Nobody's Child

"Not this morning," Baird said. "I want to get back to the club before noon."

Judith did not urge him, and Baird decided that their determination to drive four miles to church when they were both still ridden by anxiety and drooping with fatigue must also be with purpose, a still further maintaining of appearances; doubtless others beside himself were to be kept in the dark. They were heroic in their methods, these people. They were quite capable of sitting in church with heads high, knowing meantime that something ghastly lay in the disused office. His eyes had not deceived him the night before.

Baird was thinking of it, when, suddenly, heavy steps sounded on the veranda, followed by the tumbling and whining of several hounds, and a voice he knew well said sharply: "Be off, now! Get out!" Then the rear door opened and shut and a man strode through the hall, his spurs jingling as he came.

It was Garvin Westmore.

At the first sound, Judith had half risen; then she dropped back, and the next moment Garvin came in, in riding clothes, booted and spurred, clean-shaven but haggard. Baird was astounded to say the least. Had he been a nervous person, he would have been shocked. His surmises had fallen flat.

Garvin tossed aside his cap. "Still at breakfast?" he said casually. "Hello, Baird." He drew up a chair and sat down.

Baird did not know how the other two looked; he was conscious that he was staring. "Hello – " he returned blankly.

"You'll have coffee, Garvin – " Judith was saying, "and what else?"

"Anything. I'm not hungry."

He looked infinitely tired. His eyes harbored melancholy easily, as did Edward's; he looked somberly at Judith as he tossed a folded slip of paper across to her. "From Ed," he said briefly. Judith glanced at it, then set it aside.

Baird's brain was working again. So Edward had gone – where? And why?

"Is it going to be hot, Garvin?" Mrs. Morrison asked.

"It is already hot, Aunt Carlotta." His voice was too even for sarcasm.

"Aunt Carlotta and I are going to church, and Mr. Baird thinks he must go back to the club. What are you going to do?" Judith said, in the same clear way in which she had spoken to her own people the night before.

Garvin straightened a little under its warning note. "I? I am going to ride – if I can have Black Betty – the bay is about done. You and Aunt Carlotta can represent the family at church, and I'll show myself at the village. I'll ride as far as the Post-Road with you, Baird." He spoke more heartily, though his always disdainful lip curled.

Judith's anxious eyes said that he looked a fitter subject for bed than for the saddle, but she made no comment. For her sake, Baird excused himself and rose. "I'll get things into my bag, then."

XII

A VENDETTA

They went together, as far as the County Road, Judith and Mrs. Morrison driving and Baird and Garvin riding beside them. There the two men turned into the extension of the Westmore Road that skirted the Mine Banks, the shortest way to the Post-Road, leaving Judith and Mrs. Morrison to go by the more roundabout way; the disused Mine Banks Road was possible only to riders.

Judith reached from the buggy to shake hands with Baird, and there was the same sweetness in her voice as there had been when she parted from him the night before. "You must come to see us very soon, Mr. Baird. I shall expect you," and her eyes said, "Welcome you."

And Garvin's voice also had a kinder note when he parted with her, as if he had his worn nerves under better control. "I'll be back for dinner, Judy."

"Be sure you are," she returned brightly.

"Poor Judith!" Garvin said, as he and Baird rode on. "She has the world on her shoulders – or, rather, the Westmore family – and it's something of a weight, I assure you." He sighed impatiently and looked up at the looming conglomeration of sear undergrowth and trees and bald red patches which they were approaching. "Ever been up there?" he asked.

"No, but I'm going."

"Well, don't go without a guide – there are some ugly pitfalls about… That was a steep broad hill once, dug down and muddled into what it is by the picks and shovels of English convicts. If all that's said is true, they fared worse under my great-great-grandfather's rule than the niggers did. It's not easy to make slaves of Englishmen… For the last hundred years it's been simply a game warren. There are caves and underground passages and ore-pits full of water up there, and some soft little hollows, too, where the pines and cedars have grown up. I know every inch of it. It always fascinated me, but there are some of our family who couldn't be driven to set foot in the place, and there's not a nigger in the county will go near it. And that's a good thing – keeps it free of pests." He laughed shortly. "Lord! I've slept off more than one drunk up there – and played with a girl there, too, on occasion, and only the moon the wiser for it." He spoke steadily, carelessly, but with an undercurrent of feeling.

Edward's exclamation still rang in Baird's ears. Garvin had not been drunk the night before; that he knew. When he and Judith went down to the terraces Garvin was dancing with Priscilla Copeley, and with an air of enjoyment.

Baird studied him closely. Garvin was riding with face lifted, and it brought his profile into relief, bold brow, haughty nose and lip, beautifully modeled chin. The lines about his eyes suggested both weariness and sadness, the curled lip measureless disgust and discontent; a thoroughly unhappy man – if he was any judge of physiognomy. And again Baird felt sorry for him; there was something radically wrong with him.

Garvin's face changed suddenly. "Look there!" he exclaimed. "By jove! Any one would say it was a bear."

He was pointing with his whip to a clambering object which was clearly outlined against one of the red patches above, a bald spot just below the cluster of evergreens that darkened the highest ledge on the Banks. There was a red crag behind them, tipping the summit, and the trees stood as if guarding it; the creature that went on all fours was apparently bent on gaining the ledge.

"It does look like a bear – it's a man, though," Baird said.

"It's Bear Brokaw… What's he climbing up to Crest Cave for? Not for an afternoon nap, I hope. The old cuss knows there's a better way up than that – he's shinning up that slope just because he enjoys it." Garvin looked interested, amused.

"So he's the honey-tree thief."

"Poof!" Garvin said. "He served Aunt Carlotta right. There's not a stancher, closer-mouthed creature in existence than Bear. He swears by Judith and would do almost anything for me. He taught me to handle a gun – many's the night I've gone coon-catching with him."

They rode on, and Garvin's face settled into gravity. "I wonder what he's doing up there?" he said musingly. "I should have thought he'd had enough of the Banks last night," he added, and fell into silence.

It was the first reference to the night Baird had heard, but he dared not question. They were well under the Banks now and the going very rough, a road once, but no more than a trail now, leading over mounds and down into hollows, the trees hedging them closely. Baird felt tired, and they rode in silence for the next half-mile. Then they dipped into a deep cut between high banks, and Garvin aroused to speak again.

"See that?" he said, pointing to a large white stone that stood planted like a monument in the red soil of the roadside. "That's where my grandfather dropped when he was shot by some one hidden up above there. A good place for a murder and a getaway, isn't it?"

"Who did it?" Baird asked with interest.

"That's what we don't know – we never will know, I suppose. The family tried to fasten it on a Penniman, old William Penniman's father, but they had no proof at all – except that there was bad blood between them – there always had been, ever since a Penniman got part of the Westmore tract by buying the old house over there. The accusations of our family didn't help matters. I've always had my theory about it, though: old Penniman's father had nothing to do with it; those men my great-grandparents worked up there in the Banks didn't all die or leave the country – somebody's son or son's son did it." He shrugged with a look of bitter disgust. "Lord! the thing's nearly a hundred years old, and still we go on with it! There's not a Penniman will bend his head to a Westmore, or a Westmore to a Penniman. We go on with things endlessly – just our sickening, effete pride! It gets on my nerves." He looked as if it did; he looked harried.

"There's one Penniman who doesn't seem to bear a grudge," Baird remarked, "the little girl who came to your rescue yesterday morning."

"Ann?.. Ann's young and light-hearted. There's plenty of time for the Penniman to develop in her," he answered carelessly, but Baird noticed that his color rose.

Garvin dropped the subject, talked of trivial things, until they reached the Post-Road. They came upon a man here, a sturdily-built, dark-featured man, clad in neat business gray and carrying a bag. He stood at the juncture of the three roads, the Westmore Road, the Back Road to the Hunt Club and the Penniman farm, and the Post-Road. His hat was tipped back like one who had walked far and was warm, and had stopped to rest and look about him. He was looking at the Mine Banks; when the two riders came up out of the cut, he looked at them, or, rather, at Garvin; he had merely glanced at Baird.

It was his steady grim stare at Garvin that arrested Baird's attention. There was no curiosity in it, it was too cold; fraught with recognition and a settled frozen antagonism. He stood his ground though Garvin's horse almost brushed him, planted firmly, like one who would instantly contest the few inches he covered. There was a quiet determined force about the man; Baird was affected by it, even before they reached him.

Baird glanced questioningly at Garvin and saw that he was giving the man stare for stare, erect in his saddle, chin slightly lifted. But Garvin's look lacked the animosity that froze the other man's features, and just before they passed Baird saw Garvin's hand lift half-way to his cap then drop. They passed with Garvin's eyes shifted to look straight ahead, but the man's stare never wavered.

"Speak of the devil and you see him," Garvin muttered, after they had passed.

"Who is he?" Baird asked.

"Coats Penniman… No forgiveness for the past there – why should I have any compunctions over the future." He spoke icily. The cut he had received had evidently stung.

Baird had already guessed. There was an unnamable likeness to Ann in the man's features.

They had come to the center of the Post-Road. "Well, here we part," Garvin said more lightly. "I'll see you soon, I hope."

"Come over to dinner with me to-morrow," Baird returned. "We've got to arrange about that machine."

"I meant to thank you about that," Garvin said quickly. "I haven't my usual wits about me to-day. It's good of you, Baird." There was all the Westmore charm about the man when he smiled.