He stood for an instant looking full at her as though he did not see her; and then with a wide gesture of utter bewilderment, strange from him, he pa.s.sed her without a look.

This time he did not turn back, but continued steadily and resolutely on his way.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FALL OF THE BIG PINE

August 2.

I

When Marise reached the place on the wood-road where she had had that last talk with Vincent Marsh, she stopped, postponing for a moment the errand to the Powers which she had so eagerly undertaken. She stood there, looking up into the far green tops of the pines, seeing again that strange, angry, bewildered gesture with which he had renounced trying to make anything out of her, and had turned away.

It remained with her, constantly, as the symbol of what had happened, and she looked at it gravely and understandingly. Then, very swiftly, she saw again that pa.s.sing aspect of his which had so terribly frightened her, felt again the fear that he might be really suffering, that she might really have done a hurt to another human being.

This brought her a momentary return of the agitation it had caused in her that day, and she sat down abruptly on a tree-trunk, her knees trembling, her hands cold.

That fear had come as so totally unexpected a possibility, something which his every aspect and tone and word up to then had seemed to contradict. Strange, how unmoved he had left her, till that moment!

Strange the impression of him, that first time after she had known herself strong enough to stand up and be herself, not the responsive instrument played on by every pa.s.sing impression. Strange, how instantly he had felt that, and how pa.s.sionate had been his resentment of her standing up to be herself, her being a grown woman, a human being, and not a flower to be plucked. How he had hated it, and alas! how lamentable his hatred of it had made him appear. What a blow he had dealt to her conception of him by his instant a.s.sumption that a change in her could only mean that Neale had been bullying her. It had been _hard_ to see him so far away and diminished as that had made him seem, so entirely outside her world. It had dealt a back-hand blow to her own self-esteem to have him seem vulgar.

How strange an experience for her altogether, to be able to stand firm against noise and urgent clamor and confusion, and to see, in spite of it, what she was looking at; to see, back of the powerful magnetic personality, the undeveloped and tyrannical soul, the cramped mind without experience or conception of breadth and freedom in the relations between human beings; to be able to hear Vincent cry out on her with that fierce, masterful certainty of himself, that she was acting from cowed and traditional-minded motives and not to believe a word of it, because it was not true; not even to feel the scared throb of alarm at the very idea that it might be true; to have it make no impression on her save pity that Vincent should be imprisoned in a feeling of which possession was so great a part that failure to possess turned all the rest to poison and sickness.

What had happened to her, in truth, that she had this new steadfastness?

She had told Vincent he could not understand it. Did she understand it herself? She leaned her chin on her two hands looking deep into the green recesses of the forest. High above her head, a wind swayed the tops of the pines and sang loudly; but down between the great brown columns of their trunks, not a breath stirred. The thick-set, myriad-leaved young maples held all their complicated delicately-edged foliage motionless in perfect calm.

It was very still in the depths of Marise's complicated mind also, although the wind stirred the surface. Yes, she knew what had happened to her. She had seen it completely happen to three other human beings, miraculously, unbelievably, certainly; had seen the babies who could not tell light from dark, heat from cold, emerge by the mere process of healthful living into keenly sensitive beings accurately alive to every minutest variation of the visible world. It must be that like them she had simply learned to tell moral light from dark, heat from cold, by the mere process of healthful living. What happened to the child who at one time could not grasp the multiplication table, and a few years later, if only he were properly fed and cared for, had somehow so wholly changed, although still the same, that he found his way lightly among geometric conceptions, and only a few years after that was probing with expert fingers at some unsolved problem of astronomy? He had grown up, that was all. By calling the miracle a familiar name we veiled the marvel of it.

Insensibly to him, with no visible change from one day to the next, he had acquired a totally different conception of the universe, a totally different valuation of everything in life.

That was what had happened to her. She had grown up ... why should not a woman grow up to other valuations of things as well as her comrade in life?

And it had happened to her as it did to the child, because someone stronger than she had protected her while she was growing ... not protected from effort, as though one should try to protect the child from learning his lessons... . Back there, such ages ago in Italy, in her ignorant ... how ignorant! ... and frightened girlhood, she had begged Neale, without knowing what she did, to help her grow up, to help her save what was worth saving in her, to help her untangle from the many-colored confusion of her nature what was best worth keeping. And Neale had done it, had clung steadily to his divination of what was strong in her, in spite of her clamor to him to let it go.

But Vincent had not grown up, was back there still in confusion, holding desperately with all that terrific strength of his to what could not be held, to what was impermanent and pa.s.sing in its nature. Why should he do that? Neale knew better than that. Then she saw why: it was because Vincent conceived of nothing but emptiness if he let it go, and horribly feared that imaginary emptiness. Out of the incalculable richness of her kingdom she wondered again at his blindness... . And made a pitying guess at the reason for it ... perhaps for him it was _not_ imaginary. Perhaps one of the terms of the bargain he had made with life was that there _should_ be nothing later but emptiness for him. Yes, she saw that. She would have made that bargain, too, if it had not been for Neale. She would have been holding terrified to what was not to be held; with nothing but that between her and the abyss. Who was she to blame Vincent for his blindness?

That, perhaps, had been the meaning of that singular last moment of their talk together, which had frightened her so, with its sudden plunge below the surface, into the real depths, when, changed wholly into someone else, he had run back to her, his hands outstretched, his eyes frightened, his lips trembling ... perhaps he had felt the abyss there just before him. For an instant there, he had made her think of Paul, made her remember that Vincent himself had, so short a time ago, been a little boy too. She had been so shocked and racked by pity and remorse, that she would have been capable of any folly to comfort him. Perhaps she had seen there for an instant the man Vincent might have been, and had seen that she could have loved that man.

But how instantly it had pa.s.sed! He had not suffered that instant of true feeling to have s.p.a.ce to live, but had burned it up with the return of his pride, his resentment that anyone save himself should try to stand upright, with the return of the devouring desire-for-possession of the man who had always possessed everything he had coveted. There was something sad in being able to see the littleness of life which underlay the power and might of personality in a man like Vincent. He could have been something else.

She wondered why there should slide into her mood, just now, a faint tinge of regret... . Why should there be anything there but the bright gladness of thanksgiving for the liberation from the chains which her own nature might have forged about her? She had at last stepped outside the narrow circle of personal desire, and found all the world open to her. And yet there was room in her heart for a shade of wistful wonder if perhaps all this did not mean that she might be sliding from the ranks of those who feel and do, into the ranks of those who only understand.

But one glance at the life that lay before her scattered this hanging mist-cloud ... good heavens! what feeling and doing lay there before her!

Had she thought that Neale was nothing to her because he had become all in all to her so that he penetrated all her life, so that she did not live an instant alone? Had she thought the loss of the amusing trinket of physical newness could stand against the gain of an affection ill ma.s.sy gold? Would she, to buy moments of excitement, lose an instant of the precious certainty of sympathy and trust and understanding which she and Neale had bought and paid for, hour by hour, year by year of honest life-in-common? Where was real life for her? Had she not known? Where were the real depths, where the real food for the whole woman she had grown to be? Neale had opened the door so that she could go away from him if that was what she needed, or go back to stand by his side; and through the open door had come the flood of daylight which had shown her that she could not go back to stand by his side because she had been there all the time, had never left it, never could leave it, any more than she could leave half of her body in one place, and go on to another.

II

There was other feeling and doing now, too, before her, this instant, which she had forgotten, idling here in her much-loved forest, as much a part of her home as her piano or her own roof-tree. She had been trying to understand what had been happening that summer. Let her try first of all to understand what she must do in that perfectly definite and concrete dilemma in which she had been placed by that strange sight of 'Gene Powers, fleeing back from the Eagle Rocks. She must look squarely at what she supposed was the legal obligation ... she instantly felt a woman's impatience of the word legal as against human, and could not entertain the thought of the obligations of the situation. She must see, and think and try to understand, with Neale to help her. She had not yet had time to tell Neale.

But not today. Today she was only the bearer of the good tidings to Nelly and 'Gene, tidings which would wipe out for her the recollection of a day which was shameful to her, the day when she had conceived the possibility of believing some thing base against Neale. It was not that she had believed it,--no, she had stood it off till Neale came back. But there was shame for her in those recurrent spasms of horror when she had conceived the possibility that she might believe it. There had been proof of it, of course, Eugenia's positive statement ... strange how Eugenia could have so entirely misunderstood the affair! ... But what was mere proof against human certainty? No, she had been attacked suddenly and for an instant had failed to rise to defend what was hers to defend.

It was a failure to live down.

She stood up and moved forward along the path, changing the thick envelope in one hand to the other. She had already lost time. She ought to have been by this time through the forest and out in the edge of the Powers pasture.

She became aware that for some time she had heard a distant sound, a faint toc-toc-toc, like the sound of chopping. This being a.s.sociated in her mind with snow and winter woods, she had not thought it could be the sound of the axe which it seemed to be. n.o.body could be felling trees in the height of the farming season, and on this day of swooning heat. But as she came to the edge of the woods and turned into the path along the brook, she heard it more plainly, unmistakable this time, not far now, the ringing blows delivered with the power and rhythmic stroke of the trained chopper. It came not from the woods at all, she now perceived, but from the open farming land, from the other side of the pasture, beyond the Powers house.

But there were no woods there, only the Powers' big pine which towered up, darkly glorious, into the shimmering summer haze.

As she looked at it wondering, it came into her mind had somebody told her, or had she overheard it somewhere? ... that 'Gene had promised Nelly at last to cut down the big pine he and his fathers had so cherished.

Could it be that? What a sacrifice! And to a foolish whim of Nelly's.

There had been no musty smell in the house till Nelly came there to keep the shutters closed so that the sun would not fade the carpets. The old pine was one of the most splendid things of beauty in the valley. And it was something vital in 'Gene's strange, choked, inarticulate life. She stopped to listen a moment, feeling a chill of apprehension and foreboding. It was dreadful to have 'Gene do that. It was as though he were cutting at his own strength, cutting off one of his own members to please his wife. Poor 'Gene! He would do that too, now, if Nelly asked him.

The resonant winter note rang out loud, strange in that sultry summer air. She looked from afar at the tree, holding its mighty crest high above the tiny house, high above the tiny human beings who had doomed it. So many winters, so many summers, so many suns and moons and rains and snows had gone to make it what it was. Like the men who had planted it and lived beneath its shade, it had drawn silently from the depths of the earth and the airy treasures of the sky food to grow strong and live its life. And now to be killed in an hour, in attempted expiation of a deed for which it bore no guilt!

Marise was coming closer now. The axe-strokes stopped for a moment as though the chopper drew breath. The silence was heavy over the breathless summer field.

But by the time she had arrived at the back door of the house, the axe-blows were renewed, loud, immediate, shocking palpably on her ear.

She knocked, but knew that the ringing clamor of the axe drowned out the sound. Through the screen-door she saw old Mrs. Powers, standing by the table, ironing, and stepped in. The three children were in the pantry, beyond, Ralph spreading some bread and b.u.t.ter for his little brother and sister. Ralph was always good to the younger children, although he was so queer and un-childlike! Nelly was not there. Mrs. Powers looked up at Marise, and nodded. She looked disturbed and absent. "We're at it, you see," she said, jerking her head back towards the front of the house. "I told you 'bout 'Gene's sayin' he'd gi'n in to Nelly about the big pine."

Marise made a gesture of dismay at this confirmation. The old woman went on, "Funny thing ... I ain't a Powers by birth, Lord knows, and I never thought I set no store by their old pine tree. It always sort o' riled me, how much 'Gene's father thought of it, and 'Gene after him ... sort of silly, seems like. But just now when we was all out there, and 'Gene heaved up his axe and hit the first whack at it ... well, I can't tell you ... it give me a turn most as if he'd chopped right into _me_ somewhere. I got up and come into the house, and I set to ironin', as fast as I could clip it, to keep my mind off'n it. I made the children come in too, because it ain't no place for kids around, when a tree that size comes down."

Marise demurred, "'Gene is such a fine chopper, he knows to a hair where he'll lay it, of course."

"Well, even so, who knows what notion a kid will take into his head?

They was playin' right there on a pile of pole-wood 'Gene's brought in from the woods and ain't got sawed up into stove-lengths yet. I didn't want to take no chances; maybe they wouldn't ha' moved quick enough when their papa yelled to them. No, ma'am, I made 'em come in, and here they'll stay. Nelly, she's out there, walkin' round and round watchin'

'Gene. She's awfully set up havin' it come down. 'Gene he's told her he'll give her the money from the lumber in it. There'll be a sight of boards, too. It's the biggest pine in the valley."

Marise went to the window and looked at the scene, penetrated by the strangeness of the difference between its outer and inner aspect: 'Gene, his faded blue overalls tucked into his plowman's heavy cow-hide boots, his shirt open over his great throat and chest, his long corded arms rising and falling with the steady effortless rhythm of the master woodsman. Nelly, in one of her immaculate blue ginghams, a white ap.r.o.n over it, a white frilled shade-hat on her head, her smartly shod small feet, treading the ground with that inimitable light step of hers, circling slowly about, looking at 'Gene as he worked, looking up at the crown of the tree, high, so insolently high above her head, soon to be brought low by a wish from her heart, soon to be turned into money for her to spend.

"I came over to talk to 'Gene and Nelly about some business," Marise said, over her shoulder, to Mrs. Powers, not able to take her eyes from the trio in the drama out there, "but I'd better wait till the tree is down before I speak to them."

"'Twon't be long now. 'Gene's been at it quite a while, and he's stavin' away like all possessed. Seems as if, now he's started in, he couldn't get it over with quick enough to suit him. He acted awful queer about it, I thought."

She left her ironing and, looking over her shoulder at the children, came closer to where Marise stood. Then she stepped back and shut the door to the pantry. "Mis' Crittenden," she said in an anxious troubled voice, "'Gene ain't right these days. He acts to me like he's comin'

down with a sick spell, or something. He ain't _right_. Today Nelly told me she woke up in the night last night and 'Gene wasn't there. She hollered to him, and he didn't answer. It scared her like everything, and she scrambled out of bed and lighted the lamp, and she said she 'most fainted away, when she see 'Gene, rolled up in a blanket, lying on the floor, over against the wall, his eyes wide open looking at her. She said she let out a yell ... it scairt the life out of her ... and 'Gene he got right up. She says to him, 'For the Lord's sake, 'Gene, what _ails_ you?' And what do you suppose he says to her, he says, 'I didn't know whether you wanted me there or not, Nelly.' What do you think of that? She says back, 'For goodness' sake, 'Gene Powers, where _would_ you be nights, except in your own bed!' He got back and for all Nelly knows slept all right the rest of the night. She says she guesses he must have had some sort of funny dream, and not been really all waked up yet. But it must ha' gi'n her a turn, for all she ain't one of the nervous kind."

Marise turned sick with shocked pity. The two women looked at each other, silently with shadowed eyes of foreboding. Mrs. Powers shook her head, and turned back into the pantry, shutting the door behind her.

Marise heard her speaking to the children, in the cheerful, bantering, affectionate, grandmother tone she had always had for them. She was brave, old Mrs. Powers, she always said she could "stand up to things."

She was the sort of woman who can always be depended on to keep life going, no matter what happens; who never gives up, who can always go on taking care of the children.

Marise herself did not feel at all brave. She sat down heavily in a chair by the window looking out at the man who for his wife's sake was killing something vital and alive. He had done that before, 'Gene had.

He went at it now with a furious haste which had something dreadful in it.