The Wind Before the Dawn Part 5

Hornby looked at the money he placed in her hand, and hesitated visibly.

Josiah Farnshaw stiffened at her manner. Aunt Susan hated to ask for more, but this would not buy the girl a coat that she could wear in Topeka!

"You are just as good as you can be about this, Mr. Farnshaw, but--but a coat like the other girls have will cost at least eight or ten dollars."

She felt his att.i.tude.

The amount named took the man's breath. He had given all he had and yet this woman, whom he had begun to like again, was not satisfied!

"A man can't do no more'n he can, an' that's th' last red cent I've got,"

he replied, humiliated at the necessity of the confession.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," Aunt Susan exclaimed, really so at having forced the statement. She sat with her brows knit in serious thought a moment, and a light began to break in upon her. Elizabeth had to have that wrap somehow and here was a way right before her. She remembered a long cape she had noticed going down the street that very morning.

"I guess we can make it do," she said hesitantly. She was thinking out her plan and spoke slowly. "We'll just make a cloak ourselves. We can do it."

Josiah Farnshaw left the next day for home, in a good humour with himself and his munificence, but on the way home remembered Susan Hornby's hesitancy and later decision to make the cloak herself, and the worm of suspicion began to gnaw again.

"If that woman could make something that'd do, what'd she ask for one of them expensive coats for?" he asked himself. "I guess it's only th' girl that figures in that deal! I ain't nothin' but th' oats she feeds on nohow," he reflected, and having once given the thought lodgment it grew and became the chief stone of the corner.

Our own comes to us, and Josiah Farnshaw had formed the habit of that kind of thinking. He felt that he was being robbed, and forgot that his daughter was being befriended, and out of his trip to Topeka got only a sour distaste for the woman he could clearly see was going to encourage the child in extravagance. He had never spent so much money on the entire family in a winter as he had done on that girl, and yet it wasn't enough.

"He'd bet he'd never give 'er another year's schoolin'. She'd come home an' get a summer school--that's what she'd do. All folks thought about nowadays was clothes!"

To Elizabeth Farnshaw every day of that busy month was full of unconscious growth. As soon as Mr. Farnshaw was out of sight, Mrs. Hornby said to Elizabeth:

"Now, my child, I am going to take up the seams in that basque."

Elizabeth looked down at her "long basque" in dismay; she had striven hard over that waist and had thought that it would do very well, though conscious that it had faults. Her face flushed as she answered reluctantly:

"The seam in the back isn't quite straight, but--I never made one like it before--and I thought it would do."

"So it would, dear, but it can do better and we've got plenty of time to fix it. You'll feel ever so much better about it when you see how the other girls are dressed."

As Aunt Susan snipped and ripped and rebasted the refractory seam, Elizabeth brought out her little stores of finery to discuss their artistic features.

"Look," she said, opening a pasteboard box which held her few ribbons. "I coaxed a long time for that, but I got it." She held up for Aunt Susan's approval a new Alsatian bow of pink ribbon. "I wanted the wide, but they didn't have it, so I got a lot of the narrow and hid the joinings in the pleats. I think it's pretty, don't you?"

Susan Hornby looked at the bow critically, and then seeing Elizabeth's face cloud over with a suspicion that she did not regard the treasure with favour, said slowly:

"It's pretty--that is, it's a pretty colour; but I was looking to see about how many yards there was in it, for the girls aren't wearing Alsatian bows, as you call them, this year. They seem to be wearing their hair mostly in two plain braids. I'm glad of it, for you look ever so much better with your hair done that way. We can rip it up and press the ribbon. I'm awfully glad you've got such a lot; It'll make lovely bows for the braids."

While Elizabeth ripped her bow to pieces Aunt Susan's tongue ran on with the subject nearest her heart.

"To-morrow morning I'm going to have you sit by that window and watch the girls that go past about school time. You'll learn more this month doing that than you would in school, I expect. It's just as well you can't start till next term, since you didn't get here at first."

"Next term!" her new dresses with their long basques--long basques were more talked of than any other feature of dress that year, not by Elizabeth alone but all womankind--had seemed so magnificent that she could not think of it being necessary to take a whole month to make them over.

"Yes, not till after Christmas. You can't start in at the middle of a term in high school like you can in the country. We'll get you a wrap made before that time. I told your father I couldn't think of your going without a coat of some sort. He didn't feel that he could afford a coat, so I'm going to get the cloth and you and I will make you a circular this week."

"A circular? What's that?"

Aunt Susan explained the new kind of cape which came down to the bottom of the dress and had a hood lined with bright coloured silk and was puckered with rubber to make it fit the face.

It took all day to finish the basque, and the next morning Elizabeth watched the well-dressed city girls loiter past, and was glad that she could have a month to get ready to meet them in the schoolroom. She had never known anybody dressed so well for anything but a funeral, or a party, or to go to church. They actually wore gloves to school! Elizabeth looked at her brown hands and decided that she would wear her mittens to bed till her hands sweated themselves to a proper degree of whiteness, and Susan Hornby let her look on, and weigh, and exclaim. Thus was Elizabeth Farnshaw's education begun.

The afternoon was spent selecting the goods for the new cape, and wandering about the great stores and the streets; a new pair of pretty gray gloves were obtained, and for the first time Elizabeth heard the term "lisle thread" used as against the common term of cotton for all things not silk or woollen. The new cape was to have a wonderful metal fastener called a clasp, and life ran like a silver stream the next two days as they sewed on the new-fangled garment.

Oh, father! could you have but seen truly, how great would have been your joy!

Each day Elizabeth watched the boys and girls come and go past Nathan Hornby's house, and when the cape was finished she and Aunt Susan went daily on shopping expeditions. It was the most wonderful week of her fifteen years, and was well rounded out by going to church on Sunday and for the first time listening to a choir, and seeing a window of softly coloured gla.s.s. She almost wondered if she had been transported from the body to the heaven of crowns and harps which her mother loved to describe.

To heaven Elizabeth Farnshaw had gone in very truth, but it was the heaven of adolescence and developing womanhood. In the short time she had been observing the comings and goings of the boys and girls of their neighbourhood one young man had begun to stand out from the rest.

Elizabeth was nearly sixteen, and when she saw _him_ now in a pew a few seats ahead of her she made a little movement of astonishment.

Aunt Susan caught the sound of the indrawn breath and looked around inquiringly, but Elizabeth, with eyes modestly down, studied her gray-gloved hands and seemed unaware of her scrutiny. Happiness had been Elizabeth Farnshaw's daily portion for weeks, but this was different. Here was happiness of another sort, with other qualities, composed of more compelling elements. The gamut of bliss had not all been run. Elizabeth had progressed from Arcadia to Paradise and was invoicing her emotions.

She never s.h.i.+ed around a subject, but looked all things in the face; and she found this delightfully surprising world of emotions as entrancing as the external one of mellow light, music, good clothes, and educational prospects. The rest of the hour was a blissful dream, in which the only thought was a wish for Luther and his stunted pony and the freedom of gra.s.sy slopes where she could pour out her newfound joy. With each new event of this life the loss of Luther was accentuated.

Nathan Hornby and his wife had no acquaintances in Topeka. They left the church as soon as the service was over. The young girl went with them, conscious that _he_ was behind her, glad that her new cape was finished, wondering if _he_ noticed it, eager to be seen yet wanting to hide, and foolishly aglow and wis.h.i.+ng devoutly that she had eyes in the back of her head. Henceforth Elizabeth lived in the thought of seeing _him_. She dubbed him "The Unknown," and if she looked out of the window at home, it was in the hope of seeing him pa.s.s; on the way to school she was alert and watchful for a glimpse of him in the distance; if she went to church it was to look for him as soon as seated, though he was rarely there. If she saw him in the morning her day was made glad; if she failed to see him she looked forward with antic.i.p.ation to the next day.

The winter spent itself. January pa.s.sed, and February. The glad days ran on in kaleidoscopic readjustment of joy, work, wonder, and unfoldment, as far as Elizabeth's own life was concerned. After the manner of youth, her own affairs absorbed her. In fact the young girl was so filled with the delights of her own little world that it was only gradually that she began to understand that the life in Topeka was not as fortunate with the dear couple who had shared with her their home. The first signs of trouble were made manifest to her by the increasing tenderness with which Susan Hornby hovered around her mate, and her evident and growing solicitude.

Elizabeth was startled when she did at last comprehend the gloom and anxiety about her. The manner of the pair prevented questions, but, as she watched covertly, Aunt Susan's distress was transferred to her. Elizabeth was not curious, but she was intensely sympathetic, and from disinterested motives she became keenly observant of all that took place about her. No opportunity to help offered. With a sharp realization that her best friends were in trouble, she was obliged to conceal any trace of that knowledge. Nathan and his wife talked apart and in low tones, avoiding the young girl's presence, and were evidently puzzled and uneasy. It was Elizabeth's way to make the troubles of those about her her own. Longing to help, it was impossible to be indifferent. Gradually she got bits of indirect light upon the subject. From little things dropped accidentally, and often from explanations which circ.u.mstances forced upon them, Elizabeth learned that money was scarce. This came as a shock, and with all the hurt and heartsick worry which the mention of finances always brought to the girl. Why must people have money? she asked herself daily.

And mixed with dreams of "The Unknown" came speculations as to the part which money played in the game of life, and the bondage of men to it, and a longing to be free from its withering grasp. In her childish mind the matter of freedom became slightly mixed and she dreamed dreams of being free by owning unlimited amounts of it, and she coveted marvellous bank accounts, acquired in some mystical way, with which the woes of humanity could be relieved by giving. Along with this new idea of dispensing charity grew a desire to know why the crop of cash was short in Nathan Hornby's home. In her innocent way she led up to the subject of expenses in general, but Aunt Susan kept family affairs strictly in the family and vouchsafed no explanations, unaware that the example she set in that way was to bear strange and unexpected fruit. But though Elizabeth carried the reflex of the anxiety of those about her, she was scarcely sixteen, and youth and joy and life claimed her attention and the affairs of her stage in life's span crowded out the affairs of others.

These were days of transition. The child was becoming a woman. The love which was flowing out of her heart like a spring freshet toward one who, because she saw him less often was the more often in her thoughts, was making Elizabeth Farnshaw more observant of those who professed love.

Desiring mutual relations, she became sensitive to the communications of those about her who had to do with mutual relations.

Elizabeth saw that the more trouble clouded the brow of Nathan Hornby the cheerier and closer Aunt Susan drew to him. There was none of the quarrels here to which Elizabeth had become accustomed when things went wrong at home. The contrast between her father's and mother's daily life and that of Nathan and Susan Hornby in times of trouble was the subject of constant thought. Nathan and Susan Hornby were to be guide-posts along the highway of Elizabeth Farnshaw's domestic affairs. Love pointed her thoughts toward marriage, and here was a worthy model after which to build. Her natural affection and grat.i.tude were enhanced by the fact that this couple with whom she lived, and who were otherwise very dear to her, were the immediate example of all that was n.o.ble in the world of her present dreams.

The fact that the harmony between Aunt Susan and her mate was of stern stuff and not matured solely upon success and pleasure added to the strength of that example. Elizabeth had not been taken into the confidence of either; their private affairs were kept screened from the gaze of any but themselves. By a word dropped here and there, however, she learned that Nathan had speculated and lost much money; also that he had favoured measures advanced by b.u.t.ter-tongued lobbyists, and that he had lost the good-will of many of his const.i.tuents.

While Elizabeth watched the tender a.s.sociation of Nathan Hornby and his wife and found such glowing tribute in her heart toward the life they lived together, a tragedy, in spite of the support and affection lavished by a faithful wife, was to leave the sunny, cordial man a broken, half-suspicious one.

Nathan Hornby was to learn that legislative a.s.semblies were death-traps to those whom providence had failed to coach in diplomacy and judgment, that legislation was a game at which none but gamesters might successfully play, a devouring flame singeing the wings of all who failed to distinguish between the light of a common candle and that of a real sun, that it was a nightmare to most, and ticklish business for all. Unable to distinguish between the good and the bad intentions of those who advocated the pa.s.sage of bills, convinced long before the end of the legislative session that a bill looking innocent and direct in its wording might be evil and indirect in its outworking, Nathan became more and more confused and less and less able to withstand the attacks made upon him.

Nathan Hornby was a leaden figure in the legislative a.s.sembly. He was honest, but slow of wit, and apt to become pa.s.sive if pushed beyond his power to understand. This man who could throw the earth up to a hill of corn with skill and precision, who could build a haystack which would turn the rains and snows of winter, and break a colt to the harness without breaking its spirit, who had handled successfully the problems to which he had been trained, was not able to throw arguments up to the legislative hill or protect his reputation against the floods of criticism and accusation to which his actions were subjected either here in the Capitol or at home among his const.i.tuents. His spirit was broken: he recognized that he was totally unfit for the position into which fortune had thrust him. Nathan sat back in his chair, in the House, with few books and papers on the desk before him, and these unopened, his manner, like his wrinkled boots, indicative of the farm, his whole att.i.tude that of the unsophisticated. He listened to the speeches made around him, but had no ideas to express. He was a pathetic figure. Only the accidents of Gra.s.shopper Year, when legislative timber was scarce, could have placed him in such a position. His tough, shaven cheeks grew thinner day by day as he pulled at the brush of grizzled chin-whiskers and tried to understand what went on before him.

During those days Susan was both his refuge and the cross of his crucifixion. The deeper his difficulties became the more he turned to her for help, certain not only that she understood better than he the measures about which his colleagues argued, but that she understood him and his failures, as well as his needs. It was because Susan understood that the cross was so heavy. If his wife had been a dull woman, if she had been a woman without ambitions of her own, if she could have been hoaxed into thinking him the equal of his a.s.sociates, it would have been easier; but Nathan was aware that Susan Hornby knew to the finest detail the nature of his failure as well as she understood and loved the best in him. During those gloomy days the man marvelled at the gentleness of her solicitations for his cheering and encouragement, not realizing that woman is by nature faithful where man is appreciative of her devotion. Appreciation! that had been the keynote of Nathan Hornby's att.i.tude toward his wife. Susan had always known what she ought to do, what she wanted to do, and what it was best for her to do, and in all matters where her individual affairs were concerned Nathan had never interposed coercion nor advice. If Susan made mistakes, her husband knew that they were the mistakes of the head and not of the heart, and left her to correct them in her own way.

Susan Hornby had always been free, and now the walls of love and trust which Nathan Hornby had builded about their home for nearly twenty years were to be a flawless rampart behind which he could take refuge from foes without and receive help from within. At Nathan's request his wife came day after day and listened to the discussions toward the end of the session. Nathan sat before her dumb, but she was the anchor to his drifting soul as the political landslide took the ground out from under his feet.

"I only wisht I'd 'a' taken you in on this thing sooner," he said on one occasion, and remembered those first weeks when he had felt self-sufficient, and had made false moves at the State House, and had also let himself be inveigled into buying "a few margins." That was the bitterest drop in his cup. Wheat had dropped steadily from the very day he had begun buying. A steady decline in prices was unthinkable, and it was not till their land was endangered that the trusting man began to take alarm, and even then he let the speculators who profited by the sales induce him to make one more wild investment to save that which he had already lost.

His certainty that his neighbors would take revenge upon _him_ for political differences by sly prods regarding speculation was of slight importance, but Susan was to be humiliated before them!--Susan, who had tried to help him to see the dangers--Susan, who did not complain when she was called upon to sign the deeds to the land she had helped to win from the Indians and the wilderness of uncultivated things. Nathan remembered on that bitter day that but for her adventurous spirit he would have been working at day's wages in old Indiana, instead of having a home and being an active member of his community and a member of the legislature of his state, with opportunities to prove himself a man in the world of men. He had failed, and his failure reacted upon her. It was not the loss of money and political prestige alone which bit. Another phase of their life in Topeka added its humiliation. Nathan had wanted his wife to share his political honours and had found himself ignorant of every means by which these things could be brought to her. He had heard of gay winters at the Capital, but they lived apart from it all. The house in which he had placed her was attractive and on a good street, but the men whom he met at the State House soon saw that nothing was to be gained through knowing Nathan Hornby, and failed to ask their wives to call upon his wife.

Disaster is in exact ratio to our valuation of things. Although Nathan Hornby had lost three fourths of his land, his reputation as a business man and politician, and his faith in men, he still had left the one essential gift which should have helped him to win again all that which he had lost. Susan Hornby, like Ruth of old, abandoned all else and abode with her husband in love, cheering him at each problematical step, and saying as they returned from the notary's office after signing away their land to a stranger:

"Never mind, Nate, there are only two of us," and for the first time since their little daughter had been taken from them, he had replied:

"Yes, only two, thank G.o.d!" and had kissed awkwardly the hand laid over his mouth, and Susan had seen the glitter of a tear on his faded lashes, the first in many years.