Tess of the Storm Country Part 29

"And after that?" asked Tess, edging toward the lower part of "Daddy's"

bed. There she could reach for the covering over Frederick, and he would save her. The feeling of the night before that she was his protector vanished. He would--

"Never mind after that," growled Ben. "Ye had yer chance at bein' hones'

and ye wouldn't take it."

Tessibel slipped her feet into Daddy's boots--she was strangely buoyant and unafraid. It was the woman in her rising to that supreme moment when she should call upon the man she loved, and he would answer. Ben was leaning against the wall, his eyes having sought for no other person in the room.

With the agility of a hare, Tessibel dashed around him toward Frederick, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the blankets from the bed. The workings of Ben's mind were so slow that the form of the student loomed up, before he realized that the minister's son was in Tessibel's cabin.

"Ye air here to save me, Frederick," cried Tess, the light of the lantern sending a ray into the upturned widening eyes.

Letts dropped his under jaw, his body relaxing in fear. He was an arrant coward like the most of his downtrodden race. Then something s.h.i.+fted through his thick brain, and he smiled knowingly.

"So the high and the low air together--eh? The Dominie's son, and the fisherman's brat--the student--and the--"

Before he had finished the sneering words, Frederick had struck him full in the face. Boyish dignity--his father's position--G.o.d--everything was forgotten save Tess. He only knew that she was being maligned, and that her holy mission of rescuing him from the frost of a night like this was being turned into evil by a squint-eyed fisherman whom he had never seen before.

Into the man's fat flabby body crashed Frederick's strong fists.

Tessibel stood looking on, her head bent forward alertly. One arm was clasped about her neck--excitement sparkling from the flushed face and panting lips. Once the throat sound that came when she was excited rolled forth; otherwise she was silent.

Thrashed from side to side, his ragged coat made worse by the severe shaking Frederick was administering, Ben Letts groaned audibly.

"Have you had enough?" demanded the student, standing over the fisherman.

"Yep, I's a goin' home."

Tess laughed low and wickedly. She loved to see the blood oozing from the mark in the ugly face. Every drop matched those dragged from the hearts of the brat's mother, who had suffered for Ben, and of the poor little miserable child himself, struggling for life in the Longman shanty.

"You'd better go home," ordered Frederick, "and I want to tell you something. If I ever hear you uttering a word about my being in this hut, I'll follow you to the ends of the earth, and flog the life out of you.... Don't try any of your tricks on me, either."

Frederick s.h.i.+vered as the wind swept cold from the frozen lake to his damp brow. Ben had lifted his lantern and was swaying toward the door.

"I'll go hum," said he, "but I ain't done with ye--some day--"

Frederick bounded forward like a whiplash, but Tess held him back. Ben gave a quick jump and was gone.

"He wasn't worth a-hurtin' any more," Tess commented, lighting a candle.

"I know he air the man what killed my other Frederick."

The name slipped out with loving intonation.

Then the boy and the girl turned and faced each other. The shanty rocked in the wind like the cradle of a child. The willow mourned its tale of winter over the roof, sc.r.a.ping the broken tin in hollow groans, shrieking now and then as a gust roared through it.

For fully three minutes after the going of Ben, Tessibel stood looking at the student. He had saved her from Myra's fate, from a hated thing that made her teeth press hard together, and her eyes gather an expression of melting grat.i.tude.

"It were--it were--"

But the halting tongue could not finish. Untutored as she was, Tess had read the message in the student's eyes. Love teaches in one night its dreadful longing and response. Its domineering power brought Frederick Graves nearer to Tess in her rags. It made them equal, even as all are equal in love--and in death. In an instant the girl in the fish-tainted tatters was clasped close to his heart, the bright, beautiful face lifted to his. Then came the kiss, the making of which blended two lives indissolubly together. The paleness of death settled over the boy; the strong muscles of his shoulders stood out beneath the whiteness of his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, while his fingers pressed the red-brown head closer to him, his kiss deepening the crimson richness in the squatter's face. It was the one supreme pa.s.sionate moment of Tessibel's life. The sound of the whistling wind left her ears. The cold night blasts driving through the window were as the faint breezes of a summer's evening. The smoldering candle lifted its flame, blazing forth a glory that surrounded the student with a golden halo. Tessibel had experienced her first kiss. The nature in her demanded that she know the fullness of it--the pitying fullness which would bring to her that which it brings to all loving women dominated by the pa.s.sion born within them. The blood of her race, her uneducated primeval race, rose and clamored for its own. In her untutored youth she could have crushed the lad in her wild longing for such another kiss.

Pantingly she drew herself from Frederick. Why? Tess could never tell why! Myra's love for Ben Letts rushed over her overwhelmingly.... The "brat's" mother knew the sweetness of a kiss, and in it had forgotten the blasting winter winds on the ragged rocks where Ben Letts had broken her arm.

Frederick, ashy-pale, struggled for control; a consciousness of the ignorance of the girl--and his own G.o.dly profession broke upon him; and he sank upon the stool with a sob. His face in his hands filled Tessibel's soul with remorse. Delicately, with the touch of a lady born, she rested her hand upon the student's dark head. The small fingers, used to the drudgery of a fisherwoman's life, lifted the damp hair from the high forehead. Her woman's sense of the fitness of things rose keenly to quiet the boy's grief over his indiscretion.

"It were good of ye to remember that Daddy were gone," she whispered.

"He gives me kisses on the bill."

All pa.s.sion had left her tones. Of course, thought the student, she was but a child--but a forlorn beautiful child born without--without what?

If he could have known--

The next moment he did know. With abandon, complete and absolute, the hot blood coursing madly from her heart to her face, Tess threw herself upon the shanty floor. Frederick Graves drew her quickly to her feet.

"Tess ... Tessibel ... Tess ... Stand up, Tess!"

The last word came out in a shout. He had her in his arms, and she was clinging to him as ivy clings for life to an old church.

Tessibel made no effort to support herself. She was leaning limply against him with closed eyes.

"It air good to forget--sometimes," she stammered, "I air a forgettin'

all but the--student."

As on that memorable day when "Daddy" had been taken to prison in Auburn, and she had planted herself in his arms not to be removed, so Tess hung to Frederick. Ben Letts was forgotten, the suffering child in the Longman shanty whom she loved was forgotten; even Daddy Skinner was forgotten. Tessibel had found her man, and all the experiences of her kind could not help her in her hour of temptation.

"Tessibel, Tess, we can't forget, stand up." The boy's words spread through the dazed brain. Frederick dragged her arms from his neck, forcing her to the stool.

"Tessibel, have you forgotten--the Christ, your father and me?"

Had she forgotten him? Only him she had remembered--only his voice rang through her like the sweetest music. But she was so quiet now that the boy seated himself beside her, drawing her hands into his.

"Tess," he began, intensely, bending to look into the flushed face, "Tess--look at me!"

Slowly the brown eyes dragged their gaze upward until the boy and girl were staring wide-lidded directly at each other.

"Tess, have you ever thought that, some time, we might be more to each other--some time in the future when you have learned and studied much?"

Wonderingly she drew her hands from his, hiding them in the folds of the torn gingham skirt.

"I air a squatter," she got out at last. "You be high--I air low, as Ben Letts said.... But, but," she faltered, finis.h.i.+ng her sentence brokenly, "But I's yer squatter."

For one bitter moment the Longman child with its old-man face flitted across her vision. She s.h.i.+vered, rose hastily, and went to the stove, scattering the lids from their openings before uttering another word.

Frederick was watching her critically.

"You ought to go to school, Tess," he said presently.

"I has to stay here," she replied beginning to stir the embers. "If I left the hut alone yer pappy could fire it, and Daddy and me wouldn't have a home.... Ain't nice nights like this to be without a roof to cover ye."

Frederick realized this. Had he not been that very night with no place to lay his head, and no kindly hand save hers to give him something to eat? He flushed deeply at the mention of his father, and marveled that the squatter girl had not spoken with any hard feeling in her tone. It was what could be expected--so her voice implied; if she left the shanty alone, the rightful owner could then take back what the law would not allow if the squatters remained.