Part 6 (1/2)
Gordon Makimmon's hand crept toward his pocket ... then he remembered--he had lost that which he sought ... on the side of Cheap Mountain. If Simmons would turn, say something further, taunt him, he would kill him with his hands. But Simmons did none of these things; instead he walked slowly, unharmed, into the store.
XVI
Gordon had intended to avoid the vicinity of the Courthouse on the day of the sale of his home, but an intangible attraction held him in its neighborhood. He sat by the door to the office of the _Greenstream Bugle_, diagonally across the street. Within, the week's edition was going to press; a burly young individual was turning the cylinders by hand, while the editor and owner dexterously removed the printed sheets from the press. The office was indescribably grimy, the rude ceiling was hung with dusty cobwebs, the windows obscured by a grey film. A small footpress stood to the left of the entrance, on the right were ranged typesetter's cases with high, precarious stools, a handpress for proof and a table to hold the leaded forms. These, with the larger press, an air-tight sheet iron stove and some nondescript chairs, completed the office furnis.h.i.+ngs.
Over all hung the smell of mingled grease, ink, and damp paper, flat and penetrating.
Without, the sun shone ardently; it cast a rich pattern of light and shade on the Courthouse lawn and the small a.s.semblage of merely idle or interested persons gathered for the sale. The sheriff stood facing them under the towering pillars of the portico; his voice rang clearly through the air. To Gordon the occasion, the loud sing-song of the sheriff, appeared unreal, dreamlike; he listened incredulously to the meager cataloguing of his dwelling, the scant acreage, with an innate sense of outrage, of a shameful violation of his privacy. He was still unable to realize that his home and his father's, the clearing that his grandfather had cut from the wild, was actually pa.s.sing from his possession. He summoned in vain the emotions which, he told himself, were appropriate.
The profound discouragement within him would not be lifted to emotional heights: la.s.situde settled over him like a fog.
The bidding began in scattered, desultory fas.h.i.+on, mounting slowly by hundreds. Eighteen hundred dollars was offered, and there the price obstinately hung.
The owner of the _Bugle_ appeared at his door, and nodded mysteriously to Gordon, who rose and listlessly obeyed the summons. The former closed the door with great care, and lowered a faded and torn shade over the front window. Then he retired to a small s.p.a.ce divided from the body of the office by a curtain suspended from a sagging wire. He brought his face close to Gordon's ear. ”Have a nip?” he asked, in a solemn, guarded fas.h.i.+on. Gordon a.s.sented.
A bottle was produced from a cupboard, and, together with a tin cup, handed to him.
”Luck,” he p.r.o.nounced half-heartedly, raising the cup to his lips. When the other had gone through a similar proceeding the process was carefully reversed--the bottle was returned to the cupboard, the tin cup suspended upon its hook, the steps retraced and the curtain once more coaxed up, the door thrown open.
The group on the Courthouse lawn were stringing away; on the steps the sheriff was conversing with Valentine Simmons' brother, a drab individual who performed the storekeeper's public services and errands. The sale had been consummated. The long, loose-jointed dwelling acc.u.mulated by successive generations of Makimmons had pa.s.sed out of their possession.
A poignant feeling of loss flashed through Gordon's apathy; suddenly his eyes burned, and an involuntary sharp inspiration resembled a gasp, a sob.
A shadow ran over the earth. The owner of the _Bugle_ stepped out and gazed upward. At the sight of the soft, grey clouds a.s.sembling above an expression of determined purpose settled upon his dark countenance. He hurried into the office, and reappeared a few minutes later, a peaked corduroy hat drawn over his eyes, a piece of pasteboard in one hand, and, under his arm, a long, slender bundle folded in black muslin. The pasteboard he affixed to the door; it said, ”Gone fis.h.i.+ng. Back to-morrow.”
XVII
Minus certain costs and the amount of his indebtedness to Valentine Simmons, Gordon received the sum of one thousand and sixty dollars for the sale of his house. He was still sleeping in it, but the day was near when he must vacate. The greater part of his effects were gathered under a canvas cover on the porch, Clare's personal belongings were still untouched in her room. He must wait for the disposition of those until he had learned the result of the operation.
He heard from Clare on an evening when he was sitting on his lonely porch, twisting his dextrous cigarettes, and brooding darkly on the mischances that had overtaken him of late. It was hot and steamy in the valley, no stars were visible; the known world, m.u.f.fled in a close and imponderable cloak, was without any sign of life, of motion, of variety. Gordon heard footsteps descending heavily from the road, a bulky shape loomed up before him and disclosed the features of Dr. Pelliter.
He greeted Gordon awkwardly, and then fell momentarily silent. ”She sent you a message, Gordon,” he p.r.o.nounced at last.
”Clare's dead,” Gordon replied involuntarily. So far away, he thought, and alone.... He must go at once and fetch her home. He rose.
”Clare said,” the doctor continued, ”if your sister's eldest was to come in to give her the sateen waist.” An extended silence fell upon the men; the whippoorwills sobbed and sobbed; the stream gurgled past its banks.
Then:
”By G.o.d!” Gordon said pa.s.sionately, ”I don't know but I'm not glad Clare's gone--Simmons has got our house, I'm not driving stage ... Clare would have sorrowed herself out of living. Life's no jig tune.”
The doctor left. Gordon continued to sit on the porch; at intervals he mechanically rolled and lit cigarettes, which glowed for a moment and went out, unsmoked. The feeling of depression that had cloaked him during the few days past changed imperceptibly to one of callous indifference toward existence in general. The seeds of revolt, of instability, which Clare and a measure of worldly position, of pressure, had held in abeyance, germinated in his disorganized mind, his bitter sense of injustice and injury. He hardened, grew defiant ... the strain of lawlessness brought so many years before from warring Scotch highlands rose bright and troublesome in him.
XVIII
Clare's body was brought back to Greenstream on the following day. His sister and her numerous brood descended solicitously upon Gordon later; neighbors, kindly and officious, arrived ... Clare was laid out. There were sibilant, whispered conversations about a mislaid petticoat with a mechlin hem; drawers were searched and the missing garment triumphantly unearthed; silk mitts were discussed, discarded; the white shoes--real buck and a topnotch article--forced on. At last Clare was exhibited in the room that had been hers. There was no place in the Makimmon dwelling for general a.s.semblage but the kitchen, and it had been pointed out by certain delicate souls that the body and the preparations for the funeral repast would accord but doubtfully. Besides, the kitchen was too hot.