In the Way (20 page)

             
She wondered a little and was still more frightened when she found it was David Benedict who was waiting for her. “What is it?” she asked excitedly. “Oh, what is the matter, and where is my brother? or Mr. Brummel?”

             
“Come this way and I'll tell you,” said David gravely, hurrying her across the snowy pavement to his own cutter, putting her in with haste, and tucking the robes scientifically about her. She saw that he was hurrying with all his might and she kept quite still, her heart throbbing painfully, until he jumped in beside her and started the horses off at a furious rate. He felt that he must get her far away from the vicinity of those two vile creatures who had dared to speak of her in the way he had heard, as fast as he possibly could.

             
“Now tell me quick,” she pleaded, laying her hand earnestly on his arm, “what is it? My mother—is she sick? Don't be afraid tell me the worst at once. I can bear it. I can bear anything but suspense!” Poor child, she thought she could bear anything, and yet when she found out what was the matter she could not bear it at all.

             
David looked at her in surprise. “Don't be frightened,” he said almost tenderly. “It is not your mother. There is nothing to be frightened at now. You are safe. will take care of you.”

             
“What is it then? What do you mean? I was not in any danger was I? How could I be?” And then David Benedict perceived that he was not going to have an easy task to explain to the kidnapped young woman his strange and summary action.

"I DO not understand," said Louise. “What possible peril could I be in, and how did you come to find it out?”

              “Did you know what kind of a place you were going into just now?” asked David.

             
“Certainly,” answered she with some asperity; “I was in the town hall, was I not? I understood that was the name of the place. I was going to a ball, just to see what it was like. I wish you would tell me at once what is the matter. I do not in the least understand.” Her tone was quite determined. She was prepared to give her rescuer a hearing, but it must be no trivial matter for which he had thus meddled with her affairs. He saw that he must explain fully, and that he had but one chance to save himself in her eyes. That chance was to tell her the truth—the whole truth. He never stopped, however, to think how she might regard him. His only care was for her. She must not be allowed to go back to that place even if he was obliged to resort to using force, or in other words, his advantage of the sleigh and two good horses over her. He would take her to her brother and let him manage the affair if she would not be persuaded. David set his lips, for his task was made the harder by the sudden dull disappointment that settled upon him when he found that the young woman did not regard a public ball with any degree of shrinking at all.

             
“Miss Clifton, did you know when you went to that place that you would be expected to dance, and to dance with every one present? Did you know that some of the dancing and the dancers would be unpleasantly familiar, and that some of the men with whom you would be thrown would not be fit companions for you?”

             
Louise's cheeks fairly blazed.

             
“Do you mean to say that you have undertaken to manage me?” she asked indignantly. “I do not understand what all this means. I knew, of course, what sort of an entertainment I was going to attend and, of course, I expected to have a little fun in dancing. As for the young men, I think I could take care of myself, and I am bound by no village laws to dance with all of them. Indeed, I suppose there are very few with whom I should have cared to do so. If that is what you have made all this fuss about, please turn about this moment and take me back. Mr. Brummel will think it unpardonable in me to have gone off in this unexplained fashion. I thought at least that some one was dead by the way you acted. Did my brother send you after me? I demand to know that! He had no right whatever to keep me from any entertainment I wish to attend. I cannot help it that he has silly notions. I am not a minister, if he is. I insist upon being taken back at once, Mr. Benedict.” She lifted her head imperiously, but David only answered quietly:

             
“That I decline to do, Miss Clifton.” “What do you mean?” asked Louise, her voice fairly shaking with her anger.

             
“I mean to protect you,” said her driver again quietly.

             
“From what, pray? I shall need to claim protection from you if you keep on like this.”

             
“From yourself,” said David, “and from the devil,” he added fiercely under his breath.

             
“From myself! What do you mean? I can attend to myself. And you need not insult me by swearing in my presence.

             
“Yes, from yourself,” answered the quiet voice again. “I must protect you so that you will do nothing that you would regret if you knew all about it. And I was not swearing. I meant those other words. If the devil was ever anywhere you would have found him in that hall tonight.”

             
“Again I demand to know what all this mystery is about. You have hinted darkly at awful things. Now if there is anything awful you must tell me.”

             
“I will try,” said David his voice almost pained in its tensity. “Though I'm afraid you will wish you had taken my word for it. If you will let me I will take you to my sister and she will explain.”

             
But Louise was high-wrought by this time. She had a strong suspicion that some notions of either Ruth Benedict or her own brother had been at the bottom of all this and she was in no mood to wish to see Ruth.

             
“I demand to know, and to know at once! If there was anything the matter you can certainly tell me. Had some one threatened to kill me?” with an ill-concealed smile. David took a firm hold on the reins and turned his eyes full upon her, and even in the starlight she felt the steady, calm gaze. There was a quieting effect in his tone which seemed almost masterful and he said clearly and with no hesitation now: “Then I will tell you, Miss Clifton, as well as I can. In the first place I do not know what dancing is in the city, but I have an idea that it is very different here. For instance, you would not been allowed to choose your partners sometimes, but would have been forced, in a wild, frolicsome way, to dance with whoever chose to seize you about the waist. Your attempt at a refusal would only have put them—these young gentlemen—on their mettle and rendered it certain that you would be subjected to further liberties. If a girl does not wish to dance with any particular person then that particular person is supposed to attempt to make her dance with him, if not by fair means then by foul ones; and you might, you probably would, have found yourself whirling about in the arms of young men, whom if you knew, you would not speak to, to say nothing of touching, and utterly unable to leave the place or even get your footing till you had been carried twice or thrice around the room. I have been to these places; you have not. I am not a Christian, I am sorry to say. I hope I am a gentleman. At any rate I was so disgusted that I never go myself any more, and I could not bear to think of my sister or any one for whom I cared being found there. Have I said enough, Miss Clifton?”

             
“I was not aware that you were a crank as well as the rest,” broke in the girl in an icy tone. “I think this has gone far enough. If you do not take me back at once I shall scream for help when we pass the next house.”

             
“Ah,” said David with a heavy sigh, “I see, I have not said enough. Wait one moment, Miss Clifton, let me tell you the rest; I had hoped not to have had to say this, but you force me to do so.” In his unconscious absorption he stopped the horses and looked her full in the face again. “You said you could take care of yourself. The two young men who are the vilest of all that would have been there tonight, and who would have appeared to the best advantage because they have money and dress well, were standing by the door as you went in. I happened to be within hearing at the moment.
They were betting which would have the privilege of holding you in his arms the greater number of times to-night
; and wait; they were exulting over the thought of—they spoke of—they said—heaven help me! I cannot repeat to you the words they spoke! You would never look me in the face again. But believe me, on my honor as a gentleman, it was such a thing that only the fear of dragging your name in the filth prevented me from knocking them down then and there. Though they are young their lives are vile, their words are vile, their very thought is vile; and these would have been your partners in the dance by this time.” David suddenly ceased, shut his lips hard, picked up the reins, and struck the horse a cut that sent them flying. He felt a dreadful fear that in his excitement he had forgotten himself and gone too far, saying things that were unpardonable if said to a young lady, yet somehow he did not care, either. He had risked a great deal, but it was to win, and he had won.

             
Louise sat suddenly stunned. She too had a dim idea that David was saying something which was improper to hear, and that she ought to stop him, but had she not brought it upon herself? and could it be true, this awful thing he was saying? She shuddered to think what the coarse mouths might have been saying, or rather she could not dream what it was, but some instinct told her that it was bad enough and made her loathe herself for giving them any chance to speak of her at all. As David went on, his earnest, manly tones, and the way in which he bravely spoke out, although his voice quivered with feeling, those words not usually spoken so plainly by a young man to a young woman, and which were evidently so hard for him to speak, gave her a new respect for him. There was something grand after all in his telling her this, though she was so ashamed of herself for making him do it that she could scarcely hold up her head. There suddenly came over her a wonderful change. She was frightened meekness itself. The tears had conic to her eyes, a strange thing for Louise Clifton, for crying was a thing as utterly alien to her nature as frowning to a rose. They sat in silence for some minutes arid then David as they skimmed along slowly reined in the horses until they came down to a more moderate pace. At last Louise gained voice to ask meekly in a choked tone:

             
“Where are we going?” David stopped the horses as suddenly as before and answered with a deference which was quite a contrast to his manner a few moments before:

             
“Wherever you say, Miss Clifton. Will you go to my sister?”

             
“Oh, I guess so,” answered the poor girl. She felt utterly crushed by the terrible thing which had been told her. She had been one of those girls who had always said in answer to any argument against promiscuous dancing, “Nonsense! Men are not all so bad as they make them out, nor girls either. I would never dance with a man who was as bad as that. Don't you think I'd like to hear of any man daring to talk in that way about me?” and her eyes would flash and she would hold her head high, and walk indignantly away; while, her satisfied, ignorant little mother would look pleased, and smile and murmur, “No one would ever dare breathe an evil word in connection with my daughter. To the pure all things are pure,” and the matter would be dropped.

             
Louise remembered several occasions when a maiden aunt had undertaken to make her mother believe that dancing schools were terrible places, and the mother had indignantly repudiated the idea and sent her daughter from the room, saying that her aunt's talks and the selections she read from her various tracts were more contaminating for a young girl's purity than if she danced all her life through.               Now these things came back to her. It was true then that men talked about girls. Oh, it was awful to think that another man, and surely a good one, had heard them. Here Louise turned and stole a look at the outline of the face near her, clear-cut against the cold starry sky. There were purity, tenderness, and pity in his face. She could see that he wished all his heart to atone in some way for the severity he had been obliged to use. But he kept a kindly silence for the most part, only once or twice saying a word about the snow, and once calling her attention to the view as they came in full sight of a lovely bit of landscape, the new moon hanging, starred about, above a little tree-fringed hill, a tiny dark house below with a speck of light in the window, and dark, bare poplars lifting their brown arms piteously against the luminous sky.

             
As they neared the Benedict house Louise roused suddenly from her painful thoughts. She saw the many lights and knew there must be guests.

             
“Oh, who is there?” she asked suddenly, putting out her hand to the reins to stop him, and quickly he obeyed her wish and stopped in the gateway. “Have you strangers?” she asked.

             
“No, only a few friends from the village,” he answered reassuringly. “Your brother is there. They will be glad to see you. I shall say nothing to them.” “Oh, no, I can't go in,” said Louise shrinking back, “not if my brother is there. I would not have him know for anything. I went to Brummels' to spend the evening with Georgiana. He will think it strange and ask me questions. I cannot tell him now. Take me home, please. Or no! Mother does not know. Oh, what shall I do?” She covered her face with her hands and cried outright. David sat only a moment regarding her, and then suddenly taking up the reins he turned the cutter about and gave a word to his horses which made them fairly fly over the frozen snow. Louise looked up pretty soon and saw that they were not going home, and she did not know the direction.

             
“We are just taking a sleigh-ride,” answered David cheerily. “Are you warm enough?” and he tucked the robes carefully about her again. “It is a beautiful night and perhaps this will be as pleasant a way as any for you to pass your time. At what hour does your mother expect you to return? You can go home then and simply say you had a ride. Ill had a mother I think I would tell her all about this, but I don't suppose I am competent to advise, and I'll fix it all right for you so that you can do as you please.               Louise looked timidly up at him. He was very kind to her. Somehow she seemed to have grown very young and ignorant all at once and felt that he was some one to look up to. He seemed so strong and good and kind.

             
“It would frighten my mother terribly,” she said after a few minutes of thought. “She doesn't know the world much. My father shielded her from all knowledge of such things. She would think I had done some dreadful thing and could never be trusted again, and I am sure I don't know that I can.”

             
“You must not feel in that way,” said David earnestly. “You will be all the more careful now. You were taken care of. Some strange power that I did not understand made me go to the post office against my better judgment to-night, for I knew there was scarcely a possibility of there being anything in the office on a holiday evening.” Then a sudden flash illumined his face and he said solemnly and reverently and wonderingly, “Maybe it was God. Miss Clifton, do you know God? Are you what they call a Christian?”