The Full of the Moon/Chapter 1
THE
FULL OF THE MOON
CHAPTER I
Nan
"Mr. White is so anxious that you should have a class in the Sunday School, Nan, and I'd do it to please him. Of course after you are married he can't expect you to give quite so much of your time to church work but at present there's no reason why you can't take them. They are nice little boys and they adore you."
Mrs. Galbraith fastened a glove clasp and surveyed the result.
"Nice little boys!" exclaimed her daughter with heat. "They are little devils. Don't I know them?"
"Nan!" reprovingly.
"Imps, then, if it sounds better, but I mean devils. They dropped limberger cheese in the radiator and not one of them ever knew his Golden Text. They spent their collection money for drug-store candy and put a frog in my coat pocket. Besides," she squared her shoulders to launch her bomb, "I am not going to be married yet—I am not sure that I'm going to be married at all."
"What do you mean, Nan?"
"Just what I say," defiantly. "I'm going to have my fling first."
Now that it was out, Nan Galbraith looked from one to the other of the family circle with complacency. Its members were fully dressed for church and the carriage had been waiting some time, but they dropped into various chairs at Nan's announcement, more or less aghast.
Nan pursed her lips and thrust out her chin as she adjusted her veil to a degree more of comfort, and waited for the storm to break.
It did not come immediately, so she repeated, "I mean it. I'm going to have my fling."
Nan's younger brother, a "prep" student, with all the candor characteristic of that self-assertive age of wisdom was the first to recover.
"Of course. The moon's full," he jeered. "It always works on your brain. We expect something queer."
"But you are practically engaged to Bob!" Nan's sister Elsie voiced the consternation of the family. "Every one is waiting for the announcement."
"Let 'em wait!" Nan tweaked at her veil and raised her chin aggressively. "I've told Bob."
"And what does he say?"
The question was a chorus.
Nan shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, naturally—"
"Let me tell you one thing, Nan Galbraith," broke in her brother hotly. "You'll never get another such chance and you'd better grab it. I don't want to hurt your feelings but you're no ten-thousand-dollar beauty, Nan. If I could cruise off Labrador in my own yacht, and shoot over my own ground in North Carolina and go to Florida in my own car, I'll bet I wouldn't ask any girl with a turned-up nose to marry me."
"He says he likes it," Nan replied complacently.
"Well," indignantly, "I'm just telling you."
"Telling me what you'll miss if I don't marry Bob. Anyway," she demanded, "what has his money to do with it if I don't care for him?"
"But you certainly have given him reason to think that you do."
"Yes, mother, but I'm not sure, and I want to be sure; Anyhow, I want to have my fling in the way I want it. "
Mrs. Galbraith shuddered and reached two fingers up her sleeve for her handkerchief.
"And just what might your idea of a 'fling' be, Nan?" Her father's voice was slightly ironical, yet his handsome eyes which Nan's so strongly resembled twinkled the least bit in the world.
Nan colored a little and hesitated.
"I—I want to go out West—by myself—and have adventures and be independent and"
"Suffragette!" gibed the "prep" brother. "Butt in to politics and make everybody hate you."
"And meet a different kind of people from those I've always known," she went on eagerly. "I want to see something of another life than this humdrum existence of teas and dinners, charity bazaars and hospital board meetings, slum children's picnics and high-brow concerts. I'm just bored to death with it!"
"Don't you ride at the horse-show, and belong to the Pine-tree Hunt, and risk your neck jumping wire? Isn't that enough excitement for any nice girl?" inquired Elsie indignantly.
"It's the only thing that has kept me alive in this miserable, narrow rut we live in."
"How can you call us narrow when we have let you ride cross-saddle and make us all conspicuous. I never had thought to live"—Mrs. Galbraith's chin trembled—"to see a daughter of mine in trousers! I've suffered and said nothing. You haven't had the faintest idea how it has distressed me. We've humored you and now this impossible escapade which you suggest is our reward. If you carry it out. Nan, you will be the first of our family to bring a blush to our cheeks!"
"You blushed when Grandfather Maitlack married the sempstress," Nan reminded her coldly, rattling the family skeleton.
"She turned out—respectably," defended Mrs. Galbraith, taken somewhat aback.
"So will my adventure."
Mrs. Galbraith raised tearful eyes to her husband.
"Where does she get it? Certainly not from my side of the house, Eustace."
Mr. Galbraith looked guilty.
"Father ran away to Alaska and ate dog," reminded Nan.
"Wolf," corrected Mr. Galbraith hastily.
"Wolf, then, and made stews from his leather shoe-laces."
Mr. Galbraith checked a grin and said reprovingly:
"But you must remember, Nan, you are a girl—it's very different—there are some conventions you must observe."
"Conventions—conventions!" Nan cried impatiently. "I've heard nothing else all my life. I can't do anything I want to or know the people I want to or be what I want to because I'm Nan Galbraith and must observe the conventions. I—I'm stunted—that's what I am!"
"Stunted!" The "prep" brother rolled his eyes and Mr. Galbraith smiled in spite of himself.
"Any way," Nan continued determinedly, "I'm twenty-one now and thanks to grandmother I have money enough to do as I like."
Her father considered her gravely.
"Do you really mean. Nan, that you would do this thing against the wishes of your mother and myself?"
"I'm sorry to be horrid, father, but I positively have made up my mind. I've been dreaming about it and planning it a long, long time. I won't disgrace you, truly I won't, if you'll just trust me. You must give me credit for being frank. I'm not going to tie the sheets together and slide down or anything like that—I won't sneak away."
Mrs. Galbraith lifted her veil that she might weep without melting the chenille spots while Elsie ejaculated vehemently:
"Well, I should hope not! It's bad enough to have it whispered around, as no doubt it is, that my sister is a little 'queer' without you doing a thing like that."
"And a fine example you are setting me," added the "prep" brother in an injured tone.
"Follow it, then," Nan retorted. "It might make a man of you. You'll never stand on your own pins as long as you can hang on to father."
"Don't wrangle, children," Mr. Galbraith interrupted decisively. "This is no time to discuss the matter and we are late for service as it is."
"You won't disown me, father?" persisted Nan, timidly, as they left the library together.
He hesitated, then his eyes grew kinder as he looked into her upturned face.
"No, I won't disown you, but such an escapade as you suggest would be a very great trial to your mother and me."
Throughout the service, gloom as of a funeral party hung over the pew in the fashionable church of which the Galbraith family were prominent and active members.
Yet, in their hearts, with the single exception of Nan's father, no one really believed that Nan would carry out her impossible program. She always had been high-spirited and as unconventional as her environment would allow, but she never had disgraced them and this—this would be little short of disgrace.
But Mr. Galbraith, now a solid, staid, and highly successful man of affairs, urbane of manner, fastidious as to dress, and of discriminating tastes, understood Nan's feeling of restlessness far better than she suspected, for had not the waaderlust taken him to Alaska—to eat wolf—when exactly her age? And in all things she was very like him.
He could not approve nor give his consent. It was not to be considered, of course, but he sympathized secretly, and he sighed unconsciously as he silently wished that his smug son had a little more of her spirit.
His mind wandered from the sermon to his daughter, and he turned his head slightly that he might look at her out of the comer of his eye, to find that she was regarding him in the same manner. They exchanged the smile of affectionate comradeship which they kept exclusively for each other.
"I suppose," said the "prep" brother, sarcastically, reintroducing at the dinner table the subject which had been taboo all day for the sake of Sabbath peace, "that you'll meet your affinity in the West."
"One never can tell."
"I suppose you'd even marry him if the moon happened to be full when he asked you?"
"To be sure," Nan replied serenely, "if he asked me."
"How would you like to walk down the church aisle beside your son-in-law in 'chaps', mother?" inquired the "prep" brother maliciously.
"Chaps?"
"Those woolly things cowboys wear on their legs."
"Oh—cowboys! Yes, your father met one once in London."
"An American showman, my dear."
"He slapped you on the back, Eustace."
"He prodded me in the ribs," corrected Mr. Galbraith, dryly, "with his thumb."
"Anyway, his familiarity was odious."
"And your son-in-law," continued Nan's brother, "will wear his hat in the house and sleep in his boots and"
Elsie chimed in—
"When he's excited he will always explain that he's 'plumb locoed' and announce his departure by saying that he's 'got to hit the grit'—they never fail to say that in books.
"And after he's had a drop too much in town he'll come out and saddle one of the carriage horses. Then he'll chase the jerseys over the lawn swinging the clothes-line. We-ee-ough! we-ee-ough!"
"I'll tell you one thing right now," Nan turned upon her tormenter with heat. "If I want to marry a cowboy I'll do it! I mean to marry to please myself."
"Why not the coachman? He's quite picturesque in his stable clothes and besides, his first name is Rupert, even if his last name is Higgins."
"Hush," Mrs. Galbraith's tone was peremptory, "I think your humor is in exceedingly bad taste."
Robert Ellison stooped to stroke the glossy neck of his favorite hunter and did his utmost to inject a casual note into his voice as he asked:
"When is it you start, Nan, on this adventure of yours?"
Nan touched the dainty ear-tips of her "blue ribboner" with her riding crop and endeavored to reply with equal nonchalance. "The day after to-morrow."
"And you won't consider letting me hover in the vicinity at a protecting distance?"
"0h, no," she refused quickly. "That would spoil it, and besides, anything of the sort really would make people talk."
"I suppose so," he admitted ruefully. "But, Nan"—he turned to her earnestly—"will you promise me one thing! Will you promise that if you need some one, if things don't turn out just as you anticipate, if the people you meet do not prove to be exactly what they seem, if anything at all goes wrong, you will let me know? Will you send me word at once?"
"Yes, Bob, I'll promise that."
"There's one thing. Nan." He looked at her approvingly with his grave, gray eyes. "No person with an atom of intelligence could mistake you for anything but a lady. That is a protection anywhere."
Nan smiled her appreciation.
"Nor could you the less readily be mistaken for anything but a gentleman."
He laughed in turn.
"Since we think so highly of each other, Nan, why is it that—well, that you insist upon taking this trip alone? I'm ready to go in any capacity from courier to a mere husband."
"I've tried to explain that to the family," said Nan soberly, "but they think I am perfectly silly and won't see my point of view at all. It's just that I want to be sure of myself, and I know you so well and like you so much that I'm not sure the feeling I have for you isn't only friendship. I want to know another kind of men from those I have met in my comparatively brief social experience, so that when I finally marry, the man will be the man I have chosen intelligently from among any other men who may have thought well enough of me to ask me to marry them. I like an active man, a man who is doing something in the world, making his own way," she concluded vaguely, "or something like that."
"And you think I'm an unambitious idler"—his color had risen slightly—"that I haven't aggression and—well, the manly, fighting qualities which would attract a girl like you?"
"Oh, I didn't mean to imply that," Nan answered quickly, feeling that she had hurt him. "I wasn't personal—I was just talking," and she laughed, "to hear myself."
"I know," he nodded ruefully, and added, "It's a fact, though, that I don't do much but amuse myself. But what am I to do. Nan?" he pleaded half humorously, half in earnest. "I don't want to reform anybody so I wouldn't get anywhere in politics, and besides I'm not keen on strange bedfellows. There isn't any reason why I should make more money, because with my simple tastes it taxes my ingenuity to spend what I have, and you won't help me. Philanthropy would make a cynic of me in a week, for I have discovered there's nothing like dispensing charity to wreck one's faith in human nature."
"You could practice law. What was the use of studying it if you don't practice?"
"To protect myself from other lawyers. Yes," with mock gravity, "I could join the noble army of ambulance chasers."
"Nonsense! You don't have to be an ambulance chaser. You could be at the top if only you were in earnest."
"Thank you, Nan, for those few kind words," he bowed in exaggerated appreciation, "but I'm afraid the only thing in which I am in deadly earnest is my desire to induce you to marry me or to let me marry you—as you like—I'm very humble. Last summer, as you know, I went to Newfoundland and spent three wretched weeks camping on the Humber River, fighting mosquitoes and waiting for the mail to bring me a letter from you, and trying to forget you; but just as soon as the mosquitoes let up a minute I was loving you harder than ever. Most humiliating experience of my life, I assure you, for it convinced me that I have no will-power. In the end I gave in and went down to the Jersey coast where the mosquitoes at least fight according to the rules of civilized warfare, and gave myself up to the sensation of being hopelessly in love. I see plainly that I am a weak character and a poor Worm."
"It's good of you, Bob," said Nan gratefully, "to be so terribly decent about this outbreak of mine. It's comforting to find some one who can take it philosophically. It's made an awful row at home. I'm regarded as little short of a criminal—the wild 'un' of the flock.
"I am tremendously fond of my family, individually. They are dears. Collectively, they are a formidable, terrifying lot, and they are all lined up against me in this, to a man.
"They impress it upon me that I am breaking my mother's heart, bringing my father's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave, making my only sister a target for the finger of scorn and ruining her prospects, setting my young brother a ruinous example. I'm a bad lot! I'm all the erring daughters since the world began, rolled into one. And the queer part of it is, the more they oppose me, the more determined I am to carry out my program.
"I know I'm heartless, disobedient, ungrateful, a serpent they've warmed in their bosoms, and it doesn't budge me. I'm going to do what I want to do just once in my life if I never do it again. Ever since I was born I've been doing mostly what some one else wanted me to do. Now I'm going to do what I want to do, if I hang for it!"
"You'll only get a life sentence, Nan, women are seldom hanged."
"The wildest adventure I ever had was the time Sancho ran away with the pony cart and spilled us off the bridge," she added resentfully.
"It's shameful the way you've been sheltered and protected" Bob declared. "It makes my blood boil."
"Don't laugh at me" she pleaded "or I'll feel that I can't even talk to you."
"I'm not, Nan. It's only that I'm such a wag that I have to be funny even when I'm sad. But tell me where do you get this adventurous streak of yours!" his eyes twinkled. "Surely not from your mother!"
"No, not from mother," Nan answered drolly "from father. I'm exactly like father—before he tamed down—only he won't admit it."
"It may be the best thing for you in the end—like being allowed to smoke a cigar when you were a youngster or eat too many cookies or raisins on the principle that a surfeit cures. Anyway there's my hand, and you can count on me.
She took it and looked him in the eyes with a boy's frankness while he continued:
"And whether you come back in one month or twelve, you'll find me waiting and loving you just the same. Will you remember that, Nan—just the same?"
"I'll remember. And Bob," with a little catch in her voice, "you surely are white folks!"
Flinging aside the magazine which had not been able to hold her attention. Nan raised herself from the depths of the great armchair in her little sitting-room and trailed a yellow silk negligee to the window.
"Only one night more, thank goodness!" she said aloud, "I feel like a matricide and a patricide, and all the other 'cides there are, with mother and Elsie bursting into tears every time they see me. They simply cannot understand my point of view at all. Father does, I believe, though he wouldn't let me know it for the world.
"I wonder if I am making a mistake? I wonder if they are right and I am wrong? I wonder if I shall be sorry? Sometimes I am afraid."
Nan suggested a yellow bird in a golden cage or a topaz in a jewel case of its own color as she moved restlessly about the room.
There was a hint of yellow in her golden-brown eyes, her brown hair was streaked with sunny tints, and she dressed oftenest in varying shades of yellow and brown. Her friends called her sometimes "The Golden Girl," and the name, as her clothes, became her.
She was not beautiful, this Golden Girl, but as Robert Ellison had said, she was unmistakably a lady. She had a certain self-effacing dignity of manner which only partially concealed an unusually high spirit, vivacity, and a keen interest in life.
She was slim and erect. One felt instinctively the suppleness and strength of her young body under its covering of clinging silk and lace cascades.
She was wholesome. She radiated health and spirit. Her tawny, luminous eyes showed the imaginative mind, the romantic tendencies of her nature, and often there was in them a kind of inquiring eagerness which was like a child's.
She had a distinctive personality, too strong ever to be effaced, and, modest to a degree as was her dress, she could not have been inconspicuous, for Nan Galbraith in her way was a personage, and looked it.
The bystanders felt something of this fact when, a week later, the collarless landlord of the dobe hotel in the little hybrid town of Hopedale, close to the Mexican border, reached up a pair of mighty arms and swung Nan to the ground from the driver's seat of the four-horse stage which ended its fifty-mile journey in front of his caravansary.