"Study art ... be an artist, when a girl is as pretty as you are, and heiress to five million dollars!" cried Doctor Alvin, laying aside the mask he had worn so long.
It was Susan's turn to be astonished. She looked at her guardian fixedly, expressing pain in her look.
At length, in a low voice, she said:
"I do not see why."
"Susan!" began Doctor Alvin.
Then he hesitated, as if in doubt as to whether he should continue.
"I do not see why," repeated Susan, in the same low voice.
Doctor Alvin passed his hand over his forehead. He resumed:
"Susan, your father is coming back shortly. My guardianship is ended.
Your father made me swear on Julia's coffin, that I would discourage in you all thoughts of marriage until he returned. He was afraid you might follow in Julia's footsteps. I was to represent sentiment as sentimentality, substitute art for love, and prevent your fancy crystallizing into some man-inspired desire. I have kept my promise.
Your father will find you fancy-free, will he not?"
"Yes."
"But, Susan--" and Doctor Alvin's voice again expressed excitement.
"But--"
Doctor Alvin's voice trembled so that he was obliged to start over again:
"Susan, you do not know what you are. You--you--are a beautiful woman.
You are more beautiful than Julia was at the height of her beauty. You are more beautiful than your mother was--"
Doctor Alvin's voice echoed mournfully as if he were calling upon the dead.
"Susan, you have only to look upon men to conquer them. You can achieve with a gesture what artists accomplish with a masterpiece.
What can artists do, other than quicken the pulse of sluggard humanity? But, Susan--God guide your power--you will make blood boil, heads reel, hearts throb until they burst, if so you will it.
Art--artists! There is no need of you studying art. Artists will study you. Have you never looked at yourself in the glass, child? Have you never, when--when--You have studied art with Malepeste, and you know what lines are. Have you never thought of studying your own lines?
None of the great statues or paintings, of which Malepeste has the photographs, is so harmoniously perfect as you. Art!--You are the genius of art. I have influenced you into taking up various lines of work, that I might keep you from the pitfalls of love, until the proper time. But, now, my guardianship is ended. I have played a part.
I must lay aside my mask. Susan, I have been deceiving you. Love is by all odds the greatest thing in the world. You must love. And you must let some one love you--some one of the many who will be ready to lay down their lives for you--"
FOOTNOTES:
[62] Copyright, 1905, by Henry Holt and Company.
LUCY FURMAN
Miss Lucy Furman, short-story writer, was born at Henderson, Kentucky, in 1870, the daughter of a physician. Her parents died when she was quite young, and she was brought up by her aunt. Miss Furman attended public and private schools at Henderson, and at the age of sixteen years, graduated from Sayre Institute at Lexington, Kentucky. The three years following her graduation were spent at Henderson and at Shreveport, Louisiana, the home of her grandparents, in both of which places she was a social leader. At the age of nineteen, it became necessary for her to make her own way in the world, and for about four years she was court stenographer at Evansville, Indiana. Miss Furman's earliest literary work was done at Evansville. The first stories she ever wrote were accepted by _The Century Magazine_ when she was but twenty-three years of age. These were some of the _Stories of a Sanctified Town_ (New York, 1896), one of the most charming books yet written by a Kentucky woman. At the age of twenty-five, when her prospects were exceedingly bright, Miss Furman's health failed entirely, and during the next ten years she was an invalid, seeking health in Florida, southern Texas, on the Jersey coast, and elsewhere, but without much success, and being always too feeble to do any writing. In 1907 she went up into the mountains of her native State to become a teacher in the W. C. T. U. Settlement School at Hindman, Knott county, Kentucky. She did very little at first, but gradually her strength came back, and for the last two years she has been writing stories and sketches of the Kentucky mountains for _The Century Magazine_. In 1911 _The Century_ published a series of stories under the title of _Mothering on Perilous_, which will be brought out in book form. In 1912 Miss Furman had several stories in the same magazine, one of the best of which was _Hard-Hearted Barbary Allen_.
Her lack of physical strength has compelled her to work very slowly, and it is only by living out-of-doors at least half the time that she can live at all. "I have charge of the gardening and outdoor work at the Settlement School," Miss Furman wrote recently, "but the happiest part of my life is my residence at the small boys' cottage, about which I have told in the 'Perilous' stories, and in which I find endless pleasure and entertainment. Here I hope to spend the remainder of my days." Very pathetic, reader, and very heroic!
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Miss Furman to the Author; _The Century Magazine_ (July, August, November, December, 1912).
A MOUNTAIN COQUETTE[63]
[From _Hard-Hearted Barbary Allen_ (_The Century Magazine_, March, 1912)]
Beneath the musket, on the "fire-board," lay a spindle-shaped, wooden object, black with age. "A dulcimer," Aunt Polly Ann explained. "My man made it, too, always-ago. Dulcimers used to be all the music there was in this country, but banjos is coming in now."
Miss Loring knew that the dulcimer was an ancient musical instrument very popular in England three centuries ago. She gazed upon the interesting survival with reverence, and expressed a wish to hear it played.
"Beldory she'll pick and sing for you gladly when she gets the dishes done," promised Aunt Polly Ann. "Picking and singing is her strong p'ints, and she knows any amount of song-ballads."
At last Beldora came out on the porch and seated herself on a low stool near the loom. Laying the dulcimer across her knees, she began striking the strings with two quills, using both shapely hands. The music was weird, but attractive; the tune she played, minor, long-drawn, and haunting. Miss Loring received the second shock of the day when she caught the opening words of the song:
All in the merry month of May, When the green buds they were swelling, Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay, For the love of Barbary Allen.
Often had she read and heard of the old English ballad "Barbara Allen"; never had she thought to encounter it in the flesh. As she listened to the old song, long since forgotten by the rest of the world, but here a warm household possession; as she gazed at Beldora, so young, so fair against the background of ancient loom and gray log wall, she felt as one may to whom the curtain of the past is for an instant lifted, and a vision of dead-and-gone generations vouchsafed.
Beldora went off to fetch the nag, and Aunt Polly Ann accompanied the guest to the horse-block, laying an anxious hand on her arm.
"You heared the song-ballad Beldory sung to you. She knows dozens, but that's always her first pick. It's her favor_rite_, and why? Because it's similar to her own manoeuvers. Light and cruel and leading poor boys on to destruction is her joy and pastime, same as Barbary's. Did you mind her eyes when she sung them words about
As she were walking through the streets, She heard them death-bells knelling, And every stroke it seemed to say, "Hard-hearted Barbary Allen!"
like it was something to take pride in, instead of sorrow for? Yes, woman, them words, 'Hard-hearted Barbary Allen,' is her living description, and will be to the end of time."
Ten days later the shocking news reached the school that Robert and Adriance Towles had fought on the summit of Devon Mountain for Beldora Wyant's sake, and Robert had fallen dead, with five bullets in him, Adriance being wounded, though not fatally. It was said that Beldora, pressed to choose between the two, had told them she would marry the best man; that thereupon, with their bosom friends, they had ridden to the top of Devon, measured off paces, and fired. Adriance had fled, but word came the next day that, weak from loss of blood, he had been captured and was on the way to jail in the county-seat near the school.
In the weeks until court sat and the trial came off there was much excitement. Sympathy for Adriance and blame for Beldora were everywhere felt. Most of the county and all of the school-women attended the trial, and interest was divided between the haggard, harassed young face of Adriance and the calm, opulent loveliness of Beldora. When she took the stand, people scarcely breathed. Yes, she had told the Towles boys she would marry the best man of them. She had had to tell them something,--they were pestering her to death,--and the law didn't allow her to marry both. She had had no notion they would be such fools as to try to kill each other. Miss Loring and the other women watched anxiously for some sign of pity or remorse in her, but there was not so much as a quiver of the lips or a tremor in her voice. As she sat there in the lone splendor of her beauty, somewhat scornfully enjoying the gaze of every eye in the court-room, one phrase of her "favor_rite_" song rang ceaselessly through Miss Loring's head--"Hard-hearted Barbary Allen." Her lack of feeling intensified the sympathy for Adriance, and, to everybody's joy, the light verdict of only one year in the penitentiary was brought in.
Half an hour later, Aunt Polly Ann, tragic in face and air, and with Beldora on the nag behind her, drew rein before the settlement school.
"Women," she said with sad solemnity on entering, "for four year' you have been bidding Beldory come and set down and partake of your feast of learning and knowledge; for four year' she has spurned your invite.
At last she is minded to come. Here she is. Take her, and see what you can accomplish on her. My raising of her has requited me naught but tenfold tribulation. In vain have I watched and warned and denounced and prophesied; her inordinate light-mindedness and perfidity has now brung one pore boy to a' ontimely grave and another to Frankfort. Take her, women, and see if you can learn her some little demeanor and civility. Keep her under your beneficent and God-fearing roof, and direct her mind off of her outward and on to her inward disabilities!
Women, I now wash my hands."
Receiving Beldora into the school was felt to be a somewhat hazardous undertaking, but affection and sympathy for Aunt Polly Ann moved the heads to do it. To the general surprise, Beldora settled down very adaptably to the new life, being capable enough about the industries, and passably so about books. But it was in music that she excelled.
Miss Loring gave her piano lessons, and rarely had teacher a more gifted pupil.
Needless to say, when Beldora picked the dulcimer and sang song-ballads at the Friday night parties, all the children and grown-ups sat entranced. For three or four weeks, on these occasions, she had the grace to choose other ballads than "Barbara Allen"; but one night in early November, after singing "Turkish Lady" and "The Brown Girl," she suddenly struck into the haunting melody and tragic words of "Barbara Allen." A thrill and a shock went through all her hearers. Miss Loring saw Howard Cleves start forward in his chair with a look of horror, almost repulsion, on his fine, intelligent face.
Howard was the most remarkable boy in the school. Five years before, when not quite fifteen, he had walked over, barefoot, from his home on Millstone, forty miles distant, and presented himself to "the women"
with this plea: "I hear you women run a school where boys and girls can work their way through. I am the workingest boy on Millstone, and have hoed corn, cleared new-ground, and snaked logs since I turned my fifth year. I have heard tell, over yander on Millstone, that there is a sizable world outside these mountains, full of strange, foreign folk and wonderly things. I crave to know about it. I can't set in darkness any longer. My hunger for learning ha'nts me day and night, and burns me like a fever. I'll pine to death if I don't get it. Women, give me a chance. Hunt up the hardest job on your place, and watch me toss it off."
They gave him the chance; and never had they done anything that more richly rewarded them. Not only were his powers of work prodigious, but his eager, brilliant mind opened amazingly day by day, progressing by leaps and bounds. The women set their chief hopes upon Howard, believing that in him they would give a great man to the nation.
Promise of a scholarship in the law school of a well-known university had already been obtained for him, and in one more year, such was his astonishing progress, he would be able to enter it, if all went well.