The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage. MacGowan Alice
But go now, honey, won't you – please? Oh, Lance! They'll be coming home any minute now. If they was to find you here. Lance – Won't you go now, please, honey? Lance, darlin', please. I'll do just like you say – next week – any time, Lance. Only go now."
There was no sense of denying, or drawing herself back, in Callista's utterance. It was only the pleading of maiden terror. When Lance acquiesced, when he crushed her to him in farewell, her arms went round him once more, almost convulsively; with an equal ardor, her lips met the fierce, dominating kiss of his.
He got down from the window, his head whirling. Mechanically he found his banjo, flung the ribbon over his neck and turned the instrument around so that it hung across his shoulders. Thus, and with his hat again tucked under his arm, without ever looking back toward the house, he walked swiftly and unsteadily away, once more through the young chestnut wood, with its dapplings of shadow and moonlight. He dipped into the hollow where the spring branch talked to itself all night long in the silence and the darkness under the twisted laurel and rhododendrons; once more he stood on the little tonsured hill above the church. The lights were out; they had all gone home.
Below him was spread his world; the practised eye of this free night rover could have located every farm and cabin, as it all lay swimming in this wonderful, bewitched half-light. Those were his kindred and his people; but he had always been a lonely soul among them. The outposts of levity which he had set about the citadel of his heart had never been passed by any. Tonight, with an upheaval like birth or death, he had broken down the barriers and swept another soul in beside him; close – close. He would never be alone again – never again. There would always be Callista. In the intoxication, the ravishment of the moment, he made no reckoning with the Callista he had heretofore known, the Lance that had been; they should be always as now on this night of magic.
CHAPTER V.
THE ASKING
ON the comb of a tall ridge back of the Cleaverage place, Ola Derf caught up with Lance at last.
"I got to set down awhile till I can ketch my breath," the girl said jerkily. "I reckon I run half a mile hollerin' yo' name every step. Lance Cleaverage – and you never turned yo' head. I believe in my soul you heared me the first time I called."
Cleaverage did not take the trouble to affirm or deny. He flung himself back on the fern and pine needles with his hat over his face, and remarking, "Wake me up when you get your breath," affected to go to sleep. Ola Derf was as comfortable a companion as a dog, in that you could talk to her or let her alone, as the humor ran.
A cicada's whir overhead swelled to a pulsating screech and died away. The woods here opened into calm and lofty spaces which at a little distance began to be dimmed as with vaporized sapphire – the blue that melted the hills into the sky. His eyes were caught by an indigo-bird in the branches – a drop of color apparently precipitated by this marvel of azure held in solution by the summer air.
It was the morning after Lance had sung to Callista under her window, and his mind was yet swimming in dreams of her. He was roused from these by Ola's voice.
"Lance," she began and broke off. "Oh, Lance, I want to talk to you about – about – " Again her voice lapsed. She could see nothing of his face. His chest rose and fell rhythmically. "Lance – air you asleep?"
"Huh-uh. But if you keep on talkin' right good maybe I'll get to sleep."
She paid no attention to the snub, but addressed herself once more to what seemed a difficult bit of conversational tactics.
"Lance," came the plaint for the third time, "I wanted to name Callista Gentry to you. I – I – that thar gal don't care the rappin' o' her finger about you, nor any man."
Cleaverage, with the memory of last night warm at his heart, smiled under his hat brim and made no answer, save a little derisive sound which might have meant denial, indifference, or mere good-humored contempt of Ola herself.
"Oh, yes, I know," Ola nodded to her own thought, "they's a heap of 'em lets on not to like the boys; but with Callista Gentry hit goes to the bone. She don't care for nary soul in this round world but her own pretty self. She 'minds me of a snake – a white snake, if ever there was such a thing. You look at her. You ain't never seen her change color, whatever came or went."
The picture evoked of Callista's flushed, tender face lying upon his breast made the pulses of the man on the warm pine needles leap.
"Well," he prompted finally, "what's the trouble? Are you a true friend, that doesn't want me to get snake bit?"
Ola laughed out a short laugh.
"No," she said, drearily, "I'm just a fool that's got yo' good at heart, and don't like to see you get a wife that cares nothin' for you. Thar – I've said my say. Thar's no love in her, and thar's no heart in her. But if a pretty face and high and mighty ways is what takes you, of course you can follow yo' ruthers."
"Uh-huh," agreed Lance, pushing his hat back and sitting up. He cast a laughing, sidelong glance in her direction. "Ola," he said softly, "I'm a goin' to let you into a secret. The gals has pestered me all my life long with too much lovin', and my great reason for bein' willin' to have Callista Gentry is that she seems like you say, sorter offish."
To his intense surprise (he had been wont to jest much more hardily with her than this), Ola's face flushed suddenly a dark, burning red. She jumped to her feet like a boy.
"All right," she said in a throaty tone, her countenance turned away from him. "If that's so, I'm sorry I spoke. Tell Miz. Cleaverage all about it – and all about me and the other gals that run after you so turrible. I don't care."
But half way down the ridge her swift, angry, steps began to lag, and a little further on Lance overtook her.
"They's a-goin' to be a dance at our house a-Wednesday," she said in a penitent voice. "You're a-comin', ain't you, Lance?"
"Nope," returned the invited guest briefly.
He volunteered no excuse or explanation; and so, when the parting of their ways was reached, she demanded with imploring eyes on his face,
"Ye ain't mad with me, air ye. Lance? Why won't you come to my party?"
"Got somethin' else to do," Cleaverage returned nonchalantly. "Callista and me is goin' to be married a-Wednesday night."
Ola fell back a step, and clutched the sunbonnet which she carried rolled in her hands.
"You're a – w'y, Lance – you're jest a foolin'," she faltered.
Lance shook his head lightly, without a word.
"But – why, I was over at Gentry's this morning," she exclaimed finally. "Nobody thar said anything about it." She still watched his face incredulously. "They shorely would have said somethin', if Callista had named the day."
"She never named it," said Lance easily. "I named it myself, back there on the ridge whilst you was catchin' your breath – or wastin' it. We had allowed that a week from yesterday would do us, but it sort of come over me that Wednesday was the right time, and I'm goin' along by there right now to settle it all. Reckon if you folks are givin' a dance you won't heed a invite? Good-bye," and he turned away on his own trail.
Swift, unsmiling, preoccupied as a wild thing on its foreordained errand – the hart to the spring, the homing bird – Cleaverage made his way to the Gentry place. Callista felt him coming before he turned into the big road; she saw him while yet the leafage of the door maples would have confused any view less keen. She longed to flee. Then in a blissful tremor she could do nothing but remain. Octavia Gentry, carrying hanks of carpet chain to the dye-pot in the yard, caught sight of him and called out a greeting.
"Is Mr. Gentry about the place?" Lance asked her, as he lingered a moment with Callista's eyes on him from the doorway.
"Yes, Pappy's makin' ready to go down to the Settlement, and he ain't been to the field to-day. He's in the house somewhar's. Did you want to see him special, Lance?"
Cleaverage made no direct reply; and the widow added,
"Thar he is, right now," as Ajax Gentry stepped out into the open passage with a bit of