Sara Ware Bassett

“ Ellen, a Richelieu to the last, had him in a trap that wrenched and wrecked every sensibility of his nature. The more he thought about the matter, the more chaotic his impulses became. Justice battled against will; pity against vengeance; love against hate; and as the warring factors strove and tore at one another, and grappled in an anguish of suffering, from out the turmoil two forces rose unconquerable and stubbornly confronted one another,—the opposing forces of Love and Pride. ”

“ Ellen Webster was quite capable of formulating such a scheme and setting it in motion, if only for the cruel pleasure of seeing him ensnared in its toils. Perhaps even Lucy herself was an accomplice in the plot. Who could tell? To be sure she appeared artless enough; but what Webster was to be trusted? And were she only the innocent tool of a more designing hand it redeemed her but little for, blameless or guilty, she was nevertheless a Webster. No power under heaven could wipe out her inheritance; for the penalty of her blood she must pay the price. ”

“ He simply set the crown of sovereignty upon his own brows because he believed it to belong there. And had his faith in his destiny wavered, there were always his slaves Mary, Eliza, and Jane to bow their foreheads in the dust at his feet and murmur with true Oriental submissiveness:
His lordship being thus acknowledged, was it any wonder that Martin cast about himself a mantle of aloofness and dignity and rated as trivial the household routine and petty gossip of his sisters? ”

“ Far more beautiful was it in this half-concealed dilapidation than ever it had been in the pride of its perfection. Then it had stood boldly out against the landscape, naked and 4 aggressive; to-day, clothed in Nature’s soft greenery, it had become so dim a heritage that it might easily have receded into the past and been forgotten had not the discord of which it had become the symbol been wilfully fanned into flame.
As in a bygone age one runner passed a lighted torch on to another, so did one generation of Howes and Websters bequeath to the next the embers of a wrath that never died. ”

“ To be caught in Ellen Webster’s toils and own himself beaten would, Lucy well understood, be to his mind a humiliating fate.
Only a compelling, unreasoning love that swept over him like some mighty tidal wave, wrenching from its foundations every impeding barrier, could move him to surrender; and who was she to arouse such passion in any lover? She was only a woman human and faulty. ”

“ What wonder that a conscientious fellow like 24 Martin Howe felt farming less a business to be accomplished than a choice of alternatives? What rest was there in sleep, if all the time one’s eyes were closed a man was subconsciously aware that cutworms were devouring his lettuce and that weeds were every instant gaining headway? Even the rhythm of the rain was a reminder that the pea vines were being battered down and that the barn roof was leaking. ”

“ As she neared the house a faint glow flickered through the shrubbery, making it evident that her aunt had already arrived home. Nervously she mounted the porch and turned to look behind her. At the foot of the drive stood Martin, the lantern high in his hands.
Now that Lucy was safely within the shelter of her own domain, her sense of humor overcame her, and with an irresistible desire to torment him, she called mischievously from her vantage ground on the veranda:
“Thank you so much for bringing me home, Mr. Howe. Can’t I persuade you to come in?” ”

“ The Webster farm stood high on a plateau, and beneath it lay a broad sweep of valley, now half-shrouded in the silver mists of early morning. The near-at-hand field and pasture that sloped toward it were gemmed with dew. Every blade of tall grass of the mowing sparkled. Even the long rows of green shoots striping the chocolate earth of the garden flashed emerald in the morning sunlight; beyond the plowed land, through an orchard whose apple boughs were studded with ruby buds, Lucy caught a glimpse of a square brick chimney. ”

“ A hermit by nature, she had no friends and wanted none.
Her only neighbors were the Howes, and beyond the impish pleasure she derived from taunting Martin, they had no interest for her. The sisters were timid, inoffensive beings enough; but had they been three times as inoffensive they were nevertheless Howes; moreover, Ellen did not care for docile people. She was a fighter herself and loved a fighter. That was the reason she had always cherished a covert admiration for Martin. His temper appealed to her; so did his fearlessness and his mulish attitude toward the wall. ”

“ When a clamoring conscience had lifted up its voice, he had stilled it with platitudes. The impact of the crisis he 283 now faced had, however, jarred him out of his tranquillity and brought him to an appreciation of his position.
He loved Lucy Webster with sincere devotion. All he had in the world he would gladly cast at her feet,—his name, his heart, his worldly possessions; only one reservation did he make to the completeness of his surrender. His pride he could not bend. ”

“ She spoke in a voice as humdrum and colorless as was her round, flabby face, and Lucy smiled in spite of herself.
“I fancy it isn’t really necessary for me to tell you anything then,” she answered good-humoredly. “Of course you have had a wonderful chance to study personalities.”
“I never had a chance to study anything,” responded Melvina in a matter-of-fact manner. “All I know I’ve picked up as I went along.”
“By study I mean that you have had a wide opportunity to observe human nature,” explained Lucy.
“If by human nature you mean folks, I have,” Melvina said in her habitual monotone. ”

“ Imagine Martin Howe plowing up the rich loam of her fields, invading with his axe the dim silences of her wood lot, enjoying the fruit of her orchard, driving his herds into her pasture! Fancy his feet grating upon the threshold 10 of her home, his tread vibrating on her stairways! The irony of it!
Martin was young. At least, he was not old. He could not be more than forty. He might marry sometime. Many a man more unapproachable even than Martin Howe did marry. ”

“ Keenly as he scorned himself, he could not concede a victory to Ellen Webster,—not for any one on earth.
The jests of the townsfolk were nothing. He did not lack courage to laugh back into the faces of the jeering multitude. But to own himself beaten by a mocking ghost, a specter from another sphere; to relinquish for her gratification the traditions of his race and the trust of his fathers; to leave her triumphant on the field,—this he could not do for any woman living—or dead. ”

“ Martin could have viewed almost any other vocation than that of farmer through a mist of romance, for he was young, and for him, behind the tantalizingly veiled future, there still moved the shadowy forms of knights, dragons, and fair ladies; but with the grim eye of a realist, he saw farming as it was, stripped of every shred of poetry. Blossoming orchards and thriving crops he knew to be the ephemeral phantasms of the dreamer. Farming as he had experienced it was an eternal combat against adverse conditions ”

“ To-night, however, he failed to find her in either of her favorite haunts and, guided by the wailing music of a harmonica, he came at last upon Tony seated on an upturned barrel at the barn threshold, striving to banish his loneliness by breathing into the serenity of the twilight the refrain of “Home, Sweet Home.”
“Hi, Tony!” called Martin. “Do you know where Miss Lucy is?”
“I don’t, sir,” replied the boy, rising. “She didn’t ’xactly say where she was goin’.”
“I s’pose she’s round the place somewhere.”
“Land, no, sir! Didn’t she tell you? Why, she went away on the train this afternoon.” ”

“ It was Martin—Martin Howe!”
Ellen stared stupidly.
“I’d rather have died!” she muttered between clinched teeth.
“Yes, you would,” retorted Lucy. “You would rather have gone down to your grave with bitterness in your soul and a curse upon your lips than to have accepted aid from Martin Howe. You would not have helped him had he been in trouble. You would have been glad to see him suffer—glad!”
The woman listened as if spellbound.
“But Martin Howe is too much of a Christian for that. Yes, you can sneer. He is a Christian and a gentleman. You are not worthy to touch the ground beneath his feet. ”

“ But this woman was all-sufficient and needed no one. Why should she bury her life in this cruel, rancorous atmosphere? Would her own sweetness survive the daily companionship of such a person; rather, dominated by Ellen’s powerful character, might she not become inoculated by its poison and herself harden into a being as merciless and self-centered? So deep was her reverie that she did not hear the tap upon the 90 door. A second afterward the knob turned softly and her aunt entered. ”

“ Farming was not the calling he would have chosen. He neither liked it, nor was he endowed with that intuitive sixth sense on which so many farmers rely for guidance amid the mazes of plowing and planting. By nature, he was a student. The help he had sporadically given his father had always been given rebelliously and been accompanied by the mental resolve that the first moment escape was possible, he would leave the country and its nagging round of drudgery and take up a broader and more satisfying career.
To quote Martin’s own vernacular, farming was hard work,—damned hard work. ”

“ To love one’s enemies was a weak creed. Martin neither loved them nor pretended to. 34 Never, never, would he forgive the insults the Websters had heaped upon his family. He wished no positive harm to Ellen Webster; but he certainly wished her no good.
Mary, Eliza, and Jane had too much timidity and too great a craving for peace not to conform outwardly at least to their brother’s wishes. Accordingly they bent their necks to his will; for did not Martin rule the house? ”

“ That’s the interesting part of farming, I think, to use your brains and make two things grow where only one grew before. If I were a man——”
She broke off, embarrassed by her own girlish enthusiasm.
“What would you do?” inquired Martin eagerly.
“I’d do with our farm what you’ve done with yours. I’d get new tools, and I’d find out how to use them. It would be fascinating. But a woman can’t——”
“She can read just the same.”
“I haven’t a man’s strength,” returned Lucy, shaking her head gravely. “It’s such a pity.” ”

“ It had suddenly become very easy to talk with Jane.
Welcoming her companionship and sympathy, he found himself pouring into her listening ear all his difficulties. He told her of Ellen’s will; of the wall; of Lucy’s flight; of his love for the girl. How good it was to speak and share his troubles with another!
“How like Lucy to go away!” mused Jane, when the recital was done. “Any self-respectin’ woman would have done the same, too. She warn’t goin’ to hang round here an’ make you marry her out of pity.” ”

“ During the solitary hours when his hands were busy thinning lettuce or weeding young corn, his mind had abundant leisure for reflection, and the theme on which his thoughts turned with increasing activity was always the same. Defy Fate as he would, he faced the realization that he loved Lucy Webster with every fiber of his being. ”

“ I imagine, too, it hit her pretty hard, for she had been given to understand that everything was to be hers. She hasn’t much in her own right; her aunt told me that.”
An icy hand suddenly gripped Martin’s heart. He stood immovable, as if stunned. Lucy! Lucy penniless and homeless because of him!
Little by little Ellen’s evil scheme unfolded itself before his consciousness. He saw the cunning of the intrigue which the initial outburst of his wrath had obscured. There was more involved in his decision than his own inclinations. ”

“ For the first time since her arrival at Sefton Falls she surrendered herself to the distaste she felt toward her aunt and her surroundings. Could she stay, she asked herself. The narrowness of the environment raised an issue vital enough; nevertheless, grave as it was, it sank into insignificance when weighed against the vastly more potent factor of Ellen’s personality. The girl had come east with the intention of nursing and caring for her father’s sister. ”

“ He kept Mary in a ferment of excitement trying to devise remedies for his successive ills. One day she would be sure he needed a tonic to dispel his listlessness and with infinite pains would brew the necessary ingredients together; but before the draught could be cooled and administered, Martin had rebounded to an unheard-of vitality. Ah, she would reason, it must be his appetite that was at the bottom of the trouble. She must stimulate his desire for food. ”

“ Within the confines of his own home Martin Howe, as Ellen Webster asserted, was a czar. Born with the genius to rule, he would probably have fought his way to supremacy had struggle been necessary. As it was, however, no effort was demanded of him, for by the common consent of an adoring family, he had been voluntarily elevated to throne and scepter. ”

“ Ellen of course knew that. Ah, it was a vicious document—that last Will and Testament of Ellen Webster.
Mr. Benton’s voice broke in upon Lucy’s musings.
“The deceased,” he added with a final grin of appreciation, “appoints Mr. Elias Barnes as executor, he being,” the lawyer quoted from the written page, “the meanest man I know.”
Thus did the voice of the dead speak from the confines of the grave! Death had neither transformed nor weakened the intrepid hater. From her aunt’s coffin Lucy could seem to hear vindictive chuckles of revenge and hatred, and a mist gathered before her eyes. ”

“ She had heard that once in his life every man became a poet; probably this was Thomas’s era of transformation.
Her reverie was broken by the gentle voice of Lucy, who observed:
“And that’s what I’d do, too.”
“What?” inquired Ellen vaguely. In her reverie about Thomas she had lost the connection.
“Marry the man I loved no matter what anybody said. Wouldn’t you?”
“I—I—don’t know,” stammered Ellen, getting to her feet with embarrassment at having a love affair thrust so intimately upon her. “Mebbe. I must go back now to Tony an’ the weedin’. ”