Chapter XI The Great Decision
Donelle made herself a little fire that night in the shelter of a pine grove. She slept, too, with her back against a sturdy tree and the sound of the river in her ears.
She had walked fast for many miles. She was tired, but she meant to go on and reach Point of Pines before any one saw her; before Mrs. Lindsay could get there and talk to Jo.
At three o’clock she roused herself and went on. There was no one else, in all the world, it seemed, she was alone, alone. But something was strengthening her, she no longer grieved or felt remorse. She was, poor child, learning a tremendous lesson, she had an ideal for which she was ready to suffer and die. She had found her soul and a peace had come to her; a peace that the world can neither give nor take away.
“I’m glad!” murmured Donelle; “I’m not a bit sorry. I’d have hated myself if I had gone away, after I knew.”
The gray dawn was creeping with chilly touch over the empty road when Donelle, footsore and aching in every muscle, came in sight of the little house.
“Why, there’s a light burning!” she said, “a light in the living room. Maybe Mamsey is ill, ill and all alone.”
The fear drove her on more quickly.
Up the steps she went softly and peered into the room. Nothing mattered now to Jo, she had nothing to hide, so she had not even lowered the shade.
And there she sat, nodding before the stove in which the fire had long since died. She wore her father’s old discarded clothes—she had resurrected them after returning from bidding Donelle good-bye—she had worked hard until late, had fallen asleep exhausted by the fire, and forgotten to go to bed.
Close to Jo, so close that his faithful head rested against her arm, was Nick!
He was not asleep, he was on guard. He had heard those steps outside; he knew them and his ears were tilted and alert. Still, he would not leave Jo! The time for choice had come and passed with Nick. His heart might break but he had decided.
The door opened softly, Jo never locked it, and Donelle came tiptoeing across the room. Nick tapped the floor, but otherwise did not move.
Beside the sleeping Jo the girl crouched down and waited. She was crying, blessed, happy tears, and one tired hand lay upon Nick’s head.
The clock in the kitchen struck in its surprised, alarmed way. How well Donelle remembered! The sun edged in through the east window, and found the little group by the cold stove.
Then Jo awoke. She did not move, she only looked! She could not make it out, and gave an impatient exclamation. She felt that her mind was betraying her.
“Donelle!” she said presently, “what does this mean?”
“Only that I—I have come, Mamsey.”
“Tell me everything.” The words were stern.
“Why, Mamsey, there isn’t much to tell—except—that I’m here.”
“How did you get here?”
“I—I walked. I walked all night.”
“And Mrs. Lindsay, she knows?”
“Oh! no, Mamsey, she was away, but I left a note. I had to come Mamsey, I had to. You see,” brightly, piteously, “I—I couldn’t play my fiddle. It would not be played. When I got to thinking of how it would be out where I was going, I just couldn’t! The pretty dresses and the—the excitement made me forget for a little time, but all of a sudden I saw how it was going to be. Then I tried to play, and I couldn’t! Then I knew that I must stay, because more than anything, Mamsey, I wanted—you!”
“This is sheer nonsense!” said Jo, but her voice shook, and the hand lying against Donelle’s cheek trembled.
“You mad child! Why, Donelle, don’t you see you are running away from your life?”
“It will have to find me here, then, Mamsey. Don’t send me away. I would hate it as I would have hated St. Michael’s if you had sent me back there. You see, Mamsey, when I run away I always run to what is really mine. Don’t you see?”
“Are you sick, child?”
Jo felt, now, the uplifted face.
“No, but I would have been, off there! And I couldn’t play. What good would anything have been, if I couldn’t play?”
Jo was thoroughly alarmed.
“Can you play here?” she asked, bewildered, not knowing what to think, but seeking to calm the girl on the floor.
“Why, Mamsey, let me try!”
And Donelle tried, rising stiffly, fixing the violin and raising the bow.
A moment of indecision, of fear; then the radiance drove the haggard lines from the tired, white face.
She could play! She walked about the plain home-room. She forgot Jo, forgot her troubles, she knew everything was all right now! The final answer had been given her! When she finished she stood before Jo, and Nick crept toward her. He, too, felt that something, which had been very wrong, was righted.
Mrs. Lindsay came later. She was alarmed and angry. She and Jo attacked poor Donelle’s position and were indignant that they were obliged to do so; they, women and wise; she, a stubborn and helpless girl!
“I couldn’t leave Mamsey,” was her only reply, and she looked faint from struggle.
“But Mam’selle does not want you!” Mrs. Lindsay said almost brutally, seeing that she had succeeded only too well in preserving this girl for Jo. “You have no right to become a burden, Donelle, when you have the opportunity of independence.”
“Am I a burden?” Donelle turned weary, patient eyes on Jo. And Jo could not lie. That white, girlish face wrung her heart.
“This is temperament run mad!” exclaimed Alice Lindsay. “I have a great mind to take you by force, Donelle. I will if Mam’selle gives the word.”
“You won’t though, will you, Mamsey?”
Jo could not speak. Then Donelle turned kind, pleading eyes to Mrs. Lindsay.
“You see, I couldn’t play if I were dragged. When I’m dragged I can never do anything. I wish I could tell you how sorry I am and how much I love you; but I am so tired. When I got to thinking of Mamsey here alone, and the Walled House closed, why——”
Alice Lindsay turned from the sad eyes, the quivering mouth.
“Listen, dear!” she said in her old, gentle tones; “I’ve lived enough with natures like yours to understand them. Stay with Mam’selle this winter, Donelle, and think your way out. You have a clear mind, you will see that what we all want to do for you is right. In the spring I will return, we’ll have another summer in the Walled House. A year from now all will be safe and right. The trip abroad can wait, everything shall wait, for you. Now will you be good, Donelle?”
She turned smilingly to the girl, and Donelle gratefully stretched out her hands.
“Oh! how I thank you,” she said, “and I do love and trust you. I will try to be good. Oh! if you only really knew!”
“Knew what, Donelle?”
“Why, how I could not live away off there, even with you, if I remembered Mamsey sitting here making the best of the bits that are left.” Then Donelle broke down and wept violently.
Still she was not ill. She was worn to the edge of endurance, but after a day and night of rest in the room beside Jo she got up, quite herself again.
“And we’ll say no more about it until spring,” vowed Jo, but a wonderful light had crept into her eyes.
“I’m a selfish, unworthy lot——” But the light stayed in her eyes.
Then one day Donelle took her fiddle and strolled out alone to test the virtue of her safe, happy feeling. She went down to the river and sat upon the bare, black rocks. The tide was low and the day was more like spring than early autumn.
“And now,” whispered Donelle, “I’ll play and think. I have to act too much when Mamsey is watching.”
Donelle knew she had to untangle many loose ends, now that she had snapped her thread. She did not want, above anything on earth, that Jo should know her deep, real reason for returning. But how could she make sure with that horrible man, Pierre, loose in Point of Pines? It did not matter how lonely she and Jo might be, if only they could have each other without their common secret rising between them.
Donelle had stayed close to Jo since she had come back, she shrank from everyone. She meant, some day, to go to Marcel Longville—when the Captain was at a safe distance. She meant to have Marcel tell her many things, but not now! She was going to face the future quite bravely, without shame or cringing. Jo should have that reward at least.
In the meantime, Donelle wished fervently, and with primitive directness, that Pierre Gavot would die a quick and satisfactory death and be well out of the way before he again got drunk enough to open his vile lips.
“If he were here now,” mused Donelle, the while playing a charming sonata, “I’d push him off the rocks and have done with it! What good is he? All his life he’s been messing things, and I’m horribly afraid of him. I wish he was dead.”
A crackling of the dry bushes startled her and she turned to see, coming down the Right of Way leading from the road to the river, Tom Gavot!
Donelle knew him at once though his good clothes, his happy, handsome face did their best to disguise him.
“Why!” she cried, getting up with a smile, “when did you get back?”
“A week ago,” said Tom, “and it’s about time. It has been three years since I went away.” He beamed upon the girl. “I’ve learned how to see a road where there isn’t even a trail,” he went on. “I’m a surveyor. And you?” He glanced at her violin.
“I’ve learned to fiddle.” Donelle’s eyes could not leave the dark, handsome face. It was such a good, brave face, and the mere fact of Tom Gavot having returned seemed to make things safer. Tom was like that, quiet, strong, and safe! In a flash Donelle realized that the sense of shame and degradation which had driven her from the Walled House was driving her now to Tom Gavot. She felt sure that he, that all the others, had known what she herself knew now, and yet it had not made Tom despise her.
Her lips quivered and her eyes filled.
“It is so good to see you!” she said softly.
Tom’s face was suddenly very serious.
“I came back to see how things were going,” he said quietly, “and now that I am here, I’m going to stay.”
“How long?” the question was weighted with longing.
“Until there is no more need,” said Tom. Then he threw caution to the winds. “My father has told me!” he breathed hard, “he told me! Are you, a girl like—like you, going to let the mad words of a drunken man turn you back?”
For an instant Donelle faltered. Could there be a mistake? She had not thought of that.
“If what he said, Tom Gavot, was true, I had to turn back. The words were true, were they not?”
Tom longed to lie, longed to set her free from the horror that he saw filled her, but he was too wise and just.
“Suppose they were, suppose they were! Suppose Mam’selle did have the blackest wrong done her that a man can do a woman; hasn’t she paid for it by her life and goodness?”
“Yes, Tom, she has!”
Hope had gone from the girlish face, but purpose and strength were there.
“And that is why I came back to her. For a moment, Tom Gavot, I stood on your road, the road you played with and mended. I wanted to run up and over the hill. I wanted to turn my back on the awful thing I had heard, but I couldn’t, Tom, I couldn’t. I would have seemed too mean to be on your road. I believe something died in me as I stood, but when I could think once more, I didn’t suffer except for Mamsey. I’m so thankful I feel this way. I want to make up to her—for—for my father. He left her, but I never will. Why once, Tom, I asked her about my father, it was long ago, and she said he was a good father. And then I asked her about—about my mother, and she kept still. She let me think my mother was—not good; she would not hurt my father! But oh! if I can only keep her from knowing that I know. If I could only make her think I came back to her simply because I wanted her! I do not want her to think the truth! That would kill her, I know. She is so proud. So fine. I want to make her happy in my own way.”
“She shall think that, if I can help!” said Tom.
“But you mustn’t stay here for me, Tom. I couldn’t bear that.”
“See here, Donelle. If you have turned back, so will I. I had my choice of going to the States or overseeing some work back in the hills here. I have chosen.”
“But, Tom, you mustn’t turn back.”
“Perhaps neither of us has turned back,” Tom’s dark face relaxed. “When things make you dizzy you cannot always tell which is back or forward. I wish you would play your fiddle.”
Donelle looked up at him with a kind of glory in her eyes.
“I will,” she said; “and after, you must tell me about your roads, the roads that you can see when there are no roads!”
“It’s a bargain.”
So Tom sat down upon a rock and Donelle paced to and fro on the leafy path and, as she played and played, she smiled contentedly at Tom over her bow. When she was tired she dropped beside him and leaned against a tree.
“Now,” she whispered; “I want to hear about your roads.”
“It’s splendid work,” said Tom. “You can imagine such a lot. Someone wants a road built; you go and see only woods or rocks or plains, then suddenly, you see the road—finished! You set to work overcoming the obstacles, getting results with as little fuss as possible, always seeing that finished road! It’s great!”
“Yes, it must be. I think, Tom, the work we love is like that. When I am practising and making mistakes, the perfect music is singing in my ears and I keep listening and trying to follow. Yes, it is great!”
They were both looking off toward the river.
“It’s the sort of work for me,” Tom murmured, thinking of his roads. “You know I like to lie out of doors nights. I like the sky over me and a fire at my feet. Do you remember,” he laughed shyly, “the night before I went away; how Mam’selle made believe to be asleep while we talked?”
“Yes,” Donelle’s eyes were dreamy; “dear Mamsey, how she has made believe all her life.”
“Donelle, I only learned a little while ago that it was Mam’selle’s money that sent me off, gave me my chance.”
“Tom!” And now Donelle’s eyes were no longer dreamy.
“Yes. She worked and saved and never told.” Tom’s voice was vibrant with emotion.
“And she worked and saved that I might have my chance,” murmured Donelle.
“I’m going to pay her back double,” Tom said.
“Now, Tom Gavot,” Donelle rose as she spoke, “you can see why I came back. I am going to pay her back—double. Some day I may go away and learn how to make money, much money, but first I have to show Mamsey that I love her best in all the world.”
“I guess you know your way,” Tom replied. “And, Donelle, I want to tell you, I’m not going to live with my father. I couldn’t. Here, can you see that little hut down there?”
Donelle bent and peered through the trees.
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, I’m going to clean that up and live there. It has a chimney, and the windows look right on the river. When you open the wide door it’s almost as good as being out under the sky. That’s where I’m going to set up housekeeping.”
“How wonderful, Tom! And Mamsey and I will help you. We’ll make rugs and curtains. We’ll make it like a home.”
“It will be the first, then, that I’ve ever had.” Tom did not say this bitterly, but with a gentle longing that touched Donelle.
“I’ll come and see you, sometimes, Tom. Mamsey and I. It will be great fun to sit by your fire and hear about your roads.”
“And you’ll fiddle, Donelle?”
“Oh! yes, I’ll fiddle until you tell me to stop.” Then suddenly Donelle grew grave. “Tom, do you think you can keep your father straight if you are so far away?”
“I’ll keep him quiet!” Tom answered. “I’ll see to that.”
“After a little while, no one will remember,” Donelle went on slowly. “Point of Pines is like that. Mamsey knew, they all knew. But if I can keep them from thinking that I know, I do not mind.”
“They shall!” Tom promised.
What Tom Gavot did not tell Donelle, but what burned and blistered his soul, was this: Pierre, sober and keenly vicious, had welcomed Tom with eagerness and cunning. Tom meant money and perhaps care. Tom was redeemed and successful, he would have to look after his poor father in order to keep the respect he had wrung from better folk.
After a maudlin display of sentiment and devotion Pierre had said:
“That girl of Mam’selle Morey’s, Tom, she’s yours for the getting!”
“What do you mean?” Tom had asked, turning his young and awful eyes upon his father, “I thought Mam’selle—I thought Donelle was with the Lindsays and going to the States. Father Mantelle wrote——”
“Ah! but that was before I played my game, Tom.” And Pierre had given an ugly laugh. “They took the girl and put her out of our reach, they thought; even the good Father frowned at that. He tried to speak the truth up at the Walled House, but they would not hear. The girl was kept from knowing, and the pride of her was enough to make an honest soul sick. She looked down on us—us! But I waited my chance and when I got it, I flung the truth in her white face, and it sort of did for her! I saw that the pride they had put in her couldn’t stand mud!
“And so she’s here, Mam’selle’s girl, and when one is not over particular and knows the worst, he can take and make—— What’s the matter? Leave off shaking me, Tom. I’m your old father! Mother of Heaven, let me go!”
But Tom, holding the brute by the shoulders, was shaking him like a bag of rags. The flaming young eyes were looking into the bleary, old ones, looking with hate and loathing. The tie that held the two together added horror to the situation.
“You—did this thing, you! You killed my mother; you have tried to damn everything you ever touched; you pushed this young girl into hell—you! And you tell me I can pull her out, in order to shove her back? You!
“Well, then, hear me! I’ll try, God helping me, to get her out, but nothing that belongs to you shall harm her. And if your black tongue ever touches her or hers, I’ll kill you, so help me God!”
Then Pierre found himself panting and blubbering on the floor with Tom rising above him.
“Father Mantelle shall know of this,” groaned Gavot. “He’ll put the curse of the Church on you.”
“I’ll fling him beside you, if he dares speak of this thing.”
Actual horror now spread over Pierre’s face. If natural ties and the fear of the Church were defied, where did authority rest?
“See here,” poor Tom, having conquered his father, was now conquering himself, “see here. So long as you keep your tongue where it belongs, I will see that you do not want, but I’m going to be near enough to know and keep you to the line. I couldn’t breathe in this hole, it’s too full of—of dead things, but I’ll be near, remember that.”
And Pierre accepted the terms. He grovelled in spirit before this son of his, and his lips were free of guile while he ate and drank and slept and hated. And the others, too, left Jo and Donelle alone. There seemed nothing else to do, so the little flurry fell into calm as the winter settled.