Blue Ruin (30 page)

“Honor nothing!” said Jessie Belle impudently. “Shut up, woncha? Dana don’t wantta tell them yet. If you boo-hoo like that the whole thing’ll be dished and we’ll haveta get out in the morning. But if you shut up and do as I say we can perfectly well get away with it and stay here all fall till your money comes. Dana’s gotta get a job. I’m not goin’ to stand for that religious stuff. You see me running a missionary society, doncha? Not on yer life. I’ve been thinking of the movies. Dana could act, and he’s a looker, all right. I think we could both get in together. Great stuff, wouldn’t it! Five thousand a week apiece and things like that. You could keep house for us and have it soft, Ella. Didn’t I tellya I’d get Dana, all right? Now, mop up and get to sleep. I’m just about ready to pass out! And in the morning, keep yer mouth shut! Remember! No matter what happens, you don’t know a darned thing. See?”

“Oh, Jessie,” sobbed the distracted mother, “I feel just like a th–th–th–ief!”

“Oh, heck!” said Jessie Belle bouncing into bed. “If you don’t cut that I’ll throw some water on ya!”

And Ella Smith “cut it.” But it was hours before she fell into a troubled sleep. She kept saying over and over to herself, “Oh, what would her father say? What would he say? He was always so honorable! What would he say?”

The next morning at breakfast Grandma Whipple watched the two come in with their guilty faces, Jessie Belle’s face wreathed in smiles, Dana’s in gloom.

She waited until the blessing was asked and the food was served, and then she opened up, piercing Dana with her keen little eyes.

“Well, Ahab, what time did you get back last night?”

Dana dropped his knife and looked at his grandmother with fury and guilt in his face. He studied her face for an instant, the color utterly leaving his own, and then he arose, white and angry, and stalked out of the room. He was not seen any more that day. But Jessie Belle hung around and laughed and sang and played with the cat, and Grandma watched her incessantly, but she did not chuckle once all day, and Amelia thought she caught her wiping her eyes once.

It was the next day that the lawyer came for one of his occasional business sessions with Grandma Whipple and the door of the parlor was closed for two hours.

Chapter 21

D
ana went down to New York before lunch. He did not come back to the dining room, and he did not speak to anybody but his mother before he left. Notwithstanding the low state of his treasury he refrained from going into the room where his grandmother habitually sat, and he even evaded Jessie Belle.

He had packed his bag and gone down the back stairs, climbed the back fence, and walked to the station across lots. He avoided speaking to any of his fellow townsmen on the way. He held up his head and walked haughtily, as if he were the same proud Dana Whipple of the old days, but his heart was heavy as lead.

In his bag were his most brilliant sermons, filled with fine quotations, sparkling with his best seminary eloquence, not devoid of originality. He had not conned his great-grandfather’s sermons in vain. They had become a part of his fiber as it were, that is, the rugged phrases and the keen way of putting things had become his. That they lacked the deep spirituality that characterized the grandfather’s mighty messages, and that they dwelt more on the note of uplift and peace and church union than upon doctrinal truths, was a small matter in his eyes; in fact, he felt that in this very point they excelled his grandfather’s, they were all the more up-to-date, and his friends and professors in the seminary were inclined to agree with him.

So Dana was not worrying about the morning. He was reasonably sure he could get up in the pulpit and go through the services without anyone suspecting that he was in despair. He would be like a tall oak, neatly sawed off at the ground and standing yet upon its stump. A breath, perhaps, might cause him to topple. As long as he was in the pulpit he would be all right. Nobody would know that his life had been cut off down to the roots and all the sources of his happiness drained. But if he had to talk with people, if he had to go down among the congregation and answer questions and smile and do the conventional thing, would he be able to carry it through? He felt physically ill as he dropped into his chair in the parlor car, and pulling his shade down and placing his hat over his eyes so that no neighbor who chanced to be traveling that way also would dare approach him, he felt that he would be glad if the train would have a smashup on the way down and he would be killed.

Then he recalled that even so his stainless name would not be kept untarnished, for Jessie Belle had that marriage license, and she would extract through it the last penny from Grandma and then flaunt her position before the world. Oh, he had been a fool, a fool, a fool! Nevertheless he did not search out the sin that self had brought into his heart. He began to tell himself that it was all Lynette’s fault for going off and leaving him. “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me.”

The elder who was to entertain Dana lived in a comfortable home on Park Avenue, and after dinner when they were sitting around the gas logs which the coolness of the late August evening permitted, the elder began to warm up and tell Dana eagerly how interested the whole congregation was in him, and how the session was a unit in feeling that he would be the coming man.

Dana, his heart warmed by the genial atmosphere and his body comforted by the exceedingly good dinner he had just finished, rested his comely head back against the crimson cushion of the luxurious chair in which he was sitting and began to look more like himself. He even expanded genially to the open flattery to which he had been accustomed. It soothed his angry, frightened, disgusted heart and made him feel as if even yet there might be some way out and life still be worth living. His face lost some of its attractive pallor, and his lips got back their habitual hue, and he warmed to the situation mightily. After all, this was New York. Grandma Whipple’s ideas were quite different from those of the modern world. If he could only keep Jessie Belle in the background long enough, he could put this thing across, and once done, New York forgave almost anything. Also churches were not what they used to be. Christian people were no longer narrow nor hidebound.

“You may be interested to know what turned the tide in your favor at the last,” went on George Avery Billingsgate genially. “It was the fact that you are reported to be engaged to the daughter of an old friend and former pastor of our senior elder, Mr. Tabor Vanderholt. Mr. Vanderholt was at first much in favor of calling an older and married man to our church. He felt that it had always occupied a prominent place among churches, that it had always taken a prominent part in our denominational government, been a leader in great and good movements, and that we needed a man of experience. A settled man who had chosen a wise wife and lived with her long enough to have become one with her, and to work in perfect unison with her in our various organizations. But when it was mentioned that you were about to be married to Miss Lynette Brooke, I think that is the name, is it not, Lynette? It struck me at the time as being most unique and charming, and so clung to my memory—when, as I say, she was mentioned, Mr. Vanderholt gave immediate attention and asked if by any chance she was the daughter of Reverend Harrison Brooke, who had been his pastor for ten years before he came to New York. Of course then we looked up the data, and Vanderholt came over to our side immediately, which turned the vote in your favor. It is an interesting little item in the history of this affair that I thought you might like to tell Miss Brooke. I understand she is a very charming young woman, quite unusual in a way, and very beautiful—”

He looked straight at Dana’s blanched face and waited for corroboration. Dana summoned his stiff lips and parched throat to reply, but no sound came from them. He merely bowed his head gravely. He had tried to summon a smile, but no smile had come. He felt that the man had stabbed him with a fine, thin blade that had gone clear through to the chair, and when he pulled it out again his life blood would gush upon the floor and that would be the end of him. He wished that he might quietly pass away before this happened.

“And that she is remarkably fitted to be the wife of a city pastor.” The elder went on smiling. “In fact we found no word of anything but praise for her, in all our investigations. I was much amazed that she has even studied Greek and Hebrew to better prepare her for Bible study and teaching.”

“Greek and Hebrew?” came to the startled lips of Dana before he could order his thoughts aright.

“Yes, remarkable! Remarkable! And to take such high rank, and with such unmistakable scholars of authority as she has studied! I happen to have a brother out there in the college where she was graduated, and he keeps me informed about things. Of course, when I found where she was I had no trouble in getting all the information I needed. And to think that she is as beautiful and winning in her personality as she is brilliant. It seems to me that you are a remarkably blessed young man.”

Dana never knew how he got through the remainder of that awful evening, or what he said in answer to all the questions that were asked him and the flattery that was dealt out to him. He only knew that he was the most miserable man on earth when at last he was released on the plea of a desire to go over his sermon once more and ascended the stairs to the guestroom, with the reflected halo of Lynette resting upon his troubled brow. Oh, what a fool he had been! What a fool! What a fool! What a fool! It rang over and over in his brain as he got out his most cherished sermon and attempted to go over it. He gave it up at last, snapped out his light, and went to bed, but he did not go to sleep. Instead he went over the whole miserable business again from start to finish, his cheeks burning hot in the darkness over his own part in his downfall. How he hated Jessie Belle. How he loathed himself! Yet not for his sin. Not even yet for his sin, only for its consequences. It really had been all Lynette’s fault. And now perhaps she would never know in full all that she had missed, and all that he had missed through her. He cursed her and he loved her and he longed for her that he might tell her in scathing terms just what she had done.

And now what was he to do?

They had asked him how soon he was to be married and he had told them, “Not at present,” and had spoken of Lynette being abroad with her aunt. The elder had raised his brows and suggested, oh, most delicately, that perhaps it would be well to recall her and hasten up the marriage in time for the installation and reception. It was always well for a man and his wife to begin a thing like that together. It gave them a great advantage. He had even intimated that there was a house that would be most convenient, and if Dana would care to look it over Monday they could arrange that it would be held until Miss Brooke could come on and look it over. It really was an exceptional chance, and there might not be another so good.

Dana was a most miserable man. And when he thought of Jessie Belle he almost lost his mental balance. To think of Jessie Belle, his wife, occupying a position like that in a church like that! What a fool, what a fool, what a fool he had been! The refrain began again, and Dana lay and watched the dawn creep into his room, a dawn without a ray of hope.

Somehow he got through the next day.

The attentive audience, as usual, perhaps went to his head and lifted him above his circumstances for the time being. He was all preacher now, and Jessie Belle was not there. He had this one day, at least, in which to shine, helped on by the soft light of radiance from Lynette Brooke’s lovely life. He would preach as he never preached before. He would show these people what he could do. Himself should have its day, even if it were but a day long. Himself should have the glory that he had worked for so long and hard.

And preach he did! It almost seemed as if he were inspired, though not with the Spirit from above perhaps. The words came without hesitation; his perfect enunciation, his richly modulated tones, his attractive pallor, his handsome head and graceful gestures, all came in for pleasant comment by the eager audience. Here was a coming man, a great pulpit orator, who would make for their church a name and a fame in the annals of church history, as great as any that preceded him. They were unanimous in their delight over him. They had secured a prize. All about over the church could be heard the sibilant words, “So handsome!” “Such wonderful eyes!” “Such a clear, penetrating voice,” “Aren’t his lips charming? I love to watch them move; they seem to make his words become living things,” and one woman even said, “He looks like a young god!” He overheard the woman, and then he seemed to hear Lynette’s voice, “Beautiful as the morning!” as she stood in the sunshine before the round hill and looked at blue ruin raising its stately candles above the daisied cover of the hill. He almost groaned aloud at the memory. But he put it quickly aside. He must not let these people see he was distraught. He must get through this day somehow, receive his reward of praise this once, before all tottered and fell in ruin. Blue ruin! He said that over, startled at himself, and wondered if he was going mad. And yet, Jessie Belle was like blue ruin who had stolen into his life and brought death. He must pull himself out of this somehow and get through the rest of the day!

He did.

He was surrounded by admiring women, and men who counted their wealth by millions. He was invited to dinner and begged to stay over and take a trip with one of the members up to his summer home on the coast of Maine. If life had been going well with him he would have thought the millennium had reached him, for that was about his idea of the millennium.

But he declined them all and said he must get away. His only desire was to get off by himself and think—think his way out of this horrible situation. It never occurred to him to pray. He would not have felt intimate enough with God to tell Him about it if it had. He would not have cared to speak of it before God. He would not have felt that his excuses would have had the sympathy from Him they merited.