Part 26 (1/2)
A marked silence followed this outburst. The Rev. Mr. Ware had never spoken of his marriage to either of these friends before; and something in their manner seemed to suggest that they did not find the subject inviting, now that it had been broached. He himself was filled with a desire to say more about it. He had never clearly realized before what a genuine grievance it was. The moisture at the top of his nose merged itself into tears in the corners of his eyes, as the cruel enormity of the sacrifice he had made in his youth rose before him. His whole life had been fettered and darkened by it. He turned his gaze from the swings toward Celia, to claim the sympathy he knew she would feel for him.
But Celia was otherwise engaged. A young man had come up to her--a tall and extremely thin young man, soberly dressed, and with a long, gaunt, hollow-eyed face, the skin of which seemed at once florid and pale. He had sandy hair and the rough hands of a workman; but he was speaking to Miss Madden in the confidential tones of an equal.
”I can do nothing at all with him,” this newcomer said to her. ”He'll not be said by me. Perhaps he'd listen to you!”
”It's likely I'll go down there!” said Celia. ”He may do what he likes for all me! Take my advice, Michael, and just go your way, and leave him to himself. There was a time when I would have taken out my eyes for him, but it was love wasted and thrown away. After the warnings he's had, if he WILL bring trouble on himself, let's make it no affair of ours.”
Theron had found himself exchanging glances of inquiry with this young man. ”Mr. Ware,” said Celia, here, ”let me introduce you to my brother Michael--my full brother.”
Mr. Ware remembered him now, and began, in response to the other's formal bow, to say something about their having met in the dark, inside the church. But Celia held up her hand. ”I'm afraid, Mr. Ware,” she said hurriedly, ”that you are in for a glimpse of the family skeleton. I will apologize for the infliction in advance.”
Wonderingly, Theron followed her look, and saw another young man who had come up the path from the crowd below, and was close upon them. The minister recognized in him a figure which had seemed to be the centre of almost every group about the bar that he had studied in detail. He was a small, dapper, elegantly attired youth, with dark hair, and the handsome, regularly carved face of an actor. He advanced with a smiling countenance and unsteady step--his silk hat thrust back upon his head, his frock-coat and vest unb.u.t.toned, and his neckwear disarranged--and saluted the company with amiability.
”I saw you up here, Father Forbes,” he said, with a thickened and erratic utterance. ”Whyn't you come down and join us? I'm setting 'em up for everybody. You got to take care of the boys, you know. I'll blow in the last cent I've got in the world for the boys, every time, and they know it. They're solider for me than they ever were for anybody. That's how it is. If you stand by the boys, the boys'll stand by you. I'm going to the a.s.sembly for this district, and they ain't n.o.body can stop me.
The boys are just red hot for me. Wish you'd come down, Father Forbes, and address a few words to the meeting--just mention that I'm a candidate, and say I'm bound to win, hands down. That'll make you solid with the boys, and we'll be all good fellows together. Come on down!”
The priest affably disengaged his arm from the clutch which the speaker had laid upon it, and shook his head in gentle deprecation. ”No, no; you must excuse me, Theodore,” he said. ”We mustn't meddle in politics, you know.”
”Politics be d.a.m.ned!” urged Theodore, grabbing the priest's other arm, and tugging at it stoutly to pull him down the path. ”I say, boys” he shouted to those below, ”here's Father Forbes, and he's going to come down and address the meeting. Come on, Father! Come down, and have a drink with the boys!”
It was Celia who sharply pulled his hand away from the priest's arm this time. ”Go away with you!” she snapped in low, angry tones at the intruder. ”You should be ashamed of yourself! If you can't keep sober yourself, you can at least keep your hands off the priest. I should think you'd have more decency, when you're in such a state as this, than to come where I am. If you've no respect for yourself, you might have that much respect for me! And before strangers, too!
”Oh, I mustn't come where YOU are, eh?” remarked the peccant Theodore, straightening himself with an elaborate effort. ”You've bought these woods, have you? I've got a hundred friends here, all the same, for every one you'll ever have in your life, Red-head, and don't you forget it.”
”Go and spend your money with them, then, and don't come insulting decent people,” said Celia.
”Before strangers, too!” the young man called out, with beery sarcasm.
”Oh, we'll take care of the strangers all right.” He had not seemed to be aware of Theron's presence, much less his ident.i.ty, before; but he turned to him now with a knowing grin. ”I'm running for the a.s.sembly, Mr. Ware,” he said, speaking loudly and with deliberate effort to avoid the drunken elisions and comminglings to which his speech tended, ”and I want you to fix up the Methodists solid for me. I'm going to drive over to the camp-meeting tonight, me and some of the boys in a barouche, and I'll put a twenty-dollar bill on their plate. Here it is now, if you want to see it.”
As the young man began fumbling in a vest-pocket, Theron gathered his wits together.
”You'd better not go this evening,” he said, as convincingly as he knew how; ”because the gates will be closed very early, and the Sat.u.r.day-evening services are of a particularly special nature, quite reserved for those living on the grounds.”
”Rats!” said Theodore, raising his head, and abandoning the search for the bill. ”Why don't you speak out like a man, and say you think I'm too drunk?”
”I don't think that is a question which need arise between us, Mr.
Madden,” murmured Theron, confusedly.
”Oh, don't you make any mistake! A h.e.l.l of a lot of questions arise between us, Mr. Ware,” cried Theodore, with a sudden accession of vigor in tone and mien. ”And one of 'em is--go away from me, Michael!--one of 'em is, I say, why don't you leave our girls alone? They've got their own priests to make fools of themselves over, without any sneak of a Protestant parson coming meddling round them. You're a married man into the bargain; and you've got in your house this minute a piano that my sister bought and paid for. Oh, I've seen the entry in Thurston's books!
You have the cheek to talk to me about being drunk--why--”
These remarks were never concluded, for Father Forbes here clapped a hand abruptly over the offending mouth, and flung his free arm in a tight grip around the young man's waist. ”Come with me, Michael!” he said, and the two men led the reluctant and resisting Theodore at a sharp pace off into the woods.
Theron and Celia stood and watched them disappear among the undergrowth.
”It's the dirty Foley blood that's in him,” he heard her say, as if between clenched teeth.
The girl's big brown eyes, when Theron looked into them again, were still fixed upon the screen of foliage, and dilated like those of a Medusa mask. The blood had gone away, and left the fair face and neck as white, it seemed to him, as marble. Even her lips, fiercely bitten together, appeared colorless. The picture of consuming and powerless rage which she presented, and the shuddering tremor which ran over her form, as visible as the quivering track of a gust of wind across a pond, awed and frightened him.