The Reclaimers Part 14

"Going over to the Lenwells', I suppose. They are in some way sort of distantly related to her. Just near enough, anyhow, to listen to all her stories, and then say: 'For goodness sake don't say I told it; I got it from Stellar, you know.' She will put into any port right now. I'm her lighthouse warning," York declared. "She never approaches when I'm present."

York had risen and was standing in the doorway, where the growing moon revealed him clearly. Mrs. Bahrr, coming up the walk toward the Macpherson drive, suddenly turned about and hurried away, her tall, angular form in relief against the sky-line in the open s.p.a.ce that lay between the Macpherson home and the nearest buildings down the slope toward the heart of the town.

"Coming back to common things," York continued, dropping into his favorite chair. "My sister scandalizes me on every occasion. Whether or not you hitch your wagon to a star, Jerry, is not so important, after all. The real test is in just what kind of a star you hitch to. That will tell whether you are going to ride to glory or cut such a figure as the cow did that jumped over the moon."

"It is not always that lawyers give counsel for nothing, Jerry," Laura began, but the line of talk was again interrupted.

The coming of callers led to many lines of discussion during the long summer evening, in which Jerry took little part. In this new hemisphere in which she was trying to find herself, where east seemed south and her right hand her left, there was so much of the old hemisphere against which she had partly burnt her bridges. The friendly familiarity of New Eden neighbors was very different from the caste exclusiveness of the Darby-Swaim set in Philadelphia. With the Winnowoc Valley people the rich landholders had no social traffic. But the broad range of conversation to-night, token of general information, called up home memories in Jerry's mind and the long evenings when Jim Swaim's friends gathered there to discuss world topics with her father, while she listened with delight to all that was said. Her mother didn't care for these things and wondered why her artistic daughter could be so interested in them. But when the Macphersons and their guests spoke of the latest magazines and the popular fiction and the recent drama it brought up Lesa Swaim in her element to the listening young stranger. It seemed so easy for the Macphersons to entertain gracefully, to make everybody at home in the shadowy comfort of that big porch, to bring in limeade and nut-cakes in cut-gla.s.s and fine china service, to forget none of the things due to real courtesy, and yet to envelop all in the genuine, open-hearted informality of the genial, open-hearted West.

Long after the remainder of the Macpherson household was asleep Jerry Swaim lay wide awake, her mind threshed upon with the situation in which she had suddenly found herself. And over and over in the aisles of her thoughts what York Macpherson had said about unhitching from a star ran side by side with Uncle Cornie's words, "If a man went right with himself."

VIII

IF A MAN WENT RIGHT WITH HIMSELF

There were two of a kind of the Swaim blood, Geraldine Swaim, who had always had her own way, and Jerusha Swaim Darby, who had always had her own way. When the wills and the ways of these two clashed--well, Jerusha had lived many years and knew a thing or two by experience that niece Geraldine had yet to learn.

On the very day that Jerry Swaim left "Eden" Mrs. Darby had gone into the city for a conference with her late husband's business a.s.sociates.

Sloth in action never deprived her of any opportunities; and quick action now meant everything in the accomplishment of the purpose she had before her.

"Cornelius was such a quiet man, he was never very much company. He really did not care for people, like most men," Mrs. Darby said to her business partners, who had known her husband intimately. "Eugene Wellington has already surpa.s.sed him in getting hold of some things he never quite reached to, being an older man. And now that Eugene is proving such splendid help in taking up the less important details in my affairs he ought to do fine clerical work in the House here. There is no telling how much ability he may have for being useful to all of us along the lines that Cornelius has developed. He has proved that he is equal to a lot of things besides painting. People of little brain power and financial skill ought to paint the pictures and not rob our big affairs of business ability."

Mrs. Darby held a controlling interest in the House, so the outcome of the conference was that an easy berth on more than moderate pay, with possible prospects--just possible, of course--was what Mrs. Darby had to take back to "Eden" to serve up to Eugene Wellington when he should return from his brief errand up in the Winnowoc country. And as that was what Mrs. Darby wished to accomplish, her day's journey to the city was a success.

Only, that Winnowoc local was uncomfortably hot and crowded. Her trusty chauffeur had resigned his position on the day after Cornelius was buried, and Mrs. Darby was timid about the bluff road, anyhow. If only Jerry had been here to drive for her! With all Jerry's dash and slash, she was a fearless driver and always put the car exactly where she wanted it to be. There was some satisfaction in having a hand like Jerry's on the steering-wheel. So, pleased as to one horn of her dilemma, but tired and perspiring, Mrs. Darby came home determined more than ever to bring about her other purpose--to have Jerry Swaim in her home, because she, Jerusha Darby, wanted her there.

Jerry always filled the place with interest. And Jerry was gone, actually gone, bag and baggage. She had cleared out that morning early on a fool's errand to Kansas. What right had Jerry to go off to earn a living when a living was here ready-made merely for her subjection to a selfish old woman's wishes? Mrs. Darby did not think it in such words, because she no more understood her own mind than that pretty girl with her dark-blue eyes and wavy, gold-tinged hair understood her own mind.

One thing she did understand--Jerry must come back.

A week later Eugene Wellington dropped off the morning train running down from Winnowoc. It was too early for the household to be astir, save the early feeder of stock and milker of kine, the early man-of-all-odd-jobs who looked after the fowls, and the early maid-of-all-good-things-to-eat who would have big puffy biscuit for breakfast, with tender fried chicken and gravy that would stand alone.

All the homey sounds of the early summer morning flitted out from the "Eden" kitchen and barn-yard. But the misty stillness of dawn rested on the "Eden" lawns, whose owner, with the others of the household, was not yet awake.

At the rose-arbor the young artist paused to let the refres.h.i.+ng morning zephyrs sweep across his face. He wondered if Jerry was awake yet. Ever since he had left "Eden" the hope had been growing in him that she would change her mind. After all, Aunt Jerry might be right about it. This was too beautiful a house to throw aside for a whim--an ideal, however fine, of self-support and all that. Women were made to be cared for, not to support themselves--least of all a pretty, wilful, but winsomely magnetic creature like Jerry Swaim, with her appealing, beautiful eyes, her brown hair all glinted with gold, her strong little white hands, and her daring spirit, exhilarating as wine in its exuberant influence. No, Jerry mustn't go. She belonged to the soft and lovely settings of life.

Eugene leaned against the door of the rose-arbor as these things filled his mind, and a love of the luxuries that surrounded him here drove back for the moment the high purpose of his own life.

In the woodwork of the arbor, where the lightning had left its imprint, he saw a little white envelop wedged in a splintered rift. The rose-vine had hid it from every angle except the one he had chanced to take. He slipped it out and read this inscription:

"To Mr. Eugene Wellington, Artist."

Inside, on Jerry's visiting-card, in her own hand-writing, was the message: "Write me at New Eden, Kansas, Care of Mr. York Macpherson.

Don't forget what we are going to do, and when we have done, and won, we'll meet again. Good-by. Jerry."

The young artist dropped the card and stared down the lilac-bordered avenue toward the shadowy gray-blue west whither Jerry Swaim was gone.

And all the world seemed gray-blue, a great void, where there was neither top nor bottom. Then he picked up the card again and put it into his pocket, and went into the house to get ready for breakfast.

Mrs. Darby greeted his return as warmly as it was in her repressed nature to do, conveying to him, not by any word, the feeling that he meant more to her now than he had ever meant before.

"Didn't Jerry leave suddenly? I didn't know she was going so soon. I--I was hoping--to find her here," was what he was going on to say.

"That she would be willing to stay here; to give up this scheme of hers." Mrs. Darby finished the sentence for him. "Yes, I hoped so, too.

That was the only right thing to do. She chose her own time for leaving, but she will be back soon if we manage right. Don't be a bit discouraged, Eugene, and don't give up to her too much. She loves a resisting force. She always did."

Eugene looked anything but encouraged just then. All "Eden" was but an echo of Jerry Swaim, and the droop of his well-formed lips suggested only a feeble resisting force against her smallest wish.

"She is my own flesh and blood. I know her best, of course," Mrs. Darby went on. "The only way to meet her is to let her meet you. But we will drop that now. After breakfast I want you to look up the men. I have told them to report to you on the crop values, and harvest plans, and fall seeding later. Look over the place well, won't you? Then meet me in the rose-arbor at ten o'clock for a cup of tea and we will counsel together."

Mrs. Darby would have told the late Cornelius to "come in for instructions later." But Eugene Wellington wasn't a sure result. He was only in the process of solution. And Eugene, being very human, was unconsciously flattered by this deference to a penniless young man. It made him pleased with himself and gave him a vague sense of proprietors.h.i.+p which Cornelius Darby, the real-in-law owner of this fine country estate, never dreamed of enjoying.

"I wonder what Jerry is doing this morning," he thought as he rode Cornelius Darby's high-school-gaited horse to the far side of the place.

"The more I see of this farm the finer it looks to me. Not a foot of waste ground, not a nesting-place for weeds, not a broken fence; grove and stream, and tilled fields, and gardens, and lawns, and well-kept buildings. Not an unpainted board nor broken hinge--everything in perfect repair except that splintered framework at the rose-arbor." He paused on a little ridge above the Winnowoc from which the whole farm lay in full view. His artistic eye noted the peaceful beauty of the scene, the growing crops, the yellowing wheat, the black-green corn, the fertile meadows swathed in June suns.h.i.+ne, the graceful shrubbery and big forest trees through which the red-tiled roofs of the buildings glowed, the pigeons circling about the cupolas of the barn. And not the least attractive feature of the picture, although he was unconscious of it, was the young artist himself, astride a graceful black horse, in relief against a background of wooded border of the bluff above the clear gurgling Winnowoc. Eugene looked well on horseback, although he was no lover of horses, and preferred the steady, sure mounts to the spirited ones.

"I wonder if Jerry's big estate can be as well appointed as this. I wish she were here with me now." The rider fell to dreaming of Jerry, trying to put her in a picture of this "Eden" six times enlarged.

At this same hour Jerry Swaim was sitting in Junius Brutus Ponk's gray runabout under the shade of the low oak-grove, gazing with burning eyes at her own kingdom built out of Kansas sand.

Mrs. Darby had hot coffee and cold chicken and cherry preserves and cake with blackberry wine all daintily served for a hungry man to enjoy after a long three hours on horseback in the suns.h.i.+ne. The rose-arbor was odorous with perfume from the sweet-peas, clinging to the trellis that ran between the side lawn and the grape-arbor.

What took place in that council had its results in the letter that Eugene Wellington wrote that night to Jerry Swaim. He did not mail it for several days, and when he went to his tasks on the morning after his fingers had let go of it at the lip of the iron mail-box, the artist in him said things to him that to the day of his death he would never quite forget.

Late one afternoon, a fortnight after the day of Jerry's visit to her claim, Ponk, of the Commercial Hotel and Garage, slipped into the office of the Macpherson Mortgage Company.

"York, what happens to folks that tends to other folks's affairs?" he asked, as he spread his short proportions over a chair beside York's desk.

"Sometimes they get the grat.i.tude of posterity. More generally their portion is present contempt and future obscurity. Are you in line for promotion on that, Ponk?" York replied.

"I'm 'bout ready to take chances," Ponk said, with a good-natured grin.

"All right. Am I involved in your scheme of things?" York inquired.

"You bet you are," Ponk a.s.sured him. "And, to be brief, knowin' how valuable your time is for gougin' mortgages out of unsuspectin'

victims--"

"Well, we haven't foreclosed on the Commercial Hotel and Garage yet,"

York interrupted.

"No, but you're likely to the minute my back's turned. That's why I have to go facin' south all the time. But to get to real business now, York--"