Joyce of the North Woods Part 24

Before coming to St. Ange, Drew had been kept in touch with all that the men who were working for him considered his legitimate business.

Anything pertaining to his house was fully explained; village scandal, however, had been ignored, and when Drew was able to be moved in a steamer-chair to his broad porch facing the west, he had many astounding things to learn.

One morning, lying luxuriously back among his cus.h.i.+ons and inhaling the pine-filled air with relish, Drew electrified Filmer, who sat near him on the porch railing, by observing calmly:

"Filmer, I've a load of questions I want to ask."

"Heave 'em out." Jock sighed resignedly. Of course, he had antic.i.p.ated this hour, and he knew that he must be the high priest. "Heave 'em out, and then settle down 'mong facts."

"Where is Jude Lauzoon?" This was. .h.i.tting the bull's eye with a vengeance.

"Gone off for change of air and scene--somewhere." Jock presented a stolid, blank face to his inquisitor.

"Gone where?"

"Now how in--how do you expect I know? Just gone."

"Taken that pretty little wife of his to new scenes, eh? Well, she never seemed to me to belong here rightfully. I hope they'll do well."

Jock hitched uncomfortably.

"Well," he broke in, feeling it was inevitable, "Joyce didn't, as you might say, go with Jude. She's stopping on here."

"With the baby? There was a baby, I recall. My sister talked of it a good deal. She was interested in Joyce Lauzoon from what I told her."

"Well," Filmer felt his way, "there was, as you say, a--a baby, at least a kind of--a--baby. It was about as near a failure as _I_ ever saw; but Joyce was plain crazy about it."

"Was? Is--the child dead?" Drew's big eyes were full of sympathy.

"Well, I should say so! And women is queer creatures, Drew. Now any one with an open mind would have been blamed glad when that poor little cuss cut loose. It never would have had a show in life; it was a big mistake from the beginning, but after it went, and was comfortably planted behind the shack, what do you think? Why, she came back one night and dug him up and put him--" In his endeavour to keep Drew from more unsafe topics, Filmer had plunged straight into an abyss.

"Put him where?" Drew felt the gripping of life. It hurt, but it stimulated him. He was suffering with his people--his people! Joyce's lovely face, as he remembered it, pleaded with him for sympathy. It was her face that had first given him a.s.surance. She should not call in vain.

"Oh! back of where she is stopping now. They've made the spot quite a little garden plot, and--"

"Filmer, see here, tell me all about it!"

"Well, by thunder, then, here is the yarn. You see in the first place, you didn't marry Jude and Joyce as tight as an older and more experienced hand would have done. I ain't blaming you, but I've used the thought to help me to be more Christian in my views about what happened.

The knot you tied was a slipknot all right."

A shadow pa.s.sed over the sick man's face.

"You mean--" he began.

"I certainly do. There was a h.e.l.l of a--excuse me--there was a rumpus of some sort the night the kid was buried. It ended up with a general smash-a-reen of furniture, pictures and such--and I guess Joyce came in for a share of bruises, from what has leaked out since. But the outcome was, she walked up to Gaston's shack that same evening, and what happened there hasn't got into the society news yet; but when Jude and me and Tate went up to straighten out what _I_ thought was a drunken lie of Lauzoon's, there she was all right, wrapped up in Gaston's red blanket, his arm around her, and him asking what we was going to do about it?"

"What have you--done?" the even words came slowly.

"Nothing. Jude evaporated. I got a bit of a jog about Gaston; I ain't over virtuous, but Gaston was a sort of pattern to me, and I'd got him into my system while we was working on your house. He made me--believe in something clean and big--and I didn't enjoy seeing him spattered with mud of his own kicking up. But Lord! It ain't any of my business."

"And the others here? Do they make her and him--feel it?"

Filmer laughed.

"You forget," he replied; "Gaston's got about all the floating capital there is around here. Where he gets it, is his own affair, and him and Joyce don't ask no favours. The whole thing has settled into shape. You needn't get excited over it. Of course, the women folks have warned your aunt and sister off. I believe they call Joyce the worst woman in the place--when they're whispering--but they don't take any chances of giving offence by speaking out loud."

"Poor little girl!" Drew's eyes were misty. He s.h.i.+vered slightly and pulled his fur coat closer about his chin. "How does she look, Filmer?"

"As handsome as--well, a queen would give her back teeth to look like Joyce. I never seen the like. Head up, back as straight as a pine sapling, eyes s.h.i.+ning and hair like--like mist with sunlight in it.

Gaston has taught her to speak like he does. You know he always kept his language up-to-date and stylish? Well, she's caught the trick now. You'd think she'd travelled the way she hugs her g's and d's. She trips over the grammar rules occasionally--but I always said they had to be born in your blood to make you sure, and even then--you have to exercise them daily."

"Poor little Joyce! I always felt she was only half awake, as she stood that day before me. If I had it to do now--I would wake her up, before I made the tie fast."

"Lord help us!" Jock felt the relief of an unburdened mind; "is it in your religion to tie anything fast?"

"Yes; yes." Drew was looking over the sunlighted hills and thinking of that lovely, dreaming face of a year ago.

"And now," Filmer was drawling on, "while you and me are on this sort of house-cleaning spell, let me drop another item of interest into your think-tank. We-all up here ain't going to stand for any preaching business. I say this outspoken and friendly, meaning no ill feeling; just plain, what's what. You see them ideas of yours what you handed out last year set folks thinking. They sounded so blasted innercent and easy that we all chewed on 'em for a time, and some of us got stung. Now them as is native here can't think without suffering; and them as came here, came to get rid of thinking, and so you see none of us want to be riled along that _line_. See?"

"I see." Drew smiled, and stretched his thin white hand out to Filmer.

"Thanks. But if they'll let me live--that's all I want. It's my only way of preaching, anyhow--and Filmer, I _am_ going to live. I feel the blood running to my heart and brain. I feel it bringing back hope and interest--a man can make a place for himself anywhere if there are men and women about. _I_ thought first--back there--when I dropped everything, that there never could be anything else worth while, but I tell you old man, if you take even a remnant of life and love to Death's portal you're always mighty glad to get the chance to come back and see the game out. It's when you go empty-handed, that you long to slip in and have done with it. Filmer, there's something yet left for me to do."

Jock was holding the boyish hand in a grim grip. He tried to speak, but could not. He stared silently at the m.u.f.fled figure in the long chair, then with an impatient grunt, dropped his hold and actually fled in order to hide the feelings that surged in his heart.

Left alone, Drew sank wearily back and closed his eyes. The lately-acquired strength proved often a deserter when it was tested, and for the moment the sick man felt all the depression and inertia of the past. He _felt_, and that was his only gain. Before, he had been too indifferent to feel or care.

"Poor, little, pretty thing!" he thought, with Joyce's face before him against the closed eyelids. "She couldn't stand it. She didn't look as if she could. I'm sorry she had to find her way out by such a commonplace path. What was Gaston thinking of to let her? He knew--he should have kept his hands off and not blasted what little hope might have been hers."

Half dreamily he recalled what Filmer had just told him. His weakened body held no firm clutch on his imagination at that time of his life--it ran riot, often giving him abnormal pleasure by its vivid touches; occasionally causing him excruciating pain as he suffered, in an exaggerated way, with suffering.

He saw Joyce, bruised and shuddering as a result of Jude's cruelty; he saw her poor little idols dashed to pieces before her eyes; he felt her grief for the dead baby, and when he remembered Jock's account of her taking the small casket to the only spot where she herself was safe, the weak tears rolled down his cold, thin face. He was too exhausted and full of pain to wipe them away.

He heard his aunt and sister come out of the house.

"Asleep!" whispered the older woman in a glad tone.

"I'll go for a walk," Constance added, tip-toeing away. "Have the milk and egg ready when he wakes, auntie. Did you ever see such a day? I feel as if I had just been made, and placed in a world that hadn't been used up by millions of people."

They were gone, and Drew sighed relievedly.

Presently he opened his eyes, if he had slept he was not conscious of it, and there sat the girl of his dreams near him.

"Mrs.--" he faltered, "Mrs. Lauzoon, how good of you to come and see me.

I hope you know I would have come to you as soon as I was able?"

Joyce had been studying his face--nothing had escaped her: its wanness, the sharp outline, and the tears congealed in the hollows of his cheeks.

She pulled her chair nearer, and took his extended hand.

"I'm sorry you've been sick," she said simply.