Part 36 (1/2)
This evening he came across to where she sat, dragging a blanket in an indolent hand. He dropped it beside her and threw himself upon it with a sigh. He was too empty of thought to speak, and lay outstretched, looking at the plain where dusk gathered in shadowless softness. In contrast with his, her state was one of inner tension, strained to the breaking point. Torturings of conscience, fears of herself, the unaccustomed bitterness of condemnation, melted her, and she was ripe for confession. A few understanding words and she would have poured her trouble out to him, less in hope of sympathy than in a craving for relief. The widening gulf would have been bridged and he would have gained the closest hold upon her he had yet had. But if she were more a woman than ever before, dependent, asking for aid, he was less a man, wanting himself to rest on her and have his discomforts made bearable by her consolations.
She looked at him tentatively. His eyes were closed, the lids curiously dark, and fringed with long lashes like a girl's.
”Are you asleep?” she asked.
”No,” he answered without raising them. ”Only tired.”
She considered for a moment, then said:
”Have you ever told a lie?”
”A lie? I don't know. I guess so. Everybody tells lies sometime or other.”
”Not little lies. Serious ones, sinful ones, to people you love.”
”No. I never told that kind. That's a pretty low-down thing to do.”
”Mightn't a person do it--to--to--escape from something they didn't want, something they suddenly--at that particular moment--dreaded and shrank from?”
”Why couldn't they speak out, say they didn't want to do it? Why did they have to lie?”
”Perhaps they didn't have time to think, and didn't want to hurt the person who asked it. And--and--if they were willing to do the thing later, sometime in the future, wouldn't that make up for it?”
”I can't tell. I don't know enough about it. I don't understand what you mean.” He turned, trying to make himself more comfortable. ”Lord, how hard this ground is! I believe it's solid iron underneath.”
He stretched and curled on the blanket, elongating his body in a mighty yawn which subsided into the solaced note of a groan. ”There, that's better. I ache all over to-night.”
She made no answer, looking at the prospect from morose brows. More at ease he returned to the subject and asked, ”Who's been telling lies?”
”I,” she answered.
He gave a short laugh, that drew from her a look of quick protest. He was lying on his side, one arm crooked under his head, his eyes on her in a languid glance where incredulity shone through amus.e.m.e.nt.
”Your father told me once you were the most truthful woman he'd ever known, and I agree with him.”
”It was to my father I lied,” she answered.
She began to tremble, for part at least of the story was on her lips.
She clasped her shaking hands round her knees, and, not looking at him, said ”David,” and then stopped, stifled by the difficulties and the longing to speak.
David answered by laughing outright, a pleasant sound, not guiltless of a suggestion of sleep, a laugh of good nature that refuses to abdicate.
It brushed her back into herself as if he had taken her by the shoulders, pushed her into her prison, and slammed the door.
”That's all imagination,” he said. ”When some one we love dies we're always thinking things like that--that we neglected them, or slighted them, or told them what wasn't true. They stand out in our memories bigger than all the good things we did. Don't you worry about any lies you ever told your father. You've got nothing to accuse yourself of where he's concerned--or anybody else, either.”
Her heart, that had throbbed wildly as she thought to begin her confession, sunk back to a forlorn beat. He noticed her dejected air, and said comfortingly:
”Don't be downhearted, Missy. It's been terribly hard for you, but you'll feel better when we get to California, and can live like Christians again.”
”California!” Her intonation told of the changed mind with which she now looked forward to the Promised Land.