CHAPTER XIII
FRANK LEARNS HIS DUTY
Time had been when Frank believed that no chance of life could ever bring him to the neighborhood of Deep Willows again. Now, within a brief two years, he was eagerly watching for the familiar scenes as his hired conveyance drew near the village of Everton.
However eagerly his eyes gazed out ahead, his spirit was sorely enough depressed. He felt that he hated the golden wheat fields as they came within his view, spreading their rich carpet over the earth far as the eye could reach. He was struck, too, at the distance they had seemed to lie back in his memory. They seemed to belong to some other, long past existence that had no relation to his present. A great gulf seemed to have been crossed, a gulf, dreadful in its profundity, and somehow these lands belonged to it.
The delicious air of the plains seemed to oppress him. He felt that the invigorating breezes choked him. The golden sunlight, too, shining down upon the burnished grain, failed to raise a single pulse beat. Two years ago it would all have been so different.
But he knew that the change was in himself. Young as he was he knew that something of his youth had been snatched from him by the ruthless hand of life. He knew that here nothing was changed. The same breezes blew over the same fertile plains. The same sun shone down with its serene splendor. The same people dwelt on this glorious land. It was only he that was different.
The change he realized made him turn his eyes upon his new aspect of life with still further questioning, and he knew that it had brought him not one moment of happiness that could compare with those by-gone days, somewhere behind him, beyond the painful gulf he still feared to gaze upon.
But an added trouble was with him now. Fate had sternly decreed that his lot was still bound up with Deep Willows. There was no escape. Austin Leyburn had morally forced this place, he wished to shun, upon him, and, further, the subtle appeal of his affections had been played upon. There was mockery in the conflicting object, of his return to the place. His whole love was bound up in two women. He was paradoxically journeying to bring comfort to the two lives he had brought pain into, while, at the same time, he knew, in spite of Leyburn's assurances to the contrary, his duty pointed directly the opposite.
His boyish mind was disturbed, his kindly heart was troubled. While he believed that his new thought was right, all his inclinations tore him in other directions, now that his affections had been brought into conflict.
At last he drove down the wood-lined main street of the village. He passed several empty, outlying houses which he remembered he had always known as empty. The rotting sidewalk of wood, too, was just the same as he remembered it. He passed the little wooden church, which possessed a bell so reminiscent of the prairie homestead. There, too, was the parson's house beside it. Then, next, a cross street, and beyond that the stores, six in number, that made up the commercial interests of the place. On the next corner stood the Russell Hotel. Yes, he could see it. There was a buggy outside it. There was generally a buggy outside it, he remembered. Whose was it? There was some one in it. Ah, yes, a woman. No, why it was – yes, it was Phyllis.
His heart beat fast as his buckboard rattled up. His eyes had grown bright with something of their old boyish smile of delight as he noted the bent head of the girl poring over a book she was reading. For the moment, all his doubts and regrets were forgotten. Phyllis was waiting for him. Waiting, though he did not realize it, as she would always wait for him.
He called out a greeting as he drew nearer, and the girl looked up with a glad smile. Then, though many yards still separated them, he became aware of a marked change in her young face. She was thinner, the old freshness of her rounded cheeks had somehow sobered down to a delicate smoothness, almost thinness. The brilliant look of perfect, open-air health had given place to a delicate pallor that in no way robbed her of beauty, but quite banished the sun-tanned freshness gleaned from her work in the fields. Her eyes, too, they seemed bigger and wider than ever. Then there was her change of attire. The old Phyllis was gone. Here was a city girl in her place, dressed with simple taste, but in clothes that must have cost far more money than she could afford.
But his astonishment did not lessen his delight at the sight of her. Never had she looked more beautiful to him, never had she possessed more attraction. He knew that most of her time was spent at Monica's side, a place he often felt that should have been his. She had told him of the changes in her life, and that since Monica's illness her own home and mother saw her at week-ends only, while Hendrie's money provided that her little farm lacked not in its prosperity.
"Why, Phyl," he cried, as he came up. "You waiting for me here, like this? I might have been hours late."
The girl smiled happily as she closed her book.
"Certainly you might. But" – with a simple sincerity – "it would have made no difference. I have waited longer than this for you – before. And often enough sitting on a hard, well-polished old log."
For once Frank detected that which underlaid her words. He remembered that time in Toronto when she had ventured alone from her home to find him. He remembered that she had said she would always be waiting for him, and his boyish heart went out more tenderly to her than ever.
But what he said conveyed nothing of this.
"But this sun," he cried. "It – it is scorching."
The girl only smiled and shook her head.
"You can pay off your teamster, and leave your baggage here. Guess you'd best get up beside me, and I'll drive you in."
In a moment the man's mind came back to all that this visit entailed. The sight of this girl had put it out of his head.
"Yes," he said, "I'll get up beside you, but – " Then he turned to his teamster. "Put the horses in the barn," he said, "and book me a room. You'll see to yourself, and wait for me here."
Then he alighted and climbed into Phyllis's buggy, and the next moment they were rolling smoothly along in the direction of Deep Willows.
Phyllis leaned back in her seat and dropped her hands in her lap. The horse was pleasantly ambling along a trail it was used to.
She looked round with a half humorous smile.
"Of course. Say, I forgot you belonged to the – enemy, Frank," she said. "I just forgot everything, but that you were coming to see Monica. You said in your letter you'd got to get right here in your – work. It seems queer. I – say, Frank, I just can't fix you as an – enemy," she cried, in a tone of raillery.
The man's eyes were on the two, small, gloved hands in her lap.
"I'm – not an enemy, Phyl," he said, in a low tone.
"Aren't you?" She laughed. "I suppose it's just friendship to us all to come along, just around harvest, and tell the boys to quit work, so as to make us poor farmers lose our crops, and keep the boys who work the harvest from making a great stake for the winter. You see, we've had men around these weeks and weeks, telling the boys that way. They're men belonging to Leyburn, same as you do."
Frank looked up with hot eyes.
"I don't belong to Leyburn," he cried. "I belong to no man but myself, and my – my convictions."
His sudden heat sobered the girl at his side. She seemed to be reduced to penitence.
"I'm real sorry I said that, Frank, I am sure. You see, I was just teasing. Guess I didn't think – except about poor Monica. You see, dear, she's so – so ill, and I don't think she'll ever get better. That's partly why I sent for you. When this – this trouble comes I'm half afraid it'll kill her."
The man's resentment had utterly died out. In its place was a terrible, straining anxiety and grief.
"Kill her? Oh, Phyl, you can't – you don't mean that. Surely she is not so ill as all that. Surely you're just troubled, and fancy that. How – how can any labor trouble hurt her. It can't. There will be no trouble if Hendrie is – reasonable. That is what Leyburn said. He promised me that."
"Promised you?" said the girl quickly. Her mind was wide open and watchful. This boy was all the world to her.
"Yes, yes. He promised me before I accepted this work. Oh, you don't understand. You can't. We want the employers to realize their responsibilities. We want them to make the lives of those who toil for them happier and better. We want them to give them a fair wage, and let them enjoy life instead of keeping them crushed beneath the grindstone of their labor. Hendrie, I believe, will do this. Then – there can be no trouble that can hurt Monica."
Phyllis gazed out ahead and nodded.
"You, too, feared your work might hurt Monica," she said, "or you would not have made him promise – that."
Frank started. He knew that fear had been in his mind. Was still in it. But Phyllis did not wait for an answer. She turned at once to him, and her beautiful eyes were very tender as she beheld the pucker of anxious thought between his brows.
"Men are so queer," she said, with a quaint little twisted smile. "I'd say they aren't a bit like women in – some things. Say, dear, I guess it wouldn't hurt you just a little bit if I'd set right out to carry on a war against everything that belonged to your life. It wouldn't hurt you to think your son had just got right to work to make you do things that you couldn't see the justice of. It wouldn't hurt you, no matter how he told you he was your friend, if he acted the way of an enemy. To a woman that just seems dreadful. It's like your own child, the child you've done all you could to help – when he's helpless, the child you've never been too ill, or too tired to nurse and fix right, the child you'd be ready any time to give your life for, just turning right around and hitting you in the face when – when you're helpless. It doesn't matter if trouble comes or not, you're leading the folks against your Monica. While she's abed sick to death, and can't help herself, you're – you're just going to hit her in the face. Maybe it's not just only in the face. Maybe it's her poor, tired heart, that's been crying these nights and nights for sight of you."
"Phyl! Phyl! For God's sake don't talk that way," Frank burst out, a great, passionate grief in his honest eyes. "You make me out the cruelest monster living. Can't I convince you of the rightness of all I want to do? Monica? I'd give my life a hundred times to help her. I love her as never mother was loved. I would not hurt her, not a hair of her head."
"I know, dear," the girl replied soothingly. "I know all that, and – much more. I know that you are not going to hurt her. God is watching over her, and He would never permit you such a – crime. Then, dear" – she smiled her gentle smile up into his face, and her pretty teeth clipped together as she spurred herself to her final thrust – "there's another watching over her, too. But he's only an earthly creature. Still, he's a big, strong man, who's just full of all the faults which belong to all strong human nature. Yes, oh, yes. He's anything but a saint. But he sets your Mon before all things in his life, before everything, and he's – her husband. He is there to protect her, as, some day, you may want to protect – me."
The buggy rounded the last bend in the trail, and the great house came into view as Phyllis finished speaking. Frank made no answer. He had nothing to say. The girl at his side had stirred his tender heart as it had never been stirred before, and he sat gazing hopelessly out ahead at the palatial home, with all its luxury of surroundings, where the woman he regarded as a mother was denied the health and happiness which the world believed wealth could never fail to bestow.
He could not help thinking of it, though well-nigh overwhelmed with grief. All the wealth which others were crying out to share in, was hers, and yet he felt that there was greater health and happiness to be found in the houses of poverty it was his desire to champion.
No, he had no answer for this wise girl he loved. How could he answer her? His eyes were opening to possibilities which had seemed so utterly impossible before. In his mind he had accused Hendrie, and all others of his class, of being monsters of inhumanity, devoid of heart, a race apart from those who toiled for the barest existence, and Phyllis was telling him how perfectly human were these hated creatures.
This man Hendrie was just as the rest of men. Whatever his passions, his unscrupulous methods of dealing with those who crossed his path, he shared all these things in common with all humanity. His love for Monica was just man's love for woman, only, perhaps, more strong, more vital, by reason of the wonderful strength of manhood which was his. Greater than all in his life stood out this love of his for his wife.
Notwithstanding all that had passed, notwithstanding the class Hendrie represented, notwithstanding that, even now, he, Frank, was embarked upon a mission in opposition to this very man, a strange warmth of feeling rose up in his heart for him who could so watch and guard over Monica, and strive with body and mind to keep her from all hurt.
Phyllis sat watching him covertly. Perhaps she understood something of what was passing in his mind. She understood his doubt. That there was no mistaking. She knew the value of that doubt, and wondered if it was the seed that must grow and develop, and finally bring back to herself and Monica the boy they both loved so well. She believed it was, and the comfort of the thought held her silent, too.
Presently she drew the horse up at the entrance porch. She flung the reins to the waiting servant, and sprang unassisted from the vehicle. Frank moved more slowly, and lumbered his great body from between the spidery wheels.
In silence they passed into the house. In silence Phyllis led the way upstairs. She wanted no word to pass between them now, until Frank had seen Monica.
At the door of the sick room she paused and knocked. It was opened by the new nurse, arrived only that morning from Calford. Then Phyllis, signing to Frank to remain outside, passed in and closed the door behind her.
The man waited. The minutes seemed like hours. He had forgotten everything now except that he was to see Monica again. Something of Phyllis's manner in entering that room had inspired him with a dread which no words could have given him. He felt that perhaps he was about to see her for the last time.
At last he heard a rustle of skirts beyond the door. The next moment the nurse stood in the doorway, signing to him for silence. Then she beckoned him in.
The door closed softly behind him, and he started at the great canopied bed.
Monica was half propped up. Beside her was Phyllis, tenderly chafing her thin, almost transparent hands. He took a step toward the bed, but halted abruptly as he heard Monica's familiar voice, now high pitched and strident.
"No, no, I don't believe it. I can't have won it. Why you don't know what it means to me. Here, here's a dollar for you. I'm going to see the editor at once. Yes, he's my son and what of it? You dare." Then followed a few mumbled unintelligible words. But in a moment her voice rose to a passionate appeal. "Oh, Frank, don't leave me! Don't you understand? I love him so. No, don't go – please don't leave me. He's gone! He's gone! They've taken him to prison. Oh, God, and I shall never see him again. Five years. God have mercy, have mercy!"
The voice rambled on, now rising to a dreadful pitch, now dying down to a whisper. Now the words and sentences were plain, distinct, now there were only despairing mutterings, which had neither meaning nor continuity. Frank stood looking on in horrified amazement. He had not dreamed of such a thing. No one had even hinted at such a condition. But he could not stand there listening. He felt as though his heart must break.
Suddenly he started forward, and Phyllis, watching beckoned to him. He flung himself upon his knees at the bedside, and tried to take one of the sick woman's hands in his. But instantly Monica snatched it away.
"Don't dare to touch me," she cried, struggling into a sitting posture. "You – you have done this. You sent him to prison – and now I shall never see him again."
The sick woman's voice had risen almost to a scream, and the nurse sprang to her side. Phyllis caught Frank's hands and led him away.
"Come," she said, and together they passed hastily out of the room.
They were standing at the head of the stairs. Phyllis, with her hands clasping the balustrade of the gallery, overlooking the entrance hall, was gazing out of the window, opposite her, at the wonderful golden skyline beyond the belt of trees that marked the course of the river. Frank was beside her, half turned toward her. He was standing on the third step of the staircase.
"This delirium only started after I left this morning," the girl was saying. "She was quite – quite all right then. Oh, Frank, I don't know what to do. Mr. Hendrie is away, and – I'm afraid."
The man's emotion was no less. His face was ghastly pale, and a light of utter depression and hopelessness had dulled his eyes. At the girl's final admission he suddenly looked up, and a passionate light replaced the gloom of a moment before.
"Phyl, Phyl, I can't go on!" he cried. "I can't leave her. I must stay here. I love her. I owe her everything – everything I am. She – she is my mother. Oh, God, and to think I am even now here in the district at war with all that belongs to her. To think that I should have one single thought in antagonism to her. No, no. I can't go on with it. I must stay and help her. I must stay till – till the crisis is past. Phyl – tell me. Tell me what I can do. I love her, dear, and I want to – help her."
The man's sudden passion stirred the girl's responsive heart. But it also helped to banish her own moment of weakness. She suddenly placed one hand upon his as it rested on the balustrade beside her. It was a caress that thrilled the man, even in the midst of his trouble.
"You can't stay here, Frank, dear," she said. "It would be useless; it would be wrong."
"Wrong?"
The girl nodded.
"Yes," she said simply.
"But surely I have a right to remain, and – and help?"
Phyllis smiled tenderly.
"How?" she inquired. "Help? You would only stay around worrying and miserable. You could do no good, dear. Besides – "
"Besides?"
"Your duty lies – elsewhere."
"My duty lies here. My first duty is to my – mother!"
The man's denial came with a deep thrill of passion.
"Does it, dear?" Phyllis said gently. "I think not – yet." Then she suddenly abandoned herself to all that was in her heart for this man's good, and her voice was deep with her own emotion. "I tell you you can't stay. You surely can't. See, there's nothing for you to do around. I shall send word to Mr. Hendrie, at once. The doctor is here, and the nurses. You must go. Go right about your business. Frank, Frank, just fix it in your mind right away, there's no two roads of duty. Your bond is given. Your future is bound right up in helping folks who need your help. You cannot draw back just – just because your – mother – is sick. To do that is just yourself claiming you. Your pledge is to the workers now, and you must fulfill it. I would have you do this, sure. Say, when you're through, when you've fulfilled your duty, then it's time to come around and think of those you just love – for yourself. Frank, I'd just love to have you stay around, but I'd rather you do the duty you set yourself – now."
The man stared incredulously up into her face. He was trying to fathom the meaning of this sudden change of attitude toward the work he was engaged upon. Even at such a moment he could not help remembering how passionately she had protested against it in Toronto.
"You—you, Phyl, tell me to – go on? You refuse me when I implore you to let me remain with Mon?"
The girl looked down at him with her wise little smile.
"Yes," she said, with a sigh. "I want you to go now, otherwise – you will never be able to come back to us. Come, dear," she went on, smiling at his puzzled expression, and taking him by the hand, "I must go and send my message to Mr. Hendrie."