The Green Bay Tree (Bromfield, Frederick A. Stokes Company, printing 11)/Chapter 60
THERE was a sudden silence while Ellen beat her riding crop against her leg. "I must say she's very queer. I never understood her. You know when I was a girl, she gave me the creeps . . . the way she had of looking at you with those pale eyes."
"I know," replied Lily. And then after a pause. "You know they want to buy Cypress Hill too. The Lord alone knows how many times they tried. They began before Mama died. Irene hasn't any share in it. It belongs outright to me."
"I suppose it's the Mills."
"No, not this time. The Town wants it now." She paused while she buttered another roll. "They want it for a new railway station . . . a union station, you know, for all three roads. It's perfect for that. And each time they increase the offer. Now they write me that they've made a last offer. If I won't sell, they'll undertake proceedings to condemn it."
During this speech the countenance of Ellen Tolliver underwent a complete metamorphosis. The devil-may-care look vanished slowly, replaced by a certain hardness, a squaring of the handsome jaw, a slight hardening of the firm lips. It may have been that while Lily talked her cousin was swept by a torrent of memories—memories of hurt pride, of poverty and indignities endured because she was helpless, memories of patronizing women and young girls who spoke of "poor Ellen Tolliver," memories of her father's defeats and disappointments, of Judge Weissman's dishonesty and corruption, of her mother's agonizing and endless struggle to keep up appearances. As sometimes occurs with individuals of strong personality, a whole life, a complete philosophy stood revealed for an instant in her intelligent face. She had run off with Clarence Murdoch "to show the Town." She had become famous and successful because, deep down in her heart, she was resolved always to show the Town how little it counted in her life, how great was the contempt she felt for it. It was always this thought—this more than everything else—which had driven her forward. And now came this new opportunity, perhaps the best of all, to block the Town, to thwart its most cherished desire. It was a chance to prevent a new and flamboyant effort to advertise its wealth, its prosperity, its bigness.
"As if," she said aloud, "'bigness' was something to be proud of. Let them try and condemn it, Lily. I doubt if they can. Anyway I'd keep it just to spite them. It's a chance to show your power." She leaned earnestly across the table, striking it with her riding crop to emphasize her words. "You hate the place as much as I do. Why, it isn't even the same Town we grew up in. It's another place built upon filth and soot. It's not that we're fouling our own nest. Why, Lily, the Town your mother and my grandfather loved wasn't that sort of place at all. It was a pleasant place where people lived quietly and peacefully, where they had horses and dogs and were decent to each other. And now that's all buried under those damned filthy Mills, under a pile of muck and corruption with Judge Weissman and his crowd enthroned on the very top." She stood up, her blue eyes flashing. "It's changed the very people in it. It's made them noisy, common, cheap. Damn it! I hate them all!" She struck the table a violent blow with her riding crop. "Don't sell it. You don't need the money. It's nothing to you . . . not even if they offered you a million!" And then she laughed savagely. "That's the best part of it. The longer you hold it, the more they'll have to pay you. The more prosperous they are, the more it will cost them to have a new railway station. You're the one who has the power now. Don't you see what power there is in money? . . . the power that grows out of just owning a thing?"
Lily, it appeared, was amazed by the passion of the sudden outburst. For a time she lay back in the wicker chair, regarding her cousin with a thoughtful look. At last, she said, "I had no idea that you felt that way about it. It's the way Mama used to feel. I suppose I never had enough of the place to really hate it."
Ellen again interrupted her passionately. "If you'd had as much as I had, you'd have hated it all right."
"I just ran away from it as soon as I could," continued Lily. "Besides," she added after a pause, "Mama left a letter asking me to keep Cypress Hill. She always felt that way about the own."
Ellen, persistent, bent over the table toward her cousin. The riding crop fell to the gravel terrace. "Promise me you won't sell it, Lily. . . . Promise me you'll keep it. It's a chance to hit back. . . . Promise!"
And Lily, who after all was indifferent in matters of business, promised, perhaps because the violent revelations made by her cousin astounded her so completely that she was unable to think of any argument. Doubtless she had reasons of her own . . . secret reasons which had to do with the worn clippings in the enameled box.
"I'll keep it," she replied. "They can wait until Hell freezes over. And besides you put the idea so that it amuses me. I'll sell the other stuff and invest the money."
Ellen interrupted her with a bitter laugh. "It's funny, you know, that all this time they've been pouring money into your pocket. That's the joke of it. In a way, it was all this booming and prosperity that helped me too. If you hadn't been so rich, I suppose I'd never have made a success of it."
Lily languidly finished the last of her chocolate. "I'd never thought of it in that way. It's an amusing idea."
Ellen was satisfied. Gathering up her letters she went into the house, changed her clothes, and in a little while, seated under the flaming Venice of Mr. Turner, she was working stormily at her music, filling the house with glorious sound until it overflowed and spilled its rhapsodies over the terrace euto the garden where the first bright irises were abloom.