"Timber"/Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXIX
The house party at Windigo Lodge was breaking up Friday. Dick Mason himself had been gone a week, but his guests lingered on. Those who had stayed were now bound for other retreats: the St. Clair Flats, the Huron shore, Lake Michigan resorts, Canada and a variety of places. But Marcia Murray had no place to go. She had hung on at Windigo because leaving meant a return to the none-too-comfortable apartment in Detroit, with her summer broken only when invitations called her out of town.
She had let drop, a detail at a time, the change that had taken place in John Taylor; not the change in his attitude toward her, but his new idealism, his new interest, which was foreign to the understanding of those who knew him. They listened, incredulous at first, but Marcia, keyed to save her face, was sharply clever and her suggestions had the intended effect.
"Of course, that's all very fine." Fan Huston had commented, "but, my dear, what has he to offer you?"
"Everything," said Marcia and smiled lightly.
"Everything! Why, he has nothing, unless his father—"
"He offers everything he has," Marcia corrected, "and that of course, is very splendid, but—quite intangible."
She forced a fresh gaiety, her eyes seemed brighter, her laugh more ready and on occasion she put forth a stressed mockery which gave them to understand that it was John Taylor who was now being kept impatiently waiting. So much, to preserve her standing.
Phil Rowe telephoned daily. He had come once for an afternoon and the visit had caused the lifting of eyebrows and a deal of whispering, but Marcia had been cryptic in response to attempts to draw her out and they learned little. But to Phil Rowe she gave her lips again and laughed close in his face, with her arms about his neck.
Rowe was as keen and ruthless in love as he was in business. He wanted this girl with all the intensity of a selfish heart; he saw through her, knew that she would go to any one of a score of men who might bid the highest, knew that she had favored John Taylor above himself. But there were two things in life he wanted: control of the Taylor millions and possession of Marcia Murray. The latter was dependent on the first and he was bound to have them both.
He learned soon that John Taylor had slipped through her wily fingers and knew, therefore, that her one hope of marrying the Taylor fortune was in marrying him. Marcia was not wholly aware of this factor. For a time she believed she had succeeded in making Rowe think that John still regarded her as his promised wife and she held to this lie while she told herself again and again that Taylor was a fool and that she was well rid of him.
But there were nights when she lay sleepless and miserable and even desperate. Give her credit for this: beneath her exterior, which was as hard and cold as glass, there was a sense of human values and when she saw that her appeal had not been able to compete with the wholesome womanhood of the girl of the forest, she had her periods of heartache and tears. And something else which was now and again almost regret that John Taylor, changed, poor, without the ambition she demanded of men, was no longer bound to her.
She was to drive back to Detroit and was taking Fan and Tom Huston with her. She wanted one more hour with Rowe and so, before leaving, she indicated that they must start early to provide for a few hours in Pancake where she could have some work done on her car. They could make Saginaw by night and finish the trip the next day. Fortunately for Marcia, misfortune in the shape of a severe headache visited Fan Huston and as soon as they reached Pancake she took to a lumpy bed in the Commercial House while Tom engaged in a Kelly pool game with three drummers.
Marcia inquired for Rowe and learned that he was out of town but would be back before noon. She bought a magazine and settled herself in the parlor of the hotel to await impatiently his coming. Her eyes were on the pages, her mind occupied with other things; she was inattentive to the comings and goings in the office across the hall until she became conscious that some one was staring at her.
She looked up quickly. John Taylor was standing just outside the doorway.
"Hello, Marcia," he said.
She did not move or reply for an instant, nor did he advance; just stood there, framed in the white door casing, while the girl's mind spun, trying to identify this man with the one she had known and held and planned to possess. On their former meeting she had been too desperately engaged with the game she played to take much notice of the change that had occurred in him, but now, seeing him so unexpectedly, it was as though she beheld a man remade.
He seemed larger; he was rough and unfinished. His shoes were heavy and scuffed; his pants were khaki, he wore a white cotton shirt open at the throat and no coat; a soiled straw hat was in his hand, the big, brown toil-stained hand which hung at his thigh. There was roughness in his face, too; he had not shaved this day, but there was no hint of uncouthness in his neglect, for the skin of cheeks and chin was bronzed by sun and wind, and seemed to be shaped in new lines. There was a different set in his mouth, a gravity, a maturity that had not been in John Taylor two months ago. His blue eyes, though they smiled, now, seemed steadier, more grave, and very serious.
"Why, John!"
Her cool voice was low and she rose quickly, half frightened.
"I didn't know whether you'd want to see me or not." He was embarrassed as he advanced and looked into her flushing face.
"That shouldn't have been hard to determine," she said coldly.
"I suppose not. I guess we have said everything to each other that can be said, haven't we?"
"We have!"
She tried to breathe normally, but the leap of her heart would not let her. She felt her knees tremble and averted her gaze from his steady scrutiny.
"I'm sorry, " he said. "I told you that once. I say it again, Marcia. I'm so sorry—but it was better this way than—going on, wasn't it?"
She looked into his face again as in all friendliness without the suggestion of a whimper, he said the things from which most men would shrink.
She heard her voice saying:
"Yes. Anything was better than going on." She tried to put sarcasm into the tone, wanted to wither him with her scorn, but somehow those mercenary impulses in her were weakening, breaking down, those maxims and values that had been nursed and cultivated to stifle the Marcia Murray who might have been, were giving way, and with that release of something finer and gentler went her self-possession and her ability to fence with words. For the moment, she was genuine and burst out impetuously, saying the things she had said to herself during wakeful hours at Windigo, things she had told herself—but the truth of which she had denied.
"John, I made a fool of myself that day. I—you see—I have been badly mistaken; I've said and done the wrong thing for long—there are a great many things I regret and one of them is the scene I made before that girl—I must have hurt her."
"We all change, Marcia," he said with a grave smile. "I'm glad if you're sorry. It was unworthy of you. As for Miss Foraker, though, you waste time feeling for her. Not that she's thick-skinned. It might have disturbed her a great deal, but she's used to unpleasantness. She's had more than her share."
She said: "You think a lot of her, John?"
She pulled the straw sailor tighter over her golden hair, and in her eyes was something rueful as though she wanted him to make denial.
"Yes—a lot."
Marcia drew an unsteady breath and though she was in tumult now, that self-possession she had practiced for so long was her salvation.
"And she—"
A hurt crossed his face. It was an ordeal to tell the truth to this girl, but he could not evade.
"She thinks I'm her worst enemy."
For an instant a flicker as of hope showed in the girl's blue eyes but as she looked at his face, saw the lines of pain deepen, caught the sorrow reflected there, that hope departed and its tenderness, the genuine quality of it, was replaced by something sharp and hot; as natural, but far from gentle: jealousy.
"That's too had," she said.
She meant that; but within her was confusion, a ferment, started by that injection of jealousy. Those good impulses lingered, struggling for a hold, but the other Marcia, the one who had first loved John Taylor for the sake of his father's money, who had played him against Phil Rowe, using both as markers in a mercenary game, slowly dominated, covering the anguish in her heart with a sort of joy at his pain.
And yet there was enough of that transient self remaining to wish this man kindness. She did not want him to stay until she lost her temper, until she should taunt him. Already the jealousy was changing to the acid of temper.
She held out her hand.
"Good-bye, John," she said, with something of the old indifference in her voice. "I wish you well. I must go look after Fan, now; we'll be leaving at noon."
She slipped past him into the hall. Her chin was up, her eyes were cool and calculating. On the floor above she stopped and heard him go out. She looked about. The doors of unoccupied rooms were open, shades drawn, rickety iron beds decked in grimy coverlets. She slipped into the nearest, closed the door and bolted it softly.
Marcia stood there a moment, hand still on the knob. The other went to her face and formed a cup over her mouth. Her head tipped back against the door panel; her eyes closed. The trembling of her body shook the rickety transom and then the tears came. She moved to the bed and buried her face in the pillow. For a long time she was there, gradually quieting. When she rose she spent many minutes at the wash stand repairing the damage her outburst had wrought.
Fan Huston was picking up her things preparatory to departure. Rowe and Marcia stood in the shadow of the hotel. The man was listening very closely to what his companion had to say, with a queer twitching of his lips. She talked rapidly, earnestly.
"I've been a waster," she concluded. "I've wasted the finest things that were in me; I've wasted my appreciation, my best ambition, my intelligence. It's too late now to turn back so long as there's a goal in sight. I haven't the courage. I'm twenty-five, but being twenty-five and thinking as I have since I was in my 'teens means more than just being twenty-five.
"Don't misunderstand me, Phil. I can give you a certain happiness in return for the luxury I want. Without that luxury—no.
"This is your chance. If you fail, perhaps my chance will come later."
Her voice husked for the first time.
"Your chance?" he asked.
"My chance! I'm bound to you by my habit of thinking, now. I have some confidence that you will be able to give me the things I have sought for years. But if you should fail I don't believe that I could begin over, hunting fortune like a cat stalks its food. I'm weak—weak enough to want you to win; but if you should fail it might be necessary for me to try something else. I might be a nurse or an office woman or any number of things if necessary; and sometimes, lately, I've hoped it might be necessary!
"There, I mustn't cry! I'm sunburned enough, and it makes me weak. It's a long drive ahead. Here comes Fan."
When she was gone in a cloud of dust, whipped away by the hot wind Rowe stood at the curb a long interval, head cocked, watching her roadster disappear into the jack pines. When he turned back into the hotel he was scratching his chin and his crafty eyes showed a strange bafflement. He had found that thing in Marcia Murray which had staggered him in John Taylor, honesty and genuine impulse. In her, however, it had been but a flash, to revive again only in case he failed in the game he played.
He snapped his thumb and laughed—somewhat uncertainly.