A week before Christmas Mrs. William Holton gave a sleigh-ride and skating-party for a niece from Memphis, and Phil was invited. She mentioned the matter to her father, and asked him what she should do about it.
He had come back from Indianapolis in good spirits, and told her that the affairs of the traction company had been adjusted and that he hoped there would be no more trouble. He seemed infinitely relieved by the outcome, and his satisfaction expressed itself to her observing eyes in many ways. The confidence reposed in him by his old friend, the counsel of the Desbrosses Trust & Guaranty Company, had not only pleased him, but the success that had attended his efforts to adjust the traction company's difficulties without resorting to the courts had strengthened his waning self-confidence. He even appeared in a new suit of clothes, and with his beard cut shorter than he usually wore it,—changes that evoked the raillery in which Phil liked to indulge herself. He was promised the care of certain other Western interests of the Trust Company, and he had been offered a partnership in Indianapolis by one of the best lawyers in the state.
"Things are looking up, Phil. If another year had gone by in the old way, I should have been ready for the scrap heap. But I miss the cooking our poverty introduced me to; and I shan't have any more time for fooling with excursions into Picardy with the Gray Knight. By the way, I found some strange manuscript on my desk at the office to-day. If you've take up the literary life you'll have to be careful how you leave your vestigia in lawyers' offices. It was page eighteen of something that I took the liberty of reading, and I thirsted for more."
She had not told him about "The Dogs of Main Street," wishing to wait until she could put the magazine containing it into his hands. Under the stimulus of the acceptance of her sketch she had been scratching vigorously in her spare moments. Having begun with dogs she meditated an attack upon man, and the incriminating page she had left behind in her father's office was a part of a story she was writing based upon an incident that had occurred at a reunion of Captain Wilson's regiment that fall in Montgomery. A man who had been drummed out of the regiment for cowardice suddenly reappeared among his old comrades with an explanation that restored him to honored fellowship. Phil had elaborated the real incident as Captain Wilson described it, and invested it with the element of "suspense," which she had read somewhere was essential to the short story.
Phil was living just now in a state of exaltation. She began a notebook after the manner of Hawthorne's, and was astonished at the ease with which she filled its pages. Now that her interest was aroused she saw "material" everywhere. The high school had given her German and French, and having heard her father say that the French were the great masters of fiction, she addressed herself to Balzac and Hugo. The personalities of favorite contemporaneous writers interested her tremendously, and she sought old files of literary periodicals that she might inform herself as to their methods of work. She kept Lamb and Stevenson on the stand by her bed and read them religiously every night. There had never been any fun like this! Her enjoyment of this secret inner life was so satisfying that she wished no one might ever know of it. She wrote and rewrote sentences and paragraphs, thrust them away into the drawers of the long table in her room to mellow—she had got this phrase from Nan,—and then dug them out in despair that they seemed so lifeless. She planned no end of books and confidently set down titles for these unborn masterpieces. Nan and Rose marked the change in her. At times she sat with her chin in her hand staring into vacancy. The two women speculated about this and wondered whether her young soul was not in the throes of a first love affair.
Now that fortune smiled upon her father Phil's happiness marked new attitudes, with no cloud to darken the misty-blue horizons of her dreams. She meant to be very good to her father. And as to his marrying Nan, she was giving much time to plots for furthering their romance.
"Fred Holton was looking for you the other day. I suppose you haven't seen him."
"Yes; he came to Indianapolis and saw me at the hotel. I remember that he was at your party, but I don't recall how you got acquainted with him?"
Phil laughed.
"Oh, that last night we camped at Turkey Run I wandered off by myself and met him in the funniest fashion, over by the Holton barn. They were having a dance—Charlie and Ethel, and Fred was watching the revel from afar, and saw me dancing like an idiot round the corn-shocks. And I talked to him across the fence and watched the dance in the barn until you blew the horn. I didn't tell you about it because it seemed so silly—and then I thought you wouldn't like my striking up acquaintances with those people. But Fred is nice, I think."
"He seems to be a very earnest young person. He came to me on a business matter in a spirit that is to his credit."
Phil had decided, in view of Nan's unlooked-for arraignment, to give her father another chance to express himself as to her further social relations with the Holtons.
"Daddy dear, I want you to tell me honestly whether you have any feeling about those people," she said when they were established at the fireside for the evening. "Of course, you know that one's aunts were responsible for asking them to Amy's party; it wasn't Amy's doings; but if you want me to keep clear of them I'll do it. Please tell me the truth—just how you feel about it."
"Phil," said Kirkwood, meeting her eyes steadily, "those aunts of yours are silly women—with vain, foolish, absurd ideals. They didn't consult me about asking the Holtons because I'm a stupid old frump, and it didn't make any difference whether I'd like it or not. But I'm eternally grateful that they did it; and I'm glad that other man came back just as he did. For all those things showed me that the years have blotted out any feeling I had against them. I haven't a bit, Phil. Maybe I ought to have; but however that may be there's no bitterness in my soul. And I'm glad I've discovered that; it's a greater relief to me than I can describe."
His smile, the light touch he gave her hands, carried conviction. The discussion seemed to afford him relief.
"So far as the Holtons concern me, there's peace between our houses. It's perfectly easy for a man to shoot another who has done him a wrong; but it doesn't help any, for,"—and he smiled the smile that Phil loved in him—"for the man being dead can't know how much his enemy enjoys his taking off! Murder, as a fine art, Phil, falls short right there."
He had not mentioned her mother; and Phil wondered whether she too shared this amnesty. It was inconceivable that he should have forgiven the man if he still harbored hatred of the woman.
With a sudden impulse she rose and caught his face in her hands.
"Why don't you marry Nan, daddy?"
She saw the color deepen in his cheeks and a startled look came into his eyes.
"What madness is this, Phil?" he asked, with an effort at lightness.
"It means that I think it would be nice—nice for you and Nan and nice for me. I can see her here, sitting right there in that chair that she always sits in when she comes. I think it would be fun—lots of fun for her to be here all the time, so we wouldn't always be trailing over there."
He laughed; she felt that he was not sorry that she had spoken of Nan.
"Are we always trailing over there? I suppose they really are our best friends. But there is Rose, you know. Wouldn't she look just as much at home in her particular chair as Nan?"
"Well, Rose is fine, too, but Rose is different."
"Oh, you think there's a difference, do you?"
He picked up a book, turned over the leaves idly, and when he spoke again it was not of Nan.
"If you want to go to Mrs. Holton's party it's all right, Phil. I suppose most of the young people will be there."
"Yes; it's a large party."
"Then go and have a good time. And Phil—"
"Yes, daddy."
"Be careful what foolish notions you get into your head."
Mrs. William Holton undeniably did things with an air. It may have been an expression of her relief at having disposed of Jack Holton so quickly and effectively—he had vanished immediately after his interview with William in the bank—that her sleigh-ride and skating-party as originally planned grew into a function that well-nigh obscured Phil's "coming-out." It began with a buffet luncheon at home, followed by the ride countryward in half a dozen bob-sleds and sleighs of all descriptions. It was limited to the young people, and Phil found that all her friends were included. Ethel and Charles Holton had come over from Indianapolis to assist their aunt in her entertainment.
"Mighty nice to find you here!" said Charles to Phil as he stood beside her on the sidewalk waiting for their appointed "bob." "And you may be sure I'm glad to get a day off. I tell you this business life is a grind. It's what General Sherman said war is. I suppose your father told you what a time we've been having straightening out the traction tangle. Scandal—most outrageous lying—but that father of yours is a master negotiator. He ought to be in the diplomatic service."
He looked at her guardedly with a quick narrowing of the eyes.
"Oh, I suppose it wasn't really so serious," said Phil indifferently. "Father never brings business home with him and I only know that I don't like having him away so much."
"Yes," said Holton, "I don't doubt that you miss him. But Montgomery is getting gay. Over in Indianapolis there's more doing, of course, and bigger parties; but they don't have the good old home flavor. It's these informal gatherings of boys and girls who have known each other all their lives that count."
It was the brightest of winter days, with six inches of snow, and cold enough to set young blood tingling. They set off with a merry jingling of bells and drove through town to advertise their gayety before turning countryward. The destination was Turkey Run, that fantastic anomaly of the Hoosier landscape, where Montgomery did much of its picnicking.
A scout sent ahead the day before had chosen a stretch of ice where the creek broadened serenely after its bewilderingly tumultuous course through the gorge. There the ice was even and solid and the snow had been scraped away. In the defile, sheltered by its high rocky banks, bonfires were roaring. The party quickly divided itself into twos—why is it that parties always effect that subdivision with any sort of opportunity?—and the skaters were off.
Phil loved skating as she loved all sports that gave free play to her strong young limbs. The hero of the Thanksgiving football game had attached himself to her, but Phil, resenting his airs of proprietorship, deserted him after one turn.
As her blood warmed, her spirits rose. The exercise and the keen air sent her pulses bounding. It was among the realizations of her new inner life that physical exercise stimulated her mental processes. To-day lines, verses, couplets—her own or fragments of her reading—tumbled madly over each other in her head. No one ranged the ice more swiftly or daringly. She had put aside her coat and donned her sweater—not the old relic of the basketball team, but a new one from her fall outfit, which included also the prettiest of fur toques. The color was bright in her cheeks and the light shone in her eyes as she moved up and down the course with long, even strides or let herself fly at the boundaries, or turned in graceful curves. Skating was almost as much fun as swimming, and even better fun than paddling a canoe.
She kept free of companions for nearly an hour, taunting those who tried to intercept her, and racing away from several cavaliers who combined in an effort to corner her. Then having gained the heights of her imaginings, she was ready to be a social being once more.
Charles Holton, who had viewed her flights with admiration as he helped the timid and awkward tyros of the company, swung into step with her.
"It's wonderful how you do it? Please be kind to me a mere mortal!"
He caught her pace and they moved along together at ease. Her mood had changed and she let him talk all he liked and as he liked. They had met twice at parties since she had snubbed him at Amzi's the night of her presentation, and he had made it plain that he admired her. He contrasted advantageously with the young gentlemen of Montgomery. He was less afraid of being polite, or his politeness was less self-conscious and showed a higher polish. He had twice sent her roses and once a new novel, and these remembrances had not been without their effect. It was imaginable that his tolerance of the simple sociabilities of Montgomery was attributable to an interest in Phil, who dreamed a great deal these days; and there was space enough in the ivory tower of her fancy to enshrine lovers innumerable. Charles was a personable young man, impressionable and emotional, and not without imagination of his own. Her humor, and the healthy common-sense philosophy that flowered from it, were the girl's only protection from her own emotionalism and susceptibility. Even in the larger world of the capital there was no girl as pretty as Phil, Charles assured himself; she was not only agreeable to look at, but she piqued him by her indifference to his advances. His usual cajoleries only provoked retorts that left him blinking, not certain whether they were intended to humble him or to stimulate him to more daring efforts.
"You're the only girl in the bunch who skates as though she loved it. You do everything as though it was your last hour on earth and you meant to make the most of it. I like that. It's the way I feel about things myself. If I had your spirit I'd conquer the world."
"Well, the world is here to be conquered," said Phil. "What peak have you picked to plant your flag on?"
"Oh, I want money first—you've got to have it these days to do things with; and then I think I'd like power. I'd go in for politics—the governor's chair or the senate. If father hadn't died he could have got the governorship easy; he was entitled to it and it would have come along just in the course of things. What would you like to do best of all?"
"If I told you, you wouldn't believe it. I don't want a thing I haven't got—not a single thing. On a day like this everything is mine—that long piece of woods over there—black against the blue sky—and the creek underfoot—I couldn't ask for a single other thing!"
"But there must be a goal you want to reach—everybody has that."
"Oh, you're talking about to-morrow! and this is to-day. And sufficient unto the day is the joy thereof. If I ever told anybody what I mean to do to-morrow, it would be spoiled. I'm full of dark secrets that I never tell any one."
"But you might tell me—I'm the best possible person to tell secrets to."
"I can't be sure of that, when I hardly know you at all."
"That's mighty cruel, you know, when I feel as though I had known you always."
He tried to throw feeling into this, but the time and place and her vigorous strides over the ice did not encourage sentiment.
"You oughtn't to tell girls that you feel you have known them always. It isn't complimentary. You ought to express sorrow that they are so difficult to know and play the card that you hope by great humility and perseverance one day to know them. That is the line I should take if I were a man."
He laughed at this. There were undoubted fastnesses in her nature that were not easily attainable. She seemed to him amazingly mature in certain ways, and in others she was astonishingly childlike.
"They say you're a genius; that you're going to do wonderful things," he said.
"Who says it?" asked Phil practically, but not without interest.
"Oh, my aunt says it; she says other people say it."
"Well, my aunts haven't said it," remarked Phil. "According to them my only genius is for doing the wrong thing."
"We needn't any of us expect to be appreciated in our own families. That's always the way. You read a lot, don't you?"
"I like to read; but you can read a lot without being a genius. Geniuses don't have to read—they know it all without reading. So there's that."
"I'll wager you write, too;—confess now that you do!"
"Letters to my father when he's away from home—one every night. But he isn't away very much."
"But stories and things like that. Yes; don't deny it: you mean to be a writer! I'm sure you can succeed at that. Lots of women do; some of the best writers are women. You will write novels like—like—George Eliot."
Phil laughed her derision of the idea.
"She knew a lot; more than I could ever know if I studied all my life. But there's only one George Eliot; I'm hardly likely—just Phil Kirkwood in Montgomery, Indiana,—to be number two."
The direction of the talk was grateful to her. It was pleasant to feel the warmth of his interest in her new secret aims without having to acknowledge them. It was flattering that he surmised the line of her interests, and spoke of them so kindly and sympathetically.
"I try to do some reading all the time," he went on; "but a business man hasn't much chance. Still, I usually keep something worth while on the center table, and when I travel I carry some good book with me. I like pictures, too, and music; and those things you miss in a town like Montgomery."
"Well, Montgomery is interesting just the same," said Phil defensively. "The people are all so nice and folksy."
He hastened to disavow any intention of slurring the town. He should always feel that it was home, no matter how far he might wander. He explained, in the confidence that seemed to be establishing itself between them, that there was a remote possibility that he might return to Montgomery and go into the bank with his uncle, who needed assistance. It was desirable, he explained, to keep the management of the bank in the hands of the family.
"You know," he went on, "they printed outrageous stories about all of us in the 'Advertiser.' They were the meanest sort of lies, but I'd like you to know that we met the issue squarely. I've turned over to your father as trustee all the property they claimed we had come by dishonestly. The world will never know this, for your father shut up the newspapers—it was quite wonderful the way he managed it all;—and, of course, it doesn't make any difference what the world thinks. This was my affair, the honor of my family, and a matter of my own conscience."
Her knowledge of the traction muddle was sufficient to afford a background of plausibility for this highminded renunciation. There was something likable in Charles Holton. His volubility, which had prejudiced her against him in the beginning, seemed now to speak for a frankness that appealed to her. There was no reason for his telling her these things unless he cared for her good opinion; and it was not disagreeable to find that this man, who was ten years her senior and possessed of what struck her as an ample experience of life, should be at pains to entrench himself in her regard.
As she made no reply other than to meet his eyes in a look of sympathetic comprehension, he went on:—
"You won't mind my saying that we were all terribly cut up over Uncle Jack's coming back here; but I guess we've disposed of him. I don't think he's likely to trouble Montgomery very much. Uncle Will had it out with him the day after he showed up so disgracefully at your party; and, of course, Uncle Jack would never have done that if he had been himself. He went to Indianapolis and tried to make a lot of trouble for all of us, but that was where your father showed himself the fine man he is. I guess it isn't easy to put anything over on that father of yours; he's got the brains and character to meet any difficulty squarely."
Phil murmured her appreciation. They had paused in the middle of the course and were idly cutting figures, keeping within easy conversational range.
"Your initials are hard to do," said Holton, backing into line beside her and indicating the letters his skates had traced on the surface. The "P. K." was neatly done. Phil without comment etched a huge "C" and then cut an "H" within its long loop.
"Splendid! You are the best skater I ever saw! I'd like to cut that out and keep it in cold storage as a souvenir."
This did not please her so much as his references to her hidden ambitions, and seeing that she failed to respond, and fearing one of her taunts, he led the way toward the gorge. It was four o'clock, and already shadows were darkening the deep vale where most of the skaters had now gathered about the bonfires. Phil's popularity was attested by the tone in which the company greeted her. She sat down on a log and entered into their give-and-take light-heartedly, while Holton unfastened her skates. He had found her coat and thrown it round her shoulders. He was very thoughtful and attentive, and his interest in her had not gone unremarked.
"We were just wondering," said one of the girls, "whether anybody here was sport enough to scale that wall in the winter? We've saved that for you, Phil."
Phil lifted her head and scanned the steep slope. She had scaled it often; in fact one of her earliest remembered adventures had been an inglorious tumble into the creek as the reward of her temerity. That was in her sixth year when she had clambered up the cliff a few yards in pursuit of a chipmunk.
"I haven't done that for several moons; but I have done it, children. There wouldn't be any point in doing it, of course, if anybody else had done it—I mean to-day, with ice all over the side."
"You mustn't think of it, Phil," said Mrs. Holton, glancing up anxiously.
"I shan't think of it, Mrs. Holton, unless somebody says it can't be done. I'm not going to take a dare."
"Just for that," said Charles, "I'm going to do it myself."
"Better not tackle it," said one of the college boys, eyeing the cliff critically. "I've done it in summer, and it's hard enough then; but you can see how the ice and snow cover all the footholds. You'd have to do it with ropes the way they climb the Alps."
Holton looked at Phil as she sat huddled in her coat. It was in her eyes that she did not think he would attempt it, and he resented her lack of faith in his courage.
"I don't think," she remarked, helping herself to a sandwich, "that anybody's going to be cruel enough to make me do it."
"If I do it," said Holton, "no one else will ever have to try it again in winter. It will be like discovering the North Pole—there's nothing in it for the second man."
"You're not going to try it! Please don't!" cried Mrs. Holton. "If you got hurt it would spoil the party for everybody."
"Don't worry, Aunt Nellie. It's as easy as walking home."
He was already throwing off his overcoat, measuring the height and choosing a place for his ascent.
Amid a chorus of protests and taunts he began climbing rapidly. Phil rose and watched him with sophisticated eyes as he began mounting. She saw at once that he had chosen the least fortunate place in the whole face of the declivity for an ascent. There were two or three faintly scratched paths, by which the adventurous sometimes struggled to the top, and she had herself experimented with all of them; but Holton had essayed the most precipitous and hazardous point for his attempt.
At the start he sprang agilely up the limestone which for a distance thrust out rough shelves with ladder-like regularity; and when this failed, he caught at the wild tangle of frozen shrubbery and clutched the saplings that had hopefully taken root wherever patches of earth gave the slightest promise of succor. As his difficulties increased a hush fell upon the spectators.
He accomplished half the ascent, and paused to rest, clinging with one hand to a slender maple. He turned and waved his cap, and was greeted with a cheer.
"Better let it go at that!" called one of the young men. "Come on back."
Charles flung down a contemptuous answer and addressed himself to the more difficult task beyond. Particles of ice and frozen earth detached by his upward scramble clattered down noisily. Withered leaves, shaken free from niches where the winds had gathered them, showered fitfully into the valley. He began drawing himself along by shrubs and young trees that covered a long outward curve in the face of the cliff. Those below heard the crackle of frozen twigs, and the swish of released boughs that marked his progress. Phil stood watching him with an absorbed interest in which fear became dominant. Better than the others Phil knew the perils of the cliff, the scant footholds offered by even the least formidable points in the rough surface.
He was rounding the bulging crag with its sparse vegetation when, as he seemed to have cleared it safely, a sapling that he had grasped for a moment yielded, and he tumbled backward.
Those below could see his frantic struggles to check his descent as his body shot downward with lightning-like swiftness. A short clump of bushes caught and held him for an instant, then gave way, and they saw him struggling for another hold. Then a shelf of rock caught him. He lay flat for a moment afraid to move, and those below could not see him. Then he sat up and waved his cap, and shouted that he was safe.
The awe-struck crowd hardly knew what Phil was doing until she had crossed the ice and begun to climb. While Charles was still crashing downward, she had run to a favorable point her quick eyes had marked and was climbing up a well-remembered trail. The snow and ice had increased its hazards, and an ominous crackling and snapping of twigs attended her flight.
"Come back! Come back!" they called to her. Half a dozen young men plunged after her; but already well advanced, she cried to them not to follow.
"Tell him to stay where he is," she called; and was again nimbly creeping upward. There was no way to arrest or help her, and she had clearly set forth with a definite purpose and could not be brought back. Cries of horror marked every sound as her white sweater became the target of anxious eyes.
The white sweater paused, hung for tremulous instants, was lost and discernible again. A frozen clod, loosened as she clutched at the projecting roots of a young beech, ricocheted behind her. Her course, paralleling that taken by Holton, was about ten yards to the left of it. To those below it seemed that her ascent was only doubling the hour's peril. Charles, perched on the rock that had seemingly flung out its arm to save him, was measuring his chances of escape without knowing that Phil was climbing toward him.
As she drew nearer he heard the sounds of her ascent, and peering over saw the sweater dangling like a white ball from the cliff-side.
"Go down, Phil! You can't make it; nobody can do it! Tell the boys to get a rope," he shouted. "Please go back!"
Already messengers had run for assistance, but the little cañon in its pocket-like isolation was so shut in that it was a mile to the nearest house.
Along the tiny thread of a trail, transformed by sleet and snow until it was scarcely recognizable, Phil pressed on steadily. Charles, seeing that she would not go back, ceased his entreaties, fearing to confuse or alarm her. Her hands caught strong boughs with certainty; the tiny twigs slapped her face spitefully. Here and there she flung herself flat against the rocky surface and crept guardedly; then she was up dancing from one vantage-point to another, until finally she paused, clinging to a sapling slightly above Holton. When she had got her breath she called an "All right!" that echoed and reëchoed through the valley.
"You thought you could do it, didn't you?" she said mockingly; "and now I've had to spoil my clothes to get you off that shelf."
"For God's sake, stay where you are! There's nothing you can do for me. The boys have gone round to bring a rope, and until they come you must stay right there!"
Phil, still panting, laughed derisively.
"You're perfectly ridiculous—pinned to a rock like Prometheus—Simeon on his pillar! But it wouldn't be dignified for you to let the boys haul you up by a rope. You'd never live that down. They'll be years getting a rope; and it would be far from comfortable to sit there all night."
While she chaffed she was measuring distances and calculating chances. The shelf which had caught him was the broader part of a long edge of outcrop. Phil beat among the bushes to determine how much was exposed, but the ledge was too narrow for a foothold.
"Please stop there and don't move!" Holton pleaded. "If you break your neck, I'd never forgive myself, and I'd never be forgiven."
Phil laughed her scorn of his fears and began creeping upward again. The situation appealed to her both by reason of its danger and its humor; there was nothing funnier than the idea of Charlie Holton immured on a rock, waiting to be hauled up from the top of the cliff. She meant to extricate him from his difficulties: she had set herself the task; it was like a dare. Her quick eyes searching the rough slope noted a tree between her and the shelf where Holton clung, watching her and continuing his entreaties not to heed him, but to look out for her own safety. Its roots were well planted in an earthy cleft and its substantial air inspired confidence. It had been off the line of his precipitous descent and he had already tried to reach it; but in the cautious tiptoeing to which his efforts were limited by the slight margin of safety afforded by the rock he could not touch it.
"If I swing down from that tree and reach as far as I can, you ought to be able to catch my hand; and if you can I'll pull, and you can make your feet walk pitty-pat up the side."
Her face, aglow from the climb, hung just above him. She had thrown off her hat when she began the ascent and her hair was in disorder. Her eyes were bright with excitement and fun. It was immensely to her liking—this situation: her blood sang with the joy of it. She addressed him with mocking composure.
"It's so easy it isn't right to take the money."
He protested that it was a foolish risk when he would certainly be rescued in a short time.