It was all new to the young country wife, and she would have enjoyed it but for the grim tragedy unfolding in her experience. The music stopped, and the curtains were drawn. Two amusing Irishmen held the stage for fifteen minutes in a heated colloquy interspersed with songs and "horse play." Then when they had withdrawn, and Tilly and John were looking over the audience, a man and a woman entered, came down the wide saw-dust aisle, and turned into the reserved section. The man was very fat, short, and flashily dressed; the woman was also showily attired, powdered, painted, penciled, and perfumed.
"Oh, my! Old Liz is on a splurge to-night, ain't she?" a man behind John and Tilly said, with a giggle. "Who's the fellow with her?"
"'Sh!" his companion hissed, warningly, and from the corner of her eye Tilly saw him pointing at John. She looked at her husband and saw a wincing look of chagrin settling on his face. He had given but a single glance at the new-comers and now gazed fixedly at the crude drop-curtain. Tilly saw his neck and the side of his face growing red.
Could it be her mother-in-law? she asked. Undoubtedly, and her escort was "Roly-poly," for Dora's description had fitted him perfectly.
Another act was on the stage. Acrobatic performers in silken tights began vaulting, climbing, balancing one upon the other. Tilly saw that John was valiantly pretending to be absorbed in their maneuvers. He was still flushed, and his eyes all but stood out from their sockets in their grim fixity. How she pitied him! How she longed to take the strong red hand which half clutched his knee and assure him that it didn't matter to her at all.
In the middle of the act something seemed to actually draw her eyes to his mother's face. Lizzie Trott, with an expression half bewildered, half abashed, was gazing past her son straight at her. The eyes of the two met in a steady stare of infinite curiosity. The eyes of the woman of the world seemed to cling to the eyes of youth and purity. The former sank first. Lizzie Trott's wavered and fell to the dainty handkerchief in her lap.
"She is like John about the mouth and eyes," Tilly thought. "Poor woman!
I could love her. For John's sake I could love her. Yes, I could love her. In spite of what she is, I could love her. Poor woman! Poor woman!
And she is John's mother--actually his mother! She is not wholly bad. I see that in her face. Something is wrong. She looks tired, sad, disgusted."
Tilly now saw John with a flurried look in his eyes glance toward the entrance. She read his thoughts. He was wondering if they might not get away. He was dreading something, but what she knew not. Perhaps he was afraid that his mother might at the end of the performance come across boldly and introduce herself to her daughter-in-law, and perhaps make a scene as she had done the day before. Again Tilly looked at her mother-in-law. Their eyes met once more and clung together with almost mystic comprehension.
"Don't be afraid," Lizzie Trott's whole aspect seemed to say. "We'll go away. I understand, and I'll not make it hard for you."
And a moment later she was whispering something into the ear of her companion, and the two rose and went out. John saw their backs as they left, and Tilly noticed the expression of vast relief in his face.
"Poor woman!" Tilly said to herself. "We could be friends. She is a real woman, after all. She'd have to be to be John's mother."
An hour later they were leaving the tent. Tilly declined John's invitation to go to the soda-water and ice-cream parlor across the street where a gay crowd under revolving fans were taking seats at numerous small white tables.
"I don't care for anything," she assured him. "Let's walk on. The night is lovely and it looks like it is close in there."
On his strong arm she hung tenderly as they strolled slowly back to the cottage. John was changed. A sort of blight seemed to have swept over him. She understood the cause of it and loved him all the more. That he would never open his lips on the subject she was sure, but she could read many of his thoughts which burrowed through some of his roundabout utterances, as, for instance, what he said as they stood at their little gate.
"We must have some good long talks about my business," he said. "About what's far ahead, you know, as well as right now. Sam wants me here. In fact, he pretends to think he can't do without me to help out in several big contracts, but between me and you-- I was wondering yesterday what you'd think if I was to tell you that I'm just fool enough to think that I could go to some big Western city and light on my feet right at the start. A fellow that sells cement and lime to us told me not long ago that I could hit it big out in Seattle. He was looking over some of my figures that Sam showed him. I was wondering-- You see, I am a little afraid that you might not like to go away so far from your kin, with a big hulk of a scamp like me, and--and--" John swung the gate open and seemed unable further to direct his anxious outpourings.
Tilly understood--too well she understood what he meant, what he feared--and she made up her mind that a dubious move for her sake only should not be taken. John had not thought of such a thing before marriage. Why should it happen now?
"I don't think you really ought to make a change just yet," she said, firmly. "Mr. Cavanaugh is determined to push you ahead as fast as possible. He told me so the other day. He said he needed your brain for expert estimates and calculations, and that there were big things ahead of you both as a firm."
John was now unlocking the door, and the dark interior of the house seemed to add more gloom to his troubled bearing. "Oh, Sam's all right,"
he said. "Sam means well and would do right by me, but--but I can't say exactly that I like this town. There is nothing to it. They tell me that the West is a different proposition. Folks don't--don't meddle in one another's business out there. It is more free and easy, not so hidebound and overrun with hypocrisy. A man is judged by what he is--by the amount of gray matter he has in his skull, by his character, and not by--not by--well any little thing that he can't help, you know. I mean, well, like what you saw there to-night--that gang of stuck-up boys and girls, living on their family backing. The world's wide, and, God or no God, there must be better things dealt out than this. I mean than this is to _some_. I never thought much about it when I first began to think you might come here with me, but I do now, and there is no use denying it.
Of course, I don't want Sam to know yet. He would do all he could to help me, but Sam is--is just Sam, as helpless against some difficulties as I am."
"Don't light the gas yet." Tilly caught his hand entreatingly. A deep sob of sympathy filled her throat, and she drew him to the little wicker seat on the porch. "Let's sit awhile here where it is cool. It is warm in the house."
They sat side beside each other.
"I see. You don't want any Western experiments," he said, plaintively, his great fingers toying with her hair and now and then touching her brow. "That is the way of a woman."
"I think," Tilly said, leaning her head against his breast and holding his hand in hers, "that we ought to let well enough alone." Her thoughts sank into inexpression and ran on. Should she tell him that she knew all--knew what he was trying to run from on her account--and assure him that she wanted to face the whole situation? But how could she tell him, knowing how sensitive his sudden awakening had made him to the awful matter? If he had wanted her to know it he would have brought it up himself. No, that must wait, for to let him know that she knew all would only add to his pain. He was finding a sort of respite in her supposed ignorance of the situation; she would let it be so for a while, anyway.
CHAPTER XXVIII
On that day a thing of no little importance was happening at Cranston.
Various members of Whaley's church were holding a meeting at the farm-house of a certain Simon Suggs. They numbered seven in all, including Mrs. Suggs, who was supposed to take no part beyond supplying the group with fresh cider, which had been kept cool in a spring-house and was now served with warm gingerbread. But she was alert, open-eyed, and open-eared to all that was done and said.
The meeting was called to order by Suggs himself. "As I understand it,"
he began, rising and clearing his throat, "the object of this meeting is to take a vote on what we ought to do in the matter under discussion. Do I hear any motion in that respect?"
"I move," said a wizen-faced little man in a high, piping voice, "that we all go in a body to Brother Whaley and lay the matter before him.
Grave charges have been preferred against him as a consistent church member, and a proposition has been made to turn him out. I hold that he deserves at least a chance to make a statement--show his side, if he has got one, even before it goes to the official board. Most of you contend that he was aware of what he was doing from the start."
"Of course he knowed!" cried out another man, who was a shoemaker and bore the marks of his trade on his hands. "Wasn't that contractor hand-in-glove with him, and didn't Cavanaugh know the whole thing as plain as the nose on his face? I know a man that went straight to Brother Whaley and told him this Trott was an atheist, and my informant offered to bring sworn evidence of all that Trott had said on that line, the most damnable talk, by the way, that hell ever had spouted in our midst."
"Oh, I'm admitting that part," the wizen-faced little man piped in. "I admit all that, Brother Tumlin. Brother Whaley had heard of that, but it seems that Cavanaugh persuaded him to gloss it over and leave the fellow in Tilly's hands for gradual conversion to the truth; but as to the other matter--the thing that is too dirty to talk about even here to you men while Sister Suggs is out of the room--"
"He knew that, too," broke in the shoemaker, angrily. "How could he keep from it? We got it, didn't we? Isn't Trott's mother notorious?"
"I'm not disputing that," the little man went on. "All I want to set forth is that, even though Brother Whaley thinks he is the only man in seven states that can interpret Scripture right and does know considerable on that line, he is entitled to a fair show from us."
"I wonder, brethren"--it was Mrs. Suggs who now appeared, wiping her fat hands on her blue-and-white checked apron--"I wonder if I might be allowed to put in a bare word right here?"
Silence prevailed. A look of vague dissent passed over the solemn faces.
Suggs pulled at his stubby chin whiskers and knitted his bushy brows.
"If I'm chairman," he said, dryly, "I may or may not, according to my discretion, permit Sister Suggs to speak; but as her husband, brethren, I think if I don't give her a chance she will make it hot for me, so if she will promise to fetch in some more cold cider right off I'll let her speak."
"Oh yes, let her," a voice said in a drowsy tone from the horsehair sofa in a corner. "In my time I've known women to hit a nail on the head when twenty men had either missed it or bent it double and spoiled the woodwork. What is it, sister? Shoot it out! Saint Paul was against women talking in public, but I like to listen to 'em--I do."
"I was just thinking of one thing, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen"--Mrs.
Suggs bowed her frowsy head formally. She had presided at a church meeting of her sex once or twice, and there was something more than imitation of her husband's manner in her tone and bearing--"I was thinking of one particular thing that men are apt to overlook in a scramble like this seems to be, and that is this. I may as well tell you that I've had talks with the wife of the man under investigation, and, as I know how to handle a woman as well as the next one, I dropped on to a few things that I'll bet you all will overlook."
There was a sudden commotion in the yard, and, springing up, Suggs went to a window, parted the curtains, and looked out. Turning, he rapped on the back of his chair with his big pocket-knife and stared at his wife.
"That cow has pushed the rails down and got to the calf again," he said.
"Either you or me will have to go out and part 'em. Of course I'm willing to do it, but if I am to conduct this meeting properly, why--"
"I move we take a recess," spoke up the wizen-faced man, "just long enough to dispose of the cow-and-calf matter, and then come back and finish up in here."
"No, I'll go attend to it," Mrs. Suggs sighed. "I know how to handle her, but you fellows have got to hold my place open. I'll be right back.
It is just a baby calf, and I can tote it about in my arms. I'll drop it over in the old hog-pen till later."
She had scarcely left the room when a lank man past middle age, with long beard that was quite gray in spots and black as to the remainder, stood up. "Would it be in order, Mr. Chairman," he began, "while the lady whom you have recognized as having the floor is absent, for me to say a word or two, being as this matter is _pro bono publico_ and vital to us all--in fact, is the _primum mobile_ of our faith in the Almighty and His plans?"
"You have the floor, Professor Cardell. Hold on to it," Suggs said, formally. "If you don't get through before my wife parts the cow and calf she will just have to wait, that's all. That's one reason I never thought women had a right to dabble in matters like this. They would get interested in it and burn a pan of bread to cinders, or let a helpless baby crawl out of its swaddlings into the fire. Go ahead, but I'd hurry up a little. When there is a debate of any sort on my wife can do her housework ten times as quick as ordinarily, if the work is holding her back from the talk."
Professor Cardell pulled at his beard till his lips smacked and his white teeth showed. "I'm of the opinion, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," he began, "that Whaley was tempted by the big wages young Trott was drawing, and all that Cavanaugh had to say about what Trott was apt to amount to in the future. As we all know, _facilis descensus Averno est_, and any man with natural greed in his veins is subject to temptation.
Therefore I wish to state quite plainly--"
"Well, plain or not plain," Mrs. Suggs was heard saying, as she bustled into the room, brushing short brown hairs from her dress and frowning on the speaker, "I don't intend to have my place gobbled up behind my back. Huh! I reckon not! You stout, able-bodied men let me do the dirty work, and make that a reason for depriving me of my liberty of opinion and the use of free speech."