Summer, Edith Wharton [urban books to read .TXT] 📗

no right to talk to me. I can do what I please.”

“Yes. What is it you mean to do?”

“I needn’t answer that, or anything else.”

He had glanced away, and stood looking curiously about the illuminated room. Purple asters and red maple-leaves filled the jar on the table; on a shelf against the wall stood a lamp, the kettle, a little pile of cups and saucers. The canvas chairs were grouped about the table.

“So this is where you meet,” he said.

His tone was quiet and controlled, and the fact disconcerted her. She had been ready to give him violence for violence, but this calm acceptance of things as they were left her without a weapon.

“See here, Charity⁠—you’re always telling me I’ve got no rights over you. There might be two ways of looking at that⁠—but I ain’t going to argue it. All I know is I raised you as good as I could, and meant fairly by you always except once, for a bad half-hour. There’s no justice in weighing that half-hour against the rest, and you know it. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have gone on living under my roof. Seems to me the fact of your doing that gives me some sort of a right; the right to try and keep you out of trouble. I’m not asking you to consider any other.”

She listened in silence, and then gave a slight laugh. “Better wait till I’m in trouble,” she said.

He paused a moment, as if weighing her words. “Is that all your answer?”

“Yes, that’s all.”

“Well⁠—I’ll wait.”

He turned away slowly, but as he did so the thing she had been waiting for happened; the door opened again and Harney entered.

He stopped short with a face of astonishment, and then, quickly controlling himself, went up to Mr. Royall with a frank look.

“Have you come to see me, sir?” he said coolly, throwing his cap on the table with an air of proprietorship.

Mr. Royall again looked slowly about the room; then his eyes turned to the young man.

“Is this your house?” he inquired.

Harney laughed: “Well⁠—as much as it’s anybody’s. I come here to sketch occasionally.”

“And to receive Miss Royall’s visits?”

“When she does me the honour⁠—”

“Is this the home you propose to bring her to when you get married?”

There was an immense and oppressive silence. Charity, quivering with anger, started forward, and then stood silent, too humbled for speech. Harney’s eyes had dropped under the old man’s gaze; but he raised them presently, and looking steadily at Mr. Royall, said: “Miss Royall is not a child. Isn’t it rather absurd to talk of her as if she were? I believe she considers herself free to come and go as she pleases, without any questions from anyone.” He paused and added: “I’m ready to answer any she wishes to ask me.”

Mr. Royall turned to her. “Ask him when he’s going to marry you, then⁠—” There was another silence, and he laughed in his turn⁠—a broken laugh, with a scraping sound in it. “You darsn’t!” he shouted out with sudden passion. He went close up to Charity, his right arm lifted, not in menace but in tragic exhortation.

“You darsn’t, and you know it⁠—and you know why!” He swung back again upon the young man. “And you know why you ain’t asked her to marry you, and why you don’t mean to. It’s because you hadn’t need to; nor any other man either. I’m the only one that was fool enough not to know that; and I guess nobody’ll repeat my mistake⁠—not in Eagle County, anyhow. They all know what she is, and what she came from. They all know her mother was a woman of the town from Nettleton, that followed one of those Mountain fellows up to his place and lived there with him like a heathen. I saw her there sixteen years ago, when I went to bring this child down. I went to save her from the kind of life her mother was leading⁠—but I’d better have left her in the kennel she came from.⁠ ⁠…” He paused and stared darkly at the two young people, and out beyond them, at the menacing Mountain with its rim of fire; then he sat down beside the table on which they had so often spread their rustic supper, and covered his face with his hands. Harney leaned in the window, a frown on his face: he was twirling between his fingers a small package that dangled from a loop of string.⁠ ⁠… Charity heard Mr. Royall draw a hard breath or two, and his shoulders shook a little. Presently he stood up and walked across the room. He did not look again at the young people: they saw him feel his way to the door and fumble for the latch; and then he went out into the darkness.

After he had gone there was a long silence. Charity waited for Harney to speak; but he seemed at first not to find anything to say. At length he broke out irrelevantly: “I wonder how he found out?”

She made no answer and he tossed down the package he had been holding, and went up to her.

“I’m so sorry, dear⁠ ⁠… that this should have happened.⁠ ⁠…”

She threw her head back proudly. “I ain’t ever been sorry⁠—not a minute!”

“No.”

She waited to be caught into his arms, but he turned away from her irresolutely. The last glow was gone from behind the Mountain. Everything in the room had turned grey and indistinct, and an autumnal dampness crept up from the hollow below the orchard, laying its cold touch on their flushed faces. Harney walked the length of the room, and then turned back and sat down at the table.

“Come,” he said imperiously.

She sat down beside him, and he untied the string about the package and spread out a pile of sandwiches.

“I stole them from the love-feast at Hamblin,” he said with a laugh, pushing them over to her. She laughed too, and took one, and began to eat.

“Didn’t you make the tea?”

“No,” she said. “I forgot⁠—”

“Oh, well⁠—it’s too