Part Two - NINE

by Willa Cather

　　With the summer months Judge Pommeroy's health improved, and assoon as he was able to be back in his office, Niel began to plan toreturn to Boston. He would get there the first of August and wouldgo to work with a tutor to make up for the months he had lost. Itwas a melancholy time for him. He was in a fever of impatience tobe gone, and yet he felt that he was going away forever, and wasmaking the final break with everything that had been dear to him inhis boyhood. The people, the very country itself, were changing sofast that there would be nothing to come back to.

　　He had seen the end of an era, the sunset of the pioneer. He hadcome upon it when already its glory was nearly spent. So in thebuffalo times a traveller used to come upon the embers of ahunter's fire on the prairie, after the hunter was up and gone; thecoals would be trampled out, but the ground was warm, and theflattened grass where he had slept and where his pony had grazed,told the story.

　　This was the very end of the road-making West; the men who had putplains and mountains under the iron harness were old; some werepoor, and even the successful ones were hunting for rest and abrief reprieve from death. It was already gone, that age; nothingcould ever bring it back. The taste and smell and song of it, thevisions those men had seen in the air and followed,--these he hadcaught in a kind of afterglow in their own faces,--and this wouldalways be his.

　　It was what he most held against Mrs. Forrester; that she was notwilling to immolate herself, like the widow of all these great men,and die with the pioneer period to which she belonged; that shepreferred life on any terms. In the end, Niel went away withoutbidding her good-bye. He went away with weary contempt for her inhis heart.

　　It happened like this,--had scarcely the dignity of an episode. Itwas nothing, and yet it was everything. Going over to see her onesummer evening, he stopped a moment by the dining-room window tolook at the honeysuckle. The dining-room door was open into thekitchen, and there Mrs. Forrester stood at a table, making pastry.Ivy Peters came in at the kitchen door, walked up behind her, andunconcernedly put both arms around her, his hands meeting over herbreast. She did not move, did not look up, but went on rolling outpastry.

　　Niel went down the hill. "For the last time," he said, as hecrossed the bridge in the evening light, "for the last time." Andit was even so; he never went up the poplar-bordered road again.He had given her a year of his life, and she had thrown it away.He had helped the Captain to die peacefully, he believed; and nowit was the Captain who seemed the reality. All those years he hadthought it was Mrs. Forrester who made that house so different fromany other. But ever since the Captain's death it was a house whereold friends, like his uncle, were betrayed and cast off, wherecommon fellows behaved after their kind and knew a common womanwhen they saw her.

　　If he had not had the nature of a spaniel, he told himself, hewould never have gone back after the first time. It took two dosesto cure him. Well, he had had them! Nothing she could ever dowould in the least matter to him again.

　　He had news of her now and then, as long as his uncle lived. "Mrs.Forrester's name is everywhere coupled with Ivy Peters'," the Judgewrote. "She does not look happy, and I fear her health is failing,but she has put herself in such a position that her husband'sfriends cannot help her."

　　And again: "Of Mrs. Forrester, no news is good news. She is sadlybroken."

　　After his uncle's death, Niel heard that Ivy Peters had at lastbought the Forrester place, and had brought a wife from Wyoming tolive there. Mrs. Forrester had gone West,--people supposed toCalifornia.

　　It was years before Niel could think of her without chagrin. Buteventually, after she had drifted out of his ken, when he did notknow if Daniel Forrester's widow were living or dead, DanielForrester's wife returned to him, a bright, impersonal memory.

　　He came to be very glad that he had known her, and that she had hada hand in breaking him in to life. He has known pretty women andclever ones since then,--but never one like her, as she was in herbest days. Her eyes, when they laughed for a moment into one'sown, seemed to promise a wild delight that he has not found inlife. "I know where it is," they seemed to say, "I could showyou!" He would like to call up the shade of the young Mrs.Forrester, as the witch of Endor called up Samuel's, and challengeit, demand the secret of that ardour; ask her whether she hadreally found some ever-blooming, ever-burning, ever-piercing joy,or whether it was all fine play-acting. Probably she had found nomore than another; but she had always the power of suggestingthings much lovelier than herself, as the perfume of a singleflower may call up the whole sweetness of spring.

　　Niel was destined to hear once again of his long-lost lady. Oneevening as he was going into the dining-room of a Chicago hotel, abroad-shouldered man with an open, sunbrowned face, approached himand introduced himself as one of the boys who had grown up in SweetWater.

　　"I'm Ed Elliott, and I thought it must be you. Could we take atable together? I promised an old friend of yours to give you amessage, if I ever ran across you. You remember Mrs. Forrester?Well, I saw her again, twelve years after she left Sweet Water,--down in Buenos Ayres." They sat down and ordered dinner.

　　"Yes, I was in South America on business. I'm a mining engineer,I spent some time in Buenos Ayres. One evening there was a banquetof some sort at one of the big hotels, and I happened to step outof the bar, just as a car drove up to the entrance where the guestswere going in. I paid no attention until one of the ladieslaughed. I recognized her by her laugh,--that hadn't changed aparticle. She was all done up in furs, with a scarf over her head,but I saw her eyes, and then I was sure. I stepped up and spoke toher. She seemed glad to see me, made me go into the hotel, andtalked to me until her husband came to drag her away to the dinner.Oh, yes, she was married again,--to a rich, cranky old Englishman;Henry Collins was his name. He was born down there, she told me,but she met him in California. She told me they lived on a bigstock ranch and had come down in their car for this banquet. Imade inquiries afterward and found the old fellow was quite acharacter; had been married twice before, once to a Brazilianwoman. People said he was rich, but quarrelsome and rather stingy.She seemed to have everything, though. They travelled in a fineFrench car, and she had brought her maid along, and he had hisvalet. No, she hadn't changed as much as you'd think. She was agood deal made up, of course, like most of the women down there;plenty of powder, and a little red, too, I guess. Her hair wasblack, blacker than I remembered it; looked as if she dyed it. Sheinvited me to visit them on their estate, and so did the old man,when he came to get her. She asked about everybody, and said, 'Ifyou ever meet Niel Herbert, give him my love, and tell him I oftenthink of him.' She said again, 'Tell him things have turned outwell for me. Mr. Collins is the kindest of husbands.' I called atyour office in New York on my way back from South America, but youwere somewhere in Europe. It was remarkable, how she'd come upagain. She seemed pretty well gone to pieces before she left SweetWater."

　　"Do you suppose," said Niel, "that she could be living still? I'dalmost make the trip to see her."

　　"No, she died about three years ago. I know that for certain.After she left Sweet Water, wherever she was, she always sent acheque to the Grand Army Post every year to have flowers put onCaptain Forrester's grave for Decoration Day. Three years ago thePost got a letter from the old Englishman, with a draft for thefuture care of Captain Forrester's grave, 'in memory of my latewife, Marian Forrester Collins.'"

　　"So we may feel sure that she was well cared for, to the very end,"said Niel. "Thank God for that!"

　　"I knew you'd feel that way," said Ed Elliott, as a warm wave offeeling passed over his face. "I did!"

　　THE END