The Desert and The Sown

M >> Mary Hallock Foote >> The Desert and The Sown

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"I suppose no date has been fixed for the wedding?" Mrs. Dawson, on the
divan, murmured to Mrs. Creve. The latter smiled a non-committal assent.

"I should think they would just put the doctor aside and be married
anyhow. My husband says he ought to go to a warmer climate at once."

"My dear, a young man can't be married in his dressing-gown and slippers!"

"No! It's not as bad as that?"

"Well, not quite. He's up and dressed and walks about, but he doesn't come
down to his meals,--he can eat so very little at a time, and it tires him
to sit through a dinner. It isn't one of those ravenous recoveries. It
went too far with him for that."

"His mother was perfectly magnificent through it all, they say."

"Have you seen much of Mrs. Bogardus?"

"No; we left them alone, poor things, when the pinch came. But I used to
see her walking the porch, up and down, up and down. Moya would go off on
the hills. They couldn't walk together! That was after Miss Chrissy went
home. Her mother took her back, you know, and then returned alone.
Perfectly heroic! They say she dressed every evening for dinner as
carefully as if she were in New York, and led the conversation. She used
to make Moya read aloud to her--history, novels--anything to pretend they
were not thinking. The strain must have begun before any of us knew. The
colonel kept it so quiet. What is the dear man doing with your bonnet?"

The colonel had plucked his sister's walking-hat, a pert piece of
millinery froward in feathers, from the trunk of the headless Victory,
where she had reposed it in her haste before dinner.

"Mustn't be disrespectful to the household Lar," he kindly reminded her.

"Where am I to put my hats, then? I shall wear them on my head and come
down to breakfast in them. Moya, dear, will you please rescue my hat? Put
it anywhere, dear,--under your chair. There is not really a place in this
house to put a thing. A wedding that goes off on time is bad enough, but
one that hangs on from month to month--and doesn't even take care of its
clothes! Forgive me, dear! The clothes are very pretty. I open a
bureau-drawer to put away my middle-aged bonnet--a puff of violets! A pile
of something white, and, behold, a wedding veil! There isn't a hook in the
closet that doesn't say, 'Standing-room only,' and the standing-room is
all stood on by a regiment of new shoes."

"My dear woman, go light on our sore spots. We are only just out of the
woods."

"Isn't it bad to coddle your sore spots, Doctor? Like a saddle-gall, ride
them down!" Mrs. Creve and Dr. Fleming exchanged a friendly smile on the
strength of this nonsense. On the doctor's side it covered a suspicion:
"'The lady, methinks, protests too much'!" The colonel, too, was restless,
and Moya's sweet color came and went. She appeared to be listening for
steps or sounds from some other part of the house.

The men all rose now as Mrs. Bogardus entered; one or two of the ladies
rose also, compelled by something in her look certainly not intended. She
was careful to greet everybody; she even crossed the room and gave her
hand to Lieutenant Winslow, whom she had not seen since the night of his
return. The doctor she casually passed over with a bow; they had met
before that day. It was in the mind of each person present not of the
family, and excepting the doctor, to ask her: 'How is your son this
evening?' But for some reason the inquiry did not come off.

The company began suddenly to feel itself _de trop_. Mrs. Dawson, who had
come under the doctor's escort, glanced at him, awaiting the moment when
it would do to make the first move.

"I hear you lost a patient from the hospital yesterday?" said Lieutenant
Winslow, at the doctor's side.

"_From_, did you say? That's right! He was to have been operated on
to-day." The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"What!"

"Two broken ribs. One grown fast to the lung."

"Wh-ew!"

"He just walked out. Said I had ordered him to have fresh air. There was a
new hall-boy, a greenhorn."

"He can't go far in that shape, can he?"

"Oh, there's no telling. The constitution of those men is beyond anything.
You can't kill him. He'll suffer of course, suffer like an animal, and die
like one--away from the herd. Maybe not this time, though."

"Was he afraid of the operation?"

"I can't say. He did not seem to be either afraid or anxious for help. Not
used to being helped. He would be taken to the Sisters' Hospital. Wouldn't
come up here as the guest of the Post, not a bit! I believe from the first
he meant to give us the slip, and take his chance in his own way."

"Did you hear,"--Mrs. Creve spoke up from the opposite side of the room
under that hypnotic influence by which a dangerous topic spreads,--"did
you hear about the poor guide who ran away from the hospital to escape
from our wicked doctor here? What a reputation you must have, Doctor!"

"All talk, my dear; town gossip," said the colonel. "You gave him his
discharge, didn't you, Doctor?" The colonel looked hard at the medical
officer; he had prepared the way for a statement suited to a mixed
company, including ladies. But Doctor Fleming stated things usually to
suit himself.

"There was a man who left the Sisters' Hospital rather informally
yesterday. I won't say he is not just as well off to-day as if he had
stayed."

"Who was it? Was it our man, father?"

"The doctor has more than one patient at the hospital." Colonel Middleton
looked reproachfully at the doctor, who continued to put aside as childish
these clumsy subterfuges. "I think you ladies frightened him away with
your attentions. He knew he was under heavy liabilities for all your
flowers and fancy cookery."

"Attentions! Are we going to let him die on the road somewhere?" cried
Moya.

"Miss Moya?" Lieutenant Winslow spoke up with a mixture of embarrassment
and resolution to be heard, though every voice in the room conspired
against him. "Those men are a big fraternity. They have their outfitting
places where they put in for repairs. Packer John had his blankets sent to
the Green Meadow corral. They know him there. They say he had money at one
of the stores. They all have a little money cached here and there. And
they _can't_ get lost, you know!"

Moya's eyes shone with a suspicious brightness.

"'When the forest shall mislead me;
When the night and morning lie.'"

She turned her swimming eyes upon Paul's mother, who would be sure to
remember the quotation.

Mrs. Bogardus remained perfectly still, her lips slightly parted. She grew
very pale. Then she rose and walked quickly to the door.

"Just a breath of cold air!" she panted. The doctor, Moya, and Mrs. Creve
had followed her into the hall. Moya placed herself on the settle beside
her and leaned to support her, but she sat back rigidly with her eyes
closed. Mrs. Creve looked on in quiet concern. "Let me take you into the
study, Mrs. Bogardus!" the doctor commanded. "A glass of water, Moya,
please."

"How is she? What is it? Can we do anything?" The company crowded around
Mrs. Creve on her return to the drawing-room. She glanced at her brother.
There was no clue there. He stood looking embarrassed and mystified. "It
is only the warm welcome we give our friends," she said aloud, smiling
calmly. "Mrs. Bogardus found the room too hot. I think I should have
succumbed myself but for that little recess in the hall."

The colonel attacked his fire. He thought he was being played with. Things
were not right in the house, and no one, not the doctor, or even Annie,
was frank with him. His kind face flushed as he straightened up to bid his
guests good-night.

"Well, if it's not anything serious, you think. But you'll be sure to let
us know?" said Mrs. Dawson. "Well, good-night, Mrs. Creve. _Good_-night,
Colonel! You'll say good-night to Moya? Do let us know if there is
anything we can do."

Dr. Fleming was in the hall looking for his cape. The colonel touched him
on the shoulder. "Don't be in a hurry, Doctor. Mrs. Dawson will excuse
you."

"I don't think you need me any more to-night. Moya is with Mrs. Bogardus.
She is not ill. The room was a little close."

"Never mind the _room_! Come in here. I want a word with you."

The doctor laughed oddly, and obeyed.

"Annie, you needn't leave us."

"Why, thank you, dear boy! It's awfully good of you," Annie mocked him.
"But I must go and relieve Moya."

"I don't believe you are wanted in there," said Doctor Fleming.

"It's more than obvious that I'm not in here."

"Oh, do sit down," said the teased colonel.

The fire sulked and smoked a trifle with its brands apart. Doctor Fleming
leaned forward upon his knees and regarded it thoughtfully. The colonel
sat fondling the tongs. In a deep chair Mrs. Creve lay back and shaded her
face with the end of her lace scarf. By her manner she might have been
alone in the room, yet she was keenly observant of the men, for she felt
that developments were taking place.

"What is the matter with your patient upstairs, Doctor?" the colonel began
his cross-examination. Doctor Fleming raised his eyebrows.

"He's had nothing to eat to speak of for six weeks, at an altitude"--

"Yes; we know all that. But he's twenty-four years old. They made an easy
trip back, and he has been here a week, nearly. He's not as strong as he
was when they brought him in, is he?"

"That was excitement. You have to allow for the reaction. He has had a
shock to the entire system,--nerves, digestion,--must give him time. Very
nervous temperament too much controlled."

"Make it as you like. But I'm disappointed in his rallying powers, unless
you are keeping something back. A boy with the grit to do what he did, and
stand it as he did--why isn't he standing it better now?"

"We are all suffering from reaction, I think," said Mrs. Creve
diplomatically; "and we show it by making too much of little things. Tom,
we oughtn't to keep the doctor up here talking nonsense. He wants to go to
bed."

"_I_'m not talking nonsense," said the doctor. "I should be if I pretended
there was anything mysterious about that boy's case upstairs. He has had a
tremendous experience, say what you will; and it's pulled him down
nervously, and every other way. He isn't ready or able to talk of it yet.
And he knows as soon as he comes down there'll be forty people waiting to
congratulate him and ask him how it was. I don't wonder he fights shy. If
he could take his bride by the hand and walk out of the house with her I
believe he could start to-morrow; but if there must be a wedding and a lot
of fuss"--

Mrs. Creve nodded her head approvingly. The three had risen and stood
around the hearth, while the colonel put the brands delicately together
with the skill of an old campaigner. The flames breathed again.

"I don't offer this as a professional opinion," said the doctor. "But a
case like his is not a disease, it's a condition"--

"Of the mind, perhaps?" the colonel added significantly. He glanced at
Mrs. Creve. "You've thought about that, Doctor? The letter his mother
consulted you about?"

"Have you been worrying about that, Colonel? Why didn't you say so? There
is nothing in it whatever. Why, it's so plain a case the other way--any
one can see where the animus comes from!"

"Now you _are_ getting mysterious, and I'm going to bed!" said Mrs. Creve.

"No; we're coming to the point now," said the colonel.

"What is it you want Bogardus to do?" asked Doctor Fleming. "Want him to
get up and walk out of the house as my patient did at the hospital? Dare
say he could do it, but what then? Will you let me speak out, Colonel? No
regard to anybody's feelings? Now, this may be gossip, but I think it has
a bearing on the case upstairs. I'm going to have it off my mind anyhow!
When Mrs. Bogardus came to see the guide,--Packer John,--day before
yesterday, was it?--he asked to see her alone. Said he had something
particular to say to her about her son. We thought it a queer start, but
she was willing to humor him. Well, she wasn't in there above ten minutes,
but in that time something passed between them that hit her very hard, no
doubt of that! Now, Bogardus holds his tongue like a gentleman as to what
happened in the woods. He doesn't mention his comrades' names. And the
packer has disappeared; so he can't be questioned. Seems to me a little
bird told me there was an attachment between one of those Bowen boys and
Miss Christine?

"Now we, who know what brutes brute fear will make of men, are not going
to deny that those boys behaved badly. There are some things that can't be
acknowledged among men, you know, if there is a hole to crawl out of.
Cowardice is one of them. Well then, they lied, that's the whole of it.
The little boys lied. They wrote Mrs. Bogardus a long letter from
Lemhi,"--the doctor was reviewing now for Mrs. Creve's benefit,--"when
they first got out. They probably judged, by the time they had had, that
Paul and the packer would never tell their own story. Very well: it
couldn't hurt Paul, it might be the saving of them, if they could show
that something had queered him in the woods. They asked his mother if she
had heard of the effects of altitude upon highly sensitive organizations.
They recounted some instances--I will mention them later. One of the boys
is a lawyer, isn't he? They are a pair of ingenious youths. Bogardus, they
claim, avoided them almost from the time they entered the woods,--almost
lived with the packer, behaved like a crank about the shooting. Whereas
they had gone there to kill things, he made it a personal matter whenever
they pursued this intention in a natural and undisguised manner. He had
pangs, like a girl, when the creatures expired. He hated the carcases, the
blood--forgive me, Mrs. Creve. In short, he called the whole business
butchery."

"Do you make _that_ a sign of lunacy?" Mrs. Creve flung in.

"I am quoting, you know." The doctor smiled indulgently. "They declare
that they offered--even begged--to stay behind with him, one of them, at
least, but he rejected their company in a manner so unpleasant that they
saw it would only be courting a quarrel to remain. And so, treating him
perforce like a child _or_ a lunatic _pro tem._, and having but little
time to decide in, they cut loose and hurried back for help. This is the
tale, composed on reflection. They said nothing of this to Winslow--to
save publicity, of course! Mrs. Bogardus's lips are doubly sealed, for her
son's sake and for the sake of the young scamp who is to be her son, by
and by! I saw she winced at my opinion, which I gave her
plainly--brutally, perhaps. And she asked me particularly to say nothing,
which I am particularly not doing.

"This, I think, you will find is the bitter drop in the cup of rejoicing
upstairs. And they are swallowing it in silence, those two, for the sake
of the little girl and the old friends in New York. Of course she has kept
from Paul that last shot in the back from those sweet boys! The packer had
some unruly testimony he was bursting with, which he had sense enough to
keep for her alone, and she doesn't want the case to spread. It is
singular how a man in his condition could get out of the way as suddenly
as he did. You might think he'd been taken up in a cloud."

"Doctor, what do you mean by such an insinuation as that?"

"Colonel, have I insinuated anything? Did I say she had oiled the wheels
of his departure?"

"Come, come! You go too far!"

"Not at all. That's your own construction. I merely say that I am not
concerned about that man's disappearance. I think he'll be looked after,
as a valuable witness should be."

"Well," the colonel grumbled uneasily, "I don't like mysteries myself, and
I don't like family quarrels nor skeletons at the feasts of old friends.
But I suppose there must be a drop in every cup. What were your altitude
cases, Doctor?"

"The same old ones; poor Addison, you know. All those stories they tell an
Easterner. As I pointed out to Mrs. Bogardus, in every case there was some
predisposing cause. Addison had been too long in the mountains, and he was
frightfully overworked; short of company officers. He came to me about an
insect he said had got into his ear; buzzed, and bothered him day and
night. The story got to the men's quarters. They joked about the colonel's
'bug.' I knew it was no joke. I condemned him for duty, but the Sioux were
out. They thought at Washington no one but Addison could handle an Indian
campaign. He was on the ground, too. So they sent him up higher where it
was dry, with a thousand men in his hands. I knew he'd be a madman or a
dead man in a month! There were a good many of the dead! By Jove! The boys
who took his orders and loved the old fellow and knew he was sending them
to their death! Well for him that he'll never know."

"The 'altitude of heartbreak,'" sighed Mrs. Creve. The phrase was her own,
for many a reason deeply known unto herself, but she gave it the effect of
a quotation before the men.

"Then you think there is no 'altitude' in ours?"

"No; nor 'heartbreak' either," said the doctor, helping himself to one of
the colonel's cigars. "But I don't say there isn't enough to keep a woman
awake nights, and to make those young men avoid the sight of each other
for a time. Thanks, I won't smoke now. I'm going to take a look at Mrs.
Bogardus as I go out."

XV

A BRIDEGROOM OF SNOW

The doctor had taken his look, feeling a trifle guilty under his patient's
counter gaze, yet glad to have relieved the good colonel's anxiety. If he
loved to gossip, at least he was particular as to whom he gossiped with.

Moya closed the door after him and silently resumed her seat. Mrs.
Bogardus helped herself to a sip of water. She was struggling with a dry
constriction of the throat, and Moya protested a little, seeing the effort
that it cost her to speak, even in the hoarse, unnatural tone which was
all the voice she had left.

"I want to finish now," she said, "and never speak of this again. It was I
who accused them first--and then I asked him:--if there was anything he
could say in their defense, to say it, for Chrissy's sake! 'I will never
break bread with them again,' said he,--'either Banks or Horace. I will
not eat with them, or drink with them, or speak with them again!' Think of
it! How are we to live? How are they to inhabit the same city? He thinks I
have been weak. I am weak! The only power I have is through--the property.
Banks will never marry a poor girl. But that would be a dear-bought
victory. Let her keep what faith in him she can. No; in families, the ones
who can control themselves have to give in--to those who can't. If you
argue with Christine she simply gives way, and then she gets hysterical,
and then she is ill. It's a disease. Mothers know how their
children--Christine was marked--marked with trouble! I am thankful she has
any mind at all. She needs me more than Paul does. I cannot be parted from
my power to help her--such as it is."

"When she is Banks Bowen's wife she will need you more than ever!" said
Moya.

"She will. I could prevent the marriage, but I am afraid to. I am afraid!
So, as the family is cut in two--in three, for I"--Mrs. Bogardus stopped
and moistened her lips again. "So--I think you and Paul had better make
your arrangements and go as soon as you can wherever it suits you, without
minding about the rest of us."

Moya gave a little sobbing laugh. "You don't expect me to make the first
move!"

"Doesn't he say anything to you--anything at all?"

"He is too ill."

"He is not ill!" Mrs. Bogardus denied it fiercely. "Who says he is ill? He
is starved and frozen. He is just out of the grave. You must be good to
him, Moya. Warm him, comfort him! You can give him the life he needs. Your
hands are as soft as little birds. They comfort even me. Oh, don't you
understand!"

"Of course I understand!" Moya answered, her face aflame. "But I cannot
marry Paul. He has got to marry me."

"What nonsense that is! People say to a girl: 'You can't be too cold
before you are married or too kind after!' That does not mean you and
Paul. If you are not kind to him _now_, you will make a great mistake."

"He is not thinking of marriage," said Moya. "Something weighs on him all
the time. I cannot ask him questions. If he wanted to tell me he would.
That is why I come downstairs and leave him. But he won't come down! Is it
not strange? If we could believe such things I would say a Presence came
with, him out of that place. It is with him when I find him alone. It is
in his eyes when he looks at me. It is not something past and done with,
it is here--now--in this house! _What_ is it? What do _you_ believe?"

The eyes she sought to question hardened under her gaze. Here, too, was a
veil. Mrs. Bogardus sat with her hands clasped in her lap. She was
motionless, but the creaking of her silks could be heard as her bosom rose
and fell. After a moment she said: "Paul's tray is on the table in the
dining-room. Will you take it when you go up?"

Moya altered her own manner instantly. "But you?" she hesitated. "I must
not crowd you out of all your mother privileges. You have handed over
everything to me."

"A mother's privilege is to see herself no longer needed. I can do nothing
more for my son"--her smile was hard--"except take care of his money."

"Paul's mother!"

"My dear, do you suppose we mind? It is a very great privilege to be
allowed to step aside when your work is done."

"Paul's _mother!_" Moya insisted.

Mrs. Bogardus rose. "You don't remember your own mother, my dear. You have
an exaggerated idea of the--the importance of mothers. They are only a
temporary arrangement." She put out her hands and the girl's cheek touched
hers for an instant; then she straightened herself and walked calmly out
of the room. Moya remained a little longer, afraid to follow her. "If she
would not smile! If she would do anything but smile!"

Paul was walking about his room, half an hour later, when Moya stopped
outside his door. She placed the tray on a table in the hall. The door was
opened from within. Paul had heard his mother go up before, heard her
pause at the stairs, and, after a silence, enter her own room.

"She knows that I know," he said to himself. "That knowledge will be
always between us; we can never look each other in the face again." To
Moya he endeavored to speak lightly.

"It sounded very gay downstairs to-night. You must have had a houseful."

"I have been with your mother the last hour," answered Moya, vaguely on
the defensive. Since Paul's return there had been little of the old free
intercourse in words between them, and without this outlet their mutual
consciousness became acute. Often as they saw each other during the day,
the keenest emotion attached to the first meeting of their eyes.

Paul was unnerved by his sudden recall from death to life. Its contrasts
were overwhelming to his starved senses: from the dirt and dearth and
grimy despair of his burial hutch in the snow to this softly lighted,
close-curtained room, warm and sweet with flowers; from the gaunt,
unshaven spectre of the packer and his ghostly revelations, to Moya,
meekly beautiful, her bright eyes lowered as she trailed her soft skirts
across the carpet; Moya seated opposite, silent, conscious of him in every
look and movement. Her lovely hands lay in her lap, and the thought of
holding them in his made him tremble; and when he recalled the last time
he had kissed her he grew faint. He longed to throw off this exhausting
self-restraint, but feared to betray his helpless passion which he deemed
an insult to his soul's worship of her.

And she was thinking: "Is this all it is going to mean--his coming
home--our being together? And I was almost his wife!"

"So it was my mother you were talking to in the study? I thought I heard a
man's voice."

"It was the doctor. Your mother was not quite herself this evening. He
came in to see her, but he does not think she is ill. 'Rest and change,'
he says she needs."

Paul gave the words a certain depth of consideration. "Are you as well as
usual, Moya?"

"Oh, I am always well," she answered cheerlessly. "I seem to thrive on
anything--everything," she corrected herself, and blushed.

The blush made him gasp. "You are more beautiful than ever. I had
forgotten that beauty is a physical fact. The sight of you confuses me."

"I always told you you were morbid." Moya's happy audacity returned. "Now,
how long are you going to sit and think about that?"

"Do I sit and think about things?" His reluctant, boyish smile, which all
women loved, captured his features for a moment. "It is very rude of me."

"Suppose I should ask you what you are thinking about?"

"Ah! I am afraid you would say 'morbid' again."

"Try me! You ought to let me know at once if you are going to break out in
any new form of morbidness."

"I wish it might amuse you, but it wouldn't. Let me put you a
case--seriously."

Moya smiled. "Once we were serious--ages ago. Do you remember?"

"Do I remember!"

"Well? You are you, and I am I, still."

"Yes; and as full of fateful surprises for each other."

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