Roxy

29. The Infare

There could be no wedding in a Hoosier village thirty or forty years ago without an infare on the following day. In those days the faring into the house of the bridegroom's parents was observed with great rejoicing. At an earlier stage of the village's history the little brass cannon was fired in honor of weddings and almost the whole town kept holiday. On the day after Roxy's wedding Colonel Bonamy made a great infare as became a great man like himself. It was preceded by a week of cooking and baking. On the day of the infare, " Uncle Billy," a skillful old negro, was imported from Kentucky to roast the pig which hung suspended by a wire in front of the wide kitchen fire-place, while Billy turned it round and round, basting it from time to time. For roast-pig lit a wedding feast was the symbol of aristocracy, a Bonamy might lose his soul, but he could not be married without a pig.

Everybody who could be considered at all invitable was there. The Boones and Haz Kirtley's family and the fishermen's families and the poor-whiteys generally were left out, but everybody who was anybody was there. Not only from town but from the country and even from the Kentucky shore guests were brought. Neither age noi 6ex was respected. Old Mother Tartrum was there en gaged in her diligent search after knowledge. She was in herself a whole Society for the Collection and Diffusion of Useless Information. She also collected various titbits of cake off the supper-table which she wrapped in her red silk handkerchief and deposited in her pocket. She was a sort of animated Dictionary of Universal Biography for the town, able to tell a hundred unimportant incidents in the life of any person in the place, and that without being consulted.

"Whittaker had sunk into a helpless despondency as the time of Roxy's marriage approached, and he could not bring himself to be present at the wedding. But fearing unfriendly remark he had brought his courage to the point of attending the infare. He came late, however, and the house and ground were already filled with guests. He walked up between the long row of Lombardy poplars, looking at the brightly illuminated house of the Bonamys, which, lying on the outskirts of the town, combined in itself something of the spruceness of the town-honse with the isolation of a farm-house. The house was a squarish brick one, the walks were of gravel. There was a lawn of greensward on either hand with a vineyard and lields of tasseled corn in the moonlit background. People were ail about him as he approached the house, and many greeted him as he passed. But Whittaker wae a man marching in his own funeral procession. Despite his utmost exertion to address Mark and Roxy with cheerfulness, there was that in his face which caused Mark to say to Roxy as he turned away :

" What a serous looking man he is ! "

And his seriousness had something infectious ahout it, for Roxy did not recover a bridal cheerfulness fo. sometime afterward.

Out of respect for Mark's and Roxy's scruples, and, too for Mark's semi-clerical position as a " local " or lay preacher oq his way to a farther promotion into the "traveling" ministry, there was no dancing. The company promenaded in the halls and up and down the gravel walks between the Lombardy poplars, and among the sprucely trimmed pyramidal cedars that stood about the house.

Something in Whittaker's gloomy mood made him averse to the throng of merry people, the more that, on account of the rumors which had circulated about his attachment to Iioxy, he was closely watched. About ten o'clock Mother Tartrum met him and put him through his catechism with vigor. Had he ever been engaged to Roxy ? He might tell an old woman like herself, in confidence ! How was it broken off ? Was it he that withdrew, or did Roxy refuse him ? Had Mr. Highbur} given him a piece of his mind ? Wasn't he feeling rathei bad tonight ?

To all of these questions the minister flatly refused to reply, and at last brusquely walked away, turning into an unfrequented path bordered by privet hedge. This led him to the garden, into which he entered by a gate through a paling fence. He went down under the grapearbor that stood, according to the unvarying fashion of the country, in the middle of the garden. Walking quietly and meditatively, he came to the other side of the garden, where he turned and saw full before him the brilliantly lighted house, and the company moving up and down the walks and through the rooms. He could plainly see the figure of Roxy, as she stood by her husband, cheerful now and diffusing light on all about her. Maik, for his part, was always cheerful ; theie was net a vein oi austerity in his composition. He was too hopeful to fear for the future, and too buoyantly happy and cc mplacent to be disturbed by anything. Certainly he wls a finelooking man, standing there in the light of a multitude of cand.es, and entering with his limitless heartiness into the nerriment of the throng about him, giving back banter for banter with the quick sallies of the racy humor of the country. But there was something about this popular young fellow, carrying all before him, which gave Whittaker a sense of foreboding. Does a rejected lover ever think that the woman has done quite so well for her own interest as she might ?

Fast by Roxj' stood Twonnet. There was a sort of separation of feeling between them now ; but Roxy was soon to go away, and Twonnet determined to stand by her to the last. If she had looked upon the marriage as the town saw it, as an ascent for Roxy, she would have chosen to be elsewhere ; but because Roxy had not done as well as she might, Twonnet stood by her with a chivalrous faithfulness. Whittaker, in his mood of unreason, took Twonnet's fidelity to Roxy in umbrage, as a sort of desertion of himself. It is so hard for us to understand why our friends do not feel our wrongs so poignantly as we do.

Whittaker could not help wondering what Adams was thinking of, as he stood defiantly against the wall, grasping the lappel of his coat, as though he would hold firmly to his propriety by this means.

The minister had stood thus more than a miuute, when the company were summoned to supper. The table was spread on the porch which ran along the side of the L of the house, in full view from his stand-point. He could see the fine-looking bridegroom lead the procession to the table, and all the company following. He thought that he ought to) return to the house, lest his absence should b observed.

But just as he was about to make a languid movement in the direction of the supper, he heard a stealthy tread on the outside of the vine-covered garden fence. He listened until the person walking along the fence had passed i few feet further on. A cluster of lilac-bushes intervened between him and the position of the new-comer ; but he could hear a suppressed voice, as of a woman in soliloquy :

" That's her, shore as shootin'. She aint purty, neither, nor never was. I'll pay her up ! See ef I don't. She thinks she's got him now. An' all that finery and flummery. I ort to be there at that table. Folks would see somebody ef I was there. But she's ornery, ornery as git out. I kin git him away from her ef I ever git half a chance. They'd better go to Texas purty shortly, ef she knows what's good fer her. I'll show her. Saltpeter wont save 'em ef they stay here." Then, after a long pause ; " She'll wish she was dead afore I'm done. Let her larn to steal my beau. Ef she packs him off to Texas, I'll f oiler, sure. An' I'll pay her up, or my name haint Nancy Kirtley."

To Whittaker the whole speech was evidently the thinking aloud of an ignorant person full of suppressed passion. The tone frightened him, and he moved cautiously so as to get a view of the speaker. Her hair was pushed back from her low forehead in a disheveled fashion, and even in the moonlight he could see the line eyes and the large, regular features, and could feel a certain impression of the great animal beauty of the woman standing there, not ten feet from him, with fists clenched hard ; and a look of ferocity on her countenance that he had never seen on human face before. She reminded him of nothing so much as of an old steelplate print he had seen of Judith with the bloody head of Holofernes. Having no knowledge of Nancy, Whittaker did not understand the meaning of her words ; but he could make out that some evil was intended to Roxy.

His first impulse was to call Colonel Bonamy. Then in his confused thought came a pity for the poor girl torn thus by her evil passions, and a sense of his duty to her ; he would go and try to exorcise the demon.

Nancy had come to town resolved to prevent Mark's marriage at any cost. She would show the watch-seal and the Testament to Roxy, and thus awaken her jealousy if she could. She would even threaten Mark with exposure of some sort, or with slanderous charges. She would not be outwitted by the old man any more, she would go to jail, if she had to go to jail ; but she would have her revenue. Great was her chagrin at finding the wedding already past and the infare set down for that very evening. There was nothing left for her but to fume and threaten retribution. Her rage had brought her here, envy and malice are devils that drive possessed souk into the contemplation of that which aggravates their madness.

Nancy st od thus in this torturing perdition of Tantalus, maddened by seeing the pomp into which another poor girl had come instead of herself, maddened by the very sight of happy faces and the sound of merry voices, while she was in the outer darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. She stood there with her list shut up and her face distorted by wrath as a lost soul might curse the far-away heaven when she heard from the bushes behind her the voice of Whittaker.

" What is the matter with you, my friend? " He had almost said Judith, so much was his imagination im pressed by the resemblance of the swarthy beauty to the picture of that magnificent Hebrew assassin.

When he spoke Nancy gave a sudden start, not of timidity, but of wrath as a wild beast might start at an interruption when about to spring upon the prey.

" What do you want with me ? " she muttered in sullen fierceness.

Whittaker drew a little nearer with a shudder.

" Only to help you if I can. What can I do for you ? "

" Nothing, I reckon, unless you kill that woman."

" What woman ? "

" That Adams girl that's gone and married Mark Bonamy."

" What should I kill her for ? "

" Bekase I hate the sights of her.

" What harm has she done ? "

" She stole my bean. Do you know that I had ort by rights to stand there at that there table by Mark Bonamy, and that mean, hateful huzzy's scronged into my place confound her! Now then, anybody that meddles with Nance Kirtley is sorry fer it afore they're done. Ef Mark and the old man and that ugly, good-fer-nothing', prayin', shoutin' Roxy Adams don't wesh they'd never hearn tell of me, then I'm a fool. You jest let anybody cross my path onst ef they want to be sorry fer it."

"Don't you know that y'ou oughtn't to talk that way? Roxy didn't do you any harm. You hadn't any right to Mark because you loved him."

" Stranger, looky there that's his Testament. He gin me that weth his own hands. There ! that's his watch seal. Pulled it off and gin it to me. Now, what made him leave me and go to that homely, lantern-jawed, slab sided thing of a shoe-maker's gal ? Hey ? She done t. That's what she was up to weth her prayin' and talkn' and singin'. I'll pay her up yet. See ef I don't."

At sight of these ocular proofs of Mark's attachment to Nancy, Whittaker was silent a moment.

" Does Roxy know anything about these things ? " he said after a while.

" In course not."

" What do you hate he?' for ? "

" What fer ? Thunder and blazes ! Jes look at the blamed, stuck-up, good-fer-nothin' thing there ! She's gol my place why shouldn't I hate her? Ah-h-h you ugh-h-h, you ugly old thing you I'll make you cry nuff afore I'm done weth you." And Nancy shook her list in the direction of Roxy.

" You oughtn't to talk in that way. Don't you know there's a God ? "

" God or no God, I'm agoin' to git even weth Mark Bonaniy and that hateful wife of his'n. Why didn't he ax me to his infare ? Hey ? Comes to my house and dances with me the livelong night. Gives me presents and talks as sweet as sugar-water.* Then he marries old Tom Adams's girl and don't ax me to the party, nur nothin'. I'll pay him back one of these yer days."

Seeing that further remonstrance was of no use Whittaker went down the walk to the house. Colonel Bonamy met him.

" Why, where have you been ? We looked for you to say grace," said the old man.

" Colonel Bonamy, there's an infuriated young woman standing behind the bushes down at the other end of the garden. She is mad about something, and I'm afraid sltt means some violence to Roxy."

" Oh yes, I guess I can tell who she is. She's a maniao after Mark. I'll go and see her."

And while Whittaker went in to supper with melancholy suspicions of Mark, the colonel walked swiftly round the outside of the garden and came up behind Nancy.

" Well, what's all this about ? "

" You old brute, you," said Nancy ; " why didn't you give me an invite ? I'll pay you all back yet, see if I don't ! "

" Don't talk so loud. The sheriff might hear you. He's in the house."

" Call him out here if you want to, you blasted fool," said the girl, now fully roused, and not fearing any danger that looked her fair in the face.

The colonel saw that he must take another tack.

" Oh no ! I won't call him. Only be quiet, and come in and get some supper. I want to ask you some more questions about the things we talked about the other day.' :

" No, you don't. You don't ax me nothin'. You want to wind me up and tangle me up, tell I don't know my own name. No more of yer axin' fer me."

" You've got a seal of my son's ? "

" Yes, I have."

" Did anybody see him give you that seal? "

" No, they didn't."

" You are sure ? "

" Yes."

" Did he give it to you ? "

" In course he did. How else did I get it I n

" You could steal it, couldn't you ? "

" You -- you -- you durn't say I'm a thief ! "

'"Did you say that you stole it ?"

" No, I didn't ! You know I didn't, blast you !

" You said nobody saw him give it to you, and I didn't say you stole it. But you just as good as say you did by getting so mad."

" You lie ! "

" He was on his horse when you got it from him, wasn't he?"

" None of your axin, I tell you."

" There 'tis again. You know you stole it, or you wouldn't be afraid to answer."

" You lie! He give it to me when he was a-settin' on his horse, in front of our house."

" And your father didn't see him ? "

" No, he didn't."

" Nor your mother ? "

" No."

" Nor nobody ? "

" No."

" You got it from him when he was on his horse? "

" Yes."

" How did it come off his chain ? "

" He unhooked it."

" You unhooked it, you said the other day. Now tell me the truth."

" Well, he let me." The girl began to quail under the steady fire of questions.

" You say you got it from him. What's that but stealing ? "

" He give it to me."

" You unhooked it."

" Go 'way with your axin."

And the girl started to move off.

" Hold on. I'm not done yet."

" Yes, yon air, too. I wont have no more of your fool axin. I'm agoin'."

" Stop ! I say. You're on my ground, and I'll call the sheriff, if you don't stop."

" Call him ef you want to, an' go to thunder with you both ? " And with this she went sullenly off, the colonel affecting to detain her. Nancy was afraid of nothing in the world so much as of his fire of questions, and the irrita tion and mortification sure to ensue from the confusion into which he would lead her.

The terror which the questions inspired, added to the reaction from her burst of passion, served to give her a general sense of fear, that drove her away into the darkness, though she muttered defiance as she slowly retreated into the corn-field.

" They'll be sorry they ever crossed my path," were the last ominous words the colonel heard from her, as he lost sight of her among the tall maize.