XXIII DOROTHY’S REBELLION

THE conversation reported in the last preceding chapter of this record, occurred on the evening before Edmonia Bannister’s letter was written. The letter, therefore, when Arthur received it at noon of the next day, supplemented and in some measure explained what Archer had said with respect to the peculiar inconvenience of a quarrel between Dr. Brent and Madison Peyton.

Yet it left him in greater bewilderment than ever concerning Dorothy’s case. That is why he mounted Gimlet and rode away to think.

He understood now why Madison Peyton so eagerly desired to become Dorothy’s guardian. That would have been merely to take charge of his own son’s future estate. But why should any such fate have been decreed for Dorothy under a pretence of concern for her welfare? What but wretchedness and cruel wrong could result from a marriage so ill assorted? Why should a girl of Dorothy’s superior kind have been expected to marry a young man for whom she could never feel anything but contempt? Why should her rare and glorious womanhood have been bartered away for any sort of gain? Why had her father sought to dispose of her as he might of a favorite riding horse or a cherished picture?

All these questions crowded upon Arthur’s mind, and he could find no answer to any of them. They made him the angrier on that account, and presently he muttered:

“At any rate this hideous wrong shall not be consummated. Whether I succeed in setting myself free, or fail in that purpose, I will prevent this thing. Whether I marry Dorothy myself or not, she shall never be married by any species of moral compulsion to this unworthy young puppy.”

Perhaps Doctor Brent’s disposition to call young Peyton by offensive names, was a symptom of his own condition of mind. But just at this point in his meditations a thought occurred which almost staggered him.

“What if Dr. South has left somewhere a written injunction to Dorothy to carry out his purpose? Would she not play the part of martyr to duty? Would she not, in misdirected loyalty, obey her dead father’s command, at whatever cost to herself?”

Arthur knew with how much of positive worship Dorothy regarded the memory of her father. He remembered how loyally she had accepted that father’s commands forbidding her to learn music or even to listen to it in any worthy form. He remembered with what unquestioning faith the girl had accepted his strange dictum about every woman’s need of a master, and how blindly she believed his teaching that every woman must be bad if she is left free. Would she not crown her loyalty to that dead father’s memory by making this final self-sacrifice, when she should learn of his command, as of course she must? In view of the extreme care and minute attention to detail with which Dr. South had arranged to hold his daughter’s fate in mortmain, there could be little doubt that he had somehow planned to have her informed of this his supreme desire, at some time selected by himself.

At this moment Arthur met the Branton carriage, bearing Edmonia and Dorothy.

“You are playing truant, Arthur,” called Edmonia. “You must go back to your sick people at once, for I’ve kidnapped your head nurse and I don’t mean to return her to you till six. She is to dine with me at Branton. So ride back to your duty at once, before Dick shall be seized with an inspiration to give somebody a dose of strychnine as a substitute for sweet spirits of nitre.”

“Oh, no, Edmonia,” broke in Dorothy, “we must drive back to the camp at once. Cousin Arthur needs his ride. You don’t know. I tell you he’s breaking down. Yes you are, Cousin Arthur, so you needn’t shake your head. That isn’t quite truthful in you. You work night and day, and lately you’ve had a dreadfully worn and tired look in your eyes. I’ve noticed it and all last night, when you had sent me away to sleep, I lay awake thinking about it.”

Edmonia smiled at this. Perhaps she recognized it as a symptom—in Dorothy. She only said in reply:

“Don’t worry about Arthur. I am worried only about you, and I’m going to take you to Branton. Am I not, Arthur?”

“I sincerely hope so,” he replied. “And there is not the slightest reason why you shouldn’t keep her for the night if you will. She is really not needed at the hospital till tomorrow. I’m honest and truthful when I say that, Dorothy. Dick and I can take care of everything till tomorrow, and I’ll see to it that Dick’s inspirations are restricted to poetry. So take her, Edmonia, and keep her till tomorrow. And don’t let her talk too much.”

“Oh, I’m going to take her. She is impolite enough not to want to go but she is much too young to have a will of her own—yet. As for Dick, he’s already in the throes. He is constructing a new ‘song ballad’ on the sorrowful fate of the turkey. It begins:

but it goes no further as yet because Dick can’t find any rhyme for ‘hopper’ except ‘copper’ and ‘proper’ and ‘stopper,’ which I suggested, and they don’t serve his turn. He came to me to ask if ‘gobblers’ would not do, but I discouraged that extreme of poetic license.”

“Edmonia,” said Dorothy as soon as the carriage had renewed its journey, “did you really think it impolite in me not to want to go with you?”

“No, you silly girl.”

“I’m glad of that. You see I think there is nothing so unkind as impoliteness. But really I think it is wrong for me to go. Why didn’t you take Cousin Arthur instead? You don’t know how badly he needs rest.”

Edmonia made no direct reply to this. Instead, she said presently:

“Arthur is one of the best men I know. Don’t you think so, Dorothy?”

“Oh, he’s altogether the best. I can’t think of anybody to compare him with—not even Washington. He’s a hero you know. I often read over again all the newspapers that told about what he did in Norfolk, and of course he’s just like that now. He never thinks of himself, but always of others. There never was any man like him in all the world. That’s why I can’t bear to think of going to Branton and leaving him alone when if I were at my post, he might get some of the sleep that he needs so much. Edmonia, I’m not going to Branton! Positively I can’t and I won’t. So if you don’t tell the driver to turn back, I’ll open the carriage door and jump out and walk back.”

Curiously enough Edmonia made no further resistance. Perhaps she had already accomplished the object she had had in view. At any rate she bade the driver turn about, and upon her arrival at the camp she offered Arthur no further explanation than he might infer from her telling him:

“I’ve brought back the kidnapped nurse. I couldn’t win her away from you even for a few hours. See that you reward her devotion with all possible good treatment.”

“You are too funny for anything, Edmonia,” said Dorothy as she stepped from the carriage. “As if Cousin Arthur could treat me in any but the best of ways!”

“Oh, I’m not so sure on that point. He’ll bear watching anyhow. He’s ‘essenteric’ as Dick said the other day in a brave but hopeless struggle with the word ‘eccentric.’ But I must go now or I shall be late for dinner, and I’m expecting some friends who care more than Dorothy does for my hospitality.”

“Oh, please, Edmonia—”

“Don’t mind me, child. I was only jesting. You are altogether good and sweet and lovable.”

She looked at Arthur significantly as she emphasized that last word.

The young man thereupon took Dorothy’s hands in his, looked her in the eyes, and said:

“Edmonia is right, dear. You are altogether good and sweet and lovable. But you ought to have taken some rest and recreation.”

“How could I, when I knew you needed me?”