I have about decided on him for Ruth since the judge has taken to following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does. But don't any of you say a word, for John's very timid, and I don't believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. He doesn't see a woman as anything but a patient at the end of a spoon, and mighty kind and gentle he does the dosing of them, too. Just the other day--dearie me, Jane, what has boiled over now?" And in the excitement that ensued I escaped to the garden.

Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Dr. John; he doesn't see a woman, and there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realise that he had always been like that, and I told myself that there was no reason in the world why my heart should beat in my slippers on that account. Still I don't see why Ruth Clinton should have her head literally thrown against that stone wall, and I wish Aunt Bettie wouldn't. It seemed like a desecration even to try to match-make him, and it made me hot with indignation all over. I dug so fiercely at the roots of my phlox with a trowel I had picked up that they groaned so loud I could almost hear them. I felt as if I must operate on something. And it was in this mood that Alfred's letter found me.

It had a surprise in it, and I sat back on the grass and read it with my heart beating like a hammer. He was leaving Paris the day he had posted it, and he was due to arrive in London almost as soon as it did, just any hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from London immediately to Hillsboro" he had written in words that fairly sung themselves off the paper. I was frightened--so frightened that the letter shook in my hands, and with only the thought of being sure that I might be alone for a few minutes with it, I fled to the garret.