Kitabı oku: «The Shadow of Victory: A Romance of Fort Dearborn», sayfa 3

Without the least knowledge of why he did it, Robert bought a pair of moccasins. They were small, even for a woman's foot, and heavy with beads. The dainty things appealed to him, suddenly and irresistibly, and the price he paid for them brought other squaws, with countless moccasins.

"Uncle John," he shouted above the clamour, "please tell them I don't want any more moccasins!"

A few rapid words from Shaw-ne-aw-kee had the desired effect. "Don't see what you want of those things," he observed; "they won't fit anybody."

"Pretty things," remarked Howard, sauntering up. "Whom are they for?"

"I – I – that is, I don't know," stammered Robert. "I just wanted them."

The Lieutenant laughed. "Oh, I see," he said. "Another case of Cinderella's slipper?"

"Yes, we'll let it go at that," returned Forsyth. He had regained his self-possession, but the colour still bronzed his cheeks.

When every possible exchange had been made, and every Indian had been given a small additional present, the room became quiet again. Black Partridge received a small silver ornament which Mackenzie had made for him during the long winter evenings, with manifestations of delight and gratitude.

"What's he saying, Uncle?" asked Robert.

"He's swearing eternal friendship for me and mine."

"Much good that does," said Howard, nonchalantly. "I'd trust a dead Indian a damn sight sooner 'n a live one."

Black Partridge may have caught the gist of what had been said, but he repeated his expressions of gratitude and his assurances of continued esteem. The room, by contrast, was very silent after he went out.

"Lord!" sighed the trader. "What a day!"

Mrs. Mackenzie's voice sounded clearly in the next room. "Yes, dear," she said, "I'll tell him, and I'll explain it all. Don't you fret one mite about it." Then the door opened and Mrs. Howard came in.

She talked with Forsyth for a few minutes, then turned to her husband. "Shall we go home?" she asked, "or do you want to stay here for supper?"

"Better stay," suggested Mackenzie, hospitably.

"No, we'll go," said Ralph. "Good-bye, everybody."

Neither spoke until they entered their own house again, then Katherine put her hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. "Ralph," she said, seriously, "can't you trust me?"

"I hope so," he returned, drawing away from her, "and as I've fixed it now, I think I can."

"Ralph!" she cried, "you hurt me!"

"Look here," he exclaimed roughly, "I don't want any more of this. I have trouble enough without your pitching into me all the time. This is my house and you are my wife – please remember that."

"There's no danger of my forgetting it," she answered hotly.

"Come, Kit, do be reasonable. I don't want to quarrel."

She smiled cynically and bit her lips to keep back the retort that struggled for utterance. "Whatever you do," her mother had said to her, "don't quarrel with your husband. It takes two to make a quarrel."

Later, a semblance of peace was restored, but long after the Lieutenant was asleep, Katherine lay, wide-eyed and troubled, with bitterness surging in her heart.

From the window of her room she saw the late moon when it rose from the lake, and soon afterward the clock struck three. Then a ghostly pageant passed the Fort. Black Partridge was ahead – she knew his stately figure in spite of the blanket in which he was enshrouded. Behind him came more Indians than she had ever seen at one time, silently, in single file.

The squaws brought up the rear, laden with baggage. The last one was heavily burdened and was far behind. As she straggled along, the pale moonlight revealed something strange upon her head and Katherine recognised her own discarded summer hat of two seasons past. The implied comparison made her laugh in a way which was not good to hear – but no one heard.

Across the river another watcher was taking note of the departure of the Pottawattomies, for Robert had found it impossible to sleep. Physically, he was too tired to rest, and his mind was unusually active. The dainty moccasins hung on the wall of his room and something obtrusively feminine in their presence was, in a way, disturbing, but not altogether unpleasant.

The young man was somewhat given to analysis and introspection, and had endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to solve the freakish impulse which led him to buy moccasins too small for any woman he knew. Further questioning of self brought out the astounding fact that he would not give moccasins to any woman he had ever met, even though these might fit her.

The Indians passing the Fort were a welcome diversion, and he, too, laughed at the one who followed the procession with more than her share of baggage, but he missed the fine point in the matter of millinery. "She looks like the one I bought them of," he said to himself, "but I won't be sure."

The moon faded and grey dawn came up out of the inland sea. A ribbon of light lay across the Fort and the pulses of the river stirred beneath the ice. The blood came to his heart like the sap mounting in the maples, and he felt a sudden uplift of soul. A bluebird paused over the river for an instant, the crimson of its breast strangely luminous against the sky, then from a distant thicket came the first robin's cheery call, and he knew the Indians were right – that it was Spring.

CHAPTER IV
RONALD'S VIEWS OF MARRIAGE

Mrs. Howard was trying to sew, but seemed to lack the necessary energy. The Lieutenant paced the room in his favourite attitude – hands crossed behind his back – and gave her his views upon various topics, from the mistakes of the War Department at Washington to the criminal mismanagement of Captain Franklin. He became so interested in this last subject that he spoke as if addressing a large audience, happily unmindful of the fact that his single listener was preoccupied.

"Upon my word, Kit," he was saying, "there isn't a man in barracks who wouldn't make a better Captain than the one we've got."

"His wife is coming," remarked Katherine, impersonally.

"I don't care if she is. Somebody ought to tell him where he stands in the estimation of the officers and men."

His disapproval of his superior officer was reflected in his cool response to Mrs. Franklin's cheery greeting when she came in with her sewing. "I've got something for you," she said to Katherine; "guess what it is!"

"I couldn't guess – what is it?"

"A letter," she answered brightly, "from Doctor Norton! You aren't jealous, are you?" she asked playfully, turning to the Lieutenant.

He made no reply, but gnawed his mustache nervously. Katherine's face blanched as she took the note and tore it open with trembling hands.

There was neither date, address, nor signature. "I understand," it began, "and everything is all right. I beg of you, do not distress yourself about me, and, if I can ever serve you in any way, command me."

The words danced before her eyes as the Lieutenant approached and held out his hand, silently, for the letter.

"It's nothing that would interest you, dear," she said, tearing it straight across.

"Pardon me, I think it would." He quickly possessed himself of the note and fitted the two parts of the page together, laughing as he did so. Only Katherine noticed that his voice shook.

"If you're through with it, I'll burn it," he said quietly, after what seemed an age. Without waiting for an answer, he threw it into the open fire and hurriedly left the house. Then something dawned on Mrs. Franklin.

"Kit," she cried, "can you ever forgive me?"

"What did you think?" retorted Katherine, fiercely. "Would he have sent a note to me if he had meant it for my husband? Why didn't he come over instead of writing?"

"I don't know," murmured Mrs. Franklin. For the moment she was afraid, and as the inevitable surmise forced itself into her consciousness, she gazed at Katherine, horror-stricken and dumb.

"I know what you're thinking," said Mrs. Howard, with forced calmness. "It's very charitable of you, but I'm glad to be able to tell you that you're mistaken."

"You poor child!" exclaimed the Captain's wife. She slipped a friendly hand into Katherine's cold one and was not surprised when the overwrought nerves sought relief in tears.

Little by little, Katherine made a full explanation. "It's too small and too silly to talk about," she sighed, "but I haven't been well lately and the slightest thing will worry me almost past endurance. I don't know what's the matter with Ralph – he is not at all like himself, and that troubles me, too."

"Funny," observed Mrs. Franklin, irrelevantly.

"What's funny?"

"Men in general and husbands in particular. Wallace isn't inclined to be jealous, so I've never had that to bother me, but he's as stubborn as a mule, and I guess that's just as bad. Anyhow, I'd like to trade his stubbornness for something else. I'd appreciate the change for a little while, no matter what it was."

"I wouldn't mind that," said Katherine, with the ghost of a smile hovering around her white lips. "I think I could get along better with a stubborn man than I can with a savage."

"Be careful what you say about savages," put in the other, lightly; "you know my aunt is a full-blooded Indian."

"I've often wondered about that. How do you suppose it happened?"

"It is rather queer on the face of it, but it's natural enough, when you think it over. You know Captain Wells was stolen by the Indians when he was a child and he was brought up like one of them. Even after his people found him, he refused to go home, until his two sisters came to plead with him. Then he consented to make them a visit, but he didn't stay long, and went back to the Indians at the first opportunity. Their ways were as impossible to him as his were to them. I'm glad he married the chief's daughter, instead of a common squaw. He and Little Turtle are great friends."

There was a long silence, then Katherine reverted to the original topic. "I never thought of Captain Franklin as stubborn," she said.

"Didn't you? Well, I just wish you could talk to him a while after he gets his mind made up. Before that, there's hope, but not afterward; and you might just as well go out and speak to the stockade around the Fort. He's contrary, too. Yesterday, for instance, he told me he thought he'd have drill, as the men hadn't been out for a long time. I asked him if some of them weren't sick, and he said they were, but it wouldn't hurt the others any. Just then your husband came in and suggested drill. 'Haven't thought about it,' says Wallace, turning away, and the Lieutenant talked ten minutes before he discovered nobody was listening to him. After he went away, George came in and asked about drill. 'We won't have it to-day,' said Wallace, and that was the end of it."

"Was he like that before you were married?"

"Yes, only not so bad. I mistook his determined siege for inability to live without me, but I see now that it was principally stubbornness. He made up his mind to get me, and here I am. He gets worse as he grows older – more 'sot' in his ways, as your mother would say. I don't see how anybody can be that way. He explained it to me once, when we were first married, but I couldn't understand it."

"How did he explain it?"

"Well, as nearly as I can remember, he said that he dreaded to have his mind begin making itself up. It's like a runaway horse that you can't stop. He said he might see that he was wrong and he might want to do differently, but something inside of him wouldn't let him. It seems that his mind suddenly crystallises, and then it's over. A crystal can be broken, but it can't be made liquid again."

"Is his mind liquid?" inquired Katherine, choked with laughter.

"No – I wish it was. I'm glad you're amused, but I'm too close to it to see the fun in it. Wasn't your husband ever stubborn?"

"No; I don't think so – at least, I don't remember. I suppose he can't help being jealous any more than the Captain can help being mulish. I guess they're just born so."

"Marked," suggested Mrs. Franklin.

"Yes – marked. I hadn't thought of that. Before we were married, Ralph was jealous of everybody who spoke to me – man, woman, or brute. I couldn't even pet the cat or talk to the dog."

"Matrimonial traits," observed the Captain's wife, sagely, "are the result of pre-nuptial tendencies. If you look carefully into the subject before you're married, you can see about what you're coming to."

"I guess that's right. I needn't have expected marriage to cure Ralph of jealousy, but, like you, I supposed it was love."

"My dear," said Mrs. Franklin, with feeling, "many a woman mistakes the flaws in a man's character for the ravages of the tender passion – before marriage."

"Well, I never!" said a soft voice behind them. "Kitty and Mamie talking scandal!"

Both women jumped.

"How did you get in?" demanded Mrs. Howard.

"Came in," replied Ronald, laconically.

"Don't you know enough to rap?" asked Mrs. Franklin, angrily. Like others who have been christened "Mary," she was irritated beyond measure at that meaningless perversion of her name.

"Did rap," answered George, selecting the most comfortable chair, "but nobody heard me, so I let myself in."

"How dare you call me 'Kitty'?" exclaimed Mrs. Howard.

"Soldiers aren't afraid of anything except the War Department."

"How long have you been here?" they asked simultaneously.

"Don't all speak at once. I've been here a long, long time – so long, in fact, that I'm hungry." He looked past them as he spoke and gazed pensively out of the window.

Mrs. Franklin's cheeks were blazing and her eyes snapped. "You're the very worst man I ever met," she said.

The Ensign sighed heavily. "And yet I've never been accused of mulishness," he remarked, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, "nor of jealousy," he added. His mouth was twitching, and the women exchanged glances.

"I admit an enormous appetite," he continued. "Wonder if it's the ravages of the tender passion?"

Mrs. Howard brought in a plate of cookies and set it ostentatiously within his reach. "Lovely woman!" apostrophised George. "She feeds me! Radiant vision, will you be mine?"

There was a dead silence.

"Queer, isn't it," observed the guest, between mouthfuls, and apparently to himself, "that women should look so pretty when they're mad?"

"Your wife will be pretty all the time, then," said Mrs. Franklin.

"I trust so. She'll have to have a good start at it, or she won't get me, and with the additional stimulus which living with me will give her, she'll be nearly as lovely as the wives of the other officers at Fort Dearborn. I could give her no higher praise. These cookies are all gone."

"I know it," replied Mrs. Howard. "I gave you all I had left."

"If I might presume," said Ronald, "I'd like the prescription they were made by, to give to my wife, when I get one. I suppose it's more in the making than in the prescription, and though I'll undoubtedly like 'em, my native love of truth will oblige me to tell her that they don't come up to those Kitty – pardon me, Mrs. Howard – used to make for me. I always think of you by your first name," he went on. "I know it's wrong, but I can't help it. You're so good to me. Isn't there one more cooky?"

"No, there isn't."

"Your mother makes surpassing doughnuts. Did she ever teach you how?"

"Oh, yes," responded Mrs. Howard, coolly; "but I don't make them very often. I haven't made any for months."

"I have the plan of 'em all written down, in case you should forget how. I'm saving it for my wife. Can I go and look in the pantry?"

"No, you cannot."

"Why don't you get married, George?" asked Mrs. Franklin, by way of a diversion.

"I've never been asked."

"Didn't you ever ask anybody?"

"Oh, Lord, yes! I've asked every girl I've ever met. Say, do you know that I've got so now that I can propose off-hand, as easily as other fellows can after they've written it out and learned it? If there was a girl here at the Fort who suited me, I'd ask everybody to my wedding inside of two weeks."

"Charming diffidence," murmured Katherine.

"Modest soul," commented Mrs. Franklin. "What kind of a girl would suit you?"

"I like the domestic variety. The faithful kind, you know. One who wouldn't gad all the time. Good cook, and that sort of thing."

"Some Indian girl" – began the Captain's wife.

"I know," interrupted George, pointedly; "that runs in some families, but it never has in ours. Wouldn't mind an Indian aunt, maybe, after I got used to her; but a mother-in-law – Lord!"

Mrs. Franklin was angry for an instant, then she laughed. It was impossible for any one to harbour resentment against Ronald.

"I don't think I could ever love an ordinary girl," that intrepid youth resumed, with a dare-devil light in his eyes. "She'd have to be very superior. Lots of girls get married without any clear idea of what it means. For instance, while I was working day and night, trying to earn board and clothes for a woman, I wouldn't like to have her trot over to her friend's house to discuss my faults. If that's marriage, I won't enlist."

"You haven't any faults," put in the Captain's wife, sweetly. "There would be nothing to discuss."

"True, Mamie, I had forgotten that. Thank you for reminding me of my perfection. But you know what I mean. As soon as I got out of sight of the house, she'd gallop over to her friend's, and her friend would say: 'Good-morning, Mrs. Ronald, you don't look fit this morning. What has that mean thing done to you now?'"

Throwing himself thoroughly into the part, the Ensign got up and proceeded to give an elaborate monologue, in falsetto, punctuated with mincing steps and frequent rearrangement of an imaginary coiffure. Mrs. Howard clasped her hands at her waist and the tears rolled down Mrs. Franklin's cheeks.

"And then she'd say," Ronald went on, "'Just suppose you had to live with a mulish, jealous man who wouldn't give you more than nine dresses and eleven bonnets and four pairs of shoes. Yes, that's just what the horrid thing has done. And this morning, when I asked for money to get a few clothes, so I could look more respectable, he gave me some, but I caught him keeping back fifty-two cents. Now, what do you think of that? Do you suppose he's going to take a lot of men out and get 'em all drunk?'"

The entrance of Captain Franklin put an end to the inspired portrayal of wifely devotion. As Katherine had said, he did not look stubborn. On the contrary, he seemed to be the mildest sort of a man, for he was quiet and unobtrusive in manner. His skin was very white, and the contrast of his jet-black hair and mustache made him look pale.

"Did you tell them the news?" he asked Ronald.

"'Pon my word, Captain, I haven't had time. They've been chattering so ever since I came in that I'm nearly deaf with it. You tell 'em."

"I don't know as you'd call it news," said the Captain; "but we can't afford to ignore any incident out here. A Kickapoo runner has come in from the Illinois River, and he says the pack-trains are about to start from there and from the Kankakee, and that they will be here soon."

"It's an early Spring," remarked Mrs. Franklin.

"I'm glad," said Katherine; "I love to be outdoors, and the Winters in this lonesome little Fort are almost unbearable."

"What?" asked Ronald, "with me here?"

"Drill to-morrow," said the Captain, turning to his subordinate. The Ensign saluted gravely, but made no reply.

The Captain lingered a few moments, listening while the others talked. "Are you going home, Mary?" he asked.

"Yes, after a while. I'll go now if you want me to."

"No; never mind. I've got some things to see to."

"Now that," observed Ronald, as the Captain closed the door, "is what I call a true marriage."

"In what way?" asked Mrs. Franklin.

"This deference to a husband's evident wishes. It might have happened to me. Lonesome George comes into the sewing circle and his glad eyes rest on the wife of his bosom. Talk to the crowd a little while and get everybody to feeling good, even though I'm on the verge of starvation. Then I say: 'Darling, are you going back to our humble little home?' and she says: 'Yes, George, dear, when I get good and ready – bye-bye!'"

Mrs. Franklin was eager to ask Katherine how much of their conversation she supposed he had overheard, but he seemed very comfortable where he was, and at last she folded up her work and went home, the Ensign bidding her an affectionate farewell at the door and extending a generous invitation to "come again."

"There, Kitty," he sighed, "at last we are alone. It has seemed so long!"

Katherine turned upon him a look which would have frozen a lesser man than Ronald. "Please call me Mrs. Howard," she requested, icily.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Well, some way, it makes me feel as if you were married, and I can't stand it to be constantly reminded of my loss. 'Mrs. Lieutenant' is better, 'cause I'm a lieutenant, in a way, myself, but it's too long. I suppose I can say 'Mrs. Loot,' if you insist upon formality. I came to you with a message, and that is why I have braved your unjust wrath. Your mother sent me to ask you and your husband to come over to supper. I've seen him and he's willing. She's been making doughnuts all the afternoon, and I think there's a pie or two, so get your bonnet and come along."

"Come along!" repeated Katherine.

"Yes, come along. I'm going, too."

"Does she know it?"

"I think she suspects it. If she doesn't, the pleasure will have the additional charm of a surprise. There's the Lieutenant now. We'll all go together."

They met on the parade-ground and she put her hand on her husband's arm timidly, but he did not draw away from her as she had feared he would, and she became intuitively conscious that he had determined to say nothing about the unlucky note.

The sun shone brightly and the March wind swept the cobwebs from her mental vision. Ralph said very little; but Ronald, who never required the encouragement of an answer, talked unceasingly, and it seemed to Katherine that the world was sunny and full of friends.