Truedale

“ It is one thing for two proud, sensitive natures to enter upon a deliberate course, and quite another for them to abandon it when the supposed need is past. There was now no doubt in Truedale’s heart concerning Lynda’s motive for marrying him; nor did Lynda for one moment question Truedale’s deep affection for her. ”

“ He, Truedale, felt that no law of man was needed to hold him to the course he had chosen, back on the day when he determined to forsake the past and fling his fortunes in with the new. Never in his life was Conning Truedale more sincere or, he believed, more wise, than he was at that moment. And just then Nella-Rose appeared coming down the rain-drenched path like a little ghost in the grim, gray dawn. ”

“ Lynda deplored this, but Truedale explained:
“You see, Lyn, when I began to carve the thing out—the play, you know—I had no idea how to handle the tools; like many fools with a touch of talent, I thought I could manage without preparation. I’ve learned better. You cannot get a thing over to people unless you know something of life—speak the language. I’m learning, and when I feel that I cannot help writing—I’ll write.” ”

“ Can you ride behind me on the mare? Travelling is tarnation bad.”
Once they were on the mare’s back, conversation dragged, then died a natural death. Truedale felt as if he were living a bit of anti-war romance as he jogged along behind his guide, his grip knocking unpleasantly against his leg as the way got rougher.
It was nine o’clock when, in a little clearing close by the trail, the lights of a cabin shone cheerily and the mare stopped short and definitely.
“I hope White is at home!” Truedale was worn to the verge of exhaustion.
“I be Jim White!” ”

“ This was a new phase and Lynda bent across the dog at her knee and put her hand on the arm of the chair. She was frightened, aroused. Truedale saw this and laughed a dry, mirthless laugh.
“Oh! a chair that can roll the length of this house can roll the distance I desire to go. Money can pay for anything—anything! Thank God, I have money, plenty of it. It means power—even to such a thing as I am. Power, Lynda, power! It can snarl and unsnarl lives; it can buy favour and cause terror. ”

“ While I felt conscientiously responsible, I stuck to my job; but a man has a right to a little freedom of his own!”
Lynda drew so close that her stool touched the chair. She bent her cheek upon the shrivelled hand resting upon the arm. The excitement and feverish banter of Truedale affected her painfully. She reproached herself bitterly for having left him to the mercy of his loneliness and imagination. Her interest in, her resentment for, Conning faded before the pitiful display of feeling expressed in every tone and word of Truedale. ”

“ Truedale’s eyes grew gloomy. “I’m afraid, Lyn, I’m constructed on the modelling plan—added to, built up. Some fellows are chiselled out. I wonder—about little Billy.”
“Somehow”—Lynda gave a little contented smile—“I am not afraid for Billy. But I would not take the glory of conflict from him—no! not for all Uncle William’s money! He must do his part in the world and find his place—not the place others may choose for him.”
“You’re going to be sterner with him than you are with Ann, aren’t you, Lyn?” Truedale meant this lightly, but Lynda looked serious. ”

“ He must seek her—must realize everything. And in this decision Lynda left herself so stranded and desolate that she looked up with wet eyes and saw—William Truedale’s empty chair! A great longing for her old friend rose in her breast—a longing that not even death had taken from her. The clock struck the half-hour and Lynda got up and with no faltering went toward the bedroom door behind which the old man had started forth on his journey to find peace. ”

“ He had burned all his bridges and outlying outposts; he was waiting for White, and his plans were completed. He meant to confide everything to his only friend—for such Jim seemed in the hazy and desolated present—then he would marry Nella-Rose off-hand; there must be a minister somewhere! After that? Well, after that Truedale grasped his manuscript and fell to work like one inspired.
Lynda Kendall would never have known the play in its present form. Truedale’s ideal had always been to portray a free woman—a super-woman; one who had evolved into the freedom from shattered chains. ”

“ The intimacy of sitting opposite Lynda, the smiling pleasure of old Thomas who served them, combined to lure him again from his stern sense of duty.
Why? Why? his yearning pleaded. Why should he destroy his own future happiness and that of this sweet, innocent woman for a whim—that was what he tried to term it—of conscience? Why, there were men, thousands of them, who would call him by a harsher name than he cared to own, if he followed such a course; and yet—then Truedale looked across at Lynda.
“A woman should have clear vision and choice,” his reason commanded, and to this his love agreed. ”

“ Really the situation was becoming unbearable, so Truedale changed his tactics. He would play with the poor little thing and reassure her.
“Now that I look at you I see what you are. You’re not a human at all. You’re a spirit of something or other—probably of one of those perky mountains over yonder. The White Maid, I bet! ”

“ Lynda’s clear eyes clouded, “that your uncle’s house would be your home at last. It is big enough for us all—we need not run against each other.”
“Keep my room under the roof, Lyn.” Truedale looked at her yearningly and she—misunderstood! “I shall often come to that—to you and Brace—but humour me in this fancy of mine.”
So she humoured him—working early and late—putting more of her own heart in it than he was ever to know, for she believed—poor girl—that he would offer it to her some day and then—when he found out about the money—how exactly like a fairy tale it all would be! ”

“ But it is Christmas time, and a man and woman, if they have their hearts in the right places, do think of children and trees and all the rest at this season. Still”—and with that Truedale pressed his lips to Lynda’s hair—“I’m selfish, you seem already to fill every chink of my life.” ”

“ But from out the wreck and ruin Truedale wrenched one sacred truth to which he knew he must hold—or sink utterly. He could not expect any one in God’s world to understand; it must always be hidden in his own soul, but that marriage of his and Nella-Rose’s in the gray dawn after the storm had been holy and binding to him. From now on he must look upon the little mountain girl as a dear, dead wife—one whose childish sweetness was part of a time when he had learned to laugh and play, and forget the hard years that had gone to his un-making, not his upbuilding. ”

“ Truedale did not mean to test this, but it hurt him like a blow. However, there was nothing to do but remedy, as soon as possible, the error he had permitted to arise. No man on earth could make Nella-Rose more his than his love and good faith had made her, still he was eager now to resort to all the time-honoured safeguards before he left. Once married he would go with a heart almost light. He would confide everything to Kendall and Lynda—at least he would his marriage—and urge them to return with him to the hills, and after that White and all the others would have an awakening. ”

“ Truedale’s voice was husky, “once you made me reconciled to my uncle’s death—it was the way you put it—and now you have made me dare to be—happy.”
“Men never grow up!” Lynda pressed her face to his shoulder, “they make a bluff at caring for us and defending us and all the rest—but we understand, we understand! I think women mother men always even when they rely upon them most, as I do upon you! It’s so splendid to think, when we go home, of the great things we are going to do—together.” ”

“ No man in God’s world has a right to question my deeds. If they cannot understand, more’s the pity.”
And in that hour and conclusion, the indifference and false pride that had upheld Truedale in the past fell from him as he faced the demands of the morrow. ”

“ Lynda’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because,” she faltered, “since she could not have come to you without dishonour—she sent me! Her confidence has been the sacredest thing in my life and I have tried to do as she desired. I—I have failed sadly—lately, but try to forgive me for—my mother’s sake!”
“And you—have”—the voice trembled pitifully in spite of the effort Truedale made to steady it—“kept silence—since she went; why? Oh! youth is so ignorant, so cruel!” This was said more to himself than to the girl by his knee upon whose bowed head his shrivelled hand unconsciously rested. ”

“ They existed, not joyously, but persistently. A Russian hound, white as snow, lay before the fire; his soft, mournful eyes were fixed upon Lynda, but he did not stir or announce the intrusion. A cat and two kittens, also white, were rolled like snowballs on a crimson cushion near the hearth; Lynda wondered whether they ever played. Alone, like a dead thing amid the still life, William Truedale, helpless—death ever creeping nearer and nearer to his bitter heart—passed his weary days. ”

“ To write and send a letter might be even more difficult. So Truedale reasoned; so he feverishly waited, but he was not idle. He rented a charming little suite of rooms, high up in a new apartment house, and begged Lynda to set them in order at once. Somehow he believed that in the years ahead, after she understood, Lynda would be glad that he had asked this from her.
“But why the hurry, Con?” she naturally questioned; “if people are going to be so spasmodic I’ll have to get a partner. It may be all right, looked at financially, but it’s the ruination of art.” ”

“ If Marg wanted him and old Greyson was helping her, there was no hope! Blood and desire would conquer every time; every mountaineer recognized that!
And so things were seething under a surface of deadly calm, when Truedale, believing that he had himself well in control, packed his gunny sack and started forth for a long tramp. He had no particular destination in mind—in fact, the soft, dreamy autumn day lulled him to mental inertia—he simply went along, but he went as directly toward the rhododendron slick as though he had long planned his actions. ”

“ There are spaces in all lives that seem so surrounded by safety and established conditions that one cannot conceive of change. Those particular spots may know light and shade of passing events but it seems that they cannot, of themselves, be affected. So Truedale and Lynda had considered their lives at that period. ”

“ For weeks at a time no human being ventures forth from the shelter and comparative comfort of the dull cabins. Families, pressed thus close and debarred from the freedom of the open, suffer mentally and spiritually as one from the wider haunts of men can hardly conceive.
When Nella-Rose turned away from Truedale that golden autumn day, she faced winter and the shut-in terrors of the cold and loneliness. In two weeks the last vestige of autumn would be past, and the girl could not contemplate being imprisoned with Marg and her father while waiting for love to return to her. ”

“ Was Jim White such a lily of purity that he presumed to take that attitude? Was the code of the hills that of the Romany gypsies? How dare any man judge and sentence another without trial?
The effect of the narcotic still worked sluggishly, now that White’s irritating presence was removed. Truedale shrugged his shoulders and turned to his packing. He was feverishly eager to get to Nella-Rose. Before nightfall she would be his before the world; in two weeks he would be back; the future would shame White and bring him to his senses. Jim had a soft heart ”

“ To-night—shut away from all else, the strain of the past weeks ignored, the long stories deliberately pushed aside—Truedale spoke of the books he had been reading; Lynda, of her work.
“I have two wonderful houses to do,” she said, poising a morsel of food gracefully. “One is for a couple recently made rich; they do not dare to move for fear of going wrong. I have that place from garret to cellar. It’s an awful responsibility—but lots of fun!”
“It must be. Spending other people’s money and making them as good as new at the same time, must be rare sport. ”

“ Truesdale, therefore, never received word that his father "wished to see him in the library"—as in the story-books. Nor did the two ever draw their chairs together in the middle of the stage close to the footlights, and have it out—as at the theatre. When Truesdale spoke at all he spoke casually—with more or less of implication or insinuation—to his mother or his sisters. When he spoke not at all, he acted—and his actions spoke as loudly and effectually as actions are held commonly to do. ”

“ Truesdale commented briefly on his appearance, suggested as briefly a little trip into the country, and after these few passes at filial duty he concentrated his attention upon his own personal affairs.
On his second visit to Madison he had met Bertie Patterson face to face. He had encountered her in one of the broad and leafy walks before the Capitol, and she was in company with another young man. "One of those students," thought Truesdale, as he noted the smooth face and slender immaturity of her escort. "They swarm. The town is full of them. What chance has anybody else against them?" ”

“ But the summer moved onward, and Truesdale still considerately refrained from harassing an anxious and overburdened father with the further task of contriving a harmony between such a son and such a métier. The old man was left to recover from the sting inflicted by the Leppins, to study over the future of his youngest daughter, to keep a careful eye upon his business associates, and to combat—as one combats the alkali dust of the Plains—all the insinuating minutiae of house-building. ”