Nobody's Child

During the last of the three anxious weeks, Ann had talked more with Ben, and after that she gained a little strength. Ben wished that she would weep; her calmness was unnatural.

Ann's stoicism frightened Sue. "I'm afraid of it," she was driven to say to Coats.

The furrows in Coats' forehead deepened, but he said quietly, "Don't worry, Sue. There's plenty of good sane blood in Ann. Just wait and let time help her."

Baird also was anxiously waiting. Every day of that three weeks he had stopped at the Penniman house to inquire about Ann. Often he rode on to Westmore and spent the evening with Judith. Though urged by the whole connection, Judith had refused to leave Westmore, even for a day. She had faced God's half-acre, faced the present and the future with the same undaunted spirit with which she had faced the difficult past. She had taken up Edward's interests; she rode about Westmore like any capable overseer, and her evenings she spent seated beneath the Westmore portraits.

She was always at home to Baird, and Westmore seemed to Baird much as it had been. Save for Judith's black gown, there were few signs of mourning. Judith bore herself spiritedly, was the same fluent speaker, and charming, as always. If Baird had not noticed her expression at times, when she was off guard, he might have thought her heartless. He knew that, in her way, she was suffering as keenly as Ann. Her manner to Baird was a mixture of friendly interest and something deeper, a tacit recognition of their former relations, and as tacit a disclaimer of any expectations.

Baird was in many respects the "cool-head" Ben Brokaw thought him. So long as his own feelings were clearly defined, he felt no hesitation in going to Westmore. On the first occasion when Judith said, "You are not looking well, Nickolas," he had answered without preamble or apology, "You know, I suppose, how fond I am of Ann Penniman? She's very ill – I doubt sometimes whether she'll pull through. I'm not feeling particularly happy, Judith."

If Judith had rehearsed her answer many times, it could not have been more equably delivered: "Yes, I know you are. Ben tells me that it was a fall in the barn, and I'm sorry both for you and for her. But she's young and strong – she will get well."

"I don't know. I hope so," Baird said.

The drop in his voice had told Judith far more than his avowal, and she could not endure it in silence. "Ann was fond of my brother – of both my brothers," she said dryly.

Baird had winced; so she knew all that history, doubtless far better than he did. Then his jaw set, and he quoted her own words, "But she's young and so am I. And as I'm good at both fighting and waiting, I generally win out."

"I hope you will," Judith said, with an instant return to her usual manner. "There is no one whom I'd rather see happy."

After the first flash of anger Baird forgave her the thrust. He had been rather brutal. Still it had been a necessary brutality; unless there was a distinct understanding, he could not continue his visits. Baird judged that Judith would not again swerve from the attitude she had adopted, and he was right. He genuinely liked and admired Judith Westmore. He admired the strength of will that enabled her to go on playing the role she had chosen; she was a pretty splendid sort. And he was profoundly sorry for her; she'd had a beastly hard row to hoe, and had hoed it well. He took off his hat to her!

But Baird did not take his depression and his fears to Judith. When he was "down," he rode for miles into the country, often until late at night. He thought continuously of Ann. He was convinced that she had been a more potential factor in the Westmore tragedy than any one dreamed. Baird wondered endlessly whether Ann was not suffering as much from remorse as from grief. He had long ago decided that she was both elusive and compelling, the type that gives little and receives much, the sort of woman who drives a man to fight for all he receives. Certainly two men had struggled for her, and, Baird was convinced, had died because of her. And he himself! He had fought for her against death itself, and was still fighting… Well, he liked to fight; he had never treasured anything that came easy.

From the beginning of time men have yielded to the women they think potential, a fascinated interest that may or may not be love. Certainly when coupled with desire it is an irresistible force. When allied to tenderness, it is the blind worship which has urged men to most of the chivalrously romantic acts in history.

Baird told himself that he had sensed the potential in Ann, on the day when he had captured a kiss. She had drawn him away from Judith and had compelled him even when he knew perfectly well that her thoughts were with one or the other of those two. She had compelled him to put up the stiffest fight he had ever made, an actual grapple with death. It might seem to others that he was infatuated with a girl of no importance whatever, but he knew better: Ann's surroundings were an accident – by right of innate superiority, she belonged to Judith's class, and Edward had realized that, too. No, he was held and compelled and overwhelmingly in love with a potential woman.

Perhaps Baird was simply laboring under the hallucination usual with lovers, which urges them to swathe the objects of their affection with an interest quite indiscernible to the sane-minded. Possibly the tragedy in which Ann was involved and the fact that she almost certainly owed her life to him had touched an imaginative strain in him. It is more likely that, like Edward, he was a shrewd judge of character and that, despite her youth and her simple rearing, Ann did possess potentiality; that eventually she might even emerge a gifted woman.

However that may be, certainly no lover came into the presence of the woman he loved with more profound sensations than stirred Baird when at last Ben brought him to Ann. "You can come on in," Ben said. "She says she wants to thank you."

When Baird's eyes leaped to her, he lost the power of speech, for illness and grief had worked havoc: they had thinned her face until it looked small and pinched, had set immense circles about her eyes, destroyed the softness of lips and chin; her hair appeared to be the only unchanged thing about her, a black mass crowning the pillow.

Ann lifted to his clasp a hand that seemed as fragile as a bird's claw, but her voice had not changed, the old soft drawl enlivened by the well-remembered touches of coquetry and aloofness: "Ben says you saved my life – and I can't ever pay off that debt, can I? Not unless I save yours some time. I'll have to be always watching out for the chance, but all I can do now is just to say, 'Thank you – thank you very much,' an' not talk any more about it."

A light answer was quite beyond Baird. For almost the first time in his life he was pretty thoroughly tongue-tied. "I wish you weren't so ill," he said simply.

She smiled at him, a parting of colorless lips over white teeth. "Ben says young things get well quicker than old ones. He says funny things to me, an' some of them I reckon are wise things. He said yesterday, that, if a man had any heart left at all after he had done playing with it, he didn't really know nothin' about what kind of a heart it was till he was forty, an' that a woman, whether she had a heart or not, 'never knows nothin' about it at all.'"

Baird was permeated by an aching disappointment. Ann had seen what lay in his eyes, and on the instant had donned a mask and interposed a shield. She had confessed to a debt, that was all. She wanted none of him; Judith could not have conveyed the impression any more skilfully.

From somewhere within himself Baird managed to bring forth what strove to be a light sentence: "Ben's a pretty good second father to you, isn't he?"

"Yes – I reckon he is – " Then, suddenly, her mask slipped. Her eyes widened, filled to overflowing with grief and pain – then closed. The tears gathered beneath her lashes and rolled down her cheeks, until a storm of sobs caught her and shook her.

Shocked and bewildered, Baird bent over her. He was never able to remember just what he said, only that he tried to lift her up and that Ben made him put her down, then drew him out of the room.

"She ain't fit to talk!" Ben said forcibly. "Jest you go on along, an' come another time!"

Baird went out and rode for miles, until long after dark. He would have carried his wretchedness to bed with him had he not returned through the Penniman place. Ben was lounging by the gate.

"Well?" Baird asked dully.

"She's right smart better," Ben growled.

"She is!"

"Um."

Then Ben explained. "Women's nerves is like plants – they needs water. I've been wishin' this long time that Ann's would get rained on… She's jest naturally cried herself to sleep."

"And you think it's done her good?" Baird asked doubtfully.

"I do… When she asks me to fetch her the lookin'-glass, I'll rest easy."

Baird felt rather than saw the twinkle in Ben's eyes, and he laughed from sheer relief, the first time he had laughed in weeks.

He went on to the club and wrote to Dempster, asking him for a month's vacation. "You see," Baird wrote, "the girl I love and mean to marry – if I can get her – has been next door to death. There seems to be a chance for her now, and a month will mean a lot to me."

XXXVI

"IT LIES WITH ANN"

Baird was granted his holiday. He would have taken it, despite consequences, but it was better to have gained it in this way. Dempster, who was a rough but kindly sort, had written: "All right, take the month, but don't you fail me in August. Make the best of it and bring her back with you – we'll welcome her."

Baird had laid the letter down with a groan. "Bring her back with me! If he knew how hard I'm up against it!" Nevertheless, he made his daily visit to the Penniman house.

Ann was certainly improving. By the first of July she was able to sit on the porch, even to walk as far as the terraces. But not with Baird. Baird was very certain that neither Coats nor Sue nor Ben was responsible for his not being allowed to see Ann again. He felt that all three were friendly to him and to his suit, for there was no mistaking his intention.

"He's desperately in love with her," Sue said to Coats. "I'm sorry for him when I have to tell him that Ann doesn't feel well enough to see him. It hurts me the way he looks at me."

"Yes, he's wretched," Coats agreed, "but I've nothing to say one way or the other. It lies entirely with Ann. He's a good sort and he's open-minded, but there are things may daunt even him. Ann will have to decide for herself. I know her a deal better than I did, Sue – I was all wrong in my estimate of her. She's too proud and strong-willed for any man to capture easily. I've been a poor enough father to her in the past, the best I can do now is to hold my peace."

Possibly Ben knew what disposal Ann meant to make of Baird; he knew more about Ann's thoughts than any one else did. At any rate, it was he who, on the Fourth of July, told Baird that Ann was feeling well enough to see him. He appeared at the club and delivered Ann's message:

"Ann wanted I should tell you she was able to see you," he announced.

Baird flushed crimson. "Shall I go now?" he asked hurriedly.

"Wait a bit – till the sun's gone," Ben said. "She'll be out to the porch then." He looked grave. "Mr. Baird, jest you remember that Ann's been through a deal, an' don't you overdo her." He fumbled his cap uncomfortably. "When I were young I was always in a turrible hurry – I never reckoned on time. An' I were awful decided in my mind about everything. Now I don't do no decidin' to speak of – I lets time do it."

Ben's remarks were not altogether clear to Baird, but the first part of his speech was easy to grasp. "I'll try not to tire her," he promised.

"All right," Ben said, and departed.

Baird watched him rolling off to the woods, like a bear freed from human interference. His oddly bent body suggested a craving for the woods and a thirst for running water. He had been caged for a long time; Baird guessed that it had worn upon him; he doubted whether any one but Ann could have compelled Ben to do it.