“It’s very clever of you to understand,” he had said quickly and had turned away. He must not discuss Lucinda, his own wife.
Over the hills the trees were beginning to change, ready for autumn. Malvern was green, but as he had come north he could feel the stopping of summer growth. A touch of frost and the mountains would flame. He gloried in the beauty. Everything here was fortunate. They had been spared the misery of carpetbaggers. Lucinda’s brother, Randolph, had written how at night he had gone out under the white sheets of the Kluxers. “It’s life and death, these days,” he had written, “and I don’t choose death, not at the hands of slaves I have fed and clothed all their lives.”
Well, thank God, West Virginia was on the side of victory. It was his state now. He lifted his head and breathed in the dusty air of the swaying car, bumping over the faulty roadbed. It was a state carved out of the old, born for the new. He and Lucinda were happy — they must be. He put her out of his mind impatiently. Too much of his life was spent in thinking of her. Lucinda had a way of making herself felt. Without being aggressive or even talkative, she impinged. His smile grew grim as he thought of her. The years which the war had wasted must be repaired. His ambition, leashed to Malvern, broke its bounds. If John MacBain could grow rich, why not he?
Late at night a week later he sat talking in John’s library before the fire. He had looked about the big dark room with some amusement.
“I never knew you to read a book, John,” he had remarked.
John laughed his silent grey laughter. “They’re only wallpaper as far as I am concerned.” He yawned as he glanced about the shelves. “They came with the house — Molly’s notion, this house.”
“Expensive notion,” Pierce said drily. He had eaten an excellent dinner with grateful surprise. Molly’s somewhat slipshod housekeeping had changed with the city. Two light colored men in white linen jackets had served them deftly and Molly had sat at the foot of the table in a yellow taffeta gown, her green eyes brilliant and her red hair piled on her head. After dinner she had gone to a concert on the arm of a young man who had called for her with a horse and carriage and he and John had come to the library and had talked about getting rich while they smoked and drank whiskey and water.
“Molly has to amuse herself these days,” John said. He glanced at the big marble clock on the mantelpiece. It was after midnight. “She’ll be home soon. I don’t care for music myself. But I want to be fair to her—”
He sat hunched forward in his leather armchair, his long hands hanging slackly between his knees. Intimate words hesitated in the air and Pierce avoided them hastily.
“I’m mighty appreciative of this evening, John,” he said in his rich amiable voice. “When I came here last week, I thought no more than that we’d talk things over. Tonight — well, I feel as if I’d found the end of the rainbow.”
“You came at the right minute,” John replied. “The new stock was put on sale that night at midnight.”
“Still, if you hadn’t helped me by taking a mortgage on my land — though I never thought I’d mortgage a foot of Malvern — I shan’t dare to tell Lucinda,” Pierce said.
“You needn’t tell her,” John assured him. “A year and it will be paid off. Don’t forget I didn’t want the mortgage. I wanted to make it a loan — so far as I’m concerned, it’s no more.”
He spoke absently, listening for the hall door to open. “Molly isn’t satisfied with this house,” he said irrelevantly. “She’s seen a big place on a hill — Morgan property. It’s too big for us — why, it’s even got a ballroom!” He looked at Pierce sorrowfully.
“Women are insatiable, I reckon,” Pierce said lightly. He filled his pipe, and then, seeing John’s listening look, he put it down again. Molly would be home at any moment.
“Go on and smoke,” John ordered him.
“No — I’ll wait — she might come in. I don’t like to smoke before a lady,” Pierce replied.
The moment hung between them again, hovering on the edge of the intimacy he dreaded. Then it closed down upon him and he could not avoid it.
“Insatiable — you’ve hit the word,” John said slowly.
“But it’s not her fault Pierce, I’ve done you a friendly turn.”
“You have, John,” Pierce met his eyes fully and with deep dread. Was his friend about to ask a price of him?
“I like you better than any man I know — or am likely to know in this damned city, by Gawd,” John went on.
“We’ve grown up as neighbors,” Pierce murmured.
John looked up sharply. “Understand — what I’m asking isn’t a price, though, Pierce. I want you to have the loan — whatever you say.”
“I’m sure of that,” Pierce replied. He sat gazing steadily into the fire.
John looked away and wet his lips. “I want to ask you a queer thing — queer enough so I reckon no man asked it ever before of another man.”
Pierce tried to look at him and could not. He picked up his pipe and lit it.
“Molly’s still — young. Too young to live — without more children, Pierce … Pierce, I want you to father me a child.”
It was out. Pierce heard it and knew that John had pondered over it long, in the secret darkness of many nights. He could not look at him for pity. His blood drummed in his ears.
John went on. “If Molly had a child — or two, maybe — she’d be more content — with me.” He got up and kicked the fire and the lumps of smouldering soft coal fell apart and blazed. He leaned on the mantelpiece and stared into the flames. “I’ve thought it all out. Why should she suffer — because of what the war did to me? It’ll happen — sooner or later — with some man. Pierce, let it be you!”
He turned abruptly and their eyes met. Pierce saw agony in John’s eyes and felt tears come into his own. But he shook his head.
“John, I — can’t. I’ve got to love a woman before I can — can — besides, Lucinda’s the only one for me.”
The door opened in the hall. They heard Molly’s voice calling a gay goodnight. Then she was at the library door, her cheeks crimson, her eyes shining. “Oh, it was heavenly!” she cried. Then she stopped and looked from one to the other of them. “Why, you two,” she exclaimed. “What’s wrong with you? My Gawd, you look like a couple of thieves!”
“God forbid,” Pierce said heartily. He turned to John and they broke into common laughter, and in its gust they were restored.
When Pierce reached home his daughter was already born, a week earlier than she was expected. Jake brought the news to him proudly at the station, and Pierce hastened the horses home.
He tiptoed into Lucinda’s room before he had changed his clothes. She was asleep, her cheeks pearly pale. He stood looking down at her with unutterable tenderness, grateful for his own good fortune. The strange thing John had asked of him he would never tell her. She would never believe that he could have refused. He smiled half ruefully at her invincible female distrust and she opened her eyes and, seeing him, she held out her hand and gave him a smile ravishing and mischievous.
“Pay me!” she demanded.
He laughed, put his hand into his pocket and brought out a velvet box. “It came last month from Paris,” he said.
“You monster,” she murmured, “to keep it so long—”
“You had to fulfill your part of the bargain,” he said.
She pouted, her hand still waiting, he still withholding. “If it had been a boy you wouldn’t have—” she began.
“Certainly not,” he said firmly.
“Give it to me, Pierce!” she cried.
He withdrew his hand and the box. “Show me your girl, madame!” he said with mock severity.