Kitabı oku: «The Loves of Ambrose», sayfa 2

CHAPTER III
PEACHY

Nevertheless, in spite of Ambrose's intentionally truthful declaration to Miner, for the rest of that afternoon and evening he was never wholly able to get free from the thought of Peachy. However, he did not then stir from his first shelter in the woods, finding endless refreshment in the beauty of the Kentucky river landscape, nor did he surrender himself readily to the lure of the feminine; but poor Ambrose was a victim of the strange force that lies embodied within a universal idea.

A bird appearing on the branch of a tree above his head and bending over, peeped into his face twittering: "Pe-che, Pe-che," as impudently as any small Susan; then, catching his eye, with a little mocking courtesy, flew away. A robin hopping on the grass near the boy's side, pecked at the crumbs left over from his luncheon; her full breast, her air of concentrated domesticity somehow recalled the image of his latest affection – Peachy, the youthful mistress of the Red Farm.

Now in setting out on this spring pilgrimage nothing had been farther from the traveller's intention than any dallying with his familiar weakness. Girls – why, the years behind Ambrose Thompson blossomed with them; never could he recall a season since his extremest boyhood when he had not been enchantingly in love. But actually there was little reason why Peachy Williams should be thrust upon him more than another save that he was growing older and had been devoting some time to her of late. Besides which, she was comely.

Toward nightfall the bird songs became such intimate revelations of love that several times the listener put his fingers into his ears in his effort to fight their suggestions away. And yet it was not until next morning that his decision actually broke.

And then it was not so much a matter of emotion. But he had had an uncomfortable night of fitful dreaming and awakened with yesterday's spiritual elation gone and with an intense desire for human companionship.

Rising first on one elbow, Ambrose made a remark which has probably been considered by the greater portion of the male creation. "I wonder now," he asked himself, "ef bein' looked after and made over ain't sometimes better'n bein' free?"

A very little while after this the boy cooked his own breakfast, with extremely poor results, and then making as pleasing a toilet as his reflection in the river permitted, immediately set out in the direction of the Red Farm. And no longer did Ambrose's face show signs of struggle: his air had now become one of peaceful acquiescence in the laws of nature. He had no idea of committing himself definitely, however, by this visit to Peachy; his mind was not wholly made up and he desired nothing abrupt or startling; it was simply that at present a day of solitary musing did not appear so appealing as her companionship, and moreover, Ambrose shared the universal masculine delusion that his was the important mind to be made up.

A sense of humour means a sense of proportion and therefore an appreciation of values, so Ambrose Thompson, the young Kentucky Romeo, was not without a certain thrifty streak. In driving along it was not disagreeable to reflect that the Red Farm was the richest tobacco farm in the county and that Peachy was its sole heiress. Not that Peachy by herself was insufficient; Ambrose also had pleasure in recalling the firmness of her young bosom, the sheen of her auburn hair, the whiteness of her teeth – and then – how frequently and how delightfully she laughed. That her laugh was non-committal had not up to this time troubled her admirer, who yearned for a feminine audience and had not yet learned to ask that this audience be discriminating.

Even feeding chickens may be made an alluring picture, or at least Ambrose thought so, when he had driven unobserved into the farmyard and waited there watching Peachy, with her sleeves rolled back, flinging the corn to the ground. Also with his accustomed sensitiveness to impressions the boy realized that the girl herself was not unlike one of her own creamy leghorn hens; she, too, was both red and white with her clear healthy skin, red hair, and red-brown eyes – and then the fulness of her figure! The young man laughed delightedly, when turning and catching sight of him the girl started running toward him with short, uneven steps that yet got over the ground very quickly, and actually when she spoke, there was a little cluck to her voice.

And yet, somehow, Peachy did not seem to feel the same degree of surprise that her visitor did at his own unexpected appearance. She blushed when he kissed her hand with an ardour peculiar to Ambrose though foreign to custom in the "Pennyrile," but she betrayed no wonder at his visit in the broad daylight when plainly he should have been at work in his store. Neither did she ask questions. Notwithstanding, after a few words of greeting, Ambrose had the impression of being shooed into the house, Peachy using her white apron for the purpose.

Yet this had not been his intention, for indeed he had arrived at the farm an hour before dinner, with the idea of taking Peachy out for a walk and then possibly confiding to her the original purpose of his escape from Pennyroyal; surely she could be made to understand better than any one else, and his mood was now one requiring sympathy. Instead, however, there was something mysterious the matter with the girl's costume, so that Ambrose shortly found himself divested of his hat and duster and shut up in a sticky parlour with the family album on his lap for entertainment, and only one window open to give him just enough light to be able faintly to see and air to keep barely alive. On entering the room his first impulse naturally had been to fling open wide all the windows, but hearing his hostess's cries of horror, both his arms and his inclination had weakened. Although truly the lawn about the Red Farm house was exquisitely green and free from dust, yet the thought of possible desecration to the best parlour had the effect of reality.

Now although Ambrose was miserably settled according to Peachy's directions, and in spite of having expressed the desire to change her dress at once, the girl still lingered on, her face wearing a look that troubled her suitor as it was so unlike her usually placid and admiring one. Her red lips were drawn, her brow puckered, her atmosphere one of extreme disapproval. Under the circumstances Ambrose's forehead was naturally moist with perspiration and his face not overly clean, yet his clothes, notwithstanding being somewhat crumpled and dusty, were plainly his Sunday best.

"What is it, Peachy?" he asked, first studying himself solicitously. Then, following her shuddering gaze across the crimson splendour of the Brussels carpet, he beheld a track of mud made with footprints so large that they could belong to no other feet than his. His eyes dropped. Surely his feet were caked with mud – mud from the shadowy cool depth of the woods, from the banks of that celestial river so lately deserted by him. Yet, seeing the girl's unhappiness, again the young man surrendered and so for a longtime (it was hard to tell how long) continued sitting in the same place. Peachy had gone away, to remain perhaps till dinner time, and taken his shoes with her. So Ambrose's feet were now encased in a pair of hot carpet slippers, a whole size too small for him, so that he could not even shuffle without crumpling his toes or else walking about in his socks.

Several times he sighed, pushing back his long hair, a gesture with him expressive of mental unrest. Why, oh, why, had he given up his original plan of two days' solitary freedom and companionship with nature? Peachy had never seemed less alluring, and as for physical comfort or even the pleasure of her society, had he gained either? Cold shivers every now and then had their way up and down the young man's spine in the course of his meditations, notwithstanding the warmth of the room. For he knew himself to be easily stirred, so supposing that he and Peachy had taken the walk together that morning and something serious had happened! By and by young Ambrose began to feel as utterly uninterested in female charms, as cool and remote as a snow-capped mountain, and at about this moment Peachy returned to the room.

She was wearing a pure white dress and, moving over into a dark corner, smiling at her suitor, she sat down on a small sofa. Here, by dint of pinning his toes down into his slippers, and letting his heels rise above them, Ambrose managed to arrive a few seconds later. He was close up beside her, as comfortably near as Peachy's starched clothes permitted, liking the clean smell of her dress, the perfume of her body; there were odours about her of warm new milk, of fresh honey, of ripening fruits.

And quite by accident, it seemed to him, the girl's plump hand was laid near his, so that a moment later it required pressing. Then the kerchief about her full breast, rising and falling softly, showed a hint of something whiter and softer beneath. With surprising rapidity the boy's recent regret for his lost holiday began slipping away from him. The room was still close, but a breeze blowing in from the partly raised window fanned them both. Perhaps Ambrose's head was swimming from fatigue and drowsiness, perhaps from his sense of his companion's nearness, of her readiness to fall into his arms with his first desiring touch.

"Peachy," Ambrose was whispering, when stealthily the door of the parlour opened, and there stood Peachy's father, his red face wearing such an expression of amusement and coarse understanding that instantly Ambrose felt a return of his former coldness. His boots having been cleaned and returned to him five minutes later, he followed the farmer and his daughter into their dining-room.

There the meal was a hideous one to him despite his hunger and the good and plentiful food. For seated at the family table, were several farm hands, white overseers of the negro labourers, and they made stupid jokes, shoving their elbows into one another and grinning idiotically from Peachy to him. Their ugly thoughts were like palpable close presences in the room, destroying all possible illusions for the boy, and yet the girl herself seemed not to mind. Instead, she blushed and bridled, sending challenging looks at Ambrose across the spring freshness of his piled-up plate of new potatoes, jowl, and spring greens each time he attempted putting his fork up to his mouth.

So that after a while, inch by inch, the boy felt himself being pushed into a corner where he had meant to walk one day of his own accord. And by the time dinner was over, not only had all desire passed from him, but apparently all will power as well. For next he allowed Peachy to lead him to an enclosed summer house. This summer house was some distance away from the big place and so shut in by carefully trained vines that it allowed no opportunity for distracting views or vistas beyond. It was what one under some circumstances might have called, "a chosen spot."

Now there is no reasonable explanation of why Peachy Williams, the chief heiress of "the Pennyrile," had so set her heart upon the possession of Ambrose Thompson. Lovers were plentiful, and among them the rich owner of the place adjoining her father's, and Ambrose had no fortune worth mentioning, and, moreover, was distinctly homely; but perhaps Peachy was drawn as many another woman has been before – by the lure of the unknown; for never could she have any proper understanding of Ambrose Thompson's temperament. Times were when he appeared more ardent than any of her other suitors, and then his attention being distracted, both physically and mentally he faded from sight. Now in contrast Peachy's own disposition was direct and simple. At a distance from the Red Farm to the village she recognized that her lover might be difficult to control, but near at hand she believed him tractable, and in a measure this was true, for Ambrose could always be managed by his friends up to a certain point – only the trouble was that at this time of life Peachy Williams did not understand where this point ended.

Like a long tallow candle slowly melting from the heat, the young man was now lolling idly on the narrow circular bench of the summer house appearing so limp and dispirited that he seemed incapable of any kind of opposition.

Would the afternoon never pass? Could he ever remember having been forced to remain so long in the society of any one woman? So long that he ceased to have anything he desired to say or any possible idea that he wished to express; indeed his mind felt as clean and empty as a slate wiped by a wet rag. Why in heaven's name didn't Peachy herself have something to say once in a while? Before this day his calls had been short evening ones, when he had had opinions of his own and to spare. Could the time ever come in a man's life when he might want a girl to be inspiration as well as audience, to have an idea of her own now and then?

"Oh, Lord," Ambrose groaned half aloud. If only he could think of some plan of escape, but in the rash enthusiasm of his arrival at the farm had he not promised Peachy to remain all day? And now in his exhausted condition even his imagination had deserted him. Certainly he could think of no excuse for getting away at once.

Yet more and more depressing were Peachy's long silences, her frequent laugh more irritating, since Ambrose could find no reasonable excuse for laughter in the dulness of the interminable May afternoon with nothing to look at but the ground at his feet, or the lacing of leaves overhead, except Peachy, stitching, stitching everlastingly on something so white and weblike that Ambrose felt he too was being sewed in, made prisoner for life.

His long legs twitched, fairly his body ached with his longing to be off, until by and by even the girl was made to realize that things were not going as she had reasonably expected.

"What is it ails you this afternoon, Ambrose?" she asked at last, wistful if he had but known it. "Wasn't there something special you wanted to say to me to-day, else why did you come so out of your regular time?"

"Why had he come?" Barely was Ambrose able to repress another groan. For the life of him he could not now have told what had drawn him that morning to the Red Farm. Whatever desires or emotions had then stirred him were gone, his head was heavy, his blood moved languidly, even the necessary domestic noises of farm life were inexpressibly annoying. Could Peachy ever have spelled romance? Sighing aloud Ambrose put up his hand to wipe fresh moisture from his brow, and then coloured.

"I'm afeard you're ill," the girl continued, suddenly solicitous, and again with a movement that suggested a motherly hen: "You're so quiet and unlike yourself and yet so nervous and wriggly."

Ambrose yawned. "I slep' out last night, so mebbe I'm tired," he confessed unadvisedly; then immediately observed the same expression on Peachy's face that had been brought there by the presence of his muddy boots in her parlour. Her lips had tightened, though her brow was smooth; it was that gentle but awful look of the born manager.

"I knowed you'd been doin' something foolish," she stated calmly. "Anybody else'd remember there is chills and fever out of doors these spring nights. It's the spring that has set in on you; your blood needs thinnin'. I'll get you some sassafras tea." Relieved by Ambrose's revelation, Peachy was for at once starting off, but the young man caught at her skirts.

Truly the spring was not at present working on him nor did his blood at this hour require thinning.

"Don't go, Peachy; it ain't sassafras I'm needin', thank you just as kindly," he said, touched and a bit shamed by her interest. "To tell you the truth, I'm beginnin' to feel restless wantin' to get back to the woods ag'in. I'll come back to see you soon," he pleaded, observing that her head was being shaken with unmoved persistence. Her reply was final:

"You'll do no such thing, Ambrose Thompson; you'll stay right here till your queerness has wore off. Haven't I been worryin' over you ever since dinner? Think I'll let you go moonin' off now by yourself with no one to look after you?" Like young Juno both in her majesty and plenitude, Peachy did this time move out of sight, leaving her victim greatly shaken.

In a few moments Ambrose knew that a bitter herb compound would be poured down his reluctant throat; later he might be placed in bed between hot blankets and more sweat drawn from his lean frame. Really there was no limit to Peachy's particular kind of mothering femininity, and since her intentions were kind – Ambrose knew himself of old – before kindness he would go down like a struck ten-pin. Already he could feel the blankets closing in over him, and now in truth he shook with a chill.

Soon after his tall form arose, and then crouched as it crept forth from the summer house, stopping only long enough to pin a white paper to the outside arbour, when with leaps and bounds it disappeared inside the stable, to reappear a few moments later with old Liza hitched to his high gig. Driving as rapidly as possible he soon got past the outside farm gate leading into the road.

So when Peachy returned with cup and spoon in hand she found her shrine deserted and instead read this note pinned outside among the vines and scrawled in the handwriting of Ambrose Thompson:

You were right, Peachy dear, I'm not myself to-day. I am cold and my heart action is uncommon feeble, so I think I'd best not stay to worry you. Maybe I'll be coming back to the farm some day when I'm feeling different.

Your respectful

Ambrose.

However, safe on the road, Ambrose, looking back and catching a far image of Peachy with his letter in her hand, decided that never again should he return to the Red Farm. For not only was Ambrose fleeing, but knew the reason why. Peachy was a manager, and had that moment in the parlour before dinner been longer – well, thank God and old Liza, he was still free.

"Good Lord, deliver me!" the boy prayed, though being a good Baptist he knew no litany save that of his own soul.

CHAPTER IV
"Even so, Love, even so!
Whither thou goest, I will go."

So the boy continued driving on and on, loitering in the faint sweet-smelling May afternoon.

At first after having left the farm his heart had been troubled and his mind uneasy, burdened by an unconscious wave of sex weariness.

"Lord," he said aloud once, "seems such a pity you didn't make all critturs the same sex; I ain't carin' which, male or female, seein' what a lot of trouble we might all then 'a' been saved."

Naturally, so far as Ambrose himself was concerned, he was through with the dangers lurking in feminine society forever! He even intended confessing this conviction to his friend and partner, Miner, as soon as they should be alone together, for even at the moment of his resolution had not the boy's subliminal self whispered that he might need strengthening later on?

After getting well away from his danger zone, however, Ambrose had chosen that the remainder of his spring journey should lie through an unfamiliar part of the state, and so had turned his horse into every likely lane presenting itself until by degrees the ever-increasing beauty of the landscape wrought its effect upon his susceptible soul.

The houses along his route were finer than those of his own neighbourhood and, being placed farther back, showed only a chimney, or the white fluted column of a veranda every now and then beyond the closely planted avenues of beech or maple trees. Sounding across the fields came the voices of the darkies closing their day's tasks with songs. Truly this Kentucky was a happy land in the days before the war, and on this afternoon there were myriads of the soft, green growing things toward which Ambrose's young spirit had yearned, – acres of corn just creeping above the mould, and miles of tiny tobacco plants.

Then unexpectedly this character of landscape disappeared, and old Liza trotted on to a hard white turnpike. The twilight was closing down, but a toll-gate keeper showed himself a few yards ahead, and then a cluster of small stores. Afterward there was nothing further to interest Ambrose until he drove straight up to a big building surrounded by a high fence and set in the middle of a grassless yard without the influence of a tree or vine near it and where from the inside came the murmur of children's voices hushed to a pathetic, uniform note.

The boy knew the place at once for a county orphan asylum, and being what he was, reflected. In times past he had seen these same orphans led through the streets of Pennyroyal, a dreary set of little human beings, dressed alike and made to keep step like a chain gang. "Glory," he whispered, "here am I running away from the fear of havin' to keep step with one person; what if I had been made to keep step with so many?"

The next moment brought him nearly opposite a woodpile, and there he slowed up, for he thought that he heard a noise behind it sounding like a scared sheep or lamb.

"Stop!" What looked like a child's figure instantly rose and ran toward him. "Hide me!" she gasped; "oh, please be quick and don't ask questions." And the girl clung so tightly to the spokes of the gig wheel that had the young man driven on she must have been dragged like a slave at his chariot.

But of course he did no such thing. "Hop in," he replied cheerfully. Then, while the child crouched shivering and panting against his knee under the thin laprobe, Ambrose whistled to indicate his entire lack of concern in this latest adventure, and also to suggest that he rode alone.

Pretty soon, however, he began wondering what character of person he had rescued and from what or from whom she was running away, it being characteristic of Ambrose that first he had done what was required of him, and later had desired to ask questions. In the haste and semi-darkness it had been impossible to tell whether the child was a gypsy or a mere ordinary waif, and she had looked so young – twelve or a little more perhaps. There was nothing much to judge by except that she was little and light and that her eyes were dark and shiny and she had two braids of long hair. But by and by of its own accord the figure under the laprobe started talking. "Don't let anybody take me away, – say you ain't seen me if they come along," she pleaded in such a tone that it was only possible for Ambrose to give a reassuring pat to her head and then to drive more rapidly along. Once when there was a moment of unusual stillness he did peep under the laprobe, only to catch sight of a pair of grateful eyes upturned to his and to jerk back his hand from the touch of cold lips.

Fifteen minutes of what had seemed totally unnecessary hiding, as there were few vehicles abroad on the turnpike at this late hour, and then both the occupants of the gig heard a furious pounding of a horse's hoofs behind them and knew that something or some one was being pursued.

The girl's clasp tightened, and Ambrose could catch, not the words, but the sound of a prayer. Harder than ever before in all their ten years of friendly intimacy the boy now spurred on old Liza. It might have been just as well had he known why he was being thus chivalrous, but there had been no opportunity so far for finding out, and everything in Ambrose played gallantly with this new adventure. He was still a boy with a boy's love of mischief, of hiding, of winning in any kind of game, and susceptibility to instant sympathy.

Old Liza was a retired racehorse, and although her retirement dated some years back, still she was subject to spurts of speed. However, the best of spurts won't hold out long, and soon her driver realized that the wagon behind was gaining on him every moment.

"Keep still!" he ordered, deliberately pulling up short in the middle of the road. With a quick movement, seeing that the truant was completely hidden, he set his carpet-bag up on his lap, and, opening it, began rummaging among its contents. When the other wagon was within hailing distance he turned slowly about.

"Thank the Lord for trifles, stranger," he called. "I wonder now if you would mind pausin' and givin' me a light; I got my pipe and tobacco" – he held out an old-time corncob pipe – "but maybe you be hurryin' on to a sick person."

Naturally the other man hesitated. Ambrose's solemn long face was fairly plain to view, also his manner of having all eternity before him. Eying him suspiciously, the newcomer thrust forth his own lighted pipe, Ambrose managing to keep his carpet-bag between them.

"You ain't seen anything of a runaway girl?" the man asked.

Ambrose nodded with irritating precision, the time being consumed in scrutiny of his questioner's face. The man had lantern jaws, small, hard eyes, and an expression of official authority peculiarly annoying to certain members of the laity.

"There was a girl a piece back hidin' behind a woodpile; thought maybe she was playin' hide and seek." Here the speaker laughed. "Reckon you suspicioned she was a pretty fair runner if you're chasin' a girl along the high-road with that horse. Most any human would have had the sense to hide." Here the reins flapped on old Liza's back and she took a few steps forward.

Evidently Ambrose's words had not been without effect, for the stranger did not hurry on at once, neither did he reveal any misgiving in connection with the young man nor the amount of property being transported at the front of his gig, for the country people of that day were accustomed to doing their own carrying.

Safety with honours! A smile began playing about Ambrose's face, when suddenly a kind of miniature convulsion shook his leg, followed by a choking, spluttering noise that was plainly a terrified sneeze.

And instantly the hand of the man in the wagon reached forward, but he was not within reaching distance, and at the same instant Ambrose, seizing hold of his passenger, made a flying leap from the gig. Then catching the girl's hand in his he ran with her, ran gloriously, hardly conscious of the light figure being drawn along. All day his long legs had been cramped with sitting still; this, then, was the thing that he had most desired: leaping ditches, tearing across ploughed fields to the woods ahead, with the frightened girl panting but keeping close to his side, and behind them the enraged, shouting figure of officialdom.

Once in the woods the hiding was easy; twisting in and out among the trees not only did Ambrose lose his pursuer, but himself. For if he had counted on anything, which he probably had not, it was that the man would not run after them for any length of time, leaving his fast horse to stand in the road.

Finally, the girl and boy both dropped down on the ground. The long May twilight was past, still they could see the outlines of each other's forms, and Ambrose could hear the beating of the girl's heart against her frock like the fluttering of an imprisoned moth.

He could not help reassuring her. "You're safe, sis, don't worry," he drawled. "Keep still and maybe in a minute I'll find some water."

But she would not let him leave her, and tagged along until they finally discovered a little stream. Then, as Ambrose had some stale bread in his pocket, together they feasted for a short time, when, as the moon of the night before had come out again a trifle larger, Ambrose decided to inquire concerning his companion's plans. She now seemed entirely peaceful, and, though rested, had made no mention of moving along. However, for some time longer he watched her with that solemn stare of his. She was chattering gayly enough about nothing ("there was never a time when a female wouldn't be able to talk," he thought), but by and by she must be interrupted.

"I wonder now," he said when there was no longer any sound either of fear or fatigue in her voice, "if you would kindly be tellin' me which way you would like to be goin' and what friends you was plannin' to run to to-night when I picked you up back on the road? I ain't to say acquainted with this part of the country, but I reckon I can help to find them. It's gettin' late and I ain't easy in my mind about Liza."

For some absurd reason he felt himself placed upon the defensive.

The girl was shaking her head. "I ain't no friend but you."

Ambrose whistled. "Well, bein's as I am what one might call a recently adopted friend, maybe you'll so much as tell me where you're thinkin' of spendin' the night."

"I ain't thinkin'," was the answer, and at this Ambrose swore softly, though you may count on his having sworn under his breath.

"Look here, you got to tell me a straight story. I ought to 'a' made you before," he confessed. "I reckon I knew you were runnin' away from that orphan asylum and I kind of wanted to help, even more when that fellow came after you, but we can't go traipsin' around all night, and I got to find Liza. You oughtn't to have run away from a good asylum if you hadn't no friends."

Ambrose knew himself for a liar before the girl on the ground began rocking herself back and forth with her hands clasped over her knees.

"I ought to, I ought to, I ought to," she repeated until her words had the swaying influence of a chant. "You know nothin' about it. I have been in that place so long I can't remember anywheres else. How can I have friends? I don't know nobody, I don't love nobody, I ain't nobody! Why, there's mornings when I get up and lookin' at the other orphans, seein' we are dressed alike and got to do the same things at the same time all day, I begin to think maybe there ain't any me. I'm just one of them – any one." She began crying now, but that did not interrupt her passionate speech. "I've been thinkin' of runnin' away a long time. P'raps I'll have a hard time; I don't care. Ain't I a right to find out?"

And this of course the young man could not answer, so he only passed his hand over his brow. "Well, you might 'a' stayed at the asylum a little longer," and then because he was Ambrose, "or at least till I got safely past that woodpile."