Elizabeth Dejeans

“ As they crossed the bridge where, some twenty feet below, the creek that skirted the Mine Banks tumbled over big rocks, Ann remembered in a vague way, as one thinks of something years past, that she used to find white violets in the soft spaces between the rocks. She thought much more vividly of how dangerous the bridge was, without any side rails, simply a planking and that none too wide; a careless turn on a dark night, and an automobile could easily be dashed to pieces below. It would be dreadful if anything happened to Garvin. ”

“ The men on the Ridge knew Garvin Westmore; he was an open secret.
When Coats put down the last letter and sat looking at the collected evidences of sensual infatuation and very evident suffering, a sort of madness that could not be given the name of love, he was without even the faint doubt that had given Sue a ray of hope. There might be girls who had either the coolness or the hardihood to pass through a siege such as this unscathed. Or the occasional girl who, though capable of arousing mad passions, remains aloof, wrapped in a self-sufficient self-respect that makes her invincible. ”

“ Under her brilliant exterior Judith was quivering. She had longed for the sight and touch of this man and, but for Ann, she might have recaptured him. Yet she had refrained from dealing the girl a blow. For months Judith's soul had been crisscrossed by passions and burdened by secrets. And Judith was in revolt. In revolt against conventions, against her rearing, against herself; against everything. She was typical of many women of her period; the restless craving woman of 1905 was at heart a revolutionary, and ten years of revolt have molded her into the feminist of to-day. ”

“ 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.
To fill in time, Baird walked to the Penniman house, loitering along beneath the cedars. He was reflecting that love did queer things to a man; it could strengthen his body into iron, make him fight like mad, or turn him as weak as a baby and as humble as a slave; weak in the knees and sick about the heart.... ”

“ It was a woman's kiss he had received; a woman's clinging embrace, as passionate as the pressure of his own arms—for the long moment before withdrawal. He had tried to keep her. "Judith, we love each other—" he said, but the arms that held him off were like steel.
"It's—Edward—" she whispered breathlessly. "You must let me go—" When he loosed her, she gained the portico. She had heard when he had not Edward's approach around the side of the house.
When Edward came up, Baird stood back to his horse, his grasp already on a degree of composure. ”

“ Garvin's hand had grown lax on hers and his face gloomy. She had swept away the sensuous emotion to which he had yielded while waiting for her. He had given himself up to a contemplation of possibilities as an escape from harassment. His pursuit of Ann had been just that, from the very beginning, an escape from unendurable conditions. Her, "They're kind to me because they pity me ... it's hateful to be pitied!" had brought back with a rush the thoughts that had darkened his face while he rode with Baird that morning. "Your people love you—so you can't understand." His people love him! ”

“ Ann recognized the foremost rider first from his horse, a long-necked, clean-limbed sorrel, then from the fleeting glimpse of the man's profile, dark and clear-cut, the face that for months had played with her fancy: Garvin Westmore, the most indefatigable sportsman of the Ridge. The other young man's heavier-jawed and rougher-featured face she did not know. A guest of the club, probably, out from the city for the day. ”

“ Baird would have been astonished by Edward's air of animation and pleasure, more so even than Ann. "He hates quarreling and wants very much to be friends," was Ann's thought, and she was pleased. The miserable day was ending more happily; Garvin had told her that he loved her and that there was "all the future," and now his brother was showing her that he liked her. There were people in the world to whom she mattered; Garvin was interested in her, deeply interested. Ann was being carried away from her troubles; transformed into beauty and charm. ”

“ No matter what the hurt to Garvin, she must tell him the truth.
She had written her confession that day, spent hours and much paper over the short letter, and as soon as her father and Sue were safely away she had taken it to the woods. She was back now; the thing was done; she was panting as much from nervousness as from haste.
The sight of a man looming dimly in the path startled her and she stopped. She felt ill enough to be frightened by everything; a moment before a bird had fluttered in the grapevines and her heart had stood still.
"It's only I—don't be frightened," Baird's voice said. ”

“ But there was no one in view, not even her grandfather moving feebly about the barn.
Ann took up the reins with a sigh, and drove on. She always sighed when she approached her home, and tingled with the sensation of embarking on an adventure when she left it, for Ann possessed in abundance the attributes of youth: faith, hope, imagination and the capacity to enjoy intensely. Home meant work, work, work, and few smiles to sweeten the grind. But for her Aunt Sue, the smoldering rebellion the farm had bred in Ann would have flared dangerously. ”

“ Ann drove on through the woods, with the color still warm in her cheeks. She could not have told just why she was still trembling and felt inclined to cry. As Garvin Westmore had said, it was best to put the sorrel out of pain at once. She did not feel, as the young man Garvin had called Baird had felt, that it was an outrageous thing for Garvin to have shot the horse while she was there, for Ann had never been shown any particular consideration by anybody; she was well acquainted with the hard side of life. ”

“ She had worked faithfully, but what had He done to satisfy the woman in her—the ache for life! A cousin had made love to her and a nobody, a boy whose father had been overseer of slaves, had ventured to tell her that he loved her, and both romances had had their inception and their close back in the years when she was young enough to be all appeal and no brain—the sort upon which Baird would expend himself—some brainless pretty girl who would have no conception of the possibilities that lay in the man who would be mad over her. ”

“ It seemed to Ann that he had grown up with plenty of wickedness about him, drinking and stealing and such things; among men who cared nothing about any one or anything, only to make money. It was a wonder that he was as nice as he was, and he must be nice, in spite of the way he had once behaved to her, or Edward and Garvin would not be so devoted to him. Ann was certain that Judith Westmore could be cruel, very beautiful and charming, but cruelly proud. Baird was evidently courting her, and she was probably not very nice to him. ”

“ They had loosed the fox at the edge of the woods, given him his start, then set on the hounds. She looked with tingling wistfulness after the aristocracy of the Ridge, embarked on its Saturday of excitement and pleasure, then with lifted lip at the thin rump of the mare she was driving, and gathered up the reins. The animal had pricked its ears and quivered when the hunt swept over it; it had life enough in it for that, but that was all.
Then with a revulsion of feeling, pity for the beast commingled with self-pity, she let the reins drop. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I've often thought, when I've seen the children a loveless marriage has brought into the world, that I've had the best of it—that those children must be wanting in some way. I never fully realized how much the mere legality of a marriage means to people like your people until I listened to Judith this afternoon.... So, you see, Ann, it doesn't matter to me. It matters a good deal more to me that you've suffered because of the narrow prejudices of your people. ”

“ Wasn't I right, Ann?"
He addressed the girl, but he was answering Baird's look.
"You looked as if you enjoyed doing it," Baird retorted bluntly.
A flash of expression crossed Garvin Westmore's face, a gleam menacing and dangerous, like the momentary exposure of a dagger. It came and went. "I wanted the beast out of pain—if that is what you mean," he said with hauteur. "Ann knows me better than you do," and he bent over her. "Don't cry, Ann; the horse is better off than any one of us." ”

“ Those three weeks had brought the stir of life, both restlessness and joy, to Sue, to Ann, to Judith Westmore; and, as spring quickens man as well as woman, to Edward Westmore, Garvin and Baird the consciousness of things desired and not attained which is the urge to all accomplishment.
Even Coats Penniman, busied about the farm from early morning until night, was stirred by a vague unrest which was not unhappiness nor its opposite. He worked the harder for it ”

“ 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. ”

“ Colonel Dickenson had given to his friends in the city the only reason the family could assign for Edward's act, the same reason Mr. Copeley had given to Baird, and their explanation of Garvin's fate; a frantic haste to reach Westmore, and the condition of the Post-Road bridge.
For a time the Ridge had buzzed with comments: the Ridge had always known that the family misfortune would reveal itself in another Westmore, and for Garvin they had terse sentences: a reckless dissipated man, what else could you expect? A dash in an automobile on a black night and over such roads as theirs! ”

“ Ann took off her hood and smoothed her hair and pressed her hands to her hot eyes; sat still then and let the wind cool the ache in them, her face settling into its usual wistful expression, eyes dark under drooping lids, lips full but smileless, cheeks and chin so rounded and infantile that they were appealing. Life might make hers a voluptuous face, there was more than a hint of the probability in the desirous mouth and full white throat. ”

“ Baird had been surprised into saying, "Ann Penniman—but it was you she was speaking to—she gave me only the tail of her eye," and his annoyance at Judith made him add, "I think she is the prettiest girl I've met on the Ridge."
"Ann Penniman? Why, I don't know her—I never spoke to a Penniman in my life," Judith had returned with a faintly questioning, half-amused, half-regretful note. "If she is the little girl who belongs to the farm beyond the woods there, she has grown up quickly. I'm sorry if I was really included in that smile and didn't realize it." ”

“ Sue Penniman had done her duty; Ann was not altogether ignorant; less ignorant and far more imaginative; more eager for life and at the same time more certain of herself than most of the girls on the Ridge. Beneath her coquetry, the new and intoxicating realization of her allure, was the craving for the certain something that distinguished the Westmores from the Pennimans; a "niceness" Ann called it, for want of a clearer understanding. She had been immediately at home with Garvin, and with his brother also. ”

“ The hunt had passed, leaving her behind; everything bearing the name of Penniman or belonging to a Penniman was fated to be left behind; why not sit in the sun for a time?
But it seemed she had not seen the last of the hunt, for her ear caught now the gallop of horses, even before she saw them: two horsemen who cleared the fence at the lower end of the pasture with a bird-like lift and dip that brought the light into Ann's eyes, and who now galloped up and by her, headed for the creek, two belated huntsmen come cross-country from the Post-Road and evidently intent upon joining the hunt. ”

“ And, protected from the dew, sleep through the night as well.... What a trysting place for lovers, thought Baird.
The gigantic hedge ended abruptly at the foot of what had evidently once been a lawn, but overgrown now and too much shaded by locust trees. The Penniman house showed through the trees, a steep-pitched roof broken by dormer windows. Clumps of lilacs topped the bank which partially hid the road from the house, and, as he came up under their shelter, Baird eyed his surroundings keenly. ”

“ He had the air of a man who looks coolly and joylessly upon his future.
Judith had learned nothing from Baird's letters. He had left the Ridge very suddenly; something had gone wrong. Probably Coats had intervened, or, possibly, when she had discovered herself an heiress, Ann had failed him. Judith had the jealous woman's bitter estimate of the girl who had brought both her brothers under her sway, and had entangled Baird also. The intensity of detestation she felt for Ann sometimes sickened Judith. That Ann had won part of Edward's fortune had ground Judith's detestation to a dagger's point. ”

“ For Baird had decided that for the first time in his life he was in love. For the first time a woman had interested him completely, stirred all that was decentest in him, held him to deference while she showed herself supremely attractive. When he had come upon Ann that afternoon, he had been wondering what Judith would say or do if he should suddenly lift her from her horse and kiss her; tell her that he loved her? How much would he learn of the real Judith? ”

“ 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. ”