Part 22 (1/2)
”Dry up all that!” he yelled, furiously. ”Dry up, I say! She's sick.”
Feeling his support, Dolly revived a little, and he led her out into the hall and saw her go slowly up the stairs to her room. As for Mrs.
Drake and Ann, they had pounced on the paper and had it spread out before their wide-open eyes. Sally-Lou was now on her feet. She had gone to the door, seen Dolly's wilting form disappear at the head of the stairs, and was now breathlessly feasting on the bewildered chagrin of the stunned mother and daughter.
Ann finished reading sooner than her mother. Pale and indignant, she turned to the caller. She had opened her mouth when John Webb promptly covered it with his red paw. ”Come out o' here!” he ordered, sharply.
”You go up-stairs an' 'tend to Dolly. She ain't well. She's been ailin'
off an' on for a week. You school-children have deviled the life out of the poor thing. What are you all talkin' about, anyway? Mostyn told me an' Dolly all about him an' that woman. We knowed all along that he was goin' to git married, but it was a sort o' secret betwixt us three.”
Astounded, and warningly pinched on the arm, Ann, with a lingering backward look, left the room and reluctantly climbed the stairs.
”You'll have to excuse me, Miss Sally-Lou, here's your paper,” Mrs.
Drake was slowly recovering discretion. ”I'll have to see about Dolly.
John's right, she ain't well--she ain't--oh, my Lord, I don't know what to make of it!”
”I see she _is_ sort o' upset,” Miss Sally-Lou said, ”an I don't wonder. I oughtn't to have sprung it so sudden-like. I'll tell you all good day. I'll have to run along. If thar's anything I kin do for Dolly just let me know. I'm a good hand about a sick-bed, an' I know how to give medicine. If Dolly gets worse, send word to me, an' I'll step right over. This may go hard with her. You know I think that idle scamp might 'a' had better to do than--”
But Mrs. Drake, obeying her brother's imperative nod, was moving toward the stairs. Sally-Lou and Webb were left together. Her glance fell before the fiercest glare she had ever seen shoot from a masculine eye, and yet Webb's freckled face was valiantly digging up a smile.
”I see what _you_ thought,” he laughed. ”You went an' thought Dolly was in love with that town dude. Shucks, she seed through 'im from the fust throw out o' the box. She liked to chat with 'im now an' then, but la, me! if you women are so dead bent on splicin' folks why don't you keep your eyes open? Listen to me, an' see if I ain't right. You watch an'
see if Dolly an' Warren Wilks--”
”Pshaw!” Miss Sally-Lou sniffed. ”Dolly will never give Warren a second thought--not _now,_ nohow. She's got 'er sights up, an' she'll never lower 'em ag'in.”
Webb, almost outwitted, stood on the edge of the porch and watched the spinster trip down the walk. She glanced over her shoulder coquettishly. ”You are losin' all your gal_lant_ ways, Mr. John,” she simpered. ”You don't even open the gate for visitin' ladies here lately.”
”I greased that latch t'other day,” he answered, laconically. ”It works as easy as the trigger of a mouse-trap. I don't know as I ever was a woman's jumpin'rjack. I ain't one o' the fellers that fan flies off'n 'em at meetin'. If they draw flies an' gnats that's the'r lookout, not mine.”
CHAPTER XIX
Alone in her room, Dolly stood at a window, her distraught eyes on the placid fields lying between the house and the mountains. She was still pale. The tips of her fingers clung to the narrow mullions as if for support. She seemed scarcely to breathe. Her beautiful lips were drawn tight; her shapely chin had a piteous quiver.
”Oh, that was it!” she moaned. ”I understand it now. He was engaged to her all the time, but wouldn't tell me. He got tired of us here and went back to her. I'll never see him again--never, never, never!”
The bed, with its snowy coverlet and great downy pillows, invited her.
She was about to throw herself upon it, but her pride, pierced to the quick, rebelled. ”I sha'n't cry!” she said. ”He is marrying for her money. I sha'n't weep over it. He lied to me--to _me!_ He said something was wrong with his business and when that was settled he would write. He was just trifling, pa.s.sing time away this summer as he did three years ago, and I--I--silly little gump--actually kissed him.
I trusted him as I trust--as I _trusted_ G.o.d. I even confided father's secret to him. I loved him with my whole soul, and all the time he was comparing me to her.”
Far across the sunlit meadows on the gradual slope of a rise she saw her father and George cutting and raking hay. How odd it seemed for them to be so calmly working toward the future feeding of mere horses and cattle when to her life itself seemed killed to its germ. There was a step on the stairs. The door was thrown open, and her sister rushed in.
”Oh, Dolly!” Ann cried, her begrimed fingers clutching at Dolly's arm, ”what does it mean? Is it so? Do you think he really is going to--”
”Oh, go away, go away, _please_ go away!” the older pleaded. ”Don't talk to me now--not now!”
”But I want to know--I _must_ know!” Ann ran on, hysterically, her young, piping voice rising higher and higher. ”I can't stand it, Dolly.
Ever since you told me about you and him I have thought about Atlanta and your beautiful home down there and the things I was going to do.
Oh, I thought--I thought it was actually settled, but if--if the paper tells the truth--Why don't you talk? What has got into you all at once?
Surely--surely he wouldn't--surely you wouldn't have gone out to meet him as late at night as you did and let him--you know, sister, I saw him holding you tight and--”