27. Nancy In Town
The solitary horse of the Kirtley family was in use in the corn-field. Only one more day's work was needed to " lay by " the field, but Nancy had come to be dictator ; so instead of being hitched to the plow, old Bob was sidesaddled for Nancy. The old woman scolded, but the arrangement suited the father as well as it did the daughter it gave him an excuse for spending the day at the grocery in Canaan, a promised land comprising three drinking-places and a shoe-shop. All the way up and down the hills to town Nancy turned over and over again in her mind various plans of attack. To exhibit the keep Bakes to Roxy' asserting an engagement between Mark and herself might serve her purpose far enough to break off the marriage with Roxy, but it would probably anger Bouamy and defeat her main hope. She was shrewd enough to see that if she should threaten Mark, or attack him in any way, all expedients for entrapping him would fail. She therefore resolved to keep vindictive meas ires till the last.
Her first objective point was an interview with Mark, and to this end she seated herself in his office, early in the afternoon, and awaited his entrance. When he appeared on the door-step she was offended to note that he drew back for a moment as though he would fain avoid meetly her. For Mark had just been licensed to preach, the day before, and with a freshened 6ei.Be of his responsibility, not only to God but to the public, he was chagrined to come upon Nancy lying in wait. He greeted her as "Sister Kirtley," after the inflexible Methodist fashion of that day, but his friendliness went no further. She was piqued at this, and set herself to be attractive, but Mark was in no mood to be attracted. To dally with the belle of Rocky Fork at a hoedown on Rocky Fork was easy enough ; to have her obtrusive beauty thrust upon him, in his own office in Luzerne, when he had a brand new license to preach in his pocket, a mission to Texas in his mind and a fresh and most religious betrothal to a saint like Roxy Adams in his heart, was quite another thing. Besides he momently expected the advent of his father. What would the cynical old atheist say or do if he should find his pious son in such company ? In his eager desire to be rid of her he was almost rude.
Entered after a while Bonamy the elder, who affected not to see the girl and who immediately absorbed himself in writing. But Nancy's observing vanity had detected the furtive glance with which the surprised senior had taken her in. She noted also the increased constraint of Mark, who now answered her in curt, half-defiant mono syllables.
Seeing that she was gaining nothing by blandishment she thought to try a little skillful intimidation. She began to feel for her handkerchief. But as a woman has but one pocket it often becomes a necessary and natural thing for her to remove the superimposed strata in order to reach those below. Nancy first pulled out the pocket Testament Mark had given her in a moment of effusive zeal.
"Do you know that?" she said. "Maybe you don't recollect. Folks forgits their country friends mighty easy. I pack this Testament around weth me all the time." She saw on Mark's face signs that the torture was working, and she was happy.
" I declar' ! ef I haint got this weth me too," and she fished out the watch seal. "I hadn't onghter keep that in my pocket. I wouldn't lose it fer money," and she held it up and looked at it. " When folks talks about your marryin' somebody they don't know't I've got this pnrty thing in my pocket, do they ? "
"Mark, " said Colonel Bonamy, who had now heard enough to guess at the state of the case, " take this over to the clerk's office," handing a paper. " See that it is fixed up all right. Don't hurry." The junior started off. "Take plenty of time and be careful," the old man called after him.
Mark had turned toward his father with his face aflame with mortification. But the old man spoke dryly as though he were particularly interested in the business intrusted to his son. The young man had no doubt that his father had some ulterior purpose in thus sending him away, but he was so glad to be rid of his position between the uncomfortable Nancy on one side and the uncomfortable parent on the other, that he was quite willing to take the risk of his father's adroit cross-questioning of the girl. He could not divine what was Colonel Bonamy's purpose, but he knew that all the information that Nancy could give would be extracted in the interest of that purpose. When he arrived at the county clerk's office and opened the carefully folded paper, only to find to his confusion that it was blank, he understood that he had been sent out of the office to remain away until Nancy should depart. He made a bundling excuse to the clerk for having brought a blank paper, but he drew a favorable augury from his father's action.
It was characteristic of the elder Bonamy that he did not begin to speak at once. He scratched a few lines with the pen, to put possible suspicions out of the mind of the witness, then began with commonplace remarks about her father and his local influence on Rocky Fork, proceeded with some very bold flatteries quite suited to the palate of the girl, who seriously began to debate, whether, failing the son, she should not try for the father. Then the old lawyer set her to talking about Mark ; drew from her first one and then another particular of the young man's conduct ; chuckled with her over her adroitness in capturing the watch-seal ; took her side in the whole matter, laughed at Mark's piety ; got out of her an account of the transfer of the estament to her ; led her off on an unsuspecting account ji her other numerous triumphs ; applauded her victory over McGowan ; got her to boast in detail of the arts she made use of in capturing her admirers ; drew out of her by piecemeal a statement of her motives in getting the Testament from Mark; and even, by espousing her side of the case, compelled an implied admission of her intent in coming to town at that time.
He had now given the fish all the line that seemed best It was time to reel in as he could. But while her complacent vanity was yet untouched by any suspicion of his purpose he made a vain endeavor to get possession of the Testament and watch-seal.
" No sir no sir-ee no-sir-ee, Bob ! " cried the girl with a you-don't-catch-me air. She did not for a moment doubt that she jould outwit any lawyer. She would show him !
" Oh, I only wanted to use it to plague Mark with. Yow see I'm determined to have my way with him."
But the girl was not at all sure that Colonel Bonamy's way was her way. She put the keepsakes back iu her pocket, and then gave the pocket a little pat with her hand, as though she said : " Leihim get them, if he can." This little dumb show did not escape Bonamy's quick observation, and he saw the hopelessness of trying to replevin the trinkets, only saying,
" You know what you're about, don't you ? " But he began cautiously to tighten the line. He ques tioned Nancy now in a harder tone, putting her conduct in a light not so favorable to herself. Seizing on points here and there, he grouped them so that they seemed ugly. Nancy became irritated and denied what she had said before. Then the lawyer, with a good-natured smile, that had just a tinge of something not so pleasant as a smile, pointed out the contradiction. It was vain that Nancy went into a passion the lawyer was quiet, and even friendly. He wished to help her out of some vague legal difficulty and shameful disgrace that he pretended to see in store for her. For the first time in her life afraid to give vent to her wrath, contending as she never had before, with a man who cared no more for her blandishments than he feared her temper, and who was as superior to her in craft as in knowledge, with pride and vanity wounded, and without power to avenge the injury, or certainty even that there was any injury to avenge, she found herself badgered and hemmed in on every side. The lawyer made her words seem something else than she meant. She was not very scrupulous about telling the truth, but Colonel Bonamy, without saying anything discourteous, made her appear a monstrous liar, by giving back her words in senses different from what she had intended. At last, in sheer despair and defeat, she rose to go, red with suppressed irritation, and biting her lips.
"Don't hurry," said the colonel. "Sit down. Mark will surely be here soon, and if he thinks as much of you as you seem to think he does, he'll be sorry to have you go while he is away. You say he is fond of you, and I suppose it is so, but you must not say one thing now and another after a while. Sit down."
Cowed by the steady, penetrating gaze of the old man's hard gray eyes, she sank back into the chair, to undergo again a process of mental and moral dissection, even more severe than that she had before experienced. Defeat is a thousand-fold worse to an overbearing person accustomed to triumph, than to another, and Nancy was by this time id a state of frenzy. She must break out in some desperate fashion, or die.
" Colonel Bonamy," she cried, getting to her feet, and looking now like a volcano in eruption. "What do you keep on axin an' axin sech questions fer? Confound yer lawyers' questions! You set me crazy, and make me out a liar in spite of myself. Go to thunder, I tell you, with yer blamed axin me this and axin me that. I'll do as I please, and say what I want to; you see if I don't, dog-on you ! "
" I would," said the colonel, chuckling. " If I was pretty like you, I'd do as I pleased, too." And after a pause, he added, in an audible aside, "if I went to penitentiary for it. Those trinkets of Mark's would do to begil suit against him in case, he don't marry you, and I don't believe he will. But then, there's all the rest that gave you things, let's see, McGowan, and Jackson, and Lumbkin, and Billings, and all of them. It might go awful hard with you, if it could be proved you were engaged to so many at once. That's more'n the law allows. You know there's a law against a girl being engaged to bo many at once. Let's see, how many was it all at once that you said ? McGowan, that's one, and Jackson is two, and "
" I'm agoin' ; blamed if I haint ! I don't want no moie jaw, lawyers or no lawyers. I'm one as can take keer of myself, anyhow ! "
" Well, I'm sorry you won't wait longer. Mark 'll be back -- "
But Nancy was already going out of the door, crying with vexation.
The colonel went after her. He wanted to say just one thing more, he told her. She stopped, and he held her by his awful gray eyes while he asked, severely :
" Did you say, or didn't you say, that Major Lathers was at your house the night you say you danced with Mark ? "
" Your axin questions ag'in, an' I wont stan' no more of yer axin, I tell you ! You may ax tell ye' re blind."
"You'd better answer that. Remember I know all about the^e things, now. You've told me yourself."
" No, you don't. I sha'n't tell you whether Lathers was there or not. You're just windin' me up and windin' me up, with yer axin. You may ax tell yer blind."
"Was Lathers at your house the night you say you danced with Mark ? You say so. I don't know whether it is so or not. You don't always tell the same story. It mayn't be true."
" I tell you it is true, youold you old "
" Well, what ? Speak right out. It'll do you good. I'm an old what ? "
But Nancy choked herself, and kept down her epithets, fearing something, she could not tell what.
" I was going to give you some good advice," proceeded Bonamy. " But it don't matter to me what becomes of you, if you talk that way. I don't believe now that Mark danced with you at all."
" You don't, hey ? You jest go right straight and ax Major Lathers. Didn't he try to keep Mark from dancin' with me? He'll tell you all about it."
" Oh, that's what I wanted to know whether Lathers was there or not. You've told me now."
"No, I haint, nuther."
" Why, how could Lathers tell me about Mark's dancing with you, and how could he try to keep Mark from dancing with you, if he was not there? But I won't tell Lathers," he added, as though in a half soliloquy, " for I don't want to get you into trouble. You know he's sheriff, and the sheriff takes up people. If I should tell him you were in town now . But you said he was there that night, didn't you ? "
"I haint agoin' to talk to you no more. You'll make me tell more'n I ever know'd, in spite of myself, with yer everlastin' talkin' an' talkin', an' axin an' axin. Go long with yer old "
But Nancy did not finish her sentence. Bonamy had cowed her so that she feared she knew not what of defeat and mortification if she should say another word, and she was utterly choked with vexation.
Colonel Bonamy had at least made sure that Nancy would carry no confidences to the ingenious sheriff. His vao-ue hints had excited an undefined fear in her ignorant mind, already cowed by the badgering and tormenting course of cross-questioning to which she had been subjected. The whole machinery of the law was incomprehensible bv her, and she was not sure but that Major Lathers, if He should come to know how many engaged lovers she had had at one time, might send the jury to arrest her, whereupon she would be in danger of being tried by a lot of lawyers and colonels, and then locked up by the judge.
She went back to Haz Kirtley's full of wrath, but all her ferocity was dammed up and turned back in a flood of bitterness upon herself. So entirely had the lawyer daunted her that she even feared to resort to her extreme revenge of an interview with Roxy. Roxy might triumph over her also, exulting in her own success. She sullenly put the saddle on old Bob and rode away up the hill, stopping at the top to shake her fist and threaten that she would yet come back and tell that good-for-nothing town girl something that would make her hate Mark Bonamy.